title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: The Ronnie Van Zant Memorial Park, funded by fans and family of the band, was built on Sandridge Road in Lake Asbury, Florida, nearby his hometown of Jacksonville.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Several members of his family have memorialized Ronnie in their music. His brothers Johnny and Donnie co-wrote the title track of John's 1990 album "Brickyard Road" with family friend and album producer Robert White Johnson. In the reformed Lynyrd Skynyrd's music video for the posthumously-released track "What's Your Name" closes with a white hat similar to Ronnie's sitting atop a microphone. Ronnie's daughter Tammy, who was only 10 years old when he died, dedicated the album title track, "Freebird Child" as well as the music video to her father in 2009. Van Zant's cousin Jimmie Van Zant recorded the tribute track "Ronnie's Song" on the album "Southern Comfort" (2000).


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: Alt country band Drive-By Truckers also paid tribute to Ronnie and members of the original band on their "Southern Rock Opera" album.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: "The All-Night Bus Ride", the 8th episode of season 1 of the Showtime series "Roadies", was made in honor of Van Zant and the band.


title: Ronnie Van Zant

text: In the 1978 song "Reflections" on the Charlie Daniels Band album "Million Mile Reflections", the third verse talks about Van Zant saying "And Ronnie, my buddy above all the rest. I miss you the most and loved you the best." With a dedication on the back of the original record sleeve with a poem the last line reading "Fly on proud bird, you're free at last." Signed Charlie Daniels 1978.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Hebrew alphabet (, ), known variously by scholars as the Ktav Ashuri, Jewish script, square script and block script, is an abjad script used in the writing of the Hebrew language and other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. It is also used informally in Israel to write Levantine Arabic, especially among Druze. It is an offshoot of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire and which itself derives from the Phoenician alphabet.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Historically, two separate abjad scripts have been used to write Hebrew. The original, old Hebrew script, known as the paleo-Hebrew alphabet, has been largely preserved in a variant form as the Samaritan alphabet. The present "Jewish script" or "square script", on the contrary, is a stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet and was technically known by Jewish sages as Ashurit (lit. "Assyrian script"), since its origins were alleged to be from Assyria.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Various "styles" (in current terms, "fonts") of representation of the Jewish script letters described in this article also exist, including a variety of cursive Hebrew styles. In the remainder of this article, the term "Hebrew alphabet" refers to the square script unless otherwise indicated.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters. It does not have case. Five letters have different forms when used at the end of a word. Hebrew is written from right to left. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants, but is now considered an "impure abjad". As with other abjads, such as the Arabic alphabet, during its centuries-long use scribes devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points, known in Hebrew as "niqqud." In both biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, the letters can also function as "matres lectionis", which is when certain consonants are used to indicate vowels. There is a trend in Modern Hebrew towards the use of "matres lectionis" to indicate vowels that have traditionally gone unwritten, a practice known as "full spelling".


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Yiddish alphabet, a modified version of the Hebrew alphabet used to write Yiddish, is a true alphabet, with all vowels rendered in the spelling, except in the case of inherited Hebrew words, which typically retain their Hebrew consonant-only spellings.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Arabic and Hebrew alphabets have similarities because they are both derived from the Aramaic alphabet, which in turn derives either from paleo-Hebrew or the Phoenician alphabet, both being slight regional variations of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet used in ancient times to write the various Canaanite languages (including Hebrew, Moabite, Phoenician, Punic, et cetera).


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Canaanite dialects were largely indistinguishable before around 1000 BCE. An example of related early Semitic inscriptions from the area include the tenth-century Gezer calendar over which scholars are divided as to whether its language is Hebrew or Phoenician and whether the script is Proto-Canaanite or paleo-Hebrew.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: A Hebrew variant of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, called the paleo-Hebrew alphabet by scholars, began to emerge around 800 BCE. An example is the Siloam inscription (c. 700 BCE).


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The paleo-Hebrew alphabet was used in the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Following the exile of the Kingdom of Judah in the 6th century BCE (the Babylonian captivity), Jews began using a form of the Imperial Aramaic alphabet, another offshoot of the same family of scripts, which flourished during the Achaemenid Empire. The Samaritans, who remained in the Land of Israel, continued to use the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. During the 3rd century BCE, Jews began to use a stylized, "square" form of the Aramaic alphabet that was used by the Persian Empire (and which in turn had been adopted from the Assyrians), while the Samaritans continued to use a form of the paleo-Hebrew script called the Samaritan alphabet. After the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE, Jews used both scripts before settling on the square Assyrian form.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The square Hebrew alphabet was later adapted and used for writing languages of the Jewish diaspora – such as Karaim, the Judeo-Arabic languages, Judaeo-Spanish, and Yiddish. The Hebrew alphabet continued in use for scholarly writing in Hebrew and came again into everyday use with the rebirth of the Hebrew language as a spoken language in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in Israel.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In the traditional form, the Hebrew alphabet is an abjad consisting only of consonants, written from right to left. It has 22 letters, five of which use different forms at the end of a word.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In the traditional form, vowels are indicated by the weak consonants Aleph (), He (), Waw/Vav (), or Yodh () serving as vowel letters, or "matres lectionis": the letter is combined with a previous vowel and becomes silent, or by imitation of such cases in the spelling of other forms. Also, a system of vowel points to indicate vowels (diacritics), called niqqud, was developed. In modern forms of the alphabet, as in the case of Yiddish and to some extent Modern Hebrew, vowels may be indicated. Today, the trend is toward full spelling with the weak letters acting as true vowels.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: When used to write Yiddish, vowels are indicated, using certain letters, either with niqqud diacritics (e.g. or ) or without (e.g. or ), except for Hebrew words, which in Yiddish are written in their Hebrew spelling.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: To preserve the proper vowel sounds, scholars developed several different sets of vocalization and diacritical symbols called "nequdot" (, literally "points"). One of these, the Tiberian system, eventually prevailed. Aaron ben Moses ben Asher, and his family for several generations, are credited for refining and maintaining the system. These points are normally used only for special purposes, such as Biblical books intended for study, in poetry or when teaching the language to children. The Tiberian system also includes a set of cantillation marks, called "trope" or , used to indicate how scriptural passages should be chanted in synagogue recitations of scripture (although these marks do not appear in the scrolls). In everyday writing of modern Hebrew, "niqqud" are absent; however, patterns of how words are derived from Hebrew roots (called "shorashim" or "triliterals") allow Hebrew speakers to determine the vowel-structure of a given word from its consonants based on the word's context and part of speech.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Unlike the Paleo-Hebrew writing script, the modern Ashuri script has five letters that have special final forms, called sofit (, meaning in this context "final" or "ending") form, used only at the end of a word, somewhat as in the Greek or in the Arabic and Mandaic alphabets. These are shown below the normal form in the following table (letter names are Unicode standard). Although Hebrew is read and written from right to left, the following table shows the letters in order from left to right.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: By analogy with the other dotted/dotless pairs, dotless tav, ת, would be expected to be pronounced /θ/ (voiceless dental fricative), and dotless dalet ד as /ð/ (voiced dental fricative), but these were lost among most Jews due to their not existing in the countries where they lived (such as in nearly all of Eastern Europe). Yiddish modified /θ/ to /s/ (cf. seseo in Spanish), but in modern Israeli Hebrew, it is simply pronounced /t/. Likewise, historical /ð/ is simply pronounced /d/.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: "Shin" and "sin" are represented by the same letter, , but are two separate phonemes. When vowel diacritics are used, the two phonemes are differentiated with a "shin"-dot or "sin"-dot; the "shin"-dot is above the upper-right side of the letter, and the "sin"-dot is above the upper-left side of the letter.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Historically, "left-dot-sin" corresponds to Proto-Semitic *, which in biblical-Judaic-Hebrew corresponded to the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative , as evidenced in the Greek transliteration of Hebrew words such as "balsam" () (the "ls" – 'שׂ') as is evident in the "Targum Onkelos".


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Historically, the consonants "bet", "gimmel", "daleth", "kaf", "pe" and "tav" each had two sounds: one hard (plosive), and one soft (fricative), depending on the position of the letter and other factors. When vowel diacritics are used, the hard sounds are indicated by a central dot called "dagesh" (), while the soft sounds lack a "dagesh". In modern Hebrew, however, the "dagesh" only changes the pronunciation of "bet", "kaf", and "pe", and does not affect the name of the letter. The differences are as follows:


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The sounds , , , written ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩, ⟨⟩, and , non-standardly sometimes transliterated ⟨⟩, are often found in slang and loanwords that are part of the everyday Hebrew colloquial vocabulary. The symbol resembling an apostrophe after the Hebrew letter modifies the pronunciation of the letter and is called a "geresh".


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The pronunciation of the following letters can also be modified with the geresh diacritic. The represented sounds are however foreign to Hebrew phonology, i.e., these symbols mainly represent sounds in foreign words or names when transliterated with the Hebrew alphabet, and not loanwords.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: "Geresh" is also used to denote an abbreviation consisting of a single Hebrew letter, while "gershayim" (a doubled "geresh") are used to denote acronyms pronounced as a string of letters; "geresh" and "gershayim" are also used to denote Hebrew numerals consisting of a single Hebrew letter or of multiple Hebrew letters, respectively. Geresh is also the name of a cantillation mark used for Torah recitation, though its visual appearance and function are different in that context.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In much of Israel's general population, especially where Ashkenazic pronunciation is prevalent, many letters have the same pronunciation. They are as follows:


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Some of the variations in sound mentioned above are due to a systematic feature of Ancient Hebrew. The six consonants were pronounced differently depending on their position. These letters were also called "BeGeD KeFeT" letters . The full details are very complex; this summary omits some points. They were pronounced as plosives at the beginning of a syllable, or when doubled. They were pronounced as fricatives when preceded by a vowel (commonly indicated with a macron, ḇ ḡ ḏ ḵ p̄ ṯ). The plosive and double pronunciations were indicated by the "dagesh". In Modern Hebrew the sounds ḏ and ḡ have reverted to and , respectively, and ṯ has become , so only the remaining three consonants show variation. "resh" may have also been a "doubled" letter, making the list "BeGeD KePoReT". (Sefer Yetzirah, 4:1)


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The following table contains the pronunciation of the Hebrew letters in reconstructed historical forms and dialects using the . The apostrophe-looking symbol after some letters is not a yud but a geresh. It is used for loanwords with non-native Hebrew sounds. The dot in the middle of some of the letters, called a "dagesh kal", also modifies the sounds of the letters ב, כ and פ in modern Hebrew (in some forms of Hebrew it modifies also the sounds of the letters ג, ד and/or ת; the "dagesh chazak" – orthographically indistinguishable from the "dagesh kal" – designates gemination, which today is realized only rarely – e.g. in biblical recitations or when using Arabic loanwords).


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: "alef", "ayin", "waw/vav" and "yod" are letters that can sometimes indicate a vowel instead of a consonant (which would be, respectively, ). When they do, and are considered to constitute part of the vowel designation in combination with a niqqud symbol – a vowel diacritic (whether or not the diacritic is marked), whereas and are considered to be mute, their role being purely indicative of the non-marked vowel.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: "Niqqud" is the system of dots that help determine vowels and consonants. In Hebrew, all forms of "niqqud" are often omitted in writing, except for children's books, prayer books, poetry, foreign words, and words which would be ambiguous to pronounce. Israeli Hebrew has five vowel phonemes, , but many more written symbols for them:


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: By adding a vertical line (called "Meteg") underneath the letter and to the left of the vowel point, the vowel is made long. The "meteg" is only used in Biblical Hebrew, not Modern Hebrew.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: By adding two vertical dots (called "Sh'va") underneath the letter, the vowel is made very short. When sh'va is placed on the first letter of the word, mostly it is "è" (but in some instances, it makes the first letter silent without a vowel (vowel-less): e.g. וְ "wè" to "w")


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The symbol is called a gershayim and is a punctuation mark used in the Hebrew language to denote acronyms. It is written before the last letter in the acronym, e.g. . Gershayim is also the name of a cantillation mark in the reading of the Torah, printed above the accented letter, e.g. .


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The following table displays typographic and chirographic variants of each letter. For the five letters that have a different final form used at the end of words, the final forms are displayed beneath the regular form.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The block (square, or "print" type) and cursive ("handwritten" type) are the only variants in widespread contemporary use. Rashi is also used, for historical reasons, in a handful of standard texts.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Following the adoption of Greek Hellenistic alphabetic numeration practice, Hebrew letters started being used to denote numbers in the late 2nd century BC, and performed this arithmetic function for about a thousand years. Nowadays alphanumeric notation is used only in specific contexts, e.g. denoting dates in the Hebrew calendar, denoting grades of school in Israel, other listings (e.g. שלב א׳, שלב ב׳ – "phase a, phase b"), commonly in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) in a practice known as gematria, and often in religious contexts.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The numbers 500, 600, 700, 800 and 900 are commonly represented by the juxtapositions ק״ת, ר״ת, ש״ת, ת״ת, and ק״תת respectively.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Adding a geresh ("׳") to a letter multiplies its value by one thousand, for example, the year 5778 is portrayed as ה׳תשע״ח, where ה׳ represents 5000, and תשע״ח represents 778.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The following table lists transliterations and transcriptions of Hebrew letters used in Modern Hebrew.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Note: SBL's transliteration system, recommended in its "Handbook of Style", differs slightly from the 2006 "precise" transliteration system of the Academy of the Hebrew Language; for "צ" SBL uses "ṣ" (≠ AHL "ẓ"), and for בג״ד כפ״ת with no dagesh, SBL uses the same symbols as for with dagesh (i.e. "b", "g", "d", "k", "f", "t").


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In transliterations of modern Israeli Hebrew, initial and final ע (in regular transliteration), silent or initial א, and silent ה are "not" transliterated. To the eye of readers orientating themselves on Latin (or similar) alphabets, these letters might seem to be transliterated as vowel letters; however, these are in fact transliterations of the vowel diacritics – niqqud (or are representations of the spoken vowels). E.g., in אִם ("if", ), אֵם ("mother", ) and אֹם ("nut", ), the letter א always represents the same consonant: (glottal stop), whereas the vowels /i/, /e/ and /o/ respectively represent the spoken vowel, whether it is orthographically denoted by diacritics or not. Since the Academy of the Hebrew Language ascertains that א in initial position is not transliterated, the symbol for the glottal stop  ʾ  is omitted from the transliteration, and only the subsequent vowels are transliterated (whether or not their corresponding vowel diacritics appeared in the text being transliterated), resulting in "im", "em" and "om", respectively.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The diacritic geresh – "׳" – is used with some other letters as well (ד׳, ח׳, ט׳, ע׳, ר׳, ת׳), but only to transliterate "from" other languages "to" Hebrew – never to spell Hebrew words; therefore they were not included in this table (correctly translating a Hebrew text with these letters would require using the spelling in the language from which the transliteration to Hebrew was originally made). The non-standard "ו׳" and "וו" are sometimes used to represent , which like , and appears in Hebrew slang and loanwords.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Sound (as "ch" in loch) is often transcribed "ch", inconsistently with the guidelines specified by the Academy of the Hebrew Language: חם → "cham"; סכך → "schach".


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Although the Bible does include a single occurrence of a final pe with a dagesh (Book of Proverbs 30, 6: ""), in modern Hebrew is always represented by pe in its regular, not final, form "פ", even when in final word position, which occurs with loanwords (e.g. שׁוֹפּ ""shop""), foreign names (e.g. פִילִיפּ ""Philip"") and some slang (e.g. חָרַפּ ""slept deeply"").


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The letters of the Hebrew alphabet have played varied roles in Jewish religious literature over the centuries, primarily in mystical texts. Some sources in classical rabbinical literature seem to acknowledge the historical provenance of the currently used Hebrew alphabet and deal with them as a mundane subject (the Jerusalem Talmud, for example, records that "the Israelites took for themselves square calligraphy", and that the letters "came with the Israelites from Ashur [Assyria]"); others attribute mystical significance to the letters, connecting them with the process of creation or the redemption. In mystical conceptions, the alphabet is considered eternal, pre-existent to the Earth, and the letters themselves are seen as having holiness and power, sometimes to such an extent that several stories from the Talmud illustrate the idea that they cannot be destroyed.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The idea of the letters' creative power finds its greatest vehicle in the Sefer Yezirah, or "Book of Creation", a mystical text of uncertain origin which describes a story of creation highly divergent from that in the Book of Genesis, largely through exposition on the powers of the letters of the alphabet. The supposed creative powers of the letters are also referenced in the Talmud and Zohar.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Another book, the 13th-century Kabbalistic text Sefer HaTemunah, holds that a single letter of unknown pronunciation, held by some to be the four-pronged shin on one side of the teffilin box, is missing from the current alphabet. The world's flaws, the book teaches, are related to the absence of this letter, the eventual revelation of which will repair the universe. Another example of messianic significance attached to the letters is the teaching of Rabbi Eliezer that the five letters of the alphabet with final forms hold the "secret of redemption".


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In addition, the letters occasionally feature in aggadic portions of non-mystical rabbinic literature. In such aggada the letters are often given anthropomorphic qualities and depicted as speaking to God. Commonly their shapes are used in parables to illustrate points of ethics or theology. An example from the Babylonian Talmud (a parable intended to discourage speculation about the universe before creation):


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Extensive instructions about the proper methods of forming the letters are found in Mishnat Soferim, within Mishna Berura of Yisrael Meir Kagan.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In set theory, formula_1, pronounced aleph-naught or aleph-zero, is used to mark the cardinal number of an infinite countable set, such as formula_2, the set of all integers. More generally, the formula_3 (aleph) notation marks the ordered sequence of all distinct infinite cardinal numbers.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Less frequently used, the formula_4 (beth) notation is used for the iterated power sets of formula_1. The 2nd element formula_6 is the cardinality of the continuum. Very occasionally, gimel is used in cardinal notation.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Unicode Hebrew block extends from U+0590 to U+05FF and from U+FB1D to U+FB4F. It includes letters, ligatures, combining diacritical marks ("Niqqud" and cantillation marks) and punctuation. The Numeric Character References is included for HTML. These can be used in many markup languages, and they are often used in Wiki to create the Hebrew glyphs compatible with the majority of web browsers.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: Standard Hebrew keyboards have a 101-key layout. Like the standard QWERTY layout, the Hebrew layout was derived from the order of letters on Hebrew typewriters.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: "Alef-bet" is commonly written in Israeli Hebrew without the "" (, "[Hebrew] hyphen"), , as opposed to with the hyphen, .


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Arabic letters generally (as six of the primary letters can have only two variants) have four forms, according to their place in the word. The same goes with the Mandaic ones, except for three of the 22 letters, which have only one form.


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: In forms of Hebrew older than Modern Hebrew, כ״ף, בי״ת and פ״א can only be read "b", "k" and "p", respectively, at the beginning of a word, while they will have the sole value of "v", "kh" and "f" in a "sofit" (final) position, with few exceptions. In medial positions, both pronunciations are possible. In Modern Hebrew this restriction is not absolute, e.g. פִיזִיקַאי and never (= "physicist"), סְנוֹבּ and never (= "snob"). A "dagesh" may be inserted to unambiguously denote the plosive variant: בּ = , כּ = , פּ =; similarly (though today very rare in Hebrew and common only in Yiddish) a rafé placed above the letter unambiguously denotes the fricative variant: בֿ = , כֿ = and פֿ = . In Modern Hebrew orthography, the sound at the end of a word is denoted by the regular form "פ", as opposed to the final form "ף", which always denotes (see table of transliterations and transcriptions, comment).


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: However, וו (two separate vavs), used in Ktiv male, is to be distinguished from the "Yiddish ligature" װ (also two vavs but together as one character).


title: Hebrew alphabet

text: The Academy of the Hebrew Language states that both and be indistinguishably represented in Hebrew using the letter Vav. Sometimes the Vav is indeed doubled, however not to denote as opposed to but rather, when spelling without niqqud, to denote the phoneme /v/ at a non-initial and non-final position in the word, whereas a single Vav at a non-initial and non-final position in the word in spelling without niqqud denotes one of the phonemes /u/ or /o/. To pronounce foreign words and loanwords containing the sound , Hebrew readers must therefore rely on former knowledge and context.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The flag of Australia, also known as the Australian Blue Ensign, is based on the British Blue Ensign—a blue field with the Union Jack in the upper hoist quarter—augmented with a large white seven-pointed star (the Commonwealth Star) and a representation of the Southern Cross constellation, made up of five white stars (one small five-pointed star and four, larger, seven-pointed stars). Australia also has a number of other official flags representing its people and core functions of government.


title: Flag of Australia

text: Its original design (with a six-pointed Commonwealth Star) was chosen in 1901 from entries in a competition held following Federation, and was first flown in Melbourne on 3 September 1901, the date proclaimed in 1996 as Australian National Flag Day. A slightly different design was approved by King Edward VII in 1903. The current seven-pointed Commonwealth Star version was introduced by a proclamation dated 8 December 1908. The dimensions were formally gazetted in 1934, and in 1954 the flag became recognised by, and legally defined in, the "Flags Act 1953" as the Australian National Flag.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Australian flag uses three prominent symbols: the Southern Cross, the Union Jack and the Commonwealth Star.


title: Flag of Australia

text: In its original usage as the flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Union Flag combined three heraldic crosses which represent the constituent countries of the United Kingdom (as constituted in 1801):


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Union Flag is thought to symbolise Australia's history as six British colonies and the principles upon which the Australian Federation is based, although a more historic view sees its inclusion in the design as demonstrating loyalty to the British Empire.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Commonwealth Star, also known as the Federation Star, originally had six points, representing the six federating colonies. In 1908, a seventh point was added to symbolise the Territory of Papua, and any future territories. Another rationale for the change was to match the star used on the Coat of Arms, which was created in the same year. The Commonwealth Star does not have any official relation to Beta Centauri, despite the latter's brightness and location in the sky; however, the 1870 version of the flag of South Australia featured the "pointer" stars, Alpha and Beta Centauri.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Southern Cross is one of the most distinctive constellations visible in the Southern Hemisphere, and has been used to represent Australia since the early days of British settlement. Ivor Evans, one of the flag's designers, intended the Southern Cross to also refer to the four moral virtues ascribed to the four main stars by Dante: justice, prudence, temperance and fortitude. The number of points on the stars of the Southern Cross on the modern Australian flag differs from the original competition-winning design, in which they ranged between five and nine points each, representing their relative brightness in the night sky. The stars are named after the first five letters of the Greek alphabet, in decreasing order of brightness in the sky. In order to simplify manufacture, the British Admiralty standardised the four larger outer stars at seven points each, leaving the smaller, more central star with five points. This change was officially gazetted on 23 February 1903.


title: Flag of Australia

text: A complete specification for the official design was published in the "Commonwealth Gazette" in 1934.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The colours of the flag, although not specified by the Flags Act, have been given Pantone specifications by the Awards and Culture Branch of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The Australian Government's "Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers" also gives CMYK and RGB specifications for depicting the flag in print and on screen respectively.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The blue shade also has a web-safe colour of #000099, used for certain digital screens that may have trouble displaying the shade of blue in the table above. The flag may be reproduced in a single colour, with the colour being either black or one of the two colours of the flag, albeit blue is generally preferred for single-colour productions.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The red colour in the ensign part of the Australian flag (Pantone 185C, Hex: #FF0000) is actually a shade lighter than the British flag (Pantone 186C, Hex: #C8102E) from which it originated. The blue colour has a different hex code for RGB scheme, but when printed -the Pantone number- it is the same: Australia (Pantone 280C, Hex: 00008B) vs. United Kingdom (Pantone 280C, Hex: 012169).


title: Flag of Australia

text: The outer diameter of the Commonwealth Star is of the flag's width, while that of the stars in the Southern Cross is of the flag's width, except for Epsilon, for which the fraction is . Each star's inner diameter is of the outer diameter. The flag's width is the measurement of the hoist edge of the flag (the distance from top to bottom).


title: Flag of Australia

text: Guidelines for flying the flag are laid out in the 1953 Flags Act and in a pamphlet entitled "The Australian National Flag", which is infrequently published by the Australian Government. The guidelines say that the Australian National Flag is allowed to be flown on every day of the year, and that it "should be treated with respect and dignity it deserves as the nation's most important national symbol".


title: Flag of Australia

text: The National Flag must always be flown in a position superior to that of any other flag or ensign when flown in Australia or on Australian territory, and it should always be flown aloft and free. The flag must be flown in all government buildings and displayed in polling stations when there is a national election or referendum. Private pleasure craft can fly either the Red Ensign or the Australian National Flag. The British Blue Ensign can be flown on an Australian owned ship instead of the Australian Flag if the owner has a warrant valid under British law.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet also advises that the flag should only be flown during daylight hours, unless it is illuminated. Two flags should not be flown from the same flagpole. The flag should not be displayed upside down under any circumstances, not even to express a situation of distress. The flag is not to be placed or dropped on the ground, nor should it be used to cover an object in the lead-up to an unveiling ceremony, or to hide other material. Flags that have decayed or faded should not be displayed.


title: Flag of Australia

text: According to a government publication, old or decayed flags should be disposed of in private "in a dignified way"; a method given as an example is to cut the flag into small pieces before being placed in the waste.


title: Flag of Australia

text: When the flag is flown at half-mast, it should be recognisably at half-mastfor example, a third of the way down from the top of the pole. The Australian Flag should never be flown half mast at night. Flags are flown at half-mast on government buildings:


title: Flag of Australia

text: The department provides a subscription-based email service called the Commonwealth Flag Network, which gives information on national occasions to fly the flag at half-mast as well as national days of commemoration and celebration of the flag.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Australian National Flag may be used for commercial or advertising purposes without formal permission as long as the flag is used in a dignified manner and reproduced completely and accurately; it should not be defaced by overprinting with words or illustrations, it should not be covered by other objects in displays, and all symbolic parts of the flag should be identifiable. It also must sit first (typically, left) where more than one flag is used. For this reason the Collingwood Football Club had to reverse its logo, which previously featured the flag until a logo refresh at the end of 2017.


title: Flag of Australia

text: There have been several attempts to make desecration of the Australian flag a crime. In 1953, during the second reading debate on the "Flags Act", the leader of the Opposition, Arthur Calwell, unsuccessfully called for provisions to be added to the bill to criminalise desecration. Michael Cobb introduced private member's bills in 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992 to ban desecration, but on each occasion the bill lapsed. In 2002, the leader of the National Party, John Anderson, proposed to introduce laws banning desecration of the Australian flag, a call that attracted support from some parliamentarians both in his own party and the senior Coalition partner, the Liberal Party. The Prime Minister, John Howard, rejected the calls, stating that "...in the end I guess it's part of the sort of free speech code that we have in this country". In 2003, the "Australian Flags (Desecration of the Flag) Bill" was tabled in Parliament by Trish Draper without support from Howard and subsequently lapsed. In 2006, following a flag-burning incident during the 2005 Cronulla riots and a burnt flag display by a Melbourne artist, Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop introduced the "Protection of the Australian National Flag (Desecration of the Flag) Bill 2006". This bill sought to make it "a criminal offence to wilfully destroy or otherwise mutilate the Flag in circumstances where a reasonable person would infer that the destruction or mutilation is intended publicly to express contempt or disrespect for the Flag or the Australian Nation." The bill received a second reading but subsequently lapsed and did not go to vote in the House of Representatives.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Union Flag, as the flag of the British Empire, was first used on Australian soil on 29 April 1770 when Lieutenant James Cook landed at Botany Bay. Following the arrival of the First Fleet, Captain Arthur Phillip established a convict settlement at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788. He first raised the Union Flag on 7 February 1788 when he proclaimed the Colony of New South Wales.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Union Flag at that stage was the one introduced in 1606, which did not include the Saint Patrick's Saltire; it was included from 1801 after the Acts of Union 1801. The second version post-1801 is depicted on the Australian Flag. It was often used to represent them collectively, and each colony also had its own flag based on the Union Flag. As an Australian national consciousness began to emerge, several flag movements were formed and unofficial new flags came into common usage. Two attempts were made throughout the nineteenth century to design a national flag. The first such attempt was the National Colonial Flag created in 1823–1824 by Captains John Nicholson and John Bingle. This flag consisted of a red cross on a white background, with an eight-point star on each of the four limbs of the cross, while incorporating a Union Flag in the canton. The most popular "national" flag of the period was the 1831 Federation Flag, also designed by Nicholson. This flag was the same at the National Colonial Flag, except that the cross was blue instead of resembling that of St. George. Although the flag was designed by Nicholson in 1831, it did not become widely popular until the latter part of the century, when calls for federation began to grow louder. These flags, and many others such as the Eureka Flag (which came into use at the Eureka Stockade in 1854), featured stars representing the Southern Cross. The oldest known flag to show the stars arranged as they are seen in the sky is the Anti-Transportation League Flag, which is similar in design to the present National Flag. The differences were that there was no Commonwealth Star, while the components of the Southern Cross are depicted with eight points and in gold. This flag was only briefly in usage, as two years after the formation of the Anti-Transportation League in 1851, the colonial authorities decided to stop the intake of convicts, so the ATL ceased its activities. The Eureka Flag has become an enduring symbol in Australian culture and has been used by various groups and movements. The Murray River Flag, popular since the 1850s, is still widely used by boats that traverse Australia's main waterway. It is the same as the National Colonial Flag, except that the white background in the three quadrants other the canton were replaced with four alternating blue and white stripes, representing the four major rivers that run into the Murray River.


title: Flag of Australia

text: As Federation approached, thoughts turned to an official federal flag. In 1900, the "Melbourne Herald" conducted a design competition with a prize of 25 Australian pounds (A$4,400 in 2021 terms) in which entries were required to include the Union Flag and Southern Cross, resulting in a British Ensign–style flag. The competition conducted by the "Review of Reviews for Australasia"—a Melbourne-based publication—later that year thought such a restriction seemed unwise, despite observing that designs without these emblems were unlikely to be successful; nonetheless, it suggested that entries incorporate the two elements in their design. After Federation on 1 January 1901, and following receipt of a request from the British government to design a new flag, the new Commonwealth Government held an official competition for a new federal flag in April. The competition attracted 32,823 entries, including those originally sent to the "Review of Reviews". One of these was submitted by an unnamed governor of a colony. The two contests were merged after the "Review of Reviews" agreed to being integrated into the government initiative. The £75 prize money of each competition were combined and augmented by a further £50 donated by Havelock Tobacco Company. Each competitor was required to submit two coloured sketches, a red ensign for the merchant service and public use, and a blue ensign for naval and official use. The designs were judged on seven criteria: loyalty to the Empire, Federation, history, heraldry, distinctiveness, utility and cost of manufacture. The majority of designs incorporated the Union Flag and the Southern Cross, but native animals were also popular, including one that depicted a variety of indigenous animals playing cricket. The entries were put on display at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne and the judges took six days to deliberate before reaching their conclusion. Five almost identical entries were chosen as the winning design, and the designers shared the £200 (2021: $35,200) prize money. They were Ivor Evans, a fourteen-year-old schoolboy from Melbourne; Leslie John Hawkins, a teenager apprenticed to an optician from Sydney; Egbert John Nuttall, an architect from Melbourne; Annie Dorrington, an artist from Perth; and William Stevens, a ship's officer from Auckland, New Zealand. The five winners received £40 each. The differences to the current flag were the six-pointed Commonwealth Star, while the components stars in the Southern Cross had different numbers of points, with more if the real star was brighter. This led to five stars of nine, eight, seven, six and five points respectively.


title: Flag of Australia

text: a staled réchauffé of the British flag, with no artistic virtue, no national significance... Minds move slowly: and Australia is still Britain's little boy. What more natural than that he should accept his father's cut-down garments, – lacking the power to protest, and only dimly realising his will. That bastard flag is a true symbol of the bastard state of Australian opinion.


title: Flag of Australia

text: As the design was basically the Victorian flag with a star added, many critics in both the Federal Government and the New South Wales government objected to the chosen flag for being "too Victorian". They wanted the Australian Federation Flag, and Prime Minister Barton, who had been promoting the Federation Flag, submitted this flag along with that chosen by the judges to the Admiralty for final approval. The Admiralty chose the Red for private vessels and Blue Ensigns for government ships. The Barton government regarded both the Blue and Red Ensigns as colonial maritime flags and "grudgingly" agreed to fly it only on naval ships. Later governments, that of Chris Watson in 1904 and Andrew Fisher in 1910, were also unhappy with the design, wanting something "more


title: Flag of Australia

text: On 3 September 1901, the new Australian flag flew for the first time from the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. The names of the joint winners of the design competition were announced by Hersey, Countess of Hopetoun (the wife of the Governor-General, the 7th Earl of Hopetoun) and she unfurled the flag for the first time. Since 1996 this date has been officially known as Australian National Flag Day.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The competition-winning designs were submitted to the British Colonial Secretary in 1902. Prime Minister Edmund Barton announced in the Commonwealth Gazette that King Edward VII had officially approved the design as the flag of Australia on 11 February 1903. The published version made all the stars in the Southern Cross seven-pointed apart from the smallest, and is the same as the current design except the six-pointed Commonwealth Star.


title: Flag of Australia

text: In the decades following federation the red ensign was also the preeminent flag in use by private citizens on land. This was largely due to the Commonwealth government, assisted by flag suppliers, discouraging use of the blue ensign, now known as the Australian National Flag, by the general public. Both the blue and red versions were used by armed forces during the First and Second World Wars. A colourised version of a photograph held by the Australian War Memorial of the Armistice Day celebrations in Sydney's Martin Place, 11 November 1918, reveals both ensigns being displayed by the assembled crowd. Illustrations and photos of the opening of Australia's provisional Parliament House in 1927 show Australian Ensigns flown alongside Union Flags. However, sources disagree on the colours of the Australian flags, leaving open the possibility that either ensign or both were used. A memo from the Prime Minister's Department dated 6 March 1939 states that: "the Red Ensign is the flag to be flown by the public generally" and the federal government policy was "The flying of the Commonwealth Blue Ensign is reserved for Commonwealth Government use but there is no reservation in the case of the Commonwealth Merchant Flag, or Red Ensign".


title: Flag of Australia

text: In the 1940s, the federal government began to encourage public use of the blue ensign. Despite this, there remained confusion until the "Flags Act 1953" declared the Blue Ensign to be the national flag and the Red Ensign the flag of the Australian mercantile marine. It has been claimed that this choice was made on the basis that the predominately red version carried too many communist overtones for the government of the day to be legislated for as the chief national symbol, although no cabinet documents yet released to the public including the more detailed minutes have ever been adduced in support of this theory. The Red Ensign continues to be paraded on Anzac Day in recognition of its historical significance.


title: Flag of Australia

text: Technically, private non-commercial vessels were liable to a substantial fine if they did not fly the British Red Ensign. However, an Admiralty Warrant was issued on 5 December 1938, authorising these vessels to fly the Australian Red Ensign. The "Shipping Registration Act 1981" reaffirmed that the Australian Red Ensign was the proper "colours" for commercial ships over in tonnage length.


title: Flag of Australia

text: As a result of the declaration of 3 September as Merchant Navy Day in 2008, the Red Ensign can be flown on land alongside the Australian national flag on this occasion as a matter of protocol.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Blue Ensign replaced the Union Jack at the Olympic Games at St Louis in 1904. In the same year, due to lobbying by Richard Crouch MP, it had the same status as the Union Flag in the UK, when the House of Representatives proclaimed that the Blue Ensign "should be flown upon all forts, vessels, saluting places and public buildings of the Commonwealth upon all occasions when flags are used". The government agreed to fly the Blue Ensign on special flag days, but not if it meant additional expense, which undermined the motion. The Blue Ensign could only be flown on a state government building if a state flag was not available.


title: Flag of Australia

text: On 2 June 1904 a resolution was passed by parliament to replace the Union Jack with the "Australian Flag" on forts. Initially the Department of Defence resisted using the Flag, considering it to be a marine ensign and favouring King's Regulations that specified the use of the Union Jack. After being approached by the Department of Defence, Prime Minister Chris Watson stated in parliament that he was not satisfied with the design of the Australian flag and that implementation of the 1904 resolution could wait until consideration was given to "adopt another [flag] which in our opinion is more appropriate." In 1908, Australian Army Military Order, No 58/08 ordered the "Australian Ensign" replace the Union Flag at all military establishments. From 1911 it was the saluting flag of the Australian army at all reviews and ceremonial parades,


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was promulgated on 5 October 1911 and was directed to fly the British White Ensign on the stern and the flag of Australia on the Jackstaff. Despite the government wanting to use the Blue Ensign on Australian warships, officers continued to fly the Union Flag, and it was not until 1913, following public protest in Fremantle after its use for the review of HMAS "Melbourne", that the government "reminded" them of the 1911 legislation. The British White Ensign was finally replaced by a distinctively Australian White Ensign on 1 March 1967 (see Flags of the Australian Defence Force).


title: Flag of Australia

text: Despite the new Australian Flags official use, from 1901 until the 1920s the Federation Flag remained the most popular Australian flag for public and even some official events. It was flown at the 1907 State Premiers conference in Melbourne and during the 1927 visit to Australia of the Duke and Duchess of York, the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.


title: Flag of Australia

text: In the 1920s there was debate over whether the Blue Ensign was reserved for Commonwealth buildings only, culminating in a 1924 agreement that the Union Flag should take precedence as the National Flag with state and local governments henceforth able to use the blue ensign. As the Union Flag was recognised as the National flag, it was considered disloyal to fly either ensign without the Union flag alongside, and it was the Union Flag that covered the coffins of Australia's war dead.


title: Flag of Australia

text: In 1940 the Victorian government passed legislation allowing schools to purchase Blue Ensigns, which in turn allowed its use by private citizens. Prime Minister Robert Menzies then recommended schools, government building and private citizens to use the Blue Ensign, issuing a statement the following year allowing Australians to use either ensign providing it was done so respectfully.


title: Flag of Australia

text: On 4 December 1950, the Prime Minister Robert Menzies affirmed the Blue ensign as the National flag and in 1951 King George VI approved the Government's recommendation.


title: Flag of Australia

text: When the Flags Bill was introduced into parliament on 20 November 1953, Menzies said:"This bill is very largely a formal measure which puts into legislative form what has become almost the established practice in Australia ... The design adopted was submitted to His Majesty King Edward VII, and he was pleased to approve of it as the Australian flag in 1902. However, no legislative action has ever been taken to determine the precise form of the flag or the circumstances of its use, and this bill has been brought down to produce that result."This status was formalised on 14 February 1954, when Queen Elizabeth II gave Royal Assent to the "Flags Act 1953", which had been passed two months earlier. The monarch's Assent was timed to coincide with the Queen's visit to the country and came after she had opened the new session of Parliament. The Act confers statutory powers on the Governor-General to appoint 'flags and ensigns of Australia' and authorise warrants and make rules as to use of flags. Section 8 ensures that the 'right or privilege' of a person to fly the Union Flag is not affected by the Act.


title: Flag of Australia

text: South Australia chose to continue with the Union Flag as National flag until 1956, when schools were given the option of using either the Union or Australian flags. The Union Flag was still regarded as the National flag by many Australians well into the 1970s, which inspired Arthur Smout's campaign from 1968 to 1982 to encourage Australians to give the Australian flag precedence.


title: Flag of Australia

text: By the mid-1980s, the Commonwealth Government no longer reminded Australians they had the right to fly the Union Flag alongside the National Flag or provided illustrations of how to correctly display them together.


title: Flag of Australia

text: In 1996, the Governor-General, Sir William Deane, issued a proclamation recognising the annual commemoration of Australian National Flag Day, to be held on 3 September. Flag Day celebrations had been occurring in Sydney since 1985. The inaugural event was held under the auspices of the New South Wales branch of the Australian National Flag Association to commemorate the anniversary of the flag being first flown in 1901. On Flag Day, ceremonies are held in schools, major centres, and the Governor-General, Governors and some politicians attend or release statements to the media. Australian National Flag Day is not a public holiday.


title: Flag of Australia

text: On the centenary of the first flying of the flag, 3 September 2001, the Australian National Flag Association presented the Prime Minister with a flag intended to replace the missing original flag. This flag was not a replica of the original flag, on which the Commonwealth Star had only six points, but was a current Australian National Flag with a seven pointed Commonwealth Star. The flag has a special headband, including a cardinal red stripe and the inscription


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Centenary Flag. Presented to the Hon John Howard MP, Prime Minister of Australia on behalf of the people of Australia by the Australian National Flag Association on 3 September 2001 at the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne to commemorate the first flying of the Australian National Flag on 3 September 1901 attended by the Rt Hon Sir Edmund Barton MHR, Prime Minister of Australia.


title: Flag of Australia

text: A warrant authorising the use of the Centenary Flag under section 6 of the Flags Act was issued by the Governor-General and the flag is now used as the official flag of state on important occasions. These included the opening of new parliamentary terms and when visiting heads of state arrive. The flag has been transported across the country for flying in every state and territory. It was later used on Remembrance Day in 2003 for the opening of the Australian War Memorial in Hyde Park in London.


title: Flag of Australia

text: On 18 September 2001 during the centenary of federation the federal member for Hinkler, Paul Neville, would request of the speaker that:


title: Flag of Australia

text: The parliament house centenary flag was subsequently entrusted to the Australian Flag Society and has been paraded at schools to mark Australian National Flag Day on a tour of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland.


title: Flag of Australia

text: Under Section 5 of the "Flags Act 1953", the Governor-General may proclaim flags other than the National Flag and the Red Ensign as flags or ensigns of Australia. Five flags have been appointed in this manner. The first two were the Royal Australian Navy Ensign and the Royal Australian Air Force Ensign, the flags used by the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Australian Army has no ensign of its own, but they are given the ceremonial task to be the defender of the National Flag. The Air Force and the Navy flew the appropriate British ensigns (the White Ensign and the Royal Air Force Ensign) until the adoption of similar ensigns based on the Australian National Flag in 1948 and 1967 respectively. The current Navy and Air Force Ensigns were officially appointed in 1967 and 1982 respectively.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Queen's Personal Australian Flag was approved by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on 20 September 1962, and was only flown only when she visited Australia, most recently in 2011. It was used in a similar way as the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom.


title: Flag of Australia

text: In 1995, the Aboriginal Flag and the Torres Strait Islander Flag were also appointed flags of Australia. While mainly seen as a gesture of reconciliation, this recognition caused a small amount of controversy at the time, with then opposition leader John Howard describing it as divisive. Some Indigenous people, such as the flag's designer Harold Thomas, felt that the government was appropriating their flag, saying it "doesn't need any more recognition".


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Australian Defence Force Ensign was proclaimed in 2000. This flag is used to represent the Defence Force when more than one branch of the military is involved, such as at the Australian Defence Force Academy, and by the Minister for Defence.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The "Legislative Instruments Act 2003" required the proclamations of these flags to be lodged in a Federal Register. Due to an administrative oversight they were not, and the proclamations were automatically repealed. The Governor-General of Australia issued new proclamations dated 25 January 2008, with effect from 1 January 2008 (or 1 October 2006 in the case of the Defence Force Ensign).


title: Flag of Australia

text: In addition to the seven flags declared under the "Flags Act", there are two additional Commonwealth flags, the Australian Civil Aviation Ensign and Australian Customs Flag, eight Vice-Regal flags and nine state and territory flags that are recognised as official flags through other means.


title: Flag of Australia

text: There have been mild but persistent debates over whether or not the Union Flag should be removed from the canton of the Australian flag. This debate has culminated on several occasions, such as the period preceding the Australian Bicentenary in 1988, and during the Prime Ministership of Paul Keating, who publicly supported a change in the flag, saying "I do not believe that the symbols and the expression of the full sovereignty of Australian nationhood can ever be complete while we have a flag with the flag of another country on the corner of it."


title: Flag of Australia

text: There are two lobby groups involved in the flag debate: Ausflag (est. 1981), which supports changing the flag, and the Australian National Flag Association (ANFA) (est. 1983), which wants to keep the existing flag. The primary arguments for keeping the flag cite historic precedence, while those for changing the flag are based around the idea that the status quo does not accurately depict Australia's status as an independent and multicultural nation, nor is its design unique enough to easily distinguish it from similar flags, such as the flags of New Zealand, Cook Islands and Tuvalu (despite the counter argument that this is not uncommon, as seen with Romania and Chad sharing near identical flags). The similarity between the flag of Australia and those of other countries is often derived from a common colonial history.


title: Flag of Australia

text: The Coalition government under John Howard in 1996 formally recognised the commemoration of Australian National Flag Day; in 1998 sponsored an amendment to the "Flags Act" to require any changes to the national flag design to be passed at a plebiscite along the same lines of the 1977 national song poll; in 2002 supplied ANFA's promotional video free to all primary schools; and in 2004 required all schools receiving federal funds to fly the Australian flag.


title: Flag of Australia

text: Ausflag periodically campaigns for flag change in association with national events such as the 2000 Summer Olympics, and holds flag design competitions, while ANFA's activities include promotion of the existing flag through events such as National Flag Day. On Australia Day in 2018, Ausflag released an alternative design of the flag without the Union Jack, featuring a Commonwealth Star and Southern Cross. The date of the release was met with some backlash, which Harold Scruby, Ausflag's executive director called "the lowest form of censorship." Following the release, Malcolm Turnbull, then-prime minister and a former Ausflag director, told the group that the flag would never change, viewing it as an important symbol of Australian history.


title: Flag of Australia

text: A 2004 Newspoll that asked: "Are you personally in favour or against changing the Australian flag so as to remove the Union Jack emblem?" was supported by 32% of respondents and opposed by 57%, with 11% uncommitted. A 2010 Morgan Poll that asked: "Do you think Australia should have a new design for our National Flag?" was supported by 29% of respondents and opposed by 66%, with 5% uncommitted. A 2013 survey found that 95 per cent of surveyed adults stated that they took pride in the national flag, which was enjoying increasing popularity; half (50%) said they were extremely proud.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk ( ; ; ) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administrative centre of Minsk Region (voblast) and Minsk District (raion). As of January 2021, its population was 2 million, making Minsk the 11th most populous city in Europe. Minsk is one of the administrative capitals of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).


title: Minsk

text: First documented in 1067, Minsk became the capital of the Principality of Minsk before being annexed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1242. It received town privileges in 1499.


title: Minsk

text: From 1569, it was the capital of the Minsk Voivodeship, an administrative division of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was part of a region annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. From 1919 to 1991, after the Russian Revolution, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, in the Soviet Union. Minsk hosted the 2019 European Games in June.


title: Minsk

text: The Old East Slavic name of the town was Мѣньскъ (i.e. "Měnsk" < Early Proto-Slavic or Late Indo-European "Mēnĭskŭ"), derived from a river name "Měn" (< "Mēnŭ").


title: Minsk

text: The resulting form of the name, "Minsk" (spelled either Минскъ or Мѣнскъ), was taken over both in Russian (modern spelling: Минск) and Polish ("Mińsk"), and under the influence of Russian this form also became official in Belarusian. The direct continuation of the name in Belarusian is Miensk (, ), which some Belarusian-speakers continue to use as their preferred name for the city.


title: Minsk

text: When Belarus was under Polish rule, the names Mińsk Litewski ("Minsk of Lithuania") and Mińsk Białoruski ("Minsk of Belarus") were used to differentiate this place name from Mińsk Mazowiecki 'Minsk in Masovia'. In modern Polish, "Mińsk" without an attribute usually refers to the city in Belarus, which is about 50 times bigger than Mińsk Mazowiecki; (cf. Brest-Litovsk and Brześć Kujawski for a similar case).


title: Minsk

text: The area of today's Minsk was settled by Lithuanians in the 9th and 10th centuries AD. The Svislach River valley was the settlement boundary between two early East Slavic tribes – the Krivichs and Dregovichs. By 980, the area was incorporated into the early medieval Principality of Polotsk, one of the earliest East Slavic principalities of Kievan Rus'. Minsk was first mentioned in the name form "Měneskъ" (Мѣнескъ) in the Primary Chronicle for the year 1067 in association with the Battle on the River Nemiga. 1067 is now widely accepted as the founding year of Minsk. City authorities consider the date of 3 March 1067 to be the exact founding date of the city, though the town (by then fortified by wooden walls) had certainly existed for some time by then. The origin of the name is unknown but there are several theories.


title: Minsk

text: In the early 12th century, the Principality of Polotsk disintegrated into smaller fiefs. The Principality of Minsk was established by one of the Polotsk dynasty princes. In 1129, the Principality of Minsk was annexed by Kiev, the dominant principality of Kievan Rus'; however in 1146 the Polotsk dynasty regained control of the principality. By 1150, Minsk rivalled Polotsk as the major city in the former Principality of Polotsk. The princes of Minsk and Polotsk were engaged in years of struggle trying to unite all lands previously under the rule of Polotsk.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk escaped the Mongol invasion of Rus in 1237–1239. In 1242, Minsk became a part of the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It joined peacefully and local elites enjoyed high rank in the society of the Grand Duchy. In 1413, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kingdom of Poland entered into a union. Minsk became the centre of Minsk Voivodship (province). In 1441, as Grand Duke of Lithuania, Casimir IV included Minsk in a list of cities enjoying certain privileges, and in 1499, during the reign of his son, Alexander I Jagiellon, Minsk received town privileges under Magdeburg law. In 1569, after the Union of Lublin, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland merged into a single state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


title: Minsk

text: By the middle of the 16th century, Minsk was an important economic and cultural centre in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was also an important centre for the Eastern Orthodox Church. Following the Union of Brest, both the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Roman Catholic Church increased in influence.


title: Minsk

text: In 1655, Minsk was conquered by troops of Tsar Alexei of Russia. Russians governed the city until 1660 when it was regained by John II Casimir, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland. By the end of the Polish-Russian War, Minsk had only about 2,000 residents and just 300 houses. The second wave of devastation occurred during the Great Northern War, when Minsk was occupied in 1708 and 1709 by the army of Charles XII of Sweden and then by the army of Peter the Great. The last decades of the Polish rule involved decline or very slow development, since Minsk had become a small provincial town of little economic or military significance.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk was annexed by Russia in 1793 as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. In 1796, it became the centre of the Minsk Governorate. All of the initial street names were replaced by Russian names, though the spelling of the city's name remained unchanged. It was briefly occupied by the Grande Armée during French invasion of Russia in 1812.


title: Minsk

text: Throughout the 19th century, the city continued to grow and significantly improve. In the 1830s, major streets and squares of Minsk were cobbled and paved. A first public library was opened in 1836, and a fire brigade was put into operation in 1837. In 1838, the first local newspaper, "Minskiye gubernskiye vedomosti" ("Minsk province news") went into circulation. The first theatre was established in 1844. By 1860, Minsk was an important trading city with a population of 27,000. There was a construction boom that led to the building of 2 and 3-story brick and stone houses in "Upper Town".


title: Minsk

text: Minsk's development was boosted by improvements in transportation. In 1846, the Moscow-Warsaw road was laid through Minsk. In 1871, a railway link between Moscow and Warsaw ran via Minsk, and in 1873, a new railway from Romny in Ukraine to the Baltic Sea port of Libava (Liepāja) was also constructed. Thus Minsk became an important rail junction and a manufacturing hub. A municipal water supply was introduced in 1872, the telephone in 1890, the horse tram in 1892, and the first power generator in 1894. By 1900, Minsk had 58 factories employing 3,000 workers. The city also boasted theatres, cinemas, newspapers, schools and colleges, as well as numerous monasteries, churches, synagogues, and a mosque. According to the 1897 Russian census, the city had 91,494 inhabitants, with some 47,561 Jews constituting more than half of the city population.


title: Minsk

text: In the early years of the 20th century, Minsk was a major centre for the worker's movement in Belarus. The 1st Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the forerunner to the Bolsheviks and eventually the CPSU, was held there in 1898. It was also one of the major centres of the Belarusian national revival, alongside Vilnius. However, the First World War significantly affected the development of Minsk. By 1915, Minsk was a battlefront city. Some factories were closed down, and residents began evacuating to the east. Minsk became the headquarters of the Western Front of the Russian army and also housed military hospitals and military supply bases.


title: Minsk

text: The Russian Revolution had an immediate effect in Minsk. A Workers' Soviet was established in Minsk in October 1917, drawing much of its support from disaffected soldiers and workers. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, German forces occupied Minsk on 21 February 1918. On 25 March 1918, Minsk was proclaimed the capital of the Belarusian People's Republic. The republic was short-lived; in December 1918, Minsk was taken over by the Red Army. In January 1919 Minsk was proclaimed the capital of the Belorussian SSR, though later in 1919 (see Operation Minsk) and again in 1920, the city was controlled by the Second Polish Republic during the course of the Polish-Bolshevik War between 8 August 1919 and 11 July 1920 and again between 14 October 1920 and 19 March 1921. Under the terms of the Peace of Riga, Minsk was handed back to the Russian SFSR and became the capital of the Belorussian SSR, one of the founding republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.


title: Minsk

text: A programme of reconstruction and development was begun in 1922. By 1924, there were 29 factories in operation; schools, museums, theatres and libraries were also established. Throughout the 1920s and the 1930s, Minsk saw rapid development with dozens of new factories being built and new schools, colleges, higher education establishments, hospitals, theatres and cinemas being opened. During this period, Minsk was also a centre for the development of Belarusian language and culture.


title: Minsk

text: Before the Second World War, Minsk had a population of 300,000 people, but this had fallen to around 50,000 by 1944. The Germans captured Minsk in the Battle of Białystok–Minsk, as part of Operation Barbarossa; after it had been devastated by the Luftwaffe. However, some factories, museums, and tens of thousands of civilians had been evacuated to the east. The Germans designated Minsk the administrative centre of "Generalbezirk Weißruthenien". Communists and sympathisers were killed or imprisoned, both locally and after being transported to Germany. Homes were requisitioned to house invading German forces. Thousands starved as food was seized by the German Army and paid work was scarce. Minsk was the site of one of the largest Nazi-run ghettos in the Second World War, temporarily housing over 100,000 Jews (see Minsk Ghetto). Some anti-Soviet residents of Minsk, who hoped that Belarus could regain independence, did support the Germans, especially at the beginning of the occupation, but by 1942, Minsk had become a major centre of the Soviet partisan resistance movement against the invasion, in what is known as the "German-Soviet War". For this role, Minsk was awarded the title "Hero City" in 1974.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk was recaptured by Soviet troops on 3 July 1944 in Minsk Offensive as part of Operation Bagration. The city was the centre of German resistance to the Soviet advance and saw heavy fighting during the first half of 1944. Factories, municipal buildings, power stations, bridges, most roads, and 80% of the houses were reduced to rubble. In 1944, Minsk's population was reduced to a mere 50,000.


title: Minsk

text: The historical centre was replaced in the 1940s and 1950s by Stalinist architecture, which favoured grand buildings, broad avenues and wide squares. Subsequently, the city grew rapidly as a result of massive industrialisation. Since the 1960s Minsk's population has also grown apace, reaching 1 million in 1972 and 1.5 million in 1986.


title: Minsk

text: Construction of Minsk Metro began on 16 June 1977, and the system was opened to the public on 30 June 1984, becoming the ninth metro system in the Soviet Union.


title: Minsk

text: The rapid population growth was primarily driven by mass migration of young, unskilled workers from rural areas of Belarus, as well as by migration of skilled workers from other parts of the Soviet Union. To house the expanding population, Minsk spread beyond its historical boundaries. Its surrounding villages were absorbed and rebuilt as "mikroraions", districts of high-density apartment housing.


title: Minsk

text: Throughout the 1990s, after the fall of Communism, the city continued to change. As the capital of a newly independent country, Minsk quickly acquired the attributes of a major city. Embassies were opened, and a number of Soviet administrative buildings became government centres. During the early and mid-1990s, Minsk was hit by an economic crisis and many development projects were halted, resulting in high unemployment and underemployment. Since the late 1990s, there have been improvements in transport and infrastructure, and a housing boom has been underway since 2002. On the outskirts of Minsk, new "mikroraions" of residential development have been built. Metro lines have been extended, and the road system (including the Minsk BeltWay) has been improved. In recent years Minsk has been continuously decentralizing, with a third line of the Minsk Metro opening in 2020. More development is planned for several areas outside the city centre, while the future of the older neighborhoods is still unclear.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is located on the southeastern slope of the Minsk Hills, a region of rolling hills running from the southwest (upper reaches of the river Nioman) to the northeast– that is, to Lukomskaye Lake in northwestern Belarus. The average altitude above sea level is . The physical geography of Minsk was shaped over the two most recent ice ages. The Svislach River, which flows across the city from the northwest to the southeast, is in the "urstromtal", an ancient river valley formed by water flowing from melting ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age. There are six smaller rivers within the city limits, all part of the Black Sea basin.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is in the area of mixed forests typical of most of Belarus. Pinewood and mixed forests border the edge of the city, especially in the north and east. Some of the forests were preserved as parks (for instance, the Chelyuskinites Park) as the city grew.


title: Minsk

text: The city was initially built on the hills, which allowed for defensive fortifications, and the western parts of the city are the most hilly.


title: Minsk

text: In 5 km from the northwestern edge of city lies large Zaslawskaye reservoir, often called the Minsk sea. It is the second largest reservoir in Belarus, constructed in 1956.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk has a warm summer humid continental climate (Köppen "Dfb") though unpredictable many a times, owing to its location between the strong influence of the moist air of the Atlantic Ocean and the dry air of the Eurasian landmass. Its weather is unstable and tends to change relatively often. The average January temperature is , while the average July temperature is . The lowest temperature was recorded on 17 January 1940, at and the warmest on 8 August 2015 at . Fog is frequent, especially in the autumn and spring. Minsk receives annual precipitation of , of which one third falls during the cold period (as snow and rain) and two-thirds in the warm period. Throughout the year, most winds are westerly and northwesterly, bringing cool and moist air from the Atlantic.


title: Minsk

text: During its first centuries, Minsk was a city with a predominantly Early East Slavic population (the forefathers of modern-day Belarusians). After the 1569 Polish–Lithuanian union, the city became a destination for migrating Poles (who worked as administrators, clergy, teachers and soldiers) and Jews (Ashkenazim, who worked in the retail trade and as craftsmen, as other opportunities were prohibited by discrimination laws). During the last centuries of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, many Minsk residents became polonised, adopting the language of the dominant Poles and assimilating to its culture.


title: Minsk

text: After the second partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1793, Minsk and its larger region became part of the Russian Empire. The Russians dominated the city's culture as had the Poles in the earlier centuries.


title: Minsk

text: At the time of the 1897 census under the Russian Empire, Jews were the largest ethnic group in Minsk, at 52% of the population, with 47,500 of the 91,000 residents. Other substantial ethnic groups were Russians (25.5%), Poles (11.4%) and Belarusians (9%). The latter figure may be not accurate, as some local Belarusians were likely counted as Russians. A small traditional community of Lipka Tatars had been living in Minsk for centuries.


title: Minsk

text: Between the 1880s and 1930s, many Jews, as well as peasants from other backgrounds, emigrated from the city to the United States as part of a Belarusian diaspora.


title: Minsk

text: The high mortality of the First World War and the Second World War affected the demographics of the city, particularly the destruction of Jews under the Nazi occupation of the Second World War. Working through local populations, Germans instituted deportation of Jewish citizens to concentration camps, murdering most of them there. The Jewish community of Minsk suffered catastrophic losses in the Holocaust. From more than half the population of the city, the percentage of Jews dropped to less than 10% more than ten years after the war. After its limited population peaked in the 1970s, continuing anti-Semitism under the Soviet Union and increasing nationalism in Belarus caused most Jews to emigrate to Israel and western countries in the 1980s; by 1999, less than 1% of the population of Minsk was Jewish.


title: Minsk

text: In the first three decades of the post-war years, the most numerous new residents in Minsk were rural migrants from other parts of Belarus; the proportion of ethnic Belarusians increased markedly. Numerous skilled Russians and other migrants from other parts of the Soviet Union migrated for jobs in the growing manufacturing sector. In 1959 Belarusians made up 63.3% of the city's residents. Other ethnic groups included Russians (22.8%), Jews (7.8%), Ukrainians (3.6%), Poles (1.1%) and Tatars (0.4%). Continued migration from rural Belarus in the 1960s and 1970s changed the ethnic composition further. By 1979 Belarusians made up 68.4% of the city's residents. Other ethnic groups included Russians (22.2%), Jews (3.4%), Ukrainians (3.4%), Poles (1.2%) and Tatars (0.2%).


title: Minsk

text: According to the 1989 census, 82% percent of Minsk residents have been born in Belarus. Of those, 43% have been born in Minsk and 39% – in other parts of Belarus. 6.2% of Minsk residents came from regions of western Belarus (Grodno and Brest Regions) and 13% – from eastern Belarus (Mogilev, Vitebsk and Gomel Regions). 21.4% of residents came from central Belarus (Minsk Region).


title: Minsk

text: According to the 1999 census, Belarusians make up 79.3% of the city's residents. Other ethnic groups include Russians (15.7%), Ukrainians (2.4%), Poles (1.1%) and Jews (0.6%). The Russian and Ukrainian populations of Minsk peaked in the late 1980s (at 325,000 and 55,000 respectively). After the break-up of the Soviet Union many of them chose to move to their respective mother countries, although some families had been in Minsk for generations. Another factor in the shifting demographics of the city was the changing self-identification of Minsk residents of mixed ancestry – in independent Belarus they identify as Belarusians.


title: Minsk

text: The Jewish population of Minsk peaked in the early 1970s at 50,000 according to official figures; independent estimates put the figure at between 100,000 and 120,000. Beginning in the 1980s, there has been mass-scale emigration to Israel, the US, and Germany. Today only about 10,000 Jews live in Minsk. The traditional minorities of Poles and Tatars have remained at much the same size (17,000 and 3,000 respectively). Rural Poles have migrated from the western part of Belarus to Minsk, and many Tatars have moved to Minsk from Tatarstan.


title: Minsk

text: Some more recent ethnic minority communities have developed as a result of immigration. The most prominent are immigrants from the Caucasus countries – Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians each numbering about 2,000 to 5,000. They began migrating to Minsk in the 1970s, and more immigrants have joined them since. Many work in the retail trade in open-air markets. A small but prominent Arab community has developed in Minsk, primarily represented by recent economic immigrants from Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Algeria, etc. (In many cases, they are graduates of Minsk universities who decide to settle in Belarus and bring over their families). A small community of Romani, numbering about 2,000, are settled in suburbs of north-western and southern Minsk.


title: Minsk

text: Throughout its history Minsk has been a city of many languages. Initially most of its residents spoke Ruthenian (which later developed into modern Belarusian). However, after 1569 the official language was Polish. In the 19th-century Russian became the official language and by the end of that century it had become the language of administration, schools and newspapers. The Belarusian national revival increased interest in the Belarusian language – its use has grown since the 1890s, especially among the intelligentsia. In the 1920s and early 1930s Belarusian was the major language of Minsk, including use for administration and education (both secondary and tertiary). However, since the late 1930s Russian again began gaining dominance.


title: Minsk

text: A short period of Belarusian national revival in the early 1990s saw a rise in the numbers of Belarusian speakers. However, in 1994 the newly elected president Alexander Lukashenko slowly reversed this trend. Most residents of Minsk now use Russian exclusively in their everyday lives at home and at work, although Belarusian is understood as well. Substantial numbers of recent migrants from the rural areas use Trasyanka (a Russo-Belarusian mixed language) in their everyday lives.


title: Minsk

text: There are no reliable statistics on the religious affiliations of those living in Minsk, or among the population of Belarus generally. The majority of Christians belong to the Belarusian Orthodox Church, which is the exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in Belarus. There is a significant minority of Roman Catholics.


title: Minsk

text: As of 2006, there are approximately 30 religious communities of various denominations in Minsk. The only functioning monastery in the city is St Elisabeth Convent; its large complex of churches is open to visitors.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk has the highest crime rate in Belarus – 193.5 crimes per 10,000 citizens. 20–25% of all serious crimes in Belarus, 55% of bribes and 67% of mobile phone thefts are committed in Minsk. However, attorney general Grigory Vasilevich stated that the homicide rate in Minsk in 2008 was "relatively fine".


title: Minsk

text: The crime rate grew significantly in 2009 and 2010: for example, the number of corruption crimes grew by 36% in 2009 alone. Crime detection level varies from 13% in burglary to 92% in homicide with an average 40.1%. Many citizens are concerned for their safety at night and the strongest concern was expressed by residents of Chizhovka and Shabany microdistricts (both in Zavodski District).


title: Minsk

text: The SIZO-1 detention center, IK-1 general prison, and the KGB special jail called ""Amerikanka"" are all located in Minsk. Alexander Lukashenko's rivals in the 2010 presidential election were imprisoned in the KGB jail along with other prominent politicians and civil activists. Ales Michalevic, who was kept in this jail, accused the KGB of using torture.


title: Minsk

text: On 15 November 2020, more than 1,000 protesters were arrested during an anti-government protest. Protesters took to the streets in the capital, Minsk, following the death of an opposition activist, Roman Bondarenko. The activist died after allegedly being beaten up by the security forces. The protesters put flowers at the site where he was detained before succumbing to his injuries.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is the economic capital of Belarus. It has developed industrial and services sectors which serve the needs not only of the city, but of the entire nation. Minsk's contributions form nearly 46% of Belarusian budget. According to 2010 results, Minsk paid 15 trillion BYR to state budget while the whole income from all other regions was 20 trillion BYR. In the period January 2013 to October 2013, 70.6% of taxes in the budget of Minsk were paid by non-state enterprises, 26.3% by state enterprises, and 1.8% by individual entrepreneurs. Among the top 10 taxpayers were five oil and gas companies (including two Gazprom's and one Lukoil's subsidiaries), two mobile network operators (MTS and A1), two companies producing alcoholic beverages (Minsk-Kristall and Minsk grape wines factory) and one producer of tobacco goods.


title: Minsk

text: In 2012, Gross Regional Product of Minsk was formed mainly by industry (26.4%), wholesale (19.9%), transportation and communications (12.3%), retail (8.6%) and construction (5.8%).


title: Minsk

text: GRP of Minsk measured in Belarusian rubles was 55 billion(€22 billion) or around 1/3 of Gross domestic product of Belarus.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk city has highest salaries in Belarus. As of July 2022 average gross salary in Minsk was 2,265 BYN per month or around €900 per month.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is the major industrial centre of Belarus. According to 2012 statistics, Minsk-based companies produced 21.5% of electricity, 76% of trucks, 15.9% of footwear, 89.3% of television sets, 99.3% of washing machines, 30% of chocolate, 27.7% of distilled alcoholic beverages and 19.7% of tobacco goods in Belarus.


title: Minsk

text: Today the city has over 250 factories and plants. Its industrial development started in the 1860s and was facilitated by the railways built in the 1870s. However, much of the industrial infrastructure was destroyed during World War I, especially during World War II. After the last war, the development of the city was linked to the development of industry, especially of R&D-intensive sectors (heavy emphasis of R&D intensive industries in urban development in the USSR is known in Western geography as 'Minsk phenomenon'). Minsk was turned into a major production site for trucks, tractors, gears, optical equipment, refrigerators, television sets and radios, bicycles, motorcycles, watches, and metal-processing equipment. Outside machine-building and electronics, Minsk also had textiles, construction materials, food processing, and printing industries. During the Soviet period, the development of the industries was linked to suppliers and markets within the USSR. The break-up of the union in 1991 led to a serious economic meltdown in 1991–1994.


title: Minsk

text: However, since the adoption of the neo-Keynesean policies under Alexander Lukashenko's government in 1995, much of the gross industrial production was regained. Unlike many other cities in the CIS and Eastern Europe, Minsk was not heavily de-industrialised in the 1990s. About 40% of the workforce is still employed in the manufacturing sector.


title: Minsk

text: In 2011 official statistics quote unemployment in Minsk at 0.3%. During the 2009 census 5.6% of Minsk residents of employable age called themselves unemployed.


title: Minsk

text: The government discourages official unemployment registration with tiny unemployment benefits and obligatory public works. Until 2018 there was an 'unemployment tax' taken from those who were suspected of loitering.


title: Minsk

text: In addition, a number of residential neighbourhoods are recognised in Minsk, called microdistricts, with no separate administration.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is the major cultural center of Belarus. Its first theatres and libraries were established in the middle of the 19th century. Now it has 11 theatres and 16 museums. There are 20 cinemas and 139 libraries.


title: Minsk

text: There are more than 400 travel agencies in Minsk, about a quarter of them provide agent activity, and most of them are tour operators.


title: Minsk

text: In 2013, Minsk hosted the European Junior Rowing Championships at the Republican Center of Olympic Training for Rowing And Canoeing to the north-west of the city.


title: Minsk

text: In January 2016, the 2016 European Speed Skating Championships were held in the Minsk Arena. Minsk Arena is the only indoor speed skating rink in Belarus.


title: Minsk

text: On 21 October 2016, it was confirmed by the European Olympic Committee that Minsk will host the 2019 European Games.


title: Minsk

text: The 2019 European Figure Skating Championships were held in the Minsk Arena from the 21 to 27 January.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk has an extensive public transport system. Passengers are served by 8 tramway lines, over 70 trolleybus lines, 3 subway lines and over 100 bus lines. Trams were the first public transport used in Minsk (since 1892 – the horse-tram, and since 1929 – the electric tram). Public buses have been used in Minsk since 1924, and trolleybuses since 1952.


title: Minsk

text: All public transport is operated by Minsktrans, a government-owned and -funded transport not-for-profit company. As of November 2021, Minsktrans used 1,322 buses (plus 93 electric buses), 744 trolleybuses and 135 tramway cars in Minsk.


title: Minsk

text: The Minsk city government in 2003 decreed that local transport provision should be set at a minimum level of 1 vehicle (bus, trolleybus or tram) per 1,500 residents. The number of vehicles in use by Minsktrans is 2.2 times higher than the minimum level.


title: Minsk

text: Public transport fares are controlled by the "city's executive committee" (city council). Single trip ticket for bus, trolleybus or tramway costs 0.75 BYN (≈ USD 0.3), 0.80 BYN for metro and 0.90 BYN for express buses. Monthly ticket for one kind of transport costs 33 BYN and 61 BYN for all five. Commercial marshrutka's prices varies from 1.5 to 2 BYN.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is the only city in Belarus with an underground metro system. Construction of the metro began in 1977, soon after the city reached over a million people, and the first line with 8 stations was opened in 1984. Since then it has expanded into three lines: Maskoŭskaja, Aŭtazavodskaja, and Zielienalužskaja which are long with 15, 14 and 4 stations, respectively. On 7 November 2012, three new stations on the Moskovskaya Line were opened and another on 3 June 2014.. Construction of the third line began in 2011 and the first stage opened in 2020. Some layout plans speculate on a possible fourth line running from Vyasnyanka to Serabranka micro-rayons.


title: Minsk

text: Trains use 243 standard Russian metro-cars. On a typical day Minsk metro is used by 800,000 passengers. In 2007 ridership of Minsk metro was 262.1 million passengers, in 2017 ridership of Minsk metro was 284,1 million passengers,


title: Minsk

text: making it the 5th busiest metro network in the former USSR (behind Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv and Kharkiv). During peak hours trains run each 2–2.5 minutes. The metro network employs 3,200 staff.


title: Minsk

text: Most of the urban transport is being renovated to modern standards. For instance, all metro stations built since 2001 have passenger lifts from platform to street level, thus enabling the use of the newer stations by disabled passengers.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk is the largest transport hub in Belarus. Minsk is located at the junction of the Warsaw-Moscow railway (built in 1871) running from the southwest to the northeast of the city and the Liepaja-Romny railway (built in 1873) running from the northwest to the south. The first railway connects Russia with Poland and Germany; the second connects Ukraine with Lithuania and Latvia. They cross at the Minsk-"Pasažyrski" railway station, the main railway station of Minsk. The station was built in 1873 as "Vilenski vakzal". The initial wooden building was demolished in 1890 and rebuilt in stone. During World War II the Minsk railway station was completely destroyed. It was rebuilt in 1945 and 1946 and served until 1991. The new building of the Minsk-"Pasažyrski" railway station was built during 1991–2002. Its construction was delayed due to financial difficulties; now, however, Minsk boasts one of the most modern and up-to-date railway stations in the CIS. There are plans to move all suburban rail traffic from Minsk-"Pasažyrski" to the smaller stations, Minsk-


title: Minsk

text: There are three intercity bus stations that link Minsk with the suburbs and other cities in Belarus and the neighboring countries. There are frequent services to Moscow, Smolensk, Vilnius, Riga, Kyiv and Warsaw.


title: Minsk

text: According to the 2019 survey of 1934 people, Minsk had around 811,000 adult bicycles and 232,000 child and adolescent bicycles. In Minsk there is one bike for every 1.9 people. The total number of bicycles in Minsk exceeds the total number of cars (770,000 personal automobiles). 39% of Minsk residents have a personal bike. 43% of Minsk residents ride a bicycle once a month or more. As of 2017, the level of bicycle use is about 1% of all transport movements (for comparison: 12% in Berlin, 50% in Copenhagen).


title: Minsk

text: Since 2015, an annual bicycle parade / bicycle carnival is held in Minsk, during which vehicles are blocked for several hours along Pobediteley (Peramohi) Avenue. The number of participants in 2019 was more than 20,000 and the number of registrations was about 12,000. In 2017, the European Union funded the project "Urban cycling in Belarus" at a cost of €560,000, within the framework of which the public association Minsk Cycling Society together with the Council of Ministers created the regulatory document National Concept for the Development of Cycling in Belarus. In 2020, Minsk entered the top 3 most cycling cities in the CIS – after Moscow and Saint Petersburg.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk National Airport is located to the east of the city. It opened in 1982 and the current railway station opened in 1987. It is an international airport with flights to Europe and the Middle East.


title: Minsk

text: Prior to 1982, the main airport was Minsk-1 Airport, opened in 1933 a few kilometres to the south of the historical centre. In 1955 it became an international airport and by 1970 served over 1 million passengers a year. After 1982, it mainly served domestic routes in Belarus and short-haul routes to Moscow, Kyiv and Kaliningrad. Minsk-1 was closed in December 2015 because of the noise pollution in the surrounding residential areas. The land of the airport is currently being redeveloped for residential and commercial real estate, branded as Minsk-City, as well as the new Zelenaluzhskaya line of the Minsk Metro.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk Borovaya Airfield (UMMB) is located in a suburb north-east of the city, next to Zaliony Luh Forest Park, housing Aero Club Minsk and Minsk Aviation Museum.


title: Minsk

text: Minsk has about 451 kindergartens, 241 schools, 22 further education colleges, and 29 higher education institutions, including 12 major national universities.


title: Minsk

text: A minor planet 3012 Minsk discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh in 1979 is named after the city.


title: Frank Oz

text: He began his career as a puppeteer, performing the Muppet characters of Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle in "The Muppet Show", and Cookie Monster, Bert, and Grover in "Sesame Street". He also puppeteered and/or provided the voice for Yoda in the "Star Wars" series.


title: Frank Oz

text: His work as a director includes "The Dark Crystal" (1982), "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (1984), "Little Shop of Horrors" (1986), "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (1988), "What About Bob?" (1991), "In & Out" (1997), "Death at a Funeral" (2007), and an episode of the US television series "Leverage" (2011).


title: Frank Oz

text: Oz was born on May 25, 1944, in Hereford, Herefordshire, England; the son of Frances (née Ghevaert; 1910–1989) and Isadore Oznowicz (1916–1998), both of whom were puppeteers. Some of their puppets survived the war and were presented at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. His father was also a window trimmer. His parents moved to England where the father joined the Dutch Brigades. Oz's Dutch-Polish father was Jewish, and his Flemish mother was a Catholic. They left England when he was six months old and lived in Belgium until he was five. Oz and his family moved to Montana in 1951. They eventually settled in Oakland, California. Oz attended Oakland Technical High School and Oakland City College. He worked as an apprentice puppeteer at Children's Fairyland as a teenager with the Vagabond Puppets, a production of the Oakland Recreation Department, where Lettie Connell was his mentor.


title: Frank Oz

text: Oz performed as a puppeteer with Jim Henson's Muppets. As a teenager, he worked with the Vagabond Puppets at the Children's Fairyland of Oakland, which is how he first met Henson. He was 19 when he joined Henson in New York to work on the Muppets in 1963. His characters have included Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Animal, and Sam Eagle on "The Muppet Show", and Grover, Cookie Monster and Bert on "Sesame Street".


title: Frank Oz

text: In addition to performing a variety of characters, Oz was one of the primary collaborators responsible for the development of the Muppets, known most notably for his chemistry with Jim Henson himself, performing in such pairings as: Ernie and Bert; Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog; Kermit and Miss Piggy; Kermit and Fozzie Bear; Kermit and Grover; Rowlf the Dog and Fozzie; and The Swedish Chef (Henson performed the head and voice, with Oz normally operating the hands). Oz performed as a Muppet performer in over 75 productions, including "Labyrinth", video releases, and television specials, as well as countless other public appearances, episodes of "Sesame Street", and other Jim Henson series. His puppetry work spans from 1963 to the present, although he semi-retired from performing his Muppets characters in 2001 (continuing to perform on "Sesame Street" on a yearly basis through 2012). In 2001, his characters were taken over primarily by Eric Jacobson (with David Rudman as Cookie Monster).


title: Frank Oz

text: Oz is also known as the performer of Jedi Master Yoda from George Lucas' "Star Wars" series. Jim Henson had originally been contacted by Lucas about possibly performing Yoda. Henson was preoccupied and instead suggested Oz be assigned as the chief puppeteer of the character, as well as a creative consultant. Oz performed the puppet and provided the voice for Yoda in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), "Return of the Jedi" (1983), "" (1999), and "" (2017). Director Rian Johnson decided to return to using a puppet instead of using CGI in "" (2017), even using the original mold, because he felt CGI would not have worked as it was not true to the Yoda Luke knew in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980). Oz also provided the voice of the computer-generated imagery (CGI) Yoda in "" (2002) and "" (2005). The conversion to CGI was met with some criticism among fans, but Oz himself said that was "exactly what [Lucas] should have done." Oz had a great deal of creative input on the character and was himself responsible for creating the character's trademark syntax. Oz returned to voice Yoda in several Disney theme park attractions, "Star Tours–The Adventures Continue" and within as well as in the "Star Wars Rebels" episodes, "Path of the Jedi" and "Shroud of Darkness".


title: Frank Oz

text: Oz voiced Yoda in the 2020 Oculus Quest VR game "Tales from the Galaxy's Edge" alongside original C-3PO voice actor Anthony Daniels.