title: Makar Sankranti

text: The festival is marked by feasts and bonfires. Young people erect makeshift huts, known as "Meji" and "Bhelaghar", from bamboo, leaves and thatch, and in "Bhelaghar" they eat the food prepared for the feast, and then burn the huts the next morning. The celebrations also feature traditional Assamese games such as tekeli bhonga (pot-breaking) and buffalo fighting. Magh Bihu celebrations start on the last day of the previous month, the month of "Pooh", usually the 29th of Pooh and usually 14 January, and is the only day of Magh Bihu in modern times (earlier, the festival would last for the whole month of Magh, and so the name Magh Bihu). The night before is "Uruka" (28th of Pooh), when people gather around a bonfire, cook dinner, and make merry.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: During Magh Bihu people of Assam make cakes of rice with various names such as Shunga Pitha, Til Pitha etc. and some other sweets of coconut called Laru or Laskara.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Known as Sakraat or Khichdi in western Bihar and Til Sakraat or Dahi Chura in rest of Bihar where people usually eat Dahi and Chura (Falttened Rice), sweets made of Til (Sesame seeds) and Chini (Sugar)/Gud(Jaggery) such as Tilkut, Tilwa (Til ke Ladoo) etc. In the state, the crops harvested on and around the time are Sesame Seeds, Paddy, etc


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Known as "Sankrant" in Goa and like in the rest of the country, people distribute sweets in the form of granules of sugar-coated till pulses among family members and friends. Newly married women offer five sunghat or small clay pots with black beaded threads tied around them, to the deity. These pots are filled with newly harvested food grains and are offered with betel leaves and areca nut. Its observance takes place on a rather subdued note, unlike major festivals of the region like Ganesh chaturthi.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Uttarayana, as Makar Sankranti is called in Gujarati, is a major festival in the state of Gujarat which lasts for two days.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Gujarati people keenly await this festival to fly kites, called 'patang'. Kites for Uttarayana are made of special light-weight paper and bamboo and are mostly rhombus shaped with central spine and a single bow. The string often contains abrasives to cut down other people's kites.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In Gujarat, from December through to Makar Sankranti, people start enjoying Uttarayana. Undhiyu (spicy, baked mix of winter vegetables) and chikkis (made from til (sesame seeds), peanuts and jaggery) are the special festival recipes savoured on this day. The Hindu Sindhi community in western regions of India, that is also found in southeastern parts of Pakistan, celebrate Makar Sankranti as Tirmoori. On this day, parents sending sweet dishes to their daughters.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: "Sakraant" in Haryana and Delhi rural areas, is celebrated with traditional Hindu rituals of North India similar to Western UP and border areas of Rajasthan and Punjab. This includes ritual purification by taking the holy dip in rivers, especially in Yamuna, or at sacred ponds such as ancient sarovars Kurukshetra and at local tirtha ponds associated with the ancestral guardian/founder deity of the village called Jathera or Dhok (dahak in Sanskrit or fire) in villages to wash away sins. People prepare kheer, churma, halva with desi ghee and distribute til-gud (sesame and jaggery) laddoos or chikkis. Brothers of married woman visits her home with a gift pack, called "Sindhara" or "Sidha", of wood and warm clothing for her and her husband's family. Women give gift to their in-laws called "Manana". Women congregate in the nearby havelis to sing Haryani folk songs and exchange gifts.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In Jammu, "Makar Sankranti" is celebrated as 'Uttrain' (derived from Sanskrit: Uttarayana). Alternatively, terms 'Attrain' or 'Attrani' have also been used to describe this festival. A day before is celebrated as Lohri by Dogras to commemorate end of "Poh" (Pausha) month. It is also beginning of the Magha month as per Hindu Solar Calendar, hence also known as 'Maghi Sangrand' (Sankranti of "Magh" month).


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Among Dogras, there is a tradition of '"Mansana"' (charity) of Khichdi of Maah Dal. "Khichdi" of "Maah di Dal" is also prepared on this day and that is why this day is also referred to as "'Khichdi wala Parva"'. There is also a tradition of sending "Khichdi" & other food items to house of married daughters. Fairs are organised on holy places and pligrimages on this day. Dhagwal in Hiranagar tehsil is known for Fair on "Makar Sankranti" and Janamashtami.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: People of Jammu also take holy bath in "Devika" river and pilgrimages like "Uttar Behni" and Purmandal on this occasion. This day is also celebrated as birth anniversary of "Baba Ambo ji", a local deity of Jammu region.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: At Vasuki temple of Bhaderwah of Jammu, the idols of "Vasuki Nag" are covered on "Magh Sankranti" and they are uncovered only after three months on "Vaisakha Sankranti"


title: Makar Sankranti

text: This is the Suggi (ಸುಗ್ಗಿ) or harvest festival for farmers of Karnataka. On this auspicious day, girls wear new clothes to visit near and dear ones with a Sankranti offering in a plate and exchange the same with other families. This ritual is called "Ellu Birodhu." Here the plate would normally contain "Ellu" (white sesame seeds) mixed with fried groundnuts, neatly cut dry coconut and fine cut bella (jaggery). The mixture is called "Ellu-Bella" (ಎಳ್ಳು ಬೆಲ್ಲ). The plate contains shaped sugar candy moulds (Sakkare Acchu, ಸಕ್ಕರೆ ಅಚ್ಚು) with a piece of sugarcane. There is a saying in Kannada "ellu bella thindu olle maathadi" that translates to 'eat the mixture of sesame seeds and jaggery and speak only good.' This festival signifies the harvest of the season, since sugarcane is predominant in these parts. Ellu Bella, Ellu Unde, bananas, sugarcane, red berries, haldi and kumkum and small gift items useful in everyday lives are often exchanged among women in Karnataka.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: During the occasion, newly married women give away bananas for five years to married women from the first year of her marriage. Kite flying, drawing rangolis, giving away of red berries known as Yalchi kai are some of the intrinsic parts of the festival. Another vital ritual in rural Karnataka is the display of decorated cows and bulls and their procession is done and they are also made to cross a fire and this custom is known as "Kichchu Haayisuvudu".


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In Maharashtra on Makar Sankrant day people exchange multicoloured halwa (sugar granules coated in sugar syrup) and "til-gul laadoo" (sweetmeats made from sesame seeds and jaggery). "Gulachi poli/puran poli"(flat bread stuffed with soft/shredded jaggery mixed with toasted, ground til [white sesame seeds]) and some gram flour, which has been toasted to golden in pure ghee, are offered for lunch. While exchanging "til-gul" as tokens of goodwill people greet each other.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Married women invite friends/family members and celebrate Haldi-Kunku. Guests are given til-gul and some small gift, as a part of the ritual. Women and mens make it a point to wear black clothes. As Sakranti falls in the winter months of the region, wearing black adds to the body warmth. This is an essential reason behind wearing black, which is otherwise barred on festival days. As per another legend, Lord Surya forgave his son Shani and his son visited him on Sankranti. And that's why people distribute everyone sweets and urge them to let go of any negative or angry feelings. While distributing sweets famous line "til gul ghya aani god god bola" (which means eat this sesame and jaggery and speak sweet words) is used in Maharashtra.And also Newly married women offer five sunghat or small clay pots with black beaded threads tied around them, to the deity. These pots are filled with newly harvested food grains and are offered with betel leaves and areca nut. Its observance takes place on a rather subdued note, unlike major festivals of the region like Ganesh chaturthi.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The festival is known as Makara Sankranti in Odisha where people prepare "makara chaula" (): uncooked newly harvested rice, banana, coconut, jaggery, sesame, rasagola, Khai/Liaa and chhena puddings for naivedya to gods and goddesses. The withdrawing winter entails a change in food habits and intake of nourishing and rich food. Therefore, this festival holds traditional cultural significance. It is astronomically important for devotees who worship the sun god at the great Konark temple with fervour and enthusiasm as the sun starts its annual swing northwards. According to various Indian calendars, the Sun's movement changes and the days from this day onwards become lengthier and warmer and so the Sun-God is worshiped on this day as a great benefactor. Many individuals at the start of the day perform a ritual bath while fasting. Makara Mela (Fun fair) is observed at Dhabaleswar in Cuttack, Hatakeshwar at Atri in Khordha, Makara Muni temple in Balasore and near deities in each district of Odisha. In Puri special rituals are carried out at the temple of Lord Jagannath. In Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Kalahandi, Koraput and Sundargarh where the tribal population is greater, the festival is celebrated with great joy. They celebrate this festival with great enthusiasm, singing, dancing and generally having an enjoyable time. This Makara Sankranti celebration is next to the Odia traditional new year Maha Vishuva Sankranti which falls in mid April. Tribal groups celebrate with traditional dancing, eating their particular dishes sitting together, and by lighting bonfires.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In Punjab, Makar Sankranti is celebrated as Maghi which is a religious and cultural festival. Bathing in a river in the early hours on Maghi is important. Hindus light lamps with sesame oil as this is supposed to give prosperity and drive away all sins. A major mela is held at Sri Muktsar Sahib on Maghi which commemorates a historical event in Sikh history.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: "Makar Sankrati" or "Sakraat" in the Rajasthani language is one of the major festivals in the state of Rajasthan. The day is celebrated with special Rajasthani delicacies and sweets such as pheeni (either with sweet milk or sugar syrup dipped), til-patti, gajak, kheer, ghevar, pakodi, puwa, and til-laddoo.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Specially, the women of this region observe a ritual in which they give any type of object (related to household, make-up or food) to 13 married women. The first Sankranti experienced by a married woman is of significance as she is invited by her parents and brothers to their houses with her husband for a big feast. People invite friends and relatives (specially their sisters and daughters) to their home for special festival meals (called as "Sankrant Bhoj"). People give out many kind of small gifts such as til-gud (jaggery), fruits, dry khichadi, etc. to Brahmins or the needy ones.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Kite flying is traditionally observed as a part of this festival. On this occasion the sky in Jaipur and Hadoti regions is filled with kites, and youngsters engage in contests trying to cut each other's strings.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The festival is celebrated four days from the last day of the Tamil month Margazhi to the third day of the Tamil month Thai (Pausha).


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The first day of festival is Bhogi (போகி). It is celebrated on the last day of Margazhi by throwing away and destroying old clothes and materials, by setting them on fire, marking the end of the old and the emergence of the new. In villages there will be a simple ceremony of "Kappu Kattu" (kappu means secure). The 'neem' leaves are kept along the walls and roof of the houses. This is to eliminate evil forces.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The second day of festival is Thai Pongal or simply Pongal. It is celebrated by boiling rice with fresh milk and jaggery in new pots, which are later topped with brown sugar, cashew nuts and raisins early in the morning and allowing it to boil over the vessel. This tradition gives Pongal its name. The moment the rice boils over and bubbles out of the vessel, the tradition is to shout "பொங்கலோ பொங்கல் (Ponggalo Ponggal)!" and blow the "sangu" (a conch), a custom practised to announce it was going to be a year blessed with good tidings. Then, new boiled rice is offered to the Sun god during sunrise, as a prayer which symbolises thanks to the sun for providing prosperity. It is later served to the people in the house for the ceremony. People prepare savouries and sweets such as "vadai, murukku, payasam" and visit each other and exchange greetings.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The third day of festival is Maattu Pongal (மாட்டுப் பொங்கல்). It is for offering thanks to cattle, as they help farmers in agriculture. On this day the cattle are decorated with paint, flowers and bells. They are allowed to roam free and fed sweet rice and sugar cane. Some people decorate the horns with gold or other metallic covers. In some places, Jallikattu, or taming the wild bull contest, is the main event of this day and this is mostly seen in the villages.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The fourth day of the festival is Kaanum Pongal (காணும் பொங்கல்: the word kaanum means "to view"). During this day people visit their relatives, friends to enjoy the festive season. It is a day to thank relatives and friends for their support in the harvest. It started as a farmers festival, called as Uzhavar Thirunaal in Tamil. "Kolam" (கோலம்) decorations are made in front of the house during Thai Pongal festival.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In Kerala, this is called as Sankranti or Makara Sankranti. In Malabar villages, this used to be celebrated as the victory over a demon. In Sabarimala, on this day, the Makaravilakku is lit.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The Tripuri is the promoter of Hangrai festivals. They have first introduced this festival of immersing of ancestors' remains in the holy river. Since then it was adopted by other groups in India and popularized over the years.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Mythology inform us that when the world was just created by Lord Siva or Sibrai there was only the grassland and nothing was present. The god then created an egg to produce a human being. The egg hatched to give birth to a human being, creating a big bang. He crawled out of eggshells and looked around for anyone like him, but he found none. There was total silence, peace tranquility, and harmony on the earth. He was frightened by seeing this scenario of earth. He remained near the eggshell most of the time and went back near to the empty eggshell, went inside of half of the shell and covered it with another one, and hid there.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The almighty God was upset by this development. Years later he created another egg, and after ten months it hatched. There was a big bang when it hatched that shook the earth and gave birth to another human. He was very courageous and powerful, as soon as he came out of the human eggshell, he started shouting and announced to the whole of the world, 'I am the first to be born in this earth, I am the eldest on the earth, no one is elder to me in this earth. He named himself Subrai and declared to the whole of the earth that he is the ruler of this earth and king of this universe. Hearing the big bang Hangrai got more frightened, closed his eyes, and silently remained inside the shell. But when he heard the voice like his own, he came out of his shell and met Subrai. At this Subrai told that he is older than Hangrai, since then Subrai became the elder brother of Hangrai, and people knew them as it is.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Thousand of years later when they grew older, the time had come to leave this world. As Hangrai grew older than Subrai, one day he felt sick very seriously, Hangrai was on his death bed, Subrai was taking care of him. Then god came before them and said, 'Among both of you, Hangrai is elder than Subrai, I only know this, because I have created both of you. Hangrai will leave this earth very soon. Subrai will do all necessary rituals to cremate the body of Hangrai.' And god disappeared from there.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Then Subrai cried like a baby, touching the feet of Hangrai, saying, 'Elder brother, I have treated you like a younger brother for thousands of years, forgive me for my wrongdoing unto you.'


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Hangrai said, 'I have done so!' and touched his head as gesture of forgiving and blessing unto him, and then breadth for his last.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: After the death of Hangrai, his younger brother Subrai cremated his body and did all the rituals, and immerged Hangrai's remaining in the holy water of the river on the last day of Pousa month. Since then, people observed these rituals and festivals every year and continued to this day. That is why the day is named "Hangrai", which has later adopted by other ethnic groups of people of India.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Every year on the day of Hangrai the Tripuri people observe it in grand pomp and show. In every house of Tripuri preparation for Hangrai starts two-three days before. Houses are cleaned, washed whitewashed. All the utensils, clothes, articles are cleaned, homes are decorated. Different types of Tripura cakes, dishes, and drinks are prepared, near and dear ones, relatives are invited for a feast.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: The festival is known as "Kicheri" in Uttar Pradesh and involves ritual bathing. Over two million people gather at their respective sacred places for this holy bathing such as Prayagraj and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and Haridwar in Uttarakhand.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Makar Sankranti is a popular festival in Uttarakhand. It known by various names in the different parts of the state such as Uttarayani, Khichri Sangrand, Pusyodia, Ghughutia, Ghughuti Tyar, Kale Kauva, Makrain, Makraini, Gholda, Gwalda and Chunyatyar.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, Makar Sankranti (also called as Ghughuti (घुघुति) or Ghughuti Tyar or Ghughutia or Kale Kauva or Uttarayani) is celebrated with great gusto. The famous Uttarayani mela (fair) is held in Bageshwar town each year in the month of January on the occasion of Makar Sankrati. According to the Almora Gazetteer, even in the early twentieth century, the annual Uttarayani mela at Bageshwar was visited by approximately 15,000 people and was the largest fair of Kumaon division. The religious ritual of the Uttarayani mela consists of bathing before daybreak at the confluence of Saryu and Gomati followed by an offering of water to Lord Shiva inside the Bagnath Temple. Those who are more religiously disposed, continue this practice for three days in succession, which is known as "Trimaghi". On this day, people also give 'khichdi' (a dish made by mixing pulses and rice) in charity, take ceremonial dips in holy rivers, participate in Uttarayani fairs and offer deep fried sweetmeats consisting of flour and jaggery to crows and other birds as a way to pay homage to the departed souls of their ancestors.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In West Bengal, Sankranti, also known as Poush Sankranti named after the Bengali month in which it falls (last date of that month), is celebrated as a harvest festival Poush Parbon (Bengali: পৌষ পার্বণ). (It falls on 14 January on the Western calendar.) The freshly harvested paddy and the date palm syrup in the form of Khejurer Gur (Bengali: খেজুরের গুড়) and Patali (Bengali: পাটালি) is used in the preparation of a variety of traditional Bengali sweets made with rice flour, coconut, milk and 'khejurer gur' (date palm jaggery) and known as 'Pitha' (Bengali: পিঠে). All sections of society participate in a three-day festival that begins on the day before Sankranti and ends on the day after. The Goddess Lakshmi is usually worshipped on the day of Sankranti.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: In the Himalayan regions of Darjeeling, the festival is as known as Magey Sakrati. It is distinctly associated with the worship of Lord Shiva. Traditionally, people bathe at sunrise and then commence their pooja. Elsewhere, many people take a dip in places like Ganga Sagar (the point where the river Ganges meets the Bay of Bengal). Ganga Sagar falls in West Bengal.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Maghe Sankranti is a Nepalese festival observed on the first of Magha in the Vikram Sambat (B.S) calendar (about 14 January). Tharu people celebrate this particular day as new year. It is also regarded as the major government declared annual festival of the Magar community.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: Observant Hindus take ritual baths during this festival. These include Sankhamul on the Bagmati near Patan; In the Gandaki/Narayani river basin at Triveni, Devghat near Chitwan Valley and Ridi on the Kaligandaki; and in the Koshi River basin at Dolalghat on the Sun Koshi. Festive foods like laddoo, ghee and sweet potatoes are distributed.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: On this festive day, Sindhi parents send ladoos and chiki (Laaee) made of sesame seeds to their married daughters. The Sindhi community in India too celebrate Makar Sankranti as Tirmoori which involves parents sending sweet dishes to their daughters.


title: Makar Sankranti

text: On this day, the Tamil farmers and the Tamil People honour the Sun God Suriya Narayanan. This happens when the sun enters the zodiac sign of Capricorn (Makara). The Thai Pongal festival is celebrated in mid-January, or the Tamil month of Thai, to coincide with the rice harvest.


title: Tubthumping

text: "Tubthumping" is a song released by British rock band Chumbawamba from their eighth studio album, "Tubthumper" (1997). It is the band's most successful single, peaking at number two on the UK Singles Chart. It topped the charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and hit number six on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 (although it topped the US Modern Rock and Mainstream Top 40 charts). At the 1998 Brit Awards, "Tubthumping" was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Single. It sold 880,000 copies in the UK.


title: Tubthumping

text: The song was the group's lead single from "Tubthumper", their major-label debut. It was released on 11 August 1997. Vocalist Dunstan Bruce retrospectively observed that, before the group wrote it, they "were in a mess: we had become directionless and disparate". He credited "Tubthumping" with changing that, telling "The Guardian", "It's not our most political or best song, but it brought us back together. The song is about us – as a class and as a band. The beauty of it was we had no idea how big it would be."


title: Tubthumping

text: A Leeds pub called the Fforde Grene served as the group's inspiration for the song; guitarist Boff Whalley told "The Guardian" that it was written about "the resilience of ordinary people"; musically, "Tubthumping" is a dance-rock, alternative rock, and dance-punk song in D major.


title: Tubthumping

text: Larry Flick from "Billboard" wrote, "Some records just demand attention: 'Tubthumping' is one of the rare few. You can spend three times the track's running time plucking out the seemingly disparate sounds and assorted genre references—starting with the forceful alterna-rock guitar scratches, the hip-hop-derived beats, and the swing-style horns. Holding it all together are the kind of rousing, gang-like chants that you hear at football games. Sounds odd, eh? Well, you won't soon forget this jam after first listen. And you'll likely be hearing it on pop and modern rock stations for months to come. If this gem is indicative of the tone of the act's forthcoming album, it should be quite a head trip." A reviewer from "Daily Record" described it as an "irritating catchy drinking anthem from the anarchist band". It was also called a "raucous anthem". Pan-European magazine "Music & Media" said, "After a decade and a half spent as indie heroes this collective is likely to break into the mainstream in a big way". "Music Week" gave the song four out of five, noting that it "combines their unique sound with a very infectious chant that could have come from the terraces. Radio One's Simon Mayo has been heavily championing the song which should prove to be their biggest hit to date." Ian Hyland of the "Sunday Mirror" rated it eight out of ten, writing, "Sing a terrace chant, mention lager and the rugby boys will be making boozed-up human pyramids on the dance floor in seconds. And you'll have a monster hit – good work, chum." Troy J. Augusto from "Variety" declared it as a "drinking-and-dancing anthem" and "the quirk hit of the season".


title: Tubthumping

text: In "The Village Voice"s Pazz & Jop poll for 1997, "Tubthumping" was voted the second-best single of the year. Australian radio station Triple J ranked it No. 3 in its Triple J Hottest 100 for the same year. Author Bruce Pollock included it in his 2005 book "The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000". "Tubthumping" also placed at No. 12 in "Rolling Stone"s 2007 list of the "20 Most Annoying Songs" and at No. 8 in the magazine's 2011 list of the "Top 10 One-Hit Wonders of All Time".


title: Tubthumping

text: Upon its release, the song became an international hit. On the UK Singles Chart, it debuted at number two on the chart dated 23 August 1997; it spent three consecutive weeks at number two, held off the top spot by Will Smith's "Men in Black." The song spent 11 consecutive weeks in the top 10, and 20 consecutive weeks on the top 100. On the chart dated 24 January 1998, three weeks after its last week on the chart, the song reentered the singles chart at number 88; the next week, it fell to number 96 before exiting the chart.


title: Tubthumping

text: In the US, the song debuted on the "Billboard" Hot 100 dated 13 September 1997, at number 79. The next week, it rose to number 63, attaining the week's biggest gain in airplay. Two weeks later, on the chart dated 4 October 1997, the song was again the biggest airplay gainer of the week, entering the top 40 in its rise from 47 to 35. In its 12th week on the chart, 29 November 1997, the song reached its peak of number six, where it spent two weeks. In total, it spent 31 weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Tubthumping

text: The single was also present on many year-end singles charts for 1997. In the UK, it ranked as the year's seventh most-popular single, while it placed at number three on Australia's top 100 songs of the year. The single also placed in the top 20 of the year-end chart in Sweden and in the top 100 of 1997 in Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United States. In the US, it placed at number 35 on the "Billboard" Hot 100's year-end ranking for 1998.


title: Tubthumping

text: "Tubthumping (remix)" was released in 2003 as a promotional CD by Chumbawamba on Koch Records. The remixed version of the song was done by The Flaming Lips and Dave Fridmann.


title: Tubthumping

text: The single was released promotionally by Mutt Records, with their previous single, "Jacob's Ladder (Not in My Name)", as a B-side. It was also included on the bonus DVD accompanying "Readymades and Then Some", the rerelease of their 2002 album "Readymades". Stereogum also made the song available as a free MP3 download in June 2004.


title: Tubthumping

text: A neon sculpture on the Leeds Playhouse features the lyric "I get knocked down but I get up again". During the COVID-19 pandemic in Leeds, the song was given a remix by local young musicians and sportspeople.


title: Tubthumping

text: Alternative rock band They Might Be Giants covered "Tubthumping" for The A.V. Club's A.V. Undercover series, and included on the compilation album "Album Raises New and Troubling Questions".


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The Akaike information criterion (AIC) is an estimator of prediction error and thereby relative quality of statistical models for a given set of data. Given a collection of models for the data, AIC estimates the quality of each model, relative to each of the other models. Thus, AIC provides a means for model selection.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: AIC is founded on information theory. When a statistical model is used to represent the process that generated the data, the representation will almost never be exact; so some information will be lost by using the model to represent the process. AIC estimates the relative amount of information lost by a given model: the less information a model loses, the higher the quality of that model.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: In estimating the amount of information lost by a model, AIC deals with the trade-off between the goodness of fit of the model and the simplicity of the model. In other words, AIC deals with both the risk of overfitting and the risk of underfitting.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The Akaike information criterion is named after the Japanese statistician Hirotugu Akaike, who formulated it. It now forms the basis of a paradigm for the foundations of statistics and is also widely used for statistical inference.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Suppose that we have a statistical model of some data. Let be the number of estimated parameters in the model. Let formula_1 be the maximized value of the likelihood function for the model. Then the AIC value of the model is the following.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Given a set of candidate models for the data, the preferred model is the one with the minimum AIC value. Thus, AIC rewards goodness of fit (as assessed by the likelihood function), but it also includes a penalty that is an increasing function of the number of estimated parameters. The penalty discourages overfitting, which is desired because increasing the number of parameters in the model almost always improves the goodness of the fit.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: AIC is founded in information theory. Suppose that the data is generated by some unknown process "f". We consider two candidate models to represent "f": "g" and "g". If we knew "f", then we could find the information lost from using "g" to represent "f" by calculating the Kullback–Leibler divergence, ; similarly, the information lost from using "g" to represent "f" could be found by calculating . We would then, generally, choose the candidate model that minimized the information loss.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: We cannot choose with certainty, because we do not know "f". showed, however, that we can estimate, via AIC, how much more (or less) information is lost by "g" than by "g". The estimate, though, is only valid asymptotically; if the number of data points is small, then some correction is often necessary (see AICc, below).


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Note that AIC tells nothing about the absolute quality of a model, only the quality relative to other models. Thus, if all the candidate models fit poorly, AIC will not give any warning of that. Hence, after selecting a model via AIC, it is usually good practice to validate the absolute quality of the model. Such validation commonly includes checks of the model's residuals (to determine whether the residuals seem like random) and tests of the model's predictions. For more on this topic, see "statistical model validation".


title: Akaike information criterion

text: To apply AIC in practice, we start with a set of candidate models, and then find the models' corresponding AIC values. There will almost always be information lost due to using a candidate model to represent the "true model," i.e. the process that generated the data. We wish to select, from among the candidate models, the model that minimizes the information loss. We cannot choose with certainty, but we can minimize the estimated information loss.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Suppose that there are "R" candidate models. Denote the AIC values of those models by AIC, AIC, AIC, ..., AIC. Let AIC be the minimum of those values. Then the quantity exp((AIC − AIC)/2) can be interpreted as being proportional to the probability that the "i"th model minimizes the (estimated) information loss.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: As an example, suppose that there are three candidate models, whose AIC values are 100, 102, and 110. Then the second model is times as probable as the first model to minimize the information loss. Similarly, the third model is times as probable as the first model to minimize the information loss.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: In this example, we would omit the third model from further consideration. We then have three options: (1) gather more data, in the hope that this will allow clearly distinguishing between the first two models; (2) simply conclude that the data is insufficient to support selecting one model from among the first two; (3) take a weighted average of the first two models, with weights proportional to 1 and 0.368, respectively, and then do statistical inference based on the weighted multimodel.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The quantity is known as the "relative likelihood" of model "i". It is closely related to the likelihood ratio used in the likelihood-ratio test. Indeed, if all the models in the candidate set have the same number of parameters, then using AIC might at first appear to be very similar to using the likelihood-ratio test. There are, however, important distinctions. In particular, the likelihood-ratio test is valid only for nested models, whereas AIC (and AICc) has no such restriction.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Every statistical hypothesis test can be formulated as a comparison of statistical models. Hence, every statistical hypothesis test can be replicated via AIC. Two examples are briefly described in the subsections below. Details for those examples, and many more examples, are given by and .


title: Akaike information criterion

text: As an example of a hypothesis test, consider the "t"-test to compare the means of two normally-distributed populations. The input to the "t"-test comprises a random sample from each of the two populations.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: To formulate the test as a comparison of models, we construct two different models. The first model models the two populations as having potentially different means and standard deviations. The likelihood function for the first model is thus the product of the likelihoods for two distinct normal distributions; so it has four parameters: . To be explicit, the likelihood function is as follows (denoting the sample sizes by and ).


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The second model models the two populations as having the same means but potentially different standard deviations. The likelihood function for the second model thus sets in the above equation; so it has three parameters.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: We then maximize the likelihood functions for the two models (in practice, we maximize the log-likelihood functions); after that, it is easy to calculate the AIC values of the models. We next calculate the relative likelihood. For instance, if the second model was only 0.01 times as likely as the first model, then we would omit the second model from further consideration: so we would conclude that the two populations have different means.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The "t"-test assumes that the two populations have identical standard deviations; the test tends to be unreliable if the assumption is false and the sizes of the two samples are very different (Welch's "t"-test would be better). Comparing the means of the populations via AIC, as in the example above, has an advantage by not making such assumptions.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: For another example of a hypothesis test, suppose that we have two populations, and each member of each population is in one of two categories—category #1 or category #2. Each population is binomially distributed. We want to know whether the distributions of the two populations are the same. We are given a random sample from each of the two populations.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Let be the size of the sample from the first population. Let be the number of observations (in the sample) in category #1; so the number of observations in category #2 is . Similarly, let be the size of the sample from the second population. Let be the number of observations (in the sample) in category #1.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Let be the probability that a randomly-chosen member of the first population is in category #1. Hence, the probability that a randomly-chosen member of the first population is in category #2 is . Note that the distribution of the first population has one parameter. Let be the probability that a randomly-chosen member of the second population is in category #1. Note that the distribution of the second population also has one parameter.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: To compare the distributions of the two populations, we construct two different models. The first model models the two populations as having potentially different distributions. The likelihood function for the first model is thus the product of the likelihoods for two distinct binomial distributions; so it has two parameters: , . To be explicit, the likelihood function is as follows.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The second model models the two populations as having the same distribution. The likelihood function for the second model thus sets in the above equation; so the second model has one parameter.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: We then maximize the likelihood functions for the two models (in practice, we maximize the log-likelihood functions); after that, it is easy to calculate the AIC values of the models. We next calculate the relative likelihood. For instance, if the second model was only 0.01 times as likely as the first model, then we would omit the second model from further consideration: so we would conclude that the two populations have different distributions.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Statistical inference is generally regarded as comprising hypothesis testing and estimation. Hypothesis testing can be done via AIC, as discussed above. Regarding estimation, there are two types: point estimation and interval estimation. Point estimation can be done within the AIC paradigm: it is provided by maximum likelihood estimation. Interval estimation can also be done within the AIC paradigm: it is provided by likelihood intervals. Hence, statistical inference generally can be done within the AIC paradigm.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The most commonly used paradigms for statistical inference are frequentist inference and Bayesian inference. AIC, though, can be used to do statistical inference without relying on either the frequentist paradigm or the Bayesian paradigm: because AIC can be interpreted without the aid of significance levels or Bayesian priors. In other words, AIC can be used to form a foundation of statistics that is distinct from both frequentism and Bayesianism.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: When the sample size is small, there is a substantial probability that AIC will select models that have too many parameters, i.e. that AIC will overfit. To address such potential overfitting, AICc was developed: AICc is AIC with a correction for small sample sizes.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The formula for AICc depends upon the statistical model. Assuming that the model is univariate, is linear in its parameters, and has normally-distributed residuals (conditional upon regressors), then the formula for AICc is as follows.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: —where denotes the sample size and denotes the number of parameters. Thus, AICc is essentially AIC with an extra penalty term for the number of parameters. Note that as , the extra penalty term converges to 0, and thus AICc converges to AIC.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: If the assumption that the model is univariate and linear with normal residuals does not hold, then the formula for AICc will generally be different from the formula above. For some models, the formula can be difficult to determine. For every model that has AICc available, though, the formula for AICc is given by AIC plus terms that includes both and . In comparison, the formula for AIC includes but not . In other words, AIC is a first-order estimate (of the information loss), whereas AICc is a second-order estimate.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Further discussion of the formula, with examples of other assumptions, is given by and by . In particular, with other assumptions, bootstrap estimation of the formula is often feasible.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: To summarize, AICc has the advantage of tending to be more accurate than AIC (especially for small samples), but AICc also has the disadvantage of sometimes being much more difficult to compute than AIC. Note that if all the candidate models have the same and the same formula for AICc, then AICc and AIC will give identical (relative) valuations; hence, there will be no disadvantage in using AIC, instead of AICc. Furthermore, if is many times larger than , then the extra penalty term will be negligible; hence, the disadvantage in using AIC, instead of AICc, will be negligible.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The Akaike information criterion was formulated by the statistician Hirotugu Akaike. It was originally named "an information criterion". It was first announced in English by Akaike at a 1971 symposium; the proceedings of the symposium were published in 1973. The 1973 publication, though, was only an informal presentation of the concepts. The first formal publication was a 1974 paper by Akaike. , the 1974 paper had received more than 14,000 citations in the Web of Science: making it the 73rd most-cited research paper of all time.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Nowadays, AIC has become common enough that it is often used without citing Akaike's 1974 paper. Indeed, there are over 150,000 scholarly articles/books that use AIC (as assessed by Google Scholar).


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The initial derivation of AIC relied upon some strong assumptions. showed that the assumptions could be made much weaker. Takeuchi's work, however, was in Japanese and was not widely known outside Japan for many years.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: AICc was originally proposed for linear regression (only) by . That instigated the work of , and several further papers by the same authors, which extended the situations in which AICc could be applied.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The first general exposition of the information-theoretic approach was the volume by . It includes an English presentation of the work of Takeuchi. The volume led to far greater use of AIC, and it now has more than 48,000 citations on Google Scholar.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Akaike called his approach an "entropy maximization principle", because the approach is founded on the concept of entropy in information theory. Indeed, minimizing AIC in a statistical model is effectively equivalent to maximizing entropy in a thermodynamic system; in other words, the information-theoretic approach in statistics is essentially applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As such, AIC has roots in the work of Ludwig Boltzmann on entropy. For more on these issues, see and .


title: Akaike information criterion

text: A statistical model must account for random errors. A straight line model might be formally described as "y" = "b" + "b""x" + "ε". Here, the "ε" are the residuals from the straight line fit. If the "ε" are assumed to be i.i.d. Gaussian (with zero mean), then the model has three parameters:


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Thus, when calculating the AIC value of this model, we should use "k"=3. More generally, for any least squares model with i.i.d. Gaussian residuals, the variance of the residuals' distributions should be counted as one of the parameters.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: "x" = "c" + "φx" + "ε", with the "ε" being i.i.d. Gaussian (with zero mean). For this model, there are three parameters: "c", "φ", and the variance of the "ε". More generally, a "p"th-order autoregressive model has parameters. (If, however, "c" is not estimated from the data, but instead given in advance, then there are only parameters.)


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The AIC values of the candidate models must all be computed with the same data set. Sometimes, though, we might want to compare a model of the response variable, , with a model of the logarithm of the response variable, . More generally, we might want to compare a model of the data with a model of transformed data. Following is an illustration of how to deal with data transforms (adapted from : "Investigators should be sure that all hypotheses are modeled using the same response variable").


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Suppose that we want to compare two models: one with a normal distribution of and one with a normal distribution of . We should "not" directly compare the AIC values of the two models. Instead, we should transform the normal cumulative distribution function to first take the logarithm of . To do that, we need to perform the relevant integration by substitution: thus, we need to multiply by the derivative of the (natural) logarithm function, which is . Hence, the transformed distribution has the following probability density function:


title: Akaike information criterion

text: —which is the probability density function for the log-normal distribution. We then compare the AIC value of the normal model against the AIC value of the log-normal model.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The critical difference between AIC and BIC (and their variants) is the asymptotic property under well-specified and misspecified model classes. Their fundamental differences have been well-studied in regression variable selection and autoregression order selection problems. In general, if the goal is prediction, AIC and leave-one-out cross-validations are preferred. If the goal is selection, inference, or interpretation, BIC or leave-many-out cross-validations are preferred. A comprehensive overview of AIC and other popular model selection methods is given by Ding et al.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: The formula for the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) is similar to the formula for AIC, but with a different penalty for the number of parameters. With AIC the penalty is , whereas with BIC the penalty is .


title: Akaike information criterion

text: A comparison of AIC/AICc and BIC is given by , with follow-up remarks by . The authors show that AIC/AICc can be derived in the same Bayesian framework as BIC, just by using different prior probabilities. In the Bayesian derivation of BIC, though, each candidate model has a prior probability of 1/"R" (where "R" is the number of candidate models). Additionally, the authors present a few simulation studies that suggest AICc tends to have practical/performance advantages over BIC.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: A point made by several researchers is that AIC and BIC are appropriate for different tasks. In particular, BIC is argued to be appropriate for selecting the "true model" (i.e. the process that generated the data) from the set of candidate models, whereas AIC is not appropriate. To be specific, if the "true model" is in the set of candidates, then BIC will select the "true model" with probability 1, as ; in contrast, when selection is done via AIC, the probability can be less than 1. Proponents of AIC argue that this issue is negligible, because the "true model" is virtually never in the candidate set. Indeed, it is a common aphorism in statistics that "all models are wrong"; hence the "true model" (i.e. reality) cannot be in the candidate set.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Another comparison of AIC and BIC is given by . Vrieze presents a simulation study—which allows the "true model" to be in the candidate set (unlike with virtually all real data). The simulation study demonstrates, in particular, that AIC sometimes selects a much better model than BIC even when the "true model" is in the candidate set. The reason is that, for finite , BIC can have a substantial risk of selecting a very bad model from the candidate set. This reason can arise even when is much larger than . With AIC, the risk of selecting a very bad model is minimized.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: If the "true model" is not in the candidate set, then the most that we can hope to do is select the model that best approximates the "true model". AIC is appropriate for finding the best approximating model, under certain assumptions. (Those assumptions include, in particular, that the approximating is done with regard to information loss.)


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Comparison of AIC and BIC in the context of regression is given by . In regression, AIC is asymptotically optimal for selecting the model with the least mean squared error, under the assumption that the "true model" is not in the candidate set. BIC is not asymptotically optimal under the assumption. Yang additionally shows that the rate at which AIC converges to the optimum is, in a certain sense, the best possible.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Leave-one-out cross-validation is asymptotically equivalent to AIC, for ordinary linear regression models. Asymptotic equivalence to AIC also holds for mixed-effects models.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Sometimes, each candidate model assumes that the residuals are distributed according to independent identical normal distributions (with zero mean). That gives rise to least squares model fitting.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: With least squares fitting, the maximum likelihood estimate for the variance of a model's residuals distributions is the reduced chi-squared statistic, formula_8, where formula_9 is the residual sum of squares: formula_10. Then, the maximum value of a model's log-likelihood function is


title: Akaike information criterion

text: —where is a constant independent of the model, and dependent only on the particular data points, i.e. it does not change if the data does not change.


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Because only differences in AIC are meaningful, the constant can be ignored, which allows us to conveniently take the following for model comparisons:


title: Akaike information criterion

text: Note that if all the models have the same , then selecting the model with minimum AIC is equivalent to selecting the model with minimum —which is the usual objective of model selection based on least squares.


title: Satrap

text: A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires.


title: Satrap

text: The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with considerable autonomy. The word came to suggest tyranny or ostentatious splendour, and in modern usage refers to any subordinate or local ruler, usually with unfavourable connotations of corruption.


title: Satrap

text: The word is derived via Latin from Greek "satrápes" (), itself borrowed from an Old Iranian "*khshathra-pa". In Old Persian, which was the native language of the Achaemenids, it is recorded as "khshathapavan" (, literally "protector of the province"). The Median form is reconstructed as "*khshathrapavan-". It is cognate with Sanskrit "kshetrapal" (). The Biblical Hebrew form is "aḥashdarpan" , as found in .


title: Satrap

text: In the Parthian (language of the Arsacid Empire) and Middle Persian (the language of the Sassanian Empire), it is recorded in the forms "šahrab" and "šasab", respectively.


title: Satrap

text: In modern Persian the descendant of khshathrapavan is "shahrbān" (), but the components have undergone semantic shift so the word now means "town keeper" ("shahr" [] meaning "town" + "ban" [] meaning "keeper").


title: Satrap

text: Although the first large-scale use of satrapies, or provinces, originates from the inception of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, beginning at around 530BCE, provincial organization actually originated during the Median era from at least 648BCE.


title: Satrap

text: Up to the time of the conquest of Media by Cyrus the Great, emperors ruled the lands they conquered through client kings and governors. The main difference was that in Persian culture the concept of kingship was indivisible from divinity: divine authority validated the divine right of kings. The twenty-six satraps established by Cyrus were never kings, but viceroys ruling in the king's name, although in political reality many took advantage of any opportunity to carve themselves an independent power base. Darius the Great gave the satrapies a definitive organization, increased their number to thirty-six, and fixed their annual tribute (Behistun inscription).


title: Satrap

text: The satrap was in charge of the land that he owned as an administrator, and found himself surrounded by an all-but-royal court; he collected the taxes, controlled the local officials and the subject tribes and cities, and was the supreme judge of the province before whose "chair" ("Nehemiah"3:7) every civil and criminal case could be brought. He was responsible for the safety of the roads (cf.Xenophon), and had to put down brigands and rebels.


title: Satrap

text: He was assisted by a council of Persians, to which also provincials were admitted and which was controlled by a royal secretary and emissaries of the king, especially the "eye of the king", who made an annual inspection and exercised permanent control.


title: Satrap

text: There were further checks on the power of each satrap: besides his secretarial scribe, his chief financial official (Old Persian "ganzabara") and the general in charge of the regular army of his province and of the fortresses were independent of him and periodically reported directly to the "shah", in person. The satrap was allowed to have troops in his own service.


title: Satrap

text: The great satrapies (provinces) were often divided into smaller districts, the governors of which were also called satraps and (by Greco-Roman authors) also called "hyparchs" (actually "Hyparkhos" in Greek, 'vice-regents'). The distribution of the great satrapies was changed repeatedly, and often two of them were given to the same man.


title: Satrap

text: As the provinces were the result of consecutive conquests (the homeland had a special status, exempt from provincial tribute), both primary and sub-satrapies were often defined by former states and/or ethno-religious identity. One of the keys to the Achaemenid success was their open attitude to the culture and religion of the conquered people, so the Persian culture was the one most affected as the Great King endeavoured to meld elements from all his subjects into a new imperial style, especially at his capital, Persepolis.


title: Satrap

text: Whenever central authority in the empire weakened, the satrap often enjoyed practical independence, especially as it became customary to appoint him also as general-in-chief of the army district, contrary to the original rule. "When his office became hereditary, the threat to the central authority could not be ignored" (Olmstead). Rebellions of satraps became frequent from the middle of the 5thcentury BCE. Darius I struggled with widespread rebellions in the satrapies, and under Artaxerxes II occasionally the greater parts of Asia Minor and Syria were in open rebellion (Revolt of the Satraps).


title: Satrap

text: The satrapic administration and title were retained—even for Greco-Macedonian incumbents—by Alexander the Great, who conquered the Achaemenid Empire, and by his successors, the Diadochi (and their dynasties) who carved it up, especially in the Seleucid Empire, where the satrap generally was designated as "strategos" (in other words, military generals); but their provinces were much smaller than under the Persians. They would ultimately be replaced by conquering empires, especially the Parthians.


title: Satrap

text: In the Parthian Empire, the king's power rested on the support of noble families, who ruled large estates and supplied soldiers and tribute to the king. City-states within the empire enjoyed a degree of self-government, and paid tribute to the king. Administration of the Sassanid Empire was considerably more centralized than that of the Parthian Empire; the semi-independent kingdoms and self-governing city states of the Parthian Empire were replaced with a system of "royal cities" which served as the seats of centrally appointed governors called "shahrabs" as well as the location of military garrisons. "Shahrabs" ruled both the city and the surrounding rural districts. Exceptionally, the Byzantine Empire also adopted the title "satrap" for the semi-autonomous princes that governed one of its Armenian provinces, the "Satrapiae".


title: Satrap

text: The Western Satraps or Kshatrapas (35–405 CE) of the Indian subcontinent were Saka rulers in the western and central part of the Sindh region of Pakistan, and the Saurashtra and Malwa regions of western India. They were contemporaneous with the Kushans, who ruled the northern part of the subcontinent from the area of Peshawar and were possibly their overlords, and with the Satavahana, who ruled in central India to their south and east and the Kushan state to their immediate west.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hope Charlotte Hicks (born October 21, 1988) is an American public relations executive and political advisor who served in President Donald Trump’s administration from 2017 to 2018 and 2020 to 2021. She served as White House Director of Strategic Communications from January to September 2017, as White House Communications Director from 2017 to 2018, and returned to serve as a Counselor to the President from 2020 to 2021.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hicks began her media and communications career as a teenage model and, after college and a couple years' work in public relations, became an employee of the Trump Organization. From there, she became press secretary and early communications director for the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, shifting to national press secretary for the presidential transition team before joining the Trump Administration. When Hicks resigned the Administration in March 2018, she was Trump's longest-serving political aide. After her resignation, she was Fox Corporation's chief communications officer and executive vice president. She returned to the White House as Counselor to President Trump in March 2020, before departing for the final time on January 13, 2021.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hicks is the daughter of Caye Ann (Cavender) Hicks and Paul Burton Hicks III. She grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. Her father was Regional CEO, Americas of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, and executive vice president of communications for the National Football League from 2010 to 2015, before becoming managing director of the Glover Park Group. Her family had a history in government administration: her mother was an administrative aide to Ed Jones, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee; her maternal grandfather, G. W. F. "Dutch" Cavender, worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture as an administrator during two different administrations; and her maternal grandmother, Marilee Cavender, worked at the U.S. Department of Transportation.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hicks was a teenage model, appearing in "Greenwich" magazine in 2002. She then posed for a Ralph Lauren campaign with her older sister Mary Grace, and was the face of the "Hourglass Adventures" novels about a time-traveling 10-year-old. She was the cover model for "The It Girl" (2005), the first novel in the series by Cecily von Ziegesar.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hicks attended Greenwich High School, where she was co-captain of the lacrosse team and graduated in 2006. She then attended Southern Methodist University, where she majored in English and played on a club lacrosse program she helped start. She graduated in 2010.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hicks began in public relations with the New York City firm Zeno Group. She joined public relations firm Hiltzik Strategies in 2012, after meeting the firm's founder at a Super Bowl event, and worked there for Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, on her fashion line, and then on other Trump ventures.


title: Hope Hicks

text: In August 2014, Hicks joined the Trump Organization full-time. She worked for Ivanka Trump inside Trump Tower, helping expand her fashion label (the Ivanka Trump Collection) and modeling for her online store. In October 2014, she began working directly for Donald Trump.


title: Hope Hicks

text: In January 2015, Donald Trump chose Hicks, who was 26 at the time, for the role of press secretary for his potential presidential campaign. Trump summoned her to his office and, as she tells it, "Mr. Trump looked at me and said, 'I'm thinking about running for president, and you're going to be my press secretary. Until that time, she had never worked in politics or volunteered on a campaign. After Trump's first primary victories, Hicks was asked to choose between staying with the Trump Organization or working on the campaign full-time. She initially decided to leave the campaign, but Trump convinced her to remain, and she stayed on as press secretary.


title: Hope Hicks

text: During the campaign, she played the role of gatekeeper to press members who wanted to speak with Trump, handling over 250 requests a day and deciding which reporters would be allowed to speak with him. Hicks also took dictation from Trump for his tweets, and then sent the text to another person in the Trump organization who sent the tweets from Trump's official account. When in New York City, she would spend most of her day in Trump's office, handling inquiries from the press and taking dictation from him to tweet.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On December 22, 2016, it was announced that Hicks would become part of the Trump administration, in the newly created position of the White House director of strategic communications.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On August 16, 2017, she was appointed as the interim White House communications director (the last director having been Anthony Scaramucci). "Politico" labeled her the "Untouchable Hope Hicks", as she was considered one of the few White House officials whose job was safe, and one of only two White House communications officials Scaramucci had announced were definitely staying when he was first hired. She was appointed permanent White House communications director on September 12, 2017.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On February 27, 2018, Hicks gave nine hours of closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. She acknowledged that she sometimes had to tell "white lies" in her work as communications director, but refused to answer any questions about her tenure in the White House. The next day the White House confirmed to "The New York Times" that Hicks planned to resign. According to "multiple sources", she had been planning to resign for months, and her announcement was unrelated to the events of the preceding 24 hours. She officially resigned on March 29, 2018.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Between March 2018 and March 2020, Hicks was Fox Corporation's chief communications officer and executive vice president. During this time, she made over $1.8 million.


title: Hope Hicks

text: In February 2020, it was announced that Hicks would return to the White House Office as an aide to Jared Kushner and counselor to President Donald Trump. She officially assumed her roles at the White House on March 9.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On June 1, 2020, during the George Floyd protests in Washington, Hicks and others suggested that Trump walk to St. John's Episcopal Church across the street from the White House to make a public appearance. Law enforcement subsequently used tear gas and other riot control tactics to forcefully clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square and surrounding streets, creating a path for President Donald Trump and senior administration officials, including Hicks, to the church. It was later reported Hicks had suggested Trump say a prayer at this appearance, but he held up a Bible instead.


title: Hope Hicks

text: In January 2017, Hicks was included on the "Forbes" 30 Under 30 list, having "served as a one-woman press team" for Trump's presidential campaign.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On March 4, 2019, the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Hicks requesting information regarding alleged obstruction of justice by the current administration. (She was mentioned over 180 times in Robert Mueller's report on Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice; the report was released on April 18, 2019.) The Committee subpoenaed documents and her testimony on May 21, 2019. On June 4, 2019, the Trump White House invoked executive privilege, directing Hicks to not provide any documents related to her employment in the Trump administration. She agreed to testify in a closed-door session on June 19, 2019, during which lawyers for the Trump administration forbade Hicks from answering questions 155 times, claiming that due to "absolute immunity", Hicks "may not speak about anything that occurred during the time of her employment in the White House as a close adviser to the President". Hicks testified on the scheduled date, and also complied with the White House request to not answer questions. On July 18, 2019, unredacted search warrant documents from the Michael Cohen criminal case were released, and it appeared a strong possibility that Hicks had known about hush payments made by Michael Cohen on behalf of Donald Trump before the dates she had previously claimed.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On October 1, 2020, it was announced that Hicks had tested positive for COVID-19. Because of her positive test and her recent travels with the president, President Trump and first lady Melania Trump were also tested. Hours later, Trump announced that both he and Melania had tested positive and would immediately go into quarantine at the White House.


title: Hope Hicks

text: "The New York Times" reported in June 2022 that, in the weeks after the 2020 election Trump falsely insisted had been stolen from him, some of his aides quietly disagreed with him. Hicks advised Trump to move on, leading him to say, "Well, Hope doesn’t believe in me," to which she replied, "No, I don’t. Nobody’s convinced me otherwise." She disappeared from public view in the final weeks of Trump's presidency.


title: Hope Hicks

text: On October 25, 2022, Hicks sat for a "transcribed interview" with the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Part of the interview, which was also revealed to have been videotaped, was televised during the committee's December 19, 2022 public hearing, featured Hicks stating that during a conversation about his legacy, Trump told her "something along the lines of 'nobody will care about my legacy if I lose ... the only thing that matters is winning.'"


title: Hope Hicks

text: Before Trump's election, Hicks split her time between Greenwich, Connecticut (where she had an apartment with her sister) and Manhattan. When Trump was elected, she moved to Washington, D.C.


title: Hope Hicks

text: Hicks dated Rob Porter, former White House Staff Secretary for President Donald Trump, from 2017 to late 2018; their relationship had ended by December 2018. In 2020, she was reported to date Goldman Sachs Managing Director and member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board Jim Donovan.


title: South Island

text: The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, and to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers , making it the world's 12th-largest island. At low altitude, it has an oceanic climate.


title: South Island

text: The South Island is shaped by the Southern Alps which run along it from north to south. They include New Zealand's highest peak, Aoraki / Mount Cook at . The high Kaikōura Ranges lie to the northeast. The east side of the island is home to the Canterbury Plains while the West Coast is famous for its rough coastlines such as Fiordland, a very high proportion of native bush and national parks, and the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The main centres are Christchurch and Dunedin. The economy relies on agriculture and fishing, tourism, and general manufacturing and services.


title: South Island

text: Although it constitutes 56% of New Zealand's land area, the South Island is home to only % of New Zealand's million inhabitants. After the 1860s gold rushes in the early stages of Pākehā (European) settlement of the country, the South Island had the majority of the European population and wealth. The North Island's population overtook the South Island's in the early 20th century, with 56% of the New Zealand population living in the North Island in 1911. The drift north of people and businesses continued throughout the twentieth century.


title: South Island

text: In the 19th century, some maps identified the South Island as "Middle Island" or "New Munster", and the name "South Island" or "New Leinster" was used for today's Stewart Island / Rakiura. In 1907, the Minister for Lands gave instructions to the Land and Survey Department that the name Middle Island was not to be used in the future. "South Island will be adhered to in all cases".


title: South Island

text: Although the island had been known as the South Island for many years, in 2009 the New Zealand Geographic Board found that along with the North Island, the South Island had no official name. After a public consultation, the board officially named the island South Island or Te Waipounamu in October 2013.


title: South Island

text: Said to mean "the Water(s) of Greenstone", "Te Waipounamu" possibly evolved from "Te Wāhi Pounamu" ("the Place of Greenstone"). The island is also known as "Te Waka a Māui" which means "Māui's Canoe". In some modern alliterations of Māori legends, the South Island existed first, as the boat of Māui, while the North Island was the fish that he caught. Various Māori iwi sometimes use different names, with some preferring to call the South Island "Te Waka o Aoraki", referring to another Māori legend called the story of Aoraki, as after the world was created Aoraki and his three brothers came down in a waka to visit their mother, Papatūānuku the earth mother, only to crash after failing to perform a karakia on their way back home to their father, Ranginui (also known as Raki) the sky father, in turn causing the waka to transform into an island and the four brothers into the mountain ranges on top of it.


title: South Island

text: In prose, the two main islands of New Zealand are called "the North Island" and "the South Island", with the definite article. It is also normal to use the preposition "in" rather than "on", for example "Christchurch is in the South Island", "my mother lives in the South Island". Maps, headings, tables, and adjectival expressions use "South Island" without "the".


title: South Island

text: As it is 32% larger than the North Island but contains less than a quarter of the country's population, the South Island is sometimes humorously nicknamed the "mainland" of New Zealand by its residents.


title: South Island

text: Charcoal drawings can be found on limestone rock shelters in the centre of the South Island, with over 500 sites stretching from Kaikōura to North Otago. The drawings are estimated to be between 500 and 800 years old and portray animals, people and fantastic creatures, possibly stylised reptiles. Some of the birds pictured are long extinct, including moa and Haast's eagles. They were drawn by early Māori, but by the time Europeans arrived, local Māori did not know the origins of the drawings.


title: South Island

text: Early inhabitants of the South Island were the Waitaha. They were largely absorbed via marriage and conquest by the Kāti Māmoe in the 16th century.


title: South Island

text: Kāti Māmoe were in turn largely absorbed via marriage and conquest by the Kāi Tahu who migrated south in the 17th century. While today there is no distinct Kāti Māmoe organisation, many Kāi Tahu have Kāti Māmoe links in their whakapapa and especially in the far south of the island.


title: South Island

text: Around the same time a group of Māori migrated to "Rēkohu" (the Chatham Islands), where, in adapting to the local climate and the availability of resources, they eventually evolved into a separate people known as the Moriori with its own distinct language – closely related to the parent culture and language in mainland New Zealand. One notable feature of the Moriori culture, an emphasis on pacifism, proved disadvantageous when Māori warriors arrived in the 1830s aboard a chartered European ship.


title: South Island

text: In the early 18th century, Kāi Tahu, a Māori tribe who originated on the east coast of the North Island, began migrating to the northern part of the South Island. There they and Kāti Māmoe fought Ngāi Tara and Rangitāne in the Wairau Valley. Ngāti Māmoe then ceded the east coast regions north of the Waiau Toa / Clarence River to Kāi Tahu. Kāi Tahu continued to push south, conquering Kaikōura. By the 1730s, Kāi Tahu had settled in Canterbury, including Banks Peninsula. From there they spread further south and into the West Coast.


title: South Island

text: In 1827-1828 Ngāti Toa under the leadership of Te Rauparaha successfully attacked Kāi Tahu at Kaikōura. Ngāti Toa then visited Kaiapoi, ostensibly to trade. When they attacked their hosts, the well-prepared Kāi Tahu killed all the leading Ngāti Toa chiefs except Te Rauparaha. Te Rauparaha returned to his Kapiti Island stronghold. In November 1830 Te Rauparaha persuaded Captain John Stewart of the brig "Elizabeth" to carry him and his warriors in secret to Akaroa, whereby subterfuge they captured the leading Kāi Tahu chief, Tama-i-hara-nui, and his wife and daughter. After destroying Tama-i-hara-nui's village they took their captives to Kapiti and killed them. John Stewart, though arrested and sent to trial in Sydney as an accomplice to murder, nevertheless escaped conviction.


title: South Island

text: In the summer of 1831–32 Te Rauparaha attacked the Kaiapoi pā (fortified village). Kaiapoi was engaged in a three-month siege by Te Rauparaha, during which his men successfully sapped the pā. They then attacked Kāi Tahu on Banks Peninsula and took the pā at Onawe. In 1832–33 Kāi Tahu retaliated under the leadership of Tūhawaiki and others, attacking Ngāti Toa at Lake Grassmere. Kāi Tahu prevailed, and killed many Ngāti Toa, although Te Rauparaha again escaped. Fighting continued for a year or so, with Kāi Tahu maintaining the upper hand. Ngāti Toa never again made a major incursion into Kāi Tahu territory.


title: South Island

text: In 1836, the Ngāti Tama chief Te Puoho led a 100-person war party, armed with muskets, down the West Coast and over the Haast Pass. They fell on the Ngāi Tahu encampment between Lake Wānaka and Lake Hāwea, capturing ten people and killing and eating two children. Te Puoho took his captives over the Crown Range to Lake Wakatipu and thence to Southland where he was killed and his war party destroyed by the southern Ngāi Tahu leader Tuhawaiki.


title: South Island

text: Kāi Tahu and Ngāti Toa established peace by 1839, with Te Rauparaha releasing the Kāi Tahu captives he held. Formal marriages between the leading families in the two tribes sealed the peace.


title: South Island

text: The first Europeans known to reach the South Island were the crew of Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who arrived in his ships "Heemskerck" and "Zeehaen". In December 1642, Tasman anchored at the northern end of the island in Golden Bay / Mohua which he named Moordenaar's Bay (Murderers Bay) before sailing northward to Tonga following a clash with Māori. Tasman sketched sections of the two main islands' west coasts. Tasman called them "Staten Landt", after the "States General of the Netherlands", and that name appeared on his first maps of the country. Dutch cartographers changed the name to "Nova Zeelandia" in Latin, from "Nieuw Zeeland", after the Dutch province of "Zeeland". It was subsequently Anglicised as "New Zealand" by British naval captain James Cook of HM Bark "Endeavour" who visited the islands more than 100 years after Tasman during (1769–1770).


title: South Island

text: The first European settlement in the South Island was founded at Bluff in 1823 by James Spencer, a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo.


title: South Island

text: In January 1827, the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville arrived in Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere on the corvette Astrolabe. A number of landmarks around Tasman Bay were named by d'Urville and his crew including d'Urville Island, French Pass and Torrent Bay.


title: South Island

text: Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi from February 1840, Lieutenant-Governor Captain William Hobson declared British sovereignty over New Zealand in May 1840 and the South Island, along with the rest of New Zealand, briefly became a part of the Colony of New South Wales. This declaration was in response to France's attempts to colonise the South Island at Akaroa and the New Zealand Company attempts to establish a separate colony in Wellington, and so Hobson declared British sovereignty over all of New Zealand on 21 May 1840 (the North Island by treaty and the South by discovery). Seven days after the declaration, the Treaty was signed at Akaroa on 28 May.


title: South Island

text: On 17 June 1843, Māori and British settlers clashed at Wairau in what became known as the Wairau Affray. Also known as the Wairau Massacre in most older texts, it was the first serious clash of arms between the two parties after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the only one to take place in the South Island. Four Māori died and three were wounded in the incident, while among the Europeans the toll was 22 dead and five wounded. Twelve of the Europeans were shot dead or clubbed to death after surrendering to Māori who were pursuing them.


title: South Island

text: The Otago Settlement, sponsored by the Free Church of Scotland, took concrete form in Otago in March 1848 with the arrival of the first two immigrant ships from Greenock (on the Firth of Clyde) – the "John Wickliffe" and the "Philip Laing". Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the Peninsular War, served as the colony's first leader: Otago citizens subsequently elected him to the office of Superintendent of the Province of Otago.


title: South Island

text: While the North Island was convulsed by the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s and 1870s, the South Island, with its low Māori population, was generally peaceful. In 1861 gold was discovered at Gabriel's Gully in Central Otago, sparking a gold rush. Dunedin became the wealthiest city in the country and many in the South Island resented financing the North Island's wars.


title: South Island

text: In the 1860s, several thousand Chinese men, mostly from the Guangdong province, migrated to New Zealand to work on the South Island goldfields. Although the first Chinese migrants had been invited by the Otago Provincial government they quickly became the target of hostility from white settlers and laws were enacted specifically to discourage them from coming to New Zealand.


title: South Island

text: The South Island has no separately represented country subdivision, but is guaranteed 16 of the electorates in the New Zealand House of Representatives. A two-tier structure constituted under the Local Government Act 2002 gives the South Island (and its adjacent islands) seven regional councils for the administration of regional environmental and transport matters and 25 territorial authorities that administer roads, sewerage, building consents, and other local matters. Four of the territorial councils (one city and three districts) also perform the functions of a regional council and are known as unitary authorities.


title: South Island

text: When New Zealand was separated from the colony of New South Wales in 1841 and established as a Crown colony in its own right, the Royal Charter effecting this provided that "the principal Islands, heretofore known as, or commonly called, the 'Northern Island', the Middle Island', and 'Stewart's Island', shall henceforward be designated and known respectively as 'New Ulster', 'New Munster', and 'New Leinster'".


title: South Island

text: These divisions were of geographical significance only, not used as a basis for the government of the colony, which was centralised in Auckland. New Munster consisted of the South Island. The name New Munster was given by the Governor of New Zealand, Captain William Hobson, in honour of Munster, the Irish province in which he was born.


title: South Island

text: The situation was altered in 1846 when the New Zealand Constitution Act 1846 divided the colony into two provinces: New Ulster Province (the North Island north of the mouth of the Patea River), and New Munster Province (and the southern portion of the North Island, up to the mouth of the Patea River, the South Island and Stewart Island). Each province had a Governor and Legislative and Executive Council, in addition to the Governor-in-Chief and Legislative and Executive Council for the whole colony. The 1846 Constitution Act was later suspended, and only the provincial government provisions were implemented. Early in 1848 Edward John Eyre was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of New Munster.


title: South Island

text: The Provincial Council of New Munster had only one legislative session, in 1849, before it succumbed to the virulent attacks of settlers from Wellington. Governor Sir George Grey, sensible to the pressures, inspired an ordinance of the General Legislative Council under which new Legislative Councils would be established in each province with two-thirds of their members elected on a generous franchise. Grey implemented the ordinance with such deliberation that neither Council met before advice was received that the United Kingdom Parliament had passed the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852.


title: South Island

text: This act dissolved these provinces in 1853, after only seven years' existence, and New Munster was divided into the provinces of Wellington Province, Canterbury, Nelson, and Otago. Each province had its own legislature known as a Provincial Council that elected its own Speaker and Superintendent.


title: South Island

text: Secession movements have surfaced several times in the South Island. A Premier of New Zealand, Sir Julius Vogel, was amongst the first people to make this call, which was voted on by the New Zealand Parliament as early as 1865. The desire for the South Island to form a separate colony was one of the main factors in moving the capital of New Zealand from Auckland to Wellington that year.


title: South Island

text: Several South Island nationalist groups emerged at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. The South Island Party fielded candidates in the 1999 general election but cancelled its registration in 2002. Several internet based groups advocate their support for greater self determination.


title: South Island

text: On 13 October 2010, South Island Mayors led by Bob Parker of Christchurch displayed united support for a Southern Mayoral Council. Supported by Waitaki Mayor Alex Familton and Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, Bob Parker said that increased cooperation and the forming of a new South Island-wide mayoral forum were essential to representing the island's interests in Wellington and countering the new Auckland Council.


title: South Island

text: There are 23 territorial authorities within the South Island: 4 city councils and 19 district councils. Three territorial authorities (Nelson City Council, and the Tasman and Marlborough District Councils) also perform the functions of a regional council and thus are known as unitary authorities.


title: South Island

text: This is a list of political parties, past and present, who have their headquarters in the South Island.


title: South Island

text: Compared to the more populated and multi-ethnic North Island, the South Island has a smaller, more homogeneous resident population of According to the Statistics New Zealand Subnational Population Projections: 2006–2031; the South Island's population will increase by an average of 0.6 percent a year to 1,047,100 in 2011, 1,080,900 in 2016, 1,107,900 in 2021, 1,130,900 in 2026 and 1,149,400 in 2031.


title: South Island

text: The South Island had a population of 1,149,564 at the 2018 New Zealand census, an increase of 91,058 people (8.6%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 127,251 people (12.4%) since the 2006 census. There were 571,656 males and 577,914 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.99 males per female. Of the total population, 199,788 people (17.4%) were aged up to 15 years, 231,939 (20.2%) were 15 to 29, 519,519 (45.2%) were 30 to 64, and 198,330 (17.3%) were 65 or older.


title: South Island

text: At the 2018 New Zealand census, 84.8 percent of South Islanders identified as of European ethnicity, 10.0 percent as Māori, 8.7 percent as Asian, 2.9 percent as Pacific Peoples, 1.2 percent as Middle Eastern/Latin American/African, and 1.4 percent as another ethnicity (mainly 'New Zealander'). Totals add to more than 100% since people may identify with multiple ethnicities.


title: South Island

text: The proportion of South Islanders born overseas was 21.4%. The most common foreign countries of birth are England (22.0% of overseas-born residents), Australia (8.8%), the Philippines (7.9%), Mainland China (6.5%) and India (5.4%).


title: South Island

text: Around 48.6 percent of South Islanders affiliate with Christianity and 3.1 percent affiliate with non-Christian religions, while 45.8 percent are irreligious. Anglicanism is the largest Christian denomination in the South Island with 12.7 percent affiliating, closely followed by Catholicism at 12.1 percent and Presbyterianism at 11.7 percent.


title: South Island

text: The South Island economy is strongly focused on tourism and primary industries like agriculture. The other main industry groups are manufacturing, mining, construction, energy supply, education, health and community services.


title: South Island

text: The subnational gross domestic product (GDP) of the South Island was estimated at NZ$68.02 billion in the year to March 2019, 22.4% of New Zealand's national GDP. The subnational GDP per capita was estimated at $59,254 in the same period.


title: South Island

text: The South Island is a major centre for electricity generation, especially in the southern half of the island and especially from hydroelectricity. In 2010, the island generated of electricity, 41.5% of New Zealand's total electricity generation. Nearly all (98.7%) of the island's electricity is generated by hydroelectricity, with most of the remainder coming from wind generation.


title: South Island

text: The three large hydro schemes in the South Island: Waitaki, Clutha, and Manapouri, together produce nearly 92% of the island's electricity. The Waitaki River is the largest at of installed capacity. The Waitaki River is the largest hydroelectric scheme, consisting of nine powerhouses commissioned between 1936 and 1985, and generating about annually, around 18% of New Zealand's electricity generation and more than 30% of all its hydroelectricity.


title: South Island

text: The Clutha River / Mata-Au has two major stations generating electricity: Clyde Dam (432 MW, commissioned 1992) and Roxburgh Dam (360 MW, commissioned 1962). Manapouri Power Station is an isolated station located in Southland, generating 730 MW of electricity and producing annually - the largest single hydroelectric power station in the country.


title: South Island

text: While most of the electricity generated in the South Island is transported via the grid (plus 110 kV and 66 kV connectors) to major demand centres, including Christchurch, Dunedin, and Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter, around one-sixth of it is exported to the North Island to meet its large (and increasing) power demands via the HVDC Inter-Island link. The 611 km HVDC Inter-Island was commissioned in 1965, linking Benmore Dam on the Waitaki River in Southern Canterbury, with Haywards substation in Lower Hutt in the North Island, with cables crossing Cook Strait between Ōraumoa / Fighting Bay and Oteranga Bay. While the majority of the time the South Island exports electricity to the North Island via the link, it is also used to import thermally-generated North Island electricity in years of low hydro levels.


title: South Island

text: Offshore oil and gas is likely to become an increasingly important part of the South Island economy into the future. Origin Energy has formed a joint venture with Anadarko Petroleum, the second-largest independent US natural gas producer to begin drilling for oil in the Canterbury Basin off the coast of Dunedin. The 390 km, Carrack/Caravel prospect has the potential to deliver more than the equivalent of of oil and gas. Market analyst, Greg Easton from Craigs Investment Partners commented that such a substantial find it could well turn Dunedin from the Edinburgh of the south to the Aberdeen of the south.


title: South Island

text: The Great South Basin off the coast of Otago and Southland at over (covering an area 1.5 times New Zealand's landmass) is one of New Zealand's largest undeveloped offshore petroleum basins with prospects for both oil and gas. In July 2007 the New Zealand Government awarded oil and gas exploration permits for four areas of the Great South Basin, situated in the volatile waters off the Southern Coast of New Zealand. The three successful permit holders are:


title: South Island

text: Due to the gold rushes of the 1860s, the South Island had regional stock exchanges in Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill – all of which were affiliated in the Stock Exchange Association of New Zealand. However, in 1974 these regional exchanges were amalgamated to form one national stock exchange, the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZSE). Separate trading floors operated in both Christchurch and Dunedin until the late 1980s. On 30 May 2003, New Zealand Stock Exchange Limited formally changed its name to New Zealand Exchange Limited, trading as NZX.


title: South Island

text: Today, the Deloitte South Island Index is compiled quarterly from publicly available information provided by NZX, Unlisted and Bloomberg. It is a summary of the movements in market capitalisation of each South Island-based listed company. A company is included in the Index where either its registered office and/or a substantial portion of its operations are focused on the South Island.


title: South Island

text: Tourism is a huge earner for the South Island. Popular tourist activities include sightseeing, adventure tourism, such as glacier climbing and Bungee jumping, tramping (hiking), kayaking, and camping. Numerous walking and hiking paths, including six of the New Zealand Great Walks, are located in the South Island and are renowned internationally.


title: South Island

text: An increase in direct international flights to Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown has boosted the number of overseas tourists.


title: South Island

text: Fiordland National Park, Abel Tasman National Park, Westland Tai Poutini National Park, Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park, Queenstown, Kaikōura, and the Marlborough Sounds are regarded as the main tourism destinations in the South Island and amongst the Top 10 destinations in New Zealand.


title: South Island

text: The South Island's railway network has two main lines, two secondary lines, and a few branch lines. The Main North Line from Picton to Christchurch and the Main South Line from Lyttelton to Invercargill via Dunedin together comprise the South Island Main Trunk Railway. The secondary Midland Line branches from the Main South Line in Rolleston and passes through the Southern Alps via the Otira Tunnel to the West Coast and its terminus in Greymouth. In Stillwater, it meets the other secondary route, the Stillwater - Westport Line, which now includes the Ngakawau Branch.


title: South Island

text: A number of other secondary routes are now closed, including the Otago Central Railway, the isolated Nelson Section, and the interdependent Waimea Plains Railway and Kingston Branch. An expansive network of branch lines once existed, especially in Canterbury, Otago, and Southland, but these are now almost completely closed. The branch lines that remain in operation serve ports (Bluff Branch and Port Chalmers Branch), coal mines (Ohai Branch and Rapahoe Branch), and a dairy factory (Hokitika Branch). The first 64 km of the Otago Central Railway remain in operation for tourist trains run by Dunedin Railways (formerly Taieri Gorge Railway). The most significant freight is coal from West Coast mines to the port of Lyttelton for export.


title: South Island

text: Passenger services were once extensive. Commuter trains operated multiple routes around Christchurch and Dunedin, plus a service between Invercargill and Bluff. Due to substantial losses, these were cancelled between the late 1960s and early 1980s. The final services to operate ran between Dunedin's City Centre and the suburb of Mosgiel, and they ceased in 1982. Regional passenger trains were once extensive, but are now limited to the Coastal Pacific from Christchurch to Picton and the TranzAlpine from Christchurch to Greymouth.


title: South Island

text: The Southerner between Christchurch and Invercargill, once the flagship of the network, was cancelled on 10 February 2002. Subsequently, the architecturally significant Dunedin Railway Station has been used solely by the TGR's tourist trains, the Taieri Gorge Limited along the Otago Central Railway and the Seasider to Palmerston. Rural passenger services on branch lines were provided by mixed trains and Vulcan/88 seater railcars but the mixeds had largely ceased to exist by the 1950s and the railcars were withdrawn in the mid-1970s.


title: South Island

text: The South Island saw the final use of steam locomotives in New Zealand. Locomotives belonging to classes long withdrawn elsewhere continued to operate on West Coast branches until the very late 1960s, when they were displaced by DJ class diesels. In comparison to most countries, where steam locomotives were last used on insubstantial rural and industrial operations, the last services run by steam locomotives were the premier expresses between Christchurch and Invercargill: the South Island Limited until 1970 and the Friday and Sunday night services until 1971. This was due to the carriages being steam-heated. The final steam-hauled service in New Zealand, headed by a member of the J class, ran on 26 October 1971.


title: South Island

text: The South Island is separated from the North Island by Cook Strait, which is wide at its narrowest point, and requires a ferry trip to cross.


title: South Island

text: Dunedin was the headquarters of the Union Steam Ship Company, once the largest shipping company in the Southern Hemisphere.


title: South Island

text: The South Island, with an area of , is the largest landmass of New Zealand; it contains about one-quarter of the New Zealand population and is the world's 12th-largest island. It is divided along its length by the Southern Alps, the highest peak of which is Aoraki / Mount Cook at , making it 9th-highest island, with the high Kaikōura Ranges to the northeast. There are eighteen peaks of more than in the South Island. The east side of the island is home to the Canterbury Plains while the West Coast is famous for its rough coastlines such as Fiordland, a very high proportion of native bush, and Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers.


title: South Island

text: The dramatic landscape of the South Island has made it a popular location for the production of several films, including "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "". It lies at similar latitudes to Tasmania (an island south of the Australian mainland), and parts of Patagonia in South America.


title: South Island

text: On 4 September 2010, the South Island was struck by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, which caused extensive damage, several power outages, and many reports of aftershocks. Five and a half months later, 22 February Christchurch earthquake of 6.3 magnitude caused far more additional damage in Christchurch, resulting in 181 deaths. This quake struck at about lunchtime and was centred closer at Lyttelton, and shallower than the prior quake, consequently causing extensive damage.


title: South Island

text: The climate in the South Island is mostly temperate. The mean temperature for the South Island is . January and February are the warmest months while July is the coldest. Historical maxima and minima are in Rangiora, Canterbury and in Ophir, Otago.


title: South Island

text: Conditions vary sharply across the regions from extremely wet on the West Coast to semi-arid in the Mackenzie Basin of inland Canterbury. Most areas have between of rainfall with the most rain along the West Coast and the least rain on the East Coast, predominantly on the Canterbury Plains. Christchurch is the driest city, receiving about of rain per year while Invercargill is the wettest, receiving about . The southern and south-western parts of South Island have a cooler and cloudier climate, with around 1,400–1,600 hours of sunshine annually; the northern and north-eastern parts of the South Island are the sunniest areas and receive about 2,400–2,500 hours.


title: South Island

text: The South Island has 15 named maritime fiords which are all located in the southwest of the island in a mountainous area known as Fiordland. The spelling 'fiord' is used in New Zealand rather than 'fjord', although all the maritime fiords use the word Sound in their name instead.