title: Harvest (Neil Young album)

text: Assessments by critics were not overwhelmingly favorable at the time. "Rolling Stone"s John Mendelsohn called the album a disappointing retread of earlier, superior efforts by Young, writing of "the discomfortingly unmistakable resemblance of nearly every song on this album to an earlier Young composition – it's as if he just added a steel guitar and new words to "After The Gold Rush"." A review in "The Montreal Gazette" gave the album a mixed verdict, calling it "embarrassing" in places but interesting lyrically, and singling out "Are You Ready for the Country?" as the record's best cut. Reappraising the record in "" (1981), "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau wrote:


title: Harvest (Neil Young album)

text: More recent evaluations of the album have been far more positive: in 1998, "Q" magazine readers voted "Harvest" the 64th greatest album of all time. In 1996, 2000 and 2005, "Chart" polled readers to determine the 50 greatest Canadian albums of all time – "Harvest" placed second in all three polls, losing the top spot to Joni Mitchell's "Blue" in 2000, and to Sloan's "Twice Removed" in the other two years. In 2003, a full three decades removed from its original harsh assessment, "Rolling Stone" named "Harvest" the 78th greatest album of all time, then was re-ranked 82nd in a 2012 revised list, and re-ranked 72nd in the 2020 list. In 2007, "Harvest" was named the No. 1 Canadian Album of All Time by Bob Mersereau in his book "The Top 100 Canadian Albums". The album was featured in TeamRock's list of "The 10 Essential Country Rock Albums". It was voted number 93 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000).


title: Harvest (Neil Young album)

text: On October 15, 2002, "Harvest" was digitally remixed and remastered for DVD-Audio format. The new 5.1 mix was the subject of minor controversy due to its unconventional panning, with the vocals in the centre of the room and the drums in the rear speakers. "Harvest" was remastered and released on HDCD-encoded CD and digital download on July 14, 2009, as part of the Neil Young Archives Original Release Series. A 180-gram remastered vinyl edition was released on December 1, 2009, along with remastered vinyl editions of Young's first four albums. The remastered CD exists both as a standalone album and as Disc 4 of a 4-CD box set "Official Release Series Discs 1-4", released in the US in 2009 and Europe in 2012.


title: Harvest (Neil Young album)

text: All tracks are written by Neil Young. Track timings are from the original 1972 vinyl release, catalogue number MS 2032.


title: Botanical garden

text: A botanical garden or botanic garden is a garden with a documented collection of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display, and education. Typically plants are labelled with their botanical names. It may contain specialist plant collections such as cacti and other succulent plants, herb gardens, plants from particular parts of the world, and so on; there may be greenhouses, shadehouses, again with special collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, or other exotic plants. Most are at least partly open to the public, and may offer guided tours, educational displays, art exhibitions, book rooms, open-air theatrical and musical performances, and other entertainment.


title: Botanical garden

text: Botanical gardens are often run by universities or other scientific research organizations, and often have associated herbaria and research programmes in plant taxonomy or some other aspect of botanical science. In principle, their role is to maintain documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display, and education, although this will depend on the resources available and the special interests pursued at each particular garden. The staff will normally include botanists as well as gardeners.


title: Botanical garden

text: The origin of modern botanical gardens is generally traced to the appointment of professors of botany to the medical faculties of universities in 16th century Renaissance Italy, which also entailed the curation of a medicinal garden. However, the objectives, content, and audience of today's botanic gardens more closely resembles that of the grandiose gardens of antiquity and the educational garden of Theophrastus in the Lyceum of ancient Athens.


title: Botanical garden

text: The early concern with medicinal plants changed in the 17th century to an interest in the new plant imports from explorations outside Europe as botany gradually established its independence from medicine. In the 18th century, systems of nomenclature and classification were devised by botanists working in the herbaria and universities associated with the gardens, these systems often being displayed in the gardens as educational "order beds". With the rapid expansion of European colonies around the globe in the late 18th century, botanic gardens were established in the tropics, and economic botany became a focus with the hub at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, near London.


title: Botanical garden

text: Over the years, botanical gardens, as cultural and scientific organisations, have responded to the interests of botany and horticulture. Nowadays, most botanical gardens display a mix of the themes mentioned and more; having a strong connection with the general public, there is the opportunity to provide visitors with information relating to the environmental issues being faced at the start of the 21st century, especially those relating to plant conservation and sustainability.


title: Botanical garden

text: The term tends to be used somewhat differently in different parts of the world. For example a large woodland garden with a good collection of rhododendron and other flowering tree and shrub species is very likely to present itself as a "botanical garden" if it is located in the US, but very unlikely to do so if in the UK (unless it also contains other relevant features). Very few of the sites used for the UK's dispersed National Plant Collection, usually holding large collections of a particular taxonomic group, would call themselves "botanic gardens".


title: Botanical garden

text: The "New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening" (1999) points out that among the various kinds of organisations known as botanical gardens are many that are in modern times public gardens with little scientific activity, and it cited a tighter definition published by the World Wildlife Fund and IUCN when launching the ’'Botanic Gardens Conservation Strategy'’ in 1989: "A botanic garden is a garden containing scientifically ordered and maintained collections of plants, usually documented and labelled, and open to the public for the purposes of recreation, education and research." This has been further reduced by Botanic Gardens Conservation International to the following definition which "encompasses the spirit of a true botanic garden": "A botanic garden is an institution holding documented collections of living plants for the purposes of scientific research, conservation, display and education."


title: Botanical garden

text: The following definition was produced by staff of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium of Cornell University in 1976. It covers in some detail the many functions and activities generally associated with botanical gardens:


title: Botanical garden

text: A botanical garden is a controlled and staffed institution for the maintenance of a living collection of plants under scientific management for purposes of education and research, together with such libraries, herbaria, laboratories, and museums as are essential to its particular undertakings. Each botanical garden naturally develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, location, extent, available funds, and the terms of its charter. It may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum, and other departments. It maintains a scientific as well as a plant-growing staff, and publication is one of its major modes of expression.


title: Botanical garden

text: The botanic garden may be an independent institution, a governmental operation, or affiliated to a college or university. If a department of an educational institution, it may be related to a teaching program. In any case, it exists for scientific ends and is not to be restricted or diverted by other demands. It is not merely a landscaped or ornamental garden, although it may be artistic, nor is it an experiment station or yet a park with labels on the plants. The essential element is the intention of the enterprise, which is the acquisition and dissemination of botanical knowledge.


title: Botanical garden

text: A contemporary botanic garden is a strictly protected natural urban green area, where a managing organization creates landscaped gardens and holds documented collections of living plants and/or preserved plant accessions containing functional units of heredity of actual or potential value for purposes such as scientific research, education, public display, conservation, sustainable use, tourism and recreational activities, production of marketable plant-based products and services for improvement of human well-being.


title: Botanical garden

text: Worldwide, there are now about 1800 botanical gardens and arboreta in about 150 countries (mostly in temperate regions) of which about 550 are in Europe (150 of which are in Russia), 200 in North America, and an increasing number in East Asia. These gardens attract about 300 million visitors a year.


title: Botanical garden

text: Historically, botanical gardens exchanged plants through the publication of seed lists (these were called in the 18th century). This was a means of transferring both plants and information between botanical gardens. This system continues today, although the possibility of genetic piracy and the transmission of invasive species has received greater attention in recent times.


title: Botanical garden

text: The International Association of Botanic Gardens was formed in 1954 as a worldwide organisation affiliated to the International Union of Biological Sciences. More recently, coordination has also been provided by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), which has the mission "To mobilise botanic gardens and engage partners in securing plant diversity for the well-being of people and the planet". BGCI has over 700 membersmostly botanic gardensin 118 countries, and strongly supports the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation by producing a range resources and publications, and by organizing international conferences and conservation programs.


title: Botanical garden

text: Communication also happens regionally. In the United States, there is the American Public Gardens Association (formerly the American Association of Botanic Gardens and Arboreta), and in Australasia there is the Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ).


title: Botanical garden

text: The history of botanical gardens is closely linked to the history of itself. The botanical gardens of the 16th and 17th centuries were medicinal gardens, but the idea of a botanical garden changed to encompass displays of the beautiful, strange, new and sometimes economically important plant trophies being returned from the European colonies and other distant lands. Later, in the 18th century, they became more educational in function, demonstrating the latest plant classification systems devised by botanists working in the associated herbaria as they tried to order these new treasures. Then, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the trend was towards a combination of specialist and eclectic collections demonstrating many aspects of both horticulture and botany.


title: Botanical garden

text: Near-eastern royal gardens set aside for economic use or display and containing at least some plants gained by special collecting trips or military campaigns abroad, are known from the second millennium BCE in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, Mexico and China. In about 2800 BCE, the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung sent collectors to distant regions searching for plants with economic or medicinal value. It has also been suggested that the Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica influenced the history of the botanical garden as gardens in Tenochtitlan established by king Nezahualcoyotl, also gardens in Chalco (altépetl) and elsewhere, greatly impressed the Spanish invaders, not only with their appearance, but also because the indigenous Aztecs employed many more medicinal plants than did the classical world of Europe.


title: Botanical garden

text: Early medieval gardens in Islamic Spain resembled botanic gardens of the future, an example being the 11th-century Huerta del Ray garden of physician and author Ibn Wafid (999–1075 CE) in Toledo. This was later taken over by garden chronicler Ibn Bassal (fl. 1085 CE) until the Christian conquest in 1085 CE. Ibn Bassal then founded a garden in Seville, most of its plants being collected on a botanical expedition that included Morocco, Persia, Sicily, and Egypt. The medical school of Montpelier was also founded by Spanish Arab physicians, and by 1250 CE, it included a physic garden, but the site was not given botanic garden status until 1593.


title: Botanical garden

text: Botanical gardens, in the modern sense, developed from physic gardens, whose main purpose was to cultivate herbs for medical use as well as research and experimentation. Such gardens have a long history. In Europe, for example, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) is said to have had a physic garden in the Lyceum at Athens, which was used for educational purposes and for the study of botany, and this was inherited, or possibly set up, by his pupil Theophrastus, the "Father of Botany". There is some debate among science historians whether this garden was ordered and scientific enough to be considered "botanical", and suggest it more appropriate to attribute the earliest known botanical garden in Europe to the botanist and pharmacologist Antonius Castor, mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century.


title: Botanical garden

text: Though these ancient gardens shared some of the characteristics of present-day botanical gardens, the forerunners of modern botanical gardens are generally regarded as being the medieval monastic physic gardens that originated after the decline of the Roman Empire at the time of Emperor Charlemagne (742–789 CE). These contained a , a garden used mostly for vegetables, and another section set aside for specially labelled medicinal plants and this was called the or more generally known as a physic garden, and a or orchard. These gardens were probably given impetus when Charlemagne issued a capitulary, the Capitulary de Villis, which listed 73 herbs to be used in the physic gardens of his dominions. Many of these were found in British gardens even though they only occurred naturally in continental Europe, demonstrating earlier plant introduction. Pope Nicholas V set aside part of the Vatican grounds in 1447, for a garden of medicinal plants that were used to promote the teaching of botany, and this was a forerunner to the University gardens at Padua and Pisa established in the 1540s. Certainly the founding of many early botanic gardens was instigated by members of the medical profession.


title: Botanical garden

text: In the 17th century, botanical gardens began their contribution to a deeper scientific curiosity about plants. If a botanical garden is defined by its scientific or academic connection, then the first true botanical gardens were established with the revival of learning that occurred in the European Renaissance. These were secular gardens attached to universities and medical schools, used as resources for teaching and research. The superintendents of these gardens were often professors of botany with international reputations, a factor that probably contributed to the creation of botany as an independent discipline rather than a descriptive adjunct to medicine.


title: Botanical garden

text: The botanical gardens of Southern Europe were associated with university faculties of medicine and were founded in Italy at Orto botanico di Pisa (1544), Orto botanico di Padova (1545), Orto Botanico di Firenze (1545), Orto Botanico dell'Università di Pavia (1558) and Orto Botanico dell'Università di Bologna (1568). Here the physicians (referred to in English as apothecaries) delivered lectures on the Mediterranean "simples" or "officinals" that were being cultivated in the grounds. Student education was no doubt stimulated by the relatively recent advent of printing and the publication of the first herbals. All of these botanical gardens still exist, mostly in their original locations.


title: Botanical garden

text: The tradition of these Italian gardens passed into Spain Botanical Garden of Valencia, 1567) and Northern Europe, where similar gardens were established in the Netherlands ("Hortus Botanicus Leiden", 1590; "Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam)", 1638), Germany ("Alter Botanischer Garten Tübingen", 1535; Leipzig Botanical Garden, 1580; "Botanischer Garten Jena", 1586; "Botanischer Garten Heidelberg", 1593; "Herrenhäuser Gärten, Hanover", 1666; "Botanischer Garten der Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel", 1669; Botanical Garden in Berlin, 1672), Switzerland (Old Botanical Garden, Zürich, 1560; Basel, 1589); England (University of Oxford Botanic Garden, 1621; Chelsea Physic Garden, 1673); Scotland (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 1670); and in France ("Jardin des plantes de Montpellier", 1593; Faculty of Medicine Garden, Paris, 1597; "Jardin des Plantes", Paris, 1635), Denmark (University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden, 1600); Sweden (Uppsala University, 1655).


title: Botanical garden

text: During the 16th and 17th centuries, the first plants were being imported to these major Western European gardens from Eastern Europe and nearby Asia (which provided many bulbs), and these found a place in the new gardens, where they could be conveniently studied by the plant experts of the day. For example, Asian introductions were described by Carolus Clusius (1526–1609), who was director, in turn, of the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna and Hortus Botanicus Leiden. Many plants were being collected from the Near East, especially bulbous plants from Turkey. Clusius laid the foundations of Dutch tulip breeding and the bulb industry, and he helped create one of the earliest formal botanical gardens of Europe at Leyden where his detailed planting lists have made it possible to recreate this garden near its original site. The of Leyden in 1601 was a perfect square divided into quarters for the four continents, but by 1720, though, it was a rambling system of beds, struggling to contain the novelties rushing in, and it became better known as the . His "Exoticorum libri decem" (1605) is an important survey of exotic plants and animals that is still consulted today. The inclusion of new plant introductions in botanic gardens meant their scientific role was now widening, as botany gradually asserted its independence from medicine.


title: Botanical garden

text: In the mid to late 17th century, the Paris Jardin des Plantes was a centre of interest with the greatest number of new introductions to attract the public. In England, the Chelsea Physic Garden was founded in 1673 as the "Garden of the Society of Apothecaries". The Chelsea garden had heated greenhouses, and in 1723 appointed Philip Miller (1691–1771) as head gardener. He had a wide influence on both botany and horticulture, as plants poured into it from around the world. The garden's golden age came in the 18th century, when it became the world's most richly stocked botanical garden. Its seed-exchange programme was established in 1682 and still continues today.


title: Botanical garden

text: With the increase in maritime trade, ever more plants were being brought back to Europe as trophies from distant lands, and these were triumphantly displayed in the private estates of the wealthy, in commercial nurseries, and in the public botanical gardens. Heated conservatories called "orangeries", such as the one at Kew, became a feature of many botanical gardens. Industrial expansion in Europe and North America resulted in new building skills, so plants sensitive to cold were kept over winter in progressively elaborate and expensive heated conservatories and glasshouses.


title: Botanical garden

text: The 18th century was marked by introductions from the Cape of South Africaincluding ericas, geraniums, pelargoniums, succulents, and proteaceous plantswhile the Dutch trade with the Dutch East Indies resulted in a golden era for the Leiden and Amsterdam botanical gardens and a boom in the construction of conservatories.


title: Botanical garden

text: The Royal Gardens at Kew were founded in 1759, initially as part of the Royal Garden set aside as a physic garden. William Aiton (1741–1793), the first curator, was taught by garden chronicler Philip Miller of the Chelsea Physic Garden whose son Charles became first curator of the original Cambridge Botanic Garden (1762). In 1759, the "Physick Garden" was planted, and by 1767, it was claimed that "the Exotick Garden is by far the richest in Europe". Gardens such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (1759) and , Tenerife (1788) and the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid (1755) were set up to cultivate new species returned from expeditions to the tropics; they also helped found new tropical botanical gardens. From the 1770s, following the example of the French and Spanish, amateur collectors were supplemented by official horticultural and botanical plant hunters. These botanical gardens were boosted by the flora being sent back to Europe from various European colonies around the globe.


title: Botanical garden

text: At this time, British horticulturalists were importing many woody plants from Britain's colonies in North America, and the popularity of horticulture had increased enormously, encouraged by the horticultural and botanical collecting expeditions overseas fostered by the directorship of Sir William Jackson Hooker and his keen interest in economic botany. At the end of the 18th century, Kew, under the directorship of Sir Joseph Banks, enjoyed a golden age of plant hunting, sending out collectors to the South African Cape, Australia, Chile, China, Ceylon, Brazil, and elsewhere, and acting as "the great botanical exchange house of the British Empire". From its earliest days to the present, Kew has in many ways exemplified botanic garden ideals, and is respected worldwide for the published work of its scientists, the education of horticultural students, its public programmes, and the scientific underpinning of its horticulture.


title: Botanical garden

text: In 1728, John Bartram founded Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia, one of the continent's first botanical gardens. The garden is now managed as a historical site that includes a few original and many modern specimens as well as extensive archives and restored historical farm buildings.


title: Botanical garden

text: The large number of plants needing description were often listed in garden catalogues; and at this time Carl Linnaeus established the system of binomial nomenclature which greatly facilitated the listing process. Names of plants were authenticated by dried plant specimens mounted on card (a or garden of dried plants) that were stored in buildings called herbaria, these taxonomic research institutions being frequently associated with the botanical gardens, many of which by then had "order beds" to display the classification systems being developed by botanists in the gardens' museums and herbaria. Botanical gardens had now become scientific collections, as botanists published their descriptions of the new exotic plants, and these were also recorded for posterity in detail by superb botanical illustrations. In this century, botanical gardens effectively dropped their medicinal function in favour of scientific and aesthetic priorities, and the term "botanic garden" came to be more closely associated with the herbarium, library (and later laboratories) housed there than with the living collectionson which little research was undertaken.


title: Botanical garden

text: The late 18th and early 19th centuries were marked by the establishment of tropical botanical gardens as a tool of colonial expansion (for trade and commerce and, secondarily, science) mainly by the British and Dutch, in India, South-east Asia and the Caribbean. This was also the time of Sir Joseph Banks's botanical collections during Captain James Cook's circumnavigations of the planet and his explorations of Oceania, which formed the last phase of plant introduction on a grand scale.


title: Botanical garden

text: There are currently about 230 tropical botanical gardens with a concentration in southern and south-eastern Asia. The first botanical garden founded in the tropics was the Pamplemousses Botanical Garden in Mauritius, established in 1735 to provide food for ships using the port, but later trialling and distributing many plants of economic importance. This was followed by the West Indies (Botanic Gardens St. Vincent, 1764) and in 1786 by the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden in Calcutta, India founded during a period of prosperity when the city was a trading centre for the Dutch East India Company. Other gardens were constructed in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, 1808), Sri Lanka (Botanical Garden of Peradeniya, 1821 and on a site dating back to 1371), Indonesia (Bogor Botanical Gardens, 1817 and Kebun Raya Cibodas, 1852), and Singapore (Singapore Botanical Gardens, 1822). These had a profound effect on the economy of the countries, especially in relation to the foods and medicines introduced. The importation of rubber trees to the Singapore Botanic Garden initiated the important rubber industry of the Malay Peninsula. At this time also, teak and tea were introduced to India and breadfruit, pepper and starfruit to the Caribbean.


title: Botanical garden

text: Included in the charter of these gardens was the investigation of the local flora for its economic potential to both the colonists and the local people. Many crop plants were introduced by or through these gardensoften in association with European botanical gardens such as Kew or Amsterdamand included cloves, tea, coffee, breadfruit, cinchona, sugar, cotton, palm oil and "Theobroma cacao" (for chocolate). During these times, the rubber plant was introduced to Singapore. Especially in the tropics, the larger gardens were frequently associated with a herbarium and museum of economy. The Botanical Garden of Peradeniya had considerable influence on the development of agriculture in Ceylon where the Para rubber tree () was introduced from Kew, which had itself imported the plant from South America. Other examples include cotton from the Chelsea Physic Garden to the Province of Georgia in 1732 and tea into India by Calcutta Botanic Garden. The transfer of germplasm between the temperate and tropical botanical gardens was undoubtedly responsible for the range of agricultural crops currently used in several regions of the tropics.


title: Botanical garden

text: The first botanical gardens in Australia were founded early in the 19th century. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, 1816; the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, 1818; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, 1845; Adelaide Botanic Gardens, 1854; and Brisbane Botanic Gardens, 1855. These were established essentially as colonial gardens of economic botany and acclimatisation. The Auburn Botanical Gardens, 1977, located in Sydney's western suburbs, are one of the popular and diverse botanical gardens in the Greater Western Sydney area.


title: Botanical garden

text: Major botanical gardens in New Zealand include Dunedin Botanic Gardens, 1863; Christchurch Botanic Gardens, 1863; and Wellington Botanic Gardens, 1868.


title: Botanical garden

text: Hong Kong Botanic Gardens, 1871 (renamed Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens in 1975), up from the Government Hill in Victoria City, Hong Kong Island.


title: Botanical garden

text: In Sri Lanka major botanical gardens include the Royal Botanical Gardens, Peradeniya (formally established in 1843), Hakgala Botanical Gardens (1861) and Henarathgoda Botanical Garden (1876).


title: Botanical garden

text: Jardín Botánico de Quito is inside the Parque La Carolina is a 165.5-acre (670,000 m) park in the centre of the Quito central business district, bordered by the avenues Río Amazonas, de los Shyris, Naciones Unidas, Eloy Alfaro, and de la República.


title: Botanical garden

text: The botanical garden of Quito is a park, a botanical garden, an arboretum and greenhouses of 18,600 square meters that is planned to increase, maintain the plants of the country (Ecuador is among the 17 richest countries in the world in the native species, a study on this matter). The Ecuadorian flora classified, determines the existence of 17,000 species)


title: Botanical garden

text: The Orman Garden, one of the most famous botanical gardens in Egypt, is located at Giza, in Cairo, and dates back to 1875.


title: Botanical garden

text: South Africa has ten national level botanical gardens all of which are overseen by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).


title: Botanical garden

text: The oldest botanical garden in South Africa is the Durban Botanic Gardens which has been located on the same site since 1851. The Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden is the most famous and developed garden in the country, established in 1913 on a site dating to 1848 and covering a 36 hectare area with an additional 528 hectares of mountainside wilderness that form part of the garden. Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden is the oldest university botanical garden in South Africa, and was established in 1922. Other botanical gardens in country include the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden, Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens and Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden. Some smaller gardens and parks that verge on being a botanical garden includes the Arderne Gardens in Cape Town founded in 1845.


title: Botanical garden

text: The first botanical garden in the United States, Bartram's Garden, was founded in 1730 near Philadelphia, and in the same year, the Linnaean Botanic Garden at Philadelphia itself. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, all experienced farmers, shared the dream of a national botanic garden for the collection, preservation and study of plants from around the world to contribute to the welfare of the American people paving the way for establishing the US Botanic Garden, right outside the nation's Capitol in Washington DC in 1820. In 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden was founded at St Louis; it is now one of the world's leading gardens specializing in tropical plants. This was one of several popular American gardens, including Longwood Gardens (1798), Arnold Arboretum (1872), New York Botanical Garden (1891), Huntington Botanical Gardens (1906), Brooklyn Botanic Garden (1910), International Peace Garden (1932), and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (1938). US tax code provides for a substantial benefit to botanical gardens, this has led to a large number of entities declaring their campuses a botanical garden with little regard for veracity.


title: Botanical garden

text: Russia has more gardens describing themselves as botanical gardens than any other country. Better-known gardens are , Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden, (1714); and Moscow Botanical Garden of Academy of Sciences, (1945).


title: Botanical garden

text: These gardens are notable for their structures that include sculptures, pavilions, bandstands, memorials, shadehouses, tea houses and such.


title: Botanical garden

text: Among the smaller gardens within Russia, one that is increasingly gaining prominence, is the Botanical Garden of Tver State University (1879) – the northernmost botanical Garden with an exhibition of steppe plants, only one of its kind in the Upper Volga.


title: Botanical garden

text: Ukraine has about 30 botanical gardens. The most famous from them with well-respected collections are Nikitsky Botanical Garden, Yalta, founded in 1812, M.M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden, a botanical garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine founded in 1936, and A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv founded in 1839, which are located in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.


title: Botanical garden

text: A large number of civic or municipal botanical gardens were founded in the 19th and 20th centuries. These did not develop scientific facilities or programmes, but the horticultural aspects were strong and the plants often labelled. They were botanical gardens in the sense of building up collections of plants and exchanging seeds with other gardens around the world, although their collection policies were determined by those in day-to-day charge of them. They tended to become little more than beautifully maintained parks and were, indeed, often under general parks administrations.


title: Botanical garden

text: The second half of the 20th century saw increasingly sophisticated educational, visitor service, and interpretation services. Botanical gardens started to cater for many interests and their displays reflected this, often including botanical exhibits on themes of evolution, ecology or taxonomy, horticultural displays of attractive flowerbeds and herbaceous borders, plants from different parts of the world, special collections of plant groups such as bamboos or roses, and specialist glasshouse collections such as tropical plants, alpine plants, cacti and orchids, as well as the traditional herb gardens and medicinal plants. Specialised gardens like the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, Germany (1869), one of the world's leading orchid and succulent plant collections, have been very popular. There was a renewed interest in gardens of indigenous plants and areas dedicated to natural vegetation.


title: Botanical garden

text: With decreasing financial support from governments, revenue-raising public entertainment increased, including music, art exhibitions, special botanical exhibitions, theatre and film, this being supplemented by the advent of "Friends" organisations and the use of volunteer guides.


title: Botanical garden

text: Plant conservation and the heritage value of exceptional historic landscapes were treated with a growing sense of urgency. Specialist gardens were sometimes given a separate or adjoining site, to display native and indigenous plants.


title: Botanical garden

text: In the 1970s, gardens became focused on plant conservation. The Botanic Gardens Conservation Secretariat was established by the IUCN, and the World Conservation Union in 1987 with the aim of coordinating the plant conservation efforts of botanical gardens around the world. It maintains a database of rare and endangered species in botanical gardens' living collections. Many gardens hold "ex situ" conservation collections that preserve genetic variation. These may be held as seeds dried and stored at low temperature, or in tissue culture (such as the Kew Millennium Seedbank); as living plants, including those that are of special horticultural, historical or scientific interest (such as those in the National Plant Collection in the United Kingdom); or by managing and preserving areas of natural vegetation. Collections are often held and cultivated with the intention of reintroduction to their original habitats. The Center for Plant Conservation at St Louis, Missouri, coordinates the conservation of native North American species.


title: Botanical garden

text: Many of the functions of botanical gardens have already been discussed in the sections above, which emphasise the scientific underpinning of botanical gardens with their focus on research, education and conservation. However, as multifaceted organisations, all sites have their own special interests. In a remarkable paper on the role of botanical gardens, Ferdinand von Mueller (1825–1896), the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne (1852–1873), stated, "in all cases the objects [of a botanical garden] must be mainly scientific and predominantly instructive". He then detailed many of the objectives being pursued by the world's botanical gardens in the middle of the 19th century, when European gardens were at their height. Many of these are listed below to give a sense of the scope of botanical gardens' activities at that time, and the ways in which they differed from parks or what he called "public pleasure gardens":


title: Botanical garden

text: Botanical gardens must find a compromise between the need for peace and seclusion, while at the same time satisfying the public need for information and visitor services that include restaurants, information centres and sales areas that bring with them rubbish, noise, and hyperactivity. Attractive landscaping and planting design sometimes compete with scientific interests — with science now often taking second place. Some gardens are now heritage landscapes that are subject to constant demand for new exhibits and exemplary environmental management.


title: Botanical garden

text: Many gardens now have plant shops selling flowers, herbs, and vegetable seedlings suitable for transplanting; many, like the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research and the Chicago Botanic Garden, have plant-breeding programs and introduce new plants to the horticultural trade.


title: Botanical garden

text: Botanical gardens are still being built, such as the first botanical garden in Oman, which will be one of the largest gardens in the world. Once completed, it will house the first large-scale cloud forest in a huge glasshouse. Development of botanical gardens in China over recent years has been remarkable, including the Hainan Botanical Garden of Tropical Economic Plants South China Botanical Garden at Guangzhou, the Xishuangbanna Botanical Garden of Tropical Plants and the Xiamen Botanic Garden, but in developed countries, many have closed for lack of financial support, this being especially true of botanical gardens attached to universities.


title: Botanical garden

text: Botanical gardens have always responded to the interests and values of the day. If a single function were to be chosen from the early literature on botanical gardens, it would be their scientific endeavour and, flowing from this, their instructional value. In their formative years, botanical gardens were gardens for physicians and botanists, but then they progressively became more associated with ornamental horticulture and the needs of the general public. The scientific reputation of a botanical garden is now judged by the publications coming out of herbaria and similar facilities, not by its living collections. The interest in economic plants now has less relevance, and the concern with plant classification systems has all but disappeared, while a fascination with the curious, beautiful and new seems unlikely to diminish.


title: Botanical garden

text: In recent times, the focus has been on creating an awareness of the threat to the Earth's ecosystems from human populations and its consequent need for biological and physical resources. Botanical gardens provide an excellent medium for communication between the world of botanical science and the general public. Education programs can help the public develop greater environmental awareness by understanding the meaning and importance of ideas like conservation and sustainability.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña (; ; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. A Coruña is the most populated city in Galicia and the second most populated municipality in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country. The city is the provincial capital of the province of the same name, having also served as political capital of the Kingdom of Galicia from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and as a regional administrative centre between 1833 and 1982, before being replaced by Santiago de Compostela.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña is located on a promontory in the Golfo Ártabro, a large gulf on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the main industrial and financial centre of northern Galicia, and holds the headquarters of the Universidade da Coruña. A Coruña is a packed city, the Spanish city featuring the tallest mean-height of buildings, also featuring a population density of 21,972 inhabitants per square km of built land area.


title: A Coruña

text: There is no clear evidence as to what the name derives from. It seems to be from "Crunia", of unknown origin and meaning. At the time of Ferdinand II of León (reigned 1157–1188) the name "Crunia" was documented for the first time. As usual in Galician-Portuguese (as well as in Castilian Spanish), the cluster "ni" naturally evolved into the sound , written "n", "nn" or "nh" in old Galician orthography, "nn" in Spanish (later abbreviated to "ñ", like the original Latin cluster "nn"), and "nh" in Portuguese and alternative Galician spelling. ""A"" is the Galician-Portuguese article equivalent to English "the"; compare Castilian Spanish "la" ("the").


title: A Coruña

text: One proposed etymology derives "Crunia" from "Cluny", the town in France. During its height (c. 950–c.1130) the Cluniac religious movement became very prominent in Europe. There is another town named "Coruña" in Burgos Province.


title: A Coruña

text: A more likely possibility is that the name simply means "The Crown", which in Galician is "A Coroa" and in Spanish is "La Corona". It seems less likely that it traces back to the Galician "clunia". The name is reputedly from the Greek Κορώνα (Crown), referring to the crown of Geryon that was buried by Hercules under the lighthouse he built to his honour. The hero Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then—in a Celtic gesture—buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a city be built on the site. The lighthouse atop a skull and crossbones representing the buried head of Hercules' slain enemy appears in the coat-of-arms of the city of A Coruña, Loukeris (2019).


title: A Coruña

text: A proxy evolution within the Portuguese language points out to the Latin word "Colonya" as its origin, where the L was transformed into R which occurs widely in Portuguese. A similar happening can be found today in Coronie, a Surinamese town which also made its course outside the Portuguese system.


title: A Coruña

text: In English, use of the Spanish or Galician forms now predominates. However, the traditional English form "Corunna" can persist, particularly in reference to the Battle of Corunna (1809) in the Peninsular War. Archaically, English-speakers knew the city as "The Groyne", probably from French "La Corogne".


title: A Coruña

text: In Spain, the official form of the name is now the Galician one: "A Coruña", though many Spaniards continue to use "La Coruña".


title: A Coruña

text: Certain groups of people have advocated elevating the reintegrationist spelling "Corunha" to official status, pointing to the provisions of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and claiming that it is unconstitutional to stipulate use of the "Real Academia Galega" spelling, but they have not been successful .


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña is located on a peninsula, and its isthmus was at times formed only by a small strip of sand. Erosion and sea currents caused a progressive accumulation of sand, enlarging it to its present dimensions.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) in the Köppen climate classification, though heavily influenced by the Atlantic Ocean. Autumn is usually mild with spring-like temperatures, but winter is often unsettled and unpredictable, with strong winds and abundant rainfall coming from Atlantic depressions. The ocean keeps temperatures mild all year round (the variation between winter and summer temperatures is only on average), and therefore frost and snow are extremely rare. In fact, the city has not received significant snowfall since January 1987. A Coruña lies in plant hardiness zone 10b.


title: A Coruña

text: Spring is usually warm and fairly calm, while summers are mostly sunny and humid, with occasional rainfall, usually in the form of drizzle; high temperatures are warm but rarely uncomfortably hot because of the sea's cooling influence during the day, most often being around between July and September. Even the warmest month on record was relatively subdued, being August 2003, with an average high temperature of . Temperatures above occur many days in the summer, while temperatures above are infrequent.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña has five parishes, or : A Coruña, San Vicente de Elviña, Santa María de Oza, San Cristóbal das Viñas, and San Pedro de Visma.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña spread from the peninsula, the site of the later Tower of Hercules, onto the mainland. The oldest part, known popularly in Galician as Cidade Vella (Old City), Cidade Alta (High City) or the Cidade (City), is built on an ancient Celtic castro. It was supposedly inhabited by the Brigantes and Artabrians, the Celtic tribes of the area.


title: A Coruña

text: The Romans came to the region in the 2nd century BC; they made the most of the strategic position and soon the city became quite important in maritime trade. In 62 BC Julius Caesar came to the city (known at the time as Brigantium) in pursuit of the metal trade, establishing commerce with what are now France, England and Portugal. The town began to grow, mainly during the 1st and 2nd centuries (when the Farum Brigantium Tower of Hercules was built), but declined after the 4th century and particularly with the incursions of the Vikings, which forced the population to flee towards the interior of the Estuary of O Burgo.


title: A Coruña

text: After the fall of the Roman Empire, A Coruña still had a commercial port connected to foreign countries, but contacts with the Mediterranean were slowly replaced by a more Atlantic-oriented focus.


title: A Coruña

text: The process of deurbanisation that followed the fall of the Roman Empire also affected A Coruña. Between the 7th and 8th centuries, the city was no more than a little village of labourers and sailors.


title: A Coruña

text: The 11th-century "Chronica iriense" names Faro do Burgo (ancient name of A Coruña) as one of the dioceses that king Miro granted to the episcopate of Iria Flavia in the year 572:


title: A Coruña

text: The Muslim invasion of the Iberian peninsula left no archaeological evidence in the northwest, so it cannot be said whether or not the Muslim invaders ever reached the city. As Muslim rule in early 8th century Galicia consisted little more than a short-lived overlordship of the remote and rugged region backed by a few garrisons, and the city was no more than a village amidst Roman ruins, the invaders showed the same lack of interest in the ruined city as they did generally for the region.


title: A Coruña

text: As the city began to recover during the Middle Ages the main problem for the inhabitants was the Norman raids, as well as the ever-present threat of raids (razzias) from Al-Andalus to the south. During the 9th century there were several Viking attacks on the city, called at that time Faro or Faro Bregancio.


title: A Coruña

text: In the year 991, King Vermudo II began the construction of defensive military positions on the coast. At Faro, in the ruins of the Tower of Hercules, a fortress was built, which had a permanent military garrison. To pay for it, he gave power over the city to the bishop of Santiago. The bishop of Santiago became the most important political post in Galicia, and remained so until the 15th century.


title: A Coruña

text: In 1208, Alfonso IX re-founded the city of "Crunia". Some privileges, such as those of disembarking and selling salt without paying taxes, were granted to the city, and it enjoyed a big growth in fishing and mercantile business. The city grew and extended through the isthmus. In 1446 John II of Castile granted to A Coruña the title of "City". The Catholic Monarchs established the Royal Audience of the Kingdom of Galicia in the city, instead of Santiago. A Coruña also became the headquarters of the Captaincy General. Later, in 1522, Charles V conceded to the city of A Coruña the license to establish the , being this the port chosen by Jofre Garcia de Loysa to set his expedition to conquer the Moluccans.


title: A Coruña

text: In the late Middle Ages, before the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, a thriving Jewish community created a rich artistic heritage in the city. The most lavishly illuminated Hebrew Bible in medieval Spain was created in A Coruña in 1476. Known as the Kennicott Bible, it is currently housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.


title: A Coruña

text: During the Modern period, the city was a port and centre for the manufacturing of textiles. In 1520, king Carlos I of Spain, met in the courts of A Coruña and embarked from its harbour to be elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (as Charles V). He allowed the government of the Kingdom of Galicia to distribute spice in Europe between 1522 and 1529. Commerce with the Indies was allowed between 1529 and 1575. San Antón Castle was built as a defense of the city and its harbour.


title: A Coruña

text: From the port of Ferrol in the Province of A Coruña, Philip II left to marry Mary Tudor in 1554, and much later, in 1588, from the same port the Spanish Armada would set sail to the Spanish Netherlands and England.


title: A Coruña

text: In the following year, during the Anglo-Spanish War, Francis Drake besieged A Coruña, but was repelled, starting the legend of María Pita, a woman who took her dead husband's spear, killed the flag bearer of the British forces and rallied support to deny a breach in the wall to the enemy.


title: A Coruña

text: In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wars of the Spanish monarchy caused a great increase in taxes and the start of conscription. In 1620, Philip III created the School of the Boys of the Sea. In 1682 the Tower of Hercules was restored by Antúnez.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña was the site of the Battle of Corunna during the Peninsular War, on 16 January 1809, in which British troops fought against the French to cover the embarkation of British troops after their retreat. In this battle Sir John Moore was killed.


title: A Coruña

text: Spanish resistance during the Peninsular War was led by Sinforiano López, and A Coruña was the only Galician city that achieved success against the French troops. French troops left Galicia at the end of May 1809.


title: A Coruña

text: On 19 August 1815, Juan Díaz Porlier, pronounced against Fernando VII in defense of the Spanish Constitution of 1812. He was supported by the bourgeoisie and the educated people. But on 22 August he was betrayed. He was hanged in the Campo da Leña two months later.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña also played an important role in the Rexurdimento, and there were founded the Galician Royal Academy in 1906 and the Brotherhoods of the Galician Language in 1916.


title: A Coruña

text: Regarding the economy, in 1804 the National Cigarette Factory was founded, and there the workers' movement of the city had its origins. During the 19th century other businesses (glass, foundries, textiles, gas, matches, etc.) were slowly established, but it was maritime trade and migrant travel that attracted Catalan, Belgian, French and English investments. The Bank of A Coruña was founded in 1857. The new provincial division of 1832 also influenced economic development.


title: A Coruña

text: At the beginning of the 20th century, A Coruña had about 45,000 inhabitants. The Great Depression and the Spanish Civil War severely affected the economy through the 1930s to the mid-1950s. The 1960s and early 1970s saw a dramatic economic recovery, which was part of the wider Spanish Miracle. As elsewhere in Galicia, A Coruña attracted a massive influx of Galician-speaking rural dwellers, into their quickly developed neighbourhoods. The period between 1960 and 1980 saw a big transformation in most areas of the city from being agricultural dwellings to urban districts. The international oil shocks of the mid and late 1970s severely disrupted the economy, causing many bankruptcies and high unemployment until the mid-1980s, when slower but steady economic development was resumed.


title: A Coruña

text: In the Spanish general elections, 1931, all the political parties knew that the electoral results had important political consequences. The campaign of Unión Monárquica was very important in A Coruña and was supported by "El Ideal Gallego". Republicans and socialists constituted a block, made up of ORGA, independent republicans, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Radical Socialist Republican Party.


title: A Coruña

text: In the elections, the republican parties obtained 34 of the 39 council seats. The best results were of the ORGA and of the Partido Radical Socialista, and the Radical Republican Party lost a lot of support.


title: A Coruña

text: From 1983 to 2006, the mayor of the city was Francisco Vázquez Vázquez (PSOE), and the city became devoted to services, but he also was criticised because of his being openly against Galician nationalism, favouring the already established Castillian-Spanish social dominance and extending the equally deep-rooted prejudice against Galician language and cultural expression. Another downside's of Mr Vazquez legacy would be his town-planning policies, with big-money pharaoh-like projects with little social impact (shopping centres, Millennium obelisk, etc.). However, on a positive note Mr Vazquez's 23 year-long mandate saw the European-funded Maritime Promenade and the city's Scientific Museums (Casa das Ciencias-Planetario-, Casa dos Peixes-Aquarium and Casa do Home-Domus).


title: A Coruña

text: On 20 January 2006 Vázquez was named ambassador to the Vatican City, and was later replaced by Francisco Javier Losada de Azpiazu. In 2007 Municipal Elections the local government was a coalition of the Socialists' Party of Galicia and the left-wing nationalist Galician Nationalist Bloc party. The city celebrated its first millennium in 2008.


title: A Coruña

text: In the 2011 Municipal Elections, the conservative candidate Carlos Negreira (PP) obtained a majority, the first one for the People's Party in the city since the arrival of democracy.


title: A Coruña

text: The mayor of the 2015–2019 mandate was Xulio Ferreiro, from the Marea Atlántica ("Atlantic Tide") party, who was elected in 2015 on an anti-corruption mandate. His remit was to improve the town planning of the city rather than to leave it to the mercy of corrupt, unregulated free-market policies which have left a negative legacy in many areas of the municipality. He has widespread support across the region in opposition to a project to sell off the city's port (a legacy of the preceding mayor Carlos Negreira) to a private equity firm, which wants to construct a gated community of high-rise apartment blocks for which there is no real market demand in a city with a population of fewer than 250,000 inhabitants. The plan is to put a covenant on the land and to encourage a civic consultation on redevelopment of the site.


title: A Coruña

text: After the War of Independence (1808–1814), the fortunes of Ferrol began to deteriorate. The largest port in northern Spain, site of the Reales Astilleros de Esteiro, one of the three Royal Royal Dockyards together with Cartagena and Cádiz, almost became a "dead" town during the reign of Ferdinand VII. By 1833 the City and Naval Station of Ferrol saw its civilian population reduced to 13,000. During the administration of the marquess of Molina, Minister for Naval affairs in the mid-19th century new activities sprang up, but Ferrol never fully returned to its former glory. During those years, most of the Spanish colonies in Latin America succeeded in gaining independence from their former metropolis.


title: A Coruña

text: The population of the City of A Coruña in 1900 reached 43,971, while the population of the rest of the province including the City and Naval Station of nearby Ferrol as well as Santiago de Compostela was 653,556. A Coruña's miraculous growth happened during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War at a similar rate to other major Galician cities, but it was after the death of Francisco Franco when the city of A Coruña (and Vigo) left all the other Galician cities behind.


title: A Coruña

text: The meteoric increase in the population of the City of A Coruña during the years which followed the Spanish Civil War in the mid 20th century was accompanied by the decline in the villages and hamlets of the province as it industrialized.


title: A Coruña

text: The municipality of A Coruña has 247.604 inhabitants and a population density of around 6,700 inhabitants per square kilometer.


title: A Coruña

text: In 2010 there were 12,344 foreigners living in the city, representing 5% of the total population. The main nationalities are Brazilians (10%), Colombians (8%) and Peruvians (7%).


title: A Coruña

text: By language, according to 2008 data, 7.75% of the population speak always in Galician, 36% speak always in Spanish and the rest use both interchangeably.


title: A Coruña

text: The city is the site of the Roman Tower of Hercules, a lighthouse which has been in continuous operation since possibly the 2nd century AD. It has been declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. It is surrounded by a large public park with a golf course and the so-called Moor's Graveyard ("Cemiterio do Moro" in Galician, "Cementerio del Moro" in Spanish) a building where in fact there were never burials, Muslim or not, which now houses the "Casa das Palabras" (Galician for House of Words) museum. The lighthouse features as the main emblem of the city's flag and coat of arms.


title: A Coruña

text: The city is also well known for its characteristic glazed window balconies, called "galerías". Originally, this type of structure came about as a naval architecture solution for the challenging weather, particularly designed for rainy days. This fashion started in nearby Ferrol in the 18th century when some of the technicians working for the Royal Dockyards had the idea of using the shape of the back of a warship in a modern building. Soon afterward, most seaports in northern Spain, were adding these glazed window balconies to their city-port houses.


title: A Coruña

text: The Old Town ("Ciudad Vieja" in Spanish, "Cidade Vella" in Galician) is the name given to the oldest part of A Coruña. During the ninth and tenth centuries, the inhabitants of what was then called Faro Island (peninsula where the Tower of Hercules stands) were leaving the area due to constant attacks by the Viking fleet and settled in the area of Betanzos. In 1208 King Alfonso IX refounded the city at the present site of the Old Town and put it under his personal control, free from allegiance to the clergy or feudal lords. In the fourteenth century, the scarcely-surviving city walls of the Old Town were built, as well as three harbors: the Parrot and San Miguel. It also preserves the stronghold known as the Old Fortress, now converted into the Garden of San Carlos, in which Sir John Moore is buried. The Old City of A Coruña kept streets and squares that revive the city's history and noble mansions and residences such as Rosalia de Castro's house, located on Prince Street. Notable buildings are the Royal Galician Academy, the institution dedicated to the study of Galician culture and especially the Galician language, the Romanesque churches of Santiago and Saint Mary, As Bárbaras Monastery (Romanesque and Baroque) and the headquarters of the Operational Logistics Force of the Spanish Army. In July, a Medieval Fair takes place in the streets of the Old City.


title: A Coruña

text: The city has several museums, such as the Castle of San Antón Archaeological Museum, Fine Arts Museum and the network of scientific museums (Casa das Ciencias, which also includes a planetarium, DOMUS, made by Arata Isozaki and Aquarium Finisterrae). In 2012, the National Museum of Science and Technology (MUNCYT) opened a branch in the city. A Coruña's social scene is most popular on Summer nights. Most bars and clubs are on Rua do Orzán, which runs directly parallel to Paseo Maritimo on the beach side. Another popular destination, for mostly a more youthful crowd, is Os Xardins ("The Gardens"), a park near the beginning of Rúa Real and the Os Cantons Village Shopping Centre.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña is nowadays the richest region of Galicia and its economic engine. There have been various changes in the city's structure over the last few decades—it now shares some administrative functions with the nearby city of Ferrol. Companies have grown, especially in sectors such as finance, communication, planning, sales, manufacturing and technical services, making A Coruña the wealthiest metropolitan area of Galicia. The port itself unloads large amounts of fresh fish, and with the increase in other port activities like crude oil and solid bulk, which make up 75% of Galician port traffic.


title: A Coruña

text: In 1975, the clothing company Zara, founded by Amancio Ortega Gaona, opened its first store worldwide in this city and has since become a national and international clothing chain.


title: A Coruña

text: Inditex, the main textile manufacturer of the world, has its headquarters in the nearby town of Arteixo. A Coruña concentrates 30% of the GDP of Galicia and in the period between 1999 and 2001 it grew 35%, surpassing Vigo which was traditionally economically stronger. Other important companies of the city are Banco Pastor (owned by Banco Popular Español), Banco Etcheverría (oldest in Spain), Hijos de Rivera Brewery, Abanca, R Cable Operator, the Repsol refinery, Gas Natural combined cycle power plant, General Dynamics factory, Alcoa aluminium plant and La Voz de Galicia, a Spanish-language conservative daily newspaper, the one with the largest circulation in Galicia. A Coruña is also an important retail center. El Corte Inglés, the main department store chain in Spain, has two centers in the city, one of them in the new commercial area Marineda City, opened in April 2011, one of the biggest shopping centers in the EU, which also includes, among others, IKEA and Decathlon stores, cinemas, an ice rink, a bowling court and a kart circuit. Other hypermarket chains present in the city are Carrefour (two centers), Hipercor and Auchan (known in Spain as Alcampo).


title: A Coruña

text: Over the last few years, emphasis has been placed upon better access and infrastructure, especially cultural, sporting, leisure and scientific areas. Following a significant oil spill when the "Aegean Sea" wrecked and exploded, considerable resources have been used in the recovery of the shoreline and strengthening the tourist sector. All this has reaffirmed the city's existing character as a centre for administration, sales, port activities, culture and tourism. The city also has a regional airport, used by 1.025.688 passengers in 2015.


title: A Coruña

text: The two main beaches of A Coruña (Orzán and Riazor) are located in the heart of the city and are bordered by the promenade above. This location makes them a great attraction for tourists, being also a meeting point for surfers much of the year. Moreover, the city has other beaches like As Lapas, San Amaro, Oza and Matadoiro. These four beaches, along with Riazor and Orzán, were recognized with blue flag certification in 2011.


title: A Coruña

text: An important holiday is on the night of San Xoán-Seaone (St John), celebrated with a massive fireworks celebration, parade, bonfires and the ancient fires on all city beaches well into dawn.


title: A Coruña

text: In 2006 and for the first time ever, the number of tourists has doubled the population of the city, virtually to 500,000 the number of people who chose the city as a tourist destination.


title: A Coruña

text: The city has an extensive network of hotels, with an offer of over 3,000 hotel vacancies. There are one five star-hotel and 11 four star-hotels, as well as many other hotels and hostels. The city is also focusing in business tourism, offering the Congress and Exhibition Centre PALEXCO, with room for more than 2,500 people; a new trade fair centre, EXPOCORUÑA, venue of concerts, exhibitions and festivals like Sónar.


title: A Coruña

text: Higher education is represented by the University of A Coruña, a public university established in 1989, the UNED branch, and CESUGA, a private university centre in alliance with University College Dublin, which offers Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of Architecture Irish degrees. Escuela de Negocios NCG offers MBA and other master's degrees in business.


title: A Coruña

text: There are seven municipal libraries, one library that belongs to the provincial government and one public library, administered by the Xunta. The Archive of the Kingdom of Galicia ("Arquivo do Reino de Galicia" in Galician) is located in the Old Town.


title: A Coruña

text: There is an Escola Oficial de Idiomas (Spanish language school) centre, which offers classes in English, French, Galician, Italian, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish as a foreign language.


title: A Coruña

text: Music studies are well represented by a Music school. A Coruña is also the base for the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia.


title: A Coruña

text: The city is home to two main theatres, Teatro Colón and Teatro Rosalía, with regular performances, music concerts and other representations. A multipurpose centre, the Coliseum, hosts a variety of concerts and cultural and sporting events. International artists like David Copperfield, Maná, Mark Knopfler, Shakira, Gloria Estefan, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Judas Priest among others have performed there. In summer it also serves as a bullring, and in winter as an ice rink.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña has several museums, such as the Castle of San Antón Archaeological Museum, its Fine Arts Museum, the Military Museum and the network of scientific museums (Casa das Ciencias, which includes a planetarium, DOMUS, made by Arata Isozaki and Aquarium Finisterrae). In 2012, the [National Museum of Science and Technology (MUNCYT) opened a branch in the city.


title: A Coruña

text: The city's principal festival is the María Pita Festival, which lasts from the end of July to mid September. The festival includes Noroeste Pop Rock (free concerts at Riazor beach), free concerts in venues all over the city, the Medieval fair in the Old Town, the International Folklore Festival, a book fair, Festival Viñetas desde o Atlántico, a comic fair and, for the first time in 2011, a recreation of the famous German Oktoberfest.


title: A Coruña

text: Another very popular festival is Saint John's day, which is celebrated on 23 June with bonfires under the night sky on beaches and neighbourhoods all over the city. More than 150,000 people go out from afternoon to early morning in order to frighten the evil spirits away by jumping over the bonfires. Apart from that, Virxe do Rosario's day is also celebrated, but to such an extent as the festivities previously mentioned.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña is the destination of one of the radial roads originating in Madrid, (N-VI). Currently there is a highway (Autovía A-6) that runs parallel to the old radial road. Another major road running through the city is the toll motorway AP-9, which links Ferrol with the Portuguese border crossing the main cities of Galicia. AG-55 motorway links the city with the Costa da Morte, although currently only going as far as Carballo. The conventional road N-550 (A Coruña-Tui) is the main link to the airport while the new highway is still under construction.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña Airport, formerly known as Alvedro Airport, is located in the municipality of Culleredo, approximately from the city centre. It serves mainly Spanish destinations, although there are regular services to London and Lisbon and, in the summer season, to Amsterdam and Paris. In 2010, 1,101,208 passengers used the airport.


title: A Coruña

text: Railway services depart from San Cristovo Station. The city will be connected with Madrid and Vigo by high-speed rail in coming years. Regional lines connect the city with Vigo through Santiago de Compostela and Pontevedra, Lugo and Monforte de Lemos. Intercity trains depart to Madrid, Barcelona and the Basque Country, passing through many other important northern Spanish cities. There is a freight train station that serves the port.


title: A Coruña

text: Regional and intercity buses depart from the Bus station at Caballeros Street. A Coruña is well connected with its metropolitan area and other Galician cities and towns. Intercity services connect the city with Madrid, Barcelona, Andalusia and the Basque Country among others and with European cities like Geneva, Paris or Munich.


title: A Coruña

text: Local transportation in A Coruña is provided by Compañía de Tranvías de A Coruña. Its network includes 24 lines served by 93 vehicles. There is also a regular taxi service from taxi tanks all over the city.


title: A Coruña

text: A Coruña has an extensive network of sports infrastructures. The most important one is the Riazor Sport Complex, which includes Estadio Riazor (home of Deportivo de La Coruña), the Palace of Sports (home of HC Liceo A Coruña), two indoor tracks, a pelota court and an indoor swimming-pool. La Torre Sport Complex hosts many football fields, a golf court and another pelota court. There are also five municipal football fields, 11 sports centres and several marinas (Real Club Náutico, Marina Coruña, etc.). In 2007 the Termaria Casa da Auga complex was opened, which has a gymnasium, a thalassotherapy centre and an indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool.


title: A Coruña

text: Deportivo was founded in 1906 and is currently playing in the Primera División RFEF, the third tier of the Spanish league system. Since the Spanish football league system was established in 1928, it has spent 46 seasons in the top division and 41 seasons in the second division. They won the league title once, in the 1999–2000 season, and finished as runners-up on five occasions. The club has also won the Spanish Cup twice (1995 and 2002), and three Spanish Super Cups. Between 2000–01 and 2004–05, Deportivo played in the UEFA Champions League for five seasons in a row, and reached the semi-finals in 2004. The women's section of the team plays in Spain's top division.


title: A Coruña

text: The city has a roller hockey team, HC Liceo A Coruña, one of the most successful in Spain, and the team plays in the main League OK Liga. They became Europe's Champions in 2011.


title: A Coruña

text: The American football team Towers Football currently plays in LGFA, the Galician regional gridiron football league.


title: A Coruña

text: Two Gaelic football teams were founded in 2010 and 2011, A Coruña Fillos de Breogán (with men and women's teams) and Ártabros de Oleiros (also originating in A Coruña). They participate in the Iberian Championship and in the Galician League.


title: A Coruña

text: Casas Novas riding club, in the outskirts of the city, hosts many national and international championships.


title: A Coruña

text: In tenpin bowling, A Coruña is home to the annual Teresa Herrera de Bowling tournament, this year (2016) played from 24 to 28 August in the Pleno Bowling Centre, Marineda City. It attracts players from all over Spain.


title: A Coruña

text: Domingos Rafael Merino Mexuto was the first mayor after the Spanish Constitution of 1978 for the PSG party (he is now in the BNG party), and he currently works at the Galician Ombudsman's (Valedor) office.


title: A Coruña

text: Francisco Vázquez Vázquez from the PSOE became mayor of the city in 1983; however, on becoming the Spanish ambassador to the Vatican, he was replaced by Javier Losada on 10 February 2006.


title: A Coruña

text: The mayor between 2015 and 2019 was Xulio Ferreiro, from the Marea Atlántica ("Atlantic Tide") party, who was elected in 2015 on an anti-corruption mandate. One of his main priorities was to reverse some of the very worst examples of town planning policy which has left a negative legacy in many areas of the city and its immediate suburbs.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Frank Edward Thomas Jr. (born May 27, 1968), nicknamed "the Big Hurt", is an American former professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter in Major League Baseball (MLB). He played for three American League (AL) teams from 1990 to 2008, all but the last three years with the Chicago White Sox. A five-time All-Star, he is the only player in major league history to have seven consecutive seasons (1991–1997) with at least a .300 batting average, 100 runs batted in (RBI), 100 runs scored, 100 walks, and 20 home runs. Thomas also won the AL batting title in 1997 with a .347 mark. Thomas is a two-time AL MVP and won a World Series in 2005 although he was injured during the regular season and World Series.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Drafted seventh overall by the White Sox in the 1989 MLB draft, Thomas made his major league debut the following year and immediately impressed with his hitting ability. Thomas was named the AL's Most Valuable Player (MVP) by unanimous vote in 1993. That year, he became the first White Sox player to hit 40 home runs and led the team to a division title. He repeated as MVP in the strike-shortened 1994 season, batting .353 and leading the league in slugging percentage and runs. Following two sub-par seasons, Thomas lost a close MVP vote in 2000 despite posting career highs of 43 home runs and 143 RBI. Still, he was named AL Comeback Player of the Year, and Chicago finished with the AL's best record. Later in Thomas's career, a variety of foot injuries and minor ailments reduced his productivity and often limited him to a designated hitter role. In 2005, his final season in Chicago, he was limited to only 34 games after starting the year on the disabled list and then fracturing a bone in his foot close to where it was surgically repaired the previous off-season. He was unable to play in the post-season while the White Sox won the World Series that year. Thomas spent the final three years of his career with the Oakland Athletics and Toronto Blue Jays, with whom he hit his 500th home run.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: By the end of his career, Thomas was tied for eighth in AL history for home runs (521), ninth for RBI (1,704), and sixth for walks (1,667). Among players with at least 7,000 at bats in the AL, he ranked eighth in slugging average (.555) and ninth in on-base percentage (.419). With a .301 lifetime batting average, he became the seventh player in history to retire with at least a .300 average and 500 home runs. He holds White Sox franchise records for career home runs (448), RBI (1,465), runs (1,327), doubles (447), extra base hits, walks (1,466), slugging average, (.568) and on-base percentage (.427). The White Sox retired Thomas's uniform number 35 in 2010 and unveiled a statue of him at U.S. Cellular Field in 2011. Thomas was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 in his first year of eligibility—the first White Sox star to achieve that distinction.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas was one of the few major league stars who never fell under suspicion during the performance-enhancing drugs controversies of the late 1990s. An advocate for drug testing as early as 1995, he was the only active player who agreed to be interviewed for the Mitchell Report in 2007.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, and attended Columbus High School, where he was a standout in both football and baseball. As a sophomore, he hit cleanup for the baseball team, which won a state championship. As a senior, he not only hit .440, but also was named an All-State tight end in football, and played forward with the basketball team. He wanted desperately to win a contract to play professional baseball, but was not selected in the 1986 amateur draft. "I was shocked and sad," Thomas recalled in the "Chicago Tribune". "I saw a lot of guys I played against get drafted, and I knew they couldn't do what I could do. But I've had people all my life saying you can't do this, you can't do that. It scars you. No matter how well I've done. People have misunderstood me for some reason. I was always one of the most competitive kids around."


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In the autumn of 1986, Thomas accepted a scholarship to play football at Auburn University. His love of baseball drew him to the school's baseball team, where the coach immediately recognized his potential. "We loved him," Auburn baseball coach Hal Baird told "Sports Illustrated". "He was fun to be around—always smiling, always bright-eyed." He was also a deadly hitter, posting a .359 batting average and leading the Tigers in RBI as a freshman. During summer 1987, he played for the U.S. Pan American Team, earning a spot on the final roster in the Pan American Games. The Games coincided with the beginning of football practice back at Auburn, so he left the Pan Am team and returned to college—only to be injured twice in early-season football games. In the summer of 1988, Thomas played for the Orleans Cardinals of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Highlights included a three-homer game in Wareham, as well as a home run over the 434' sign in center field at Eldredge Park in Orleans. In 2000, Thomas was named a member of the inaugural class of the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Despite the injury that could have jeopardized his football scholarship, Auburn continued his funding, and baseball became his sole sport. He won consideration for the U.S. National Team—preparing for the 1988 Summer Olympics—but was cut from the final squad. By the end of his junior baseball season, he had hit 19 home runs, 19 doubles, and batted .403 with a slugging percentage of .801. Thomas concluded his college career with 49 home runs, a school record. In May 2011, he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: The Chicago White Sox selected Thomas with the seventh pick in the first round of the June 1989 Major League Baseball draft. He made his major league debut on August 2, 1990, against the Milwaukee Brewers at County Stadium; he went without a hit, going 0-for-4, but had an RBI on a fielder's choice which scored Iván Calderón as the White Sox won the game 4–3. On August 28, Thomas hit the first home run of his career in a road game against the Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome (which, coincidentally, would also be the site of his 500th career home run). He hit the home run off pitcher Gary Wayne in the top of the ninth inning as his team lost 12–6. Thomas played in 60 games with the White Sox in 1990, batting .330 with seven home runs and 31 runs batted in (RBI).


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas became known for his menacing home run power; in the on-deck circle, he routinely swung a rusted piece of rebar that he reportedly found during a renovation project in Old Comiskey Park. In his first full season, Thomas established himself as a multi-talented hitter, combining power with hitting for average, drawing walks, and driving in runs. In , Thomas finished third in MVP voting with a .318 batting average, 32 home runs and 109 RBI, as well as 138 walks. He won the first of four Silver Slugger Awards, and led the league in on-base percentage, something he would accomplish four times during his career.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 1993, Thomas batted .317 with a club-record 41 homers, 128 RBI, 106 runs scored, and 112 walks. He joined a quartet of Hall of Famers (Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams) as the only players in baseball history to eclipse .300 with more than 20 homers and more than 100 RBI, runs, and walks in three straight seasons. On the back of this historic offensive output, Thomas collected all 28 votes from baseball writers for a unanimous AL Most Valuable Player award, the first by a White Sox player since Dick Allen in 1972, while leading the White Sox to their first AL West crown in 10 years. At the time, statistical analyst Bill James projected career statistics of 480 homers and a .311 lifetime average. Then-manager Gene Lamont was laudatory of Thomas' skills: "I've only seen him two years now, but I'm convinced that there isn't a pitch he can't hit." White Sox announcer Ken Harrelson echoed the praise, "In my 30 years in the game, I've never seen anyone like Big Hurt [Thomas]. In another 30 years, we may be talking about Frank Thomas in the same way we talk about Ted Williams." Thomas credited Harrelson with coining the "Big Hurt" nickname.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 1994, playing just 113 games due to a strike-shortened season, Thomas again put up huge offensive numbers, batting .353 with 38 homers and 101 RBI, and he led the league in runs scored (106), walks (109), and slugging percentage with a whopping .729 mark. Thomas handily won his second consecutive MVP award, taking 24 of 28 first-place votes. He is one of only three first basemen in history to win consecutive MVP awards in the major leagues (Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx, 1932–1933, and Albert Pujols, 2008–2009, are the others).


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: The 1994 shortened season was due to a players' strike, and perhaps no one felt the sting of the strike more than Thomas, who stood poised to achieve one of baseball's most prestigious honors: the Triple Crown. Not since 1967 had any player finished the regular season first in average, home runs, and runs batted in. Thomas had recorded 32 home runs at the All-Star break, and was contending for the honor when the strike occurred. Pressed by the media to comment on his accomplishments—and his future—Thomas downplayed his own significance, telling the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution": "I'm not into being known as the best by fans or the media. I care how I'm perceived by my peers. I can settle for the label 'one of the best' because that means you're considered an elite player."


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas would continue putting up significant well-rounded offensive numbers, always placing in the top finishers in all major offensive categories, though rarely leading in any one stat. In 1995, he hit .308 with 40 homers and 111 RBI; in 1996, he hit .349 with 40 home runs and 134 RBI, and became an All-Star for the fourth time while finishing eighth in MVP voting.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: From 1991 to 1997, Thomas finished in the top 10 of the MVP voting every year. In , Thomas won the batting title and finished third in MVP voting. However, due in part to personal strife off the field, his offensive production wavered during the next two seasons. Never a defensive standout at first base during the early part of his career, Thomas nonetheless preferred playing in the field to serving as a designated hitter, saying that it kept him focused; the fact that he did generally hit better as a first baseman created a dilemma over the years for the White Sox as to whether to use him as a DH, which would reduce wear on his body but might cost some offensive production. By the late 1990s, minor injuries were tending to keep him unavailable for short periods, and 1997 was the last year in which he played more in the field than as a DH. Thomas rebounded with force in when he hit .328 with a career-high 43 homers and 143 RBI. Thomas finished second in MVP voting that season, behind Jason Giambi of the Oakland Athletics. Thomas also won the 2000 AL Comeback Player of the Year Award. But this would not mean an end to the rocky path he would follow later in his career.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 2001, after his father died, Thomas also announced during the same week that he would undergo season-ending surgery after an MRI revealed a triceps tear in his right arm. He was distraught from the combined impact of both personal and professional strife. "This is the worst week of my life," he said during a press conference in Chicago. "First I lose my father, then come back and find out I'm lost for the season." He only played in 20 games that year, batting just .221 with four home runs and 10 RBI.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: He rebounded from his injury and played in 148 games in 2002, but hit just .252, a career-low for a complete season, and would never again approach a .300 batting average. However, his power and ability to get on base and drive in runs were still in his offensive arsenal, and he finished the season with 29 home runs and 82 RBI. Always a patient hitter, Thomas led the AL in walks four times. Through the end of the 2006 season, he was second among all active players in walks and third in on-base percentage, and ranked among the top 20 lifetime in both categories.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas had another solid season in 2003. He tied for second in the AL in home runs (42), and was in the league's top ten in walks, extra base hits, slugging average, and on-base plus slugging, as he led the major leagues in fly ball percentage (54.9%). In 2005, Thomas again suffered from injury, but hit 12 home runs in 105 at-bats over 35 games, demonstrating his continued power at the plate. Adding together 2004 and 2005, he had fewer than 350 total at-bats because of injuries, but hit 30 home runs and drew 80 walks. As a member of the White Sox, Thomas and teammate Magglio Ordóñez tied a major league record for back-to-back homers, with six in one season.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 2005, manager Ozzie Guillén led the White Sox to a World Series victory, their first in 88 years. Thomas was not on the postseason roster of the Series-winning team due to injury, but the team honored his perennial contributions to the franchise during Game 1 of the Division Series against the Boston Red Sox. Thomas was chosen to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. "What a feeling," Thomas said. "Standing [ovation] all around the place. People really cheering me. I had tears in my eyes. To really know the fans cared that much about me—it was a great feeling. One of my proudest moments in the game." Though Thomas was not on the postseason roster, he did earn a World Series ring for his contributions during the season.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas established several White Sox batting records, including all-time leader in runs scored (1,327), home runs (448), doubles (447), RBI (1,465), extra-base hits (906), walks (1,466), total bases (3,949), slugging percentage (.568), and on-base percentage (.427). At the time he left the team, his 448 home runs were more than twice as many as any other individual player had hit for the White Sox in their 105-year history.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Despite his perennial offensive production and established fan base in Chicago, the White Sox elected to release Thomas in 2005. Thomas later expressed disappointment with how his 16-year tenure with the White Sox was ended, saying that chairman Jerry Reinsdorf did not call him to tell him he wasn't coming back. He also said that he and Kenny Williams did not see eye-to-eye after Williams became general manager following the 2000 season. At the time, Thomas was unhappy that his next-to-last deal with the White Sox contained a "diminished skills" clause. He said the White Sox should have traded him after the playoffs that season.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: "I've got a lot of respect for Jerry Reinsdorf, I do. But I really thought, the relationship we had over the last 16 years, he would have picked up the phone to say, 'Big guy, we're moving forward. We're going somewhere different. We don't know your situation or what's going to happen.' I can live with that, I really can," Thomas said. "But treating me like some passing-by-player. I've got no respect for that." Thomas said he was not bitter or angry and had joined the A's with an open mind.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas signed with the Oakland Athletics to a one-year, $500,000 deal with incentives on January 26, 2006. The Athletics installed Thomas as their everyday DH. He started the season slowly, hitting .178 through May 20, but ended the season as the team leader in home runs, RBI, slugging percentage, and on-base percentage. He provided a powerful right-handed bat in the middle of the lineup for the division-leading Athletics. He had a stretch where he hit a home run in six straight games.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: On May 22, 2006, Thomas homered twice in his first game against his former team. Before Thomas came up to lead off the second inning, a musical montage played on the Jumbotron at U.S. Cellular Field, paying tribute to Thomas's legacy with the White Sox. He was cheered in his introduction by the White Sox fans. Moments later, when he hit his first home run of the night to put his former team behind in the score 1–0, the Chicago crowd gave Thomas a standing ovation.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas rejuvenated his career playing with the Athletics, placing fifth in the American League with 39 home runs and eighth with 114 RBI. He also was key to the team's stretch drive to the playoffs: for the week ending September 10, he was the league's player of the week after hitting .462 with five homers and 13 RBI. The 2006 postseason provided Thomas the opportunity to play in his first postseason games since 2000 due to having missed the 2005 playoffs with an injury, when the Athletics clinched the American League West title, defeating the Seattle Mariners 12–3 on September 26. During the A's first playoff game on October 3, Thomas hit two solo home runs, leading the A's to a 3–2 win over the Twins. His performance during the opening playoff game earned Thomas the distinction of being the oldest player to hit multiple home runs in a postseason game. He led the A's to an ALDS victory, going 5-for-10 with two home runs in the series.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: On October 7, 2006, he finished behind Jim Thome, his replacement as the White Sox's DH, in the voting for the AL Comeback Player of the Year Award. He was awarded the AL players' choice award for Comeback Player. He finished fourth in the vote for the MVP award.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: On November 16, 2006, Thomas signed a two-year, $18 million contract with the Toronto Blue Jays. According to MLB.com, Thomas was scheduled to make $9 million in each of the two seasons. The contract included an option for 2009 contingent on his reaching 1,050 plate appearances over the next two seasons or 525 plate appearances in the second year of the contract.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: On June 17, 2007, Thomas hit his 496th career home run against the Washington Nationals, giving him his 244th home run as a DH, breaking the record previously held by Edgar Martínez.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: On June 28, 2007, Thomas hit the 500th home run of his career, becoming the 21st major league player to do so. It was a three-run shot off Minnesota's Carlos Silva (Thomas' 500th home run came on the same day Craig Biggio hit his 3,000th career hit). Despite Thomas being a player for the visiting team in the game, the Metrodome scoreboard still paid notice to his achievement. He was later ejected from this same game.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: On September 17, 2007, Thomas hit three home runs in his team's 6–1 win over the Red Sox. It was the second time in his career that Thomas hit three home runs in a game, the first time also having been against the Red Sox on September 15, 1996 in a White Sox loss. Knuckleballer Tim Wakefield started both games for the Red Sox, and gave up five of the six home runs Thomas hit, including all three in the first game.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: During spring training in , Thomas expressed his confidence about his team's chances for the upcoming season. Thomas hit his first home run of the season against the Red Sox on April 5, in a 10–2 Blue Jays win. The following day, with the bases loaded and a 2–2 tie, Thomas hit a grand slam off Red Sox reliever Manny Delcarmen, leading the Jays to a 7–4 victory. On April 19, before a game against the Detroit Tigers, manager John Gibbons benched Thomas. Thomas expressed his frustration about the decision, and vowed that his career would "not end like this". On April 20, 2008, the Blue Jays released Thomas.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Four days later after his release from Toronto, the Athletics and Thomas agreed to terms for his return. In his final game with the Athletics on August 29, he went 2-for-4. After playing 55 games with Oakland due to time on the disabled list, Thomas hit five more home runs to bring his career total to 521, while posting a .263 batting average. On October 31, 2008, he became a free agent.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: After not playing in the 2009 season, Thomas signed a one-day contract with the White Sox on February 12, 2010, and announced his retirement. During the same press conference, the White Sox, for whom he played the first 16 seasons of his career, announced that they would retire his No. 35 on August 29.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas is the only player in major league history to have seven consecutive seasons of a .300 average and at least 100 walks, 100 runs, 100 runs batted in, and 20 home runs (1991–1997). The only other player to have more than five consecutive seasons accomplishing this feat was Ted Williams, with six. This accomplishment is even more remarkable considering that Thomas played only 113 games in the strike-shortened 1994 season.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: There are only six other players in history who have both hit more home runs and have a higher career batting average than Thomas: Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Jimmie Foxx, Babe Ruth, Manny Ramirez, and Willie Mays.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Early in his career, Thomas, by his own admission, used greenies to deal with the difficulties of traveling. Thomas implied that he stopped using them after the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the league regulated teams' travel schedules.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: However, as early as , Thomas was advocating drug testing for professional baseball players. After hitting his 500th career home run in 2007, Thomas stated, "It means a lot to me because I did it the right way", alluding to Barry Bonds's then-ongoing pursuit of Hank Aaron's career home run record. Thomas was, then, the only active baseball player to be interviewed during the preparation of the Mitchell Report. He did so voluntarily.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas has been critical of the election of certain players to the Hall of Fame who, he has said, "we all know" used performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Thomas said he was "not happy" about the 2017 election of Jeff Bagwell and Iván Rodríguez who, he said, "it's no secret" used PEDs.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In a 2018 interview with the "Chicago Sun-Times", Thomas complained that his "career was stepped on" by competitors who used PEDs and "was the most hurt" of any players in that era.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: The White Sox announced that they would honor Thomas with a life-size bronze statue. It was unveiled on Sunday, July 31, 2011, on the outfield concourse at U.S. Cellular Field. It is the eighth statue on the outfield concourse.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014 with 83.7% of the vote in his initial year of eligibility, and was inducted as a member of the White Sox on July 27, 2014. He was the first player inducted into the Hall of Fame who played more games as a designated hitter than as a position player.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Thomas appeared in the 1992 film "Mr. Baseball" (as a hot-prospect rookie wearing #68 named Ricky Davis who forces Tom Selleck's character off the Yankees roster).


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: During the 1994-95 MLB strike, Thomas and a handful of other striking players appeared as themselves in the November 27, 1994, episode of "Married With Children" (Season 9, Episode 11).


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 1995, a baseball video game titled "Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball" was developed by Acclaim Entertainment and released for various platforms, with "All-Star Baseball '97 Featuring Frank Thomas" following in 1997. Also in 1995, Premier Technologies created a pinball machine (marketed under the Gottlieb trade name) titled "Frank Thomas' Big Hurt"; Thomas made an appearance in the documentary "The History of Pinball" in which he discusses the similarities between playing baseball and pinball. "Frank Thomas' Big Hurt" was later added to pinball video game "The Pinball Arcade" in late July 2016.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 2007, he appeared in a promotional advertisement for the Blue Jays, in which he engages in a pillow fight with children. This ad drew the criticism of the Television Bureau of Canada, who requested a "Dramatization. Do not try this at home." disclaimer be placed on the ad. A similar warning was placed on teammate A. J. Burnett's commercial. The Blue Jays, humorously, then scheduled a "Frank Thomas Kid's Pillow" promotion for September 2, 2007.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: Since 2010, Thomas has continued his work with NBC Sports Chicago by serving as a Studio analyst during their pre-game and post-game Chicago White Sox broadcasts. He also is a substitute color analyst for the Chicago White Sox NBC Sports Chicago broadcasts and WGN broadcasts, temporarily filling in for Steve Stone on occasion.


title: Frank Thomas (designated hitter)

text: In 2012, Thomas participated in the Pepsi MAX Field of Dreams game in Columbus, Ohio. He batted cleanup and helped the Legends team win the ballgame.