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+The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (Spanish: Cordillera de los Andes) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, 200 to 700 km (120 to 430 mi) wide (widest between 18° south and 20° south latitude), and has an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft). The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
+
+Along their length, the Andes are split into several ranges, separated by intermediate depressions. The Andes are the location of several high plateaus—some of which host major cities such as Quito, Bogotá, Cali, Arequipa, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Sucre, Mérida and La Paz. The Altiplano plateau is the world's second-highest after the Tibetan plateau. These ranges are in turn grouped into three major divisions based on climate: the Tropical Andes, the Dry Andes, and the Wet Andes.
+
+The Andes Mountains are the highest mountain range outside Asia. The highest mountain outside Asia, Argentina's Mount Aconcagua, rises to an elevation of about 6,961 m (22,838 ft) above sea level. The peak of Chimborazo in the Ecuadorian Andes is farther from the Earth's center than any other location on the Earth's surface, due to the equatorial bulge resulting from the Earth's rotation. The world's highest volcanoes are in the Andes, including Ojos del Salado on the Chile-Argentina border, which rises to 6,893 m (22,615 ft).
+
+The Andes are also part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica.
+
+The etymology of the word Andes has been debated. The majority consensus is that it derives from the Quechua word anti, which means "east"[1] as in Antisuyu (Quechua for "east region"),[1] one of the four regions of the Inca Empire.
+
+The term cordillera comes from the Spanish word cordel, meaning "rope",[2] and is used as a descriptive name for several contiguous sections of the Andes, as well as the entire Andean range, and the combined mountain chain along the western part of the North and South American continents.
+
+The Andes can be divided into three sections:
+
+The Leeward Antilles islands Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, which lie in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela, were formerly thought to represent the submerged peaks of the extreme northern edge of the Andes range, but ongoing geological studies indicate that such a simplification does not do justice to the complex tectonic boundary between the South American and Caribbean plates.[4]
+
+Marañón • Central Andean • Patagonian
+
+Aluk Plate (formerly) • Antarctic Plate • Carnegie Ridge • Chile Rise • Farallon Plate (formerly) • Juan Fernández Ridge • Nazca Plate • Nazca Ridge
+
+Dolores-Guayaquil • Cordillera Blanca • Cochabamba • Domeyko • El Tigre • San Ramón • Liquiñe-Ofqui • Magallanes-Fagnano
+
+Northern Zone • Peruvian flat-slab • Central Zone • Pampean flat-slab • Southern Zone • Patagonian Gap • Austral Zone
+
+Arequipa-Antofalla • Mejillonia • Chilenia • Chaitenia • Chiloé Block • Cuyania • Pampia • Patagonia • Fitz Roy • Madre de Dios
+
+The Andes are a Mesozoic–Tertiary orogenic belt of mountains along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of volcanic activity that encompasses the Pacific rim of the Americas as well as the Asia-Pacific region. The Andes are the result of tectonic plate processes, caused by the subduction of oceanic crust beneath the South American Plate. It is the result of a convergent plate boundary between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate. The main cause of the rise of the Andes is the compression of the western rim of the South American Plate due to the subduction of the Nazca Plate and the Antarctic Plate. To the east, the Andes range is bounded by several sedimentary basins, such as Orinoco, Amazon Basin, Madre de Dios and Gran Chaco, that separate the Andes from the ancient cratons in eastern South America. In the south, the Andes share a long boundary with the former Patagonia Terrane. To the west, the Andes end at the Pacific Ocean, although the Peru-Chile trench can be considered their ultimate western limit. From a geographical approach, the Andes are considered to have their western boundaries marked by the appearance of coastal lowlands and a less rugged topography. The Andes Mountains also contain large quantities of iron ore located in many mountains within the range.
+
+The Andean orogen has a series of bends or oroclines. The Bolivian Orocline is a seaward concave bending in the coast of South America and the Andes Mountains at about 18° S.[5][6] At this point, the orientation of the Andes turns from Northwest in Peru to South in Chile and Argentina.[6] The Andean segment north and south of the Orocline have been rotated 15° to 20° counter clockwise and clockwise respectively.[6][7] The Bolivian Orocline area overlaps with the area of maximum width of the Altiplano Plateau and according to Isacks (1988) the Orocline is related to crustal shortening.[5] The specific point at 18° S where the coastline bends is known as the "Arica Elbow".[8] Further south lies the Maipo Orocline a more subtle Orocline between 30° S and 38°S with a seaward-concave break in trend at 33° S.[9] Near the southern tip of the Andes lies the Patagonian Orocline.[10]
+
+The western rim of the South American Plate has been the place of several pre-Andean orogenies since at least the late Proterozoic and early Paleozoic, when several terranes and microcontinents collided and amalgamated with the ancient cratons of eastern South America, by then the South American part of Gondwana.
+
+The formation of the modern Andes began with the events of the Triassic when Pangaea began the break up that resulted in developing several rifts. The development continued through the Jurassic Period. It was during the Cretaceous Period that the Andes began to take their present form, by the uplifting, faulting and folding of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks of the ancient cratons to the east. The rise of the Andes has not been constant, as different regions have had different degrees of tectonic stress, uplift, and erosion.
+
+Tectonic forces above the subduction zone along the entire west coast of South America where the Nazca Plate and a part of the Antarctic Plate are sliding beneath the South American Plate continue to produce an ongoing orogenic event resulting in minor to major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to this day. In the extreme south, a major transform fault separates Tierra del Fuego from the small Scotia Plate. Across the 1,000 km (620 mi) wide Drake Passage lie the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula south of the Scotia Plate which appear to be a continuation of the Andes chain.[11]
+
+The regions immediately east of the Andes experience a series of changes resulting from the Andean orogeny. Parts of the Sunsás Orogen in Amazonian craton disappeared from the surface of earth being overridden by the Andes.[12]
+The Sierras de Córdoba, where the effects of the ancient Pampean orogeny can be observed, owe their modern uplift and relief to the Andean orogeny in the Tertiary.[13] Further south in southern Patagonia the onset of the Andean orogeny caused the Magallanes Basin to evolve from being an extensional back-arc basin in the Mesozoic to being a compressional foreland basin in the Cenozoic.[14]
+
+The Andes range has many active volcanoes distributed in four volcanic zones separated by areas of inactivity. The Andean volcanism is a result of subduction of the Nazca Plate and Antarctic Plate underneath the South American Plate. The belt is subdivided into four main volcanic zones that are separated from each other by volcanic gaps. The volcanoes of the belt are diverse in terms of activity style, products and morphology. While some differences can be explained by which volcanic zone a volcano belongs to, there are significant differences inside volcanic zones and even between neighbouring volcanoes. Despite being a type location for calc-alkalic and subduction volcanism, the Andean Volcanic Belt has a large range of volcano-tectonic settings, such as rift systems and extensional zones, transpressional faults, subduction of mid-ocean ridges and seamount chains apart from a large range of crustal thicknesses and magma ascent paths, and different amount of crustal assimilations.
+
+The Andes Mountains host large ore and salt deposits and some of their eastern fold and thrust belt acts as traps for commercially exploitable amounts of hydrocarbons. In the forelands of the Atacama Desert some of the largest porphyry copper mineralizations occurs making Chile and Peru the first and second largest exporters of copper in the world. Porphyry copper in the western slopes of the Andes has been generated by hydrothermal fluids (mostly water) during the cooling of plutons or volcanic systems. The porphyry mineralization further benefited from the dry climate that let them largely out of the disturbing actions of meteoric water. The dry climate in the central western Andes has also led to the creation of extensive saltpeter deposits which were extensively mined until the invention of synthetic nitrates. Yet another result of the dry climate are the salars of Atacama and Uyuni, the first one being the largest source of lithium today and the second the world's largest reserve of the element. Early Mesozoic and Neogene plutonism in Bolivia's Cordillera Central created the Bolivian tin belt as well as the famous, now depleted, deposits of Cerro Rico de Potosí.
+
+The climate in the Andes varies greatly depending on latitude, altitude, and proximity to the sea. Temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity decrease in higher elevations. The southern section is rainy and cool, the central section is dry. The northern Andes are typically rainy and warm, with an average temperature of 18 °C (64 °F) in Colombia. The climate is known to change drastically in rather short distances. Rainforests exist just kilometres away from the snow-covered peak Cotopaxi. The mountains have a large effect on the temperatures of nearby areas. The snow line depends on the location. It is at between 4,500 and 4,800 m (14,800 and 15,700 ft) in the tropical Ecuadorian, Colombian, Venezuelan, and northern Peruvian Andes, rising to 4,800–5,200 m (15,700–17,100 ft) in the drier mountains of southern Peru south to northern Chile south to about 30°S before descending to 4,500 m (14,760 ft) on Aconcagua at 32°S, 2,000 m (6,600 ft) at 40°S, 500 m (1,640 ft) at 50°S, and only 300 m (980 ft) in Tierra del Fuego at 55°S; from 50°S, several of the larger glaciers descend to sea level.[15]
+
+The Andes of Chile and Argentina can be divided in two climatic and glaciological zones: the Dry Andes and the Wet Andes. Since the Dry Andes extend from the latitudes of Atacama Desert to the area of Maule River, precipitation is more sporadic and there are strong temperature oscillations. The line of equilibrium may shift drastically over short periods of time, leaving a whole glacier in the ablation area or in the accumulation area.
+
+In the high Andes of central Chile and Mendoza Province, rock glaciers are larger and more common than glaciers; this is due to the high exposure to solar radiation.[16]
+
+Though precipitation increases with the height, there are semiarid conditions in the nearly 7,000-metre (23,000 ft) highest mountains of the Andes. This dry steppe climate is considered to be typical of the subtropical position at 32–34° S. The valley bottoms have no woods, just dwarf scrub. The largest glaciers, as e.g. the Plomo glacier and the Horcones glaciers, do not even reach 10 km (6.2 mi) in length and have an only insignificant ice thickness. At glacial times, however, c. 20,000 years ago, the glaciers were over ten times longer. On the east side of this section of the Mendozina Andes, they flowed down to 2,060 m (6,760 ft) and on the west side to about 1,220 m (4,000 ft) above sea level.[17][18] The massifs of Cerro Aconcagua (6,961 m (22,838 ft)), Cerro Tupungato (6,550 m (21,490 ft)) and Nevado Juncal (6,110 m (20,050 ft)) are tens of kilometres away from each other and were connected by a joint ice stream network. The Andes' dendritic glacier arms, i.e. components of valley glaciers, were up to 112.5 km (69.9 mi) long, over 1,250 m (4,100 ft) thick and overspanned a vertical distance of 5,150 m (16,900 ft). The climatic glacier snowline (ELA) was lowered from 4,600 m (15,100 ft) to 3,200 m (10,500 ft) at glacial times.[17][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]
+
+The Andean region cuts across several natural and floristic regions due to its extension from Caribbean Venezuela to cold, windy and wet Cape Horn passing through the hyperarid Atacama Desert. Rainforests and tropical dry forests[27] used to encircle much of the northern Andes but are now greatly diminished, especially in the Chocó and inter-Andean valleys of Colombia. Opposite of the humid Andean slopes are the relatively dry Andean slopes in most of western Peru, Chile and Argentina. Along with several Interandean Valles, they are typically dominated by deciduous woodland, shrub and xeric vegetation, reaching the extreme in the slopes near the virtually lifeless Atacama Desert.
+
+About 30,000 species of vascular plants live in the Andes, with roughly half being endemic to the region, surpassing the diversity of any other hotspot.[28] The small tree Cinchona pubescens, a source of quinine which is used to treat malaria, is found widely in the Andes as far south as Bolivia. Other important crops that originated from the Andes are tobacco and potatoes. The high-altitude Polylepis forests and woodlands are found in the Andean areas of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. These trees, by locals referred to as Queñua, Yagual and other names, can be found at altitudes of 4,500 m (14,760 ft) above sea level. It remains unclear if the patchy distribution of these forests and woodlands is natural, or the result of clearing which began during the Incan period. Regardless, in modern times the clearance has accelerated, and the trees are now considered to be highly endangered, with some believing that as little as 10% of the original woodland remains.[29]
+
+The Andes are rich in fauna: With almost 1,000 species, of which roughly 2/3 are endemic to the region, the Andes are the most important region in the world for amphibians.[28]
+The diversity of animals in the Andes is high, with almost 600 species of mammals (13% endemic), more than 1,700 species of birds (about 1/3 endemic), more than 600 species of reptile (about 45% endemic), and almost 400 species of fish (about 1/3 endemic).[28]
+
+The vicuña and guanaco can be found living in the Altiplano, while the closely related domesticated llama and alpaca are widely kept by locals as pack animals and for their meat and wool. The crepuscular (active during dawn and dusk) chinchillas, two threatened members of the rodent order, inhabit the Andes' alpine regions.[30][31] The Andean condor, the largest bird of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, occurs throughout much of the Andes but generally in very low densities.[32] Other animals found in the relatively open habitats of the high Andes include the huemul, cougar, foxes in the genus Pseudalopex,[30][31] and, for birds, certain species of tinamous (notably members of the genus Nothoprocta), Andean goose, giant coot, flamingos (mainly associated with hypersaline lakes), lesser rhea, Andean flicker, diademed sandpiper-plover, miners, sierra-finches and diuca-finches.[32]
+
+Lake Titicaca hosts several endemics, among them the highly endangered Titicaca flightless grebe[32] and Titicaca water frog.[33] A few species of hummingbirds, notably some hillstars, can be seen at altitudes above 4,000 m (13,100 ft), but far higher diversities can be found at lower altitudes, especially in the humid Andean forests ("cloud forests") growing on slopes in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and far northwestern Argentina.[32] These forest-types, which includes the Yungas and parts of the Chocó, are very rich in flora and fauna, although few large mammals exist, exceptions being the threatened mountain tapir, spectacled bear and yellow-tailed woolly monkey.[30]
+
+Birds of humid Andean forests include mountain-toucans, quetzals and the Andean cock-of-the-rock, while mixed species flocks dominated by tanagers and furnariids commonly are seen – in contrast to several vocal but typically cryptic species of wrens, tapaculos and antpittas.[32]
+
+A number of species such as the royal cinclodes and white-browed tit-spinetail are associated with Polylepis, and consequently also threatened.[32]
+
+The Andes Mountains form a north–south axis of cultural influences. A long series of cultural development culminated in the expansion of the Inca civilization and Inca Empire in the central Andes during the 15th century. The Incas formed this civilization through imperialistic militarism as well as careful and meticulous governmental management.[34] The government sponsored the construction of aqueducts and roads in addition to preexisting installations. Some of these constructions are still in existence today.
+
+Devastated by European diseases to which they had no immunity and civil wars, in 1532 the Incas were defeated by an alliance composed of tens of thousands of allies from nations they had subjugated (e.g. Huancas, Chachapoyas, Cañaris) and a small army of 180 Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro. One of the few Inca sites the Spanish never found in their conquest was Machu Picchu, which lay hidden on a peak on the eastern edge of the Andes where they descend to the Amazon. The main surviving languages of the Andean peoples are those of the Quechua and Aymara language families. Woodbine Parish and Joseph Barclay Pentland surveyed a large part of the Bolivian Andes from 1826 to 1827.
+
+In modern times, the largest cities in the Andes are Bogotá, with a population of about eight million, and Santiago, Medellín, and Cali. Lima is a coastal city adjacent to the Andes and is the largest city of all Andean countries. It is the seat of the Andean Community of Nations.
+
+La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government, is the highest capital city in the world, at an elevation of approximately 3,650 m (11,975 ft). Parts of the La Paz conurbation, including the city of El Alto, extend up to 4,200 m (13,780 ft).
+
+Other cities in or near the Andes include Bariloche, Catamarca, Jujuy, Mendoza, Salta, San Juan, and Tucumán in Argentina; Calama and Rancagua in Chile; Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, Sucre, Sacaba, Tarija, and Yacuiba in Bolivia; Arequipa, Cajamarca, Cusco, Huancayo, Huánuco, Huaraz, Juliaca, and Puno in Peru; Ambato, Cuenca, Ibarra, Loja, Quito, Riobamba and Tulcán in Ecuador; Armenia, Cúcuta, Bucaramanga, Duitama, Ibagué, Ipiales, Manizales, Palmira, Pasto, Pereira, Popayán, Sogamoso, Tunja, and Villavicencio in Colombia; and Barquisimeto, Mérida, San Cristóbal, and Valera in Venezuela; . The cities of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracay are in the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which is a debatable extension of the Andes at the northern extreme of South America.
+
+Cities and large towns are connected with asphalt-paved roads, while smaller towns are often connected by dirt roads, which may require a four-wheel-drive vehicle.[35]
+
+The rough terrain has historically put the costs of building highways and railroads that cross the Andes out of reach of most neighboring countries, even with modern civil engineering practices. For example, the main crossover of the Andes between Argentina and Chile is still accomplished through the Paso Internacional Los Libertadores. Only recently the ends of some highways that came rather close to one another from the east and the west have been connected.[36] Much of the transportation of passengers is done via aircraft.
+
+However, there is one railroad that connects Chile with Peru via the Andes, and there are others that make the same connection via southern Bolivia. See railroad maps of that region.
+
+There are multiple highways in Bolivia that cross the Andes. Some of these were built during a period of war between Bolivia and Paraguay, in order to transport Bolivian troops and their supplies to the war front in the lowlands of southeastern Bolivia and western Paraguay.
+
+For decades, Chile claimed ownership of land on the eastern side of the Andes. However, these claims were given up in about 1870 during the War of the Pacific between Chile, the allied Bolivia and Peru, in a diplomatic deal to keep Peru out of the war. The Chilean Army and Chilean Navy defeated the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, and Chile took over Bolivia's only province on the Pacific Coast, some land from Peru that was returned to Peru decades later. Bolivia has been a completely landlocked country ever since. It mostly uses seaports in eastern Argentina and Uruguay for international trade because its diplomatic relations with Chile have been suspended since 1978.
+
+Because of the tortuous terrain in places, villages and towns in the mountains—to which travel via motorized vehicles is of little use—are still located in the high Andes of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Locally, the relatives of the camel, the llama, and the alpaca continue to carry out important uses as pack animals, but this use has generally diminished in modern times. Donkeys, mules, and horses are also useful.
+
+The ancient peoples of the Andes such as the Incas have practiced irrigation techniques for over 6,000 years. Because of the mountain slopes, terracing has been a common practice. Terracing, however, was only extensively employed after Incan imperial expansions to fuel their expanding realm. The potato holds a very important role as an internally consumed staple crop. Maize was also an important crop for these people, and was used for the production of chicha, important to Andean native people. Currently, tobacco, cotton and coffee are the main export crops. Coca, despite eradication programmes in some countries, remains an important crop for legal local use in a mildly stimulating herbal tea, and, both controversially and illegally, for the production of cocaine.
+
+In unirrigated land, pasture is the most common type of land use. In the rainy season (summer), part of the rangeland is used for cropping (mainly potatoes, barley, broad beans and wheat).
+
+Irrigation is helpful in advancing the sowing data of the summer crops which guarantees an early yield in the period of food shortage. Also, by early sowing, maize can be cultivated higher up in the mountains (up to 3,800 m (12,500 ft)). In addition it makes cropping in the dry season (winter) possible and allows the cultivation of frost resistant vegetable crops like onion and carrot.[37]
+
+The Andes rose to fame for their mineral wealth during the Spanish conquest of South America. Although Andean Amerindian peoples crafted ceremonial jewelry of gold and other metals, the mineralizations of the Andes were first mined on a large scale after the Spanish arrival. Potosí in present-day Bolivia and Cerro de Pasco in Peru was one of the principal mines of the Spanish Empire in the New World. Río de la Plata and Argentina[38] derive their names from the silver of Potosí.
+
+Currently, mining in the Andes of Chile and Peru places these countries as the first and third major producers of copper in the world. Peru also contains the 4th largest goldmine in the world: the Yanacocha. The Bolivian Andes produce principally tin although historically silver mining had a huge impact on the economy of 17th century Europe.
+
+There is a long history of mining in the Andes, from the Spanish silver mines in Potosí in the 16th century to the vast current porphyry copper deposits of Chuquicamata and Escondida in Chile and Toquepala in Peru. Other metals including iron, gold, and tin in addition to non-metallic resources are important.
+
+This list contains some of the major peaks in the Andes mountain range. The highest peak is Aconcagua of Argentina (see below).

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+The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (Spanish: Cordillera de los Andes) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long, 200 to 700 km (120 to 430 mi) wide (widest between 18° south and 20° south latitude), and has an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft). The Andes extend from north to south through seven South American countries: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.
+
+Along their length, the Andes are split into several ranges, separated by intermediate depressions. The Andes are the location of several high plateaus—some of which host major cities such as Quito, Bogotá, Cali, Arequipa, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Sucre, Mérida and La Paz. The Altiplano plateau is the world's second-highest after the Tibetan plateau. These ranges are in turn grouped into three major divisions based on climate: the Tropical Andes, the Dry Andes, and the Wet Andes.
+
+The Andes Mountains are the highest mountain range outside Asia. The highest mountain outside Asia, Argentina's Mount Aconcagua, rises to an elevation of about 6,961 m (22,838 ft) above sea level. The peak of Chimborazo in the Ecuadorian Andes is farther from the Earth's center than any other location on the Earth's surface, due to the equatorial bulge resulting from the Earth's rotation. The world's highest volcanoes are in the Andes, including Ojos del Salado on the Chile-Argentina border, which rises to 6,893 m (22,615 ft).
+
+The Andes are also part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America and Antarctica.
+
+The etymology of the word Andes has been debated. The majority consensus is that it derives from the Quechua word anti, which means "east"[1] as in Antisuyu (Quechua for "east region"),[1] one of the four regions of the Inca Empire.
+
+The term cordillera comes from the Spanish word cordel, meaning "rope",[2] and is used as a descriptive name for several contiguous sections of the Andes, as well as the entire Andean range, and the combined mountain chain along the western part of the North and South American continents.
+
+The Andes can be divided into three sections:
+
+The Leeward Antilles islands Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, which lie in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela, were formerly thought to represent the submerged peaks of the extreme northern edge of the Andes range, but ongoing geological studies indicate that such a simplification does not do justice to the complex tectonic boundary between the South American and Caribbean plates.[4]
+
+Marañón • Central Andean • Patagonian
+
+Aluk Plate (formerly) • Antarctic Plate • Carnegie Ridge • Chile Rise • Farallon Plate (formerly) • Juan Fernández Ridge • Nazca Plate • Nazca Ridge
+
+Dolores-Guayaquil • Cordillera Blanca • Cochabamba • Domeyko • El Tigre • San Ramón • Liquiñe-Ofqui • Magallanes-Fagnano
+
+Northern Zone • Peruvian flat-slab • Central Zone • Pampean flat-slab • Southern Zone • Patagonian Gap • Austral Zone
+
+Arequipa-Antofalla • Mejillonia • Chilenia • Chaitenia • Chiloé Block • Cuyania • Pampia • Patagonia • Fitz Roy • Madre de Dios
+
+The Andes are a Mesozoic–Tertiary orogenic belt of mountains along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of volcanic activity that encompasses the Pacific rim of the Americas as well as the Asia-Pacific region. The Andes are the result of tectonic plate processes, caused by the subduction of oceanic crust beneath the South American Plate. It is the result of a convergent plate boundary between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate. The main cause of the rise of the Andes is the compression of the western rim of the South American Plate due to the subduction of the Nazca Plate and the Antarctic Plate. To the east, the Andes range is bounded by several sedimentary basins, such as Orinoco, Amazon Basin, Madre de Dios and Gran Chaco, that separate the Andes from the ancient cratons in eastern South America. In the south, the Andes share a long boundary with the former Patagonia Terrane. To the west, the Andes end at the Pacific Ocean, although the Peru-Chile trench can be considered their ultimate western limit. From a geographical approach, the Andes are considered to have their western boundaries marked by the appearance of coastal lowlands and a less rugged topography. The Andes Mountains also contain large quantities of iron ore located in many mountains within the range.
+
+The Andean orogen has a series of bends or oroclines. The Bolivian Orocline is a seaward concave bending in the coast of South America and the Andes Mountains at about 18° S.[5][6] At this point, the orientation of the Andes turns from Northwest in Peru to South in Chile and Argentina.[6] The Andean segment north and south of the Orocline have been rotated 15° to 20° counter clockwise and clockwise respectively.[6][7] The Bolivian Orocline area overlaps with the area of maximum width of the Altiplano Plateau and according to Isacks (1988) the Orocline is related to crustal shortening.[5] The specific point at 18° S where the coastline bends is known as the "Arica Elbow".[8] Further south lies the Maipo Orocline a more subtle Orocline between 30° S and 38°S with a seaward-concave break in trend at 33° S.[9] Near the southern tip of the Andes lies the Patagonian Orocline.[10]
+
+The western rim of the South American Plate has been the place of several pre-Andean orogenies since at least the late Proterozoic and early Paleozoic, when several terranes and microcontinents collided and amalgamated with the ancient cratons of eastern South America, by then the South American part of Gondwana.
+
+The formation of the modern Andes began with the events of the Triassic when Pangaea began the break up that resulted in developing several rifts. The development continued through the Jurassic Period. It was during the Cretaceous Period that the Andes began to take their present form, by the uplifting, faulting and folding of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks of the ancient cratons to the east. The rise of the Andes has not been constant, as different regions have had different degrees of tectonic stress, uplift, and erosion.
+
+Tectonic forces above the subduction zone along the entire west coast of South America where the Nazca Plate and a part of the Antarctic Plate are sliding beneath the South American Plate continue to produce an ongoing orogenic event resulting in minor to major earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to this day. In the extreme south, a major transform fault separates Tierra del Fuego from the small Scotia Plate. Across the 1,000 km (620 mi) wide Drake Passage lie the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula south of the Scotia Plate which appear to be a continuation of the Andes chain.[11]
+
+The regions immediately east of the Andes experience a series of changes resulting from the Andean orogeny. Parts of the Sunsás Orogen in Amazonian craton disappeared from the surface of earth being overridden by the Andes.[12]
+The Sierras de Córdoba, where the effects of the ancient Pampean orogeny can be observed, owe their modern uplift and relief to the Andean orogeny in the Tertiary.[13] Further south in southern Patagonia the onset of the Andean orogeny caused the Magallanes Basin to evolve from being an extensional back-arc basin in the Mesozoic to being a compressional foreland basin in the Cenozoic.[14]
+
+The Andes range has many active volcanoes distributed in four volcanic zones separated by areas of inactivity. The Andean volcanism is a result of subduction of the Nazca Plate and Antarctic Plate underneath the South American Plate. The belt is subdivided into four main volcanic zones that are separated from each other by volcanic gaps. The volcanoes of the belt are diverse in terms of activity style, products and morphology. While some differences can be explained by which volcanic zone a volcano belongs to, there are significant differences inside volcanic zones and even between neighbouring volcanoes. Despite being a type location for calc-alkalic and subduction volcanism, the Andean Volcanic Belt has a large range of volcano-tectonic settings, such as rift systems and extensional zones, transpressional faults, subduction of mid-ocean ridges and seamount chains apart from a large range of crustal thicknesses and magma ascent paths, and different amount of crustal assimilations.
+
+The Andes Mountains host large ore and salt deposits and some of their eastern fold and thrust belt acts as traps for commercially exploitable amounts of hydrocarbons. In the forelands of the Atacama Desert some of the largest porphyry copper mineralizations occurs making Chile and Peru the first and second largest exporters of copper in the world. Porphyry copper in the western slopes of the Andes has been generated by hydrothermal fluids (mostly water) during the cooling of plutons or volcanic systems. The porphyry mineralization further benefited from the dry climate that let them largely out of the disturbing actions of meteoric water. The dry climate in the central western Andes has also led to the creation of extensive saltpeter deposits which were extensively mined until the invention of synthetic nitrates. Yet another result of the dry climate are the salars of Atacama and Uyuni, the first one being the largest source of lithium today and the second the world's largest reserve of the element. Early Mesozoic and Neogene plutonism in Bolivia's Cordillera Central created the Bolivian tin belt as well as the famous, now depleted, deposits of Cerro Rico de Potosí.
+
+The climate in the Andes varies greatly depending on latitude, altitude, and proximity to the sea. Temperature, atmospheric pressure and humidity decrease in higher elevations. The southern section is rainy and cool, the central section is dry. The northern Andes are typically rainy and warm, with an average temperature of 18 °C (64 °F) in Colombia. The climate is known to change drastically in rather short distances. Rainforests exist just kilometres away from the snow-covered peak Cotopaxi. The mountains have a large effect on the temperatures of nearby areas. The snow line depends on the location. It is at between 4,500 and 4,800 m (14,800 and 15,700 ft) in the tropical Ecuadorian, Colombian, Venezuelan, and northern Peruvian Andes, rising to 4,800–5,200 m (15,700–17,100 ft) in the drier mountains of southern Peru south to northern Chile south to about 30°S before descending to 4,500 m (14,760 ft) on Aconcagua at 32°S, 2,000 m (6,600 ft) at 40°S, 500 m (1,640 ft) at 50°S, and only 300 m (980 ft) in Tierra del Fuego at 55°S; from 50°S, several of the larger glaciers descend to sea level.[15]
+
+The Andes of Chile and Argentina can be divided in two climatic and glaciological zones: the Dry Andes and the Wet Andes. Since the Dry Andes extend from the latitudes of Atacama Desert to the area of Maule River, precipitation is more sporadic and there are strong temperature oscillations. The line of equilibrium may shift drastically over short periods of time, leaving a whole glacier in the ablation area or in the accumulation area.
+
+In the high Andes of central Chile and Mendoza Province, rock glaciers are larger and more common than glaciers; this is due to the high exposure to solar radiation.[16]
+
+Though precipitation increases with the height, there are semiarid conditions in the nearly 7,000-metre (23,000 ft) highest mountains of the Andes. This dry steppe climate is considered to be typical of the subtropical position at 32–34° S. The valley bottoms have no woods, just dwarf scrub. The largest glaciers, as e.g. the Plomo glacier and the Horcones glaciers, do not even reach 10 km (6.2 mi) in length and have an only insignificant ice thickness. At glacial times, however, c. 20,000 years ago, the glaciers were over ten times longer. On the east side of this section of the Mendozina Andes, they flowed down to 2,060 m (6,760 ft) and on the west side to about 1,220 m (4,000 ft) above sea level.[17][18] The massifs of Cerro Aconcagua (6,961 m (22,838 ft)), Cerro Tupungato (6,550 m (21,490 ft)) and Nevado Juncal (6,110 m (20,050 ft)) are tens of kilometres away from each other and were connected by a joint ice stream network. The Andes' dendritic glacier arms, i.e. components of valley glaciers, were up to 112.5 km (69.9 mi) long, over 1,250 m (4,100 ft) thick and overspanned a vertical distance of 5,150 m (16,900 ft). The climatic glacier snowline (ELA) was lowered from 4,600 m (15,100 ft) to 3,200 m (10,500 ft) at glacial times.[17][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]
+
+The Andean region cuts across several natural and floristic regions due to its extension from Caribbean Venezuela to cold, windy and wet Cape Horn passing through the hyperarid Atacama Desert. Rainforests and tropical dry forests[27] used to encircle much of the northern Andes but are now greatly diminished, especially in the Chocó and inter-Andean valleys of Colombia. Opposite of the humid Andean slopes are the relatively dry Andean slopes in most of western Peru, Chile and Argentina. Along with several Interandean Valles, they are typically dominated by deciduous woodland, shrub and xeric vegetation, reaching the extreme in the slopes near the virtually lifeless Atacama Desert.
+
+About 30,000 species of vascular plants live in the Andes, with roughly half being endemic to the region, surpassing the diversity of any other hotspot.[28] The small tree Cinchona pubescens, a source of quinine which is used to treat malaria, is found widely in the Andes as far south as Bolivia. Other important crops that originated from the Andes are tobacco and potatoes. The high-altitude Polylepis forests and woodlands are found in the Andean areas of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. These trees, by locals referred to as Queñua, Yagual and other names, can be found at altitudes of 4,500 m (14,760 ft) above sea level. It remains unclear if the patchy distribution of these forests and woodlands is natural, or the result of clearing which began during the Incan period. Regardless, in modern times the clearance has accelerated, and the trees are now considered to be highly endangered, with some believing that as little as 10% of the original woodland remains.[29]
+
+The Andes are rich in fauna: With almost 1,000 species, of which roughly 2/3 are endemic to the region, the Andes are the most important region in the world for amphibians.[28]
+The diversity of animals in the Andes is high, with almost 600 species of mammals (13% endemic), more than 1,700 species of birds (about 1/3 endemic), more than 600 species of reptile (about 45% endemic), and almost 400 species of fish (about 1/3 endemic).[28]
+
+The vicuña and guanaco can be found living in the Altiplano, while the closely related domesticated llama and alpaca are widely kept by locals as pack animals and for their meat and wool. The crepuscular (active during dawn and dusk) chinchillas, two threatened members of the rodent order, inhabit the Andes' alpine regions.[30][31] The Andean condor, the largest bird of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, occurs throughout much of the Andes but generally in very low densities.[32] Other animals found in the relatively open habitats of the high Andes include the huemul, cougar, foxes in the genus Pseudalopex,[30][31] and, for birds, certain species of tinamous (notably members of the genus Nothoprocta), Andean goose, giant coot, flamingos (mainly associated with hypersaline lakes), lesser rhea, Andean flicker, diademed sandpiper-plover, miners, sierra-finches and diuca-finches.[32]
+
+Lake Titicaca hosts several endemics, among them the highly endangered Titicaca flightless grebe[32] and Titicaca water frog.[33] A few species of hummingbirds, notably some hillstars, can be seen at altitudes above 4,000 m (13,100 ft), but far higher diversities can be found at lower altitudes, especially in the humid Andean forests ("cloud forests") growing on slopes in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and far northwestern Argentina.[32] These forest-types, which includes the Yungas and parts of the Chocó, are very rich in flora and fauna, although few large mammals exist, exceptions being the threatened mountain tapir, spectacled bear and yellow-tailed woolly monkey.[30]
+
+Birds of humid Andean forests include mountain-toucans, quetzals and the Andean cock-of-the-rock, while mixed species flocks dominated by tanagers and furnariids commonly are seen – in contrast to several vocal but typically cryptic species of wrens, tapaculos and antpittas.[32]
+
+A number of species such as the royal cinclodes and white-browed tit-spinetail are associated with Polylepis, and consequently also threatened.[32]
+
+The Andes Mountains form a north–south axis of cultural influences. A long series of cultural development culminated in the expansion of the Inca civilization and Inca Empire in the central Andes during the 15th century. The Incas formed this civilization through imperialistic militarism as well as careful and meticulous governmental management.[34] The government sponsored the construction of aqueducts and roads in addition to preexisting installations. Some of these constructions are still in existence today.
+
+Devastated by European diseases to which they had no immunity and civil wars, in 1532 the Incas were defeated by an alliance composed of tens of thousands of allies from nations they had subjugated (e.g. Huancas, Chachapoyas, Cañaris) and a small army of 180 Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro. One of the few Inca sites the Spanish never found in their conquest was Machu Picchu, which lay hidden on a peak on the eastern edge of the Andes where they descend to the Amazon. The main surviving languages of the Andean peoples are those of the Quechua and Aymara language families. Woodbine Parish and Joseph Barclay Pentland surveyed a large part of the Bolivian Andes from 1826 to 1827.
+
+In modern times, the largest cities in the Andes are Bogotá, with a population of about eight million, and Santiago, Medellín, and Cali. Lima is a coastal city adjacent to the Andes and is the largest city of all Andean countries. It is the seat of the Andean Community of Nations.
+
+La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government, is the highest capital city in the world, at an elevation of approximately 3,650 m (11,975 ft). Parts of the La Paz conurbation, including the city of El Alto, extend up to 4,200 m (13,780 ft).
+
+Other cities in or near the Andes include Bariloche, Catamarca, Jujuy, Mendoza, Salta, San Juan, and Tucumán in Argentina; Calama and Rancagua in Chile; Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, Sucre, Sacaba, Tarija, and Yacuiba in Bolivia; Arequipa, Cajamarca, Cusco, Huancayo, Huánuco, Huaraz, Juliaca, and Puno in Peru; Ambato, Cuenca, Ibarra, Loja, Quito, Riobamba and Tulcán in Ecuador; Armenia, Cúcuta, Bucaramanga, Duitama, Ibagué, Ipiales, Manizales, Palmira, Pasto, Pereira, Popayán, Sogamoso, Tunja, and Villavicencio in Colombia; and Barquisimeto, Mérida, San Cristóbal, and Valera in Venezuela; . The cities of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracay are in the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which is a debatable extension of the Andes at the northern extreme of South America.
+
+Cities and large towns are connected with asphalt-paved roads, while smaller towns are often connected by dirt roads, which may require a four-wheel-drive vehicle.[35]
+
+The rough terrain has historically put the costs of building highways and railroads that cross the Andes out of reach of most neighboring countries, even with modern civil engineering practices. For example, the main crossover of the Andes between Argentina and Chile is still accomplished through the Paso Internacional Los Libertadores. Only recently the ends of some highways that came rather close to one another from the east and the west have been connected.[36] Much of the transportation of passengers is done via aircraft.
+
+However, there is one railroad that connects Chile with Peru via the Andes, and there are others that make the same connection via southern Bolivia. See railroad maps of that region.
+
+There are multiple highways in Bolivia that cross the Andes. Some of these were built during a period of war between Bolivia and Paraguay, in order to transport Bolivian troops and their supplies to the war front in the lowlands of southeastern Bolivia and western Paraguay.
+
+For decades, Chile claimed ownership of land on the eastern side of the Andes. However, these claims were given up in about 1870 during the War of the Pacific between Chile, the allied Bolivia and Peru, in a diplomatic deal to keep Peru out of the war. The Chilean Army and Chilean Navy defeated the combined forces of Bolivia and Peru, and Chile took over Bolivia's only province on the Pacific Coast, some land from Peru that was returned to Peru decades later. Bolivia has been a completely landlocked country ever since. It mostly uses seaports in eastern Argentina and Uruguay for international trade because its diplomatic relations with Chile have been suspended since 1978.
+
+Because of the tortuous terrain in places, villages and towns in the mountains—to which travel via motorized vehicles is of little use—are still located in the high Andes of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. Locally, the relatives of the camel, the llama, and the alpaca continue to carry out important uses as pack animals, but this use has generally diminished in modern times. Donkeys, mules, and horses are also useful.
+
+The ancient peoples of the Andes such as the Incas have practiced irrigation techniques for over 6,000 years. Because of the mountain slopes, terracing has been a common practice. Terracing, however, was only extensively employed after Incan imperial expansions to fuel their expanding realm. The potato holds a very important role as an internally consumed staple crop. Maize was also an important crop for these people, and was used for the production of chicha, important to Andean native people. Currently, tobacco, cotton and coffee are the main export crops. Coca, despite eradication programmes in some countries, remains an important crop for legal local use in a mildly stimulating herbal tea, and, both controversially and illegally, for the production of cocaine.
+
+In unirrigated land, pasture is the most common type of land use. In the rainy season (summer), part of the rangeland is used for cropping (mainly potatoes, barley, broad beans and wheat).
+
+Irrigation is helpful in advancing the sowing data of the summer crops which guarantees an early yield in the period of food shortage. Also, by early sowing, maize can be cultivated higher up in the mountains (up to 3,800 m (12,500 ft)). In addition it makes cropping in the dry season (winter) possible and allows the cultivation of frost resistant vegetable crops like onion and carrot.[37]
+
+The Andes rose to fame for their mineral wealth during the Spanish conquest of South America. Although Andean Amerindian peoples crafted ceremonial jewelry of gold and other metals, the mineralizations of the Andes were first mined on a large scale after the Spanish arrival. Potosí in present-day Bolivia and Cerro de Pasco in Peru was one of the principal mines of the Spanish Empire in the New World. Río de la Plata and Argentina[38] derive their names from the silver of Potosí.
+
+Currently, mining in the Andes of Chile and Peru places these countries as the first and third major producers of copper in the world. Peru also contains the 4th largest goldmine in the world: the Yanacocha. The Bolivian Andes produce principally tin although historically silver mining had a huge impact on the economy of 17th century Europe.
+
+There is a long history of mining in the Andes, from the Spanish silver mines in Potosí in the 16th century to the vast current porphyry copper deposits of Chuquicamata and Escondida in Chile and Toquepala in Peru. Other metals including iron, gold, and tin in addition to non-metallic resources are important.
+
+This list contains some of the major peaks in the Andes mountain range. The highest peak is Aconcagua of Argentina (see below).

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+
+
+Coordinates: 40°N 127°E / 40°N 127°E / 40; 127
+
+North Korea (Korean: 조선, MR: Chosŏn; literally 북조선, MR: Pukchosŏn, or 북한/北韓, RR: Bukhan in South Korean usage), officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or DPR Korea; Korean: 조선민주주의인민공화국, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk), is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country is bordered to the north by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in Chinese) and Tumen rivers, and to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the country's capital and largest city.
+
+In 1910, Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan. At the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist Republic of Korea in the south. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950–1953). The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed.
+
+According to article 1 of the constitution of North Korea, the DPRK is an "independent socialist State".[n 3][15] North Korea holds elections, though they have been described by independent observers as sham elections. North Korea is generally viewed as a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around the Kim dynasty. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the ruling family, holds absolute power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members. According to article 3 of the constitution of the DPRK, Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the North Korean official ideology.[n 4][15] The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms. Most services—such as healthcare, education, housing and food production—are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the population continues to suffer malnutrition. North Korea follows Songun, or "military-first" policy. It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary personnel, or approximately 37% of its population. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth-largest in the world, after China, the United States and India; consisting of 4.7% of its population. It possesses nuclear weapons. In addition to being a member of the United Nations since 1991, North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum.
+
+A 2014 UN inquiry into abuses of human rights in North Korea concluded that, "the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch holding similar views.[16][17][18][19] The North Korean government denies these abuses.[20][21][22]
+
+The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo (also spelled Koryŏ). The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ) which was one of the great powers in East Asia during its time,[23][24][25][26] ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria, parts of the Russian Far East[27] and parts of Inner Mongolia,[28] under Gwanggaeto the Great.[29] The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo,[30][31][32][33] and thus inherited its name, which was pronounced by visiting Persian merchants as "Korea".[34] The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Company's Hendrick Hamel.[35]
+
+After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea: Chosun or Joseon (조선) in North Korea, and Hanguk (한국) in South Korea. In 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Korean: 조선민주주의인민공화국, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; listen) as its new legal name. In the wider world, because the government controls the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, it is commonly called North Korea to distinguish it from South Korea, which is officially called the Republic of Korea in English. Both governments consider themselves to be the legitimate government of the whole of Korea.[36][37] For this reason, the people do not consider themselves as 'North Koreans' but as Koreans in the same divided country as their compatriots in the South and foreign visitors are discouraged from using the former term.[38]
+
+After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun (Liberation Army) operated along the Sino-Korean border, fighting guerrilla warfare against Japanese forces. Some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the guerrilla leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the first leader of North Korea.
+
+After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed. Soviet general Terentii Shtykov recommended the establishment of the Soviet Civil Authority in October 1945, and supported Kim Il-sung as chairman of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea, established in February 1946. In September 1946, South Korean citizens rose up against the Allied Military Government. In April 1948, an uprising of the Jeju islanders was violently crushed. The South declared its statehood in May 1948 and two months later the ardent anti-communist Syngman Rhee[39] became its ruler. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North on 9 September 1948. Shtykov served as the first Soviet ambassador, while Kim Il-sung became premier.
+
+Soviet forces withdrew from the North in 1948, and most American forces withdrew from the South in 1949. Ambassador Shtykov suspected Rhee was planning to invade the North and was sympathetic to Kim's goal of Korean unification under socialism. The two successfully lobbied Joseph Stalin to support a quick war against the South, which culminated in the outbreak of the Korean War.[40][41][42][43]
+
+The military of North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. A United Nations force, led by the United States, intervened to defend the South, and rapidly advanced into North Korea. As they neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea, but no peace treaty was signed.[44] Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, with a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War, making it perhaps the deadliest conflict of the Cold War-era.[45][46][47][48][49] In both per capita and absolute terms, North Korea was the country most devastated by the war, which resulted in the death of an estimated 12–15% of the North Korean population (c. 10 million), "a figure close to or surpassing the proportion of Soviet citizens killed in World War II," according to Charles K. Armstrong.[50] As a result of the war, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed.[51][52] Some have referred to the conflict as a civil war, with other factors involved.[53]
+
+A heavily guarded demilitarized zone (DMZ) still divides the peninsula, and an anti-communist and anti-North Korea sentiment remains in South Korea. Since the war, the United States has maintained a strong military presence in the South which is depicted by the North Korean government as an imperialist occupation force.[54] It claims that the Korean War was caused by the United States and South Korea.[55]
+
+The relative peace between the South and the North following the armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, celebrity abductions, and assassination attempts. The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968, 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976.[56] For almost two decades after the war, the two states did not seek to negotiate with one another. In 1971, secret, high-level contacts began to be conducted culminating in the 1972 July 4th North–South Joint Statement that established principles of working toward peaceful reunification. The talks ultimately failed because in 1973, South Korea declared its preference that the two Koreas should seek separate memberships in international organizations.[57]
+
+During the 1956 August Faction Incident, Kim Il-sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him in favor of Soviet Koreans or the pro-Chinese Yan'an faction.[58][59] The last Chinese troops withdrew from the country in October 1958, which is the consensus as the latest date when North Korea became effectively independent. Some scholars believe that the 1956 August incident demonstrated independence.[58][59][60] North Korea remained closely aligned with China and the Soviet Union, and the Sino-Soviet split allowed Kim to play the powers off each other.[61] North Korea sought to become a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and emphasized the ideology of Juche to distinguish it from both the Soviet Union and China.[62] In United States policymaking, North Korea was considered among the Captive Nations.[63]
+
+Recovery from the war was quick—by 1957 industrial production reached 1949 levels. In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing the repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country. The same year, North Korea revalued the North Korean won, which held greater value than its South Korean counterpart. Until the 1960s, economic growth was higher than in South Korea, and North Korean GDP per capita was equal to that of its southern neighbor as late as 1976.[64] However, by the 1980s, the economy had begun to stagnate; it started its long decline in 1987 and almost completely collapsed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when all Soviet aid was suddenly halted.[65]
+
+In 1992, as Kim Il-sung's health began deteriorating, Kim Jong-il slowly began taking over various state tasks. Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in 1994, with Kim Jong-il declaring a three-year period of national mourning before officially announcing his position as the new leader afterwards.[66]
+
+North Korea promised to halt its development of nuclear weapons under the Agreed Framework, negotiated with U.S. president Bill Clinton and signed in 1994. Building on Nordpolitik, South Korea began to engage with the North as part of its Sunshine Policy.[67][68]
+
+Kim Jong-il instituted a policy called Songun, or "military first". There is much speculation about this policy being used as a strategy to strengthen the military while discouraging coup attempts.[69]
+
+Flooding in the mid-1990s exacerbated the economic crisis, severely damaging crops and infrastructure and led to widespread famine which the government proved incapable of curtailing, resulting in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people. In 1996, the government accepted UN food aid.[70]
+
+The international environment changed with the election of U.S. president George W. Bush in 2001. His administration rejected South Korea's Sunshine Policy and the Agreed Framework. The U.S. government treated North Korea as a rogue state, while North Korea redoubled its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons to avoid the fate of Iraq.[71][72][73] On 9 October 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test.[74][75]
+
+U.S. President Barack Obama adopted a policy of "strategic patience", resisting making deals with North Korea.[76] Tensions with South Korea and the United States increased in 2010 with the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan[77] and North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.[78][79]
+
+On 17 December 2011, Kim Jong-il died from a heart attack. His youngest son Kim Jong-un was announced as his successor.[80] In the face of international condemnation, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear arsenal, possibly including a hydrogen bomb and a missile capable of reaching the United States.[81]
+
+Throughout 2017, following Donald Trump's assumption of the US presidency, tensions between the United States and North Korea increased, and there was heightened rhetoric between the two, with Trump threatening "fire and fury"[82] and North Korea threatening to test missiles that would land near Guam.[83] The tensions substantially decreased in 2018, and a détente developed.[84] A series of summits took place between Kim Jong-un of North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, and President Trump.[85]
+It has been 2 years, 8 months since North Korea's last ICBM test.
+
+North Korea occupies the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula, lying between latitudes 37° and 43°N, and longitudes 124° and 131°E. It covers an area of 120,540 square kilometers (46,541 sq mi).[4] North Korea is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in Chinese) and Tumen rivers[86] and borders South Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone. To its west are the Yellow Sea and Korea Bay, and to its east lies Japan across the Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea).
+
+Early European visitors to Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula.[87] Some 80 percent of North Korea is composed of mountains and uplands, separated by deep and narrow valleys. All of the Korean Peninsula's mountains with elevations of 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) or more are located in North Korea. The highest point in North Korea is Paektu Mountain, a volcanic mountain with an elevation of 2,744 meters (9,003 ft) above sea level.[87] Considered a sacred place by North Koreans, Mount Paektu holds significance in Korean culture and has been incorporated in the elaborate folklore and cult personality around the Kim dynasty.[88] For example, the song, "We Will Go To Mount Paektu" sings in praise of Kim Jong-un and describes a symbolic trek to the mountain. Other prominent ranges are the Hamgyong Range in the extreme northeast and the Rangrim Mountains, which are located in the north-central part of North Korea. Mount Kumgang in the Taebaek Range, which extends into South Korea, is famous for its scenic beauty.[87]
+
+The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east. A great majority of the population lives in the plains and lowlands. According to a United Nations Environmental Programme report in 2003, forest covers over 70 percent of the country, mostly on steep slopes.[89] The longest river is the Amnok (Yalu) River which flows for 790 kilometers (491 mi).[90]
+
+North Korea experiences a combination of continental climate and an oceanic climate,[89][91] but most of the country experiences a humid continental climate within the Köppen climate classification scheme. Winters bring clear weather interspersed with snow storms as a result of northern and northwestern winds that blow from Siberia.[91] Summer tends to be by far the hottest, most humid, and rainiest time of year because of the southern and southeastern monsoon winds that carry moist air from the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 60 percent of all precipitation occurs from June to September.[91] Spring and autumn are transitional seasons between summer and winter. The daily average high and low temperatures for Pyongyang are −3 and −13 °C (27 and 9 °F) in January and 29 and 20 °C (84 and 68 °F) in August.[91]
+
+North Korea functions as a highly centralized, one-party state. According to its 2016 constitution, it is a self-described revolutionary and socialist state "guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea".[92] In addition to the constitution, North Korea is governed by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System (also known as the "Ten Principles of the One-Ideology System") which establishes standards for governance and a guide for the behaviors of North Koreans.[93] The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the Kim dynasty,[94] has an estimated 3,000,000 members and dominates every aspect of North Korean politics. It has two satellite organizations, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party[95] which participate in the WPK-led Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members.[96]
+
+Kim Jong-un of the Kim dynasty is the current Supreme Leader or Suryeong of North Korea.[97] He heads all major governing structures: he is Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, and Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army.[98][99] His grandfather Kim Il-sung, the founder and leader of North Korea until his death in 1994, is the country's "eternal President",[100] while his father Kim Jong-il who succeeded Kim Il-sung as the leader was announced "Eternal General Secretary" and "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission" after his death in 2011.[98]
+
+According to the Constitution of North Korea, there are officially three main branches of government. The first of these is the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, which acts as "the supreme national guidance organ of state sovereignty".[101][102] Its role is to deliberate and decide the work on defense building of the State, including major policies of the State; and to carry out the directions of the Chairman of the commission, Kim Jong-Un.
+
+Legislative power is held by the unicameral Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). Its 687 members are elected every five years by universal suffrage,[103] though they have been described by outside observers as sham elections.[104][105] Supreme People's Assembly sessions are convened by the SPA Presidium, whose president (Choe Ryong-hae since 2019) represents the state in relations with foreign countries. Deputies formally elect the President, the vice-presidents and members of the Presidium and take part in the constitutionally appointed activities of the legislature: pass laws, establish domestic and foreign policies, appoint members of the cabinet, review and approve the state economic plan, among others.[106] The SPA itself cannot initiate any legislation independently of party or state organs. It is unknown whether it has ever criticized or amended bills placed before it, and the elections are based around a single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition.[107]
+
+Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of North Korea, which has been headed by Premier Kim Jae-Ryong since 11 April 2019.[108] The Premier represents the government and functions independently. His authority extends over two vice-premiers, 30 ministers, two cabinet commission chairmen, the cabinet chief secretary, the president of the Central Bank, the director of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the president of the Academy of Sciences. A 31st ministry, the Ministry of People's Armed Forces, is under the jurisdiction of the State Affairs Commission.[109]
+
+North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire Korean peninsula and adjacent islands.[110] Despite its official title as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", some observers have described North Korea's political system as an absolute monarchy[111][112][113] or a "hereditary dictatorship".[114] It has also been described as a Stalinist dictatorship.[115][116][117][118][119]
+
+The Juche ideology is the cornerstone of party works and government operations. It is viewed by the official North Korean line as an embodiment of Kim Il-sung's wisdom, an expression of his leadership, and an idea which provides "a complete answer to any question that arises in the struggle for national liberation".[120] Juche was pronounced in December 1955 in order to emphasize a Korea-centered revolution.[120] Its core tenets are economic self-sufficiency, military self-reliance and an independent foreign policy. The roots of Juche were made up of a complex mixture of factors, including the cult of personality centered on Kim Il-sung, the conflict with pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese dissenters, and Korea's centuries-long struggle for independence.[121] Juche was introduced into the constitution in 1972.[122][123]
+
+Juche was initially promoted as a "creative application" of Marxism–Leninism, but in the mid-1970s, it was described by state propaganda as "the only scientific thought... and most effective revolutionary theoretical structure that leads to the future of communist society". Juche eventually replaced Marxism–Leninism entirely by the 1980s,[124] and in 1992 references to the latter were omitted from the constitution.[125] The 2009 constitution dropped references to communism and elevated the Songun military-first policy while explicitly confirming the position of Kim Jong-il.[126] However, the constitution retains references to socialism.[127] Juche's concepts of self-reliance have evolved with time and circumstances, but still provide the groundwork for the spartan austerity, sacrifice and discipline demanded by the party.[128] Scholar Brian Reynolds Myers views North Korea's actual ideology as a Korean ethnic nationalism similar to statism in Shōwa Japan and European fascism.[129][130][131]
+
+North Korea is ruled by the Kim dynasty, which in North Korea is referred to as the Mount Paektu Bloodline. It is a three-generation lineage descending from the country's first leader, Kim Il-sung, since 1948. Kim developed a cult of personality closely tied to the state philosophy of Juche, which was later passed on to his successors: his son Kim Jong-il and grandson Kim Jong-un. In 2013, this lineage was made explicit when Clause 2 of Article 10 of the new edited Ten Fundamental Principles of the Korean Workers' Party stated that the party and revolution must be carried "eternally" by the "Baekdu bloodline".[132] In order to solidify Mount Paektu Bloodline, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il have recalled all the family genealogy books under the pretext that familyism and regionalism are the hotbeds of the revolution. In 1958, North Korea declared its ideology to be socialism and took away all of people's private property and dismantled family groups that had been living in the center of genealogy and ancestors. They later moved the entire population from the northern 38th parallel.[133] Hence, in North Korea there is no bon-gwan in people's names.[134]
+
+According to New Focus International, the cult of personality, particularly surrounding Kim Il-sung, has been crucial for legitimizing the family's hereditary succession.[135] The control the North Korean government exercises over many aspects of the nation's culture is used to perpetuate the cult of personality surrounding Kim Il-sung,[136] and Kim Jong-il.[137] While visiting North Korea in 1979, journalist Bradley Martin wrote that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, whose personality cult was then being extended to his son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il.[138]
+
+Claims that the dynasty has been deified are contested by North Korea researcher B. R. Myers: "Divine powers have never been attributed to either of the two Kims. In fact, the propaganda apparatus in Pyongyang has generally been careful not to make claims that run directly counter to citizens' experience or common sense."[139] He further explains that the state propaganda painted Kim Jong-il as someone whose expertise lay in military matters and that the famine of the 1990s was partially caused by natural disasters out of Kim Jong-il's control.[140]
+
+The song "No Motherland Without You", sung by the North Korean army choir, was created especially for Kim Jong-il and is one of the most popular tunes in the country. Kim Il-sung is still officially revered as the nation's "Eternal President". Several landmarks in North Korea are named for Kim Il-sung, including Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, and Kim Il-sung Square. Defectors have been quoted as saying that North Korean schools deify both father and son.[141] Kim Il-sung rejected the notion that he had created a cult around himself, and accused those who suggested this of "factionalism".[142] Following the death of Kim Il-sung, North Koreans were prostrating and weeping to a bronze statue of him in an organized event;[143] similar scenes were broadcast by state television following the death of Kim Jong-il.[144]
+
+Critics maintain that Kim Jong-il's personality cult was inherited from his father. Kim Jong-il was often the center of attention throughout ordinary life. His birthday is one of the most important public holidays in the country. On his 60th birthday (based on his official date of birth), mass celebrations occurred throughout the country.[145] Kim Jong-il's personality cult, although significant, was not as extensive as his father's. One point of view is that Kim Jong-il's cult of personality was solely out of respect for Kim Il-sung or out of fear of punishment for failure to pay homage,[146] while North Korean government sources consider it genuine hero worship.[147]
+
+The extent of the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung was illustrated on 11 June 2012 when a 14-year-old North Korean schoolgirl drowned while attempting to rescue portraits of the two from a flood.[148]
+
+As a result of its isolation, North Korea is sometimes known as the "hermit kingdom", a term that originally referred to the isolationism in the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty.[149] Initially, North Korea had diplomatic ties only with other communist countries, and even today, most of the foreign embassies accredited to North Korea are located in Beijing rather than in Pyongyang.[150] In the 1960s and 1970s, it pursued an independent foreign policy, established relations with many developing countries, and joined the Non-Aligned Movement. In the late 1980s and the 1990s its foreign policy was thrown into turmoil with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Suffering an economic crisis, it closed a number of its embassies. At the same time, North Korea sought to build relations with developed free market countries.[151]
+
+North Korea joined the United Nations in 1991 together with South Korea. North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum.[152]
+
+North Korea enjoys a close relationship with China which is often called North Korea's closest ally.[153][154] The relations were strained in the last few years because of China's concerns about North Korea's nuclear program. However, the relations have started to improve again and been increasingly close especially after Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China visited North Korea in April 2019.[155]
+
+As of 2015[update], North Korea had diplomatic relations with 166 countries and embassies in 47 countries.[151] However, owing to the human rights and political situation, North Korea does not have diplomatic relations with Argentina, Botswana,[156] Estonia, France,[157] Iraq, Israel, Japan, Taiwan,[158] and the United States.[a][159][160] As of September 2017, France and Estonia are the last two European countries that do not have an official relationship with North Korea.[161] North Korea continues to have strong ties with its socialist southeast Asian allies in Vietnam and Laos, as well as with Cambodia.[162]
+
+North Korea was previously designated a state sponsor of terrorism[163] because of its alleged involvement in the 1983 Rangoon bombing and the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner.[164] On 11 October 2008, the United States removed North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism after Pyongyang agreed to cooperate on issues related to its nuclear program.[165] North Korea was re-designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. under the Trump administration on 20 November 2017.[166] The kidnapping of at least 13 Japanese citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and the 1980s has affected North Korea's relationship with Japan.[167]
+
+US President Donald Trump met with Kim in Singapore on 12 June 2018. An agreement was signed between the two countries endorsing the 2017 Panmunjom Declaration signed by North and South Korea, pledging to work towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.[168] They met in Hanoi from 27 to 28 February 2019, but failed to achieve an agreement.[169] On 30 June 2019, Trump met with Kim along with Moon Jae-in at the Korean DMZ.[170]
+
+The Korean Demilitarized Zone with South Korea remains the most heavily fortified border in the world.[171] Inter-Korean relations are at the core of North Korean diplomacy and have seen numerous shifts in the last few decades. North Korea's policy is to seek reunification without what it sees as outside interference, through a federal structure retaining each side's leadership and systems. In 1972, the two Koreas agreed in principle to achieve reunification through peaceful means and without foreign interference.[172] On 10 October 1980, then North Korean president Kim Il-sung proposed a federation between North and South Korea named the Democratic Federal Republic of Korea in which the respective political systems would initially remain.[173] However, relations remained cool well until the early 1990s, with a brief period in the early 1980s when North Korea offered to provide flood relief to its southern neighbor.[174] Although the offer was initially welcomed, talks over how to deliver the relief goods broke down and none of the promised aid ever crossed the border.[175]
+The two countries also organized a reunion of 92 separated families.[176]
+
+The Sunshine Policy instituted by South Korean president Kim Dae-jung in 1998 was a watershed in inter-Korean relations. It encouraged other countries to engage with the North, which allowed Pyongyang to normalize relations with a number of European Union states and contributed to the establishment of joint North-South economic projects. The culmination of the Sunshine Policy was the 2000 Inter-Korean summit, when Kim Dae-jung visited Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.[177] Both North and South Korea signed the June 15th North–South Joint Declaration, in which both sides promised to seek peaceful reunification.[178] On 4 October 2007, South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il signed an eight-point peace agreement.[179]
+However, relations worsened when South Korean president Lee Myung-bak adopted a more hard-line approach and suspended aid deliveries pending the de-nuclearization of the North. In 2009, North Korea responded by ending all of its previous agreements with the South.[180] It deployed additional ballistic missiles[181] and placed its military on full combat alert after South Korea, Japan and the United States threatened to intercept a Unha-2 space launch vehicle.[182] The next few years witnessed a string of hostilities, including the alleged North Korean involvement in the sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan,[77] mutual ending of diplomatic ties,[183] a North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island,[184] and growing international concern over North Korea's nuclear program.[185]
+
+In May 2017, Moon Jae-in was elected President of South Korea with a promise to return to the Sunshine Policy.[186] In February 2018, a détente developed at the Winter Olympics held in South Korea.[84] In April, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un met at the DMZ, and, in the Panmunjom Declaration, pledged to work for peace and nuclear disarmament.[187] In September, at a joint news conference in Pyongyang, Moon and Kim agreed upon turning the Korean Peninsula into a "land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats".[188]
+
+North Korea is widely accused of having perhaps the worst human rights record in the world.[16] A 2014 UN inquiry into human rights in North Korea concluded that, "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world".[17] North Koreans have been referred to as "some of the world's most brutalized people" by Human Rights Watch, because of the severe restrictions placed on their political and economic freedoms.[18][19] The North Korean population is strictly managed by the state and all aspects of daily life are subordinated to party and state planning. Employment is managed by the party on the basis of political reliability, and travel is tightly controlled by the Ministry of People's Security.[190]
+
+Amnesty International reports of severe restrictions on the freedom of association, expression and movement, arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment resulting in death, and executions.[191]
+
+The State Security Department extrajudicially apprehends and imprisons those accused of political crimes without due process.[192] People perceived as hostile to the government, such as Christians or critics of the leadership,[193] are deported to labor camps without trial,[194] often with their whole family and mostly without any chance of being released.[195]
+
+Based on satellite images and defector testimonies, Amnesty International estimates that around 200,000 prisoners are held in six large political prison camps,[193][196] where they are forced to work in conditions approaching slavery.[197] Supporters of the government who deviate from the government line are subject to reeducation in sections of labor camps set aside for that purpose. Those who are deemed politically rehabilitated may reassume responsible government positions on their release.[198]
+
+North Korean defectors[199] have provided detailed testimonies on the existence of the total control zones where abuses such as torture, starvation, rape, murder, medical experimentation, forced labor, and forced abortions have been reported.[200] On the basis of these abuses, as well as persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, forcible transfer of populations, enforced disappearance of persons and forced starvation, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry has accused North Korea of crimes against humanity.[201][202][203] The International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK) estimates that over 10,000 people die in North Korean prison camps every year.[204]
+
+According to Human Rights Watch, which cites interviews with defectors, North Korean women are routinely subjected to sexual violence, unwanted sexual contact, and rape. Men in positions of power, including police, high-ranking officials, market supervisors, and guards can abuse women at will and are not prosecuted for it. It happens so often that it is accepted as a routine part of life. Women assume they can't do anything about it. The only ones with protection are those whose husbands or fathers are themselves in positions of power.[205]
+
+The North Korean government rejects the human rights abuse claims, calling them "a smear campaign" and a "human rights racket" aimed at government change.[206][207][208] In a 2014 report to the UN, North Korea dismissed accusations of atrocities as "wild rumors".[20] The official state media, KCNA, responded with an article that included homophobic insults against the author of the human rights report, Michael Kirby, calling him "a disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality ... This practice can never be found in the DPRK boasting of the sound mentality and good morals ... In fact, it is ridiculous for such gay  [sic] to sponsor dealing with others' human rights issue."[21][22] The government, however, admitted some human rights issues related to living conditions and stated that it is working to improve them.[208]
+
+According to Amnesty International, citizens in North Korea are denied freedom of movement including the right to leave the country[209] at will and its government denies access to international human rights observers.[210]
+
+North Korea has a civil law system based on the Prussian model and influenced by Japanese traditions and communist legal theory.[211] Judiciary procedures are handled by the Supreme Court (the highest court of appeal), provincial or special city-level courts, people's courts and special courts. People's courts are at the lowest level of the system and operate in cities, counties and urban districts, while different kinds of special courts handle cases related to military, railroad or maritime matters.[212]
+
+Judges are theoretically elected by their respective local people's assemblies, but in practice they are appointed by the Workers' Party of Korea. The penal code is based on the principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without a law), but remains a tool for political control despite several amendments reducing ideological influence.[212] Courts carry out legal procedures related to not only criminal and civil matters, but also political cases as well.[213] Political prisoners are sent to labor camps, while criminal offenders are incarcerated in a separate system.[214]
+
+The Ministry of People's Security (MPS) maintains most law enforcement activities. It is one of the most powerful state institutions in North Korea and oversees the national police force, investigates criminal cases and manages non-political correctional facilities.[215] It handles other aspects of domestic security like civil registration, traffic control, fire departments and railroad security.[216] The State Security Department was separated from the MPS in 1973 to conduct domestic and foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and manage the political prison system. Political camps can be short-term reeducation zones or "kwalliso" (total control zones) for lifetime detention.[217] Camp 15 in Yodok[218] and Camp 18 in Bukchang[219] have been described in detailed testimonies.[200]
+
+The security apparatus is very extensive,[220] exerting strict control over residence, travel, employment, clothing, food and family life.[221] Security forces employ mass surveillance. It is believed they tightly monitor cellular and digital communications.[222]
+
+The Korean People's Army (KPA) has 1,106,000 active and 8,389,000 reserve and paramilitary troops, making it the largest military institution in the world.[223] With an active duty army of 1.21 million, consisting of 4.7% of its population, the KPA is the fourth largest military force in the world after China, the United States and India.[224] About 20 percent of men aged 17–54 serve in the regular armed forces,[224] and approximately one in every 25 citizens is an enlisted soldier.[225][226] The KPA has five branches: Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations Force, and Rocket Force. Command of the Korean People's Army lies in both the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea and the independent State Affairs Commission. The Ministry of People's Armed Forces is subordinated to the latter.[227]
+
+Of all KPA branches, the Ground Force is the largest. It has approximately one million personnel divided into 80 infantry divisions, 30 artillery brigades, 25 special warfare brigades, 20 mechanized brigades, 10 tank brigades and seven tank regiments.[228] They are equipped with 3,700 tanks, 2,100 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles,[229] 17,900 artillery pieces, 11,000 anti-aircraft guns[230] and some 10,000 MANPADS and anti-tank guided missiles.[231] Other equipment includes 1,600 aircraft in the Air Force and 1,000 vessels in the Navy.[232] North Korea has the largest special forces and the largest submarine fleet in the world.[233]
+
+North Korea possesses nuclear weapons,[225][234] but the strength of its arsenal is uncertain. In January 2018, estimates of North Korea's nuclear arsenal ranged between 15 and 60 bombs, probably including hydrogen bombs.[81] Delivery capabilities[235] are provided by the Rocket Force, which has some 1,000 ballistic missiles with a range of up to 7,400 miles (11,900 km).[236]
+
+According to a 2004 South Korean assessment, North Korea possesses a stockpile of chemical weapons estimated to amount to 2,500–5,000 tons, including nerve, blister, blood, and vomiting agents, as well as the ability to cultivate and produce biological weapons including anthrax, smallpox, and cholera.[237][238] Because of its nuclear and missile tests, North Korea has been sanctioned under United Nations Security Council resolutions 1695 of July 2006, 1718 of October 2006, 1874 of June 2009, 2087 of January 2013,[239] and 2397 in December 2017.
+
+The military faces some issues limiting its conventional capabilities, including obsolete equipment, insufficient fuel supplies and a shortage of digital command and control assets due to other countries being banned from selling weapons to it by the UN sanctions. To compensate for these deficiencies, the KPA has deployed a wide range of asymmetric warfare technologies like anti-personnel blinding lasers,[240] GPS jammers,[241][242] midget submarines and human torpedoes,[243] stealth paint,[244] and cyberwarfare units.[245] In 2015, North Korea was estimated as having 6,000 sophisticated computer security personnel.[246] KPA units have allegedly attempted to jam South Korean military satellites.[247]
+
+Much of the equipment is engineered and produced by a domestic defense industry. Weapons are manufactured in roughly 1,800 underground defense industry plants scattered throughout the country, most of them located in Chagang Province.[248] The defense industry is capable of producing a full range of individual and crew-served weapons, artillery, armored vehicles, tanks, missiles, helicopters, surface combatants, submarines, landing and infiltration craft, Yak-18 trainers and possibly co-production of jet aircraft.[220] According to official North Korean media, military expenditures for 2010 amount to 15.8 percent of the state budget.[249] The U.S. State Department has estimated that North Korea's military spending averaged 23% of its GDP from 2004 to 2014, the highest level in the world.[250]
+
+With the exception of a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese, North Korea's 25,549,604[5][6] people are ethnically homogeneous.[251] Demographic experts in the 20th century estimated that the population would grow to 25.5 million by 2000 and 28 million by 2010, but this increase never occurred due to the North Korean famine.[252] It began in 1995, lasted for three years and resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 North Koreans.[70]
+
+International donors led by the United States initiated shipments of food through the World Food Program in 1997 to combat the famine.[253] Despite a drastic reduction of aid under the George W. Bush administration,[254] the situation gradually improved: the number of malnourished children declined from 60% in 1998[255] to 37% in 2006[256] and 28% in 2013.[257] Domestic food production almost recovered to the recommended annual level of 5.37 million tons of cereal equivalent in 2013,[258] but the World Food Program reported a continuing lack of dietary diversity and access to fats and proteins.[259]
+
+The famine had a significant impact on the population growth rate, which declined to 0.9% annually in 2002.[252] It was 0.5% in 2014.[260] Late marriages after military service, limited housing space and long hours of work or political studies further exhaust the population and reduce growth.[252] The national birth rate is 14.5 births per year per 1,000 population.[261] Two-thirds of households consist of extended families mostly living in two-room units. Marriage is virtually universal and divorce is extremely rare.[262]
+
+North Korea had a life expectancy of 72.1 years in 2018, according to World Bank.[263] While North Korea is classified as a low-income country, the structure of North Korea's causes of death (2013) is unlike that of other low-income countries.[264] Instead, it is closer to worldwide averages, with non-communicable diseases—such as cardiovascular disease and cancers—accounting for 84 percent of the total deaths in 2016.[265]
+
+According to the World Bank report of 2016 (based on WHO's estimate), only 9.5% of the total deaths recorded in North Korea are attributed to communicable diseases and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions, a figure which is slightly lower than that of South Korea (10.1%) and one fifth of other low-income countries (50.1%) but higher than that of high income countries (6.7%).[266] Only one out of ten leading causes of overall deaths in North Korea is attributed to communicable diseases (lower respiratory infection), a disease which is reported to have declined by six percent since 2007.[267]
+
+In 2013, cardiovascular disease as a single disease group was reported as the largest cause of death in North Korea.[264] The three major causes of death in North Korea are stroke, COPD and Ischaemic heart disease.[267] Non-communicable diseases risk factors in North Korea include high rates of urbanization, an aging society, and high rates of smoking and alcohol consumption amongst men.[264]
+
+Maternal mortality is lower than other low-income countries, but significantly higher than South Korea and other high income countries, at 89 per 100,000 live births.[268]
+
+Healthcare Access and Quality Index, calculated by IHME, was reported to stand at 62.3, much lower than that of South Korea.[269]
+
+According to a 2003 report by the United States Department of State, almost 100% of the population has access to water and sanitation.[270] 80% of the population had access to improved sanitation facilities in 2015.[271]
+
+North Korea has the highest number of doctors per capita amongst low-income countries, with 3.7 physicians per 1,000 people, a figure which is also significantly higher than that of South Korea, according to WHO's data.[272]
+
+A free universal insurance system is in place.[273] Quality of medical care varies significantly by region[274] and is often low, with severe shortages of equipment, drugs and anesthetics.[275] According to WHO, expenditure on health per capita is one of the lowest in the world.[275] Preventive medicine is emphasized through physical exercise and sports, nationwide monthly checkups and routine spraying of public places against disease. Every individual has a lifetime health card which contains a full medical record.[276]
+
+The 2008 census listed the entire population as literate.[262] An 11-year free, compulsory cycle of primary and secondary education is provided in more than 27,000 nursery schools, 14,000 kindergartens, 4,800 four-year primary and 4,700 six-year secondary schools.[255] 77% of males and 79% of females aged 30–34 have finished secondary school.[262] An additional 300 universities and colleges offer higher education.[255]
+
+Most graduates from the compulsory program do not attend university but begin their obligatory military service or proceed to work in farms or factories instead. The main deficiencies of higher education are the heavy presence of ideological subjects, which comprise 50% of courses in social studies and 20% in sciences,[277] and the imbalances in curriculum. The study of natural sciences is greatly emphasized while social sciences are neglected.[278] Heuristics is actively applied to develop the independence and creativity of students throughout the system.[279] The study of Russian and English was made compulsory in upper middle schools in 1978.[280]
+
+North Korea shares the Korean language with South Korea, although some dialectal differences exist within both Koreas.[255] North Koreans refer to their Pyongyang dialect as munhwaŏ ("cultured language") as opposed to the dialects of South Korea, especially the Seoul dialect or p'yojun'ŏ ("standard language"), which are viewed as decadent because of its use of loanwords from Chinese and European languages (particularly English).[281] Words of Chinese, Manchu or Western origin have been eliminated from munhwa along with the usage of Chinese hancha characters.[281] Written language uses only the chosŏn'gŭl (Hangul) phonetic alphabet, developed under Sejong the Great (1418–1450).[282]
+
+Officially, North Korea is an atheist state.[283][284] There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. According to Religious Intelligence, 64% of the population are irreligious, 16% practice Korean shamanism, 14% practice Chondoism, 4% are Buddhist, and 2% are Christian.[285] Freedom of religion and the right to religious ceremonies are constitutionally guaranteed, but religions are restricted by the government.[286][287] Amnesty International has expressed concerns about religious persecution in North Korea.[209]
+
+The influence of Buddhism and Confucianism still has an effect on cultural life.[288][289] Chondoism ("Heavenly Way") is an indigenous syncretic belief combining elements of Korean shamanism, Buddhism, Taoism and Catholicism that is officially represented by the WPK-controlled Chondoist Chongu Party.[290]
+
+The Open Doors mission, a Protestant-group based in the United States and founded during the Cold War-era, claims the most severe persecution of Christians in the world occurs in North Korea.[291] Four state-sanctioned churches exist, but critics claim these are showcases for foreigners.[292][293]
+
+According to North Korean documents and refugee testimonies,[294] all North Koreans are sorted into groups according to their Songbun, an ascribed status system based on a citizen's assessed loyalty to the government. Based on their own behavior and the political, social, and economic background of their family for three generations as well as behavior by relatives within that range, Songbun is allegedly used to determine whether an individual is trusted with responsibility, given opportunities,[295] or even receives adequate food.[294][296]
+
+Songbun allegedly affects access to educational and employment opportunities and particularly whether a person is eligible to join North Korea's ruling party.[295] There are 3 main classifications and about 50 sub-classifications. According to Kim Il-sung, speaking in 1958, the loyal "core class" constituted 25% of the North Korean population, the "wavering class" 55%, and the "hostile class" 20%.[294] The highest status is accorded to individuals descended from those who participated with Kim Il-sung in the resistance against Japanese occupation during and before World War II and to those who were factory workers, laborers, or peasants in 1950.[297]
+
+While some analysts believe private commerce recently changed the Songbun system to some extent,[298] most North Korean refugees say it remains a commanding presence in everyday life.[294] The North Korean government claims all citizens are equal and denies any discrimination on the basis of family background.[299]
+
+North Korea has maintained one of the most closed and centralized economies in the world since the 1940s.[300] For several decades, it followed the Soviet pattern of five-year plans with the ultimate goal of achieving self-sufficiency. Extensive Soviet and Chinese support allowed North Korea to rapidly recover from the Korean War and register very high growth rates. Systematic inefficiency began to arise around 1960, when the economy shifted from the extensive to the intensive development stage. The shortage of skilled labor, energy, arable land and transportation significantly impeded long-term growth and resulted in consistent failure to meet planning objectives.[301] The major slowdown of the economy contrasted with South Korea, which surpassed the North in terms of absolute GDP and per capita income by the 1980s.[302] North Korea declared the last seven-year plan unsuccessful in December 1993 and thereafter stopped announcing plans.[303]
+
+The loss of Eastern Bloc trading partners and a series of natural disasters throughout the 1990s caused severe hardships, including widespread famine. By 2000, the situation improved owing to a massive international food assistance effort, but the economy continues to suffer from food shortages, dilapidated infrastructure and a critically low energy supply.[304] In an attempt to recover from the collapse, the government began structural reforms in 1998 that formally legalized private ownership of assets and decentralized control over production.[305] A second round of reforms in 2002 led to an expansion of market activities, partial monetization, flexible prices and salaries, and the introduction of incentives and accountability techniques.[306] Despite these changes, North Korea remains a command economy where the state owns almost all means of production and development priorities are defined by the government.[304]
+
+North Korea has the structural profile of a relatively industrialized country[307] where nearly half of the Gross Domestic Product is generated by industry[308] and human development is at medium levels.[309] Purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is estimated at $40 billion,[8] with a very low per capita value of $1,800.[9] In 2012, Gross national income per capita was $1,523, compared to $28,430 in South Korea.[310] The North Korean won is the national currency, issued by the Central Bank of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.[311]
+
+The economy is heavily nationalized.[312] Food and housing are extensively subsidized by the state; education and healthcare are free;[273] and the payment of taxes was officially abolished in 1974.[313] A variety of goods are available in department stores and supermarkets in Pyongyang,[314] though most of the population relies on small-scale jangmadang markets.[315][316] In 2009, the government attempted to stem the expanding free market by banning jangmadang and the use of foreign currency,[304] heavily devaluing the won and restricting the convertibility of savings in the old currency,[275] but the resulting inflation spike and rare public protests caused a reversal of these policies.[317] Private trade is dominated by women because most men are required to be present at their workplace, even though many state-owned enterprises are non-operational.[318]
+
+Industry and services employ 65%[319] of North Korea's 12.6 million labor force.[320] Major industries include machine building, military equipment, chemicals, mining, metallurgy, textiles, food processing and tourism.[321] Iron ore and coal production are among the few sectors where North Korea performs significantly better than its southern neighbor—it produces about 10 times larger amounts of each resource.[322] Using ex-Romanian drilling rigs, several oil exploration companies have confirmed significant oil reserves in the North Korean shelf of the Sea of Japan, and in areas south of Pyongyang.[323] The agricultural sector was shattered by the natural disasters of the 1990s.[324] Its 3,500 cooperatives and state farms[325] were among the most productive and successful in the world around 1980[326] but now experience chronic fertilizer and equipment shortages. Rice, corn, soybeans and potatoes are some of the primary crops.[304] A significant contribution to the food supply comes from commercial fishing and aquaculture.[304] Tourism has been a growing sector for the past decade.[327] North Korea has been aiming to increase the number of foreign visitors through projects like the Masikryong Ski Resort.[328]
+
+Foreign trade surpassed pre-crisis levels in 2005 and continues to expand.[329][330] North Korea has a number of special economic zones (SEZs) and Special Administrative Regions where foreign companies can operate with tax and tariff incentives while North Korean establishments gain access to improved technology.[331] Initially four such zones existed, but they yielded little overall success.[332] The SEZ system was overhauled in 2013 when 14 new zones were opened and the Rason Special Economic Zone was reformed as a joint Chinese-North Korean project.[333] The Kaesong Industrial Region is a special economic zone where more than 100 South Korean companies employ some 52,000 North Korean workers.[334] As of August 2017[update], China is the biggest trading partner of North Korea outside inter-Korean trade, accounting for more than 84% of the total external trade ($5.3 billion) followed by India at 3.3% share ($205 million).[335] In 2014, Russia wrote off 90% of North Korea's debt and the two countries agreed to conduct all transactions in rubles.[336] Overall, external trade in 2013 reached a total of $7.3 billion (the highest amount since 1990[337]), while inter-Korean trade dropped to an eight-year low of $1.1 billion.[338]
+
+North Korea's energy infrastructure is obsolete and in disrepair. Power shortages are chronic and would not be alleviated even by electricity imports because the poorly maintained grid causes significant losses during transmission.[339][340] Coal accounts for 70% of primary energy production, followed by hydroelectric power with 17%.[341] The government under Kim Jong-un has increased emphasis on renewable energy projects like wind farms, solar parks, solar heating and biomass.[342] A set of legal regulations adopted in 2014 stressed the development of geothermal, wind and solar energy along with recycling and environmental conservation.[342][343] North Korea's long-term objective is to curb fossil fuel usage and reach an output of 5 million kilowatts from renewable sources by 2044, up from its current total of 430,000 kilowatts from all sources. Wind power is projected to satisfy 15% of the country's total energy demand under this strategy.[344]
+
+North Korea also strives to develop its own civilian nuclear program. These efforts are under much international dispute due to their military applications and concerns about safety.[345]
+
+Transport infrastructure includes railways, highways, water and air routes, but rail transport is by far the most widespread. North Korea has some 5,200 kilometers of railways mostly in standard gauge which carry 80% of annual passenger traffic and 86% of freight, but electricity shortages undermine their efficiency.[341] Construction of a high-speed railway connecting Kaesong, Pyongyang and Sinuiju with speeds exceeding 200 km/h was approved in 2013.[346] North Korea connects with the Trans-Siberian Railway through Rajin.[citation needed]
+
+Road transport is very limited—only 724 kilometers of the 25,554 kilometer road network are paved,[347] and maintenance on most roads is poor.[348] Only 2% of the freight capacity is supported by river and sea transport, and air traffic is negligible.[341] All port facilities are ice-free and host a merchant fleet of 158 vessels.[349] Eighty-two airports[350] and 23 helipads[351] are operational and the largest serve the state-run airline, Air Koryo.[341] Cars are relatively rare,[352] but bicycles are common.[353][354]
+
+R&D efforts are concentrated at the State Academy of Sciences, which runs 40 research institutes, 200 smaller research centers, a scientific equipment factory and six publishing houses.[355] The government considers science and technology to be directly linked to economic development.[356][357] A five-year scientific plan emphasizing IT, biotechnology, nanotechnology, marine and plasma research was carried out in the early 2000s.[356] A 2010 report by the South Korean Science and Technology Policy Institute identified polymer chemistry, single carbon materials, nanoscience, mathematics, software, nuclear technology and rocketry as potential areas of inter-Korean scientific cooperation. North Korean institutes are strong in these fields of research, although their engineers require additional training and laboratories need equipment upgrades.[358]
+
+Under its "constructing a powerful knowledge economy" slogan, the state has launched a project to concentrate education, scientific research and production into a number of "high-tech development zones". International sanctions remain a significant obstacle to their development.[359] The Miraewon network of electronic libraries was established in 2014 under similar slogans.[360]
+
+Significant resources have been allocated to the national space program, which is managed by the National Aerospace Development Administration (formerly managed by the Korean Committee of Space Technology until April 2013)[361][362] Domestically produced launch vehicles and the Kwangmyŏngsŏng satellite class are launched from two spaceports, the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground and the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. After four failed attempts, North Korea became the tenth spacefaring nation with the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 in December 2012, which successfully reached orbit but was believed to be crippled and non-operational.[363][364] It joined the Outer Space Treaty in 2009[365] and has stated its intentions to undertake manned and Moon missions.[362] The government insists the space program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries maintain that it serves to advance military ballistic missile programs.[366]
+
+On 7 February 2016, North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket, supposedly to place a satellite into orbit. Critics believe that the real purpose of the launch was to test a ballistic missile. The launch was strongly condemned by the UN Security Council.[367][368][369] A statement broadcast on Korean Central Television said that a new Earth observation satellite, Kwangmyongsong-4, had successfully been put into orbit less than 10 minutes after lift-off from the Sohae space center in North Phyongan province.[367]
+
+Usage of communication technology is controlled by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. An adequate nationwide fiber-optic telephone system with 1.18 million fixed lines[370] and expanding mobile coverage is in place.[13] Most phones are installed for senior government officials and installation requires written explanation why the user needs a telephone and how it will be paid for.[371] Cellular coverage is available with a 3G network operated by Koryolink, a joint venture with Orascom Telecom Holding.[372] The number of subscribers has increased from 3,000 in 2002[373] to almost two million in 2013.[372] International calls through either fixed or cellular service are restricted, and mobile Internet is not available.[372]
+
+Internet access itself is limited to a handful of elite users and scientists. Instead, North Korea has a walled garden intranet system called Kwangmyong,[374] which is maintained and monitored by the Korea Computer Center.[375] Its content is limited to state media, chat services, message boards,[374] an e-mail service and an estimated 1,000–5,500 websites.[376] Computers employ the Red Star OS, an operating system derived from Linux, with a user shell visually similar to that of OS X.[376] On 19 September 2016, a TLDR project noticed the North Korean Internet DNS data and top-level domain was left open which allowed global DNS zone transfers. A dump of the data discovered was shared on GitHub.[14][377]
+
+On 8 July 2020, the CNN reported that satellite imagery showed activity at a North Korean facility, which was suspected by researchers of being utilized for building nuclear warheads. The images were captured by Planet Labs and analyzed by experts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.[378]
+
+Despite a historically strong Chinese influence, Korean culture has shaped its own unique identity.[379] It came under attack during the Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, when Japan enforced a cultural assimilation policy. Koreans were forced to learn and speak Japanese, adopt the Japanese family name system and Shinto religion, and were forbidden to write or speak the Korean language in schools, businesses, or public places.[380]
+
+After the peninsula was divided in 1945, two distinct cultures formed out of the common Korean heritage. North Koreans have little exposure to foreign influence.[381] The revolutionary struggle and the brilliance of the leadership are some of the main themes in art. "Reactionary" elements from traditional culture have been discarded and cultural forms with a "folk" spirit have been reintroduced.[381]
+
+Korean heritage is protected and maintained by the state.[382] Over 190 historical sites and objects of national significance are cataloged as National Treasures of North Korea, while some 1,800 less valuable artifacts are included in a list of Cultural Assets. The Historic Sites and Monuments in Kaesong and the Complex of Goguryeo Tombs are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[383]
+
+Visual arts are generally produced in the esthetics of Socialist realism.[384] North Korean painting combines the influence of Soviet and Japanese visual expression to instill a sentimental loyalty to the system.[385] All artists in North Korea are required to join the Artists' Union, and the best among them can receive an official license to portray the leaders. Portraits and sculptures depicting Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un are classed as "Number One works".[384]
+
+Most aspects of art have been dominated by Mansudae Art Studio since its establishment in 1959. It employs around 1,000 artists in what is likely the biggest art factory in the world where paintings, murals, posters and monuments are designed and produced.[386] The studio has commercialized its activity and sells its works to collectors in a variety of countries including China, where it is in high demand.[385] Mansudae Overseas Projects is a subdivision of Mansudae Art Studio that carries out construction of large-scale monuments for international customers.[386] Some of the projects include the African Renaissance Monument in Senegal,[387] and the Heroes' Acre in Namibia.[388]
+
+In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Goguryeo tumulus is registered on the World Heritage list of UNESCO. These remains were registered as the first World Heritage property of North Korea in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) in July 2004. There are 63 burial mounds in the tomb group, with clear murals preserved. The burial customs of the Goguryeo culture have influenced Asian civilizations beyond Korea, including Japan.[389]
+
+The government emphasized optimistic folk-based tunes and revolutionary music throughout most of the 20th century.[381] Ideological messages are conveyed through massive orchestral pieces like the "Five Great Revolutionary Operas" based on traditional Korean ch'angguk.[390] Revolutionary operas differ from their Western counterparts by adding traditional instruments to the orchestra and avoiding recitative segments.[391] Sea of Blood is the most widely performed of the Five Great Operas: since its premiere in 1971, it has been played over 1,500 times,[392] and its 2010 tour in China was a major success.[391] Western classical music by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and other composers is performed both by the State Symphony Orchestra and student orchestras.[393]
+
+Pop music appeared in the 1980s with the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble and Wangjaesan Light Music Band.[394] Improved relations with South Korea following the 2000 inter-Korean summit caused a decline in direct ideological messages in pop songs, but themes like comradeship, nostalgia and the construction of a powerful country remained.[395] In 2014, the all-girl Moranbong Band was described as the most popular group in the country.[396] North Koreans also listen to K-pop which spreads through illegal markets.[397][398]
+
+All publishing houses are owned by the government or the WPK because they are considered an important tool for propaganda and agitation.[399] The Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House is the most authoritative among them and publishes all works of Kim Il-sung, ideological education materials and party policy documents.[400] The availability of foreign literature is limited, examples being North Korean editions of Indian, German, Chinese and Russian fairy tales, Tales from Shakespeare, some works of Bertolt Brecht and Erich Kästner,[385] and the Harry Potter series.[401]
+
+Kim Il-sung's personal works are considered "classical masterpieces" while the ones created under his instruction are labeled "models of Juche literature". These include The Fate of a Self-Defense Corps Man, The Song of Korea and Immortal History, a series of historical novels depicting the suffering of Koreans under Japanese occupation.[381][390] More than four million literary works were published between the 1980s and the early 2000s, but almost all of them belong to a narrow variety of political genres like "army-first revolutionary literature".[402]
+
+Science fiction is considered a secondary genre because it somewhat departs from the traditional standards of detailed descriptions and metaphors of the leader. The exotic settings of the stories give authors more freedom to depict cyberwarfare, violence, sexual abuse and crime, which are absent in other genres. Sci-fi works glorify technology and promote the Juche concept of anthropocentric existence through depictions of robotics, space exploration and immortality.[403]
+
+Government policies towards film are no different than those applied to other arts—motion pictures serve to fulfill the targets of "social education". Some of the most influential films are based on historic events (An Jung-geun shoots Itō Hirobumi) or folk tales (Hong Gildong).[390] Most movies have predictable propaganda story lines which make cinema an unpopular entertainment; viewers only see films that feature their favorite actors.[404] Western productions are only available at private showings to high-ranking Party members,[405] although the 1997 film Titanic is frequently shown to university students as an example of Western culture.[406] Access to foreign media products is available through smuggled DVDs and television or radio broadcasts in border areas.[407] Western films like The Interview, Titanic, and Charlie's Angels are just a few films that have been smuggled across the borders of North Korea, allowing for access to the North Korean citizens.[408][409]
+
+North Korean media are under some of the strictest government control in the world. The censorship in North Korea encompasses all the information produced by the media. Monitored heavily by government officials, the media is strictly used to reinforce ideals approved by the government.[410] There is no freedom of press in North Korea as all the media is controlled and filtered through governmental censors.[410] Freedom of the press in 2017 was 180th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' annual Press Freedom Index.[411] According to Freedom House, all media outlets serve as government mouthpieces, all journalists are party members and listening to foreign broadcasts carries the threat of a death penalty.[412] The main news provider is the Korean Central News Agency. All 12 major newspapers and 20 periodicals, including Rodong Sinmun, are published in the capital.[413]
+
+There are three state-owned TV stations. Two of them broadcast only on weekends and the Korean Central Television is on air every day in the evenings.[414] Uriminzokkiri and its associated YouTube and Twitter accounts distribute imagery, news and video issued by government media.[415] The Associated Press opened the first Western all-format, full-time bureau in Pyongyang in 2012.[416]
+
+Media coverage of North Korea has often been inadequate as a result of the country's isolation. Stories like Kim Jong-un undergoing surgery to look like his grandfather, executing his ex-girlfriend or feeding his uncle to a pack of hungry dogs have been circulated by foreign media as truth despite the lack of a credible source.[417] Many of the claims originate from the South Korean right-wing newspaper The Chosun Ilbo.[418] Max Fisher of The Washington Post has written that "almost any story [on North Korea] is treated as broadly credible, no matter how outlandish or thinly sourced".[419] Occasional deliberate disinformation on the part of North Korean establishments further complicates the issue.[417]
+
+Korean cuisine has evolved through centuries of social and political change. Originating from ancient agricultural and nomadic traditions in southern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, it has gone through a complex interaction of the natural environment and different cultural trends.[420] Rice dishes and kimchi are staple Korean food. In a traditional meal, they accompany both side dishes (panch'an) and main courses like juk, pulgogi or noodles. Soju liquor is the best-known traditional Korean spirit.[421]
+
+North Korea's most famous restaurant, Okryu-gwan, located in Pyongyang, is known for its raengmyeon cold noodles.[422] Other dishes served there include gray mullet soup with boiled rice, beef rib soup, green bean pancake, sinsollo and dishes made from terrapin.[423][424] Okryu-gwan sends research teams into the countryside to collect data on Korean cuisine and introduce new recipes.[422] Some Asian cities host branches of the Pyongyang restaurant chain where waitresses perform music and dance.[425]
+
+Most schools have daily practice in association football, basketball, table tennis, gymnastics, boxing and others. The DPR Korea League is popular inside the country and its games are often televised.[404] The national football team, Chollima, competed in the FIFA World Cup in 2010, when it lost all three matches against Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast.[426] Its 1966 appearance was much more successful, seeing a surprise 1–0 victory over Italy and a quarter final loss to Portugal by 3–5.[427] A national team represents the nation in international basketball competitions as well. In December 2013, former American basketball professional Dennis Rodman visited North Korea to help train the national team after he developed a friendship with Kim Jong-un.[428]
+
+North Korea's first appearance in the Olympics came in 1964. The 1972 Olympics saw its summer games debut and five medals, including one gold. With the exception of the boycotted Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics, North Korean athletes have won medals in all summer games since then.[429] Weightlifter Kim Un-guk broke the world record of the Men's 62 kg category at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.[430] Successful Olympians receive luxury apartments from the state in recognition for their achievements.[431]
+
+The Arirang Festival has been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the biggest choreographic event in the world.[432] Some 100,000 athletes perform rhythmic gymnastics and dances while another 40,000 participants create a vast animated screen in the background. The event is an artistic representation of the country's history and pays homage to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.[432][433] Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, the largest stadium in the world with its capacity of 150,000, hosts the Festival.[433][434] The Pyongyang Marathon is another notable sports event. It is an IAAF Bronze Label Race where amateur runners from around the world can participate.[435]
+
+Between 2010 and 2019, North Korea has imported 138 purebred horses from Russia at cost of over $584,000.[436]

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+
+
+Coordinates: 40°N 127°E / 40°N 127°E / 40; 127
+
+North Korea (Korean: 조선, MR: Chosŏn; literally 북조선, MR: Pukchosŏn, or 북한/北韓, RR: Bukhan in South Korean usage), officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or DPR Korea; Korean: 조선민주주의인민공화국, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk), is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country is bordered to the north by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in Chinese) and Tumen rivers, and to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the country's capital and largest city.
+
+In 1910, Korea was annexed by Imperial Japan. At the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was divided into two zones, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948, separate governments were formed: the socialist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north, and the capitalist Republic of Korea in the south. An invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950–1953). The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, but no peace treaty was signed.
+
+According to article 1 of the constitution of North Korea, the DPRK is an "independent socialist State".[n 3][15] North Korea holds elections, though they have been described by independent observers as sham elections. North Korea is generally viewed as a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around the Kim dynasty. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the ruling family, holds absolute power in the state and leads the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members. According to article 3 of the constitution of the DPRK, Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism is the North Korean official ideology.[n 4][15] The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises and collectivized farms. Most services—such as healthcare, education, housing and food production—are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people, and the population continues to suffer malnutrition. North Korea follows Songun, or "military-first" policy. It is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active, reserve and paramilitary personnel, or approximately 37% of its population. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth-largest in the world, after China, the United States and India; consisting of 4.7% of its population. It possesses nuclear weapons. In addition to being a member of the United Nations since 1991, North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum.
+
+A 2014 UN inquiry into abuses of human rights in North Korea concluded that, "the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch holding similar views.[16][17][18][19] The North Korean government denies these abuses.[20][21][22]
+
+The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo (also spelled Koryŏ). The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ) which was one of the great powers in East Asia during its time,[23][24][25][26] ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria, parts of the Russian Far East[27] and parts of Inner Mongolia,[28] under Gwanggaeto the Great.[29] The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo,[30][31][32][33] and thus inherited its name, which was pronounced by visiting Persian merchants as "Korea".[34] The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Company's Hendrick Hamel.[35]
+
+After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea: Chosun or Joseon (조선) in North Korea, and Hanguk (한국) in South Korea. In 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Korean: 조선민주주의인민공화국, Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; listen) as its new legal name. In the wider world, because the government controls the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, it is commonly called North Korea to distinguish it from South Korea, which is officially called the Republic of Korea in English. Both governments consider themselves to be the legitimate government of the whole of Korea.[36][37] For this reason, the people do not consider themselves as 'North Koreans' but as Koreans in the same divided country as their compatriots in the South and foreign visitors are discouraged from using the former term.[38]
+
+After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun (Liberation Army) operated along the Sino-Korean border, fighting guerrilla warfare against Japanese forces. Some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the guerrilla leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the first leader of North Korea.
+
+After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the United States. Negotiations on reunification failed. Soviet general Terentii Shtykov recommended the establishment of the Soviet Civil Authority in October 1945, and supported Kim Il-sung as chairman of the Provisional People's Committee for North Korea, established in February 1946. In September 1946, South Korean citizens rose up against the Allied Military Government. In April 1948, an uprising of the Jeju islanders was violently crushed. The South declared its statehood in May 1948 and two months later the ardent anti-communist Syngman Rhee[39] became its ruler. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was established in the North on 9 September 1948. Shtykov served as the first Soviet ambassador, while Kim Il-sung became premier.
+
+Soviet forces withdrew from the North in 1948, and most American forces withdrew from the South in 1949. Ambassador Shtykov suspected Rhee was planning to invade the North and was sympathetic to Kim's goal of Korean unification under socialism. The two successfully lobbied Joseph Stalin to support a quick war against the South, which culminated in the outbreak of the Korean War.[40][41][42][43]
+
+The military of North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. A United Nations force, led by the United States, intervened to defend the South, and rapidly advanced into North Korea. As they neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea, but no peace treaty was signed.[44] Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, with a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or the Vietnam War, making it perhaps the deadliest conflict of the Cold War-era.[45][46][47][48][49] In both per capita and absolute terms, North Korea was the country most devastated by the war, which resulted in the death of an estimated 12–15% of the North Korean population (c. 10 million), "a figure close to or surpassing the proportion of Soviet citizens killed in World War II," according to Charles K. Armstrong.[50] As a result of the war, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed.[51][52] Some have referred to the conflict as a civil war, with other factors involved.[53]
+
+A heavily guarded demilitarized zone (DMZ) still divides the peninsula, and an anti-communist and anti-North Korea sentiment remains in South Korea. Since the war, the United States has maintained a strong military presence in the South which is depicted by the North Korean government as an imperialist occupation force.[54] It claims that the Korean War was caused by the United States and South Korea.[55]
+
+The relative peace between the South and the North following the armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, celebrity abductions, and assassination attempts. The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968, 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976.[56] For almost two decades after the war, the two states did not seek to negotiate with one another. In 1971, secret, high-level contacts began to be conducted culminating in the 1972 July 4th North–South Joint Statement that established principles of working toward peaceful reunification. The talks ultimately failed because in 1973, South Korea declared its preference that the two Koreas should seek separate memberships in international organizations.[57]
+
+During the 1956 August Faction Incident, Kim Il-sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him in favor of Soviet Koreans or the pro-Chinese Yan'an faction.[58][59] The last Chinese troops withdrew from the country in October 1958, which is the consensus as the latest date when North Korea became effectively independent. Some scholars believe that the 1956 August incident demonstrated independence.[58][59][60] North Korea remained closely aligned with China and the Soviet Union, and the Sino-Soviet split allowed Kim to play the powers off each other.[61] North Korea sought to become a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and emphasized the ideology of Juche to distinguish it from both the Soviet Union and China.[62] In United States policymaking, North Korea was considered among the Captive Nations.[63]
+
+Recovery from the war was quick—by 1957 industrial production reached 1949 levels. In 1959, relations with Japan had improved somewhat, and North Korea began allowing the repatriation of Japanese citizens in the country. The same year, North Korea revalued the North Korean won, which held greater value than its South Korean counterpart. Until the 1960s, economic growth was higher than in South Korea, and North Korean GDP per capita was equal to that of its southern neighbor as late as 1976.[64] However, by the 1980s, the economy had begun to stagnate; it started its long decline in 1987 and almost completely collapsed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when all Soviet aid was suddenly halted.[65]
+
+In 1992, as Kim Il-sung's health began deteriorating, Kim Jong-il slowly began taking over various state tasks. Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in 1994, with Kim Jong-il declaring a three-year period of national mourning before officially announcing his position as the new leader afterwards.[66]
+
+North Korea promised to halt its development of nuclear weapons under the Agreed Framework, negotiated with U.S. president Bill Clinton and signed in 1994. Building on Nordpolitik, South Korea began to engage with the North as part of its Sunshine Policy.[67][68]
+
+Kim Jong-il instituted a policy called Songun, or "military first". There is much speculation about this policy being used as a strategy to strengthen the military while discouraging coup attempts.[69]
+
+Flooding in the mid-1990s exacerbated the economic crisis, severely damaging crops and infrastructure and led to widespread famine which the government proved incapable of curtailing, resulting in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 people. In 1996, the government accepted UN food aid.[70]
+
+The international environment changed with the election of U.S. president George W. Bush in 2001. His administration rejected South Korea's Sunshine Policy and the Agreed Framework. The U.S. government treated North Korea as a rogue state, while North Korea redoubled its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons to avoid the fate of Iraq.[71][72][73] On 9 October 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test.[74][75]
+
+U.S. President Barack Obama adopted a policy of "strategic patience", resisting making deals with North Korea.[76] Tensions with South Korea and the United States increased in 2010 with the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan[77] and North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.[78][79]
+
+On 17 December 2011, Kim Jong-il died from a heart attack. His youngest son Kim Jong-un was announced as his successor.[80] In the face of international condemnation, North Korea continued to develop its nuclear arsenal, possibly including a hydrogen bomb and a missile capable of reaching the United States.[81]
+
+Throughout 2017, following Donald Trump's assumption of the US presidency, tensions between the United States and North Korea increased, and there was heightened rhetoric between the two, with Trump threatening "fire and fury"[82] and North Korea threatening to test missiles that would land near Guam.[83] The tensions substantially decreased in 2018, and a détente developed.[84] A series of summits took place between Kim Jong-un of North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, and President Trump.[85]
+It has been 2 years, 8 months since North Korea's last ICBM test.
+
+North Korea occupies the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula, lying between latitudes 37° and 43°N, and longitudes 124° and 131°E. It covers an area of 120,540 square kilometers (46,541 sq mi).[4] North Korea is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in Chinese) and Tumen rivers[86] and borders South Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone. To its west are the Yellow Sea and Korea Bay, and to its east lies Japan across the Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea).
+
+Early European visitors to Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula.[87] Some 80 percent of North Korea is composed of mountains and uplands, separated by deep and narrow valleys. All of the Korean Peninsula's mountains with elevations of 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) or more are located in North Korea. The highest point in North Korea is Paektu Mountain, a volcanic mountain with an elevation of 2,744 meters (9,003 ft) above sea level.[87] Considered a sacred place by North Koreans, Mount Paektu holds significance in Korean culture and has been incorporated in the elaborate folklore and cult personality around the Kim dynasty.[88] For example, the song, "We Will Go To Mount Paektu" sings in praise of Kim Jong-un and describes a symbolic trek to the mountain. Other prominent ranges are the Hamgyong Range in the extreme northeast and the Rangrim Mountains, which are located in the north-central part of North Korea. Mount Kumgang in the Taebaek Range, which extends into South Korea, is famous for its scenic beauty.[87]
+
+The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east. A great majority of the population lives in the plains and lowlands. According to a United Nations Environmental Programme report in 2003, forest covers over 70 percent of the country, mostly on steep slopes.[89] The longest river is the Amnok (Yalu) River which flows for 790 kilometers (491 mi).[90]
+
+North Korea experiences a combination of continental climate and an oceanic climate,[89][91] but most of the country experiences a humid continental climate within the Köppen climate classification scheme. Winters bring clear weather interspersed with snow storms as a result of northern and northwestern winds that blow from Siberia.[91] Summer tends to be by far the hottest, most humid, and rainiest time of year because of the southern and southeastern monsoon winds that carry moist air from the Pacific Ocean. Approximately 60 percent of all precipitation occurs from June to September.[91] Spring and autumn are transitional seasons between summer and winter. The daily average high and low temperatures for Pyongyang are −3 and −13 °C (27 and 9 °F) in January and 29 and 20 °C (84 and 68 °F) in August.[91]
+
+North Korea functions as a highly centralized, one-party state. According to its 2016 constitution, it is a self-described revolutionary and socialist state "guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea".[92] In addition to the constitution, North Korea is governed by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System (also known as the "Ten Principles of the One-Ideology System") which establishes standards for governance and a guide for the behaviors of North Koreans.[93] The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the Kim dynasty,[94] has an estimated 3,000,000 members and dominates every aspect of North Korean politics. It has two satellite organizations, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party[95] which participate in the WPK-led Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members.[96]
+
+Kim Jong-un of the Kim dynasty is the current Supreme Leader or Suryeong of North Korea.[97] He heads all major governing structures: he is Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, and Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army.[98][99] His grandfather Kim Il-sung, the founder and leader of North Korea until his death in 1994, is the country's "eternal President",[100] while his father Kim Jong-il who succeeded Kim Il-sung as the leader was announced "Eternal General Secretary" and "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission" after his death in 2011.[98]
+
+According to the Constitution of North Korea, there are officially three main branches of government. The first of these is the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, which acts as "the supreme national guidance organ of state sovereignty".[101][102] Its role is to deliberate and decide the work on defense building of the State, including major policies of the State; and to carry out the directions of the Chairman of the commission, Kim Jong-Un.
+
+Legislative power is held by the unicameral Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). Its 687 members are elected every five years by universal suffrage,[103] though they have been described by outside observers as sham elections.[104][105] Supreme People's Assembly sessions are convened by the SPA Presidium, whose president (Choe Ryong-hae since 2019) represents the state in relations with foreign countries. Deputies formally elect the President, the vice-presidents and members of the Presidium and take part in the constitutionally appointed activities of the legislature: pass laws, establish domestic and foreign policies, appoint members of the cabinet, review and approve the state economic plan, among others.[106] The SPA itself cannot initiate any legislation independently of party or state organs. It is unknown whether it has ever criticized or amended bills placed before it, and the elections are based around a single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition.[107]
+
+Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of North Korea, which has been headed by Premier Kim Jae-Ryong since 11 April 2019.[108] The Premier represents the government and functions independently. His authority extends over two vice-premiers, 30 ministers, two cabinet commission chairmen, the cabinet chief secretary, the president of the Central Bank, the director of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the president of the Academy of Sciences. A 31st ministry, the Ministry of People's Armed Forces, is under the jurisdiction of the State Affairs Commission.[109]
+
+North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire Korean peninsula and adjacent islands.[110] Despite its official title as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", some observers have described North Korea's political system as an absolute monarchy[111][112][113] or a "hereditary dictatorship".[114] It has also been described as a Stalinist dictatorship.[115][116][117][118][119]
+
+The Juche ideology is the cornerstone of party works and government operations. It is viewed by the official North Korean line as an embodiment of Kim Il-sung's wisdom, an expression of his leadership, and an idea which provides "a complete answer to any question that arises in the struggle for national liberation".[120] Juche was pronounced in December 1955 in order to emphasize a Korea-centered revolution.[120] Its core tenets are economic self-sufficiency, military self-reliance and an independent foreign policy. The roots of Juche were made up of a complex mixture of factors, including the cult of personality centered on Kim Il-sung, the conflict with pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese dissenters, and Korea's centuries-long struggle for independence.[121] Juche was introduced into the constitution in 1972.[122][123]
+
+Juche was initially promoted as a "creative application" of Marxism–Leninism, but in the mid-1970s, it was described by state propaganda as "the only scientific thought... and most effective revolutionary theoretical structure that leads to the future of communist society". Juche eventually replaced Marxism–Leninism entirely by the 1980s,[124] and in 1992 references to the latter were omitted from the constitution.[125] The 2009 constitution dropped references to communism and elevated the Songun military-first policy while explicitly confirming the position of Kim Jong-il.[126] However, the constitution retains references to socialism.[127] Juche's concepts of self-reliance have evolved with time and circumstances, but still provide the groundwork for the spartan austerity, sacrifice and discipline demanded by the party.[128] Scholar Brian Reynolds Myers views North Korea's actual ideology as a Korean ethnic nationalism similar to statism in Shōwa Japan and European fascism.[129][130][131]
+
+North Korea is ruled by the Kim dynasty, which in North Korea is referred to as the Mount Paektu Bloodline. It is a three-generation lineage descending from the country's first leader, Kim Il-sung, since 1948. Kim developed a cult of personality closely tied to the state philosophy of Juche, which was later passed on to his successors: his son Kim Jong-il and grandson Kim Jong-un. In 2013, this lineage was made explicit when Clause 2 of Article 10 of the new edited Ten Fundamental Principles of the Korean Workers' Party stated that the party and revolution must be carried "eternally" by the "Baekdu bloodline".[132] In order to solidify Mount Paektu Bloodline, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il have recalled all the family genealogy books under the pretext that familyism and regionalism are the hotbeds of the revolution. In 1958, North Korea declared its ideology to be socialism and took away all of people's private property and dismantled family groups that had been living in the center of genealogy and ancestors. They later moved the entire population from the northern 38th parallel.[133] Hence, in North Korea there is no bon-gwan in people's names.[134]
+
+According to New Focus International, the cult of personality, particularly surrounding Kim Il-sung, has been crucial for legitimizing the family's hereditary succession.[135] The control the North Korean government exercises over many aspects of the nation's culture is used to perpetuate the cult of personality surrounding Kim Il-sung,[136] and Kim Jong-il.[137] While visiting North Korea in 1979, journalist Bradley Martin wrote that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung, whose personality cult was then being extended to his son, "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il.[138]
+
+Claims that the dynasty has been deified are contested by North Korea researcher B. R. Myers: "Divine powers have never been attributed to either of the two Kims. In fact, the propaganda apparatus in Pyongyang has generally been careful not to make claims that run directly counter to citizens' experience or common sense."[139] He further explains that the state propaganda painted Kim Jong-il as someone whose expertise lay in military matters and that the famine of the 1990s was partially caused by natural disasters out of Kim Jong-il's control.[140]
+
+The song "No Motherland Without You", sung by the North Korean army choir, was created especially for Kim Jong-il and is one of the most popular tunes in the country. Kim Il-sung is still officially revered as the nation's "Eternal President". Several landmarks in North Korea are named for Kim Il-sung, including Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, and Kim Il-sung Square. Defectors have been quoted as saying that North Korean schools deify both father and son.[141] Kim Il-sung rejected the notion that he had created a cult around himself, and accused those who suggested this of "factionalism".[142] Following the death of Kim Il-sung, North Koreans were prostrating and weeping to a bronze statue of him in an organized event;[143] similar scenes were broadcast by state television following the death of Kim Jong-il.[144]
+
+Critics maintain that Kim Jong-il's personality cult was inherited from his father. Kim Jong-il was often the center of attention throughout ordinary life. His birthday is one of the most important public holidays in the country. On his 60th birthday (based on his official date of birth), mass celebrations occurred throughout the country.[145] Kim Jong-il's personality cult, although significant, was not as extensive as his father's. One point of view is that Kim Jong-il's cult of personality was solely out of respect for Kim Il-sung or out of fear of punishment for failure to pay homage,[146] while North Korean government sources consider it genuine hero worship.[147]
+
+The extent of the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung was illustrated on 11 June 2012 when a 14-year-old North Korean schoolgirl drowned while attempting to rescue portraits of the two from a flood.[148]
+
+As a result of its isolation, North Korea is sometimes known as the "hermit kingdom", a term that originally referred to the isolationism in the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty.[149] Initially, North Korea had diplomatic ties only with other communist countries, and even today, most of the foreign embassies accredited to North Korea are located in Beijing rather than in Pyongyang.[150] In the 1960s and 1970s, it pursued an independent foreign policy, established relations with many developing countries, and joined the Non-Aligned Movement. In the late 1980s and the 1990s its foreign policy was thrown into turmoil with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. Suffering an economic crisis, it closed a number of its embassies. At the same time, North Korea sought to build relations with developed free market countries.[151]
+
+North Korea joined the United Nations in 1991 together with South Korea. North Korea is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, G77 and the ASEAN Regional Forum.[152]
+
+North Korea enjoys a close relationship with China which is often called North Korea's closest ally.[153][154] The relations were strained in the last few years because of China's concerns about North Korea's nuclear program. However, the relations have started to improve again and been increasingly close especially after Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China visited North Korea in April 2019.[155]
+
+As of 2015[update], North Korea had diplomatic relations with 166 countries and embassies in 47 countries.[151] However, owing to the human rights and political situation, North Korea does not have diplomatic relations with Argentina, Botswana,[156] Estonia, France,[157] Iraq, Israel, Japan, Taiwan,[158] and the United States.[a][159][160] As of September 2017, France and Estonia are the last two European countries that do not have an official relationship with North Korea.[161] North Korea continues to have strong ties with its socialist southeast Asian allies in Vietnam and Laos, as well as with Cambodia.[162]
+
+North Korea was previously designated a state sponsor of terrorism[163] because of its alleged involvement in the 1983 Rangoon bombing and the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner.[164] On 11 October 2008, the United States removed North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism after Pyongyang agreed to cooperate on issues related to its nuclear program.[165] North Korea was re-designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. under the Trump administration on 20 November 2017.[166] The kidnapping of at least 13 Japanese citizens by North Korean agents in the 1970s and the 1980s has affected North Korea's relationship with Japan.[167]
+
+US President Donald Trump met with Kim in Singapore on 12 June 2018. An agreement was signed between the two countries endorsing the 2017 Panmunjom Declaration signed by North and South Korea, pledging to work towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.[168] They met in Hanoi from 27 to 28 February 2019, but failed to achieve an agreement.[169] On 30 June 2019, Trump met with Kim along with Moon Jae-in at the Korean DMZ.[170]
+
+The Korean Demilitarized Zone with South Korea remains the most heavily fortified border in the world.[171] Inter-Korean relations are at the core of North Korean diplomacy and have seen numerous shifts in the last few decades. North Korea's policy is to seek reunification without what it sees as outside interference, through a federal structure retaining each side's leadership and systems. In 1972, the two Koreas agreed in principle to achieve reunification through peaceful means and without foreign interference.[172] On 10 October 1980, then North Korean president Kim Il-sung proposed a federation between North and South Korea named the Democratic Federal Republic of Korea in which the respective political systems would initially remain.[173] However, relations remained cool well until the early 1990s, with a brief period in the early 1980s when North Korea offered to provide flood relief to its southern neighbor.[174] Although the offer was initially welcomed, talks over how to deliver the relief goods broke down and none of the promised aid ever crossed the border.[175]
+The two countries also organized a reunion of 92 separated families.[176]
+
+The Sunshine Policy instituted by South Korean president Kim Dae-jung in 1998 was a watershed in inter-Korean relations. It encouraged other countries to engage with the North, which allowed Pyongyang to normalize relations with a number of European Union states and contributed to the establishment of joint North-South economic projects. The culmination of the Sunshine Policy was the 2000 Inter-Korean summit, when Kim Dae-jung visited Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.[177] Both North and South Korea signed the June 15th North–South Joint Declaration, in which both sides promised to seek peaceful reunification.[178] On 4 October 2007, South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il signed an eight-point peace agreement.[179]
+However, relations worsened when South Korean president Lee Myung-bak adopted a more hard-line approach and suspended aid deliveries pending the de-nuclearization of the North. In 2009, North Korea responded by ending all of its previous agreements with the South.[180] It deployed additional ballistic missiles[181] and placed its military on full combat alert after South Korea, Japan and the United States threatened to intercept a Unha-2 space launch vehicle.[182] The next few years witnessed a string of hostilities, including the alleged North Korean involvement in the sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan,[77] mutual ending of diplomatic ties,[183] a North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island,[184] and growing international concern over North Korea's nuclear program.[185]
+
+In May 2017, Moon Jae-in was elected President of South Korea with a promise to return to the Sunshine Policy.[186] In February 2018, a détente developed at the Winter Olympics held in South Korea.[84] In April, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un met at the DMZ, and, in the Panmunjom Declaration, pledged to work for peace and nuclear disarmament.[187] In September, at a joint news conference in Pyongyang, Moon and Kim agreed upon turning the Korean Peninsula into a "land of peace without nuclear weapons and nuclear threats".[188]
+
+North Korea is widely accused of having perhaps the worst human rights record in the world.[16] A 2014 UN inquiry into human rights in North Korea concluded that, "The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world".[17] North Koreans have been referred to as "some of the world's most brutalized people" by Human Rights Watch, because of the severe restrictions placed on their political and economic freedoms.[18][19] The North Korean population is strictly managed by the state and all aspects of daily life are subordinated to party and state planning. Employment is managed by the party on the basis of political reliability, and travel is tightly controlled by the Ministry of People's Security.[190]
+
+Amnesty International reports of severe restrictions on the freedom of association, expression and movement, arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment resulting in death, and executions.[191]
+
+The State Security Department extrajudicially apprehends and imprisons those accused of political crimes without due process.[192] People perceived as hostile to the government, such as Christians or critics of the leadership,[193] are deported to labor camps without trial,[194] often with their whole family and mostly without any chance of being released.[195]
+
+Based on satellite images and defector testimonies, Amnesty International estimates that around 200,000 prisoners are held in six large political prison camps,[193][196] where they are forced to work in conditions approaching slavery.[197] Supporters of the government who deviate from the government line are subject to reeducation in sections of labor camps set aside for that purpose. Those who are deemed politically rehabilitated may reassume responsible government positions on their release.[198]
+
+North Korean defectors[199] have provided detailed testimonies on the existence of the total control zones where abuses such as torture, starvation, rape, murder, medical experimentation, forced labor, and forced abortions have been reported.[200] On the basis of these abuses, as well as persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, forcible transfer of populations, enforced disappearance of persons and forced starvation, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry has accused North Korea of crimes against humanity.[201][202][203] The International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea (ICNK) estimates that over 10,000 people die in North Korean prison camps every year.[204]
+
+According to Human Rights Watch, which cites interviews with defectors, North Korean women are routinely subjected to sexual violence, unwanted sexual contact, and rape. Men in positions of power, including police, high-ranking officials, market supervisors, and guards can abuse women at will and are not prosecuted for it. It happens so often that it is accepted as a routine part of life. Women assume they can't do anything about it. The only ones with protection are those whose husbands or fathers are themselves in positions of power.[205]
+
+The North Korean government rejects the human rights abuse claims, calling them "a smear campaign" and a "human rights racket" aimed at government change.[206][207][208] In a 2014 report to the UN, North Korea dismissed accusations of atrocities as "wild rumors".[20] The official state media, KCNA, responded with an article that included homophobic insults against the author of the human rights report, Michael Kirby, calling him "a disgusting old lecher with a 40-odd-year-long career of homosexuality ... This practice can never be found in the DPRK boasting of the sound mentality and good morals ... In fact, it is ridiculous for such gay  [sic] to sponsor dealing with others' human rights issue."[21][22] The government, however, admitted some human rights issues related to living conditions and stated that it is working to improve them.[208]
+
+According to Amnesty International, citizens in North Korea are denied freedom of movement including the right to leave the country[209] at will and its government denies access to international human rights observers.[210]
+
+North Korea has a civil law system based on the Prussian model and influenced by Japanese traditions and communist legal theory.[211] Judiciary procedures are handled by the Supreme Court (the highest court of appeal), provincial or special city-level courts, people's courts and special courts. People's courts are at the lowest level of the system and operate in cities, counties and urban districts, while different kinds of special courts handle cases related to military, railroad or maritime matters.[212]
+
+Judges are theoretically elected by their respective local people's assemblies, but in practice they are appointed by the Workers' Party of Korea. The penal code is based on the principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without a law), but remains a tool for political control despite several amendments reducing ideological influence.[212] Courts carry out legal procedures related to not only criminal and civil matters, but also political cases as well.[213] Political prisoners are sent to labor camps, while criminal offenders are incarcerated in a separate system.[214]
+
+The Ministry of People's Security (MPS) maintains most law enforcement activities. It is one of the most powerful state institutions in North Korea and oversees the national police force, investigates criminal cases and manages non-political correctional facilities.[215] It handles other aspects of domestic security like civil registration, traffic control, fire departments and railroad security.[216] The State Security Department was separated from the MPS in 1973 to conduct domestic and foreign intelligence, counterintelligence and manage the political prison system. Political camps can be short-term reeducation zones or "kwalliso" (total control zones) for lifetime detention.[217] Camp 15 in Yodok[218] and Camp 18 in Bukchang[219] have been described in detailed testimonies.[200]
+
+The security apparatus is very extensive,[220] exerting strict control over residence, travel, employment, clothing, food and family life.[221] Security forces employ mass surveillance. It is believed they tightly monitor cellular and digital communications.[222]
+
+The Korean People's Army (KPA) has 1,106,000 active and 8,389,000 reserve and paramilitary troops, making it the largest military institution in the world.[223] With an active duty army of 1.21 million, consisting of 4.7% of its population, the KPA is the fourth largest military force in the world after China, the United States and India.[224] About 20 percent of men aged 17–54 serve in the regular armed forces,[224] and approximately one in every 25 citizens is an enlisted soldier.[225][226] The KPA has five branches: Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations Force, and Rocket Force. Command of the Korean People's Army lies in both the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea and the independent State Affairs Commission. The Ministry of People's Armed Forces is subordinated to the latter.[227]
+
+Of all KPA branches, the Ground Force is the largest. It has approximately one million personnel divided into 80 infantry divisions, 30 artillery brigades, 25 special warfare brigades, 20 mechanized brigades, 10 tank brigades and seven tank regiments.[228] They are equipped with 3,700 tanks, 2,100 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles,[229] 17,900 artillery pieces, 11,000 anti-aircraft guns[230] and some 10,000 MANPADS and anti-tank guided missiles.[231] Other equipment includes 1,600 aircraft in the Air Force and 1,000 vessels in the Navy.[232] North Korea has the largest special forces and the largest submarine fleet in the world.[233]
+
+North Korea possesses nuclear weapons,[225][234] but the strength of its arsenal is uncertain. In January 2018, estimates of North Korea's nuclear arsenal ranged between 15 and 60 bombs, probably including hydrogen bombs.[81] Delivery capabilities[235] are provided by the Rocket Force, which has some 1,000 ballistic missiles with a range of up to 7,400 miles (11,900 km).[236]
+
+According to a 2004 South Korean assessment, North Korea possesses a stockpile of chemical weapons estimated to amount to 2,500–5,000 tons, including nerve, blister, blood, and vomiting agents, as well as the ability to cultivate and produce biological weapons including anthrax, smallpox, and cholera.[237][238] Because of its nuclear and missile tests, North Korea has been sanctioned under United Nations Security Council resolutions 1695 of July 2006, 1718 of October 2006, 1874 of June 2009, 2087 of January 2013,[239] and 2397 in December 2017.
+
+The military faces some issues limiting its conventional capabilities, including obsolete equipment, insufficient fuel supplies and a shortage of digital command and control assets due to other countries being banned from selling weapons to it by the UN sanctions. To compensate for these deficiencies, the KPA has deployed a wide range of asymmetric warfare technologies like anti-personnel blinding lasers,[240] GPS jammers,[241][242] midget submarines and human torpedoes,[243] stealth paint,[244] and cyberwarfare units.[245] In 2015, North Korea was estimated as having 6,000 sophisticated computer security personnel.[246] KPA units have allegedly attempted to jam South Korean military satellites.[247]
+
+Much of the equipment is engineered and produced by a domestic defense industry. Weapons are manufactured in roughly 1,800 underground defense industry plants scattered throughout the country, most of them located in Chagang Province.[248] The defense industry is capable of producing a full range of individual and crew-served weapons, artillery, armored vehicles, tanks, missiles, helicopters, surface combatants, submarines, landing and infiltration craft, Yak-18 trainers and possibly co-production of jet aircraft.[220] According to official North Korean media, military expenditures for 2010 amount to 15.8 percent of the state budget.[249] The U.S. State Department has estimated that North Korea's military spending averaged 23% of its GDP from 2004 to 2014, the highest level in the world.[250]
+
+With the exception of a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese, North Korea's 25,549,604[5][6] people are ethnically homogeneous.[251] Demographic experts in the 20th century estimated that the population would grow to 25.5 million by 2000 and 28 million by 2010, but this increase never occurred due to the North Korean famine.[252] It began in 1995, lasted for three years and resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 North Koreans.[70]
+
+International donors led by the United States initiated shipments of food through the World Food Program in 1997 to combat the famine.[253] Despite a drastic reduction of aid under the George W. Bush administration,[254] the situation gradually improved: the number of malnourished children declined from 60% in 1998[255] to 37% in 2006[256] and 28% in 2013.[257] Domestic food production almost recovered to the recommended annual level of 5.37 million tons of cereal equivalent in 2013,[258] but the World Food Program reported a continuing lack of dietary diversity and access to fats and proteins.[259]
+
+The famine had a significant impact on the population growth rate, which declined to 0.9% annually in 2002.[252] It was 0.5% in 2014.[260] Late marriages after military service, limited housing space and long hours of work or political studies further exhaust the population and reduce growth.[252] The national birth rate is 14.5 births per year per 1,000 population.[261] Two-thirds of households consist of extended families mostly living in two-room units. Marriage is virtually universal and divorce is extremely rare.[262]
+
+North Korea had a life expectancy of 72.1 years in 2018, according to World Bank.[263] While North Korea is classified as a low-income country, the structure of North Korea's causes of death (2013) is unlike that of other low-income countries.[264] Instead, it is closer to worldwide averages, with non-communicable diseases—such as cardiovascular disease and cancers—accounting for 84 percent of the total deaths in 2016.[265]
+
+According to the World Bank report of 2016 (based on WHO's estimate), only 9.5% of the total deaths recorded in North Korea are attributed to communicable diseases and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions, a figure which is slightly lower than that of South Korea (10.1%) and one fifth of other low-income countries (50.1%) but higher than that of high income countries (6.7%).[266] Only one out of ten leading causes of overall deaths in North Korea is attributed to communicable diseases (lower respiratory infection), a disease which is reported to have declined by six percent since 2007.[267]
+
+In 2013, cardiovascular disease as a single disease group was reported as the largest cause of death in North Korea.[264] The three major causes of death in North Korea are stroke, COPD and Ischaemic heart disease.[267] Non-communicable diseases risk factors in North Korea include high rates of urbanization, an aging society, and high rates of smoking and alcohol consumption amongst men.[264]
+
+Maternal mortality is lower than other low-income countries, but significantly higher than South Korea and other high income countries, at 89 per 100,000 live births.[268]
+
+Healthcare Access and Quality Index, calculated by IHME, was reported to stand at 62.3, much lower than that of South Korea.[269]
+
+According to a 2003 report by the United States Department of State, almost 100% of the population has access to water and sanitation.[270] 80% of the population had access to improved sanitation facilities in 2015.[271]
+
+North Korea has the highest number of doctors per capita amongst low-income countries, with 3.7 physicians per 1,000 people, a figure which is also significantly higher than that of South Korea, according to WHO's data.[272]
+
+A free universal insurance system is in place.[273] Quality of medical care varies significantly by region[274] and is often low, with severe shortages of equipment, drugs and anesthetics.[275] According to WHO, expenditure on health per capita is one of the lowest in the world.[275] Preventive medicine is emphasized through physical exercise and sports, nationwide monthly checkups and routine spraying of public places against disease. Every individual has a lifetime health card which contains a full medical record.[276]
+
+The 2008 census listed the entire population as literate.[262] An 11-year free, compulsory cycle of primary and secondary education is provided in more than 27,000 nursery schools, 14,000 kindergartens, 4,800 four-year primary and 4,700 six-year secondary schools.[255] 77% of males and 79% of females aged 30–34 have finished secondary school.[262] An additional 300 universities and colleges offer higher education.[255]
+
+Most graduates from the compulsory program do not attend university but begin their obligatory military service or proceed to work in farms or factories instead. The main deficiencies of higher education are the heavy presence of ideological subjects, which comprise 50% of courses in social studies and 20% in sciences,[277] and the imbalances in curriculum. The study of natural sciences is greatly emphasized while social sciences are neglected.[278] Heuristics is actively applied to develop the independence and creativity of students throughout the system.[279] The study of Russian and English was made compulsory in upper middle schools in 1978.[280]
+
+North Korea shares the Korean language with South Korea, although some dialectal differences exist within both Koreas.[255] North Koreans refer to their Pyongyang dialect as munhwaŏ ("cultured language") as opposed to the dialects of South Korea, especially the Seoul dialect or p'yojun'ŏ ("standard language"), which are viewed as decadent because of its use of loanwords from Chinese and European languages (particularly English).[281] Words of Chinese, Manchu or Western origin have been eliminated from munhwa along with the usage of Chinese hancha characters.[281] Written language uses only the chosŏn'gŭl (Hangul) phonetic alphabet, developed under Sejong the Great (1418–1450).[282]
+
+Officially, North Korea is an atheist state.[283][284] There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. According to Religious Intelligence, 64% of the population are irreligious, 16% practice Korean shamanism, 14% practice Chondoism, 4% are Buddhist, and 2% are Christian.[285] Freedom of religion and the right to religious ceremonies are constitutionally guaranteed, but religions are restricted by the government.[286][287] Amnesty International has expressed concerns about religious persecution in North Korea.[209]
+
+The influence of Buddhism and Confucianism still has an effect on cultural life.[288][289] Chondoism ("Heavenly Way") is an indigenous syncretic belief combining elements of Korean shamanism, Buddhism, Taoism and Catholicism that is officially represented by the WPK-controlled Chondoist Chongu Party.[290]
+
+The Open Doors mission, a Protestant-group based in the United States and founded during the Cold War-era, claims the most severe persecution of Christians in the world occurs in North Korea.[291] Four state-sanctioned churches exist, but critics claim these are showcases for foreigners.[292][293]
+
+According to North Korean documents and refugee testimonies,[294] all North Koreans are sorted into groups according to their Songbun, an ascribed status system based on a citizen's assessed loyalty to the government. Based on their own behavior and the political, social, and economic background of their family for three generations as well as behavior by relatives within that range, Songbun is allegedly used to determine whether an individual is trusted with responsibility, given opportunities,[295] or even receives adequate food.[294][296]
+
+Songbun allegedly affects access to educational and employment opportunities and particularly whether a person is eligible to join North Korea's ruling party.[295] There are 3 main classifications and about 50 sub-classifications. According to Kim Il-sung, speaking in 1958, the loyal "core class" constituted 25% of the North Korean population, the "wavering class" 55%, and the "hostile class" 20%.[294] The highest status is accorded to individuals descended from those who participated with Kim Il-sung in the resistance against Japanese occupation during and before World War II and to those who were factory workers, laborers, or peasants in 1950.[297]
+
+While some analysts believe private commerce recently changed the Songbun system to some extent,[298] most North Korean refugees say it remains a commanding presence in everyday life.[294] The North Korean government claims all citizens are equal and denies any discrimination on the basis of family background.[299]
+
+North Korea has maintained one of the most closed and centralized economies in the world since the 1940s.[300] For several decades, it followed the Soviet pattern of five-year plans with the ultimate goal of achieving self-sufficiency. Extensive Soviet and Chinese support allowed North Korea to rapidly recover from the Korean War and register very high growth rates. Systematic inefficiency began to arise around 1960, when the economy shifted from the extensive to the intensive development stage. The shortage of skilled labor, energy, arable land and transportation significantly impeded long-term growth and resulted in consistent failure to meet planning objectives.[301] The major slowdown of the economy contrasted with South Korea, which surpassed the North in terms of absolute GDP and per capita income by the 1980s.[302] North Korea declared the last seven-year plan unsuccessful in December 1993 and thereafter stopped announcing plans.[303]
+
+The loss of Eastern Bloc trading partners and a series of natural disasters throughout the 1990s caused severe hardships, including widespread famine. By 2000, the situation improved owing to a massive international food assistance effort, but the economy continues to suffer from food shortages, dilapidated infrastructure and a critically low energy supply.[304] In an attempt to recover from the collapse, the government began structural reforms in 1998 that formally legalized private ownership of assets and decentralized control over production.[305] A second round of reforms in 2002 led to an expansion of market activities, partial monetization, flexible prices and salaries, and the introduction of incentives and accountability techniques.[306] Despite these changes, North Korea remains a command economy where the state owns almost all means of production and development priorities are defined by the government.[304]
+
+North Korea has the structural profile of a relatively industrialized country[307] where nearly half of the Gross Domestic Product is generated by industry[308] and human development is at medium levels.[309] Purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is estimated at $40 billion,[8] with a very low per capita value of $1,800.[9] In 2012, Gross national income per capita was $1,523, compared to $28,430 in South Korea.[310] The North Korean won is the national currency, issued by the Central Bank of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.[311]
+
+The economy is heavily nationalized.[312] Food and housing are extensively subsidized by the state; education and healthcare are free;[273] and the payment of taxes was officially abolished in 1974.[313] A variety of goods are available in department stores and supermarkets in Pyongyang,[314] though most of the population relies on small-scale jangmadang markets.[315][316] In 2009, the government attempted to stem the expanding free market by banning jangmadang and the use of foreign currency,[304] heavily devaluing the won and restricting the convertibility of savings in the old currency,[275] but the resulting inflation spike and rare public protests caused a reversal of these policies.[317] Private trade is dominated by women because most men are required to be present at their workplace, even though many state-owned enterprises are non-operational.[318]
+
+Industry and services employ 65%[319] of North Korea's 12.6 million labor force.[320] Major industries include machine building, military equipment, chemicals, mining, metallurgy, textiles, food processing and tourism.[321] Iron ore and coal production are among the few sectors where North Korea performs significantly better than its southern neighbor—it produces about 10 times larger amounts of each resource.[322] Using ex-Romanian drilling rigs, several oil exploration companies have confirmed significant oil reserves in the North Korean shelf of the Sea of Japan, and in areas south of Pyongyang.[323] The agricultural sector was shattered by the natural disasters of the 1990s.[324] Its 3,500 cooperatives and state farms[325] were among the most productive and successful in the world around 1980[326] but now experience chronic fertilizer and equipment shortages. Rice, corn, soybeans and potatoes are some of the primary crops.[304] A significant contribution to the food supply comes from commercial fishing and aquaculture.[304] Tourism has been a growing sector for the past decade.[327] North Korea has been aiming to increase the number of foreign visitors through projects like the Masikryong Ski Resort.[328]
+
+Foreign trade surpassed pre-crisis levels in 2005 and continues to expand.[329][330] North Korea has a number of special economic zones (SEZs) and Special Administrative Regions where foreign companies can operate with tax and tariff incentives while North Korean establishments gain access to improved technology.[331] Initially four such zones existed, but they yielded little overall success.[332] The SEZ system was overhauled in 2013 when 14 new zones were opened and the Rason Special Economic Zone was reformed as a joint Chinese-North Korean project.[333] The Kaesong Industrial Region is a special economic zone where more than 100 South Korean companies employ some 52,000 North Korean workers.[334] As of August 2017[update], China is the biggest trading partner of North Korea outside inter-Korean trade, accounting for more than 84% of the total external trade ($5.3 billion) followed by India at 3.3% share ($205 million).[335] In 2014, Russia wrote off 90% of North Korea's debt and the two countries agreed to conduct all transactions in rubles.[336] Overall, external trade in 2013 reached a total of $7.3 billion (the highest amount since 1990[337]), while inter-Korean trade dropped to an eight-year low of $1.1 billion.[338]
+
+North Korea's energy infrastructure is obsolete and in disrepair. Power shortages are chronic and would not be alleviated even by electricity imports because the poorly maintained grid causes significant losses during transmission.[339][340] Coal accounts for 70% of primary energy production, followed by hydroelectric power with 17%.[341] The government under Kim Jong-un has increased emphasis on renewable energy projects like wind farms, solar parks, solar heating and biomass.[342] A set of legal regulations adopted in 2014 stressed the development of geothermal, wind and solar energy along with recycling and environmental conservation.[342][343] North Korea's long-term objective is to curb fossil fuel usage and reach an output of 5 million kilowatts from renewable sources by 2044, up from its current total of 430,000 kilowatts from all sources. Wind power is projected to satisfy 15% of the country's total energy demand under this strategy.[344]
+
+North Korea also strives to develop its own civilian nuclear program. These efforts are under much international dispute due to their military applications and concerns about safety.[345]
+
+Transport infrastructure includes railways, highways, water and air routes, but rail transport is by far the most widespread. North Korea has some 5,200 kilometers of railways mostly in standard gauge which carry 80% of annual passenger traffic and 86% of freight, but electricity shortages undermine their efficiency.[341] Construction of a high-speed railway connecting Kaesong, Pyongyang and Sinuiju with speeds exceeding 200 km/h was approved in 2013.[346] North Korea connects with the Trans-Siberian Railway through Rajin.[citation needed]
+
+Road transport is very limited—only 724 kilometers of the 25,554 kilometer road network are paved,[347] and maintenance on most roads is poor.[348] Only 2% of the freight capacity is supported by river and sea transport, and air traffic is negligible.[341] All port facilities are ice-free and host a merchant fleet of 158 vessels.[349] Eighty-two airports[350] and 23 helipads[351] are operational and the largest serve the state-run airline, Air Koryo.[341] Cars are relatively rare,[352] but bicycles are common.[353][354]
+
+R&D efforts are concentrated at the State Academy of Sciences, which runs 40 research institutes, 200 smaller research centers, a scientific equipment factory and six publishing houses.[355] The government considers science and technology to be directly linked to economic development.[356][357] A five-year scientific plan emphasizing IT, biotechnology, nanotechnology, marine and plasma research was carried out in the early 2000s.[356] A 2010 report by the South Korean Science and Technology Policy Institute identified polymer chemistry, single carbon materials, nanoscience, mathematics, software, nuclear technology and rocketry as potential areas of inter-Korean scientific cooperation. North Korean institutes are strong in these fields of research, although their engineers require additional training and laboratories need equipment upgrades.[358]
+
+Under its "constructing a powerful knowledge economy" slogan, the state has launched a project to concentrate education, scientific research and production into a number of "high-tech development zones". International sanctions remain a significant obstacle to their development.[359] The Miraewon network of electronic libraries was established in 2014 under similar slogans.[360]
+
+Significant resources have been allocated to the national space program, which is managed by the National Aerospace Development Administration (formerly managed by the Korean Committee of Space Technology until April 2013)[361][362] Domestically produced launch vehicles and the Kwangmyŏngsŏng satellite class are launched from two spaceports, the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground and the Sohae Satellite Launching Station. After four failed attempts, North Korea became the tenth spacefaring nation with the launch of Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 Unit 2 in December 2012, which successfully reached orbit but was believed to be crippled and non-operational.[363][364] It joined the Outer Space Treaty in 2009[365] and has stated its intentions to undertake manned and Moon missions.[362] The government insists the space program is for peaceful purposes, but the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries maintain that it serves to advance military ballistic missile programs.[366]
+
+On 7 February 2016, North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket, supposedly to place a satellite into orbit. Critics believe that the real purpose of the launch was to test a ballistic missile. The launch was strongly condemned by the UN Security Council.[367][368][369] A statement broadcast on Korean Central Television said that a new Earth observation satellite, Kwangmyongsong-4, had successfully been put into orbit less than 10 minutes after lift-off from the Sohae space center in North Phyongan province.[367]
+
+Usage of communication technology is controlled by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. An adequate nationwide fiber-optic telephone system with 1.18 million fixed lines[370] and expanding mobile coverage is in place.[13] Most phones are installed for senior government officials and installation requires written explanation why the user needs a telephone and how it will be paid for.[371] Cellular coverage is available with a 3G network operated by Koryolink, a joint venture with Orascom Telecom Holding.[372] The number of subscribers has increased from 3,000 in 2002[373] to almost two million in 2013.[372] International calls through either fixed or cellular service are restricted, and mobile Internet is not available.[372]
+
+Internet access itself is limited to a handful of elite users and scientists. Instead, North Korea has a walled garden intranet system called Kwangmyong,[374] which is maintained and monitored by the Korea Computer Center.[375] Its content is limited to state media, chat services, message boards,[374] an e-mail service and an estimated 1,000–5,500 websites.[376] Computers employ the Red Star OS, an operating system derived from Linux, with a user shell visually similar to that of OS X.[376] On 19 September 2016, a TLDR project noticed the North Korean Internet DNS data and top-level domain was left open which allowed global DNS zone transfers. A dump of the data discovered was shared on GitHub.[14][377]
+
+On 8 July 2020, the CNN reported that satellite imagery showed activity at a North Korean facility, which was suspected by researchers of being utilized for building nuclear warheads. The images were captured by Planet Labs and analyzed by experts at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.[378]
+
+Despite a historically strong Chinese influence, Korean culture has shaped its own unique identity.[379] It came under attack during the Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, when Japan enforced a cultural assimilation policy. Koreans were forced to learn and speak Japanese, adopt the Japanese family name system and Shinto religion, and were forbidden to write or speak the Korean language in schools, businesses, or public places.[380]
+
+After the peninsula was divided in 1945, two distinct cultures formed out of the common Korean heritage. North Koreans have little exposure to foreign influence.[381] The revolutionary struggle and the brilliance of the leadership are some of the main themes in art. "Reactionary" elements from traditional culture have been discarded and cultural forms with a "folk" spirit have been reintroduced.[381]
+
+Korean heritage is protected and maintained by the state.[382] Over 190 historical sites and objects of national significance are cataloged as National Treasures of North Korea, while some 1,800 less valuable artifacts are included in a list of Cultural Assets. The Historic Sites and Monuments in Kaesong and the Complex of Goguryeo Tombs are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.[383]
+
+Visual arts are generally produced in the esthetics of Socialist realism.[384] North Korean painting combines the influence of Soviet and Japanese visual expression to instill a sentimental loyalty to the system.[385] All artists in North Korea are required to join the Artists' Union, and the best among them can receive an official license to portray the leaders. Portraits and sculptures depicting Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un are classed as "Number One works".[384]
+
+Most aspects of art have been dominated by Mansudae Art Studio since its establishment in 1959. It employs around 1,000 artists in what is likely the biggest art factory in the world where paintings, murals, posters and monuments are designed and produced.[386] The studio has commercialized its activity and sells its works to collectors in a variety of countries including China, where it is in high demand.[385] Mansudae Overseas Projects is a subdivision of Mansudae Art Studio that carries out construction of large-scale monuments for international customers.[386] Some of the projects include the African Renaissance Monument in Senegal,[387] and the Heroes' Acre in Namibia.[388]
+
+In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Goguryeo tumulus is registered on the World Heritage list of UNESCO. These remains were registered as the first World Heritage property of North Korea in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) in July 2004. There are 63 burial mounds in the tomb group, with clear murals preserved. The burial customs of the Goguryeo culture have influenced Asian civilizations beyond Korea, including Japan.[389]
+
+The government emphasized optimistic folk-based tunes and revolutionary music throughout most of the 20th century.[381] Ideological messages are conveyed through massive orchestral pieces like the "Five Great Revolutionary Operas" based on traditional Korean ch'angguk.[390] Revolutionary operas differ from their Western counterparts by adding traditional instruments to the orchestra and avoiding recitative segments.[391] Sea of Blood is the most widely performed of the Five Great Operas: since its premiere in 1971, it has been played over 1,500 times,[392] and its 2010 tour in China was a major success.[391] Western classical music by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and other composers is performed both by the State Symphony Orchestra and student orchestras.[393]
+
+Pop music appeared in the 1980s with the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble and Wangjaesan Light Music Band.[394] Improved relations with South Korea following the 2000 inter-Korean summit caused a decline in direct ideological messages in pop songs, but themes like comradeship, nostalgia and the construction of a powerful country remained.[395] In 2014, the all-girl Moranbong Band was described as the most popular group in the country.[396] North Koreans also listen to K-pop which spreads through illegal markets.[397][398]
+
+All publishing houses are owned by the government or the WPK because they are considered an important tool for propaganda and agitation.[399] The Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House is the most authoritative among them and publishes all works of Kim Il-sung, ideological education materials and party policy documents.[400] The availability of foreign literature is limited, examples being North Korean editions of Indian, German, Chinese and Russian fairy tales, Tales from Shakespeare, some works of Bertolt Brecht and Erich Kästner,[385] and the Harry Potter series.[401]
+
+Kim Il-sung's personal works are considered "classical masterpieces" while the ones created under his instruction are labeled "models of Juche literature". These include The Fate of a Self-Defense Corps Man, The Song of Korea and Immortal History, a series of historical novels depicting the suffering of Koreans under Japanese occupation.[381][390] More than four million literary works were published between the 1980s and the early 2000s, but almost all of them belong to a narrow variety of political genres like "army-first revolutionary literature".[402]
+
+Science fiction is considered a secondary genre because it somewhat departs from the traditional standards of detailed descriptions and metaphors of the leader. The exotic settings of the stories give authors more freedom to depict cyberwarfare, violence, sexual abuse and crime, which are absent in other genres. Sci-fi works glorify technology and promote the Juche concept of anthropocentric existence through depictions of robotics, space exploration and immortality.[403]
+
+Government policies towards film are no different than those applied to other arts—motion pictures serve to fulfill the targets of "social education". Some of the most influential films are based on historic events (An Jung-geun shoots Itō Hirobumi) or folk tales (Hong Gildong).[390] Most movies have predictable propaganda story lines which make cinema an unpopular entertainment; viewers only see films that feature their favorite actors.[404] Western productions are only available at private showings to high-ranking Party members,[405] although the 1997 film Titanic is frequently shown to university students as an example of Western culture.[406] Access to foreign media products is available through smuggled DVDs and television or radio broadcasts in border areas.[407] Western films like The Interview, Titanic, and Charlie's Angels are just a few films that have been smuggled across the borders of North Korea, allowing for access to the North Korean citizens.[408][409]
+
+North Korean media are under some of the strictest government control in the world. The censorship in North Korea encompasses all the information produced by the media. Monitored heavily by government officials, the media is strictly used to reinforce ideals approved by the government.[410] There is no freedom of press in North Korea as all the media is controlled and filtered through governmental censors.[410] Freedom of the press in 2017 was 180th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders' annual Press Freedom Index.[411] According to Freedom House, all media outlets serve as government mouthpieces, all journalists are party members and listening to foreign broadcasts carries the threat of a death penalty.[412] The main news provider is the Korean Central News Agency. All 12 major newspapers and 20 periodicals, including Rodong Sinmun, are published in the capital.[413]
+
+There are three state-owned TV stations. Two of them broadcast only on weekends and the Korean Central Television is on air every day in the evenings.[414] Uriminzokkiri and its associated YouTube and Twitter accounts distribute imagery, news and video issued by government media.[415] The Associated Press opened the first Western all-format, full-time bureau in Pyongyang in 2012.[416]
+
+Media coverage of North Korea has often been inadequate as a result of the country's isolation. Stories like Kim Jong-un undergoing surgery to look like his grandfather, executing his ex-girlfriend or feeding his uncle to a pack of hungry dogs have been circulated by foreign media as truth despite the lack of a credible source.[417] Many of the claims originate from the South Korean right-wing newspaper The Chosun Ilbo.[418] Max Fisher of The Washington Post has written that "almost any story [on North Korea] is treated as broadly credible, no matter how outlandish or thinly sourced".[419] Occasional deliberate disinformation on the part of North Korean establishments further complicates the issue.[417]
+
+Korean cuisine has evolved through centuries of social and political change. Originating from ancient agricultural and nomadic traditions in southern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, it has gone through a complex interaction of the natural environment and different cultural trends.[420] Rice dishes and kimchi are staple Korean food. In a traditional meal, they accompany both side dishes (panch'an) and main courses like juk, pulgogi or noodles. Soju liquor is the best-known traditional Korean spirit.[421]
+
+North Korea's most famous restaurant, Okryu-gwan, located in Pyongyang, is known for its raengmyeon cold noodles.[422] Other dishes served there include gray mullet soup with boiled rice, beef rib soup, green bean pancake, sinsollo and dishes made from terrapin.[423][424] Okryu-gwan sends research teams into the countryside to collect data on Korean cuisine and introduce new recipes.[422] Some Asian cities host branches of the Pyongyang restaurant chain where waitresses perform music and dance.[425]
+
+Most schools have daily practice in association football, basketball, table tennis, gymnastics, boxing and others. The DPR Korea League is popular inside the country and its games are often televised.[404] The national football team, Chollima, competed in the FIFA World Cup in 2010, when it lost all three matches against Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast.[426] Its 1966 appearance was much more successful, seeing a surprise 1–0 victory over Italy and a quarter final loss to Portugal by 3–5.[427] A national team represents the nation in international basketball competitions as well. In December 2013, former American basketball professional Dennis Rodman visited North Korea to help train the national team after he developed a friendship with Kim Jong-un.[428]
+
+North Korea's first appearance in the Olympics came in 1964. The 1972 Olympics saw its summer games debut and five medals, including one gold. With the exception of the boycotted Los Angeles and Seoul Olympics, North Korean athletes have won medals in all summer games since then.[429] Weightlifter Kim Un-guk broke the world record of the Men's 62 kg category at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.[430] Successful Olympians receive luxury apartments from the state in recognition for their achievements.[431]
+
+The Arirang Festival has been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the biggest choreographic event in the world.[432] Some 100,000 athletes perform rhythmic gymnastics and dances while another 40,000 participants create a vast animated screen in the background. The event is an artistic representation of the country's history and pays homage to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.[432][433] Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, the largest stadium in the world with its capacity of 150,000, hosts the Festival.[433][434] The Pyongyang Marathon is another notable sports event. It is an IAAF Bronze Label Race where amateur runners from around the world can participate.[435]
+
+Between 2010 and 2019, North Korea has imported 138 purebred horses from Russia at cost of over $584,000.[436]

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+Coordinates: 38°19′N 127°14′E / 38.317°N 127.233°E / 38.317; 127.233
+
+
+
+Korea is a region in East Asia; since 1945 it has been divided into what are now two distinct sovereign states: North Korea (officially the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") and South Korea (officially the "Republic of Korea"). Korea consists of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and several minor islands near the peninsula. It is bordered by China to the northwest and Russia to the northeast. It is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
+
+During the first half of the 1st millennium, Korea was divided between the three competing states of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, together known as the "Three Kingdoms of Korea". In the second half of the 1st millennium, Silla defeated and conquered Baekje and Goguryeo, leading to the "Unified Silla" period. Meanwhile, Balhae formed in the north, superseding former Goguryeo. Unified Silla eventually collapsed into three separate states due to civil war, ushering in the Later Three Kingdoms. Toward the end of the 1st millennium, Goguryeo was resurrected as Goryeo, which defeated the two other states and unified the Korean Peninsula as a single sovereign state. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo. Goryeo (also spelled as Koryŏ), whose name developed into the modern exonym "Korea", was a highly cultured state that created the world's first metal movable type in 1234.[3][4][5][6][7][8] However, multiple incursions by the Mongol Empire during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, which eventually agreed to become a vassal state after decades of fighting. Following military resistance under King Gongmin that ended Mongol political influence in Goryeo, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 17 July 1392.
+
+The first 200 years of the Joseon era were marked by relative peace. During this period, the Korean alphabet was created by Sejong the Great in the 15th century and there was increasing influence of Confucianism. During the later part of the dynasty, Korea's isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the "Hermit Kingdom". By the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan. After the First Sino-Japanese War, despite the Korean Empire's effort to modernize, the country was annexed by Japan in 1910 and ruled by it until the end of World War II in August 1945.
+
+In 1945, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed on the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea in the aftermath of World War II, leaving Korea partitioned along the 38th parallel. The North was under Soviet occupation and the South under U.S. occupation. These circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their inability to agree on the terms of Korean independence. The Communist-inspired government in the North received backing from the Soviet Union in opposition to the pro-Western government in the South, leading to Korea's division into two political entities: North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), and South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea). Tensions between the two resulted in the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. With involvement by foreign troops, the war ended in a stalemate in 1953, but without a formalized peace treaty. This status contributes to the high tensions that continue to divide the peninsula. Both governments of the two Koreas claim to be the sole legitimate government of the region.
+
+"Korea" is the modern spelling of "Corea", a name attested in English as early as 1614.[9][10] Korea was transliterated as Cauli in The Travels of Marco Polo,[11] of the Chinese 高麗 (MC Kawlej,[12] mod. Gāolì). This was the Hanja for the Korean kingdom of Goryeo (Korean: 고려; Hanja: 高麗; MR: Koryŏ), which ruled most of the Korean peninsula during Marco Polo's time. Korea's introduction to the West resulted from trade and contact with merchants from Arabic lands,[13] with some records dating back as far as the 9th century.[14] Goryeo's name was a continuation of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ) the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, which was officially known as Goryeo beginning in the 5th century.[15] The original name was a combination of the adjective go ("high, lofty") with the name of a local Yemaek tribe, whose original name is thought to have been either *Guru (溝樓, "walled city," inferred from some toponyms in Chinese historical documents) or *Gauri (가우리, "center"). With expanding British and American trade following the opening of Korea in the late 19th century, the spelling "Korea" appeared and gradually grew in popularity;[9] its use in transcribing East Asian languages avoids the issues caused by the separate hard and soft Cs existing in English vocabulary derived from the Romance languages. The name Korea is now commonly used in English contexts by both North and South Korea.
+
+In South Korea, Korea as a whole is referred to as Hanguk (한국, [haːnɡuk], lit. "country of the Han"). The name references Samhan, referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula.[16][17] Although written in Hanja as 韓, 幹, or 刊, this Han has no relation to the Chinese place names or peoples who used those characters but was a phonetic transcription (OC: *Gar, MC Han[12] or Gan) of a native Korean word that seems to have had the meaning "big" or "great", particularly in reference to leaders. It has been tentatively linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Manchuria and Central Asia.
+
+In North Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam, Korea as a whole is referred to as  조선, (Joseon, [tɕosʰʌn]), 朝鮮 (Chōsen), 朝鲜/朝鮮 (Cháoxiǎn/Jīusīn), Triều Tiên (朝鮮) lit. "[land of the] Morning Calm"). "Great Joseon" was the name of the kingdom ruled by the Joseon dynasty from 1393 until their declaration of the short-lived Great Korean Empire in 1897. King Taejo had named them for the earlier Kojoseon (고조선), who ruled northern Korea from its legendary prehistory until their conquest in 108 BCE by China's Han Empire. This go is the Hanja 古 and simply means "ancient" or "old"; it is a modern usage to distinguish the ancient Joseon from the later dynasty. Joseon itself is the modern Korean pronunciation of the Hanja 朝鮮 but it is unclear whether this was a transcription of a native Korean name (OC *T[r]awser, MC Trjewsjen[12]) or a partial translation into Chinese of the Korean capital Asadal (아사달), [18] whose meaning has been reconstructed as "Morning Land" or "Mountain".
+
+The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula located in East Asia. It extends southwards for about 1,100 km (680 mi) from continental Asia into the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by the Sea of Japan (East Sea) to the east and the Yellow Sea (West Sea) to the west, the Korea Strait connecting the two bodies of water.[19][20] To the northwest, the Amnok River separates the peninsula from China and to the northeast, the Duman River separates it from China and Russia.[21] Notable islands include Jeju Island, Ulleung Island, Dokdo.
+
+The southern and western parts of the peninsula have well-developed plains, while the eastern and northern parts are mountainous. The highest mountain in Korea is Mount Paektu (2,744 m), through which runs the border with China. The southern extension of Mount Paektu is a highland called Gaema Heights. This highland was mainly raised during the Cenozoic orogeny and partly covered by volcanic matter. To the south of Gaema Gowon, successive high mountains are located along the eastern coast of the peninsula.  This mountain range is named Baekdudaegan. Some significant mountains include Mount Sobaek or Sobaeksan (1,439 m), Mount Kumgang (1,638 m), Mount Seorak (1,708 m), Mount Taebaek (1,567 m), and Mount Jiri (1,915 m). There are several lower, secondary mountain series whose direction is almost perpendicular to that of Baekdudaegan. They are developed along the tectonic line of Mesozoic orogeny and their directions are basically northwest.
+
+Unlike most ancient mountains on the mainland, many important islands in Korea were formed by volcanic activity in the Cenozoic orogeny. Jeju Island, situated off the southern coast, is a large volcanic island whose main mountain Mount Halla or Hallasan (1950 m) is the highest in South Korea. Ulleung Island is a volcanic island in the Sea of Japan, the composition of which is more felsic than Jeju-do. The volcanic islands tend to be younger, the more westward.
+
+Because the mountainous region is mostly on the eastern part of the peninsula, the main rivers tend to flow westwards. Two exceptions are the southward-flowing Nakdong River and Seomjin River. Important rivers running westward include the Amnok River, the Chongchon River, the Taedong River, the Han River, the Geum River, and the Yeongsan River. These rivers have vast flood plains and provide an ideal environment for wet-rice cultivation.
+
+The southern and southwestern coastlines of the peninsula form a well-developed ria coastline, known as Dadohae-jin in Korean. Its convoluted coastline provides mild seas, and the resulting calm environment allows for safe navigation, fishing, and seaweed farming. In addition to the complex coastline, the western coast of the Korean Peninsula has an extremely high tidal amplitude (at Incheon, around the middle of the western coast. It can get as high as 9 m). Vast tidal flats have been developing on the south and west coastlines.
+
+The Korean Peninsula has a temperate climate with comparatively fewer typhoons than other countries in East Asia. Due to the peninsula's position, it has a unique climate influenced from Siberia in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east and the rest of Eurasia in the west. The peninsula has four distinct seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter.[22]
+
+As influence from Siberia weakens, temperatures begin to increase while the high pressure begins to move away. If the weather is abnormally dry, Siberia will have more influence on the peninsula leading to wintry weather such as snow.[23]
+
+During June at the start of the summer, there tends to be a lot of rain due to the cold and wet air from the Sea of Okhotsk and the hot and humid air from the Pacific Ocean combining. When these fronts combine, it leads to a so-called rainy season with often cloudy days with rain, which is sometimes very heavy. The hot and humid winds from the south west blow causing an increasing amount of humidity and this leads to the fronts moving towards Manchuria in China and thus there is less rain and this is known as midsummer; temperatures can exceed 30 °C (86 °F) daily at this time of year.
+
+Usually, high pressure is heavily dominant during autumn leading to clear conditions. Furthermore, temperatures remain high but the humidity becomes relatively low.
+
+The weather becomes increasingly dominated by Siberia during winter and the jet stream moves further south causing a drop in temperature. This season is relatively dry with some snow falling at times.
+
+Animal life of the Korean Peninsula includes a considerable number of bird species and native freshwater fish. Native or endemic species of the Korean Peninsula include Korean hare, Korean water deer, Korean field mouse, Korean brown frog, Korean pine and Korean spruce. The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with its forest and natural wetlands is a unique biodiversity spot, which harbours eighty-two endangered species. Korea once hosted many Siberian tigers, but as the number of people affected by the tigers increased, the tigers were killed in the Joseon Dynasty and the Siberian tigers in the South Korea became extinct during the Japanese colonial era period. It has been confirmed that Siberian tigers are only on the side of North Korea now.
+
+There are also approximately 3,034 species of vascular plants.
+
+The Korean Academy claimed ancient hominid fossils originating from about 100,000 BCE in the lava at a stone city site in Korea. Fluorescent and high-magnetic analyses indicate the volcanic fossils may be from as early as 300,000 BCE.[24] The best preserved Korean pottery goes back to the paleolithic times around 10,000 BCE and the Neolithic period begins around 6000 BCE.
+
+According to legend, Dangun, a descendant of Heaven, established Gojoseon in 2333 BCE. In 108 BCE, the Han dynasty defeated Gojoseon and installed four commanderies in the northern Korean peninsula. Three of the commanderies fell or retreated westward within a few decades, but the Lelang Commandery remained as a center of cultural and economic exchange with successive Chinese dynasties for four centuries. By 313, Goguryeo annexed all of the Chinese commanderies.
+
+The Proto–Three Kingdoms period, sometimes called the Multiple States Period, is the earlier part of what is commonly called the Three Kingdoms Period, following the fall of Gojoseon but before Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla fully developed into kingdoms.
+
+This time period saw numerous states spring up from the former territories of Gojoseon, which encompassed northern Korea and southern Manchuria. With the fall of Gojoseon, southern Korea entered the Samhan period.
+
+Located in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, Samhan refers to the three confederacies of Mahan, Jinhan, and Byeonhan. Mahan was the largest and consisted of 54 states. Byeonhan and Jinhan both consisted of twelve states, bringing a total of 78 states within the Samhan. These three confederacies eventually developed into Baekje, Silla, and Gaya.
+
+The Three Kingdoms of Korea consisted of Goguryeo, Silla, and Baekje. Silla and Baekje controlled the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining the former Samhan territories, while Goguryeo controlled the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula, uniting Buyeo, Okjeo, Dongye, and other states in the former Gojoseon territories.[25]
+
+Goguryeo was a highly militaristic state;[26][27][self-published source?] it was a powerful empire and one of the great powers in East Asia,[28][29][30][31][self-published source?] reaching its zenith in the 5th century when its territories expanded to encompass most of Manchuria to the north, parts of Inner Mongolia to the west,[32] parts of Russia to the east,[33] and the Seoul region to the south.[34] Goguryeo experienced a golden age under Gwanggaeto the Great and his son Jangsu,[35][36][37][38] who both subdued Baekje and Silla during their times, achieving a brief unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and becoming the most dominant power on the Korean Peninsula.[39][40] In addition to contesting for control of the Korean Peninsula, Goguryeo had many military conflicts with various Chinese dynasties,[41][self-published source?] most notably the Goguryeo–Sui War, in which Goguryeo defeated a huge force said to number over a million men.[42][43][44][45][46] In 642, the powerful general Yeon Gaesomun led a coup and gained complete control over Goguryeo. In response, Emperor Tang Taizong of China led a campaign against Goguryeo, but was defeated and retreated.[47][48][self-published source?] After the death of Tang Taizong, his son Emperor Tang Gaozong allied with the Korean kingdom of Silla and invaded Goguryeo again, but was unable to overcome Goguryeo's stalwart defenses and was defeated in 662.[49][50] However, Yeon Gaesomun died of a natural cause in 666 and Goguryeo was thrown into chaos and weakened by a succession struggle among his sons and younger brother, with his eldest son defecting to Tang and his younger brother defecting to Silla.[51][52] The Tang-Silla alliance finally conquered Goguryeo in 668. After the collapse of Goguryeo, Tang and Silla ended their alliance and fought over control of the Korean Peninsula. Silla succeeded in gaining control over most of the Korean Peninsula, while Tang gained control over Goguryeo's northern territories. However, 30 years after the fall of Goguryeo, a Goguryeo general by the name of Dae Joyeong founded the Korean-Mohe state of Balhae and successfully expelled the Tang presence from much of the former Goguryeo territories.
+
+The southwestern Korean kingdom of Baekje was founded around modern-day Seoul by a Goguryeo prince, a son of the founder of Goguryeo.[53][54][self-published source?][55] Baekje absorbed all of the Mahan states and subjugated most of the western Korean peninsula (including the modern provinces of Gyeonggi, Chungcheong, and Jeolla, as well as parts of Hwanghae and Gangwon) to a centralised government; during the expansion of its territory, Baekje acquired Chinese culture and technology through maritime contacts with the Southern Dynasties. Baekje was a great maritime power;[56] its nautical skill, which made it the Phoenicia of East Asia, was instrumental in the dissemination of Buddhism throughout East Asia and continental culture to Japan.[57][58] Historic evidence suggests that Japanese culture, art, and language were influenced by the kingdom of Baekje and Korea itself;[31][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69] Baekje also played an important role in transmitting advanced Chinese culture to the Japanese archipelago. Baekje was once a great military power on the Korean Peninsula, most notably in the 4th century during the rule of Geunchogo when its influence extended across the sea to Liaoxi and Shandong in China, taking advantage of the weakened state of Former Qin, and Kyushu in the Japanese archipelago;[70] however, Baekje was critically defeated by Gwanggaeto the Great and declined.[citation needed]
+
+Although later records claim that Silla was the oldest of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, it is now believed to have been the last kingdom to develop. By the 2nd century, Silla existed as a large state in the southeast, occupying and influencing its neighboring city-states. In 562, Silla annexed the Gaya confederacy, which was located between Baekje and Silla. The Three Kingdoms of Korea often warred with each other and Silla was often dominated by Baekje and Goguryeo. Silla was the smallest and weakest of the three, but it used cunning diplomatic means to make opportunistic pacts and alliances with the more powerful Korean kingdoms, and eventually Tang China, to its great advantage.[71][72] In 660, King Muyeol ordered his armies to attack Baekje. General Kim Yu-shin, aided by Tang forces, conquered Baekje after defeating General Gyebaek at the Battle of Hwangsanbeol. In 661, Silla and Tang attacked Goguryeo but were repelled. King Munmu, son of Muyeol and nephew of General Kim Yu-shin, launched another campaign in 667 and Goguryeo fell in the following year.
+
+Beginning in the 6th century, Silla's power gradually extended across the Korean Peninsula. Silla first annexed the adjacent Gaya confederacy in 562. By the 640s, Silla formed an alliance with the Tang dynasty of China to conquer Baekje and later Goguryeo. After conquering Baekje and Goguryeo, Silla repulsed Tang China from the Korean peninsula in 676. Even though Silla unified most of the Korean Peninsula, most of the Goguryeo territories to the north of the Korean Peninsula were ruled by Balhae. Former Goguryeo general[73][74] or chief of Sumo Mohe[75][76][77] Dae Jo-yeong led a group of Goguryeo and Mohe refugees to the Jilin and founded the kingdom of Balhae, 30 years after the collapse of Goguryeo, as the successor to Goguryeo. At its height, Balhae's territories extended from southern Manchuria down to the northern Korean peninsula. Balhae was called the "Prosperous Country in the East".[78]
+
+Later Silla carried on the maritime prowess of Baekje, which acted like the Phoenicia of medieval East Asia,[79] and during the 8th and 9th centuries dominated the seas of East Asia and the trade between China, Korea and Japan, most notably during the time of Jang Bogo; in addition, Silla people made overseas communities in China on the Shandong Peninsula and the mouth of the Yangtze River.[80][81][82][83] Later Silla was a prosperous and wealthy country,[84] and its metropolitan capital of Gyeongju[85] was the fourth largest city in the world.[86][87][88][89] Later Silla was a golden age of art and culture,[90][91][92][93] as evidenced by the Hwangnyongsa, Seokguram, and Emille Bell. Buddhism flourished during this time, and many Korean Buddhists gained great fame among Chinese Buddhists[94] and contributed to Chinese Buddhism,[95] including: Woncheuk, Wonhyo, Uisang, Musang,[96][97][98][99] and Kim Gyo-gak, a Silla prince whose influence made Mount Jiuhua one of the Four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism.[100][101][102][103][104]
+
+Later Silla fell apart in the late 9th century, giving way to the tumultuous Later Three Kingdoms period (892–935), and Balhae was destroyed by the Khitans in 926. Goryeo unified the Later Three Kingdoms and received the last crown prince and much of the ruling class of Balhae, thus bringing about a unification of the two successor nations of Goguryeo.[105]
+
+Goryeo was founded in 918 and replaced Silla as the ruling dynasty of Korea. Goryeo's land was at first what is now South Korea and about 1/3 of North Korea, but later on managed to recover most of the Korean peninsula. Momentarily, Goryeo advanced to parts of Jiandao while conquering the Jurchens, but returned the territories due to the harsh climate and difficulties in defending them. The name "Goryeo" (高麗) is a short form of "Goguryeo" (高句麗) and was first used during the time of King Jangsu. Goryeo regarded itself as the successor of Goguryeo, hence its name and efforts to recover the former territories of Goguryeo.[106][107][108][109] Wang Geon, the founder of Goryeo, was of Goguryeo descent and traced his ancestry to a noble Goguryeo clan.[110] He made Kaesong, his hometown, the capital.
+
+During this period, laws were codified and a civil service system was introduced. Buddhism flourished and spread throughout the peninsula. The development of celadon industries flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. The publication of the Tripitaka Koreana onto more than 80,000 wooden blocks and the invention of the world's first metal movable type in the 13th century attest to Goryeo's cultural achievements.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
+
+Goryeo had to defend frequently against attacks by nomadic empires, especially the Khitans and the Mongols. Goryeo had a hostile relationship with the Khitans, because the Khitan Empire had destroyed Balhae, also a successor state of Goguryeo. In 993, the Khitans, who had established the Liao dynasty in 907, invaded Goryeo, demanding that it make amity with them. Goryeo sent the diplomat Seo Hui to negotiate, who successfully persuaded the Khitans to let Goryeo expand to the banks of the Amnok River, citing that in the past the land belonged to Goguryeo, the predecessor of Goryeo.[111] During the Goryeo–Khitan War, the Khitan Empire invaded Korea twice more in 1009 and 1018, but was defeated.
+
+After defeating the Khitan Empire, which was the most powerful empire of its time,[112][113] Goryeo experienced a golden age that lasted a century, during which the Tripitaka Koreana was completed, and there were great developments in printing and publishing, promoting learning and dispersing knowledge on philosophy, literature, religion, and science; by 1100, there were 12 universities that produced famous scholars and scientists.[114][115]
+
+Goryeo was invaded by the Mongols in seven major campaigns from the 1230s until the 1270s, but was never conquered.[116] Exhausted after decades of fighting, Goryeo sent its crown prince to the Yuan capital to swear allegiance to the Mongols; Kublai Khan accepted, and married one of his daughters to the Korean crown prince,[116] and the dynastic line of Goryeo continued to survive under the overlordship of the Mongol Yuan dynasty as a semi-autonomous vassal state and compulsory ally. The two nations became intertwined for 80 years as all subsequent Korean kings married Mongol princesses,[116] and the last empress of the Yuan dynasty was a Korean princess.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1350s, King Gongmin was free at last to reform the Goryeo government when the Yuan dynasty began to crumble. Gongmin had various problems that needed to be dealt with, which included the removal of pro-Mongol aristocrats and military officials, the question of land holding, and quelling the growing animosity between the Buddhists and Confucian scholars. During this tumultuous period, Goryeo momentarily conquered Liaoyang in 1356, repulsed two large invasions by the Red Turbans in 1359 and 1360, and defeated the final attempt by the Yuan to dominate Goryeo when General Choe Yeong defeated a Mongol tumen in 1364. During the 1380s, Goryeo turned its attention to the Wokou threat and used naval artillery created by Choe Museon to annihilate hundreds of pirate ships.
+
+In 1392, the general Yi Seong-gye overthrew the Goryeo dynasty after he staged a coup and defeated General Choe Yeong. Yi Seong-gye named his new dynasty Joseon and moved the capital from Kaesong to Hanseong (formerly Hanyang; modern-day Seoul) and built the Gyeongbokgung palace.[117] In 1394, he adopted Confucianism as the country's official ideology, resulting in much loss of power and wealth by the Buddhists. The prevailing philosophy of the Joseon dynasty was Neo-Confucianism, which was epitomized by the seonbi class, scholars who passed up positions of wealth and power to lead lives of study and integrity.
+
+Joseon was a nominal tributary state of China but exercised full sovereignty,[118][119] and maintained the highest position among China's tributary states,[120][121] which also included countries such as the Ryukyu Kingdom, Vietnam, Burma, Brunei, Laos, Thailand,[122][123][124] and the Philippines, among others.[125][126] In addition, Joseon received tribute from Jurchens and Japanese until the 17th century,[127][128][129] and had a small enclave in the Ryukyu Kingdom that engaged in trade with Siam and Java.[130]
+
+During the 15th and 16th centuries, Joseon enjoyed many benevolent rulers who promoted education and science.[131] Most notable among them was Sejong the Great (r. 1418–50), who personally created and promulgated Hangul, the Korean alphabet.[132] This golden age[131] saw great cultural and scientific advancements,[133] including in printing, meteorological observation, astronomy, calendar science, ceramics, military technology, geography, cartography, medicine, and agricultural technology, some of which were unrivaled elsewhere.[134] Joseon implemented a class system that consisted of yangban the noble class, jungin the middle class, yangin the common class, and cheonin the lowest class, which included occupations such as butchers, tanners, shamans, entertainers, and nobi, the equivalent of slaves, bondservants, or serfs.[135][136]
+
+In 1592 and again in 1597, the Japanese invaded Korea; the Korean military at the time was unprepared and untrained, due to two centuries of peace on the Korean Peninsula.[137] Toyotomi Hideyoshi intended to conquer China and India[138] through the Korean Peninsula, but was defeated by strong resistance from the Righteous Army, the naval superiority of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and his turtle ships, and assistance from Wanli Emperor of Ming China. However, Joseon experienced great destruction, including a tremendous loss of cultural sites such as temples and palaces to Japanese pillaging, and the Japanese brought back to Japan an estimated 100,000–200,000 noses cut from Korean victims.[139] Less than 30 years after the Japanese invasions, the Manchus took advantage of Joseon's war-weakened state and invaded in 1627 and 1637, and then went on to conquer the destabilized Ming dynasty.
+
+After normalizing relations with the new Qing dynasty, Joseon experienced a nearly 200-year period of peace. Kings Yeongjo and Jeongjo led a new renaissance of the Joseon dynasty during the 18th century.[140][141]
+
+In the 19th century, the royal in-law families gained control of the government, leading to mass corruption and weakening of the state, with severe poverty and peasant rebellions spreading throughout the country. Furthermore, the Joseon government adopted a strict isolationist policy, earning the nickname "the hermit kingdom", but ultimately failed to protect itself against imperialism and was forced to open its borders, beginning an era leading into Japanese imperial rule.
+
+Beginning in 1871, Japan began to exert more influence in Korea, forcing it out of China's traditional sphere of influence. As a result of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95), the Qing dynasty had to give up such a position according to Article 1 of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which was concluded between China and Japan in 1895. That same year, Empress Myeongseong of Korea was assassinated by Japanese agents.[142]
+
+In 1897, the Joseon dynasty proclaimed the Korean Empire (1897–1910). King Gojong became emperor. During this brief period, Korea had some success in modernizing the military, economy, real property laws, education system, and various industries. Russia, Japan, France, and the United States all invested in the country and sought to influence it politically.
+
+In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War pushed the Russians out of the fight for Korea. In Manchuria on 26 October 1909, An Jung-geun assassinated the former Resident-General of Korea, Itō Hirobumi, for his role in trying to force Korea into occupation.
+
+In 1910, an already militarily occupied Korea was a forced party to the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty. The treaty was signed by Lee Wan-Yong, who was given the General Power of Attorney by the Emperor.  However, the Emperor is said to have not actually ratified the treaty according to Yi Tae-jin.[143] There is a long dispute whether this treaty was legal or illegal due to its signing under duress, threat of force and bribes.
+
+Korean resistance to the brutal Japanese occupation[144][145][146] was manifested in the nonviolent March 1st Movement of 1919, during which 7,000 demonstrators were killed by Japanese police and military.[147]  The Korean liberation movement also spread to neighbouring Manchuria and Siberia.
+
+Over five million Koreans were conscripted for labour beginning in 1939,[148] and tens of thousands of men were forced into Japan's military.[149] Nearly 400,000 Korean labourers died.[150] Approximately 200,000 girls and women,[151] mostly from China and Korea, were forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military.[152] In 1993, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono acknowledged the terrible injustices faced by these euphemistically named "comfort women".[153][154]
+
+During the Japanese annexation, the Korean language was suppressed in an effort to eradicate Korean national identity. Koreans were forced to take Japanese surnames, known as Sōshi-kaimei.[155] Traditional Korean culture suffered heavy losses, as numerous Korean cultural artifacts were destroyed[156] or taken to Japan.[157] To this day, valuable Korean artifacts can often be found in Japanese museums or among private collections.[158] One investigation by the South Korean government identified 75,311 cultural assets that were taken from Korea, 34,369 in Japan and 17,803 in the United States. However, experts estimate that over 100,000 artifacts actually remain in Japan.[157][159] Japanese officials considered returning Korean cultural properties, but to date[157] this has not occurred.[159] Korea and Japan still dispute the ownership of the Dokdo islets, located east of the Korean Peninsula.[160]
+
+There was significant emigration to the overseas territories of the Empire of Japan during the Japanese occupation period, including Korea.[161] By the end of World War II, there were over 850,000 Japanese settlers in Korea.[162] After World War II, most of these overseas Japanese repatriated to Japan.
+
+In 1945, with the surrender of Japan, the United Nations developed plans for a trusteeship administration, the Soviet Union administering the peninsula north of the 38th parallel and the United States administering the south. The politics of the Cold War resulted in the 1948 establishment of two separate governments, North Korea and South Korea.
+
+The aftermath of World War II left Korea partitioned along the 38th parallel, with the north under Soviet occupation and the south under US occupation supported by other allied states. Consequently, North Korea, a Soviet-style socialist republic was established in the north and South Korea; a Western-style regime, was established in the South.
+
+North Korea is a one-party state, now centred on Kim Il-sung's Juche ideology, with a centrally planned industrial economy. South Korea is a multi-party state with a capitalist market economy, alongside membership in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Group of Twenty. The two states have greatly diverged both culturally and economically since their partition, though they still share a common traditional culture and pre-Cold War history.
+
+Since the 1960s, the South Korean economy has grown enormously and the economic structure was radically transformed. In 1957, South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Ghana,[163] and by 2008 it was 17 times as high as Ghana's.[a]
+
+According to R. J. Rummel, forced labor, executions, and concentration camps were responsible for over one million deaths in North Korea from 1948 to 1987;[165] others have estimated 400,000 deaths in concentration camps alone.[166] Estimates based on the most recent North Korean census suggest that 240,000 to 420,000 people died as a result of the 1990s famine and that there were 600,000 to 850,000 unnatural deaths in North Korea from 1993 to 2008.[167] In South Korea, as guerrilla activities expanded, the South Korean government used strong measures against peasants, such as forcefully moving their families from guerrilla areas. According to one estimate, these measures resulted in 36,000 people killed, 11,000 people wounded, and 432,000 people displaced.[168]
+
+The Korean War broke out when Soviet-backed North Korea invaded South Korea, though neither side gained much territory as a result. The Korean Peninsula remained divided, the Korean Demilitarized Zone being the de facto border between the two states.
+
+In June 1950 North Korea invaded the South, using Soviet tanks and weaponry. During the Korean War (1950–53) more than 1.2 million people died and the three years of fighting throughout the nation effectively destroyed most cities.[169] The war ended in an Armistice Agreement at approximately the Military Demarcation Line, but the two governments are officially at war. In 2018, the leaders of North Korea and South Korea officially signed the Panmunjom Declaration, announcing that they will work to end the conflict.
+
+The combined population of the Koreas is about 76 million (North Korea: 25 million, South Korea: 51 million). Korea is chiefly populated by a highly homogeneous ethnic group, the Koreans, who speak the Korean language.[170] The number of foreigners living in Korea has also steadily increased since the late 20th century, particularly in South Korea, where more than 1 million foreigners reside.[171] It was estimated in 2006 that only 26,700 of the old Chinese community now remain in South Korea.[172] However, in recent years, immigration from mainland China has increased; 624,994 persons of Chinese nationality have immigrated to South Korea, including 443,566 of ethnic Korean descent.[173] Small communities of ethnic Chinese and Japanese are also found in North Korea.[174]
+
+Korean is the official language of both North and South Korea, and (along with Mandarin) of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in the Manchuria area of China. Worldwide, there are up to 80 million speakers of the Korean language. South Korea has around 50 million speakers while North Korea around 25 million. Other large groups of Korean speakers through Korean diaspora are found in China, the United States, Japan, former Soviet Union and elsewhere.
+
+The classification of Korean is debated. Some linguists place it in the Altaic language family; others consider it to be a language isolate.  Korean is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, Korean has borrowed much vocabulary from the Chinese or created vocabulary on Chinese models.
+
+Modern Korean is written almost exclusively in the script of the Korean alphabet (known as Hangul in South Korea and Chosungul in China and North Korea), which was invented in the 15th century. Korean is sometimes written with the addition of some Chinese characters called Hanja; however, this is only occasionally seen nowadays. While Hangul may appear logographic, it is actually a phonemic alphabet organised into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 hangul letters (jamo): at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Historically, the alphabet had several additional letters (see obsolete jamo). For a phonological description of the letters, see Korean phonology.
+
+In ancient Chinese texts, Korea is referred to as "Rivers and Mountains Embroidered on Silk" (금수강산, 錦繡江山) and "Eastern Nation of Decorum" (동방예의지국, 東方禮儀之國).[177] Individuals are regarded as one year old when they are born, as Koreans reckon the pregnancy period as one year of life for infants, and age increments increase on New Year's Day rather than on the anniversary of birthdays. Thus, one born immediately before New Year's Day may only be a few days old in western reckoning, but two years old in Korea. Accordingly, a Korean person's stated age (at least among fellow Koreans) will be one or two years more than their age according to western reckoning. However, western reckoning is sometimes applied with regard to the concept of legal age; for example, the legal age for purchasing alcohol or cigarettes in the Republic of Korea is 19, which is measured according to western reckoning.
+
+Korean literature written before the end of the Joseon Dynasty is called "Classical" or "Traditional." Literature, written in Chinese characters (hanja), was established at the same time as the Chinese script arrived on the peninsula. Korean scholars were writing poetry in the classical Korean style as early as the 2nd century BCE, reflecting Korean thoughts and experiences of that time. Classical Korean literature has its roots in traditional folk beliefs and folk tales of the peninsula, strongly influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.
+
+Modern literature is often linked with the development of hangul, which helped spread literacy from the aristocracy to the common people. Hangul, however, only reached a dominant position in Korean literature in the second half of the 19th century, resulting in a major growth in Korean literature. Sinsoseol, for instance, are novels written in hangul.
+
+The Korean War led to the development of literature centered on the wounds and chaos of war. Much of the post-war literature in South Korea deals with the daily lives of ordinary people, and their struggles with national pain. The collapse of the traditional Korean value system is another common theme of the time.
+
+Traditional Korean music includes combinations of the folk, vocal, religious and ritual music styles of the Korean people. Korean music has been practiced since prehistoric times.[178] Korean music falls into two broad categories. The first, Hyangak, literally means The local music or Music native to Korea, a famous example of which is Sujechon, a piece of instrumental music often claimed to be at least 1,300 years old.[179] The second, yangak, represents a more Western style.
+
+Confucian tradition has dominated Korean thought, along with contributions by Buddhism, Taoism, and Korean Shamanism. Since the middle of the 20th century, however, Christianity has competed with Buddhism in South Korea, while religious practice has been suppressed in North Korea. Throughout Korean history and culture, regardless of separation; the influence of traditional beliefs of Korean Shamanism, Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism have remained an underlying religion of the Korean people as well as a vital aspect of their culture; all these traditions have coexisted peacefully for hundreds of years up to today despite strong Westernisation from Christian missionary conversions in the South[180][181][182] or the pressure from the Juche government in the North.[183][184]
+
+According to 2005 statistics compiled by the South Korean government, about 46% of citizens profess to follow no particular religion. Christians account for 29.2% of the population (of which are Protestants 18.3% and Catholics 10.9%) and Buddhists 22.8%.[185]
+
+Islam in South Korea is practiced by about 45,000 natives (about 0.09% of the population) in addition to some 100,000 foreign workers from Muslim countries.[186]
+
+Koreans traditionally believe that the taste and quality of food depend on its spices and sauces, the essential ingredients to making a delicious meal. Therefore, soybean paste, soy sauce, gochujang or red pepper paste and kimchi are some of the most important staples in a Korean household.
+
+Korean cuisine was greatly influenced by the geography and climate of the Korean Peninsula, which is known for its cold autumns and winters, therefore there are many fermented dishes and hot soups and stews.
+
+Korean cuisine is probably best known for kimchi, a side dish which uses a distinctive fermentation process of preserving vegetables, most commonly cabbage. Kimchi is said to relieve the pores on the skin, thereby reducing wrinkles and providing nutrients to the skin naturally. It is also healthy, as it provides necessary vitamins and nutrients. Gochujang, a traditional Korean sauce made of red pepper is also commonly used, often as pepper (chilli) paste, earning the cuisine a reputation for spiciness.
+
+Bulgogi (roasted marinated meat, usually beef), galbi (marinated grilled short ribs), and samgyeopsal (pork belly) are popular meat entrees. Fish is also a popular commodity, as it is the traditional meat that Koreans eat. Meals are usually accompanied by a soup or stew, such as galbitang (stewed ribs) or doenjang jjigae (fermented bean paste soup). The center of the table is filled with a shared collection of sidedishes called banchan.
+
+Other popular dishes include bibimbap, which literally means "mixed rice" (rice mixed with meat, vegetables, and red pepper paste), and naengmyeon (cold noodles).[187][188]
+
+Instant noodles, or ramyeon, is a popular snack food. Koreans also enjoy food from pojangmachas (street vendors), which serve tteokbokki, rice cake and fish cake with a spicy gochujang sauce; gimbap, made of steamed white rice wrapped in dried laver seaweed; fried squid; and glazed sweet potato. Soondae, a sausage made of cellophane noodles and pork blood, is widely eaten.
+
+Additionally, some other common snacks include "Choco Pie", shrimp crackers, "bbeongtwigi" (puffed rice grains), and "nurungji" (slightly burnt rice). Nurungji can be eaten as it is or boiled with water to make a soup. Nurungji can also be eaten as a snack or a dessert.
+
+Korea is unique among Asian countries in its use of metal chopsticks. Metal chopsticks have been discovered in archaeological sites belonging to the ancient Korean kingdoms of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla.
+
+The modern South Korean school system consists of six years in elementary school, three years in middle school, and three years in high school. Students are required to go to elementary and middle school, and do not have to pay for their education, except for a small fee called a "School Operation Support Fee" that differs from school to school. The Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, ranks South Korea's science education as the third best in the world and being significantly higher than the OECD average.[189]
+
+South Korea ranks second on math and literature and first in problem solving[citation needed]. Although South Korean students often rank high on international comparative assessments, the education system is criticised for emphasising too much upon passive learning and memorization. The South Korean education system is rather notably strict and structured   as compared to its counterparts in most Western societies.
+
+The North Korean education system consists primarily of universal and state funded schooling by the government. The national literacy rate for citizens 15 years of age and above is over 99 percent.[190][191] Children go through one year of kindergarten, four years of primary education, six years of secondary education, and then on to universities. The most prestigious university in the DPRK is Kim Il-sung University. Other notable universities include Kim Chaek University of Technology, which focuses on computer science, Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, which trains working level diplomats and trade officials, and Kim Hyong Jik University, which trains teachers.
+
+One of the best known artifacts of Korea's history of science and technology is the Cheomseongdae (첨성대, 瞻星臺), a 9.4-meter high observatory built in 634.
+
+The earliest known surviving Korean example of woodblock printing is the Mugujeonggwang Great Dharani Sutra.[192] It is believed to have been printed in Korea in 750–51, which if correct, would make it older than the Diamond Sutra.
+
+During the Goryeo Dynasty, metal movable type printing was invented by Choe Yun-ui in 1234.[193][5][194][195][8][3] This invention made printing easier, more efficient and also increased literacy, which observed by Chinese visitors was seen to be so important where it was considered to be shameful to not be able to read.[196] The Mongol Empire later adopted Korea's movable type printing and spread as far as Central Asia. There is conjecture as to whether or not Choe's invention had any influence on later printing inventions such as Gutenberg's Printing press.[197] When the Mongols invaded Europe they inadvertently introduced different kinds of Asian technology.[198]
+
+During the Joseon period, the Turtle Ship was invented, which were covered by a wooden deck and iron with thorns,[199][200][201] as well as other weapons such as the bigyeokjincheolloe cannon (비격진천뢰, 飛擊震天雷) and the hwacha.
+
+The Korean alphabet hangul was also invented during this time by King Sejong the Great.
+
+North Korea and South Korea usually compete as two separate nations in international events.  There are, however, a few examples of them having competed as one entity, under the name Korea.
+
+While association football remains one of the most popular sports in South Korea, the martial art of taekwondo is considered to be the national sport. Baseball and golf are also popular.
+
+Taekwon-Do is Korea's most famous martial art and sport. It combines combat techniques, self-defence, sport and exercise. Taekwon-Do has become an official Olympic sport, starting as a demonstration event in 1988 (when South Korea hosted the Games in Seoul) and becoming an official medal event in 2000. The two major Taekwon-Do federations were founded in Korea. The two are the International Taekwon-Do Federation and the World Taekwondo Federation.
+
+Hapkido is a modern Korean martial art with a grappling focus that employs joint locks, throws, kicks, punches and other striking attacks like attacks against pressure points. Hapkido emphasizes circular motion, non-resisting movements and control of the opponent. Practitioners seek to gain advantage through footwork and body positioning to employ leverage, avoiding the pure use of strength against strength.
+
+Ssireum is a traditional form of wrestling that has been practiced in Korea for thousands of years, with evidence discovered from Goguryeo of Korea's Three Kingdoms Period (57 BCE to 688). Ssireum is the traditional national sport of Korea. During a match, opponents grip each other by sash belts wrapped around the waist and the thigh, attempting to throw their competitor to the sandy ground of the ring. The first opponent to touch the ground with any body part above the knee or to lose hold of their opponent loses the round.
+
+Ssireum competitions are traditionally held twice a year, during the Dano Festival (the 5th day of the fifth lunar month) and Chuseok (the 15th day of the 8th lunar month). Competitions are also held throughout the year as a part of festivals and other events.
+
+Taekkyon is a traditional martial art, considered the oldest form of fighting technique of Korea. Practiced since centuries and especially popular during the Joseon dynasty, two forms co-existed: one for practical use, the other for sport. This form was usually practiced alongside Ssireum during festivals and competitions between villages. Nonetheless, Taekkyon almost disappeared during the Japanese Occupation and the Korean War.
+
+Though lost in North Korea, Taekkyon has enjoyed a spectacular revival from the 1980s in South Korea. It is the only martial art in the world (with Ssireum) recognized as a National Treasure of South Korea and a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
+
+Samiljeol, Independence Movement Day, commemorates Korea's declaration of independence from Japanese occupation on 1 March 1919. The name is derived from Korean 삼 "sam" 'three', 일 "il" 'one,' and 절 "jeol" 'day', the date of the uprising in 1919. Korea was annexed to the Empire of Japan on 29 August 1910 following the imposed Japan-Korea Treaty. On 1 March 1919, Korean presented their resistance towards Japan and Japanese occupation with a declaration of independence. Following the conclusion of World War II, Korea was liberated from Japan and its independence restored. The newly established Korean government set aside 1 March as a national holiday to commemorate the sacrifices borne in the long struggle for Korean independence.
+
+Hyunchoongil is the national holiday in Korea commemorating those who fought and died for the nation. In August 1948, only a few years after Korea achieved its independence from Japan, the Korean War, in Korea also known as the 6.25 war, broke out between North and South Korea. During this war, approximately 400,000 soldiers and some one million citizens were killed or injured. In 1953, North and South Korea agreed to a cease-fire, and three years later the Korean government established Hyungchoogil to commemorate the soldiers who fought in the Korean War. Subsequent to its establishment, Hyungchoogil was reinterpreted as a day of remembrance for those who died defending Korea in all conflicts, not only during the Korean War.
+
+Gwangbokjeol is the day for celebrating liberation of the country from Japan in 1945 as well as celebrating the establishment of Korean government in 1948. Gwangbok means "returned light" representing gaining national sovereignty from Japan. It was first declared to be national holiday in 1949 October 1. On this date every year, the president of Korea visits Independence Hall, and invites diplomatic envoys from many countries and all social standings in countries to Cheongwadae (the Blue House, the Korean presidential residence).
+
+Hangul Day (also spelled as Hangeul Day) is a day that celebrates the creation of the Hunminjeongeum (Hangul, Korean alphabet), which was inscribed to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 1997.[202] Hangul was created by Sejong the Great in 1443 and proclaimed in 1446. Before the creation of Hangul, people in Korea (known as Joseon at the time) primarily wrote using Classical Chinese alongside native phonetic writing systems that predate Hangul by hundreds of years, including idu, hyangchal, gugyeol, and gakpil.[203][204][205][206] However, due to the fundamental differences between the Korean and Chinese languages, and the large number of characters needed to be learned, there was much difficulty in learning how to write using Chinese characters for the lower classes, who often didn't have the privilege of education. To assuage this problem, King Sejong created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people.[207] Hangul Day was founded in 1926 during the Japanese occupation by members of the Korean Language Society, whose goal was to preserve the Korean language during a time of rapid forced Japanization.[208] Today, both South Korea and North Korea celebrate Hangul Day as a national holiday.
+
+Sources

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+Alexandria (/ˌælɪɡˈzændriə/ or /-ˈzɑːnd-/;[5] Arabic: الإسكندرية‎ al-ʾIskandariyya;[6][7] Egyptian Arabic: اسكندرية‎ Eskendereyya; Coptic: ⲣⲁⲕⲟϯ    Rakodī;[8] Greek: Αλεξάνδρεια Alexandria)[8][9] is the second-largest city in Egypt and a major economic center. With a population of 5,200,000, Alexandria is the largest city on the Mediterranean, the sixth-largest city in the Arab world and the ninth-largest in Africa. The city extends about 40 km (25 mi)  at the northern coast of Egypt along the Mediterranean Sea. Alexandria is a popular tourist destination, and also an important industrial center because of its natural gas and oil pipelines from Suez.
+
+Alexandria was founded in c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great,[10] king of Macedon and leader of the Greek League of Corinth, during his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. An Egyptian village named Rhacotis existed at the location and grew into the Egyptian quarter of Alexandria. Alexandria grew rapidly to become an important center of Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost 1,000 years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641, when a new capital was founded at Fustat (later absorbed into Cairo). Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world); and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Alexandria was the intellectual and cultural center of the ancient Mediterranean world for much of the Hellenistic age and late antiquity.[10] It was at one time the largest city in the ancient world before being eventually overtaken by Rome.
+
+The city was a major center of early Christianity and was the center of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which was one of the major centers of Christianity in the Eastern Roman Empire. In the modern world, the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria both lay claim to this ancient heritage.
+
+Following the Arab conquest of Egypt in AD 641, the city was plundered and lost its significance before re-emerging in the modern era.[11] From the late 18th century, Alexandria became a major center of the international shipping industry and one of the most important trading centers in the world, both because it profited from the easy overland connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, and the lucrative trade in Egyptian cotton.
+
+Recent radiocarbon dating of seashell fragments and lead contamination show human activity at the location during the period of the Old Kingdom (27th-21st centuries BC) and again in the period 1000-800 BC, followed by the absence of activity thereafter.[12] From ancient sources it is known there existed a trading post at this location during the time of Rameses the Great for trade with Crete, but it had long been lost by the time of Alexander's arrival.[10] A small Egyptian fishing village named Rhakotis (Egyptian:*Raˁ-Ḳāṭit, written rˁ-ḳṭy.t, 'That which is built up') existed since the 13th century BC in the vicinity and eventually grew into the Egyptian quarter of the city.[10] Just east of Alexandria (where Abu Qir Bay is now), there was in ancient times marshland and several islands. As early as the 7th century BC, there existed important port cities of Canopus and Heracleion. The latter was recently rediscovered under water.
+
+Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC as Ἀλεξάνδρεια (Alexandreia). Passing through Egypt, Alexander wanted to build a large Greek city on Egypt's coast that would bear his name. He chose the site of Alexandria, envisioning the building of a causeway to the nearby island of Pharos that would generate two great natural harbors.[10] Alexandria was intended to supersede the older Greek colony of Naucratis as a Hellenistic center in Egypt, and to be the link between Greece and the rich Nile valley.  A few months after the foundation, Alexander left Egypt and never returned to the city during his life.
+
+After Alexander's departure, his viceroy Cleomenes continued the expansion. The architect Dinocrates of Rhodes designed the city, using a Hippodamian grid plan. Following Alexander's death in 323 BC, his general Ptolemy Lagides took possession of Egypt and brought Alexander's body to Egypt with him.[13] Ptolemy at first ruled from the old Egyptian capital of Memphis. In 322/321 BC he had Cleomenes executed. Finally, in 305 BC, Ptolemy declared himself Pharaoh as Ptolemy I Soter ("Savior") and moved his capital to Alexandria.
+
+Although Cleomenes was mainly in charge of overseeing Alexandria's early development, the Heptastadion and the mainland quarters seem to have been primarily Ptolemaic work. Inheriting the trade of ruined Tyre and becoming the center of the new commerce between Europe and the Arabian and Indian East, the city grew in less than a generation to be larger than Carthage. In a century, Alexandria had become the largest city in the world and, for some centuries more, was second only to Rome. It became Egypt's main Greek city, with Greek people from diverse backgrounds.[14]
+
+Alexandria was not only a center of Hellenism, but was also home to the largest urban Jewish community in the world. The Septuagint, a Greek version of the Tanakh, was produced there. The early Ptolemies kept it in order and fostered the development of its museum into the leading Hellenistic center of learning (Library of Alexandria), but were careful to maintain the distinction of its population's three largest ethnicities: Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian.[15] By the time of Augustus, the city walls encompassed an area of 5.34 km2, and the total population in Roman times was around 500–600,000.[16]
+
+According to Philo of Alexandria, in the year 38 of the Common era, disturbances erupted between Jews and Greek citizens of Alexandria during a visit paid by the Jewish king Agrippa I to Alexandria, principally over the respect paid by the Jewish nation to the Roman emperor, and which quickly escalated to open affronts and violence between the two ethnic groups and the desecration of Alexandrian synagogues. The violence was quelled after Caligula intervened and had the Roman governor, Flaccus, removed from the city.[17]
+
+In AD 115, large parts of Alexandria were destroyed during the Kitos War, which gave Hadrian and his architect, Decriannus, an opportunity to rebuild it. In 215, the emperor Caracalla visited the city and, because of some insulting satires that the inhabitants had directed at him, abruptly commanded his troops to put to death all youths capable of bearing arms. On 21 July 365, Alexandria was devastated by a tsunami (365 Crete earthquake),[18] an event annually commemorated years later as a "day of horror".[19]
+
+In 619, Alexandria fell to the Sassanid Persians. Although the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius recovered it in 629, in 641 the Arabs under the general 'Amr ibn al-'As invaded it during the Muslim conquest of Egypt, after a siege that lasted 14 months. The first Arab governor of Egypt recorded to have visited Alexandria was Utba ibn Abi Sufyan, who strengthened the Arab presence and built a governor's palace in the city in 664–665.[20][21]
+
+After the Battle of Ridaniya in 1517, the city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and remained under Ottoman rule until 1798. Alexandria lost much of its former importance to the Egyptian port city of Rosetta during the 9th to 18th centuries, and only regained its former prominence with the construction of the Mahmoudiyah Canal in 1807.
+
+Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798. French troops stormed the city on 2 July 1798, and it remained in their hands until the arrival of a British expedition in 1801. The British won a considerable victory over the French at the Battle of Alexandria on 21 March 1801, following which they besieged the city, which fell to them on 2 September 1801. Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman governor of Egypt, began rebuilding and redevelopment around 1810, and by 1850, Alexandria had returned to something akin to its former glory.[22] Egypt turned to Europe in their effort to modernize the country. Greeks, followed by other Europeans and others, began moving to the city. In the early 20th century, the city became a home for novelists and poets.[11]
+
+In July 1882, the city came under bombardment from British naval forces and was occupied.[23]
+
+In July 1954, the city was a target of an Israeli bombing campaign that later became known as the Lavon Affair. On 26 October 1954, Alexandria's Mansheya Square was the site of a failed assassination attempt on Gamal Abdel Nasser.[24]
+
+Europeans began leaving Alexandria following the 1956 Suez Crisis that led to an outburst of Arab nationalism. The nationalization of property by Nasser, which reached its highest point in 1961, drove out nearly all the rest.[11]
+
+In reference to Alexandria, Egypt, Ibn Battuta speaks of great saints that resided here. One of them being Imam Borhan Oddin El Aaraj. He was said to have the power of working miracles. He told Ibn Battuta that he should go find his three brothers, Farid Oddin, who lived in India, Rokn Oddin Ibn Zakarya, who lived in Sindia, and Borhan Oddin, who lived in China. Battuta then made it his purpose to find these people and give them his compliments. Sheikh Yakut was another great man. He was the disciple of Sheikh Abu Abbas El Mursi, who was the disciple of Abu El Hasan El Shadali, who is known to be a servant of God. Abu Abbas was the author of the Hizb El Bahr and was famous for piety and miracles. Abu Abd Allah El Murshidi was a great interpreting saint that lived secluded in the Minyat of Ibn Murshed. He lived alone but was visited daily by emirs, viziers, and crowds that wished to eat with him. The Sultan of Egypt (El Malik El Nasir) visited him, as well. Ibn Battuta left Alexandria with the intent of visiting him.[25]
+
+Ibn Battuta also visited the Pharos lighthouse on 2 occasions; in 1326 he found it to be partly in ruins and in 1349 it had deteriorated further, making entrance to the edifice impossible.[26]
+
+The most important battles and sieges of Alexandria include:
+
+Greek Alexandria was divided into three regions:
+
+Two main streets, lined with colonnades and said to have been each about 60 meters (200 ft) wide, intersected in the center of the city, close to the point where the Sema (or Soma) of Alexander (his Mausoleum) rose. This point is very near the present mosque of Nebi Daniel; and the line of the great East–West "Canopic" street, only slightly diverged from that of the modern Boulevard de Rosette (now Sharia Fouad). Traces of its pavement and canal have been found near the Rosetta Gate, but remnants of streets and canals were exposed in 1899 by German excavators outside the east fortifications, which lie well within the area of the ancient city.
+
+Alexandria consisted originally of little more than the island of Pharos, which was joined to the mainland by a 1,260-metre-long (4,130 ft) mole and called the Heptastadion ("seven stadia"—a stadium was a Greek unit of length measuring approximately 180 metres or 590 feet). The end of this abutted on the land at the head of the present Grand Square, where the "Moon Gate" rose. All that now lies between that point and the modern "Ras al-Tin" quarter is built on the silt which gradually widened and obliterated this mole. The Ras al-Tin quarter represents all that is left of the island of Pharos, the site of the actual lighthouse having been weathered away by the sea. On the east of the mole was the Great Harbor, now an open bay; on the west lay the port of Eunostos, with its inner basin Kibotos, now vastly enlarged to form the modern harbor.
+
+In Strabo's time, (latter half of the 1st century BC) the principal buildings were as follows, enumerated as they were to be seen from a ship entering the Great Harbor.
+
+The names of a few other public buildings on the mainland are known, but there is little information as to their actual position. None, however, are as famous as the building that stood on the eastern point of Pharos island. There, The Great Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, reputed to be 138 metres (453 feet) high, was situated. The first Ptolemy began the project, and the second Ptolemy (Ptolemy II Philadelphus) completed it, at a total cost of 800 talents. It took 12 years to complete and served as a prototype for all later lighthouses in the world. The light was produced by a furnace at the top and the tower was built mostly with solid blocks of limestone. The Pharos lighthouse was destroyed by an earthquake in the 14th century, making it the second longest surviving ancient wonder, after the Great Pyramid of Giza. A temple of Hephaestus also stood on Pharos at the head of the mole.
+
+In the 1st century, the population of Alexandria contained over 180,000 adult male citizens,[27] according to a census dated from 32 CE, in addition to a large number of freedmen, women, children and slaves. Estimates of the total population range from 216,000[28] to 500,000[29] making it one of the largest cities ever built before the Industrial Revolution and the largest pre-industrial city that was not an imperial capital.[citation needed]
+
+Alexandria is located in the country of Egypt, on the southern coast of the Mediterranean.
+
+Alexandria has a borderline hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification: BWh),[30] approaching a hot semi-arid climate (BSh). As the rest of Egypt's northern coast, the prevailing north wind, blowing across the Mediterranean, gives the city a less severe climate from the desert hinterland.[31] Rafah and Alexandria[32] are the wettest places in Egypt; the other wettest places are Rosetta, Baltim, Kafr el-Dawwar, and Mersa Matruh. The city's climate is influenced by the Mediterranean Sea, moderating its temperatures, causing variable rainy winters and moderately hot and slightly prolonged summers that, at times, can be very humid; January and February are the coolest months, with daily maximum temperatures typically ranging from 12 to 18 °C (54 to 64 °F) and minimum temperatures that could reach 5 °C (41 °F). temperature sometimes gets lower than 5 and it sometimes rains snow.
+
+Alexandria experiences violent storms, rain and sometimes sleet and hail during the cooler months; these events, combined with a poor drainage system, have been responsible for occasional flooding in the city in the past though they rarely occur anymore.[33] July and August are the hottest and driest months of the year, with an average daily maximum temperature of 30 °C (86 °F).
+The average annual rainfall is around 200 mm (7.9 in) but has been as high as 417 mm (16.4 in)[34]
+
+Port Said, Kosseir, Baltim, Damietta and Alexandria have the least temperature variation in Egypt.
+
+The highest recorded temperature was 45 °C (113 °F) on 30 May 1961, and the coldest recorded temperature was 0 °C (32 °F) on 31 January 1994.[35]
+
+Due to the constant presence of war in Alexandria in ancient times, very little of the ancient city has survived into the present day. Much of the royal and civic quarters sank beneath the harbour and the rest has been built over in modern times.
+
+"Pompey's Pillar", a Roman triumphal column, is one of the best-known ancient monuments still standing in Alexandria today. It is located on Alexandria's ancient acropolis—a modest hill located adjacent to the city's Arab cemetery—and was originally part of a temple colonnade. Including its pedestal, it is 30 m (99 ft) high; the shaft is of polished red granite, 2.7 m (8.9 ft) in diameter at the base, tapering to 2.4 m (7.9 ft) at the top. The shaft is 88 feet (27 m) high, and made out of a single piece of granite. Its volume is 132 cubic meters (4,662 cubic feet) and weight approximately 396 tons.[41] Pompey's Pillar may have been erected using the same methods that were used to erect the ancient obelisks. The Romans had cranes but they were not strong enough to lift something this heavy. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehrner conducted several obelisk erecting experiments including a successful attempt to erect a 25-ton obelisk in 1999. This followed two experiments to erect smaller obelisks and two failed attempts to erect a 25-ton obelisk.[42][43] The structure was plundered and demolished in the 4th century when a bishop decreed that Paganism must be eradicated. "Pompey's Pillar" is a misnomer, as it has nothing to do with Pompey, having been erected in 293 for Diocletian, possibly in memory of the rebellion of Domitius Domitianus. Beneath the acropolis itself are the subterranean remains of the Serapeum, where the mysteries of the god Serapis were enacted, and whose carved wall niches are believed to have provided overflow storage space for the ancient Library. In more recent years, many ancient artifacts have been discovered from the surrounding sea, mostly pieces of old pottery.
+
+Alexandria's catacombs, known as Kom El Shoqafa, are a short distance southwest of the pillar, consist of a multi-level labyrinth, reached via a large spiral staircase, and featuring dozens of chambers adorned with sculpted pillars, statues, and other syncretic Romano-Egyptian religious symbols, burial niches, and sarcophagi, as well as a large Roman-style banquet room, where memorial meals were conducted by relatives of the deceased. The catacombs were long forgotten by the citizens until they were discovered by accident in 1900.[44]
+
+The most extensive ancient excavation currently being conducted in Alexandria is known as Kom El Deka. It has revealed the ancient city's well-preserved theater, and the remains of its Roman-era baths.
+
+Persistent efforts have been made to explore the antiquities of Alexandria. Encouragement and help have been given by the local Archaeological Society, and by many individuals, notably Greeks proud of a city which is one of the glories of their national history. Excavations were performed in the city by Greeks seeking the tomb of Alexander the Great without success.
+The past and present directors of the museum have been enabled from time to time to carry out systematic excavations whenever opportunity is offered; D. G. Hogarth made tentative researches on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in 1895; and a German expedition worked for two years (1898–1899). But two difficulties face the would-be excavator in Alexandria: lack of space for excavation and the underwater location of some areas of interest.
+
+Since the great and growing modern city stands immediately over the ancient one, it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in which to dig, except at enormous cost. Cleopatra VII's royal quarters were inundated by earthquakes and tsunami, leading to gradual subsidence in the 4th century AD.[45] This underwater section, containing many of the most interesting sections of the Hellenistic city, including the palace quarter, was explored in 1992 and is still being extensively investigated by the French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio and his team.[46] It raised a noted head of Caesarion. These are being opened up to tourists, to some controversy.[47] The spaces that are most open are the low grounds to northeast and southwest, where it is practically impossible to get below the Roman strata.
+
+The most important results were those achieved by Dr. G. Botti, late director of the museum, in the neighborhood of "Pompey's Pillar", where there is a good deal of open ground. Here, substructures of a large building or group of buildings have been exposed, which are perhaps part of the Serapeum. Nearby, immense catacombs and columbaria have been opened which may have been appendages of the temple. These contain one very remarkable vault with curious painted reliefs, now artificially lit and open to visitors.
+
+The objects found in these researches are in the museum, the most notable being a great basalt bull, probably once an object of cult in the Serapeum. Other catacombs and tombs have been opened in Kom El Shoqafa (Roman) and Ras El Tin (painted).
+
+The German excavation team found remains of a Ptolemaic colonnade and streets in the north-east of the city, but little else. Hogarth explored part of an immense brick structure under the mound of Kom El Deka, which may have been part of the Paneum, the Mausolea, or a Roman fortress.
+
+The making of the new foreshore led to the dredging up of remains of the Patriarchal Church; and the foundations of modern buildings are seldom laid without some objects of antiquity being discovered. The wealth underground is doubtlessly immense; but despite all efforts, there is not much for antiquarians to see in Alexandria outside the museum and the neighborhood of "Pompey's Pillar".
+
+The temple was built in the Ptolemy era and dedicated to Osiris, which finished the construction of Alexandria. It is located in Abusir, the western suburb of Alexandria in Borg el Arab city. Only the outer wall and the pylons remain from the temple. There is evidence to prove that sacred animals were worshiped there. Archaeologists found an animal necropolis near the temple. Remains of a Christian church show that the temple was used as a church in later centuries. Also found in the same area are remains of public baths built by the emperor Justinian, a seawall, quays and a bridge. Near the beach side of the area, there are the remains of a tower built by Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The tower was an exact scale replica of the destroyed Alexandrine Pharos Lighthouse.[48]
+
+Among the places of worship, there are Muslim mosques.[49] Coptic Christian churches are most common churches .There are also other Christian churches as:  Greek , Latin and Armenian . Orthodox Christian churches are most common but Catholic , Anglican and Evangelical churches are present. Also there is a Jewish synagogue
+
+The most famous mosque in Alexandria is Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque in Bahary. Other notable mosques in the city include Ali ibn Abi Talib mosque in Somouha, Bilal mosque, al-Gamaa al-Bahari in Mandara, Hatem mosque in Somouha, Hoda el-Islam mosque in Sidi Bishr, al-Mowasah mosque in Hadara, Sharq al-Madina mosque in Miami, al-Shohadaa mosque in Mostafa Kamel, Al Qa'ed Ibrahim Mosque, Yehia mosque in Zizinia, Sidi Gaber mosque in Sidi Gaber, Sidi B esher mosque, Rokay el-Islam mosque in Elessway, Elsadaka Mosque in Sidibesher Qebly, Elshatbi mosque and Sultan mosque.
+
+Alexandria is the base of the Salafi movements in Egypt. Al-Nour Party, which is based in the city and overwhelmingly won most of the Salafi votes in the 2011–12 parliamentary election, supports the president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.[11]
+
+After Rome and Constantinople, Alexandria was considered the third-most important seat of Christianity in the world. The Pope of Alexandria was second only to the bishop of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire until 430. The Church of Alexandria had jurisdiction over most of the continent of Africa. After the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, the Church of Alexandria was split between the Miaphysites and the Melkites. The Miaphysites went on to constitute what is known today as the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The Melkites went on to constitute what is known today as the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. In the 19th century, Catholic and Protestant missionaries converted some of the adherents of the Orthodox churches to their respective faiths.
+
+Today, the Patriarchal seat of the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church is Saint Mark Cathedral . The most important Coptic Orthodox churches in Alexandria include Pope Cyril I Church in Cleopatra, Saint Georges Church in Sporting, Saint Mark & Pope Peter I Church in Sidi Bishr, Saint Mary Church in Assafra, Saint Mary Church in Gianaclis, Saint Mina Church in Fleming, Saint Mina Church in Mandara and Saint Takla Haymanot's Church in Ibrahimeya.
+
+The most important Eastern Orthodox churches in Alexandria are Agioi Anárgyroi Church, Church of the Annunciation, Saint Anthony Church, Archangels Gabriel & Michael Church, Taxiarchon Church, Saint Catherine Church, Cathedral of the Dormition in Mansheya, Church of the Dormition, Prophet Elijah Church, Saint George Church, Saint Joseph Church in Fleming, Saint Joseph of Arimathea Church, Saint Mark & Saint Nektarios Chapel in Ramleh, Saint Nicholas Church, Saint Paraskevi Church, Saint Sava Cathedral in Ramleh, Saint Theodore Chapel and the Russian church of Saint Alexander Nevsky in Alexandria, which serves the Russian speaking community in the city.
+
+The Apostolic Vicariate of Alexandria in Egypt-Heliopolis-Port Said has jurisdiction over all Latin Church Catholics in Egypt. Member churches include Saint Catherine Church in Mansheya and Church of the Jesuits in Cleopatra. The city is also the nominal see of the Melkite Greek Catholic titular Patriarchate of Alexandria (generally vested in its leading Patriarch of Antioch) and the actual cathedral see of its Patriarchal territory of Egypt, Sudan and South Sudan, which uses the Byzantine Rite, and the nominal see of the Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Alexandria (for all Egypt and Sudan, whose actual cathedral is in Cairo), a suffragan of the Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia, using the Armenian Rite.
+
+The Saint Mark Church in Shatby, founded as part of Collège Saint Marc, is multi-denominational and holds liturgies according to Latin Catholic, Coptic Catholic and Coptic Orthodox rites.
+
+In antiquity, Alexandria was a major center of the cosmopolitan religious movement called Gnosticism (today mainly remembered as a Christian heresy).
+
+Alexandria's once-flourishing Jewish community declined rapidly following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, after which negative reactions towards Zionism among Egyptians led to Jewish residents in the city, and elsewhere in Egypt, being perceived as Zionist collaborators. Most Jewish residents of Egypt fled to the newly established Israel, France, Brazil and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s. The community once numbered 50,000 but is now estimated at below 50.[50] The most important synagogue in Alexandria is the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue.
+
+Alexandria has a number of higher education institutions. Alexandria University is a public university that follows the Egyptian system of higher education. Many of its faculties are internationally renowned, most notably its Faculty of Medicine & Faculty of Engineering. In addition, the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology in New Borg El Arab city is a research university set up in collaboration between the Japanese and Egyptian governments in 2010.  The Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport is a semi-private educational institution that offers courses for high school, undergraduate level, and postgraduate students. It is considered the most reputable university in Egypt after the AUC American University in Cairo because of its worldwide recognition from board of engineers at UK & ABET in US. Université Senghor is a private French university that focuses on the teaching of humanities, politics and international relations, which mainly recruits students from the African continent. Other institutions of higher education in Alexandria include Alexandria Institute of Technology (AIT) and Pharos University in Alexandria.
+
+Alexandria has a long history of foreign educational institutions. The first foreign schools date to the early 19th century, when French missionaries began establishing French charitable schools to educate the Egyptians. Today, the most important French schools in Alexandria run by Catholic missionaries include Collège de la Mère de Dieu, Collège Notre Dame de Sion, Collège Saint Marc, Ecoles des Soeurs Franciscaines (four different schools), École Girard, École Saint Gabriel, École Saint-Vincent de Paul, École Saint Joseph, École Sainte Catherine, and Institution Sainte Jeanne-Antide. As a reaction to the establishment of French religious institutions, a secular (laic) mission established Lycée el-Horreya, which initially followed a French system of education, but is currently a public school run by the Egyptian government. The only school in Alexandria that completely follows the French educational system is Lycée Français d'Alexandrie (École Champollion). It is usually frequented by the children of French expatriates and diplomats in Alexandria. The Italian school is the Istituto "Don Bosco".
+
+English schools in Alexandria are becoming the most popular. English-language schools in the city include: Riada American School, Riada Language School, Alexandria Language School, Future Language School, Future International Schools (Future IGCSE, Future American School and Future German school), Alexandria American School, British School of Alexandria, Egyptian American School, Pioneers Language School, Princesses Girls' School, Sidi Gaber Language School, Taymour English School, Sacred Heart Girls' School, Schutz American School, Victoria College, El Manar Language School for Girls (previously called Scottish School for Girls), Kawmeya Language School, El Nasr Boys' School (previously called British Boys' School), and El Nasr Girls' College.
+There are only two German schools in Alexandria which are Deutsche Schule der Borromärinnen (DSB of Saint Charles Borromé) and Neue Deutsche Schule Alexandria, which is run by Frau Sally Hammam.
+
+The Montessori educational system was first introduced in Alexandria in 2009 at Alexandria Montessori.
+
+The most notable public schools in Alexandria include El Abbassia High School and Gamal Abdel Nasser High School.
+
+Circa the 1890s, twice the percentage of women in Alexandria knew how to read compared to the same percentage in Cairo. As a result, specialist women's publications like al-Fatāh by Hind Nawal, the country's first women's' journal, appeared.[51]
+
+The city's principal airport is currently Borg El Arab Airport, which is located about 25 km (16 mi) away from the city center.
+
+From late 2011, El Nouzha Airport (Alexandria International Airport) was to be closed to commercial operations for two years as it underwent expansion, with all airlines operating out of Borg El Arab Airport from then onwards, where a brand new terminal was completed there in February 2010.[52] In 2017, the government announced that Alexandria International Airport will shut down permanently for operational reasons.
+
+Alexandria has four ports; namely the Western Port also known as(Alexandria Port), which is the main port of the country that handles about 60% of the country's exports and imports, Dekhela Port west of the Western Port, the Eastern Port which is a yachting harbor, and Abu Qir Port at the northern east of the governorate. It is a commercial port for general cargo and phosphates.
+
+Alexandria's intracity commuter rail system extends from Misr Station (Alexandria's primary intercity railway station) to Abu Qir, parallel to the tram line. The commuter line's locomotives operate on diesel, as opposed to the overhead-electric tram.
+
+Alexandria plays host to two intercity railway stations: the aforementioned Misr Station (in the older Manshia district in the western part of the city) and Sidi Gaber railway station (in the district of Sidi Gaber in the center of the eastern expansion in which most Alexandrines reside), both of which also serve the commuter rail line. Intercity passenger service is operated by Egyptian National Railways.
+
+An extensive tramway network was built in 1860 and is the oldest in Africa. The network begins at the El Raml district in the west and ends in the Victoria district in the east. Most of the vehicles are blue in color. Some smaller yellow-colored vehicles have further routes beyond the two main endpoints. The tram routes have one of four numbers: 1, 2, 5, and 6. All four start at El Raml, but only two (1 and 2) reach Victoria. There are two converging and diverging points. The first starts at Bolkly (Isis) and ends at San Stefano. The other begins at Sporting and ends at Mostafa Kamel. Route 5 starts at San Stefano and takes the inner route to Bolkly. Route 6 starts at Sidi Gaber El Sheikh in the outer route between Sporting and Mustafa Kamel. Route 1 takes the inner route between San Stefano and Bolkly and the outer route between Sporting and Mustafa Kamel. Route 2 takes the route opposite to Route 1 in both these areas. The tram fares are 50 piastres (0.50 pounds), and 100 piastres (1.00 pounds) for the middle car. Some trams (that date back the 30s) charge a pound. The tram is considered the cheapest method of public transport. A café operates in the second floor of the first car of tram 1 (a women-only car) which costs 5 L.E per person, also offering a WiFi service. A luxury light blue tram car operates from San Stefano to Ras El Tin, with free WiFi and movies and songs played inside for 5 L.E per ticket.
+
+Stations:
+
+Route 2 serves:
+
+Construction of the Alexandria Metro is due to begin in 2020 at a cost of $1.05 billion.[53]
+
+Taxis in Alexandria sport a yellow-and-black livery and are widely available. While Egyptian law requires all cabs to carry meters, these generally do not work and fares must be negotiated with the driver on either departure or arrival.
+
+The minibus share taxi system, or mashrū' operates along well-known traffic arteries. The routes can be identified by both their endpoints and the route between them:
+
+The route is generally written in Arabic on the side of the vehicle, although some drivers change their route without changing the paint. Some drivers also drive only a segment of a route rather than the whole path; such drivers generally stop at a point known as a major hub of the transportation system (for example, Victoria) to allow riders to transfer to another car or to another mode of transport.
+
+Fare is generally L.E. 3.00 to travel the whole route. Shorter trips may have a lower fare, depending on the driver and the length of the trip.
+
+The Royal Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was once the largest library in the world. It is generally thought to have been founded at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, during the reign of Ptolemy II of Egypt. It was likely created after his father had built what would become the first part of the library complex, the temple of the Muses—the Museion, Greek Μουσείον (from which the Modern English word museum is derived).
+
+It has been reasonably established that the library, or parts of the collection, were destroyed by fire on a number of occasions (library fires were common and replacement of handwritten manuscripts was very difficult, expensive, and time-consuming). To this day the details of the destruction (or destructions) remain a lively source of controversy.[54]
+
+The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was inaugurated in 2002, near the site of the old Library.[55]
+
+Throughout Alexandria, there is art that resembles some of the oldest architectural styles of the Hellenic city, and its ancient decorations, especially in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, is based on reviving the ancient Library of Alexandria. The Kom el shoqafa Catacombs are considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages and date back to the 2nd century. The remnants of Pompey's Pillar still remain today. This single pillar represents the elaborate temple which once stood in Alexandria. It remains at the site of the Serapeum, Alexandria's acropolis. The Serapeum, which stood for ancient tradition, conflicted with the rise of Christianity. It is a large tourist destination, today. the Roman Amphitheatre of Alexandria is another popular destination. Here, there remains a stage with around seven hundred to eight hundred seats. They also have numerous galleries of statues and details leftover form this time. Alexandria's tourism office announced plans to reserve some beaches for tourists in July 2018.[56]
+
+Shalalat Gardens
+
+Montaza Garden
+
+Alexandria Art Center
+
+Alexandria Opera House
+
+Fawzia Fahmy Palace
+
+Alexander the Great's statue
+
+Monument of the Unknown Navy Soldier
+
+Montaza Palace
+
+The main sport that interests Alexandrians is football, as is the case in the rest of Egypt and Africa. Alexandria Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Alexandria, Egypt. It is currently used mostly for football matches, and was used for the 2006 African Cup of Nations. The stadium is the oldest stadium in Egypt, being built in 1929. The stadium holds 20,000 people. Alexandria was one of three cities that participated in hosting the African Cup of Nations in January 2006, which Egypt won. Sea sports such as surfing, jet-skiing and water polo are practiced on a lower scale. The Skateboarding culture in Egypt started in this city. The city is also home to the Alexandria Sporting Club, which is especially known for its basketball team, which traditionally provides the country's national team with key players. The city hosted the AfroBasket, the continent's most prestigious basketball tournament, on four occasions (1970, 1975, 1983, 2003).
+
+Alexandria has four stadiums:
+
+Other less popular sports like tennis and squash are usually played in private social and sports clubs, like:
+
+Started in 2011, Cross Egypt Challenge is an international cross-country motorcycle and scooter rally conducted throughout the most difficult tracks and roads of Egypt. Alexandria is known as the yearly starting point of Cross Egypt Challenge and a huge celebration is conducted the night before the rally starts after all the international participants arrive to the city.
+
+Alexandria is twinned with:

en/1320.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+
+
+see text
+
+Australocorax Lambrecht, 1931
+Compsohalieus B. Brewer & Ridgway, 1884
+Cormoranus Baillon, 1834
+Dilophalieus Coues, 1903
+Ecmeles Gistel, 1848
+Euleucocarbo Voisin, 1973
+Halietor Heine, 1860
+Hydrocorax Vieillot, 1819 (non Brisson, 1760: preoccupied)
+Hypoleucus Reichenbach, 1852
+Leucocarbo Bonaparte, 1857
+Microcarbo Bonaparte, 1856
+Miocorax Lambrecht, 1933
+Nannopterum Sharpe, 1899
+Nesocarbo Voisin, 1973
+Notocarbo Siegel-Causey, 1988
+Pallasicarbo Coues, 1903
+Paracorax Lambrecht, 1933
+Poikilocarbo Boetticher, 1935
+Pliocarbo Tugarinov, 1940
+Stictocarbo Bonaparte, 1855
+Viguacarbo Coues, 1903 (see text)
+
+Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed recently and the number of genera is disputed. The great cormorant (P. carbo) and the common shag (P. aristotelis) are the only two species of the family commonly encountered on the British Isles[1] and "cormorant" and "shag" appellations have been later assigned to different species in the family somewhat haphazardly.
+
+Cormorants and shags are medium-to-large birds, with body weight in the range of 0.35–5 kilograms (0.77–11.02 lb) and wing span of 45–100 centimetres (18–39 in). The majority of species have dark feathers. The bill is long, thin and hooked. Their feet have webbing between all four toes. All species are fish-eaters, catching the prey by diving from the surface. They are excellent divers, and under water they propel themselves with their feet with help from their wings; some cormorant species have been found to dive as deep as 45 metres (150 ft). They have relatively short wings due to their need for economical movement underwater, and consequently have the highest flight costs of any flying bird.[2]
+
+Cormorants nest in colonies around the shore, on trees, islets or cliffs. They are coastal rather than oceanic birds, and some have colonised inland waters – indeed, the original ancestor of cormorants seems to have been a fresh-water bird.[citation needed] They range around the world, except for the central Pacific islands.
+
+No consistent distinction exists between cormorants and shags. The names 'cormorant' and 'shag' were originally the common names of the two species of the family found in Great Britain, Phalacrocorax carbo (now referred to by ornithologists as the great cormorant) and P. aristotelis (the European shag). "Shag" refers to the bird's crest, which the British forms of the great cormorant lack. As other species were encountered by English-speaking sailors and explorers elsewhere in the world, some were called cormorants and some shags, depending on whether they had crests or not. Sometimes the same species is called a cormorant in one part of the world and a shag in another, e.g., the great cormorant is called the black shag in New Zealand (the birds found in Australasia have a crest that is absent in European members of the species). Van Tets (1976) proposed to divide the family into two genera and attach the name "cormorant" to one and "shag" to the other, but this flies in the face of common usage and has not been widely adopted.
+
+The scientific genus name is Latinised Ancient Greek, from φαλακρός (phalakros, "bald") and κόραξ (korax, "raven").[3] This is often thought to refer to the creamy white patch on the cheeks of adult great cormorants, or the ornamental white head plumes prominent in Mediterranean birds of this species, but is certainly not a unifying characteristic of cormorants. "Cormorant" is a contraction derived either directly from Latin corvus marinus, "sea raven" or through Brythonic Celtic. Cormoran is the Cornish name of the sea giant in the tale of Jack the Giant Killer. Indeed, "sea raven" or analogous terms were the usual terms for cormorants in Germanic languages until after the Middle Ages. The French explorer André Thévet commented in 1558, "... the beak [is] similar to that of a cormorant or other corvid," which demonstrates that the erroneous belief that the birds were related to ravens lasted at least to the 16th century.
+
+Cormorants and shags are medium-to-large seabirds. They range in size from the pygmy cormorant (Phalacrocorax pygmaeus), at as little as 45 cm (18 in) and 340 g (12 oz), to the flightless cormorant (Phalacrocorax harrisi), at a maximum size 100 cm (39 in) and 5 kg (11 lb). The recently extinct spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus) was rather larger, at an average size of 6.3 kg (14 lb). The majority, including nearly all Northern Hemisphere species, have mainly dark plumage, but some Southern Hemisphere species are black and white, and a few (e.g. the spotted shag of New Zealand) are quite colourful. Many species have areas of coloured skin on the face (the lores and the gular skin) which can be bright blue, orange, red or yellow, typically becoming more brightly coloured in the breeding season. The bill is long, thin, and sharply hooked. Their feet have webbing between all four toes, as in their relatives.
+
+They are coastal rather than oceanic birds, and some have colonised inland waters – indeed, the original ancestor of cormorants seems to have been a fresh-water bird, judging from the habitat of the most ancient lineage. They range around the world, except for the central Pacific islands.
+
+All are fish-eaters, dining on small eels, fish, and even water snakes. They dive from the surface, though many species make a characteristic half-jump as they dive, presumably to give themselves a more streamlined entry into the water. Under water they propel themselves with their feet, though some also propel themselves with their wings (see the picture,[4] commentary,[5] and existing reference video[6]). Some cormorant species have been found, using depth gauges, to dive to depths of as much as 45 metres (150 ft).
+
+After fishing, cormorants go ashore, and are frequently seen holding their wings out in the sun. All cormorants have preen gland secretions that are used ostensibly to keep the feathers waterproof. Some sources[7] state that cormorants have waterproof feathers while others say that they have water-permeable feathers.[8][9] Still others suggest that the outer plumage absorbs water but does not permit it to penetrate the layer of air next to the skin.[10] The wing drying action is seen even in the flightless cormorant but commonly in the Antarctic shags[11] and red-legged cormorants. Alternate functions suggested for the spread-wing posture include that it aids thermoregulation[12] or digestion, balances the bird, or indicates presence of fish. A detailed study of the great cormorant concludes that it is without doubt[13] to dry the plumage.[14][15]
+
+Cormorants are colonial nesters, using trees, rocky islets, or cliffs. The eggs are a chalky-blue colour. There is usually one brood a year. Parents regurgitate food to feed their young, whose deep, ungainly bills show a greater resemblance to those of the pelicans (to which they are related) than is obvious in the adults.
+
+The cormorants are a group traditionally placed within the Pelecaniformes or, in the Sibley–Ahlquist taxonomy, the expanded Ciconiiformes. This latter group is certainly not a natural one, and even after the tropicbirds have been recognised as quite distinct, the remaining Pelecaniformes seem not to be entirely monophyletic. Their relationships and delimitation – apart from being part of a "higher waterfowl" clade which is similar but not identical to Sibley and Ahlquist's "pan-Ciconiiformes" – remain mostly unresolved. Notwithstanding, all evidence agrees that the cormorants and shags are closer to the darters and Sulidae (gannets and boobies), and perhaps the pelicans or even penguins, than to all other living birds.[16]
+
+In recent years, three preferred treatments of the cormorant family have emerged: either to leave all living cormorants in a single genus, Phalacrocorax, or to split off a few species such as the imperial shag complex (in Leucocarbo) and perhaps the flightless cormorant. Alternatively, the genus may be disassembled altogether and in the most extreme case be reduced to the great, white-breasted and Japanese cormorants.[17]
+
+Pending a thorough review of the Recent and prehistoric cormorants, the single-genus approach[18] is followed here for three reasons: first, it is preferable to tentatively assigning genera without a robust hypothesis. Second, it makes it easier to deal with the fossil forms, the systematic treatment of which has been no less controversial than that of living cormorants and shags. Third, this scheme is also used by the IUCN,[19] making it easier to incorporate data on status and conservation. In accordance with the treatment there, the imperial shag complex is here left unsplit as well, but the king shag complex has been.
+
+The cormorants and the darters have a unique bone on the back of the top of the skull known as the os nuchale or occipital style which was called a xiphoid process in early literature. This bony projection provides anchorage for the muscles that increase the force with which the lower mandible is closed.[20][21] This bone and the highly developed muscles over it, the M. adductor mandibulae caput nuchale, are unique to the families Phalacrocoracidae and Anhingidae.[22][23]
+
+Several evolutionary groups are still recognizable. However, combining the available evidence suggests that there has also been a great deal of convergent evolution; for example the cliff shags are a convergent paraphyletic group. The proposed division into Phalacrocorax sensu stricto (or subfamily "Phalacrocoracinae") cormorants and Leucocarbo sensu lato (or "Leucocarboninae") shags[24] does indeed have some degree of merit.[25] The resolution provided by the mtDNA 12S rRNA and ATPase subunits six and eight sequence data[25] is not sufficient to properly resolve several groups to satisfaction; in addition, many species remain unsampled, the fossil record has not been integrated in the data, and the effects of hybridisation – known in some Pacific species especially – on the DNA sequence data are unstudied.
+
+The family contains three genera:[26] For details, see the article "List of cormorant species"
+
+Cormorants seem to be a very ancient group, with similar ancestors reaching back to the time of the dinosaurs. In fact, the earliest known modern bird, Gansus yumenensis, had essentially the same structure. The details of the evolution of the cormorant are mostly unknown. Even the technique of using the distribution and relationships of a species to figure out where it came from, biogeography, usually very informative, does not give very specific data for this probably rather ancient and widespread group. However, the closest living relatives of the cormorants and shags are the other families of the suborder Sulae—darters and gannets and boobies—which have a primarily Gondwanan distribution. Hence, at least the modern diversity of Sulae probably originated in the southern hemisphere.
+
+While the Leucocarbonines are almost certainly of southern Pacific origin—possibly even the Antarctic which, at the time when cormorants evolved, was not yet ice-covered—all that can be said about the Phalacrocoracines is that they are most diverse in the regions bordering the Indian Ocean, but generally occur over a large area.
+
+Similarly, the origin of the family is shrouded in uncertainties. Some Late Cretaceous fossils have been proposed to belong with the Phalacrocoracidae:
+A scapula from the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary, about 70 mya (million years ago), was found in the Nemegt Formation in Mongolia; it is now in the PIN collection.[27] It is from a bird roughly the size of a spectacled cormorant, and quite similar to the corresponding bone in Phalacrocorax. A Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous, c. 66 mya) right femur, AMNH FR 25272 from the Lance Formation near Lance Creek, Wyoming, is sometimes suggested to be the second-oldest record of the Phalacrocoracidae; this was from a rather smaller bird, about the size of a long-tailed cormorant.[28]
+
+As the Early Oligocene Sula" ronzoni cannot be assigned to any of the suloid families—cormorants and shags, darters, and gannets and boobies—with certainty, the best interpretation is that the Phalacrocoracidae diverged from their closest ancestors in the Early Oligocene, perhaps some 30 million years ago, and that the Cretaceous fossils represent ancestral suloids, "pelecaniforms" or "higher waterbirds"; at least the last lineage is generally believed to have been already distinct and undergoing evolutionary radiation at the end of the Cretaceous. What can be said with near certainty is that AMNH FR 25272 is from a diving bird that used its feet for underwater locomotion; as this is liable to result in some degree of convergent evolution and the bone is missing indisputable neornithine features, it is not entirely certain that the bone is correctly referred to this group.[29]
+
+During the late Paleogene, when the family presumably originated, much of Eurasia was covered by shallow seas, as the Indian Plate finally attached to the mainland. Lacking a detailed study, it may well be that the first "modern" cormorants were small species from eastern, south-eastern or southern Asia, possibly living in freshwater habitat, that dispersed due to tectonic events. Such a scenario would account for the present-day distribution of cormorants and shags and is not contradicted by the fossil record; as remarked above, a thorough review of the problem is not yet available.
+
+Two distinct genera of prehistoric cormorants are widely accepted today, if Phalacrocorax is used for all living species:
+
+The proposed genus Oligocorax appears to be paraphyletic – the European species have been separated in Nectornis, and the North American ones are placed in the expanded Phalacrocorax. A Late Oligocene fossil cormorant foot from Enspel, Germany, sometimes placed herein, would then be referable to Nectornis if it proves not to be too distinct. All these early European species might belong to the basal group of "microcormorants", as they conform with them in size and seem to have inhabited the same habitat: subtropical coastal or inland waters. Limicorallus, meanwhile, was initially believed to be a rail or a dabbling duck by some. There are also undescribed remains of apparent cormorants from the Quercy Phosphorites of Quercy (France), dating to some time between the Late Eocene and the mid-Oligocene.
+
+Some other Paleogene remains are sometimes assigned to the Phalacrocoracidae, but these birds seem quite intermediate between cormorants and darters (and lack clear autapomorphies of either). Thus, they may be quite basal members of the Palacrocoracoidea. The taxa in question are:
+
+The supposed Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene "Valenticarbo" is a nomen dubium and given its recent age probably not a separate genus.
+
+The remaining species are, in accordance with the scheme used in this article, all placed in the modern genus Phalacrocorax:
+
+The former "Phalacrocorax" (or "Oligocorax") mediterraneus is now considered to belong to the bathornithid Paracrax antiqua.[32] "P." subvolans was actually a darter (Anhinga).
+
+Humans have used cormorants' fishing skills in various places in the world. Archaeological evidence suggests that cormorant fishing was practiced in Ancient Egypt, Peru, Korea and India, but the strongest tradition has remained in China and Japan, where it reached commercial-scale level in some areas.[33] In Japan, cormorant fishing is called ukai (鵜飼). Traditional forms of ukai can be seen on the Nagara River in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, where cormorant fishing has continued uninterrupted for 1300 years, or in the city of Inuyama, Aichi. In Guilin, Guangxi, cormorants are famous for fishing on the shallow Li River. In Gifu, the Japanese cormorant (P. capillatus) is used; Chinese fishermen often employ great cormorants (P. carbo).[34] In Europe, a similar practice was also used on Doiran Lake in the region of Macedonia.[35]
+
+In a common technique, a snare is tied near the base of the bird's throat, which allows the bird only to swallow small fish. When the bird captures and tries to swallow a large fish, the fish is caught in the bird's throat. When the bird returns to the fisherman's raft, the fisherman helps the bird to remove the fish from its throat. The method is not as common today, since more efficient methods of catching fish have been developed, but is still practiced as a cultural tradition.[34][33]
+
+Cormorants feature in heraldry and medieval ornamentation, usually in their "wing-drying" pose, which was seen as representing the Christian cross, and symbolizing nobility and sacrifice. For John Milton in Paradise Lost, the cormorant symbolizes greed: perched atop the Tree of Life, Satan took the form of a cormorant as he spied on Adam and Eve during his first intrusion into Eden.[36]
+
+In some Scandinavian areas, they are considered good omen; in particular, in Norwegian tradition spirits of those lost at sea come to visit their loved ones disguised as cormorants.[36] For example, the Norwegian municipalities of Røst, Loppa and Skjervøy have cormorants in their coat of arms. The symbolic liver bird of Liverpool is commonly thought to be a cross between an eagle and a cormorant.
+
+In 1853, a woman wearing a dress made of cormorant feathers was found on San Nicolas Island, off the southern coast of California. She had sewn the feather dress together using whale sinews. She is known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas and was later baptised "Juana Maria" (her original name is lost). The woman had lived alone on the island for 18 years before being rescued. When removed from San Nicolas, she brought with her a green cormorant dress she made; this dress is reported to have been removed to the Vatican.[citation needed]
+
+The bird has inspired numerous writers, including Amy Clampitt, who wrote a poem called "The Cormorant in its Element". The species she described may have been the pelagic cormorant, which is the only species in the temperate U.S. with the "slim head ... vermilion-strapped" and "big black feet" that she mentions.[citation needed]
+
+A cormorant representing Blanche Ingram appears in the first of the fictional paintings by Jane in Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre.[citation needed]
+
+A cormorant is humorously mentioned as having had linseed oil rubbed into it by a wayward pupil during the "Growth and Learning" segment of the 1983 Monty Python movie Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.[citation needed]
+
+The cormorant served as the hood ornament for the Packard automobile brand.[37]
+
+Cormorants (and books about them written by a fictional ornithologist) are a recurring fascination of the protagonist in Jesse Ball's 2018 novel Census.
+
+The Pokémon Cramorant, featured in the 8th generation of the video game series may take its name and design from a cormorant.

en/1321.html.txt

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+A lighthouse is a tower, building, or another type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
+
+Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation.  Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of cheaper and often much more effective electronic navigational systems.
+
+Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse.[1] In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs and promontories, unlike many modern lighthouses. The most famous lighthouse structure from antiquity was the Pharos of Alexandria, Egypt, which collapsed following a series of earthquakes between 956 and 1323.
+
+The intact Tower of Hercules at A Coruña, Spain gives insight into ancient lighthouse construction; other evidence about lighthouses exists in depictions on coins and mosaics, of which many represent the lighthouse at Ostia. Coins from Alexandria, Ostia, and Laodicea in Syria also exist.
+
+The modern era of lighthouses began at the turn of the 18th century, as lighthouse construction boomed in lockstep with burgeoning levels of transatlantic commerce. Advances in structural engineering and new and efficient lighting equipment allowed for the creation of larger and more powerful lighthouses, including ones exposed to the sea. The function of lighthouses shifted toward the provision of a visible warning against shipping hazards, such as rocks or reefs.
+
+The Eddystone Rocks were a major shipwreck hazard for mariners sailing through the English Channel.[2] The first lighthouse built there was an octagonal wooden structure, anchored by 12 iron stanchions secured in the rock, and was built by Henry Winstanley from 1696 to 1698. His lighthouse was the first tower in the world to have been fully exposed to the open sea.[3]
+
+The civil engineer, John Smeaton, rebuilt the lighthouse from 1756–59;[4] his tower marked a major step forward in the design of lighthouses and remained in use until 1877. He modeled the shape of his lighthouse on that of an oak tree, using granite blocks. He rediscovered and used "hydraulic lime", a form of concrete that will set under water used by the Romans, and developed a technique of securing the granite blocks together using dovetail joints and marble dowels.[5] The dovetailing feature served to improve the structural stability, although Smeaton also had to taper the thickness of the tower towards the top, for which he curved the tower inwards on a gentle gradient. This profile had the added advantage of allowing some of the energy of the waves to dissipate on impact with the walls. His lighthouse was the prototype for the modern lighthouse and influenced all subsequent engineers.[6]
+
+One such influence was Robert Stevenson, himself a seminal figure in the development of lighthouse design and construction.[7] His greatest achievement was the construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse in 1810, one of the most impressive feats of engineering of the age. This structure was based upon Smeaton's design, but with several improved features, such as the incorporation of rotating lights, alternating between red and white.[8] Stevenson worked for the Northern Lighthouse Board for nearly fifty years[7] during which time he designed and oversaw the construction and later improvement of numerous lighthouses. He innovated in the choice of light sources, mountings, reflector design, the use of Fresnel lenses, and in rotation and shuttering systems providing lighthouses with individual signatures allowing them to be identified by seafarers. He also invented the movable jib and the balance-crane as a necessary part for lighthouse construction.
+
+Alexander Mitchell designed the first screw-pile lighthouse – his lighthouse was built on piles that were screwed into the sandy or muddy seabed. Construction of his design began in 1838 at the mouth of the Thames and was known as the Maplin Sands lighthouse, and first lit in 1841.[9] Although its construction began later, the Wyre Light in Fleetwood, Lancashire, was the first to be lit (in 1840).[9]
+
+The Vittoria Light in Trieste it is one of the tallest lighthouses in the world.[10]
+
+The source of illumination had generally been wood pyres or burning coal. The Argand lamp, invented in 1782 by the Swiss scientist, Aimé Argand, revolutionized lighthouse illumination with its steady smokeless flame. Early models used ground glass which was sometimes tinted around the wick. Later models used a mantle of thorium dioxide suspended over the flame, creating a bright, steady light.[11] The Argand lamp used whale oil, colza, olive oil[12] or other vegetable oil as fuel which was supplied by a gravity feed from a reservoir mounted above the burner. The lamp was first produced by Matthew Boulton, in partnership with Argand, in 1784 and became the standard for lighthouses for over a century.
+
+South Foreland Lighthouse was the first tower to successfully use an electric light in 1875. The lighthouse's carbon arc lamps were powered by a steam-driven magneto.[13] John Richardson Wigham was the first to develop a system for gas illumination of lighthouses. His improved gas 'crocus' burner at the Baily Lighthouse near Dublin was 13 times more powerful than the most brilliant light then known.[14]
+
+The vaporized oil burner was invented in 1901 by Arthur Kitson, and improved by David Hood at Trinity House. The fuel was vaporized at high pressure and burned to heat the mantle, giving an output of over six times the luminosity of traditional oil lights. The use of gas as illuminant became widely available with the invention of the Dalén light by Swedish engineer, Gustaf Dalén. He used Agamassan (Aga), a substrate, to absorb the gas allowing safe storage and hence commercial exploitation. Dalén also invented the 'sun valve', which automatically regulated the light and turned it off during the daytime. The technology was the predominant form of light source in lighthouses from the 1900s through the 1960s, when electric lighting had become dominant.[15]
+
+With the development of the steady illumination of the Argand lamp, the application of optical lenses to increase and focus the light intensity became a practical possibility. William Hutchinson developed the first practical optical system in 1763, known as a catoptric system. This rudimentary system effectively collimated the emitted light into a concentrated beam, thereby greatly increasing the light's visibility.[16] The ability to focus the light led to the first revolving lighthouse beams, where the light would appear to the mariners as a series of intermittent flashes. It also became possible to transmit complex signals using the light flashes.
+
+French physicist and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel developed the multi-part Fresnel lens for use in lighthouses. His design allowed for the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length, without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. A Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. A Fresnel lens can also capture more oblique light from a light source, thus allowing the light from a lighthouse equipped with one to be visible over greater distances.
+
+The first Fresnel lens was used in 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde estuary; its light could be seen from more than 20 miles (32 km) out.[17] Fresnel's invention increased the luminosity of the lighthouse lamp by a factor of four and his system is still in common use.
+
+The advent of electrification, and automatic lamp changers began to make lighthouse keepers obsolete. For many years, lighthouses still had keepers, partly because lighthouse keepers could serve as a rescue service if necessary. Improvements in maritime navigation and safety such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) have led to the phasing out of non-automated lighthouses across the world.[18] In Canada, this trend has been stopped and there are still 50 staffed light stations, with 27 on the west coast alone.[19]
+
+Remaining modern lighthouses are usually illuminated by a single stationary flashing light powered by solar-charged batteries mounted on a steel skeleton tower.[20] Where the power requirement is too great for solar power, cycle charging by diesel generator is used: to save fuel and to increase periods between maintenance the light is battery powered, with the generator only coming into use when the battery has to be charged.[21]
+
+John Smeaton is noteworthy for having designed the third and most famous Eddystone Lighthouse, but some builders are well known for their work in building multiple lighthouses. The Stevenson family (Robert, Alan, David, Thomas, David Alan, and Charles) made lighthouse building a three-generation profession in Scotland. Irishman Alexander Mitchell invented and built a number of screwpile lighthouses despite his blindness. Englishman James Douglass was knighted for his work on lighthouses.
+
+United States Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant George Meade built numerous lighthouses along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts before gaining wider fame as the winning general at the Battle of Gettysburg.  Colonel Orlando M. Poe, engineer to General William Tecumseh Sherman in the Siege of Atlanta, designed and built some of the most exotic lighthouses in the most difficult locations on the U.S. Great Lakes.[22]
+
+French merchant navy officer Marius Michel Pasha built almost a hundred lighthouses along the coasts of the Ottoman Empire in a period of twenty years after the Crimean War (1853–1856).[23]
+
+In a lighthouse, the source of light is called the "lamp" (whether electric or fuelled by oil) and the concentration of the light is by the "lens" or "optic". Originally lit by open fires and later candles, the Argand hollow wick lamp and parabolic reflector were introduced in the late 18th century.
+
+Whale oil was also used with wicks as the source of light. Kerosene became popular in the 1870s and electricity and carbide (acetylene gas) began replacing kerosene around the turn of the 20th century.[20] Carbide was promoted by the Dalén light which automatically lit the lamp at nightfall and extinguished it at dawn.
+
+During the Cold-War, many remote Soviet lighthouses were powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs). These had the advantage of providing power day or night and did not need refuelling or maintenance. However, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, there are no official records of the locations or condition of all of these lighthouses.[24] As time passes, their condition is degrading; many have fallen victim to vandalism and scrap metal thieves, who may not be aware of the dangerous radioactive contents.[25]
+
+Before modern strobe lights, lenses were used to concentrate the light from a continuous source.  Vertical light rays of the lamp are redirected into a horizontal plane, and horizontally the light is focused into one or a few directions at a time, with the light beam swept around. As a result, in addition to seeing the side of the light beam, the light is directly visible from greater distances, and with an identifying light characteristic.
+
+This concentration of light is accomplished with a rotating lens assembly. In early lighthouses, the light source was a kerosene lamp or, earlier, an animal or vegetable oil Argand lamp, and the lenses rotated by a weight driven clockwork assembly wound by lighthouse keepers, sometimes as often as every two hours. The lens assembly sometimes floated in liquid mercury to reduce friction.  In more modern lighthouses, electric lights and motor drives were used, generally powered by diesel electric generators. These also supplied electricity for the lighthouse keepers.[20]
+
+Efficiently concentrating the light from a large omnidirectional light source requires a very large diameter lens. This would require a very thick and heavy lens if a conventional lens were used.  The Fresnel lens (pronounced /freɪˈnɛl/) focused 85% of a lamp's light versus the 20% focused with the parabolic reflectors of the time. Its design enabled construction of lenses of large size and short focal length without the weight and volume of material in conventional lens designs.[26]
+
+Fresnel lighthouse lenses are ranked by order, a measure of refracting power, with a first order lens being the largest, most powerful and expensive; and a sixth order lens being the smallest.  The order is based on the focal length of the lens. A first order lens has the longest focal length, with the sixth being the shortest. Coastal lighthouses generally use first, second, or third order lenses, while harbor lights and beacons use fourth, fifth, or sixth order lenses.[27]
+
+Some lighthouses, such as those at Cape Race, Newfoundland, and Makapuu Point, Hawaii, used a more powerful hyperradiant Fresnel lens manufactured by the firm of Chance Brothers.
+
+In recent times, many Fresnel lenses have been replaced by rotating aerobeacons which require less maintenance.  In modern automated lighthouses, this system of rotating lenses is often replaced by a high intensity light that emits brief omnidirectional flashes (concentrating the light in time rather than direction). These lights are similar to obstruction lights used to warn aircraft of tall structures. Recent innovations are "Vega Lights", and initial experiments with light-emitting diode (LED) panels.[20]
+
+Experimental installations of laser lights, either at high power to provide a "line of light" in the sky or, utilising low power, aimed towards mariners have identified problems of increased complexity in installation and maintenance, and high power requirements.[28]
+
+In any of these designs an observer, rather than seeing a continuous weak light, sees a brighter light during short time intervals. These instants of bright light are arranged to create a light characteristic or pattern specific to a lighthouse.[29] For example, the Scheveningen Lighthouse flashes are alternately 2.5 and 7.5 seconds. Some lights have sectors of a particular color (usually formed by colored panes in the lantern) to distinguish safe water areas from dangerous shoals. Modern lighthouses often have unique reflectors or Racon transponders so the radar signature of the light is also unique.
+
+While lighthouse buildings differ depending on the location and purpose, they tend to have common components.
+
+A light station comprises the lighthouse tower and all outbuildings, such as the keeper's living quarters, fuel house, boathouse, and fog-signaling building. The Lighthouse itself consists of a tower structure supporting the lantern room where the light operates.
+
+The lantern room is the glassed-in housing at the top of a lighthouse tower containing the lamp and lens. Its glass storm panes are supported by metal Astragal bars running vertically or diagonally. At the top of the lantern room is a stormproof ventilator designed to remove the smoke of the lamps and the heat that builds in the glass enclosure. A lightning rod and grounding system connected to the metal cupola roof provides a safe conduit for any lightning strikes.
+
+Immediately beneath the lantern room is usually a Watch Room or Service Room where fuel and other supplies were kept and where the keeper prepared the lanterns for the night and often stood watch. The clockworks (for rotating the lenses) were also located there. On a lighthouse tower, an open platform called the gallery is often located outside the watch room (called the Main Gallery) or Lantern Room (Lantern Gallery). This was mainly used for cleaning the outside of the windows of the Lantern Room.[30]
+
+Lighthouses near to each other that are similar in shape are often painted in a unique pattern so they can easily be recognized during daylight, a marking known as a daymark. The black and white barber pole spiral pattern of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is one example. Race Rocks Light in western Canada is painted in horizontal black and white bands to stand out against the horizon.
+
+For effectiveness, the lamp must be high enough to be seen before the danger is reached by a mariner. The minimum height is calculated by trigonometric formula 
+
+
+
+d
+=
+1.17
+
+
+H
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle d=1.17{\sqrt {H}}}
+
+ where H is the height above water in feet, and d is the distance to the horizon in nautical miles.[31]
+
+Where dangerous shoals are located far off a flat sandy beach, the prototypical tall masonry coastal lighthouse is constructed to assist the navigator making a landfall after an ocean crossing.  Often these are cylindrical to reduce the effect of wind on a tall structure, such as Cape May Light. Smaller versions of this design are often used as harbor lights to mark the entrance into a harbor, such as New London Harbor Light.
+
+Where a tall cliff exists, a smaller structure may be placed on top such as at Horton Point Light. Sometimes, such a location can be too high, for example along the west coast of the United States, where frequent low clouds can obscure the light. In these cases, lighthouses are placed below clifftop to ensure that they can still be seen at the surface during periods of fog or low clouds, as at Point Reyes Lighthouse. Another victim of fog was the Old Point Loma lighthouse, which was replaced in 1891 with a lower lighthouse, New Point Loma lighthouse.
+
+As technology advanced, prefabricated skeletal iron or steel structures tended to be used for lighthouses constructed in the 20th century. These often have a narrow cylindrical core surrounded by an open lattice work bracing, such as Finns Point Range Light.
+
+Sometimes a lighthouse needs to be constructed in the water itself.  Wave-washed lighthouses are masonry structures constructed to withstand water impact, such as Eddystone Lighthouse in Britain and the St. George Reef Light of California.  In shallower bays, Screw-pile lighthouse ironwork structures are screwed into the seabed and a low wooden structure is placed above the open framework, such as Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse. As screw piles can be disrupted by ice, steel caisson lighthouses such as Orient Point Light are used in cold climates.  Orient Long Beach Bar Light (Bug Light) is a blend of a screw pile light that was converted to a caisson light because of the threat of ice damage.[32]
+
+In waters too deep for a conventional structure, a lightship might be used instead of a lighthouse, such as the former lightship Columbia.  Most of these have now been replaced by fixed light platforms (such as Ambrose Light) similar to those used for offshore oil exploration.[33]
+
+Aligning two fixed points on land provides a navigator with a line of position called a range in North America and a transit in Britain. Ranges can be used to precisely align a vessel within a narrow channel such as a river. With landmarks of a range illuminated with a set of fixed lighthouses, nighttime navigation is possible.
+
+Such paired lighthouses are called range lights in North America and leading lights in the United Kingdom. The closer light is referred to as the beacon or front range; the further light is called the rear range. The rear range light is almost always taller than the front.
+
+When a vessel is on the correct course, the two lights align vertically, but when the observer is out of position, the difference in alignment indicates the direction of travel to correct the course.
+
+There are two types of lighthouses: ones that are located on land, and ones that are offshore. A land lighthouse is simply a lighthouse constructed to aid navigation over land, rather than water. Historically, they were constructed in areas of flatland where the featureless landscape and prevailing weather conditions (e.g. winter fog) might cause travelers to become easily disorientated and lost. In such a landscape a high tower with a bright lantern could be visible for many miles.
+
+One example of such a structure is Dunston Pillar, an 18th-century tower built to help travelers crossing the heathland of mid-Lincolnshire and to lessen the danger to them from highwaymen. Due to general improvements in transport and navigation throughout the 19th century, land lighthouses became almost totally obsolete as aids to travelers in remote places.
+
+Offshore Lighthouses are lighthouses that are not close to land.[34] There can be a number of reasons for these lighthouses to be built.  There can be a shoal, reef or submerged island several miles from land.
+
+The current Cordouan Lighthouse was completed in 1611 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from the shore on a small islet, but was built on a previous lighthouse that can be traced back to 880 and is the oldest surviving lighthouse in France. It is connected to the mainland by a causeway. The oldest surviving oceanic offshore lighthouse is Bell Rock Lighthouse in the North Sea, off the coast of Scotland.[35]
+
+In the United States, lighthouses are maintained by the United States Coast Guard (USCG).[36]
+Those in England and Wales are looked after by Trinity House; in Scotland, by the Northern Lighthouse Board; and in Ireland by the Commissioners of Irish Lights. In Canada, they are managed by the Canadian Coast Guard. In Australia, lighthouses are conducted by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
+
+The Soviet Union built a number of automated lighthouses powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators in remote locations. They operated for long periods without external support with great reliability.[37] However numerous installations deteriorated, were stolen, or vandalized. Some cannot be found due to poor record keeping.[38]
+
+In India (Bharat), Lighthouses are maintained by Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships which comes under the Ministry of Shipping.[39]
+
+As lighthouses became less essential to navigation, many of their historic structures faced demolition or neglect. In the United States, the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000 provides for the transfer of lighthouse structures to local governments and private non-profit groups, while the USCG continues to maintain the lamps and lenses. In Canada, the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society won heritage status for Sambro Island Lighthouse, and sponsored the Heritage Lighthouse Protection Act to change Canadian federal laws to protect lighthouses.[40]
+
+Many groups formed to restore and save lighthouses around the world. They include the World Lighthouse Society and the United States Lighthouse Society.[41] A further international group is the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society, which sends amateur radio operators to publicize the preservation of remote lighthouses throughout the world.[42]
+
+Lighthouses were once regarded as an archetypal public good, because ships could benefit from the light without being forced to pay.

en/1322.html.txt

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+The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. The cornea, with the anterior chamber and lens, refracts light, with the cornea accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical power.[1][2] In humans, the refractive power of the cornea is approximately 43 dioptres.[3] The cornea can be reshaped by surgical procedures such as LASIK.[4]
+
+While the cornea contributes most of the eye's focusing power, its focus is fixed. Accommodation (the refocusing of light to better view near objects) is accomplished by changing the geometry of the lens.  Medical terms related to the cornea often start with the prefix "kerat-" from the Greek word κέρας, horn.
+
+The cornea has unmyelinated nerve endings sensitive to touch, temperature and chemicals; a touch of the cornea causes an involuntary reflex to close the eyelid. Because transparency is of prime importance, the healthy cornea does not have or need blood vessels within it. Instead, oxygen dissolves in tears and then diffuses throughout the cornea to keep it healthy.[5] Similarly, nutrients are transported via diffusion from the tear fluid through the outside surface and the aqueous humour through the inside surface. Nutrients also come via neurotrophins supplied by the nerves of the cornea. In humans, the cornea has a diameter of about 11.5 mm and a thickness of 0.5–0.6 mm in the center and 0.6–0.8 mm at the periphery. Transparency, avascularity, the presence of immature resident immune cells, and immunologic privilege makes the cornea a very special tissue.
+
+The most abundant soluble protein in mammalian cornea is albumin.[6]
+
+The human cornea borders with the sclera via the corneal limbus. In lampreys, the cornea is solely an extension of the sclera, and is separate from the skin above it, but in more advanced vertebrates it is always fused with the skin to form a single structure, albeit one composed of multiple layers. In fish, and aquatic vertebrates in general, the cornea plays no role in focusing light, since it has virtually the same refractive index as water.[7]
+
+The human cornea has five layers (possibly six, if the Dua's layer is included).[8] Corneas of other primates have five known layers. The corneas of cats, dogs, wolves, and other carnivores only have four.[9] From the anterior to posterior the layers of the human cornea are:
+
+The cornea is one of the most sensitive tissues of the body, as it is densely innervated with sensory nerve fibres via the ophthalmic division of the trigeminal nerve by way of 70–80 long ciliary nerves. Research suggests the density of pain receptors in the cornea is 300-600 times greater than skin and 20-40 times greater than dental pulp,[15] making any injury to the structure excruciatingly painful.[16]
+
+The ciliary nerves run under the endothelium and exit the eye through holes in the sclera apart from the optic nerve (which transmits only optic signals).[10] The nerves enter the cornea via three levels; scleral, episcleral and conjunctival. Most of the bundles give rise by subdivision to a network in the stroma, from which fibres supply the different regions. The three networks are, midstromal, subepithelial/sub-basal, and epithelial. The receptive fields of each nerve ending are very large, and may overlap.
+
+Corneal nerves of the subepithelial layer terminate near the superficial epithelial layer of the cornea in a logarithmic spiral pattern.[17] The density of epithelial nerves decreases with age, especially after the seventh decade.[18]
+
+The optical component is concerned with producing a reduced inverted image on the retina. The eye's optical system consists of not only two but four surfaces—two on the cornea, two on the lens. Rays are refracted toward the midline. Distant rays, due to their parallel nature, converge to a point on the retina. The cornea admits light at the greatest angle. The aqueous and vitreous humors both have a refractive index of 1.336-1.339, whereas the cornea has a refractive index of 1.376. Because the change in refractive index between cornea and aqueous humor is relatively small compared to the change at the air–cornea interface, it has a negligible refractive effect, typically -6 dioptres.[10] The cornea is considered to be a positive meniscus lens.[19] In some animals, such as species of birds, chameleons and a species of fish, the cornea can also focus.[20]
+
+Upon death or removal of an eye the cornea absorbs the aqueous humor, thickens, and becomes hazy. Transparency can be restored by putting it in a warm, well-ventilated chamber at 31 °C (88 °F, the normal temperature), allowing the fluid to leave the cornea and become transparent. The cornea takes in fluid from the aqueous humor and the small blood vessels of the limbus, but a pump ejects the fluid immediately upon entry. When energy is deficient the pump may fail, or function too slowly to compensate, leading to swelling. This arises at death, but a dead eye can be placed in a warm chamber with a reservoir of sugar and glycogen that generally keeps the cornea transparent for at least 24 hours.[10]
+
+The endothelium controls this pumping action, and as discussed above, damage thereof is more serious, and is a cause of opaqueness and swelling. When damage to the cornea occurs, such as in a viral infection, the collagen used to repair the process is not regularly arranged, leading to an opaque patch (leukoma). When a cornea is needed for transplant, as from an eye bank, the best procedure is to remove the cornea from the eyeball, preventing the cornea from absorbing the aqueous humor.[10]
+
+The most common corneal disorders are the following:
+
+Various refractive eye surgery techniques change the shape of the cornea in order to reduce the need for corrective lenses or otherwise improve the refractive state of the eye. In many of the techniques used today, reshaping of the cornea is performed by photoablation using the excimer laser.
+
+If the corneal stroma develops visually significant opacity, irregularity, or edema, a cornea of a deceased donor can be transplanted. Because there are no blood vessels in the cornea, there are also few problems with rejection of the new cornea.
+
+There are also synthetic corneas (keratoprostheses) in development.  Most are merely plastic inserts, but there are also those composed of biocompatible synthetic materials that encourage tissue ingrowth into the synthetic cornea, thereby promoting biointegration. Other methods, such as magnetic deformable membranes[22] and optically coherent transcranial magnetic stimulation of the human retina[23] are still in very early stages of research.
+
+Orthokeratology is a method using specialized hard or rigid gas-permeable contact lenses to transiently reshape the cornea in order to improve the refractive state of the eye or reduce the need for eyeglasses and contact lenses.
+
+In 2009, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical center demonstrated that stem cell collected from human corneas can restore transparency without provoking a rejection response in mice with corneal damage.[24] For corneal epithelial diseases such as Stevens Johnson Syndrome, persistent corneal ulcer etc., the autologous contralateral (normal) suprabasal limbus derived in vitro expanded corneal limbal stem cells are found to be effective[25]  as amniotic membrane based expansion is controversial.[26] For endothelial diseases, such as bullous keratopathy, cadaver corneal endothelial precursor cells have been proven to be efficient. Recently emerging tissue engineering technologies are expected to be capable of making one cadaver-donor's corneal cells be expanded and be usable in more than one patient's eye.[27][28]
+
+The majority of ocular therapeutic agents are administered to the eye via the topical route. Cornea is one of the main barriers for drug diffusion because of its highly impermeable nature. Its continuous irrigation with a tear fluid also results in poor retention of the therapeutic agents on the ocular surface. Poor permeability of the cornea and quick wash out of therapeutic agents from ocular surface result in very low bioavailability of the drugs administered via topical route (typically less than 5%). Poor retention of formulations on ocular surfaces could potentially be improved with the use of mucoadhesive polymers.[29] Drug permeability through the cornea could be facilitated with addition of penetration enhancers into topical formulations.[30]

en/1323.html.txt

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+The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye that covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. The cornea, with the anterior chamber and lens, refracts light, with the cornea accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical power.[1][2] In humans, the refractive power of the cornea is approximately 43 dioptres.[3] The cornea can be reshaped by surgical procedures such as LASIK.[4]
+
+While the cornea contributes most of the eye's focusing power, its focus is fixed. Accommodation (the refocusing of light to better view near objects) is accomplished by changing the geometry of the lens.  Medical terms related to the cornea often start with the prefix "kerat-" from the Greek word κέρας, horn.
+
+The cornea has unmyelinated nerve endings sensitive to touch, temperature and chemicals; a touch of the cornea causes an involuntary reflex to close the eyelid. Because transparency is of prime importance, the healthy cornea does not have or need blood vessels within it. Instead, oxygen dissolves in tears and then diffuses throughout the cornea to keep it healthy.[5] Similarly, nutrients are transported via diffusion from the tear fluid through the outside surface and the aqueous humour through the inside surface. Nutrients also come via neurotrophins supplied by the nerves of the cornea. In humans, the cornea has a diameter of about 11.5 mm and a thickness of 0.5–0.6 mm in the center and 0.6–0.8 mm at the periphery. Transparency, avascularity, the presence of immature resident immune cells, and immunologic privilege makes the cornea a very special tissue.
+
+The most abundant soluble protein in mammalian cornea is albumin.[6]
+
+The human cornea borders with the sclera via the corneal limbus. In lampreys, the cornea is solely an extension of the sclera, and is separate from the skin above it, but in more advanced vertebrates it is always fused with the skin to form a single structure, albeit one composed of multiple layers. In fish, and aquatic vertebrates in general, the cornea plays no role in focusing light, since it has virtually the same refractive index as water.[7]
+
+The human cornea has five layers (possibly six, if the Dua's layer is included).[8] Corneas of other primates have five known layers. The corneas of cats, dogs, wolves, and other carnivores only have four.[9] From the anterior to posterior the layers of the human cornea are:
+
+The cornea is one of the most sensitive tissues of the body, as it is densely innervated with sensory nerve fibres via the ophthalmic division of the trigeminal nerve by way of 70–80 long ciliary nerves. Research suggests the density of pain receptors in the cornea is 300-600 times greater than skin and 20-40 times greater than dental pulp,[15] making any injury to the structure excruciatingly painful.[16]
+
+The ciliary nerves run under the endothelium and exit the eye through holes in the sclera apart from the optic nerve (which transmits only optic signals).[10] The nerves enter the cornea via three levels; scleral, episcleral and conjunctival. Most of the bundles give rise by subdivision to a network in the stroma, from which fibres supply the different regions. The three networks are, midstromal, subepithelial/sub-basal, and epithelial. The receptive fields of each nerve ending are very large, and may overlap.
+
+Corneal nerves of the subepithelial layer terminate near the superficial epithelial layer of the cornea in a logarithmic spiral pattern.[17] The density of epithelial nerves decreases with age, especially after the seventh decade.[18]
+
+The optical component is concerned with producing a reduced inverted image on the retina. The eye's optical system consists of not only two but four surfaces—two on the cornea, two on the lens. Rays are refracted toward the midline. Distant rays, due to their parallel nature, converge to a point on the retina. The cornea admits light at the greatest angle. The aqueous and vitreous humors both have a refractive index of 1.336-1.339, whereas the cornea has a refractive index of 1.376. Because the change in refractive index between cornea and aqueous humor is relatively small compared to the change at the air–cornea interface, it has a negligible refractive effect, typically -6 dioptres.[10] The cornea is considered to be a positive meniscus lens.[19] In some animals, such as species of birds, chameleons and a species of fish, the cornea can also focus.[20]
+
+Upon death or removal of an eye the cornea absorbs the aqueous humor, thickens, and becomes hazy. Transparency can be restored by putting it in a warm, well-ventilated chamber at 31 °C (88 °F, the normal temperature), allowing the fluid to leave the cornea and become transparent. The cornea takes in fluid from the aqueous humor and the small blood vessels of the limbus, but a pump ejects the fluid immediately upon entry. When energy is deficient the pump may fail, or function too slowly to compensate, leading to swelling. This arises at death, but a dead eye can be placed in a warm chamber with a reservoir of sugar and glycogen that generally keeps the cornea transparent for at least 24 hours.[10]
+
+The endothelium controls this pumping action, and as discussed above, damage thereof is more serious, and is a cause of opaqueness and swelling. When damage to the cornea occurs, such as in a viral infection, the collagen used to repair the process is not regularly arranged, leading to an opaque patch (leukoma). When a cornea is needed for transplant, as from an eye bank, the best procedure is to remove the cornea from the eyeball, preventing the cornea from absorbing the aqueous humor.[10]
+
+The most common corneal disorders are the following:
+
+Various refractive eye surgery techniques change the shape of the cornea in order to reduce the need for corrective lenses or otherwise improve the refractive state of the eye. In many of the techniques used today, reshaping of the cornea is performed by photoablation using the excimer laser.
+
+If the corneal stroma develops visually significant opacity, irregularity, or edema, a cornea of a deceased donor can be transplanted. Because there are no blood vessels in the cornea, there are also few problems with rejection of the new cornea.
+
+There are also synthetic corneas (keratoprostheses) in development.  Most are merely plastic inserts, but there are also those composed of biocompatible synthetic materials that encourage tissue ingrowth into the synthetic cornea, thereby promoting biointegration. Other methods, such as magnetic deformable membranes[22] and optically coherent transcranial magnetic stimulation of the human retina[23] are still in very early stages of research.
+
+Orthokeratology is a method using specialized hard or rigid gas-permeable contact lenses to transiently reshape the cornea in order to improve the refractive state of the eye or reduce the need for eyeglasses and contact lenses.
+
+In 2009, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical center demonstrated that stem cell collected from human corneas can restore transparency without provoking a rejection response in mice with corneal damage.[24] For corneal epithelial diseases such as Stevens Johnson Syndrome, persistent corneal ulcer etc., the autologous contralateral (normal) suprabasal limbus derived in vitro expanded corneal limbal stem cells are found to be effective[25]  as amniotic membrane based expansion is controversial.[26] For endothelial diseases, such as bullous keratopathy, cadaver corneal endothelial precursor cells have been proven to be efficient. Recently emerging tissue engineering technologies are expected to be capable of making one cadaver-donor's corneal cells be expanded and be usable in more than one patient's eye.[27][28]
+
+The majority of ocular therapeutic agents are administered to the eye via the topical route. Cornea is one of the main barriers for drug diffusion because of its highly impermeable nature. Its continuous irrigation with a tear fluid also results in poor retention of the therapeutic agents on the ocular surface. Poor permeability of the cornea and quick wash out of therapeutic agents from ocular surface result in very low bioavailability of the drugs administered via topical route (typically less than 5%). Poor retention of formulations on ocular surfaces could potentially be improved with the use of mucoadhesive polymers.[29] Drug permeability through the cornea could be facilitated with addition of penetration enhancers into topical formulations.[30]

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+
+
+An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such.[4] The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. This was followed by the confirmation of a different planet, originally detected in 1988. As of 1 July 2020, there are 4,281 confirmed exoplanets in 3,163 systems, with 701 systems having more than one planet.[5]
+
+There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone.[6] In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star.[7] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[c][8][9] Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.[10]
+
+The least massive planet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b,[11][12] about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium[13]), it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from a few hours (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. There is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist.[14][15] The nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.[16]
+
+The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life.[17]
+
+Rogue planets do not orbit any star. Such objects are considered as a separate category of planet, especially if they are gas giants, which are often counted as sub-brown dwarfs.[18] The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions or more.[19][20]
+
+The convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the IAU designation is formed by taking the designated or proper name of its parent star, and adding a lower case letter.[22] Letters are given in order of each planet's discovery around the parent star, so that the first planet discovered in a system is designated "b" (the parent star is considered to be "a") and later planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist.
+
+For centuries scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of knowing whether they existed, how common they were, or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers.
+
+The first evidence of a possible exoplanet, orbiting Van Maanen 2, was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such. The astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, who later became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, produced a spectrum of the star using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope. He interpreted the spectrum to be of an F-type main-sequence star, but it is now thought that such a spectrum could be caused by the residue of a nearby exoplanet that had been pulverized into dust by the gravity of the star, the resulting dust then falling onto the star.[4]
+
+The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmation of detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[23] The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. In February 2018, researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with a planet detection technique called microlensing, found evidence of planets in a distant galaxy, stating "Some of these exoplanets are as (relatively) small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not tightly bound to stars, so they're actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars. We can estimate that the number of planets in this [faraway] galaxy is more than a trillion.[24]
+
+This space we declare to be infinite... In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.
+
+In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun (heliocentrism), put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets.
+
+In the eighteenth century, the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."[26]
+
+In 1952, more than 40 years before the first hot Jupiter was discovered, Otto Struve wrote that there is no compelling reason why planets could not be much closer to their parent star than is the case in the Solar System, and proposed that Doppler spectroscopy and the transit method could detect super-Jupiters in short orbits.[27]
+
+Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Company's Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body" in this system.[28] In the 1890s, Thomas J. J. See of the University of Chicago and the United States Naval Observatory stated that the orbital anomalies proved the existence of a dark body in the 70 Ophiuchi system with a 36-year period around one of the stars.[29] However, Forest Ray Moulton published a paper proving that a three-body system with those orbital parameters would be highly unstable.[30] During the 1950s and 1960s, Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College made another prominent series of detection claims, this time for planets orbiting Barnard's Star.[31] Astronomers now generally regard all the early reports of detection as erroneous.[32]
+
+In 1991 Andrew Lyne, M. Bailes and S. L. Shemar claimed to have discovered a pulsar planet in orbit around PSR 1829-10, using pulsar timing variations.[33] The claim briefly received intense attention, but Lyne and his team soon retracted it.[34]
+
+As of 1 July 2020, a total of 4,281 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5]  The first published discovery to receive subsequent confirmation was made in 1988 by the Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Yang of the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.[35] Although they were cautious about claiming a planetary detection, their radial-velocity observations suggested that a planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei. Partly because the observations were at the very limits of instrumental capabilities at the time, astronomers remained skeptical for several years about this and other similar observations. It was thought some of the apparent planets might instead have been brown dwarfs, objects intermediate in mass between planets and stars. In 1990, additional observations were published that supported the existence of the planet orbiting Gamma Cephei,[36] but subsequent work in 1992 again raised serious doubts.[37] Finally, in 2003, improved techniques allowed the planet's existence to be confirmed.[38]
+
+On 9 January 1992, radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.[23] This discovery was confirmed, and is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of exoplanets. Follow-up observations solidified these results, and confirmation of a third planet in 1994 revived the topic in the popular press.[39] These pulsar planets are thought to have formed from the unusual remnants of the supernova that produced the pulsar, in a second round of planet formation, or else to be the remaining rocky cores of gas giants that somehow survived the supernova and then decayed into their current orbits.
+
+On 6 October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced the first definitive detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi.[40][41] This discovery, made at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, ushered in the modern era of exoplanetary discovery, and was recognized by a share of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. Technological advances, most notably in high-resolution spectroscopy, led to the rapid detection of many new exoplanets: astronomers could detect exoplanets indirectly by measuring their gravitational influence on the motion of their host stars. More extrasolar planets were later detected by observing the variation in a star's apparent luminosity as an orbiting planet transited in front of it.
+
+Initially, most known exoplanets were massive planets that orbited very close to their parent stars. Astronomers were surprised by these "hot Jupiters", because theories of planetary formation had indicated that giant planets should only form at large distances from stars. But eventually more planets of other sorts were found, and it is now clear that hot Jupiters make up the minority of exoplanets. In 1999, Upsilon Andromedae became the first main-sequence star known to have multiple planets.[42] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary main-sequence star system.[43]
+
+On 26 February 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified exoplanets around 305 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope. These exoplanets were checked using a statistical technique called "verification by multiplicity".[44][45][46] Before these results, most confirmed planets were gas giants comparable in size to Jupiter or larger because they are more easily detected, but the Kepler planets are mostly between the size of Neptune and the size of Earth.[44]
+
+On 23 July 2015, NASA announced Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet orbiting the habitable zone of a G2-type star.[47]
+
+On 6 September 2018, NASA discovered an exoplanet about 145 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.[48] This exoplanet, Wolf 503b, is twice the size of Earth and was discovered orbiting a type of star known as an "Orange Dwarf". Wolf 503b completes one orbit in as few as six days because it is very close to the star. Wolf 503b is the only exoplanet that large that can be found near the so-called Fulton gap. The Fulton gap, first noticed in 2017, is the observation that it is unusual to find planets within a certain mass range.[48] Under the Fulton gap studies, this opens up a new field for astronomers, who are still studying whether planets found in the Fulton gap are gaseous or rocky.[48]
+
+In January 2020, scientists announced the discovery of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone detected by TESS.[49]
+
+As of January 2020, NASA's Kepler and TESS missions had identified 4374 planetary candidates yet to be confirmed,[50] several of them being nearly Earth-sized and located in the habitable zone, some around Sun-like stars.[51][52][53]
+
+About 97% of all the confirmed exoplanets have been discovered by indirect techniques of detection, mainly by radial velocity measurements and transit monitoring techniques.[57] Recently the techniques of singular optics have been applied in the search for exoplanets.[58]
+
+Planets may form within a few to tens (or more) of millions of years of their star forming.[59][60][61][62][63] 
+The planets of the Solar System can only be observed in their current state, but observations of different planetary systems of varying ages allows us to observe planets at different stages of evolution. Available observations range from young proto-planetary disks where planets are still forming[64] to planetary systems of over 10 Gyr old.[65] When planets form in a gaseous protoplanetary disk,[66] they accrete hydrogen/helium envelopes.[67][68] These envelopes cool and contract over time and, depending on the mass of the planet, some or all of the hydrogen/helium is eventually lost to space.[66] This means that even terrestrial planets may start off with large radii if they form early enough.[69][70][71] An example is Kepler-51b which has only about twice the mass of Earth but is almost the size of Saturn which is a hundred times the mass of Earth. Kepler-51b is quite young at a few hundred million years old.[72]
+
+There is at least one planet on average per star.[7]
+About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[74]
+
+Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the Sun, i.e. main-sequence stars of spectral categories F, G, or K. Lower-mass stars (red dwarfs, of spectral category M) are less likely to have planets massive enough to be detected by the radial-velocity method.[75][76] Despite this, several tens of planets around red dwarfs have been discovered by the Kepler spacecraft, which uses the transit method to detect smaller planets.
+
+Using data from Kepler, a correlation has been found between the metallicity of a star and the probability that the star host planets. Stars with higher metallicity are more likely to have planets, especially giant planets, than stars with lower metallicity.[77]
+
+Some planets orbit one member of a binary star system,[78] and several circumbinary planets have been discovered which orbit around both members of binary star. A few planets in triple star systems are known[79] and one in the quadruple system Kepler-64.
+
+In 2013 the color of an exoplanet was determined for the first time. The best-fit albedo measurements of HD 189733b suggest that it is deep dark blue.[80][81] Later that same year, the colors of several other exoplanets were determined, including GJ 504 b which visually has a magenta color,[82] and Kappa Andromedae b, which if seen up close would appear reddish in color.[83]
+Helium planets are expected to be white or grey in appearance.[84]
+
+The apparent brightness (apparent magnitude) of a planet depends on how far away the observer is, how reflective the planet is (albedo), and how much light the planet receives from its star, which depends on how far the planet is from the star and how bright the star is. So, a planet with a low albedo that is close to its star can appear brighter than a planet with high albedo that is far from the star.[85]
+
+The darkest known planet in terms of geometric albedo is TrES-2b, a hot Jupiter that reflects less than 1% of the light from its star, making it less reflective than coal or black acrylic paint. Hot Jupiters are expected to be quite dark due to sodium and potassium in their atmospheres but it is not known why TrES-2b is so dark—it could be due to an unknown chemical compound.[86][87][88]
+
+For gas giants, geometric albedo generally decreases with increasing metallicity or atmospheric temperature unless there are clouds to modify this effect. Increased cloud-column depth increases the albedo at optical wavelengths, but decreases it at some infrared wavelengths. Optical albedo increases with age, because older planets have higher cloud-column depths. Optical albedo decreases with increasing mass, because higher-mass giant planets have higher surface gravities, which produces lower cloud-column depths. Also, elliptical orbits can cause major fluctuations in atmospheric composition, which can have a significant effect.[89]
+
+There is more thermal emission than reflection at some near-infrared wavelengths for massive and/or young gas giants. So, although optical brightness is fully phase-dependent, this is not always the case in the near infrared.[89]
+
+Temperatures of gas giants reduce over time and with distance from their star. Lowering the temperature increases optical albedo even without clouds. At a sufficiently low temperature, water clouds form, which further increase optical albedo. At even lower temperatures ammonia clouds form, resulting in the highest albedos at most optical and near-infrared wavelengths.[89]
+
+In 2014, a magnetic field around HD 209458 b was inferred from the way hydrogen was evaporating from the planet. It is the first (indirect) detection of a magnetic field on an exoplanet. The magnetic field is estimated to be about one tenth as strong as Jupiter's.[90][91]
+
+Exoplanets magnetic fields may be detectable by their auroral radio emissions with sensitive enough radio telescopes such as LOFAR.[92][93] The radio emissions could enable determination of the rotation rate of the interior of an exoplanet, and may yield a more accurate way to measure exoplanet rotation than by examining the motion of clouds.[94]
+
+Earth's magnetic field results from its flowing liquid metallic core, but in massive super-Earths with high pressure, different compounds may form which do not match those created under terrestrial conditions. Compounds may form with greater viscosities and high melting temperatures which could prevent the interiors from separating into different layers and so result in undifferentiated coreless mantles. Forms of magnesium oxide such as MgSi3O12 could be a liquid metal at the pressures and temperatures found in super-Earths and could generate a magnetic field in the mantles of super-Earths.[95][96]
+
+Hot Jupiters have been observed to have a larger radius than expected. This could be caused by the interaction between the stellar wind and the planet's magnetosphere creating an electric current through the planet that heats it up causing it to expand. The more magnetically active a star is the greater the stellar wind and the larger the electric current leading to more heating and expansion of the planet. This theory matches the observation that stellar activity is correlated with inflated planetary radii.[97]
+
+In August 2018, scientists announced the transformation of gaseous deuterium into a liquid metallic form. This may help researchers better understand giant gas planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and related exoplanets, since such planets are thought to contain a lot of liquid metallic hydrogen, which may be responsible for their observed powerful magnetic fields.[98][99]
+
+Although scientists previously announced that the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets may cause increased stellar flares and starspots on their host stars, in 2019 this claim was demonstrated to be false in the HD 189733 system.  The failure to detect "star-planet interactions" in the well-studied HD 189733 system calls other related claims of the effect into question.[100]
+
+In 2019 the strength of the surface magnetic fields of 4 hot Jupiters were estimated and ranged between 20 and 120 gauss compared to Jupiter's surface magnetic field of 4.3 gauss.[101][102]
+
+In 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths[103][104] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant[105] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-Earths even if the planet is dry.[106]
+
+If super-Earths have more than 80 times as much water as Earth then they become ocean planets with all land completely submerged. However, if there is less water than this limit, then the deep water cycle will move enough water between the oceans and mantle to allow continents to exist.[107][108]
+
+Large surface temperature variations on 55 Cancri e have been attributed to possible volcanic activity releasing large clouds of dust which blanket the planet and block thermal emissions.[109][110]
+
+The star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 is orbited by an object that is circled by a ring system much larger than Saturn's rings. However, the mass of the object is not known; it could be a brown dwarf or low-mass star instead of a planet.[111][112]
+
+The brightness of optical images of Fomalhaut b could be due to starlight reflecting off a circumplanetary ring system with a radius between 20 and 40 times that of Jupiter's radius, about the size of the orbits of the Galilean moons.[113]
+
+The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still be aligned with the planet's equator so that if the planet has a tilted rotational axis, then the different alignments between the inner and outer rings would create a warped ring system.[114]
+
+In December 2013 a candidate exomoon of a rogue planet was announced.[115] On 3 October 2018, evidence suggesting a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b was reported.[116]
+
+Atmospheres have been detected around several exoplanets. The first to be observed was HD 209458 b in 2001.[118]
+
+In May 2017, glints of light from Earth, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere.[119][120] The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.
+
+KIC 12557548 b is a small rocky planet, very close to its star, that is evaporating and leaving a trailing tail of cloud and dust like a comet.[121] The dust could be ash erupting from volcanos and escaping due to the small planet's low surface-gravity, or it could be from metals that are vaporized by the high temperatures of being so close to the star with the metal vapor then condensing into dust.[122]
+
+In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of GJ 436 b was evaporating, resulting in a giant cloud around the planet and, due to radiation from the host star, a long trailing tail 14 million km (9 million mi) long.[123]
+
+Tidally locked planets in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance would have their star always shining directly overhead on one spot which would be hot with the opposite hemisphere receiving no light and being freezing cold. Such a planet could resemble an eyeball with the hotspot being the pupil.[124] Planets with an eccentric orbit could be locked in other resonances. 3:2 and 5:2 resonances would result in a double-eyeball pattern with hotspots in both eastern and western hemispheres.[125] Planets with both an eccentric orbit and a tilted axis of rotation would have more complicated insolation patterns.[126]
+
+As more planets are discovered, the field of exoplanetology continues to grow into a deeper study of extrasolar worlds, and will ultimately tackle the prospect of life on planets beyond the Solar System.[57] At cosmic distances, life can only be detected if it is developed at a planetary scale and strongly modified the planetary environment, in such a way that the modifications cannot be explained by classical physico-chemical processes (out of equilibrium processes).[57] For example, molecular oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere of Earth is a result of photosynthesis by living plants and many kinds of microorganisms, so it can be used as an indication of life on exoplanets, although small amounts of oxygen could also be produced by non-biological means.[127] Furthermore, a potentially habitable planet must orbit a stable star at a distance within which planetary-mass objects with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water at their surfaces.[128][129]

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+
+An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such.[4] The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. This was followed by the confirmation of a different planet, originally detected in 1988. As of 1 July 2020, there are 4,281 confirmed exoplanets in 3,163 systems, with 701 systems having more than one planet.[5]
+
+There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone.[6] In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star.[7] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[c][8][9] Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.[10]
+
+The least massive planet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b,[11][12] about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium[13]), it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from a few hours (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. There is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist.[14][15] The nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.[16]
+
+The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life.[17]
+
+Rogue planets do not orbit any star. Such objects are considered as a separate category of planet, especially if they are gas giants, which are often counted as sub-brown dwarfs.[18] The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions or more.[19][20]
+
+The convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the IAU designation is formed by taking the designated or proper name of its parent star, and adding a lower case letter.[22] Letters are given in order of each planet's discovery around the parent star, so that the first planet discovered in a system is designated "b" (the parent star is considered to be "a") and later planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist.
+
+For centuries scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of knowing whether they existed, how common they were, or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers.
+
+The first evidence of a possible exoplanet, orbiting Van Maanen 2, was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such. The astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, who later became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, produced a spectrum of the star using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope. He interpreted the spectrum to be of an F-type main-sequence star, but it is now thought that such a spectrum could be caused by the residue of a nearby exoplanet that had been pulverized into dust by the gravity of the star, the resulting dust then falling onto the star.[4]
+
+The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmation of detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[23] The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. In February 2018, researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with a planet detection technique called microlensing, found evidence of planets in a distant galaxy, stating "Some of these exoplanets are as (relatively) small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not tightly bound to stars, so they're actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars. We can estimate that the number of planets in this [faraway] galaxy is more than a trillion.[24]
+
+This space we declare to be infinite... In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.
+
+In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun (heliocentrism), put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets.
+
+In the eighteenth century, the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."[26]
+
+In 1952, more than 40 years before the first hot Jupiter was discovered, Otto Struve wrote that there is no compelling reason why planets could not be much closer to their parent star than is the case in the Solar System, and proposed that Doppler spectroscopy and the transit method could detect super-Jupiters in short orbits.[27]
+
+Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Company's Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body" in this system.[28] In the 1890s, Thomas J. J. See of the University of Chicago and the United States Naval Observatory stated that the orbital anomalies proved the existence of a dark body in the 70 Ophiuchi system with a 36-year period around one of the stars.[29] However, Forest Ray Moulton published a paper proving that a three-body system with those orbital parameters would be highly unstable.[30] During the 1950s and 1960s, Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College made another prominent series of detection claims, this time for planets orbiting Barnard's Star.[31] Astronomers now generally regard all the early reports of detection as erroneous.[32]
+
+In 1991 Andrew Lyne, M. Bailes and S. L. Shemar claimed to have discovered a pulsar planet in orbit around PSR 1829-10, using pulsar timing variations.[33] The claim briefly received intense attention, but Lyne and his team soon retracted it.[34]
+
+As of 1 July 2020, a total of 4,281 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5]  The first published discovery to receive subsequent confirmation was made in 1988 by the Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Yang of the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.[35] Although they were cautious about claiming a planetary detection, their radial-velocity observations suggested that a planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei. Partly because the observations were at the very limits of instrumental capabilities at the time, astronomers remained skeptical for several years about this and other similar observations. It was thought some of the apparent planets might instead have been brown dwarfs, objects intermediate in mass between planets and stars. In 1990, additional observations were published that supported the existence of the planet orbiting Gamma Cephei,[36] but subsequent work in 1992 again raised serious doubts.[37] Finally, in 2003, improved techniques allowed the planet's existence to be confirmed.[38]
+
+On 9 January 1992, radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.[23] This discovery was confirmed, and is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of exoplanets. Follow-up observations solidified these results, and confirmation of a third planet in 1994 revived the topic in the popular press.[39] These pulsar planets are thought to have formed from the unusual remnants of the supernova that produced the pulsar, in a second round of planet formation, or else to be the remaining rocky cores of gas giants that somehow survived the supernova and then decayed into their current orbits.
+
+On 6 October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced the first definitive detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi.[40][41] This discovery, made at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, ushered in the modern era of exoplanetary discovery, and was recognized by a share of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. Technological advances, most notably in high-resolution spectroscopy, led to the rapid detection of many new exoplanets: astronomers could detect exoplanets indirectly by measuring their gravitational influence on the motion of their host stars. More extrasolar planets were later detected by observing the variation in a star's apparent luminosity as an orbiting planet transited in front of it.
+
+Initially, most known exoplanets were massive planets that orbited very close to their parent stars. Astronomers were surprised by these "hot Jupiters", because theories of planetary formation had indicated that giant planets should only form at large distances from stars. But eventually more planets of other sorts were found, and it is now clear that hot Jupiters make up the minority of exoplanets. In 1999, Upsilon Andromedae became the first main-sequence star known to have multiple planets.[42] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary main-sequence star system.[43]
+
+On 26 February 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified exoplanets around 305 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope. These exoplanets were checked using a statistical technique called "verification by multiplicity".[44][45][46] Before these results, most confirmed planets were gas giants comparable in size to Jupiter or larger because they are more easily detected, but the Kepler planets are mostly between the size of Neptune and the size of Earth.[44]
+
+On 23 July 2015, NASA announced Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet orbiting the habitable zone of a G2-type star.[47]
+
+On 6 September 2018, NASA discovered an exoplanet about 145 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.[48] This exoplanet, Wolf 503b, is twice the size of Earth and was discovered orbiting a type of star known as an "Orange Dwarf". Wolf 503b completes one orbit in as few as six days because it is very close to the star. Wolf 503b is the only exoplanet that large that can be found near the so-called Fulton gap. The Fulton gap, first noticed in 2017, is the observation that it is unusual to find planets within a certain mass range.[48] Under the Fulton gap studies, this opens up a new field for astronomers, who are still studying whether planets found in the Fulton gap are gaseous or rocky.[48]
+
+In January 2020, scientists announced the discovery of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone detected by TESS.[49]
+
+As of January 2020, NASA's Kepler and TESS missions had identified 4374 planetary candidates yet to be confirmed,[50] several of them being nearly Earth-sized and located in the habitable zone, some around Sun-like stars.[51][52][53]
+
+About 97% of all the confirmed exoplanets have been discovered by indirect techniques of detection, mainly by radial velocity measurements and transit monitoring techniques.[57] Recently the techniques of singular optics have been applied in the search for exoplanets.[58]
+
+Planets may form within a few to tens (or more) of millions of years of their star forming.[59][60][61][62][63] 
+The planets of the Solar System can only be observed in their current state, but observations of different planetary systems of varying ages allows us to observe planets at different stages of evolution. Available observations range from young proto-planetary disks where planets are still forming[64] to planetary systems of over 10 Gyr old.[65] When planets form in a gaseous protoplanetary disk,[66] they accrete hydrogen/helium envelopes.[67][68] These envelopes cool and contract over time and, depending on the mass of the planet, some or all of the hydrogen/helium is eventually lost to space.[66] This means that even terrestrial planets may start off with large radii if they form early enough.[69][70][71] An example is Kepler-51b which has only about twice the mass of Earth but is almost the size of Saturn which is a hundred times the mass of Earth. Kepler-51b is quite young at a few hundred million years old.[72]
+
+There is at least one planet on average per star.[7]
+About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[74]
+
+Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the Sun, i.e. main-sequence stars of spectral categories F, G, or K. Lower-mass stars (red dwarfs, of spectral category M) are less likely to have planets massive enough to be detected by the radial-velocity method.[75][76] Despite this, several tens of planets around red dwarfs have been discovered by the Kepler spacecraft, which uses the transit method to detect smaller planets.
+
+Using data from Kepler, a correlation has been found between the metallicity of a star and the probability that the star host planets. Stars with higher metallicity are more likely to have planets, especially giant planets, than stars with lower metallicity.[77]
+
+Some planets orbit one member of a binary star system,[78] and several circumbinary planets have been discovered which orbit around both members of binary star. A few planets in triple star systems are known[79] and one in the quadruple system Kepler-64.
+
+In 2013 the color of an exoplanet was determined for the first time. The best-fit albedo measurements of HD 189733b suggest that it is deep dark blue.[80][81] Later that same year, the colors of several other exoplanets were determined, including GJ 504 b which visually has a magenta color,[82] and Kappa Andromedae b, which if seen up close would appear reddish in color.[83]
+Helium planets are expected to be white or grey in appearance.[84]
+
+The apparent brightness (apparent magnitude) of a planet depends on how far away the observer is, how reflective the planet is (albedo), and how much light the planet receives from its star, which depends on how far the planet is from the star and how bright the star is. So, a planet with a low albedo that is close to its star can appear brighter than a planet with high albedo that is far from the star.[85]
+
+The darkest known planet in terms of geometric albedo is TrES-2b, a hot Jupiter that reflects less than 1% of the light from its star, making it less reflective than coal or black acrylic paint. Hot Jupiters are expected to be quite dark due to sodium and potassium in their atmospheres but it is not known why TrES-2b is so dark—it could be due to an unknown chemical compound.[86][87][88]
+
+For gas giants, geometric albedo generally decreases with increasing metallicity or atmospheric temperature unless there are clouds to modify this effect. Increased cloud-column depth increases the albedo at optical wavelengths, but decreases it at some infrared wavelengths. Optical albedo increases with age, because older planets have higher cloud-column depths. Optical albedo decreases with increasing mass, because higher-mass giant planets have higher surface gravities, which produces lower cloud-column depths. Also, elliptical orbits can cause major fluctuations in atmospheric composition, which can have a significant effect.[89]
+
+There is more thermal emission than reflection at some near-infrared wavelengths for massive and/or young gas giants. So, although optical brightness is fully phase-dependent, this is not always the case in the near infrared.[89]
+
+Temperatures of gas giants reduce over time and with distance from their star. Lowering the temperature increases optical albedo even without clouds. At a sufficiently low temperature, water clouds form, which further increase optical albedo. At even lower temperatures ammonia clouds form, resulting in the highest albedos at most optical and near-infrared wavelengths.[89]
+
+In 2014, a magnetic field around HD 209458 b was inferred from the way hydrogen was evaporating from the planet. It is the first (indirect) detection of a magnetic field on an exoplanet. The magnetic field is estimated to be about one tenth as strong as Jupiter's.[90][91]
+
+Exoplanets magnetic fields may be detectable by their auroral radio emissions with sensitive enough radio telescopes such as LOFAR.[92][93] The radio emissions could enable determination of the rotation rate of the interior of an exoplanet, and may yield a more accurate way to measure exoplanet rotation than by examining the motion of clouds.[94]
+
+Earth's magnetic field results from its flowing liquid metallic core, but in massive super-Earths with high pressure, different compounds may form which do not match those created under terrestrial conditions. Compounds may form with greater viscosities and high melting temperatures which could prevent the interiors from separating into different layers and so result in undifferentiated coreless mantles. Forms of magnesium oxide such as MgSi3O12 could be a liquid metal at the pressures and temperatures found in super-Earths and could generate a magnetic field in the mantles of super-Earths.[95][96]
+
+Hot Jupiters have been observed to have a larger radius than expected. This could be caused by the interaction between the stellar wind and the planet's magnetosphere creating an electric current through the planet that heats it up causing it to expand. The more magnetically active a star is the greater the stellar wind and the larger the electric current leading to more heating and expansion of the planet. This theory matches the observation that stellar activity is correlated with inflated planetary radii.[97]
+
+In August 2018, scientists announced the transformation of gaseous deuterium into a liquid metallic form. This may help researchers better understand giant gas planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and related exoplanets, since such planets are thought to contain a lot of liquid metallic hydrogen, which may be responsible for their observed powerful magnetic fields.[98][99]
+
+Although scientists previously announced that the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets may cause increased stellar flares and starspots on their host stars, in 2019 this claim was demonstrated to be false in the HD 189733 system.  The failure to detect "star-planet interactions" in the well-studied HD 189733 system calls other related claims of the effect into question.[100]
+
+In 2019 the strength of the surface magnetic fields of 4 hot Jupiters were estimated and ranged between 20 and 120 gauss compared to Jupiter's surface magnetic field of 4.3 gauss.[101][102]
+
+In 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths[103][104] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant[105] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-Earths even if the planet is dry.[106]
+
+If super-Earths have more than 80 times as much water as Earth then they become ocean planets with all land completely submerged. However, if there is less water than this limit, then the deep water cycle will move enough water between the oceans and mantle to allow continents to exist.[107][108]
+
+Large surface temperature variations on 55 Cancri e have been attributed to possible volcanic activity releasing large clouds of dust which blanket the planet and block thermal emissions.[109][110]
+
+The star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 is orbited by an object that is circled by a ring system much larger than Saturn's rings. However, the mass of the object is not known; it could be a brown dwarf or low-mass star instead of a planet.[111][112]
+
+The brightness of optical images of Fomalhaut b could be due to starlight reflecting off a circumplanetary ring system with a radius between 20 and 40 times that of Jupiter's radius, about the size of the orbits of the Galilean moons.[113]
+
+The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still be aligned with the planet's equator so that if the planet has a tilted rotational axis, then the different alignments between the inner and outer rings would create a warped ring system.[114]
+
+In December 2013 a candidate exomoon of a rogue planet was announced.[115] On 3 October 2018, evidence suggesting a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b was reported.[116]
+
+Atmospheres have been detected around several exoplanets. The first to be observed was HD 209458 b in 2001.[118]
+
+In May 2017, glints of light from Earth, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere.[119][120] The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.
+
+KIC 12557548 b is a small rocky planet, very close to its star, that is evaporating and leaving a trailing tail of cloud and dust like a comet.[121] The dust could be ash erupting from volcanos and escaping due to the small planet's low surface-gravity, or it could be from metals that are vaporized by the high temperatures of being so close to the star with the metal vapor then condensing into dust.[122]
+
+In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of GJ 436 b was evaporating, resulting in a giant cloud around the planet and, due to radiation from the host star, a long trailing tail 14 million km (9 million mi) long.[123]
+
+Tidally locked planets in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance would have their star always shining directly overhead on one spot which would be hot with the opposite hemisphere receiving no light and being freezing cold. Such a planet could resemble an eyeball with the hotspot being the pupil.[124] Planets with an eccentric orbit could be locked in other resonances. 3:2 and 5:2 resonances would result in a double-eyeball pattern with hotspots in both eastern and western hemispheres.[125] Planets with both an eccentric orbit and a tilted axis of rotation would have more complicated insolation patterns.[126]
+
+As more planets are discovered, the field of exoplanetology continues to grow into a deeper study of extrasolar worlds, and will ultimately tackle the prospect of life on planets beyond the Solar System.[57] At cosmic distances, life can only be detected if it is developed at a planetary scale and strongly modified the planetary environment, in such a way that the modifications cannot be explained by classical physico-chemical processes (out of equilibrium processes).[57] For example, molecular oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere of Earth is a result of photosynthesis by living plants and many kinds of microorganisms, so it can be used as an indication of life on exoplanets, although small amounts of oxygen could also be produced by non-biological means.[127] Furthermore, a potentially habitable planet must orbit a stable star at a distance within which planetary-mass objects with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water at their surfaces.[128][129]

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+
+
+An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such.[4] The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. This was followed by the confirmation of a different planet, originally detected in 1988. As of 1 July 2020, there are 4,281 confirmed exoplanets in 3,163 systems, with 701 systems having more than one planet.[5]
+
+There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone.[6] In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star.[7] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[c][8][9] Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.[10]
+
+The least massive planet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b,[11][12] about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium[13]), it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from a few hours (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. There is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist.[14][15] The nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.[16]
+
+The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life.[17]
+
+Rogue planets do not orbit any star. Such objects are considered as a separate category of planet, especially if they are gas giants, which are often counted as sub-brown dwarfs.[18] The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions or more.[19][20]
+
+The convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the IAU designation is formed by taking the designated or proper name of its parent star, and adding a lower case letter.[22] Letters are given in order of each planet's discovery around the parent star, so that the first planet discovered in a system is designated "b" (the parent star is considered to be "a") and later planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist.
+
+For centuries scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of knowing whether they existed, how common they were, or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers.
+
+The first evidence of a possible exoplanet, orbiting Van Maanen 2, was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such. The astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, who later became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, produced a spectrum of the star using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope. He interpreted the spectrum to be of an F-type main-sequence star, but it is now thought that such a spectrum could be caused by the residue of a nearby exoplanet that had been pulverized into dust by the gravity of the star, the resulting dust then falling onto the star.[4]
+
+The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmation of detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[23] The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. In February 2018, researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with a planet detection technique called microlensing, found evidence of planets in a distant galaxy, stating "Some of these exoplanets are as (relatively) small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not tightly bound to stars, so they're actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars. We can estimate that the number of planets in this [faraway] galaxy is more than a trillion.[24]
+
+This space we declare to be infinite... In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.
+
+In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun (heliocentrism), put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets.
+
+In the eighteenth century, the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."[26]
+
+In 1952, more than 40 years before the first hot Jupiter was discovered, Otto Struve wrote that there is no compelling reason why planets could not be much closer to their parent star than is the case in the Solar System, and proposed that Doppler spectroscopy and the transit method could detect super-Jupiters in short orbits.[27]
+
+Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Company's Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body" in this system.[28] In the 1890s, Thomas J. J. See of the University of Chicago and the United States Naval Observatory stated that the orbital anomalies proved the existence of a dark body in the 70 Ophiuchi system with a 36-year period around one of the stars.[29] However, Forest Ray Moulton published a paper proving that a three-body system with those orbital parameters would be highly unstable.[30] During the 1950s and 1960s, Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College made another prominent series of detection claims, this time for planets orbiting Barnard's Star.[31] Astronomers now generally regard all the early reports of detection as erroneous.[32]
+
+In 1991 Andrew Lyne, M. Bailes and S. L. Shemar claimed to have discovered a pulsar planet in orbit around PSR 1829-10, using pulsar timing variations.[33] The claim briefly received intense attention, but Lyne and his team soon retracted it.[34]
+
+As of 1 July 2020, a total of 4,281 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5]  The first published discovery to receive subsequent confirmation was made in 1988 by the Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Yang of the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.[35] Although they were cautious about claiming a planetary detection, their radial-velocity observations suggested that a planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei. Partly because the observations were at the very limits of instrumental capabilities at the time, astronomers remained skeptical for several years about this and other similar observations. It was thought some of the apparent planets might instead have been brown dwarfs, objects intermediate in mass between planets and stars. In 1990, additional observations were published that supported the existence of the planet orbiting Gamma Cephei,[36] but subsequent work in 1992 again raised serious doubts.[37] Finally, in 2003, improved techniques allowed the planet's existence to be confirmed.[38]
+
+On 9 January 1992, radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.[23] This discovery was confirmed, and is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of exoplanets. Follow-up observations solidified these results, and confirmation of a third planet in 1994 revived the topic in the popular press.[39] These pulsar planets are thought to have formed from the unusual remnants of the supernova that produced the pulsar, in a second round of planet formation, or else to be the remaining rocky cores of gas giants that somehow survived the supernova and then decayed into their current orbits.
+
+On 6 October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced the first definitive detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi.[40][41] This discovery, made at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, ushered in the modern era of exoplanetary discovery, and was recognized by a share of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. Technological advances, most notably in high-resolution spectroscopy, led to the rapid detection of many new exoplanets: astronomers could detect exoplanets indirectly by measuring their gravitational influence on the motion of their host stars. More extrasolar planets were later detected by observing the variation in a star's apparent luminosity as an orbiting planet transited in front of it.
+
+Initially, most known exoplanets were massive planets that orbited very close to their parent stars. Astronomers were surprised by these "hot Jupiters", because theories of planetary formation had indicated that giant planets should only form at large distances from stars. But eventually more planets of other sorts were found, and it is now clear that hot Jupiters make up the minority of exoplanets. In 1999, Upsilon Andromedae became the first main-sequence star known to have multiple planets.[42] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary main-sequence star system.[43]
+
+On 26 February 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified exoplanets around 305 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope. These exoplanets were checked using a statistical technique called "verification by multiplicity".[44][45][46] Before these results, most confirmed planets were gas giants comparable in size to Jupiter or larger because they are more easily detected, but the Kepler planets are mostly between the size of Neptune and the size of Earth.[44]
+
+On 23 July 2015, NASA announced Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet orbiting the habitable zone of a G2-type star.[47]
+
+On 6 September 2018, NASA discovered an exoplanet about 145 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.[48] This exoplanet, Wolf 503b, is twice the size of Earth and was discovered orbiting a type of star known as an "Orange Dwarf". Wolf 503b completes one orbit in as few as six days because it is very close to the star. Wolf 503b is the only exoplanet that large that can be found near the so-called Fulton gap. The Fulton gap, first noticed in 2017, is the observation that it is unusual to find planets within a certain mass range.[48] Under the Fulton gap studies, this opens up a new field for astronomers, who are still studying whether planets found in the Fulton gap are gaseous or rocky.[48]
+
+In January 2020, scientists announced the discovery of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone detected by TESS.[49]
+
+As of January 2020, NASA's Kepler and TESS missions had identified 4374 planetary candidates yet to be confirmed,[50] several of them being nearly Earth-sized and located in the habitable zone, some around Sun-like stars.[51][52][53]
+
+About 97% of all the confirmed exoplanets have been discovered by indirect techniques of detection, mainly by radial velocity measurements and transit monitoring techniques.[57] Recently the techniques of singular optics have been applied in the search for exoplanets.[58]
+
+Planets may form within a few to tens (or more) of millions of years of their star forming.[59][60][61][62][63] 
+The planets of the Solar System can only be observed in their current state, but observations of different planetary systems of varying ages allows us to observe planets at different stages of evolution. Available observations range from young proto-planetary disks where planets are still forming[64] to planetary systems of over 10 Gyr old.[65] When planets form in a gaseous protoplanetary disk,[66] they accrete hydrogen/helium envelopes.[67][68] These envelopes cool and contract over time and, depending on the mass of the planet, some or all of the hydrogen/helium is eventually lost to space.[66] This means that even terrestrial planets may start off with large radii if they form early enough.[69][70][71] An example is Kepler-51b which has only about twice the mass of Earth but is almost the size of Saturn which is a hundred times the mass of Earth. Kepler-51b is quite young at a few hundred million years old.[72]
+
+There is at least one planet on average per star.[7]
+About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[74]
+
+Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the Sun, i.e. main-sequence stars of spectral categories F, G, or K. Lower-mass stars (red dwarfs, of spectral category M) are less likely to have planets massive enough to be detected by the radial-velocity method.[75][76] Despite this, several tens of planets around red dwarfs have been discovered by the Kepler spacecraft, which uses the transit method to detect smaller planets.
+
+Using data from Kepler, a correlation has been found between the metallicity of a star and the probability that the star host planets. Stars with higher metallicity are more likely to have planets, especially giant planets, than stars with lower metallicity.[77]
+
+Some planets orbit one member of a binary star system,[78] and several circumbinary planets have been discovered which orbit around both members of binary star. A few planets in triple star systems are known[79] and one in the quadruple system Kepler-64.
+
+In 2013 the color of an exoplanet was determined for the first time. The best-fit albedo measurements of HD 189733b suggest that it is deep dark blue.[80][81] Later that same year, the colors of several other exoplanets were determined, including GJ 504 b which visually has a magenta color,[82] and Kappa Andromedae b, which if seen up close would appear reddish in color.[83]
+Helium planets are expected to be white or grey in appearance.[84]
+
+The apparent brightness (apparent magnitude) of a planet depends on how far away the observer is, how reflective the planet is (albedo), and how much light the planet receives from its star, which depends on how far the planet is from the star and how bright the star is. So, a planet with a low albedo that is close to its star can appear brighter than a planet with high albedo that is far from the star.[85]
+
+The darkest known planet in terms of geometric albedo is TrES-2b, a hot Jupiter that reflects less than 1% of the light from its star, making it less reflective than coal or black acrylic paint. Hot Jupiters are expected to be quite dark due to sodium and potassium in their atmospheres but it is not known why TrES-2b is so dark—it could be due to an unknown chemical compound.[86][87][88]
+
+For gas giants, geometric albedo generally decreases with increasing metallicity or atmospheric temperature unless there are clouds to modify this effect. Increased cloud-column depth increases the albedo at optical wavelengths, but decreases it at some infrared wavelengths. Optical albedo increases with age, because older planets have higher cloud-column depths. Optical albedo decreases with increasing mass, because higher-mass giant planets have higher surface gravities, which produces lower cloud-column depths. Also, elliptical orbits can cause major fluctuations in atmospheric composition, which can have a significant effect.[89]
+
+There is more thermal emission than reflection at some near-infrared wavelengths for massive and/or young gas giants. So, although optical brightness is fully phase-dependent, this is not always the case in the near infrared.[89]
+
+Temperatures of gas giants reduce over time and with distance from their star. Lowering the temperature increases optical albedo even without clouds. At a sufficiently low temperature, water clouds form, which further increase optical albedo. At even lower temperatures ammonia clouds form, resulting in the highest albedos at most optical and near-infrared wavelengths.[89]
+
+In 2014, a magnetic field around HD 209458 b was inferred from the way hydrogen was evaporating from the planet. It is the first (indirect) detection of a magnetic field on an exoplanet. The magnetic field is estimated to be about one tenth as strong as Jupiter's.[90][91]
+
+Exoplanets magnetic fields may be detectable by their auroral radio emissions with sensitive enough radio telescopes such as LOFAR.[92][93] The radio emissions could enable determination of the rotation rate of the interior of an exoplanet, and may yield a more accurate way to measure exoplanet rotation than by examining the motion of clouds.[94]
+
+Earth's magnetic field results from its flowing liquid metallic core, but in massive super-Earths with high pressure, different compounds may form which do not match those created under terrestrial conditions. Compounds may form with greater viscosities and high melting temperatures which could prevent the interiors from separating into different layers and so result in undifferentiated coreless mantles. Forms of magnesium oxide such as MgSi3O12 could be a liquid metal at the pressures and temperatures found in super-Earths and could generate a magnetic field in the mantles of super-Earths.[95][96]
+
+Hot Jupiters have been observed to have a larger radius than expected. This could be caused by the interaction between the stellar wind and the planet's magnetosphere creating an electric current through the planet that heats it up causing it to expand. The more magnetically active a star is the greater the stellar wind and the larger the electric current leading to more heating and expansion of the planet. This theory matches the observation that stellar activity is correlated with inflated planetary radii.[97]
+
+In August 2018, scientists announced the transformation of gaseous deuterium into a liquid metallic form. This may help researchers better understand giant gas planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and related exoplanets, since such planets are thought to contain a lot of liquid metallic hydrogen, which may be responsible for their observed powerful magnetic fields.[98][99]
+
+Although scientists previously announced that the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets may cause increased stellar flares and starspots on their host stars, in 2019 this claim was demonstrated to be false in the HD 189733 system.  The failure to detect "star-planet interactions" in the well-studied HD 189733 system calls other related claims of the effect into question.[100]
+
+In 2019 the strength of the surface magnetic fields of 4 hot Jupiters were estimated and ranged between 20 and 120 gauss compared to Jupiter's surface magnetic field of 4.3 gauss.[101][102]
+
+In 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths[103][104] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant[105] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-Earths even if the planet is dry.[106]
+
+If super-Earths have more than 80 times as much water as Earth then they become ocean planets with all land completely submerged. However, if there is less water than this limit, then the deep water cycle will move enough water between the oceans and mantle to allow continents to exist.[107][108]
+
+Large surface temperature variations on 55 Cancri e have been attributed to possible volcanic activity releasing large clouds of dust which blanket the planet and block thermal emissions.[109][110]
+
+The star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 is orbited by an object that is circled by a ring system much larger than Saturn's rings. However, the mass of the object is not known; it could be a brown dwarf or low-mass star instead of a planet.[111][112]
+
+The brightness of optical images of Fomalhaut b could be due to starlight reflecting off a circumplanetary ring system with a radius between 20 and 40 times that of Jupiter's radius, about the size of the orbits of the Galilean moons.[113]
+
+The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still be aligned with the planet's equator so that if the planet has a tilted rotational axis, then the different alignments between the inner and outer rings would create a warped ring system.[114]
+
+In December 2013 a candidate exomoon of a rogue planet was announced.[115] On 3 October 2018, evidence suggesting a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b was reported.[116]
+
+Atmospheres have been detected around several exoplanets. The first to be observed was HD 209458 b in 2001.[118]
+
+In May 2017, glints of light from Earth, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere.[119][120] The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.
+
+KIC 12557548 b is a small rocky planet, very close to its star, that is evaporating and leaving a trailing tail of cloud and dust like a comet.[121] The dust could be ash erupting from volcanos and escaping due to the small planet's low surface-gravity, or it could be from metals that are vaporized by the high temperatures of being so close to the star with the metal vapor then condensing into dust.[122]
+
+In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of GJ 436 b was evaporating, resulting in a giant cloud around the planet and, due to radiation from the host star, a long trailing tail 14 million km (9 million mi) long.[123]
+
+Tidally locked planets in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance would have their star always shining directly overhead on one spot which would be hot with the opposite hemisphere receiving no light and being freezing cold. Such a planet could resemble an eyeball with the hotspot being the pupil.[124] Planets with an eccentric orbit could be locked in other resonances. 3:2 and 5:2 resonances would result in a double-eyeball pattern with hotspots in both eastern and western hemispheres.[125] Planets with both an eccentric orbit and a tilted axis of rotation would have more complicated insolation patterns.[126]
+
+As more planets are discovered, the field of exoplanetology continues to grow into a deeper study of extrasolar worlds, and will ultimately tackle the prospect of life on planets beyond the Solar System.[57] At cosmic distances, life can only be detected if it is developed at a planetary scale and strongly modified the planetary environment, in such a way that the modifications cannot be explained by classical physico-chemical processes (out of equilibrium processes).[57] For example, molecular oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere of Earth is a result of photosynthesis by living plants and many kinds of microorganisms, so it can be used as an indication of life on exoplanets, although small amounts of oxygen could also be produced by non-biological means.[127] Furthermore, a potentially habitable planet must orbit a stable star at a distance within which planetary-mass objects with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water at their surfaces.[128][129]

en/1327.html.txt

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+
+
+An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such.[4] The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. This was followed by the confirmation of a different planet, originally detected in 1988. As of 1 July 2020, there are 4,281 confirmed exoplanets in 3,163 systems, with 701 systems having more than one planet.[5]
+
+There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone.[6] In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star.[7] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[c][8][9] Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.[10]
+
+The least massive planet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b,[11][12] about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium[13]), it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from a few hours (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. There is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist.[14][15] The nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.[16]
+
+The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life.[17]
+
+Rogue planets do not orbit any star. Such objects are considered as a separate category of planet, especially if they are gas giants, which are often counted as sub-brown dwarfs.[18] The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions or more.[19][20]
+
+The convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the IAU designation is formed by taking the designated or proper name of its parent star, and adding a lower case letter.[22] Letters are given in order of each planet's discovery around the parent star, so that the first planet discovered in a system is designated "b" (the parent star is considered to be "a") and later planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist.
+
+For centuries scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of knowing whether they existed, how common they were, or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers.
+
+The first evidence of a possible exoplanet, orbiting Van Maanen 2, was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such. The astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, who later became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, produced a spectrum of the star using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope. He interpreted the spectrum to be of an F-type main-sequence star, but it is now thought that such a spectrum could be caused by the residue of a nearby exoplanet that had been pulverized into dust by the gravity of the star, the resulting dust then falling onto the star.[4]
+
+The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmation of detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[23] The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. In February 2018, researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with a planet detection technique called microlensing, found evidence of planets in a distant galaxy, stating "Some of these exoplanets are as (relatively) small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not tightly bound to stars, so they're actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars. We can estimate that the number of planets in this [faraway] galaxy is more than a trillion.[24]
+
+This space we declare to be infinite... In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.
+
+In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun (heliocentrism), put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets.
+
+In the eighteenth century, the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."[26]
+
+In 1952, more than 40 years before the first hot Jupiter was discovered, Otto Struve wrote that there is no compelling reason why planets could not be much closer to their parent star than is the case in the Solar System, and proposed that Doppler spectroscopy and the transit method could detect super-Jupiters in short orbits.[27]
+
+Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Company's Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body" in this system.[28] In the 1890s, Thomas J. J. See of the University of Chicago and the United States Naval Observatory stated that the orbital anomalies proved the existence of a dark body in the 70 Ophiuchi system with a 36-year period around one of the stars.[29] However, Forest Ray Moulton published a paper proving that a three-body system with those orbital parameters would be highly unstable.[30] During the 1950s and 1960s, Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College made another prominent series of detection claims, this time for planets orbiting Barnard's Star.[31] Astronomers now generally regard all the early reports of detection as erroneous.[32]
+
+In 1991 Andrew Lyne, M. Bailes and S. L. Shemar claimed to have discovered a pulsar planet in orbit around PSR 1829-10, using pulsar timing variations.[33] The claim briefly received intense attention, but Lyne and his team soon retracted it.[34]
+
+As of 1 July 2020, a total of 4,281 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5]  The first published discovery to receive subsequent confirmation was made in 1988 by the Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Yang of the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.[35] Although they were cautious about claiming a planetary detection, their radial-velocity observations suggested that a planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei. Partly because the observations were at the very limits of instrumental capabilities at the time, astronomers remained skeptical for several years about this and other similar observations. It was thought some of the apparent planets might instead have been brown dwarfs, objects intermediate in mass between planets and stars. In 1990, additional observations were published that supported the existence of the planet orbiting Gamma Cephei,[36] but subsequent work in 1992 again raised serious doubts.[37] Finally, in 2003, improved techniques allowed the planet's existence to be confirmed.[38]
+
+On 9 January 1992, radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.[23] This discovery was confirmed, and is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of exoplanets. Follow-up observations solidified these results, and confirmation of a third planet in 1994 revived the topic in the popular press.[39] These pulsar planets are thought to have formed from the unusual remnants of the supernova that produced the pulsar, in a second round of planet formation, or else to be the remaining rocky cores of gas giants that somehow survived the supernova and then decayed into their current orbits.
+
+On 6 October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced the first definitive detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi.[40][41] This discovery, made at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, ushered in the modern era of exoplanetary discovery, and was recognized by a share of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. Technological advances, most notably in high-resolution spectroscopy, led to the rapid detection of many new exoplanets: astronomers could detect exoplanets indirectly by measuring their gravitational influence on the motion of their host stars. More extrasolar planets were later detected by observing the variation in a star's apparent luminosity as an orbiting planet transited in front of it.
+
+Initially, most known exoplanets were massive planets that orbited very close to their parent stars. Astronomers were surprised by these "hot Jupiters", because theories of planetary formation had indicated that giant planets should only form at large distances from stars. But eventually more planets of other sorts were found, and it is now clear that hot Jupiters make up the minority of exoplanets. In 1999, Upsilon Andromedae became the first main-sequence star known to have multiple planets.[42] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary main-sequence star system.[43]
+
+On 26 February 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified exoplanets around 305 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope. These exoplanets were checked using a statistical technique called "verification by multiplicity".[44][45][46] Before these results, most confirmed planets were gas giants comparable in size to Jupiter or larger because they are more easily detected, but the Kepler planets are mostly between the size of Neptune and the size of Earth.[44]
+
+On 23 July 2015, NASA announced Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet orbiting the habitable zone of a G2-type star.[47]
+
+On 6 September 2018, NASA discovered an exoplanet about 145 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.[48] This exoplanet, Wolf 503b, is twice the size of Earth and was discovered orbiting a type of star known as an "Orange Dwarf". Wolf 503b completes one orbit in as few as six days because it is very close to the star. Wolf 503b is the only exoplanet that large that can be found near the so-called Fulton gap. The Fulton gap, first noticed in 2017, is the observation that it is unusual to find planets within a certain mass range.[48] Under the Fulton gap studies, this opens up a new field for astronomers, who are still studying whether planets found in the Fulton gap are gaseous or rocky.[48]
+
+In January 2020, scientists announced the discovery of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone detected by TESS.[49]
+
+As of January 2020, NASA's Kepler and TESS missions had identified 4374 planetary candidates yet to be confirmed,[50] several of them being nearly Earth-sized and located in the habitable zone, some around Sun-like stars.[51][52][53]
+
+About 97% of all the confirmed exoplanets have been discovered by indirect techniques of detection, mainly by radial velocity measurements and transit monitoring techniques.[57] Recently the techniques of singular optics have been applied in the search for exoplanets.[58]
+
+Planets may form within a few to tens (or more) of millions of years of their star forming.[59][60][61][62][63] 
+The planets of the Solar System can only be observed in their current state, but observations of different planetary systems of varying ages allows us to observe planets at different stages of evolution. Available observations range from young proto-planetary disks where planets are still forming[64] to planetary systems of over 10 Gyr old.[65] When planets form in a gaseous protoplanetary disk,[66] they accrete hydrogen/helium envelopes.[67][68] These envelopes cool and contract over time and, depending on the mass of the planet, some or all of the hydrogen/helium is eventually lost to space.[66] This means that even terrestrial planets may start off with large radii if they form early enough.[69][70][71] An example is Kepler-51b which has only about twice the mass of Earth but is almost the size of Saturn which is a hundred times the mass of Earth. Kepler-51b is quite young at a few hundred million years old.[72]
+
+There is at least one planet on average per star.[7]
+About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[74]
+
+Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the Sun, i.e. main-sequence stars of spectral categories F, G, or K. Lower-mass stars (red dwarfs, of spectral category M) are less likely to have planets massive enough to be detected by the radial-velocity method.[75][76] Despite this, several tens of planets around red dwarfs have been discovered by the Kepler spacecraft, which uses the transit method to detect smaller planets.
+
+Using data from Kepler, a correlation has been found between the metallicity of a star and the probability that the star host planets. Stars with higher metallicity are more likely to have planets, especially giant planets, than stars with lower metallicity.[77]
+
+Some planets orbit one member of a binary star system,[78] and several circumbinary planets have been discovered which orbit around both members of binary star. A few planets in triple star systems are known[79] and one in the quadruple system Kepler-64.
+
+In 2013 the color of an exoplanet was determined for the first time. The best-fit albedo measurements of HD 189733b suggest that it is deep dark blue.[80][81] Later that same year, the colors of several other exoplanets were determined, including GJ 504 b which visually has a magenta color,[82] and Kappa Andromedae b, which if seen up close would appear reddish in color.[83]
+Helium planets are expected to be white or grey in appearance.[84]
+
+The apparent brightness (apparent magnitude) of a planet depends on how far away the observer is, how reflective the planet is (albedo), and how much light the planet receives from its star, which depends on how far the planet is from the star and how bright the star is. So, a planet with a low albedo that is close to its star can appear brighter than a planet with high albedo that is far from the star.[85]
+
+The darkest known planet in terms of geometric albedo is TrES-2b, a hot Jupiter that reflects less than 1% of the light from its star, making it less reflective than coal or black acrylic paint. Hot Jupiters are expected to be quite dark due to sodium and potassium in their atmospheres but it is not known why TrES-2b is so dark—it could be due to an unknown chemical compound.[86][87][88]
+
+For gas giants, geometric albedo generally decreases with increasing metallicity or atmospheric temperature unless there are clouds to modify this effect. Increased cloud-column depth increases the albedo at optical wavelengths, but decreases it at some infrared wavelengths. Optical albedo increases with age, because older planets have higher cloud-column depths. Optical albedo decreases with increasing mass, because higher-mass giant planets have higher surface gravities, which produces lower cloud-column depths. Also, elliptical orbits can cause major fluctuations in atmospheric composition, which can have a significant effect.[89]
+
+There is more thermal emission than reflection at some near-infrared wavelengths for massive and/or young gas giants. So, although optical brightness is fully phase-dependent, this is not always the case in the near infrared.[89]
+
+Temperatures of gas giants reduce over time and with distance from their star. Lowering the temperature increases optical albedo even without clouds. At a sufficiently low temperature, water clouds form, which further increase optical albedo. At even lower temperatures ammonia clouds form, resulting in the highest albedos at most optical and near-infrared wavelengths.[89]
+
+In 2014, a magnetic field around HD 209458 b was inferred from the way hydrogen was evaporating from the planet. It is the first (indirect) detection of a magnetic field on an exoplanet. The magnetic field is estimated to be about one tenth as strong as Jupiter's.[90][91]
+
+Exoplanets magnetic fields may be detectable by their auroral radio emissions with sensitive enough radio telescopes such as LOFAR.[92][93] The radio emissions could enable determination of the rotation rate of the interior of an exoplanet, and may yield a more accurate way to measure exoplanet rotation than by examining the motion of clouds.[94]
+
+Earth's magnetic field results from its flowing liquid metallic core, but in massive super-Earths with high pressure, different compounds may form which do not match those created under terrestrial conditions. Compounds may form with greater viscosities and high melting temperatures which could prevent the interiors from separating into different layers and so result in undifferentiated coreless mantles. Forms of magnesium oxide such as MgSi3O12 could be a liquid metal at the pressures and temperatures found in super-Earths and could generate a magnetic field in the mantles of super-Earths.[95][96]
+
+Hot Jupiters have been observed to have a larger radius than expected. This could be caused by the interaction between the stellar wind and the planet's magnetosphere creating an electric current through the planet that heats it up causing it to expand. The more magnetically active a star is the greater the stellar wind and the larger the electric current leading to more heating and expansion of the planet. This theory matches the observation that stellar activity is correlated with inflated planetary radii.[97]
+
+In August 2018, scientists announced the transformation of gaseous deuterium into a liquid metallic form. This may help researchers better understand giant gas planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and related exoplanets, since such planets are thought to contain a lot of liquid metallic hydrogen, which may be responsible for their observed powerful magnetic fields.[98][99]
+
+Although scientists previously announced that the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets may cause increased stellar flares and starspots on their host stars, in 2019 this claim was demonstrated to be false in the HD 189733 system.  The failure to detect "star-planet interactions" in the well-studied HD 189733 system calls other related claims of the effect into question.[100]
+
+In 2019 the strength of the surface magnetic fields of 4 hot Jupiters were estimated and ranged between 20 and 120 gauss compared to Jupiter's surface magnetic field of 4.3 gauss.[101][102]
+
+In 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths[103][104] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant[105] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-Earths even if the planet is dry.[106]
+
+If super-Earths have more than 80 times as much water as Earth then they become ocean planets with all land completely submerged. However, if there is less water than this limit, then the deep water cycle will move enough water between the oceans and mantle to allow continents to exist.[107][108]
+
+Large surface temperature variations on 55 Cancri e have been attributed to possible volcanic activity releasing large clouds of dust which blanket the planet and block thermal emissions.[109][110]
+
+The star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 is orbited by an object that is circled by a ring system much larger than Saturn's rings. However, the mass of the object is not known; it could be a brown dwarf or low-mass star instead of a planet.[111][112]
+
+The brightness of optical images of Fomalhaut b could be due to starlight reflecting off a circumplanetary ring system with a radius between 20 and 40 times that of Jupiter's radius, about the size of the orbits of the Galilean moons.[113]
+
+The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still be aligned with the planet's equator so that if the planet has a tilted rotational axis, then the different alignments between the inner and outer rings would create a warped ring system.[114]
+
+In December 2013 a candidate exomoon of a rogue planet was announced.[115] On 3 October 2018, evidence suggesting a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b was reported.[116]
+
+Atmospheres have been detected around several exoplanets. The first to be observed was HD 209458 b in 2001.[118]
+
+In May 2017, glints of light from Earth, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere.[119][120] The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.
+
+KIC 12557548 b is a small rocky planet, very close to its star, that is evaporating and leaving a trailing tail of cloud and dust like a comet.[121] The dust could be ash erupting from volcanos and escaping due to the small planet's low surface-gravity, or it could be from metals that are vaporized by the high temperatures of being so close to the star with the metal vapor then condensing into dust.[122]
+
+In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of GJ 436 b was evaporating, resulting in a giant cloud around the planet and, due to radiation from the host star, a long trailing tail 14 million km (9 million mi) long.[123]
+
+Tidally locked planets in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance would have their star always shining directly overhead on one spot which would be hot with the opposite hemisphere receiving no light and being freezing cold. Such a planet could resemble an eyeball with the hotspot being the pupil.[124] Planets with an eccentric orbit could be locked in other resonances. 3:2 and 5:2 resonances would result in a double-eyeball pattern with hotspots in both eastern and western hemispheres.[125] Planets with both an eccentric orbit and a tilted axis of rotation would have more complicated insolation patterns.[126]
+
+As more planets are discovered, the field of exoplanetology continues to grow into a deeper study of extrasolar worlds, and will ultimately tackle the prospect of life on planets beyond the Solar System.[57] At cosmic distances, life can only be detected if it is developed at a planetary scale and strongly modified the planetary environment, in such a way that the modifications cannot be explained by classical physico-chemical processes (out of equilibrium processes).[57] For example, molecular oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere of Earth is a result of photosynthesis by living plants and many kinds of microorganisms, so it can be used as an indication of life on exoplanets, although small amounts of oxygen could also be produced by non-biological means.[127] Furthermore, a potentially habitable planet must orbit a stable star at a distance within which planetary-mass objects with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water at their surfaces.[128][129]

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+
+
+An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such.[4] The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. This was followed by the confirmation of a different planet, originally detected in 1988. As of 1 July 2020, there are 4,281 confirmed exoplanets in 3,163 systems, with 701 systems having more than one planet.[5]
+
+There are many methods of detecting exoplanets. Transit photometry and Doppler spectroscopy have found the most, but these methods suffer from a clear observational bias favoring the detection of planets near the star; thus, 85% of the exoplanets detected are inside the tidal locking zone.[6] In several cases, multiple planets have been observed around a star.[7] About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[c][8][9] Assuming there are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] it can be hypothesized that there are 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if planets orbiting the numerous red dwarfs are included.[10]
+
+The least massive planet known is Draugr (also known as PSR B1257+12 A or PSR B1257+12 b), which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is HR 2562 b,[11][12] about 30 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to some definitions of a planet (based on the nuclear fusion of deuterium[13]), it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. Known orbital times for exoplanets vary from a few hours (for those closest to their star) to thousands of years. Some exoplanets are so far away from the star that it is difficult to tell whether they are gravitationally bound to it. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way. There is evidence that extragalactic planets, exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local Milky Way galaxy, may exist.[14][15] The nearest exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 parsecs) from Earth and orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun.[16]
+
+The discovery of exoplanets has intensified interest in the search for extraterrestrial life. There is special interest in planets that orbit in a star's habitable zone, where it is possible for liquid water, a prerequisite for life on Earth, to exist on the surface. The study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life.[17]
+
+Rogue planets do not orbit any star. Such objects are considered as a separate category of planet, especially if they are gas giants, which are often counted as sub-brown dwarfs.[18] The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the billions or more.[19][20]
+
+The convention for designating exoplanets is an extension of the system used for designating multiple-star systems as adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). For exoplanets orbiting a single star, the IAU designation is formed by taking the designated or proper name of its parent star, and adding a lower case letter.[22] Letters are given in order of each planet's discovery around the parent star, so that the first planet discovered in a system is designated "b" (the parent star is considered to be "a") and later planets are given subsequent letters. If several planets in the same system are discovered at the same time, the closest one to the star gets the next letter, followed by the other planets in order of orbital size. A provisional IAU-sanctioned standard exists to accommodate the designation of circumbinary planets. A limited number of exoplanets have IAU-sanctioned proper names. Other naming systems exist.
+
+For centuries scientists, philosophers, and science fiction writers suspected that extrasolar planets existed, but there was no way of knowing whether they existed, how common they were, or how similar they might be to the planets of the Solar System. Various detection claims made in the nineteenth century were rejected by astronomers.
+
+The first evidence of a possible exoplanet, orbiting Van Maanen 2, was noted in 1917, but was not recognized as such. The astronomer Walter Sydney Adams, who later became director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, produced a spectrum of the star using Mount Wilson's 60-inch telescope. He interpreted the spectrum to be of an F-type main-sequence star, but it is now thought that such a spectrum could be caused by the residue of a nearby exoplanet that had been pulverized into dust by the gravity of the star, the resulting dust then falling onto the star.[4]
+
+The first suspected scientific detection of an exoplanet occurred in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmation of detection came in 1992, with the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12.[23] The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. In February 2018, researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with a planet detection technique called microlensing, found evidence of planets in a distant galaxy, stating "Some of these exoplanets are as (relatively) small as the moon, while others are as massive as Jupiter. Unlike Earth, most of the exoplanets are not tightly bound to stars, so they're actually wandering through space or loosely orbiting between stars. We can estimate that the number of planets in this [faraway] galaxy is more than a trillion.[24]
+
+This space we declare to be infinite... In it are an infinity of worlds of the same kind as our own.
+
+In the sixteenth century, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of the Copernican theory that Earth and other planets orbit the Sun (heliocentrism), put forward the view that the fixed stars are similar to the Sun and are likewise accompanied by planets.
+
+In the eighteenth century, the same possibility was mentioned by Isaac Newton in the "General Scholium" that concludes his Principia. Making a comparison to the Sun's planets, he wrote "And if the fixed stars are the centres of similar systems, they will all be constructed according to a similar design and subject to the dominion of One."[26]
+
+In 1952, more than 40 years before the first hot Jupiter was discovered, Otto Struve wrote that there is no compelling reason why planets could not be much closer to their parent star than is the case in the Solar System, and proposed that Doppler spectroscopy and the transit method could detect super-Jupiters in short orbits.[27]
+
+Claims of exoplanet detections have been made since the nineteenth century. Some of the earliest involve the binary star 70 Ophiuchi. In 1855 William Stephen Jacob at the East India Company's Madras Observatory reported that orbital anomalies made it "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body" in this system.[28] In the 1890s, Thomas J. J. See of the University of Chicago and the United States Naval Observatory stated that the orbital anomalies proved the existence of a dark body in the 70 Ophiuchi system with a 36-year period around one of the stars.[29] However, Forest Ray Moulton published a paper proving that a three-body system with those orbital parameters would be highly unstable.[30] During the 1950s and 1960s, Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College made another prominent series of detection claims, this time for planets orbiting Barnard's Star.[31] Astronomers now generally regard all the early reports of detection as erroneous.[32]
+
+In 1991 Andrew Lyne, M. Bailes and S. L. Shemar claimed to have discovered a pulsar planet in orbit around PSR 1829-10, using pulsar timing variations.[33] The claim briefly received intense attention, but Lyne and his team soon retracted it.[34]
+
+As of 1 July 2020, a total of 4,281 confirmed exoplanets are listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, including a few that were confirmations of controversial claims from the late 1980s.[5]  The first published discovery to receive subsequent confirmation was made in 1988 by the Canadian astronomers Bruce Campbell, G. A. H. Walker, and Stephenson Yang of the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia.[35] Although they were cautious about claiming a planetary detection, their radial-velocity observations suggested that a planet orbits the star Gamma Cephei. Partly because the observations were at the very limits of instrumental capabilities at the time, astronomers remained skeptical for several years about this and other similar observations. It was thought some of the apparent planets might instead have been brown dwarfs, objects intermediate in mass between planets and stars. In 1990, additional observations were published that supported the existence of the planet orbiting Gamma Cephei,[36] but subsequent work in 1992 again raised serious doubts.[37] Finally, in 2003, improved techniques allowed the planet's existence to be confirmed.[38]
+
+On 9 January 1992, radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257+12.[23] This discovery was confirmed, and is generally considered to be the first definitive detection of exoplanets. Follow-up observations solidified these results, and confirmation of a third planet in 1994 revived the topic in the popular press.[39] These pulsar planets are thought to have formed from the unusual remnants of the supernova that produced the pulsar, in a second round of planet formation, or else to be the remaining rocky cores of gas giants that somehow survived the supernova and then decayed into their current orbits.
+
+On 6 October 1995, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva announced the first definitive detection of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, nearby G-type star 51 Pegasi.[40][41] This discovery, made at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence, ushered in the modern era of exoplanetary discovery, and was recognized by a share of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics. Technological advances, most notably in high-resolution spectroscopy, led to the rapid detection of many new exoplanets: astronomers could detect exoplanets indirectly by measuring their gravitational influence on the motion of their host stars. More extrasolar planets were later detected by observing the variation in a star's apparent luminosity as an orbiting planet transited in front of it.
+
+Initially, most known exoplanets were massive planets that orbited very close to their parent stars. Astronomers were surprised by these "hot Jupiters", because theories of planetary formation had indicated that giant planets should only form at large distances from stars. But eventually more planets of other sorts were found, and it is now clear that hot Jupiters make up the minority of exoplanets. In 1999, Upsilon Andromedae became the first main-sequence star known to have multiple planets.[42] Kepler-16 contains the first discovered planet that orbits around a binary main-sequence star system.[43]
+
+On 26 February 2014, NASA announced the discovery of 715 newly verified exoplanets around 305 stars by the Kepler Space Telescope. These exoplanets were checked using a statistical technique called "verification by multiplicity".[44][45][46] Before these results, most confirmed planets were gas giants comparable in size to Jupiter or larger because they are more easily detected, but the Kepler planets are mostly between the size of Neptune and the size of Earth.[44]
+
+On 23 July 2015, NASA announced Kepler-452b, a near-Earth-size planet orbiting the habitable zone of a G2-type star.[47]
+
+On 6 September 2018, NASA discovered an exoplanet about 145 light years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo.[48] This exoplanet, Wolf 503b, is twice the size of Earth and was discovered orbiting a type of star known as an "Orange Dwarf". Wolf 503b completes one orbit in as few as six days because it is very close to the star. Wolf 503b is the only exoplanet that large that can be found near the so-called Fulton gap. The Fulton gap, first noticed in 2017, is the observation that it is unusual to find planets within a certain mass range.[48] Under the Fulton gap studies, this opens up a new field for astronomers, who are still studying whether planets found in the Fulton gap are gaseous or rocky.[48]
+
+In January 2020, scientists announced the discovery of TOI 700 d, the first Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone detected by TESS.[49]
+
+As of January 2020, NASA's Kepler and TESS missions had identified 4374 planetary candidates yet to be confirmed,[50] several of them being nearly Earth-sized and located in the habitable zone, some around Sun-like stars.[51][52][53]
+
+About 97% of all the confirmed exoplanets have been discovered by indirect techniques of detection, mainly by radial velocity measurements and transit monitoring techniques.[57] Recently the techniques of singular optics have been applied in the search for exoplanets.[58]
+
+Planets may form within a few to tens (or more) of millions of years of their star forming.[59][60][61][62][63] 
+The planets of the Solar System can only be observed in their current state, but observations of different planetary systems of varying ages allows us to observe planets at different stages of evolution. Available observations range from young proto-planetary disks where planets are still forming[64] to planetary systems of over 10 Gyr old.[65] When planets form in a gaseous protoplanetary disk,[66] they accrete hydrogen/helium envelopes.[67][68] These envelopes cool and contract over time and, depending on the mass of the planet, some or all of the hydrogen/helium is eventually lost to space.[66] This means that even terrestrial planets may start off with large radii if they form early enough.[69][70][71] An example is Kepler-51b which has only about twice the mass of Earth but is almost the size of Saturn which is a hundred times the mass of Earth. Kepler-51b is quite young at a few hundred million years old.[72]
+
+There is at least one planet on average per star.[7]
+About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone.[74]
+
+Most known exoplanets orbit stars roughly similar to the Sun, i.e. main-sequence stars of spectral categories F, G, or K. Lower-mass stars (red dwarfs, of spectral category M) are less likely to have planets massive enough to be detected by the radial-velocity method.[75][76] Despite this, several tens of planets around red dwarfs have been discovered by the Kepler spacecraft, which uses the transit method to detect smaller planets.
+
+Using data from Kepler, a correlation has been found between the metallicity of a star and the probability that the star host planets. Stars with higher metallicity are more likely to have planets, especially giant planets, than stars with lower metallicity.[77]
+
+Some planets orbit one member of a binary star system,[78] and several circumbinary planets have been discovered which orbit around both members of binary star. A few planets in triple star systems are known[79] and one in the quadruple system Kepler-64.
+
+In 2013 the color of an exoplanet was determined for the first time. The best-fit albedo measurements of HD 189733b suggest that it is deep dark blue.[80][81] Later that same year, the colors of several other exoplanets were determined, including GJ 504 b which visually has a magenta color,[82] and Kappa Andromedae b, which if seen up close would appear reddish in color.[83]
+Helium planets are expected to be white or grey in appearance.[84]
+
+The apparent brightness (apparent magnitude) of a planet depends on how far away the observer is, how reflective the planet is (albedo), and how much light the planet receives from its star, which depends on how far the planet is from the star and how bright the star is. So, a planet with a low albedo that is close to its star can appear brighter than a planet with high albedo that is far from the star.[85]
+
+The darkest known planet in terms of geometric albedo is TrES-2b, a hot Jupiter that reflects less than 1% of the light from its star, making it less reflective than coal or black acrylic paint. Hot Jupiters are expected to be quite dark due to sodium and potassium in their atmospheres but it is not known why TrES-2b is so dark—it could be due to an unknown chemical compound.[86][87][88]
+
+For gas giants, geometric albedo generally decreases with increasing metallicity or atmospheric temperature unless there are clouds to modify this effect. Increased cloud-column depth increases the albedo at optical wavelengths, but decreases it at some infrared wavelengths. Optical albedo increases with age, because older planets have higher cloud-column depths. Optical albedo decreases with increasing mass, because higher-mass giant planets have higher surface gravities, which produces lower cloud-column depths. Also, elliptical orbits can cause major fluctuations in atmospheric composition, which can have a significant effect.[89]
+
+There is more thermal emission than reflection at some near-infrared wavelengths for massive and/or young gas giants. So, although optical brightness is fully phase-dependent, this is not always the case in the near infrared.[89]
+
+Temperatures of gas giants reduce over time and with distance from their star. Lowering the temperature increases optical albedo even without clouds. At a sufficiently low temperature, water clouds form, which further increase optical albedo. At even lower temperatures ammonia clouds form, resulting in the highest albedos at most optical and near-infrared wavelengths.[89]
+
+In 2014, a magnetic field around HD 209458 b was inferred from the way hydrogen was evaporating from the planet. It is the first (indirect) detection of a magnetic field on an exoplanet. The magnetic field is estimated to be about one tenth as strong as Jupiter's.[90][91]
+
+Exoplanets magnetic fields may be detectable by their auroral radio emissions with sensitive enough radio telescopes such as LOFAR.[92][93] The radio emissions could enable determination of the rotation rate of the interior of an exoplanet, and may yield a more accurate way to measure exoplanet rotation than by examining the motion of clouds.[94]
+
+Earth's magnetic field results from its flowing liquid metallic core, but in massive super-Earths with high pressure, different compounds may form which do not match those created under terrestrial conditions. Compounds may form with greater viscosities and high melting temperatures which could prevent the interiors from separating into different layers and so result in undifferentiated coreless mantles. Forms of magnesium oxide such as MgSi3O12 could be a liquid metal at the pressures and temperatures found in super-Earths and could generate a magnetic field in the mantles of super-Earths.[95][96]
+
+Hot Jupiters have been observed to have a larger radius than expected. This could be caused by the interaction between the stellar wind and the planet's magnetosphere creating an electric current through the planet that heats it up causing it to expand. The more magnetically active a star is the greater the stellar wind and the larger the electric current leading to more heating and expansion of the planet. This theory matches the observation that stellar activity is correlated with inflated planetary radii.[97]
+
+In August 2018, scientists announced the transformation of gaseous deuterium into a liquid metallic form. This may help researchers better understand giant gas planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn and related exoplanets, since such planets are thought to contain a lot of liquid metallic hydrogen, which may be responsible for their observed powerful magnetic fields.[98][99]
+
+Although scientists previously announced that the magnetic fields of close-in exoplanets may cause increased stellar flares and starspots on their host stars, in 2019 this claim was demonstrated to be false in the HD 189733 system.  The failure to detect "star-planet interactions" in the well-studied HD 189733 system calls other related claims of the effect into question.[100]
+
+In 2019 the strength of the surface magnetic fields of 4 hot Jupiters were estimated and ranged between 20 and 120 gauss compared to Jupiter's surface magnetic field of 4.3 gauss.[101][102]
+
+In 2007, two independent teams of researchers came to opposing conclusions about the likelihood of plate tectonics on larger super-Earths[103][104] with one team saying that plate tectonics would be episodic or stagnant[105] and the other team saying that plate tectonics is very likely on super-Earths even if the planet is dry.[106]
+
+If super-Earths have more than 80 times as much water as Earth then they become ocean planets with all land completely submerged. However, if there is less water than this limit, then the deep water cycle will move enough water between the oceans and mantle to allow continents to exist.[107][108]
+
+Large surface temperature variations on 55 Cancri e have been attributed to possible volcanic activity releasing large clouds of dust which blanket the planet and block thermal emissions.[109][110]
+
+The star 1SWASP J140747.93-394542.6 is orbited by an object that is circled by a ring system much larger than Saturn's rings. However, the mass of the object is not known; it could be a brown dwarf or low-mass star instead of a planet.[111][112]
+
+The brightness of optical images of Fomalhaut b could be due to starlight reflecting off a circumplanetary ring system with a radius between 20 and 40 times that of Jupiter's radius, about the size of the orbits of the Galilean moons.[113]
+
+The rings of the Solar System's gas giants are aligned with their planet's equator. However, for exoplanets that orbit close to their star, tidal forces from the star would lead to the outermost rings of a planet being aligned with the planet's orbital plane around the star. A planet's innermost rings would still be aligned with the planet's equator so that if the planet has a tilted rotational axis, then the different alignments between the inner and outer rings would create a warped ring system.[114]
+
+In December 2013 a candidate exomoon of a rogue planet was announced.[115] On 3 October 2018, evidence suggesting a large exomoon orbiting Kepler-1625b was reported.[116]
+
+Atmospheres have been detected around several exoplanets. The first to be observed was HD 209458 b in 2001.[118]
+
+In May 2017, glints of light from Earth, seen as twinkling from an orbiting satellite a million miles away, were found to be reflected light from ice crystals in the atmosphere.[119][120] The technology used to determine this may be useful in studying the atmospheres of distant worlds, including those of exoplanets.
+
+KIC 12557548 b is a small rocky planet, very close to its star, that is evaporating and leaving a trailing tail of cloud and dust like a comet.[121] The dust could be ash erupting from volcanos and escaping due to the small planet's low surface-gravity, or it could be from metals that are vaporized by the high temperatures of being so close to the star with the metal vapor then condensing into dust.[122]
+
+In June 2015, scientists reported that the atmosphere of GJ 436 b was evaporating, resulting in a giant cloud around the planet and, due to radiation from the host star, a long trailing tail 14 million km (9 million mi) long.[123]
+
+Tidally locked planets in a 1:1 spin-orbit resonance would have their star always shining directly overhead on one spot which would be hot with the opposite hemisphere receiving no light and being freezing cold. Such a planet could resemble an eyeball with the hotspot being the pupil.[124] Planets with an eccentric orbit could be locked in other resonances. 3:2 and 5:2 resonances would result in a double-eyeball pattern with hotspots in both eastern and western hemispheres.[125] Planets with both an eccentric orbit and a tilted axis of rotation would have more complicated insolation patterns.[126]
+
+As more planets are discovered, the field of exoplanetology continues to grow into a deeper study of extrasolar worlds, and will ultimately tackle the prospect of life on planets beyond the Solar System.[57] At cosmic distances, life can only be detected if it is developed at a planetary scale and strongly modified the planetary environment, in such a way that the modifications cannot be explained by classical physico-chemical processes (out of equilibrium processes).[57] For example, molecular oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere of Earth is a result of photosynthesis by living plants and many kinds of microorganisms, so it can be used as an indication of life on exoplanets, although small amounts of oxygen could also be produced by non-biological means.[127] Furthermore, a potentially habitable planet must orbit a stable star at a distance within which planetary-mass objects with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water at their surfaces.[128][129]

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+
+
+The human body is the structure of a human being. It is composed of many different types of cells that together create tissues and subsequently organ systems. They ensure homeostasis and the viability of the human body.
+
+It comprises a head, neck, trunk (which includes the thorax and abdomen), arms and hands, legs and feet.
+
+The study of the human body involves anatomy, physiology, histology and embryology. The body varies anatomically in known ways. Physiology focuses on the systems and organs of the human body and their functions. Many systems and mechanisms interact in order to maintain homeostasis, with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.
+
+The body is studied by health professionals, physiologists, anatomists, and by artists to assist them in their work.
+
+The human body is composed of elements including hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, calcium and phosphorus.[1] These elements reside in trillions of cells and non-cellular components of the body.
+
+The adult male body is about 60% water for a total water content of some 42 litres (9.2 imp gal; 11 US gal). This is made up of about 19 litres (4.2 imp gal; 5.0 US gal) of extracellular fluid including about 3.2 litres (0.70 imp gal; 0.85 US gal) of blood plasma and about 8.4 litres (1.8 imp gal; 2.2 US gal) of interstitial fluid, and about 23 litres (5.1 imp gal; 6.1 US gal) of fluid inside cells.[2] The content, acidity and composition of the water inside and outside cells is carefully maintained. The main electrolytes in body water outside cells are sodium and chloride, whereas within cells it is potassium and other phosphates.[3]
+
+The body contains trillions of cells, the fundamental unit of life.[4] At maturity, there are roughly 30[5]–37[6] trillion cells in the body, an estimate arrived at by totaling the cell numbers of all the organs of the body and cell types. The body is also host to about the same number of non-human cells[5] as well as multicellular organisms which reside in the gastrointestinal tract and on the skin.[7] Not all parts of the body are made from cells. Cells sit in an extracellular matrix that consists of proteins such as collagen, surrounded by extracellular fluids. Of the 70 kg (150 lb) weight of an average human body, nearly 25 kg (55 lb) is non-human cells or non-cellular material such as bone and connective tissue.
+
+Cells in the body function because of DNA. DNA sits within the nucleus of a cell. Here, parts of DNA are copied and sent to the body of the cell via RNA.[8] The RNA is then used to create proteins which form the basis for cells, their activity, and their products. Proteins dictate cell function and gene expression, a cell is able to self-regulate by the amount of proteins produced.[9] However, not all cells have DNA; some cells such as mature red blood cells lose their nucleus as they mature.
+
+The body consists of many different types of tissue, defined as cells that act with a specialised function.[10] The study of tissues is called histology and often occurs with a microscope. The body consists of four main types of tissues – lining cells (epithelia), connective tissue, nerve tissue and muscle tissue.[11]
+
+Cells that lie on surfaces exposed to the outside world or gastrointestinal tract (epithelia) or internal cavities (endothelium) come in numerous shapes and forms – from single layers of flat cells, to cells with small beating hair-like cilia in the lungs, to column-like cells that line the stomach. Endothelial cells are cells that line internal cavities including blood vessels and glands. Lining cells regulate what can and can't pass through them, protect internal structures, and function as sensory surfaces.[11]
+
+Organs, structured collections of cells with a specific function,[12] mostly sit within the body, with the exception of skin. Examples include the heart, lungs and liver. Many organs reside within cavities within the body. These cavities include the abdomen (which contains the stomach, for example) and pleura, which contains the lungs.
+
+The circulatory system consists of the heart and blood vessels (arteries, veins and capillaries). The heart propels the circulation of the blood, which serves as a "transportation system" to transfer oxygen, fuel, nutrients, waste products, immune cells and signalling molecules (i.e. hormones) from one part of the body to another. Paths of blood circulation within the human body can be divided into two circuits: the pulmonary circuit, which pumps blood to the lungs to receive oxygen and leave carbon dioxide, and the systemic circuit, which carries blood from the heart off to the rest of the body. The blood consists of fluid that carries cells in the circulation, including some that move from tissue to blood vessels and back, as well as the spleen and bone marrow.[13][14][15][16]
+
+The digestive system consists of the mouth including the tongue and teeth, esophagus, stomach, (gastrointestinal tract, small and large intestines, and rectum), as well as the liver, pancreas, gallbladder, and salivary glands. It converts food into small, nutritional, non-toxic molecules for distribution and absorption into the body. These molecules take the form of proteins (which are broken down into amino acids), fats, vitamins and minerals (the last of which are mainly ionic rather than molecular). After being swallowed, food moves through the gastrointestinal tract by means of peristalsis: the systematic expansion and contraction of muscles to push food from one area to the next.[17][18]
+
+Digestion begins in the mouth, which chews food into smaller pieces for easier digestion. Then it is swallowed, and moves through the esophagus to the stomach. In the stomach, food is mixed with gastric acids to allow the extraction of nutrients. What is left is called chyme; this then moves into the small intestine, which absorbs the nutrients and water from the chyme. What remains passes on to the large intestine, where it is dried to form feces; these are then stored in the rectum until they are expelled through the anus.[18]
+
+The endocrine system consists of the principal endocrine glands: the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, parathyroids, and gonads, but nearly all organs and tissues produce specific endocrine hormones as well. The endocrine hormones serve as signals from one body system to another regarding an enormous array of conditions, and resulting in variety of changes of function.[19]
+
+The immune system consists of the white blood cells, the thymus, lymph nodes and lymph channels, which are also part of the lymphatic system. The immune system provides a mechanism for the body to distinguish its own cells and tissues from outside cells and substances and to neutralize or destroy the latter by using specialized proteins such as antibodies, cytokines, and toll-like receptors, among many others.[20]
+
+The integumentary system consists of the covering of the body (the skin), including hair and nails as well as other functionally important structures such as the sweat glands and sebaceous glands. The skin provides containment, structure, and protection for other organs, and serves as a major sensory interface with the outside world.[21][22]
+
+The lymphatic system extracts, transports and metabolizes lymph, the fluid found in between cells. The lymphatic system is similar to the circulatory system in terms of both its structure and its most basic function, to carry a body fluid.[23]
+
+The musculoskeletal system consists of the human skeleton (which includes bones, ligaments, tendons, and cartilage) and attached muscles. It gives the body basic structure and the ability for movement. In addition to their structural role, the larger bones in the body contain bone marrow, the site of production of blood cells. Also, all bones are major storage sites for calcium and phosphate. This system can be split up into the muscular system and the skeletal system.[24]
+
+The nervous system consists of the body's neurons and glial cells, which together form the nerves, ganglia and gray matter which in turn form the brain and related structures. The brain is the organ of thought, emotion, memory, and sensory processing; it serves many aspects of communication and controls various systems and functions. The special senses consist of vision, hearing, taste, and smell. The eyes, ears, tongue, and nose gather information about the body's environment.[25]
+
+From a structural perspective, the nervous system is typically subdivided into two component parts: the central nervous system (CNS), composed of the brain and the spinal cord; and the peripheral nervous system (PNS), composed of the nerves and ganglia outside the brain and spinal cord. The CNS is mostly responsible for organizing motion, processing sensory information, thought, memory, cognition and other such functions.[26] It remains a matter of some debate whether the CNS directly gives rise to consciousness.[27] The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is mostly responsible for gathering information with sensory neurons and directing body movements with motor neurons.[26]
+
+From a functional perspective, the nervous system is again typically divided into two component parts: the somatic nervous system (SNS) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The SNS is involved in voluntary functions like speaking and sensory processes. The ANS is involved in involuntary processes, such as digestion and regulating blood pressure.[28]
+
+The nervous system is subject to many different diseases. In epilepsy, abnormal electrical activity in the brain can cause seizures. In multiple sclerosis, the immune system attacks the nerve linings, damaging the nerves' ability to transmit signals. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a motor neuron disease which gradually reduces movement in patients. There are also many other diseases of the nervous system.[26]
+
+The reproductive system consists of the gonads and the internal and external sex organs. The reproductive system produces gametes in each sex, a mechanism for their combination, and in the female a nurturing environment for the first 9 months of development of the infant.[29]
+
+The respiratory system consists of the nose, nasopharynx, trachea, and lungs. It brings oxygen from the air and excretes carbon dioxide and water back into the air. First, air is pulled through the trachea into the lungs by the diaphragm pushing down, which creates a vacuum. Air is briefly stored inside small sacs known as alveoli (sing.: alveolus) before being expelled from the lungs when the diaphragm contracts again. Each alveolus is surrounded by capillaries carrying deoxygenated blood, which absorbs oxygen out of the air and into the bloodstream.[30][31]
+
+For the respiratory system to function properly, there need to be as few impediments as possible to the movement of air within the lungs. Inflammation of the lungs and excess mucus are common sources of breathing difficulties.[31] In asthma, the respiratory system is persistently inflamed, causing wheezing and/or shortness of breath. Pneumonia occurs through infection of the alveoli, and may be caused by tuberculosis. Emphysema, commonly a result of smoking, is caused by damage to connections between the alveoli.[32]
+
+The urinary system consists of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra. It removes toxic materials from the blood to produce urine, which carries a variety of waste molecules and excess ions and water out of the body.[33]
+
+Human anatomy is the study of the shape and form of the human body. The human body has four limbs (two arms and two legs), a head and a neck which connect to the torso. The body's shape is determined by a strong skeleton made of bone and cartilage, surrounded by fat, muscle, connective tissue, organs, and other structures. The spine at the back of the skeleton contains the flexible vertebral column which surrounds the spinal cord, which is a collection of nerve fibres connecting the brain to the rest of the body. Nerves connect the spinal cord and brain to the rest of the body. All major bones, muscles, and nerves in the body are named, with the exception of anatomical variations such as sesamoid bones and accessory muscles.
+
+Blood vessels carry blood throughout the body, which moves because of the beating of the heart. Venules and veins collect blood low in oxygen from tissues throughout the body. These collect in progressively larger veins until they reach the body's two largest veins, the superior and inferior vena cava, which drain blood into the right side of the heart. From here, the blood is pumped into the lungs where it receives oxygen and drains back into the left side of the heart. From here, it is pumped into the body's largest artery, the aorta, and then progressively smaller arteries and arterioles until it reaches tissue. Here blood passes from small arteries into capillaries, then small veins and the process begins again. Blood carries oxygen, waste products, and hormones from one place in the body to another. Blood is filtered at the kidneys and liver.
+
+The body consists of a number of body cavities, separated areas which house different organ systems. The brain and central nervous system reside in an area protected from the rest of the body by the blood brain barrier. The lungs sit in the pleural cavity. The intestines, liver, and spleen sit in the abdominal cavity.
+
+Height, weight, shape and other body proportions vary individually and with age and sex. Body shape is influenced by the distribution of muscle and fat tissue.[34]
+
+Human physiology is the study of how the human body functions. This includes the mechanical, physical, bioelectrical, and biochemical functions of humans in good health, from organs to the cells of which they are composed. The human body consists of many interacting systems of organs. These interact to maintain homeostasis, keeping the body in a stable state with safe levels of substances such as sugar and oxygen in the blood.[35]
+
+Each system contributes to homeostasis, of itself, other systems, and the entire body. Some combined systems are referred to by joint names. For example, the nervous system and the endocrine system operate together as the neuroendocrine system. The nervous system receives information from the body, and transmits this to the brain via nerve impulses and neurotransmitters. At the same time, the endocrine system releases hormones, such as to help regulate blood pressure and volume. Together, these systems regulate the internal environment of the body, maintaining blood flow, posture, energy supply, temperature, and acid balance (pH).[35]
+
+Development of the human body is the process of growth to maturity. The process begins with fertilisation, where an egg released from the ovary of a female is penetrated by sperm. The egg then lodges in the uterus, where an embryo and later fetus develop until birth. Growth and development occur after birth, and include both physical and psychological development, influenced by genetic, hormonal, environmental and other factors. Development and growth continue throughout life, through childhood, adolescence, and through adulthood to senility, and are referred to as the process of aging.
+
+Health professionals learn about the human body from illustrations, models, and demonstrations. Medical and dental students in addition gain practical experience, for example by dissection of cadavers. Human anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry are basic medical sciences, generally taught to medical students in their first year at medical school.[36][37][38]
+
+Anatomy has served the visual arts since Ancient Greek times, when the 5th century BC sculptor Polykleitos wrote his Canon on the ideal proportions of the male nude.[39] In the Italian Renaissance, artists from Piero della Francesca (c. 1415–1492) onwards, including Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and his collaborator Luca Pacioli (c. 1447–1517), learnt and wrote about the rules of art, including visual perspective and the proportions of the human body.[40]
+
+In Ancient Greece, the Hippocratic Corpus described the anatomy of the skeleton and muscles.[41] The 2nd century physician Galen of Pergamum compiled classical knowledge of anatomy into a text that was used throughout the Middle Ages.[42] In the Renaissance, Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) pioneered the modern study of human anatomy by dissection, writing the influential book De humani corporis fabrica.[43][44] Anatomy advanced further with the invention of the microscope and the study of the cellular structure of tissues and organs.[45] Modern anatomy uses techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, fluoroscopy and ultrasound imaging to study the body in unprecedented detail.[46]
+
+The study of human physiology began with Hippocrates in Ancient Greece, around 420 BCE, and with Aristotle (384–322 BCE) who applied critical thinking and emphasis on the relationship between structure and function. Galen (ca. 126–199) was the first to use experiments to probe the body's functions.[47] The term physiology was introduced by the French physician Jean Fernel (1497–1558).[48] In the 17th century, William Harvey (1578–1657) described the circulatory system, pioneering the combination of close observation with careful experiment.[49] In the 19th century, physiological knowledge began to accumulate at a rapid rate with the cell theory of Matthias Schleiden and Theodor Schwann in 1838, that organisms are made up of cells.[48] Claude Bernard (1813–1878) created the concept of the milieu interieur (internal environment), which Walter Cannon (1871–1945) later said was regulated to a steady state in homeostasis. In the 20th century, the physiologists Knut Schmidt-Nielsen and George Bartholomew extended their studies to comparative physiology and ecophysiology.[50] Most recently, evolutionary physiology has become a distinct subdiscipline.[51]

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+Alexander III of Macedon (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Γʹ ὁ Μακεδών, Aléxandros III ho Makedȏn; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas), was a king (basileus) of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon[a] and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of 20. He spent most of his ruling years on an unprecedented military campaign through western Asia and northeast Africa, and by the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from Greece to northwestern India.[1][2] He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of history's most successful military commanders.[3]
+
+During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until age 16. After Philip's assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his father's pan-Hellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia.[4][5] In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire (Persian Empire) and began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety.[b] At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Beas River.
+
+Alexander endeavoured to reach the "ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea" and invaded India in 326 BC, winning an important victory over the Pauravas at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops, dying in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexander's surviving generals and heirs.
+
+Alexander's legacy includes the cultural diffusion and syncretism which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt. Alexander's settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century AD and the presence of Greek speakers in central and far eastern Anatolia until the Greek genocide by the Turks in the 1920s. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mould of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He was undefeated in battle and became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves. Military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics.[6][c] He is often ranked among the most influential people in history.[7]
+
+Alexander was born in Pella, the capital of the Kingdom of Macedon,[8] on the sixth day of the ancient Greek month of Hekatombaion, which probably corresponds to 20 July 356 BC, although the exact date is uncertain.[9] He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his fourth wife, Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I, king of Epirus.[10] Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his principal wife for some time, likely because she gave birth to Alexander.[11]
+
+Several legends surround Alexander's birth and childhood.[12] According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, Olympias dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunderbolt that caused a flame to spread "far and wide" before dying away. Sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image.[13] Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb; or that Alexander's father was Zeus. Ancient commentators were divided about whether the ambitious Olympias promulgated the story of Alexander's divine parentage, variously claiming that she had told Alexander, or that she dismissed the suggestion as impious.[13]
+
+On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies and that his horses had won at the Olympic Games. It was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, attending the birth of Alexander.[14] Such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception.[12]
+
+In his early years, Alexander was raised by a nurse, Lanike, sister of Alexander's future general Cleitus the Black. Later in his childhood, Alexander was tutored by the strict Leonidas, a relative of his mother, and by Lysimachus of Acarnania.[15] Alexander was raised in the manner of noble Macedonian youths, learning to read, play the lyre, ride, fight, and hunt.[16]
+
+When Alexander was ten years old, a trader from Thessaly brought Philip a horse, which he offered to sell for thirteen talents. The horse refused to be mounted, and Philip ordered it away. Alexander, however, detecting the horse's fear of its own shadow, asked to tame the horse, which he eventually managed.[12] Plutarch stated that Philip, overjoyed at this display of courage and ambition, kissed his son tearfully, declaring: "My boy, you must find a kingdom big enough for your ambitions. Macedon is too small for you", and bought the horse for him.[17] Alexander named it Bucephalas, meaning "ox-head". Bucephalas carried Alexander as far as India. When the animal died (because of old age, according to Plutarch, at age thirty), Alexander named a city after him, Bucephala.[18]
+
+When Alexander was 13, Philip began to search for a tutor, and considered such academics as Isocrates and Speusippus, the latter offering to resign from his stewardship of the Academy to take up the post. In the end, Philip chose Aristotle and provided the Temple of the Nymphs at Mieza as a classroom. In return for teaching Alexander, Philip agreed to rebuild Aristotle's hometown of Stageira, which Philip had razed, and to repopulate it by buying and freeing the ex-citizens who were slaves, or pardoning those who were in exile.[19]
+
+Mieza was like a boarding school for Alexander and the children of Macedonian nobles, such as Ptolemy, Hephaistion, and Cassander. Many of these students would become his friends and future generals, and are often known as the 'Companions'. Aristotle taught Alexander and his companions about medicine, philosophy, morals, religion, logic, and art. Under Aristotle's tutelage, Alexander developed a passion for the works of Homer, and in particular the Iliad; Aristotle gave him an annotated copy, which Alexander later carried on his campaigns.[20]
+
+During his youth, Alexander was also acquainted with Persian exiles at the Macedonian court, who received the protection of Philip II for several years as they opposed Artaxerxes III.[21][22][23] Among them were Artabazos II and his daughter Barsine, future mistress of Alexander, who resided at the Macedonian court from 352 to 342 BC, as well as Amminapes, future satrap of Alexander, or a Persian nobleman named Sisines.[21][24][25][26] This gave the Macedonian court a good knowledge of Persian issues, and may even have influenced some of the innovations in the management of the Macedonian state.[24]
+
+Suda writes that, also, Anaximenes of Lampsacus was one of his teachers. Anaximenes, also accompanied him on his campaigns.[27]
+
+At age 16, Alexander's education under Aristotle ended. Philip waged war against Byzantion, leaving Alexander in charge as regent and heir apparent.[12] During Philip's absence, the Thracian Maedi revolted against Macedonia. Alexander responded quickly, driving them from their territory. He colonized it with Greeks, and founded a city named Alexandropolis.[28]
+
+Upon Philip's return, he dispatched Alexander with a small force to subdue revolts in southern Thrace. Campaigning against the Greek city of Perinthus, Alexander is reported to have saved his father's life. Meanwhile, the city of Amphissa began to work lands that were sacred to Apollo near Delphi, a sacrilege that gave Philip the opportunity to further intervene in Greek affairs. Still occupied in Thrace, he ordered Alexander to muster an army for a campaign in southern Greece. Concerned that other Greek states might intervene, Alexander made it look as though he was preparing to attack Illyria instead. During this turmoil, the Illyrians invaded Macedonia, only to be repelled by Alexander.[29]
+
+Philip and his army joined his son in 338 BC, and they marched south through Thermopylae, taking it after stubborn resistance from its Theban garrison. They went on to occupy the city of Elatea, only a few days' march from both Athens and Thebes. The Athenians, led by Demosthenes, voted to seek alliance with Thebes against Macedonia. Both Athens and Philip sent embassies to win Thebes' favour, but Athens won the contest.[30] Philip marched on Amphissa (ostensibly acting on the request of the Amphictyonic League), capturing the mercenaries sent there by Demosthenes and accepting the city's surrender. Philip then returned to Elatea, sending a final offer of peace to Athens and Thebes, who both rejected it.[31]
+
+As Philip marched south, his opponents blocked him near Chaeronea, Boeotia. During the ensuing Battle of Chaeronea, Philip commanded the right wing and Alexander the left, accompanied by a group of Philip's trusted generals. According to the ancient sources, the two sides fought bitterly for some time. Philip deliberately commanded his troops to retreat, counting on the untested Athenian hoplites to follow, thus breaking their line. Alexander was the first to break the Theban lines, followed by Philip's generals. Having damaged the enemy's cohesion, Philip ordered his troops to press forward and quickly routed them. With the Athenians lost, the Thebans were surrounded. Left to fight alone, they were defeated.[32]
+
+After the victory at Chaeronea, Philip and Alexander marched unopposed into the Peloponnese, welcomed by all cities; however, when they reached Sparta, they were refused, but did not resort to war.[33] At Corinth, Philip established a "Hellenic Alliance" (modelled on the old anti-Persian alliance of the Greco-Persian Wars), which included most Greek city-states except Sparta. Philip was then named Hegemon (often translated as "Supreme Commander") of this league (known by modern scholars as the League of Corinth), and announced his plans to attack the Persian Empire.[34][35]
+
+When Philip returned to Pella, he fell in love with and married Cleopatra Eurydice in 338 BC,[36] the niece of his general Attalus.[37] The marriage made Alexander's position as heir less secure, since any son of Cleopatra Eurydice would be a fully Macedonian heir, while Alexander was only half-Macedonian.[38] During the wedding banquet, a drunken Attalus publicly prayed to the gods that the union would produce a legitimate heir.[37]
+
+At the wedding of Cleopatra, whom Philip fell in love with and married, she being much too young for him, her uncle Attalus in his drink desired the Macedonians would implore the gods to give them a lawful successor to the kingdom by his niece. This so irritated Alexander, that throwing one of the cups at his head, "You villain," said he, "what, am I then a bastard?" Then Philip, taking Attalus's part, rose up and would have run his son through; but by good fortune for them both, either his over-hasty rage, or the wine he had drunk, made his foot slip, so that he fell down on the floor. At which Alexander reproachfully insulted over him: "See there," said he, "the man who makes preparations to pass out of Europe into Asia, overturned in passing from one seat to another."
+
+In 337 BC, Alexander fled Macedon with his mother, dropping her off with her brother, King Alexander I of Epirus in Dodona, capital of the Molossians.[40] He continued to Illyria,[40] where he sought refuge with one or more Illyrian kings, perhaps with Glaukias, and was treated as a guest, despite having defeated them in battle a few years before.[41] However, it appears Philip never intended to disown his politically and militarily trained son.[40] Accordingly, Alexander returned to Macedon after six months due to the efforts of a family friend, Demaratus, who mediated between the two parties.[42]
+
+In the following year, the Persian satrap (governor) of Caria, Pixodarus, offered his eldest daughter to Alexander's half-brother, Philip Arrhidaeus.[40] Olympias and several of Alexander's friends suggested this showed Philip intended to make Arrhidaeus his heir.[40] Alexander reacted by sending an actor, Thessalus of Corinth, to tell Pixodarus that he should not offer his daughter's hand to an illegitimate son, but instead to Alexander. When Philip heard of this, he stopped the negotiations and scolded Alexander for wishing to marry the daughter of a Carian, explaining that he wanted a better bride for him.[40] Philip exiled four of Alexander's friends, Harpalus, Nearchus, Ptolemy and Erigyius, and had the Corinthians bring Thessalus to him in chains.[43]
+
+In summer 336 BC, while at Aegae attending the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra to Olympias's brother, Alexander I of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by the captain of his bodyguards, Pausanias.[e] As Pausanias tried to escape, he tripped over a vine and was killed by his pursuers, including two of Alexander's companions, Perdiccas and Leonnatus. Alexander was proclaimed king on the spot by the nobles and army at the age of 20.[45][46][47]
+
+Alexander began his reign by eliminating potential rivals to the throne. He had his cousin, the former Amyntas IV, executed.[48] He also had two Macedonian princes from the region of Lyncestis killed, but spared a third, Alexander Lyncestes. Olympias had Cleopatra Eurydice and Europa, her daughter by Philip, burned alive. When Alexander learned about this, he was furious. Alexander also ordered the murder of Attalus,[48] who was in command of the advance guard of the army in Asia Minor and Cleopatra's uncle.[49]
+
+Attalus was at that time corresponding with Demosthenes, regarding the possibility of defecting to Athens. Attalus also had severely insulted Alexander, and following Cleopatra's murder, Alexander may have considered him too dangerous to leave alive.[49] Alexander spared Arrhidaeus, who was by all accounts mentally disabled, possibly as a result of poisoning by Olympias.[45][47][50]
+
+News of Philip's death roused many states into revolt, including Thebes, Athens, Thessaly, and the Thracian tribes north of Macedon. When news of the revolts reached Alexander, he responded quickly. Though advised to use diplomacy, Alexander mustered 3,000 Macedonian cavalry and rode south towards Thessaly. He found the Thessalian army occupying the pass between Mount Olympus and Mount Ossa, and ordered his men to ride over Mount Ossa. When the Thessalians awoke the next day, they found Alexander in their rear and promptly surrendered, adding their cavalry to Alexander's force. He then continued south towards the Peloponnese.[51]
+
+Alexander stopped at Thermopylae, where he was recognized as the leader of the Amphictyonic League before heading south to Corinth. Athens sued for peace and Alexander pardoned the rebels. The famous encounter between Alexander and Diogenes the Cynic occurred during Alexander's stay in Corinth. When Alexander asked Diogenes what he could do for him, the philosopher disdainfully asked Alexander to stand a little to the side, as he was blocking the sunlight.[52] This reply apparently delighted Alexander, who is reported to have said "But verily, if I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes."[53] At Corinth, Alexander took the title of Hegemon ("leader") and, like Philip, was appointed commander for the coming war against Persia. He also received news of a Thracian uprising.[54]
+
+Before crossing to Asia, Alexander wanted to safeguard his northern borders. In the spring of 335 BC, he advanced to suppress several revolts. Starting from Amphipolis, he travelled east into the country of the "Independent Thracians"; and at Mount Haemus, the Macedonian army attacked and defeated the Thracian forces manning the heights.[55] The Macedonians marched into the country of the Triballi, and defeated their army near the Lyginus river[56] (a tributary of the Danube). Alexander then marched for three days to the Danube, encountering the Getae tribe on the opposite shore. Crossing the river at night, he surprised them and forced their army to retreat after the first cavalry skirmish.[57]
+
+News then reached Alexander that Cleitus, King of Illyria, and King Glaukias of the Taulantii were in open revolt against his authority. Marching west into Illyria, Alexander defeated each in turn, forcing the two rulers to flee with their troops. With these victories, he secured his northern frontier.[58]
+
+While Alexander campaigned north, the Thebans and Athenians rebelled once again. Alexander immediately headed south.[59] While the other cities again hesitated, Thebes decided to fight. The Theban resistance was ineffective, and Alexander razed the city and divided its territory between the other Boeotian cities. The end of Thebes cowed Athens, leaving all of Greece temporarily at peace.[59] Alexander then set out on his Asian campaign, leaving Antipater as regent.[60]
+
+According to ancient writers Demosthenes called Alexander "Margites" (Greek: Μαργίτης)[61][62][63] and a boy.[63] Greeks used the word Margites to describe fool and useless people, on account of the Margites.[62][64]
+
+Ionia 336 BC
+
+Media and Egypt 333 BC
+
+Persia 331 BC
+
+India 326 BC
+
+In 336 BC Philip II had already sent Parmenion, with Amyntas, Andromenes and Attalus, and an army of 10,000 men into Anatolia to make preparations for an invasion to free the Greeks living on the western coast and islands from Achaemenid rule.[65][66]  At first, all went well. The Greek cities on the western coast of Anatolia revolted until the news arrived that Philip had been murdered and had been succeeded by his young son Alexander. The Macedonians were demoralized by Philip's death and were subsequently defeated near Magnesia by the Achaemenids under the command of the mercenary Memnon of Rhodes.[65][66]
+
+Taking over the invasion project of Philip II, Alexander's army crossed the Hellespont in 334 BC with approximately 48,100 soldiers, 6,100 cavalry and a fleet of 120 ships with crews numbering 38,000,[59] drawn from Macedon and various Greek city-states, mercenaries, and feudally raised soldiers from Thrace, Paionia, and Illyria.[67][f] He showed his intent to conquer the entirety of the Persian Empire by throwing a spear into Asian soil and saying he accepted Asia as a gift from the gods. This also showed Alexander's eagerness to fight, in contrast to his father's preference for diplomacy.[59]
+
+After an initial victory against Persian forces at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander accepted the surrender of the Persian provincial capital and treasury of Sardis; he then proceeded along the Ionian coast, granting autonomy and democracy to the cities. Miletus, held by Achaemenid forces, required a delicate siege operation, with Persian naval forces nearby. Further south, at Halicarnassus, in Caria, Alexander successfully waged his first large-scale siege, eventually forcing his opponents, the mercenary captain Memnon of Rhodes and the Persian satrap of Caria, Orontobates, to withdraw by sea.[68] Alexander left the government of Caria to a member of the Hecatomnid dynasty, Ada, who adopted Alexander.[69]
+
+From Halicarnassus, Alexander proceeded into mountainous Lycia and the Pamphylian plain, asserting control over all coastal cities to deny the Persians naval bases. From Pamphylia onwards the coast held no major ports and Alexander moved inland. At Termessos, Alexander humbled but did not storm the Pisidian city.[70] At the ancient Phrygian capital of Gordium, Alexander "undid" the hitherto unsolvable Gordian Knot, a feat said to await the future "king of Asia".[71] According to the story, Alexander proclaimed that it did not matter how the knot was undone and hacked it apart with his sword.[72]
+
+In spring 333 BC, Alexander crossed the Taurus into Cilicia. After a long pause due to an illness, he marched on towards Syria. Though outmanoeuvered by Darius' significantly larger army, he marched back to Cilicia, where he defeated Darius at Issus. Darius fled the battle, causing his army to collapse, and left behind his wife, his two daughters, his mother Sisygambis, and a fabulous treasure.[73] He offered a peace treaty that included the lands he had already lost, and a ransom of 10,000 talents for his family. Alexander replied that since he was now king of Asia, it was he alone who decided territorial divisions.[74]
+Alexander proceeded to take possession of Syria, and most of the coast of the Levant.[69] In the following year, 332 BC, he was forced to attack Tyre, which he captured after a long and difficult siege.[75][76] The men of military age were massacred and the women and children sold into slavery.[77]
+
+When Alexander destroyed Tyre, most of the towns on the route to Egypt quickly capitulated. However, Alexander met with resistance at Gaza. The stronghold was heavily fortified and built on a hill, requiring a siege. When "his engineers pointed out to him that because of the height of the mound it would be impossible... this encouraged Alexander all the more to make the
+attempt".[78] After three unsuccessful assaults, the stronghold fell, but not before Alexander had received a serious shoulder wound. As in Tyre, men of military age were put to the sword and the women and children were sold into slavery.[79]
+
+Alexander advanced on Egypt in later 332 BC, where he was regarded as a liberator.[80] He was pronounced son of the deity Amun at the Oracle of Siwa Oasis in the Libyan desert.[81] Henceforth, Alexander often referred to Zeus-Ammon as his true father, and after his death, currency depicted him adorned with the Horns of Ammon as a symbol of his divinity.[82] During his stay in Egypt, he founded Alexandria-by-Egypt, which would become the prosperous capital of the Ptolemaic Kingdom after his death.[83]
+
+Leaving Egypt in 331 BCE, Alexander marched eastward into Achaemenid Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia (now northern Iraq) and defeated Darius again at the Battle of Gaugamela.[84] Darius once more fled the field, and Alexander chased him as far as Arbela. Gaugamela would be the final and decisive encounter between the two. Darius fled over the mountains to Ecbatana (modern Hamadan) while Alexander captured Babylon.[85]
+
+From Babylon, Alexander went to Susa, one of the Achaemenid capitals, and captured its treasury.[85] He sent the bulk of his army to the Persian ceremonial capital of Persepolis via the Persian Royal Road. Alexander himself took selected troops on the direct route to the city. He then stormed the pass of the Persian Gates (in the modern Zagros Mountains) which had been blocked by a Persian army under Ariobarzanes and then hurried to Persepolis before its garrison could loot the treasury.[86]
+
+On entering Persepolis, Alexander allowed his troops to loot the city for several days.[87] Alexander stayed in Persepolis for five months.[88] During his stay a fire broke out in the eastern palace of Xerxes I and spread to the rest of the city. Possible causes include a drunken accident or deliberate revenge for the burning of the Acropolis of Athens during the Second Persian War by Xerxes;[89] Plutarch and Diodorus allege that Alexander's companion, the hetaera Thaïs, instigated and started the fire. Even as he watched the city burn, Alexander immediately began to regret his decision.[90][91][92] Plutarch claims that he ordered his men to put out the fires,[90] but that the flames had already spread to most of the city.[90] Curtius claims that Alexander did not regret his decision until the next morning.[90] Plutarch recounts an anecdote in which Alexander pauses and talks to a fallen statue of Xerxes as if it were a live person:
+
+Shall I pass by and leave you lying there because of the expeditions you led against Greece, or shall I set you up again because of your magnanimity and your virtues in other respects?[93]
+
+Alexander then chased Darius, first into Media, and then Parthia.[95] The Persian king no longer controlled his own destiny, and was taken prisoner by Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman.[96] As Alexander approached, Bessus had his men fatally stab the Great King and then declared himself Darius' successor as Artaxerxes V, before retreating into Central Asia to launch a guerrilla campaign against Alexander.[97] Alexander buried Darius' remains next to his Achaemenid predecessors in a regal funeral.[98] He claimed that, while dying, Darius had named him as his successor to the Achaemenid throne.[99] The Achaemenid Empire is normally considered to have fallen with Darius.[100]
+
+Alexander viewed Bessus as a usurper and set out to defeat him. This campaign, initially against Bessus, turned into a grand tour of central Asia. Alexander founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan. The campaign took Alexander through Media, Parthia, Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana, Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan), Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan), and Scythia.[101]
+
+In 329 BC, Spitamenes, who held an undefined position in the satrapy of Sogdiana, betrayed Bessus to Ptolemy, one of Alexander's trusted companions, and Bessus was executed.[102] However, when, at some point later, Alexander was on the Jaxartes dealing with an incursion by a horse nomad army, Spitamenes raised Sogdiana in revolt. Alexander personally defeated the Scythians at the Battle of Jaxartes and immediately launched a campaign against Spitamenes, defeating him in the Battle of Gabai. After the defeat, Spitamenes was killed by his own men, who then sued for peace.[103]
+
+During this time, Alexander adopted some elements of Persian dress and customs at his court, notably the custom of proskynesis, either a symbolic kissing of the hand, or prostration on the ground, that Persians showed to their social superiors.[104] The Greeks regarded the gesture as the province of deities and believed that Alexander meant to deify himself by requiring it. This cost him the sympathies of many of his countrymen, and he eventually abandoned it.[105]
+
+A plot against his life was revealed, and one of his officers, Philotas, was executed for failing to alert Alexander. The death of the son necessitated the death of the father, and thus Parmenion, who had been charged with guarding the treasury at Ecbatana, was assassinated at Alexander's command, to prevent attempts at vengeance. Most infamously, Alexander personally killed the man who had saved his life at Granicus, Cleitus the Black, during a violent drunken altercation at Maracanda (modern day Samarkand in Uzbekistan), in which Cleitus accused Alexander of several judgmental mistakes and most especially, of having forgotten the Macedonian ways in favour of a corrupt oriental lifestyle.[106]
+
+Later, in the Central Asian campaign, a second plot against his life was revealed, this one instigated by his own royal pages. His official historian, Callisthenes of Olynthus, was implicated in the plot, and in the Anabasis of Alexander, Arrian states that Callisthenes and the pages were then tortured on the rack as punishment, and likely died soon after.[107] It remains unclear if Callisthenes was actually involved in the plot, for prior to his accusation he had fallen out of favour by leading the opposition to the attempt to introduce proskynesis.[108]
+
+When Alexander set out for Asia, he left his general Antipater, an experienced military and political leader and part of Philip II's "Old Guard", in charge of Macedon.[60] Alexander's sacking of Thebes ensured that Greece remained quiet during his absence.[60] The one exception was a call to arms by Spartan king Agis III in 331 BC, whom Antipater defeated and killed in the battle of Megalopolis.[60] Antipater referred the Spartans' punishment to the League of Corinth, which then deferred to Alexander, who chose to pardon them.[109] There was also considerable friction between Antipater and Olympias, and each complained to Alexander about the other.[110]
+
+In general, Greece enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity during Alexander's campaign in Asia.[111] Alexander sent back vast sums from his conquest, which stimulated the economy and increased trade across his empire.[112] However, Alexander's constant demands for troops and the migration of Macedonians throughout his empire depleted Macedon's strength, greatly weakening it in the years after Alexander, and ultimately led to its subjugation by Rome after the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BC).[16]
+
+After the death of Spitamenes and his marriage to Roxana (Raoxshna in Old Iranian) to cement relations with his new satrapies, Alexander turned to the Indian subcontinent. He invited the chieftains of the former satrapy of Gandhara (a region presently straddling eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan), to come to him and submit to his authority. Omphis (Indian name Ambhi), the ruler of Taxila, whose kingdom extended from the Indus to the Hydaspes (Jhelum), complied, but the chieftains of some hill clans, including the Aspasioi and Assakenoi sections of the Kambojas (known in Indian texts also as Ashvayanas and Ashvakayanas), refused to submit.[113] Ambhi hastened to relieve Alexander of his apprehension and met him with valuable presents, placing himself and all his forces at his disposal. Alexander not only returned Ambhi his title and the gifts but he also presented him with a wardrobe of "Persian robes, gold and silver ornaments, 30 horses and 1,000 talents in gold". Alexander was emboldened to divide his forces, and Ambhi assisted Hephaestion and Perdiccas in constructing a bridge over the Indus where it bends at Hund,[114] supplied their troops with provisions, and received Alexander himself, and his whole army, in his capital city of Taxila, with every demonstration of friendship and the most liberal hospitality.
+
+On the subsequent advance of the Macedonian king, Taxiles accompanied him with a force of 5,000 men and took part in the battle of the Hydaspes River. After that victory he was sent by Alexander in pursuit of Porus (Indian name Puru), to whom he was charged to offer favourable terms, but narrowly escaped losing his life at the hands of his old enemy. Subsequently, however, the two rivals were reconciled by the personal mediation of Alexander; and Taxiles, after having contributed zealously to the equipment of the fleet on the Hydaspes, was entrusted by the king with the government of the whole territory between that river and the Indus. A considerable accession of power was granted him after the death of Philip, son of Machatas; and he was allowed to retain his authority at the death of Alexander himself (323 BC), as well as in the subsequent partition of the provinces at Triparadisus, 321 BC.
+
+In the winter of 327/326 BC, Alexander personally led a campaign against the Aspasioi of Kunar valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus valley, and the Assakenoi of the Swat and Buner valleys.[115] A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi in which Alexander was wounded in the shoulder by a dart, but eventually the Aspasioi lost. Alexander then faced the Assakenoi, who fought against him from the strongholds of Massaga, Ora and Aornos.[113]
+
+The fort of Massaga was reduced only after days of bloody fighting, in which Alexander was wounded seriously in the ankle. According to Curtius, "Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubble."[116] A similar slaughter followed at Ora. In the aftermath of Massaga and Ora, numerous Assakenians fled to the fortress of Aornos. Alexander followed close behind and captured the strategic hill-fort after four bloody days.[113]
+
+After Aornos, Alexander crossed the Indus and fought and won an epic battle against King Porus, who ruled a region lying between the Hydaspes and the Acesines (Chenab), in what is now the Punjab, in the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC.[117] Alexander was impressed by Porus' bravery, and made him an ally. He appointed Porus as satrap, and added to Porus' territory land that he did not previously own, towards the south-east, up to the Hyphasis (Beas).[118][119] Choosing a local helped him control these lands so distant from Greece.[120] Alexander founded two cities on opposite sides of the Hydaspes river, naming one Bucephala, in honour of his horse, who died around this time.[121] The other was Nicaea (Victory), thought to be located at the site of modern-day Mong, Punjab.[122] Philostratus the Elder in the Life of Apollonius of Tyana writes that in the army of Porus there was an elephant who fought brave against Alexander's army and Alexander dedicated it to the Helios (Sun) and named it Ajax, because he thought that a so great animal deserved a great name. The elephant had gold rings around its tusks and an inscription was on them written in Greek: "Alexander the son of Zeus dedicates Ajax to the Helios" (ΑΛΕΞΑΝΔΡΟΣ Ο ΔΙΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΑΙΑΝΤΑ ΤΩΙ ΗΛΙΩΙ).[123]
+
+East of Porus' kingdom, near the Ganges River, was the Nanda Empire of Magadha, and further east, the Gangaridai Empire of Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent. Fearing the prospect of facing other large armies and exhausted by years of campaigning, Alexander's army mutinied at the Hyphasis River (Beas), refusing to march farther east.[124] This river thus marks the easternmost extent of Alexander's conquests.[125]
+
+As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horse, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at-arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand war elephants.[126]
+
+Alexander tried to persuade his soldiers to march farther, but his general Coenus pleaded with him to change his opinion and return; the men, he said, "longed to again see their parents, their wives and children, their homeland". Alexander eventually agreed and turned south, marching along the Indus. Along the way his army conquered the Malhi (in modern-day Multan) and other Indian tribes and Alexander sustained an injury during the siege.[127]
+
+Alexander sent much of his army to Carmania (modern southern Iran) with general Craterus, and commissioned a fleet to explore the Persian Gulf shore under his admiral Nearchus, while he led the rest back to Persia through the more difficult southern route along the Gedrosian Desert and Makran.[128] Alexander reached Susa in 324 BC, but not before losing many men to the harsh desert.[129]
+
+Discovering that many of his satraps and military governors had misbehaved in his absence, Alexander executed several of them as examples on his way to Susa.[131][132] As a gesture of thanks, he paid off the debts of his soldiers, and announced that he would send over-aged and disabled veterans back to Macedon, led by Craterus. His troops misunderstood his intention and mutinied at the town of Opis. They refused to be sent away and criticized his adoption of Persian customs and dress and the introduction of Persian officers and soldiers into Macedonian units.[133]
+
+After three days, unable to persuade his men to back down, Alexander gave Persians command posts in the army and conferred Macedonian military titles upon Persian units. The Macedonians quickly begged forgiveness, which Alexander accepted, and held a great banquet for several thousand of his men at which he and they ate together.[134] In an attempt to craft a lasting harmony between his Macedonian and Persian subjects, Alexander held a mass marriage of his senior officers to Persian and other noblewomen at Susa, but few of those marriages seem to have lasted much beyond a year.[132] Meanwhile, upon his return to Persia, Alexander learned that guards of the tomb of Cyrus the Great in Pasargadae had desecrated it, and swiftly executed them.[135] Alexander admired Cyrus the Great, from an early age reading Xenophon's Cyropaedia, which described Cyrus's heroism in battle and governance as a king and legislator.[136] During his visit to Pasargadae Alexander ordered his architect Aristobulus to decorate the interior of the sepulchral chamber of Cyrus' tomb.[136]
+
+Afterwards, Alexander travelled to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure. There, his closest friend and possible lover, Hephaestion, died of illness or poisoning.[137][138] Hephaestion's death devastated Alexander, and he ordered the preparation of an expensive funeral pyre in Babylon, as well as a decree for public mourning.[137] Back in Babylon, Alexander planned a series of new campaigns, beginning with an invasion of Arabia, but he would not have a chance to realize them, as he died shortly after Hephaestion.[139]
+
+On either 10 or 11 June 323 BC, Alexander died in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, in Babylon, at age 32.[140] There are two different versions of Alexander's death and details of the death differ slightly in each. Plutarch's account is that roughly 14 days before his death, Alexander entertained admiral Nearchus, and spent the night and next day drinking with Medius of Larissa.[141] He developed a fever, which worsened until he was unable to speak. The common soldiers, anxious about his health, were granted the right to file past him as he silently waved at them.[142] In the second account, Diodorus recounts that Alexander was struck with pain after downing a large bowl of unmixed wine in honour of Heracles, followed by 11 days of weakness; he did not develop a fever and died after some agony.[143] Arrian also mentioned this as an alternative, but Plutarch specifically denied this claim.[141]
+
+Given the propensity of the Macedonian aristocracy to assassination,[144] foul play featured in multiple accounts of his death. Diodorus, Plutarch, Arrian and Justin all mentioned the theory that Alexander was poisoned. Justin stated that Alexander was the victim of a poisoning conspiracy, Plutarch dismissed it as a fabrication,[145] while both Diodorus and Arrian noted that they mentioned it only for the sake of completeness.[143][146] The accounts were nevertheless fairly consistent in designating Antipater, recently removed as Macedonian viceroy, and at odds with Olympias, as the head of the alleged plot. Perhaps taking his summons to Babylon as a death sentence,[147] and having seen the fate of Parmenion and Philotas,[148] Antipater purportedly arranged for Alexander to be poisoned by his son Iollas, who was Alexander's wine-pourer.[146][148] There was even a suggestion that Aristotle may have participated.[146]
+
+The strongest argument against the poison theory is the fact that twelve days passed between the start of his illness and his death; such long-acting poisons were probably not available.[149] However, in a 2003 BBC documentary investigating the death of Alexander, Leo Schep from the New Zealand National Poisons Centre proposed that the plant white hellebore (Veratrum album), which was known in antiquity, may have been used to poison Alexander.[150][151][152] In a 2014 manuscript in the journal Clinical Toxicology, Schep suggested Alexander's wine was spiked with Veratrum album, and that this would produce poisoning symptoms that match the course of events described in the Alexander Romance.[153] Veratrum album poisoning can have a prolonged course and it was suggested that if Alexander was poisoned, Veratrum album offers the most plausible cause.[153][154] Another poisoning explanation put forward in 2010 proposed that the circumstances of his death were compatible with poisoning by water of the river Styx (modern-day Mavroneri in Arcadia, Greece) that contained calicheamicin, a dangerous compound produced by bacteria.[155]
+
+Several natural causes (diseases) have been suggested, including malaria and typhoid fever. A 1998 article in the New England Journal of Medicine attributed his death to typhoid fever complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis.[156] Another recent analysis suggested pyogenic (infectious) spondylitis or meningitis.[157] Other illnesses fit the symptoms, including acute pancreatitis and West Nile virus.[158][159] Natural-cause theories also tend to emphasize that Alexander's health may have been in general decline after years of heavy drinking and severe wounds. The anguish that Alexander felt after Hephaestion's death may also have contributed to his declining health.[156]
+
+Alexander's body was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus that was filled with honey, which was in turn placed in a gold casket.[160][161] According to Aelian, a seer called Aristander foretold that the land where Alexander was laid to rest "would be happy and unvanquishable forever".[162] Perhaps more likely, the successors may have seen possession of the body as a symbol of legitimacy, since burying the prior king was a royal prerogative.[163]
+
+While Alexander's funeral cortege was on its way to Macedon, Ptolemy seized it and took it temporarily to Memphis.[160][162] His successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, transferred the sarcophagus to Alexandria, where it remained until at least late Antiquity. Ptolemy IX Lathyros, one of Ptolemy's final successors, replaced Alexander's sarcophagus with a glass one so he could convert the original to coinage.[164] The recent discovery of an enormous tomb in northern Greece, at Amphipolis, dating from the time of Alexander the Great[165] has given rise to speculation that its original intent was to be the burial place of Alexander. This would fit with the intended destination of Alexander's funeral cortege. However, the memorial was found to be dedicated to the dearest friend of Alexander the Great, Hephaestion.[166][167]
+
+Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus all visited the tomb in Alexandria, where Augustus, allegedly, accidentally knocked the nose off. Caligula was said to have taken Alexander's breastplate from the tomb for his own use. Around AD 200, Emperor Septimius Severus closed Alexander's tomb to the public. His son and successor, Caracalla, a great admirer, visited the tomb during his own reign. After this, details on the fate of the tomb are hazy.[164]
+
+The so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus", discovered near Sidon and now in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, is so named not because it was thought to have contained Alexander's remains, but because its bas-reliefs depict Alexander and his companions fighting the Persians and hunting. It was originally thought to have been the sarcophagus of Abdalonymus (died 311 BC), the king of Sidon appointed by Alexander immediately following the battle of Issus in 331.[168][169] However, more recently, it has been suggested that it may date from earlier than Abdalonymus' death.
+
+Demades likened the Macedonian army, after the death of Alexander, to the blinded Cyclop, due to the many random and disorderly movements that it made.[170][171][172] In addition, Leosthenes, also, likened the anarchy between the generals, after Alexander's death, to the blinded Cyclop "who after he had lost his eye went feeling and groping about with his hands before him, not knowing where to lay them".[173]
+
+Alexander's death was so sudden that when reports of his death reached Greece, they were not immediately believed.[60] Alexander had no obvious or legitimate heir, his son Alexander IV by Roxane being born after Alexander's death.[174] According to Diodorus, Alexander's companions asked him on his deathbed to whom he bequeathed his kingdom; his laconic reply was "tôi kratistôi"—"to the strongest".[143] Another theory is that his successors willfully or erroneously misheard "tôi Kraterôi"—"to Craterus", the general leading his Macedonian troops home and newly entrusted with the regency of Macedonia.[175]
+
+Arrian and Plutarch claimed that Alexander was speechless by this point, implying that this was an apocryphal story.[176] Diodorus, Curtius and Justin offered the more plausible story that Alexander passed his signet ring to Perdiccas, a bodyguard and leader of the companion cavalry, in front of witnesses, thereby nominating him.[143][174]
+
+Perdiccas initially did not claim power, instead suggesting that Roxane's baby would be king, if male; with himself, Craterus, Leonnatus, and Antipater as guardians. However, the infantry, under the command of Meleager, rejected this arrangement since they had been excluded from the discussion. Instead, they supported Alexander's half-brother Philip Arrhidaeus. Eventually, the two sides reconciled, and after the birth of Alexander IV, he and Philip III were appointed joint kings, albeit in name only.[177]
+
+Dissension and rivalry soon afflicted the Macedonians, however. The satrapies handed out by Perdiccas at the Partition of Babylon became power bases each general used to bid for power. After the assassination of Perdiccas in 321 BC, Macedonian unity collapsed, and 40 years of war between "The Successors" (Diadochi) ensued before the Hellenistic world settled into four stable power blocs: Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Mesopotamia and Central Asia, Attalid Anatolia, and Antigonid Macedon. In the process, both Alexander IV and Philip III were murdered.[178]
+
+Diodorus stated that Alexander had given detailed written instructions to Craterus some time before his death.[179] Craterus started to carry out Alexander's commands, but the successors chose not to further implement them, on the grounds they were impractical and extravagant.[179] Nevertheless, Perdiccas read Alexander's will to his troops.[60]
+
+Alexander's will called for military expansion into the southern and western Mediterranean, monumental constructions, and the intermixing of Eastern and Western populations. It included:
+
+Alexander earned the epithet "the Great" due to his unparalleled success as a military commander. He never lost a battle, despite typically being outnumbered.[59] This was due to use of terrain, phalanx and cavalry tactics, bold strategy, and the fierce loyalty of his troops.[181] The Macedonian phalanx, armed with the sarissa, a spear 6 metres (20 ft) long, had been developed and perfected by Philip II through rigorous training, and Alexander used its speed and maneuverability to great effect against larger but more disparate[clarification needed] Persian forces.[182] Alexander also recognized the potential for disunity among his diverse army, which employed various languages and weapons. He overcame this by being personally involved in battle,[88] in the manner of a Macedonian king.[181]
+
+In his first battle in Asia, at Granicus, Alexander used only a small part of his forces, perhaps 13,000 infantry with 5,000 cavalry, against a much larger Persian force of 40,000.[183] Alexander placed the phalanx at the center and cavalry and archers on the wings, so that his line matched the length of the Persian cavalry line, about 3 km (1.86 mi). By contrast, the Persian infantry was stationed behind its cavalry. This ensured that Alexander would not be outflanked, while his phalanx, armed with long pikes, had a considerable advantage over the Persians' scimitars and javelins. Macedonian losses were negligible compared to those of the Persians.[184]
+
+At Issus in 333 BC, his first confrontation with Darius, he used the same deployment, and again the central phalanx pushed through.[184] Alexander personally led the charge in the center, routing the opposing army.[185] At the decisive encounter with Darius at Gaugamela, Darius equipped his chariots with scythes on the wheels to break up the phalanx and equipped his cavalry with pikes. Alexander arranged a double phalanx, with the center advancing at an angle, parting when the chariots bore down and then reforming. The advance was successful and broke Darius' center, causing the latter to flee once again.[184]
+
+When faced with opponents who used unfamiliar fighting techniques, such as in Central Asia and India, Alexander adapted his forces to his opponents' style. Thus, in Bactria and Sogdiana, Alexander successfully used his javelin throwers and archers to prevent outflanking movements, while massing his cavalry at the center.[185] In India, confronted by Porus' elephant corps, the Macedonians opened their ranks to envelop the elephants and used their sarissas to strike upwards and dislodge the elephants' handlers.[134]
+
+Greek biographer Plutarch (c.  45 – c. 120 AD) describes Alexander's appearance as:
+
+The outward appearance of Alexander is best represented by the statues of him which Lysippus made, and it was by this artist alone that Alexander himself thought it fit that he should be modelled. For those peculiarities which many of his successors and friends afterwards tried to imitate, namely, the poise of the neck, which was bent slightly to the left, and the melting glance of his eyes, this artist has accurately observed. Apelles, however, in painting him as wielder of the thunder-bolt, did not reproduce his complexion, but made it too dark and swarthy. Whereas he was of a fair colour, as they say, and his fairness passed into ruddiness on his breast particularly, and in his face. Moreover, that a very pleasant odour exhaled from his skin and that there was a fragrance about his mouth and all his flesh, so that his garments were filled with it, this we have read in the Memoirs of Aristoxenus.[186]
+
+The semi-legendary Alexander Romance also suggests that Alexander exhibited heterochromia iridum: that one eye was dark and the other light.[187]
+
+British historian Peter Green provided a description of Alexander's appearance, based on his review of statues and some ancient documents:
+
+Physically, Alexander was not prepossessing. Even by Macedonian standards he was very short, though stocky and tough. His beard was scanty, and he stood out against his hirsute Macedonian barons by going clean-shaven. His neck was in some way twisted, so that he appeared to be gazing upward at an angle. His eyes (one blue, one brown) revealed a dewy, feminine quality. He had a high complexion and a harsh voice.[188]
+
+Historian and Egyptologist Joann Fletcher has said that the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great had blond hair.[189]
+
+Ancient authors recorded that Alexander was so pleased with portraits of himself created by Lysippos that he forbade other sculptors from crafting his image.[190] Lysippos had often used the contrapposto sculptural scheme to portray Alexander and other characters such as Apoxyomenos, Hermes and Eros.[191] Lysippos' sculpture, famous for its naturalism, as opposed to a stiffer, more static pose, is thought to be the most faithful depiction.[192]
+
+Some of Alexander's strongest personality traits formed in response to his parents. His mother had huge ambitions, and encouraged him to believe it was his destiny to conquer the Persian Empire.[188] Olympias' influence instilled a sense of destiny in him,[194] and Plutarch tells how his ambition "kept his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his years".[195] However, his father Philip was Alexander's most immediate and influential role model, as the young Alexander watched him campaign practically every year, winning victory after victory while ignoring severe wounds.[48] Alexander's relationship with his father forged the competitive side of his personality; he had a need to outdo his father, illustrated by his reckless behaviour in battle.[188] While Alexander worried that his father would leave him "no great or brilliant achievement to be displayed to the world",[196] he also downplayed his father's achievements to his companions.[188]
+
+According to Plutarch, among Alexander's traits were a violent temper and rash, impulsive nature,[197] which undoubtedly contributed to some of his decisions.[188] Although Alexander was stubborn and did not respond well to orders from his father, he was open to reasoned debate.[198] He had a calmer side—perceptive, logical, and calculating. He had a great desire for knowledge, a love for philosophy, and was an avid reader.[199] This was no doubt in part due to Aristotle's tutelage; Alexander was intelligent and quick to learn.[188] His intelligent and rational side was amply demonstrated by his ability and success as a general.[197] He had great self-restraint in "pleasures of the body", in contrast with his lack of self-control with alcohol.[200]
+
+Alexander was erudite and patronized both arts and sciences.[195][199] However, he had little interest in sports or the Olympic games (unlike his father), seeking only the Homeric ideals of honour (timê) and glory (kudos).[201] He had great charisma and force of personality, characteristics which made him a great leader.[174][197] His unique abilities were further demonstrated by the inability of any of his generals to unite Macedonia and retain the Empire after his death—only Alexander had the ability to do so.[174]
+
+During his final years, and especially after the death of Hephaestion, Alexander began to exhibit signs of megalomania and paranoia.[147] His extraordinary achievements, coupled with his own ineffable sense of destiny and the flattery of his companions, may have combined to produce this effect.[202] His delusions of grandeur are readily visible in his will and in his desire to conquer the world,[147] in as much as he is by various sources described as having boundless ambition,[203][204] an epithet, the meaning of which has descended into an historical cliché.[205][206]
+
+He appears to have believed himself a deity, or at least sought to deify himself.[147] Olympias always insisted to him that he was the son of Zeus,[207] a theory apparently confirmed to him by the oracle of Amun at Siwa.[208] He began to identify himself as the son of Zeus-Ammon.[208] Alexander adopted elements of Persian dress and customs at court, notably proskynesis, a practice of which Macedonians disapproved, and were loath to perform.[104] This behaviour cost him the sympathies of many of his countrymen.[209] However, Alexander also was a pragmatic ruler who understood the difficulties of ruling culturally disparate peoples, many of whom lived in kingdoms where the king was divine.[210] Thus, rather than megalomania, his behaviour may simply have been a practical attempt at strengthening his rule and keeping his empire together.[211]
+
+Alexander married three times: Roxana, daughter of the Sogdian nobleman Oxyartes of Bactria,[212][213][214] out of love;[215] and the Persian princesses Stateira II and Parysatis II, the former a daughter of Darius III and latter a daughter of Artaxerxes III, for political reasons.[216][217] He apparently had two sons, Alexander IV of Macedon by Roxana and, possibly, Heracles of Macedon from his mistress Barsine. He lost another child when Roxana miscarried at Babylon.[218][219]
+
+Alexander also had a close relationship with his friend, general, and bodyguard Hephaestion, the son of a Macedonian noble.[137][188][220] Hephaestion's death devastated Alexander.[137][221] This event may have contributed to Alexander's failing health and detached mental state during his final months.[147][156]
+
+Alexander's sexuality has been the subject of speculation and controversy in modern times.[222] The Roman era writer Athenaeus says, based on the scholar Dicaearchus, who was Alexander's contemporary, that the king "was quite excessively keen on boys", and that Alexander sexually embraced his eunuch Bagoas in public.[223] This episode is also told by Plutarch, probably based on the same source. None of Alexander's contemporaries, however, are known to have explicitly described Alexander's relationship with Hephaestion as sexual, though the pair was often compared to Achilles and Patroclus, whom classical Greek culture painted as a couple. Aelian writes of Alexander's visit to Troy where "Alexander garlanded the tomb of Achilles, and Hephaestion that of Patroclus, the latter hinting that he was a beloved of Alexander, in just the same way as Patroclus was of Achilles."[224] Some modern historians (e.g., Robin Lane Fox) believe not only that Alexander's youthful relationship with Hephaestion was sexual, but that their sexual contacts may have continued into adulthood, which went against the social norms of at least some Greek cities, such as Athens,[225][226] though some modern researchers have tentatively proposed that Macedonia (or at least the Macedonian court) may have been more tolerant of homosexuality between adults.[227]
+
+Green argues that there is little evidence in ancient sources that Alexander had much carnal interest in women; he did not produce an heir until the very end of his life.[188] However, Ogden calculates that Alexander, who impregnated his partners thrice in eight years, had a higher matrimonial record than his father at the same age.[228] Two of these pregnancies — Stateira's and Barsine's — are of dubious legitimacy.[229]
+
+According to Diodorus Siculus, Alexander accumulated a harem in the style of Persian kings, but he used it rather sparingly,[230] showing great self-control in "pleasures of the body".[200] Nevertheless, Plutarch described how Alexander was infatuated by Roxana while complimenting him on not forcing himself on her.[231] Green suggested that, in the context of the period, Alexander formed quite strong friendships with women, including Ada of Caria, who adopted him, and even Darius' mother Sisygambis, who supposedly died from grief upon hearing of Alexander's death.[188]
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+Alexander's legacy extended beyond his military conquests. His campaigns greatly increased contacts and trade between East and West, and vast areas to the east were significantly exposed to Greek civilization and influence.[16] Some of the cities he founded became major cultural centers, many surviving into the 21st century. His chroniclers recorded valuable information about the areas through which he marched, while the Greeks themselves got a sense of belonging to a world beyond the Mediterranean.[16]
+
+Alexander's most immediate legacy was the introduction of Macedonian rule to huge new swathes of Asia. At the time of his death, Alexander's empire covered some 5,200,000 km2 (2,000,000 sq mi),[233] and was the largest state of its time. Many of these areas remained in Macedonian hands or under Greek influence for the next 200–300 years. The successor states that emerged were, at least initially, dominant forces, and these 300 years are often referred to as the Hellenistic period.[234]
+
+The eastern borders of Alexander's empire began to collapse even during his lifetime.[174] However, the power vacuum he left in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent directly gave rise to one of the most powerful Indian dynasties in history, the Maurya Empire. Taking advantage of this power vacuum, Chandragupta Maurya (referred to in Greek sources as "Sandrokottos"), of relatively humble origin, took control of the Punjab, and with that power base proceeded to conquer the Nanda Empire.[235]
+
+Over the course of his conquests, Alexander founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most of them east of the Tigris.[105][236] The first, and greatest, was Alexandria in Egypt, which would become one of the leading Mediterranean cities.[105] The cities' locations reflected trade routes as well as defensive positions. At first, the cities must have been inhospitable, little more than defensive garrisons.[105] Following Alexander's death, many Greeks who had settled there tried to return to Greece.[105][236] However, a century or so after Alexander's death, many of the Alexandrias were thriving, with elaborate public buildings and substantial populations that included both Greek and local peoples.[105]
+
+In 334 BC, Alexander the Great donated funds for the completion of the new temple of Athena Polias in Priene, in modern-day western Turkey.[238][239] An inscription from the temple, now housed in the British Museum, declares: "King Alexander dedicated [this temple] to Athena Polias."[237] This inscription is one of the few independent archaeological discoveries confirming an episode from Alexander's life.[237] The temple was designed by Pytheos, one of the architects of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.[237][238][239][240]
+
+Libanius wrote that Alexander founded the temple of Zeus Bottiaios (Ancient Greek: Βοττιαίου Δῖός), in the place where later the city of Antioch was built.[241][242]
+
+Hellenization was coined by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen to denote the spread of Greek language, culture, and population into the former Persian empire after Alexander's conquest.[234] That this export took place is undoubted, and can be seen in the great Hellenistic cities of, for instance, Alexandria, Antioch[243] and Seleucia (south of modern Baghdad).[244] Alexander sought to insert Greek elements into Persian culture and attempted to hybridize Greek and Persian culture. This culminated in his aspiration to homogenize the populations of Asia and Europe. However, his successors explicitly rejected such policies. Nevertheless, Hellenization occurred throughout the region, accompanied by a distinct and opposite 'Orientalization' of the successor states.[245]
+
+The core of the Hellenistic culture promulgated by the conquests was essentially Athenian.[246] The close association of men from across Greece in Alexander's army directly led to the emergence of the largely Attic-based "koine", or "common" Greek dialect.[247] Koine spread throughout the Hellenistic world, becoming the lingua franca of Hellenistic lands and eventually the ancestor of modern Greek.[247] Furthermore, town planning, education, local government, and art current in the Hellenistic period were all based on Classical Greek ideals, evolving into distinct new forms commonly grouped as Hellenistic.[243] Aspects of Hellenistic culture were still evident in the traditions of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century.[248]
+
+Some of the most pronounced effects of Hellenization can be seen in Afghanistan and India, in the region of the relatively late-rising Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250–125 BC) (in modern Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan) and the Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC – 10 AD) in modern Afghanistan and India.[249] On the Silk Road trade routes, Hellenistic culture hybridized with Iranian and Buddhist cultures. The cosmopolitan art and mythology of Gandhara (a region spanning the upper confluence of the Indus, Swat and Kabul rivers in modern Pakistan) of the ~3rd century BC to the ~5th century AD are most evident of the direct contact between Hellenistic civilization and South Asia, as are the Edicts of Ashoka, which directly mention the Greeks within Ashoka's dominion as converting to Buddhism and the reception of Buddhist emissaries by Ashoka's contemporaries in the Hellenistic world.[250] The resulting syncretism known as Greco-Buddhism influenced the development of Buddhism[citation needed] and created a culture of Greco-Buddhist art. These Greco-Buddhist kingdoms sent some of the first Buddhist missionaries to China, Sri Lanka and Hellenistic Asia and Europe (Greco-Buddhist monasticism).
+
+Some of the first and most influential figurative portrayals of the Buddha appeared at this time, perhaps modeled on Greek statues of Apollo in the Greco-Buddhist style.[249] Several Buddhist traditions may have been influenced by the ancient Greek religion: the concept of Boddhisatvas is reminiscent of Greek divine heroes,[251] and some Mahayana ceremonial practices (burning incense, gifts of flowers, and food placed on altars) are similar to those practiced by the ancient Greeks; however, similar practices were also observed amongst the native Indic culture. One Greek king, Menander I, probably became Buddhist, and was immortalized in Buddhist literature as 'Milinda'.[249] The process of Hellenization also spurred trade between the east and west.[252] For example, Greek astronomical instruments dating to the 3rd century BC were found in the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai Khanoum in modern-day Afghanistan,[253] while the Greek concept of a spherical earth surrounded by the spheres of planets eventually supplanted the long-standing Indian cosmological belief of a disc consisting of four continents grouped around a central mountain (Mount Meru) like the petals of a flower.[252][254][255] The Yavanajataka (lit. Greek astronomical treatise) and Paulisa Siddhanta texts depict the influence of Greek astronomical ideas on Indian astronomy.
+
+Following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the east, Hellenistic influence on Indian art was far-ranging. In the area of architecture, a few examples of the Ionic order can be found as far as Pakistan with the Jandial temple near Taxila. Several examples of capitals displaying Ionic influences can be seen as far as Patna, especially with the Pataliputra capital, dated to the 3rd century BC.[256] The Corinthian order is also heavily represented in the art of Gandhara, especially through Indo-Corinthian capitals.
+
+Alexander and his exploits were admired by many Romans, especially generals, who wanted to associate themselves with his achievements.[257] Polybius began his Histories by reminding Romans of Alexander's achievements, and thereafter Roman leaders saw him as a role model. Pompey the Great adopted the epithet "Magnus" and even Alexander's anastole-type haircut, and searched the conquered lands of the east for Alexander's 260-year-old cloak, which he then wore as a sign of greatness.[257] Julius Caesar dedicated a Lysippean equestrian bronze statue but replaced Alexander's head with his own, while Octavian visited Alexander's tomb in Alexandria and temporarily changed his seal from a sphinx to Alexander's profile.[257] The emperor Trajan also admired Alexander, as did Nero and Caracalla.[257] The Macriani, a Roman family that in the person of Macrinus briefly ascended to the imperial throne, kept images of Alexander on their persons, either on jewelry, or embroidered into their clothes.[258]
+
+On the other hand, some Roman writers, particularly Republican figures, used Alexander as a cautionary tale of how autocratic tendencies can be kept in check by republican values.[259] Alexander was used by these writers as an example of ruler values such as amicita (friendship) and clementia (clemency), but also iracundia (anger) and cupiditas gloriae (over-desire for glory).[259]
+
+Emperor Julian in his satire called "The Caesars", describes a contest between the previous Roman emperors, with Alexander the Great called in as an extra contestant, in the presence of the assembled gods.[260]
+
+Pausanias writes that Alexander wanted to dig the Mimas mountain (today at the Karaburun area), but he didn't succeed. He also mentions that this was the only unsuccessful project of Alexander.[261] In addition, Pliny the Elder writes about this unsuccessful plan adding that the distance was 12 kilometres (7 1⁄2 mi), and the purpose was to cut a canal through the isthmus, so as to connect the Caystrian and Hermaean bays.[262][263]
+
+Arrian wrote that  Aristobulus said that the Icarus island (modern Failaka Island) in the Persian Gulf had this name because Alexander ordered the island to be named like this, after the Icarus island in the Aegean Sea.[264][265]
+
+Legendary accounts surround the life of Alexander the Great, many deriving from his own lifetime, probably encouraged by Alexander himself.[266] His court historian Callisthenes portrayed the sea in Cilicia as drawing back from him in proskynesis. Writing shortly after Alexander's death, another participant, Onesicritus, invented a tryst between Alexander and Thalestris, queen of the mythical Amazons. When Onesicritus read this passage to his patron, Alexander's general and later King Lysimachus reportedly quipped, "I wonder where I was at the time."[267]
+
+In the first centuries after Alexander's death, probably in Alexandria, a quantity of the legendary material coalesced into a text known as the Alexander Romance, later falsely ascribed to Callisthenes and therefore known as Pseudo-Callisthenes. This text underwent numerous expansions and revisions throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages,[268] containing many dubious stories,[266] and was translated into numerous languages.[269]
+
+Alexander the Great's accomplishments and legacy have been depicted in many cultures. Alexander has figured in both high and popular culture beginning in his own era to the present day. The Alexander Romance, in particular, has had a significant impact on portrayals of Alexander in later cultures, from Persian to medieval European to modern Greek.[269]
+
+Alexander features prominently in modern Greek folklore, more so than any other ancient figure.[270] The colloquial form of his name in modern Greek ("O Megalexandros") is a household name, and he is the only ancient hero to appear in the Karagiozis shadow play.[270] One well-known fable among Greek seamen involves a solitary mermaid who would grasp a ship's prow during a storm and ask the captain "Is King Alexander alive?" The correct answer is "He is alive and well and rules the world!" causing the mermaid to vanish and the sea to calm. Any other answer would cause the mermaid to turn into a raging Gorgon who would drag the ship to the bottom of the sea, all hands aboard.[270]
+
+In pre-Islamic Middle Persian (Zoroastrian) literature, Alexander is referred to by the epithet gujastak, meaning "accursed", and is accused of destroying temples and burning the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism.[271] In Sunni Islamic Persia, under the influence of the Alexander Romance (in Persian: اسکندرنامه‎ Iskandarnamah), a more positive portrayal of Alexander emerges.[272] Firdausi's Shahnameh ("The Book of Kings") includes Alexander in a line of legitimate Persian shahs, a mythical figure who explored the far reaches of the world in search of the Fountain of Youth.[273] Later Persian writers associate him with philosophy, portraying him at a symposium with figures such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, in search of immortality.[272]
+
+The figure of Dhul-Qarnayn (literally "the Two-Horned One") mentioned in the Quran is believed by scholars to be based on later legends of Alexander.[272] In this tradition, he was a heroic figure who built a wall to defend against the nations of Gog and Magog.[274] He then travelled the known world in search of the Water of Life and Immortality, eventually becoming a prophet.[274]
+
+The Syriac version of the Alexander Romance portrays him as an ideal Christian world conqueror who prayed to "the one true God".[272] In Egypt, Alexander was portrayed as the son of Nectanebo II, the last pharaoh before the Persian conquest.[274] His defeat of Darius was depicted as Egypt's salvation, "proving" Egypt was still ruled by an Egyptian.[272]
+
+According to Josephus, Alexander was shown the Book of Daniel when he entered Jerusalem, which described a mighty Greek king who would conquer the Persian Empire. This is cited as a reason for sparing Jerusalem.[275]
+
+In Hindi and Urdu, the name "Sikandar", derived from the Persian name for Alexander, denotes a rising young talent, and the Delhi Sultanate ruler Aladdin Khajli stylized himself as "Sikandar-i-Sani" (the Second Alexander the Great).[276] In medieval India, Turkic and Afghan sovereigns from the Iranian-cultured region of Central Asia brought positive cultural connotations of Alexander to the Indian subcontinent, resulting in the efflorescence of Sikandernameh (Alexander Romances) written by Indo-Persian poets such as Amir Khusrow and the prominence of Alexander the Great as a popular subject in Mughal-era Persian miniatures.[277] In medieval Europe, Alexander the Great was revered as a member of the Nine Worthies, a group of heroes whose lives were believed to encapsulate all the ideal qualities of chivalry.[278]
+
+In Greek Anthology there are poems referring to Alexander.[279][280]
+
+Irish playwright Aubrey Thomas de Vere wrote Alexander the Great, a Dramatic Poem.
+
+In popular culture, the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden included a song titled "Alexander the Great" on their 1986 album Somewhere in Time. Written by bass player Steve Harris, the song retells Alexander's life.
+
+Apart from a few inscriptions and fragments, texts written by people who actually knew Alexander or who gathered information from men who served with Alexander were all lost.[16] Contemporaries who wrote accounts of his life included Alexander's campaign historian Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman. Their works are lost, but later works based on these original sources have survived. The earliest of these is Diodorus Siculus (1st century BC), followed by Quintus Curtius Rufus (mid-to-late 1st century AD), Arrian (1st to 2nd century AD), the biographer Plutarch (1st to 2nd century AD), and finally Justin, whose work dated as late as the 4th century.[16] Of these, Arrian is generally considered the most reliable, given that he used Ptolemy and Aristobulus as his sources, closely followed by Diodorus.[16]

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+An atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter that constitutes a chemical element. Every solid, liquid, gas, and plasma is composed of neutral or ionized atoms. Atoms are extremely small, typically around 100 picometers across. They are so small that accurately predicting their behavior using classical physics – as if they were billiard balls, for example – is not possible due to quantum effects. Current atomic models use quantum principles to better explain and predict this behavior.
+
+Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons. Protons and neutrons are called nucleons. More than 99.94% of an atom's mass is in the nucleus. The protons have a positive electric charge, the electrons have a negative electric charge, and the neutrons have no electric charge. If the number of protons and electrons are equal, then the atom is electrically neutral. If an atom has more or fewer electrons than protons, then it has an overall negative or positive charge, respectively. These atoms are called ions.
+
+The electrons of an atom are attracted to the protons in an atomic nucleus by the electromagnetic force. The protons and neutrons in the nucleus are attracted to each other by the nuclear force. This force is usually stronger than the electromagnetic force that repels the positively charged protons from one another. Under certain circumstances, the repelling electromagnetic force becomes stronger than the nuclear force. In this case, the nucleus splits and leaves behind different elements. This is a form of nuclear decay.
+
+The number of protons in the nucleus is the atomic number and it defines to which chemical element the atom belongs. For example, any atom that contains 29 protons is copper. The number of neutrons defines the isotope of the element. Atoms can attach to one or more other atoms by chemical bonds to form chemical compounds such as molecules or crystals. The ability of atoms to associate and dissociate is responsible for most of the physical changes observed in nature. Chemistry is the discipline that studies these changes.
+
+The basic idea that matter is made up of tiny indivisible particles is very old, appearing in many ancient cultures such as Greece and India. The word atomos, meaning "uncuttable", was coined by the ancient Greek philosophers Leucippus and his pupil Democritus (5th century BC). These ancient ideas were not based on scientific reasoning.[1][2][3][4]
+
+In the early 1800s, John Dalton compiled experimental data gathered by himself and other scientists and observed that chemical elements seemed to combine by mass in ratios of small whole numbers; he called this pattern the "law of multiple proportions". For instance, there are two types of tin oxide: one is 88.1% tin and 11.9% oxygen, and the other is 78.7% tin and 21.3% oxygen. These proportions will always be the same in any samples of these oxides — this is the law of constant proportions. Adjusting the figures, for every 100 g of tin there is either 13.5 g or 27 g of oxygen respectively. 13.5 and 27 form a ratio of 1:2, a ratio of small whole numbers. Similarly, there are two common types of iron oxide, in which for every 112 g of iron there is either 32 g or 48 g of oxygen, which gives a ratio of 2:3. This recurring pattern in the data suggested that elements always combine in multiples of discrete units, which Dalton concluded were atoms. In the case of the tin oxides, for every one tin atom, there are either one or two oxygen atoms (SnO and SnO2). In the case of the iron oxides, for every two iron atoms, there are either two or three oxygen atoms (FeO and Fe2O3).[5][6]
+
+Dalton also believed that the concept of atoms could explain why some gases dissolve in water better than other gases. For example, he observed that water absorbs nitrous oxide far better than it absorbs nitrogen. Dalton hypothesized a general pattern of solubility based on the number of particles in the chemicals and the relative weights of the particles themselves.[7]
+
+In the late 18th century, a number of scientists found that they could better explain the behavior of gases by describing them as collections of sub-microscopic particles and modelling their behavior using statistics and probability. This model worked well enough for many purposes, but some skeptical scientists cautioned that it was not solid proof that molecules and atoms literally existed. Rather, these skeptics regarded this theory as simply as a heuristic tool that was useful in certain contexts but did not necessarily reflect the true nature of matter.[8]
+
+In 1827, botanist Robert Brown used a microscope to look at dust grains floating in water and discovered that they moved about erratically, a phenomenon that became known as "Brownian motion". This was thought to be caused by water molecules knocking the grains about. In 1905, Albert Einstein proved the reality of these molecules and their motions by producing the first statistical physics analysis of Brownian motion.[9][10][11] French physicist Jean Perrin used Einstein's work to experimentally determine the mass and dimensions of atoms, thereby conclusively verifying Dalton's atomic theory.[12]
+
+Prior to Perrin's verification of Einstein's equations, there had been considerable doubt among physicists that atoms and molecules were actually real. Physicists saw atomic theory as a convenient construct for chemists that worked well enough in certain applications, but that did not mean that atoms were literally real.
+
+In 1897, J.J. Thomson discovered that cathode rays are not electromagnetic waves but made of particles that are 1,800 times lighter than hydrogen (the lightest atom). Therefore, they were not atoms, but a new particle, the first subatomic particle to be discovered. He originally called these new particles corpuscles but they were later renamed electrons, after particles postulated by George Johnstone Stoney in 1874. Thomson also showed that electrons were identical to particles given off by photoelectric and radioactive materials.[13] It was quickly recognized that electrons are the particles that carry electric currents in metal wires, and carry the negative electric charge within atoms. Thus Thomson overturned the belief that atoms are the indivisible, fundamental particles of matter.[14] The misnomer "atom" is still used, even though atoms are not "uncuttable".
+
+J.J. Thomson postulated that the negatively-charged electrons were distributed throughout the atom in a uniform sea of positive charge. This was known as the plum pudding model. In 1909, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden, working under the direction of Ernest Rutherford, bombarded metal foil with alpha particles to observe how they scattered. They expected all the alpha particles to pass straight through with little deflection, because Thomson's model said that the charges in the atom are so diffuse that their electric fields could not affect the alpha particles much. Geiger and Marsden spotted alpha particles being deflected by angles greater than 90°, which was supposed to be impossible according to Thomson's model. To explain this, Rutherford proposed that the positive charge of the atom is concentrated in a tiny nucleus at the center. Only such an intense concentration of charge could produce an electric field strong enough to deflect alpha particles that much.[15]
+
+While experimenting with the products of radioactive decay, in 1913 radiochemist Frederick Soddy discovered that there appeared to be more than one type of atom at each position on the periodic table.[16] The term isotope was coined by Margaret Todd as a suitable name for different atoms that belong to the same element. J.J. Thomson created a technique for isotope separation through his work on ionized gases, which subsequently led to the discovery of stable isotopes.[17]
+
+In 1913 the physicist Niels Bohr proposed a model in which the electrons of an atom were assumed to orbit the nucleus but could only do so in a finite set of orbits, and could jump between these orbits only in discrete changes of energy corresponding to absorption or radiation of a photon.[18] This quantization was used to explain why the electrons' orbits are stable (given that normally, charges in acceleration, including circular motion, lose kinetic energy which is emitted as electromagnetic radiation, see synchrotron radiation) and why elements absorb and emit electromagnetic radiation in discrete spectra.[19]
+
+Later in the same year Henry Moseley provided additional experimental evidence in favor of Niels Bohr's theory. These results refined Ernest Rutherford's and Antonius Van den Broek's model, which proposed that the atom contains in its nucleus a number of positive nuclear charges that is equal to its (atomic) number in the periodic table. Until these experiments, atomic number was not known to be a physical and experimental quantity. That it is equal to the atomic nuclear charge remains the accepted atomic model today.[20]
+
+Chemical bonds between atoms were explained by Gilbert Newton Lewis in 1916, as the interactions between their constituent electrons.[21] As the chemical properties of the elements were known to largely repeat themselves according to the periodic law,[22] in 1919 the American chemist Irving Langmuir suggested that this could be explained if the electrons in an atom were connected or clustered in some manner. Groups of electrons were thought to occupy a set of electron shells about the nucleus.[23]
+
+The Stern–Gerlach experiment of 1922 provided further evidence of the quantum nature of atomic properties. When a beam of silver atoms was passed through a specially shaped magnetic field, the beam was split in a way correlated with the direction of an atom's angular momentum, or spin. As this spin direction is initially random, the beam would be expected to deflect in a random direction. Instead, the beam was split into two directional components, corresponding to the atomic spin being oriented up or down with respect to the magnetic field.[24]
+
+In 1925 Werner Heisenberg published the first consistent mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics (matrix mechanics).[20] One year earlier, Louis de Broglie had proposed the de Broglie hypothesis: that all particles behave like waves to some extent,[25] and in 1926 Erwin Schrödinger used this idea to develop the Schrödinger equation, a mathematical model of the atom (wave mechanics) that described the electrons as three-dimensional waveforms rather than point particles.[26]
+
+A consequence of using waveforms to describe particles is that it is mathematically impossible to obtain precise values for both the position and momentum of a particle at a given point in time; this became known as the uncertainty principle, formulated by Werner Heisenberg in 1927.[20] In this concept, for a given accuracy in measuring a position one could only obtain a range of probable values for momentum, and vice versa.[27]
+This model was able to explain observations of atomic behavior that previous models could not, such as certain structural and spectral patterns of atoms larger than hydrogen. Thus, the planetary model of the atom was discarded in favor of one that described atomic orbital zones around the nucleus where a given electron is most likely to be observed.[28][29]
+
+The development of the mass spectrometer allowed the mass of atoms to be measured with increased accuracy. The device uses a magnet to bend the trajectory of a beam of ions, and the amount of deflection is determined by the ratio of an atom's mass to its charge. The chemist Francis William Aston used this instrument to show that isotopes had different masses. The atomic mass of these isotopes varied by integer amounts, called the whole number rule.[30] The explanation for these different isotopes awaited the discovery of the neutron, an uncharged particle with a mass similar to the proton, by the physicist James Chadwick in 1932. Isotopes were then explained as elements with the same number of protons, but different numbers of neutrons within the nucleus.[31]
+
+In 1938, the German chemist Otto Hahn, a student of Rutherford, directed neutrons onto uranium atoms expecting to get transuranium elements. Instead, his chemical experiments showed barium as a product.[32][33] A year later, Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Frisch verified that Hahn's result were the first experimental nuclear fission.[34][35] In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel prize in chemistry. Despite Hahn's efforts, the contributions of Meitner and Frisch were not recognized.[36]
+
+In the 1950s, the development of improved particle accelerators and particle detectors allowed scientists to study the impacts of atoms moving at high energies.[37] Neutrons and protons were found to be hadrons, or composites of smaller particles called quarks. The standard model of particle physics was developed that so far has successfully explained the properties of the nucleus in terms of these sub-atomic particles and the forces that govern their interactions.[38]
+
+Though the word atom originally denoted a particle that cannot be cut into smaller particles, in modern scientific usage the atom is composed of various subatomic particles. The constituent particles of an atom are the electron, the proton and the neutron.
+
+The electron is by far the least massive of these particles at 9.11×10−31 kg, with a negative electrical charge and a size that is too small to be measured using available techniques.[39] It was the lightest particle with a positive rest mass measured, until the discovery of neutrino mass. Under ordinary conditions, electrons are bound to the positively charged nucleus by the attraction created from opposite electric charges. If an atom has more or fewer electrons than its atomic number, then it becomes respectively negatively or positively charged as a whole; a charged atom is called an ion. Electrons have been known since the late 19th century, mostly thanks to J.J. Thomson; see history of subatomic physics for details.
+
+Protons have a positive charge and a mass 1,836 times that of the electron, at 1.6726×10−27 kg. The number of protons in an atom is called its atomic number. Ernest Rutherford (1919) observed that nitrogen under alpha-particle bombardment ejects what appeared to be hydrogen nuclei. By 1920 he had accepted that the hydrogen nucleus is a distinct particle within the atom and named it proton.
+
+Neutrons have no electrical charge and have a free mass of 1,839 times the mass of the electron, or 1.6749×10−27 kg.[40][41] Neutrons are the heaviest of the three constituent particles, but their mass can be reduced by the nuclear binding energy. Neutrons and protons (collectively known as nucleons) have comparable dimensions—on the order of 2.5×10−15 m—although the 'surface' of these particles is not sharply defined.[42] The neutron was discovered in 1932 by the English physicist James Chadwick.
+
+In the Standard Model of physics, electrons are truly elementary particles with no internal structure, whereas protons and neutrons are composite particles composed of elementary particles called quarks. There are two types of quarks in atoms, each having a fractional electric charge. Protons are composed of two up quarks (each with charge +2/3) and one down quark (with a charge of −1/3). Neutrons consist of one up quark and two down quarks. This distinction accounts for the difference in mass and charge between the two particles.[43][44]
+
+The quarks are held together by the strong interaction (or strong force), which is mediated by gluons. The protons and neutrons, in turn, are held to each other in the nucleus by the nuclear force, which is a residuum of the strong force that has somewhat different range-properties (see the article on the nuclear force for more). The gluon is a member of the family of gauge bosons, which are elementary particles that mediate physical forces.[43][44]
+
+All the bound protons and neutrons in an atom make up a tiny atomic nucleus, and are collectively called nucleons. The radius of a nucleus is approximately equal to 1.07 3√A fm, where A is the total number of nucleons.[45] This is much smaller than the radius of the atom, which is on the order of 105 fm. The nucleons are bound together by a short-ranged attractive potential called the residual strong force. At distances smaller than 2.5 fm this force is much more powerful than the electrostatic force that causes positively charged protons to repel each other.[46]
+
+Atoms of the same element have the same number of protons, called the atomic number. Within a single element, the number of neutrons may vary, determining the isotope of that element. The total number of protons and neutrons determine the nuclide. The number of neutrons relative to the protons determines the stability of the nucleus, with certain isotopes undergoing radioactive decay.[47]
+
+The proton, the electron, and the neutron are classified as fermions. Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle which prohibits identical fermions, such as multiple protons, from occupying the same quantum state at the same time. Thus, every proton in the nucleus must occupy a quantum state different from all other protons, and the same applies to all neutrons of the nucleus and to all electrons of the electron cloud.[48]
+
+A nucleus that has a different number of protons than neutrons can potentially drop to a lower energy state through a radioactive decay that causes the number of protons and neutrons to more closely match. As a result, atoms with matching numbers of protons and neutrons are more stable against decay, but with increasing atomic number, the mutual repulsion of the protons requires an increasing proportion of neutrons to maintain the stability of the nucleus.[48]
+
+The number of protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus can be modified, although this can require very high energies because of the strong force. Nuclear fusion occurs when multiple atomic particles join to form a heavier nucleus, such as through the energetic collision of two nuclei. For example, at the core of the Sun protons require energies of 3–10 keV to overcome their mutual repulsion—the coulomb barrier—and fuse together into a single nucleus.[49] Nuclear fission is the opposite process, causing a nucleus to split into two smaller nuclei—usually through radioactive decay. The nucleus can also be modified through bombardment by high energy subatomic particles or photons. If this modifies the number of protons in a nucleus, the atom changes to a different chemical element.[50][51]
+
+If the mass of the nucleus following a fusion reaction is less than the sum of the masses of the separate particles, then the difference between these two values can be emitted as a type of usable energy (such as a gamma ray, or the kinetic energy of a beta particle), as described by Albert Einstein's mass–energy equivalence formula, 
+
+
+
+E
+=
+m
+
+c
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle E=mc^{2}}
+
+, where 
+
+
+
+m
+
+
+{\displaystyle m}
+
+ is the mass loss and 
+
+
+
+c
+
+
+{\displaystyle c}
+
+ is the speed of light. This deficit is part of the binding energy of the new nucleus, and it is the non-recoverable loss of the energy that causes the fused particles to remain together in a state that requires this energy to separate.[52]
+
+The fusion of two nuclei that create larger nuclei with lower atomic numbers than iron and nickel—a total nucleon number of about 60—is usually an exothermic process that releases more energy than is required to bring them together.[53] It is this energy-releasing process that makes nuclear fusion in stars a self-sustaining reaction. For heavier nuclei, the binding energy per nucleon in the nucleus begins to decrease. That means fusion processes producing nuclei that have atomic numbers higher than about 26, and atomic masses higher than about 60, is an endothermic process. These more massive nuclei can not undergo an energy-producing fusion reaction that can sustain the hydrostatic equilibrium of a star.[48]
+
+The electrons in an atom are attracted to the protons in the nucleus by the electromagnetic force. This force binds the electrons inside an electrostatic potential well surrounding the smaller nucleus, which means that an external source of energy is needed for the electron to escape. The closer an electron is to the nucleus, the greater the attractive force. Hence electrons bound near the center of the potential well require more energy to escape than those at greater separations.
+
+Electrons, like other particles, have properties of both a particle and a wave. The electron cloud is a region inside the potential well where each electron forms a type of three-dimensional standing wave—a wave form that does not move relative to the nucleus. This behavior is defined by an atomic orbital, a mathematical function that characterises the probability that an electron appears to be at a particular location when its position is measured.[54] Only a discrete (or quantized) set of these orbitals exist around the nucleus, as other possible wave patterns rapidly decay into a more stable form.[55] Orbitals can have one or more ring or node structures, and differ from each other in size, shape and orientation.[56]
+
+Each atomic orbital corresponds to a particular energy level of the electron. The electron can change its state to a higher energy level by absorbing a photon with sufficient energy to boost it into the new quantum state. Likewise, through spontaneous emission, an electron in a higher energy state can drop to a lower energy state while radiating the excess energy as a photon. These characteristic energy values, defined by the differences in the energies of the quantum states, are responsible for atomic spectral lines.[55]
+
+The amount of energy needed to remove or add an electron—the electron binding energy—is far less than the binding energy of nucleons. For example, it requires only 13.6 eV to strip a ground-state electron from a hydrogen atom,[57] compared to 2.23 million eV for splitting a deuterium nucleus.[58] Atoms are electrically neutral if they have an equal number of protons and electrons. Atoms that have either a deficit or a surplus of electrons are called ions. Electrons that are farthest from the nucleus may be transferred to other nearby atoms or shared between atoms. By this mechanism, atoms are able to bond into molecules and other types of chemical compounds like ionic and covalent network crystals.[59]
+
+By definition, any two atoms with an identical number of protons in their nuclei belong to the same chemical element. Atoms with equal numbers of protons but a different number of neutrons are different isotopes of the same element. For example, all hydrogen atoms admit exactly one proton, but isotopes exist with no neutrons (hydrogen-1, by far the most common form,[60] also called protium), one neutron (deuterium), two neutrons (tritium) and more than two neutrons. The known elements form a set of atomic numbers, from the single proton element hydrogen up to the 118-proton element oganesson.[61] All known isotopes of elements with atomic numbers greater than 82 are radioactive, although the radioactivity of element 83 (bismuth) is so slight as to be practically negligible.[62][63]
+
+About 339 nuclides occur naturally on Earth,[64] of which 252 (about 74%) have not been observed to decay, and are referred to as "stable isotopes". Only 90 nuclides are stable theoretically, while another 162 (bringing the total to 252) have not been observed to decay, even though in theory it is energetically possible. These are also formally classified as "stable". An additional 34 radioactive nuclides have half-lives longer than 100 million years, and are long-lived enough to have been present since the birth of the solar system. This collection of 286 nuclides are known as primordial nuclides. Finally, an additional 53 short-lived nuclides are known to occur naturally, as daughter products of primordial nuclide decay (such as radium from uranium), or as products of natural energetic processes on Earth, such as cosmic ray bombardment (for example, carbon-14).[65][note 1]
+
+For 80 of the chemical elements, at least one stable isotope exists. As a rule, there is only a handful of stable isotopes for each of these elements, the average being 3.2 stable isotopes per element. Twenty-six elements have only a single stable isotope, while the largest number of stable isotopes observed for any element is ten, for the element tin. Elements 43, 61, and all elements numbered 83 or higher have no stable isotopes.[66]:1–12
+
+Stability of isotopes is affected by the ratio of protons to neutrons, and also by the presence of certain "magic numbers" of neutrons or protons that represent closed and filled quantum shells. These quantum shells correspond to a set of energy levels within the shell model of the nucleus; filled shells, such as the filled shell of 50 protons for tin, confers unusual stability on the nuclide. Of the 252 known stable nuclides, only four have both an odd number of protons and odd number of neutrons: hydrogen-2 (deuterium), lithium-6, boron-10 and nitrogen-14. Also, only four naturally occurring, radioactive odd–odd nuclides have a half-life over a billion years: potassium-40, vanadium-50, lanthanum-138 and tantalum-180m. Most odd–odd nuclei are highly unstable with respect to beta decay, because the decay products are even–even, and are therefore more strongly bound, due to nuclear pairing effects.[67]
+
+The large majority of an atom's mass comes from the protons and neutrons that make it up. The total number of these particles (called "nucleons") in a given atom is called the mass number. It is a positive integer and dimensionless (instead of having dimension of mass), because it expresses a count. An example of use of a mass number is "carbon-12," which has 12 nucleons (six protons and six neutrons).
+
+The actual mass of an atom at rest is often expressed in daltons (Da), also called the unified atomic mass unit (u). This unit is defined as a twelfth of the mass of a free neutral atom of carbon-12, which is approximately 1.66×10−27 kg.[68] Hydrogen-1 (the lightest isotope of hydrogen which is also the nuclide with the lowest mass) has an atomic weight of 1.007825 Da.[69] The value of this number is called the atomic mass. A given atom has an atomic mass approximately equal (within 1%) to its mass number times the atomic mass unit (for example the mass of a nitrogen-14 is roughly 14 Da), but this number will not be exactly an integer except (by definition) in the case of carbon-12.[70] The heaviest stable atom is lead-208,[62] with a mass of 207.9766521 Da.[71]
+
+As even the most massive atoms are far too light to work with directly, chemists instead use the unit of moles. One mole of atoms of any element always has the same number of atoms (about 6.022×1023). This number was chosen so that if an element has an atomic mass of 1 u, a mole of atoms of that element has a mass close to one gram. Because of the definition of the unified atomic mass unit, each carbon-12 atom has an atomic mass of exactly 12 Da, and so a mole of carbon-12 atoms weighs exactly 0.012 kg.[68]
+
+Atoms lack a well-defined outer boundary, so their dimensions are usually described in terms of an atomic radius. This is a measure of the distance out to which the electron cloud extends from the nucleus.[72] This assumes the atom to exhibit a spherical shape, which is only obeyed for atoms in vacuum or free space. Atomic radii may be derived from the distances between two nuclei when the two atoms are joined in a chemical bond. The radius varies with the location of an atom on the atomic chart, the type of chemical bond, the number of neighboring atoms (coordination number) and a quantum mechanical property known as spin.[73] On the periodic table of the elements, atom size tends to increase when moving down columns, but decrease when moving across rows (left to right).[74] Consequently, the smallest atom is helium with a radius of 32 pm, while one of the largest is caesium at 225 pm.[75]
+
+When subjected to external forces, like electrical fields, the shape of an atom may deviate from spherical symmetry. The deformation depends on the field magnitude and the orbital type of outer shell electrons, as shown by group-theoretical considerations. Aspherical deviations might be elicited for instance in crystals, where large crystal-electrical fields may occur at low-symmetry lattice sites.[76][77] Significant ellipsoidal deformations have been shown to occur for sulfur ions[78] and chalcogen ions[79] in pyrite-type compounds.
+
+Atomic dimensions are thousands of times smaller than the wavelengths of light (400–700 nm) so they cannot be viewed using an optical microscope, although individual atoms can be observed using a scanning tunneling microscope. To visualize the minuteness of the atom, consider that a typical human hair is about 1 million carbon atoms in width.[80] A single drop of water contains about 2 sextillion (2×1021) atoms of oxygen, and twice the number of hydrogen atoms.[81] A single carat diamond with a mass of 2×10−4 kg contains about 10 sextillion (1022) atoms of carbon.[note 2] If an apple were magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple.[82]
+
+Every element has one or more isotopes that have unstable nuclei that are subject to radioactive decay, causing the nucleus to emit particles or electromagnetic radiation. Radioactivity can occur when the radius of a nucleus is large compared with the radius of the strong force, which only acts over distances on the order of 1 fm.[83]
+
+The most common forms of radioactive decay are:[84][85]
+
+Other more rare types of radioactive decay include ejection of neutrons or protons or clusters of nucleons from a nucleus, or more than one beta particle. An analog of gamma emission which allows excited nuclei to lose energy in a different way, is internal conversion—a process that produces high-speed electrons that are not beta rays, followed by production of high-energy photons that are not gamma rays. A few large nuclei explode into two or more charged fragments of varying masses plus several neutrons, in a decay called spontaneous nuclear fission.
+
+Each radioactive isotope has a characteristic decay time period—the half-life—that is determined by the amount of time needed for half of a sample to decay. This is an exponential decay process that steadily decreases the proportion of the remaining isotope by 50% every half-life. Hence after two half-lives have passed only 25% of the isotope is present, and so forth.[83]
+
+Elementary particles possess an intrinsic quantum mechanical property known as spin. This is analogous to the angular momentum of an object that is spinning around its center of mass, although strictly speaking these particles are believed to be point-like and cannot be said to be rotating. Spin is measured in units of the reduced Planck constant (ħ), with electrons, protons and neutrons all having spin ½ ħ, or "spin-½". In an atom, electrons in motion around the nucleus possess orbital angular momentum in addition to their spin, while the nucleus itself possesses angular momentum due to its nuclear spin.[86]
+
+The magnetic field produced by an atom—its magnetic moment—is determined by these various forms of angular momentum, just as a rotating charged object classically produces a magnetic field, but the most dominant contribution comes from electron spin. Due to the nature of electrons to obey the Pauli exclusion principle, in which no two electrons may be found in the same quantum state, bound electrons pair up with each other, with one member of each pair in a spin up state and the other in the opposite, spin down state. Thus these spins cancel each other out, reducing the total magnetic dipole moment to zero in some atoms with even number of electrons.[87]
+
+In ferromagnetic elements such as iron, cobalt and nickel, an odd number of electrons leads to an unpaired electron and a net overall magnetic moment. The orbitals of neighboring atoms overlap and a lower energy state is achieved when the spins of unpaired electrons are aligned with each other, a spontaneous process known as an exchange interaction. When the magnetic moments of ferromagnetic atoms are lined up, the material can produce a measurable macroscopic field. Paramagnetic materials have atoms with magnetic moments that line up in random directions when no magnetic field is present, but the magnetic moments of the individual atoms line up in the presence of a field.[87][88]
+
+The nucleus of an atom will have no spin when it has even numbers of both neutrons and protons, but for other cases of odd numbers, the nucleus may have a spin. Normally nuclei with spin are aligned in random directions because of thermal equilibrium, but for certain elements (such as xenon-129) it is possible to polarize a significant proportion of the nuclear spin states so that they are aligned in the same direction—a condition called hyperpolarization. This has important applications in magnetic resonance imaging.[89][90]
+
+The potential energy of an electron in an atom is negative relative to when the distance from the nucleus goes to infinity; its dependence on the electron's position reaches the minimum inside the nucleus, roughly in inverse proportion to the distance. In the quantum-mechanical model, a bound electron can occupy only a set of states centered on the nucleus, and each state corresponds to a specific energy level; see time-independent Schrödinger equation for a theoretical explanation. An energy level can be measured by the amount of energy needed to unbind the electron from the atom, and is usually given in units of electronvolts (eV). The lowest energy state of a bound electron is called the ground state, i.e. stationary state, while an electron transition to a higher level results in an excited state.[91] The electron's energy increases along with n because the (average) distance to the nucleus increases. Dependence of the energy on ℓ is caused not by the electrostatic potential of the nucleus, but by interaction between electrons.
+
+For an electron to transition between two different states, e.g. ground state to first excited state, it must absorb or emit a photon at an energy matching the difference in the potential energy of those levels, according to the Niels Bohr model, what can be precisely calculated by the Schrödinger equation.
+Electrons jump between orbitals in a particle-like fashion. For example, if a single photon strikes the electrons, only a single electron changes states in response to the photon; see Electron properties.
+
+The energy of an emitted photon is proportional to its frequency, so these specific energy levels appear as distinct bands in the electromagnetic spectrum.[92] Each element has a characteristic spectrum that can depend on the nuclear charge, subshells filled by electrons, the electromagnetic interactions between the electrons and other factors.[93]
+
+When a continuous spectrum of energy is passed through a gas or plasma, some of the photons are absorbed by atoms, causing electrons to change their energy level. Those excited electrons that remain bound to their atom spontaneously emit this energy as a photon, traveling in a random direction, and so drop back to lower energy levels. Thus the atoms behave like a filter that forms a series of dark absorption bands in the energy output. (An observer viewing the atoms from a view that does not include the continuous spectrum in the background, instead sees a series of emission lines from the photons emitted by the atoms.) Spectroscopic measurements of the strength and width of atomic spectral lines allow the composition and physical properties of a substance to be determined.[94]
+
+Close examination of the spectral lines reveals that some display a fine structure splitting. This occurs because of spin–orbit coupling, which is an interaction between the spin and motion of the outermost electron.[95] When an atom is in an external magnetic field, spectral lines become split into three or more components; a phenomenon called the Zeeman effect. This is caused by the interaction of the magnetic field with the magnetic moment of the atom and its electrons. Some atoms can have multiple electron configurations with the same energy level, which thus appear as a single spectral line. The interaction of the magnetic field with the atom shifts these electron configurations to slightly different energy levels, resulting in multiple spectral lines.[96] The presence of an external electric field can cause a comparable splitting and shifting of spectral lines by modifying the electron energy levels, a phenomenon called the Stark effect.[97]
+
+If a bound electron is in an excited state, an interacting photon with the proper energy can cause stimulated emission of a photon with a matching energy level. For this to occur, the electron must drop to a lower energy state that has an energy difference matching the energy of the interacting photon. The emitted photon and the interacting photon then move off in parallel and with matching phases. That is, the wave patterns of the two photons are synchronized. This physical property is used to make lasers, which can emit a coherent beam of light energy in a narrow frequency band.[98]
+
+Valency is the combining power of an element. It is determined by the number of bonds it can form to other atoms or groups.[99] The outermost electron shell of an atom in its uncombined state is known as the valence shell, and the electrons in
+that shell are called valence electrons. The number of valence electrons determines the bonding
+behavior with other atoms. Atoms tend to chemically react with each other in a manner that fills (or empties) their outer valence shells.[100] For example, a transfer of a single electron between atoms is a useful approximation for bonds that form between atoms with one-electron more than a filled shell, and others that are one-electron short of a full shell, such as occurs in the compound sodium chloride and other chemical ionic salts. Many elements display multiple valences, or tendencies to share differing numbers of electrons in different compounds. Thus, chemical bonding between these elements takes many forms of electron-sharing that are more than simple electron transfers. Examples include the element carbon and the organic compounds.[101]
+
+The chemical elements are often displayed in a periodic table that is laid out to display recurring chemical properties, and elements with the same number of valence electrons form a group that is aligned in the same column of the table. (The horizontal rows correspond to the filling of a quantum shell of electrons.) The elements at the far right of the table have their outer shell completely filled with electrons, which results in chemically inert elements known as the noble gases.[102][103]
+
+Quantities of atoms are found in different states of matter that depend on the physical conditions, such as temperature and pressure. By varying the conditions, materials can transition between solids, liquids, gases and plasmas.[104] Within a state, a material can also exist in different allotropes. An example of this is solid carbon, which can exist as graphite or diamond.[105] Gaseous allotropes exist as well, such as dioxygen and ozone.
+
+At temperatures close to absolute zero, atoms can form a Bose–Einstein condensate, at which point quantum mechanical effects, which are normally only observed at the atomic scale, become apparent on a macroscopic scale.[106][107] This super-cooled collection of atoms
+then behaves as a single super atom, which may allow fundamental checks of quantum mechanical behavior.[108]
+
+The scanning tunneling microscope is a device for viewing surfaces at the atomic level. It uses the quantum tunneling phenomenon, which allows particles to pass through a barrier that would be insurmountable in the classical perspective. Electrons tunnel through the vacuum between two planar metal electrodes, on each of which is an adsorbed atom, providing a tunneling-current density that can be measured. Scanning one atom (taken as the tip) as it moves past the other (the sample) permits plotting of tip displacement versus lateral separation for a constant current. The calculation shows the extent to which scanning-tunneling-microscope images of an individual atom are visible. It confirms that for low bias, the microscope images the space-averaged dimensions of the electron orbitals across closely packed energy levels—the Fermi level local density of states.[109][110]
+
+An atom can be ionized by removing one of its electrons. The electric charge causes the trajectory of an atom to bend when it passes through a magnetic field. The radius by which the trajectory of a moving ion is turned by the magnetic field is determined by the mass of the atom. The mass spectrometer uses this principle to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. If a sample contains multiple isotopes, the mass spectrometer can determine the proportion of each isotope in the sample by measuring the intensity of the different beams of ions. Techniques to vaporize atoms include inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, both of which use a plasma to vaporize samples for analysis.[111]
+
+A more area-selective method is electron energy loss spectroscopy, which measures the energy loss of an electron beam within a transmission electron microscope when it interacts with a portion of a sample. The atom-probe tomograph has sub-nanometer resolution in 3-D and can chemically identify individual atoms using time-of-flight mass spectrometry.[112]
+
+Spectra of excited states can be used to analyze the atomic composition of distant stars. Specific light wavelengths contained in the observed light from stars can be separated out and related to the quantized transitions in free gas atoms. These colors can be replicated using a gas-discharge lamp containing the same element.[113] Helium was discovered in this way in the spectrum of the Sun 23 years before it was found on Earth.[114]
+
+Baryonic matter forms about 4% of the total energy density of the observable Universe, with an average density of about 0.25 particles/m3 (mostly protons and electrons).[115] Within a galaxy such as the Milky Way, particles have a much higher concentration, with the density of matter in the interstellar medium (ISM) ranging from 105 to 109 atoms/m3.[116] The Sun is believed to be inside the Local Bubble, so the density in the solar neighborhood is only about 103 atoms/m3.[117] Stars form from dense clouds in the ISM, and the evolutionary processes of stars result in the steady enrichment of the ISM with elements more massive than hydrogen and helium.
+
+Up to 95% of the Milky Way's baryonic matter are concentrated inside stars, where conditions are unfavorable for atomic matter. The total baryonic mass is about 10% of the mass of the galaxy;[118] the remainder of the mass is an unknown dark matter.[119] High temperature inside stars makes most "atoms" fully ionized, that is, separates all electrons from the nuclei. In stellar remnants—with exception of their surface layers—an immense pressure make electron shells impossible.
+
+Electrons are thought to exist in the Universe since early stages of the Big Bang. Atomic nuclei forms in nucleosynthesis reactions. In about three minutes Big Bang nucleosynthesis produced most of the helium, lithium, and deuterium in the Universe, and perhaps some of the beryllium and boron.[120][121][122]
+
+Ubiquitousness and stability of atoms relies on their binding energy, which means that an atom has a lower energy than an unbound system of the nucleus and electrons. Where the temperature is much higher than ionization potential, the matter exists in the form of plasma—a gas of positively charged ions (possibly, bare nuclei) and electrons. When the temperature drops below the ionization potential, atoms become statistically favorable. Atoms (complete with bound electrons) became to dominate over charged particles 380,000 years after the Big Bang—an epoch called recombination, when the expanding Universe cooled enough to allow electrons to become attached to nuclei.[123]
+
+Since the Big Bang, which produced no carbon or heavier elements, atomic nuclei have been combined in stars through the process of nuclear fusion to produce more of the element helium, and (via the triple alpha process) the sequence of elements from carbon up to iron;[124] see stellar nucleosynthesis for details.
+
+Isotopes such as lithium-6, as well as some beryllium and boron are generated in space through cosmic ray spallation.[125] This occurs when a high-energy proton strikes an atomic nucleus, causing large numbers of nucleons to be ejected.
+
+Elements heavier than iron were produced in supernovae and colliding neutron stars through the r-process, and in AGB stars through the s-process, both of which involve the capture of neutrons by atomic nuclei.[126] Elements such as lead formed largely through the radioactive decay of heavier elements.[127]
+
+Most of the atoms that make up the Earth and its inhabitants were present in their current form in the nebula that collapsed out of a molecular cloud to form the Solar System. The rest are the result of radioactive decay, and their relative proportion can be used to determine the age of the Earth through radiometric dating.[128][129] Most of the helium in the crust of the Earth (about 99% of the helium from gas wells, as shown by its lower abundance of helium-3) is a product of alpha decay.[130]
+
+There are a few trace atoms on Earth that were not present at the beginning (i.e., not "primordial"), nor are results of radioactive decay. Carbon-14 is continuously generated by cosmic rays in the atmosphere.[131] Some atoms on Earth have been artificially generated either deliberately or as by-products of nuclear reactors or explosions.[132][133] Of the transuranic elements—those with atomic numbers greater than 92—only plutonium and neptunium occur naturally on Earth.[134][135] Transuranic elements have radioactive lifetimes shorter than the current age of the Earth[136] and thus identifiable quantities of these elements have long since decayed, with the exception of traces of plutonium-244 possibly deposited by cosmic dust.[128] Natural deposits of plutonium and neptunium are produced by neutron capture in uranium ore.[137]
+
+The Earth contains approximately 1.33×1050 atoms.[138] Although small numbers of independent atoms of noble gases exist, such as argon, neon, and helium, 99% of the atmosphere is bound in the form of molecules, including carbon dioxide and diatomic oxygen and nitrogen. At the surface of the Earth, an overwhelming majority of atoms combine to form various compounds, including water, salt, silicates and oxides. Atoms can also combine to create materials that do not consist of discrete molecules, including crystals and liquid or solid metals.[139][140] This atomic matter forms networked arrangements that lack the particular type of small-scale interrupted order associated with molecular matter.[141]
+
+All nuclides with atomic numbers higher than 82 (lead) are known to be radioactive. No nuclide with an atomic number exceeding 92 (uranium) exists on Earth as a primordial nuclide, and heavier elements generally have shorter half-lives. Nevertheless, an "island of stability" encompassing relatively long-lived isotopes of superheavy elements[142] with atomic numbers 110–114 might exist.[143] Predictions for the half-life of the most stable nuclide on the island range from a few minutes to millions of years.[144] In any case, superheavy elements (with Z > 104) would not exist due to increasing Coulomb repulsion (which results in spontaneous fission with increasingly short half-lives) in the absence of any stabilizing effects.[145]
+
+Each particle of matter has a corresponding antimatter particle with the opposite electrical charge. Thus, the positron is a positively charged antielectron and the antiproton is a negatively charged equivalent of a proton. When a matter and corresponding antimatter particle meet, they annihilate each other. Because of this, along with an imbalance between the number of matter and antimatter particles, the latter are rare in the universe. The first causes of this imbalance are not yet fully understood, although theories of baryogenesis may offer an explanation. As a result, no antimatter atoms have been discovered in nature.[146][147] In 1996 the antimatter counterpart of the hydrogen atom (antihydrogen) was synthesized at the CERN laboratory in Geneva.[148][149]
+
+Other exotic atoms have been created by replacing one of the protons, neutrons or electrons with other particles that have the same charge. For example, an electron can be replaced by a more massive muon, forming a muonic atom. These types of atoms can be used to test fundamental predictions of physics.[150][151][152]
+
+
+

en/1331.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+Corsica (/ˈkɔːrsɪkə/; French: Corse [kɔʁs]; Corsica in Corsican and Italian, pronounced [ˈkorsiɡa] and [ˈkɔrsika] respectively) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and politically one of the 18 regions of France. It lies southeast of the French mainland, west of the Italian Peninsula, and immediately north of the Italian island of Sardinia, the land mass nearest to it. A single chain of mountains makes up two-thirds of the island.
+
+The island is an administrative region of France. The regional capital is Ajaccio. Although the region is divided into two administrative departments, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, their respective regional and departmental territorial collectivities were merged on 1 January 2018 to form the single territorial collectivity of Corsica. As such, Corsica enjoys a greater degree of autonomy than other French regional collectivities, for example the Corsican Assembly is permitted to exercise limited executive powers. Corsica’s second-largest town is Bastia, the prefecture city of Haute-Corse.
+
+Corsica was ruled by the Republic of Genoa from 1284 to 1755, when it became a self-proclaimed Italian-speaking Republic. In 1768, Genoa officially ceded it to Louis XV of France as part of a pledge for debts and in 1769 France forcibly annexed it. Napoleon Bonaparte was a native Corsican, born that same year in Ajaccio, and his ancestral home, Maison Bonaparte, is today a significant visitor attraction and museum. Because of Corsica's historical ties to the Italian peninsula, the island retains many Italian cultural elements, and the native tongue is recognized as a regional language by the French government.
+
+The origin of the name Corsica is subject to much debate and remains a mystery. To the Ancient Greeks it was known as Kalliste, Corsis, Cyrnos, Cernealis, or Cirné. The last three variations derive from the most ancient Greek name of the island, "Σειρηνούσσαι" ("Seirinoussai", meaning of the Sirens) — the very same Sirens mentioned in Homer's Odyssey.
+
+Corsica has been occupied continuously since the Mesolithic era. Its population was influential in the Mediterranean during its long prehistory.
+
+After a brief occupation by the Carthaginians, colonization by the ancient Greeks, and an only slightly longer occupation by the Etruscans, it was incorporated by the Roman Republic at the end of the First Punic War and, with Sardinia, in 238 BC became a province of the Roman Republic.[1] The Romans, who built a colony in Aléria, considered Corsica as one of the most backward regions of the Roman world. The island produced sheep, honey, resin and wax, and exported many slaves, not well considered because of their fierce and rebellious character.[1] Moreover, it was known for its cheap wines, exported to Rome, and was used as a place of relegation, one of the most famous exiles being the Roman philosopher Seneca.[2] Administratively, the island was divided in pagi, which in the Middle Ages became the pievi, the basic administrative units of the island until 1768.[1] During the diffusion of Christianity, which arrived quite early from Rome and the Tuscan harbors, Corsica was home to many martyrs and saints: among them, the most important are Saint Devota and Saint Julia, both patrons of the island. Corsica was integrated into Roman Italy by Emperor Diocletian (r. 284–305).
+
+In the 5th century, the western half of the Roman Empire collapsed, and the island was invaded by the Vandals and the Ostrogoths.[1] Briefly recovered by the Byzantines, it soon became part of the Kingdom of the Lombards. This made it a dependency of the March of Tuscany, which used it as an outpost against the Saracens.[3] Pepin the Short, king of the Franks and Charlemagne's father, expelled the Lombards and nominally granted Corsica to Pope Stephen II.[3] In the first quarter of the 11th century, Pisa and Genoa together freed the island from the threat of Arab invasion.[3] After that, the island came under the influence of the republic of Pisa.[3] To this period belong the many polychrome churches which adorn the island, and Corsica also experienced a massive immigration from Tuscany, which gave to the island its present toponymy and rendered the language spoken in the northern two-thirds of the island very close to the Tuscan dialect.[3] Due to that, then began also the traditional division of Corsica in two parts, along the main chain of mountains roughly going from Calvi to Porto-Vecchio: the eastern Banda di dentro, or Cismonte, more populated, evolved and open to the commerce with Italy, and the western Banda di fuori, or Pomonte, almost deserted, wild and remote.[3]
+
+The crushing defeat experienced by Pisa in 1284 in the Battle of Meloria against Genoa had among its consequences the end of the Pisan rule and the beginning of the Genoese influence in Corsica:[3] this was contested initially by the King of Aragon, who in 1296 had received from the Pope the investiture over Sardinia and Corsica.[4] A popular revolution against this and the feudal lords, led by Sambucuccio d'Alando, got the aid of Genoa. After that, the Cismonte was ruled as a league of comuni and churches, after the Italian experience.[4] The following 150 years were a period of conflict, when the Genoese rule was contested by Aragon, the local lords, the comuni and the Pope: finally, in 1450 Genoa ceded the administration of the island to its main bank, the Bank of Saint George, which brought peace.[5]
+
+In the 16th century, the island entered into the fight between Spain and France for the supremacy in Italy.[5]  In 1553, a Franco-Ottoman fleet occupied Corsica, but the reaction of Spain and Genoa, led by Andrea Doria, reestablished the Genoese supremacy on the island, confirmed by the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis.[6] The unlucky protagonist of this episode was Sampiero di Bastelica, who would later come to be considered a hero of the island. Their power reinstated, the Genoese did not allow the Corsican nobility to share in the government of the island, and oppressed the inhabitants with a heavy tax burden. On the other hand, they introduced the chestnut tree on a large scale, improving the diet of the population, and built a chain of towers along the coast to defend Corsica from the attacks of the Barbary pirates from North Africa.[7] The period of peace lasted until 1729, when the refusal to pay taxes by a peasant sparked the general insurrection of the island against Genoa.[8]
+
+In 1729 the Corsican Revolution for independence from Genoa began, first led by Luiggi Giafferi and Giacinto Paoli, and later by Paoli's son, Pasquale Paoli. After 26 years of struggle against the Republic of Genoa (plus an ephemeral attempt to proclaim in 1736 an independent Kingdom of Corsica under the German adventurer Theodor von Neuhoff), the independent Corsican Republic was proclaimed in 1755 under the leadership of Pasquale Paoli and remained sovereign until 1769, when the island was conquered by France. The first Corsican Constitution was written in Italian (the language of culture in Corsica until the middle of the 19th century) by Paoli.
+
+The Corsican Republic was unable to eject the Genoese from the major coastal fortresses (Calvi and Bonifacio). After the Corsican conquest of Capraia, a small island of the Tuscan Archipelago, in 1767, the Republic of Genoa, exhausted by forty years of fighting, decided to sell the island to France which, after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, was trying to reinforce its position in the Mediterranean.  In 1768, with the Treaty of Versailles, the Genoese republic ceded all its rights on the island. After an initial successful resistance culminating with the victory at Borgo, the Corsican republic was crushed by a large French army led by the Count of Vaux at the Battle of Ponte Novu. This marked the end of Corsican sovereignty. Despite triggering the Corsican Crisis in Britain, whose government gave secret aid, no foreign military support came for the Corsicans. However, nationalist feelings still ran high. Despite the conquest, Corsica was not incorporated into the French state until 1789.
+
+Following the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Pasquale Paoli was able to return to Corsica from exile in Britain. In 1794, he invited British forces under Lord Hood to intervene to free Corsica from French rule. Anglo-Corsican forces drove the French from the island and established an Anglo-Corsican Kingdom. Following Spain's entry into the war, the British decided to withdraw from Corsica in 1796. Corsica returned to French rule.
+
+Despite being the birthplace of the Emperor, who had supported Paoli in his youth, the island was neglected by Napoleon's government.[9] In 1814, near the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Corsica was briefly occupied again by British troops. The Treaty of Bastia gave the British crown sovereignty over the island, but it was later repudiated by Lord Castlereagh who insisted that the island should be returned to a restored French monarchy.
+
+After the restoration, the island was further neglected by the French state. Despite the presence of a middle class in Bastia and Ajaccio, Corsica remained an otherwise primitive place, whose economy consisted mainly of a subsistence agriculture, and whose population constituted a pastoral society, dominated by clans and the rules of vendetta. The code of vendetta required Corsicans to seek deadly revenge for offences against their family's honor. Between 1821 and 1852, no fewer than 4,300 murders were perpetrated in Corsica.[10] In this period a myth proved of interest as an historical fact by virtue of its being introduced by Herodotus and furthered by writers like Mérimée and Gregorovius, of Corsica as having been populated by Arcadians (Oenotrians and citizens of Phocaea), fierce and loyal people. During the first half of the century, the people of Corsica belonged still to the Italian cultural world: the bourgeoisie sent children to Pisa to study, official acts were enacted in Italian and most books were printed in Italian.[11] Moreover, many islanders sympathised with the national struggle which was taking place in nearby Italy in those years: several political refugees from the peninsula, like Niccolò Tommaseo, spent years in the island, while some Corsicans, like Count Leonetto Cipriani, took active part in the fights for Italian independence.
+
+Despite all that, during those years the Corsicans began to feel a stronger and stronger attraction to France. The reasons for that are manifold: the knowledge of the French language, which thanks to the mandatory primary school started to penetrate among the local youth, the high prestige of French culture, the awareness of being part of a big, powerful state, the possibility of well-paid jobs as civil servants, both in the island, in the mainland and in the colonies, the prospect of serving the French army during the wars for the conquest of the colonial empire, the introduction of steamboats, which reduced the travel time between mainland France from the island drastically, and — last but not least — Napoleon himself, whose existence alone constituted an indissoluble link between France and Corsica. Thanks to all these factors by around 1870 Corsica had landed in the French cultural world.[11]
+
+From the 19th century into the mid-20th century, Corsicans also grew closer to the French nation through participation in the French Empire. Compared to much of Metropolitan France, Corsica was poor and many Corsicans emigrated. While Corsicans emigrated globally, especially to many South American countries, many chose to move within the French Empire which acted as a conduit for emigration and eventual return, as many young Corsican men could find better job opportunities in the far corners of the Empire where many other French hesitated to go. In many parts of the Empire, Corsicans were strongly represented, such as in Saigon where in 1926 12% of European were from Corsica.[12] Across the French Empire, many Corsicans retained a sense of community by establishing organizations where they would meet regularly, keep one another informed of developments in Corsica, and come to one anothers’ aid in times of need.[13]
+
+Corsica paid a high price for the French victory in the First World War: agriculture was disrupted by the years-long absence of almost all of the young workers, and the percentage of dead or wounded Corsicans in the conflict was double that of those from metropolitan France. Moreover, the protectionist policies of the French government, started in the 1880s and never stopped, had ruined the Corsican export of wine and olive oil, and forced many young Corsicans to emigrate to mainland France or to the Americas. As reaction to these conditions, a nationalist movement was born in the 1920s around the newspaper A Muvra, having as its objective the autonomy of the island from France. In the 1930s, many exponents of this movement became irredentist, seeing annexation of the island to fascist Italy as the only solution to its problems. Under Benito Mussolini annexation of Corsica had become one of the main goals of Italy's unification policy.
+
+After the collapse of France to the German Wehrmacht in 1940, Corsica came under the rule of the Vichy French regime, which was collaborating with Nazi Germany.[14] In November 1942 the island, following the Anglo-American landings in North Africa was occupied by Italian and German forces. After the Italian armistice in September 1943, Italian and Free French Forces pushed the Germans out of the island, making Corsica the first French Department to be freed.[15] Subsequently, the US military established 17 airfields, nicknamed "USS Corsica", which served as bases for attacks on targets in German-occupied Italy.
+
+During the May 1958 crisis, the French military command in Algeria mutinied against the French Fourth Republic and on 24 May occupied the island in an action called Opération Corse that led to the collapse of the government; the second phase of the coup attempt, occupying Paris, was cancelled following the establishment of a transitional government under Charles de Gaulle.[16]
+
+Between the late fifties and the seventies, proposals to conduct underground nuclear tests in the mines of Argentella, the immigration of 18,000 former settlers from Algeria ("Pieds-Noirs") in the eastern plains, and continuing chemical pollution (Fanghi Rossi) from mainland Italy increased tensions between the indigenous inhabitants and the French government. Tensions escalated until an armed police assault on a pieds-noirs-owned wine cellar in Aleria, occupied by Corsican nationalists on 23 August 1975. This marked the beginning of the armed nationalist struggle against the French government. Ever since, Corsican nationalism has been a feature of the island's politics, with calls for greater autonomy and protection for Corsican culture and the Corsican language. Periodic flare-ups of raids and killings culminated in the assassination of Prefect Claude Érignac in 1998.
+
+In 2013, Corsica hosted the first three stages of the 100th Tour de France, which passed through the island for the first time in the event's 110-year history.
+
+Corsica was formed about 250 million years ago with the uplift of a granite backbone on the western side. About 50 million years ago sedimentary rock was pressed against this granite, forming the schists of the eastern side. It is the most mountainous island in the Mediterranean, a "mountain in the sea".[17]
+
+It is also the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean, after Sicily, Sardinia and Cyprus.
+
+It is 183 km (114 mi) long at longest, 83 km (52 mi) wide at widest, has 1,000 km (620 mi) of coastline, more than 200 beaches, and is very mountainous, with Monte Cinto as the highest peak at 2,706 m (8,878 ft) and around 120 other summits of more than 2,000 m (6,600 ft). Mountains comprise two-thirds of the island, forming a single chain. Forests make up 20% of the island.
+
+About 3,500 km2 (1,400 sq mi) of the total surface area of 8,680 km2 (3,350 sq mi) is dedicated to nature reserves (Parc naturel régional de Corse), mainly in the interior.[18] Corsica contains the GR20, one of Europe's most notable hiking trails.
+
+The island is 90 km (56 mi) from Tuscany in Italy and 170 km (110 mi) from the Côte d'Azur in France. It is separated from Sardinia to the south by the Strait of Bonifacio, which is a minimum of 11 km (6.8 mi) wide.[18]
+
+In 2005 the population of Corsica was settled in approximately 360 communities.[19]
+
+Under the Köppen climate classification scheme, coastal regions are characterized by a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa). Further inland, a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb) is more common. At the highest elevation locations, small areas with a subarctic climate (Dsc, Dfc) and the rare cold-summer Mediterranean climate (Csc) can be found.
+
+The station of Sari-Solenzara records the highest year-round temperatures of Metropolitan France with an annual average of 16.41 °C over the 1981–2010 period. Sunshine hours are not available for same period but this was 2715 h for 2008–2016.
+
+The island is divided into three major ecological zones by altitude.[22] Below 600 metres (2,000 ft) is the coastal zone, which features a Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters. The natural vegetation is Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and shrubs. The coastal lowlands are part of the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic sclerophyllous and mixed forests ecoregion, in which forests and woodlands of evergreen sclerophyll oaks predominate, chiefly holm oak (Quercus ilex) and cork oak (Quercus suber). Much of the coastal lowlands have been cleared for agriculture, grazing and logging, which have reduced the forests considerably.
+
+There is considerable birdlife in Corsica. One famous example is the bearded vulture. In some cases Corsica is a delimited part of the species range. For example, the subspecies of hooded crow, Corvus cornix ssp cornix occurs in Corsica, but no further south.[23]
+
+From 600 to 1,800 m (2,000 to 5,900 ft) is a temperate montane zone. The mountains are cooler and wetter, and home to the Corsican montane broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion, which supports diverse forests of oak, pine, and broadleaf deciduous trees, with vegetation more typical of northern Europe. The population lives predominantly below 900 m (3,000 ft), with only shepherds and hikers at 600 to 900 m (2,000 to 3,000 ft).
+
+From 1,800 to 2,700 m (5,900 to 8,900 ft) is a high alpine zone. Vegetation is sparse. This zone is uninhabited.
+
+The island has a natural park (Parc Naturel Régional de Corse, Parcu di Corsica), which protects rare animal and plant species. The Park was created in 1972 and includes the Golfe de Porto, the Scandola Nature Reserve (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and some of the highest mountains on the island. Scandola cannot be reached on foot, but people can gain access by boat from the village of Galéria and Porto (Ota). Two endangered subspecies of hoofed mammals, the mouflon (Ovis aries musimon) and Corsican red deer (Cervus elaphus corsicanus) inhabit the park. The Corsican red deer was re-introduced after it was extinct due to over hunting. This Corsican subspecies was the same that survived on Sardinia, so it is endemic. There are other species endemic to Corsica especially in the upper mountain ranges, i.e. Corsican nuthatch, Corsican fire salamander and Corsican brook salamander and many plant subspecies.
+
+Corsica, like all the other Mediterranean islands, was home to indigenous animals of the Pleistocene, some endemic to it and some coming to it and Sardinia (as Sardinia was joined to Corsica for much of the Pleistocene). After the proliferation of humans in the Mesolithic, these began to disappear, partly from extinction of the species, and partly from eradication only in Corsica. However, it is now known that many species managed to survive the Mesolithic, and many were still present well into recorded history.[24]
+
+The globally extinct species are the Sardinian dhole, Megaloceros cazioti, Corsican giant shrew, Tyrrhenian mole, Sardinian pika, Corsican-Sardinian vole, Corsican-Sardinian wood mouse, Bubo insularis and Athene angelis. Birds were especially hard-hit. Some that were eradicated from the vicinity are Haliaeetus albicilla and Aquila heliaca.
+
+Corsica has a population of 322,120 inhabitants (January 2013 estimate).[25]
+
+At the 2011 census, 56.3% of the inhabitants of Corsica were natives of Corsica, 28.6% were natives of Continental France, 0.3% were natives of Overseas France, and 14.8% were natives of foreign countries.[26]
+
+The majority of the foreign immigrants in Corsica come from the Maghreb (particularly Moroccans, who made up 33.5% of all immigrants in Corsica at the 2011 census), and from Southern Europe (particularly Portuguese, 22.7% of immigrants on the island), and Italians (13.7%).[27]
+
+Italian was the official language of Corsica until the 9th of May of 1859,[29] when it was replaced by French. Corsican (Corsu), a minority language that is closely related to medieval Tuscan (Toscano), has a better prospect of survival than most other French regional languages: Corsican is in fact, after French (Français), the most widely spoken language on the island. However, since the annexation of the island by France in the 18th century, Corsican has been under heavy pressure from French, and today it is estimated that only 10% of Corsica's population speak the language natively, with only 50% having some sort of proficiency in it.[30]
+
+The language is divided into two main varieties: Cismuntanu and Ultramuntanu, spoken respectively northeast and southwest of the Girolata - Porto Vecchio line. This division was due to the massive immigration from Tuscany which took place in Corsica during the lower Middle Ages: as a result, the Cismuntanu became very similar to the Tuscan dialects, being part of the Italo-Dalmatian language group, while the Ultramuntanu could keep its original characteristics which make it much more similar to a Southern Romance language like Sardinian (Sardu).[31][32] Therefore, due to the differences between the main dialectal varieties, many linguists classify Corsican as an Italo-Dalmatian language,[33] while others consider it a Southern Romance one.[34]
+
+Fewer and fewer people speak a Ligurian dialect, known as bunifazzinu,[35] in what has long been a language island, Bonifacio, and in Ajaccio, the aghjaccinu dialect. In Cargèse, a village established by Greek immigrants in the 17th century, Greek (Ελληνικά) was the traditional language:[36] whereas it has long disappeared from spoken conversation, ancient Greek is still the liturgical language in the local Greek Catholic church.
+
+From the mountains to the plains and sea, many ingredients play a role. Game such as wild boar (Cingale, Singhjari) is popular. There also is seafood and river fish such as trout. Delicacies such as figatellu (also named as ficateddu), made with liver, coppa, ham (prizuttu), lonzu are made from Corsican pork (porcu nustrale). Characteristic among the cheeses is brocciu (similar to ricotta), which is used as a fresh ingredient in many dishes, from first courses (sturzapreti) to cakes (fiadone). Other cheeses, like casgiu merzu ("rotten cheese", the Corsican counterpart of the Sardinian casu marzu), casgiu veghju are made from goat or sheep milk. Chestnuts are the main ingredient in the making of pulenta castagnina and cakes (falculelle). A variety of alcohol also exists ranging from aquavita (brandy), red and white Corsican wines (Vinu Corsu), muscat wine (plain or sparkling), and the famous "Cap Corse" apéritif produced by Mattei. The herbs which are part of Maquis (Corsican: machja) and the chestnuts and oak nuts of the Corsican forests are eaten by local animals, resulting in the noticeable taste in the food there.
+
+Corsica has produced a number of known artists:
+
+AC Ajaccio and SC Bastia are the two main football teams, which have played the Ligue 1 frequently since the 1960s and contest the Corsica derby. Since 2015, Gazélec Ajaccio, the city's second team, has begun playing in the Ligue 1. The Tour de Corse is a rally held since 1956, which was a round of the World Rally Championship from 1973 to 2008 and later the Intercontinental Rally Challenge and European Rally Championship. The Tour de Corse returned as a World Rally Championship round in 2015.
+
+Before 1975, Corsica was a départment of the French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. In 1975 two new départements, Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud, were created by splitting the hitherto united departement of Corsica.
+
+On 2 March 1982, a law was passed that gave Corsica the status of territorial collectivity (collectivité territoriale), abolishing the Corsican Regional Council. Unlike the regional councils, the Corsican Assembly has executive powers over the island.
+
+In 1992, three institutions were formed in the territorial collectivity of Corsica:
+
+A local referendum held in 2003, aimed at abolishing the two départements to leave a territorial collectivity with extended powers, was voted down by a narrow margin. However, the issue of Corsican autonomy and greater powers for the Corsican Assembly continues to hold sway over Corsican politics.
+
+The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was 9.6 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 0.4% of French economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 25,400 euros or 84% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 103% of the EU average.[37]
+
+Tourism plays a big part in the Corsican economy. The island's climate, mountains, and coastlines make it popular among tourists. The island has not had the same level of intensive development as other parts of the Mediterranean and is thus mainly unspoiled. Tourism is particularly concentrated in the area around Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio in the south of the island and Calvi in the northwest.
+
+In 1584 the Genoese governor ordered all farmers and landowners to plant four trees yearly; a chestnut, olive, fig, and mulberry tree. Many communities owe their origin and former richness to the ensuing chestnut woods.[38] Chestnut bread keeps fresh for as long as two weeks.[39] Corsica produces gourmet cheese, wine, sausages, and honey for sale in mainland France and for export. Corsican honey, of which there are six official varieties, is certified as to its origin (Appellation d'origine contrôlée) by the French National Institute of Origin and Quality (Institut National des Appellations d'Origine – INAO).
+
+Corsica's main exports are granite and marble, tannic acid, cork, cheese, wine, citrus fruit, olive oil and cigarettes.[40]
+
+Corsica has four international airports:
+
+All airports are served by regional French airline Air Corsica, as well as Air France which mainly offers connections to Paris-Orly. Budget carriers such as EasyJet and Ryanair offer seasonal connections to different cities in Europe.
+
+The island has 232 kilometres (144 miles) of metre gauge railway. The main line runs between Bastia and Ajaccio and there is a branch line from Ponte Leccia to Calvi. Chemins de Fer de la Corse (CFC) is the name of the regional rail network serving the French island of Corsica. For a list of stations, see Railway stations in Corsica.
+
+There was also the Eastern Coast Railway [fr] along the Thyrrenian seacoast; that line was heavily damaged during World War II, and subsequently closed for good.
+
+Corsica is well connected to the European mainland (Italy and France) by various car ferry lines. The island's busiest seaport is Bastia, which saw more than 2.5 million passengers in 2012.[41] The second busiest seaport is Ajaccio, followed by L'Île-Rousse and Calvi. Propriano and Porto Vecchio in the south also have smaller ferry docks and are seasonally served from France (Marseille), while Bonifacio's harbour is only frequented by smaller car ferries from the neighbouring island of Sardinia.
+
+The ferry companies serving Corsica are Corsica Ferries - Sardinia Ferries (from Savona, Livorno and Piombino in Italy; Toulon and Nice in France), SNCM (from Marseille, Toulon and Nice in France), CMN - La Méridionale (from Marseille in France) and Moby Lines (from Livorno and Genoa in Italy).[42][43][44][45]
+
+There are several groups and two nationalist parties (the autonomist Femu a Corsica and the separatist Corsica Libera) active on the island calling for some degree of Corsican autonomy from France or even full independence. Generally speaking, regionalist proposals focus on the promotion of the Corsican language, more power for local governments, and some exemptions from national taxes in addition to those already applying to Corsica.
+
+The French government is opposed to full independence but has at times shown support for some level of autonomy. There is support on the island for proposals for greater autonomy, but polls show that a large majority of Corsicans are opposed to full independence.[46][47]
+
+In 1972, the Italian company Montedison dumped toxic waste off the Corsican coast, creating what looked like red mud in waters around the island with the poisoning of the sea, the most visible effects being cetaceans found dead on the shores. At that time the Corsican people felt that the French government did not support them. To stop the poisoning, one ship carrying toxic waste from Italy was bombed.[48]
+
+Nationalist organisations started to seek money, using tactics similar to those of the Mafia, to fund violence. Some groups that claim to support Corsican independence, such as the National Liberation Front of Corsica, have carried out a violent campaign since the 1970s that includes bombings and assassinations, usually targeting buildings and officials representing the French government or Corsicans themselves for political reasons.[49] A war between two rival independence groups led to several deaths in the 1990s. The peaceful occupation of a pied-noir vineyard in Aléria in 1975 marked a turning point when the French government responded with overwhelming force, generating sympathy for the independence groups among the Corsican population.
+
+In 2000, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin agreed to grant increased autonomy to Corsica. The proposed autonomy for Corsica would have included greater protection for the Corsican language (Corsu), the island's traditional language, whose practice and teaching, like other regional or minority languages in France, had been discouraged in the past. According to the UNESCO classification, the Corsican language is currently in danger of becoming extinct.[50] However, plans for increased autonomy were opposed by the Gaullist opposition in the French National Assembly, who feared that they would lead to calls for autonomy from other régions (such as Brittany, Alsace, or Provence), eventually threatening France's unity as a country.[51]
+
+In a referendum on 6 July 2003, a narrow majority of Corsican voters opposed a proposal by the government of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy that would have suppressed the two départements of the island and granted greater autonomy to the territorial collectivity of Corsica.[52]
+
+On 13 December 2015, the regionalist coalition Pè a Corsica (English: For Corsica), supported by both Femu a Corsica and Corsica Libera and led by Gilles Siméoni, won the territorial elections with a percentage of 36.9%.[53][54]
+
+On December 17, 2015, Jean Guy Talamoni was elected President of the Assembly of Corsica and Gilles Simeoni was elected Executive President of the Council of the Region. In addition, legislation granting Corsica a greater degree of autonomy was passed.[55]

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+Corsican (corsu [ˈkorsu] or lingua corsa [ˈliŋɡwa ˈɡorsa]) is a Romance language from the Italo-Dalmatian family that is spoken predominantly on the Mediterranean island of Corsica (France). Corsican is closely related to Tuscan and therefore to the Florentine-based Italian. Some languages, which originated from Corsican but are also heavily influenced by Sardinian and are nowadays considered to be languages on their own, are also spoken, and to some extent written, on the island of Sardinia (Italy).[5]
+
+Under the longstanding sway of Pisa and Genoa over Corsica, Corsican used to play the role of a vernacular in combination with Italian, which was the island's official language; in 1859, Italian was replaced by French, owing to the French acquisition from the Republic of Genoa in 1768. Over the next two centuries, the use of French in the place of Italian grew to the extent that, by the Liberation in 1945, all the islanders had a working knowledge of French. The 20th century saw a language shift, with the islanders changing their language practices to the extent that there were no monolingual Corsican speakers left by the 1960s. By 1995, an estimated 65 percent of islanders had some degree of proficiency in Corsican,[6] and a minority, amounting to around 10 percent, used Corsican as a first language.[7]
+
+As for Corsican, a bone of contention is whether it should be considered an Italian dialect or its own language. Usually, it is not possible to ascertain what an author means by these terms. For example, one might read from some scholars that Corsican belongs to the Centro-Southern Italian dialects and is closely related to the Tuscan dialect of Italian.[8][9][10] Mutual intelligibility between Italian and the dialects of Corsican is in fact very high, with particular reference to the Northern varieties. Despite the geographical proximity, it has indeed been noted that the closest linguistic neighbour to Corsican is not Sardinian, which constitutes a separate group, but rather Tuscan and the extreme Southern Italian lects like Siculo-Calabrian.[11]
+
+The matter is controversial, as the island was historically and culturally bound to the Italian Mainland from the Middle Ages until the 19th century, and installed in a diglossic system where both Corsican and Italian were perceived as two sociolinguistic levels of the same language;[12] Corsican and Italian traditionally existed on a spectrum, whose proximity line was blurred enough that the locals needed little else but a change of register to communicate with the standard Italian-speaking elites and administration. "Tuscanising" their tongue allowed for a practice of code-mixing typical of the Mainland Italian dialects.[13][14]
+
+One of the characteristics of standard Italian is the retention of the -re infinitive ending, as in Latin mittere "send". Such infinitival ending is lost in Tuscan as well as Corsican, which has mette / metta, "to put". The Latin relative pronouns qui/quae "who", and quod "what", are inflected in Latin; whereas the relative pronoun in Italian for "who" is chi and "what" is che/(che) cosa, it is an uninflected chì in Corsican. Perhaps the biggest difference between standard Italian and Corsican is that the latter uses the u termination, whereas standard Italian uses the o ending. For example, the Italian demonstrative pronouns questo "this" and quello "that" become in Corsican questu or quistu and quellu or quiddu. This feature was typical of the early Italian texts during the Middle Ages.
+
+The Corsican language has been influenced by the languages of the major powers taking an interest in Corsican affairs; earlier by those of the medieval Italian powers: Papal States (828–1077), Republic of Pisa (1077–1282) and Republic of Genoa (1282–1768), more recently by France (1768–present), which, since 1859, has promulgated the official Parisian French. The term "gallicised Corsican" refers to the evolution of Corsican starting from about the year 1950. The term "distanciated Corsican" refers to an idealized variety of Corsican following linguistic purism, by means of removing any French-derived elements.[15]
+
+The common relationship between Corsica and central Italy can be traced from as far back as the Etruscans, who asserted their presence on the island in as early as 500 BC.[16] In 40 AD, the natives of Corsica did not reportedly speak Latin. The Roman exile, Seneca the Younger, reports that both coast and interior were occupied by natives whose language, the Paleo-Corsican language, he did not understand (see the Ligurian hypothesis). Whatever language was spoken is still visible in the toponymy or in some words, for instance in the Gallurese dialect spoken in Sardinia zerru 'pig'. An analogue situation was valid for Sardinian and Sicilian as well. The occupation of the island by the Vandals around the year 469 marked the end of authoritative influence by Latin speakers (see Medieval Corsica). If the natives of that time spoke Latin, they must have acquired it during the late empire. It has been theorised that a Sardinian variety might have been spoken in Corsica, prior to the island's Tuscanisation under Pisan and Genoese rule.[17]
+
+The two most widely spoken forms of the Corsican language are the groups spoken in the Bastia and Corte area (generally throughout the northern half of the island, known as Haute-Corse, Cismonte or Corsica suprana), and the groups spoken around Sartène and Porto-Vecchio (generally throughout the southern half of the island, known as Corse-du-Sud, Pumonti or Corsica suttana). The dialect of Ajaccio has been described as in transition. The dialects spoken at Calvi and Bonifacio are closer to the Genoese dialect, also known as Ligurian.
+
+This division along the Girolata-Porto Vecchio line was due to the massive immigration from Tuscany which took place in Corsica during the lower Middle Ages: as a result, the northern Corsican dialects became very close to a central Italian dialect like Tuscan, while the southern Corsican varieties could keep the original characteristics of the language which make it much more similar to Sicilian and, only to some extent, Sardinian.
+
+The Northern Corsican macro variety (Supranacciu, Supranu, Cismuntincu or Cismontano) is the most widespread on the island and standardised as well, and is spoken in North-West Corsica around the districts of Bastia and Corte. The dialects of Bastia and Cap Corse belong to the Western Tuscan dialects; they being, with the exception of Florentine, the closest to standard Italian. All the dialects presenting, in addition to what has already been stated, the conditional formed in -ebbe (e.g. (ella) amarebbe "she would love") are generally considered Cismontani dialects, situated north of a line uniting the villages of Piana, Vico, Vizzavona, Ghisoni and Ghisonaccia, and also covering the subgroups from the Cap Corse (which, unlike the rest of the island and similarly to Italian, uses lu, li, la, le as definite articles), Bastia (besides i > e and a > e, u > o: ottanta, momentu, toccà, continentale; a > o: oliva, orechja, ocellu), Balagna, Niolo and Corte (which retain the general Corsican traits: distinu, ghjinnaghju, sicondu, billezza, apartu, farru, marcuri, cantaraghju, uttanta, mumentu, tuccà, cuntinentale, aliva, arechja, acellu).
+
+Across the Northern and Southern borders of the line separating the Northern dialects from the Southern ones, there is a transitional area picking up linguistic phenomena associated with either of the two groups, with some local peculiarities. Along the Northern line are the dialects around Piana and Calcatoggio, from Cinarca with Vizzavona (which form the conditional tense like in the South), and Fiumorbo through Ghisonaccia and Ghisoni, which have the retroflex [ɖ] sound (written -dd-) for historical -ll-; along the Southern line, the dialects of Ajaccio (retroflex -dd-, realized as -ghj-, feminine plurals ending in i, some Northern words like cane and accattà instead of ghjacaru and cumprà, as well as ellu/ella and not eddu/edda; minor variations: sabbatu > sabbitu, u li dà > ghi lu dà; final syllables often stressed and truncated: marinari > marinà, panatteri > panattè, castellu > castè, cuchjari > cuchjà), the Gravona area, Bastelica (which would be classified as Southern, but is also noted for its typical rhotacism: Basterga) and Solenzara, which did not preserve the Latin short vowels: seccu, peru, rossu, croci, pozzu).
+
+The Southern Corsican macro variety (Suttanacciu, Suttanu, Pumontincu or Oltramontano) is the most archaic and conservative group, spoken in the districts of Sartène and Porto-Vecchio. Unlike the Northern varieties and similarly to Sardinian, the group retains the distinction of the Latin short vowels ĭ and ŭ (e.g. pilu, bucca). It is also strongly marked by the presence of the voiced retroflex stop, like Sicilian (e.g. aceddu, beddu, quiddu, ziteddu, famidda), and the conditional tense formed in -ìa (e.g. (idda) amarìa "she would love"). All the Oltramontani dialects are from an area located to the South of Porticcio, Bastelica, Col di Verde and Solenzara. Notable dialects are those from around Taravo (retroflex -dd- only for historical -ll-: frateddu, suredda, beddu; preservation of the palatal lateral approximant: piglià, famiglia, figliolu, vogliu; does not preserve the Latin short vowels: seccu, peru, rossu, croci, pozzu), Sartène (preserving the Latin short vowels: siccu, piru, russu, cruci, puzzu; changing historical -rn- to -rr-: forru, carri, corru; substituting the stop for the palatal lateral approximant: piddà, famidda, fiddolu, voddu; imperfect tense like cantàvami, cantàvani; masculine plurals ending in a: l'ochja, i poma; having eddu/edda/eddi as personal pronouns), the Alta Rocca (the most conservative area in Corsica, being very close to the varieties spoken in Northern Sardinia), and the Southern region located between the hinterlands of Porto-Vecchio and Bonifacio (masculine singulars always ending in u: fiumu, paesu, patronu; masculine plurals always ending in a: i letta, i solda, i ponta, i foca, i mura, i loca, i balcona; imperfect tense like cantàiami, cantàiani).
+
+The Gallurese variety is spoken in the extreme north of Sardinia, including the region of Gallura and the archipelago of La Maddalena, and Sassarese is spoken in Sassari and in its neighbourhood, in the northwest of Sardinia. Whether the two should be included either in Corsican or in Sardinian as dialects or considered independent languages is still subject of debate.
+
+On Maddalena archipelago the local dialect (called Isulanu, Maddaleninu, Maddalenino) was brought by fishermen and shepherds from Bonifacio during immigration in the 17th and 18th centuries. Though influenced by Gallurese, it has maintained the original characteristics of Corsican. There are also numerous words of Genoese and Ponzese origin.[citation needed]
+
+On October 14, 1997, Article 2 Item 4 of Law Number 26 of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia granted "al dialetto sassarese e a quello gallurese"—equal legal status with the other languages on Sardinia. They are thus legally defined as different languages from Sardinian by the Sardinian government.[18]
+
+The January 2007 estimated population of Corsica was 281,000, whereas the figure for the March 1999 census, when most of the studies—though not the linguistic survey work referenced in this article—were performed, was about 261,000 (see under Corsica). Only a fraction of the population at either time spoke Corsican with any fluency.
+
+The use of Corsican language over French language has been declining. In 1980 about 70 percent of the population of the island "had some command of the Corsican language."[19] In 1990 out of a total population of about 254,000 the percentage had declined to 50 percent, with only 10 percent using it as a first language.[7]  (These figures do not count varieties of Corsican spoken in Sardinia.)  The language appeared to be in serious decline when the French government reversed its unsupportive stand and initiated some strong measures to save it.
+
+According to an official survey run on behalf of the Collectivité territoriale de Corse which took place in April 2013, in Corsica the Corsican language has a number of speakers situated between 86,800 and 130,200, out of a total population amounting to 309,693 inhabitants.[20] The percentage of those who have a solid knowledge of the language varies between a minimum of 25 percent in the 25–34 age group and the maximum of 65 percent in the over-65 age group: almost a quarter of the former age group does not understand Corsican, while only a small minority of the older people do not understand it.[20] While 32 percent of the population of northern Corsica speaks Corsican quite well, this percentage drops to 22 percent for South Corsica.[20] Moreover, 10 percent of the population of Corsica speaks only French, while 62 percent speak both French and Corsican.[20] However, only 8 percent of the Corsicans know how to write correctly in Corsican, while about 60 percent of the population does not know how to write in Corsican.[20] While 90 percent of the population is in favor of a Corsican-French bilingualism, 3 percent would like to have Corsican as the only official language in the island, and 7 percent would prefer French in this role.[20]
+
+UNESCO classifies Corsican as a "definitely endangered language."[21] The Corsican language is a key vehicle for Corsican culture, which is notably rich in proverbs and in polyphonic song.
+
+When the French Assembly passed the Deixonne Law in 1951, which made it possible for regional languages to be taught at school, Alsatian, Flemish and Corsican were not included on the ground of being classified as dialectes allogènes of German, Dutch and Italian respectively;[22] only in 1974 were they too politically recognized as regional languages for their teaching on a voluntary basis.
+
+The 1991 "Joxe Statute", in setting up the Collectivité Territoriale de Corse, also provided for the Corsican Assembly, and charged it with developing a plan for the optional teaching of Corsican. The University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli at Corte, Haute-Corse took a central role in the planning.[23]
+
+At the primary school level Corsican is taught up to a fixed number of hours per week (three in the year 2000) and is a voluntary subject at the secondary school level,[24] but is required at the University of Corsica. It is available through adult education. It can be spoken in court or in the conduct of other government business if the officials concerned speak it. The Cultural Council of the Corsican Assembly advocates for its use, for example, on public signs.
+
+According to the anthropologist Dumenica Verdoni, writing new literature in modern Corsican, known as the Riacquistu, is an integral part of affirming Corsican identity.[25] Some individuals have returned from careers in continental France to write in Corsican, including Dumenicu Togniotti, director of the Teatru Paisanu, which produced polyphonic musicals, 1973–1982, followed in 1980 by Michel Raffaelli's Teatru di a Testa Mora, and Saveriu Valentini's Teatru Cupabbia in 1984.[26] Modern prose writers include Alanu di Meglio, Ghjacumu Fusina, Lucia Santucci, and Marcu Biancarelli.[27]
+
+There were writers working in Corsican in the 1700s and 1800s.[28]
+
+Ferdinand Gregorovius, a 19th-century traveller and enthusiast of Corsican culture, reported that the preferred form of the literary tradition of his time was the vocero, a type of polyphonic ballad originating from funeral obsequies. These laments were similar in form to the chorales of Greek drama except that the leader could improvise. Some performers were noted at this, such as the 1700s Mariola della Piazzole and Clorinda Franseschi.[29]  However, the trail of written popular literature of known date in Corsican currently goes no further back than the 17th century.[30] An undated corpus of proverbs from communes may well precede it (see under External links below). Corsican has also left a trail of legal documents ending in the late 12th century. At that time the monasteries held considerable land on Corsica and many of the churchmen were notaries.
+
+Between 1200 and 1425 the monastery of Gorgona, which belonged to the Order of Saint Benedict for much of that time and was in the territory of Pisa, acquired about 40 legal papers of various sorts related to Corsica. As the church was replacing Pisan prelates with Corsican ones there, the legal language shows a transition from entirely Latin through partially Latin and partially Corsican to entirely Corsican. The first known surviving document containing some Corsican is a bill of sale from Patrimonio dated to 1220.[31] These documents were moved to Pisa before the monastery closed its doors and were published there. Research into earlier evidence of Corsican is ongoing.
+
+Corsican is written in the standard Latin script, using 21 of the letters for native words. The letters j, k, w, x, and y are found only in foreign names and French vocabulary. The digraphs and trigraphs chj, ghj, sc and sg are also defined as "letters" of the alphabet in its modern scholarly form (compare the presence of ch or ll in the old Spanish alphabet) and appear respectively after c, g and s.
+
+The primary diacritic used is the grave accent, indicating word stress when it is not penultimate. In scholarly contexts, disyllables may be distinguished from diphthongs by use of the diaeresis on the former vowel (as in Italian and distinct from French and English). In older writing, the acute accent is sometimes found on stressed ⟨e⟩, the circumflex on stressed ⟨o⟩, indicating respectively (/e/) and (/o/) phonemes.
+
+Corsican has been regarded as a dialect of Italian historically, similar to the Romance lects developed on the Italian peninsula, and in writing, it also resembles Italian (with the generalised substitution of -u for final -o and the articles u and a for il/lo and la respectively; however, both the dialect of Cap Corse and Gallurese retain the original articles lu and la). On the other hand, the phonemes of the modern Corsican dialects have undergone complex and sometimes irregular phenomena depending on phonological context, so the pronunciation of the language for foreigners familiar with other Romance languages is not straightforward.
+
+As in Italian, the grapheme ⟨i⟩ appears in some digraphs and trigraphs in which it does not represent the phonemic vowel. All vowels are pronounced except in a few well-defined instances. ⟨i⟩ is not pronounced between ⟨sc/sg/c/g⟩ and ⟨a/o/u⟩: sciarpa [ˈʃarpa]; or initially in some words: istu [ˈstu].[32]
+
+Vowels may be nasalized before ⟨n⟩ (which is assimilated to ⟨m⟩ before ⟨p⟩ or ⟨b⟩) and the palatal nasal consonant represented by ⟨gn⟩. The nasal vowels are represented by the vowel plus ⟨n⟩, ⟨m⟩ or ⟨gn⟩. The combination is a digraph or trigraph indicating the nasalized vowel. The consonant is pronounced in weakened form. The same combination of letters might not be the digraph or trigraph but might be just the non-nasal vowel followed by the consonant at full weight. The speaker must know the difference. Example of nasal: ⟨pane⟩ is pronounced [ˈpãnɛ] and not [ˈpanɛ].
+
+The Northern and central dialects in the vicinity of the Taravo river adopt the Italian seven-vowel system, whereas all the Southern ones around the so-called "archaic zone" with its centre being the town of Sartène (including the Gallurese dialect spoken in Northern Sardinia) resort to a five-vowel system without length differentiation, like Sardinian.[33]
+
+The vowel inventory, or collection of phonemic vowels (and the major allophones), transcribed in IPA symbols, is:[34][35]
+
+Sono nato in Corsica e vi ho passato gli anni migliori della mia giovinezza. Ricordo, quando eravamo ragazzi, che le nostre mamme ci mandavano da soli a fare il bagno. Allora la spiaggia era piena di sabbia, senza scogli né rocce e si stava in mare delle ore fino a quando, paonazzi dal freddo poi ci andavamo a rotolare in quella sabbia bollente dal sole. Poi l'ultimo tuffo per levarci la sabbia attaccata alla pelle e ritornavamo a casa che il sole era già calato, all'ora di cena. Quando faceva buio noi ragazzi ci mandavano a fare granchi, con la luce, che serviva per mettere l'esca agli ami per pescare. Ne raccoglievamo in quantità poi in casa li mettevamo in un sacchetto chiuso in cucina. Una mattina in cui ci eravamo alzati che era ancora buio, quando siamo andati a prendere il sacchetto era vuoto e i granchi giravano per tutte le camere e c'è voluta più di mezz'ora per raccoglierli tutti.
+
+Sò nato in Corsica e c'hajo passato li méglio anni de la mi' giovinezza. Mi mentovo quand'èremo bàmboli che le nosse ma' ci mandàveno da ssoli a fa' 'l bagno. Allora la piaggia era piena di rena, senza scogli né greppe e stàvemo in mare fino a quando ingrozzichiti c'andàvemo a rivorta' 'n chidda rena bollente dal sole. Poi l'urtimo ciutto pe' levacci la rena attaccata a la pella e tornàvemo 'n casa che 'l sole era già ciuttato, a l'ora di cena. Quando veniva buio a no' bàmboli ci mandàveno a fa' granchi, colla luce, che ci voléveno pe' mette' l'ami pe' pescà. Ne aricogliévemo a guaro, po' 'n casa li mettévemo in de 'n sacchetto chiuso 'n cucina. Una matina che c'èremo levati ch'era sempre buio, quando simo andati a piglià 'l sacchetto era voto e li granchi giràveno pe' ttutte le càmmere e c'è voluto più di mezz'ora ad aricoglieli tutti.
+
+Sò natu in Corsica è c'aghju passatu i più belli anni di a mio giuventù. M'arricordu quand'èramu zitelli chì e nostre mamme ci mandavanu soli à fà u bagnu. Tandu a piaghja era piena di rena, senza scogli né cotule é ci ne stàvamu in mare per ore fin'à quandu, viola per u freddu, dopu ci n'andavamu a vultulàcci in quella rena bullente da u sole. Po' l'ultima capiciuttata per levacci a rena attaccata à a pelle è vultavamu in casa chì u sole era digià calatu, à ora di cena. Quand'ellu facìa bughju à noi zitèlli ci mandàvanu à fà granchi, cù u lume, chì ci vulìa per innescà l'ami per a pesca. N'arricuglìamu à mandilate piene po' in casa i punìamu nu un sacchéttu chjosu in cucina. Una mane chì c'èramu arritti ch'èra sempre bughju, quandu simu andati à piglià u sacchettu ellu èra biotu è i granchi giravanu per tutte e camere è ci hè vulsuta più di méz'ora à ricoglieli tutti.
+
+Sòcu natu in Còrsica e v'agghju passatu i mèddu anni di a me ghjuvintù. M'ammentu quand'érami zitéddi chì i nosci mammi ci mandàiani da par no' a fàcci u bagnu. Tandu a piaghja ghjéra piena di rèna, senza scódda né ròcchi è si staghjìa in mari ori fin'a quandu, viola da u fritu andàghjìami a vultulàcci in quidda rèna buddènti da u soli. Dapo', l'ultima capuzzina pa' livàcci a réna attaccata a à péddi e turràiami in casa chì u soli era ghjà calatu, à l'ora di cena. Quandu facìa bughju à no' zitéddi ci mandàiani à fà granci, cù a luci, chi ci vulìa par inniscà l'ami pà piscà. N'arricuglivàmi à mandili pieni è dapoi in casa i mittìami drent'à un sacchettu chjusu in cucina. Una matìna chì ci n'érami pisàti chi ghjéra sempri bughju, quandu sèmu andati à piddà u sacchéttu iddu éra biotu è i granci ghjiràiani pà tutti i càmari e ci hè vuluta più di méz'ora pà ricapizzulàlli tutti.
+
+Sòcu natu in Còssiga e v'agghju passatu li mèddu anni di la mè ciuintù. M'ammentu candu érami stéddi chi li nostri mammi ci mandàani da pal noi a fàcci lu bagnu. Tandu la piaghja éra piena di rèna, senza scóddi e né ròcchi e si stagghjìa in mari ori fin'a candu, biaìtti da lu fritu andaghjìami a vultulàcci in chidda rèna buddènti da lu soli. Dapoi, l'ultima capuzzina pa' bucàcci la réna attaccata a la péddi e turràami in casa chi lu soli éra ghjà calatu, a l'ora di cena. Candu facìa bugghju a noi stéddi ci mandàani a fa' granchi, cù la luci, chi vi vulìa pa' accindì(attivà) l'ami pa' piscà. N'accapitàami a mandili pieni e dapoi in casa li mittìami indrent'a un sacchéddu chjusu in cucina. Una matìna chi ci n'érami pisàti chi éra sempri lu bugghju, candu sèmu andati a piddà lu sacchéddu iddu éra bòitu e li granchi ghjràani pa' tutti li càmbari e v'è vuluta più di mez'ora pa' accapitàlli tutti.
+
+Soggu naddu in Còssiga e v'aggiu passaddu li megli'anni di la me' pizzinìa. M'ammentu, cand'érami minori, chi li nosthri mammi zi mandàbani a fazzi lu bagnu a la sora. Tandu l'ippiaggia era piena di rena, chena ischogliu né rocca e si isthazzìa a mogliu ori finz'a candu, biaìtti da lu freddu, andàbami a busthurazzi in chidda rena buddendi da lu sori. A dabboi l'ùlthimu cabuzzoni pa bugganni la rena appizzigadda a la peddi e turràbami a casa chi lu sori era già caraddu, a l'ora di zinà. Candu si fazìa buggiu a noi pizzinni zi mandàbani a piglià granchi, cu' la luzi chi vi vurìa pa innischà l'amu pa pischà. Ni pigliàbami umbè e dabboi in casa li punìami drentu a un sacchettu sarraddu i' la cuzina. Un manzanu chi zi n'érami pisaddi chi era ancora buggiu, candu semmu andaddi a piglià lu sacchettu eddu era bioddu e li granchi giràbani pa tutti li càmmari, e v'è vurudda più di mezz'ora pa accuglinniri tutti.

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+Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca[a] (/kɔːrˈtɛs/; Spanish: [eɾˈnaŋ koɾˈtes ðe monˈroj i piˈθaro]; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
+
+Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda (the right to the labor of certain subjects). For a short time, he served as alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored.
+
+Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter. She later bore his first son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of being punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Cortés was awarded the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of Viceroy was given to a high-ranking nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza. In 1541 Cortés returned to Spain, where he died six years later of natural causes but embittered.
+
+Because of the controversial undertakings of Cortés and the scarcity of reliable sources of information about him, it is difficult to describe his personality or motivations. Early lionizing of the conquistadores did not encourage deep examination of Cortés. Modern reconsideration has done little to enlarge understanding regarding him. As a result of these historical trends, descriptions of Cortés tend to be simplistic, and either damning or idealizing.[citation needed]
+
+Cortés himself used the form "Hernando" or "Fernando" for his first name, as seen in his signature and the title of an early portrait.[1] William Hickling Prescott's Conquest of Mexico (1843) also refers to him as Hernando Cortés.  At some point writers began using the shortened form of "Hernán" more generally.
+
+Cortés was born in 1485 in the town of Medellín, then a village in the Kingdom of Castile, now a municipality of the modern-day province of Badajoz in Extremadura, Spain. His father, Martín Cortés de Monroy, born in 1449 to Rodrigo or Ruy Fernández de Monroy and his wife María Cortés, was an infantry captain of distinguished ancestry but slender means. Hernán's mother was Catalína Pizarro Altamirano.[2]
+
+Through his mother, Hernán was second cousin once removed of Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca Empire of modern-day Peru, and not to be confused with another Francisco Pizarro, who joined Cortés to conquer the Aztecs. (His maternal grandmother, Leonor Sánchez Pizarro Altamirano, was first cousin of Pizarro's father Gonzalo Pizarro y Rodriguez.)[2] Through his father, Hernán was related to Nicolás de Ovando, the third Governor of Hispaniola. His paternal great-grandfather was Rodrigo de Monroy y Almaraz, 5th Lord of Monroy.
+
+According to his biographer, chaplain, and friend Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés was pale and sickly as a child. At the age of 14, he was sent to study Latin under an uncle in Salamanca. Modern historians have misconstrued this personal tutoring as time enrolled at the University of Salamanca.[3]
+
+After two years, Cortés returned home to Medellín, much to the irritation of his parents, who had hoped to see him equipped for a profitable legal career. However, those two years in Salamanca, plus his long period of training and experience as a notary, first in Valladolid and later in Hispaniola, gave him knowledge of the legal codes of Castile that he applied to help justify his unauthorized conquest of Mexico.[4]
+
+At this point in his life, Cortés was described by Gómara as ruthless, haughty, and mischievous.[5] The 16-year-old youth had returned home to feel constrained life in his small provincial town. By this time, news of the exciting discoveries of Christopher Columbus in the New World was streaming back to Spain.
+
+Plans were made for Cortés to sail to the Americas with a family acquaintance and distant relative, Nicolás de Ovando, the newly appointed Governor of Hispaniola. (This island is now divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cortés suffered an injury and was prevented from traveling. He spent the next year wandering the country, probably spending most of his time in Spain's southern ports of Cadiz, Palos, Sanlucar, and Seville. He finally left for Hispaniola in 1504 and became a colonist.[6]
+
+Cortés reached Hispaniola in a ship commanded by Alonso Quintero, who tried to deceive his superiors and reach the New World before them in order to secure personal advantages. Quintero's mutinous conduct may have served as a model for Cortés in his subsequent career. The history of the conquistadores is rife with accounts of rivalry, jockeying for positions, mutiny, and betrayal.[7]
+
+Upon his arrival in 1504 in Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola, the 18-year-old Cortés registered as a citizen; this entitled him to a building plot and land to farm. Soon afterward, Governor Nicolás de Ovando granted him an encomienda and appointed him as a notary of the town of Azua de Compostela. His next five years seemed to help establish him in the colony; in 1506, Cortés took part in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba. The expedition leader awarded him a large estate of land and Indian slaves for his efforts.
+
+In 1511, Cortés  accompanied Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, an aide of the Governor of Hispaniola, in his expedition to conquer Cuba. Velázquez was appointed Governor of New Spain. At the age of 26, Cortés was made clerk to the treasurer with the responsibility of ensuring that the Crown received the quinto, or customary one fifth of the profits from the expedition.
+
+Velázquez was so impressed with Cortés that he secured a high political position for him in the colony. He became secretary for Governor Velázquez. Cortés was twice appointed municipal magistrate (alcalde) of Santiago. In Cuba, Cortés became a man of substance with an encomienda to provide Indian labor for his mines and cattle. This new position of power also made him the new source of leadership, which opposing forces in the colony could then turn to. In 1514, Cortés led a group which demanded that more Indians be assigned to the settlers.
+
+As time went on, relations between Cortés and Governor Velázquez became strained.[8] This began once news reached Velázquez that Juan de Grijalva had established a colony on the mainland where there was a bonanza of silver and gold, and Velázquez decided to send him help. Cortés was appointed Captain-General of this new expedition in October 1518, but was advised to move fast before Velázquez changed his mind.[8]
+
+With Cortés' experience as an administrator, knowledge gained from many failed expeditions, and his impeccable rhetoric he was able to gather six ships and 300 men, within a month. Velázquez's jealousy exploded and he decided to put the expedition in other hands. However, Cortés quickly gathered more men and ships in other Cuban ports.
+
+Cortés also found time to become romantically involved with Catalina Xuárez (or Juárez), the sister-in-law of Governor Velázquez. Part of Velázquez's displeasure seems to have been based on a belief that Cortés was trifling with Catalina's affections. Cortés was temporarily distracted by one of Catalina's sisters but finally married Catalina, reluctantly, under pressure from Governor Velázquez. However, by doing so, he hoped to secure the good will of both her family and that of Velázquez.[9]
+
+It was not until he had been almost 15 years in the Indies that Cortés began to look beyond his substantial status as mayor of the capital of Cuba and as a man of affairs in the thriving colony. He missed the first two expeditions, under the orders of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba and then Juan de Grijalva, sent by Diego Velázquez to Mexico in 1518.
+
+There are differing perceptions about what happened to Hernán Cortés's ships. Some think that he burned the vessels, and others believe he beached them.[10] The notion that he burned his ships did not become accepted until 250 years later.[10] Bernal Díaz del Castillo, while attending an expedition with Cortés, gives reason to believe that Cortés ran them ashore.[10] In a letter to King Charles, Cortés states that his ships were incapable of sailing, telling his men the reason was shipworm.[10] After establishing the town of Vera Cruz, five Aztec emissaries arrived which made Cortés anxious to visit Tenochtitlán.[11] Therefore, he destroyed all of his ships but one, which he sent back to Spain for King Charles.[10] The fear of his men returning to Cuba, rather than embarking on the journey to the Aztec Empire, made him decide to demolish his ships.[12] They no longer had an option but to accompany him on this journey. This decision brought about severe consequences because Cortés had trapped himself in Mexico.
+
+Cortés created strife between his men and the Aztecs by taking over the city. Worried his men would revolt, Montezuma decided to convince them to delay the attack.[13] Cortés now had time to build more ships, but he had to stay on guard against the Aztecs because he was unable to leave Mexico. Furthermore, Velázquez was sending forces to arrest Cortés, which meant the lives of him and his men were at jeopardy.[14] Still without ships, Cortés could not escape. This resulted in him fighting the battle at Cempoala. In addition to restraining himself in Mexico, Cortés also suffered financially. He had to repay Velázquez for the ships he destroyed.[15]
+
+Throughout his journey, Cortés had written five letters to King Charles. He wanted to relieve himself from Velázquez's authority; therefore, Cortés bribed the King through sending him treasures.[16] Velázquez and his men convinced King Charles to revoke Cortés's position as governor.[16]  While King Charles forgave Cortés, he did receive punishment. Cortés was promoted to captain-general and given the title of Marquess, but he was not allowed to reclaim his governorship or return to New Spain.[17]
+
+In 1518, Velázquez put Cortés in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization. At the last minute, due to the old argument between the two, Velázquez changed his mind and revoked Cortés's charter. He ignored the orders and, in an act of open mutiny, went anyway in February 1519. He stopped in Trinidad, Cuba, to hire more soldiers and obtain more horses.  Accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men (including seasoned slaves[18]), 13 horses, and a small number of cannons, Cortés landed on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mayan territory.[19] There he encountered Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spanish Franciscan priest who had survived a shipwreck followed by a period in captivity with the Maya, before escaping.[19] Aguilar had learned the Chontal Maya language and was able to translate for Cortés.[20]
+
+In March 1519, Cortés formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown.  Then he proceeded to Tabasco, where he met with resistance and won a battle against the natives. He received twenty young indigenous women from the vanquished natives, and he converted them all to Christianity.[20]
+
+Among these women was La Malinche, his future mistress and mother of his son Martín. Malinche knew both the Nahuatl language and Chontal Maya, thus enabling Cortés to communicate with the Aztecs through Aguilar.[21]:82, 86–87  At San Juan de Ulúa on Easter Sunday 1519, Cortés met with Moctezuma II's Aztec Empire governors Tendile and Pitalpitoque.[21]:89
+
+In July 1519, his men took over Veracruz. By this act, Cortés dismissed the authority of the Governor of Cuba to place himself directly under the orders of King Charles.[19] In order to eliminate any ideas of retreat, Cortés scuttled his ships.[22]
+
+In Veracruz, he met some of the tributaries of the Aztecs  and asked them to arrange a meeting with Moctezuma II, the tlatoani (ruler) of the Aztec Empire.[22] Moctezuma repeatedly turned down the meeting, but Cortés was determined. Leaving a hundred men in Veracruz, Cortés marched on Tenochtitlán in mid-August 1519, along with 600 soldiers, 15 horsemen, 15 cannons, and hundreds of indigenous carriers and warriors.[19]
+
+On the way to Tenochtitlán, Cortés made alliances with indigenous peoples such as the Totonacs of Cempoala and the Nahuas of Tlaxcala. The Otomis initially, and then the Tlaxcalans fought with the Spanish in a series of three battles from 2 to 5 September 1519, and at one point, Diaz remarked, "they surrounded us on every side". After Cortés continued to release prisoners with messages of peace, and realizing the Spanish were enemies of Moctezuma, Xicotencatl the Elder and Maxixcatzin persuaded the Tlaxcalan warleader, Xicotencatl the Younger, that it would be better to ally with the newcomers than to kill them.[21]:143–55, 171
+
+In October 1519, Cortés and his men, accompanied by about 1,000 Tlaxcalteca,[21]:188 marched to Cholula, the second largest city in central Mexico. Cortés, either in a pre-meditated effort to instill fear upon the Aztecs waiting for him at Tenochtitlan or (as he later claimed, when he was being investigated) wishing to make an example when he feared native treachery, massacred thousands of unarmed members of the nobility gathered at the central plaza, then partially burned the city.[21]:199–200
+
+By the time he arrived in Tenochtitlán the Spaniards had a large army. On November 8, 1519, they were peacefully received by Moctezuma II.[23] Moctezuma deliberately let Cortés enter the Aztec capital, the island city of Tenochtitlán, hoping to get to know their weaknesses better and to crush them later.[19]
+
+Moctezuma gave lavish gifts of gold to the Spaniards which, rather than placating them, excited their ambitions for plunder. In his letters to King Charles, Cortés claimed to have learned at this point that he was considered by the Aztecs to be either an emissary of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl or Quetzalcoatl himself – a belief which has been contested by a few modern historians.[24] But quickly Cortés learned that several Spaniards on the coast had been killed by Aztecs while supporting the Totonacs, and decided to take Moctezuma as a hostage in his own palace, indirectly ruling Tenochtitlán through him.[25]
+
+Meanwhile, Velázquez sent another expedition, led by Pánfilo de Narváez, to oppose Cortés, arriving in Mexico in April 1520 with 1,100 men.[19] Cortés left 200 men in Tenochtitlán and took the rest to confront Narváez. He overcame Narváez, despite his numerical inferiority, and convinced the rest of Narváez's men to join him.[19] In Mexico, one of Cortés's lieutenants Pedro de Alvarado, committed the massacre in the Great Temple, triggering a local rebellion.[26]
+
+Cortés speedily returned to Tenochtitlán. On July 1, 1520 Moctezuma was killed (the Spaniards claimed he was stoned to death by his own people; others claim he was murdered by the Spanish once they realized his inability to placate the locals). Faced with a hostile population, Cortés decided to flee for Tlaxcala. During the Noche Triste (June 30 – July 1, 1520), the Spaniards managed a narrow escape from Tenochtitlán across the Tlacopan causeway, while their rearguard was being massacred. Much of the treasure looted by Cortés was lost (as well as his artillery) during this panicked escape from Tenochtitlán.[19]
+
+After a battle in Otumba, they managed to reach Tlaxcala, having lost 870 men.[19] With the assistance of their allies, Cortés's men finally prevailed with reinforcements arriving from Cuba. Cortés began a policy of attrition towards Tenochtitlán, cutting off supplies and subduing the Aztecs' allied cities. The siege of Tenochtitlán ended with Spanish victory and the destruction of the city.[27]
+
+In January 1521, Cortés countered a conspiracy against him, headed by Antonio de Villafana, who was hanged for the offense.[19] Finally, with the capture of Cuauhtémoc, the tlatoani (ruler) of Tenochtitlán, on August 13, 1521, the Aztec Empire was captured, and Cortés was able to claim it for Spain, thus renaming the city Mexico City. From 1521 to 1524, Cortés personally governed Mexico.[19]
+
+Many historical sources have conveyed an impression that Cortés was unjustly treated by the Spanish Crown, and that he received nothing but ingratitude for his role in establishing New Spain. This picture is the one Cortés presents in his letters and in the later biography written by Francisco López de Gómara. However, there may be more to the picture than this. Cortés's own sense of accomplishment, entitlement, and vanity may have played a part in his deteriorating position with the king:
+
+Cortés personally was not ungenerously rewarded, but he speedily complained of insufficient compensation to himself and his comrades. Thinking himself beyond reach of restraint, he disobeyed many of the orders of the Crown, and, what was more imprudent, said so in a letter to the emperor, dated October 15, 1524 (Ycazbalceta, "Documentos para la Historia de México", Mexico, 1858, I). In this letter Cortés, besides recalling in a rather abrupt manner that the conquest of Mexico was due to him alone, deliberately acknowledges his disobedience in terms which could not fail to create a most unfavourable impression.[28]
+
+King Charles appointed Cortés as governor, captain general and chief justice of the newly conquered territory, dubbed "New Spain of the Ocean Sea". But also, much to the dismay of Cortés, four royal officials were appointed at the same time to assist him in his governing – in effect, submitting him to close observation and administration. Cortés initiated the construction of Mexico City, destroying Aztec temples and buildings and then rebuilding on the Aztec ruins what soon became the most important European city in the Americas.[19]
+
+Cortés managed the founding of new cities and appointed men to extend Spanish rule to all of New Spain, imposing the encomienda system in 1524.[19] He reserved many encomiendas for himself and for his retinue, which they considered just rewards for their accomplishment in conquering central Mexico. However, later arrivals and members of factions antipathetic to Cortés complained of the favoritism that excluded them.[29]
+
+In 1523, the Crown (possibly influenced by Cortés's enemy, Bishop Fonseca),[30] sent a military force under the command of Francisco de Garay to conquer and settle the northern part of Mexico, the region of Pánuco. This was another setback for Cortés who mentioned this in his fourth letter to the King in which he describes himself as the victim of a conspiracy by his archenemies Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Diego Columbus and Bishop Fonseca as well as Francisco Garay. The influence of Garay was effectively stopped by this appeal to the King who sent out a decree forbidding Garay to interfere in the politics of New Spain, causing him to give up without a fight.
+
+Although Cortés had flouted the authority of Diego Velázquez in sailing to the mainland and then leading an expedition of conquest, Cortés's spectacular success was rewarded by the crown with a coat of arms, a mark of high honor, following the conqueror's request. The document granting the coat of arms summarizes Cortés's accomplishments in the conquest of Mexico. The proclamation of the king says in part:
+
+We, respecting the many labors, dangers, and adventures which you underwent as stated above, and so that there might remain a perpetual memorial of you and your services and that you and your descendants might be more fully honored ... it is our will that besides your coat of arms of your lineage, which you have, you may have and bear as your coat of arms, known and recognized, a shield ...[31]:43
+
+The grant specifies the iconography of the coat of arms, the central portion divided into quadrants. In the upper portion, there is a "black eagle with two heads on a white field, which are the arms of the empire".[31]:43 Below that is a "golden lion on a red field, in memory of the fact that you, the said Hernando Cortés, by your industry and effort brought matters to the state described above" (i.e., the conquest).[31]:43 The specificity of the other two quadrants is linked directly to Mexico, with one quadrant showing three crowns representing the three Aztec emperors of the conquest era, Moctezuma, Cuitlahuac, and Cuauhtemoc[31]:43 and the other showing the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.[31]:43 Encircling the central shield are symbols of the seven city-states around the lake and their lords that Cortés defeated, with the lords "to be shown as prisoners bound with a chain which shall be closed with a lock beneath the shield".[31]:44–45
+
+Cortés's wife Catalina Súarez arrived in New Spain around summer 1522, along with her sister and brother.[32]  His marriage to Catalina was at this point extremely awkward, since she was a kinswoman of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, whose authority Cortés had thrown off and who was therefore now his enemy.  Catalina lacked the noble title of doña, so at this point his marriage with her no longer raised his status. Their marriage had been childless. Since Cortés had sired children with a variety of indigenous women, including a son around 1522 by his cultural translator, Doña Marina, Cortés knew he was capable of fathering children. Cortés's only male heir at this point was illegitimate, but nonetheless named after Cortés's father, Martín Cortés. This son Martín Cortés was sometimes called "El Mestizo".[citation needed]
+
+Catalina Suárez died under mysterious circumstances the night of November 1–2, 1522. There were accusations at the time that Cortés had murdered his wife. There was an investigation into her death, interviewing a variety of household residents and others.[33] The documentation of the investigation was published in the nineteenth century in Mexico and these archival documents were uncovered in the twentieth century.[34][35] The death of Catalina Suárez produced a scandal and investigation, but Cortés was now free to marry someone of high status more appropriate to his wealth and power. In 1526, he built an imposing residence for himself, the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca, in a region close to the capital where he had extensive encomienda holdings. In 1529 he had been accorded the noble designation of don, but more importantly was given the noble title of Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca and married the Spanish noblewoman Doña Juana de Zúñiga. The marriage produced three children, including another son, who was also named Martín. As the first-born legitimate son, Don Martín Cortés y Zúñiga was now Cortés's heir and succeeded him as holder of the title and estate of the Marquessate of the Valley of Oaxaca.[36] Cortés's legitimate daughters were Doña Maria, Doña Catalina, and Doña Juana.[37]
+
+Since the conversion to Christianity of indigenous peoples was an essential and integral part of the extension of Spanish power, making formal provisions for that conversion once the military conquest was completed was an important task for Cortés. During the Age of Discovery, the Catholic Church had seen early attempts at conversion in the Caribbean islands by Spanish friars, particularly the mendicant orders. Cortés made a request to the Spanish monarch to send Franciscan and Dominican friars to Mexico to convert the vast indigenous populations to Christianity. In his fourth letter to the king, Cortés pleaded for friars rather than diocesan or secular priests because those clerics were in his view a serious danger to the Indians' conversion.
+
+If these people [Indians] were now to see the affairs of the Church and the service of God in the hands of canons or other dignitaries, and saw them indulge in the vices and profanities now common in Spain, knowing that such men were the ministers of God, it would bring our Faith into much harm that I believe any further preaching would be of no avail.[38]
+
+He wished the mendicants to be the main evangelists.  Mendicant friars did not usually have full priestly powers to perform all the sacraments needed for conversion of the Indians and growth of the neophytes in the Christian faith, so Cortés laid out a solution to this to the king.
+
+Your Majesty should likewise beseech His Holiness [the pope] to grant these powers to the two principal persons in the religious orders that are to come here, and that they should be his delegates, one from the Order of St. Francis and the other from the Order of St. Dominic. They should bring the most extensive powers Your Majesty is able to obtain, for, because these lands are so far from the Church of Rome, and we, the Christians who now reside here and shall do so in the future, are so far from the proper remedies of our consciences and, as we are human, so subject to sin, it is essential that His Holiness should be generous with us and grant to these persons most extensive powers, to be handed down to persons actually in residence here whether it be given to the general of each order or to his provincials.[39]
+
+The Franciscans arrived in May 1524, a symbolically powerful group of twelve known as the Twelve Apostles of Mexico, led by Fray Martín de Valencia.  Franciscan Geronimo de Mendieta claimed that Cortés's most important deed was the way he met this first group of Franciscans. The conqueror himself was said to have met the friars as they approached the capital, kneeling at the feet of the friars who had walked from the coast. This story was told by Franciscans to demonstrate Cortés piety and humility and was a powerful message to all, including the Indians, that Cortés's earthly power was subordinate to the spiritual power of the friars. However, one of the first twelve Franciscans, Fray Toribio de Benavente Motolinia does not mention it in his history.[40] Cortés and the Franciscans had a particularly strong alliance in Mexico, with Franciscans seeing him as "the new Moses" for conquering Mexico and opening it to Christian evangelization. In Motolinia's 1555 response to Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas, he praises Cortés.
+
+And as to those who murmur against the Marqués del Valle [Cortés], God rest him, and who try to blacken and obscure his deeds, I believe that before God their deeds are not as acceptable as those of the Marqués. Although as a human he was a sinner, he had faith and works of a good Christian, and a great desire to employ his life and property in widening and augmenting the fair of Jesus Christ, and dying for the conversion of these gentiles ... Who has loved and defended the Indians of this new world like Cortés? ... Through this captain, God opened the door for us to preach his holy gospel and it was he who caused the Indians to revere the holy sacraments and respect the ministers of the church.[41]
+
+In Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's 1585 revision of the conquest narrative first codified as Book XII of the Florentine Codex, there are laudatory references to Cortés that do not appear in the earlier text from the indigenous perspective. Whereas Book XII of the Florentine Codex concludes with an account of Spaniards' search for gold, in Sahagún's 1585 revised account, he ends with praise of Cortés for requesting the Franciscans be sent to Mexico to convert the Indians.[42]
+
+From 1524 to 1526, Cortés headed an expedition to Honduras where he defeated Cristóbal de Olid, who had claimed Honduras as his own under the influence of the Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez. Fearing that Cuauhtémoc might head an insurrection in Mexico, he brought him with him to Honduras. In a controversial move, Cuauhtémoc was executed during the journey. Raging over Olid's treason, Cortés issued a decree to arrest Velázquez, whom he was sure was behind Olid's treason. This, however, only served to further estrange the Crown of Castile and the Council of Indies, both of which were already beginning to feel anxious about Cortés's rising power.[43]
+
+Cortés's fifth letter to King Charles attempts to justify his conduct, concludes with a bitter attack on "various and powerful rivals and enemies" who have "obscured the eyes of your Majesty".[44] Charles, who was also Holy Roman Emperor, had little time for distant colonies (much of Charles's reign was taken up with wars with France, the German Protestants and the expanding Ottoman Empire),[45] except insofar as they contributed to finance his wars. In 1521, year of the Conquest, Charles was attending to matters in his German domains and Bishop Adrian of Utrecht functioned as regent in Spain.
+
+Velázquez and Fonseca persuaded the regent to appoint a commissioner (a Juez de residencia, Luis Ponce de León) with powers to investigate Cortés's conduct and even arrest him. Cortés was once quoted as saying that it was "more difficult to contend against [his] own countrymen than against the Aztecs."[46] Governor Diego Velázquez continued to be a thorn in his side, teaming up with Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, chief of the Spanish colonial department, to undermine him in the Council of the Indies.
+
+A few days after Cortés's return from his expedition, Ponce de León suspended Cortés from his office of governor of New Spain. The Licentiate then fell ill and died shortly after his arrival, appointing Marcos de Aguilar as alcalde mayor. The aged Aguilar also became sick and appointed Alonso de Estrada governor, who was confirmed in his functions by a royal decree in August 1527. Cortés, suspected of poisoning them, refrained from taking over the government.
+
+Estrada sent Diego de Figueroa to the south. De Figueroa raided graveyards and extorted contributions, meeting his end when the ship carrying these treasures sank. Albornoz persuaded Alonso de Estrada to release Gonzalo de Salazar and Chirinos. When Cortés complained angrily after one of his adherents' hands was cut off, Estrada ordered him exiled. Cortés sailed for Spain in 1528 to appeal to King Charles.
+
+In 1528, Cortés returned to Spain to appeal to the justice of his master, Charles V. Juan Altamirano and Alonso Valiente stayed in Mexico and acted as Cortés' representatives during his absence. Cortés presented himself with great splendor before Charles V's court. By this time Charles had returned and Cortés forthrightly responded to his enemy's charges. Denying he had held back on gold due the crown, he showed that he had contributed more than the quinto (one-fifth) required. Indeed, he had spent lavishly to build the new capital of Mexico City on the ruins of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, leveled during the siege that brought down the Aztec empire.
+
+He was received by Charles with every distinction, and decorated with the order of Santiago. In return for his efforts in expanding the still young Spanish Empire, Cortés was rewarded in 1529 by being accorded the noble title of don but more importantly named the "Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca" (Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca and married the Spanish noblewoman Doña Juana Zúñiga, after the 1522 death of his much less distinguished first wife, Catalina Suárez.  The noble title and senorial estate of the Marquesado was passed down to his descendants until 1811. The Oaxaca Valley was one of the wealthiest regions of New Spain, and Cortés had 23,000 vassals in 23 named encomiendas in perpetuity.[19][47]
+
+Although confirmed in his land holdings and vassals, he was not reinstated as governor and was never again given any important office in the administration of New Spain. During his travel to Spain, his property was mismanaged by abusive colonial administrators. He sided with local natives in a lawsuit. The natives documented the abuses in the Huexotzinco Codex.
+
+The entailed estate and title passed to his legitimate son Don Martín Cortés upon Cortés's death in 1547, who became the Second Marquess. Don Martín's association with the so-called Encomenderos' Conspiracy endangered the entailed holdings, but they were restored and remained the continuing reward for Hernán Cortés's family through the generations.
+
+Cortés returned to Mexico in 1530 with new titles and honors, but with diminished power. Although Cortés still retained military authority and permission to continue his conquests, viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza was appointed in 1535 to administer New Spain's civil affairs. This division of power led to continual dissension, and caused the failure of several enterprises in which Cortés was engaged. On returning to Mexico, Cortés found the country in a state of anarchy. There was a strong suspicion in court circles of an intended rebellion by Cortés.
+
+After reasserting his position and reestablishing some sort of order, Cortés retired to his estates at Cuernavaca, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Mexico City. There he concentrated on the building of his palace and on Pacific exploration. Remaining in Mexico between 1530 and 1541, Cortés quarreled with Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán and disputed the right to explore the territory that is today California with Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy.
+
+Cortés acquired several silver mines in Zumpango del Rio in 1534.  By the early 1540s, he owned 20 silver mines in Sultepec, 12 in Taxco, and 3 in Zacualpan.  Earlier, Cortés had claimed the silver in the Tamazula area.[48]
+
+In 1536, Cortés explored the northwestern part of Mexico and discovered the Baja California Peninsula. Cortés also spent time exploring the Pacific coast of Mexico. The Gulf of California was originally named the Sea of Cortés by its discoverer Francisco de Ulloa in 1539. This was the last major expedition by Cortés.
+
+After his exploration of Baja California, Cortés returned to Spain in 1541, hoping to confound his angry civilians, who had brought many lawsuits against him (for debts, abuse of power, etc.).[19]
+
+On his return he went through a crowd to speak to the emperor, who demanded of him who he was. "I am a man," replied Cortés, "who has given you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities."[49][50]
+
+The emperor finally permitted Cortés to join him and his fleet commanded by Andrea Doria at the great expedition against Algiers in the Barbary Coast in 1541, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire and was used as a base by Hayreddin Barbarossa, a famous Turkish corsair and Admiral-in-Chief of the Ottoman Fleet. During this campaign, Cortés was almost drowned in a storm that hit his fleet while he was pursuing Barbarossa.[51]
+
+Having spent a great deal of his own money to finance expeditions, he was now heavily in debt. In February 1544 he made a claim on the royal treasury, but was ignored for the next three years. Disgusted, he decided to return to Mexico in 1547. When he reached Seville, he was stricken with dysentery. He died in Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville province, on December 2, 1547, from a case of pleurisy at the age of 62.
+
+He left his many mestizo and white children well cared for in his will, along with every one of their mothers. He requested in his will that his remains eventually be buried in Mexico. Before he died he had the Pope remove the "natural" status of four of his children (legitimizing them in the eyes of the church), including Martin, the son he had with Doña Marina (also known as La Malinche), said to be his favourite.[citation needed] His daughter, Doña Catalina, however, died shortly after her father's death.
+
+After his death, his body was moved more than eight times for several reasons. On December 4, 1547 he was buried in the mausoleum of the Duke of Medina in the church of San Isidoro del Campo, Sevilla. Three years later (1550) due to the space being required by the duke, his body was moved to the altar of Santa Catarina in the same church. In his testament, Cortés asked for his body to be buried in the monastery he had ordered to be built in Coyoacan in México, ten years after his death, but the monastery was never built. So in 1566, his body was sent to New Spain and buried in the church of  San Francisco de Texcoco, where his mother and one of his sisters were buried.
+
+In 1629, Don Pedro Cortés fourth "Marquez del Valle, his last male descendant, died, so the viceroy decided to move the bones of Cortés along with those of his descendant to the Franciscan church in México. This was delayed for nine years, while his body stayed in the main room of the palace of the viceroy. Eventually it was moved to the Sagrario of  Franciscan church, where it stayed for 87 years. In 1716, it was moved to another place in the same church. In 1794, his bones were moved to the "Hospital de Jesus" (founded by Cortés), where a statue by Tolsá and a mausoleum were made. There was a public ceremony and all the churches in the city rang their bells.[citation needed]
+
+In 1823, after the independence of México, it seemed imminent that his body would be desecrated, so the mausoleum was removed, the statue and the coat of arms were sent to Palermo, Sicily, to be protected by the Duke of Terranova. The bones were hidden, and everyone thought that they had been sent out of México. In 1836, his bones were moved to another place in the same building.[clarification needed]
+
+It was not until November 24, 1946 that they were rediscovered,[52]:467 thanks to the discovery of a secret document by Lucas Alamán. His bones were put in the charge of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). The remains were authenticated by INAH.[52]:468 They were then restored to the same place, this time with a bronze inscription and his coat of arms.[53] When the bones were first rediscovered, the supporters of the Hispanic tradition in Mexico were excited, but one supporter of an indigenist vision of Mexico "proposed that the remains be publicly burned in front of the statue of Cuauhtemoc, and the ashes flung into the air".[52]:468 Following the discovery and authentication of Cortés's remains, there was a discovery of what were described as the bones of Cuauhtémoc, resulting in a "battle of the bones".[52]:468
+
+Cortés is commemorated in the scientific name of a subspecies of Mexican lizard, Phrynosoma orbiculare cortezii.[54]
+
+There are relatively few sources to the early life of Cortés; his fame arose from his participation in the conquest of Mexico and it was only after this that people became interested in reading and writing about him.
+
+Probably the best source is his letters to the king which he wrote during the campaign in Mexico, but they are written with the specific purpose of putting his efforts in a favourable light and so must be read critically. Another main source is the biography written by Cortés's private chaplain Lopez de Gómara, which was written in Spain several years after the conquest. Gómara never set foot in the Americas and knew only what Cortés had told him, and he had an affinity for knightly romantic stories which he incorporated richly in the biography. The third major source is written as a reaction to what its author calls "the lies of Gomara", the eyewitness account written by the Conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo does not paint Cortés as a romantic hero but rather tries to emphasize that Cortés's men should also be remembered as important participants in the undertakings in Mexico.
+
+In the years following the conquest more critical accounts of the Spanish arrival in Mexico were written. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies which raises strong accusations of brutality and heinous violence towards the Indians; accusations against both the conquistadors in general and Cortés in particular.[55] The accounts of the conquest given in the Florentine Codex by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún and his native informants are also less than flattering towards Cortés. The scarcity of these sources has led to a sharp division in the description of Cortés's personality and a tendency to describe him as either a vicious and ruthless person or a noble and honorable cavalier.
+
+In México there are few representations of Cortés. However, many landmarks still bear his name, from the castle Palacio de Cortés in the city of Cuernavaca to some street names throughout the republic.
+
+The pass between the volcanoes Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl where Cortés took his soldiers on their march to Mexico City. It is known as the Paso de Cortés.
+
+The muralist Diego Rivera painted several representation of him but the most famous, depicts him as a powerful and ominous figure along with Malinche in a mural in the National Palace in Mexico City.
+
+In 1981, President Lopez Portillo tried to bring Cortés to public recognition. First, he made public a copy of the bust of Cortés made by Manuel Tolsá in the Hospital de Jesús Nazareno with an official ceremony, but soon a nationalist group tried to destroy it, so it had to be taken out of the public.[56]  Today the copy of the bust is in the "Hospital de Jesús Nazareno" [57] while the original is in Naples, Italy, in the Villa Pignatelli.
+
+Later, another monument, known as "Monumento al Mestizaje" by Julián Martínez y M. Maldonado (1982) was commissioned by Mexican president José López Portillo to be put in the "Zócalo" (Main square) of Coyoacan, near the place of his country house, but it had to be removed to a little known park, the Jardín Xicoténcatl, Barrio de San Diego Churubusco, to quell protests. The statue depicts Cortés, Malinche and their son Martín.[58]
+
+There is another statue by Sebastián Aparicio, in Cuernavaca, was in a hotel "El casino de la selva". Cortés is barely recognizable, so it sparked little interest. The hotel was closed to make a commercial center, and the statue was put out of public display by Costco the builder of the commercial center.[56]
+
+Hernán Cortés is a character in the opera La Conquista (2005) by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, which depicts the major episodes of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.
+
+Cortés' personal account of the conquest of Mexico is narrated in his five letters addressed to Charles V. These five letters, the cartas de relación, are Cortés' only surviving writings. See "Letters and Dispatches of Cortés", translated by George Folsom (New York, 1843); Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" (Boston, 1843); and Sir Arthur Helps's "Life of Hernando Cortes" (London, 1871).[49]
+
+His first letter was considered lost, and the one from the municipality of Veracruz has to take its place. It was published for the first time in volume IV of "Documentos para la Historia de España", and subsequently reprinted.
+
+The Segunda Carta de Relacion, bearing the date of October 30, 1520, appeared in print at Seville in 1522. The third letter, dated May 15, 1522, appeared at Seville in 1523. The fourth, October 20, 1524, was printed at Toledo in 1525. The fifth, on the Honduras expedition, is contained in volume IV of the Documentos para la Historia de España.[59][60]
+
+Natural children of Don Hernán Cortés
+
+He married twice: firstly in Cuba to Catalina Suárez Marcaida, who died at Coyoacán in 1522 without issue, and secondly in 1529 to doña Juana Ramírez de Arellano de Zúñiga, daughter of don Carlos Ramírez de Arellano, 2nd Count of Aguilar and wife the Countess doña Juana de Zúñiga, and had:

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+Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, 1st Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca[a] (/kɔːrˈtɛs/; Spanish: [eɾˈnaŋ koɾˈtes ðe monˈroj i piˈθaro]; 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of what is now mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish explorers and conquistadors who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
+
+Born in Medellín, Spain, to a family of lesser nobility, Cortés chose to pursue adventure and riches in the New World. He went to Hispaniola and later to Cuba, where he received an encomienda (the right to the labor of certain subjects). For a short time, he served as alcalde (magistrate) of the second Spanish town founded on the island. In 1519, he was elected captain of the third expedition to the mainland, which he partly funded. His enmity with the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, resulted in the recall of the expedition at the last moment, an order which Cortés ignored.
+
+Arriving on the continent, Cortés executed a successful strategy of allying with some indigenous people against others. He also used a native woman, Doña Marina, as an interpreter. She later bore his first son. When the Governor of Cuba sent emissaries to arrest Cortés, he fought them and won, using the extra troops as reinforcements. Cortés wrote letters directly to the king asking to be acknowledged for his successes instead of being punished for mutiny. After he overthrew the Aztec Empire, Cortés was awarded the title of Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, while the more prestigious title of Viceroy was given to a high-ranking nobleman, Antonio de Mendoza. In 1541 Cortés returned to Spain, where he died six years later of natural causes but embittered.
+
+Because of the controversial undertakings of Cortés and the scarcity of reliable sources of information about him, it is difficult to describe his personality or motivations. Early lionizing of the conquistadores did not encourage deep examination of Cortés. Modern reconsideration has done little to enlarge understanding regarding him. As a result of these historical trends, descriptions of Cortés tend to be simplistic, and either damning or idealizing.[citation needed]
+
+Cortés himself used the form "Hernando" or "Fernando" for his first name, as seen in his signature and the title of an early portrait.[1] William Hickling Prescott's Conquest of Mexico (1843) also refers to him as Hernando Cortés.  At some point writers began using the shortened form of "Hernán" more generally.
+
+Cortés was born in 1485 in the town of Medellín, then a village in the Kingdom of Castile, now a municipality of the modern-day province of Badajoz in Extremadura, Spain. His father, Martín Cortés de Monroy, born in 1449 to Rodrigo or Ruy Fernández de Monroy and his wife María Cortés, was an infantry captain of distinguished ancestry but slender means. Hernán's mother was Catalína Pizarro Altamirano.[2]
+
+Through his mother, Hernán was second cousin once removed of Francisco Pizarro, who later conquered the Inca Empire of modern-day Peru, and not to be confused with another Francisco Pizarro, who joined Cortés to conquer the Aztecs. (His maternal grandmother, Leonor Sánchez Pizarro Altamirano, was first cousin of Pizarro's father Gonzalo Pizarro y Rodriguez.)[2] Through his father, Hernán was related to Nicolás de Ovando, the third Governor of Hispaniola. His paternal great-grandfather was Rodrigo de Monroy y Almaraz, 5th Lord of Monroy.
+
+According to his biographer, chaplain, and friend Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés was pale and sickly as a child. At the age of 14, he was sent to study Latin under an uncle in Salamanca. Modern historians have misconstrued this personal tutoring as time enrolled at the University of Salamanca.[3]
+
+After two years, Cortés returned home to Medellín, much to the irritation of his parents, who had hoped to see him equipped for a profitable legal career. However, those two years in Salamanca, plus his long period of training and experience as a notary, first in Valladolid and later in Hispaniola, gave him knowledge of the legal codes of Castile that he applied to help justify his unauthorized conquest of Mexico.[4]
+
+At this point in his life, Cortés was described by Gómara as ruthless, haughty, and mischievous.[5] The 16-year-old youth had returned home to feel constrained life in his small provincial town. By this time, news of the exciting discoveries of Christopher Columbus in the New World was streaming back to Spain.
+
+Plans were made for Cortés to sail to the Americas with a family acquaintance and distant relative, Nicolás de Ovando, the newly appointed Governor of Hispaniola. (This island is now divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cortés suffered an injury and was prevented from traveling. He spent the next year wandering the country, probably spending most of his time in Spain's southern ports of Cadiz, Palos, Sanlucar, and Seville. He finally left for Hispaniola in 1504 and became a colonist.[6]
+
+Cortés reached Hispaniola in a ship commanded by Alonso Quintero, who tried to deceive his superiors and reach the New World before them in order to secure personal advantages. Quintero's mutinous conduct may have served as a model for Cortés in his subsequent career. The history of the conquistadores is rife with accounts of rivalry, jockeying for positions, mutiny, and betrayal.[7]
+
+Upon his arrival in 1504 in Santo Domingo, the capital of Hispaniola, the 18-year-old Cortés registered as a citizen; this entitled him to a building plot and land to farm. Soon afterward, Governor Nicolás de Ovando granted him an encomienda and appointed him as a notary of the town of Azua de Compostela. His next five years seemed to help establish him in the colony; in 1506, Cortés took part in the conquest of Hispaniola and Cuba. The expedition leader awarded him a large estate of land and Indian slaves for his efforts.
+
+In 1511, Cortés  accompanied Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, an aide of the Governor of Hispaniola, in his expedition to conquer Cuba. Velázquez was appointed Governor of New Spain. At the age of 26, Cortés was made clerk to the treasurer with the responsibility of ensuring that the Crown received the quinto, or customary one fifth of the profits from the expedition.
+
+Velázquez was so impressed with Cortés that he secured a high political position for him in the colony. He became secretary for Governor Velázquez. Cortés was twice appointed municipal magistrate (alcalde) of Santiago. In Cuba, Cortés became a man of substance with an encomienda to provide Indian labor for his mines and cattle. This new position of power also made him the new source of leadership, which opposing forces in the colony could then turn to. In 1514, Cortés led a group which demanded that more Indians be assigned to the settlers.
+
+As time went on, relations between Cortés and Governor Velázquez became strained.[8] This began once news reached Velázquez that Juan de Grijalva had established a colony on the mainland where there was a bonanza of silver and gold, and Velázquez decided to send him help. Cortés was appointed Captain-General of this new expedition in October 1518, but was advised to move fast before Velázquez changed his mind.[8]
+
+With Cortés' experience as an administrator, knowledge gained from many failed expeditions, and his impeccable rhetoric he was able to gather six ships and 300 men, within a month. Velázquez's jealousy exploded and he decided to put the expedition in other hands. However, Cortés quickly gathered more men and ships in other Cuban ports.
+
+Cortés also found time to become romantically involved with Catalina Xuárez (or Juárez), the sister-in-law of Governor Velázquez. Part of Velázquez's displeasure seems to have been based on a belief that Cortés was trifling with Catalina's affections. Cortés was temporarily distracted by one of Catalina's sisters but finally married Catalina, reluctantly, under pressure from Governor Velázquez. However, by doing so, he hoped to secure the good will of both her family and that of Velázquez.[9]
+
+It was not until he had been almost 15 years in the Indies that Cortés began to look beyond his substantial status as mayor of the capital of Cuba and as a man of affairs in the thriving colony. He missed the first two expeditions, under the orders of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba and then Juan de Grijalva, sent by Diego Velázquez to Mexico in 1518.
+
+There are differing perceptions about what happened to Hernán Cortés's ships. Some think that he burned the vessels, and others believe he beached them.[10] The notion that he burned his ships did not become accepted until 250 years later.[10] Bernal Díaz del Castillo, while attending an expedition with Cortés, gives reason to believe that Cortés ran them ashore.[10] In a letter to King Charles, Cortés states that his ships were incapable of sailing, telling his men the reason was shipworm.[10] After establishing the town of Vera Cruz, five Aztec emissaries arrived which made Cortés anxious to visit Tenochtitlán.[11] Therefore, he destroyed all of his ships but one, which he sent back to Spain for King Charles.[10] The fear of his men returning to Cuba, rather than embarking on the journey to the Aztec Empire, made him decide to demolish his ships.[12] They no longer had an option but to accompany him on this journey. This decision brought about severe consequences because Cortés had trapped himself in Mexico.
+
+Cortés created strife between his men and the Aztecs by taking over the city. Worried his men would revolt, Montezuma decided to convince them to delay the attack.[13] Cortés now had time to build more ships, but he had to stay on guard against the Aztecs because he was unable to leave Mexico. Furthermore, Velázquez was sending forces to arrest Cortés, which meant the lives of him and his men were at jeopardy.[14] Still without ships, Cortés could not escape. This resulted in him fighting the battle at Cempoala. In addition to restraining himself in Mexico, Cortés also suffered financially. He had to repay Velázquez for the ships he destroyed.[15]
+
+Throughout his journey, Cortés had written five letters to King Charles. He wanted to relieve himself from Velázquez's authority; therefore, Cortés bribed the King through sending him treasures.[16] Velázquez and his men convinced King Charles to revoke Cortés's position as governor.[16]  While King Charles forgave Cortés, he did receive punishment. Cortés was promoted to captain-general and given the title of Marquess, but he was not allowed to reclaim his governorship or return to New Spain.[17]
+
+In 1518, Velázquez put Cortés in command of an expedition to explore and secure the interior of Mexico for colonization. At the last minute, due to the old argument between the two, Velázquez changed his mind and revoked Cortés's charter. He ignored the orders and, in an act of open mutiny, went anyway in February 1519. He stopped in Trinidad, Cuba, to hire more soldiers and obtain more horses.  Accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men (including seasoned slaves[18]), 13 horses, and a small number of cannons, Cortés landed on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mayan territory.[19] There he encountered Geronimo de Aguilar, a Spanish Franciscan priest who had survived a shipwreck followed by a period in captivity with the Maya, before escaping.[19] Aguilar had learned the Chontal Maya language and was able to translate for Cortés.[20]
+
+In March 1519, Cortés formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown.  Then he proceeded to Tabasco, where he met with resistance and won a battle against the natives. He received twenty young indigenous women from the vanquished natives, and he converted them all to Christianity.[20]
+
+Among these women was La Malinche, his future mistress and mother of his son Martín. Malinche knew both the Nahuatl language and Chontal Maya, thus enabling Cortés to communicate with the Aztecs through Aguilar.[21]:82, 86–87  At San Juan de Ulúa on Easter Sunday 1519, Cortés met with Moctezuma II's Aztec Empire governors Tendile and Pitalpitoque.[21]:89
+
+In July 1519, his men took over Veracruz. By this act, Cortés dismissed the authority of the Governor of Cuba to place himself directly under the orders of King Charles.[19] In order to eliminate any ideas of retreat, Cortés scuttled his ships.[22]
+
+In Veracruz, he met some of the tributaries of the Aztecs  and asked them to arrange a meeting with Moctezuma II, the tlatoani (ruler) of the Aztec Empire.[22] Moctezuma repeatedly turned down the meeting, but Cortés was determined. Leaving a hundred men in Veracruz, Cortés marched on Tenochtitlán in mid-August 1519, along with 600 soldiers, 15 horsemen, 15 cannons, and hundreds of indigenous carriers and warriors.[19]
+
+On the way to Tenochtitlán, Cortés made alliances with indigenous peoples such as the Totonacs of Cempoala and the Nahuas of Tlaxcala. The Otomis initially, and then the Tlaxcalans fought with the Spanish in a series of three battles from 2 to 5 September 1519, and at one point, Diaz remarked, "they surrounded us on every side". After Cortés continued to release prisoners with messages of peace, and realizing the Spanish were enemies of Moctezuma, Xicotencatl the Elder and Maxixcatzin persuaded the Tlaxcalan warleader, Xicotencatl the Younger, that it would be better to ally with the newcomers than to kill them.[21]:143–55, 171
+
+In October 1519, Cortés and his men, accompanied by about 1,000 Tlaxcalteca,[21]:188 marched to Cholula, the second largest city in central Mexico. Cortés, either in a pre-meditated effort to instill fear upon the Aztecs waiting for him at Tenochtitlan or (as he later claimed, when he was being investigated) wishing to make an example when he feared native treachery, massacred thousands of unarmed members of the nobility gathered at the central plaza, then partially burned the city.[21]:199–200
+
+By the time he arrived in Tenochtitlán the Spaniards had a large army. On November 8, 1519, they were peacefully received by Moctezuma II.[23] Moctezuma deliberately let Cortés enter the Aztec capital, the island city of Tenochtitlán, hoping to get to know their weaknesses better and to crush them later.[19]
+
+Moctezuma gave lavish gifts of gold to the Spaniards which, rather than placating them, excited their ambitions for plunder. In his letters to King Charles, Cortés claimed to have learned at this point that he was considered by the Aztecs to be either an emissary of the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl or Quetzalcoatl himself – a belief which has been contested by a few modern historians.[24] But quickly Cortés learned that several Spaniards on the coast had been killed by Aztecs while supporting the Totonacs, and decided to take Moctezuma as a hostage in his own palace, indirectly ruling Tenochtitlán through him.[25]
+
+Meanwhile, Velázquez sent another expedition, led by Pánfilo de Narváez, to oppose Cortés, arriving in Mexico in April 1520 with 1,100 men.[19] Cortés left 200 men in Tenochtitlán and took the rest to confront Narváez. He overcame Narváez, despite his numerical inferiority, and convinced the rest of Narváez's men to join him.[19] In Mexico, one of Cortés's lieutenants Pedro de Alvarado, committed the massacre in the Great Temple, triggering a local rebellion.[26]
+
+Cortés speedily returned to Tenochtitlán. On July 1, 1520 Moctezuma was killed (the Spaniards claimed he was stoned to death by his own people; others claim he was murdered by the Spanish once they realized his inability to placate the locals). Faced with a hostile population, Cortés decided to flee for Tlaxcala. During the Noche Triste (June 30 – July 1, 1520), the Spaniards managed a narrow escape from Tenochtitlán across the Tlacopan causeway, while their rearguard was being massacred. Much of the treasure looted by Cortés was lost (as well as his artillery) during this panicked escape from Tenochtitlán.[19]
+
+After a battle in Otumba, they managed to reach Tlaxcala, having lost 870 men.[19] With the assistance of their allies, Cortés's men finally prevailed with reinforcements arriving from Cuba. Cortés began a policy of attrition towards Tenochtitlán, cutting off supplies and subduing the Aztecs' allied cities. The siege of Tenochtitlán ended with Spanish victory and the destruction of the city.[27]
+
+In January 1521, Cortés countered a conspiracy against him, headed by Antonio de Villafana, who was hanged for the offense.[19] Finally, with the capture of Cuauhtémoc, the tlatoani (ruler) of Tenochtitlán, on August 13, 1521, the Aztec Empire was captured, and Cortés was able to claim it for Spain, thus renaming the city Mexico City. From 1521 to 1524, Cortés personally governed Mexico.[19]
+
+Many historical sources have conveyed an impression that Cortés was unjustly treated by the Spanish Crown, and that he received nothing but ingratitude for his role in establishing New Spain. This picture is the one Cortés presents in his letters and in the later biography written by Francisco López de Gómara. However, there may be more to the picture than this. Cortés's own sense of accomplishment, entitlement, and vanity may have played a part in his deteriorating position with the king:
+
+Cortés personally was not ungenerously rewarded, but he speedily complained of insufficient compensation to himself and his comrades. Thinking himself beyond reach of restraint, he disobeyed many of the orders of the Crown, and, what was more imprudent, said so in a letter to the emperor, dated October 15, 1524 (Ycazbalceta, "Documentos para la Historia de México", Mexico, 1858, I). In this letter Cortés, besides recalling in a rather abrupt manner that the conquest of Mexico was due to him alone, deliberately acknowledges his disobedience in terms which could not fail to create a most unfavourable impression.[28]
+
+King Charles appointed Cortés as governor, captain general and chief justice of the newly conquered territory, dubbed "New Spain of the Ocean Sea". But also, much to the dismay of Cortés, four royal officials were appointed at the same time to assist him in his governing – in effect, submitting him to close observation and administration. Cortés initiated the construction of Mexico City, destroying Aztec temples and buildings and then rebuilding on the Aztec ruins what soon became the most important European city in the Americas.[19]
+
+Cortés managed the founding of new cities and appointed men to extend Spanish rule to all of New Spain, imposing the encomienda system in 1524.[19] He reserved many encomiendas for himself and for his retinue, which they considered just rewards for their accomplishment in conquering central Mexico. However, later arrivals and members of factions antipathetic to Cortés complained of the favoritism that excluded them.[29]
+
+In 1523, the Crown (possibly influenced by Cortés's enemy, Bishop Fonseca),[30] sent a military force under the command of Francisco de Garay to conquer and settle the northern part of Mexico, the region of Pánuco. This was another setback for Cortés who mentioned this in his fourth letter to the King in which he describes himself as the victim of a conspiracy by his archenemies Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, Diego Columbus and Bishop Fonseca as well as Francisco Garay. The influence of Garay was effectively stopped by this appeal to the King who sent out a decree forbidding Garay to interfere in the politics of New Spain, causing him to give up without a fight.
+
+Although Cortés had flouted the authority of Diego Velázquez in sailing to the mainland and then leading an expedition of conquest, Cortés's spectacular success was rewarded by the crown with a coat of arms, a mark of high honor, following the conqueror's request. The document granting the coat of arms summarizes Cortés's accomplishments in the conquest of Mexico. The proclamation of the king says in part:
+
+We, respecting the many labors, dangers, and adventures which you underwent as stated above, and so that there might remain a perpetual memorial of you and your services and that you and your descendants might be more fully honored ... it is our will that besides your coat of arms of your lineage, which you have, you may have and bear as your coat of arms, known and recognized, a shield ...[31]:43
+
+The grant specifies the iconography of the coat of arms, the central portion divided into quadrants. In the upper portion, there is a "black eagle with two heads on a white field, which are the arms of the empire".[31]:43 Below that is a "golden lion on a red field, in memory of the fact that you, the said Hernando Cortés, by your industry and effort brought matters to the state described above" (i.e., the conquest).[31]:43 The specificity of the other two quadrants is linked directly to Mexico, with one quadrant showing three crowns representing the three Aztec emperors of the conquest era, Moctezuma, Cuitlahuac, and Cuauhtemoc[31]:43 and the other showing the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.[31]:43 Encircling the central shield are symbols of the seven city-states around the lake and their lords that Cortés defeated, with the lords "to be shown as prisoners bound with a chain which shall be closed with a lock beneath the shield".[31]:44–45
+
+Cortés's wife Catalina Súarez arrived in New Spain around summer 1522, along with her sister and brother.[32]  His marriage to Catalina was at this point extremely awkward, since she was a kinswoman of the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, whose authority Cortés had thrown off and who was therefore now his enemy.  Catalina lacked the noble title of doña, so at this point his marriage with her no longer raised his status. Their marriage had been childless. Since Cortés had sired children with a variety of indigenous women, including a son around 1522 by his cultural translator, Doña Marina, Cortés knew he was capable of fathering children. Cortés's only male heir at this point was illegitimate, but nonetheless named after Cortés's father, Martín Cortés. This son Martín Cortés was sometimes called "El Mestizo".[citation needed]
+
+Catalina Suárez died under mysterious circumstances the night of November 1–2, 1522. There were accusations at the time that Cortés had murdered his wife. There was an investigation into her death, interviewing a variety of household residents and others.[33] The documentation of the investigation was published in the nineteenth century in Mexico and these archival documents were uncovered in the twentieth century.[34][35] The death of Catalina Suárez produced a scandal and investigation, but Cortés was now free to marry someone of high status more appropriate to his wealth and power. In 1526, he built an imposing residence for himself, the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca, in a region close to the capital where he had extensive encomienda holdings. In 1529 he had been accorded the noble designation of don, but more importantly was given the noble title of Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca and married the Spanish noblewoman Doña Juana de Zúñiga. The marriage produced three children, including another son, who was also named Martín. As the first-born legitimate son, Don Martín Cortés y Zúñiga was now Cortés's heir and succeeded him as holder of the title and estate of the Marquessate of the Valley of Oaxaca.[36] Cortés's legitimate daughters were Doña Maria, Doña Catalina, and Doña Juana.[37]
+
+Since the conversion to Christianity of indigenous peoples was an essential and integral part of the extension of Spanish power, making formal provisions for that conversion once the military conquest was completed was an important task for Cortés. During the Age of Discovery, the Catholic Church had seen early attempts at conversion in the Caribbean islands by Spanish friars, particularly the mendicant orders. Cortés made a request to the Spanish monarch to send Franciscan and Dominican friars to Mexico to convert the vast indigenous populations to Christianity. In his fourth letter to the king, Cortés pleaded for friars rather than diocesan or secular priests because those clerics were in his view a serious danger to the Indians' conversion.
+
+If these people [Indians] were now to see the affairs of the Church and the service of God in the hands of canons or other dignitaries, and saw them indulge in the vices and profanities now common in Spain, knowing that such men were the ministers of God, it would bring our Faith into much harm that I believe any further preaching would be of no avail.[38]
+
+He wished the mendicants to be the main evangelists.  Mendicant friars did not usually have full priestly powers to perform all the sacraments needed for conversion of the Indians and growth of the neophytes in the Christian faith, so Cortés laid out a solution to this to the king.
+
+Your Majesty should likewise beseech His Holiness [the pope] to grant these powers to the two principal persons in the religious orders that are to come here, and that they should be his delegates, one from the Order of St. Francis and the other from the Order of St. Dominic. They should bring the most extensive powers Your Majesty is able to obtain, for, because these lands are so far from the Church of Rome, and we, the Christians who now reside here and shall do so in the future, are so far from the proper remedies of our consciences and, as we are human, so subject to sin, it is essential that His Holiness should be generous with us and grant to these persons most extensive powers, to be handed down to persons actually in residence here whether it be given to the general of each order or to his provincials.[39]
+
+The Franciscans arrived in May 1524, a symbolically powerful group of twelve known as the Twelve Apostles of Mexico, led by Fray Martín de Valencia.  Franciscan Geronimo de Mendieta claimed that Cortés's most important deed was the way he met this first group of Franciscans. The conqueror himself was said to have met the friars as they approached the capital, kneeling at the feet of the friars who had walked from the coast. This story was told by Franciscans to demonstrate Cortés piety and humility and was a powerful message to all, including the Indians, that Cortés's earthly power was subordinate to the spiritual power of the friars. However, one of the first twelve Franciscans, Fray Toribio de Benavente Motolinia does not mention it in his history.[40] Cortés and the Franciscans had a particularly strong alliance in Mexico, with Franciscans seeing him as "the new Moses" for conquering Mexico and opening it to Christian evangelization. In Motolinia's 1555 response to Dominican Bartolomé de Las Casas, he praises Cortés.
+
+And as to those who murmur against the Marqués del Valle [Cortés], God rest him, and who try to blacken and obscure his deeds, I believe that before God their deeds are not as acceptable as those of the Marqués. Although as a human he was a sinner, he had faith and works of a good Christian, and a great desire to employ his life and property in widening and augmenting the fair of Jesus Christ, and dying for the conversion of these gentiles ... Who has loved and defended the Indians of this new world like Cortés? ... Through this captain, God opened the door for us to preach his holy gospel and it was he who caused the Indians to revere the holy sacraments and respect the ministers of the church.[41]
+
+In Fray Bernardino de Sahagún's 1585 revision of the conquest narrative first codified as Book XII of the Florentine Codex, there are laudatory references to Cortés that do not appear in the earlier text from the indigenous perspective. Whereas Book XII of the Florentine Codex concludes with an account of Spaniards' search for gold, in Sahagún's 1585 revised account, he ends with praise of Cortés for requesting the Franciscans be sent to Mexico to convert the Indians.[42]
+
+From 1524 to 1526, Cortés headed an expedition to Honduras where he defeated Cristóbal de Olid, who had claimed Honduras as his own under the influence of the Governor of Cuba Diego Velázquez. Fearing that Cuauhtémoc might head an insurrection in Mexico, he brought him with him to Honduras. In a controversial move, Cuauhtémoc was executed during the journey. Raging over Olid's treason, Cortés issued a decree to arrest Velázquez, whom he was sure was behind Olid's treason. This, however, only served to further estrange the Crown of Castile and the Council of Indies, both of which were already beginning to feel anxious about Cortés's rising power.[43]
+
+Cortés's fifth letter to King Charles attempts to justify his conduct, concludes with a bitter attack on "various and powerful rivals and enemies" who have "obscured the eyes of your Majesty".[44] Charles, who was also Holy Roman Emperor, had little time for distant colonies (much of Charles's reign was taken up with wars with France, the German Protestants and the expanding Ottoman Empire),[45] except insofar as they contributed to finance his wars. In 1521, year of the Conquest, Charles was attending to matters in his German domains and Bishop Adrian of Utrecht functioned as regent in Spain.
+
+Velázquez and Fonseca persuaded the regent to appoint a commissioner (a Juez de residencia, Luis Ponce de León) with powers to investigate Cortés's conduct and even arrest him. Cortés was once quoted as saying that it was "more difficult to contend against [his] own countrymen than against the Aztecs."[46] Governor Diego Velázquez continued to be a thorn in his side, teaming up with Bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, chief of the Spanish colonial department, to undermine him in the Council of the Indies.
+
+A few days after Cortés's return from his expedition, Ponce de León suspended Cortés from his office of governor of New Spain. The Licentiate then fell ill and died shortly after his arrival, appointing Marcos de Aguilar as alcalde mayor. The aged Aguilar also became sick and appointed Alonso de Estrada governor, who was confirmed in his functions by a royal decree in August 1527. Cortés, suspected of poisoning them, refrained from taking over the government.
+
+Estrada sent Diego de Figueroa to the south. De Figueroa raided graveyards and extorted contributions, meeting his end when the ship carrying these treasures sank. Albornoz persuaded Alonso de Estrada to release Gonzalo de Salazar and Chirinos. When Cortés complained angrily after one of his adherents' hands was cut off, Estrada ordered him exiled. Cortés sailed for Spain in 1528 to appeal to King Charles.
+
+In 1528, Cortés returned to Spain to appeal to the justice of his master, Charles V. Juan Altamirano and Alonso Valiente stayed in Mexico and acted as Cortés' representatives during his absence. Cortés presented himself with great splendor before Charles V's court. By this time Charles had returned and Cortés forthrightly responded to his enemy's charges. Denying he had held back on gold due the crown, he showed that he had contributed more than the quinto (one-fifth) required. Indeed, he had spent lavishly to build the new capital of Mexico City on the ruins of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán, leveled during the siege that brought down the Aztec empire.
+
+He was received by Charles with every distinction, and decorated with the order of Santiago. In return for his efforts in expanding the still young Spanish Empire, Cortés was rewarded in 1529 by being accorded the noble title of don but more importantly named the "Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca" (Marquess of the Valley of Oaxaca and married the Spanish noblewoman Doña Juana Zúñiga, after the 1522 death of his much less distinguished first wife, Catalina Suárez.  The noble title and senorial estate of the Marquesado was passed down to his descendants until 1811. The Oaxaca Valley was one of the wealthiest regions of New Spain, and Cortés had 23,000 vassals in 23 named encomiendas in perpetuity.[19][47]
+
+Although confirmed in his land holdings and vassals, he was not reinstated as governor and was never again given any important office in the administration of New Spain. During his travel to Spain, his property was mismanaged by abusive colonial administrators. He sided with local natives in a lawsuit. The natives documented the abuses in the Huexotzinco Codex.
+
+The entailed estate and title passed to his legitimate son Don Martín Cortés upon Cortés's death in 1547, who became the Second Marquess. Don Martín's association with the so-called Encomenderos' Conspiracy endangered the entailed holdings, but they were restored and remained the continuing reward for Hernán Cortés's family through the generations.
+
+Cortés returned to Mexico in 1530 with new titles and honors, but with diminished power. Although Cortés still retained military authority and permission to continue his conquests, viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza was appointed in 1535 to administer New Spain's civil affairs. This division of power led to continual dissension, and caused the failure of several enterprises in which Cortés was engaged. On returning to Mexico, Cortés found the country in a state of anarchy. There was a strong suspicion in court circles of an intended rebellion by Cortés.
+
+After reasserting his position and reestablishing some sort of order, Cortés retired to his estates at Cuernavaca, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Mexico City. There he concentrated on the building of his palace and on Pacific exploration. Remaining in Mexico between 1530 and 1541, Cortés quarreled with Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán and disputed the right to explore the territory that is today California with Antonio de Mendoza, the first viceroy.
+
+Cortés acquired several silver mines in Zumpango del Rio in 1534.  By the early 1540s, he owned 20 silver mines in Sultepec, 12 in Taxco, and 3 in Zacualpan.  Earlier, Cortés had claimed the silver in the Tamazula area.[48]
+
+In 1536, Cortés explored the northwestern part of Mexico and discovered the Baja California Peninsula. Cortés also spent time exploring the Pacific coast of Mexico. The Gulf of California was originally named the Sea of Cortés by its discoverer Francisco de Ulloa in 1539. This was the last major expedition by Cortés.
+
+After his exploration of Baja California, Cortés returned to Spain in 1541, hoping to confound his angry civilians, who had brought many lawsuits against him (for debts, abuse of power, etc.).[19]
+
+On his return he went through a crowd to speak to the emperor, who demanded of him who he was. "I am a man," replied Cortés, "who has given you more provinces than your ancestors left you cities."[49][50]
+
+The emperor finally permitted Cortés to join him and his fleet commanded by Andrea Doria at the great expedition against Algiers in the Barbary Coast in 1541, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire and was used as a base by Hayreddin Barbarossa, a famous Turkish corsair and Admiral-in-Chief of the Ottoman Fleet. During this campaign, Cortés was almost drowned in a storm that hit his fleet while he was pursuing Barbarossa.[51]
+
+Having spent a great deal of his own money to finance expeditions, he was now heavily in debt. In February 1544 he made a claim on the royal treasury, but was ignored for the next three years. Disgusted, he decided to return to Mexico in 1547. When he reached Seville, he was stricken with dysentery. He died in Castilleja de la Cuesta, Seville province, on December 2, 1547, from a case of pleurisy at the age of 62.
+
+He left his many mestizo and white children well cared for in his will, along with every one of their mothers. He requested in his will that his remains eventually be buried in Mexico. Before he died he had the Pope remove the "natural" status of four of his children (legitimizing them in the eyes of the church), including Martin, the son he had with Doña Marina (also known as La Malinche), said to be his favourite.[citation needed] His daughter, Doña Catalina, however, died shortly after her father's death.
+
+After his death, his body was moved more than eight times for several reasons. On December 4, 1547 he was buried in the mausoleum of the Duke of Medina in the church of San Isidoro del Campo, Sevilla. Three years later (1550) due to the space being required by the duke, his body was moved to the altar of Santa Catarina in the same church. In his testament, Cortés asked for his body to be buried in the monastery he had ordered to be built in Coyoacan in México, ten years after his death, but the monastery was never built. So in 1566, his body was sent to New Spain and buried in the church of  San Francisco de Texcoco, where his mother and one of his sisters were buried.
+
+In 1629, Don Pedro Cortés fourth "Marquez del Valle, his last male descendant, died, so the viceroy decided to move the bones of Cortés along with those of his descendant to the Franciscan church in México. This was delayed for nine years, while his body stayed in the main room of the palace of the viceroy. Eventually it was moved to the Sagrario of  Franciscan church, where it stayed for 87 years. In 1716, it was moved to another place in the same church. In 1794, his bones were moved to the "Hospital de Jesus" (founded by Cortés), where a statue by Tolsá and a mausoleum were made. There was a public ceremony and all the churches in the city rang their bells.[citation needed]
+
+In 1823, after the independence of México, it seemed imminent that his body would be desecrated, so the mausoleum was removed, the statue and the coat of arms were sent to Palermo, Sicily, to be protected by the Duke of Terranova. The bones were hidden, and everyone thought that they had been sent out of México. In 1836, his bones were moved to another place in the same building.[clarification needed]
+
+It was not until November 24, 1946 that they were rediscovered,[52]:467 thanks to the discovery of a secret document by Lucas Alamán. His bones were put in the charge of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). The remains were authenticated by INAH.[52]:468 They were then restored to the same place, this time with a bronze inscription and his coat of arms.[53] When the bones were first rediscovered, the supporters of the Hispanic tradition in Mexico were excited, but one supporter of an indigenist vision of Mexico "proposed that the remains be publicly burned in front of the statue of Cuauhtemoc, and the ashes flung into the air".[52]:468 Following the discovery and authentication of Cortés's remains, there was a discovery of what were described as the bones of Cuauhtémoc, resulting in a "battle of the bones".[52]:468
+
+Cortés is commemorated in the scientific name of a subspecies of Mexican lizard, Phrynosoma orbiculare cortezii.[54]
+
+There are relatively few sources to the early life of Cortés; his fame arose from his participation in the conquest of Mexico and it was only after this that people became interested in reading and writing about him.
+
+Probably the best source is his letters to the king which he wrote during the campaign in Mexico, but they are written with the specific purpose of putting his efforts in a favourable light and so must be read critically. Another main source is the biography written by Cortés's private chaplain Lopez de Gómara, which was written in Spain several years after the conquest. Gómara never set foot in the Americas and knew only what Cortés had told him, and he had an affinity for knightly romantic stories which he incorporated richly in the biography. The third major source is written as a reaction to what its author calls "the lies of Gomara", the eyewitness account written by the Conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo does not paint Cortés as a romantic hero but rather tries to emphasize that Cortés's men should also be remembered as important participants in the undertakings in Mexico.
+
+In the years following the conquest more critical accounts of the Spanish arrival in Mexico were written. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote his A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies which raises strong accusations of brutality and heinous violence towards the Indians; accusations against both the conquistadors in general and Cortés in particular.[55] The accounts of the conquest given in the Florentine Codex by the Franciscan Bernardino de Sahagún and his native informants are also less than flattering towards Cortés. The scarcity of these sources has led to a sharp division in the description of Cortés's personality and a tendency to describe him as either a vicious and ruthless person or a noble and honorable cavalier.
+
+In México there are few representations of Cortés. However, many landmarks still bear his name, from the castle Palacio de Cortés in the city of Cuernavaca to some street names throughout the republic.
+
+The pass between the volcanoes Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl where Cortés took his soldiers on their march to Mexico City. It is known as the Paso de Cortés.
+
+The muralist Diego Rivera painted several representation of him but the most famous, depicts him as a powerful and ominous figure along with Malinche in a mural in the National Palace in Mexico City.
+
+In 1981, President Lopez Portillo tried to bring Cortés to public recognition. First, he made public a copy of the bust of Cortés made by Manuel Tolsá in the Hospital de Jesús Nazareno with an official ceremony, but soon a nationalist group tried to destroy it, so it had to be taken out of the public.[56]  Today the copy of the bust is in the "Hospital de Jesús Nazareno" [57] while the original is in Naples, Italy, in the Villa Pignatelli.
+
+Later, another monument, known as "Monumento al Mestizaje" by Julián Martínez y M. Maldonado (1982) was commissioned by Mexican president José López Portillo to be put in the "Zócalo" (Main square) of Coyoacan, near the place of his country house, but it had to be removed to a little known park, the Jardín Xicoténcatl, Barrio de San Diego Churubusco, to quell protests. The statue depicts Cortés, Malinche and their son Martín.[58]
+
+There is another statue by Sebastián Aparicio, in Cuernavaca, was in a hotel "El casino de la selva". Cortés is barely recognizable, so it sparked little interest. The hotel was closed to make a commercial center, and the statue was put out of public display by Costco the builder of the commercial center.[56]
+
+Hernán Cortés is a character in the opera La Conquista (2005) by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero, which depicts the major episodes of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.
+
+Cortés' personal account of the conquest of Mexico is narrated in his five letters addressed to Charles V. These five letters, the cartas de relación, are Cortés' only surviving writings. See "Letters and Dispatches of Cortés", translated by George Folsom (New York, 1843); Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" (Boston, 1843); and Sir Arthur Helps's "Life of Hernando Cortes" (London, 1871).[49]
+
+His first letter was considered lost, and the one from the municipality of Veracruz has to take its place. It was published for the first time in volume IV of "Documentos para la Historia de España", and subsequently reprinted.
+
+The Segunda Carta de Relacion, bearing the date of October 30, 1520, appeared in print at Seville in 1522. The third letter, dated May 15, 1522, appeared at Seville in 1523. The fourth, October 20, 1524, was printed at Toledo in 1525. The fifth, on the Honduras expedition, is contained in volume IV of the Documentos para la Historia de España.[59][60]
+
+Natural children of Don Hernán Cortés
+
+He married twice: firstly in Cuba to Catalina Suárez Marcaida, who died at Coyoacán in 1522 without issue, and secondly in 1529 to doña Juana Ramírez de Arellano de Zúñiga, daughter of don Carlos Ramírez de Arellano, 2nd Count of Aguilar and wife the Countess doña Juana de Zúñiga, and had:

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+A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a vertebrate's body. In a human, the cerebral cortex contains approximately 14–16 billion neurons,[1] and the estimated number of neurons in the cerebellum is 55–70 billion.[2] Each neuron is connected by synapses to several thousand other neurons. These neurons typically communicate with one another by means of long fibers called axons, which carry trains of signal pulses called action potentials to distant parts of the brain or body targeting specific recipient cells.
+
+Physiologically, brains exert centralized control over a body's other organs. They act on the rest of the body both by generating patterns of muscle activity and by driving the secretion of chemicals called hormones. This centralized control allows rapid and coordinated responses to changes in the environment. Some basic types of responsiveness such as reflexes can be mediated by the spinal cord or peripheral ganglia, but sophisticated purposeful control of behavior based on complex sensory input requires the information integrating capabilities of a centralized brain.
+
+The operations of individual brain cells are now understood in considerable detail but the way they cooperate in ensembles of millions is yet to be solved.[3] Recent models in modern neuroscience treat the brain as a biological computer, very different in mechanism from an electronic computer, but similar in the sense that it acquires information from the surrounding world, stores it, and processes it in a variety of ways.
+
+This article compares the properties of brains across the entire range of animal species, with the greatest attention to vertebrates. It deals with the human brain insofar as it shares the properties of other brains. The ways in which the human brain differs from other brains are covered in the human brain article. Several topics that might be covered here are instead covered there because much more can be said about them in a human context. The most important is brain disease and the effects of brain damage, that are covered in the human brain article.
+
+The shape and size of the brain varies greatly between species, and identifying common features is often difficult.[4] Nevertheless, there are a number of principles of brain architecture that apply across a wide range of species.[5] Some aspects of brain structure are common to almost the entire range of animal species;[6] others distinguish "advanced" brains from more primitive ones, or distinguish vertebrates from invertebrates.[4]
+
+The simplest way to gain information about brain anatomy is by visual inspection, but many more sophisticated techniques have been developed. Brain tissue in its natural state is too soft to work with, but it can be hardened by immersion in alcohol or other fixatives, and then sliced apart for examination of the interior. Visually, the interior of the brain consists of areas of so-called grey matter, with a dark color, separated by areas of white matter, with a lighter color. Further information can be gained by staining slices of brain tissue with a variety of chemicals that bring out areas where specific types of molecules are present in high concentrations. It is also possible to examine the microstructure of brain tissue using a microscope, and to trace the pattern of connections from one brain area to another.[7]
+
+The brains of all species are composed primarily of two broad classes of cells: neurons and glial cells. Glial cells (also known as glia or neuroglia) come in several types, and perform a number of critical functions, including structural support, metabolic support, insulation, and guidance of development. Neurons, however, are usually considered the most important cells in the brain.[8]
+The property that makes neurons unique is their ability to send signals to specific target cells over long distances.[8] They send these signals by means of an axon, which is a thin protoplasmic fiber that extends from the cell body and projects, usually with numerous branches, to other areas, sometimes nearby, sometimes in distant parts of the brain or body. The length of an axon can be extraordinary: for example, if a pyramidal cell (an excitatory neuron) of the cerebral cortex were magnified so that its cell body became the size of a human body, its axon, equally magnified, would become a cable a few centimeters in diameter, extending more than a kilometer.[9] These axons transmit signals in the form of electrochemical pulses called action potentials, which last less than a thousandth of a second and travel along the axon at speeds of 1–100 meters per second. Some neurons emit action potentials constantly, at rates of 10–100 per second, usually in irregular patterns; other neurons are quiet most of the time, but occasionally emit a burst of action potentials.[10]
+
+Axons transmit signals to other neurons by means of specialized junctions called synapses. A single axon may make as many as several thousand synaptic connections with other cells.[8] When an action potential, traveling along an axon, arrives at a synapse, it causes a chemical called a neurotransmitter to be released. The neurotransmitter binds to receptor molecules in the membrane of the target cell.[8]
+
+Synapses are the key functional elements of the brain.[11] The essential function of the brain is cell-to-cell communication, and synapses are the points at which communication occurs. The human brain has been estimated to contain approximately 100 trillion synapses;[12] even the brain of a fruit fly contains several million.[13] The functions of these synapses are very diverse: some are excitatory (exciting the target cell); others are inhibitory; others work by activating second messenger systems that change the internal chemistry of their target cells in complex ways.[11] A large number of synapses are dynamically modifiable; that is, they are capable of changing strength in a way that is controlled by the patterns of signals that pass through them. It is widely believed that activity-dependent modification of synapses is the brain's primary mechanism for learning and memory.[11]
+
+Most of the space in the brain is taken up by axons, which are often bundled together in what are called nerve fiber tracts. A myelinated axon is wrapped in a fatty insulating sheath of myelin,  which serves to greatly increase the speed of signal propagation. (There are also unmyelinated axons). Myelin is white, making parts of the brain filled exclusively with nerve fibers appear as light-colored white matter, in contrast to the darker-colored grey matter that marks areas with high densities of neuron cell bodies.[8]
+
+Except for a few primitive organisms such as sponges (which have no nervous system)[14] and cnidarians (which have a nervous system consisting of a diffuse nerve net[14]), all living multicellular animals are bilaterians, meaning animals with a bilaterally symmetric body shape (that is, left and right sides that are approximate mirror images of each other).[15] All bilaterians are thought to have descended from a common ancestor that appeared early in the Cambrian period, 485-540 million years ago, and it has been hypothesized that this common ancestor had the shape of a simple tubeworm with a segmented body.[15] At a schematic level, that basic worm-shape continues to be reflected in the body and nervous system architecture of all modern bilaterians, including vertebrates.[16] The fundamental bilateral body form is a tube with a hollow gut cavity running from the mouth to the anus, and a nerve cord with an enlargement (a ganglion) for each body segment, with an especially large ganglion at the front, called the brain. The brain is small and simple in some species, such as nematode worms; in other species, including vertebrates, it is the most complex organ in the body.[4] Some types of worms, such as leeches, also have an enlarged ganglion at the back end of the nerve cord, known as a "tail brain".[17]
+
+There are a few types of existing bilaterians that lack a recognizable brain, including echinoderms and tunicates. It has not been definitively established whether the existence of these brainless species indicates that the earliest bilaterians lacked a brain, or whether their ancestors evolved in a way that led to the disappearance of a previously existing brain structure.
+
+This category includes tardigrades, arthropods, molluscs, and numerous types of worms. The diversity of invertebrate body plans is matched by an equal diversity in brain structures.[18]
+
+Two groups of invertebrates have notably complex brains: arthropods (insects, crustaceans, arachnids, and others), and cephalopods (octopuses, squids, and similar molluscs).[19] The brains of arthropods and cephalopods arise from twin parallel nerve cords that extend through the body of the animal. Arthropods have a central brain, the supraesophageal ganglion, with three divisions and large optical lobes behind each eye for visual processing.[19] Cephalopods such as the octopus and squid have the largest brains of any invertebrates.[20]
+
+There are several invertebrate species whose brains have been studied intensively because they have properties that make them convenient for experimental work:
+
+The first vertebrates appeared over 500 million years ago (Mya), during the Cambrian period, and may have resembled the modern hagfish in form.[31] Sharks appeared about 450 Mya, amphibians about 400 Mya, reptiles about 350 Mya, and mammals about 200 Mya. Each species has an equally long evolutionary history, but the brains of modern hagfishes, lampreys, sharks, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals show a gradient of size and complexity that roughly follows the evolutionary sequence. All of these brains contain the same set of basic anatomical components, but many are rudimentary in the hagfish, whereas in mammals the foremost part (the telencephalon) is greatly elaborated and expanded.[32]
+
+Brains are most simply compared in terms of their size. The relationship between brain size, body size and other variables has been studied across a wide range of vertebrate species. As a rule, brain size increases with body size, but not in a simple linear proportion. In general, smaller animals tend to have larger brains, measured as a fraction of body size. For mammals, the relationship between brain volume and body mass essentially follows a power law with an exponent of about 0.75.[33]  This formula describes the central tendency, but every family of mammals departs from it to some degree, in a way that reflects in part the complexity of their behavior. For example, primates have brains 5 to 10 times larger than the formula predicts. Predators tend to have larger brains than their prey, relative to body size.[34]
+
+All vertebrate brains share a common underlying form, which appears most clearly during early stages of embryonic development. In its earliest form, the brain appears as three swellings at the front end of the neural tube; these swellings eventually become the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain (the prosencephalon, mesencephalon, and rhombencephalon, respectively). At the earliest stages of brain development, the three areas are roughly equal in size. In many classes of vertebrates, such as fish and amphibians, the three parts remain similar in size in the adult, but in mammals the forebrain becomes much larger than the other parts, and the midbrain becomes very small.[8]
+
+The brains of vertebrates are made of very soft tissue.[8] Living brain tissue is pinkish on the outside and mostly white on the inside, with subtle variations in color. Vertebrate brains are surrounded by a system of connective tissue membranes called meninges that separate the skull from the brain. Blood vessels enter the central nervous system through holes in the meningeal layers. The cells in the blood vessel walls are joined tightly to one another, forming the blood–brain barrier, which blocks the passage of many toxins and pathogens[35] (though at the same time blocking antibodies and some drugs, thereby presenting special challenges in treatment of diseases of the brain).[36]
+
+Neuroanatomists usually divide the vertebrate brain into six main regions: the telencephalon (cerebral hemispheres), diencephalon (thalamus and hypothalamus), mesencephalon (midbrain), cerebellum, pons, and medulla oblongata. Each of these areas has a complex internal structure. Some parts, such as the cerebral cortex and the cerebellar cortex, consist of layers that are folded or convoluted to fit within the available space. Other parts, such as the thalamus and hypothalamus, consist of clusters of many small nuclei. Thousands of distinguishable areas can be identified within the vertebrate brain based on fine distinctions of neural structure, chemistry, and connectivity.[8]
+
+Although the same basic components are present in all vertebrate brains, some branches of vertebrate evolution have led to substantial distortions of brain geometry, especially in the forebrain area. The brain of a shark shows the basic components in a straightforward way, but in teleost fishes (the great majority of existing fish species), the forebrain has become "everted", like a sock turned inside out. In birds, there are also major changes in forebrain structure.[37] These distortions can make it difficult to match brain components from one species with those of another species.[38]
+
+Here is a list of some of the most important vertebrate brain components, along with a brief description of their functions as currently understood:
+
+The most obvious difference between the brains of mammals and other vertebrates is in terms of size. On average, a mammal has a brain roughly twice as large as that of a bird of the same body size, and ten times as large as that of a reptile of the same body size.[49]
+
+Size, however, is not the only difference: there are also substantial differences in shape. The hindbrain and midbrain of mammals are generally similar to those of other vertebrates, but dramatic differences appear in the forebrain, which is greatly enlarged and also altered in structure.[50] The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain that most strongly distinguishes mammals. In non-mammalian vertebrates, the surface of the cerebrum is lined with a comparatively simple three-layered structure called the pallium. In mammals, the pallium evolves into a complex six-layered structure called neocortex or isocortex.[51] Several areas at the edge of the neocortex, including the hippocampus and amygdala, are also much more extensively developed in mammals than in other vertebrates.[50]
+
+The elaboration of the cerebral cortex carries with it changes to other brain areas. The superior colliculus, which plays a major role in visual control of behavior in most vertebrates, shrinks to a small size in mammals, and many of its functions are taken over by visual areas of the cerebral cortex.[49] The cerebellum of mammals contains a large portion (the neocerebellum) dedicated to supporting the cerebral cortex, which has no counterpart in other vertebrates.[52]
+
+The brains of humans and other primates contain the same structures as the brains of other mammals, but are generally larger in proportion to body size.[56] The encephalization quotient (EQ) is used to compare brain sizes across species. It takes into account the nonlinearity of the brain-to-body relationship.[53] Humans have an average EQ in the 7-to-8 range, while most other primates have an EQ in the 2-to-3 range. Dolphins have values higher than those of primates other than humans,[54] but nearly all other mammals have EQ values that are substantially lower.
+
+Most of the enlargement of the primate brain comes from a massive expansion of the cerebral cortex, especially the prefrontal cortex and the parts of the cortex involved in vision.[57] The visual processing network of primates includes at least 30 distinguishable brain areas, with a complex web of interconnections. It has been estimated that visual processing areas occupy more than half of the total surface of the primate neocortex.[58] The prefrontal cortex carries out functions that include planning, working memory, motivation, attention, and executive control. It takes up a much larger proportion of the brain for primates than for other species, and an especially large fraction of the human brain.[59]
+
+The brain develops in an intricately orchestrated sequence of stages.[60] It changes in shape from a simple swelling at the front of the nerve cord in the earliest embryonic stages, to a complex array of areas and connections. Neurons are created in special zones that contain stem cells, and then migrate through the tissue to reach their ultimate locations. Once neurons have positioned themselves, their axons sprout and navigate through the brain, branching and extending as they go, until the tips reach their targets and form synaptic connections. In a number of parts of the nervous system, neurons and synapses are produced in excessive numbers during the early stages, and then the unneeded ones are pruned away.[60]
+
+For vertebrates, the early stages of neural development are similar across all species.[60] As the embryo transforms from a round blob of cells into a wormlike structure, a narrow strip of ectoderm running along the midline of the back is induced to become the neural plate, the precursor of the nervous system. The neural plate folds inward to form the neural groove, and then the lips that line the groove merge to enclose the neural tube, a hollow cord of cells with a fluid-filled ventricle at the center. At the front end, the ventricles and cord swell to form three vesicles that are the precursors of the prosencephalon (forebrain), mesencephalon (midbrain), and rhombencephalon (hindbrain). At the next stage, the forebrain splits into two vesicles called the telencephalon (which will contain the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, and related structures) and the diencephalon (which will contain the thalamus and hypothalamus). At about the same time, the hindbrain splits into the metencephalon (which will contain the cerebellum and pons) and the myelencephalon (which will contain the medulla oblongata). Each of these areas contains proliferative zones where neurons and glial cells are generated; the resulting cells then migrate, sometimes for long distances, to their final positions.[60]
+
+Once a neuron is in place, it extends dendrites and an axon into the area around it. Axons, because they commonly extend a great distance from the cell body and need to reach specific targets, grow in a particularly complex way. The tip of a growing axon consists of a blob of protoplasm called a growth cone, studded with chemical receptors. These receptors sense the local environment, causing the growth cone to be attracted or repelled by various cellular elements, and thus to be pulled in a particular direction at each point along its path. The result of this pathfinding process is that the growth cone navigates through the brain until it reaches its destination area, where other chemical cues cause it to begin generating synapses. Considering the entire brain, thousands of genes create products that influence axonal pathfinding.[60]
+
+The synaptic network that finally emerges is only partly determined by genes, though. In many parts of the brain, axons initially "overgrow", and then are "pruned" by mechanisms that depend on neural activity.[60] In the projection from the eye to the midbrain, for example, the structure in the adult contains a very precise mapping, connecting each point on the surface of the retina to a corresponding point in a midbrain layer. In the first stages of development, each axon from the retina is guided to the right general vicinity in the midbrain by chemical cues, but then branches very profusely and makes initial contact with a wide swath of midbrain neurons. The retina, before birth, contains special mechanisms that cause it to generate waves of activity that originate spontaneously at a random point and then propagate slowly across the retinal layer. These waves are useful because they cause neighboring neurons to be active at the same time; that is, they produce a neural activity pattern that contains information about the spatial arrangement of the neurons. This information is exploited in the midbrain by a mechanism that causes synapses to weaken, and eventually vanish, if activity in an axon is not followed by activity of the target cell. The result of this sophisticated process is a gradual tuning and tightening of the map, leaving it finally in its precise adult form.[61]
+
+Similar things happen in other brain areas: an initial synaptic matrix is generated as a result of genetically determined chemical guidance, but then gradually refined by activity-dependent mechanisms, partly driven by internal dynamics, partly by external sensory inputs. In some cases, as with the retina-midbrain system, activity patterns depend on mechanisms that operate only in the developing brain, and apparently exist solely to guide development.[61]
+
+In humans and many other mammals, new neurons are created mainly before birth, and the infant brain contains substantially more neurons than the adult brain.[60] There are, however, a few areas where new neurons continue to be generated throughout life. The two areas for which adult neurogenesis is well established are the olfactory bulb, which is involved in the sense of smell, and the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, where there is evidence that the new neurons play a role in storing newly acquired memories. With these exceptions, however, the set of neurons that is present in early childhood is the set that is present for life. Glial cells are different: as with most types of cells in the body, they are generated throughout the lifespan.[62]
+
+There has long been debate about whether the qualities of mind, personality, and intelligence can be attributed to heredity or to upbringing—this is the nature and nurture controversy.[63] Although many details remain to be settled, neuroscience research has clearly shown that both factors are important. Genes determine the general form of the brain, and genes determine how the brain reacts to experience. Experience, however, is required to refine the matrix of synaptic connections, which in its developed form contains far more information than the genome does. In some respects, all that matters is the presence or absence of experience during critical periods of development.[64] In other respects, the quantity and quality of experience are important; for example, there is substantial evidence that animals raised in enriched environments have thicker cerebral cortices, indicating a higher density of synaptic connections, than animals whose levels of stimulation are restricted.[65]
+
+The functions of the brain depend on the ability of neurons to transmit electrochemical signals to other cells, and their ability to respond appropriately to electrochemical signals received from other cells. The electrical properties of neurons are controlled by a wide variety of biochemical and metabolic processes, most notably the interactions between neurotransmitters and receptors that take place at synapses.[8]
+
+Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are released at synapses when an action potential activates them—neurotransmitters attach themselves to receptor molecules on the membrane of the synapse's target cell, and thereby alter the electrical or chemical properties of the receptor molecules.
+With few exceptions, each neuron in the brain releases the same chemical neurotransmitter, or combination of neurotransmitters, at all the synaptic connections it makes with other neurons; this rule is known as Dale's principle.[8] Thus, a neuron can be characterized by the neurotransmitters that it releases. The great majority of psychoactive drugs exert their effects by altering specific neurotransmitter systems. This applies to drugs such as cannabinoids, nicotine, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, fluoxetine, chlorpromazine, and many others.[66]
+
+The two neurotransmitters that are used most widely in the vertebrate brain are glutamate, which almost always exerts excitatory effects on target neurons, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is almost always inhibitory. Neurons using these transmitters can be found in nearly every part of the brain.[67] Because of their ubiquity, drugs that act on glutamate or GABA tend to have broad and powerful effects. Some general anesthetics act by reducing the effects of glutamate; most tranquilizers exert their sedative effects by enhancing the effects of GABA.[68]
+
+There are dozens of other chemical neurotransmitters that are used in more limited areas of the brain, often areas dedicated to a particular function. Serotonin, for example—the primary target of antidepressant drugs and many dietary aids—comes exclusively from a small brainstem area called the raphe nuclei.[69] Norepinephrine, which is involved in arousal, comes exclusively from a nearby small area called the locus coeruleus.[70] Other neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine and dopamine have multiple sources in the brain but are not as ubiquitously distributed as glutamate and GABA.[71]
+
+As a side effect of the electrochemical processes used by neurons for signaling, brain tissue generates electric fields when it is active. When large numbers of neurons show synchronized activity, the electric fields that they generate can be large enough to detect outside the skull, using electroencephalography (EEG)[72] or magnetoencephalography (MEG). EEG recordings, along with recordings made from electrodes implanted inside the brains of animals such as rats, show that the brain of a living animal is constantly active, even during sleep.[73] Each part of the brain shows a mixture of rhythmic and nonrhythmic activity, which may vary according to behavioral state. In mammals, the cerebral cortex tends to show large slow delta waves during sleep, faster alpha waves when the animal is awake but inattentive, and chaotic-looking irregular activity when the animal is actively engaged in a task. During an epileptic seizure, the brain's inhibitory control mechanisms fail to function and electrical activity rises to pathological levels, producing EEG traces that show large wave and spike patterns not seen in a healthy brain. Relating these population-level patterns to the computational functions of individual neurons is a major focus of current research in neurophysiology.[73]
+
+All vertebrates have a blood–brain barrier that allows metabolism inside the brain to operate differently from metabolism in other parts of the body. Glial cells play a major role in brain metabolism by controlling the chemical composition of the fluid that surrounds neurons, including levels of ions and nutrients.[74]
+
+Brain tissue consumes a large amount of energy in proportion to its volume, so large brains place severe metabolic demands on animals. The need to limit body weight in order, for example, to fly, has apparently led to selection for a reduction of brain size in some species, such as bats.[75] Most of the brain's energy consumption goes into sustaining the electric charge (membrane potential) of neurons.[74] Most vertebrate species devote between 2% and 8% of basal metabolism to the brain. In primates, however, the percentage is much higher—in humans it rises to 20–25%.[76] The energy consumption of the brain does not vary greatly over time, but active regions of the cerebral cortex consume somewhat more energy than inactive regions; this forms the basis for the functional brain imaging methods of PET, fMRI,[77] and NIRS.[78] The brain typically gets most of its energy from oxygen-dependent metabolism of glucose (i.e., blood sugar),[74] but ketones provide a major alternative source, together with contributions from medium chain fatty acids (caprylic and heptanoic acids),[79][80] lactate,[81] acetate,[82] and possibly amino acids.[83]
+
+Information from the sense organs is collected in the brain. There it is used to determine what actions the organism is to take. The brain processes the raw data to extract information about the structure of the environment. Next it combines the processed information with information about the current needs of the animal and with memory of past circumstances. Finally, on the basis of the results, it generates motor response patterns. These signal-processing tasks require intricate interplay between a variety of functional subsystems.[84]
+
+The function of the brain is to provide coherent control over the actions of an animal. A centralized brain allows groups of muscles to be co-activated in complex patterns; it also allows stimuli impinging on one part of the body to evoke responses in other parts, and it can prevent different parts of the body from acting at cross-purposes to each other.[84]
+
+The human brain is provided with information about light, sound, the chemical composition of the atmosphere, temperature, head orientation, limb position, the chemical composition of the bloodstream, and more. In other animals additional senses are present, such as the infrared heat-sense of snakes, the magnetic field sense of some birds, or the electric field sense of some types of fish.
+
+Each sensory system begins with specialized receptor cells,[8] such as light-receptive neurons in the retina of the eye, or vibration-sensitive neurons in the cochlea of the ear. The axons of sensory receptor cells travel into the spinal cord or brain, where they transmit their signals to a first-order sensory nucleus dedicated to one specific sensory modality. This primary sensory nucleus sends information to higher-order sensory areas that are dedicated to the same modality. Eventually, via a way-station in the thalamus, the signals are sent to the cerebral cortex, where they are processed to extract the relevant features, and integrated with signals coming from other sensory systems.[8]
+
+Motor systems are areas of the brain that are involved in initiating body movements, that is, in activating muscles. Except for the muscles that control the eye, which are driven by nuclei in the midbrain, all the voluntary muscles in the body are directly innervated by motor neurons in the spinal cord and hindbrain.[8] Spinal motor neurons are controlled both by neural circuits intrinsic to the spinal cord, and by inputs that descend from the brain. The intrinsic spinal circuits implement many reflex responses, and contain pattern generators for rhythmic movements such as walking or swimming. The descending connections from the brain allow for more sophisticated control.[8]
+
+The brain contains several motor areas that project directly to the spinal cord. At the lowest level are motor areas in the medulla and pons, which control stereotyped movements such as walking, breathing, or swallowing. At a higher level are areas in the midbrain, such as the red nucleus, which is responsible for coordinating movements of the arms and legs. At a higher level yet is the primary motor cortex, a strip of tissue located at the posterior edge of the frontal lobe. The primary motor cortex sends projections to the subcortical motor areas, but also sends a massive projection directly to the spinal cord, through the pyramidal tract. This direct corticospinal projection allows for precise voluntary control of the fine details of movements. Other motor-related brain areas exert secondary effects by projecting to the primary motor areas. Among the most important secondary areas are the premotor cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum.[8]
+
+In addition to all of the above, the brain and spinal cord contain extensive circuitry to control the autonomic nervous system, which works by secreting hormones and by modulating the "smooth" muscles of the gut.[8]
+
+Many animals alternate between sleeping and waking in a daily cycle. Arousal and alertness are also modulated on a finer time scale by a network of brain areas.[8]
+
+A key component of the arousal system is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a tiny part of the hypothalamus located directly above the point at which the optic nerves from the two eyes cross. The SCN contains the body's central biological clock. Neurons there show activity levels that rise and fall with a period of about 24 hours, circadian rhythms: these activity fluctuations are driven by rhythmic changes in expression of a set of "clock genes". The SCN continues to keep time even if it is excised from the brain and placed in a dish of warm nutrient solution, but it ordinarily receives input from the optic nerves, through the retinohypothalamic tract (RHT), that allows daily light-dark cycles to calibrate the clock.[90]
+
+The SCN projects to a set of areas in the hypothalamus, brainstem, and midbrain that are involved in implementing sleep-wake cycles. An important component of the system is the reticular formation, a group of neuron-clusters scattered diffusely through the core of the lower brain. Reticular neurons send signals to the thalamus, which in turn sends activity-level-controlling signals to every part of the cortex. Damage to the reticular formation can produce a permanent state of coma.[8]
+
+Sleep involves great changes in brain activity.[8] Until the 1950s it was generally believed that the brain essentially shuts off during sleep,[91] but this is now known to be far from true; activity continues, but patterns become very different. There are two types of sleep: REM sleep (with dreaming) and NREM (non-REM, usually without dreaming) sleep, which repeat in slightly varying patterns throughout a sleep episode. Three broad types of distinct brain activity patterns can be measured: REM, light NREM and deep NREM. During deep NREM sleep, also called slow wave sleep, activity in the cortex takes the form of large synchronized waves, whereas in the waking state it is noisy and desynchronized. Levels of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine and serotonin drop during slow wave sleep, and fall almost to zero during REM sleep; levels of acetylcholine show the reverse pattern.[8]
+
+For any animal, survival requires maintaining a variety of parameters of bodily state within a limited range of variation: these include temperature, water content, salt concentration in the bloodstream, blood glucose levels, blood oxygen level, and others.[92] The ability of an animal to regulate the internal environment of its body—the milieu intérieur, as pioneering physiologist Claude Bernard called it—is known as homeostasis (Greek for "standing still").[93] Maintaining homeostasis is a crucial function of the brain. The basic principle that underlies homeostasis is negative feedback: any time a parameter diverges from its set-point, sensors generate an error signal that evokes a response that causes the parameter to shift back toward its optimum value.[92] (This principle is widely used in engineering, for example in the control of temperature using a thermostat.)
+
+In vertebrates, the part of the brain that plays the greatest role is the hypothalamus, a small region at the base of the forebrain whose size does not reflect its complexity or the importance of its function.[92] The hypothalamus is a collection of small nuclei, most of which are involved in basic biological functions. Some of these functions relate to arousal or to social interactions such as sexuality, aggression, or maternal behaviors; but many of them relate to homeostasis. Several hypothalamic nuclei receive input from sensors located in the lining of blood vessels, conveying information about temperature, sodium level, glucose level, blood oxygen level, and other parameters. These hypothalamic nuclei send output signals to motor areas that can generate actions to rectify deficiencies. Some of the outputs also go to the pituitary gland, a tiny gland attached to the brain directly underneath the hypothalamus. The pituitary gland secretes hormones into the bloodstream, where they circulate throughout the body and induce changes in cellular activity.[94]
+
+The individual animals need to express survival-promoting behaviors, such as seeking food, water, shelter, and a mate.[95] The motivational system in the brain monitors the current state of satisfaction of these goals, and activates behaviors to meet any needs that arise. The motivational system works largely by a reward–punishment mechanism. When a particular behavior is followed by favorable consequences, the reward mechanism in the brain is activated, which induces structural changes inside the brain that cause the same behavior to be repeated later, whenever a similar situation arises. Conversely, when a behavior is followed by unfavorable consequences, the brain's punishment mechanism is activated, inducing structural changes that cause the behavior to be suppressed when similar situations arise in the future.[96]
+
+Most organisms studied to date utilize a reward–punishment mechanism: for instance, worms and insects can alter their behavior to seek food sources or to avoid dangers.[97] In vertebrates, the reward-punishment system is implemented by a specific set of brain structures, at the heart of which lie the basal ganglia, a set of interconnected areas at the base of the forebrain.[47] The basal ganglia are the central site at which decisions are made: the basal ganglia exert a sustained inhibitory control over most of the motor systems in the brain; when this inhibition is released, a motor system is permitted to execute the action it is programmed to carry out. Rewards and punishments function by altering the relationship between the inputs that the basal ganglia receive and the decision-signals that are emitted. The reward mechanism is better understood than the punishment mechanism, because its role in drug abuse has caused it to be studied very intensively. Research has shown that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a central role: addictive drugs such as cocaine, amphetamine, and nicotine either cause dopamine levels to rise or cause the effects of dopamine inside the brain to be enhanced.[98]
+
+Almost all animals are capable of modifying their behavior as a result of experience—even the most primitive types of worms. Because behavior is driven by brain activity, changes in behavior must somehow correspond to changes inside the brain. Already in the late 19th century theorists like Santiago Ramón y Cajal argued that the most plausible explanation is that learning and memory are expressed as changes in the synaptic connections between neurons.[99] Until 1970, however, experimental evidence to support the synaptic plasticity hypothesis was lacking. In 1971 Tim Bliss and Terje Lømo published a paper on a phenomenon now called long-term potentiation: the paper showed clear evidence of activity-induced synaptic changes that lasted for at least several days.[100] Since then technical advances have made these sorts of experiments much easier to carry out, and thousands of studies have been made that have clarified the mechanism of synaptic change, and uncovered other types of activity-driven synaptic change in a variety of brain areas, including the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, basal ganglia, and cerebellum.[101] Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and physical activity appear to play a beneficial role in the process.[102]
+
+Neuroscientists currently distinguish several types of learning and memory that are implemented by the brain in distinct ways:
+
+The field of neuroscience encompasses all approaches that seek to understand the brain and the rest of the nervous system.[8] Psychology seeks to understand mind and behavior, and neurology is the medical discipline that diagnoses and treats diseases of the nervous system. The brain is also the most important organ studied in psychiatry, the branch of medicine that works to study, prevent, and treat mental disorders.[108] Cognitive science seeks to unify neuroscience and psychology with other fields that concern themselves with the brain, such as computer science (artificial intelligence and similar fields) and philosophy.[109]
+
+The oldest method of studying the brain is anatomical, and until the middle of the 20th century, much of the progress in neuroscience came from the development of better cell stains and better microscopes. Neuroanatomists study the large-scale structure of the brain as well as the microscopic structure of neurons and their components, especially synapses. Among other tools, they employ a plethora of stains that reveal neural structure, chemistry, and connectivity. In recent years, the development of immunostaining techniques has allowed investigation of neurons that express specific sets of genes. Also, functional neuroanatomy uses medical imaging techniques to correlate variations in human brain structure with differences in cognition or behavior.[110]
+
+Neurophysiologists study the chemical, pharmacological, and electrical properties of the brain: their primary tools are drugs and recording devices. Thousands of experimentally developed drugs affect the nervous system, some in highly specific ways. Recordings of brain activity can be made using electrodes, either glued to the scalp as in EEG studies, or implanted inside the brains of animals for extracellular recordings, which can detect action potentials generated by individual neurons.[111] Because the brain does not contain pain receptors, it is possible using these techniques to record brain activity from animals that are awake and behaving without causing distress. The same techniques have occasionally been used to study brain activity in human patients suffering from intractable epilepsy, in cases where there was a medical necessity to implant electrodes to localize the brain area responsible for epileptic seizures.[112] Functional imaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging are also used to study brain activity; these techniques have mainly been used with human subjects, because they require a conscious subject to remain motionless for long periods of time, but they have the great advantage of being noninvasive.[113]
+
+Another approach to brain function is to examine the consequences of damage to specific brain areas. Even though it is protected by the skull and meninges, surrounded by cerebrospinal fluid, and isolated from the bloodstream by the blood–brain barrier, the delicate nature of the brain makes it vulnerable to numerous diseases and several types of damage. In humans, the effects of strokes and other types of brain damage have been a key source of information about brain function. Because there is no ability to experimentally control the nature of the damage, however, this information is often difficult to interpret. In animal studies, most commonly involving rats, it is possible to use electrodes or locally injected chemicals to produce precise patterns of damage and then examine the consequences for behavior.[115]
+
+Computational neuroscience encompasses two approaches: first, the use of computers to study the brain; second, the study of how brains perform computation. On one hand, it is possible to write a computer program to simulate the operation of a group of neurons by making use of systems of equations that describe their electrochemical activity; such simulations are known as biologically realistic neural networks. On the other hand, it is possible to study algorithms for neural computation by simulating, or mathematically analyzing, the operations of simplified "units" that have some of the properties of neurons but abstract out much of their biological complexity. The computational functions of the brain are studied both by computer scientists and neuroscientists.[116]
+
+Computational neurogenetic modeling is concerned with the study and development of dynamic neuronal models for modeling brain functions with respect to genes and dynamic interactions between genes.
+
+Recent years have seen increasing applications of genetic and genomic techniques to the study of the brain [117] and a focus on the roles of neurotrophic factors and physical activity in neuroplasticity.[102] The most common subjects are mice, because of the availability of technical tools. It is now possible with relative ease to "knock out" or mutate a wide variety of genes, and then examine the effects on brain function. More sophisticated approaches are also being used: for example, using Cre-Lox recombination it is possible to activate or deactivate genes in specific parts of the brain, at specific times.[117]
+
+The oldest brain to have been discovered was in Armenia in the Areni-1 cave complex. The brain, estimated to be over 5,000 years old, was found in the skull of a 12 to 14-year-old girl. Although the brains were shriveled, they were well preserved due to the climate found inside the cave.[118]
+
+Early philosophers were divided as to whether the seat of the soul lies in the brain or heart. Aristotle favored the heart, and thought that the function of the brain was merely to cool the blood. Democritus, the inventor of the atomic theory of matter, argued for a three-part soul, with intellect in the head, emotion in the heart, and lust near the liver.[119] The unknown author of On the Sacred Disease, a medical treatise in the Hippocratic Corpus, came down unequivocally in favor of the brain, writing:
+
+Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. ... And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us, some by night, and some by day, and dreams and untimely wanderings, and cares that are not suitable, and ignorance of present circumstances, desuetude, and unskillfulness. All these things we endure from the brain, when it is not healthy...
+
+The Roman physician Galen also argued for the importance of the brain, and theorized in some depth about how it might work. Galen traced out the anatomical relationships among brain, nerves, and muscles, demonstrating that all muscles in the body are connected to the brain through a branching network of nerves. He postulated that nerves activate muscles mechanically by carrying a mysterious substance he called pneumata psychikon, usually translated as "animal spirits".[119] Galen's ideas were widely known during the Middle Ages, but not much further progress came until the Renaissance, when detailed anatomical study resumed, combined with the theoretical speculations of René Descartes and those who followed him. Descartes, like Galen, thought of the nervous system in hydraulic terms. He believed that the highest cognitive functions are carried out by a non-physical res cogitans, but that the majority of behaviors of humans, and all behaviors of animals, could be explained mechanistically.[121]
+
+The first real progress toward a modern understanding of nervous function, though, came from the investigations of Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), who discovered that a shock of static electricity applied to an exposed nerve of a dead frog could cause its leg to contract. Since that time, each major advance in understanding has followed more or less directly from the development of a new technique of investigation. Until the early years of the 20th century, the most important advances were derived from new methods for staining cells.[122] Particularly critical was the invention of the Golgi stain, which (when correctly used) stains only a small fraction of neurons, but stains them in their entirety, including cell body, dendrites, and axon. Without such a stain, brain tissue under a microscope appears as an impenetrable tangle of protoplasmic fibers, in which it is impossible to determine any structure. In the hands of Camillo Golgi, and especially of the Spanish neuroanatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the new stain revealed hundreds of distinct types of neurons, each with its own unique dendritic structure and pattern of connectivity.[123]
+
+In the first half of the 20th century, advances in electronics enabled investigation of the electrical properties of nerve cells, culminating in work by Alan Hodgkin, Andrew Huxley, and others on the biophysics of the action potential, and the work of Bernard Katz and others on the electrochemistry of the synapse.[124] These studies complemented the anatomical picture with a conception of the brain as a dynamic entity. Reflecting the new understanding, in 1942 Charles Sherrington visualized the workings of the brain waking from sleep:
+
+The great topmost sheet of the mass, that where hardly a light had twinkled or moved, becomes now a sparkling field of rhythmic flashing points with trains of traveling sparks hurrying hither and thither. The brain is waking and with it the mind is returning. It is as if the Milky Way entered upon some cosmic dance. Swiftly the head mass becomes an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern, always a meaningful pattern though never an abiding one; a shifting harmony of subpatterns.
+
+The invention of electronic computers in the 1940s, along with the development of mathematical information theory, led to a realization that brains can potentially be understood as information processing systems. This concept formed the basis of the field of cybernetics, and eventually gave rise to the field now known as computational neuroscience.[126] The earliest attempts at cybernetics were somewhat crude in that they treated the brain as essentially a digital computer in disguise, as for example in John von Neumann's 1958 book, The Computer and the Brain.[127] Over the years, though, accumulating information about the electrical responses of brain cells recorded from behaving animals has steadily moved theoretical concepts in the direction of increasing realism.[126]
+
+One of the most influential early contributions was a 1959 paper titled What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain: the paper examined the visual responses of neurons in the retina and optic tectum of frogs, and came to the conclusion that some neurons in the tectum of the frog are wired to combine elementary responses in a way that makes them function as "bug perceivers".[128] A few years later David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel discovered cells in the primary visual cortex of monkeys that become active when sharp edges move across specific points in the field of view—a discovery for which they won a Nobel Prize.[129] Follow-up studies in higher-order visual areas found cells that detect binocular disparity, color, movement, and aspects of shape, with areas located at increasing distances from the primary visual cortex showing increasingly complex responses.[130] Other investigations of brain areas unrelated to vision have revealed cells with a wide variety of response correlates, some related to memory, some to abstract types of cognition such as space.[131]
+
+Theorists have worked to understand these response patterns by constructing mathematical models of neurons and neural networks, which can be simulated using computers.[126] Some useful models are abstract, focusing on the conceptual structure of neural algorithms rather than the details of how they are implemented in the brain; other models attempt to incorporate data about the biophysical properties of real neurons.[132] No model on any level is yet considered to be a fully valid description of brain function, though. The essential difficulty is that sophisticated computation by neural networks requires distributed processing in which hundreds or thousands of neurons work cooperatively—current methods of brain activity recording are only capable of isolating action potentials from a few dozen neurons at a time.[133]
+
+Furthermore, even single neurons appear to be complex and capable of performing computations.[134] So, brain models that don't reflect this are too abstract to be representative of brain operation; models that do try to capture this are very computationally expensive and arguably intractable with present computational resources. However, the Human Brain Project is trying to build a realistic, detailed computational model of the entire human brain. The wisdom of this approach has been publicly contested, with high-profile scientists on both sides of the argument.
+
+In the second half of the 20th century, developments in chemistry, electron microscopy, genetics, computer science, functional brain imaging, and other fields progressively opened new windows into brain structure and function. In the United States, the 1990s were officially designated as the "Decade of the Brain" to commemorate advances made in brain research, and to promote funding for such research.[135]
+
+In the 21st century, these trends have continued, and several new approaches have come into prominence, including multielectrode recording, which allows the activity of many brain cells to be recorded all at the same time;[136] genetic engineering, which allows molecular components of the brain to be altered experimentally;[117] genomics, which allows variations in brain structure to be correlated with variations in DNA properties[137] and neuroimaging.
+
+Animal brains are used as food in numerous cuisines.
+
+Some archaeological evidence suggests that the mourning rituals of European Neanderthals also involved the consumption of the brain.[138]
+
+The Fore people of Papua New Guinea are known to eat human brains. In funerary rituals, those close to the dead would eat the brain of the deceased to create a sense of immortality. A prion disease called kuru has been traced to this.[139]
+

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+An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists and tourists.[1][2]
+The root "naut" derives from "nautes", the Greek for "sailor."
+[3]
+
+Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.
+
+The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force, rather than aerodynamic force, carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi).[4] In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km)[5] are awarded astronaut wings.
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], a total of 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km (62 mi) or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond.[6]
+Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit, the lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon.[7] Three of the 24—Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan—did so twice.[8]
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above 50 miles (80 km) altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles (80 km) in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62 miles).[6] Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks.[9][10] As of 2016[update], the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space.[11] Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days.[12]
+
+In 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Dr. Hugh Dryden, discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called astronauts or cosmonauts. Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos (near space), while the "astro" prefix suggested flight to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term.[13] When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut".
+
+In English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an astronaut.[14] The term derives from the Greek words ástron (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society.[15]
+
+The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.[16]
+
+NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps.[17] The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.[18]
+
+By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts.[17] The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word kosmonavt (Russian: космонавт, Russian pronunciation: [kəsmɐˈnaft]), one who works in space outside the Earth's atmosphere, a space traveler,[19] which derives from the Greek words kosmos (κόσμος), meaning "universe", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian word kosmonavt, such as the Polish kosmonauta (although Polish also uses astronauta, and the two words are considered synonyms).[20]
+
+Coinage of the term kosmonavt has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or "cosmonautics") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974).[21][22] The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, also the first person in space. He was part of the first six Russians, with German Titov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Grigoriy Nelyubov, who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961.[23] Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963.[24] On March 14, 1995,[25] Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".[26][27]
+
+Yǔ háng yuán (宇航员, "Space-universe navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general,[28][29] while hángtiān yuán (航天员, "navigating outer space personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here, hángtiān (航天) is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system, i.e. solar system. The phrase tài kōng rén (太空人, "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.[30]
+
+The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China.[31] The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as a hybrid of the Chinese term Chinese: 太空 (tàikōng, 'space') and the Greek ναύτης (naútēs, 'sailor'); the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.[32] This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program.[33] The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih (趙裡昱) from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.[34][35]
+
+With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.
+
+While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a manned spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, i.e. the Soviet-led Interkosmos programme. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut (French spelling: spationaute) is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word spatium for "space", the Malay term angkasawan was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program, and the Indian Space Research Organisation hope to launch a spacecraft in 2022 that would carry vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word व्योमन् (vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space'). In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as sisunautti, from the Finnish word sisu.[36]
+
+As of 2020 in the United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency:
+
+The first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on April 12, 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.
+
+Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Freedom 7. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983.[39] In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.
+
+Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March 18, 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission.  This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission.[40]
+
+The first manned mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.
+
+The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13, respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket.[41] Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, on April 2, 1984.
+
+On July 23, 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37.[42] Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space.[43][44] The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985.[45][46] In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space.[47] In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station.[48]
+
+With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft.  In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of 8 Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010).[49]
+In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space.[50] In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space.[51]
+In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant.[52] In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.
+
+On October 15, 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.
+
+The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. (Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness).[53][54]
+The oldest person who has flown in space is John Glenn, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95.[55]
+
+438 days is the longest time spent in space, by Russian Valeri Polyakov.[9]
+As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (249,205 mi), when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency.[9]
+
+The first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova[56] aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission).
+Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed the 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles) line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight.[57][58] Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight. 
+The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.
+
+The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983.[59] In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler as a reporter for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut".[60][61][62] Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity.[61]
+
+The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on April 28, 2001.
+
+The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist.[63][64] Seven others have paid the Russian Space Agency to fly into space:
+
+The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959.[65] Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection.  Selection was initially limited to military pilots.[66][67] The earliest astronauts for both America and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.
+
+Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.[1][66] Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness (microgravity) in an aircraft called the "Vomit Comet," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights.[65] Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center.  Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base.
+
+Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle and, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there.[68]
+
+Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.[72][73]
+Barbara Morgan, selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985, is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist.[74]
+The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s.[75][76]
+
+Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare.[87][88][89]
+
+A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning, became more virulent when cultivated in space.[90] More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space.[91] Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space.[92][93]
+
+On December 31, 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.[94][95][96]
+
+In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.[97][98]
+
+Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP), has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
+
+On November 2, 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space, based on MRI studies. Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes.[99][100]
+
+Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system. Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts.[101]
+
+In October 2018, NASA-funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space, including travel to the planet Mars, may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely.[102]
+
+Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts.[103][104]
+
+A recent study by Russian scientists published in April 2019 stated that astronauts facing space radiation could face temporary hindrance of their memory centres. While this does not affect their intellectual capabilities, it temporarily hinders formation of new cells in brain's memory centers. The study conducted by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) concluded this after they observed that mice exposed to neutron and gamma radiation did not impact the rodents' intellectual capabilities.[105]
+
+An astronaut on the International Space Station requires about 830 g (29 oz) mass of food inclusive of food packaging per meal each day. (The packaging mass for each meal is about 120 g or 4.2 oz) Longer-duration missions require more food.
+
+Shuttle astronauts worked with nutritionists to select menus that appeal to their individual tastes. Five months before flight, menus are selected and analyzed for nutritional content by the shuttle dietician. Foods are tested to see how they will react in a reduced gravity environment.  Caloric requirements are determined using a basal energy expenditure (BEE) formula.
+On Earth, the average American uses about 35 US gallons (130 L) of water every day.  On board the ISS astronauts limit water use to only about three US gallons (11 L) per day.[106]
+
+In Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation.  This follows the practice established in the USSR where cosmonauts were usually awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
+
+At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed 50 miles (80 km) in altitude.
+
+Eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have lost their lives during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American (including one born in India), four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli.
+
+Eleven people (all men) have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.
+
+The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of a U.S. Air Force X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.

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+
+
+
+
+An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists and tourists.[1][2]
+The root "naut" derives from "nautes", the Greek for "sailor."
+[3]
+
+Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.
+
+The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force, rather than aerodynamic force, carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi).[4] In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km)[5] are awarded astronaut wings.
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], a total of 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km (62 mi) or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond.[6]
+Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit, the lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon.[7] Three of the 24—Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan—did so twice.[8]
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above 50 miles (80 km) altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles (80 km) in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62 miles).[6] Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks.[9][10] As of 2016[update], the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space.[11] Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days.[12]
+
+In 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Dr. Hugh Dryden, discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called astronauts or cosmonauts. Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos (near space), while the "astro" prefix suggested flight to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term.[13] When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut".
+
+In English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an astronaut.[14] The term derives from the Greek words ástron (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society.[15]
+
+The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.[16]
+
+NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps.[17] The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.[18]
+
+By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts.[17] The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word kosmonavt (Russian: космонавт, Russian pronunciation: [kəsmɐˈnaft]), one who works in space outside the Earth's atmosphere, a space traveler,[19] which derives from the Greek words kosmos (κόσμος), meaning "universe", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian word kosmonavt, such as the Polish kosmonauta (although Polish also uses astronauta, and the two words are considered synonyms).[20]
+
+Coinage of the term kosmonavt has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or "cosmonautics") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974).[21][22] The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, also the first person in space. He was part of the first six Russians, with German Titov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Grigoriy Nelyubov, who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961.[23] Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963.[24] On March 14, 1995,[25] Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".[26][27]
+
+Yǔ háng yuán (宇航员, "Space-universe navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general,[28][29] while hángtiān yuán (航天员, "navigating outer space personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here, hángtiān (航天) is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system, i.e. solar system. The phrase tài kōng rén (太空人, "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.[30]
+
+The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China.[31] The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as a hybrid of the Chinese term Chinese: 太空 (tàikōng, 'space') and the Greek ναύτης (naútēs, 'sailor'); the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.[32] This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program.[33] The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih (趙裡昱) from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.[34][35]
+
+With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.
+
+While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a manned spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, i.e. the Soviet-led Interkosmos programme. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut (French spelling: spationaute) is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word spatium for "space", the Malay term angkasawan was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program, and the Indian Space Research Organisation hope to launch a spacecraft in 2022 that would carry vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word व्योमन् (vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space'). In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as sisunautti, from the Finnish word sisu.[36]
+
+As of 2020 in the United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency:
+
+The first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on April 12, 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.
+
+Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Freedom 7. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983.[39] In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.
+
+Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March 18, 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission.  This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission.[40]
+
+The first manned mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.
+
+The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13, respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket.[41] Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, on April 2, 1984.
+
+On July 23, 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37.[42] Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space.[43][44] The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985.[45][46] In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space.[47] In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station.[48]
+
+With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft.  In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of 8 Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010).[49]
+In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space.[50] In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space.[51]
+In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant.[52] In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.
+
+On October 15, 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.
+
+The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. (Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness).[53][54]
+The oldest person who has flown in space is John Glenn, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95.[55]
+
+438 days is the longest time spent in space, by Russian Valeri Polyakov.[9]
+As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (249,205 mi), when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency.[9]
+
+The first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova[56] aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission).
+Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed the 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles) line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight.[57][58] Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight. 
+The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.
+
+The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983.[59] In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler as a reporter for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut".[60][61][62] Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity.[61]
+
+The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on April 28, 2001.
+
+The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist.[63][64] Seven others have paid the Russian Space Agency to fly into space:
+
+The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959.[65] Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection.  Selection was initially limited to military pilots.[66][67] The earliest astronauts for both America and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.
+
+Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.[1][66] Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness (microgravity) in an aircraft called the "Vomit Comet," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights.[65] Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center.  Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base.
+
+Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle and, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there.[68]
+
+Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.[72][73]
+Barbara Morgan, selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985, is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist.[74]
+The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s.[75][76]
+
+Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare.[87][88][89]
+
+A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning, became more virulent when cultivated in space.[90] More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space.[91] Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space.[92][93]
+
+On December 31, 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.[94][95][96]
+
+In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.[97][98]
+
+Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP), has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
+
+On November 2, 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space, based on MRI studies. Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes.[99][100]
+
+Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system. Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts.[101]
+
+In October 2018, NASA-funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space, including travel to the planet Mars, may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely.[102]
+
+Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts.[103][104]
+
+A recent study by Russian scientists published in April 2019 stated that astronauts facing space radiation could face temporary hindrance of their memory centres. While this does not affect their intellectual capabilities, it temporarily hinders formation of new cells in brain's memory centers. The study conducted by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) concluded this after they observed that mice exposed to neutron and gamma radiation did not impact the rodents' intellectual capabilities.[105]
+
+An astronaut on the International Space Station requires about 830 g (29 oz) mass of food inclusive of food packaging per meal each day. (The packaging mass for each meal is about 120 g or 4.2 oz) Longer-duration missions require more food.
+
+Shuttle astronauts worked with nutritionists to select menus that appeal to their individual tastes. Five months before flight, menus are selected and analyzed for nutritional content by the shuttle dietician. Foods are tested to see how they will react in a reduced gravity environment.  Caloric requirements are determined using a basal energy expenditure (BEE) formula.
+On Earth, the average American uses about 35 US gallons (130 L) of water every day.  On board the ISS astronauts limit water use to only about three US gallons (11 L) per day.[106]
+
+In Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation.  This follows the practice established in the USSR where cosmonauts were usually awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
+
+At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed 50 miles (80 km) in altitude.
+
+Eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have lost their lives during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American (including one born in India), four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli.
+
+Eleven people (all men) have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.
+
+The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of a U.S. Air Force X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.

en/1338.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+Coordinates: 10°N 84°W / 10°N 84°W / 10; -84
+
+Costa Rica (/ˌkɒstə ˈriːkə/, US: /ˌkoʊstə/ (listen); Spanish: [ˈkosta ˈrika]; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: República de Costa Rica), is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around 5 million[4][5] in a land area of 51,060 square kilometers (19,714 square miles). An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, with around 2 million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.[9]
+
+The sovereign state is a unitary presidential constitutional republic. It is known for its long-standing and stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English.[10] The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%.[10] Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign manufacturing and services companies operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.[11]
+
+Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous peoples before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the First Mexican Empire, followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America, from which it formally declared independence in 1847. Following the brief Costa Rican Civil War in 1948, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army.[12][13][14]
+
+The country has consistently performed favorably in the Human Development Index (HDI), placing 68th in the world as of 2019[update], and fifth in Latin America.[8] It has also been cited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as having attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, with a better record on human development and inequality than the median of the region.[15]
+
+Costa Rica also has progressive environmental policies. It is the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability.[16] It was ranked 42nd in the world, and third in the Americas, in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index,[17] and was twice ranked the best performing country in the New Economics Foundation's (NEF) Happy Planet Index, which measures environmental sustainability,[18][19] and was identified by the NEF as the greenest country in the world in 2009.[20] Costa Rica plans to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021.[21][22][23] By 2019, 99.62% of its electricity was generated from green sources[24][25] particularly hydro, wind, geothermal and solar.[26]
+
+Historians have classified the indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also been described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area.
+
+Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BCE in the Turrialba Valley. The presence of Clovis culture type spearheads and arrows from South America opens the possibility that, in this area, two different cultures coexisted.[27]
+
+Agriculture became evident in the populations that lived in Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots. For the first and second millennia BCE there were already settled farming communities. These were small and scattered, although the timing of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main livelihood in the territory is still unknown.[28]
+
+The earliest use of pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds and other forms of vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modelled after animals have been found.[29]
+
+The impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations, since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with. Most of the native population was absorbed into the Spanish-speaking colonial society through inter-marriage, except for some small remnants, the most significant of which are the Bribri and Boruca tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in the southeastern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with Panama.
+
+The name la costa rica, meaning "rich coast" in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502,[30] and reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives.[31] The name may also have come from conquistador Gil González Dávila, who landed on the west coast in 1522, encountered natives, and obtained some of their gold, sometimes by violent theft and sometimes as gifts from local leaders.[32]
+
+During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In practice, the captaincy general was a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica's distance from the capital of the captaincy in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under Spanish law from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (i.e. Colombia), and lack of resources such as gold and silver, made Costa Rica into a poor, isolated, and sparsely-inhabited region within the Spanish Empire.[33] Costa Rica was described as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America" by a Spanish governor in 1719.[34]
+
+Another important factor behind Costa Rica's poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population available for encomienda (forced labor), which meant most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land, preventing the establishment of large haciendas (plantations). For all these reasons, Costa Rica was, by and large, unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. The circumstances during this period are believed to have led to many of the idiosyncrasies for which Costa Rica has become known, while concomitantly setting the stage for Costa Rica's development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a "rural democracy" with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a milder climate than that of the lowlands.[35]
+
+Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On 15 September 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica[36] even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812 that had been readopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in León.
+
+Upon independence, Costa Rican authorities faced the issue of officially deciding the future of the country. Two bands formed, the Imperialists, defended by Cartago and Heredia cities which were in favor of joining the Mexican Empire, and the Republicans, represented by the cities of San José and Alajuela who defended full independence. Because of the lack of agreement on these two possible outcomes, the first civil war of Costa Rica occurred. The Battle of Ochomogo took place on the Hill of Ochomogo, located in the Central Valley in 1823. The conflict was won by the Republicans and, as a consequence, the city of Cartago lost its status as the capital, which moved to San José.[37][38][39]
+
+In 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The considerable distance and poor communication routes between Guatemala City and the Central Plateau, where most of the Costa Rican population lived then and still lives now, meant the local population had little allegiance to the federal government in Guatemala. From colonial times to now, Costa Rica's reluctance to become economically tied with the rest of Central America has been a major obstacle to efforts for greater regional integration.[40]
+
+Until 1849, when it became part of Panama, Chiriquí was part of Costa Rica. Costa Rican pride was assuaged for the loss of this eastern (or southern) territory with the acquisition of Guanacaste, in the north.
+
+Coffee was first planted in Costa Rica in 1808,[41] and by the 1820s, it surpassed tobacco, sugar, and cacao as a primary export. Coffee production remained Costa Rica's principal source of wealth well into the 20th century, creating a wealthy class of growers, the so-called Coffee Barons.[42] The revenue helped to modernize the country.[43][44]
+
+Most of the coffee exported was grown around the main centers of population in the Central Plateau and then transported by oxcart to the Pacific port of Puntarenas after the main road was built in 1846.[44] By the mid-1850s the main market for coffee was Britain.[45] It soon became a high priority to develop an effective transportation route from the Central Plateau to the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, in the 1870s, the Costa Rican government contracted with U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith to build a railroad from San José to the Caribbean port of Limón. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, the railroad was completed in 1890.[46]
+
+Most Afro-Costa Ricans descend from Jamaican immigrants who worked in the construction of that railway and now make up about 3% of Costa Rica's population.[47] U.S. convicts, Italians and Chinese immigrants also participated in the construction project. In exchange for completing the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, which he used to produce bananas and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee as the principal Costa Rican export, while foreign-owned corporations (including the United Fruit Company later) began to hold a major role in the national economy and eventually became a symbol of the exploitative export economy.[48] The major labor dispute between the peasants and the United Fruit Company (The Great Banana Strike) was a major event in the country's history and was an important step that would eventually lead to the formation of effective trade unions in Costa Rica, as the company was required to sign a collective agreement with its workers in 1938.[49][50]
+
+Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability than many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late 19th century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917–19, General Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of Tinoco's regime led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948, José Figueres Ferrer led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (who had been president between 1940 and 1944) and Otilio Ulate Blanco.[51] With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century.
+
+The victorious rebels formed a government junta that abolished the military altogether, and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically elected assembly.[52] Having enacted these reforms, the junta transferred power to Ulate on 8 November 1949. After the coup d'état, Figueres became a national hero, winning the country's first democratic election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 14 presidential elections, the latest in 2018. With uninterrupted democracy dating back to at least 1948, the country is the region's most stable.[53][54]
+
+Costa Rica borders the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Costa Rica also borders Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south.
+
+The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó, at 3,819 metres (12,530 ft). The highest volcano in the country is the Irazú Volcano (3,431 m or 11,257 ft) and the largest lake is Lake Arenal. There are 14 known volcanoes in Costa Rica, and six of them have been active in the last 75 years.[55]
+
+Costa Rica experiences a tropical climate year round. There are two seasons. The "summer" or dry season is December to April, and "winter" or rainy season is May to November.
+
+There is a rich variety of plants and Costa Rican wildlife.
+
+One national park, the Corcovado National Park, is internationally renowned among ecologists for its biodiversity (including big cats and tapirs) and is where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife.[56][57] Corcovado is the one park in Costa Rica where all four Costa Rican monkey species can be found.[58] These include the white-headed capuchin, the mantled howler, the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey,[58][59] and the Central American squirrel monkey, found only on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and a small part of Panama, and considered endangered until 2008, when its status was upgraded to vulnerable. Deforestation, illegal pet-trading, and hunting are the main reasons for its threatened status.[60]
+
+The country has been considered economically stable with moderate inflation, estimated at 2.6% in 2017,[61] and moderately high growth in GDP, which increased from US$41.3 billion in 2011 to US$52.6 billion in 2015.[62] The estimated GDP for 2017 is US$61.5 billion and the estimated GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) is US$12,382.[61] The growing debt and budget deficit are the country's primary concerns.[63] A 2017 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that reducing the foreign debt must be a very high priority for the government. Other fiscal reforms were also recommended to moderate the budget deficit.[64]
+
+Many foreign companies (manufacturing and services) operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.[11] Well over half of that type of investment has come from the U.S.[65] According to the government, the zones supported over 82,000 direct jobs and 43,000 indirect jobs in 2015.[66] Companies with facilities in the America Free Zone in Heredia, for example, include Intel, Dell, HP, Bayer, Bosch, DHL, IBM and Okay Industries.[67][68]
+
+Of the GDP, 5.5% is generated by agriculture, 18.6% by industry and 75.9% by services. (2016)[61] Agriculture employs 12.9% of the labor force, industry 18.57%, services 69.02% (2016)[69] For the region, its unemployment level is moderately high (8.2% in 2016, according to the IMF).[61] Although 20.5% of the population lives below the poverty line (2017),[70] Costa Rica has one of the highest standards of living in Central America.[71]
+
+High quality health care is provided by the government at low cost to the users.[72] Housing is also very affordable. Costa Rica is recognized in Latin America for the quality of its educational system. Because of its educational system, Costa Rica has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America, 97%.[73] General Basic Education is mandatory and provided without cost to the user.[74] A US government report confirms that the country has "historically placed a high priority on education and the creation of a skilled work force" but notes that the high school drop-out rate is increasing. As well, Costa Rica would benefit from more courses in languages such as English, Portuguese, Mandarin and French and also in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).[73]
+
+Costa Rica has free trade agreements with many countries, including the US. There are no significant trade barriers that would affect imports and the country has been lowering its tariffs in accordance with other Central American countries.[75] The country's Free Trade Zones provide incentives for manufacturing and service industries to operate in Costa Rica. In 2015, the zones supported over 82 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs in 2015 and average wages in the FTZ were 1.8 times greater than the average for private enterprise work in the rest of the country.[66] In 2016, Amazon.com for example, had some 3,500 employees in Costa Rica and planned to increase that by 1,500 in 2017, making it an important employer.[10]
+
+The central location provides access to American markets and direct ocean access to Europe and Asia. The most important exports in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were medical instruments, bananas, tropical fruits, integrated circuits and orthopedic appliances.[76] Total imports in that year were US$15 billion. The most significant products imported in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were refined petroleum, automobiles, packaged medications, broadcasting equipment and computers. The total exports were US$12.6 billion for a trade deficit of US$2.39 billion in 2015.[76]
+
+Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism have become the prime industries in Costa Rica's economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location. Since 1999, tourism earns more foreign exchange than the combined exports of the country's three main cash crops: bananas and pineapples especially,[77] but also other crops, including coffee.[78] Coffee production played a key role in Costa Rica's history and in 2006, was the third cash crop export.[78] As a small country, Costa Rica now provides under 1% of the world's coffee production.[44] In 2015, the value of coffee exports was US$305.9 million, a small part of the total agricultural exports of US$2.7 billion.[77] Coffee production increased by 13.7% percent in 2015–16, declined by 17.5% in 2016–17, but was expected to increase by about 15% in the subsequent year.[79]
+
+Costa Rica has developed a system of payments for environmental services.[80] Similarly, Costa Rica has a tax on water pollution to penalize businesses and homeowners that dump sewage, agricultural chemicals, and other pollutants into waterways.[81] In May 2007, the Costa Rican government announced its intentions to become 100% carbon neutral by 2021.[82] By 2015, 93 percent of the country's electricity came from renewable sources.[83] In 2019, the country produced 99.62% of its electricity from renewable sources and ran completely on renewable sources for 300 continuous days.[84]
+
+In 1996, the Forest Law was enacted to provide direct financial incentives to landowners for the provision of environmental services.[80] This helped reorient the forestry sector away from commercial timber production and the resulting deforestation, and helped create awareness of the services it provides for the economy and society (i.e., carbon fixation, hydrological services such as producing fresh drinking water, biodiversity protection, and provision of scenic beauty).[80]
+
+A 2016 report by the U.S. government report identifies other challenges facing Costa Rica as it works to expand its economy by working with companies from the US (and probably from other countries).[73] The major concerns identified were as follows:
+
+Costa Rica is the most-visited nation in the Central American region,[86] with 2.9 million foreign visitors in 2016, up 10% from 2015.[87] In 2015, the tourism sector was responsible for 5.8% of the country's GDP, or $3.4 billion.[88] In 2016, the highest number of tourists came from the United States, with 1,000,000 visitors, followed by Europe with 434,884 arrivals.[89] According to Costa Rica Vacations, once tourists arrive in the country, 22% go to Tamarindo, 18% go to Arenal, 17% pass through Liberia (where the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport is located), 16% go to San José, the country's capital (passing through Juan Santamaría International Airport), while 18% choose Manuel Antonio and 7% Monteverde.[90]
+
+By 2004, tourism was generating more revenue and foreign exchange than bananas and coffee combined.[78][91] In 2016, the World Travel & Tourism Council's estimates indicated a direct contribution to the GDP of 5.1% and 110,000 direct jobs in Costa Rica; the total number of jobs indirectly supported by tourism was 271,000.[92]
+
+A pioneer of ecotourism, Costa Rica draws many tourists to its extensive series of national parks and other protected areas.[93] The trail Camino de Costa Rica supports this by allowing travelers to walk across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. In the 2011 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, Costa Rica ranked 44th in the world and second among Latin American countries after Mexico in 2011.[94] By the time of the 2017 report, the country had reached 38th place, slightly behind Panama.[95] The Ethical Traveler group's ten countries on their 2017 list of The World's Ten Best Ethical Destinations includes Costa Rica. The country scored highest in environmental protection among the winners.[96] Costa Rica began reversing deforestation in the 1990s, and they are moving towards using only renewable energy.[97]
+
+Costa Rica is composed of seven provinces, which in turn are divided into 81 cantons (Spanish: cantón, plural cantones), each of which is directed by a mayor. Mayors are chosen democratically every four years by each canton. There are no provincial legislatures. The cantons are further divided into 473 districts (distritos).
+
+Costa Rica is an active member of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations University of Peace are based in Costa Rica. It is also a member of many other international organizations related to human rights and democracy, such as the Community of Democracies. A main foreign policy objective of Costa Rica is to foster human rights and sustainable development as a way to secure stability and growth.[98]
+
+Costa Rica is a member of the International Criminal Court, without a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the United States military (as covered under Article 98). Costa Rica is an observer of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
+
+On 10 September 1961, some months after Fidel Castro declared Cuba a socialist state, Costa Rican President Mario Echandi ended diplomatic relations with Cuba through Executive Decree Number 2. This freeze lasted 47 years until President Óscar Arias Sánchez re-established normal relations on 18 March 2009, saying, "If we have been able to turn the page with regimes as profoundly different to our reality as occurred with the USSR or, more recently, with the Republic of China, how would we not do it with a country that is geographically and culturally much nearer to Costa Rica?" Arias announced that both countries would exchange ambassadors.[99]
+
+Costa Rica has a long-term disagreement with Nicaragua over the San Juan River, which defines the border between the two countries, and Costa Rica's rights of navigation on the river.[100] In 2010, there was also a dispute around Isla Calero, and the impact of Nicaraguan dredging of the river in that area.[101]
+
+On 14 July 2009, the International Court of Justice in the Hague upheld Costa Rica's navigation rights for commercial purposes to subsistence fishing on their side of the river. An 1858 treaty extended navigation rights to Costa Rica, but Nicaragua denied passenger travel and fishing were part of the deal; the court ruled Costa Ricans on the river were not required to have Nicaraguan tourist cards or visas as Nicaragua argued, but, in a nod to the Nicaraguans, ruled that Costa Rican boats and passengers must stop at the first and last Nicaraguan port along their route. They must also have an identity document or passport. Nicaragua can also impose timetables on Costa Rican traffic. Nicaragua may require Costa Rican boats to display the flag of Nicaragua, but may not charge them for departure clearance from its ports. These were all specific items of contention brought to the court in the 2005 filing.[102]
+
+On 1 June 2007, Costa Rica broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan, switching recognition to the People's Republic of China. Costa Rica was the first of the Central American nations to do so. President Óscar Arias Sánchez admitted the action was a response to economic exigency.[103] In response, the PRC built a new, $100 million, state-of-the-art football stadium in Parque la Sabana, in the province of San José. Approximately 600 Chinese engineers and laborers took part in this project, and it was inaugurated in March 2011, with a match between the national teams of Costa Rica and China.
+
+Costa Rica finished a term on the United Nations Security Council, having been elected for a nonrenewable, two-year term in the 2007 election. Its term expired on 31 December 2009; this was Costa Rica's third time on the Security Council. Elayne Whyte Gómez is the Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN Office at Geneva (2017) and President of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.[104]
+
+On December 1, 1948, Costa Rica abolished its military force.[53] In 1949, the abolition of the military was introduced in Article 12 of the Costa Rican Constitution. The budget previously dedicated to the military is now dedicated to providing health care services and education.[52][105] According to DW, "Costa Rica is known for its stable democracy, progressive social policies, such as free, compulsory public education, high social well-being, and emphasis on environmental protection."[54]
+
+In 2017, Costa Rica signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[106][107]
+
+The 2011 census counted a population of 4.3 million people[108] distributed among the following groups: 83.6% whites or mestizos, 6.7% mulattoes, 2.4% Native American, 1.1% black or Afro-Caribbean; the census showed 1.1% as Other, 2.9% (141,304 people) as None, and 2.2% (107,196 people) as unspecified.[1] By 2016, the UN estimation for the population was around 5 million.[4][5]
+
+In 2011, there were over 104,000 Native American or indigenous inhabitants, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (in the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (northern Alajuela), Bribri (southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Guaymí (southern Costa Rica, along the Panamá border), Boruca (southern Costa Rica) and Térraba [es] (southern Costa Rica).
+
+The population includes European Costa Ricans (of European ancestry), primarily of Spanish descent,[2] with significant numbers of Italian, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, and Polish families, as well a sizable Jewish community. The majority of the Afro-Costa Ricans are Creole English-speaking descendants of 19th century black Jamaican immigrant workers.[109][110]
+
+The 2011 census classified 83.6% of the population as white or Mestizo; the latter are persons of combined European and Amerindian descent. The Mulatto segment (mix of white and black) represented 6.7% and indigenous people made up 2.4% of the population.[2] Native and European mixed blood populations are far less than in other Latin American countries. Exceptions are Guanacaste, where almost half the population is visibly mestizo, a legacy of the more pervasive unions between Spanish colonists and Chorotega Amerindians through several generations, and Limón, where the vast majority of the Afro-Costa Rican community lives.
+
+Costa Rica hosts many refugees, mainly from Colombia and Nicaragua. As a result of that and illegal immigration, an estimated 10–15% (400,000–600,000) of the Costa Rican population is made up of Nicaraguans.[111][112] Some Nicaraguans migrate for seasonal work opportunities and then return to their country. Costa Rica took in many refugees from a range of other Latin American countries fleeing civil wars and dictatorships during the 1970s and 1980s, notably from Chile and Argentina, as well as people from El Salvador who fled from guerrillas and government death squads.[113]
+
+According to the World Bank, in 2010 about 489,200 immigrants lived in the country, many from Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, while 125,306 Costa Ricans live abroad in the United States, Panama, Nicaragua, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.[114] The number of migrants declined in later years but in 2015, there were some 420,000 immigrants in Costa Rica[115] and the number of asylum seekers (mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua) rose to more than 110,000, a fivefold increase from 2012.[116] In 2016, the country was called a "magnet" for migrants from South and Central America and other countries who were hoping to reach the U.S.[117][118]
+
+Religion in Costa Rica (CIEP 2018)[3]
+
+Christianity is Costa Rica's predominant religion, with Roman Catholicism being the official state religion according to the 1949 Constitution, which at the same time guarantees freedom of religion. It is the only state in the Americas which established Roman Catholicism as its state religion; other such countries are microstates in Europe: Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Vatican City and Malta.
+
+The Latinobarómetro survey of 2017 found that 57% of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholics, 25% are Evangelical Protestants, 15% report that they do not have a religion, and 2% declare that they belong to another religion.[119] This survey indicated a decline in the share of Catholics and rise in the share of Protestants and irreligious.[119] A University of Costa Rica survey of 2018 show similar rates; 52% Catholics, 22% Protestants, 17% irreligious and 3% other.[3] The rate of secularism is high by Latin American standards.
+
+Due to small, but continuous, immigration from Asia and the Middle East, other religions have grown, the most popular being Buddhism, with about 100,000 practitioners (over 2% of the population).[120] Most Buddhists are members of the Han Chinese community of about 40,000 with some new local converts. There is also a small Muslim community of about 500 families, or 0.001% of the population.[121]
+
+The Sinagoga Shaarei Zion synagogue[122] is near La Sabana Metropolitan Park in San José. Several homes in the neighborhood east of the park display the Star of David and other Jewish symbols.[123]
+
+The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims more than 35,000 members, and has a temple in San José that served as a regional worship center for Costa Rica.[124] However, they represent less than 1% of the population.[125][126]
+
+The primary language spoken in Costa Rica is Spanish, which features characteristics distinct to the country, a form of Central American Spanish. Costa Rica is a linguistically diverse country and home to at least five living local indigenous languages spoken by the descendants of pre-Columbian peoples: Maléku, Cabécar, Bribri, Guaymí, and Buglere.
+
+Of native languages still spoken, primarily in indigenous reservations, the most numerically important are the Bribri, Maléku, Cabécar and Ngäbere languages; some of these have several thousand speakers in Costa Rica while others have a few hundred. Some languages, such as Teribe and Boruca, have fewer than a thousand speakers. The Buglere language and the closely related Guaymí are spoken by some in southeast Puntarenas.[127]
+
+A Creole-English language, Jamaican patois (also known as Mekatelyu), is an English-based Creole language spoken by the Afro-Carib immigrants who have settled primarily in Limón Province along the Caribbean coast.[127]
+
+About 10.7% of Costa Rica's adult population (18 or older) also speaks English, 0.7% French, and 0.3% speaks Portuguese or German as a second language.[128]
+
+Costa Rica was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met. The northwest of the country, the Nicoya peninsula, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl cultural influence when the Spanish conquerors (conquistadores) came in the 16th century. The central and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. The Atlantic coast, meanwhile, was populated with African workers during the 17th and 18th centuries.
+
+As a result of the immigration of Spaniards, their 16th-century Spanish culture and its evolution marked everyday life and culture until today, with Spanish language and the Catholic religion as primary influences.
+
+The Department of Culture, Youth, and Sports is in charge of the promotion and coordination of cultural life. The work of the department is divided into Direction of Culture, Visual Arts, Scenic Arts, Music, Patrimony and the System of Libraries. Permanent programs, such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica and the Youth Symphony Orchestra, are conjunctions of two areas of work: Culture and Youth.[citation needed]
+
+Dance-oriented genres, such as soca, salsa, bachata, merengue, cumbia and Costa Rican swing are enjoyed increasingly by older rather than younger people. The guitar is popular, especially as an accompaniment to folk dances; however, the marimba was made the national instrument.
+
+In November 2017, National Geographic magazine named Costa Rica as the happiest country in the world.[129] The article included this summary: "Costa Ricans enjoy the pleasure of living daily life to the fullest in a place that mitigates stress and maximizes joy".[130] It is not surprising then that one of the most recognizable phrases among "Ticos" is "Pura Vida", pure life in a literal translation. It reflects the inhabitant's philosophy of life,[131] denoting a simple life, free of stress, a positive, relaxed feeling.[132] The expression is used in various contexts in conversation.[133] Often, people walking down the streets, or buying food at shops say hello by saying Pura Vida. It can be phrased as a question or as an acknowledgement of one's presence. A recommended response to "How are you?" would be "Pura Vida."[134] In that usage, it might be translated as "awesome", indicating that all is very well.[135] When used as a question, the connotation would be "everything is going well?" or "how are you?".[131]
+
+Costa Rica rates 12th on the 2017 Happy Planet Index in the World Happiness Report by the UN[136] but the country is said to be the happiest in Latin America. Reasons include the high level of social services, the caring nature of its inhabitants, long life expectancy and relatively low corruption.[137][138]
+
+Costa Rican cuisine is a blend of Native American, Spanish, African and many other cuisine origins. Dishes such as the very traditional tamale and many others made of corn are the most representative of its indigenous inhabitants, and similar to other neighboring Mesoamerican countries. Spaniards brought many new ingredients to the country from other lands, especially spices and domestic animals. And later in the 19th century, the African flavor lent its presence with influence from other Caribbean mixed flavors. This is how Costa Rican cuisine today is very varied, with every new ethnic group who had recently become part of the country's population influencing the country's cuisine.[139][unreliable source?]
+
+Costa Rica entered the Summer Olympics for the first time in 1936 with the fencer Bernardo de la Guardia and the Winter Olympics for the first time in 1980 with the skier Arturo Kinch. All four of Costa Rica's Olympic medals were won by the sisters Silvia and Claudia Poll in swimming, with Claudia winning the only gold medal in 1996.
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Costa Rica. The national team has played in five FIFA World Cup tournaments and reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 2014.[140][141] Its best performance in the regional CONCACAF Gold Cup was runner-up in 2002. Paulo Wanchope, a forward who played for three clubs in England's Premier League in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is credited with enhancing foreign recognition of Costa Rican football.[142]
+
+Basketball is also a popular sport in Costa Rica even though the country's national team has not yet qualified for a major international tournament such as the FIBA AmeriCup or the FIBA World Cup.[143]
+
+The literacy rate in Costa Rica is approximately 97 percent and English is widely spoken primarily due to Costa Rica's tourism industry.[73] When the army was abolished in 1949, it was said that the "army would be replaced with an army of teachers".[144] Universal public education is guaranteed in the constitution; primary education is obligatory, and both preschool and high school are free. Students who finish 11th grade receive a Costa Rican Bachillerato Diploma accredited by the Costa Rican Ministry of Education.
+
+There are both state and private universities. The University of Costa Rica has been awarded the title "Meritorious Institution of Costa Rican Education and Culture".
+
+A 2016 report by the U.S. government report identifies the current challenges facing the education system, including the high dropout rate among high school students. The country needs even more workers who are fluent in English and languages such as Portuguese, Mandarin and French. It would also benefit from more graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs, according to the report.[73]
+
+According to the UNDP, in 2010 the life expectancy at birth for Costa Ricans was 79.3 years.[145] The Nicoya Peninsula is considered one of the Blue Zones in the world, where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years.[146][147] The New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranked Costa Rica first in its 2009 Happy Planet Index, and once again in 2012. The index measures the health and happiness they produce per unit of environmental input.[18][19] According to NEF, Costa Rica's lead is due to its very high life expectancy which is second highest in the Americas, and higher than the United States. The country also experienced well-being higher than many richer nations and a per capita ecological footprint one-third the size of the United States.[148]
+
+In 2002, there were 0.58 new general practitioner (medical) consultations and 0.33 new specialist consultations per capita, and a hospital admission rate of 8.1%. Preventive health care is also successful. In 2002, 96% of Costa Rican women used some form of contraception, and antenatal care services were provided to 87% of all pregnant women. All children under one have access to well-baby clinics, and the immunization coverage rate in 2002 was above 91% for all antigens.[citation needed] Costa Rica has a very low malaria incidence of 48 per 100,000 in 2000 and no reported cases of measles in 2002. The perinatal mortality rate dropped from 12.0 per 1000 in 1972 to 5.4 per 1000 in 2001.[149]
+
+Costa Rica has been cited as Central America's great health success story.[150] Its healthcare system is ranked higher than that of the United States, despite having a fraction of its GDP.[151] Prior to 1940, government hospitals and charities provided most health care. But since the 1941 creation of the Social Insurance Administration (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS), Costa Rica has provided universal health care to its wage-earning residents, with coverage extended to dependants over time. In 1973, the CCSS took over administration of all 29 of the country's public hospitals and all health care, also launching a Rural Health Program (Programa de Salud Rural) for primary care to rural areas, later extended to primary care services nationwide. In 1993, laws were passed to enable elected health boards that represented health consumers, social insurance representatives, employers, and social organizations. By the year 2000, social health insurance coverage was available to 82% of the Costa Rican population. Each health committee manages an area equivalent to one of the 83 administrative cantons of Costa Rica. There is limited use of private, for-profit services (around 14.4% of the national total health expenditure). About 7% of GDP is allocated to the health sector, and over 70% is government funded.
+
+Primary health care facilities in Costa Rica include health clinics, with a general practitioner, nurse, clerk, pharmacist and a primary health technician. In 2008, there were five specialty national hospitals, three general national hospitals, seven regional hospitals, 13 peripheral hospitals, and 10 major clinics serving as referral centers for primary care clinics, which also deliver biopsychosocial services, family and community medical services and promotion and prevention programs. Patients can choose private health care to avoid waiting lists.[citation needed]
+
+Costa Rica is among the Latin America countries that have become popular destinations for medical tourism.[152][153] In 2006, Costa Rica received 150,000 foreigners that came for medical treatment.[152][153][154] Costa Rica is particularly attractive to Americans due to geographic proximity, high quality of medical services, and lower medical costs.[153]
+
+Since 2012, smoking in Costa Rica is subject to some of the most restrictive regulations in the world.

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@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+Coordinates: 10°N 84°W / 10°N 84°W / 10; -84
+
+Costa Rica (/ˌkɒstə ˈriːkə/, US: /ˌkoʊstə/ (listen); Spanish: [ˈkosta ˈrika]; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: República de Costa Rica), is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, and Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around 5 million[4][5] in a land area of 51,060 square kilometers (19,714 square miles). An estimated 333,980 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, with around 2 million people in the surrounding metropolitan area.[9]
+
+The sovereign state is a unitary presidential constitutional republic. It is known for its long-standing and stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English.[10] The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%.[10] Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign manufacturing and services companies operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.[11]
+
+Costa Rica was sparsely inhabited by indigenous peoples before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the First Mexican Empire, followed by membership in the United Provinces of Central America, from which it formally declared independence in 1847. Following the brief Costa Rican Civil War in 1948, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army.[12][13][14]
+
+The country has consistently performed favorably in the Human Development Index (HDI), placing 68th in the world as of 2019[update], and fifth in Latin America.[8] It has also been cited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as having attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, with a better record on human development and inequality than the median of the region.[15]
+
+Costa Rica also has progressive environmental policies. It is the only country to meet all five UNDP criteria established to measure environmental sustainability.[16] It was ranked 42nd in the world, and third in the Americas, in the 2016 Environmental Performance Index,[17] and was twice ranked the best performing country in the New Economics Foundation's (NEF) Happy Planet Index, which measures environmental sustainability,[18][19] and was identified by the NEF as the greenest country in the world in 2009.[20] Costa Rica plans to become a carbon-neutral country by 2021.[21][22][23] By 2019, 99.62% of its electricity was generated from green sources[24][25] particularly hydro, wind, geothermal and solar.[26]
+
+Historians have classified the indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also been described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area.
+
+Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BCE in the Turrialba Valley. The presence of Clovis culture type spearheads and arrows from South America opens the possibility that, in this area, two different cultures coexisted.[27]
+
+Agriculture became evident in the populations that lived in Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots. For the first and second millennia BCE there were already settled farming communities. These were small and scattered, although the timing of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main livelihood in the territory is still unknown.[28]
+
+The earliest use of pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds and other forms of vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modelled after animals have been found.[29]
+
+The impact of indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations, since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with. Most of the native population was absorbed into the Spanish-speaking colonial society through inter-marriage, except for some small remnants, the most significant of which are the Bribri and Boruca tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in the southeastern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with Panama.
+
+The name la costa rica, meaning "rich coast" in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502,[30] and reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives.[31] The name may also have come from conquistador Gil González Dávila, who landed on the west coast in 1522, encountered natives, and obtained some of their gold, sometimes by violent theft and sometimes as gifts from local leaders.[32]
+
+During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. In practice, the captaincy general was a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica's distance from the capital of the captaincy in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under Spanish law from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (i.e. Colombia), and lack of resources such as gold and silver, made Costa Rica into a poor, isolated, and sparsely-inhabited region within the Spanish Empire.[33] Costa Rica was described as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America" by a Spanish governor in 1719.[34]
+
+Another important factor behind Costa Rica's poverty was the lack of a significant indigenous population available for encomienda (forced labor), which meant most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their own land, preventing the establishment of large haciendas (plantations). For all these reasons, Costa Rica was, by and large, unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. The circumstances during this period are believed to have led to many of the idiosyncrasies for which Costa Rica has become known, while concomitantly setting the stage for Costa Rica's development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a "rural democracy" with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a milder climate than that of the lowlands.[35]
+
+Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On 15 September 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–21), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica[36] even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812 that had been readopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in León.
+
+Upon independence, Costa Rican authorities faced the issue of officially deciding the future of the country. Two bands formed, the Imperialists, defended by Cartago and Heredia cities which were in favor of joining the Mexican Empire, and the Republicans, represented by the cities of San José and Alajuela who defended full independence. Because of the lack of agreement on these two possible outcomes, the first civil war of Costa Rica occurred. The Battle of Ochomogo took place on the Hill of Ochomogo, located in the Central Valley in 1823. The conflict was won by the Republicans and, as a consequence, the city of Cartago lost its status as the capital, which moved to San José.[37][38][39]
+
+In 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The considerable distance and poor communication routes between Guatemala City and the Central Plateau, where most of the Costa Rican population lived then and still lives now, meant the local population had little allegiance to the federal government in Guatemala. From colonial times to now, Costa Rica's reluctance to become economically tied with the rest of Central America has been a major obstacle to efforts for greater regional integration.[40]
+
+Until 1849, when it became part of Panama, Chiriquí was part of Costa Rica. Costa Rican pride was assuaged for the loss of this eastern (or southern) territory with the acquisition of Guanacaste, in the north.
+
+Coffee was first planted in Costa Rica in 1808,[41] and by the 1820s, it surpassed tobacco, sugar, and cacao as a primary export. Coffee production remained Costa Rica's principal source of wealth well into the 20th century, creating a wealthy class of growers, the so-called Coffee Barons.[42] The revenue helped to modernize the country.[43][44]
+
+Most of the coffee exported was grown around the main centers of population in the Central Plateau and then transported by oxcart to the Pacific port of Puntarenas after the main road was built in 1846.[44] By the mid-1850s the main market for coffee was Britain.[45] It soon became a high priority to develop an effective transportation route from the Central Plateau to the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, in the 1870s, the Costa Rican government contracted with U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith to build a railroad from San José to the Caribbean port of Limón. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, the railroad was completed in 1890.[46]
+
+Most Afro-Costa Ricans descend from Jamaican immigrants who worked in the construction of that railway and now make up about 3% of Costa Rica's population.[47] U.S. convicts, Italians and Chinese immigrants also participated in the construction project. In exchange for completing the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, which he used to produce bananas and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee as the principal Costa Rican export, while foreign-owned corporations (including the United Fruit Company later) began to hold a major role in the national economy and eventually became a symbol of the exploitative export economy.[48] The major labor dispute between the peasants and the United Fruit Company (The Great Banana Strike) was a major event in the country's history and was an important step that would eventually lead to the formation of effective trade unions in Costa Rica, as the company was required to sign a collective agreement with its workers in 1938.[49][50]
+
+Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability than many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late 19th century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917–19, General Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of Tinoco's regime led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948, José Figueres Ferrer led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (who had been president between 1940 and 1944) and Otilio Ulate Blanco.[51] With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century.
+
+The victorious rebels formed a government junta that abolished the military altogether, and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically elected assembly.[52] Having enacted these reforms, the junta transferred power to Ulate on 8 November 1949. After the coup d'état, Figueres became a national hero, winning the country's first democratic election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then, Costa Rica has held 14 presidential elections, the latest in 2018. With uninterrupted democracy dating back to at least 1948, the country is the region's most stable.[53][54]
+
+Costa Rica borders the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Costa Rica also borders Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south.
+
+The highest point in the country is Cerro Chirripó, at 3,819 metres (12,530 ft). The highest volcano in the country is the Irazú Volcano (3,431 m or 11,257 ft) and the largest lake is Lake Arenal. There are 14 known volcanoes in Costa Rica, and six of them have been active in the last 75 years.[55]
+
+Costa Rica experiences a tropical climate year round. There are two seasons. The "summer" or dry season is December to April, and "winter" or rainy season is May to November.
+
+There is a rich variety of plants and Costa Rican wildlife.
+
+One national park, the Corcovado National Park, is internationally renowned among ecologists for its biodiversity (including big cats and tapirs) and is where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife.[56][57] Corcovado is the one park in Costa Rica where all four Costa Rican monkey species can be found.[58] These include the white-headed capuchin, the mantled howler, the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey,[58][59] and the Central American squirrel monkey, found only on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and a small part of Panama, and considered endangered until 2008, when its status was upgraded to vulnerable. Deforestation, illegal pet-trading, and hunting are the main reasons for its threatened status.[60]
+
+The country has been considered economically stable with moderate inflation, estimated at 2.6% in 2017,[61] and moderately high growth in GDP, which increased from US$41.3 billion in 2011 to US$52.6 billion in 2015.[62] The estimated GDP for 2017 is US$61.5 billion and the estimated GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) is US$12,382.[61] The growing debt and budget deficit are the country's primary concerns.[63] A 2017 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that reducing the foreign debt must be a very high priority for the government. Other fiscal reforms were also recommended to moderate the budget deficit.[64]
+
+Many foreign companies (manufacturing and services) operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives.[11] Well over half of that type of investment has come from the U.S.[65] According to the government, the zones supported over 82,000 direct jobs and 43,000 indirect jobs in 2015.[66] Companies with facilities in the America Free Zone in Heredia, for example, include Intel, Dell, HP, Bayer, Bosch, DHL, IBM and Okay Industries.[67][68]
+
+Of the GDP, 5.5% is generated by agriculture, 18.6% by industry and 75.9% by services. (2016)[61] Agriculture employs 12.9% of the labor force, industry 18.57%, services 69.02% (2016)[69] For the region, its unemployment level is moderately high (8.2% in 2016, according to the IMF).[61] Although 20.5% of the population lives below the poverty line (2017),[70] Costa Rica has one of the highest standards of living in Central America.[71]
+
+High quality health care is provided by the government at low cost to the users.[72] Housing is also very affordable. Costa Rica is recognized in Latin America for the quality of its educational system. Because of its educational system, Costa Rica has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America, 97%.[73] General Basic Education is mandatory and provided without cost to the user.[74] A US government report confirms that the country has "historically placed a high priority on education and the creation of a skilled work force" but notes that the high school drop-out rate is increasing. As well, Costa Rica would benefit from more courses in languages such as English, Portuguese, Mandarin and French and also in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).[73]
+
+Costa Rica has free trade agreements with many countries, including the US. There are no significant trade barriers that would affect imports and the country has been lowering its tariffs in accordance with other Central American countries.[75] The country's Free Trade Zones provide incentives for manufacturing and service industries to operate in Costa Rica. In 2015, the zones supported over 82 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs in 2015 and average wages in the FTZ were 1.8 times greater than the average for private enterprise work in the rest of the country.[66] In 2016, Amazon.com for example, had some 3,500 employees in Costa Rica and planned to increase that by 1,500 in 2017, making it an important employer.[10]
+
+The central location provides access to American markets and direct ocean access to Europe and Asia. The most important exports in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were medical instruments, bananas, tropical fruits, integrated circuits and orthopedic appliances.[76] Total imports in that year were US$15 billion. The most significant products imported in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were refined petroleum, automobiles, packaged medications, broadcasting equipment and computers. The total exports were US$12.6 billion for a trade deficit of US$2.39 billion in 2015.[76]
+
+Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism have become the prime industries in Costa Rica's economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location. Since 1999, tourism earns more foreign exchange than the combined exports of the country's three main cash crops: bananas and pineapples especially,[77] but also other crops, including coffee.[78] Coffee production played a key role in Costa Rica's history and in 2006, was the third cash crop export.[78] As a small country, Costa Rica now provides under 1% of the world's coffee production.[44] In 2015, the value of coffee exports was US$305.9 million, a small part of the total agricultural exports of US$2.7 billion.[77] Coffee production increased by 13.7% percent in 2015–16, declined by 17.5% in 2016–17, but was expected to increase by about 15% in the subsequent year.[79]
+
+Costa Rica has developed a system of payments for environmental services.[80] Similarly, Costa Rica has a tax on water pollution to penalize businesses and homeowners that dump sewage, agricultural chemicals, and other pollutants into waterways.[81] In May 2007, the Costa Rican government announced its intentions to become 100% carbon neutral by 2021.[82] By 2015, 93 percent of the country's electricity came from renewable sources.[83] In 2019, the country produced 99.62% of its electricity from renewable sources and ran completely on renewable sources for 300 continuous days.[84]
+
+In 1996, the Forest Law was enacted to provide direct financial incentives to landowners for the provision of environmental services.[80] This helped reorient the forestry sector away from commercial timber production and the resulting deforestation, and helped create awareness of the services it provides for the economy and society (i.e., carbon fixation, hydrological services such as producing fresh drinking water, biodiversity protection, and provision of scenic beauty).[80]
+
+A 2016 report by the U.S. government report identifies other challenges facing Costa Rica as it works to expand its economy by working with companies from the US (and probably from other countries).[73] The major concerns identified were as follows:
+
+Costa Rica is the most-visited nation in the Central American region,[86] with 2.9 million foreign visitors in 2016, up 10% from 2015.[87] In 2015, the tourism sector was responsible for 5.8% of the country's GDP, or $3.4 billion.[88] In 2016, the highest number of tourists came from the United States, with 1,000,000 visitors, followed by Europe with 434,884 arrivals.[89] According to Costa Rica Vacations, once tourists arrive in the country, 22% go to Tamarindo, 18% go to Arenal, 17% pass through Liberia (where the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport is located), 16% go to San José, the country's capital (passing through Juan Santamaría International Airport), while 18% choose Manuel Antonio and 7% Monteverde.[90]
+
+By 2004, tourism was generating more revenue and foreign exchange than bananas and coffee combined.[78][91] In 2016, the World Travel & Tourism Council's estimates indicated a direct contribution to the GDP of 5.1% and 110,000 direct jobs in Costa Rica; the total number of jobs indirectly supported by tourism was 271,000.[92]
+
+A pioneer of ecotourism, Costa Rica draws many tourists to its extensive series of national parks and other protected areas.[93] The trail Camino de Costa Rica supports this by allowing travelers to walk across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. In the 2011 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, Costa Rica ranked 44th in the world and second among Latin American countries after Mexico in 2011.[94] By the time of the 2017 report, the country had reached 38th place, slightly behind Panama.[95] The Ethical Traveler group's ten countries on their 2017 list of The World's Ten Best Ethical Destinations includes Costa Rica. The country scored highest in environmental protection among the winners.[96] Costa Rica began reversing deforestation in the 1990s, and they are moving towards using only renewable energy.[97]
+
+Costa Rica is composed of seven provinces, which in turn are divided into 81 cantons (Spanish: cantón, plural cantones), each of which is directed by a mayor. Mayors are chosen democratically every four years by each canton. There are no provincial legislatures. The cantons are further divided into 473 districts (distritos).
+
+Costa Rica is an active member of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations University of Peace are based in Costa Rica. It is also a member of many other international organizations related to human rights and democracy, such as the Community of Democracies. A main foreign policy objective of Costa Rica is to foster human rights and sustainable development as a way to secure stability and growth.[98]
+
+Costa Rica is a member of the International Criminal Court, without a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the United States military (as covered under Article 98). Costa Rica is an observer of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
+
+On 10 September 1961, some months after Fidel Castro declared Cuba a socialist state, Costa Rican President Mario Echandi ended diplomatic relations with Cuba through Executive Decree Number 2. This freeze lasted 47 years until President Óscar Arias Sánchez re-established normal relations on 18 March 2009, saying, "If we have been able to turn the page with regimes as profoundly different to our reality as occurred with the USSR or, more recently, with the Republic of China, how would we not do it with a country that is geographically and culturally much nearer to Costa Rica?" Arias announced that both countries would exchange ambassadors.[99]
+
+Costa Rica has a long-term disagreement with Nicaragua over the San Juan River, which defines the border between the two countries, and Costa Rica's rights of navigation on the river.[100] In 2010, there was also a dispute around Isla Calero, and the impact of Nicaraguan dredging of the river in that area.[101]
+
+On 14 July 2009, the International Court of Justice in the Hague upheld Costa Rica's navigation rights for commercial purposes to subsistence fishing on their side of the river. An 1858 treaty extended navigation rights to Costa Rica, but Nicaragua denied passenger travel and fishing were part of the deal; the court ruled Costa Ricans on the river were not required to have Nicaraguan tourist cards or visas as Nicaragua argued, but, in a nod to the Nicaraguans, ruled that Costa Rican boats and passengers must stop at the first and last Nicaraguan port along their route. They must also have an identity document or passport. Nicaragua can also impose timetables on Costa Rican traffic. Nicaragua may require Costa Rican boats to display the flag of Nicaragua, but may not charge them for departure clearance from its ports. These were all specific items of contention brought to the court in the 2005 filing.[102]
+
+On 1 June 2007, Costa Rica broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan, switching recognition to the People's Republic of China. Costa Rica was the first of the Central American nations to do so. President Óscar Arias Sánchez admitted the action was a response to economic exigency.[103] In response, the PRC built a new, $100 million, state-of-the-art football stadium in Parque la Sabana, in the province of San José. Approximately 600 Chinese engineers and laborers took part in this project, and it was inaugurated in March 2011, with a match between the national teams of Costa Rica and China.
+
+Costa Rica finished a term on the United Nations Security Council, having been elected for a nonrenewable, two-year term in the 2007 election. Its term expired on 31 December 2009; this was Costa Rica's third time on the Security Council. Elayne Whyte Gómez is the Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN Office at Geneva (2017) and President of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons.[104]
+
+On December 1, 1948, Costa Rica abolished its military force.[53] In 1949, the abolition of the military was introduced in Article 12 of the Costa Rican Constitution. The budget previously dedicated to the military is now dedicated to providing health care services and education.[52][105] According to DW, "Costa Rica is known for its stable democracy, progressive social policies, such as free, compulsory public education, high social well-being, and emphasis on environmental protection."[54]
+
+In 2017, Costa Rica signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[106][107]
+
+The 2011 census counted a population of 4.3 million people[108] distributed among the following groups: 83.6% whites or mestizos, 6.7% mulattoes, 2.4% Native American, 1.1% black or Afro-Caribbean; the census showed 1.1% as Other, 2.9% (141,304 people) as None, and 2.2% (107,196 people) as unspecified.[1] By 2016, the UN estimation for the population was around 5 million.[4][5]
+
+In 2011, there were over 104,000 Native American or indigenous inhabitants, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (in the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (northern Alajuela), Bribri (southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Guaymí (southern Costa Rica, along the Panamá border), Boruca (southern Costa Rica) and Térraba [es] (southern Costa Rica).
+
+The population includes European Costa Ricans (of European ancestry), primarily of Spanish descent,[2] with significant numbers of Italian, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, and Polish families, as well a sizable Jewish community. The majority of the Afro-Costa Ricans are Creole English-speaking descendants of 19th century black Jamaican immigrant workers.[109][110]
+
+The 2011 census classified 83.6% of the population as white or Mestizo; the latter are persons of combined European and Amerindian descent. The Mulatto segment (mix of white and black) represented 6.7% and indigenous people made up 2.4% of the population.[2] Native and European mixed blood populations are far less than in other Latin American countries. Exceptions are Guanacaste, where almost half the population is visibly mestizo, a legacy of the more pervasive unions between Spanish colonists and Chorotega Amerindians through several generations, and Limón, where the vast majority of the Afro-Costa Rican community lives.
+
+Costa Rica hosts many refugees, mainly from Colombia and Nicaragua. As a result of that and illegal immigration, an estimated 10–15% (400,000–600,000) of the Costa Rican population is made up of Nicaraguans.[111][112] Some Nicaraguans migrate for seasonal work opportunities and then return to their country. Costa Rica took in many refugees from a range of other Latin American countries fleeing civil wars and dictatorships during the 1970s and 1980s, notably from Chile and Argentina, as well as people from El Salvador who fled from guerrillas and government death squads.[113]
+
+According to the World Bank, in 2010 about 489,200 immigrants lived in the country, many from Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, while 125,306 Costa Ricans live abroad in the United States, Panama, Nicaragua, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador.[114] The number of migrants declined in later years but in 2015, there were some 420,000 immigrants in Costa Rica[115] and the number of asylum seekers (mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua) rose to more than 110,000, a fivefold increase from 2012.[116] In 2016, the country was called a "magnet" for migrants from South and Central America and other countries who were hoping to reach the U.S.[117][118]
+
+Religion in Costa Rica (CIEP 2018)[3]
+
+Christianity is Costa Rica's predominant religion, with Roman Catholicism being the official state religion according to the 1949 Constitution, which at the same time guarantees freedom of religion. It is the only state in the Americas which established Roman Catholicism as its state religion; other such countries are microstates in Europe: Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Vatican City and Malta.
+
+The Latinobarómetro survey of 2017 found that 57% of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholics, 25% are Evangelical Protestants, 15% report that they do not have a religion, and 2% declare that they belong to another religion.[119] This survey indicated a decline in the share of Catholics and rise in the share of Protestants and irreligious.[119] A University of Costa Rica survey of 2018 show similar rates; 52% Catholics, 22% Protestants, 17% irreligious and 3% other.[3] The rate of secularism is high by Latin American standards.
+
+Due to small, but continuous, immigration from Asia and the Middle East, other religions have grown, the most popular being Buddhism, with about 100,000 practitioners (over 2% of the population).[120] Most Buddhists are members of the Han Chinese community of about 40,000 with some new local converts. There is also a small Muslim community of about 500 families, or 0.001% of the population.[121]
+
+The Sinagoga Shaarei Zion synagogue[122] is near La Sabana Metropolitan Park in San José. Several homes in the neighborhood east of the park display the Star of David and other Jewish symbols.[123]
+
+The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims more than 35,000 members, and has a temple in San José that served as a regional worship center for Costa Rica.[124] However, they represent less than 1% of the population.[125][126]
+
+The primary language spoken in Costa Rica is Spanish, which features characteristics distinct to the country, a form of Central American Spanish. Costa Rica is a linguistically diverse country and home to at least five living local indigenous languages spoken by the descendants of pre-Columbian peoples: Maléku, Cabécar, Bribri, Guaymí, and Buglere.
+
+Of native languages still spoken, primarily in indigenous reservations, the most numerically important are the Bribri, Maléku, Cabécar and Ngäbere languages; some of these have several thousand speakers in Costa Rica while others have a few hundred. Some languages, such as Teribe and Boruca, have fewer than a thousand speakers. The Buglere language and the closely related Guaymí are spoken by some in southeast Puntarenas.[127]
+
+A Creole-English language, Jamaican patois (also known as Mekatelyu), is an English-based Creole language spoken by the Afro-Carib immigrants who have settled primarily in Limón Province along the Caribbean coast.[127]
+
+About 10.7% of Costa Rica's adult population (18 or older) also speaks English, 0.7% French, and 0.3% speaks Portuguese or German as a second language.[128]
+
+Costa Rica was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met. The northwest of the country, the Nicoya peninsula, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl cultural influence when the Spanish conquerors (conquistadores) came in the 16th century. The central and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. The Atlantic coast, meanwhile, was populated with African workers during the 17th and 18th centuries.
+
+As a result of the immigration of Spaniards, their 16th-century Spanish culture and its evolution marked everyday life and culture until today, with Spanish language and the Catholic religion as primary influences.
+
+The Department of Culture, Youth, and Sports is in charge of the promotion and coordination of cultural life. The work of the department is divided into Direction of Culture, Visual Arts, Scenic Arts, Music, Patrimony and the System of Libraries. Permanent programs, such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica and the Youth Symphony Orchestra, are conjunctions of two areas of work: Culture and Youth.[citation needed]
+
+Dance-oriented genres, such as soca, salsa, bachata, merengue, cumbia and Costa Rican swing are enjoyed increasingly by older rather than younger people. The guitar is popular, especially as an accompaniment to folk dances; however, the marimba was made the national instrument.
+
+In November 2017, National Geographic magazine named Costa Rica as the happiest country in the world.[129] The article included this summary: "Costa Ricans enjoy the pleasure of living daily life to the fullest in a place that mitigates stress and maximizes joy".[130] It is not surprising then that one of the most recognizable phrases among "Ticos" is "Pura Vida", pure life in a literal translation. It reflects the inhabitant's philosophy of life,[131] denoting a simple life, free of stress, a positive, relaxed feeling.[132] The expression is used in various contexts in conversation.[133] Often, people walking down the streets, or buying food at shops say hello by saying Pura Vida. It can be phrased as a question or as an acknowledgement of one's presence. A recommended response to "How are you?" would be "Pura Vida."[134] In that usage, it might be translated as "awesome", indicating that all is very well.[135] When used as a question, the connotation would be "everything is going well?" or "how are you?".[131]
+
+Costa Rica rates 12th on the 2017 Happy Planet Index in the World Happiness Report by the UN[136] but the country is said to be the happiest in Latin America. Reasons include the high level of social services, the caring nature of its inhabitants, long life expectancy and relatively low corruption.[137][138]
+
+Costa Rican cuisine is a blend of Native American, Spanish, African and many other cuisine origins. Dishes such as the very traditional tamale and many others made of corn are the most representative of its indigenous inhabitants, and similar to other neighboring Mesoamerican countries. Spaniards brought many new ingredients to the country from other lands, especially spices and domestic animals. And later in the 19th century, the African flavor lent its presence with influence from other Caribbean mixed flavors. This is how Costa Rican cuisine today is very varied, with every new ethnic group who had recently become part of the country's population influencing the country's cuisine.[139][unreliable source?]
+
+Costa Rica entered the Summer Olympics for the first time in 1936 with the fencer Bernardo de la Guardia and the Winter Olympics for the first time in 1980 with the skier Arturo Kinch. All four of Costa Rica's Olympic medals were won by the sisters Silvia and Claudia Poll in swimming, with Claudia winning the only gold medal in 1996.
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Costa Rica. The national team has played in five FIFA World Cup tournaments and reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 2014.[140][141] Its best performance in the regional CONCACAF Gold Cup was runner-up in 2002. Paulo Wanchope, a forward who played for three clubs in England's Premier League in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is credited with enhancing foreign recognition of Costa Rican football.[142]
+
+Basketball is also a popular sport in Costa Rica even though the country's national team has not yet qualified for a major international tournament such as the FIBA AmeriCup or the FIBA World Cup.[143]
+
+The literacy rate in Costa Rica is approximately 97 percent and English is widely spoken primarily due to Costa Rica's tourism industry.[73] When the army was abolished in 1949, it was said that the "army would be replaced with an army of teachers".[144] Universal public education is guaranteed in the constitution; primary education is obligatory, and both preschool and high school are free. Students who finish 11th grade receive a Costa Rican Bachillerato Diploma accredited by the Costa Rican Ministry of Education.
+
+There are both state and private universities. The University of Costa Rica has been awarded the title "Meritorious Institution of Costa Rican Education and Culture".
+
+A 2016 report by the U.S. government report identifies the current challenges facing the education system, including the high dropout rate among high school students. The country needs even more workers who are fluent in English and languages such as Portuguese, Mandarin and French. It would also benefit from more graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs, according to the report.[73]
+
+According to the UNDP, in 2010 the life expectancy at birth for Costa Ricans was 79.3 years.[145] The Nicoya Peninsula is considered one of the Blue Zones in the world, where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years.[146][147] The New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranked Costa Rica first in its 2009 Happy Planet Index, and once again in 2012. The index measures the health and happiness they produce per unit of environmental input.[18][19] According to NEF, Costa Rica's lead is due to its very high life expectancy which is second highest in the Americas, and higher than the United States. The country also experienced well-being higher than many richer nations and a per capita ecological footprint one-third the size of the United States.[148]
+
+In 2002, there were 0.58 new general practitioner (medical) consultations and 0.33 new specialist consultations per capita, and a hospital admission rate of 8.1%. Preventive health care is also successful. In 2002, 96% of Costa Rican women used some form of contraception, and antenatal care services were provided to 87% of all pregnant women. All children under one have access to well-baby clinics, and the immunization coverage rate in 2002 was above 91% for all antigens.[citation needed] Costa Rica has a very low malaria incidence of 48 per 100,000 in 2000 and no reported cases of measles in 2002. The perinatal mortality rate dropped from 12.0 per 1000 in 1972 to 5.4 per 1000 in 2001.[149]
+
+Costa Rica has been cited as Central America's great health success story.[150] Its healthcare system is ranked higher than that of the United States, despite having a fraction of its GDP.[151] Prior to 1940, government hospitals and charities provided most health care. But since the 1941 creation of the Social Insurance Administration (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS), Costa Rica has provided universal health care to its wage-earning residents, with coverage extended to dependants over time. In 1973, the CCSS took over administration of all 29 of the country's public hospitals and all health care, also launching a Rural Health Program (Programa de Salud Rural) for primary care to rural areas, later extended to primary care services nationwide. In 1993, laws were passed to enable elected health boards that represented health consumers, social insurance representatives, employers, and social organizations. By the year 2000, social health insurance coverage was available to 82% of the Costa Rican population. Each health committee manages an area equivalent to one of the 83 administrative cantons of Costa Rica. There is limited use of private, for-profit services (around 14.4% of the national total health expenditure). About 7% of GDP is allocated to the health sector, and over 70% is government funded.
+
+Primary health care facilities in Costa Rica include health clinics, with a general practitioner, nurse, clerk, pharmacist and a primary health technician. In 2008, there were five specialty national hospitals, three general national hospitals, seven regional hospitals, 13 peripheral hospitals, and 10 major clinics serving as referral centers for primary care clinics, which also deliver biopsychosocial services, family and community medical services and promotion and prevention programs. Patients can choose private health care to avoid waiting lists.[citation needed]
+
+Costa Rica is among the Latin America countries that have become popular destinations for medical tourism.[152][153] In 2006, Costa Rica received 150,000 foreigners that came for medical treatment.[152][153][154] Costa Rica is particularly attractive to Americans due to geographic proximity, high quality of medical services, and lower medical costs.[153]
+
+Since 2012, smoking in Costa Rica is subject to some of the most restrictive regulations in the world.

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+
+Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer. He is one of the most influential and extensively studied filmmakers in the history of cinema.[1] Known as the "Master of Suspense", he directed over 50 feature films[a] in a career spanning six decades, becoming as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing of the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–1965). His films garnered a total of 46 Oscar nominations and 6 wins.
+
+Born in Leytonstone, London, Hitchcock entered the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer after training as a technical clerk and copy writer for a telegraph-cable company. He made his directorial debut with the British-German silent film The Pleasure Garden (1925). His first successful film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), helped to shape the thriller genre, while his 1929 film, Blackmail, was the first British "talkie".[4] Two of his 1930s thrillers, The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century.
+
+By 1939, Hitchcock was a filmmaker of international importance, and film producer David O. Selznick persuaded him to move to Hollywood. A string of successful films followed, including Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion (1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Notorious (1946). Rebecca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, although Hitchcock himself was only nominated as Best Director;[5] he was also nominated for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945), although he never won the Best Director Academy Award.
+
+The "Hitchcockian" style includes the use of camera movement to mimic a person's gaze, thereby turning viewers into voyeurs, and framing shots to maximise anxiety and fear. The film critic Robin Wood wrote that the meaning of a Hitchcock film "is there in the method, in the progression from shot to shot. A Hitchcock film is an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole."[6]
+
+After a brief lull of commercial success in the late 1940s, Hitchcock returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M For Murder (1954).  By 1960 Hitchcock had directed four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959), and Psycho (1960), the first and last of these garnering him Best Director nominations.[7] In 2012, Vertigo replaced Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) as the British Film Institute's greatest film ever made based on its world-wide poll of hundreds of film critics.[8] By 2018 eight of his films had been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry,[b]  including his personal favourite, Shadow of a Doubt (1943).[c] He received the BAFTA Fellowship in 1971, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979 and was knighted in December that year, four months before he died.[11]
+
+Hitchcock was born on 13 August 1899 in the flat above his parents' leased grocer's shop at 517 High Road, Leytonstone, on the outskirts of east London (then part of Essex), the youngest of three children: William Daniel (1890–1943), Ellen Kathleen ("Nellie") (1892–1979), and Alfred Joseph (1899-1980). His parents, Emma Jane Hitchcock, née Whelan (1863–1942), and William Edgar Hitchcock (1862–1914), were both Roman Catholics, with partial roots in Ireland;[12][13] William was a greengrocer as his father had been.[14]
+
+There was a large extended family, including Uncle John Hitchcock with his five-bedroom Victorian house on Campion Road, Putney, complete with maid, cook, chauffeur and gardener. Every summer John rented a seaside house for the family in Cliftonville, Kent. Hitchcock said that he first became class-conscious there, noticing the differences between tourists and locals.[15]
+
+Describing himself as a well-behaved boy—his father called him his "little lamb without a spot"—Hitchcock said he could not remember ever having had a playmate.[16] One of his favourite stories for interviewers was about his father sending him to the local police station with a note when he was five; the policeman looked at the note and locked him in a cell for a few minutes, saying, "This is what we do to naughty boys." The experience left him, he said, with a lifelong fear of policemen; in 1973 he told Tom Snyder that he was "scared stiff of anything ... to do with the law" and wouldn't even drive a car in case he got a parking ticket.[17]
+
+When he was six, the family moved to Limehouse and leased two stores at 130 and 175 Salmon Lane, which they ran as a fish-and-chips shop and fishmongers' respectively; they lived above the former.[18] It seems that Hitchcock was seven when he attended his first school, the Howrah House Convent in Poplar, which he entered in 1907.[19] According to Patrick McGilligan, he stayed at Howrah House for at most two years. He also attended a convent school, the Wode Street School "for the daughters of gentlemen and little boys", run by the Faithful Companions of Jesus; briefly attended a primary school near his home; and was for a very short time, when he was nine, a boarder at Salesian College in Battersea.[20]
+
+The family moved again when he was 11, this time to Stepney, and on 5 October 1910 Hitchcock was sent to St Ignatius College in Stamford Hill, Tottenham (now in the London Borough of Haringey), a Jesuit grammar school with a reputation for discipline.[22] The priests used a hard rubber cane on the boys, always at the end of the day, so the boys had to sit through classes anticipating the punishment once they knew they'd been written up for it. He said it was here that he developed his sense of fear.[23] The school register lists his year of birth as 1900 rather than 1899; Spoto writes that it seems he was deliberately enrolled as a 10-year-old, perhaps because he was a year behind with his schooling.[24]
+
+While biographer Gene Adair reports that Hitchcock was "an average, or slightly above-average, pupil",[25] Hitchcock said he was "usually among the four or five at the top of the class";[26] at the end of his first year, his work in Latin, English, French and religious education was noted.[27] His favourite subject was geography, and he became interested in maps, and railway and bus timetables; according to Taylor, he could recite all the stops on the Orient Express.[28] He told Peter Bogdanovich: "The Jesuits taught me organization, control and, to some degree, analysis."[25]
+
+Hitchcock told his parents that he wanted to be an engineer,[26] and on 25 July 1913,[29] he left St Ignatius and enrolled in night classes at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation in Poplar. In a book-length interview in 1962, he told François Truffaut that he had studied "mechanics, electricity, acoustics, and navigation".[26] Then on 12 December 1914 his father, who had been suffering from emphysema and kidney disease, died at the age of 52.[30] To support himself and his mother—his older siblings had left home by then—Hitchcock took a job, for 15 shillings a week (£73 in 2017),[31] as a technical clerk at the Henley Telegraph and Cable Company in Blomfield Street near London Wall.[32] He kept up his night classes, this time in art history, painting, economics, and political science.[33] His older brother ran the family shops, while he and his mother continued to live in Salmon Lane.[34]
+
+Hitchcock was too young to enlist when the First World War broke out in July 1914, and when he reached the required age of 18 in 1917, he received a C3 classification ("free from serious organic disease, able to stand service conditions in garrisons at home ... only suitable for sedentary work").[35] He joined a cadet regiment of the Royal Engineers and took part in theoretical briefings, weekend drills, and exercises. John Russell Taylor wrote that, in one session of practical exercises in Hyde Park, Hitchcock was required to wear puttees. He could never master wrapping them around his legs, and they repeatedly fell down around his ankles.[36]
+
+After the war, Hitchcock began dabbling in creative writing. In June 1919 he became a founding editor and business manager of Henley's in-house publication, The Henley Telegraph (sixpence a copy), to which he submitted several short stories.[37][d] Henley's promoted him to the advertising department, where he wrote copy and drew graphics for advertisements for electric cable. He apparently loved the job and would stay late at the office to examine the proofs; he told Truffaut that this was his "first step toward cinema".[26][45] He enjoyed watching films, especially American cinema, and from the age of 16 read the trade papers; he watched Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith and Buster Keaton, and particularly liked Fritz Lang's Der müde Tod (1921).[26]
+
+While still at Henley's, he read in a trade paper that Famous Players-Lasky, the production arm of Paramount Pictures, was opening a studio in London.[46] They were planning to film The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli, so he produced some drawings for the title cards and sent his work to the studio.[47][page needed] They hired him, and in 1919 he began working for Islington Studios in Poole Street, Hoxton, as a title-card designer.[46]
+
+Donald Spoto writes that most of the staff were Americans with strict job specifications, but the English workers were encouraged to try their hand at anything, which meant that Hitchcock gained experience as a co-writer, art director and production manager on at least 18 silent films.[48] The Times wrote in February 1922 about the studio's "special art title department under the supervision of Mr. A. J. Hitchcock".[49] His work there included Number 13 (1922), also known as Mrs. Peabody, cancelled because of financial problems—the few finished scenes are lost[50]—and Always Tell Your Wife (1923), which he and Seymour Hicks finished together when Hicks was about to give up on it.[46] Hicks wrote later about being helped by "a fat youth who was in charge of the property room ... [n]one other than Alfred Hitchcock".[51]
+
+When Paramount pulled out of London in 1922, Hitchcock was hired as an assistant director by a new firm run in the same location by Michael Balcon, later known as Gainsborough Pictures.[46][53] Hitchcock worked on Woman to Woman (1923) with the director Graham Cutts, designing the set, writing the script and producing. He said: "It was the first film that I had really got my hands onto."[53] The editor and "script girl" on Woman to Woman was Alma Reville, his future wife. He also worked as an assistant to Cutts on The White Shadow (1924), The Passionate Adventure (1924), The Blackguard (1925), and The Prude's Fall (1925).[54] The Blackguard was produced at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, where Hitchcock watched part of the making of F. W. Murnau's film The Last Laugh (1924).[55] He was impressed with Murnau's work and later used many of his techniques for the set design in his own productions.[56]
+
+In the summer of 1925, Balcon asked Hitchcock to direct The Pleasure Garden (1925), starring Virginia Valli, a co-production of Gainsborough and the German firm Emelka at the Geiselgasteig studio near Munich. Reville, by then Hitchcock's fiancée, was assistant director-editor.[57][50] Although the film was a commercial flop,[58] Balcon liked Hitchcock's work; a Daily Express headline called him the "Young man with a master mind".[59] Balcon asked him to direct a second film in Munich, The Mountain Eagle (1926), based on an original story titled Fear o' God.[60] The film is lost; Hitchcock called it "a very bad movie".[59][61]
+
+Hitchcock's luck changed with his first thriller, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), about the hunt for a serial killer who, wearing a black cloak and carrying a black bag, is murdering young blonde women in London, and only on Tuesdays.[62] A landlady suspects that her lodger is the killer, but he turns out to be innocent. To convey the impression footsteps were being heard from an upper floor, Hitchcock had a glass floor made so that the audience could see the lodger pacing up and down in his room above the landlady.[63] Hitchcock had wanted the leading man to be guilty, or for the film at least to end ambiguously, but the star was Ivor Novello, a matinée idol, and the "star system" meant that Novello could not be the villain. Hitchcock told Truffaut: "You have to clearly spell it out in big letters: 'He is innocent.'" (He had the same problem years later with Cary Grant in Suspicion (1941).)[64]
+
+Released in January 1927, The Lodger was a commercial and critical success in the UK.[65] Hitchcock told Truffaut that the film was the first of his to be influenced by the Expressionist techniques he had witnessed in Germany: "In truth, you might almost say that The Lodger was my first picture."[66] He made his first cameo appearance in the film because an extra was needed, and was depicted sitting in a newsroom. A second appearance, standing in a crowd as the leading man is arrested, is in doubt.[67][68]
+
+On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married the English-American screenwriter Alma Reville (1899–1982) at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington.[69] The couple honeymooned in Paris, Lake Como and St. Moritz, before returning to London to live in a leased flat on the top two floors of 153 Cromwell Road, Kensington.[70] Reville, who was born just hours after Hitchcock,[71] converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, apparently at the insistence of Hitchcock's mother; she was baptised on 31 May 1927 and confirmed at Westminster Cathedral by Cardinal Francis Bourne on 5 June.[72]
+
+In 1928, when they learned that she was pregnant, the Hitchcocks purchased "Winter's Grace", a Tudor farmhouse set in 11 acres on Stroud Lane, Shamley Green, Surrey, for £2,500.[73] Their daughter and only child, Patricia Alma Hitchcock, was born on 7 July that year.[74]
+
+Reville became her husband's closest collaborator; Charles Champlin wrote in 1982: "The Hitchcock touch had four hands, and two were Alma's."[75] When Hitchcock accepted the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979, he said he wanted to mention "four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter, Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville."[76] Reville wrote or co-wrote on many of Hitchcock's films, including Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion and The 39 Steps.
+
+Hitchcock began work on his tenth film, Blackmail (1929), when its production company, British International Pictures (BIP), converted its Elstree studios to sound. The film was the first British "talkie"; it followed the first American sound feature film, The Jazz Singer (1927).[4] Blackmail began the Hitchcock tradition of using famous landmarks as a backdrop for suspense sequences, with the climax taking place on the dome of the British Museum.[77] It also features one of his longest cameo appearances, which shows him being bothered by a small boy as he reads a book on the London Underground.[78] In the PBS series The Men Who Made The Movies, Hitchcock explained how he used early sound recording as a special element of the film, stressing the word "knife" in a conversation with the woman suspected of murder.[79][clarification needed] During this period, Hitchcock directed segments for a BIP revue, Elstree Calling (1930), and directed a short film, An Elastic Affair (1930), featuring two Film Weekly scholarship winners.[citation needed] An Elastic Affair is one of the lost films.[80]
+
+In 1933 Hitchcock was once again working for Michael Balcon at Gaumont-British.[citation needed] His first film for the company, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), was a success; his second, The 39 Steps (1935), was acclaimed in the UK and made Hitchcock a star in the US. It also established the quintessential English "Hitchcock blonde" (Madeleine Carroll) as the template for his succession of ice-cold, elegant leading ladies. Screenwriter Robert Towne remarked, "It's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with The 39 Steps".[81] This film was one of the first to introduce the "MacGuffin" plot device, a term coined by the English screenwriter Angus MacPhail.[82] The MacGuffin is an item or goal the protagonist is pursuing, one that otherwise has no narrative value; in The 39 Steps, the MacGuffin is a stolen set of design plans.[83]
+
+Hitchcock released two spy thrillers in 1936. Sabotage was loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel, The Secret Agent (1907), about a woman who discovers that her husband is a terrorist, and Secret Agent, based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1928) by W. Somerset Maugham.[e]
+
+At this time, Hitchcock also became notorious for pranks against the cast and crew. These jokes ranged from simple and innocent to crazy and maniacal. For instance, he hosted a dinner party where he dyed all the food blue because, as he claimed, there weren't enough blue foods. He also had a horse delivered to the dressing room of his friend, actor Sir Gerald du Maurier.[84]
+
+Hitchcock's next major success was The Lady Vanishes (1938), "one of the greatest train movies from the genre's golden era", according to Philip French, in which Miss Froy (May Whitty), a British spy posing as a governess, disappears on a train journey through the fictional European country of Bandrika.[85] The film saw Hitchcock receive the 1938 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.[86] Benjamin Crisler, the New York Times film critic, wrote in June 1938: "Three unique and valuable institutions the British have that we in America have not: Magna Carta, the Tower Bridge and Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of screen melodramas in the world."[87]
+
+David O. Selznick signed Hitchcock to a seven-year contract beginning in March 1939, and the Hitchcocks moved to Hollywood.[88] In June that year Life magazine called him the "greatest master of melodrama in screen history".[89] The working arrangements with Selznick were less than ideal. Selznick suffered from constant financial problems, and Hitchcock was often unhappy about Selznick's creative control over his films. In a later interview, Hitchcock said: "[Selznick] was the Big Producer. ... Producer was king. The most flattering thing Mr. Selznick ever said about me—and it shows you the amount of control—he said I was the 'only director' he'd 'trust with a film'."[90] At the same time, Selznick complained about Hitchcock's "goddamn jigsaw cutting", which meant that the producer had to follow Hitchcock's vision of the finished product.[91]
+
+Selznick lent Hitchcock to the larger studios more often than producing Hitchcock's films himself. Selznick made only a few films each year, as did fellow independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, so he did not always have projects for Hitchcock to direct. Goldwyn had also negotiated with Hitchcock on a possible contract, only to be outbid by Selznick. Hitchcock was quickly impressed by the superior resources of the American studios compared to the financial limits he had often faced in Britain.[92]
+
+The Selznick picture Rebecca (1940) was Hitchcock's first American film, set in a Hollywood version of England's Cornwall and based on a novel by English novelist Daphne du Maurier. The film,  starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine,  concerns a naïve (and unnamed) young woman who marries a widowed aristocrat. She goes to live in his huge English country house, and struggles with the lingering reputation of his elegant and worldly first wife Rebecca, who died under mysterious circumstances. The film won Best Picture at the 13th Academy Awards; the statuette was given to Selznick, as the film's producer. Hitchcock was nominated for Best Director, his first of five such nominations.[5][93]
+
+Hitchcock's second American film was the thriller Foreign Correspondent (1940), set in Europe, based on Vincent Sheean's book Personal History (1935) and produced by Walter Wanger. It was nominated for Best Picture that year. Hitchcock felt uneasy living and working in Hollywood while his country was at war; his concern resulted in a film that overtly supported the British war effort.[94] Filmed in the first year of the Second World War, it was inspired by the rapidly changing events in Europe, as covered by an American newspaper reporter played by Joel McCrea. Mixing footage of European scenes with scenes filmed on a Hollywood backlot, the film avoided direct references to Nazism, Nazi Germany, and Germans, to comply with Hollywood's Motion Picture Production Code censorship at the time.[95][failed verification]
+
+In September 1940 the Hitchcocks bought the 200-acre (0.81 km2) Cornwall Ranch near Scotts Valley, California, in the Santa Cruz Mountains.[96] Their primary residence was an English-style home in Bel Air, purchased in 1942.[97] Hitchcock's films were diverse during this period, ranging from the romantic comedy Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) to the bleak film noir Shadow of a Doubt (1943).
+
+Suspicion (1941) marked Hitchcock's first film as a producer and director. It is set in England; Hitchcock used the north coast of Santa Cruz for the English coastline sequence. The film is the first of four projects on which Cary Grant worked with Hitchcock, and it is one of the rare occasions that Grant was cast in a sinister role. Grant plays Johnnie Aysgarth, an English con man whose actions raise suspicion and anxiety in his shy young English wife, Lina McLaidlaw (Joan Fontaine).[98] In one scene Hitchcock placed a light inside a glass of milk, perhaps poisoned, that Grant is bringing to his wife; the light makes sure that the audience's attention is on the glass. Grant's character is a killer in the book on which the film was based, Before the Fact by Francis Iles, but the studio felt that Grant's image would be tarnished by that. Hitchcock therefore settled for an ambiguous finale, although, as he told François Truffaut, he would have preferred to end with the wife's murder.[99][f] Fontaine won Best Actress for her performance.[101]
+
+Saboteur (1942) is the first of two films that Hitchcock made for Universal during the decade. Hitchcock was forced by Universal Studios to use Universal contract player Robert Cummings and Priscilla Lane, a freelancer who signed a one-picture deal with Universal, both known for their work in comedies and light dramas.[102] Breaking with Hollywood conventions of the time, Hitchcock did extensive location filming, especially in New York City, and depicted a confrontation between a suspected saboteur (Cummings) and a real saboteur (Norman Lloyd) atop the Statue of Liberty.[citation needed] He also directed Have You Heard? (1942), a photographic dramatisation for Life magazine of the dangers of rumours during wartime.[103] In 1943 he wrote a mystery story for Look magazine, "The Murder of Monty Woolley",[104] a sequence of captioned photographs inviting the reader to find clues to the murderer's identity; Hitchcock cast the performers as themselves, such as Woolley, Doris Merrick, and make-up man Guy Pearce.[citation needed]
+
+Shadow of a Doubt (1943) was Hitchcock's personal favourite and the second of the early Universal films. Charlotte "Charlie" Newton (Teresa Wright) suspects her beloved uncle Charlie Oakley (Joseph Cotten) of being a serial killer. Hitchcock again filmed extensively on location, this time in the Northern California city of Santa Rosa.[105]
+
+Working at 20th Century Fox, Hitchcock approached John Steinbeck with an idea for a film, which recorded the experiences of the survivors of a German U-boat attack. Steinbeck then began work on the script which would become the film Lifeboat (1944). However, Steinbeck was unhappy with the film and asked that his name be removed from the credits, to no avail. The idea was rewritten as a short story by Harry Sylvester and published in Collier's in 1943. The action sequences were shot in a small boat in the studio water tank. The locale posed problems for Hitchcock's traditional cameo appearance. That was solved by having Hitchcock's image appear in a newspaper that William Bendix is reading in the boat, showing the director in a before-and-after advertisement for "Reduco-Obesity Slayer".[106] He told Truffaut in 1962:
+
+At the time, I was on a strenuous diet, painfully working my way from three hundred to two hundred pounds. So I decided to immortalize my loss and get my bit part by posing for "before" and "after" pictures. ... I was literally submerged by letters from fat people who wanted to know where and how they could get Reduco.[107]
+
+Hitchcock's typical dinner before the weight loss had been a roast chicken, boiled ham, potatoes, bread, vegetables, relishes, salad, dessert, a bottle of wine and some brandy. To lose weight, he stopped drinking, drank black coffee for breakfast and lunch, and ate steak and salad for dinner, but it was hard to maintain; Spoto writes that his weight fluctuated considerably over the next 40 years. At the end of 1943, despite the weight loss, the Occidental Insurance Company of Los Angeles refused him life insurance.[108]
+
+— Alfred Hitchcock (1967)[109]
+
+Hitchcock returned to the UK for an extended visit in late 1943 and early 1944. While there he made two short propaganda films, Bon Voyage (1944) and Aventure Malgache (1944), for the Ministry of Information. In June and July 1945 Hitchcock served as "treatment advisor" on a Holocaust documentary that used Allied Forces footage of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The film was assembled in London and produced by Sidney Bernstein of the Ministry of Information, who brought Hitchcock (a friend of his) on board. It was originally intended to be broadcast to the Germans, but the British government deemed it too traumatic to be shown to a shocked post-war population. Instead, it was transferred in 1952 from the British War Office film vaults to London's Imperial War Museum and remained unreleased until 1985, when an edited version was broadcast as an episode of PBS Frontline, under the title the Imperial War Museum had given it: Memory of the Camps. The full-length version of the film, German Concentration Camps Factual Survey, was restored in 2014 by scholars at the Imperial War Museum.[110][111][112]
+
+Hitchcock worked for David Selznick again when he directed Spellbound (1945), which explores psychoanalysis and features a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí.[113] The dream sequence as it appears in the film is ten minutes shorter than was originally envisioned; Selznick edited it to make it "play" more effectively.[114] Gregory Peck plays amnesiac Dr. Anthony Edwardes under the treatment of analyst Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman), who falls in love with him while trying to unlock his repressed past.[115] Two point-of-view shots were achieved by building a large wooden hand (which would appear to belong to the character whose point of view the camera took) and out-sized props for it to hold: a bucket-sized glass of milk and a large wooden gun. For added novelty and impact, the climactic gunshot was hand-coloured red on some copies of the black-and-white film. The original musical score by Miklós Rózsa makes use of the theremin, and some of it was later adapted by the composer into Rozsa's Piano Concerto Op. 31 (1967) for piano and orchestra.[116][failed verification]
+
+Notorious (1946) followed Spellbound.
+Hitchcock told François Truffaut that Selznick had sold him, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and the screenplay by Ben Hecht, to RKO Radio Pictures as a "package" for $500,000 (equivalent to $6,555,461 in 2019) because of cost overruns on Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946).[citation needed] Notorious stars Bergman and Grant, both Hitchcock regulars, and features a plot about Nazis, uranium and South America. His prescient use of uranium as a plot device led to him being briefly placed under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[citation needed] According to McGilligan, in or around March 1945 Hitchcock and Ben Hecht consulted Robert Millikan of the California Institute of Technology about the development of a uranium bomb. Selznick complained that the notion was "science fiction", only to be confronted by the news of the detonation of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945.[117]
+
+Hitchcock formed an independent production company, Transatlantic Pictures, with his friend Sidney Bernstein. He made two films with Transatlantic, one of which was his first colour film. With Rope (1948), Hitchcock experimented with marshalling suspense in a confined environment, as he had done earlier with Lifeboat (1944). The film appears to have been shot in a single take, but it was actually shot in 10 takes ranging from 4-​1⁄2 to 10 minutes each; a 10-minute length of film was the most that a camera's film magazine could hold at the time. Some transitions between reels were hidden by having a dark object fill the entire screen for a moment. Hitchcock used those points to hide the cut, and began the next take with the camera in the same place. The film features James Stewart in the leading role, and was the first of four films that Stewart made with Hitchcock. It was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case of the 1920s.[citation needed] The film was not well received.[118]
+
+Under Capricorn (1949), set in 19th-century Australia, also uses the short-lived technique of long takes, but to a more limited extent. He again used Technicolor in this production, then returned to black-and-white films for several years. Transatlantic Pictures became inactive after these two unsuccessful films.[119][page needed][120][page needed] Hitchcock filmed Stage Fright (1950) at studios in Elstree, England, where he had worked during his British International Pictures contract many years before.[121] He matched one of Warner Bros.' most popular stars, Jane Wyman, with the expatriate German actor Marlene Dietrich and used several prominent British actors, including Michael Wilding, Richard Todd and Alastair Sim.[122] This was Hitchcock's first proper production for Warner Bros., which had distributed Rope and Under Capricorn, because Transatlantic Pictures was experiencing financial difficulties.[123]
+
+His film Strangers on a Train (1951) was based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. Hitchcock combined many elements from his preceding films. He approached Dashiell Hammett to write the dialogue, but Raymond Chandler took over, then left over disagreements with the director. In the film, two men casually meet, one of whom speculates on a foolproof method to murder; he suggests that two people, each wishing to do away with someone, should each perform the other's murder. Farley Granger's role was as the innocent victim of the scheme, while Robert Walker, previously known for "boy-next-door" roles, played the villain.[124] I Confess (1953) was set in Quebec with Montgomery Clift as a Catholic priest.[125]
+
+I Confess was followed by three colour films starring Grace Kelly: Dial M for Murder (1954), Rear Window (1954), and To Catch a Thief (1955). In Dial M for Murder, Ray Milland plays the villain who tries to murder his unfaithful wife (Kelly) for her money. She kills the hired assassin in self-defence, so Milland manipulates the evidence to make it look like murder. Her lover, Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings), and Police Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) save her from execution.[126] Hitchcock experimented with 3D cinematography for Dial M.[127]
+
+Hitchcock moved to Paramount Pictures and filmed Rear Window (1954), starring James Stewart and Kelly again, as well as Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Stewart's character is a photographer (based on Robert Capa) who must temporarily use a wheelchair. Out of boredom, he begins observing his neighbours across the courtyard, then becomes convinced that one of them (Raymond Burr) has murdered his wife. Stewart eventually manages to convince his policeman buddy (Wendell Corey) and his girlfriend (Kelly). As with Lifeboat and Rope, the principal characters are depicted in confined or cramped quarters, in this case Stewart's studio apartment. Hitchcock uses close-ups of Stewart's face to show his character's reactions, "from the comic voyeurism directed at his neighbours to his helpless terror watching Kelly and Burr in the villain's apartment".[128]
+
+From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host of the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents.[129] With his droll delivery, gallows humour and iconic image, the series made Hitchcock a celebrity. The title-sequence of the show pictured a minimalist caricature of his profile (he drew it himself; it is composed of only nine strokes), which his real silhouette then filled.[130] The series theme tune was Funeral March of a Marionette by the French composer Charles Gounod (1818–1893).[131]
+
+His introductions always included some sort of wry humour, such as the description of a recent multi-person execution hampered by having only one electric chair, while two are shown with a sign "Two chairs—no waiting!" He directed 18 episodes of the series, which aired from 1955 to 1965. It became The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962, and NBC broadcast the final episode on 10 May 1965. In the 1980s, a new version of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was produced for television, making use of Hitchcock's original introductions in a colourised form.[129]
+
+In 1955 Hitchcock became a United States citizen.[132] The same year, his third Grace Kelly film, To Catch a Thief, was released; it is set in the French Riviera, and pairs Kelly with Cary Grant. Grant plays retired thief John Robie, who becomes the prime suspect for a spate of robberies in the Riviera. A thrill-seeking American heiress played by Kelly surmises his true identity and tries to seduce him. "Despite the obvious age disparity between Grant and Kelly and a lightweight plot, the witty script (loaded with double entendres) and the good-natured acting proved a commercial success."[133] It was Hitchcock's last film with Kelly. She married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, and ended her film career. Hitchcock then remade his own 1934 film The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956. This time, the film starred James Stewart and Doris Day, who sang the theme song "Que Sera, Sera", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song and became a big hit for her. They play a couple whose son is kidnapped to prevent them from interfering with an assassination. As in the 1934 film, the climax takes place at the Royal Albert Hall, London.[134]
+
+The Wrong Man (1957), Hitchcock's final film for Warner Bros., is a low-key black-and-white production based on a real-life case of mistaken identity reported in Life magazine in 1953. This was the only film of Hitchcock to star Henry Fonda, playing a Stork Club musician mistaken for a liquor store thief, who is arrested and tried for robbery while his wife (Vera Miles) emotionally collapses under the strain. Hitchcock told Truffaut that his lifelong fear of the police attracted him to the subject and was embedded in many scenes.[135]
+
+Hitchcock's next film, Vertigo (1958) again starred James Stewart, this time with Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. He had wanted Vera Miles to play the lead, but she was pregnant. He told Oriana Fallaci: "I was offering her a big part, the chance to become a beautiful sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We'd have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children."[136]
+
+In the film, James Stewart plays Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession with a woman he has been hired to shadow (Kim Novak). Scottie's obsession leads to tragedy, and this time Hitchcock does not opt for a happy ending. Some critics, including Donald Spoto and Roger Ebert, agree that Vertigo is the director's most personal and revealing film, dealing with the Pygmalion-like obsessions of a man who crafts a woman into the woman he desires. Vertigo explores more frankly and at greater length his interest in the relation between sex and death than any other work in his filmography.[137]
+
+Vertigo contains a camera technique developed by Irmin Roberts, commonly referred to as a dolly zoom, that has been copied many times by filmmakers. The film premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, where Hitchcock won a Silver Seashell.[138][failed verification] Vertigo is considered a classic, but it attracted some negative reviews and poor box-office receipts at the time, and it was the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock.[139][need quotation to verify] In the 2002 Sight & Sound polls, it ranked just behind Citizen Kane (1941); ten years later, in the same magazine, critics chose it as the best film ever made.[8]
+
+Hitchcock followed Vertigo with three more successful films, which are also recognised as among his best: North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963). In North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue advertising executive who is mistaken for a government secret agent. He is hotly pursued across the United States by enemy agents, including (it appears) Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). Thornhill at first believes Kendall is helping him, then that she is an enemy agent; he eventually learns that she is working undercover for the CIA. During its opening two-week run at Radio City Music Hall, the film grossed $404,056 (equivalent to $3,543,793 in 2019), setting a record in that theatre's non-holiday gross.[140] Time magazine called the film "smoothly troweled and thoroughly entertaining".[141]
+
+Psycho (1960) is arguably Hitchcock's best-known film.[142] Based on Robert Bloch's novel Psycho (1959), which was inspired by the case of Ed Gein,[143] the film was produced on a constrained budget of $800,000 (equivalent to $6,913,836 in 2019) and shot in black-and-white on a spare set using crew members from Alfred Hitchcock Presents.[144] The unprecedented violence of the shower scene,[h] the early death of the heroine, and the innocent lives extinguished by a disturbed murderer became the hallmarks of a new horror-film genre.[146] The public loved the film, with lines stretching outside cinemas as people had to wait for the next showing. It broke box-office records in the United Kingdom, France, South America, the United States and Canada and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period.[119][page needed]
+
+The film was the most profitable of Hitchcock's career; he personally earned well in excess of $15 million (equivalent to $129.63 million in 2019). He subsequently swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder and his own boss at Universal, in theory at least, although that did not stop them from interfering with him.[119][page needed][120][page needed] Following the first film, Psycho became an American horror franchise: Psycho II, Psycho III, Bates Motel, Psycho IV: The Beginning, and a colour 1998 remake of the original.[147]
+
+On 13 August 1962, Hitchcock's 63rd birthday, the French director François Truffaut began a 50-hour interview of Hitchcock, filmed over eight days at Universal Studios, during which Hitchcock agreed to answer 500 questions. It took four years to transcribe the tapes and organise the images; it was published as a book in 1967, which Truffaut nicknamed the "Hitchbook". The audio tapes were used as the basis of a documentary in 2015.[148][149] Truffaut sought the interview because it was clear to him that Hitchcock was not simply the mass-market entertainer the American media made him out to be. It was obvious from his films, Truffaut wrote, that Hitchcock had "given more thought to the potential of his art than any of his colleagues". He compared the interview to "Oedipus' consultation of the oracle".[150]
+
+The film scholar Peter William Evans writes that The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964) are regarded as "undisputed masterpieces".[118] Hitchcock had intended to film Marnie first, and in March 1962 it was announced that Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco since 1956, would come out of retirement to star in it.[151] When Kelly asked Hitchcock to postpone Marnie until 1963 or 1964, he recruited Evan Hunter, author of The Blackboard Jungle (1954), to develop a screenplay based on a Daphne du Maurier short story, "The Birds" (1952), which Hitchcock had republished in his My Favorites in Suspense (1959). He hired Tippi Hedren to play the lead role.[152] It was her first role; she had been a model in New York when Hitchcock saw her, in October 1961, in an NBC television ad for Sego, a diet drink:[153] "I signed her because she is a classic beauty. Movies don't have them any more. Grace Kelly was the last." He insisted, without explanation, that her first name be written in single quotation marks: 'Tippi'.[i]
+
+In The Birds, Melanie Daniels, a young socialite, meets lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a bird shop; Jessica Tandy plays his possessive mother. Hedren visits him in Bodega Bay (where The Birds was filmed)[154] carrying a pair of lovebirds as a gift. Suddenly waves of birds start gathering, watching, and attacking. The question: "What do the birds want?" is left unanswered.[156] Hitchcock made the film with equipment from the Revue Studio, which made Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He said it was his most technically challenging film yet, using a combination of trained and mechanical birds against a backdrop of wild ones. Every shot was sketched in advance.[154]
+
+An HBO/BBC television film, The Girl (2012), depicted Hedren's experiences on set; she said that Hitchcock became obsessed with her and sexually harassed her. He reportedly isolated her from the rest of the crew, had her followed, whispered obscenities to her, had her handwriting analysed, and had a ramp built from his private office directly into her trailer.[157][158] Diane Baker, her co-star in Marnie, said: "[N]othing could have been more horrible for me than to arrive on that movie set and to see her being treated the way she was."[159] While filming the attack scene in the attic—which took a week to film—she was placed in a caged room while two men wearing elbow-length protective gloves threw live birds at her. Toward the end of the week, to stop the birds flying away from her too soon, one leg of each bird was attached by nylon thread to elastic bands sewn inside her clothes. She broke down after a bird cut her lower eyelid, and filming was halted on doctor's orders.[160]
+
+In June 1962, Grace Kelly announced that she had decided against appearing in Marnie (1964). Hedren had signed an exclusive seven-year, $500-a-week contract with Hitchcock in October 1961,[161] and he decided to cast her in the lead role opposite Sean Connery. In 2016, describing Hedren's performance as "one of the greatest in the history of cinema", Richard Brody called the film a "story of sexual violence" inflicted on the character played by Hedren: "The film is, to put it simply, sick, and it's so because Hitchcock was sick. He suffered all his life from furious sexual desire, suffered from the lack of its gratification, suffered from the inability to transform fantasy into reality, and then went ahead and did so virtually, by way of his art."[162] A 1964 New York Times film review called it Hitchcock's "most disappointing film in years", citing Hedren's and Connery's lack of experience, an amateurish script and "glaringly fake cardboard backdrops".[163]
+
+In the film, Marnie Edgar (Hedren) steals $10,000 (equivalent to $82,436 in 2019) from her employer and goes on the run. She applies for a job at Mark Rutland's (Connery) company in Philadelphia and steals from there too. Earlier she is shown having a panic attack during a thunderstorm and fearing the colour red. Mark tracks her down and blackmails her into marrying him. She explains that she does not want to be touched, but during the "honeymoon", Mark rapes her. Marnie and Mark discover that Marnie's mother had been a prostitute when Marnie was a child, and that, while the mother was fighting with a client during a thunderstorm—the mother believed the client had tried to molest Marnie—Marnie had killed the client to save her mother. Cured of her fears when she remembers what happened, she decides to stay with Mark.[162][164]
+
+No longer speaking to her because she had rebuffed him, Hitchcock apparently referred to Hedren throughout as "the girl" rather than by name. He told Robert Burks, the cinematographer, that the camera had to be placed as close as possible to Hedren when he filmed her face.[165] Evan Hunter, the screenwriter of The Birds who was writing Marnie too, explained to Hitchcock that, if Mark loved Marnie, he would comfort her, not rape her. Hitchcock reportedly replied: "Evan, when he sticks it in her, I want that camera right on her face!"[166] When Hunter submitted two versions of the script, one without the rape scene, Hitchcock replaced him with Jay Presson Allen.[167]
+
+Failing health reduced Hitchcock's output during the last two decades of his life. Biographer Stephen Rebello claimed Universal "forced" two movies on him, Torn Curtain (1966) and Topaz (1969).[120][page needed][119][page needed] Both were spy thrillers with Cold War-related themes. Torn Curtain, with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, precipitated the bitter end of the 12-year collaboration between Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann.[168] Hitchcock was unhappy with Herrmann's score and replaced him with John Addison, Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.[169] Topaz (1967), based on a Leon Uris novel, is partly set in Cuba. Both films received mixed reviews.[170][failed verification]
+
+Hitchcock returned to Britain to make his penultimate film, Frenzy (1972), based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square (1966). After two espionage films, the plot marked a return to the murder-thriller genre. Richard Blaney (Jon Finch), a volatile barman with a history of explosive anger, becomes the prime suspect in the investigation into the "Necktie Murders", which are actually committed by his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster). This time, Hitchcock makes the victim and villain kindreds, rather than opposites as in Strangers on a Train.[171]
+
+In Frenzy, Hitchcock allowed nudity for the first time. Two scenes show naked women, one of whom is being raped and strangled;[118] Spoto called the latter "one of the most repellent examples of a detailed murder in the history of film". Both actors, Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anna Massey, refused to do the scenes, so models were used instead.[172] Biographers have noted that Hitchcock had always pushed the limits of film censorship, often managing to fool Joseph Breen, the longtime head of Hollywood's Motion Picture Production Code. Many times Hitchcock slipped in subtle hints of improprieties forbidden by censorship until the mid-1960s. Yet McGilligan wrote that Breen and others often realised that Hitchcock was inserting such things and were actually amused, as well as alarmed by Hitchcock's "inescapable inferences".[173]
+
+Family Plot (1976) was Hitchcock's last film. It relates the escapades of "Madam" Blanche Tyler, played by Barbara Harris, a fraudulent spiritualist, and her taxi-driver lover Bruce Dern, making a living from her phony powers. While Family Plot was based on the Victor Canning novel The Rainbird Pattern (1972), the novel's tone is more sinister. Screenwriter Ernest Lehman originally wrote the film with a dark tone but was pushed to a lighter, more comical tone by Hitchcock.[citation needed]
+
+Toward the end of his life, Hitchcock was working on the script for a spy thriller, The Short Night, collaborating with James Costigan, Ernest Lehman and David Freeman. Despite preliminary work, it was never filmed. Hitchcock's health was declining and he was worried about his wife, who had suffered a stroke. The screenplay was eventually published in Freeman's book The Last Days of Alfred Hitchcock (1999).[174]
+
+Having refused a CBE in 1962,[175] Hitchcock was appointed a Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in the 1980 New Year Honours.[11][176] He was too ill to travel to London—he had a pacemaker and was being given cortisone injections for his arthritis—so on 3 January 1980 the British consul general presented him with the papers at Universal Studios. Asked by a reporter after the ceremony why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, "I suppose it was a matter of carelessness." Cary Grant, Janet Leigh, and others attended a luncheon afterwards.[177][178]
+
+His last public appearance was on 16 March 1980, when he introduced the next year's winner of the American Film Institute award.[177] He died of kidney failure the following month, on 29 April, in his Bel Air home.[97][179] Donald Spoto, one of Hitchcock's biographers, wrote that Hitchcock had declined to see a priest,[180] but according to Jesuit priest Mark Henninger, he and another priest, Tom Sullivan, celebrated Mass at the filmmaker's home, and Sullivan heard his confession.[181] Hitchcock was survived by his wife and daughter. His funeral was held at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills on 30 April, after which his body was cremated. His remains were scattered over the Pacific Ocean on 10 May 1980.[182]
+
+Hitchcock returned several times to cinematic devices such as the audience as voyeur,[183] suspense, the wrong man or woman, and the "MacGuffin," a plot device essential to the characters but irrelevant to the audience.[184]
+
+Hitchcock appears briefly in most of his own films. For example, he is seen struggling to get a double bass onto a train (Strangers on a Train), walking dogs out of a pet shop (The Birds), fixing a neighbour's clock (Rear Window), as a shadow (Family Plot), sitting at a table in a photograph (Dial M for Murder), and riding a bus (North by Northwest,  To Catch a Thief).[78]
+
+Hitchcock's portrayal of women has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Bidisha wrote in The Guardian in 2010: "There's the vamp, the tramp, the snitch, the witch, the slink, the double-crosser and, best of all, the demon mommy. Don't worry, they all get punished in the end."[185] In a widely cited essay in 1975, Laura Mulvey introduced the idea of the male gaze; the view of the spectator in Hitchcock's films, she argued, is that of the heterosexual male protagonist.[186] "The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again", Roger Ebert wrote in 1996. "They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerised the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated."[187][j]
+
+The victims in The Lodger are all blondes. In The 39 Steps (1935), Madeleine Carroll is put in handcuffs. Ingrid Bergman, whom Hitchcock directed three times (Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and Under Capricorn (1949)), is dark blonde. In Rear Window (1954), Lisa (Grace Kelly) risks her life by breaking into Lars Thorwald's apartment. In To Catch a Thief (1955), Francie (Grace Kelly again) offers to help a man she believes is a burglar. In Vertigo (1958) and North by Northwest (1959) respectively, Kim Novak and Eva Marie Saint play the blonde heroines. In Psycho (1960), Janet Leigh's character steals $40,000 (equivalent to $345,692 in 2019) and is murdered by Norman Bates, a reclusive psychopath. Tippi Hedren, a blonde, appears to be the focus of the attacks in The Birds (1963). In Marnie (1964), the title character, again played by Hedren, is a thief. In Topaz, French actresses Dany Robin as Stafford's wife and Claude Jade as Stafford's daughter are blonde heroines, the mistress was played by brunette Karin Dor. Hitchcock's last blonde heroine was Barbara Harris as a phony psychic turned amateur sleuth in Family Plot (1976), his final film. In the same film, the diamond smuggler played by Karen Black wears a long blonde wig in several scenes.
+
+His films often feature characters struggling in their relationships with their mothers, such as Norman Bates in Psycho. In North by Northwest (1959), Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is an innocent man ridiculed by his mother for insisting that shadowy, murderous men are after him. In The Birds (1963), the Rod Taylor character, an innocent man, finds his world under attack by vicious birds, and struggles to free himself from a clinging mother (Jessica Tandy). The killer in Frenzy (1972) has a loathing of women but idolises his mother. The villain Bruno in Strangers on a Train hates his father, but has an incredibly close relationship with his mother (played by Marion Lorne). Sebastian (Claude Rains) in Notorious has a clearly conflicting relationship with his mother, who is (rightly) suspicious of his new bride, Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman).[189]
+
+— Alfred Hitchcock (1967)[190][page needed]
+
+Hitchcock became known for having remarked that "actors are cattle".[191][k] During the filming of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941), Carole Lombard brought three cows onto the set wearing the name tags of Lombard, Robert Montgomery, and Gene Raymond, the stars of the film, to surprise him.[191] In an episode of The Dick Cavett Show, originally broadcast on June 8, 1972,  Dick Cavett stated as fact that Hitchcock had once called actors cattle. Hitchcock responded by saying that, at one time, he had been accused of calling actors cattle. “I said that I would never say such an unfeeling, rude thing about actors at all. What I probably said, was that all actors should be treated like cattle...In a nice way of course.” He then described Carole Lombard's joke, with a smile. [192]
+
+Hitchcock believed that actors should concentrate on their performances and leave work on script and character to the directors and screenwriters. He told Bryan Forbes in 1967: "I remember discussing with a method actor how he was taught and so forth. He said, 'We're taught using improvisation. We are given an idea and then we are turned loose to develop in any way we want to.' I said 'That's not acting. That's writing.' “[100]
+
+Recalling their experiences on Lifeboat for Charles Chandler, author of It's Only a Movie: Alfred Hitchcock A Personal Biography, Walter Slezak said that Hitchcock “knew more about how to help an actor than any director I ever worked with”, and Hume Cronyn dismissed the idea that Hitchcock was not concerned with his actors as “utterly fallacious”, describing at length the process of rehearsing and filming Lifeboat.[193]
+
+Critics observed that, despite his reputation as a man who disliked actors, actors who worked with him often gave brilliant performances. He used the same actors in many of his films; Cary Grant and James Stewart both worked with Hitchcock four times,[194] and Ingrid Bergman three. James Mason said that Hitchcock regarded actors as "animated props".[195] For Hitchcock, the actors were part of the film's setting. He told François Truffaut: "The chief requisite for an actor is the ability to do nothing well, which is by no means as easy as it sounds. He should be willing to be used and wholly integrated into the picture by the director and the camera. He must allow the camera to determine the proper emphasis and the most effective dramatic highlights."[196]
+
+Hitchcock planned his scripts in detail with his writers. In Writing with Hitchcock (2001), Steven DeRosa noted that Hitchcock supervised them through every draft, asking that they tell the story visually.[197] As Hitchcock told Roger Ebert in 1969:
+
+Once the screenplay is finished, I'd just as soon not make the film at all. All the fun is over. I have a strongly visual mind. I visualize a picture right down to the final cuts. I write all this out in the greatest detail in the script, and then I don't look at the script while I'm shooting. I know it off by heart, just as an orchestra conductor needs not look at the score. It's melancholy to shoot a picture. When you finish the script, the film is perfect. But in shooting it you lose perhaps 40 per cent of your original conception.[198]
+
+Hitchcock's films were extensively storyboarded to the finest detail. He was reported to have never even bothered looking through the viewfinder, since he did not need to, although in publicity photos he was shown doing so. He also used this as an excuse to never have to change his films from his initial vision. If a studio asked him to change a film, he would claim that it was already shot in a single way, and that there were no alternative takes to consider.[199]
+
+This view of Hitchcock as a director who relied more on pre-production than on the actual production itself has been challenged by Bill Krohn, the American correspondent of French film magazine Cahiers du cinéma, in his book Hitchcock at Work. After investigating script revisions, notes to other production personnel written by or to Hitchcock, and other production material, Krohn observed that Hitchcock's work often deviated from how the screenplay was written or how the film was originally envisioned.[200] He noted that the myth of storyboards in relation to Hitchcock, often regurgitated by generations of commentators on his films, was to a great degree perpetuated by Hitchcock himself or the publicity arm of the studios. For example, the celebrated crop-spraying sequence of North by Northwest was not storyboarded at all. After the scene was filmed, the publicity department asked Hitchcock to make storyboards to promote the film, and Hitchcock in turn hired an artist to match the scenes in detail.[201][verification needed]
+
+Even when storyboards were made, scenes that were shot differed from them significantly. Krohn's analysis of the production of Hitchcock classics like Notorious reveals that Hitchcock was flexible enough to change a film's conception during its production. Another example Krohn notes is the American remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, whose shooting schedule commenced without a finished script and moreover went over schedule, something that, as Krohn notes, was not an uncommon occurrence on many of Hitchcock's films, including Strangers on a Train and Topaz. While Hitchcock did do a great deal of preparation for all his films, he was fully cognisant that the actual film-making process often deviated from the best-laid plans and was flexible to adapt to the changes and needs of production as his films were not free from the normal hassles faced and common routines used during many other film productions.[201][verification needed]
+
+Krohn's work also sheds light on Hitchcock's practice of generally shooting in chronological order, which he notes sent many films over budget and over schedule and, more importantly, differed from the standard operating procedure of Hollywood in the Studio System Era. Equally important is Hitchcock's tendency to shoot alternative takes of scenes. This differed from coverage in that the films were not necessarily shot from varying angles so as to give the editor options to shape the film how they choose (often under the producer's aegis).[202][failed verification] Rather they represented Hitchcock's tendency to give himself options in the editing room, where he would provide advice to his editors after viewing a rough cut of the work.
+
+According to Krohn, this and a great deal of other information revealed through his research of Hitchcock's personal papers, script revisions and the like refute the notion of Hitchcock as a director who was always in control of his films, whose vision of his films did not change during production, which Krohn notes has remained the central long-standing myth of Alfred Hitchcock. Both his fastidiousness and attention to detail also found their way into each film poster for his films. Hitchcock preferred to work with the best talent of his day—film poster designers such as Bill Gold[203] and Saul Bass—who would produce posters that accurately represented his films.[201][verification needed]
+
+Hitchcock was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 8 February 1960 with two stars: one for television and a second for his motion pictures.[204] In 1978 John Russell Taylor described him as "the most universally recognizable person in the world" and "a straightforward middle-class Englishman who just happened to be an artistic genius".[178] In 2002 MovieMaker named him the most influential director of all time,[205] and a 2007 The Daily Telegraph critics' poll ranked him Britain's greatest director. David Gritten, the newspaper's film critic, wrote: "Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, Hitchcock did more than any director to shape modern cinema, which would be utterly different without him. His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else."[206]
+
+He won two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards, including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award[207] and, in 1979, an AFI Life Achievement Award.[11] He was nominated five times for an Academy Award for Best Director. Rebecca, nominated for 11 Oscars, won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1940; another Hitchcock film, Foreign Correspondent, was also nominated that year.[208] By 2018, eight of his films had been selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry: Rebecca (1940; inducted 2018), Shadow of a Doubt (1943; inducted 1991), Notorious (1946; inducted 2006), Rear Window (1954; inducted 1997), Vertigo (1958; inducted 1989), North by Northwest (1959; inducted 1995), Psycho (1960; inducted 1992), and The Birds (1963; inducted 2016).[9]
+
+In 2012 Hitchcock was selected by artist Sir Peter Blake, author of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, to appear in a new version of the cover, along with other British cultural figures, and he was featured that year in a BBC Radio 4 series, The New Elizabethans, as someone "whose actions during the reign of Elizabeth II have had a significant impact on lives in these islands and given the age its character".[209] In June 2013 nine restored versions of Hitchcock's early silent films, including The Pleasure Garden (1925), were shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre; known as "The Hitchcock 9", the travelling tribute was organised by the British Film Institute.[210]
+
+The Alfred Hitchcock Collection is housed at the Academy Film Archive in Hollywood, California. It includes home movies, 16mm film shot on the set of Blackmail (1929) and Frenzy (1972), and the earliest known colour footage of Hitchcock. The Academy Film Archive has preserved many of his home movies. The Alfred Hitchcock Papers are housed at the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.[211] The David O. Selznick and the Ernest Lehman collections housed at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in Austin, Texas, contain material related to Hitchcock's work on the production of The Paradine Case, Rebecca, Spellbound, North by Northwest and Family Plot.[212]
+
+Silent films
+
+Sound films
+
+"Brief Descriptions and Expanded Essays of National Film Registry Titles" Archived 1 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Library of Congress. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
+
+For the Snyder interview: Snyder, Tom (1973). "Alfred Hitchcock interview", Tomorrow, NBC, 00:01:55 Archived 3 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine.
+
+Weiler, A.H. (7 August 1959). "Hitchcock Takes Suspenseful Cook's Tour: North by Northwest Opens at Music Hall". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 September 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2017.
+
+Bradshaw, Peter (13 October 2017). "78/52 review – Hitchcock's Psycho shower scene gets an expert autopsy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 December 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
+
+Brody, Richard (2012). "Tippi Hedren's Silence". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 5 January 2018. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
+
+"The New Elizabethans – Alfred Hitchcock". BBC. Archived from the original on 25 November 2012. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
+
+Biographies
+(chronological)
+
+Miscellaneous
+

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+Coordinates: 8°N 5°W / 8°N 5°W / 8; -5
+
+Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire,[a] officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) to the south. The official language of the republic is French, with local indigenous languages also being widely used that include Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has large populations of Muslims, Christians (primarily Roman Catholics) and various indigenous religions.
+
+Before its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire and Baoulé. The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. It achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. Relatively stable by regional standards, Ivory Coast established close political and economic ties with its West African neighbors while at the same time maintaining close relations to the West, especially France. Ivory Coast experienced a coup d'état in 1999 and two religiously-grounded civil wars, first between 2002 and 2007[8] and again during 2010–2011. In 2000, the country adopted a new constitution.[9]
+
+Ivory Coast is a republic with strong executive power vested in its president. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, though it went through an economic crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. It was not until around 2014 that the gross domestic product again reached the level of its peak in the 1970s.[10] In the 21st century, the Ivorian economy has been largely market-based, and it still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production being predominant.[1]
+
+Originally, Portuguese and French merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa, very roughly, into four "coasts" reflecting local economies. The coast that the French named the Côte d'Ivoire and the Portuguese named the Costa Do Marfim —both, literally, mean "Coast of Ivory"— lay between what was known as the Guiné de Cabo Verde, so-called "Upper Guinea" at Cap-Vert, and Lower Guinea.[11][12] There was also a Pepper Coast, also known as the "Grain Coast" (present-day Liberia), a "Gold Coast" (Ghana), and a "Slave Coast" (Togo, Benin and Nigeria). Like those, the name "Ivory Coast" reflected the major trade that occurred on that particular stretch of the coast: the export of ivory.[13][11][14][15][16]
+
+Other names included the Côte de Dents,[b] literally "Coast of Teeth", again reflecting the trade in ivory;[18][19][13][12][16][20] the Côte de Quaqua, after the people whom the Dutch named the Quaqua (alternatively Kwa Kwa);[19][11][17] the Coast of the Five and Six Stripes, after a type of cotton fabric also traded there;[19] and the Côte du Vent,[c] the Windward Coast, after perennial local off-shore weather conditions.[13][11] One can find the name Cote de(s) Dents regularly used in older works.[19] It was used in Duckett's Dictionnaire (Duckett 1853) and by Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, for example, although Antoine François Prévost used Côte d'Ivoire.[20] In the 19th century, usage switched to Côte d'Ivoire.[19]
+
+The coastline of the modern state is not quite coterminous with what the 15th- and 16th-century merchants knew as the "Teeth" or "Ivory" coast, which was considered to stretch from Cape Palmas to Cape Three Points and which is thus now divided between the modern states of Ghana and Ivory Coast (with a minute portion of Liberia).[18][14][20][17] It retained the name through French rule and independence in 1960.[21] The name had long since been translated literally into other languages,[d] which the post-independence government considered increasingly troublesome whenever its international dealings extended beyond the Francophone sphere. Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared that Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire[23]) would be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and since then officially refuses to recognize or accept any translation from French to another language in its international dealings.[22][24][25]
+
+Despite the Ivorian government's request, the English translation "Ivory Coast" (often "the Ivory Coast") is still frequently used in English by various media outlets and publications.[e][f]
+
+The first human presence in Ivory Coast has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well preserved in the country's humid climate. However, newly found weapon and tool fragments (specifically, polished axes cut through shale and remnants of cooking and fishing) have been interpreted as a possible indication of a large human presence during the Upper Paleolithic period (15,000 to 10,000 BC),[34] or at the minimum, the Neolithic period.[35]
+
+The earliest known inhabitants of Ivory Coast have left traces scattered throughout the territory. Historians believe that they were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present indigenous inhabitants, who migrated south into the area before the 16th century. Such groups included the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri (Grand Lahou), Ega and Diès (Divo).[36]
+
+The first recorded history appears[when?] in the chronicles[where?] of North African (Berber) traders, who, from early Roman times, conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other goods. The southern terminals of the trans-Saharan trade routes were located on the edge of the desert, and from there supplemental trade extended as far south as the edge of the rain forest. The more important terminals—Djenné, Gao, and Timbuctu—grew into major commercial centres around which the great Sudanic empires developed.
+
+By controlling the trade routes with their powerful military forces, these empires were able to dominate neighbouring states. The Sudanic empires also became centres of Islamic education. Islam had been introduced in the western Sudan by Muslim Berber traders from North Africa; it spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers. From the 11th century, by which time the rulers of the Sudanic empires had embraced Islam, it spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Ivory Coast.
+
+The Ghana Empire, the earliest of the Sudanic empires, flourished in the region encompassing present-day southeast Mauritania and southern Mali between the 4th and 13th centuries. At the peak of its power in the 11th century, its realms extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu. After the decline of Ghana, the Mali Empire grew into a powerful Muslim state, which reached its apogee in the early part of the 14th century. The territory of the Mali Empire in Ivory Coast was limited to the north-west corner around Odienné.
+
+Its slow decline starting at the end of the 14th century followed internal discord and revolts by vassal states, one of which, Songhai, flourished as an empire between the 14th and 16th centuries. Songhai was also weakened by internal discord, which led to factional warfare. This discord spurred most of the migrations southward toward the forest belt. The dense rain forest covering the southern half of the country, created barriers to the large-scale political organizations that had arisen in the north. Inhabitants lived in villages or clusters of villages; their contacts with the outside world were filtered through long-distance traders. Villagers subsisted on agriculture and hunting.
+
+Five important states flourished in Ivory Coast during the pre-European early modern period. The Muslim Kong Empire was established by the Jola in the early 18th century in the north-central region inhabited by the Sénoufo, who had fled Islamization under the Mali Empire. Although Kong became a prosperous center of agriculture, trade, and crafts, ethnic diversity and religious discord gradually weakened the kingdom. In 1895 the city of Kong would be sacked and conquered by Samori Ture of the Wassoulou Empire.
+
+The Abron kingdom of Gyaaman was established in the 17th century by an Akan group, the Abron, who had fled the developing Ashanti confederation of Asanteman in what is present-day Ghana. From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the Dyula people in Bondoukou, who were recent arrivals from the market city of Begho. Bondoukou developed into a major center of commerce and Islam. The kingdom's Quranic scholars attracted students from all parts of West Africa. In the mid-17th century in east-central Ivory Coast, other Akan groups fleeing the Asante established a Baoulé kingdom at Sakasso and two Agni kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi.
+
+The Baoulé, like the Ashanti, developed a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers. It finally split into smaller chiefdoms. Despite the breakup of their kingdom, the Baoulé strongly resisted French subjugation. The descendants of the rulers of the Agni kingdoms tried to retain their separate identity long after Ivory Coast's independence; as late as 1969, the Sanwi attempted to break away from Ivory Coast and form an independent kingdom.[37] The current king of Sanwi is Amon N'Douffou V (since 2005).
+
+Compared to neighboring Ghana, Ivory Coast, though practicing slavery and slave raiding, suffered little from the slave trade as such. European slave and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast. The earliest recorded European voyage to West Africa was made by the Portuguese in 1482. The first West African French settlement, Saint Louis, was founded in the mid-17th century in Senegal, while at about the same time, the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at Goree Island, off Dakar. A French mission was established in 1637 at Assinie near the border with the Gold Coast (now Ghana). The Europeans suppressed the local practice of slavery at this time and forbade the trade to their merchants.
+
+Assinie's survival was precarious, however; the French were not firmly established in Ivory Coast until the mid-19th century. In 1843–4, French admiral Louis Edouard Bouët-Willaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions, making their territories a French protectorate. French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region. Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.
+
+Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, the Senegal and the Niger. Concerted French exploration of West Africa began in the mid-19th century, but moved slowly, based more on individual initiative than on government policy. In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African chiefs that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centres.
+
+The first posts in Ivory Coast included one at Assinie and another at Grand Bassam, which became the colony's first capital. The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts, and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or coutumes paid annually to the local chiefs for the use of the land. The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French, because trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose. Nevertheless, the French government maintained the treaties, hoping to expand trade.
+
+France also wanted to maintain a presence in the region to stem the increasing influence of the British along the Gulf of Guinea coast. The French built naval bases to keep out non-French traders and began a systematic pacification of the interior to stop raids on their settlements. They accomplished this only after a long war in the 1890s against Mandinka tribesmen, mostly from the Gambia. However, raids by the Baoulé and other eastern tribes continued until 1917.[citation needed]
+
+The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French province of Alsace-Lorraine caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants. The trading post at Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast was left in the care of a shipper from Marseille, Arthur Verdier, who in 1878 was named Resident of the Establishment of Ivory Coast.[37]
+
+In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior. In 1887, Lieutenant Louis Gustave Binger began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Ivory Coast's interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Ivory Coast. Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, Marcel Treich-Laplène, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.
+
+By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions of Ivory Coast, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. That same year, France named Treich-Laplène titular governor of the territory. In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, and Captain Binger was appointed governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons.
+
+France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, the French and British were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations and adopted the local forced-labor system.
+
+Throughout the early years of French rule, French military contingents were sent inland to establish new posts. Some of the native population and former slave-owning class resisted French settlers. Among those offering greatest resistance was Samori Ture, who in the 1880s and 1890s was conquering his neighbors, re-establishing slavery and founding the Wassoulou Empire, which extended over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Samori Ture's large, well-equipped army, which could manufacture and repair its own firearms, attracted some support throughout the region from chiefs who sought to play the two sides off against each other. The French responded to Samori Ture's expansion and conquest with military pressure. French campaigns against Samori Ture, which were met with greater resistance than usual in tribal warfare, intensified in the mid-1890s until he was captured in 1898 and his empire dissolved.
+
+France's imposition of a head tax in 1900 to support the colony's public works program provoked unexpected protests. Many Ivoirians saw the tax as a violation of the protectorate treaties because they felt that France was demanding the equivalent of a coutume from the local kings, rather than the reverse. Many, especially in the interior, also considered the tax a humiliating symbol of submission.[38] In 1905, the French officially abolished slavery in most of French West Africa.[39] From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of French West Africa. It was a colony and an overseas territory under the Third Republic. In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917–1919. Some 150,000 men from Ivory Coast died in World War I. Until the period following World War II, governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris. France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects", but without rights to representation in Africa or France.
+
+French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Based on the assumed superiority of French culture, in practice the assimilation policy meant the extension of French language, institutions, laws, and customs to the colonies. The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the colonizer and the colonized. Under this policy, the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests, such as the recent abolition of the slave trade.
+
+An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between French and Africans. After 1930, a small number of Westernized Ivoirians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship. Most Ivoirians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association.[40] As subjects of France, natives outside the above-mentioned civilized elite had no political rights. They were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility. They were expected to serve in the military and were subject to the indigénat, a separate system of law.[41]
+
+In World War II, the Vichy regime remained in control until 1942, when British troops invaded without much resistance. Winston Churchill gave power back to members of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government. By 1943, the Allies had returned French West Africa to the French. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946. French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished. Between the years 1944–1946 many national conferences and constituent assemblies took place between France's Vichy regime and provisional governments in Ivory Coast. Governmental reforms were established by late 1946, which granted French citizenship to all African "subjects" under the colonial control of the French.
+
+Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivoirian participation in policy-making. While British colonial administrations adopted divide-and-rule policies elsewhere, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite, the French were interested in ensuring that the small but influential elite was sufficiently satisfied with the status quo to refrain from anti-French sentiment. Although strongly opposed to the practices of association, educated Ivoirians believed that they would achieve equality with their French peers through assimilation rather than through complete independence from France. After the assimilation doctrine was implemented through the postwar reforms, though, Ivoirian leaders realized that even assimilation implied the superiority of the French over the Ivoirians. Some of them thought that discrimination and political inequality would end only with independence; others thought the problem of the division between the tribal culture and modernity would continue.[42]
+
+Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the son of a Baoulé chief, became Ivory Coast's father of independence. In 1944, he formed the country's first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers like himself. Angered that colonial policy favoured French plantation owners, the union members united to recruit migrant workers for their own farms. Houphouët-Boigny soon rose to prominence and within a year was elected to the French Parliament in Paris. A year later, the French abolished forced labour. Houphouët-Boigny established a strong relationship with the French government, expressing a belief that Ivory Coast would benefit from the relationship, which it did for many years. France appointed him as a minister, the first African to become a minister in a European government.
+
+A turning point in relations with France was reached with the 1956 Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre), which transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and also removed the remaining voting inequities. In 1958, Ivory Coast became an autonomous member of the French Community, which had replaced the French Union.
+
+At independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to further stimulate production, which was further boosted by a significant immigration of workers from surrounding countries. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Ivory Coast into third place in world output, behind Brazil and Colombia. By 1979, the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil. French technicians contributed to the "Ivoirian miracle". In other African nations, the people drove out the Europeans following independence, but in Ivory Coast, they poured in. The French community grew from only 30,000 prior to independence to 60,000 in 1980, most of them teachers, managers, and advisors.[43] For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10%—the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.
+
+Houphouët-Boigny's one-party rule was not amenable to political competition. Laurent Gbagbo, who would become the president of Ivory Coast in 2000, had to flee the country in the 1980s, after he incurred the ire of Houphouët-Boigny by founding the Front Populaire Ivoirien.[44] Houphouët-Boigny banked on his broad appeal to the population, who continued to elect him. He was criticized for his emphasis on developing large-scale projects.
+
+Many felt the millions of dollars spent transforming his home village, Yamoussoukro, into the new political capital were wasted; others supported his vision to develop a centre for peace, education, and religion in the heart of the country. In the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shock waves through the Ivoirian economy. Due to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased three-fold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan as an influx of villagers exacerbated unemployment caused by the recession.[45]
+
+In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multiparty democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble, and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.
+
+In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.
+
+Unlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful to avoid any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasized the concept of Ivoirité to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from foreign countries are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained, which resulted in two civil wars in the following decades.
+
+Similarly, Bedié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bedié fled into exile in France. The new leadership reduced crime and corruption, and the generals pressed for austerity and campaigned in the streets for a less wasteful society.
+
+A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was not peaceful. The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Following a public uprising that resulted in around 180 deaths, Guéï was swiftly replaced by Gbagbo. Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality. The existing and later reformed constitution [under Guéï] did not allow noncitizens to run for the presidency. This sparked violent protests in which his supporters, mainly from the country's north, battled riot police in the capital, Yamoussoukro.
+
+In the early hours of 19 September 2002, while the President was in Italy, an armed uprising occurred. Troops who were to be demobilised mutinied, launching attacks in several cities. The battle for the main gendarmerie barracks in Abidjan lasted until mid-morning, but by lunchtime, the government forces had secured Abidjan. They had lost control of the north of the country, and rebel forces made their stronghold in the northern city of Bouaké.
+
+The rebels threatened to move on Abidjan again, and France deployed troops from its base in the country to stop their advance. The French said they were protecting their own citizens from danger, but their deployment also helped government forces. That the French were helping either side was not established as a fact; but each side accused the French of supporting the opposite side. Whether French actions improved or worsened the situation in the long term is disputed. What exactly happened that night is also disputed. The government claimed that former president Robert Guéï led a coup attempt, and state TV showed pictures of his dead body in the street; counter-claims stated that he and 15 others had been murdered at his home, and his body had been moved to the streets to incriminate him. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the German embassy; his home had been burned down. President Gbagbo cut short his trip to Italy and on his return stated, in a television address, that some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns where foreign migrant workers lived. Gendarmes and vigilantes bulldozed and burned homes by the thousands, attacking residents.
+
+An early ceasefire with the rebels, which had the backing of much of the northern populace, proved short-lived, and fighting over the prime cocoa-growing areas resumed. France sent in troops to maintain the cease-fire boundaries,[46] and militias, including warlords and fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone, took advantage of the crisis to seize parts of the west.
+
+In January 2003, Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a "government of national unity". Curfews were lifted, and French troops patrolled the western border of the country. The unity government was unstable, and central problems remained, with neither side achieving its goals. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally, and subsequent mob violence led to the evacuation of foreign nationals. A later report concluded the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed to maintain a "Zone of Confidence", relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate.
+
+Early in November 2004, after the peace agreement had effectively collapsed because the rebels refused to disarm, Gbagbo ordered airstrikes against the rebels. During one of these airstrikes in Bouaké, on 6 November 2004, French soldiers were hit, and nine were killed; the Ivorian government said it was a mistake, but the French claimed it was deliberate. They responded by destroying most Ivoirian military aircraft (two Su-25 planes and five helicopters), and violent retaliatory riots against the French broke out in Abidjan.[47]
+
+Gbagbo's original term as president expired on 30 October 2005, but due to the lack of disarmament, an election was deemed impossible, so his term in office was extended for a maximum of one year, according to a plan worked out by the African Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.[48] With the late-October deadline approaching in 2006, the election was regarded as very unlikely to be held by that point, and the opposition and the rebels rejected the possibility of another term extension for Gbagbo.[49] The UN Security Council endorsed another one-year extension of Gbagbo's term on 1 November 2006; however, the resolution provided for strengthening of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's powers. Gbagbo said the next day that elements of the resolution deemed to be constitutional violations would not be applied.[50]
+
+A peace accord between the government and the rebels, or New Forces, was signed on 4 March 2007, and subsequently Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces, became prime minister. These events were seen by some observers as substantially strengthening Gbagbo's position.[51]
+
+According to UNICEF, at the end of the civil war, water and sanitation infrastructure had been greatly damaged. Communities across the country required repairs to their water supply.[52]
+
+The presidential elections that should have been organized in 2005 were postponed until November 2010. The preliminary results announced independently by the president of the Electoral Commission from the headquarters of Ouattara due to concern about fraud in that commission.[clarification needed] They showed a loss for Gbagbo in favour of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara.[53]
+
+The ruling FPI contested the results before the Constitutional Council, charging massive fraud in the northern departments controlled by the rebels of the New Forces. These charges were contradicted by United Nations observers (unlike African Union observers). The report of the results led to severe tension and violent incidents. The Constitutional Council, which consisted of Gbagbo supporters, declared the results of seven northern departments unlawful and that Gbagbo had won the elections with 51% of the vote – instead of Ouattara winning with 54%, as reported by the Electoral Commission.[53] After the inauguration of Gbagbo, Ouattara—who was recognized as the winner by most countries and the United Nations—organized an alternative inauguration. These events raised fears of a resurgence of the civil war; thousands of refugees fled the country.[53]
+
+The African Union sent Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa, to mediate the conflict. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution recognising Alassane Ouattara as winner of the elections, based on the position of the Economic Community of West African States, which suspended Ivory Coast from all its decision-making bodies[54] while the African Union also suspended the country's membership.[55]
+
+In 2010, a colonel of Ivory Coast armed forces, Nguessan Yao, was arrested in New York in a year-long U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation charged with procuring and illegal export of weapons and munitions: 4,000 9 mm handguns, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 tear-gas grenades, in violation of a UN embargo.[56] Several other Ivory Coast officers were released because they had diplomatic passports. His accomplice, Michael Barry Shor, an international trader, was located in Virginia.[57][58]
+
+The 2010 presidential election led to the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and the Second Ivorian Civil War. International organizations reported numerous human-rights violations by both sides. In the city of Duékoué, hundreds of people were killed. In nearby Bloléquin, dozens were killed.[59] UN and French forces took military action against Gbagbo.[60] Gbagbo was taken into custody after a raid into his residence on 11 April 2011. The country was severely damaged by the war, and it was observed that Ouattara had inherited a formidable challenge to rebuild the economy and reunite Ivorians.[61] Gbagbo was taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in January 2016. He was declared acquitted by the court but given a conditional release[62] in January 2019.[63] Belgium has been designated as a host country.[64]
+
+Ivory Coast is a country of western sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Liberia and Guinea in the west, Mali and Burkina Faso in the north, Ghana in the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the south. The country lies between latitudes 4° and 11°N, and longitudes 2° and 9°W. Around 64.8% of the land is agricultural land; arable land amounted to 9.1%, permanent pasture 41.5%, and permanent crops 14.2%. Water pollution is amongst one of the biggest issues that the country is currently facing.[65]
+
+Since 2011, Ivory Coast has been administratively organised into 12 districts plus two district-level autonomous cities. The districts are divided into 31 regions; the regions are divided into 108 departments; and the departments are divided into 510 sub-prefectures.[66] In some instances, multiple villages are organised into communes. The autonomous districts are not divided into regions, but they do contain departments, sub-prefectures, and communes.
+
+Since 2011, governors for the 12 non-autonomous districts have not been appointed, and as a result these districts have not yet begun to function as governmental entities.
+
+The following is the list of districts, district capitals and each district's regions:
+
+The Ivory Coast is recorded to have over 1,200 animal species including 223 mammals, 702 birds, 125 reptiles, 38 amphibians, and 111 species of fish, alongside 4,700 plant species. It is the most biodiverse country in West Africa, with the majority of its wildlife populating living in the nation's rugged interior.[69] The nation has nine national parks, the largest of which is Assgny National Park, which occupies an area of around 17,000 hectares or 42,000 acres.[70]
+
+The government is divided into three branches: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. The Parliament of Ivory Coast, consists of the indirectly elected Senate and the National Assembly which has 255 members, elected for five-year terms.
+
+Since 1983, Ivory Coast's capital has been Yamoussoukro, while Abidjan was the administrative center. Most countries maintain their embassies in Abidjan. The Ivorian population has suffered because of the ongoing civil war. International human-rights organizations have noted problems with the treatment of captive non-combatants by both sides and the re-emergence of child slavery in cocoa production.[71]
+
+Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remained split in two, with the north controlled by the New Forces. A new presidential election was expected to be held in October 2005, and the rival parties agreed in March 2007 to proceed with this, but it continued to be postponed until November 2010 due to delays in its preparation.
+
+Elections were finally held in 2010. The first round of elections was held peacefully, and widely hailed as free and fair. Runoffs were held 28 November 2010, after being delayed one week from the original date of 21 November. Laurent Gbagbo as president ran against former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.[72] On 2 December, the Electoral Commission declared that Ouattara had won the election by a margin of 54% to 46%. In response, the Gbagbo-aligned Constitutional Council rejected the declaration, and the government announced that country's borders had been sealed. An Ivorian military spokesman said, "The air, land, and sea border of the country are closed to all movement of people and goods."[73]
+
+In Africa, Ivorian diplomacy favors step-by-step economic and political cooperation. In 1959, Ivory Coast formed the Council of the Entente with Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger and Togo; in 1965, the African and Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM); in 1972, the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO). The latter organisation changed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. A founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 and then of the African Union in 2000, Ivory Coast defends respect for state sovereignty and peaceful cooperation between African countries.
+
+Worldwide, Ivorian diplomacy is committed to fair economic and trade relations, including the fair trade of agricultural products and the promotion of peaceful relations with all countries. Ivory Coast thus maintains diplomatic relations with international organizations and countries all around the world. In particular, it has signed United Nations treaties such as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Ivory Coast is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States, and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
+
+Ivory Coast has partnered with nations of the Sub-Saharan region to strengthen water and sanitation infrastructure. This has been done mainly with the help of organizations such as UNICEF and Nestle.[75]
+
+In 2015, the United Nations engineered the Sustainable Development Goals (replacing the Millennium Development Goals). They focus on health, education, poverty, hunger, climate change, water sanitation, and hygiene. A major focus was clean water and salinisation. Experts working on this field have designed the WASH concept. WASH focuses on safe drinkable water, hygiene, and proper sanitation. The group has had a major impact on the sub-Saharan region of Africa, particularly Ivory Coast. By 2030, they plan to have universal and equal access to safe and affordable drinking water.[76]
+
+As of 2012[update], major equipment items reported by the Ivory Coast Army included 10 T-55 tanks (marked as potentially unserviceable), five AMX-13 light tanks, 34 reconnaissance vehicles, 10 BMP-½ armoured infantry fighting vehicles, 41 wheeled APCs, and 36+ artillery pieces.[77]
+
+In 2012, the Ivory Coast Air Force consisted of one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter and three SA330L Puma transports (marked as potentially unserviceable).[78]
+
+In 2017, Ivory Coast signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[79]
+
+Ivory Coast has, for the region, a relatively high income per capita (US$1,662 in 2017) and plays a key role in transit trade for neighboring, landlocked countries. The country is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, constituting 40% of the monetary union's total GDP. The country is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans, and the fourth-largest exporter of goods, in general, in sub-Saharan Africa (following South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola).[80]
+
+In 2009, cocoa-bean farmers earned $2.53 billion for cocoa exports and were projected to produce 630,000 metric tons in 2013.[81][82] According to the Hershey Company, the price of cocoa beans is expected to rise dramatically in upcoming years.[83] Ivory Coast also has 100,000 rubber farmers who earned a total of $105 million in 2012.[84][85]
+
+Close ties to France since independence in 1960, diversification of agricultural exports, and encouragement of foreign investment have been factors in the economic growth of Ivory Coast. In recent years, Ivory Coast has been subject to greater competition and falling prices in the global marketplace for its primary agricultural crops: coffee and cocoa. That, compounded with high internal corruption, makes life difficult for the grower, those exporting into foreign markets, and the labor force, inasmuch as instances of indentured labor have been reported in the country's cocoa and coffee production in every edition of the U.S. Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor since 2009.[86]
+
+Ivory Coast's economy has grown faster than that of most other African countries since independence. One possible reason for this might be taxes on export agriculture. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Kenya were exceptions as their rulers were themselves large cash-crop producers, and the newly independent countries desisted from imposing penal rates of taxation on export agriculture, with the result that their economies were doing well.[87]
+
+A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune Magazine in the U.S., concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in [several countries of] West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved significantly:
+
+"According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that’s published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢. That puts them well below the World Bank’s new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year.
+
+And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies’ newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ... 
+'Best-case scenario, we’re only doing 10% of what's needed.' Getting that other 90% won't be easy. 'It's such a colossal issue,' says Sona Ebai, who grew up farming cocoa in Cameroon and is the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries. 'I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector.'He pauses, taking in his own thought for a moment. 'And there, you really need leadership.'"
+[88]
+
+Ivory Coast's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants.[89] Until 1998 the country's population increased to 15,366,672,[90] 20,617,068 in 2009,[1] and 23,919,000 in July 2014.[91]
+
+According to 2012 government survey, the fertility rate was 5.0 children born per woman, with 3.7 in urban areas and 6.3 in rural areas.[92]
+
+French, the official language, is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country. An estimated 70 languages are spoken in Ivory Coast. One of the most common is Dyula, which acts as a trade language, as well as a language commonly spoken by the Muslim population.
+
+Around 7.5 million people of Ivory Coast made up the work force in 2009. The work force took a hit, especially in the private sector, during the early 2000s due to the numerous economic crises since 1999. Furthermore, these crises caused companies to close and move locations, especially in Ivory Coast's tourism industry, transit and banking companies. Job markets decreasing posed as a huge issue in Ivory Coast society as unemployment rates grew. Unemployment rates raised to 9.4% in 2012.[93]
+
+Solutions proposed to decrease unemployment included diversifying jobs in small trade. This division of work encouraged farmers and the agricultural sector. Self-employment policy, established by the Ivorian government, allowed for very strong growth in the field with an increase of 142% in seven years from 1995.[94]
+
+Ethnic groups in Ivory Coast include Akan (42.1%), Voltaiques or Gur (17.6%), Northern Mandés (16.5%), Krous (11%), Southern Mandés (10%), and others (2.8%, including 100,000 Lebanese[95] and 45,000 French; 2004). About 77% of the population is considered Ivorian.
+
+Since Ivory Coast has established itself as one of the most successful West African nations, about 20% of the population (about 3.4 million) consists of workers from neighbouring Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.
+
+About 4% of the population is of non-African ancestry. Many are French,[96] Lebanese,[97][98] Vietnamese and Spanish citizens, as well as evangelical missionaries from the United States and Canada. In November 2004, around 10,000 French and other foreign nationals evacuated Ivory Coast due to attacks from pro-government youth militias.[99] Aside from French nationals, native-born descendants of French settlers who arrived during the country's colonial period are present.
+
+Religion in Ivory Coast (2017 estimate)[100][101]
+
+Ivory Coast is a religiously diverse country, in which adherents of Islam (mostly Sunni) represented 42.9% of the total population in 2014, while followers of Christianity (mostly Catholic and Evangelical) represented 33.9% of the population. In addition 19.1% of Ivorians claimed to be irreligious, and 3.6% reported following traditional African religions.[102] In 2009, according to U.S. Department of State estimates, Christians and Muslims each made up 35 to 40% of the population, while an estimated 25% of the population practised traditional (animist) religions.[103]
+
+Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, is home to the largest church building in the world, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro.
+
+Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro; one of the largest Christian places of worship in the world.
+
+Central mosque in Marcory.
+
+Life expectancy at birth was 42 for males in 2004; for females it was 47.[104] Infant mortality was 118 of 1000 live births.[104] Twelve physicians are available per 100,000 people.[104] About a quarter of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.[105] About 36% of women have undergone female genital mutilation.[106] According to 2010 estimates, Ivory Coast has the 27th-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.[107] The HIV/AIDS rate was 19th-highest in the world, estimated in 2012 at 3.20% among adults aged 15–49 years.[108]
+
+A large part of the adult population, in particular women, is illiterate. Many children between 6 and 10 years are not enrolled in school.[109] The majority of students in secondary education are male. At the end of secondary education, students can sit the baccalauréat examination.
+
+The country has a number of universities, such as the Université de Cocody in Abidjan and the Université de Bouaké in Bouaké. In 2012, there were 57,541 students enrolled at post-secondary diploma level, 23,008 students studying for a bachelor's or master's degree and 269 PhD students. Enrolment in tertiary education suffered during the political crisis, dropping from 9.03% to 4.46% of the 18-to-25-year cohort between 2009 and 2012.[110]
+
+According to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ivory Coast devotes about 0.13% of GDP to GERD. Apart from low investment, other challenges include inadequate scientific equipment, the fragmentation of research organizations and a failure to exploit and protect research results.[110]
+
+The share of the National Development Plan for 2012–2015 that is devoted to scientific research remains modest. Within the section on greater wealth creation and social equity (63.8% of the total budget for the Plan), just 1.2% is allocated to scientific research. Twenty-four national research programmes group public and private research and training institutions around a common research theme. These programmes correspond to eight priority sectors for 2012–2015, namely: health, raw materials, agriculture, culture, environment, governance, mining and energy; and technology.[110]
+
+Each of the ethnic groups in Ivory Coast has its own music genres, most showing strong vocal polyphony. Talking drums are also common, especially among the Appolo, and polyrhythms, another African characteristic, are found throughout Ivory Coast and are especially common in the southwest.
+
+Popular music genres from Ivory Coast include zoblazo, zouglou, and Coupé-Décalé. A few Ivorian artists who have known international success are Magic Système, Alpha Blondy, Meiway, Dobet Gnahoré, Tiken Jah Fakoly, DJ Arafat, Serge Beynaud and Christina Goh, of Ivorian descent.
+
+The country has been the host for several major African sporting events, with the most recent being the 2013 African Basketball Championship. In the past, the country hosted the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations, in which its football team finished fifth, and the 1985 African Basketball Championship, where its basketball team won the gold medal.
+
+400m metre runner Gabriel Tiacoh won the silver medal in the men's 400 metres at the 1984 Olympics.
+
+The country hosted the 8th edition of Jeux de la Francophonie in 2017.
+
+The most popular sport in Ivory Coast is association football. The national football team has played in the World Cup three times, in Germany 2006, in South Africa 2010, and Brazil in 2014. The women's football team played in the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada. Ivory Coast notable footballers are Didier Drogba, Yaya Touré and Kolo Touré, Eric Bailly, Gervinho, Nicolas Pépé, and Wilfried Zaha.
+
+Rugby union is also popular, and the national rugby union team qualified to play at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. Ivory Coast also won two Africa Cups one 1992 and the other 2015.
+
+Ivory Coast is also known for Taekwondo with worldwide superstars like Cheick Cissé, Ruth Gbagbi and Firmin Zokou. The country ranks sencond in Africa all time medals winning.
+
+And sport of athletics, with some names like Marie-josée Ta Lou and Murielle Ahouré.
+
+The traditional cuisine of Ivory Coast is very similar to that of neighboring countries in West Africa in its reliance on grains and tubers. Cassava and plantains are significant parts of Ivorian cuisine. A type of corn paste called aitiu is used to prepare corn balls, and peanuts are widely used in many dishes. Attiéké is a popular side dish in Ivory Coast made with grated cassava, a vegetable-based couscous. A common street food is alloco, ripe banana fried in palm oil, spiced with steamed onions and chili and eaten alone, with grilled fish or boiled eggs. Chicken is commonly consumed and has a unique flavor due to its lean, low-fat mass in this region. Seafood includes tuna, sardines, shrimp, and bonito, which is similar to tuna. Mafé is a common dish consisting of meat in a peanut sauce.[111]
+
+Slow-simmered stews with various ingredients are another common food staple in Ivory Coast.[111] Kedjenou is a dish consisting of chicken and vegetables slow-cooked in a sealed pot with little or no added liquid, which concentrates the flavors of the chicken and vegetables and tenderizes the chicken.[111] It is usually cooked in a pottery jar called a canary, over a slow fire, or cooked in an oven.[111] Bangui is a local palm wine.
+
+Ivorians have a particular kind of small, open-air restaurant called a maquis, which is unique to the region. A maquis normally features braised chicken and fish covered in onions and tomatoes, served with attiéké or kedjenou.

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+Coordinates: 8°N 5°W / 8°N 5°W / 8; -5
+
+Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire,[a] officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) to the south. The official language of the republic is French, with local indigenous languages also being widely used that include Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has large populations of Muslims, Christians (primarily Roman Catholics) and various indigenous religions.
+
+Before its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire and Baoulé. The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. It achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. Relatively stable by regional standards, Ivory Coast established close political and economic ties with its West African neighbors while at the same time maintaining close relations to the West, especially France. Ivory Coast experienced a coup d'état in 1999 and two religiously-grounded civil wars, first between 2002 and 2007[8] and again during 2010–2011. In 2000, the country adopted a new constitution.[9]
+
+Ivory Coast is a republic with strong executive power vested in its president. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, though it went through an economic crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. It was not until around 2014 that the gross domestic product again reached the level of its peak in the 1970s.[10] In the 21st century, the Ivorian economy has been largely market-based, and it still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production being predominant.[1]
+
+Originally, Portuguese and French merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa, very roughly, into four "coasts" reflecting local economies. The coast that the French named the Côte d'Ivoire and the Portuguese named the Costa Do Marfim —both, literally, mean "Coast of Ivory"— lay between what was known as the Guiné de Cabo Verde, so-called "Upper Guinea" at Cap-Vert, and Lower Guinea.[11][12] There was also a Pepper Coast, also known as the "Grain Coast" (present-day Liberia), a "Gold Coast" (Ghana), and a "Slave Coast" (Togo, Benin and Nigeria). Like those, the name "Ivory Coast" reflected the major trade that occurred on that particular stretch of the coast: the export of ivory.[13][11][14][15][16]
+
+Other names included the Côte de Dents,[b] literally "Coast of Teeth", again reflecting the trade in ivory;[18][19][13][12][16][20] the Côte de Quaqua, after the people whom the Dutch named the Quaqua (alternatively Kwa Kwa);[19][11][17] the Coast of the Five and Six Stripes, after a type of cotton fabric also traded there;[19] and the Côte du Vent,[c] the Windward Coast, after perennial local off-shore weather conditions.[13][11] One can find the name Cote de(s) Dents regularly used in older works.[19] It was used in Duckett's Dictionnaire (Duckett 1853) and by Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, for example, although Antoine François Prévost used Côte d'Ivoire.[20] In the 19th century, usage switched to Côte d'Ivoire.[19]
+
+The coastline of the modern state is not quite coterminous with what the 15th- and 16th-century merchants knew as the "Teeth" or "Ivory" coast, which was considered to stretch from Cape Palmas to Cape Three Points and which is thus now divided between the modern states of Ghana and Ivory Coast (with a minute portion of Liberia).[18][14][20][17] It retained the name through French rule and independence in 1960.[21] The name had long since been translated literally into other languages,[d] which the post-independence government considered increasingly troublesome whenever its international dealings extended beyond the Francophone sphere. Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared that Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire[23]) would be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and since then officially refuses to recognize or accept any translation from French to another language in its international dealings.[22][24][25]
+
+Despite the Ivorian government's request, the English translation "Ivory Coast" (often "the Ivory Coast") is still frequently used in English by various media outlets and publications.[e][f]
+
+The first human presence in Ivory Coast has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well preserved in the country's humid climate. However, newly found weapon and tool fragments (specifically, polished axes cut through shale and remnants of cooking and fishing) have been interpreted as a possible indication of a large human presence during the Upper Paleolithic period (15,000 to 10,000 BC),[34] or at the minimum, the Neolithic period.[35]
+
+The earliest known inhabitants of Ivory Coast have left traces scattered throughout the territory. Historians believe that they were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present indigenous inhabitants, who migrated south into the area before the 16th century. Such groups included the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri (Grand Lahou), Ega and Diès (Divo).[36]
+
+The first recorded history appears[when?] in the chronicles[where?] of North African (Berber) traders, who, from early Roman times, conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other goods. The southern terminals of the trans-Saharan trade routes were located on the edge of the desert, and from there supplemental trade extended as far south as the edge of the rain forest. The more important terminals—Djenné, Gao, and Timbuctu—grew into major commercial centres around which the great Sudanic empires developed.
+
+By controlling the trade routes with their powerful military forces, these empires were able to dominate neighbouring states. The Sudanic empires also became centres of Islamic education. Islam had been introduced in the western Sudan by Muslim Berber traders from North Africa; it spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers. From the 11th century, by which time the rulers of the Sudanic empires had embraced Islam, it spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Ivory Coast.
+
+The Ghana Empire, the earliest of the Sudanic empires, flourished in the region encompassing present-day southeast Mauritania and southern Mali between the 4th and 13th centuries. At the peak of its power in the 11th century, its realms extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu. After the decline of Ghana, the Mali Empire grew into a powerful Muslim state, which reached its apogee in the early part of the 14th century. The territory of the Mali Empire in Ivory Coast was limited to the north-west corner around Odienné.
+
+Its slow decline starting at the end of the 14th century followed internal discord and revolts by vassal states, one of which, Songhai, flourished as an empire between the 14th and 16th centuries. Songhai was also weakened by internal discord, which led to factional warfare. This discord spurred most of the migrations southward toward the forest belt. The dense rain forest covering the southern half of the country, created barriers to the large-scale political organizations that had arisen in the north. Inhabitants lived in villages or clusters of villages; their contacts with the outside world were filtered through long-distance traders. Villagers subsisted on agriculture and hunting.
+
+Five important states flourished in Ivory Coast during the pre-European early modern period. The Muslim Kong Empire was established by the Jola in the early 18th century in the north-central region inhabited by the Sénoufo, who had fled Islamization under the Mali Empire. Although Kong became a prosperous center of agriculture, trade, and crafts, ethnic diversity and religious discord gradually weakened the kingdom. In 1895 the city of Kong would be sacked and conquered by Samori Ture of the Wassoulou Empire.
+
+The Abron kingdom of Gyaaman was established in the 17th century by an Akan group, the Abron, who had fled the developing Ashanti confederation of Asanteman in what is present-day Ghana. From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the Dyula people in Bondoukou, who were recent arrivals from the market city of Begho. Bondoukou developed into a major center of commerce and Islam. The kingdom's Quranic scholars attracted students from all parts of West Africa. In the mid-17th century in east-central Ivory Coast, other Akan groups fleeing the Asante established a Baoulé kingdom at Sakasso and two Agni kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi.
+
+The Baoulé, like the Ashanti, developed a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers. It finally split into smaller chiefdoms. Despite the breakup of their kingdom, the Baoulé strongly resisted French subjugation. The descendants of the rulers of the Agni kingdoms tried to retain their separate identity long after Ivory Coast's independence; as late as 1969, the Sanwi attempted to break away from Ivory Coast and form an independent kingdom.[37] The current king of Sanwi is Amon N'Douffou V (since 2005).
+
+Compared to neighboring Ghana, Ivory Coast, though practicing slavery and slave raiding, suffered little from the slave trade as such. European slave and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast. The earliest recorded European voyage to West Africa was made by the Portuguese in 1482. The first West African French settlement, Saint Louis, was founded in the mid-17th century in Senegal, while at about the same time, the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at Goree Island, off Dakar. A French mission was established in 1637 at Assinie near the border with the Gold Coast (now Ghana). The Europeans suppressed the local practice of slavery at this time and forbade the trade to their merchants.
+
+Assinie's survival was precarious, however; the French were not firmly established in Ivory Coast until the mid-19th century. In 1843–4, French admiral Louis Edouard Bouët-Willaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions, making their territories a French protectorate. French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region. Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.
+
+Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, the Senegal and the Niger. Concerted French exploration of West Africa began in the mid-19th century, but moved slowly, based more on individual initiative than on government policy. In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African chiefs that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centres.
+
+The first posts in Ivory Coast included one at Assinie and another at Grand Bassam, which became the colony's first capital. The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts, and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or coutumes paid annually to the local chiefs for the use of the land. The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French, because trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose. Nevertheless, the French government maintained the treaties, hoping to expand trade.
+
+France also wanted to maintain a presence in the region to stem the increasing influence of the British along the Gulf of Guinea coast. The French built naval bases to keep out non-French traders and began a systematic pacification of the interior to stop raids on their settlements. They accomplished this only after a long war in the 1890s against Mandinka tribesmen, mostly from the Gambia. However, raids by the Baoulé and other eastern tribes continued until 1917.[citation needed]
+
+The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French province of Alsace-Lorraine caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants. The trading post at Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast was left in the care of a shipper from Marseille, Arthur Verdier, who in 1878 was named Resident of the Establishment of Ivory Coast.[37]
+
+In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior. In 1887, Lieutenant Louis Gustave Binger began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Ivory Coast's interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Ivory Coast. Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, Marcel Treich-Laplène, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.
+
+By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions of Ivory Coast, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. That same year, France named Treich-Laplène titular governor of the territory. In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, and Captain Binger was appointed governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons.
+
+France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, the French and British were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations and adopted the local forced-labor system.
+
+Throughout the early years of French rule, French military contingents were sent inland to establish new posts. Some of the native population and former slave-owning class resisted French settlers. Among those offering greatest resistance was Samori Ture, who in the 1880s and 1890s was conquering his neighbors, re-establishing slavery and founding the Wassoulou Empire, which extended over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Samori Ture's large, well-equipped army, which could manufacture and repair its own firearms, attracted some support throughout the region from chiefs who sought to play the two sides off against each other. The French responded to Samori Ture's expansion and conquest with military pressure. French campaigns against Samori Ture, which were met with greater resistance than usual in tribal warfare, intensified in the mid-1890s until he was captured in 1898 and his empire dissolved.
+
+France's imposition of a head tax in 1900 to support the colony's public works program provoked unexpected protests. Many Ivoirians saw the tax as a violation of the protectorate treaties because they felt that France was demanding the equivalent of a coutume from the local kings, rather than the reverse. Many, especially in the interior, also considered the tax a humiliating symbol of submission.[38] In 1905, the French officially abolished slavery in most of French West Africa.[39] From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of French West Africa. It was a colony and an overseas territory under the Third Republic. In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917–1919. Some 150,000 men from Ivory Coast died in World War I. Until the period following World War II, governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris. France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects", but without rights to representation in Africa or France.
+
+French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Based on the assumed superiority of French culture, in practice the assimilation policy meant the extension of French language, institutions, laws, and customs to the colonies. The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the colonizer and the colonized. Under this policy, the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests, such as the recent abolition of the slave trade.
+
+An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between French and Africans. After 1930, a small number of Westernized Ivoirians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship. Most Ivoirians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association.[40] As subjects of France, natives outside the above-mentioned civilized elite had no political rights. They were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility. They were expected to serve in the military and were subject to the indigénat, a separate system of law.[41]
+
+In World War II, the Vichy regime remained in control until 1942, when British troops invaded without much resistance. Winston Churchill gave power back to members of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government. By 1943, the Allies had returned French West Africa to the French. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946. French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished. Between the years 1944–1946 many national conferences and constituent assemblies took place between France's Vichy regime and provisional governments in Ivory Coast. Governmental reforms were established by late 1946, which granted French citizenship to all African "subjects" under the colonial control of the French.
+
+Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivoirian participation in policy-making. While British colonial administrations adopted divide-and-rule policies elsewhere, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite, the French were interested in ensuring that the small but influential elite was sufficiently satisfied with the status quo to refrain from anti-French sentiment. Although strongly opposed to the practices of association, educated Ivoirians believed that they would achieve equality with their French peers through assimilation rather than through complete independence from France. After the assimilation doctrine was implemented through the postwar reforms, though, Ivoirian leaders realized that even assimilation implied the superiority of the French over the Ivoirians. Some of them thought that discrimination and political inequality would end only with independence; others thought the problem of the division between the tribal culture and modernity would continue.[42]
+
+Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the son of a Baoulé chief, became Ivory Coast's father of independence. In 1944, he formed the country's first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers like himself. Angered that colonial policy favoured French plantation owners, the union members united to recruit migrant workers for their own farms. Houphouët-Boigny soon rose to prominence and within a year was elected to the French Parliament in Paris. A year later, the French abolished forced labour. Houphouët-Boigny established a strong relationship with the French government, expressing a belief that Ivory Coast would benefit from the relationship, which it did for many years. France appointed him as a minister, the first African to become a minister in a European government.
+
+A turning point in relations with France was reached with the 1956 Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre), which transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and also removed the remaining voting inequities. In 1958, Ivory Coast became an autonomous member of the French Community, which had replaced the French Union.
+
+At independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to further stimulate production, which was further boosted by a significant immigration of workers from surrounding countries. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Ivory Coast into third place in world output, behind Brazil and Colombia. By 1979, the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil. French technicians contributed to the "Ivoirian miracle". In other African nations, the people drove out the Europeans following independence, but in Ivory Coast, they poured in. The French community grew from only 30,000 prior to independence to 60,000 in 1980, most of them teachers, managers, and advisors.[43] For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10%—the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.
+
+Houphouët-Boigny's one-party rule was not amenable to political competition. Laurent Gbagbo, who would become the president of Ivory Coast in 2000, had to flee the country in the 1980s, after he incurred the ire of Houphouët-Boigny by founding the Front Populaire Ivoirien.[44] Houphouët-Boigny banked on his broad appeal to the population, who continued to elect him. He was criticized for his emphasis on developing large-scale projects.
+
+Many felt the millions of dollars spent transforming his home village, Yamoussoukro, into the new political capital were wasted; others supported his vision to develop a centre for peace, education, and religion in the heart of the country. In the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shock waves through the Ivoirian economy. Due to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased three-fold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan as an influx of villagers exacerbated unemployment caused by the recession.[45]
+
+In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multiparty democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble, and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.
+
+In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.
+
+Unlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful to avoid any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasized the concept of Ivoirité to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from foreign countries are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained, which resulted in two civil wars in the following decades.
+
+Similarly, Bedié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bedié fled into exile in France. The new leadership reduced crime and corruption, and the generals pressed for austerity and campaigned in the streets for a less wasteful society.
+
+A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was not peaceful. The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Following a public uprising that resulted in around 180 deaths, Guéï was swiftly replaced by Gbagbo. Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality. The existing and later reformed constitution [under Guéï] did not allow noncitizens to run for the presidency. This sparked violent protests in which his supporters, mainly from the country's north, battled riot police in the capital, Yamoussoukro.
+
+In the early hours of 19 September 2002, while the President was in Italy, an armed uprising occurred. Troops who were to be demobilised mutinied, launching attacks in several cities. The battle for the main gendarmerie barracks in Abidjan lasted until mid-morning, but by lunchtime, the government forces had secured Abidjan. They had lost control of the north of the country, and rebel forces made their stronghold in the northern city of Bouaké.
+
+The rebels threatened to move on Abidjan again, and France deployed troops from its base in the country to stop their advance. The French said they were protecting their own citizens from danger, but their deployment also helped government forces. That the French were helping either side was not established as a fact; but each side accused the French of supporting the opposite side. Whether French actions improved or worsened the situation in the long term is disputed. What exactly happened that night is also disputed. The government claimed that former president Robert Guéï led a coup attempt, and state TV showed pictures of his dead body in the street; counter-claims stated that he and 15 others had been murdered at his home, and his body had been moved to the streets to incriminate him. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the German embassy; his home had been burned down. President Gbagbo cut short his trip to Italy and on his return stated, in a television address, that some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns where foreign migrant workers lived. Gendarmes and vigilantes bulldozed and burned homes by the thousands, attacking residents.
+
+An early ceasefire with the rebels, which had the backing of much of the northern populace, proved short-lived, and fighting over the prime cocoa-growing areas resumed. France sent in troops to maintain the cease-fire boundaries,[46] and militias, including warlords and fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone, took advantage of the crisis to seize parts of the west.
+
+In January 2003, Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a "government of national unity". Curfews were lifted, and French troops patrolled the western border of the country. The unity government was unstable, and central problems remained, with neither side achieving its goals. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally, and subsequent mob violence led to the evacuation of foreign nationals. A later report concluded the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed to maintain a "Zone of Confidence", relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate.
+
+Early in November 2004, after the peace agreement had effectively collapsed because the rebels refused to disarm, Gbagbo ordered airstrikes against the rebels. During one of these airstrikes in Bouaké, on 6 November 2004, French soldiers were hit, and nine were killed; the Ivorian government said it was a mistake, but the French claimed it was deliberate. They responded by destroying most Ivoirian military aircraft (two Su-25 planes and five helicopters), and violent retaliatory riots against the French broke out in Abidjan.[47]
+
+Gbagbo's original term as president expired on 30 October 2005, but due to the lack of disarmament, an election was deemed impossible, so his term in office was extended for a maximum of one year, according to a plan worked out by the African Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.[48] With the late-October deadline approaching in 2006, the election was regarded as very unlikely to be held by that point, and the opposition and the rebels rejected the possibility of another term extension for Gbagbo.[49] The UN Security Council endorsed another one-year extension of Gbagbo's term on 1 November 2006; however, the resolution provided for strengthening of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's powers. Gbagbo said the next day that elements of the resolution deemed to be constitutional violations would not be applied.[50]
+
+A peace accord between the government and the rebels, or New Forces, was signed on 4 March 2007, and subsequently Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces, became prime minister. These events were seen by some observers as substantially strengthening Gbagbo's position.[51]
+
+According to UNICEF, at the end of the civil war, water and sanitation infrastructure had been greatly damaged. Communities across the country required repairs to their water supply.[52]
+
+The presidential elections that should have been organized in 2005 were postponed until November 2010. The preliminary results announced independently by the president of the Electoral Commission from the headquarters of Ouattara due to concern about fraud in that commission.[clarification needed] They showed a loss for Gbagbo in favour of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara.[53]
+
+The ruling FPI contested the results before the Constitutional Council, charging massive fraud in the northern departments controlled by the rebels of the New Forces. These charges were contradicted by United Nations observers (unlike African Union observers). The report of the results led to severe tension and violent incidents. The Constitutional Council, which consisted of Gbagbo supporters, declared the results of seven northern departments unlawful and that Gbagbo had won the elections with 51% of the vote – instead of Ouattara winning with 54%, as reported by the Electoral Commission.[53] After the inauguration of Gbagbo, Ouattara—who was recognized as the winner by most countries and the United Nations—organized an alternative inauguration. These events raised fears of a resurgence of the civil war; thousands of refugees fled the country.[53]
+
+The African Union sent Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa, to mediate the conflict. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution recognising Alassane Ouattara as winner of the elections, based on the position of the Economic Community of West African States, which suspended Ivory Coast from all its decision-making bodies[54] while the African Union also suspended the country's membership.[55]
+
+In 2010, a colonel of Ivory Coast armed forces, Nguessan Yao, was arrested in New York in a year-long U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation charged with procuring and illegal export of weapons and munitions: 4,000 9 mm handguns, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 tear-gas grenades, in violation of a UN embargo.[56] Several other Ivory Coast officers were released because they had diplomatic passports. His accomplice, Michael Barry Shor, an international trader, was located in Virginia.[57][58]
+
+The 2010 presidential election led to the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and the Second Ivorian Civil War. International organizations reported numerous human-rights violations by both sides. In the city of Duékoué, hundreds of people were killed. In nearby Bloléquin, dozens were killed.[59] UN and French forces took military action against Gbagbo.[60] Gbagbo was taken into custody after a raid into his residence on 11 April 2011. The country was severely damaged by the war, and it was observed that Ouattara had inherited a formidable challenge to rebuild the economy and reunite Ivorians.[61] Gbagbo was taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in January 2016. He was declared acquitted by the court but given a conditional release[62] in January 2019.[63] Belgium has been designated as a host country.[64]
+
+Ivory Coast is a country of western sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Liberia and Guinea in the west, Mali and Burkina Faso in the north, Ghana in the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the south. The country lies between latitudes 4° and 11°N, and longitudes 2° and 9°W. Around 64.8% of the land is agricultural land; arable land amounted to 9.1%, permanent pasture 41.5%, and permanent crops 14.2%. Water pollution is amongst one of the biggest issues that the country is currently facing.[65]
+
+Since 2011, Ivory Coast has been administratively organised into 12 districts plus two district-level autonomous cities. The districts are divided into 31 regions; the regions are divided into 108 departments; and the departments are divided into 510 sub-prefectures.[66] In some instances, multiple villages are organised into communes. The autonomous districts are not divided into regions, but they do contain departments, sub-prefectures, and communes.
+
+Since 2011, governors for the 12 non-autonomous districts have not been appointed, and as a result these districts have not yet begun to function as governmental entities.
+
+The following is the list of districts, district capitals and each district's regions:
+
+The Ivory Coast is recorded to have over 1,200 animal species including 223 mammals, 702 birds, 125 reptiles, 38 amphibians, and 111 species of fish, alongside 4,700 plant species. It is the most biodiverse country in West Africa, with the majority of its wildlife populating living in the nation's rugged interior.[69] The nation has nine national parks, the largest of which is Assgny National Park, which occupies an area of around 17,000 hectares or 42,000 acres.[70]
+
+The government is divided into three branches: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. The Parliament of Ivory Coast, consists of the indirectly elected Senate and the National Assembly which has 255 members, elected for five-year terms.
+
+Since 1983, Ivory Coast's capital has been Yamoussoukro, while Abidjan was the administrative center. Most countries maintain their embassies in Abidjan. The Ivorian population has suffered because of the ongoing civil war. International human-rights organizations have noted problems with the treatment of captive non-combatants by both sides and the re-emergence of child slavery in cocoa production.[71]
+
+Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remained split in two, with the north controlled by the New Forces. A new presidential election was expected to be held in October 2005, and the rival parties agreed in March 2007 to proceed with this, but it continued to be postponed until November 2010 due to delays in its preparation.
+
+Elections were finally held in 2010. The first round of elections was held peacefully, and widely hailed as free and fair. Runoffs were held 28 November 2010, after being delayed one week from the original date of 21 November. Laurent Gbagbo as president ran against former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.[72] On 2 December, the Electoral Commission declared that Ouattara had won the election by a margin of 54% to 46%. In response, the Gbagbo-aligned Constitutional Council rejected the declaration, and the government announced that country's borders had been sealed. An Ivorian military spokesman said, "The air, land, and sea border of the country are closed to all movement of people and goods."[73]
+
+In Africa, Ivorian diplomacy favors step-by-step economic and political cooperation. In 1959, Ivory Coast formed the Council of the Entente with Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger and Togo; in 1965, the African and Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM); in 1972, the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO). The latter organisation changed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. A founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 and then of the African Union in 2000, Ivory Coast defends respect for state sovereignty and peaceful cooperation between African countries.
+
+Worldwide, Ivorian diplomacy is committed to fair economic and trade relations, including the fair trade of agricultural products and the promotion of peaceful relations with all countries. Ivory Coast thus maintains diplomatic relations with international organizations and countries all around the world. In particular, it has signed United Nations treaties such as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Ivory Coast is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States, and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
+
+Ivory Coast has partnered with nations of the Sub-Saharan region to strengthen water and sanitation infrastructure. This has been done mainly with the help of organizations such as UNICEF and Nestle.[75]
+
+In 2015, the United Nations engineered the Sustainable Development Goals (replacing the Millennium Development Goals). They focus on health, education, poverty, hunger, climate change, water sanitation, and hygiene. A major focus was clean water and salinisation. Experts working on this field have designed the WASH concept. WASH focuses on safe drinkable water, hygiene, and proper sanitation. The group has had a major impact on the sub-Saharan region of Africa, particularly Ivory Coast. By 2030, they plan to have universal and equal access to safe and affordable drinking water.[76]
+
+As of 2012[update], major equipment items reported by the Ivory Coast Army included 10 T-55 tanks (marked as potentially unserviceable), five AMX-13 light tanks, 34 reconnaissance vehicles, 10 BMP-½ armoured infantry fighting vehicles, 41 wheeled APCs, and 36+ artillery pieces.[77]
+
+In 2012, the Ivory Coast Air Force consisted of one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter and three SA330L Puma transports (marked as potentially unserviceable).[78]
+
+In 2017, Ivory Coast signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[79]
+
+Ivory Coast has, for the region, a relatively high income per capita (US$1,662 in 2017) and plays a key role in transit trade for neighboring, landlocked countries. The country is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, constituting 40% of the monetary union's total GDP. The country is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans, and the fourth-largest exporter of goods, in general, in sub-Saharan Africa (following South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola).[80]
+
+In 2009, cocoa-bean farmers earned $2.53 billion for cocoa exports and were projected to produce 630,000 metric tons in 2013.[81][82] According to the Hershey Company, the price of cocoa beans is expected to rise dramatically in upcoming years.[83] Ivory Coast also has 100,000 rubber farmers who earned a total of $105 million in 2012.[84][85]
+
+Close ties to France since independence in 1960, diversification of agricultural exports, and encouragement of foreign investment have been factors in the economic growth of Ivory Coast. In recent years, Ivory Coast has been subject to greater competition and falling prices in the global marketplace for its primary agricultural crops: coffee and cocoa. That, compounded with high internal corruption, makes life difficult for the grower, those exporting into foreign markets, and the labor force, inasmuch as instances of indentured labor have been reported in the country's cocoa and coffee production in every edition of the U.S. Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor since 2009.[86]
+
+Ivory Coast's economy has grown faster than that of most other African countries since independence. One possible reason for this might be taxes on export agriculture. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Kenya were exceptions as their rulers were themselves large cash-crop producers, and the newly independent countries desisted from imposing penal rates of taxation on export agriculture, with the result that their economies were doing well.[87]
+
+A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune Magazine in the U.S., concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in [several countries of] West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved significantly:
+
+"According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that’s published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢. That puts them well below the World Bank’s new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year.
+
+And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies’ newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ... 
+'Best-case scenario, we’re only doing 10% of what's needed.' Getting that other 90% won't be easy. 'It's such a colossal issue,' says Sona Ebai, who grew up farming cocoa in Cameroon and is the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries. 'I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector.'He pauses, taking in his own thought for a moment. 'And there, you really need leadership.'"
+[88]
+
+Ivory Coast's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants.[89] Until 1998 the country's population increased to 15,366,672,[90] 20,617,068 in 2009,[1] and 23,919,000 in July 2014.[91]
+
+According to 2012 government survey, the fertility rate was 5.0 children born per woman, with 3.7 in urban areas and 6.3 in rural areas.[92]
+
+French, the official language, is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country. An estimated 70 languages are spoken in Ivory Coast. One of the most common is Dyula, which acts as a trade language, as well as a language commonly spoken by the Muslim population.
+
+Around 7.5 million people of Ivory Coast made up the work force in 2009. The work force took a hit, especially in the private sector, during the early 2000s due to the numerous economic crises since 1999. Furthermore, these crises caused companies to close and move locations, especially in Ivory Coast's tourism industry, transit and banking companies. Job markets decreasing posed as a huge issue in Ivory Coast society as unemployment rates grew. Unemployment rates raised to 9.4% in 2012.[93]
+
+Solutions proposed to decrease unemployment included diversifying jobs in small trade. This division of work encouraged farmers and the agricultural sector. Self-employment policy, established by the Ivorian government, allowed for very strong growth in the field with an increase of 142% in seven years from 1995.[94]
+
+Ethnic groups in Ivory Coast include Akan (42.1%), Voltaiques or Gur (17.6%), Northern Mandés (16.5%), Krous (11%), Southern Mandés (10%), and others (2.8%, including 100,000 Lebanese[95] and 45,000 French; 2004). About 77% of the population is considered Ivorian.
+
+Since Ivory Coast has established itself as one of the most successful West African nations, about 20% of the population (about 3.4 million) consists of workers from neighbouring Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.
+
+About 4% of the population is of non-African ancestry. Many are French,[96] Lebanese,[97][98] Vietnamese and Spanish citizens, as well as evangelical missionaries from the United States and Canada. In November 2004, around 10,000 French and other foreign nationals evacuated Ivory Coast due to attacks from pro-government youth militias.[99] Aside from French nationals, native-born descendants of French settlers who arrived during the country's colonial period are present.
+
+Religion in Ivory Coast (2017 estimate)[100][101]
+
+Ivory Coast is a religiously diverse country, in which adherents of Islam (mostly Sunni) represented 42.9% of the total population in 2014, while followers of Christianity (mostly Catholic and Evangelical) represented 33.9% of the population. In addition 19.1% of Ivorians claimed to be irreligious, and 3.6% reported following traditional African religions.[102] In 2009, according to U.S. Department of State estimates, Christians and Muslims each made up 35 to 40% of the population, while an estimated 25% of the population practised traditional (animist) religions.[103]
+
+Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, is home to the largest church building in the world, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro.
+
+Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro; one of the largest Christian places of worship in the world.
+
+Central mosque in Marcory.
+
+Life expectancy at birth was 42 for males in 2004; for females it was 47.[104] Infant mortality was 118 of 1000 live births.[104] Twelve physicians are available per 100,000 people.[104] About a quarter of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.[105] About 36% of women have undergone female genital mutilation.[106] According to 2010 estimates, Ivory Coast has the 27th-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.[107] The HIV/AIDS rate was 19th-highest in the world, estimated in 2012 at 3.20% among adults aged 15–49 years.[108]
+
+A large part of the adult population, in particular women, is illiterate. Many children between 6 and 10 years are not enrolled in school.[109] The majority of students in secondary education are male. At the end of secondary education, students can sit the baccalauréat examination.
+
+The country has a number of universities, such as the Université de Cocody in Abidjan and the Université de Bouaké in Bouaké. In 2012, there were 57,541 students enrolled at post-secondary diploma level, 23,008 students studying for a bachelor's or master's degree and 269 PhD students. Enrolment in tertiary education suffered during the political crisis, dropping from 9.03% to 4.46% of the 18-to-25-year cohort between 2009 and 2012.[110]
+
+According to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ivory Coast devotes about 0.13% of GDP to GERD. Apart from low investment, other challenges include inadequate scientific equipment, the fragmentation of research organizations and a failure to exploit and protect research results.[110]
+
+The share of the National Development Plan for 2012–2015 that is devoted to scientific research remains modest. Within the section on greater wealth creation and social equity (63.8% of the total budget for the Plan), just 1.2% is allocated to scientific research. Twenty-four national research programmes group public and private research and training institutions around a common research theme. These programmes correspond to eight priority sectors for 2012–2015, namely: health, raw materials, agriculture, culture, environment, governance, mining and energy; and technology.[110]
+
+Each of the ethnic groups in Ivory Coast has its own music genres, most showing strong vocal polyphony. Talking drums are also common, especially among the Appolo, and polyrhythms, another African characteristic, are found throughout Ivory Coast and are especially common in the southwest.
+
+Popular music genres from Ivory Coast include zoblazo, zouglou, and Coupé-Décalé. A few Ivorian artists who have known international success are Magic Système, Alpha Blondy, Meiway, Dobet Gnahoré, Tiken Jah Fakoly, DJ Arafat, Serge Beynaud and Christina Goh, of Ivorian descent.
+
+The country has been the host for several major African sporting events, with the most recent being the 2013 African Basketball Championship. In the past, the country hosted the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations, in which its football team finished fifth, and the 1985 African Basketball Championship, where its basketball team won the gold medal.
+
+400m metre runner Gabriel Tiacoh won the silver medal in the men's 400 metres at the 1984 Olympics.
+
+The country hosted the 8th edition of Jeux de la Francophonie in 2017.
+
+The most popular sport in Ivory Coast is association football. The national football team has played in the World Cup three times, in Germany 2006, in South Africa 2010, and Brazil in 2014. The women's football team played in the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada. Ivory Coast notable footballers are Didier Drogba, Yaya Touré and Kolo Touré, Eric Bailly, Gervinho, Nicolas Pépé, and Wilfried Zaha.
+
+Rugby union is also popular, and the national rugby union team qualified to play at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. Ivory Coast also won two Africa Cups one 1992 and the other 2015.
+
+Ivory Coast is also known for Taekwondo with worldwide superstars like Cheick Cissé, Ruth Gbagbi and Firmin Zokou. The country ranks sencond in Africa all time medals winning.
+
+And sport of athletics, with some names like Marie-josée Ta Lou and Murielle Ahouré.
+
+The traditional cuisine of Ivory Coast is very similar to that of neighboring countries in West Africa in its reliance on grains and tubers. Cassava and plantains are significant parts of Ivorian cuisine. A type of corn paste called aitiu is used to prepare corn balls, and peanuts are widely used in many dishes. Attiéké is a popular side dish in Ivory Coast made with grated cassava, a vegetable-based couscous. A common street food is alloco, ripe banana fried in palm oil, spiced with steamed onions and chili and eaten alone, with grilled fish or boiled eggs. Chicken is commonly consumed and has a unique flavor due to its lean, low-fat mass in this region. Seafood includes tuna, sardines, shrimp, and bonito, which is similar to tuna. Mafé is a common dish consisting of meat in a peanut sauce.[111]
+
+Slow-simmered stews with various ingredients are another common food staple in Ivory Coast.[111] Kedjenou is a dish consisting of chicken and vegetables slow-cooked in a sealed pot with little or no added liquid, which concentrates the flavors of the chicken and vegetables and tenderizes the chicken.[111] It is usually cooked in a pottery jar called a canary, over a slow fire, or cooked in an oven.[111] Bangui is a local palm wine.
+
+Ivorians have a particular kind of small, open-air restaurant called a maquis, which is unique to the region. A maquis normally features braised chicken and fish covered in onions and tomatoes, served with attiéké or kedjenou.

en/1342.html.txt

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+
+
+Coordinates: 8°N 5°W / 8°N 5°W / 8; -5
+
+Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire,[a] officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) to the south. The official language of the republic is French, with local indigenous languages also being widely used that include Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has large populations of Muslims, Christians (primarily Roman Catholics) and various indigenous religions.
+
+Before its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire and Baoulé. The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. It achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. Relatively stable by regional standards, Ivory Coast established close political and economic ties with its West African neighbors while at the same time maintaining close relations to the West, especially France. Ivory Coast experienced a coup d'état in 1999 and two religiously-grounded civil wars, first between 2002 and 2007[8] and again during 2010–2011. In 2000, the country adopted a new constitution.[9]
+
+Ivory Coast is a republic with strong executive power vested in its president. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, though it went through an economic crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. It was not until around 2014 that the gross domestic product again reached the level of its peak in the 1970s.[10] In the 21st century, the Ivorian economy has been largely market-based, and it still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production being predominant.[1]
+
+Originally, Portuguese and French merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa, very roughly, into four "coasts" reflecting local economies. The coast that the French named the Côte d'Ivoire and the Portuguese named the Costa Do Marfim —both, literally, mean "Coast of Ivory"— lay between what was known as the Guiné de Cabo Verde, so-called "Upper Guinea" at Cap-Vert, and Lower Guinea.[11][12] There was also a Pepper Coast, also known as the "Grain Coast" (present-day Liberia), a "Gold Coast" (Ghana), and a "Slave Coast" (Togo, Benin and Nigeria). Like those, the name "Ivory Coast" reflected the major trade that occurred on that particular stretch of the coast: the export of ivory.[13][11][14][15][16]
+
+Other names included the Côte de Dents,[b] literally "Coast of Teeth", again reflecting the trade in ivory;[18][19][13][12][16][20] the Côte de Quaqua, after the people whom the Dutch named the Quaqua (alternatively Kwa Kwa);[19][11][17] the Coast of the Five and Six Stripes, after a type of cotton fabric also traded there;[19] and the Côte du Vent,[c] the Windward Coast, after perennial local off-shore weather conditions.[13][11] One can find the name Cote de(s) Dents regularly used in older works.[19] It was used in Duckett's Dictionnaire (Duckett 1853) and by Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, for example, although Antoine François Prévost used Côte d'Ivoire.[20] In the 19th century, usage switched to Côte d'Ivoire.[19]
+
+The coastline of the modern state is not quite coterminous with what the 15th- and 16th-century merchants knew as the "Teeth" or "Ivory" coast, which was considered to stretch from Cape Palmas to Cape Three Points and which is thus now divided between the modern states of Ghana and Ivory Coast (with a minute portion of Liberia).[18][14][20][17] It retained the name through French rule and independence in 1960.[21] The name had long since been translated literally into other languages,[d] which the post-independence government considered increasingly troublesome whenever its international dealings extended beyond the Francophone sphere. Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared that Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire[23]) would be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and since then officially refuses to recognize or accept any translation from French to another language in its international dealings.[22][24][25]
+
+Despite the Ivorian government's request, the English translation "Ivory Coast" (often "the Ivory Coast") is still frequently used in English by various media outlets and publications.[e][f]
+
+The first human presence in Ivory Coast has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well preserved in the country's humid climate. However, newly found weapon and tool fragments (specifically, polished axes cut through shale and remnants of cooking and fishing) have been interpreted as a possible indication of a large human presence during the Upper Paleolithic period (15,000 to 10,000 BC),[34] or at the minimum, the Neolithic period.[35]
+
+The earliest known inhabitants of Ivory Coast have left traces scattered throughout the territory. Historians believe that they were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present indigenous inhabitants, who migrated south into the area before the 16th century. Such groups included the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri (Grand Lahou), Ega and Diès (Divo).[36]
+
+The first recorded history appears[when?] in the chronicles[where?] of North African (Berber) traders, who, from early Roman times, conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other goods. The southern terminals of the trans-Saharan trade routes were located on the edge of the desert, and from there supplemental trade extended as far south as the edge of the rain forest. The more important terminals—Djenné, Gao, and Timbuctu—grew into major commercial centres around which the great Sudanic empires developed.
+
+By controlling the trade routes with their powerful military forces, these empires were able to dominate neighbouring states. The Sudanic empires also became centres of Islamic education. Islam had been introduced in the western Sudan by Muslim Berber traders from North Africa; it spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers. From the 11th century, by which time the rulers of the Sudanic empires had embraced Islam, it spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Ivory Coast.
+
+The Ghana Empire, the earliest of the Sudanic empires, flourished in the region encompassing present-day southeast Mauritania and southern Mali between the 4th and 13th centuries. At the peak of its power in the 11th century, its realms extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu. After the decline of Ghana, the Mali Empire grew into a powerful Muslim state, which reached its apogee in the early part of the 14th century. The territory of the Mali Empire in Ivory Coast was limited to the north-west corner around Odienné.
+
+Its slow decline starting at the end of the 14th century followed internal discord and revolts by vassal states, one of which, Songhai, flourished as an empire between the 14th and 16th centuries. Songhai was also weakened by internal discord, which led to factional warfare. This discord spurred most of the migrations southward toward the forest belt. The dense rain forest covering the southern half of the country, created barriers to the large-scale political organizations that had arisen in the north. Inhabitants lived in villages or clusters of villages; their contacts with the outside world were filtered through long-distance traders. Villagers subsisted on agriculture and hunting.
+
+Five important states flourished in Ivory Coast during the pre-European early modern period. The Muslim Kong Empire was established by the Jola in the early 18th century in the north-central region inhabited by the Sénoufo, who had fled Islamization under the Mali Empire. Although Kong became a prosperous center of agriculture, trade, and crafts, ethnic diversity and religious discord gradually weakened the kingdom. In 1895 the city of Kong would be sacked and conquered by Samori Ture of the Wassoulou Empire.
+
+The Abron kingdom of Gyaaman was established in the 17th century by an Akan group, the Abron, who had fled the developing Ashanti confederation of Asanteman in what is present-day Ghana. From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the Dyula people in Bondoukou, who were recent arrivals from the market city of Begho. Bondoukou developed into a major center of commerce and Islam. The kingdom's Quranic scholars attracted students from all parts of West Africa. In the mid-17th century in east-central Ivory Coast, other Akan groups fleeing the Asante established a Baoulé kingdom at Sakasso and two Agni kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi.
+
+The Baoulé, like the Ashanti, developed a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers. It finally split into smaller chiefdoms. Despite the breakup of their kingdom, the Baoulé strongly resisted French subjugation. The descendants of the rulers of the Agni kingdoms tried to retain their separate identity long after Ivory Coast's independence; as late as 1969, the Sanwi attempted to break away from Ivory Coast and form an independent kingdom.[37] The current king of Sanwi is Amon N'Douffou V (since 2005).
+
+Compared to neighboring Ghana, Ivory Coast, though practicing slavery and slave raiding, suffered little from the slave trade as such. European slave and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast. The earliest recorded European voyage to West Africa was made by the Portuguese in 1482. The first West African French settlement, Saint Louis, was founded in the mid-17th century in Senegal, while at about the same time, the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at Goree Island, off Dakar. A French mission was established in 1637 at Assinie near the border with the Gold Coast (now Ghana). The Europeans suppressed the local practice of slavery at this time and forbade the trade to their merchants.
+
+Assinie's survival was precarious, however; the French were not firmly established in Ivory Coast until the mid-19th century. In 1843–4, French admiral Louis Edouard Bouët-Willaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions, making their territories a French protectorate. French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region. Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.
+
+Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, the Senegal and the Niger. Concerted French exploration of West Africa began in the mid-19th century, but moved slowly, based more on individual initiative than on government policy. In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African chiefs that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centres.
+
+The first posts in Ivory Coast included one at Assinie and another at Grand Bassam, which became the colony's first capital. The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts, and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or coutumes paid annually to the local chiefs for the use of the land. The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French, because trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose. Nevertheless, the French government maintained the treaties, hoping to expand trade.
+
+France also wanted to maintain a presence in the region to stem the increasing influence of the British along the Gulf of Guinea coast. The French built naval bases to keep out non-French traders and began a systematic pacification of the interior to stop raids on their settlements. They accomplished this only after a long war in the 1890s against Mandinka tribesmen, mostly from the Gambia. However, raids by the Baoulé and other eastern tribes continued until 1917.[citation needed]
+
+The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French province of Alsace-Lorraine caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants. The trading post at Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast was left in the care of a shipper from Marseille, Arthur Verdier, who in 1878 was named Resident of the Establishment of Ivory Coast.[37]
+
+In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior. In 1887, Lieutenant Louis Gustave Binger began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Ivory Coast's interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Ivory Coast. Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, Marcel Treich-Laplène, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.
+
+By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions of Ivory Coast, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. That same year, France named Treich-Laplène titular governor of the territory. In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, and Captain Binger was appointed governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons.
+
+France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, the French and British were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations and adopted the local forced-labor system.
+
+Throughout the early years of French rule, French military contingents were sent inland to establish new posts. Some of the native population and former slave-owning class resisted French settlers. Among those offering greatest resistance was Samori Ture, who in the 1880s and 1890s was conquering his neighbors, re-establishing slavery and founding the Wassoulou Empire, which extended over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Samori Ture's large, well-equipped army, which could manufacture and repair its own firearms, attracted some support throughout the region from chiefs who sought to play the two sides off against each other. The French responded to Samori Ture's expansion and conquest with military pressure. French campaigns against Samori Ture, which were met with greater resistance than usual in tribal warfare, intensified in the mid-1890s until he was captured in 1898 and his empire dissolved.
+
+France's imposition of a head tax in 1900 to support the colony's public works program provoked unexpected protests. Many Ivoirians saw the tax as a violation of the protectorate treaties because they felt that France was demanding the equivalent of a coutume from the local kings, rather than the reverse. Many, especially in the interior, also considered the tax a humiliating symbol of submission.[38] In 1905, the French officially abolished slavery in most of French West Africa.[39] From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of French West Africa. It was a colony and an overseas territory under the Third Republic. In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917–1919. Some 150,000 men from Ivory Coast died in World War I. Until the period following World War II, governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris. France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects", but without rights to representation in Africa or France.
+
+French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Based on the assumed superiority of French culture, in practice the assimilation policy meant the extension of French language, institutions, laws, and customs to the colonies. The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the colonizer and the colonized. Under this policy, the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests, such as the recent abolition of the slave trade.
+
+An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between French and Africans. After 1930, a small number of Westernized Ivoirians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship. Most Ivoirians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association.[40] As subjects of France, natives outside the above-mentioned civilized elite had no political rights. They were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility. They were expected to serve in the military and were subject to the indigénat, a separate system of law.[41]
+
+In World War II, the Vichy regime remained in control until 1942, when British troops invaded without much resistance. Winston Churchill gave power back to members of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government. By 1943, the Allies had returned French West Africa to the French. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946. French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished. Between the years 1944–1946 many national conferences and constituent assemblies took place between France's Vichy regime and provisional governments in Ivory Coast. Governmental reforms were established by late 1946, which granted French citizenship to all African "subjects" under the colonial control of the French.
+
+Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivoirian participation in policy-making. While British colonial administrations adopted divide-and-rule policies elsewhere, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite, the French were interested in ensuring that the small but influential elite was sufficiently satisfied with the status quo to refrain from anti-French sentiment. Although strongly opposed to the practices of association, educated Ivoirians believed that they would achieve equality with their French peers through assimilation rather than through complete independence from France. After the assimilation doctrine was implemented through the postwar reforms, though, Ivoirian leaders realized that even assimilation implied the superiority of the French over the Ivoirians. Some of them thought that discrimination and political inequality would end only with independence; others thought the problem of the division between the tribal culture and modernity would continue.[42]
+
+Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the son of a Baoulé chief, became Ivory Coast's father of independence. In 1944, he formed the country's first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers like himself. Angered that colonial policy favoured French plantation owners, the union members united to recruit migrant workers for their own farms. Houphouët-Boigny soon rose to prominence and within a year was elected to the French Parliament in Paris. A year later, the French abolished forced labour. Houphouët-Boigny established a strong relationship with the French government, expressing a belief that Ivory Coast would benefit from the relationship, which it did for many years. France appointed him as a minister, the first African to become a minister in a European government.
+
+A turning point in relations with France was reached with the 1956 Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre), which transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and also removed the remaining voting inequities. In 1958, Ivory Coast became an autonomous member of the French Community, which had replaced the French Union.
+
+At independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to further stimulate production, which was further boosted by a significant immigration of workers from surrounding countries. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Ivory Coast into third place in world output, behind Brazil and Colombia. By 1979, the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil. French technicians contributed to the "Ivoirian miracle". In other African nations, the people drove out the Europeans following independence, but in Ivory Coast, they poured in. The French community grew from only 30,000 prior to independence to 60,000 in 1980, most of them teachers, managers, and advisors.[43] For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10%—the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.
+
+Houphouët-Boigny's one-party rule was not amenable to political competition. Laurent Gbagbo, who would become the president of Ivory Coast in 2000, had to flee the country in the 1980s, after he incurred the ire of Houphouët-Boigny by founding the Front Populaire Ivoirien.[44] Houphouët-Boigny banked on his broad appeal to the population, who continued to elect him. He was criticized for his emphasis on developing large-scale projects.
+
+Many felt the millions of dollars spent transforming his home village, Yamoussoukro, into the new political capital were wasted; others supported his vision to develop a centre for peace, education, and religion in the heart of the country. In the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shock waves through the Ivoirian economy. Due to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased three-fold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan as an influx of villagers exacerbated unemployment caused by the recession.[45]
+
+In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multiparty democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble, and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.
+
+In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.
+
+Unlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful to avoid any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasized the concept of Ivoirité to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from foreign countries are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained, which resulted in two civil wars in the following decades.
+
+Similarly, Bedié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bedié fled into exile in France. The new leadership reduced crime and corruption, and the generals pressed for austerity and campaigned in the streets for a less wasteful society.
+
+A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was not peaceful. The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Following a public uprising that resulted in around 180 deaths, Guéï was swiftly replaced by Gbagbo. Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality. The existing and later reformed constitution [under Guéï] did not allow noncitizens to run for the presidency. This sparked violent protests in which his supporters, mainly from the country's north, battled riot police in the capital, Yamoussoukro.
+
+In the early hours of 19 September 2002, while the President was in Italy, an armed uprising occurred. Troops who were to be demobilised mutinied, launching attacks in several cities. The battle for the main gendarmerie barracks in Abidjan lasted until mid-morning, but by lunchtime, the government forces had secured Abidjan. They had lost control of the north of the country, and rebel forces made their stronghold in the northern city of Bouaké.
+
+The rebels threatened to move on Abidjan again, and France deployed troops from its base in the country to stop their advance. The French said they were protecting their own citizens from danger, but their deployment also helped government forces. That the French were helping either side was not established as a fact; but each side accused the French of supporting the opposite side. Whether French actions improved or worsened the situation in the long term is disputed. What exactly happened that night is also disputed. The government claimed that former president Robert Guéï led a coup attempt, and state TV showed pictures of his dead body in the street; counter-claims stated that he and 15 others had been murdered at his home, and his body had been moved to the streets to incriminate him. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the German embassy; his home had been burned down. President Gbagbo cut short his trip to Italy and on his return stated, in a television address, that some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns where foreign migrant workers lived. Gendarmes and vigilantes bulldozed and burned homes by the thousands, attacking residents.
+
+An early ceasefire with the rebels, which had the backing of much of the northern populace, proved short-lived, and fighting over the prime cocoa-growing areas resumed. France sent in troops to maintain the cease-fire boundaries,[46] and militias, including warlords and fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone, took advantage of the crisis to seize parts of the west.
+
+In January 2003, Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a "government of national unity". Curfews were lifted, and French troops patrolled the western border of the country. The unity government was unstable, and central problems remained, with neither side achieving its goals. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally, and subsequent mob violence led to the evacuation of foreign nationals. A later report concluded the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed to maintain a "Zone of Confidence", relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate.
+
+Early in November 2004, after the peace agreement had effectively collapsed because the rebels refused to disarm, Gbagbo ordered airstrikes against the rebels. During one of these airstrikes in Bouaké, on 6 November 2004, French soldiers were hit, and nine were killed; the Ivorian government said it was a mistake, but the French claimed it was deliberate. They responded by destroying most Ivoirian military aircraft (two Su-25 planes and five helicopters), and violent retaliatory riots against the French broke out in Abidjan.[47]
+
+Gbagbo's original term as president expired on 30 October 2005, but due to the lack of disarmament, an election was deemed impossible, so his term in office was extended for a maximum of one year, according to a plan worked out by the African Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.[48] With the late-October deadline approaching in 2006, the election was regarded as very unlikely to be held by that point, and the opposition and the rebels rejected the possibility of another term extension for Gbagbo.[49] The UN Security Council endorsed another one-year extension of Gbagbo's term on 1 November 2006; however, the resolution provided for strengthening of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's powers. Gbagbo said the next day that elements of the resolution deemed to be constitutional violations would not be applied.[50]
+
+A peace accord between the government and the rebels, or New Forces, was signed on 4 March 2007, and subsequently Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces, became prime minister. These events were seen by some observers as substantially strengthening Gbagbo's position.[51]
+
+According to UNICEF, at the end of the civil war, water and sanitation infrastructure had been greatly damaged. Communities across the country required repairs to their water supply.[52]
+
+The presidential elections that should have been organized in 2005 were postponed until November 2010. The preliminary results announced independently by the president of the Electoral Commission from the headquarters of Ouattara due to concern about fraud in that commission.[clarification needed] They showed a loss for Gbagbo in favour of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara.[53]
+
+The ruling FPI contested the results before the Constitutional Council, charging massive fraud in the northern departments controlled by the rebels of the New Forces. These charges were contradicted by United Nations observers (unlike African Union observers). The report of the results led to severe tension and violent incidents. The Constitutional Council, which consisted of Gbagbo supporters, declared the results of seven northern departments unlawful and that Gbagbo had won the elections with 51% of the vote – instead of Ouattara winning with 54%, as reported by the Electoral Commission.[53] After the inauguration of Gbagbo, Ouattara—who was recognized as the winner by most countries and the United Nations—organized an alternative inauguration. These events raised fears of a resurgence of the civil war; thousands of refugees fled the country.[53]
+
+The African Union sent Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa, to mediate the conflict. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution recognising Alassane Ouattara as winner of the elections, based on the position of the Economic Community of West African States, which suspended Ivory Coast from all its decision-making bodies[54] while the African Union also suspended the country's membership.[55]
+
+In 2010, a colonel of Ivory Coast armed forces, Nguessan Yao, was arrested in New York in a year-long U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation charged with procuring and illegal export of weapons and munitions: 4,000 9 mm handguns, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 tear-gas grenades, in violation of a UN embargo.[56] Several other Ivory Coast officers were released because they had diplomatic passports. His accomplice, Michael Barry Shor, an international trader, was located in Virginia.[57][58]
+
+The 2010 presidential election led to the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and the Second Ivorian Civil War. International organizations reported numerous human-rights violations by both sides. In the city of Duékoué, hundreds of people were killed. In nearby Bloléquin, dozens were killed.[59] UN and French forces took military action against Gbagbo.[60] Gbagbo was taken into custody after a raid into his residence on 11 April 2011. The country was severely damaged by the war, and it was observed that Ouattara had inherited a formidable challenge to rebuild the economy and reunite Ivorians.[61] Gbagbo was taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in January 2016. He was declared acquitted by the court but given a conditional release[62] in January 2019.[63] Belgium has been designated as a host country.[64]
+
+Ivory Coast is a country of western sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Liberia and Guinea in the west, Mali and Burkina Faso in the north, Ghana in the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the south. The country lies between latitudes 4° and 11°N, and longitudes 2° and 9°W. Around 64.8% of the land is agricultural land; arable land amounted to 9.1%, permanent pasture 41.5%, and permanent crops 14.2%. Water pollution is amongst one of the biggest issues that the country is currently facing.[65]
+
+Since 2011, Ivory Coast has been administratively organised into 12 districts plus two district-level autonomous cities. The districts are divided into 31 regions; the regions are divided into 108 departments; and the departments are divided into 510 sub-prefectures.[66] In some instances, multiple villages are organised into communes. The autonomous districts are not divided into regions, but they do contain departments, sub-prefectures, and communes.
+
+Since 2011, governors for the 12 non-autonomous districts have not been appointed, and as a result these districts have not yet begun to function as governmental entities.
+
+The following is the list of districts, district capitals and each district's regions:
+
+The Ivory Coast is recorded to have over 1,200 animal species including 223 mammals, 702 birds, 125 reptiles, 38 amphibians, and 111 species of fish, alongside 4,700 plant species. It is the most biodiverse country in West Africa, with the majority of its wildlife populating living in the nation's rugged interior.[69] The nation has nine national parks, the largest of which is Assgny National Park, which occupies an area of around 17,000 hectares or 42,000 acres.[70]
+
+The government is divided into three branches: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. The Parliament of Ivory Coast, consists of the indirectly elected Senate and the National Assembly which has 255 members, elected for five-year terms.
+
+Since 1983, Ivory Coast's capital has been Yamoussoukro, while Abidjan was the administrative center. Most countries maintain their embassies in Abidjan. The Ivorian population has suffered because of the ongoing civil war. International human-rights organizations have noted problems with the treatment of captive non-combatants by both sides and the re-emergence of child slavery in cocoa production.[71]
+
+Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remained split in two, with the north controlled by the New Forces. A new presidential election was expected to be held in October 2005, and the rival parties agreed in March 2007 to proceed with this, but it continued to be postponed until November 2010 due to delays in its preparation.
+
+Elections were finally held in 2010. The first round of elections was held peacefully, and widely hailed as free and fair. Runoffs were held 28 November 2010, after being delayed one week from the original date of 21 November. Laurent Gbagbo as president ran against former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.[72] On 2 December, the Electoral Commission declared that Ouattara had won the election by a margin of 54% to 46%. In response, the Gbagbo-aligned Constitutional Council rejected the declaration, and the government announced that country's borders had been sealed. An Ivorian military spokesman said, "The air, land, and sea border of the country are closed to all movement of people and goods."[73]
+
+In Africa, Ivorian diplomacy favors step-by-step economic and political cooperation. In 1959, Ivory Coast formed the Council of the Entente with Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger and Togo; in 1965, the African and Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM); in 1972, the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO). The latter organisation changed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. A founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 and then of the African Union in 2000, Ivory Coast defends respect for state sovereignty and peaceful cooperation between African countries.
+
+Worldwide, Ivorian diplomacy is committed to fair economic and trade relations, including the fair trade of agricultural products and the promotion of peaceful relations with all countries. Ivory Coast thus maintains diplomatic relations with international organizations and countries all around the world. In particular, it has signed United Nations treaties such as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Ivory Coast is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States, and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
+
+Ivory Coast has partnered with nations of the Sub-Saharan region to strengthen water and sanitation infrastructure. This has been done mainly with the help of organizations such as UNICEF and Nestle.[75]
+
+In 2015, the United Nations engineered the Sustainable Development Goals (replacing the Millennium Development Goals). They focus on health, education, poverty, hunger, climate change, water sanitation, and hygiene. A major focus was clean water and salinisation. Experts working on this field have designed the WASH concept. WASH focuses on safe drinkable water, hygiene, and proper sanitation. The group has had a major impact on the sub-Saharan region of Africa, particularly Ivory Coast. By 2030, they plan to have universal and equal access to safe and affordable drinking water.[76]
+
+As of 2012[update], major equipment items reported by the Ivory Coast Army included 10 T-55 tanks (marked as potentially unserviceable), five AMX-13 light tanks, 34 reconnaissance vehicles, 10 BMP-½ armoured infantry fighting vehicles, 41 wheeled APCs, and 36+ artillery pieces.[77]
+
+In 2012, the Ivory Coast Air Force consisted of one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter and three SA330L Puma transports (marked as potentially unserviceable).[78]
+
+In 2017, Ivory Coast signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[79]
+
+Ivory Coast has, for the region, a relatively high income per capita (US$1,662 in 2017) and plays a key role in transit trade for neighboring, landlocked countries. The country is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, constituting 40% of the monetary union's total GDP. The country is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans, and the fourth-largest exporter of goods, in general, in sub-Saharan Africa (following South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola).[80]
+
+In 2009, cocoa-bean farmers earned $2.53 billion for cocoa exports and were projected to produce 630,000 metric tons in 2013.[81][82] According to the Hershey Company, the price of cocoa beans is expected to rise dramatically in upcoming years.[83] Ivory Coast also has 100,000 rubber farmers who earned a total of $105 million in 2012.[84][85]
+
+Close ties to France since independence in 1960, diversification of agricultural exports, and encouragement of foreign investment have been factors in the economic growth of Ivory Coast. In recent years, Ivory Coast has been subject to greater competition and falling prices in the global marketplace for its primary agricultural crops: coffee and cocoa. That, compounded with high internal corruption, makes life difficult for the grower, those exporting into foreign markets, and the labor force, inasmuch as instances of indentured labor have been reported in the country's cocoa and coffee production in every edition of the U.S. Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor since 2009.[86]
+
+Ivory Coast's economy has grown faster than that of most other African countries since independence. One possible reason for this might be taxes on export agriculture. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Kenya were exceptions as their rulers were themselves large cash-crop producers, and the newly independent countries desisted from imposing penal rates of taxation on export agriculture, with the result that their economies were doing well.[87]
+
+A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune Magazine in the U.S., concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in [several countries of] West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved significantly:
+
+"According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that’s published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢. That puts them well below the World Bank’s new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year.
+
+And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies’ newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ... 
+'Best-case scenario, we’re only doing 10% of what's needed.' Getting that other 90% won't be easy. 'It's such a colossal issue,' says Sona Ebai, who grew up farming cocoa in Cameroon and is the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries. 'I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector.'He pauses, taking in his own thought for a moment. 'And there, you really need leadership.'"
+[88]
+
+Ivory Coast's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants.[89] Until 1998 the country's population increased to 15,366,672,[90] 20,617,068 in 2009,[1] and 23,919,000 in July 2014.[91]
+
+According to 2012 government survey, the fertility rate was 5.0 children born per woman, with 3.7 in urban areas and 6.3 in rural areas.[92]
+
+French, the official language, is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country. An estimated 70 languages are spoken in Ivory Coast. One of the most common is Dyula, which acts as a trade language, as well as a language commonly spoken by the Muslim population.
+
+Around 7.5 million people of Ivory Coast made up the work force in 2009. The work force took a hit, especially in the private sector, during the early 2000s due to the numerous economic crises since 1999. Furthermore, these crises caused companies to close and move locations, especially in Ivory Coast's tourism industry, transit and banking companies. Job markets decreasing posed as a huge issue in Ivory Coast society as unemployment rates grew. Unemployment rates raised to 9.4% in 2012.[93]
+
+Solutions proposed to decrease unemployment included diversifying jobs in small trade. This division of work encouraged farmers and the agricultural sector. Self-employment policy, established by the Ivorian government, allowed for very strong growth in the field with an increase of 142% in seven years from 1995.[94]
+
+Ethnic groups in Ivory Coast include Akan (42.1%), Voltaiques or Gur (17.6%), Northern Mandés (16.5%), Krous (11%), Southern Mandés (10%), and others (2.8%, including 100,000 Lebanese[95] and 45,000 French; 2004). About 77% of the population is considered Ivorian.
+
+Since Ivory Coast has established itself as one of the most successful West African nations, about 20% of the population (about 3.4 million) consists of workers from neighbouring Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.
+
+About 4% of the population is of non-African ancestry. Many are French,[96] Lebanese,[97][98] Vietnamese and Spanish citizens, as well as evangelical missionaries from the United States and Canada. In November 2004, around 10,000 French and other foreign nationals evacuated Ivory Coast due to attacks from pro-government youth militias.[99] Aside from French nationals, native-born descendants of French settlers who arrived during the country's colonial period are present.
+
+Religion in Ivory Coast (2017 estimate)[100][101]
+
+Ivory Coast is a religiously diverse country, in which adherents of Islam (mostly Sunni) represented 42.9% of the total population in 2014, while followers of Christianity (mostly Catholic and Evangelical) represented 33.9% of the population. In addition 19.1% of Ivorians claimed to be irreligious, and 3.6% reported following traditional African religions.[102] In 2009, according to U.S. Department of State estimates, Christians and Muslims each made up 35 to 40% of the population, while an estimated 25% of the population practised traditional (animist) religions.[103]
+
+Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, is home to the largest church building in the world, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro.
+
+Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro; one of the largest Christian places of worship in the world.
+
+Central mosque in Marcory.
+
+Life expectancy at birth was 42 for males in 2004; for females it was 47.[104] Infant mortality was 118 of 1000 live births.[104] Twelve physicians are available per 100,000 people.[104] About a quarter of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.[105] About 36% of women have undergone female genital mutilation.[106] According to 2010 estimates, Ivory Coast has the 27th-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.[107] The HIV/AIDS rate was 19th-highest in the world, estimated in 2012 at 3.20% among adults aged 15–49 years.[108]
+
+A large part of the adult population, in particular women, is illiterate. Many children between 6 and 10 years are not enrolled in school.[109] The majority of students in secondary education are male. At the end of secondary education, students can sit the baccalauréat examination.
+
+The country has a number of universities, such as the Université de Cocody in Abidjan and the Université de Bouaké in Bouaké. In 2012, there were 57,541 students enrolled at post-secondary diploma level, 23,008 students studying for a bachelor's or master's degree and 269 PhD students. Enrolment in tertiary education suffered during the political crisis, dropping from 9.03% to 4.46% of the 18-to-25-year cohort between 2009 and 2012.[110]
+
+According to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ivory Coast devotes about 0.13% of GDP to GERD. Apart from low investment, other challenges include inadequate scientific equipment, the fragmentation of research organizations and a failure to exploit and protect research results.[110]
+
+The share of the National Development Plan for 2012–2015 that is devoted to scientific research remains modest. Within the section on greater wealth creation and social equity (63.8% of the total budget for the Plan), just 1.2% is allocated to scientific research. Twenty-four national research programmes group public and private research and training institutions around a common research theme. These programmes correspond to eight priority sectors for 2012–2015, namely: health, raw materials, agriculture, culture, environment, governance, mining and energy; and technology.[110]
+
+Each of the ethnic groups in Ivory Coast has its own music genres, most showing strong vocal polyphony. Talking drums are also common, especially among the Appolo, and polyrhythms, another African characteristic, are found throughout Ivory Coast and are especially common in the southwest.
+
+Popular music genres from Ivory Coast include zoblazo, zouglou, and Coupé-Décalé. A few Ivorian artists who have known international success are Magic Système, Alpha Blondy, Meiway, Dobet Gnahoré, Tiken Jah Fakoly, DJ Arafat, Serge Beynaud and Christina Goh, of Ivorian descent.
+
+The country has been the host for several major African sporting events, with the most recent being the 2013 African Basketball Championship. In the past, the country hosted the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations, in which its football team finished fifth, and the 1985 African Basketball Championship, where its basketball team won the gold medal.
+
+400m metre runner Gabriel Tiacoh won the silver medal in the men's 400 metres at the 1984 Olympics.
+
+The country hosted the 8th edition of Jeux de la Francophonie in 2017.
+
+The most popular sport in Ivory Coast is association football. The national football team has played in the World Cup three times, in Germany 2006, in South Africa 2010, and Brazil in 2014. The women's football team played in the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada. Ivory Coast notable footballers are Didier Drogba, Yaya Touré and Kolo Touré, Eric Bailly, Gervinho, Nicolas Pépé, and Wilfried Zaha.
+
+Rugby union is also popular, and the national rugby union team qualified to play at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. Ivory Coast also won two Africa Cups one 1992 and the other 2015.
+
+Ivory Coast is also known for Taekwondo with worldwide superstars like Cheick Cissé, Ruth Gbagbi and Firmin Zokou. The country ranks sencond in Africa all time medals winning.
+
+And sport of athletics, with some names like Marie-josée Ta Lou and Murielle Ahouré.
+
+The traditional cuisine of Ivory Coast is very similar to that of neighboring countries in West Africa in its reliance on grains and tubers. Cassava and plantains are significant parts of Ivorian cuisine. A type of corn paste called aitiu is used to prepare corn balls, and peanuts are widely used in many dishes. Attiéké is a popular side dish in Ivory Coast made with grated cassava, a vegetable-based couscous. A common street food is alloco, ripe banana fried in palm oil, spiced with steamed onions and chili and eaten alone, with grilled fish or boiled eggs. Chicken is commonly consumed and has a unique flavor due to its lean, low-fat mass in this region. Seafood includes tuna, sardines, shrimp, and bonito, which is similar to tuna. Mafé is a common dish consisting of meat in a peanut sauce.[111]
+
+Slow-simmered stews with various ingredients are another common food staple in Ivory Coast.[111] Kedjenou is a dish consisting of chicken and vegetables slow-cooked in a sealed pot with little or no added liquid, which concentrates the flavors of the chicken and vegetables and tenderizes the chicken.[111] It is usually cooked in a pottery jar called a canary, over a slow fire, or cooked in an oven.[111] Bangui is a local palm wine.
+
+Ivorians have a particular kind of small, open-air restaurant called a maquis, which is unique to the region. A maquis normally features braised chicken and fish covered in onions and tomatoes, served with attiéké or kedjenou.

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+Coordinates: 8°N 5°W / 8°N 5°W / 8; -5
+
+Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire,[a] officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) to the south. The official language of the republic is French, with local indigenous languages also being widely used that include Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has large populations of Muslims, Christians (primarily Roman Catholics) and various indigenous religions.
+
+Before its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire and Baoulé. The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. It achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. Relatively stable by regional standards, Ivory Coast established close political and economic ties with its West African neighbors while at the same time maintaining close relations to the West, especially France. Ivory Coast experienced a coup d'état in 1999 and two religiously-grounded civil wars, first between 2002 and 2007[8] and again during 2010–2011. In 2000, the country adopted a new constitution.[9]
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+Ivory Coast is a republic with strong executive power vested in its president. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, though it went through an economic crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. It was not until around 2014 that the gross domestic product again reached the level of its peak in the 1970s.[10] In the 21st century, the Ivorian economy has been largely market-based, and it still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production being predominant.[1]
+
+Originally, Portuguese and French merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa, very roughly, into four "coasts" reflecting local economies. The coast that the French named the Côte d'Ivoire and the Portuguese named the Costa Do Marfim —both, literally, mean "Coast of Ivory"— lay between what was known as the Guiné de Cabo Verde, so-called "Upper Guinea" at Cap-Vert, and Lower Guinea.[11][12] There was also a Pepper Coast, also known as the "Grain Coast" (present-day Liberia), a "Gold Coast" (Ghana), and a "Slave Coast" (Togo, Benin and Nigeria). Like those, the name "Ivory Coast" reflected the major trade that occurred on that particular stretch of the coast: the export of ivory.[13][11][14][15][16]
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+Other names included the Côte de Dents,[b] literally "Coast of Teeth", again reflecting the trade in ivory;[18][19][13][12][16][20] the Côte de Quaqua, after the people whom the Dutch named the Quaqua (alternatively Kwa Kwa);[19][11][17] the Coast of the Five and Six Stripes, after a type of cotton fabric also traded there;[19] and the Côte du Vent,[c] the Windward Coast, after perennial local off-shore weather conditions.[13][11] One can find the name Cote de(s) Dents regularly used in older works.[19] It was used in Duckett's Dictionnaire (Duckett 1853) and by Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, for example, although Antoine François Prévost used Côte d'Ivoire.[20] In the 19th century, usage switched to Côte d'Ivoire.[19]
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+The coastline of the modern state is not quite coterminous with what the 15th- and 16th-century merchants knew as the "Teeth" or "Ivory" coast, which was considered to stretch from Cape Palmas to Cape Three Points and which is thus now divided between the modern states of Ghana and Ivory Coast (with a minute portion of Liberia).[18][14][20][17] It retained the name through French rule and independence in 1960.[21] The name had long since been translated literally into other languages,[d] which the post-independence government considered increasingly troublesome whenever its international dealings extended beyond the Francophone sphere. Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared that Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire[23]) would be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and since then officially refuses to recognize or accept any translation from French to another language in its international dealings.[22][24][25]
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+Despite the Ivorian government's request, the English translation "Ivory Coast" (often "the Ivory Coast") is still frequently used in English by various media outlets and publications.[e][f]
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+The first human presence in Ivory Coast has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well preserved in the country's humid climate. However, newly found weapon and tool fragments (specifically, polished axes cut through shale and remnants of cooking and fishing) have been interpreted as a possible indication of a large human presence during the Upper Paleolithic period (15,000 to 10,000 BC),[34] or at the minimum, the Neolithic period.[35]
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+The earliest known inhabitants of Ivory Coast have left traces scattered throughout the territory. Historians believe that they were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present indigenous inhabitants, who migrated south into the area before the 16th century. Such groups included the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri (Grand Lahou), Ega and Diès (Divo).[36]
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+The first recorded history appears[when?] in the chronicles[where?] of North African (Berber) traders, who, from early Roman times, conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other goods. The southern terminals of the trans-Saharan trade routes were located on the edge of the desert, and from there supplemental trade extended as far south as the edge of the rain forest. The more important terminals—Djenné, Gao, and Timbuctu—grew into major commercial centres around which the great Sudanic empires developed.
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+By controlling the trade routes with their powerful military forces, these empires were able to dominate neighbouring states. The Sudanic empires also became centres of Islamic education. Islam had been introduced in the western Sudan by Muslim Berber traders from North Africa; it spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers. From the 11th century, by which time the rulers of the Sudanic empires had embraced Islam, it spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Ivory Coast.
+
+The Ghana Empire, the earliest of the Sudanic empires, flourished in the region encompassing present-day southeast Mauritania and southern Mali between the 4th and 13th centuries. At the peak of its power in the 11th century, its realms extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu. After the decline of Ghana, the Mali Empire grew into a powerful Muslim state, which reached its apogee in the early part of the 14th century. The territory of the Mali Empire in Ivory Coast was limited to the north-west corner around Odienné.
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+Its slow decline starting at the end of the 14th century followed internal discord and revolts by vassal states, one of which, Songhai, flourished as an empire between the 14th and 16th centuries. Songhai was also weakened by internal discord, which led to factional warfare. This discord spurred most of the migrations southward toward the forest belt. The dense rain forest covering the southern half of the country, created barriers to the large-scale political organizations that had arisen in the north. Inhabitants lived in villages or clusters of villages; their contacts with the outside world were filtered through long-distance traders. Villagers subsisted on agriculture and hunting.
+
+Five important states flourished in Ivory Coast during the pre-European early modern period. The Muslim Kong Empire was established by the Jola in the early 18th century in the north-central region inhabited by the Sénoufo, who had fled Islamization under the Mali Empire. Although Kong became a prosperous center of agriculture, trade, and crafts, ethnic diversity and religious discord gradually weakened the kingdom. In 1895 the city of Kong would be sacked and conquered by Samori Ture of the Wassoulou Empire.
+
+The Abron kingdom of Gyaaman was established in the 17th century by an Akan group, the Abron, who had fled the developing Ashanti confederation of Asanteman in what is present-day Ghana. From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the Dyula people in Bondoukou, who were recent arrivals from the market city of Begho. Bondoukou developed into a major center of commerce and Islam. The kingdom's Quranic scholars attracted students from all parts of West Africa. In the mid-17th century in east-central Ivory Coast, other Akan groups fleeing the Asante established a Baoulé kingdom at Sakasso and two Agni kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi.
+
+The Baoulé, like the Ashanti, developed a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers. It finally split into smaller chiefdoms. Despite the breakup of their kingdom, the Baoulé strongly resisted French subjugation. The descendants of the rulers of the Agni kingdoms tried to retain their separate identity long after Ivory Coast's independence; as late as 1969, the Sanwi attempted to break away from Ivory Coast and form an independent kingdom.[37] The current king of Sanwi is Amon N'Douffou V (since 2005).
+
+Compared to neighboring Ghana, Ivory Coast, though practicing slavery and slave raiding, suffered little from the slave trade as such. European slave and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast. The earliest recorded European voyage to West Africa was made by the Portuguese in 1482. The first West African French settlement, Saint Louis, was founded in the mid-17th century in Senegal, while at about the same time, the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at Goree Island, off Dakar. A French mission was established in 1637 at Assinie near the border with the Gold Coast (now Ghana). The Europeans suppressed the local practice of slavery at this time and forbade the trade to their merchants.
+
+Assinie's survival was precarious, however; the French were not firmly established in Ivory Coast until the mid-19th century. In 1843–4, French admiral Louis Edouard Bouët-Willaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions, making their territories a French protectorate. French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region. Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.
+
+Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, the Senegal and the Niger. Concerted French exploration of West Africa began in the mid-19th century, but moved slowly, based more on individual initiative than on government policy. In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African chiefs that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centres.
+
+The first posts in Ivory Coast included one at Assinie and another at Grand Bassam, which became the colony's first capital. The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts, and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or coutumes paid annually to the local chiefs for the use of the land. The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French, because trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose. Nevertheless, the French government maintained the treaties, hoping to expand trade.
+
+France also wanted to maintain a presence in the region to stem the increasing influence of the British along the Gulf of Guinea coast. The French built naval bases to keep out non-French traders and began a systematic pacification of the interior to stop raids on their settlements. They accomplished this only after a long war in the 1890s against Mandinka tribesmen, mostly from the Gambia. However, raids by the Baoulé and other eastern tribes continued until 1917.[citation needed]
+
+The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French province of Alsace-Lorraine caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants. The trading post at Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast was left in the care of a shipper from Marseille, Arthur Verdier, who in 1878 was named Resident of the Establishment of Ivory Coast.[37]
+
+In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior. In 1887, Lieutenant Louis Gustave Binger began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Ivory Coast's interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Ivory Coast. Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, Marcel Treich-Laplène, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.
+
+By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions of Ivory Coast, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. That same year, France named Treich-Laplène titular governor of the territory. In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, and Captain Binger was appointed governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons.
+
+France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, the French and British were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations and adopted the local forced-labor system.
+
+Throughout the early years of French rule, French military contingents were sent inland to establish new posts. Some of the native population and former slave-owning class resisted French settlers. Among those offering greatest resistance was Samori Ture, who in the 1880s and 1890s was conquering his neighbors, re-establishing slavery and founding the Wassoulou Empire, which extended over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Samori Ture's large, well-equipped army, which could manufacture and repair its own firearms, attracted some support throughout the region from chiefs who sought to play the two sides off against each other. The French responded to Samori Ture's expansion and conquest with military pressure. French campaigns against Samori Ture, which were met with greater resistance than usual in tribal warfare, intensified in the mid-1890s until he was captured in 1898 and his empire dissolved.
+
+France's imposition of a head tax in 1900 to support the colony's public works program provoked unexpected protests. Many Ivoirians saw the tax as a violation of the protectorate treaties because they felt that France was demanding the equivalent of a coutume from the local kings, rather than the reverse. Many, especially in the interior, also considered the tax a humiliating symbol of submission.[38] In 1905, the French officially abolished slavery in most of French West Africa.[39] From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of French West Africa. It was a colony and an overseas territory under the Third Republic. In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917–1919. Some 150,000 men from Ivory Coast died in World War I. Until the period following World War II, governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris. France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects", but without rights to representation in Africa or France.
+
+French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Based on the assumed superiority of French culture, in practice the assimilation policy meant the extension of French language, institutions, laws, and customs to the colonies. The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the colonizer and the colonized. Under this policy, the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests, such as the recent abolition of the slave trade.
+
+An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between French and Africans. After 1930, a small number of Westernized Ivoirians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship. Most Ivoirians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association.[40] As subjects of France, natives outside the above-mentioned civilized elite had no political rights. They were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility. They were expected to serve in the military and were subject to the indigénat, a separate system of law.[41]
+
+In World War II, the Vichy regime remained in control until 1942, when British troops invaded without much resistance. Winston Churchill gave power back to members of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government. By 1943, the Allies had returned French West Africa to the French. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946. French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished. Between the years 1944–1946 many national conferences and constituent assemblies took place between France's Vichy regime and provisional governments in Ivory Coast. Governmental reforms were established by late 1946, which granted French citizenship to all African "subjects" under the colonial control of the French.
+
+Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivoirian participation in policy-making. While British colonial administrations adopted divide-and-rule policies elsewhere, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite, the French were interested in ensuring that the small but influential elite was sufficiently satisfied with the status quo to refrain from anti-French sentiment. Although strongly opposed to the practices of association, educated Ivoirians believed that they would achieve equality with their French peers through assimilation rather than through complete independence from France. After the assimilation doctrine was implemented through the postwar reforms, though, Ivoirian leaders realized that even assimilation implied the superiority of the French over the Ivoirians. Some of them thought that discrimination and political inequality would end only with independence; others thought the problem of the division between the tribal culture and modernity would continue.[42]
+
+Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the son of a Baoulé chief, became Ivory Coast's father of independence. In 1944, he formed the country's first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers like himself. Angered that colonial policy favoured French plantation owners, the union members united to recruit migrant workers for their own farms. Houphouët-Boigny soon rose to prominence and within a year was elected to the French Parliament in Paris. A year later, the French abolished forced labour. Houphouët-Boigny established a strong relationship with the French government, expressing a belief that Ivory Coast would benefit from the relationship, which it did for many years. France appointed him as a minister, the first African to become a minister in a European government.
+
+A turning point in relations with France was reached with the 1956 Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre), which transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and also removed the remaining voting inequities. In 1958, Ivory Coast became an autonomous member of the French Community, which had replaced the French Union.
+
+At independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to further stimulate production, which was further boosted by a significant immigration of workers from surrounding countries. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Ivory Coast into third place in world output, behind Brazil and Colombia. By 1979, the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil. French technicians contributed to the "Ivoirian miracle". In other African nations, the people drove out the Europeans following independence, but in Ivory Coast, they poured in. The French community grew from only 30,000 prior to independence to 60,000 in 1980, most of them teachers, managers, and advisors.[43] For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10%—the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.
+
+Houphouët-Boigny's one-party rule was not amenable to political competition. Laurent Gbagbo, who would become the president of Ivory Coast in 2000, had to flee the country in the 1980s, after he incurred the ire of Houphouët-Boigny by founding the Front Populaire Ivoirien.[44] Houphouët-Boigny banked on his broad appeal to the population, who continued to elect him. He was criticized for his emphasis on developing large-scale projects.
+
+Many felt the millions of dollars spent transforming his home village, Yamoussoukro, into the new political capital were wasted; others supported his vision to develop a centre for peace, education, and religion in the heart of the country. In the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shock waves through the Ivoirian economy. Due to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased three-fold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan as an influx of villagers exacerbated unemployment caused by the recession.[45]
+
+In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multiparty democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble, and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.
+
+In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.
+
+Unlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful to avoid any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasized the concept of Ivoirité to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from foreign countries are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained, which resulted in two civil wars in the following decades.
+
+Similarly, Bedié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bedié fled into exile in France. The new leadership reduced crime and corruption, and the generals pressed for austerity and campaigned in the streets for a less wasteful society.
+
+A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was not peaceful. The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Following a public uprising that resulted in around 180 deaths, Guéï was swiftly replaced by Gbagbo. Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality. The existing and later reformed constitution [under Guéï] did not allow noncitizens to run for the presidency. This sparked violent protests in which his supporters, mainly from the country's north, battled riot police in the capital, Yamoussoukro.
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+In the early hours of 19 September 2002, while the President was in Italy, an armed uprising occurred. Troops who were to be demobilised mutinied, launching attacks in several cities. The battle for the main gendarmerie barracks in Abidjan lasted until mid-morning, but by lunchtime, the government forces had secured Abidjan. They had lost control of the north of the country, and rebel forces made their stronghold in the northern city of Bouaké.
+
+The rebels threatened to move on Abidjan again, and France deployed troops from its base in the country to stop their advance. The French said they were protecting their own citizens from danger, but their deployment also helped government forces. That the French were helping either side was not established as a fact; but each side accused the French of supporting the opposite side. Whether French actions improved or worsened the situation in the long term is disputed. What exactly happened that night is also disputed. The government claimed that former president Robert Guéï led a coup attempt, and state TV showed pictures of his dead body in the street; counter-claims stated that he and 15 others had been murdered at his home, and his body had been moved to the streets to incriminate him. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the German embassy; his home had been burned down. President Gbagbo cut short his trip to Italy and on his return stated, in a television address, that some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns where foreign migrant workers lived. Gendarmes and vigilantes bulldozed and burned homes by the thousands, attacking residents.
+
+An early ceasefire with the rebels, which had the backing of much of the northern populace, proved short-lived, and fighting over the prime cocoa-growing areas resumed. France sent in troops to maintain the cease-fire boundaries,[46] and militias, including warlords and fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone, took advantage of the crisis to seize parts of the west.
+
+In January 2003, Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a "government of national unity". Curfews were lifted, and French troops patrolled the western border of the country. The unity government was unstable, and central problems remained, with neither side achieving its goals. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally, and subsequent mob violence led to the evacuation of foreign nationals. A later report concluded the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed to maintain a "Zone of Confidence", relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate.
+
+Early in November 2004, after the peace agreement had effectively collapsed because the rebels refused to disarm, Gbagbo ordered airstrikes against the rebels. During one of these airstrikes in Bouaké, on 6 November 2004, French soldiers were hit, and nine were killed; the Ivorian government said it was a mistake, but the French claimed it was deliberate. They responded by destroying most Ivoirian military aircraft (two Su-25 planes and five helicopters), and violent retaliatory riots against the French broke out in Abidjan.[47]
+
+Gbagbo's original term as president expired on 30 October 2005, but due to the lack of disarmament, an election was deemed impossible, so his term in office was extended for a maximum of one year, according to a plan worked out by the African Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.[48] With the late-October deadline approaching in 2006, the election was regarded as very unlikely to be held by that point, and the opposition and the rebels rejected the possibility of another term extension for Gbagbo.[49] The UN Security Council endorsed another one-year extension of Gbagbo's term on 1 November 2006; however, the resolution provided for strengthening of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's powers. Gbagbo said the next day that elements of the resolution deemed to be constitutional violations would not be applied.[50]
+
+A peace accord between the government and the rebels, or New Forces, was signed on 4 March 2007, and subsequently Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces, became prime minister. These events were seen by some observers as substantially strengthening Gbagbo's position.[51]
+
+According to UNICEF, at the end of the civil war, water and sanitation infrastructure had been greatly damaged. Communities across the country required repairs to their water supply.[52]
+
+The presidential elections that should have been organized in 2005 were postponed until November 2010. The preliminary results announced independently by the president of the Electoral Commission from the headquarters of Ouattara due to concern about fraud in that commission.[clarification needed] They showed a loss for Gbagbo in favour of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara.[53]
+
+The ruling FPI contested the results before the Constitutional Council, charging massive fraud in the northern departments controlled by the rebels of the New Forces. These charges were contradicted by United Nations observers (unlike African Union observers). The report of the results led to severe tension and violent incidents. The Constitutional Council, which consisted of Gbagbo supporters, declared the results of seven northern departments unlawful and that Gbagbo had won the elections with 51% of the vote – instead of Ouattara winning with 54%, as reported by the Electoral Commission.[53] After the inauguration of Gbagbo, Ouattara—who was recognized as the winner by most countries and the United Nations—organized an alternative inauguration. These events raised fears of a resurgence of the civil war; thousands of refugees fled the country.[53]
+
+The African Union sent Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa, to mediate the conflict. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution recognising Alassane Ouattara as winner of the elections, based on the position of the Economic Community of West African States, which suspended Ivory Coast from all its decision-making bodies[54] while the African Union also suspended the country's membership.[55]
+
+In 2010, a colonel of Ivory Coast armed forces, Nguessan Yao, was arrested in New York in a year-long U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation charged with procuring and illegal export of weapons and munitions: 4,000 9 mm handguns, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 tear-gas grenades, in violation of a UN embargo.[56] Several other Ivory Coast officers were released because they had diplomatic passports. His accomplice, Michael Barry Shor, an international trader, was located in Virginia.[57][58]
+
+The 2010 presidential election led to the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and the Second Ivorian Civil War. International organizations reported numerous human-rights violations by both sides. In the city of Duékoué, hundreds of people were killed. In nearby Bloléquin, dozens were killed.[59] UN and French forces took military action against Gbagbo.[60] Gbagbo was taken into custody after a raid into his residence on 11 April 2011. The country was severely damaged by the war, and it was observed that Ouattara had inherited a formidable challenge to rebuild the economy and reunite Ivorians.[61] Gbagbo was taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in January 2016. He was declared acquitted by the court but given a conditional release[62] in January 2019.[63] Belgium has been designated as a host country.[64]
+
+Ivory Coast is a country of western sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Liberia and Guinea in the west, Mali and Burkina Faso in the north, Ghana in the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the south. The country lies between latitudes 4° and 11°N, and longitudes 2° and 9°W. Around 64.8% of the land is agricultural land; arable land amounted to 9.1%, permanent pasture 41.5%, and permanent crops 14.2%. Water pollution is amongst one of the biggest issues that the country is currently facing.[65]
+
+Since 2011, Ivory Coast has been administratively organised into 12 districts plus two district-level autonomous cities. The districts are divided into 31 regions; the regions are divided into 108 departments; and the departments are divided into 510 sub-prefectures.[66] In some instances, multiple villages are organised into communes. The autonomous districts are not divided into regions, but they do contain departments, sub-prefectures, and communes.
+
+Since 2011, governors for the 12 non-autonomous districts have not been appointed, and as a result these districts have not yet begun to function as governmental entities.
+
+The following is the list of districts, district capitals and each district's regions:
+
+The Ivory Coast is recorded to have over 1,200 animal species including 223 mammals, 702 birds, 125 reptiles, 38 amphibians, and 111 species of fish, alongside 4,700 plant species. It is the most biodiverse country in West Africa, with the majority of its wildlife populating living in the nation's rugged interior.[69] The nation has nine national parks, the largest of which is Assgny National Park, which occupies an area of around 17,000 hectares or 42,000 acres.[70]
+
+The government is divided into three branches: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. The Parliament of Ivory Coast, consists of the indirectly elected Senate and the National Assembly which has 255 members, elected for five-year terms.
+
+Since 1983, Ivory Coast's capital has been Yamoussoukro, while Abidjan was the administrative center. Most countries maintain their embassies in Abidjan. The Ivorian population has suffered because of the ongoing civil war. International human-rights organizations have noted problems with the treatment of captive non-combatants by both sides and the re-emergence of child slavery in cocoa production.[71]
+
+Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remained split in two, with the north controlled by the New Forces. A new presidential election was expected to be held in October 2005, and the rival parties agreed in March 2007 to proceed with this, but it continued to be postponed until November 2010 due to delays in its preparation.
+
+Elections were finally held in 2010. The first round of elections was held peacefully, and widely hailed as free and fair. Runoffs were held 28 November 2010, after being delayed one week from the original date of 21 November. Laurent Gbagbo as president ran against former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.[72] On 2 December, the Electoral Commission declared that Ouattara had won the election by a margin of 54% to 46%. In response, the Gbagbo-aligned Constitutional Council rejected the declaration, and the government announced that country's borders had been sealed. An Ivorian military spokesman said, "The air, land, and sea border of the country are closed to all movement of people and goods."[73]
+
+In Africa, Ivorian diplomacy favors step-by-step economic and political cooperation. In 1959, Ivory Coast formed the Council of the Entente with Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger and Togo; in 1965, the African and Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM); in 1972, the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO). The latter organisation changed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. A founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 and then of the African Union in 2000, Ivory Coast defends respect for state sovereignty and peaceful cooperation between African countries.
+
+Worldwide, Ivorian diplomacy is committed to fair economic and trade relations, including the fair trade of agricultural products and the promotion of peaceful relations with all countries. Ivory Coast thus maintains diplomatic relations with international organizations and countries all around the world. In particular, it has signed United Nations treaties such as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Ivory Coast is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States, and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
+
+Ivory Coast has partnered with nations of the Sub-Saharan region to strengthen water and sanitation infrastructure. This has been done mainly with the help of organizations such as UNICEF and Nestle.[75]
+
+In 2015, the United Nations engineered the Sustainable Development Goals (replacing the Millennium Development Goals). They focus on health, education, poverty, hunger, climate change, water sanitation, and hygiene. A major focus was clean water and salinisation. Experts working on this field have designed the WASH concept. WASH focuses on safe drinkable water, hygiene, and proper sanitation. The group has had a major impact on the sub-Saharan region of Africa, particularly Ivory Coast. By 2030, they plan to have universal and equal access to safe and affordable drinking water.[76]
+
+As of 2012[update], major equipment items reported by the Ivory Coast Army included 10 T-55 tanks (marked as potentially unserviceable), five AMX-13 light tanks, 34 reconnaissance vehicles, 10 BMP-½ armoured infantry fighting vehicles, 41 wheeled APCs, and 36+ artillery pieces.[77]
+
+In 2012, the Ivory Coast Air Force consisted of one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter and three SA330L Puma transports (marked as potentially unserviceable).[78]
+
+In 2017, Ivory Coast signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[79]
+
+Ivory Coast has, for the region, a relatively high income per capita (US$1,662 in 2017) and plays a key role in transit trade for neighboring, landlocked countries. The country is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, constituting 40% of the monetary union's total GDP. The country is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans, and the fourth-largest exporter of goods, in general, in sub-Saharan Africa (following South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola).[80]
+
+In 2009, cocoa-bean farmers earned $2.53 billion for cocoa exports and were projected to produce 630,000 metric tons in 2013.[81][82] According to the Hershey Company, the price of cocoa beans is expected to rise dramatically in upcoming years.[83] Ivory Coast also has 100,000 rubber farmers who earned a total of $105 million in 2012.[84][85]
+
+Close ties to France since independence in 1960, diversification of agricultural exports, and encouragement of foreign investment have been factors in the economic growth of Ivory Coast. In recent years, Ivory Coast has been subject to greater competition and falling prices in the global marketplace for its primary agricultural crops: coffee and cocoa. That, compounded with high internal corruption, makes life difficult for the grower, those exporting into foreign markets, and the labor force, inasmuch as instances of indentured labor have been reported in the country's cocoa and coffee production in every edition of the U.S. Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor since 2009.[86]
+
+Ivory Coast's economy has grown faster than that of most other African countries since independence. One possible reason for this might be taxes on export agriculture. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Kenya were exceptions as their rulers were themselves large cash-crop producers, and the newly independent countries desisted from imposing penal rates of taxation on export agriculture, with the result that their economies were doing well.[87]
+
+A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune Magazine in the U.S., concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in [several countries of] West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved significantly:
+
+"According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that’s published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢. That puts them well below the World Bank’s new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year.
+
+And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies’ newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ... 
+'Best-case scenario, we’re only doing 10% of what's needed.' Getting that other 90% won't be easy. 'It's such a colossal issue,' says Sona Ebai, who grew up farming cocoa in Cameroon and is the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries. 'I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector.'He pauses, taking in his own thought for a moment. 'And there, you really need leadership.'"
+[88]
+
+Ivory Coast's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants.[89] Until 1998 the country's population increased to 15,366,672,[90] 20,617,068 in 2009,[1] and 23,919,000 in July 2014.[91]
+
+According to 2012 government survey, the fertility rate was 5.0 children born per woman, with 3.7 in urban areas and 6.3 in rural areas.[92]
+
+French, the official language, is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country. An estimated 70 languages are spoken in Ivory Coast. One of the most common is Dyula, which acts as a trade language, as well as a language commonly spoken by the Muslim population.
+
+Around 7.5 million people of Ivory Coast made up the work force in 2009. The work force took a hit, especially in the private sector, during the early 2000s due to the numerous economic crises since 1999. Furthermore, these crises caused companies to close and move locations, especially in Ivory Coast's tourism industry, transit and banking companies. Job markets decreasing posed as a huge issue in Ivory Coast society as unemployment rates grew. Unemployment rates raised to 9.4% in 2012.[93]
+
+Solutions proposed to decrease unemployment included diversifying jobs in small trade. This division of work encouraged farmers and the agricultural sector. Self-employment policy, established by the Ivorian government, allowed for very strong growth in the field with an increase of 142% in seven years from 1995.[94]
+
+Ethnic groups in Ivory Coast include Akan (42.1%), Voltaiques or Gur (17.6%), Northern Mandés (16.5%), Krous (11%), Southern Mandés (10%), and others (2.8%, including 100,000 Lebanese[95] and 45,000 French; 2004). About 77% of the population is considered Ivorian.
+
+Since Ivory Coast has established itself as one of the most successful West African nations, about 20% of the population (about 3.4 million) consists of workers from neighbouring Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.
+
+About 4% of the population is of non-African ancestry. Many are French,[96] Lebanese,[97][98] Vietnamese and Spanish citizens, as well as evangelical missionaries from the United States and Canada. In November 2004, around 10,000 French and other foreign nationals evacuated Ivory Coast due to attacks from pro-government youth militias.[99] Aside from French nationals, native-born descendants of French settlers who arrived during the country's colonial period are present.
+
+Religion in Ivory Coast (2017 estimate)[100][101]
+
+Ivory Coast is a religiously diverse country, in which adherents of Islam (mostly Sunni) represented 42.9% of the total population in 2014, while followers of Christianity (mostly Catholic and Evangelical) represented 33.9% of the population. In addition 19.1% of Ivorians claimed to be irreligious, and 3.6% reported following traditional African religions.[102] In 2009, according to U.S. Department of State estimates, Christians and Muslims each made up 35 to 40% of the population, while an estimated 25% of the population practised traditional (animist) religions.[103]
+
+Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, is home to the largest church building in the world, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro.
+
+Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro; one of the largest Christian places of worship in the world.
+
+Central mosque in Marcory.
+
+Life expectancy at birth was 42 for males in 2004; for females it was 47.[104] Infant mortality was 118 of 1000 live births.[104] Twelve physicians are available per 100,000 people.[104] About a quarter of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.[105] About 36% of women have undergone female genital mutilation.[106] According to 2010 estimates, Ivory Coast has the 27th-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.[107] The HIV/AIDS rate was 19th-highest in the world, estimated in 2012 at 3.20% among adults aged 15–49 years.[108]
+
+A large part of the adult population, in particular women, is illiterate. Many children between 6 and 10 years are not enrolled in school.[109] The majority of students in secondary education are male. At the end of secondary education, students can sit the baccalauréat examination.
+
+The country has a number of universities, such as the Université de Cocody in Abidjan and the Université de Bouaké in Bouaké. In 2012, there were 57,541 students enrolled at post-secondary diploma level, 23,008 students studying for a bachelor's or master's degree and 269 PhD students. Enrolment in tertiary education suffered during the political crisis, dropping from 9.03% to 4.46% of the 18-to-25-year cohort between 2009 and 2012.[110]
+
+According to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ivory Coast devotes about 0.13% of GDP to GERD. Apart from low investment, other challenges include inadequate scientific equipment, the fragmentation of research organizations and a failure to exploit and protect research results.[110]
+
+The share of the National Development Plan for 2012–2015 that is devoted to scientific research remains modest. Within the section on greater wealth creation and social equity (63.8% of the total budget for the Plan), just 1.2% is allocated to scientific research. Twenty-four national research programmes group public and private research and training institutions around a common research theme. These programmes correspond to eight priority sectors for 2012–2015, namely: health, raw materials, agriculture, culture, environment, governance, mining and energy; and technology.[110]
+
+Each of the ethnic groups in Ivory Coast has its own music genres, most showing strong vocal polyphony. Talking drums are also common, especially among the Appolo, and polyrhythms, another African characteristic, are found throughout Ivory Coast and are especially common in the southwest.
+
+Popular music genres from Ivory Coast include zoblazo, zouglou, and Coupé-Décalé. A few Ivorian artists who have known international success are Magic Système, Alpha Blondy, Meiway, Dobet Gnahoré, Tiken Jah Fakoly, DJ Arafat, Serge Beynaud and Christina Goh, of Ivorian descent.
+
+The country has been the host for several major African sporting events, with the most recent being the 2013 African Basketball Championship. In the past, the country hosted the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations, in which its football team finished fifth, and the 1985 African Basketball Championship, where its basketball team won the gold medal.
+
+400m metre runner Gabriel Tiacoh won the silver medal in the men's 400 metres at the 1984 Olympics.
+
+The country hosted the 8th edition of Jeux de la Francophonie in 2017.
+
+The most popular sport in Ivory Coast is association football. The national football team has played in the World Cup three times, in Germany 2006, in South Africa 2010, and Brazil in 2014. The women's football team played in the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada. Ivory Coast notable footballers are Didier Drogba, Yaya Touré and Kolo Touré, Eric Bailly, Gervinho, Nicolas Pépé, and Wilfried Zaha.
+
+Rugby union is also popular, and the national rugby union team qualified to play at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. Ivory Coast also won two Africa Cups one 1992 and the other 2015.
+
+Ivory Coast is also known for Taekwondo with worldwide superstars like Cheick Cissé, Ruth Gbagbi and Firmin Zokou. The country ranks sencond in Africa all time medals winning.
+
+And sport of athletics, with some names like Marie-josée Ta Lou and Murielle Ahouré.
+
+The traditional cuisine of Ivory Coast is very similar to that of neighboring countries in West Africa in its reliance on grains and tubers. Cassava and plantains are significant parts of Ivorian cuisine. A type of corn paste called aitiu is used to prepare corn balls, and peanuts are widely used in many dishes. Attiéké is a popular side dish in Ivory Coast made with grated cassava, a vegetable-based couscous. A common street food is alloco, ripe banana fried in palm oil, spiced with steamed onions and chili and eaten alone, with grilled fish or boiled eggs. Chicken is commonly consumed and has a unique flavor due to its lean, low-fat mass in this region. Seafood includes tuna, sardines, shrimp, and bonito, which is similar to tuna. Mafé is a common dish consisting of meat in a peanut sauce.[111]
+
+Slow-simmered stews with various ingredients are another common food staple in Ivory Coast.[111] Kedjenou is a dish consisting of chicken and vegetables slow-cooked in a sealed pot with little or no added liquid, which concentrates the flavors of the chicken and vegetables and tenderizes the chicken.[111] It is usually cooked in a pottery jar called a canary, over a slow fire, or cooked in an oven.[111] Bangui is a local palm wine.
+
+Ivorians have a particular kind of small, open-air restaurant called a maquis, which is unique to the region. A maquis normally features braised chicken and fish covered in onions and tomatoes, served with attiéké or kedjenou.

en/1344.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,219 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 8°N 5°W / 8°N 5°W / 8; -5
+
+Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire,[a] officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea to the northwest, Liberia to the west, Mali to the northwest, Burkina Faso to the northeast, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) to the south. The official language of the republic is French, with local indigenous languages also being widely used that include Baoulé, Dioula, Dan, Anyin, and Cebaara Senufo. In total, there are around 78 different languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The country has large populations of Muslims, Christians (primarily Roman Catholics) and various indigenous religions.
+
+Before its colonization by Europeans, Ivory Coast was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire and Baoulé. The area became a protectorate of France in 1843 and was consolidated as a French colony in 1893 amid the European scramble for Africa. It achieved independence in 1960, led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who ruled the country until 1993. Relatively stable by regional standards, Ivory Coast established close political and economic ties with its West African neighbors while at the same time maintaining close relations to the West, especially France. Ivory Coast experienced a coup d'état in 1999 and two religiously-grounded civil wars, first between 2002 and 2007[8] and again during 2010–2011. In 2000, the country adopted a new constitution.[9]
+
+Ivory Coast is a republic with strong executive power vested in its president. Through the production of coffee and cocoa, the country was an economic powerhouse in West Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, though it went through an economic crisis in the 1980s, contributing to a period of political and social turmoil. It was not until around 2014 that the gross domestic product again reached the level of its peak in the 1970s.[10] In the 21st century, the Ivorian economy has been largely market-based, and it still relies heavily on agriculture, with smallholder cash-crop production being predominant.[1]
+
+Originally, Portuguese and French merchant-explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries divided the west coast of Africa, very roughly, into four "coasts" reflecting local economies. The coast that the French named the Côte d'Ivoire and the Portuguese named the Costa Do Marfim —both, literally, mean "Coast of Ivory"— lay between what was known as the Guiné de Cabo Verde, so-called "Upper Guinea" at Cap-Vert, and Lower Guinea.[11][12] There was also a Pepper Coast, also known as the "Grain Coast" (present-day Liberia), a "Gold Coast" (Ghana), and a "Slave Coast" (Togo, Benin and Nigeria). Like those, the name "Ivory Coast" reflected the major trade that occurred on that particular stretch of the coast: the export of ivory.[13][11][14][15][16]
+
+Other names included the Côte de Dents,[b] literally "Coast of Teeth", again reflecting the trade in ivory;[18][19][13][12][16][20] the Côte de Quaqua, after the people whom the Dutch named the Quaqua (alternatively Kwa Kwa);[19][11][17] the Coast of the Five and Six Stripes, after a type of cotton fabric also traded there;[19] and the Côte du Vent,[c] the Windward Coast, after perennial local off-shore weather conditions.[13][11] One can find the name Cote de(s) Dents regularly used in older works.[19] It was used in Duckett's Dictionnaire (Duckett 1853) and by Nicolas Villault de Bellefond, for example, although Antoine François Prévost used Côte d'Ivoire.[20] In the 19th century, usage switched to Côte d'Ivoire.[19]
+
+The coastline of the modern state is not quite coterminous with what the 15th- and 16th-century merchants knew as the "Teeth" or "Ivory" coast, which was considered to stretch from Cape Palmas to Cape Three Points and which is thus now divided between the modern states of Ghana and Ivory Coast (with a minute portion of Liberia).[18][14][20][17] It retained the name through French rule and independence in 1960.[21] The name had long since been translated literally into other languages,[d] which the post-independence government considered increasingly troublesome whenever its international dealings extended beyond the Francophone sphere. Therefore, in April 1986, the government declared that Côte d'Ivoire (or, more fully, République de Côte d'Ivoire[23]) would be its formal name for the purposes of diplomatic protocol, and since then officially refuses to recognize or accept any translation from French to another language in its international dealings.[22][24][25]
+
+Despite the Ivorian government's request, the English translation "Ivory Coast" (often "the Ivory Coast") is still frequently used in English by various media outlets and publications.[e][f]
+
+The first human presence in Ivory Coast has been difficult to determine because human remains have not been well preserved in the country's humid climate. However, newly found weapon and tool fragments (specifically, polished axes cut through shale and remnants of cooking and fishing) have been interpreted as a possible indication of a large human presence during the Upper Paleolithic period (15,000 to 10,000 BC),[34] or at the minimum, the Neolithic period.[35]
+
+The earliest known inhabitants of Ivory Coast have left traces scattered throughout the territory. Historians believe that they were all either displaced or absorbed by the ancestors of the present indigenous inhabitants, who migrated south into the area before the 16th century. Such groups included the Ehotilé (Aboisso), Kotrowou (Fresco), Zéhiri (Grand Lahou), Ega and Diès (Divo).[36]
+
+The first recorded history appears[when?] in the chronicles[where?] of North African (Berber) traders, who, from early Roman times, conducted a caravan trade across the Sahara in salt, slaves, gold, and other goods. The southern terminals of the trans-Saharan trade routes were located on the edge of the desert, and from there supplemental trade extended as far south as the edge of the rain forest. The more important terminals—Djenné, Gao, and Timbuctu—grew into major commercial centres around which the great Sudanic empires developed.
+
+By controlling the trade routes with their powerful military forces, these empires were able to dominate neighbouring states. The Sudanic empires also became centres of Islamic education. Islam had been introduced in the western Sudan by Muslim Berber traders from North Africa; it spread rapidly after the conversion of many important rulers. From the 11th century, by which time the rulers of the Sudanic empires had embraced Islam, it spread south into the northern areas of contemporary Ivory Coast.
+
+The Ghana Empire, the earliest of the Sudanic empires, flourished in the region encompassing present-day southeast Mauritania and southern Mali between the 4th and 13th centuries. At the peak of its power in the 11th century, its realms extended from the Atlantic Ocean to Timbuktu. After the decline of Ghana, the Mali Empire grew into a powerful Muslim state, which reached its apogee in the early part of the 14th century. The territory of the Mali Empire in Ivory Coast was limited to the north-west corner around Odienné.
+
+Its slow decline starting at the end of the 14th century followed internal discord and revolts by vassal states, one of which, Songhai, flourished as an empire between the 14th and 16th centuries. Songhai was also weakened by internal discord, which led to factional warfare. This discord spurred most of the migrations southward toward the forest belt. The dense rain forest covering the southern half of the country, created barriers to the large-scale political organizations that had arisen in the north. Inhabitants lived in villages or clusters of villages; their contacts with the outside world were filtered through long-distance traders. Villagers subsisted on agriculture and hunting.
+
+Five important states flourished in Ivory Coast during the pre-European early modern period. The Muslim Kong Empire was established by the Jola in the early 18th century in the north-central region inhabited by the Sénoufo, who had fled Islamization under the Mali Empire. Although Kong became a prosperous center of agriculture, trade, and crafts, ethnic diversity and religious discord gradually weakened the kingdom. In 1895 the city of Kong would be sacked and conquered by Samori Ture of the Wassoulou Empire.
+
+The Abron kingdom of Gyaaman was established in the 17th century by an Akan group, the Abron, who had fled the developing Ashanti confederation of Asanteman in what is present-day Ghana. From their settlement south of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the Dyula people in Bondoukou, who were recent arrivals from the market city of Begho. Bondoukou developed into a major center of commerce and Islam. The kingdom's Quranic scholars attracted students from all parts of West Africa. In the mid-17th century in east-central Ivory Coast, other Akan groups fleeing the Asante established a Baoulé kingdom at Sakasso and two Agni kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi.
+
+The Baoulé, like the Ashanti, developed a highly centralized political and administrative structure under three successive rulers. It finally split into smaller chiefdoms. Despite the breakup of their kingdom, the Baoulé strongly resisted French subjugation. The descendants of the rulers of the Agni kingdoms tried to retain their separate identity long after Ivory Coast's independence; as late as 1969, the Sanwi attempted to break away from Ivory Coast and form an independent kingdom.[37] The current king of Sanwi is Amon N'Douffou V (since 2005).
+
+Compared to neighboring Ghana, Ivory Coast, though practicing slavery and slave raiding, suffered little from the slave trade as such. European slave and merchant ships preferred other areas along the coast. The earliest recorded European voyage to West Africa was made by the Portuguese in 1482. The first West African French settlement, Saint Louis, was founded in the mid-17th century in Senegal, while at about the same time, the Dutch ceded to the French a settlement at Goree Island, off Dakar. A French mission was established in 1637 at Assinie near the border with the Gold Coast (now Ghana). The Europeans suppressed the local practice of slavery at this time and forbade the trade to their merchants.
+
+Assinie's survival was precarious, however; the French were not firmly established in Ivory Coast until the mid-19th century. In 1843–4, French admiral Louis Edouard Bouët-Willaumez signed treaties with the kings of the Grand Bassam and Assinie regions, making their territories a French protectorate. French explorers, missionaries, trading companies, and soldiers gradually extended the area under French control inland from the lagoon region. Pacification was not accomplished until 1915.
+
+Activity along the coast stimulated European interest in the interior, especially along the two great rivers, the Senegal and the Niger. Concerted French exploration of West Africa began in the mid-19th century, but moved slowly, based more on individual initiative than on government policy. In the 1840s, the French concluded a series of treaties with local West African chiefs that enabled the French to build fortified posts along the Gulf of Guinea to serve as permanent trading centres.
+
+The first posts in Ivory Coast included one at Assinie and another at Grand Bassam, which became the colony's first capital. The treaties provided for French sovereignty within the posts, and for trading privileges in exchange for fees or coutumes paid annually to the local chiefs for the use of the land. The arrangement was not entirely satisfactory to the French, because trade was limited and misunderstandings over treaty obligations often arose. Nevertheless, the French government maintained the treaties, hoping to expand trade.
+
+France also wanted to maintain a presence in the region to stem the increasing influence of the British along the Gulf of Guinea coast. The French built naval bases to keep out non-French traders and began a systematic pacification of the interior to stop raids on their settlements. They accomplished this only after a long war in the 1890s against Mandinka tribesmen, mostly from the Gambia. However, raids by the Baoulé and other eastern tribes continued until 1917.[citation needed]
+
+The defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 and the subsequent annexation by Germany of the French province of Alsace-Lorraine caused the French government to abandon its colonial ambitions and withdraw its military garrisons from its West African trading posts, leaving them in the care of resident merchants. The trading post at Grand Bassam in Ivory Coast was left in the care of a shipper from Marseille, Arthur Verdier, who in 1878 was named Resident of the Establishment of Ivory Coast.[37]
+
+In 1886, to support its claims of effective occupation, France again assumed direct control of its West African coastal trading posts and embarked on an accelerated program of exploration in the interior. In 1887, Lieutenant Louis Gustave Binger began a two-year journey that traversed parts of Ivory Coast's interior. By the end of the journey, he had concluded four treaties establishing French protectorates in Ivory Coast. Also in 1887, Verdier's agent, Marcel Treich-Laplène, negotiated five additional agreements that extended French influence from the headwaters of the Niger River Basin through Ivory Coast.
+
+By the end of the 1880s, France had established control over the coastal regions of Ivory Coast, and in 1889 Britain recognized French sovereignty in the area. That same year, France named Treich-Laplène titular governor of the territory. In 1893, Ivory Coast became a French colony, and Captain Binger was appointed governor. Agreements with Liberia in 1892 and with Britain in 1893 determined the eastern and western boundaries of the colony, but the northern boundary was not fixed until 1947 because of efforts by the French government to attach parts of Upper Volta (present-day Burkina Faso) and French Sudan (present-day Mali) to Ivory Coast for economic and administrative reasons.
+
+France's main goal was to stimulate the production of exports. Coffee, cocoa, and palm oil crops were soon planted along the coast. Ivory Coast stood out as the only West African country with a sizeable population of settlers; elsewhere in West and Central Africa, the French and British were largely bureaucrats. As a result, French citizens owned one-third of the cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations and adopted the local forced-labor system.
+
+Throughout the early years of French rule, French military contingents were sent inland to establish new posts. Some of the native population and former slave-owning class resisted French settlers. Among those offering greatest resistance was Samori Ture, who in the 1880s and 1890s was conquering his neighbors, re-establishing slavery and founding the Wassoulou Empire, which extended over large parts of present-day Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. Samori Ture's large, well-equipped army, which could manufacture and repair its own firearms, attracted some support throughout the region from chiefs who sought to play the two sides off against each other. The French responded to Samori Ture's expansion and conquest with military pressure. French campaigns against Samori Ture, which were met with greater resistance than usual in tribal warfare, intensified in the mid-1890s until he was captured in 1898 and his empire dissolved.
+
+France's imposition of a head tax in 1900 to support the colony's public works program provoked unexpected protests. Many Ivoirians saw the tax as a violation of the protectorate treaties because they felt that France was demanding the equivalent of a coutume from the local kings, rather than the reverse. Many, especially in the interior, also considered the tax a humiliating symbol of submission.[38] In 1905, the French officially abolished slavery in most of French West Africa.[39] From 1904 to 1958, Ivory Coast was part of the Federation of French West Africa. It was a colony and an overseas territory under the Third Republic. In World War I, France organized regiments from Ivory Coast to fight in France, and colony resources were rationed from 1917–1919. Some 150,000 men from Ivory Coast died in World War I. Until the period following World War II, governmental affairs in French West Africa were administered from Paris. France's policy in West Africa was reflected mainly in its philosophy of "association", meaning that all Africans in Ivory Coast were officially French "subjects", but without rights to representation in Africa or France.
+
+French colonial policy incorporated concepts of assimilation and association. Based on the assumed superiority of French culture, in practice the assimilation policy meant the extension of French language, institutions, laws, and customs to the colonies. The policy of association also affirmed the superiority of the French in the colonies, but it entailed different institutions and systems of laws for the colonizer and the colonized. Under this policy, the Africans in Ivory Coast were allowed to preserve their own customs insofar as they were compatible with French interests, such as the recent abolition of the slave trade.
+
+An indigenous elite trained in French administrative practice formed an intermediary group between French and Africans. After 1930, a small number of Westernized Ivoirians were granted the right to apply for French citizenship. Most Ivoirians, however, were classified as French subjects and were governed under the principle of association.[40] As subjects of France, natives outside the above-mentioned civilized elite had no political rights. They were drafted for work in mines, on plantations, as porters, and on public projects as part of their tax responsibility. They were expected to serve in the military and were subject to the indigénat, a separate system of law.[41]
+
+In World War II, the Vichy regime remained in control until 1942, when British troops invaded without much resistance. Winston Churchill gave power back to members of General Charles de Gaulle's provisional government. By 1943, the Allies had returned French West Africa to the French. The Brazzaville Conference of 1944, the first Constituent Assembly of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and France's gratitude for African loyalty during World War II, led to far-reaching governmental reforms in 1946. French citizenship was granted to all African "subjects", the right to organize politically was recognized, and various forms of forced labor were abolished. Between the years 1944–1946 many national conferences and constituent assemblies took place between France's Vichy regime and provisional governments in Ivory Coast. Governmental reforms were established by late 1946, which granted French citizenship to all African "subjects" under the colonial control of the French.
+
+Until 1958, governors appointed in Paris administered the colony of Ivory Coast, using a system of direct, centralized administration that left little room for Ivoirian participation in policy-making. While British colonial administrations adopted divide-and-rule policies elsewhere, applying ideas of assimilation only to the educated elite, the French were interested in ensuring that the small but influential elite was sufficiently satisfied with the status quo to refrain from anti-French sentiment. Although strongly opposed to the practices of association, educated Ivoirians believed that they would achieve equality with their French peers through assimilation rather than through complete independence from France. After the assimilation doctrine was implemented through the postwar reforms, though, Ivoirian leaders realized that even assimilation implied the superiority of the French over the Ivoirians. Some of them thought that discrimination and political inequality would end only with independence; others thought the problem of the division between the tribal culture and modernity would continue.[42]
+
+Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the son of a Baoulé chief, became Ivory Coast's father of independence. In 1944, he formed the country's first agricultural trade union for African cocoa farmers like himself. Angered that colonial policy favoured French plantation owners, the union members united to recruit migrant workers for their own farms. Houphouët-Boigny soon rose to prominence and within a year was elected to the French Parliament in Paris. A year later, the French abolished forced labour. Houphouët-Boigny established a strong relationship with the French government, expressing a belief that Ivory Coast would benefit from the relationship, which it did for many years. France appointed him as a minister, the first African to become a minister in a European government.
+
+A turning point in relations with France was reached with the 1956 Overseas Reform Act (Loi Cadre), which transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French West Africa and also removed the remaining voting inequities. In 1958, Ivory Coast became an autonomous member of the French Community, which had replaced the French Union.
+
+At independence (1960), the country was easily French West Africa's most prosperous, contributing over 40% of the region's total exports. When Houphouët-Boigny became the first president, his government gave farmers good prices for their products to further stimulate production, which was further boosted by a significant immigration of workers from surrounding countries. Coffee production increased significantly, catapulting Ivory Coast into third place in world output, behind Brazil and Colombia. By 1979, the country was the world's leading producer of cocoa. It also became Africa's leading exporter of pineapples and palm oil. French technicians contributed to the "Ivoirian miracle". In other African nations, the people drove out the Europeans following independence, but in Ivory Coast, they poured in. The French community grew from only 30,000 prior to independence to 60,000 in 1980, most of them teachers, managers, and advisors.[43] For 20 years, the economy maintained an annual growth rate of nearly 10%—the highest of Africa's non-oil-exporting countries.
+
+Houphouët-Boigny's one-party rule was not amenable to political competition. Laurent Gbagbo, who would become the president of Ivory Coast in 2000, had to flee the country in the 1980s, after he incurred the ire of Houphouët-Boigny by founding the Front Populaire Ivoirien.[44] Houphouët-Boigny banked on his broad appeal to the population, who continued to elect him. He was criticized for his emphasis on developing large-scale projects.
+
+Many felt the millions of dollars spent transforming his home village, Yamoussoukro, into the new political capital were wasted; others supported his vision to develop a centre for peace, education, and religion in the heart of the country. In the early 1980s, the world recession and a local drought sent shock waves through the Ivoirian economy. Due to the overcutting of timber and collapsing sugar prices, the country's external debt increased three-fold. Crime rose dramatically in Abidjan as an influx of villagers exacerbated unemployment caused by the recession.[45]
+
+In 1990, hundreds of civil servants went on strike, joined by students protesting institutional corruption. The unrest forced the government to support multiparty democracy. Houphouët-Boigny became increasingly feeble, and died in 1993. He favoured Henri Konan Bédié as his successor.
+
+In October 1995, Bédié overwhelmingly won re-election against a fragmented and disorganised opposition. He tightened his hold over political life, jailing several hundred opposition supporters. In contrast, the economic outlook improved, at least superficially, with decreasing inflation and an attempt to remove foreign debt.
+
+Unlike Houphouët-Boigny, who was very careful to avoid any ethnic conflict and left access to administrative positions open to immigrants from neighbouring countries, Bedié emphasized the concept of Ivoirité to exclude his rival Alassane Ouattara, who had two northern Ivorian parents, from running for future presidential election. As people originating from foreign countries are a large part of the Ivoirian population, this policy excluded many people from Ivoirian nationality, and the relationship between various ethnic groups became strained, which resulted in two civil wars in the following decades.
+
+Similarly, Bedié excluded many potential opponents from the army. In late 1999, a group of dissatisfied officers staged a military coup, putting General Robert Guéï in power. Bedié fled into exile in France. The new leadership reduced crime and corruption, and the generals pressed for austerity and campaigned in the streets for a less wasteful society.
+
+A presidential election was held in October 2000 in which Laurent Gbagbo vied with Guéï, but it was not peaceful. The lead-up to the election was marked by military and civil unrest. Following a public uprising that resulted in around 180 deaths, Guéï was swiftly replaced by Gbagbo. Alassane Ouattara was disqualified by the country's Supreme Court, due to his alleged Burkinabé nationality. The existing and later reformed constitution [under Guéï] did not allow noncitizens to run for the presidency. This sparked violent protests in which his supporters, mainly from the country's north, battled riot police in the capital, Yamoussoukro.
+
+In the early hours of 19 September 2002, while the President was in Italy, an armed uprising occurred. Troops who were to be demobilised mutinied, launching attacks in several cities. The battle for the main gendarmerie barracks in Abidjan lasted until mid-morning, but by lunchtime, the government forces had secured Abidjan. They had lost control of the north of the country, and rebel forces made their stronghold in the northern city of Bouaké.
+
+The rebels threatened to move on Abidjan again, and France deployed troops from its base in the country to stop their advance. The French said they were protecting their own citizens from danger, but their deployment also helped government forces. That the French were helping either side was not established as a fact; but each side accused the French of supporting the opposite side. Whether French actions improved or worsened the situation in the long term is disputed. What exactly happened that night is also disputed. The government claimed that former president Robert Guéï led a coup attempt, and state TV showed pictures of his dead body in the street; counter-claims stated that he and 15 others had been murdered at his home, and his body had been moved to the streets to incriminate him. Alassane Ouattara took refuge in the German embassy; his home had been burned down. President Gbagbo cut short his trip to Italy and on his return stated, in a television address, that some of the rebels were hiding in the shanty towns where foreign migrant workers lived. Gendarmes and vigilantes bulldozed and burned homes by the thousands, attacking residents.
+
+An early ceasefire with the rebels, which had the backing of much of the northern populace, proved short-lived, and fighting over the prime cocoa-growing areas resumed. France sent in troops to maintain the cease-fire boundaries,[46] and militias, including warlords and fighters from Liberia and Sierra Leone, took advantage of the crisis to seize parts of the west.
+
+In January 2003, Gbagbo and rebel leaders signed accords creating a "government of national unity". Curfews were lifted, and French troops patrolled the western border of the country. The unity government was unstable, and central problems remained, with neither side achieving its goals. In March 2004, 120 people were killed at an opposition rally, and subsequent mob violence led to the evacuation of foreign nationals. A later report concluded the killings were planned. Though UN peacekeepers were deployed to maintain a "Zone of Confidence", relations between Gbagbo and the opposition continued to deteriorate.
+
+Early in November 2004, after the peace agreement had effectively collapsed because the rebels refused to disarm, Gbagbo ordered airstrikes against the rebels. During one of these airstrikes in Bouaké, on 6 November 2004, French soldiers were hit, and nine were killed; the Ivorian government said it was a mistake, but the French claimed it was deliberate. They responded by destroying most Ivoirian military aircraft (two Su-25 planes and five helicopters), and violent retaliatory riots against the French broke out in Abidjan.[47]
+
+Gbagbo's original term as president expired on 30 October 2005, but due to the lack of disarmament, an election was deemed impossible, so his term in office was extended for a maximum of one year, according to a plan worked out by the African Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.[48] With the late-October deadline approaching in 2006, the election was regarded as very unlikely to be held by that point, and the opposition and the rebels rejected the possibility of another term extension for Gbagbo.[49] The UN Security Council endorsed another one-year extension of Gbagbo's term on 1 November 2006; however, the resolution provided for strengthening of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's powers. Gbagbo said the next day that elements of the resolution deemed to be constitutional violations would not be applied.[50]
+
+A peace accord between the government and the rebels, or New Forces, was signed on 4 March 2007, and subsequently Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces, became prime minister. These events were seen by some observers as substantially strengthening Gbagbo's position.[51]
+
+According to UNICEF, at the end of the civil war, water and sanitation infrastructure had been greatly damaged. Communities across the country required repairs to their water supply.[52]
+
+The presidential elections that should have been organized in 2005 were postponed until November 2010. The preliminary results announced independently by the president of the Electoral Commission from the headquarters of Ouattara due to concern about fraud in that commission.[clarification needed] They showed a loss for Gbagbo in favour of former prime minister Alassane Ouattara.[53]
+
+The ruling FPI contested the results before the Constitutional Council, charging massive fraud in the northern departments controlled by the rebels of the New Forces. These charges were contradicted by United Nations observers (unlike African Union observers). The report of the results led to severe tension and violent incidents. The Constitutional Council, which consisted of Gbagbo supporters, declared the results of seven northern departments unlawful and that Gbagbo had won the elections with 51% of the vote – instead of Ouattara winning with 54%, as reported by the Electoral Commission.[53] After the inauguration of Gbagbo, Ouattara—who was recognized as the winner by most countries and the United Nations—organized an alternative inauguration. These events raised fears of a resurgence of the civil war; thousands of refugees fled the country.[53]
+
+The African Union sent Thabo Mbeki, former President of South Africa, to mediate the conflict. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution recognising Alassane Ouattara as winner of the elections, based on the position of the Economic Community of West African States, which suspended Ivory Coast from all its decision-making bodies[54] while the African Union also suspended the country's membership.[55]
+
+In 2010, a colonel of Ivory Coast armed forces, Nguessan Yao, was arrested in New York in a year-long U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation charged with procuring and illegal export of weapons and munitions: 4,000 9 mm handguns, 200,000 rounds of ammunition, and 50,000 tear-gas grenades, in violation of a UN embargo.[56] Several other Ivory Coast officers were released because they had diplomatic passports. His accomplice, Michael Barry Shor, an international trader, was located in Virginia.[57][58]
+
+The 2010 presidential election led to the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis and the Second Ivorian Civil War. International organizations reported numerous human-rights violations by both sides. In the city of Duékoué, hundreds of people were killed. In nearby Bloléquin, dozens were killed.[59] UN and French forces took military action against Gbagbo.[60] Gbagbo was taken into custody after a raid into his residence on 11 April 2011. The country was severely damaged by the war, and it was observed that Ouattara had inherited a formidable challenge to rebuild the economy and reunite Ivorians.[61] Gbagbo was taken to the International Criminal Court in The Hague in January 2016. He was declared acquitted by the court but given a conditional release[62] in January 2019.[63] Belgium has been designated as a host country.[64]
+
+Ivory Coast is a country of western sub-Saharan Africa. It borders Liberia and Guinea in the west, Mali and Burkina Faso in the north, Ghana in the east, and the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) in the south. The country lies between latitudes 4° and 11°N, and longitudes 2° and 9°W. Around 64.8% of the land is agricultural land; arable land amounted to 9.1%, permanent pasture 41.5%, and permanent crops 14.2%. Water pollution is amongst one of the biggest issues that the country is currently facing.[65]
+
+Since 2011, Ivory Coast has been administratively organised into 12 districts plus two district-level autonomous cities. The districts are divided into 31 regions; the regions are divided into 108 departments; and the departments are divided into 510 sub-prefectures.[66] In some instances, multiple villages are organised into communes. The autonomous districts are not divided into regions, but they do contain departments, sub-prefectures, and communes.
+
+Since 2011, governors for the 12 non-autonomous districts have not been appointed, and as a result these districts have not yet begun to function as governmental entities.
+
+The following is the list of districts, district capitals and each district's regions:
+
+The Ivory Coast is recorded to have over 1,200 animal species including 223 mammals, 702 birds, 125 reptiles, 38 amphibians, and 111 species of fish, alongside 4,700 plant species. It is the most biodiverse country in West Africa, with the majority of its wildlife populating living in the nation's rugged interior.[69] The nation has nine national parks, the largest of which is Assgny National Park, which occupies an area of around 17,000 hectares or 42,000 acres.[70]
+
+The government is divided into three branches: the executive power, the legislative power, and the judicial power. The Parliament of Ivory Coast, consists of the indirectly elected Senate and the National Assembly which has 255 members, elected for five-year terms.
+
+Since 1983, Ivory Coast's capital has been Yamoussoukro, while Abidjan was the administrative center. Most countries maintain their embassies in Abidjan. The Ivorian population has suffered because of the ongoing civil war. International human-rights organizations have noted problems with the treatment of captive non-combatants by both sides and the re-emergence of child slavery in cocoa production.[71]
+
+Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remained split in two, with the north controlled by the New Forces. A new presidential election was expected to be held in October 2005, and the rival parties agreed in March 2007 to proceed with this, but it continued to be postponed until November 2010 due to delays in its preparation.
+
+Elections were finally held in 2010. The first round of elections was held peacefully, and widely hailed as free and fair. Runoffs were held 28 November 2010, after being delayed one week from the original date of 21 November. Laurent Gbagbo as president ran against former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.[72] On 2 December, the Electoral Commission declared that Ouattara had won the election by a margin of 54% to 46%. In response, the Gbagbo-aligned Constitutional Council rejected the declaration, and the government announced that country's borders had been sealed. An Ivorian military spokesman said, "The air, land, and sea border of the country are closed to all movement of people and goods."[73]
+
+In Africa, Ivorian diplomacy favors step-by-step economic and political cooperation. In 1959, Ivory Coast formed the Council of the Entente with Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger and Togo; in 1965, the African and Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM); in 1972, the Economic Community of West Africa (CEAO). The latter organisation changed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975. A founding member of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1963 and then of the African Union in 2000, Ivory Coast defends respect for state sovereignty and peaceful cooperation between African countries.
+
+Worldwide, Ivorian diplomacy is committed to fair economic and trade relations, including the fair trade of agricultural products and the promotion of peaceful relations with all countries. Ivory Coast thus maintains diplomatic relations with international organizations and countries all around the world. In particular, it has signed United Nations treaties such as the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, and the 1969 Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa. Ivory Coast is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States, and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
+
+Ivory Coast has partnered with nations of the Sub-Saharan region to strengthen water and sanitation infrastructure. This has been done mainly with the help of organizations such as UNICEF and Nestle.[75]
+
+In 2015, the United Nations engineered the Sustainable Development Goals (replacing the Millennium Development Goals). They focus on health, education, poverty, hunger, climate change, water sanitation, and hygiene. A major focus was clean water and salinisation. Experts working on this field have designed the WASH concept. WASH focuses on safe drinkable water, hygiene, and proper sanitation. The group has had a major impact on the sub-Saharan region of Africa, particularly Ivory Coast. By 2030, they plan to have universal and equal access to safe and affordable drinking water.[76]
+
+As of 2012[update], major equipment items reported by the Ivory Coast Army included 10 T-55 tanks (marked as potentially unserviceable), five AMX-13 light tanks, 34 reconnaissance vehicles, 10 BMP-½ armoured infantry fighting vehicles, 41 wheeled APCs, and 36+ artillery pieces.[77]
+
+In 2012, the Ivory Coast Air Force consisted of one Mil Mi-24 attack helicopter and three SA330L Puma transports (marked as potentially unserviceable).[78]
+
+In 2017, Ivory Coast signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[79]
+
+Ivory Coast has, for the region, a relatively high income per capita (US$1,662 in 2017) and plays a key role in transit trade for neighboring, landlocked countries. The country is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union, constituting 40% of the monetary union's total GDP. The country is the world's largest exporter of cocoa beans, and the fourth-largest exporter of goods, in general, in sub-Saharan Africa (following South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola).[80]
+
+In 2009, cocoa-bean farmers earned $2.53 billion for cocoa exports and were projected to produce 630,000 metric tons in 2013.[81][82] According to the Hershey Company, the price of cocoa beans is expected to rise dramatically in upcoming years.[83] Ivory Coast also has 100,000 rubber farmers who earned a total of $105 million in 2012.[84][85]
+
+Close ties to France since independence in 1960, diversification of agricultural exports, and encouragement of foreign investment have been factors in the economic growth of Ivory Coast. In recent years, Ivory Coast has been subject to greater competition and falling prices in the global marketplace for its primary agricultural crops: coffee and cocoa. That, compounded with high internal corruption, makes life difficult for the grower, those exporting into foreign markets, and the labor force, inasmuch as instances of indentured labor have been reported in the country's cocoa and coffee production in every edition of the U.S. Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor since 2009.[86]
+
+Ivory Coast's economy has grown faster than that of most other African countries since independence. One possible reason for this might be taxes on export agriculture. Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Kenya were exceptions as their rulers were themselves large cash-crop producers, and the newly independent countries desisted from imposing penal rates of taxation on export agriculture, with the result that their economies were doing well.[87]
+
+A major study of the issue in 2016, published in Fortune Magazine in the U.S., concluded that approximately 2.1 million children in [several countries of] West Africa "still do the dangerous and physically taxing work of harvesting cocoa". The report was doubtful as to whether the situation can be improved significantly:
+
+"According to the 2015 edition of the Cocoa Barometer, a biennial report examining the economics of cocoa that’s published by a consortium of nonprofits, the average farmer in Ghana in the 2013–14 growing season made just 84¢ per day, and farmers in Ivory Coast a mere 50¢. That puts them well below the World Bank’s new $1.90 per day standard for extreme poverty, even if you factor in the 13% rise in the price of cocoa last year.
+
+And in that context the challenge of eradicating child labor feels immense, and the chocolate companies’ newfound commitment to expanding the investments in cocoa communities not quite sufficient. ... 
+'Best-case scenario, we’re only doing 10% of what's needed.' Getting that other 90% won't be easy. 'It's such a colossal issue,' says Sona Ebai, who grew up farming cocoa in Cameroon and is the former secretary general of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries. 'I think child labor cannot be just the responsibility of industry to solve. I think it's the proverbial all-hands-on-deck: government, civil society, the private sector.'He pauses, taking in his own thought for a moment. 'And there, you really need leadership.'"
+[88]
+
+Ivory Coast's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants.[89] Until 1998 the country's population increased to 15,366,672,[90] 20,617,068 in 2009,[1] and 23,919,000 in July 2014.[91]
+
+According to 2012 government survey, the fertility rate was 5.0 children born per woman, with 3.7 in urban areas and 6.3 in rural areas.[92]
+
+French, the official language, is taught in schools and serves as a lingua franca in the country. An estimated 70 languages are spoken in Ivory Coast. One of the most common is Dyula, which acts as a trade language, as well as a language commonly spoken by the Muslim population.
+
+Around 7.5 million people of Ivory Coast made up the work force in 2009. The work force took a hit, especially in the private sector, during the early 2000s due to the numerous economic crises since 1999. Furthermore, these crises caused companies to close and move locations, especially in Ivory Coast's tourism industry, transit and banking companies. Job markets decreasing posed as a huge issue in Ivory Coast society as unemployment rates grew. Unemployment rates raised to 9.4% in 2012.[93]
+
+Solutions proposed to decrease unemployment included diversifying jobs in small trade. This division of work encouraged farmers and the agricultural sector. Self-employment policy, established by the Ivorian government, allowed for very strong growth in the field with an increase of 142% in seven years from 1995.[94]
+
+Ethnic groups in Ivory Coast include Akan (42.1%), Voltaiques or Gur (17.6%), Northern Mandés (16.5%), Krous (11%), Southern Mandés (10%), and others (2.8%, including 100,000 Lebanese[95] and 45,000 French; 2004). About 77% of the population is considered Ivorian.
+
+Since Ivory Coast has established itself as one of the most successful West African nations, about 20% of the population (about 3.4 million) consists of workers from neighbouring Liberia, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.
+
+About 4% of the population is of non-African ancestry. Many are French,[96] Lebanese,[97][98] Vietnamese and Spanish citizens, as well as evangelical missionaries from the United States and Canada. In November 2004, around 10,000 French and other foreign nationals evacuated Ivory Coast due to attacks from pro-government youth militias.[99] Aside from French nationals, native-born descendants of French settlers who arrived during the country's colonial period are present.
+
+Religion in Ivory Coast (2017 estimate)[100][101]
+
+Ivory Coast is a religiously diverse country, in which adherents of Islam (mostly Sunni) represented 42.9% of the total population in 2014, while followers of Christianity (mostly Catholic and Evangelical) represented 33.9% of the population. In addition 19.1% of Ivorians claimed to be irreligious, and 3.6% reported following traditional African religions.[102] In 2009, according to U.S. Department of State estimates, Christians and Muslims each made up 35 to 40% of the population, while an estimated 25% of the population practised traditional (animist) religions.[103]
+
+Ivory Coast's capital, Yamoussoukro, is home to the largest church building in the world, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro.
+
+Basilica of our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro; one of the largest Christian places of worship in the world.
+
+Central mosque in Marcory.
+
+Life expectancy at birth was 42 for males in 2004; for females it was 47.[104] Infant mortality was 118 of 1000 live births.[104] Twelve physicians are available per 100,000 people.[104] About a quarter of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.[105] About 36% of women have undergone female genital mutilation.[106] According to 2010 estimates, Ivory Coast has the 27th-highest maternal mortality rate in the world.[107] The HIV/AIDS rate was 19th-highest in the world, estimated in 2012 at 3.20% among adults aged 15–49 years.[108]
+
+A large part of the adult population, in particular women, is illiterate. Many children between 6 and 10 years are not enrolled in school.[109] The majority of students in secondary education are male. At the end of secondary education, students can sit the baccalauréat examination.
+
+The country has a number of universities, such as the Université de Cocody in Abidjan and the Université de Bouaké in Bouaké. In 2012, there were 57,541 students enrolled at post-secondary diploma level, 23,008 students studying for a bachelor's or master's degree and 269 PhD students. Enrolment in tertiary education suffered during the political crisis, dropping from 9.03% to 4.46% of the 18-to-25-year cohort between 2009 and 2012.[110]
+
+According to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Ivory Coast devotes about 0.13% of GDP to GERD. Apart from low investment, other challenges include inadequate scientific equipment, the fragmentation of research organizations and a failure to exploit and protect research results.[110]
+
+The share of the National Development Plan for 2012–2015 that is devoted to scientific research remains modest. Within the section on greater wealth creation and social equity (63.8% of the total budget for the Plan), just 1.2% is allocated to scientific research. Twenty-four national research programmes group public and private research and training institutions around a common research theme. These programmes correspond to eight priority sectors for 2012–2015, namely: health, raw materials, agriculture, culture, environment, governance, mining and energy; and technology.[110]
+
+Each of the ethnic groups in Ivory Coast has its own music genres, most showing strong vocal polyphony. Talking drums are also common, especially among the Appolo, and polyrhythms, another African characteristic, are found throughout Ivory Coast and are especially common in the southwest.
+
+Popular music genres from Ivory Coast include zoblazo, zouglou, and Coupé-Décalé. A few Ivorian artists who have known international success are Magic Système, Alpha Blondy, Meiway, Dobet Gnahoré, Tiken Jah Fakoly, DJ Arafat, Serge Beynaud and Christina Goh, of Ivorian descent.
+
+The country has been the host for several major African sporting events, with the most recent being the 2013 African Basketball Championship. In the past, the country hosted the 1984 Africa Cup of Nations, in which its football team finished fifth, and the 1985 African Basketball Championship, where its basketball team won the gold medal.
+
+400m metre runner Gabriel Tiacoh won the silver medal in the men's 400 metres at the 1984 Olympics.
+
+The country hosted the 8th edition of Jeux de la Francophonie in 2017.
+
+The most popular sport in Ivory Coast is association football. The national football team has played in the World Cup three times, in Germany 2006, in South Africa 2010, and Brazil in 2014. The women's football team played in the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada. Ivory Coast notable footballers are Didier Drogba, Yaya Touré and Kolo Touré, Eric Bailly, Gervinho, Nicolas Pépé, and Wilfried Zaha.
+
+Rugby union is also popular, and the national rugby union team qualified to play at the Rugby World Cup in South Africa in 1995. Ivory Coast also won two Africa Cups one 1992 and the other 2015.
+
+Ivory Coast is also known for Taekwondo with worldwide superstars like Cheick Cissé, Ruth Gbagbi and Firmin Zokou. The country ranks sencond in Africa all time medals winning.
+
+And sport of athletics, with some names like Marie-josée Ta Lou and Murielle Ahouré.
+
+The traditional cuisine of Ivory Coast is very similar to that of neighboring countries in West Africa in its reliance on grains and tubers. Cassava and plantains are significant parts of Ivorian cuisine. A type of corn paste called aitiu is used to prepare corn balls, and peanuts are widely used in many dishes. Attiéké is a popular side dish in Ivory Coast made with grated cassava, a vegetable-based couscous. A common street food is alloco, ripe banana fried in palm oil, spiced with steamed onions and chili and eaten alone, with grilled fish or boiled eggs. Chicken is commonly consumed and has a unique flavor due to its lean, low-fat mass in this region. Seafood includes tuna, sardines, shrimp, and bonito, which is similar to tuna. Mafé is a common dish consisting of meat in a peanut sauce.[111]
+
+Slow-simmered stews with various ingredients are another common food staple in Ivory Coast.[111] Kedjenou is a dish consisting of chicken and vegetables slow-cooked in a sealed pot with little or no added liquid, which concentrates the flavors of the chicken and vegetables and tenderizes the chicken.[111] It is usually cooked in a pottery jar called a canary, over a slow fire, or cooked in an oven.[111] Bangui is a local palm wine.
+
+Ivorians have a particular kind of small, open-air restaurant called a maquis, which is unique to the region. A maquis normally features braised chicken and fish covered in onions and tomatoes, served with attiéké or kedjenou.

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+Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds.
+
+The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa, Egypt and India. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa.[1] Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds.
+
+The fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile. The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times; fragments of cotton fabric dated to the fifth millennium BC have been found in the Indus Valley Civilization, as well as fabric remnants dated back to 6000 BC in Peru.
+Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that lowered the cost of production that led to its widespread use, and it is the most widely used natural fiber cloth in clothing today.
+
+Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for 2.5% of the world's arable land. India is the world's largest producer of cotton. The United States has been the largest exporter for many years.[2] In the United States, cotton is usually measured in bales, which measure approximately 0.48 cubic meters (17 cubic feet) and weigh 226.8 kilograms (500 pounds).[3]
+
+There are four commercially grown species of cotton, all domesticated in antiquity:
+
+Hybrid varieties are also cultivated.[4]The two New World cotton species account for the vast majority of modern cotton production, but the two Old World species were widely used before the 1900s. While cotton fibers occur naturally in colors of white, brown, pink and green, fears of contaminating the genetics of white cotton have led many cotton-growing locations to ban the growing of colored cotton varieties.
+
+The word "cotton" has Arabic origins, derived from the Arabic word قطن (qutn or qutun). This was the usual word for cotton in medieval Arabic.[5] The word entered the Romance languages in the mid-12th century,[6] and English a century later. Cotton fabric was known to the ancient Romans as an import but cotton was rare in the Romance-speaking lands until imports from the Arabic-speaking lands in the later medieval era at transformatively lower prices.[7][8]
+
+The earliest evidence of the use of cotton in the Old world, dated to 5500 BC and preserved in copper beads, has been found at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh, at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, Pakistan.[9][10][11]
+
+Cotton bolls discovered in a cave near Tehuacán, Mexico, have been
+dated to as early as 5500 BC, but this date has been challenged.[12] More securely dated is the domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico between around 3400 and 2300 BC.[13]
+
+In Peru, cultivation of the indigenous cotton species Gossypium barbadense has been dated, from a find in Ancon, to c. 4200 BC,[14] and was the backbone of the development of coastal cultures such as the Norte Chico, Moche, and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, and traded with fishing villages along the coast for large supplies of fish. The Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru in the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and wearing clothing made of it.
+
+The Greeks and the Arabs were not familiar with cotton until the Wars of Alexander the Great, as his contemporary Megasthenes told Seleucus I Nicator of "there being trees on which wool grows" in "Indica".[citation needed] This may be a reference to "tree cotton", Gossypium arboreum, which is a native of the Indian subcontinent.
+
+According to the Columbia Encyclopedia:[15]
+
+Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since prehistoric times. It clothed the people of ancient India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean countries.
+
+In Iran (Persia), the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. The planting of cotton was common in Merv, Ray and Pars of Iran. In Persian poets' poems, especially Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton ("panbe" in Persian). Marco Polo (13th century) refers to the major products of Persia, including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited Safavid Persia, spoke approvingly of the vast cotton farms of Persia.[16]
+
+During the Han dynasty (207 BC - 220 AD), cotton was grown by Chinese peoples in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.[17]
+
+Egyptians grew and spun cotton in the first seven centuries of the Christian era.[18]
+
+Handheld roller cotton gins had been used in India since the 6th century, and was then introduced to other countries from there.[19] Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power.[20]
+
+The earliest clear illustrations of the spinning wheel come from the Islamic world in the eleventh century.[21] The earliest unambiguous reference to a spinning wheel in India is dated to 1350, suggesting that the spinning wheel was likely introduced from Iran to India during the Delhi Sultanate.[22]
+
+During the late medieval period, cotton became known as an imported fiber in northern Europe, without any knowledge of how it was derived, other than that it was a plant. Because Herodotus had written in his Histories, Book III, 106, that in India trees grew in the wild producing wool, it was assumed that the plant was a tree, rather than a shrub. This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in several Germanic languages, such as German Baumwolle, which translates as "tree wool" (Baum means "tree"; Wolle means "wool"). Noting its similarities to wool, people in the region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact that "There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungry." (See Vegetable Lamb of Tartary.)
+
+Cotton manufacture was introduced to Europe during the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily. The knowledge of cotton weaving was spread to northern Italy in the 12th century, when Sicily was conquered by the Normans, and consequently to the rest of Europe. The spinning wheel, introduced to Europe circa 1350, improved the speed of cotton spinning.[23] By the 15th century, Venice, Antwerp, and Haarlem were important ports for cotton trade, and the sale and transportation of cotton fabrics had become very profitable.[24]
+
+Under the Mughal Empire, which ruled in the Indian subcontinent from the early 16th century to the early 18th century, Indian cotton production increased, in terms of both raw cotton and cotton textiles. The Mughals introduced agrarian reforms such as a new revenue system that was biased in favour of higher value cash crops such as cotton and indigo, providing state incentives to grow cash crops, in addition to rising market demand.[25]
+
+The largest manufacturing industry in the Mughal Empire was cotton textile manufacturing, which included the production of piece goods, calicos, and muslins, available unbleached and in a variety of colours. The cotton textile industry was responsible for a large part of the empire's international trade.[26] India had a 25% share of the global textile trade in the early 18th century.[27] Indian cotton textiles were the most important manufactured goods in world trade in the 18th century, consumed across the world from the Americas to Japan.[28] The most important center of cotton production was the Bengal Subah province, particularly around its capital city of Dhaka.[29]
+
+The worm gear roller cotton gin, which was invented in India during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th–14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire some time around the 16th century,[30] and is still used in India through to the present day.[19] Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared in India some time during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire.[31] The production of cotton, which may have largely been spun in the villages and then taken to towns in the form of yarn to be woven into cloth textiles, was advanced by the diffusion of the spinning wheel across India shortly before the Mughal era, lowering the costs of yarn and helping to increase demand for cotton. The diffusion of the spinning wheel, and the incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin, led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era.[32]
+
+It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labour was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly.[33]
+
+In the early 19th century, a Frenchman named M. Jumel proposed to the great ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali Pasha, that he could earn a substantial income by growing an extra-long staple Maho (Gossypium barbadense) cotton, in Lower Egypt, for the French market. Mohamed Ali Pasha accepted the proposition and granted himself the monopoly on the sale and export of cotton in Egypt; and later dictated cotton should be grown in preference to other crops.
+
+Egypt under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century had the fifth most productive cotton industry in the world, in terms of the number of spindles per capita.[34] The industry was initially driven by machinery that relied on traditional energy sources, such as animal power, water wheels, and windmills, which were also the principal energy sources in Western Europe up until around 1870.[35] It was under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century that steam engines were introduced to the Egyptian cotton industry.[35]
+
+By the time of the American Civil war annual exports had reached $16 million (120,000 bales), which rose to $56 million by 1864, primarily due to the loss of the Confederate supply on the world market. Exports continued to grow even after the reintroduction of US cotton, produced now by a paid workforce, and Egyptian exports reached 1.2 million bales a year by 1903.
+
+The English East India Company (EIC) introduced the Britain to cheap calico and chintz cloth on the restoration of the monarchy in the 1660s. Initially imported as a novelty side line, from its spice trading posts in Asia, the cheap colourful cloth proved popular and overtook the EIC's spice trade by value in the late 17th century. The EIC embraced the demand, particularly for calico, by expanding its factories in Asia and producing and importing cloth in bulk, creating competition for domestic woollen and linen textile producers. The impacted weavers, spinners, dyers, shepherds and farmers objected and the calico question became one of the major issues of National politics between the 1680s and the 1730s. Parliament began to see a decline in domestic textile sales, and an increase in imported textiles from places like China and India. Seeing the East India Company and their textile importation as a threat to domestic textile businesses, Parliament passed the 1700 Calico Act, blocking the importation of cotton cloth. As there was no punishment for continuing to sell cotton cloth, smuggling of the popular material became commonplace. In 1721, dissatisfied with the results of the first act, Parliament passed a stricter addition, this time prohibiting the sale of most cottons, imported and domestic (exempting only thread Fustian and raw cotton). The exemption of raw cotton from the prohibition initially saw 2 thousand bales of cotton imported annually, to become the basis of a new indigenous industry, initially producing Fustian for the domestic market, though more importantly triggering the development of a series of mechanised spinning and weaving technologies, to process the material. This mechanised production was concentrated in new cotton mills, which slowly expanded till by the beginning of the 1770s seven thousand bales of cotton were imported annually, and pressure was put on Parliament, by the new mill owners, to remove the prohibition on the production and sale of pure cotton cloth, as they could easily compete with anything the EIC could import.
+
+The acts were repealed in 1774, triggering a wave of investment in mill based cotton spinning and production, doubling the demand for raw cotton within a couple of years, and doubling it again every decade, into the 1840s[36]
+
+Indian cotton textiles, particularly those from Bengal, continued to maintain a competitive advantage up until the 19th century. In order to compete with India, Britain invested in labour-saving technical progress, while implementing protectionist policies such as bans and tariffs to restrict Indian imports.[37] At the same time, the East India Company's rule in India contributed to its deindustrialization, opening up a new market for British goods,[37] while the capital amassed from Bengal after its 1757 conquest was used to invest in British industries such as textile manufacturing and greatly increase British wealth.[38][39] British colonization also forced open the large Indian market to British goods, which could be sold in India without tariffs or duties, compared to local Indian producers who were heavily taxed, while raw cotton was imported from India without tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles from Indian cotton, giving Britain a monopoly over India's large market and cotton resources.[40][37][41] India served as both a significant supplier of raw goods to British manufacturers and a large captive market for British manufactured goods.[42] Britain eventually surpassed India as the world's leading cotton textile manufacturer in the 19th century.[37]
+
+India's cotton-processing sector changed during EIC expansion in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From focusing on supplying the British market to supplying East Asia with raw cotton. As the Artisan produced textiles were no longer competitive with those produced Industrially, and Europe preferring the cheaper slave produced, long staple American, and Egyptian cottons, for its own materials.[citation needed]
+
+The advent of the Industrial Revolution in Britain provided a great boost to cotton manufacture, as textiles emerged as Britain's leading export. In 1738, Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, of Birmingham, England, patented the roller spinning machine, as well as the flyer-and-bobbin system for drawing cotton to a more even thickness using two sets of rollers that traveled at different speeds. Later, the invention of the James Hargreaves' spinning jenny in 1764, Richard Arkwright's spinning frame in 1769 and Samuel Crompton's spinning mule in 1775 enabled British spinners to produce cotton yarn at much higher rates. From the late 18th century on, the British city of Manchester acquired the nickname "Cottonopolis" due to the cotton industry's omnipresence within the city, and Manchester's role as the heart of the global cotton trade.
+
+Production capacity in Britain and the United States was improved by the invention of the modern cotton gin by the American Eli Whitney in 1793. Before the development of cotton gins, the cotton fibers had to be pulled from the seeds tediously by hand. By the late 1700s, a number of crude ginning machines had been developed. However, to produce a bale of cotton required over 600 hours of human labor,[43] making large-scale production uneconomical in the United States, even with the use of humans as slave labor. The gin that Whitney manufactured (the Holmes design) reduced the hours down to just a dozen or so per bale. Although Whitney patented his own design for a cotton gin, he manufactured a prior design from Henry Odgen Holmes, for which Holmes filed a patent in 1796.[43] Improving technology and increasing control of world markets allowed British traders to develop a commercial chain in which raw cotton fibers were (at first) purchased from colonial plantations, processed into cotton cloth in the mills of Lancashire, and then exported on British ships to captive colonial markets in West Africa, India, and China (via Shanghai and Hong Kong).
+
+By the 1840s, India was no longer capable of supplying the vast quantities of cotton fibers needed by mechanized British factories, while shipping bulky, low-price cotton from India to Britain was time-consuming and expensive. This, coupled with the emergence of American cotton as a superior type (due to the longer, stronger fibers of the two domesticated native American species, Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense), encouraged British traders to purchase cotton from plantations in the United States and in the Caribbean. By the mid-19th century, "King Cotton" had become the backbone of the southern American economy. In the United States, cultivating and harvesting cotton became the leading occupation of slaves.
+
+During the American Civil War, American cotton exports slumped due to a Union blockade on Southern ports, and also because of a strategic decision by the Confederate government to cut exports, hoping to force Britain to recognize the Confederacy or enter the war. The Lancashire Cotton Famine prompted the main purchasers of cotton, Britain and France, to turn to Egyptian cotton. British and French traders invested heavily in cotton plantations. The Egyptian government of Viceroy Isma'il took out substantial loans from European bankers and stock exchanges. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and returned to cheap American exports,[citation needed] sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's occupation by the British Empire in 1882.
+
+During this time, cotton cultivation in the British Empire, especially Australia and India, greatly increased to replace the lost production of the American South. Through tariffs and other restrictions, the British government discouraged the production of cotton cloth in India; rather, the raw fiber was sent to England for processing. The Indian Mahatma Gandhi described the process:
+
+In the United States, growing Southern cotton generated significant wealth and capital for the antebellum South, as well as raw material for Northern textile industries. Before 1865 the cotton was largely produced through the labor of enslaved African Americans. It enriched both the Southern landowners and the new textile industries of the Northeastern United States and northwestern Europe.  In 1860 the slogan "Cotton is king" characterized the attitude of Southern leaders toward this monocrop in that Europe would support an independent Confederate States of America in 1861 in order to protect the supply of cotton it needed for its very large textile industry.[45]
+
+Cotton remained a key crop in the Southern economy after slavery ended in 1865. Across the South, sharecropping evolved, in which landless farmers worked land owned by others in return for a share of the profits. Some farmers rented the land and bore the production costs themselves. Until mechanical cotton pickers were developed, cotton farmers needed additional labor to hand-pick cotton. Picking cotton was a source of income for families across the South. Rural and small town school systems had split vacations so children could work in the fields during "cotton-picking."[46]
+
+During the middle 20th century, employment in cotton farming fell, as machines began to replace laborers and the South's rural labor force dwindled during the World Wars. Cotton remains a major export of the United States, with large farms in California, Arizona and the Deep South.[47]
+
+China's Chang'e 4 brought cotton seeds to the Moon's far side.  On January 15, 2019, China announced a cotton seed sprouted, the first "truly otherworldly plant in history."  Inside the Von Kármán Crater,  the capsule and seeds sit inside the Chang'e 4 lander.[48]
+
+Successful cultivation of cotton requires a long frost-free period, plenty of sunshine, and a moderate rainfall, usually from 60 to 120 cm (24 to 47 in)[citation needed]. Soils usually need to be fairly heavy, although the level of nutrients does not need to be exceptional. In general, these conditions are met within the seasonally dry tropics and subtropics in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, but a large proportion of the cotton grown today is cultivated in areas with less rainfall that obtain the water from irrigation. Production of the crop for a given year usually starts soon after harvesting the preceding autumn. Cotton is naturally a perennial but is grown as an annual to help control pests.[49] Planting time in spring in the Northern hemisphere varies from the beginning of February to the beginning of June. The area of the United States known as the South Plains is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world. While dryland (non-irrigated) cotton is successfully grown in this region, consistent yields are only produced with heavy reliance on irrigation water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer.
+Since cotton is somewhat salt and drought tolerant, this makes it an attractive crop for arid and semiarid regions. As water resources get tighter around the world, economies that rely on it face difficulties and conflict, as well as potential environmental problems.[50][51][52][53][54] For example, improper cropping and irrigation practices have led to desertification in areas of Uzbekistan, where cotton is a major export. In the days of the Soviet Union, the Aral Sea was tapped for agricultural irrigation, largely of cotton, and now salination is widespread.[53][54]
+
+Cotton can also be cultivated to have colors other than the yellowish off-white typical of modern commercial cotton fibers. Naturally colored cotton can come in red, green, and several shades of brown.[55]
+
+Genetically modified (GM) cotton was developed to reduce the heavy reliance on pesticides. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) naturally produces a chemical harmful only to a small fraction of insects, most notably the larvae of moths and butterflies, beetles, and flies, and harmless to other forms of life.[56][57][58] The gene coding for Bt toxin has been inserted into cotton, causing cotton, called Bt cotton, to produce this natural insecticide in its tissues. In many regions, the main pests in commercial cotton are lepidopteran larvae, which are killed by the Bt protein in the transgenic cotton they eat. This eliminates the need to use large amounts of broad-spectrum insecticides to kill lepidopteran pests (some of which have developed pyrethroid resistance). This spares natural insect predators in the farm ecology and further contributes to noninsecticide pest management.
+
+But Bt cotton is ineffective against many cotton pests, however, such as plant bugs, stink bugs, and aphids; depending on circumstances it may still be desirable to use insecticides against these. A 2006 study done by Cornell researchers, the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy and the Chinese Academy of Science on Bt cotton farming in China found that after seven years these secondary pests that were normally controlled by pesticide had increased, necessitating the use of pesticides at similar levels to non-Bt cotton and causing less profit for farmers because of the extra expense of GM seeds.[59] However, a 2009 study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stanford University and Rutgers University refuted this.[60] They concluded that the GM cotton effectively controlled bollworm. The secondary pests were mostly miridae (plant bugs) whose increase was related to local temperature and rainfall and only continued to increase in half the villages studied. Moreover, the increase in insecticide use for the control of these secondary insects was far smaller than the reduction in total insecticide use due to Bt cotton adoption. A 2012 Chinese study concluded that Bt cotton halved the use of pesticides and doubled the level of ladybirds, lacewings and spiders.[61][62] The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) said that, worldwide, GM cotton was planted on an area of 25 million hectares in 2011.[63] This was 69% of the worldwide total area planted in cotton.
+
+GM cotton acreage in India grew at a rapid rate, increasing from 50,000 hectares in 2002 to 10.6 million hectares in 2011. The total cotton area in India was 12.1 million hectares in 2011, so GM cotton was grown on 88% of the cotton area. This made India the country with the largest area of GM cotton in the world.[63] A long-term study on the economic impacts of Bt cotton in India, published in the Journal PNAS in 2012, showed that Bt cotton has increased yields, profits, and living standards of smallholder farmers.[64] The U.S. GM cotton crop was 4.0 million hectares in 2011 the second largest area in the world, the Chinese GM cotton crop was third largest by area with 3.9 million hectares and Pakistan had the fourth largest GM cotton crop area of 2.6 million hectares in 2011.[63] The initial introduction of GM cotton proved to be a success in Australia – the yields were equivalent to the non-transgenic varieties and the crop used much less pesticide to produce (85% reduction).[65] The subsequent introduction of a second variety of GM cotton led to increases in GM cotton production until 95% of the Australian cotton crop was GM in 2009[66] making Australia the country with the fifth largest GM cotton crop in the world.[63] Other GM cotton growing countries in 2011 were Argentina, Myanmar, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa and Costa Rica.[63]
+
+Cotton has been genetically modified for resistance to glyphosate a broad-spectrum herbicide discovered by Monsanto which also sells some of the Bt cotton seeds to farmers. There are also a number of other cotton seed companies selling GM cotton around the world. About 62% of the GM cotton grown from 1996 to 2011 was insect resistant, 24% stacked product and 14% herbicide resistant.[63]
+
+Cotton has gossypol, a toxin that makes it inedible. However, scientists have silenced the gene that produces the toxin, making it a potential food crop.[67] On October 17, 2018, the USDA deregulated GE low-gossypol cotton.[68][69]
+
+Organic cotton is generally understood as cotton from plants not genetically modified and that is certified to be grown without the use of any synthetic agricultural chemicals, such as fertilizers or pesticides.[70] Its production also promotes and enhances biodiversity and biological cycles.[71] In the United States, organic cotton plantations are required to enforce the National Organic Program (NOP). This institution determines the allowed practices for pest control, growing, fertilizing, and handling of organic crops.[72] As of 2007, 265,517 bales of organic cotton were produced in 24 countries, and worldwide production was growing at a rate of more than 50% per year.[73]  Organic cotton products are now available for purchase at limited locations. These are popular for baby clothes and diapers; natural cotton products are known to be both sustainable and hypoallergenic.[citation needed]
+
+The cotton industry relies heavily on chemicals, such as fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides, although a very small number of farmers are moving toward an organic model of production. Under most definitions, organic products do not use transgenic Bt cotton which contains a bacterial gene that codes for a plant-produced protein that is toxic to a number of pests aespecially the bollworms. For most producers, Bt cotton has allowed a substantial reduction in the use of synthetic insecticides, although in the long term resistance may become problematical.
+
+Significant global pests of cotton include various species of bollworm, such as Pectinophora gossypiella.  Sucking pests include cotton stainers, the chili thrips, Scirtothrips dorsalis; the cotton seed bug, Oxycarenus hyalinipennis.  Defoliatores include the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda.
+
+Historically, in North America, one of the most economically destructive pests in cotton production has been the boll weevil. Due to the US Department of Agriculture's highly successful Boll Weevil Eradication Program (BWEP), this pest has been eliminated from cotton in most of the United States. This program, along with the introduction of genetically engineered Bt cotton, has improved the management of a number of pests such as cotton bollworm and pink bollworm).  Sucking pests include the cotton stainer, Dysdercus suturellus and the tarnish plant bug, Lygus lineolaris.  A significant cotton disease is Xanthomonas citri subsp. malvacearum.
+
+Most cotton in the United States, Europe and Australia is harvested mechanically, either by a cotton picker, a machine that removes the cotton from the boll without damaging the cotton plant, or by a cotton stripper, which strips the entire boll off the plant. Cotton strippers are used in regions where it is too windy to grow picker varieties of cotton, and usually after application of a chemical defoliant or the natural defoliation that occurs after a freeze. Cotton is a perennial crop in the tropics, and without defoliation or freezing, the plant will continue to grow.
+
+Cotton continues to be picked by hand in developing countries.[74]
+
+The era of manufactured fibers began with the development of rayon in France in the 1890s. Rayon is derived from a natural cellulose and cannot be considered synthetic, but requires extensive processing in a manufacturing process, and led the less expensive replacement of more naturally derived materials. A succession of new synthetic fibers were introduced by the chemicals industry in the following decades. Acetate in fiber form was developed in 1924. Nylon, the first fiber synthesized entirely from petrochemicals, was introduced as a sewing thread by DuPont in 1936, followed by DuPont's acrylic in 1944. Some garments were created from fabrics based on these fibers, such as women's hosiery from nylon, but it was not until the introduction of polyester into the fiber marketplace in the early 1950s that the market for cotton came under threat.[75] The rapid uptake of polyester garments in the 1960s caused economic hardship in cotton-exporting economies, especially in Central American countries, such as Nicaragua, where cotton production had boomed tenfold between 1950 and 1965 with the advent of cheap chemical pesticides. Cotton production recovered in the 1970s, but crashed to pre-1960 levels in the early 1990s.[76]
+
+Cotton is used to make a number of textile products. These include terrycloth for highly absorbent bath towels and robes; denim for blue jeans; cambric, popularly used in the manufacture of blue work shirts (from which we get the term "blue-collar"); and corduroy, seersucker, and cotton twill. Socks, underwear, and most T-shirts are made from cotton. Bed sheets often are made from cotton. Cotton also is used to make yarn used in crochet and knitting. Fabric also can be made from recycled or recovered cotton that otherwise would be thrown away during the spinning, weaving, or cutting process. While many fabrics are made completely of cotton, some materials blend cotton with other fibers, including rayon and synthetic fibers such as polyester. It can either be used in knitted or woven fabrics, as it can be blended with elastine to make a stretchier thread for knitted fabrics, and apparel such as stretch jeans. Cotton can be blended also with linen producing fabrics with the benefits of both materials. Linen-cotton blends are wrinkle resistant and retain heat more effectively than only linen, and are thinner, stronger and lighter than only cotton.[77]
+
+In addition to the textile industry, cotton is used in fishing nets, coffee filters, tents, explosives manufacture (see nitrocellulose), cotton paper, and in bookbinding. Fire hoses were once made of cotton.
+
+The cottonseed which remains after the cotton is ginned is used to produce cottonseed oil, which, after refining, can be consumed by humans like any other vegetable oil. The cottonseed meal that is left generally is fed to ruminant livestock; the gossypol remaining in the meal is toxic to monogastric animals. Cottonseed hulls can be added to dairy cattle rations for roughage. During the American slavery period, cotton root bark was used in folk remedies as an abortifacient, that is, to induce a miscarriage. Gossypol was one of the many substances found in all parts of the cotton plant and it was described by the scientists as 'poisonous pigment'. It also appears to inhibit the development of sperm or even restrict the mobility of the sperm. Also, it is thought to interfere with the menstrual cycle by restricting the release of certain hormones.[78]
+
+Cotton linters are fine, silky fibers which adhere to the seeds of the cotton plant after ginning. These curly fibers typically are less than 1⁄8 inch (3.2 mm) long. The term also may apply to the longer textile fiber staple lint as well as the shorter fuzzy fibers from some upland species. Linters are traditionally used in the manufacture of paper and as a raw material in the manufacture of cellulose. In the UK, linters are referred to as "cotton wool".
+
+A less technical use of the term "cotton wool", in the UK and Ireland, is for the refined product known as "absorbent cotton" (or, often, just "cotton") in U.S. usage: fluffy cotton in sheets or balls used for medical, cosmetic, protective packaging, and many other practical purposes. The first medical use of cotton wool was by Sampson Gamgee at the Queen's Hospital (later the General Hospital) in Birmingham, England.
+
+Shiny cotton is a processed version of the fiber that can be made into cloth resembling satin for shirts and suits.[79] However, it is hydrophobic (does not absorb water easily), which makes it unfit for use in bath and dish towels (although examples of these made from shiny cotton are seen).
+
+Long staple (LS cotton) is cotton of a longer fibre length and therefore of higher quality, while Extra-long staple cotton (ELS cotton) has longer fibre length still and of even higher quality. The name "Egyptian cotton" is broadly associated high quality cottons and is often an LS or (less often) an ELS cotton.[80] The American cotton variety Pima cotton is often compared to Egyptian cotton, as both are used in high quality bed sheets and other cotton products. While Pima cotton is often grown in the American southwest,[81] the Pima name is now used by cotton-producing nations such as Peru, Australia and Israel.[82] Not all products bearing the Pima name are made with the finest cotton: American-grown ELS Pima cotton is trademarked as Supima® cotton.[83]
+
+Cotton lisle, or fil d'Ecosse cotton, is a finely-spun, tightly twisted type of cotton that is noted for being strong and durable. Lisle is composed of two strands that have each been twisted an extra twist per inch than ordinary yarns and combined to create a single thread. The yarn is spun so that it is compact and solid. This cotton is used mainly for underwear, stockings, and gloves. Colors applied to this yarn are noted for being more brilliant than colors applied to softer yarn. This type of thread was first made in the city of Lisle, France (now Lille), hence its name.[84][85][86]
+
+The largest producers of cotton, currently (2017), are India and China, with annual production of about 18.53 million tonnes and 17.14 million tonnes, respectively; most of this production is consumed by their respective textile industries. The largest exporters of raw cotton are the United States, with sales of $4.9 billion, and Africa, with sales of $2.1 billion. The total international trade is estimated to be $12 billion. Africa's share of the cotton trade has doubled since 1980. Neither area has a significant domestic textile industry, textile manufacturing having moved to developing nations in Eastern and South Asia such as India and China. In Africa, cotton is grown by numerous small holders. Dunavant Enterprises, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is the leading cotton broker in Africa, with hundreds of purchasing agents. It operates cotton gins in Uganda, Mozambique, and Zambia. In Zambia, it often offers loans for seed and expenses to the 180,000 small farmers who grow cotton for it, as well as advice on farming methods. Cargill also purchases cotton in Africa for export.
+
+The 25,000 cotton growers in the United States are heavily subsidized at the rate of $2 billion per year although China now provides the highest overall level of cotton sector support.[87] The future of these subsidies is uncertain and has led to anticipatory expansion of cotton brokers' operations in Africa. Dunavant expanded in Africa by buying out local operations. This is only possible in former British colonies and Mozambique; former French colonies continue to maintain tight monopolies, inherited from their former colonialist masters, on cotton purchases at low fixed prices.[88]
+
+The five leading exporters of cotton in 2019 are (1) India, (2) the United States, (3) China, (4) Brazil, and (5) Pakistan.
+
+In India, the states of Maharashtra (26.63%), Gujarat (17.96%) and Andhra Pradesh (13.75%) and also Madhya Pradesh are the leading cotton producing states,[90] these states have a predominantly tropical wet and dry climate.
+
+In the United States, the state of Texas led in total production as of 2004,[91] while the state of California had the highest yield per acre.[92]
+
+Cotton is an enormously important commodity throughout the world. However, many farmers in developing countries receive a low price for their produce, or find it difficult to compete with developed countries.
+
+This has led to an international dispute (see United States – Brazil cotton dispute):
+
+On 27 September 2002, Brazil requested consultations with the US regarding prohibited and actionable subsidies provided to US producers, users and/or exporters of upland cotton, as well as legislation, regulations, statutory instruments and amendments thereto providing such subsidies (including export credits), grants, and any other assistance to the US producers, users and exporters of upland cotton.[93]
+
+On 8 September 2004, the Panel Report recommended that the United States "withdraw" export credit guarantees and payments to domestic users and exporters, and "take appropriate steps to remove the adverse effects or withdraw" the mandatory price-contingent subsidy measures.[94]
+
+While Brazil was fighting the US through the WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism against a heavily subsidized cotton industry, a group of four least-developed African countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mali – also known as "Cotton-4" have been the leading protagonist for the reduction of US cotton subsidies through negotiations. The four introduced a "Sectoral Initiative in Favour of Cotton", presented by Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaoré during the Trade Negotiations Committee on 10 June 2003.[95]
+
+In addition to concerns over subsidies, the cotton industries of some countries are criticized for employing child labor and damaging workers' health by exposure to pesticides used in production. The Environmental Justice Foundation has campaigned against the prevalent use of forced child and adult labor in cotton production in Uzbekistan, the world's third largest cotton exporter.[96] The international production and trade situation has led to "fair trade" cotton clothing and footwear, joining a rapidly growing market for organic clothing, fair fashion or "ethical fashion". The fair trade system was initiated in 2005 with producers from Cameroon, Mali and Senegal.[97]
+
+Cotton is bought and sold by investors and price speculators as a tradable commodity on 2 different commodity exchanges in the United States of America.
+
+A temperature range of 25 to 35 °C (77 to 95 °F) is the optimal range for mold development. At temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F), rotting of wet cotton stops. Damaged cotton is sometimes stored at these temperatures to prevent further deterioration.[101]
+
+Egypt has a unique climatic temperature that the soil and the temperature provide an exceptional environment for cotton to grow rapidly.
+
+The chemical composition of cotton is as follows:
+
+There is a public effort to sequence the genome of cotton. It was started in 2007 by a consortium of public researchers.[102]  Their aim is to sequence the genome of cultivated, tetraploid cotton. "Tetraploid" means that its nucleus has two separate genomes, called A and D. The consortium agreed to first sequence the D-genome wild relative of cultivated cotton (G. raimondii, a Central American species) because it is small and has few repetitive elements. It has nearly one-third of the bases of tetraploid cotton, and each chromosome occurs only once.[clarification needed] Then, the A genome of G. arboreum would be sequenced. Its genome is roughly twice that of G. raimondii. Part of the difference in size is due the amplification of retrotransposons (GORGE). After both diploid genomes are assembled, they would be used as models for sequencing the genomes of tetraploid cultivated species. Without knowing the diploid genomes, the euchromatic DNA sequences of AD genomes would co-assemble, and their repetitive elements would assemble independently into A and D sequences respectively. There would be no way to untangle the mess of AD sequences without comparing them to their diploid counterparts.
+
+The public sector effort continues with the goal to create a high-quality, draft genome sequence from reads generated by all sources. The effort has generated Sanger reads of BACs, fosmids, and plasmids, as well as 454 reads. These later types of reads will be instrumental in assembling an initial draft of the D genome. In 2010, the companies Monsanto and Illumina completed enough Illumina sequencing to cover the D genome of G. raimondii about 50x.[103] They announced that they would donate their raw reads to the public. This public relations effort gave them some recognition for sequencing the cotton genome. Once the D genome is assembled from all of this raw material, it will undoubtedly assist in the assembly of the AD genomes of cultivated varieties of cotton, but much work remains.
+
+As of 2014, at least one assembled cotton genome had been reported.[104]

en/1346.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+
+
+The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet  radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in relation to other gases in the stratosphere. The ozone layer contains less than 10 parts per million of ozone, while the average ozone concentration in Earth's atmosphere as a whole is about 0.3 parts per million. The ozone layer is mainly found in the lower portion of the stratosphere, from approximately 15 to 35 kilometers (9.3 to 21.7 mi) above Earth, although its thickness varies seasonally and geographically.[1]
+
+The ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by the French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson. Measurements of the sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body with a temperature in the range of 5,500–6,000 K (5,227 to 5,727 °C), except that there was no radiation below a wavelength of about 310 nm at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. Eventually the spectrum of the missing radiation was matched to only one known chemical, ozone.[2] Its properties were explored in detail by the British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson, who developed a simple spectrophotometer (the Dobsonmeter) that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Between 1928 and 1958, Dobson established a worldwide network of ozone monitoring stations, which continue to operate to this day. The "Dobson unit", a convenient measure of the amount of ozone overhead, is named in his honor.
+
+The ozone layer absorbs 97 to 99 percent of the Sun's medium-frequency ultraviolet light (from about 200 nm to 315 nm wavelength), which otherwise would potentially damage exposed life forms near the surface.[3]
+
+In 1976, atmospheric research revealed that the ozone layer was being depleted by chemicals released by industry, mainly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Concerns that increased UV radiation due to ozone depletion threatened life on Earth, including increased skin cancer in humans and other ecological problems,[4] led to bans on the chemicals, and the latest evidence is that ozone depletion has slowed or stopped. The United Nations General Assembly has designated September 16 as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
+
+Venus also has a thin ozone layer at an altitude of 100 kilometers above the planet's surface.[5]
+
+The photochemical mechanisms that give rise to the ozone layer were discovered by the British physicist Sydney Chapman in 1930. Ozone in the Earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking ordinary oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O2), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen); the atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken O2 to create ozone, O3. The ozone molecule is unstable (although, in the stratosphere, long-lived) and when ultraviolet light hits ozone it splits into a molecule of O2 and an individual atom of oxygen, a continuing process called the ozone-oxygen cycle. Chemically, this can be described as:
+
+About 90 percent of the ozone in the atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere. Ozone concentrations are greatest between about 20 and 40 kilometres (66,000 and 131,000 ft), where they range from about 2 to 8 parts per million. If all of the ozone were compressed to the pressure of the air at sea level, it would be only 3 millimetres (1⁄8 inch) thick.[6]
+
+Although the concentration of the ozone in the ozone layer is very small, it is vitally important to life because it absorbs biologically harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming from the sun. Extremely short or vacuum UV (10–100 nm) is screened out by nitrogen. UV radiation capable of penetrating nitrogen is divided into three categories, based on its wavelength; these are referred to as UV-A (400–315 nm), UV-B (315–280 nm), and UV-C (280–100 nm).
+
+UV-C, which is very harmful to all living things, is entirely screened out by a combination of dioxygen (< 200 nm) and ozone (> about 200 nm) by around 35 kilometres (115,000 ft) altitude. UV-B radiation can be harmful to the skin and is the main cause of sunburn; excessive exposure can also cause cataracts, immune system suppression, and genetic damage, resulting in problems such as skin cancer. The ozone layer (which absorbs from about 200 nm to 310 nm with a maximal absorption at about 250 nm)[7] is very effective at screening out UV-B; for radiation with a wavelength of 290 nm, the intensity at the top of the atmosphere is 350 million times stronger than at the Earth's surface. Nevertheless, some UV-B, particularly at its longest wavelengths, reaches the surface, and is important for the skin's production of vitamin D.
+
+Ozone is transparent to most UV-A, so most of this longer-wavelength UV radiation reaches the surface, and it constitutes most of the UV reaching the Earth. This type of UV radiation is significantly less harmful to DNA, although it may still potentially cause physical damage, premature aging of the skin, indirect genetic damage, and skin cancer.[8]
+
+The thickness of the ozone layer varies worldwide and is generally thinner near the equator and thicker near the poles.[9] Thickness refers to how much ozone is in a column over a given area and varies from season to season. The reasons for these variations are due to atmospheric circulation patterns and solar intensity.
+
+The majority of ozone is produced over the tropics and is transported towards the poles by stratospheric wind patterns. In the northern hemisphere these patterns, known as the Brewer-Dobson circulation, make the ozone layer thickest in the spring and thinnest in the fall.[9] When ozone is produced by solar UV radiation in the tropics, it is done so by circulation lifting ozone-poor air out of the troposphere and into the stratosphere where the sun photolyzes oxygen molecules and turns them into ozone. Then, the ozone-rich air is carried to higher latitudes and drops into lower layers of the atmosphere.[9]
+
+Research has found that the ozone levels in the United States are highest in the spring months of April and May and lowest in October. While the total amount of ozone increases moving from the tropics to higher latitudes, the concentrations are greater in high northern latitudes than in high southern latitudes, due to the ozone hole phenomenon.[9] The highest amounts of ozone are found over the Arctic during the spring months of March and April, but the Antarctic has their lowest amounts of ozone during their summer months of September and October,
+
+The ozone layer can be depleted by free radical catalysts, including nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydroxyl (OH), atomic chlorine (Cl), and atomic bromine (Br). While there are natural sources for all of these species, the concentrations of chlorine and bromine increased markedly in recent decades because of the release of large quantities of man-made organohalogen compounds, especially chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and bromofluorocarbons.[10] These highly stable compounds are capable of surviving the rise to the stratosphere, where Cl and Br radicals are liberated by the action of ultraviolet light. Each radical is then free to initiate and catalyze a chain reaction capable of breaking down over 100,000 ozone molecules. By 2009, nitrous oxide was the largest ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emitted through human activities.[11]
+
+The breakdown of ozone in the stratosphere results in reduced absorption of ultraviolet radiation. Consequently, unabsorbed and dangerous ultraviolet radiation is able to reach the Earth's surface at a higher intensity. Ozone levels have dropped by a worldwide average of about 4 percent since the late 1970s. For approximately 5 percent of the Earth's surface, around the north and south poles, much larger seasonal declines have been seen, and are described as "ozone holes".[12] The discovery of the annual depletion of ozone above the Antarctic was first announced by Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin, in a paper which appeared in Nature on May 16, 1985.[13]
+
+To support successful regulation attempts, the ozone case was communicated to lay persons "with easy-to-understand bridging metaphors derived from the popular culture" and related to "immediate risks with everyday relevance".[citation needed] The specific metaphors used in the discussion (ozone shield, ozone hole) proved quite useful[14] and, compared to global climate change, the ozone case was much more seen as a "hot issue" and imminent risk.[15] Lay people were cautious about a depletion of the ozone layer and the risks of skin cancer.
+
+In 1978, the United States, Canada and Norway enacted bans on CFC-containing aerosol sprays that damage the ozone layer. The European Community rejected an analogous proposal to do the same. In the U.S., chlorofluorocarbons continued to be used in other applications, such as refrigeration and industrial cleaning, until after the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. After negotiation of an international treaty (the Montreal Protocol), CFC production was capped at 1986 levels with commitments to long-term reductions.[16] This allowed for a ten-year phase-in for developing countries[17] (identified in Article 5 of the protocol). Since that time, the treaty was amended to ban CFC production after 1995 in the developed countries, and later in developing countries.[18] Today, all of the world's 197 countries have signed the treaty. Beginning January 1, 1996, only recycled and stockpiled CFCs were available for use in developed countries like the US. This production phaseout was possible because of efforts to ensure that there would be substitute chemicals and technologies for all ODS uses.[19]
+
+On August 2, 2003, scientists announced that the global depletion of the ozone layer may be slowing down because of the international regulation of ozone-depleting substances. In a study organized by the American Geophysical Union, three satellites and three ground stations confirmed that the upper-atmosphere ozone-depletion rate slowed significantly during the previous decade. Some breakdown can be expected to continue because of ODSs used by nations which have not banned them, and because of gases which are already in the stratosphere. Some ODSs, including CFCs, have very long atmospheric lifetimes, ranging from 50 to over 100 years. It has been estimated that the ozone layer will recover to 1980 levels near the middle of the 21st century.[12] A gradual trend toward "healing" was reported in 2016.[20]
+
+Compounds containing C–H bonds (such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs) have been designed to replace CFCs in certain applications. These replacement compounds are more reactive and less likely to survive long enough in the atmosphere to reach the stratosphere where they could affect the ozone layer. While being less damaging than CFCs, HCFCs can have a negative impact on the ozone layer, so they are also being phased out.[21] These in turn are being replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and other compounds that do not destroy stratospheric ozone at all.
+
+The residual effects of CFCs accumulating within the atmosphere lead to a concentration gradient between the atmosphere and the ocean. This organohalogen compound is able to dissolve into the ocean's surface waters and is able to act as a time-dependent tracer. This tracer helps scientists study ocean circulation by tracing biological, physical and chemical pathways [22]
+
+As ozone in the atmosphere prevents most energetic ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface of the Earth, astronomical data in these wavelengths have to be gathered from satellites orbiting above the atmosphere and ozone layer. Most of the light from young hot stars is in the ultraviolet and so study of these wavelengths is important for studying the origins of galaxies. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer, GALEX, is an orbiting ultraviolet space telescope launched on April 28, 2003, which operated until early 2012.
+
+This GALEX image of the Cygnus Loop nebula could not have been taken from the surface of the Earth because the ozone layer blocks the ultra-violet radiation emitted by the nebula.

en/1347.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+
+
+The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet  radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in relation to other gases in the stratosphere. The ozone layer contains less than 10 parts per million of ozone, while the average ozone concentration in Earth's atmosphere as a whole is about 0.3 parts per million. The ozone layer is mainly found in the lower portion of the stratosphere, from approximately 15 to 35 kilometers (9.3 to 21.7 mi) above Earth, although its thickness varies seasonally and geographically.[1]
+
+The ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by the French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson. Measurements of the sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body with a temperature in the range of 5,500–6,000 K (5,227 to 5,727 °C), except that there was no radiation below a wavelength of about 310 nm at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. Eventually the spectrum of the missing radiation was matched to only one known chemical, ozone.[2] Its properties were explored in detail by the British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson, who developed a simple spectrophotometer (the Dobsonmeter) that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Between 1928 and 1958, Dobson established a worldwide network of ozone monitoring stations, which continue to operate to this day. The "Dobson unit", a convenient measure of the amount of ozone overhead, is named in his honor.
+
+The ozone layer absorbs 97 to 99 percent of the Sun's medium-frequency ultraviolet light (from about 200 nm to 315 nm wavelength), which otherwise would potentially damage exposed life forms near the surface.[3]
+
+In 1976, atmospheric research revealed that the ozone layer was being depleted by chemicals released by industry, mainly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Concerns that increased UV radiation due to ozone depletion threatened life on Earth, including increased skin cancer in humans and other ecological problems,[4] led to bans on the chemicals, and the latest evidence is that ozone depletion has slowed or stopped. The United Nations General Assembly has designated September 16 as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.
+
+Venus also has a thin ozone layer at an altitude of 100 kilometers above the planet's surface.[5]
+
+The photochemical mechanisms that give rise to the ozone layer were discovered by the British physicist Sydney Chapman in 1930. Ozone in the Earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking ordinary oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O2), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen); the atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken O2 to create ozone, O3. The ozone molecule is unstable (although, in the stratosphere, long-lived) and when ultraviolet light hits ozone it splits into a molecule of O2 and an individual atom of oxygen, a continuing process called the ozone-oxygen cycle. Chemically, this can be described as:
+
+About 90 percent of the ozone in the atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere. Ozone concentrations are greatest between about 20 and 40 kilometres (66,000 and 131,000 ft), where they range from about 2 to 8 parts per million. If all of the ozone were compressed to the pressure of the air at sea level, it would be only 3 millimetres (1⁄8 inch) thick.[6]
+
+Although the concentration of the ozone in the ozone layer is very small, it is vitally important to life because it absorbs biologically harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation coming from the sun. Extremely short or vacuum UV (10–100 nm) is screened out by nitrogen. UV radiation capable of penetrating nitrogen is divided into three categories, based on its wavelength; these are referred to as UV-A (400–315 nm), UV-B (315–280 nm), and UV-C (280–100 nm).
+
+UV-C, which is very harmful to all living things, is entirely screened out by a combination of dioxygen (< 200 nm) and ozone (> about 200 nm) by around 35 kilometres (115,000 ft) altitude. UV-B radiation can be harmful to the skin and is the main cause of sunburn; excessive exposure can also cause cataracts, immune system suppression, and genetic damage, resulting in problems such as skin cancer. The ozone layer (which absorbs from about 200 nm to 310 nm with a maximal absorption at about 250 nm)[7] is very effective at screening out UV-B; for radiation with a wavelength of 290 nm, the intensity at the top of the atmosphere is 350 million times stronger than at the Earth's surface. Nevertheless, some UV-B, particularly at its longest wavelengths, reaches the surface, and is important for the skin's production of vitamin D.
+
+Ozone is transparent to most UV-A, so most of this longer-wavelength UV radiation reaches the surface, and it constitutes most of the UV reaching the Earth. This type of UV radiation is significantly less harmful to DNA, although it may still potentially cause physical damage, premature aging of the skin, indirect genetic damage, and skin cancer.[8]
+
+The thickness of the ozone layer varies worldwide and is generally thinner near the equator and thicker near the poles.[9] Thickness refers to how much ozone is in a column over a given area and varies from season to season. The reasons for these variations are due to atmospheric circulation patterns and solar intensity.
+
+The majority of ozone is produced over the tropics and is transported towards the poles by stratospheric wind patterns. In the northern hemisphere these patterns, known as the Brewer-Dobson circulation, make the ozone layer thickest in the spring and thinnest in the fall.[9] When ozone is produced by solar UV radiation in the tropics, it is done so by circulation lifting ozone-poor air out of the troposphere and into the stratosphere where the sun photolyzes oxygen molecules and turns them into ozone. Then, the ozone-rich air is carried to higher latitudes and drops into lower layers of the atmosphere.[9]
+
+Research has found that the ozone levels in the United States are highest in the spring months of April and May and lowest in October. While the total amount of ozone increases moving from the tropics to higher latitudes, the concentrations are greater in high northern latitudes than in high southern latitudes, due to the ozone hole phenomenon.[9] The highest amounts of ozone are found over the Arctic during the spring months of March and April, but the Antarctic has their lowest amounts of ozone during their summer months of September and October,
+
+The ozone layer can be depleted by free radical catalysts, including nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydroxyl (OH), atomic chlorine (Cl), and atomic bromine (Br). While there are natural sources for all of these species, the concentrations of chlorine and bromine increased markedly in recent decades because of the release of large quantities of man-made organohalogen compounds, especially chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and bromofluorocarbons.[10] These highly stable compounds are capable of surviving the rise to the stratosphere, where Cl and Br radicals are liberated by the action of ultraviolet light. Each radical is then free to initiate and catalyze a chain reaction capable of breaking down over 100,000 ozone molecules. By 2009, nitrous oxide was the largest ozone-depleting substance (ODS) emitted through human activities.[11]
+
+The breakdown of ozone in the stratosphere results in reduced absorption of ultraviolet radiation. Consequently, unabsorbed and dangerous ultraviolet radiation is able to reach the Earth's surface at a higher intensity. Ozone levels have dropped by a worldwide average of about 4 percent since the late 1970s. For approximately 5 percent of the Earth's surface, around the north and south poles, much larger seasonal declines have been seen, and are described as "ozone holes".[12] The discovery of the annual depletion of ozone above the Antarctic was first announced by Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin, in a paper which appeared in Nature on May 16, 1985.[13]
+
+To support successful regulation attempts, the ozone case was communicated to lay persons "with easy-to-understand bridging metaphors derived from the popular culture" and related to "immediate risks with everyday relevance".[citation needed] The specific metaphors used in the discussion (ozone shield, ozone hole) proved quite useful[14] and, compared to global climate change, the ozone case was much more seen as a "hot issue" and imminent risk.[15] Lay people were cautious about a depletion of the ozone layer and the risks of skin cancer.
+
+In 1978, the United States, Canada and Norway enacted bans on CFC-containing aerosol sprays that damage the ozone layer. The European Community rejected an analogous proposal to do the same. In the U.S., chlorofluorocarbons continued to be used in other applications, such as refrigeration and industrial cleaning, until after the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. After negotiation of an international treaty (the Montreal Protocol), CFC production was capped at 1986 levels with commitments to long-term reductions.[16] This allowed for a ten-year phase-in for developing countries[17] (identified in Article 5 of the protocol). Since that time, the treaty was amended to ban CFC production after 1995 in the developed countries, and later in developing countries.[18] Today, all of the world's 197 countries have signed the treaty. Beginning January 1, 1996, only recycled and stockpiled CFCs were available for use in developed countries like the US. This production phaseout was possible because of efforts to ensure that there would be substitute chemicals and technologies for all ODS uses.[19]
+
+On August 2, 2003, scientists announced that the global depletion of the ozone layer may be slowing down because of the international regulation of ozone-depleting substances. In a study organized by the American Geophysical Union, three satellites and three ground stations confirmed that the upper-atmosphere ozone-depletion rate slowed significantly during the previous decade. Some breakdown can be expected to continue because of ODSs used by nations which have not banned them, and because of gases which are already in the stratosphere. Some ODSs, including CFCs, have very long atmospheric lifetimes, ranging from 50 to over 100 years. It has been estimated that the ozone layer will recover to 1980 levels near the middle of the 21st century.[12] A gradual trend toward "healing" was reported in 2016.[20]
+
+Compounds containing C–H bonds (such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons, or HCFCs) have been designed to replace CFCs in certain applications. These replacement compounds are more reactive and less likely to survive long enough in the atmosphere to reach the stratosphere where they could affect the ozone layer. While being less damaging than CFCs, HCFCs can have a negative impact on the ozone layer, so they are also being phased out.[21] These in turn are being replaced by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and other compounds that do not destroy stratospheric ozone at all.
+
+The residual effects of CFCs accumulating within the atmosphere lead to a concentration gradient between the atmosphere and the ocean. This organohalogen compound is able to dissolve into the ocean's surface waters and is able to act as a time-dependent tracer. This tracer helps scientists study ocean circulation by tracing biological, physical and chemical pathways [22]
+
+As ozone in the atmosphere prevents most energetic ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface of the Earth, astronomical data in these wavelengths have to be gathered from satellites orbiting above the atmosphere and ozone layer. Most of the light from young hot stars is in the ultraviolet and so study of these wavelengths is important for studying the origins of galaxies. The Galaxy Evolution Explorer, GALEX, is an orbiting ultraviolet space telescope launched on April 28, 2003, which operated until early 2012.
+
+This GALEX image of the Cygnus Loop nebula could not have been taken from the surface of the Earth because the ozone layer blocks the ultra-violet radiation emitted by the nebula.

en/1348.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,143 @@
+
+
+Around 26
+
+The cuckoos are a family of birds, Cuculidae, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes.[1][2][3] The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae respectively. The cuckoo order Cuculiformes is one of three that make up the Otidimorphae, the other two being the turacos and the bustards.
+
+The cuckoos are generally medium-sized slender birds. Most species live in trees, though a sizeable minority are ground-dwelling. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority of species being tropical. Some species are migratory. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Some species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, but the majority of species raise their own young.
+
+Cuckoos have played a role in human culture for thousands of years, appearing in Greek mythology as sacred to the goddess Hera. In Europe, the cuckoo is associated with spring, and with cuckoldry, for example in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. In India, cuckoos are sacred to Kamadeva, the god of desire and longing, whereas in Japan, the cuckoo symbolises unrequited love.
+
+Cuckoos are medium-sized birds that range in size from the little bronze cuckoo, at 17 g and 15 cm (6 inches), to the channel-billed cuckoo, at 630 g (1.4 lbs) and 63 cm (25 inches).[4] There is generally little sexual dimorphism in size, but where it exists, it can be either the male or the female that is larger. One of the most important distinguishing features of the family are the feet, which are zygodactyl, meaning that the two inner toes point forward and the two outer backward. There are two basic body forms, arboreal species (like the common cuckoo) which are slender and have short tarsi, and terrestrial species (like the roadrunners) which are more heavy set and have long tarsi. Almost all species have long tails which are used for steering in terrestrial species and as a rudder during flight in the arboreal species. The wing shape also varies with lifestyle, with the more migratory species like the black-billed cuckoo possessing long narrow wings capable of strong direct flight, and the more terrestrial and sedentary cuckoos like the coucals and malkohas having shorter rounded wings and a more laboured gliding flight.[4]
+
+The subfamily Cuculinae are the brood-parasitic cuckoos of the Old World.[4] They tend to conform to the classic shape, with (usually) long tails, short legs, long narrow wings and an arboreal lifestyle. The largest species, the channel-billed cuckoo, also has the most outsized bill in the family, resembling that of a hornbill. The subfamily Phaenicophaeinae are the non-parasitic cuckoos of the Old World, and include the couas, malkohas, and ground-cuckoos. They are more terrestrial cuckoos, with strong and often long legs and short rounded wings. The subfamily typically has brighter plumage and brightly coloured bare skin around the eye. The coucals are another terrestrial Old World subfamily of long tailed long legged and short winged cuckoos. They are large heavyset birds with the largest, the greater black coucal, being around the same size as the channel-billed cuckoo. The subfamily Coccyzinae are arboreal and long tailed as well, with a number of large insular forms. The New World ground cuckoos are similar to the Asian ground-cuckoos in being long legged and terrestrial, and includes the long billed roadrunner, which can reach speeds of 30 km/h when chasing prey. The final subfamily are the atypical anis, which include the small clumsy anis and the larger guira cuckoo. The anis have massive bills and smooth glossy feathers.
+
+The feathers of the cuckoos are generally soft, and often become waterlogged in heavy rain. Cuckoos often sun themselves after rain, and the anis hold their wings open in the manner of a vulture or cormorant while drying. There is considerable variation in the plumage exhibited by the family. Some species, particularly the brood parasites have cryptic plumage, whereas others have bright and elaborate plumage. This is particularly true of the Chrysococcyx or glossy cuckoos, which have iridescent plumage. Some cuckoos have a resemblance to hawks in the genus Accipiter with barring on the underside; this apparently alarms potential hosts, allowing the female to access a host nest.[5] The young of some brood parasites are coloured so as to resemble the young of the host. For example, the Asian koels breeding in India have black offspring to resemble their crow hosts, whereas in the Australian koels the chicks are brown like the honeyeater hosts. Sexual dimorphism in plumage is uncommon in the cuckoos, being most common in the parasitic Old World species.
+
+Cuckoo genera differ in the number of primary wing feathers as below.
+
+The cuckoos have a cosmopolitan distribution, ranging across all the world's continents except Antarctica. They are absent from the south west of South America, the far north and north west of North America, and the driest areas of the Middle East and North Africa (although they occur there as passage migrants). They generally only occur as vagrants in the oceanic islands of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, but one species breeds on a number of Pacific islands and another is a winter migrant across much of the Pacific.[6]
+
+Cuculinae is the most widespread subfamily of cuckoos, and is distributed across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania. Amongst the Phaenicophaeinae cuckoos the malkohas and Asian ground-cuckoos are restricted to southern Asia, the couas are endemic to Madagascar and the yellowbill widespread across Africa. The coucals are distributed from Africa through tropical Asia down into Australia and the Solomon Islands. The remaining three subfamilies have a New World distribution, all three are found in both North and South America. The Coccyzinae reaches the furthest north of the three subfamilies, breeding in Canada, whereas the anis reach as far north as Florida and the typical ground-cuckoos the south west United States.
+
+For the cuckoos suitable habitat provides a source of food (principally insects and especially caterpillars) and a place to breed, for brood parasites the need is for suitable habitat for the host species. Cuckoos occur in a wide variety of habitats. The majority of species occur in forests and woodland, principally in the evergreen rainforests of the tropics. Some species inhabit or are even restricted to mangrove forests; these include the little bronze cuckoo of Australia, some malkohas, coucals, and the aptly-named mangrove cuckoo of the New World. In addition to forests some species of cuckoo occupy more open environments; this can include even arid areas like deserts in the case of the greater roadrunner or the pallid cuckoo. Temperate migratory species like the common cuckoo inhabit a wide range of habitats in order to make maximum use of the potential brood hosts, from reed beds (where they parasitise reed warblers) to treeless moors (where they parasitise meadow pipits).
+
+Most species of cuckoo are sedentary, but some undertake regular seasonal migrations and others undertake partial migrations over part of their range.
+
+Species breeding at higher latitudes migrate to warmer climates during the winter due to food availability. The long-tailed koel, which breeds in New Zealand, flies to its wintering grounds in Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, a feat described as "perhaps the most remarkable overwater migration of any land bird."[7] The yellow-billed cuckoo and black-billed cuckoo breed in North America and fly across the Caribbean Sea, a non-stop flight of 4000 km. Other long migration flights include the lesser cuckoo, which flies from Africa to India, and the common cuckoo of Europe, which flies non-stop over the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert on the voyage between Europe and central Africa.[8]
+
+Within Africa, ten species make regular intra-continental migrations that are described as polarised; that is, they spend the non-breeding season in the tropical centre of the continent and move north and south to breed in the more arid and open savannah and deserts.[9] This is the same as the situation in the Neotropics, where no species have this migration pattern, or tropical Asia, where a single species does. 83% of the Australian species are partial migrants within Australia or travel to New Guinea and Indonesia after the breeding season.[10]
+
+In some species the migration is diurnal, as in the channel-billed cuckoo, or nocturnal, as in the yellow-billed cuckoo.
+
+The cuckoos are for the most part solitary birds that seldom occur in pairs or groups. The biggest exception to this are the anis of the Americas, which have evolved cooperative breeding and other social behaviours. For the most part the cuckoos are also diurnal as opposed to nocturnal, but many species call at night (see below). The cuckoos are also generally a shy and retiring family, more often heard than seen. The exception to this are again the anis, which are often extremely trusting towards humans and other species.
+
+Most cuckoos are insectivorous, and in particular are specialised in eating larger insects and caterpillars, including noxious hairy types avoided by other birds. They are unusual among birds in processing their prey prior to swallowing, rubbing it back and forth on hard objects such as branches and then crushing it with special bony plates in the back of the mouth.[11] They also take a wide range of other insects and animal prey. The lizard cuckoos of the Caribbean have, in the relative absence of birds of prey, specialised in taking lizards.[12] Larger, ground types such as coucals and roadrunners also feed variously on snakes, lizards, small rodents, and other birds, which they bludgeon with their strong bills. Ground species may employ different techniques to catch prey. A study of two coua species in Madagascar found that the Coquerel's coua obtained prey by walking and gleaning on the forest floor, whereas the red-capped coua ran and pounced on prey. Both species also showed seasonal flexibility in prey and foraging techniques.[13] The parasitic cuckoos are generally not recorded as participating in mixed-species feeding flocks, although some studies in eastern Australia found several species participated in the non-breeding season, but were mobbed and unable to do so in the breeding season.[14] Ground-cuckoos of the genus Neomorphus are sometimes seen feeding in association with army ant swarms, although they are not obligate ant-followers as are some antbirds.[15] The anis are ground feeders that follow cattle and other large mammals when foraging; in a similar fashion to cattle egrets they snatch prey flushed by the cattle and enjoy higher foraging success rates in this way.[16]
+
+Several koels, couas, and the channel-billed cuckoo feed mainly on fruit,[17] but they are not exclusively frugivores. The parasitic koels and channel-billed cuckoo in particular consume mainly fruit when raised by frugivore hosts such as the Australasian figbird and pied currawong. Other species occasionally take fruit as well. Couas consume fruit in the dry season when prey is harder to find.[13]
+
+The cuckoos are an extremely diverse group of birds with regards to breeding systems.[4] The majority of species are monogamous, but there are exceptions. The anis and the guira cuckoo lay their eggs in communal nests, which is built by all members of the group. Incubation, brooding and territorial defence duties are shared by all members of the group. Within these species the anis breed as groups of monogamous pairs, but the guira cuckoos are not monogamous within the group, exhibiting a polygynandrous breeding system. This group nesting behaviour is not completely cooperative; females compete and may remove others' eggs when laying hers. Eggs are usually only ejected early in the breeding season in the anis, but can be ejected at any time by guria cuckoos.[18] Polyandry has been confirmed in the African black coucal and is suspected to occur in the other coucals, perhaps explaining the reversed sexual dimorphism in the group.[19]
+
+The majority of cuckoo species, including malkohas, couas, coucals, and roadrunners and most other American cuckoos, build their own nests, although a large minority engage in brood parasitism (see below). Most of these species nest in trees or bushes, but the coucals lay their eggs in nests on the ground or in low shrubs. Though on some occasions non-parasitic cuckoos parasitize other species, the parent still helps feed the chick.
+
+The nests of cuckoos vary in the same way as the breeding systems. The nests of malkohas and Asian ground cuckoos are shallow platforms of twigs, but those of coucals are globular or domed nests of grasses. The New World cuckoos build saucers or bowls in the case of the New World ground cuckoos.[4]
+
+Non-parasitic cuckoos, like most other non-passerines, lay white eggs, but many of the parasitic species lay coloured eggs to match those of their passerine hosts.
+
+The young of all species are altricial. Non-parasitic cuckoos leave the nest before they can fly, and some New World species have the shortest incubation periods among birds.[20]
+
+About 56 of the Old World species and 3 of the New World species (pheasant, pavonine, and striped) are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds.[20] These species are obligate brood parasites, meaning that they only reproduce in this fashion. The best-known example is the European common cuckoo. In addition to the above noted species, yet others sometimes engage in non-obligate brood parasitism, laying their eggs in the nests of members of their own species in addition to raising their own young.  The shells of the eggs of brood-parasites are usually thick.[21] They have two distinct layers with an outer chalky layer that is believed to provide resistance to cracking when the eggs are dropped in the host nest.[22] The cuckoo egg hatches earlier than the host's, and the cuckoo chick grows faster; in most cases the chick evicts the eggs or young of the host species. The chick has no time to learn this behavior, so it must be an instinct passed on genetically. The chick encourages the host to keep pace with its high growth rate with its rapid begging call[23] and the chick's open mouth which serves as a sign stimulus.[24]
+
+Since obligate brood parasites need to successfully trick their host in order for them to reproduce, they have evolved adaptations at several stages of breeding. However, there are high costs of parasitism on the host, leading to strong selections on host to recognize and reject parasitic eggs. The adaptations and counter-adaptations between host and parasites have led to a coevolution arms race. This means that if one of the species involved were to stop adapting, it would lose the race to the other species, resulting in decreased fitness of the losing species.[25] The egg-stage adaptation is the best studied stage of this arms race.
+
+Cuckoos have various strategies for getting their eggs into host nests. Different species use different strategies based on host defensive strategies. Female cuckoos have secretive and fast laying behaviors, but in some cases, males have been shown to lure host adults away from their nests so that the female can lay her egg in the nest.[26] Some host species may directly try to prevent cuckoos laying eggs in their nest in the first place – birds whose nests are at high risk of cuckoo-contamination are known to 'mob' cuckoos to drive them out of the area.[27] Parasitic cuckoos are grouped into gentes, with each gens specializing in a particular host. There is some evidence that the gentes are genetically different from one another.
+
+Female parasitic cuckoos sometimes specialize and lay eggs that closely resemble the eggs of their chosen host. Some birds are able to distinguish cuckoo eggs from their own, leading to those eggs least like the host's being thrown out of the nest.[24] Parasitic cuckoos that show the highest levels of egg mimicry are those whose hosts exhibit high levels of egg rejection behavior.[28] Some hosts do not exhibit egg rejection behavior and the cuckoo eggs look very dissimilar from the host eggs. It has also been shown in a study of the European common cuckoos that females will lay their egg in the nest of a host that has eggs that look similar to its own.[29] Other species of cuckoo lay "cryptic" eggs, which are dark in color when their hosts' eggs are light.[26] This is a trick to hide the egg from the host, and is exhibited in cuckoos that parasitize hosts with dark, domed nests. Some adult parasitic cuckoos completely destroy the host's clutch if they reject the cuckoo egg.[26] In this case, raising the cuckoo chick is less of a cost than the alternative, total clutch destruction.
+
+There are two main hypotheses on the cognitive mechanisms that mediate host distinguishing of eggs. One hypothesis is true recognition, which states that a host compares eggs present in its clutch to an internal template (learnt or innate), to identify if parasitic eggs are present.[30] However, memorizing a template of a parasitic egg is costly and imperfect and likely not identical to each host's egg. The other one is the discordancy hypothesis, which states that host compares eggs in the clutch and identifies the odd ones.[30] However, if parasitic eggs made the majority of eggs in the clutch, then hosts will end up rejecting their own eggs. More recent studies have found that it is more likely that both mechanisms contribute to host discrimination of parasitic eggs since one compensates for the limitations of the other.[31]
+
+The parasitism is not necessarily entirely detrimental to the host species. A 16-year dataset was used in 2014 to find that parasitized crows' nests were more successful overall (more likely to produce at least one crow fledgling) than cuckoo-free nests. The researchers attributed this to a strong-smelling predator-repelling substance secreted by cuckoo chicks when attacked, and noted that the interactions were not necessarily simply parasitic or mutualistic.[32]
+
+Cuckoos are often highly secretive and in many cases best known for their wide repertoire of calls. Calls are usually relatively simple, resembling whistles, flutes, or hiccups.[33] The calls are used in order to demonstrate ownership of a territory and to attract a mate. Within a species the calls are remarkably consistent across the range, even in species with very large ranges. This suggests, along with the fact that many species are not raised by their true parents, that the calls of cuckoos are innate and not learnt.[citation needed] Although cuckoos are diurnal, many species call at night.[20]
+
+The cuckoo family gets its English and scientific names from the call of the common cuckoo, which is also familiar from cuckoo clocks. Some of the names of other species and genera are also derived from their calls, for example the koels of Asia and Australasia. In most cuckoos the calls are distinctive to particular species, and are useful for identification. Several cryptic species are best identified on the basis of their calls.
+
+The family Cuculidae was introduced by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1820.[34][35]
+
+There is very little fossil record of cuckoos and their evolutionary history remains unclear. Dynamopterus was an Oligocene genus of large cuckoo,[36] though it may have been related to cariamas instead.[37]
+
+A 2014 genome analysis by Jarvis et al. found a clade of birds that contains the orders Cuculiformes (cuckoos), Musophagiformes (turacos), and Otidiformes (bustards). This has been named the Otidimorphae.[3] Relationships between the orders is unclear.
+
+Living Cuculiformes from Sorenson & Payne (2005):[38]
+
+Guira
+
+Crotophaga
+
+Tapera
+
+Dromococcyx
+
+Morococcyx
+
+Geococcyx
+
+Neomorphus
+
+Centropus
+
+Carpococcyx
+
+Coua
+
+Rhinortha
+
+Ceuthmochares
+
+Taccocua
+
+Zanclostomus
+
+Phaenicophaeus
+
+Dasylophus
+
+Rhamphococcyx
+
+Clamator
+
+Coccycua
+
+Piaya
+
+Coccyzus
+
+Pachycoccyx
+
+Microdynamis
+
+Eudynamys
+
+Scythrops
+
+Urodynamis
+
+Chrysococcyx
+
+Cacomantis
+
+Surniculus
+
+Cercococcyx
+
+Hierococcyx
+
+Cuculus
+
+For the living members of each genus, see the article List of cuckoo species.
+
+In Greek mythology, the god Zeus transformed himself into a cuckoo so that he could seduce the goddess Hera; the bird was sacred to her.[43] In England, William Shakespeare alludes to the common cuckoo's association with spring, and with cuckoldry, in the courtly springtime song in his play Love's Labours Lost.[44][45] In India, cuckoos are sacred to Kamadeva, the god of desire and longing, whereas in Japan, the cuckoo symbolises unrequited love.[46]
+
+The orchestral composition "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" by Frederick Delius imitates sounds of the cuckoo.[47]
+
+The greater roadrunner is the state bird of the US state of New Mexico and is a common symbol of the American Southwest in general. "Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner" was a long running series of cartoons by Warner Brothers Studios that has had enduring popularity from the time the characters were created in 1949 through the present and helps define the image of the bird in popular culture.

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+
+Around 26
+
+The cuckoos are a family of birds, Cuculidae, the sole taxon in the order Cuculiformes.[1][2][3] The cuckoo family includes the common or European cuckoo, roadrunners, koels, malkohas, couas, coucals and anis. The coucals and anis are sometimes separated as distinct families, the Centropodidae and Crotophagidae respectively. The cuckoo order Cuculiformes is one of three that make up the Otidimorphae, the other two being the turacos and the bustards.
+
+The cuckoos are generally medium-sized slender birds. Most species live in trees, though a sizeable minority are ground-dwelling. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority of species being tropical. Some species are migratory. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Some species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, but the majority of species raise their own young.
+
+Cuckoos have played a role in human culture for thousands of years, appearing in Greek mythology as sacred to the goddess Hera. In Europe, the cuckoo is associated with spring, and with cuckoldry, for example in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. In India, cuckoos are sacred to Kamadeva, the god of desire and longing, whereas in Japan, the cuckoo symbolises unrequited love.
+
+Cuckoos are medium-sized birds that range in size from the little bronze cuckoo, at 17 g and 15 cm (6 inches), to the channel-billed cuckoo, at 630 g (1.4 lbs) and 63 cm (25 inches).[4] There is generally little sexual dimorphism in size, but where it exists, it can be either the male or the female that is larger. One of the most important distinguishing features of the family are the feet, which are zygodactyl, meaning that the two inner toes point forward and the two outer backward. There are two basic body forms, arboreal species (like the common cuckoo) which are slender and have short tarsi, and terrestrial species (like the roadrunners) which are more heavy set and have long tarsi. Almost all species have long tails which are used for steering in terrestrial species and as a rudder during flight in the arboreal species. The wing shape also varies with lifestyle, with the more migratory species like the black-billed cuckoo possessing long narrow wings capable of strong direct flight, and the more terrestrial and sedentary cuckoos like the coucals and malkohas having shorter rounded wings and a more laboured gliding flight.[4]
+
+The subfamily Cuculinae are the brood-parasitic cuckoos of the Old World.[4] They tend to conform to the classic shape, with (usually) long tails, short legs, long narrow wings and an arboreal lifestyle. The largest species, the channel-billed cuckoo, also has the most outsized bill in the family, resembling that of a hornbill. The subfamily Phaenicophaeinae are the non-parasitic cuckoos of the Old World, and include the couas, malkohas, and ground-cuckoos. They are more terrestrial cuckoos, with strong and often long legs and short rounded wings. The subfamily typically has brighter plumage and brightly coloured bare skin around the eye. The coucals are another terrestrial Old World subfamily of long tailed long legged and short winged cuckoos. They are large heavyset birds with the largest, the greater black coucal, being around the same size as the channel-billed cuckoo. The subfamily Coccyzinae are arboreal and long tailed as well, with a number of large insular forms. The New World ground cuckoos are similar to the Asian ground-cuckoos in being long legged and terrestrial, and includes the long billed roadrunner, which can reach speeds of 30 km/h when chasing prey. The final subfamily are the atypical anis, which include the small clumsy anis and the larger guira cuckoo. The anis have massive bills and smooth glossy feathers.
+
+The feathers of the cuckoos are generally soft, and often become waterlogged in heavy rain. Cuckoos often sun themselves after rain, and the anis hold their wings open in the manner of a vulture or cormorant while drying. There is considerable variation in the plumage exhibited by the family. Some species, particularly the brood parasites have cryptic plumage, whereas others have bright and elaborate plumage. This is particularly true of the Chrysococcyx or glossy cuckoos, which have iridescent plumage. Some cuckoos have a resemblance to hawks in the genus Accipiter with barring on the underside; this apparently alarms potential hosts, allowing the female to access a host nest.[5] The young of some brood parasites are coloured so as to resemble the young of the host. For example, the Asian koels breeding in India have black offspring to resemble their crow hosts, whereas in the Australian koels the chicks are brown like the honeyeater hosts. Sexual dimorphism in plumage is uncommon in the cuckoos, being most common in the parasitic Old World species.
+
+Cuckoo genera differ in the number of primary wing feathers as below.
+
+The cuckoos have a cosmopolitan distribution, ranging across all the world's continents except Antarctica. They are absent from the south west of South America, the far north and north west of North America, and the driest areas of the Middle East and North Africa (although they occur there as passage migrants). They generally only occur as vagrants in the oceanic islands of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, but one species breeds on a number of Pacific islands and another is a winter migrant across much of the Pacific.[6]
+
+Cuculinae is the most widespread subfamily of cuckoos, and is distributed across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and Oceania. Amongst the Phaenicophaeinae cuckoos the malkohas and Asian ground-cuckoos are restricted to southern Asia, the couas are endemic to Madagascar and the yellowbill widespread across Africa. The coucals are distributed from Africa through tropical Asia down into Australia and the Solomon Islands. The remaining three subfamilies have a New World distribution, all three are found in both North and South America. The Coccyzinae reaches the furthest north of the three subfamilies, breeding in Canada, whereas the anis reach as far north as Florida and the typical ground-cuckoos the south west United States.
+
+For the cuckoos suitable habitat provides a source of food (principally insects and especially caterpillars) and a place to breed, for brood parasites the need is for suitable habitat for the host species. Cuckoos occur in a wide variety of habitats. The majority of species occur in forests and woodland, principally in the evergreen rainforests of the tropics. Some species inhabit or are even restricted to mangrove forests; these include the little bronze cuckoo of Australia, some malkohas, coucals, and the aptly-named mangrove cuckoo of the New World. In addition to forests some species of cuckoo occupy more open environments; this can include even arid areas like deserts in the case of the greater roadrunner or the pallid cuckoo. Temperate migratory species like the common cuckoo inhabit a wide range of habitats in order to make maximum use of the potential brood hosts, from reed beds (where they parasitise reed warblers) to treeless moors (where they parasitise meadow pipits).
+
+Most species of cuckoo are sedentary, but some undertake regular seasonal migrations and others undertake partial migrations over part of their range.
+
+Species breeding at higher latitudes migrate to warmer climates during the winter due to food availability. The long-tailed koel, which breeds in New Zealand, flies to its wintering grounds in Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia, a feat described as "perhaps the most remarkable overwater migration of any land bird."[7] The yellow-billed cuckoo and black-billed cuckoo breed in North America and fly across the Caribbean Sea, a non-stop flight of 4000 km. Other long migration flights include the lesser cuckoo, which flies from Africa to India, and the common cuckoo of Europe, which flies non-stop over the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert on the voyage between Europe and central Africa.[8]
+
+Within Africa, ten species make regular intra-continental migrations that are described as polarised; that is, they spend the non-breeding season in the tropical centre of the continent and move north and south to breed in the more arid and open savannah and deserts.[9] This is the same as the situation in the Neotropics, where no species have this migration pattern, or tropical Asia, where a single species does. 83% of the Australian species are partial migrants within Australia or travel to New Guinea and Indonesia after the breeding season.[10]
+
+In some species the migration is diurnal, as in the channel-billed cuckoo, or nocturnal, as in the yellow-billed cuckoo.
+
+The cuckoos are for the most part solitary birds that seldom occur in pairs or groups. The biggest exception to this are the anis of the Americas, which have evolved cooperative breeding and other social behaviours. For the most part the cuckoos are also diurnal as opposed to nocturnal, but many species call at night (see below). The cuckoos are also generally a shy and retiring family, more often heard than seen. The exception to this are again the anis, which are often extremely trusting towards humans and other species.
+
+Most cuckoos are insectivorous, and in particular are specialised in eating larger insects and caterpillars, including noxious hairy types avoided by other birds. They are unusual among birds in processing their prey prior to swallowing, rubbing it back and forth on hard objects such as branches and then crushing it with special bony plates in the back of the mouth.[11] They also take a wide range of other insects and animal prey. The lizard cuckoos of the Caribbean have, in the relative absence of birds of prey, specialised in taking lizards.[12] Larger, ground types such as coucals and roadrunners also feed variously on snakes, lizards, small rodents, and other birds, which they bludgeon with their strong bills. Ground species may employ different techniques to catch prey. A study of two coua species in Madagascar found that the Coquerel's coua obtained prey by walking and gleaning on the forest floor, whereas the red-capped coua ran and pounced on prey. Both species also showed seasonal flexibility in prey and foraging techniques.[13] The parasitic cuckoos are generally not recorded as participating in mixed-species feeding flocks, although some studies in eastern Australia found several species participated in the non-breeding season, but were mobbed and unable to do so in the breeding season.[14] Ground-cuckoos of the genus Neomorphus are sometimes seen feeding in association with army ant swarms, although they are not obligate ant-followers as are some antbirds.[15] The anis are ground feeders that follow cattle and other large mammals when foraging; in a similar fashion to cattle egrets they snatch prey flushed by the cattle and enjoy higher foraging success rates in this way.[16]
+
+Several koels, couas, and the channel-billed cuckoo feed mainly on fruit,[17] but they are not exclusively frugivores. The parasitic koels and channel-billed cuckoo in particular consume mainly fruit when raised by frugivore hosts such as the Australasian figbird and pied currawong. Other species occasionally take fruit as well. Couas consume fruit in the dry season when prey is harder to find.[13]
+
+The cuckoos are an extremely diverse group of birds with regards to breeding systems.[4] The majority of species are monogamous, but there are exceptions. The anis and the guira cuckoo lay their eggs in communal nests, which is built by all members of the group. Incubation, brooding and territorial defence duties are shared by all members of the group. Within these species the anis breed as groups of monogamous pairs, but the guira cuckoos are not monogamous within the group, exhibiting a polygynandrous breeding system. This group nesting behaviour is not completely cooperative; females compete and may remove others' eggs when laying hers. Eggs are usually only ejected early in the breeding season in the anis, but can be ejected at any time by guria cuckoos.[18] Polyandry has been confirmed in the African black coucal and is suspected to occur in the other coucals, perhaps explaining the reversed sexual dimorphism in the group.[19]
+
+The majority of cuckoo species, including malkohas, couas, coucals, and roadrunners and most other American cuckoos, build their own nests, although a large minority engage in brood parasitism (see below). Most of these species nest in trees or bushes, but the coucals lay their eggs in nests on the ground or in low shrubs. Though on some occasions non-parasitic cuckoos parasitize other species, the parent still helps feed the chick.
+
+The nests of cuckoos vary in the same way as the breeding systems. The nests of malkohas and Asian ground cuckoos are shallow platforms of twigs, but those of coucals are globular or domed nests of grasses. The New World cuckoos build saucers or bowls in the case of the New World ground cuckoos.[4]
+
+Non-parasitic cuckoos, like most other non-passerines, lay white eggs, but many of the parasitic species lay coloured eggs to match those of their passerine hosts.
+
+The young of all species are altricial. Non-parasitic cuckoos leave the nest before they can fly, and some New World species have the shortest incubation periods among birds.[20]
+
+About 56 of the Old World species and 3 of the New World species (pheasant, pavonine, and striped) are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds.[20] These species are obligate brood parasites, meaning that they only reproduce in this fashion. The best-known example is the European common cuckoo. In addition to the above noted species, yet others sometimes engage in non-obligate brood parasitism, laying their eggs in the nests of members of their own species in addition to raising their own young.  The shells of the eggs of brood-parasites are usually thick.[21] They have two distinct layers with an outer chalky layer that is believed to provide resistance to cracking when the eggs are dropped in the host nest.[22] The cuckoo egg hatches earlier than the host's, and the cuckoo chick grows faster; in most cases the chick evicts the eggs or young of the host species. The chick has no time to learn this behavior, so it must be an instinct passed on genetically. The chick encourages the host to keep pace with its high growth rate with its rapid begging call[23] and the chick's open mouth which serves as a sign stimulus.[24]
+
+Since obligate brood parasites need to successfully trick their host in order for them to reproduce, they have evolved adaptations at several stages of breeding. However, there are high costs of parasitism on the host, leading to strong selections on host to recognize and reject parasitic eggs. The adaptations and counter-adaptations between host and parasites have led to a coevolution arms race. This means that if one of the species involved were to stop adapting, it would lose the race to the other species, resulting in decreased fitness of the losing species.[25] The egg-stage adaptation is the best studied stage of this arms race.
+
+Cuckoos have various strategies for getting their eggs into host nests. Different species use different strategies based on host defensive strategies. Female cuckoos have secretive and fast laying behaviors, but in some cases, males have been shown to lure host adults away from their nests so that the female can lay her egg in the nest.[26] Some host species may directly try to prevent cuckoos laying eggs in their nest in the first place – birds whose nests are at high risk of cuckoo-contamination are known to 'mob' cuckoos to drive them out of the area.[27] Parasitic cuckoos are grouped into gentes, with each gens specializing in a particular host. There is some evidence that the gentes are genetically different from one another.
+
+Female parasitic cuckoos sometimes specialize and lay eggs that closely resemble the eggs of their chosen host. Some birds are able to distinguish cuckoo eggs from their own, leading to those eggs least like the host's being thrown out of the nest.[24] Parasitic cuckoos that show the highest levels of egg mimicry are those whose hosts exhibit high levels of egg rejection behavior.[28] Some hosts do not exhibit egg rejection behavior and the cuckoo eggs look very dissimilar from the host eggs. It has also been shown in a study of the European common cuckoos that females will lay their egg in the nest of a host that has eggs that look similar to its own.[29] Other species of cuckoo lay "cryptic" eggs, which are dark in color when their hosts' eggs are light.[26] This is a trick to hide the egg from the host, and is exhibited in cuckoos that parasitize hosts with dark, domed nests. Some adult parasitic cuckoos completely destroy the host's clutch if they reject the cuckoo egg.[26] In this case, raising the cuckoo chick is less of a cost than the alternative, total clutch destruction.
+
+There are two main hypotheses on the cognitive mechanisms that mediate host distinguishing of eggs. One hypothesis is true recognition, which states that a host compares eggs present in its clutch to an internal template (learnt or innate), to identify if parasitic eggs are present.[30] However, memorizing a template of a parasitic egg is costly and imperfect and likely not identical to each host's egg. The other one is the discordancy hypothesis, which states that host compares eggs in the clutch and identifies the odd ones.[30] However, if parasitic eggs made the majority of eggs in the clutch, then hosts will end up rejecting their own eggs. More recent studies have found that it is more likely that both mechanisms contribute to host discrimination of parasitic eggs since one compensates for the limitations of the other.[31]
+
+The parasitism is not necessarily entirely detrimental to the host species. A 16-year dataset was used in 2014 to find that parasitized crows' nests were more successful overall (more likely to produce at least one crow fledgling) than cuckoo-free nests. The researchers attributed this to a strong-smelling predator-repelling substance secreted by cuckoo chicks when attacked, and noted that the interactions were not necessarily simply parasitic or mutualistic.[32]
+
+Cuckoos are often highly secretive and in many cases best known for their wide repertoire of calls. Calls are usually relatively simple, resembling whistles, flutes, or hiccups.[33] The calls are used in order to demonstrate ownership of a territory and to attract a mate. Within a species the calls are remarkably consistent across the range, even in species with very large ranges. This suggests, along with the fact that many species are not raised by their true parents, that the calls of cuckoos are innate and not learnt.[citation needed] Although cuckoos are diurnal, many species call at night.[20]
+
+The cuckoo family gets its English and scientific names from the call of the common cuckoo, which is also familiar from cuckoo clocks. Some of the names of other species and genera are also derived from their calls, for example the koels of Asia and Australasia. In most cuckoos the calls are distinctive to particular species, and are useful for identification. Several cryptic species are best identified on the basis of their calls.
+
+The family Cuculidae was introduced by the English zoologist William Elford Leach in a guide to the contents of the British Museum published in 1820.[34][35]
+
+There is very little fossil record of cuckoos and their evolutionary history remains unclear. Dynamopterus was an Oligocene genus of large cuckoo,[36] though it may have been related to cariamas instead.[37]
+
+A 2014 genome analysis by Jarvis et al. found a clade of birds that contains the orders Cuculiformes (cuckoos), Musophagiformes (turacos), and Otidiformes (bustards). This has been named the Otidimorphae.[3] Relationships between the orders is unclear.
+
+Living Cuculiformes from Sorenson & Payne (2005):[38]
+
+Guira
+
+Crotophaga
+
+Tapera
+
+Dromococcyx
+
+Morococcyx
+
+Geococcyx
+
+Neomorphus
+
+Centropus
+
+Carpococcyx
+
+Coua
+
+Rhinortha
+
+Ceuthmochares
+
+Taccocua
+
+Zanclostomus
+
+Phaenicophaeus
+
+Dasylophus
+
+Rhamphococcyx
+
+Clamator
+
+Coccycua
+
+Piaya
+
+Coccyzus
+
+Pachycoccyx
+
+Microdynamis
+
+Eudynamys
+
+Scythrops
+
+Urodynamis
+
+Chrysococcyx
+
+Cacomantis
+
+Surniculus
+
+Cercococcyx
+
+Hierococcyx
+
+Cuculus
+
+For the living members of each genus, see the article List of cuckoo species.
+
+In Greek mythology, the god Zeus transformed himself into a cuckoo so that he could seduce the goddess Hera; the bird was sacred to her.[43] In England, William Shakespeare alludes to the common cuckoo's association with spring, and with cuckoldry, in the courtly springtime song in his play Love's Labours Lost.[44][45] In India, cuckoos are sacred to Kamadeva, the god of desire and longing, whereas in Japan, the cuckoo symbolises unrequited love.[46]
+
+The orchestral composition "On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring" by Frederick Delius imitates sounds of the cuckoo.[47]
+
+The greater roadrunner is the state bird of the US state of New Mexico and is a common symbol of the American Southwest in general. "Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner" was a long running series of cartoons by Warner Brothers Studios that has had enduring popularity from the time the characters were created in 1949 through the present and helps define the image of the bird in popular culture.

en/135.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,299 @@
+Coordinates: 28°N 2°E / 28°N 2°E / 28; 2
+
+Algeria (/ælˈdʒɪəriə/ (listen) al-JEER-ee-ə, Arabic: الجزائر‎ al-Jazā'ir), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean coast. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, and the largest by area in the African Union and the Arab world.[10] With an estimated population of over 44 million, it is the eighth-most populous country in Africa.
+
+Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the southeast by Niger, to the southwest by Mali, Mauritania, and the Western Saharan territory, to the west by Morocco, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country has a semi-arid geography, with most of the population living in the fertile north and the Sahara dominating the geography of the south. This arid geography makes the country very vulnerable to climate change[11] .
+
+Pre-1962 Algeria has known many empires and dynasties, including ancient Numidians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Umayyads, Abbasids, Idrisid, Aghlabid, Rustamid, Fatimids, Zirid, Hammadids, Almoravids, Almohads, Zayyanids, Spaniards, Ottomans and finally, the French colonial empire. Most of the population is Arab-Berber, practicing Islam and using the official languages of Arabic and Berber. However, French serves as an administrative and education language in some contexts, and Algerian Arabic is the main spoken language.
+
+Algeria has a semi-presidential republic, with local constituencies consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes (counties). Algeria is a regional and middle power. It has the highest human development index of all non-island African countries and one of the largest economies on the continent, based largely on energy exports. Algeria has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world and the second largest in Africa, while it has the ninth largest reserves of natural gas. Sonatrach, the national oil company, is the largest company in Africa, supplying large amounts of natural gas to Europe. Algeria has one of the largest militaries in Africa and the largest defence budget. It is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC, the United Nations, and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which it is a founding member.
+
+Other forms of the name are: Arabic: الجزائر‎, romanized: al-Jazāʾir, Algerian Arabic: الدزاير‎, romanized: al-dzāyīr; French: Algérie). It is officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (Arabic: الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية‎, romanized: al-Jumhūriyya al-Jazāʾiriyya ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyya aš-Šaʿbiyya, French: République algérienne démocratique et populaire, abbreviated as RADP).
+
+The country's name derives from the city of Algiers which in turn derives from the Arabic al-Jazāʾir (الجزائر, "The Islands"),[12] a truncated form of the older Jazāʾir Banī Mazghanna (جزائر بني مزغنة, "Islands of the Mazghanna Tribe"),[13][14][page needed][15][page needed] employed by medieval geographers such as al-Idrisi.
+
+French Algeria (19th - 20th centuries)
+
+1990s
+
+2000s to present
+
+In the region of Ain Hanech (Saïda Province), early remnants (200,000 BC) of hominid occupation in North Africa were found. Neanderthal tool makers produced hand axes in the Levalloisian and Mousterian styles (43,000 BC) similar to those in the Levant.[16][17] Algeria was the site of the highest state of development of Middle Paleolithic Flake tool techniques.[18] Tools of this era, starting about 30,000 BC, are called Aterian (after the archeological site of Bir el Ater, south of Tebessa).
+
+The earliest blade industries in North Africa are called Iberomaurusian (located mainly in the Oran region). This industry appears to have spread throughout the coastal regions of the Maghreb between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. Neolithic civilization (animal domestication and agriculture) developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean Maghreb perhaps as early as 11,000 BC[19] or as late as between 6000 and 2000 BC. This life, richly depicted in the Tassili n'Ajjer paintings, predominated in Algeria until the classical period. The mixture of peoples of North Africa coalesced eventually into a distinct native population that came to be called Berbers, who are the indigenous peoples of northern Africa.[20]
+
+From their principal center of power at Carthage, the Carthaginians expanded and established small settlements along the North African coast; by 600 BC, a Phoenician presence existed at Tipasa, east of Cherchell, Hippo Regius (modern Annaba) and Rusicade (modern Skikda). These settlements served as market towns as well as anchorages.
+
+As Carthaginian power grew, its impact on the indigenous population increased dramatically. Berber civilization was already at a stage in which agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and political organization supported several states. Trade links between Carthage and the Berbers in the interior grew, but territorial expansion also resulted in the enslavement or military recruitment of some Berbers and in the extraction of tribute from others.
+
+By the early 4th century BC, Berbers formed the single largest element of the Carthaginian army. In the Revolt of the Mercenaries, Berber soldiers rebelled from 241 to 238 BC after being unpaid following the defeat of Carthage in the First Punic War.[21] They succeeded in obtaining control of much of Carthage's North African territory, and they minted coins bearing the name Libyan, used in Greek to describe natives of North Africa. The Carthaginian state declined because of successive defeats by the Romans in the Punic Wars.[22]
+
+In 146 BC the city of Carthage was destroyed. As Carthaginian power waned, the influence of Berber leaders in the hinterland grew. By the 2nd century BC, several large but loosely administered Berber kingdoms had emerged. Two of them were established in Numidia, behind the coastal areas controlled by Carthage. West of Numidia lay Mauretania, which extended across the Moulouya River in modern-day Morocco to the Atlantic Ocean. The high point of Berber civilization, unequaled until the coming of the Almohads and Almoravids more than a millennium later, was reached during the reign of Masinissa in the 2nd century BC.
+
+After Masinissa's death in 148 BC, the Berber kingdoms were divided and reunited several times. Masinissa's line survived until 24 AD, when the remaining Berber territory was annexed to the Roman Empire.
+
+For several centuries Algeria was ruled by the Romans, who founded many colonies in the region. Like the rest of North Africa, Algeria was one of the breadbaskets of the empire, exporting cereals and other agricultural products. Saint Augustine was the bishop of Hippo Regius (modern-day Annaba, Algeria), located in the Roman province of Africa. The Germanic Vandals of Geiseric moved into North Africa in 429, and by 435 controlled coastal Numidia.[23] They did not make any significant settlement on the land, as they were harassed by local tribes. In fact, by the time the Byzantines arrived Leptis Magna was abandoned and the Msellata region was occupied by the indigenous Laguatan who had been busy facilitating an Amazigh political, military and cultural revival.[23][24]
+
+After negligible resistance from the locals, Muslim Arabs of the Umayyad Caliphate conquered Algeria in the early 8th century.
+
+Large numbers of the indigenous Berber people converted to Islam. Christians, Berber and Latin speakers remained in the great majority in Tunisia until the end of the 9th century and Muslims only became a vast majority some time in the 10th.[25] After the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, numerous local dynasties emerged, including the Aghlabids, Almohads, Abdalwadid, Zirids, Rustamids, Hammadids, Almoravids and the Fatimids. The Christians left in three waves: after the initial conquest, in the 10th century and the 11th. The last were evacuated to Sicily by the Normans and the few remaining died out in the 14th century.[25]
+
+During the Middle Ages, North Africa was home to many great scholars, saints and sovereigns including Judah Ibn Quraysh, the first grammarian to mention Semitic and Berber languages, the great Sufi masters Sidi Boumediene (Abu Madyan) and Sidi El Houari, and the Emirs Abd Al Mu'min and Yāghmūrasen. It was during this time that the Fatimids or children of Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, came to the Maghreb. These "Fatimids" went on to found a long lasting dynasty stretching across the Maghreb, Hejaz and the Levant, boasting a secular inner government, as well as a powerful army and navy, made up primarily of Arabs and Levantines extending from Algeria to their capital state of Cairo. The Fatimid caliphate began to collapse when its governors the Zirids seceded. In order to punish them the Fatimids sent the Arab Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym against them. The resultant war is recounted in the epic Tāghribāt. In Al-Tāghrībāt the Amazigh Zirid Hero Khālīfā Al-Zānatī asks daily, for duels, to defeat the Hilalan hero Ābu Zayd al-Hilalī and many other Arab knights in a string of victories. The Zirids, however, were ultimately defeated ushering in an adoption of Arab customs and culture. The indigenous Amazigh tribes, however, remained largely independent, and depending on tribe, location and time controlled varying parts of the Maghreb, at times unifying it (as under the Fatimids). The Fatimid Islamic state, also known as Fatimid Caliphate made an Islamic empire that included North Africa, Sicily, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Red Sea coast of Africa, Tihamah, Hejaz and Yemen.[26][27][28] Caliphates from Northern Africa traded with the other empires of their time, as well as forming part of a confederated support and trade network with other Islamic states during the Islamic Era.
+
+The Amazighs historically consisted of several tribes. The two main branches were the Botr and Barnès tribes, who were divided into tribes, and again into sub-tribes. Each region of the Maghreb contained several tribes (for example, Sanhadja, Houara, Zenata, Masmouda, Kutama, Awarba, and Berghwata). All these tribes made independent territorial decisions.[29]
+
+Several Amazigh dynasties emerged during the Middle Ages in the Maghreb and other nearby lands. Ibn Khaldun provides a table summarising the Amazigh dynasties of the Maghreb region, the Zirid, Banu Ifran, Maghrawa, Almoravid, Hammadid, Almohad, Merinid, Abdalwadid, Wattasid, Meknassa and Hafsid dynasties.[30]
+
+There reigned in Ifriqiya, current Tunisia, a Berber family, Zirid, somehow recognising the suzerainty of the Fatimid caliph of Cairo. Probably in 1048, the Zirid ruler or viceroy, el-Mu'izz, decided to end this suzerainty. The Fatimid state was too weak to attempt a punitive expedition; The Viceroy, el-Mu'izz, also found another means of revenge.
+
+Between the Nile and the Red Sea were living Bedouin tribes expelled from Arabia for their disruption and turbulent influence, both Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym among others, whose presence disrupted farmers in the Nile Valley since the nomads would often loot. The then Fatimid vizier devised to relinquish control of the Maghreb and obtained the agreement of his sovereign. This not only prompted the Bedouins to leave, but the Fatimid treasury even gave them a light expatriation cash allowance.
+
+Whole tribes set off with women, children, ancestors, animals and camping equipment. Some stopped on the way, especially in Cyrenaica, where they are still one of the essential elements of the settlement but most arrived in Ifriqiya by the Gabes region. The Zirid ruler tried to stop this rising tide, but with each encounter, the last under the walls of Kairouan, his troops were defeated and the Arabs remained masters of the field.
+
+The flood was still rising, and in 1057, the Arabs spread on the high plains of Constantine where they gradually choked Qalaa of Banu Hammad, as they had done in Kairouan a few decades ago. From there they gradually gained the upper Algiers and Oran plains. Some were forcibly taken by the Almohads in the second half of the 12th century. We can say that in the 13th century the Arabs were in all of North Africa, with the exception of the main mountain ranges and certain coastal regions which remained entirely Berber.[citation needed] The influx of Bedouin tribes was a major factor in the linguistic, cultural Arabization of the Maghreb and in the spread of nomadism in areas where agriculture had previously been dominant.[31] Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal tribes had become completely arid desert.[32]
+
+In the early 16th century, Spain constructed fortified outposts (presidios) on or near the Algerian coast. Spain took control of few coastal towns like Mers el Kebir in 1505; Oran in 1509; and Tlemcen, Mostaganem and Ténès in 1510. In the same year, a few merchants of Algiers ceded one of the rocky islets in their harbour to Spain, which built a fort on it. The presidios in North Africa turned out to be a costly and largely ineffective military endeavour that did not guarantee access for Spain's merchant fleet.[33]
+
+The region of Algeria was partially ruled by Ottomans for three centuries from 1516 to 1830. In 1516 the Turkish privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Barbarossa, who operated successfully under the Hafsids, moved their base of operations to Algiers. They succeeded in conquering Jijel and Algiers from the Spaniards but eventually assumed control over the city and the surrounding region, forcing the previous ruler, Abu Hamo Musa III of the Bani Ziyad dynasty, to flee. When Aruj was killed in 1518 during his invasion of Tlemcen, Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers. The Ottoman sultan gave him the title of beylerbey and a contingent of some 2,000 janissaries. With the aid of this force, Hayreddin conquered the whole area between Constantine and Oran (although the city of Oran remained in Spanish hands until 1792).[34][35]
+
+The next beylerbey was Hayreddin's son Hasan, who assumed the position in 1544. Until 1587 the area was governed by officers who served terms with no fixed limits. Subsequently, with the institution of a regular Ottoman administration, governors with the title of pasha ruled for three-year terms. The pasha was assisted by janissaries, known in Algeria as the ojaq and led by an agha. Discontent among the ojaq rose in the mid-1600s because they were not paid regularly, and they repeatedly revolted against the pasha. As a result, the agha charged the pasha with corruption and incompetence and seized power in 1659.[34]
+
+Plague had repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers lost from 30,000 to 50,000 inhabitants to the plague in 1620–21, and suffered high fatalities in 1654–57, 1665, 1691 and 1740–42.[36]
+
+In 1671, the taifa rebelled, killed the agha, and placed one of its own in power. The new leader received the title of Dey. After 1689, the right to select the dey passed to the divan, a council of some sixty nobles. It was at first dominated by the ojaq; but by the 18th century, it had become the dey's instrument. In 1710, the dey persuaded the sultan to recognise him and his successors as regent, replacing the pasha in that role, although Algiers remained a part of the Ottoman Empire.[34]
+
+The dey was in effect a constitutional autocrat. The dey was elected for a life term, but in the 159 years (1671–1830) that the system survived, fourteen of the twenty-nine deys were assassinated. Despite usurpation, military coups and occasional mob rule, the day-to-day operation of Ottoman government was remarkably orderly. Although the regency patronised the tribal chieftains, it never had the unanimous allegiance of the countryside, where heavy taxation frequently provoked unrest. Autonomous tribal states were tolerated, and the regency's authority was seldom applied in the Kabylie.[34]
+
+The Barbary pirates preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea.[36] The pirates often took the passengers and crew on the ships and sold them or used them as slaves.[37] They also did a brisk business in ransoming some of the captives. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves.[38] They often made raids, called Razzias, on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman Empire.[39][40] In 1544, for example, Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the island of Ischia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari, almost the entire population.[41] In 1551, the Ottoman governor of Algiers, Turgut Reis, enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo. Barbary pirates often attacked the Balearic Islands. The threat was so severe that residents abandoned the island of Formentera.[42] The introduction of broad-sail ships from the beginning of the 17th century allowed them to branch out into the Atlantic.[43]
+
+In July 1627 two pirate ships from Algiers under the command of Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon sailed as far as Iceland,[44] raiding and capturing slaves.[45][46][47] Two weeks earlier another pirate ship from Salé in Morocco had also raided in Iceland. Some of the slaves brought to Algiers were later ransomed back to Iceland, but some chose to stay in Algeria. In 1629 pirate ships from Algeria raided the Faroe Islands.[48]
+
+Barbary raids in the Mediterranean continued to attack Spanish merchant shipping, and as a result, the Spanish Navy bombarded Algiers in 1783 and 1784.[35] For the attack in 1784, the Spanish fleet was to be joined by ships from such traditional enemies of Algiers as Naples, Portugal and the Knights of Malta. Over 20,000 cannonballs were fired, much of the city and its fortifications were destroyed and most of the Algerian fleet was sunk.[49]
+
+In the 19th century, the pirates forged affiliations with Caribbean powers, paying a "licence tax" in exchange for safe harbour of their vessels.[50]
+
+Piracy on American vessels in the Mediterranean resulted in the United States initiating the First (1801–1805) and Second Barbary Wars (1815). Following those wars, Algeria was weaker and Europeans, with an Anglo-Dutch fleet commanded by the British Lord Exmouth, attacked Algiers. After a nine-hour bombardment, they obtained a treaty from the Dey that reaffirmed the conditions imposed by Captain (later Commodore) Stephen Decatur (U.S. Navy) concerning the demands of tributes. In addition, the Dey agreed to end the practice of enslaving Christians.[51]
+
+Despite being removed from Algeria in the 19th century, Spain retained a presence in Morocco. Algeria consistently opposed Spanish fortresses and control in nearby Morocco through the 20th century.[35]
+
+Under the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830.[52][53] Historian Ben Kiernan wrote on the French conquest of Algeria: "By 1875, the French conquest was complete. The war had killed approximately 825,000 indigenous Algerians since 1830."[54] French losses from 1831–51 were 92,329 dead in the hospital and only 3,336 killed in action.[55][56] The population of Algeria, which stood at about 2.9 million in 1872, reached nearly 11 million in 1960.[57] French policy was predicated on "civilizing" the country.[58] The slave trade and piracy in Algeria ceased following the French conquest.[37] The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872.[59][60] During this period, a small but influential French-speaking indigenous elite was formed, made up of Berbers, mostly Kabyles. As a consequence, French government favored the Kabyles.[61] About 80% of Indigenous schools were constructed for Kabyles.
+
+From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria.[62][page needed][63] These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land.[64] Many Europeans settled in Oran and Algiers, and by the early 20th century they formed a majority of the population in both cities.[65]
+
+During the late 19th and early 20th century; the European share was almost a fifth of the population. The French government aimed at making Algeria an assimilated part of France, and this included substantial educational investments especially after 1900. The indigenous cultural and religious resistance heavily opposed this tendency, but in contrast to the other colonised countries' path in central Asia and Caucasus, Algeria kept its individual skills and a relatively human-capital intensive agriculture.[66]
+
+Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status in the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy and eventually independence from France. In May 1945, the uprising against the occupying French forces was suppressed through what is now known as the Sétif and Guelma massacre. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria.[67] The FLN used hit and run attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals.
+
+The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. Historians, like Alistair Horne and Raymond Aron, state that the actual number of Algerian Muslim war dead was far greater than the original FLN and official French estimates but was less than the 1 million deaths claimed by the Algerian government after independence. Horne estimated Algerian casualties during the span of eight years to be around 700,000.[68] The war uprooted more than 2 million Algerians.[69]
+
+The war against French rule concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum. Some estimates put the Algerian death toll during the French colonial rule at over 10 million.[70]
+
+The number of European Pied-Noirs who fled Algeria totaled more than 900,000 between 1962 and 1964.[71] The exodus to mainland France accelerated after the Oran massacre of 1962, in which hundreds of militants entered European sections of the city, and began attacking civilians.
+
+Algeria's first president was the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) leader Ahmed Ben Bella. Morocco's claim to portions of western Algeria led to the Sand War in 1963. Ben Bella was overthrown in 1965 by Houari Boumédiène, his former ally and defence minister. Under Ben Bella, the government had become increasingly socialist and authoritarian; Boumédienne continued this trend. But, he relied much more on the army for his support, and reduced the sole legal party to a symbolic role. He collectivised agriculture and launched a massive industrialization drive. Oil extraction facilities were nationalised. This was especially beneficial to the leadership after the international 1973 oil crisis.
+
+In the 1960s and 1970s under President Houari Boumediene, Algeria pursued a program of industrialization within a state-controlled socialist economy. Boumediene's successor, Chadli Bendjedid, introduced some liberal economic reforms. He promoted a policy of Arabisation in Algerian society and public life. Teachers of Arabic, brought in from other Muslim countries, spread conventional Islamic thought in schools and sowed the seeds of a return to Orthodox Islam.[72]
+
+The Algerian economy became increasingly dependent on oil, leading to hardship when the price collapsed during the 1980s oil glut.[73] Economic recession caused by the crash in world oil prices resulted in Algerian social unrest during the 1980s; by the end of the decade, Bendjedid introduced a multi-party system. Political parties developed, such as the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a broad coalition of Muslim groups.[72]
+
+In December 1991 the Islamic Salvation Front dominated the first of two rounds of legislative elections. Fearing the election of an Islamist government, the authorities intervened on 11 January 1992, cancelling the elections. Bendjedid resigned and a High Council of State was installed to act as the Presidency. It banned the FIS, triggering a civil insurgency between the Front's armed wing, the Armed Islamic Group, and the national armed forces, in which more than 100,000 people are thought to have died. The Islamist militants conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres.[74] At several points in the conflict, the situation in Algeria became a point of international concern, most notably during the crisis surrounding Air France Flight 8969, a hijacking perpetrated by the Armed Islamic Group. The Armed Islamic Group declared a ceasefire in October 1997.[72]
+
+Algeria held elections in 1999, considered biased by international observers and most opposition groups[75] which were won by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He worked to restore political stability to the country and announced a "Civil Concord" initiative, approved in a referendum, under which many political prisoners were pardoned, and several thousand members of armed groups were granted exemption from prosecution under a limited amnesty, in force until 13 January 2000. The AIS disbanded and levels of insurgent violence fell rapidly. The Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), a splinter group of the Armed Islamic Group, continued a terrorist campaign against the Government.[72]
+
+Bouteflika was re-elected in the April 2004 presidential election after campaigning on a programme of national reconciliation. The programme comprised economic, institutional, political and social reform to modernise the country, raise living standards, and tackle the causes of alienation. It also included a second amnesty initiative, the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which was approved in a referendum in September 2005. It offered amnesty to most guerrillas and Government security forces.[72]
+
+In November 2008, the Algerian Constitution was amended following a vote in Parliament, removing the two-term limit on Presidential incumbents. This change enabled Bouteflika to stand for re-election in the 2009 presidential elections, and he was re-elected in April 2009. During his election campaign and following his re-election, Bouteflika promised to extend the programme of national reconciliation and a $150-billion spending programme to create three million new jobs, the construction of one million new housing units, and to continue public sector and infrastructure modernisation programmes.[72]
+
+A continuing series of protests throughout the country started on 28 December 2010, inspired by similar protests across the Middle East and North Africa. On 24 February 2011, the government lifted Algeria's 19-year-old state of emergency.[76] The government enacted legislation dealing with political parties, the electoral code, and the representation of women in elected bodies.[77] In April 2011, Bouteflika promised further constitutional and political reform.[72] However, elections are routinely criticized by opposition groups as unfair and international human rights groups say that media censorship and harassment of political opponents continue.
+
+On 2 April 2019, Bouteflika resigned from the presidency after mass protests against his candidacy for a fifth term in office.[78]
+
+Since the 2011 breakup of Sudan, Algeria has been the largest country in Africa, and the Mediterranean Basin. Its southern part includes a significant portion of the Sahara. To the north, the Tell Atlas form with the Saharan Atlas, further south, two parallel sets of reliefs in approaching eastbound, and between which are inserted vast plains and highlands. Both Atlas tend to merge in eastern Algeria. The vast mountain ranges of Aures and Nememcha occupy the entire northeastern Algeria and are delineated by the Tunisian border. The highest point is Mount Tahat (3,003 metres or 9,852 feet).
+
+Algeria lies mostly between latitudes 19° and 37°N (a small area is north of 37°N and south of 19°N), and longitudes 9°W and 12°E. Most of the coastal area is hilly, sometimes even mountainous, and there are a few natural harbours. The area from the coast to the Tell Atlas is fertile. South of the Tell Atlas is a steppe landscape ending with the Saharan Atlas; farther south, there is the Sahara desert.[79]
+
+The Hoggar Mountains (Arabic: جبال هقار‎), also known as the Hoggar, are a highland region in central Sahara, southern Algeria. They are located about 1,500 km (932 mi) south of the capital, Algiers, and just east of Tamanghasset. Algiers, Oran, Constantine, and Annaba are Algeria's main cities.[79]
+
+In this region, midday desert temperatures can be hot year round. After sunset, however, the clear, dry air permits rapid loss of heat, and the nights are cool to chilly. Enormous daily ranges in temperature are recorded.
+
+Rainfall is fairly plentiful along the coastal part of the Tell Atlas, ranging from 400 to 670 mm (15.7 to 26.4 in) annually, the amount of precipitation increasing from west to east. Precipitation is heaviest in the northern part of eastern Algeria, where it reaches as much as 1,000 mm (39.4 in) in some years.
+
+Farther inland, the rainfall is less plentiful. Algeria also has ergs, or sand dunes, between mountains. Among these, in the summer time when winds are heavy and gusty, temperatures can go up to 43.3 °C (110 °F).
+
+Climate change has wide reaching effects on the country of Algeria. Algeria was not a significant contributor to climate change,[80] but like other countries in the Mena region, is expected to be on the front-lines of climate change impacts.[81]
+
+Because a large part of the country is in already hot and arid geographies, including part of the Sahara, already strong heat and water resource access challenges are expected to get worse.[80] As early as 2014, scientist were attributing extreme heat waves to climate change in Algeria.[80]
+
+The varied vegetation of Algeria includes coastal, mountainous and grassy desert-like regions which all support a wide range of wildlife. Many of the creatures comprising the Algerian wildlife live in close proximity to civilization. The most commonly seen animals include the wild boars, jackals, and gazelles, although it is not uncommon to spot fennecs (foxes), and jerboas. Algeria also has a small African leopard and Saharan cheetah population, but these are seldom seen. A species of deer, the Barbary stag, inhabits the dense humid forests in the north-eastern areas.
+
+A variety of bird species makes the country an attraction for bird watchers. The forests are inhabited by boars and jackals. Barbary macaques are the sole native monkey. Snakes, monitor lizards, and numerous other reptiles can be found living among an array of rodents throughout the semi arid regions of Algeria. Many animals are now extinct, including the Barbary lions, Atlas bears and crocodiles.[83]
+
+In the north, some of the native flora includes Macchia scrub, olive trees, oaks, cedars and other conifers. The mountain regions contain large forests of evergreens (Aleppo pine, juniper, and evergreen oak) and some deciduous trees. Fig, eucalyptus, agave, and various palm trees grow in the warmer areas. The grape vine is indigenous to the coast. In the Sahara region, some oases have palm trees. Acacias with wild olives are the predominant flora in the remainder of the Sahara.
+
+Camels are used extensively; the desert also abounds with venomous and nonvenomous snakes, scorpions, and numerous insects.
+
+Elected politicians have relatively little sway over Algeria. Instead, a group of unelected civilian and military "décideurs" ("deciders"), known as "le pouvoir" ("the power"), actually rule the country, even deciding who should be president. The most powerful man may be Mohamed Mediène, the head of military intelligence.[84] In recent years, many of these generals have died or retired. After the death of General Larbi Belkheir, Bouteflika put loyalists in key posts, notably at Sonatrach, and secured constitutional amendments that make him re-electable indefinitely.[85]
+
+The head of state is the President of Algeria, who is elected for a five-year term. The president was formerly limited to two five-year terms, but a constitutional amendment passed by the Parliament on 11 November 2008 removed this limitation.[86] The next presidential election was planned to be in April 2019, but widespread protests erupted on 22 February against the president's decision to participate in the election, which resulted in President Bouteflika announcing his resignation on 3 April.[87] Algeria has universal suffrage at 18 years of age.[3] The President is the head of the army, the Council of Ministers and the High Security Council. He appoints the Prime Minister who is also the head of government.[88]
+
+The Algerian parliament is bicameral; the lower house, the People's National Assembly, has 462 members who are directly elected for five-year terms, while the upper house, the Council of the Nation, has 144 members serving six-year terms, of which 96 members are chosen by local assemblies and 48 are appointed by the president.[89] According to the constitution, no political association may be formed if it is "based on differences in religion, language, race, gender, profession, or region". In addition, political campaigns must be exempt from the aforementioned subjects.[90]
+
+Parliamentary elections were last held in May 2012, and were judged to be largely free by international monitors, though local groups alleged fraud and irregularities.[89] In the elections, the FLN won 221 seats, the military-backed National Rally for Democracy won 70, and the Islamist Green Algeria Alliance won 47.[89]
+
+Algeria is included in the European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which aims at bringing the EU and its neighbours closer.
+Giving incentives and rewarding best performers, as well as offering funds in a faster and more flexible manner, are the two main principles underlying the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) that came into force in 2014. It has a budget of €15.4 billion and provides the bulk of funding through a number of programmes.
+
+In 2009, the French government agreed to compensate victims of nuclear tests in Algeria. Defense Minister Herve Morin stated that "It's time for our country to be at peace with itself, at peace thanks to a system of compensation and reparations," when presenting the draft law on the payouts. Algerian officials and activists believe that this is a good first step and hope that this move would encourage broader reparation.[91]
+
+Tensions between Algeria and Morocco in relation to the Western Sahara have been an obstacle to tightening the Arab Maghreb Union, nominally established in 1989, but which has carried little practical weight.[92]
+
+The military of Algeria consists of the People's National Army (ANP), the Algerian National Navy (MRA), and the Algerian Air Force (QJJ), plus the Territorial Air Defence Forces.[3] It is the direct successor of the National Liberation Army (Armée de Libération Nationale or ALN), the armed wing of the nationalist National Liberation Front which fought French colonial occupation during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62).
+
+Total military personnel include 147,000 active, 150,000 reserve, and 187,000 paramilitary staff (2008 estimate).[93] Service in the military is compulsory for men aged 19–30, for a total of 12 months.[94] The military expenditure was 4.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2012.[3] Algeria has the second largest military in North Africa with the largest defence budget in Africa ($10 billion).[95] Most of Algeria's weapons are imported from Russia, with whom they are a close ally.[95][96]
+
+In 2007, the Algerian Air Force signed a deal with Russia to purchase 49 MiG-29SMT and 6 MiG-29UBT at an estimated cost of $1.9 billion. Russia is also building two 636-type diesel submarines for Algeria.[97]
+
+Algeria has been categorized by Freedom House as "not free" since it began publishing such ratings in 1972, with the exception of 1989, 1990, and 1991, when the country was labeled "partly free."[98] In December 2016, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor issued a report regarding violation of media freedom in Algeria. It clarified that the Algerian government imposed restriction on freedom of the press; expression; and right to peaceful demonstration, protest and assembly as well as intensified censorship of the media and websites. Due to the fact that the journalists and activists criticize the ruling government, some media organizations' licenses are canceled.[99]
+
+Independent and autonomous trade unions face routine harassment from the government, with many leaders imprisoned and protests suppressed. In 2016 a number of unions, many of which were involved in the 2010–2012 Algerian Protests, have been deregistered by the government.[100][101][102]
+
+Homosexuality is illegal in Algeria.[103] Public homosexual behavior is punishable by up to two years in prison.[104]
+
+Human Rights Watch has accused the Algerian authorities of using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent pro-democracy movements and protests in the country, leading to the arrest of youths as part of social distancing.[105]
+
+Algeria is divided into 48 provinces (wilayas), 553 districts (daïras) and 1,541 municipalities (baladiyahs). Each province, district, and municipality is named after its seat, which is usually the largest city.
+
+The administrative divisions have changed several times since independence. When introducing new provinces, the numbers of old provinces are kept, hence the non-alphabetical order. With their official numbers, currently (since 1983) they are[3]
+
+
+
+Algeria is classified as an upper middle income country by the World Bank.[106] Algeria's currency is the dinar (DZD). The economy remains dominated by the state, a legacy of the country's socialist post-independence development model. In recent years, the Algerian government has halted the privatization of state-owned industries and imposed restrictions on imports and foreign involvement in its economy.[3] These restrictions are just starting to be lifted off recently although questions about Algeria's slowly-diversifying economy remain.
+
+Algeria has struggled to develop industries outside hydrocarbons in part because of high costs and an inert state bureaucracy. The government's efforts to diversify the economy by attracting foreign and domestic investment outside the energy sector have done little to reduce high youth unemployment rates or to address housing shortages.[3] The country is facing a number of short-term and medium-term problems, including the need to diversify the economy, strengthen political, economic and financial reforms, improve the business climate and reduce inequalities amongst regions.[77]
+
+A wave of economic protests in February and March 2011 prompted the Algerian government to offer more than $23 billion in public grants and retroactive salary and benefit increases. Public spending has increased by 27% annually during the past 5 years. The 2010–14 public-investment programme will cost US$286 billion, 40% of which will go to human development.[77]
+
+The Algerian economy grew by 2.6% in 2011, driven by public spending, in particular in the construction and public-works sector, and by growing internal demand. If hydrocarbons are excluded, growth has been estimated at 4.8%. Growth of 3% is expected in 2012, rising to 4.2% in 2013. The rate of inflation was 4% and the budget deficit 3% of GDP. The current-account surplus is estimated at 9.3% of GDP and at the end of December 2011, official reserves were put at US$182 billion.[77] Inflation, the lowest in the region, has remained stable at 4% on average between 2003 and 2007.[107]
+
+In 2011 Algeria announced a budgetary surplus of $26.9 billion, 62% increase in comparison to 2010 surplus. In general, the country exported $73 billion worth of commodities while it imported $46 billion.[108]
+
+Thanks to strong hydrocarbon revenues, Algeria has a cushion of $173 billion in foreign currency reserves and a large hydrocarbon stabilization fund. In addition, Algeria's external debt is extremely low at about 2% of GDP.[3] The economy remains very dependent on hydrocarbon wealth, and, despite high foreign exchange reserves (US$178 billion, equivalent to three years of imports), current expenditure growth makes Algeria's budget more vulnerable to the risk of prolonged lower hydrocarbon revenues.[109]
+
+In 2011, the agricultural sector and services recorded growth of 10% and 5.3%, respectively.[77] About 14% of the labor force are employed in the agricultural sector.[3] Fiscal policy in 2011 remained expansionist and made it possible to maintain the pace of public investment and to contain the strong demand for jobs and housing.[77]
+
+Algeria has not joined the WTO, despite several years of negotiations.[110]
+
+In March 2006, Russia agreed to erase $4.74 billion of Algeria's Soviet-era debt[111] during a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the country, the first by a Russian leader in half a century. In return, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika agreed to buy $7.5 billion worth of combat planes, air-defence systems and other arms from Russia, according to the head of Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport.[112][113]
+
+Dubai-based conglomerate Emarat Dzayer Group said it had signed a joint venture agreement to develop a $1.6 billion steel factory in Algeria.[114]
+
+Algeria, whose economy is reliant on petroleum, has been an OPEC member since 1969. Its crude oil production stands at around 1.1 million barrels/day, but it is also a major gas producer and exporter, with important links to Europe.[115] Hydrocarbons have long been the backbone of the economy, accounting for roughly 60% of budget revenues, 30% of GDP, and over 95% of export earnings. Algeria has the 10th-largest reserves of natural gas in the world and is the sixth-largest gas exporter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that in 2005, Algeria had 4.5 trillion cubic metres (160×10^12 cu ft) of proven natural-gas reserves.[116] It also ranks 16th in oil reserves.[3]
+
+Non-hydrocarbon growth for 2011 was projected at 5%. To cope with social demands, the authorities raised expenditure, especially on basic food support, employment creation, support for SMEs, and higher salaries. High hydrocarbon prices have improved the current account and the already large international reserves position.[109]
+
+Income from oil and gas rose in 2011 as a result of continuing high oil prices, though the trend in production volume is downwards.[77] Production from the oil and gas sector in terms of volume, continues to decline, dropping from 43.2 million tonnes to 32 million tonnes between 2007 and 2011. Nevertheless, the sector accounted for 98% of the total volume of exports in 2011, against 48% in 1962,[117] and 70% of budgetary receipts, or US$71.4 billion.[77]
+
+The Algerian national oil company is Sonatrach, which plays a key role in all aspects of the oil and natural gas sectors in Algeria. All foreign operators must work in partnership with Sonatrach, which usually has majority ownership in production-sharing agreements.[118]
+
+Access to biocapacity in Algeria is lower than world average. In 2016, Algeria had 0.53 global hectares[119] of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person.[120] In 2016 Algeria used 2.4 global hectares of biocapacity per person - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use just under 4.5 times as much biocapacity as Algeria contains. As a result, Algeria is running a biocapacity deficit.[119]
+
+Algeria has invested an estimated 100 billion dinars towards developing research facilities and paying researchers. This development program is meant to advance alternative energy production, especially solar and wind power.[121] Algeria is estimated to have the largest solar energy potential in the Mediterranean, so the government has funded the creation of a solar science park in Hassi R'Mel. Currently, Algeria has 20,000 research professors at various universities and over 780 research labs, with state-set goals to expand to 1,000. Besides solar energy, areas of research in Algeria include space and satellite telecommunications, nuclear power and medical research.
+
+Despite a decline in total unemployment, youth and women unemployment is high.[109] Unemployment particularly affects the young, with a jobless rate of 21.5% among the 15–24 age group.[77]
+
+The overall rate of unemployment was 10% in 2011, but remained higher among young people, with a rate of 21.5% for those aged between 15 and 24. The government strengthened in 2011 the job programmes introduced in 1988, in particular in the framework of the programme to aid those seeking work (Dispositif d'Aide à l'Insertion Professionnelle).[77]
+
+The development of the tourism sector in Algeria had previously been hampered by a lack of facilities, but since 2004 a broad tourism development strategy has been implemented resulting in many hotels of a high modern standard being built.
+
+There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Algeria[122] including Al Qal'a of Beni Hammad, the first capital of the Hammadid empire; Tipasa, a Phoenician and later Roman town; and Djémila and Timgad, both Roman ruins; M'Zab Valley, a limestone valley containing a large urbanized oasis; and the Casbah of Algiers, an important citadel. The only natural World Heritage Site is the Tassili n'Ajjer, a mountain range.
+
+The Algerian road network is the densest in Africa; its length is estimated at 180,000 km (110,000 mi) of highways, with more than 3,756 structures and a paving rate of 85%. This network will be complemented by the East-West Highway, a major infrastructure project currently under construction. It is a 3-way, 1,216-kilometre-long (756 mi) highway, linking Annaba in the extreme east to the Tlemcen in the far west. Algeria is also crossed by the Trans-Sahara Highway, which is now completely paved. This road is supported by the Algerian government to increase trade between the six countries crossed: Algeria, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Tunisia.
+
+In January 2016 Algeria's population was an estimated 40.4 million, who are mainly Arab-Berber ethnically.[3][125][126] At the outset of the 20th century, its population was approximately four million.[127] About 90% of Algerians live in the northern, coastal area; the inhabitants of the Sahara desert are mainly concentrated in oases, although some 1.5 million remain nomadic or partly nomadic. 28.1% of Algerians are under the age of 15.[3]
+
+Women make up 70% of the country's lawyers and 60% of its judges and also dominate the field of medicine. Increasingly, women are contributing more to household income than men. 60% of university students are women, according to university researchers.[128]
+
+Between 90,000 and 165,000 Sahrawis from Western Sahara live in the Sahrawi refugee camps,[129][130] in the western Algerian Sahara desert.[131] There are also more than 4,000 Palestinian refugees, who are well integrated and have not asked for assistance from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).[129][130] In 2009, 35,000 Chinese migrant workers lived in Algeria.[132]
+
+The largest concentration of Algerian migrants outside Algeria is in France, which has reportedly over 1.7 million Algerians of up to the second generation.[133]
+
+Indigenous Berbers as well as Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantine Greeks, Arabs, Turks, various Sub-Saharan Africans, and French have contributed to the history of Algeria.[134] Descendants of Andalusian refugees are also present in the population of Algiers and other cities.[135] Moreover, Spanish was spoken by these Aragonese and Castillian Morisco descendants deep into the 18th century, and even Catalan was spoken at the same time by Catalan Morisco descendants in the small town of Grish El-Oued.[136]
+
+Despite the dominance of the Berber culture and ethnicity in Algeria, the majority of Algerians identify with an Arabic-based identity, especially after the Arab nationalism rising in the 20th century.[137][138] Berbers and Berber-speaking Algerians are divided into many groups with varying languages. The largest of these are the Kabyles, who live in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, the Chaoui of Northeast Algeria, the Tuaregs in the southern desert and the Shenwa people of North Algeria.[139][page needed]
+
+During the colonial period, there was a large (10% in 1960)[140] European population who became known as Pied-Noirs. They were primarily of French, Spanish and Italian origin. Almost all of this population left during the war of independence or immediately after its end.[141]
+
+Modern Standard Arabic and Berber are the official languages.[142] Algerian Arabic (Darja) is the language used by the majority of the population. Colloquial Algerian Arabic is heavily infused with borrowings from French and Berber.
+
+Berber has been recognized as a "national language" by the constitutional amendment of 8 May 2002.[143] Kabyle, the predominant Berber language, is taught and is partially co-official (with a few restrictions) in parts of Kabylie. In February 2016, the Algerian constitution passed a resolution that would make Berber an official language alongside Arabic.
+
+Although French has no official status, Algeria is the second-largest Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers,[144] and French is widely used in government, media (newspapers, radio, local television), and both the education system (from primary school onwards) and academia due to Algeria's colonial history. It can be regarded as a lingua franca of Algeria. In 2008, 11.2 million Algerians could read and write in French.[145] An Abassa Institute study in April 2000 found that 60% of households could speak and understand French or 18 million in a population of 30 million then. After an earlier period during which the Algerian government tried to phase out French, in recent decades the government has backtracked and reinforced the study of French, and some television programs are broadcast in the language.
+
+Algeria emerged as a bilingual state after 1962.[146] Colloquial Algerian Arabic is spoken by about 72% of the population and Berber by 27–30%.[147]
+
+Islam is the predominant religion in Algeria, with its adherents, mostly Sunnis, accounting for 99% of the population according to a 2012 CIA World Factbook estimate,[3] and 97.9% according to Pew Research in 2010.[148] There are about 150,000 Ibadis in the M'zab Valley in the region of Ghardaia. Estimates of the Christian population range from 60,000[149] to 200,000.[150] Algerian citizens who are Christians predominantly belong to Protestant groups, which have seen increased pressure from the government in recent years including many forced closures.[151][150]
+
+Algeria has given the Muslim world a number of prominent thinkers, including Emir Abdelkader, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mouloud Kacem Naît Belkacem, Malek Bennabi and Mohamed Arkoun.
+
+Below is a list of the most important Algerian cities:
+
+Modern Algerian literature, split between Arabic, Tamazight and French, has been strongly influenced by the country's recent history. Famous novelists of the 20th century include Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Kateb Yacine and Ahlam Mosteghanemi while Assia Djebar is widely translated. Among the important novelists of the 1980s were Rachid Mimouni, later vice-president of Amnesty International, and Tahar Djaout, murdered by an Islamist group in 1993 for his secularist views.[153]
+
+Malek Bennabi and Frantz Fanon are noted for their thoughts on decolonization; Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras); and Ibn Khaldun, though born in Tunis, wrote the Muqaddima while staying in Algeria. The works of the Sanusi family in pre-colonial times, and of Emir Abdelkader and Sheikh Ben Badis in colonial times, are widely noted. The Latin author Apuleius was born in Madaurus (Mdaourouch), in what later became Algeria.
+
+Contemporary Algerian cinema is various in terms of genre, exploring a wider range of themes and issues. There has been a transition from cinema which focused on the war of independence to films more concerned with the everyday lives of Algerians.[154]
+
+Algerian painters, like Mohamed Racim or Baya, attempted to revive the prestigious Algerian past prior to French colonization, at the same time that they have contributed to the preservation of the authentic values of Algeria. In this line, Mohamed Temam, Abdelkhader Houamel have also returned through this art, scenes from the history of the country, the habits and customs of the past and the country life. Other new artistic currents including the one of M'hamed Issiakhem, Mohammed Khadda and Bachir Yelles, appeared on the scene of Algerian painting, abandoning figurative classical painting to find new pictorial ways, in order to adapt Algerian paintings to the new realities of the country through its struggle and its aspirations. Mohammed Khadda[155] and M'hamed Issiakhem have been notable in recent years.[155]
+
+The historic roots of Algerian literature go back to the Numidian and Roman African era, when Apuleius wrote The Golden Ass, the only Latin novel to survive in its entirety. This period had also known Augustine of Hippo, Nonius Marcellus and Martianus Capella, among many others. The Middle Ages have known many Arabic writers who revolutionized the Arab world literature, with authors like Ahmad al-Buni, Ibn Manzur and Ibn Khaldoun, who wrote the Muqaddimah while staying in Algeria, and many others.
+
+Albert Camus was an Algerian-born French Pied-Noir author. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
+
+Today Algeria contains, in its literary landscape, big names having not only marked the Algerian literature, but also the universal literary heritage in Arabic and French.
+
+As a first step, Algerian literature was marked by works whose main concern was the assertion of the Algerian national entity, there is the publication of novels as the Algerian trilogy of Mohammed Dib, or even Nedjma of Kateb Yacine novel which is often regarded as a monumental and major work. Other known writers will contribute to the emergence of Algerian literature whom include Mouloud Feraoun, Malek Bennabi, Malek Haddad, Moufdi Zakaria, Abdelhamid Ben Badis, Mohamed Laïd Al-Khalifa, Mouloud Mammeri, Frantz Fanon, and Assia Djebar.
+
+In the aftermath of the independence, several new authors emerged on the Algerian literary scene, they will attempt through their works to expose a number of social problems, among them there are Rachid Boudjedra, Rachid Mimouni, Leila Sebbar, Tahar Djaout and Tahir Wattar.
+
+Currently, a part of Algerian writers tends to be defined in a literature of shocking expression, due to the terrorism that occurred during the 1990s, the other party is defined in a different style of literature who staged an individualistic conception of the human adventure. Among the most noted recent works, there is the writer, the swallows of Kabul and the attack of Yasmina Khadra, the oath of barbarians of Boualem Sansal, memory of the flesh of Ahlam Mosteghanemi and the last novel by Assia Djebar nowhere in my father's House.
+
+Chaâbi music is a typically Algerian musical genre characterized by specific rhythms and of Qacidate (popular poems) in Arabic dialect. The undisputed master of this music is El Hadj M'Hamed El Anka. The Constantinois Malouf style is saved by musician from whom Mohamed Tahar Fergani is a performer.
+
+Folk music styles include Bedouin music, characterized by the poetic songs based on long kacida (poems); Kabyle music, based on a rich repertoire that is poetry and old tales passed through generations; Shawiya music, a folklore from diverse areas of the Aurès Mountains. Rahaba music style is unique to the Aures. Souad Massi is a rising Algerian folk singer. Other Algerian singers of the diaspora include Manel Filali in Germany and Kenza Farah in France. Tergui music is sung in Tuareg languages generally, Tinariwen had a worldwide success. Finally, the staïfi music is born in Sétif and remains a unique style of its kind.
+
+Modern music is available in several facets, Raï music is a style typical of western Algeria. Rap, a relatively recent style in Algeria, is experiencing significant growth.
+
+The Algerian state's interest in film-industry activities can be seen in the annual budget of DZD 200 million (EUR 1.8) allocated to production, specific measures and an ambitious programme plan implemented by the Ministry of Culture in order to promote national production, renovate the cinema stock and remedy the weak links in distribution and exploitation.
+
+The financial support provided by the state, through the Fund for the Development of the Arts, Techniques and the Film Industry (FDATIC) and the Algerian Agency for Cultural Influence (AARC), plays a key role in the promotion of national production. Between 2007 and 2013, FDATIC subsidised 98 films (feature films, documentaries and short films). In mid-2013, AARC had already supported a total of 78 films, including 42 feature films, 6 short films and 30 documentaries.
+
+According to the European Audiovisual Observatory's LUMIERE database, 41 Algerian films were distributed in Europe between 1996 and 2013; 21 films in this repertoire were Algerian-French co-productions. Days of Glory (2006) and Outside the Law (2010) recorded the highest number of admissions in the European Union, 3,172,612 and 474,722, respectively.[158]
+
+Algeria won the Palme d'Or for Chronicle of the Years of Fire (1975), two Oscars for Z (1969), and other awards for the Italian-Algerian movie The Battle of Algiers.
+
+Various games have existed in Algeria since antiquity. In the Aures, people played several games such as El Kherba or El khergueba (chess variant). Playing cards, checkers and chess games are part of Algerian culture. Racing (fantasia) and rifle shooting are part of cultural recreation of the Algerians.[159]
+
+The first Algerian and African gold medalist is Boughera El Ouafi in 1928 Olympics of Amsterdam in the Marathon. The second Algerian Medalist was Alain Mimoun in 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Several men and women were champions in athletics in the 1990s including Noureddine Morceli, Hassiba Boulmerka, Nouria Merah-Benida, and Taoufik Makhloufi, all specialized in middle-distance running.[160]
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Algeria. Several names are engraved in the history of the sport, including Lakhdar Belloumi, Rachid Mekhloufi, Hassen Lalmas, Rabah Madjer, Salah Assad and Djamel Zidane. The Algeria national football team qualified for the 1982 FIFA World Cup, 1986 FIFA World Cup, 2010 FIFA World Cup and 2014 FIFA World Cup. In addition, several football clubs have won continental and international trophies as the club ES Sétif or JS Kabylia. The Algerian Football Federation is an association of Algeria football clubs organizing national competitions and international matches of the selection of Algeria national football team.[161]
+
+Algerian cuisine is rich and diverse. The country was considered as the "granary of Rome". It offers a component of dishes and varied dishes, depending on the region and according to the seasons. The cuisine uses cereals as the main products, since they are always produced with abundance in the country. There is not a dish where cereals are not present.
+
+Algerian cuisine varies from one region to another, according to seasonal vegetables. It can be prepared using meat, fish and vegetables. Among the dishes known, couscous,[162] chorba, rechta, chakhchoukha, berkoukes, shakshouka, mthewem, chtitha, mderbel, dolma, brik or bourek, garantita, lham'hlou, etc. Merguez sausage is widely used in Algeria, but it differs, depending on the region and on the added spices.
+
+Cakes are marketed and can be found in cities either in Algeria, in Europe or North America. However, traditional cakes are also made at home, following the habits and customs of each family. Among these cakes, there are Tamina, Baklawa, Chrik, Garn logzelles, Griouech, Kalb el-louz, Makroud, Mbardja, Mchewek, Samsa, Tcharak, Baghrir, Khfaf, Zlabia, Aarayech, Ghroubiya and Mghergchette. Algerian pastry also contains Tunisian or French cakes. Marketed and home-made bread products include varieties such as Kessra or Khmira or Harchaya, chopsticks and so-called washers Khoubz dar or Matloue. Other traditional meals sold often as street food include mhadjeb or mahjouba, karantika, doubara, chakhchoukha, hassouna, and t'chicha.
+
+In 2002, Algeria had inadequate numbers of physicians (1.13 per 1,000 people), nurses (2.23 per 1,000 people), and dentists (0.31 per 1,000 people). Access to "improved water sources" was limited to 92% of the population in urban areas and 80% of the population in the rural areas. Some 99% of Algerians living in urban areas, but only 82% of those living in rural areas, had access to "improved sanitation". According to the World Bank, Algeria is making progress toward its goal of "reducing by half the number of people without sustainable access to improved drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015". Given Algeria's young population, policy favors preventive health care and clinics over hospitals. In keeping with this policy, the government maintains an immunization program. However, poor sanitation and unclean water still cause tuberculosis, hepatitis, measles, typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. The poor generally receive health care free of charge.[163]
+
+Health records have been maintained in Algeria since 1882 and began adding Muslims living in the south to their vital record database in 1905 during French rule.[164]
+
+Since the 1970s, in a centralized system that was designed to significantly reduce the rate of illiteracy, the Algerian government introduced a decree by which school attendance became compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years who have the ability to track their learning through the 20 facilities built since independence, now the literacy rate is around 78.7%.[165]
+
+Since 1972, Arabic is used as the language of instruction during the first nine years of schooling. From the third year, French is taught and it is also the language of instruction for science classes. The students can also learn English, Italian, Spanish and German. In 2008, new programs at the elementary appeared, therefore the compulsory schooling does not start at the age of six anymore, but at the age of five.[166]
+Apart from the 122 private schools, the Universities of the State are free of charge. After nine years of primary school, students can go to the high school or to an educational institution. The school offers two programs: general or technical. At the end of the third year of secondary school, students pass the exam of the baccalaureate, which allows once it is successful to pursue graduate studies in universities and institutes.[167]
+
+Education is officially compulsory for children between the ages of six and 15. In 2008, the illiteracy rate for people over 10 was 22.3%, 15.6% for men and 29.0% for women. The province with the lowest rate of illiteracy was Algiers Province at 11.6%, while the province with the highest rate was Djelfa Province at 35.5%.[165]
+
+Algeria has 26 universities and 67 institutions of higher education, which must accommodate a million Algerians and 80,000 foreign students in 2008. The University of Algiers, founded in 1879, is the oldest, it offers education in various disciplines (law, medicine, science and letters). 25 of these universities and almost all of the institutions of higher education were founded after the independence of the country.
+
+Even if some of them offer instruction in Arabic like areas of law and the economy, most of the other sectors as science and medicine continue to be provided in French and English. Among the most important universities, there are the University of Sciences and Technology Houari Boumediene, the University of Mentouri Constantine, and University of Oran Es-Senia. The University of Abou Bekr Belkaïd in Tlemcen and University of Batna Hadj Lakhdar occupy the 26th and 45th row in Africa.[168]

en/1350.html.txt

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+The elbow is the visible joint between the upper and lower parts of the arm. It includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the elbow pit, the lateral and medial epicondyles, and the elbow joint. The elbow joint[1] is the synovial hinge joint[2] between the humerus in the upper arm and the radius and ulna in the forearm which allows the forearm and hand to be moved towards and away from the body.[3]
+
+Medical Subject Headings defines the elbow specifically for humans and other primates,[4] though the term is frequently used for the anterior joints of other mammals, such as dogs.
+
+The name for the elbow in Latin is cubitus, and so the word cubital is used in some elbow-related terms, as in cubital nodes for example.
+
+The elbow joint has three different portions surrounded by a common joint capsule. These are joints between the three bones of the elbow, the humerus of the upper arm, and the radius and the ulna of the forearm.
+
+When in anatomical position there are four main bony landmarks of the elbow. At the lower part of the humerus are the medial and lateral epicondyles, on the side closest to the body (medial) and on the side away from the body (lateral) surfaces. The third landmark is the olecranon found at the head of the ulna. These lie on a horizontal line called the Hueter line. When the elbow is flexed, they form a triangle called the Hueter triangle, which resembles an equilateral triangle.[5]
+
+At the surface of the humerus where it faces the joint is the trochlea. In most people, the groove running across the trochlea is vertical on the anterior side but it spirals off on the posterior side.  This results in the forearm being aligned to the upper arm during flexion, but forming an angle to the upper arm during extension — an angle known as the carrying angle.[6]
+
+The superior radioulnar joint shares the joint capsule with the elbow joint but plays no functional role at the elbow.[7]
+
+The elbow joint and the superior radioulnar joint are enclosed by a single fibrous capsule.  The capsule is strengthened by ligaments at the sides but is relatively weak in front and behind.[8]
+
+On the anterior side, the capsule consists mainly of longitudinal fibres.  However, some bundles among these fibers run obliquely or transversely, thickening and strengthening the capsule. These bundles are referred to as the capsular ligament.  Deep fibres of the brachialis muscle insert anteriorly into the capsule and act to pull it and the underlying membrane during flexion in order to prevent them from being pinched.[8]
+
+On the posterior side, the capsule is thin and mainly composed of transverse fibres.  A few of these fibres stretch across the olecranon fossa without attaching to it and form a transverse band with a free upper border.  On the ulnar side, the capsule reaches down to the posterior part of the annular ligament.  The posterior capsule is attached to the triceps tendon which prevents the capsule from being pinched during extension.[8]
+
+The synovial membrane of the elbow joint is very extensive.  On the humerus, it extends up from the articular margins and covers the coronoid and radial fossae anteriorly and the olecranon fossa posteriorly.  Distally, it is prolonged down to the neck of the radius and the superior radioulnar joint.  It is supported by the quadrate ligament below the annular ligament where it also forms a fold which gives the head of the radius freedom of movement.[8]
+
+Several synovial folds project into the recesses of the joint.[8]
+These folds or plicae are remnants of normal embryonic development and can be categorized as either anterior (anterior humeral recess) or posterior (olecranon recess).[9]
+A crescent-shaped fold is commonly present between the head of the radius and the capitulum of the humerus.[8]
+
+On the humerus there are extrasynovial fat pads adjacent to the three articular fossae.  These pads fill the radial and coronoid fossa anteriorly during extension, and the olecranon fossa posteriorly during flexion.  They are displaced when the fossae are occupied by the bony projections of the ulna and radius.[8]
+
+The elbow, like other joints, has ligaments on either side. These are triangular bands which blend with the joint capsule.  They are positioned so that they always lie across the transverse joint axis and are, therefore, always relatively tense and impose strict limitations on abduction, adduction, and axial rotation at the elbow.[8]
+
+The ulnar collateral ligament has its apex on the medial epicondyle.  Its anterior band stretches from the anterior side of the medial epicondyle to the medial edge of the coronoid process, while the posterior band stretches from posterior side of the medial epicondyle to the medial side of the olecranon.  These two bands are separated by a thinner intermediate part and their distal attachments are united by a transverse band below which the synovial membrane protrudes during joint movements.  The anterior band is closely associated with the tendon of the superficial flexor muscles of the forearm, even being the origin of flexor digitorum superficialis.  The ulnar nerve crosses the intermediate part as it enters the forearm.[8]
+
+The radial collateral ligament is attached to the lateral epicondyle below the common extensor tendon.  Less distinct than the ulnar collateral ligament, this ligament blends with the annular ligament of the radius and its margins are attached near the radial notch of the ulna.[8]
+
+There are three main flexor muscles at the elbow:[10]
+
+Brachialis is the main muscle used when the elbow is flexed slowly.  During rapid and forceful flexion all three muscles are brought into action assisted by the superficial forearm flexors originating at the medial side of the elbow.[11]
+The efficiency of the flexor muscles increases dramatically as the elbow is brought into midflexion (flexed 90°) — biceps reaches its angle of maximum efficiency at 80–90° and brachialis at 100–110°.[10]
+
+Active flexion is limited to 145° by the contact between the anterior muscles of the upper arm and forearm, more so because they are hardened by contraction during flexion.  Passive flexion (forearm is pushed against the upper arm with flexors relaxed) is limited to 160° by the bony projections on the radius and ulna as they reach to shallow depressions on the humerus; i.e. the head of radius being pressed against the radial fossa and the coronoid process being pressed against the coronoid fossa.  Passive flexion is further limited by tension in the posterior capsular ligament and in triceps brachii.[12]
+
+A small accessory muscle, so called epitrochleoanconeus muscle, may be found on the medial aspect of the elbow running from the medial epicondyle to the olecranon.[13]
+
+Elbow extension is simply bringing the forearm back to anatomical position.[11]  This action is performed by triceps brachii with a negligible assistance from anconeus.  Triceps originates with two heads posteriorly on the humerus and with its long head on the scapula just below the shoulder joint.  It is inserted posteriorly on the olecranon.[10]
+
+Triceps is maximally efficient with the elbow flexed 20–30°.  As the angle of flexion increases, the position of the olecranon approaches the main axis of the humerus which decreases muscle efficiency.  In full flexion, however, the triceps tendon is "rolled up" on the olecranon as on a pulley which compensates for the loss of efficiency.  Because triceps' long head is biarticular (acts on two joints), its efficiency is also dependent on the position of the shoulder.[10]
+
+Extension is limited by the olecranon reaching the olecranon fossa, tension in the anterior ligament, and resistance in flexor muscles.  Forced extension results in a rupture in one of the limiting structures: olecranon fracture, torn capsule and ligaments, and, though the muscles are normally left unaffected, a bruised brachial artery.[12]
+
+The arteries supplying the joint are derived from an extensive circulatory anastomosis between the brachial artery and its terminal branches.  The superior and inferior ulnar collateral branches of the brachial artery and the radial and middle collateral branches of the profunda brachii artery descend from above to reconnect on the joint capsule, where they also connect with the anterior and posterior ulnar recurrent branches of the ulnar artery; the radial recurrent branch of the radial artery; and the interosseous recurrent branch of the common interosseous artery.[14]
+
+The blood is brought back by vessels from the radial, ulnar, and brachial veins.
+There are two sets of lymphatic nodes at the elbow, normally located above the medial epicondyle — the deep and superficial cubital nodes (also called epitrochlear nodes).  The lymphatic drainage at the elbow is through the deep nodes at the bifurcation of the brachial artery, the superficial nodes drain the forearm and the ulnar side of the hand.  The efferent lymph vessels from the elbow proceed to the lateral group of axillary lymph nodes.[14][15]
+
+The elbow is innervated anteriorly by branches from the musculocutaneous, median, and radial nerve, and posteriorly from the ulnar nerve and the branch of the radial nerve to anconeus.[14]
+
+The elbow undergoes dynamic development of ossification centers through infancy and adolescence, with the order of both the appearance and fusion of the apophyseal growth centers being crucial in assessment of the pediatric elbow on radiograph, in order to distinguish a traumatic fracture or apophyseal separation from normal development. The order of appearance can be understood by the mnemonic CRITOE, referring to the capitellum, radial head, internal epicondyle, trochlea, olecranon, and external epicondyle at ages 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 years. These apophyseal centers then fuse during adolescence, with the internal epicondyle and olecranon fusing last. The ages of fusion are more variable than ossification, but normally occur at 13, 15, 17, 13, 16 and 13 years, respectively.[16] In addition, the presence of a joint effusion can be inferenced by the presence of the fat pad sign, a structure that is normally physiologically present, but pathologic when elevated by fluid, and always pathologic when posterior.[17]
+
+The function of the elbow joint is to extend and flex the arm grasp and reach for objects.[18] The range of movement in the elbow is from 0 degrees of elbow extension to 150 of elbow flexion.[19] Muscles contributing to function are all flexion (biceps brachii, brachialis, and brachioradialis) and extension muscles (triceps and anconeus).
+
+In humans, the main task of the elbow is to properly place the hand in space by shortening and lengthening the upper limb.  While the superior radioulnar joint shares joint capsule with the elbow joint, it plays no functional role at the elbow.[7]
+
+With the elbow extended, the long axis of the humerus and that of the ulna coincide.  At the same time, the articular surfaces on both bones are located in front of those axes and deviate from them at an angle of 45°.  Additionally, the forearm muscles that originate at the elbow are grouped at the sides of the joint in order not to interfere with its movement.  The wide angle of flexion at the elbow made possible by this arrangement — almost 180° — allows the bones to be brought almost in parallel to each other.[7]
+
+When the arm is extended, with the palm facing forward or up, the bones of the upper arm (humerus) and forearm (radius and ulna) are not perfectly aligned. The deviation from a straight line occurs in the direction of the thumb, and is referred to as the "carrying angle" (visible in the right half of the picture, right).
+
+The carrying angle permits the arm to be swung without contacting the hips.  Women on average have smaller shoulders and wider hips than men, which tends to produce a larger carrying angle (i.e., larger deviation from a straight line than that in men).  There is, however, extensive overlap in the carrying angle between individual men and women, and a sex-bias has not been consistently observed in scientific studies.[20] This could however be attributed to the very small sample sizes in those cited earlier studies. A more recent study based on a sample size of 333 individuals from both sexes concluded that carrying angle is a suitable secondary sexual characteristic.[21]
+
+The angle is greater in the dominant limb than the non-dominant limb of both sexes,[22] suggesting that natural forces acting on the elbow modify the carrying angle.  Developmental,[23] aging and possibly racial influences add further to the variability of this parameter.
+
+The types of disease most commonly seen at the elbow are due to injury.
+
+Two of the most common injuries at the elbow are overuse injuries: tennis elbow and golfer's elbow.  Golfer's elbow involves the tendon of the common flexor origin which originates at the medial epicondyle of the humerus (the "inside" of the elbow).  Tennis elbow is the equivalent injury, but at the common extensor origin (the lateral epicondyle of the humerus).
+
+There are three bones at the elbow joint, and any combination of these bones may be involved in a fracture of the elbow.  Patients who are able to fully extend their arm at the elbow are unlikely to have a fracture (98% certainty) and an X-ray is not required as long as an olecranon fracture is ruled out.[24] Acute fractures may not be easily visible on X-ray.[citation needed]
+
+Elbow dislocations constitute 10% to 25% of all injuries to the elbow. The elbow is one of the most commonly dislocated joints in the body, with an average annual incidence of acute dislocation of 6 per 100,000 persons.[26] Among injuries to the upper extremity, dislocation of the elbow is second only to a dislocated shoulder.
+A full dislocation of the elbow will require expert medical attention to re-align, and recovery can take approximately 8–14 weeks.
+
+Infection of the elbow joint (septic arthritis) is uncommon.  It may occur spontaneously, but may also occur in relation to surgery or infection elsewhere in the body (for example, endocarditis).[citation needed]
+
+Elbow arthritis is usually seen in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis or after fractures that involve the joint itself. When the damage to the joint is severe, fascial arthroplasty or elbow joint replacement may be considered.[27]
+
+Olecranon bursitis, pain in posterior part of elbow, tenderness, warmth, swelling, pain in both flexion and extension, in chronic case extreme flexion is painful
+
+Elbow pain can occur for a multitude of reasons, including injury, disease, and other conditions. Common conditions include tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, distal radioulnar joint rheumatoid arthritis, and cubital tunnel syndrome.
+
+Tennis elbow is a very common type of overuse injury. It can occur both from chronic repetitive motions of the hand and forearm, and from trauma to the same areas. These repetitions can injure the tendons that connect the extensor supinator muscles (which rotate and extend the forearm) to the olecranon process (also known as “the elbow”). Pain occurs, often radiating from the lateral forearm. Weakness, numbness, and stiffness are also very common, along with tenderness upon touch.[28]
+A non-invasive treatment for pain management is rest. If achieving rest is an issue, a wrist brace can also be worn. This keeps the wrist in flexion, thereby relieving the extensor muscles and allowing rest. Ice, heat, ultrasound, steroid injections, and compression can also help alleviate pain. After the pain has been reduced, exercise therapy is important to prevent injury in the future. Exercises should be low velocity, and weight should increase progressively.[29] Stretching the flexors and extensors is helpful, as are strengthening exercises. Massage can also be useful, focusing on the extensor trigger points.[30]
+
+Golfer's elbow is very similar to tennis elbow, but less common. It is caused by overuse and repetitive motions like a golf swing. It can also be caused by trauma. Wrist flexion and pronation (rotating of the forearm) causes irritation to the tendons near the medial epicondyle of the elbow.[31] It can cause pain, stiffness, loss of sensation, and weakness radiating from the inside of the elbow to the fingers.
+Rest is the primary intervention for this injury. Ice, pain medication, steroid injections, strengthening exercises, and avoiding any aggravating activities can also help. Surgery is a last resort, and rarely used. Exercises should focus on strengthening and stretching the forearm, and utilizing proper form when performing movements.[32]
+
+Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease that affects joints. It is very common in the wrist, and is most common at the radioulnar joint. It results in pain, stiffness, and deformities.
+There are many different treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, and there is no one consensus for which methods are best. Most common treatments include wrist splints, surgery, physical and occupational therapy, and antirheumatic medication.[33]
+
+Cubital tunnel syndrome, more commonly known as ulnar neuropathy, occurs when the ulnar nerve is irritated and becomes inflamed. This can often happen where the ulnar nerve is most superficial, at the elbow. The ulnar nerve passes over the elbow, at the area known as the “funny bone”. Irritation can occur due to constant, repeated stress and pressure at this area, or from a trauma. It can also occur due to bone deformities, and oftentimes from sports.[34] Symptoms include tingling, numbness, and weakness, along with pain.
+First line pain management techniques include the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory oral medicines. These help to reduce inflammation, pressure, and irritation of the nerve and around the nerve. Other simple fixes include learning more ergonomically friendly habits that can help prevent nerve impingement and irritation in the future. Protective equipment can also be very helpful. Examples of this include a protective elbow pad, and an arm splint. More serious cases often involve surgery, in which the nerve or the surrounding tissue is moved to relieve the pressure. Recovery from surgery can take awhile, but the prognosis is often a good one. Recovery often includes movement restrictions, and range of motion activities, and can last a few months (cubital and radial tunnel syndrome, 2).
+
+The now obsolete length unit ell relates closely to the elbow. This becomes especially visible when considering the Germanic origins of both words, Elle (ell, defined as the length of a male forearm from elbow to fingertips) and Ellbogen (elbow). It is unknown when or why the second "l" was dropped from English usage of the word.[citation needed] The ell as in the English measure could also be taken to come from the letter L, being bent at right angles, as an elbow.[35] The ell as a measure was taken as six handbreadths; three to the elbow and three from the elbow to the shoulder.[36] Another measure was the cubit (from cubital). This was taken to be the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger.[37]
+
+Though the elbow is similarly adapted for stability through a wide range of pronation-supination and flexion-extension in all apes, there are some minor differences.  In arboreal apes such as orangutans, the large forearm muscles originating on the epicondyles of the humerus generate significant transverse forces on the elbow joint.  The structure to resist these forces is a pronounced keel on the trochlear notch on the ulna, which is more flattened in, for example, humans and gorillas.  In knuckle-walkers, on the other hand, the elbow has to deal with large vertical loads passing through extended forearms and the joint is therefore more expanded to provide larger articular surfaces perpendicular to those forces.[38]
+
+Derived traits in catarrhini (apes and Old World monkeys) elbows include the loss of the entepicondylar foramen (a hole in the distal humerus), a non-translatory (rotation-only) humeroulnar joint, and a more robust ulna with a shortened trochlear notch.[39]
+
+The proximal radioulnar joint is similarly derived in higher primates in the location and shape of the radial notch on the ulna; the primitive form being represented by New World monkeys, such as the howler monkey, and by fossil catarrhines, such as Aegyptopithecus.  In these taxa, the oval head of the radius lies in front of the ulnar shaft so that the former overlaps the latter by half its width.  With this forearm configuration, the ulna supports the radius and maximum stability is achieved when the forearm is fully pronated.[39]

en/1351.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+The elbow is the visible joint between the upper and lower parts of the arm. It includes prominent landmarks such as the olecranon, the elbow pit, the lateral and medial epicondyles, and the elbow joint. The elbow joint[1] is the synovial hinge joint[2] between the humerus in the upper arm and the radius and ulna in the forearm which allows the forearm and hand to be moved towards and away from the body.[3]
+
+Medical Subject Headings defines the elbow specifically for humans and other primates,[4] though the term is frequently used for the anterior joints of other mammals, such as dogs.
+
+The name for the elbow in Latin is cubitus, and so the word cubital is used in some elbow-related terms, as in cubital nodes for example.
+
+The elbow joint has three different portions surrounded by a common joint capsule. These are joints between the three bones of the elbow, the humerus of the upper arm, and the radius and the ulna of the forearm.
+
+When in anatomical position there are four main bony landmarks of the elbow. At the lower part of the humerus are the medial and lateral epicondyles, on the side closest to the body (medial) and on the side away from the body (lateral) surfaces. The third landmark is the olecranon found at the head of the ulna. These lie on a horizontal line called the Hueter line. When the elbow is flexed, they form a triangle called the Hueter triangle, which resembles an equilateral triangle.[5]
+
+At the surface of the humerus where it faces the joint is the trochlea. In most people, the groove running across the trochlea is vertical on the anterior side but it spirals off on the posterior side.  This results in the forearm being aligned to the upper arm during flexion, but forming an angle to the upper arm during extension — an angle known as the carrying angle.[6]
+
+The superior radioulnar joint shares the joint capsule with the elbow joint but plays no functional role at the elbow.[7]
+
+The elbow joint and the superior radioulnar joint are enclosed by a single fibrous capsule.  The capsule is strengthened by ligaments at the sides but is relatively weak in front and behind.[8]
+
+On the anterior side, the capsule consists mainly of longitudinal fibres.  However, some bundles among these fibers run obliquely or transversely, thickening and strengthening the capsule. These bundles are referred to as the capsular ligament.  Deep fibres of the brachialis muscle insert anteriorly into the capsule and act to pull it and the underlying membrane during flexion in order to prevent them from being pinched.[8]
+
+On the posterior side, the capsule is thin and mainly composed of transverse fibres.  A few of these fibres stretch across the olecranon fossa without attaching to it and form a transverse band with a free upper border.  On the ulnar side, the capsule reaches down to the posterior part of the annular ligament.  The posterior capsule is attached to the triceps tendon which prevents the capsule from being pinched during extension.[8]
+
+The synovial membrane of the elbow joint is very extensive.  On the humerus, it extends up from the articular margins and covers the coronoid and radial fossae anteriorly and the olecranon fossa posteriorly.  Distally, it is prolonged down to the neck of the radius and the superior radioulnar joint.  It is supported by the quadrate ligament below the annular ligament where it also forms a fold which gives the head of the radius freedom of movement.[8]
+
+Several synovial folds project into the recesses of the joint.[8]
+These folds or plicae are remnants of normal embryonic development and can be categorized as either anterior (anterior humeral recess) or posterior (olecranon recess).[9]
+A crescent-shaped fold is commonly present between the head of the radius and the capitulum of the humerus.[8]
+
+On the humerus there are extrasynovial fat pads adjacent to the three articular fossae.  These pads fill the radial and coronoid fossa anteriorly during extension, and the olecranon fossa posteriorly during flexion.  They are displaced when the fossae are occupied by the bony projections of the ulna and radius.[8]
+
+The elbow, like other joints, has ligaments on either side. These are triangular bands which blend with the joint capsule.  They are positioned so that they always lie across the transverse joint axis and are, therefore, always relatively tense and impose strict limitations on abduction, adduction, and axial rotation at the elbow.[8]
+
+The ulnar collateral ligament has its apex on the medial epicondyle.  Its anterior band stretches from the anterior side of the medial epicondyle to the medial edge of the coronoid process, while the posterior band stretches from posterior side of the medial epicondyle to the medial side of the olecranon.  These two bands are separated by a thinner intermediate part and their distal attachments are united by a transverse band below which the synovial membrane protrudes during joint movements.  The anterior band is closely associated with the tendon of the superficial flexor muscles of the forearm, even being the origin of flexor digitorum superficialis.  The ulnar nerve crosses the intermediate part as it enters the forearm.[8]
+
+The radial collateral ligament is attached to the lateral epicondyle below the common extensor tendon.  Less distinct than the ulnar collateral ligament, this ligament blends with the annular ligament of the radius and its margins are attached near the radial notch of the ulna.[8]
+
+There are three main flexor muscles at the elbow:[10]
+
+Brachialis is the main muscle used when the elbow is flexed slowly.  During rapid and forceful flexion all three muscles are brought into action assisted by the superficial forearm flexors originating at the medial side of the elbow.[11]
+The efficiency of the flexor muscles increases dramatically as the elbow is brought into midflexion (flexed 90°) — biceps reaches its angle of maximum efficiency at 80–90° and brachialis at 100–110°.[10]
+
+Active flexion is limited to 145° by the contact between the anterior muscles of the upper arm and forearm, more so because they are hardened by contraction during flexion.  Passive flexion (forearm is pushed against the upper arm with flexors relaxed) is limited to 160° by the bony projections on the radius and ulna as they reach to shallow depressions on the humerus; i.e. the head of radius being pressed against the radial fossa and the coronoid process being pressed against the coronoid fossa.  Passive flexion is further limited by tension in the posterior capsular ligament and in triceps brachii.[12]
+
+A small accessory muscle, so called epitrochleoanconeus muscle, may be found on the medial aspect of the elbow running from the medial epicondyle to the olecranon.[13]
+
+Elbow extension is simply bringing the forearm back to anatomical position.[11]  This action is performed by triceps brachii with a negligible assistance from anconeus.  Triceps originates with two heads posteriorly on the humerus and with its long head on the scapula just below the shoulder joint.  It is inserted posteriorly on the olecranon.[10]
+
+Triceps is maximally efficient with the elbow flexed 20–30°.  As the angle of flexion increases, the position of the olecranon approaches the main axis of the humerus which decreases muscle efficiency.  In full flexion, however, the triceps tendon is "rolled up" on the olecranon as on a pulley which compensates for the loss of efficiency.  Because triceps' long head is biarticular (acts on two joints), its efficiency is also dependent on the position of the shoulder.[10]
+
+Extension is limited by the olecranon reaching the olecranon fossa, tension in the anterior ligament, and resistance in flexor muscles.  Forced extension results in a rupture in one of the limiting structures: olecranon fracture, torn capsule and ligaments, and, though the muscles are normally left unaffected, a bruised brachial artery.[12]
+
+The arteries supplying the joint are derived from an extensive circulatory anastomosis between the brachial artery and its terminal branches.  The superior and inferior ulnar collateral branches of the brachial artery and the radial and middle collateral branches of the profunda brachii artery descend from above to reconnect on the joint capsule, where they also connect with the anterior and posterior ulnar recurrent branches of the ulnar artery; the radial recurrent branch of the radial artery; and the interosseous recurrent branch of the common interosseous artery.[14]
+
+The blood is brought back by vessels from the radial, ulnar, and brachial veins.
+There are two sets of lymphatic nodes at the elbow, normally located above the medial epicondyle — the deep and superficial cubital nodes (also called epitrochlear nodes).  The lymphatic drainage at the elbow is through the deep nodes at the bifurcation of the brachial artery, the superficial nodes drain the forearm and the ulnar side of the hand.  The efferent lymph vessels from the elbow proceed to the lateral group of axillary lymph nodes.[14][15]
+
+The elbow is innervated anteriorly by branches from the musculocutaneous, median, and radial nerve, and posteriorly from the ulnar nerve and the branch of the radial nerve to anconeus.[14]
+
+The elbow undergoes dynamic development of ossification centers through infancy and adolescence, with the order of both the appearance and fusion of the apophyseal growth centers being crucial in assessment of the pediatric elbow on radiograph, in order to distinguish a traumatic fracture or apophyseal separation from normal development. The order of appearance can be understood by the mnemonic CRITOE, referring to the capitellum, radial head, internal epicondyle, trochlea, olecranon, and external epicondyle at ages 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 years. These apophyseal centers then fuse during adolescence, with the internal epicondyle and olecranon fusing last. The ages of fusion are more variable than ossification, but normally occur at 13, 15, 17, 13, 16 and 13 years, respectively.[16] In addition, the presence of a joint effusion can be inferenced by the presence of the fat pad sign, a structure that is normally physiologically present, but pathologic when elevated by fluid, and always pathologic when posterior.[17]
+
+The function of the elbow joint is to extend and flex the arm grasp and reach for objects.[18] The range of movement in the elbow is from 0 degrees of elbow extension to 150 of elbow flexion.[19] Muscles contributing to function are all flexion (biceps brachii, brachialis, and brachioradialis) and extension muscles (triceps and anconeus).
+
+In humans, the main task of the elbow is to properly place the hand in space by shortening and lengthening the upper limb.  While the superior radioulnar joint shares joint capsule with the elbow joint, it plays no functional role at the elbow.[7]
+
+With the elbow extended, the long axis of the humerus and that of the ulna coincide.  At the same time, the articular surfaces on both bones are located in front of those axes and deviate from them at an angle of 45°.  Additionally, the forearm muscles that originate at the elbow are grouped at the sides of the joint in order not to interfere with its movement.  The wide angle of flexion at the elbow made possible by this arrangement — almost 180° — allows the bones to be brought almost in parallel to each other.[7]
+
+When the arm is extended, with the palm facing forward or up, the bones of the upper arm (humerus) and forearm (radius and ulna) are not perfectly aligned. The deviation from a straight line occurs in the direction of the thumb, and is referred to as the "carrying angle" (visible in the right half of the picture, right).
+
+The carrying angle permits the arm to be swung without contacting the hips.  Women on average have smaller shoulders and wider hips than men, which tends to produce a larger carrying angle (i.e., larger deviation from a straight line than that in men).  There is, however, extensive overlap in the carrying angle between individual men and women, and a sex-bias has not been consistently observed in scientific studies.[20] This could however be attributed to the very small sample sizes in those cited earlier studies. A more recent study based on a sample size of 333 individuals from both sexes concluded that carrying angle is a suitable secondary sexual characteristic.[21]
+
+The angle is greater in the dominant limb than the non-dominant limb of both sexes,[22] suggesting that natural forces acting on the elbow modify the carrying angle.  Developmental,[23] aging and possibly racial influences add further to the variability of this parameter.
+
+The types of disease most commonly seen at the elbow are due to injury.
+
+Two of the most common injuries at the elbow are overuse injuries: tennis elbow and golfer's elbow.  Golfer's elbow involves the tendon of the common flexor origin which originates at the medial epicondyle of the humerus (the "inside" of the elbow).  Tennis elbow is the equivalent injury, but at the common extensor origin (the lateral epicondyle of the humerus).
+
+There are three bones at the elbow joint, and any combination of these bones may be involved in a fracture of the elbow.  Patients who are able to fully extend their arm at the elbow are unlikely to have a fracture (98% certainty) and an X-ray is not required as long as an olecranon fracture is ruled out.[24] Acute fractures may not be easily visible on X-ray.[citation needed]
+
+Elbow dislocations constitute 10% to 25% of all injuries to the elbow. The elbow is one of the most commonly dislocated joints in the body, with an average annual incidence of acute dislocation of 6 per 100,000 persons.[26] Among injuries to the upper extremity, dislocation of the elbow is second only to a dislocated shoulder.
+A full dislocation of the elbow will require expert medical attention to re-align, and recovery can take approximately 8–14 weeks.
+
+Infection of the elbow joint (septic arthritis) is uncommon.  It may occur spontaneously, but may also occur in relation to surgery or infection elsewhere in the body (for example, endocarditis).[citation needed]
+
+Elbow arthritis is usually seen in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis or after fractures that involve the joint itself. When the damage to the joint is severe, fascial arthroplasty or elbow joint replacement may be considered.[27]
+
+Olecranon bursitis, pain in posterior part of elbow, tenderness, warmth, swelling, pain in both flexion and extension, in chronic case extreme flexion is painful
+
+Elbow pain can occur for a multitude of reasons, including injury, disease, and other conditions. Common conditions include tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, distal radioulnar joint rheumatoid arthritis, and cubital tunnel syndrome.
+
+Tennis elbow is a very common type of overuse injury. It can occur both from chronic repetitive motions of the hand and forearm, and from trauma to the same areas. These repetitions can injure the tendons that connect the extensor supinator muscles (which rotate and extend the forearm) to the olecranon process (also known as “the elbow”). Pain occurs, often radiating from the lateral forearm. Weakness, numbness, and stiffness are also very common, along with tenderness upon touch.[28]
+A non-invasive treatment for pain management is rest. If achieving rest is an issue, a wrist brace can also be worn. This keeps the wrist in flexion, thereby relieving the extensor muscles and allowing rest. Ice, heat, ultrasound, steroid injections, and compression can also help alleviate pain. After the pain has been reduced, exercise therapy is important to prevent injury in the future. Exercises should be low velocity, and weight should increase progressively.[29] Stretching the flexors and extensors is helpful, as are strengthening exercises. Massage can also be useful, focusing on the extensor trigger points.[30]
+
+Golfer's elbow is very similar to tennis elbow, but less common. It is caused by overuse and repetitive motions like a golf swing. It can also be caused by trauma. Wrist flexion and pronation (rotating of the forearm) causes irritation to the tendons near the medial epicondyle of the elbow.[31] It can cause pain, stiffness, loss of sensation, and weakness radiating from the inside of the elbow to the fingers.
+Rest is the primary intervention for this injury. Ice, pain medication, steroid injections, strengthening exercises, and avoiding any aggravating activities can also help. Surgery is a last resort, and rarely used. Exercises should focus on strengthening and stretching the forearm, and utilizing proper form when performing movements.[32]
+
+Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disease that affects joints. It is very common in the wrist, and is most common at the radioulnar joint. It results in pain, stiffness, and deformities.
+There are many different treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, and there is no one consensus for which methods are best. Most common treatments include wrist splints, surgery, physical and occupational therapy, and antirheumatic medication.[33]
+
+Cubital tunnel syndrome, more commonly known as ulnar neuropathy, occurs when the ulnar nerve is irritated and becomes inflamed. This can often happen where the ulnar nerve is most superficial, at the elbow. The ulnar nerve passes over the elbow, at the area known as the “funny bone”. Irritation can occur due to constant, repeated stress and pressure at this area, or from a trauma. It can also occur due to bone deformities, and oftentimes from sports.[34] Symptoms include tingling, numbness, and weakness, along with pain.
+First line pain management techniques include the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory oral medicines. These help to reduce inflammation, pressure, and irritation of the nerve and around the nerve. Other simple fixes include learning more ergonomically friendly habits that can help prevent nerve impingement and irritation in the future. Protective equipment can also be very helpful. Examples of this include a protective elbow pad, and an arm splint. More serious cases often involve surgery, in which the nerve or the surrounding tissue is moved to relieve the pressure. Recovery from surgery can take awhile, but the prognosis is often a good one. Recovery often includes movement restrictions, and range of motion activities, and can last a few months (cubital and radial tunnel syndrome, 2).
+
+The now obsolete length unit ell relates closely to the elbow. This becomes especially visible when considering the Germanic origins of both words, Elle (ell, defined as the length of a male forearm from elbow to fingertips) and Ellbogen (elbow). It is unknown when or why the second "l" was dropped from English usage of the word.[citation needed] The ell as in the English measure could also be taken to come from the letter L, being bent at right angles, as an elbow.[35] The ell as a measure was taken as six handbreadths; three to the elbow and three from the elbow to the shoulder.[36] Another measure was the cubit (from cubital). This was taken to be the length of a man's arm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger.[37]
+
+Though the elbow is similarly adapted for stability through a wide range of pronation-supination and flexion-extension in all apes, there are some minor differences.  In arboreal apes such as orangutans, the large forearm muscles originating on the epicondyles of the humerus generate significant transverse forces on the elbow joint.  The structure to resist these forces is a pronounced keel on the trochlear notch on the ulna, which is more flattened in, for example, humans and gorillas.  In knuckle-walkers, on the other hand, the elbow has to deal with large vertical loads passing through extended forearms and the joint is therefore more expanded to provide larger articular surfaces perpendicular to those forces.[38]
+
+Derived traits in catarrhini (apes and Old World monkeys) elbows include the loss of the entepicondylar foramen (a hole in the distal humerus), a non-translatory (rotation-only) humeroulnar joint, and a more robust ulna with a shortened trochlear notch.[39]
+
+The proximal radioulnar joint is similarly derived in higher primates in the location and shape of the radial notch on the ulna; the primitive form being represented by New World monkeys, such as the howler monkey, and by fossil catarrhines, such as Aegyptopithecus.  In these taxa, the oval head of the radius lies in front of the ulnar shaft so that the former overlaps the latter by half its width.  With this forearm configuration, the ulna supports the radius and maximum stability is achieved when the forearm is fully pronated.[39]

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+Color (American English), or colour (Commonwealth English), is the characteristic of visual perception described through color categories, with names such as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or purple. This perception of color derives from the stimulation of photoreceptor cells (in particular cone cells in the human eye and other vertebrate eyes) by electromagnetic radiation (in the visible spectrum in the case of humans). Color categories and physical specifications of color are associated with objects through the wavelengths of the light that is reflected from them and their intensities. This reflection is governed by the object's physical properties such as light absorption, emission spectra, etc.
+
+By defining a color space, colors can be identified numerically by coordinates, which in 1931 were also named in global agreement with internationally agreed color names like mentioned above (red, orange, etc.) by the International Commission on Illumination. The RGB color space for instance is a color space corresponding to human trichromacy and to the three cone cell types that respond to three bands of light: long wavelengths, peaking near 564–580 nm (red); medium-wavelength, peaking near 534–545 nm (green); and short-wavelength light, near 420–440 nm (blue).[1][2] There may also be more than three color dimensions in other color spaces, such as in the CMYK color model, wherein one of the dimensions relates to a color's colorfulness).
+
+The photo-receptivity of the "eyes" of other species also varies considerably from that of humans and so results in correspondingly different color perceptions that cannot readily be compared to one another. Honey bees and bumblebees for instance have trichromatic color vision sensitive to ultraviolet but is insensitive to red. Papilio butterflies possess six types of photoreceptors and may have pentachromatic vision.[3] The most complex color vision system in the animal kingdom has been found in stomatopods (such as the mantis shrimp) with up to 12 spectral receptor types thought to work as multiple dichromatic units.[4]
+
+The science of color is sometimes called chromatics, colorimetry, or simply color science. It includes the study of the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what is commonly referred to simply as light).
+
+Electromagnetic radiation is characterized by its wavelength (or frequency) and its intensity. When the wavelength is within the visible spectrum (the range of wavelengths humans can perceive, approximately from 390 nm to 700 nm), it is known as "visible light".
+
+Most light sources emit light at many different wavelengths; a source's spectrum is a distribution giving its intensity at each wavelength. Although the spectrum of light arriving at the eye from a given direction determines the color sensation in that direction, there are many more possible spectral combinations than color sensations. In fact, one may formally define a color as a class of spectra that give rise to the same color sensation, although such classes would vary widely among different species, and to a lesser extent among individuals within the same species. In each such class the members are called metamers of the color in question. This effect can be visualized by comparing the light sources' spectral power distributions and the resulting colors.
+
+The familiar colors of the rainbow in the spectrum—named using the Latin word for appearance or apparition by Isaac Newton in 1671—include all those colors that can be produced by visible light of a single wavelength only, the pure spectral or monochromatic colors. The table at right shows approximate frequencies (in terahertz) and wavelengths (in nanometers) for various pure spectral colors. The wavelengths listed are as measured in air or vacuum (see refractive index).
+
+The color table should not be interpreted as a definitive list—the pure spectral colors form a continuous spectrum, and how it is divided into distinct colors linguistically is a matter of culture and historical contingency (although people everywhere have been shown to perceive colors in the same way[6]). A common list identifies six main bands: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Newton's conception included a seventh color, indigo, between blue and violet. It is possible that what Newton referred to as blue is nearer to what today is known as cyan, and that indigo was simply the dark blue of the indigo dye that was being imported at the time.[7]
+
+The intensity of a spectral color, relative to the context in which it is viewed, may alter its perception considerably; for example, a low-intensity orange-yellow is brown, and a low-intensity yellow-green is olive green.
+
+The color of an object depends on both the physics of the object in its environment and the characteristics of the perceiving eye and brain. Physically, objects can be said to have the color of the light leaving their surfaces, which normally depends on the spectrum of the incident illumination and the reflectance properties of the surface, as well as potentially on the angles of illumination and viewing. Some objects not only reflect light, but also transmit light or emit light themselves, which also contributes to the color. A viewer's perception of the object's color depends not only on the spectrum of the light leaving its surface, but also on a host of contextual cues, so that color differences between objects can be discerned mostly independent of the lighting spectrum, viewing angle, etc. This effect is known as color constancy.
+
+Some generalizations of the physics can be drawn, neglecting perceptual effects for now:
+
+To summarize, the color of an object is a complex result of its surface properties, its transmission properties, and its emission properties, all of which contribute to the mix of wavelengths in the light leaving the surface of the object. The perceived color is then further conditioned by the nature of the ambient illumination, and by the color properties of other objects nearby, and via other characteristics of the perceiving eye and brain.
+
+Although Aristotle and other ancient scientists had already written on the nature of light and color vision, it was not until Newton that light was identified as the source of the color sensation. In 1810, Goethe published his comprehensive Theory of Colors in which he ascribed physiological effects to color that are now understood as psychological.
+
+In 1801 Thomas Young proposed his trichromatic theory, based on the observation that any color could be matched with a combination of three lights. This theory was later refined by James Clerk Maxwell and Hermann von Helmholtz. As Helmholtz puts it, "the principles of Newton's law of mixture were experimentally confirmed by Maxwell in 1856. Young's theory of color sensations, like so much else that this marvelous investigator achieved in advance of his time, remained unnoticed until Maxwell directed attention to it."[10]
+
+At the same time as Helmholtz, Ewald Hering developed the opponent process theory of color, noting that color blindness and afterimages typically come in opponent pairs (red-green, blue-orange, yellow-violet, and black-white). Ultimately these two theories were synthesized in 1957 by Hurvich and Jameson, who showed that retinal processing corresponds to the trichromatic theory, while processing at the level of the lateral geniculate nucleus corresponds to the opponent theory.[11]
+
+In 1931, an international group of experts known as the Commission internationale de l'éclairage (CIE) developed a mathematical color model, which mapped out the space of observable colors and assigned a set of three numbers to each.
+
+The ability of the human eye to distinguish colors is based upon the varying sensitivity of different cells in the retina to light of different wavelengths. Humans are trichromatic—the retina contains three types of color receptor cells, or cones. One type, relatively distinct from the other two, is most responsive to light that is perceived as blue or blue-violet, with wavelengths around 450 nm; cones of this type are sometimes called short-wavelength cones or S cones (or misleadingly, blue cones). The other two types are closely related genetically and chemically: middle-wavelength cones, M cones, or green cones are most sensitive to light perceived as green, with wavelengths around 540 nm, while the long-wavelength cones, L cones, or red cones, are most sensitive to light that is perceived as greenish yellow, with wavelengths around 570 nm.
+
+Light, no matter how complex its composition of wavelengths, is reduced to three color components by the eye. Each cone type adheres to the principle of univariance, which is that each cone's output is determined by the amount of light that falls on it over all wavelengths. For each location in the visual field, the three types of cones yield three signals based on the extent to which each is stimulated. These amounts of stimulation are sometimes called tristimulus values.
+
+The response curve as a function of wavelength varies for each type of cone. Because the curves overlap, some tristimulus values do not occur for any incoming light combination. For example, it is not possible to stimulate only the mid-wavelength (so-called "green") cones; the other cones will inevitably be stimulated to some degree at the same time. The set of all possible tristimulus values determines the human color space. It has been estimated that humans can distinguish roughly 10 million different colors.[9]
+
+The other type of light-sensitive cell in the eye, the rod, has a different response curve. In normal situations, when light is bright enough to strongly stimulate the cones, rods play virtually no role in vision at all.[12] On the other hand, in dim light, the cones are understimulated leaving only the signal from the rods, resulting in a colorless response. (Furthermore, the rods are barely sensitive to light in the "red" range.) In certain conditions of intermediate illumination, the rod response and a weak cone response can together result in color discriminations not accounted for by cone responses alone. These effects, combined, are summarized also in the Kruithof curve, that describes the change of color perception and pleasingness of light as function of temperature and intensity.
+
+While the mechanisms of color vision at the level of the retina are well-described in terms of tristimulus values, color processing after that point is organized differently. A dominant theory of color vision proposes that color information is transmitted out of the eye by three opponent processes, or opponent channels, each constructed from the raw output of the cones: a red–green channel, a blue–yellow channel, and a black–white "luminance" channel. This theory has been supported by neurobiology, and accounts for the structure of our subjective color experience. Specifically, it explains why humans cannot perceive a "reddish green" or "yellowish blue", and it predicts the color wheel: it is the collection of colors for which at least one of the two color channels measures a value at one of its extremes.
+
+The exact nature of color perception beyond the processing already described, and indeed the status of color as a feature of the perceived world or rather as a feature of our perception of the world—a type of qualia—is a matter of complex and continuing philosophical dispute.
+
+If one or more types of a person's color-sensing cones are missing or less responsive than normal to incoming light, that person can distinguish fewer colors and is said to be color deficient or color blind (though this latter term can be misleading; almost all color deficient individuals can distinguish at least some colors). Some kinds of color deficiency are caused by anomalies in the number or nature of cones in the retina. Others (like central or cortical achromatopsia) are caused by neural anomalies in those parts of the brain where visual processing takes place.
+
+While most humans are trichromatic (having three types of color receptors), many animals, known as tetrachromats, have four types. These include some species of spiders, most marsupials, birds, reptiles, and many species of fish. Other species are sensitive to only two axes of color or do not perceive color at all; these are called dichromats and monochromats respectively. A distinction is made between retinal tetrachromacy (having four pigments in cone cells in the retina, compared to three in trichromats) and functional tetrachromacy (having the ability to make enhanced color discriminations based on that retinal difference). As many as half of all women are retinal tetrachromats.[13]:p.256 The phenomenon arises when an individual receives two slightly different copies of the gene for either the medium- or long-wavelength cones, which are carried on the X chromosome. To have two different genes, a person must have two X chromosomes, which is why the phenomenon only occurs in women.[13] There is one scholarly report that confirms the existence of a functional tetrachromat.[14]
+
+In certain forms of synesthesia/ideasthesia, perceiving letters and numbers (grapheme–color synesthesia) or hearing musical sounds (music–color synesthesia) will lead to the unusual additional experiences of seeing colors. Behavioral and functional neuroimaging experiments have demonstrated that these color experiences lead to changes in behavioral tasks and lead to increased activation of brain regions involved in color perception, thus demonstrating their reality, and similarity to real color percepts, albeit evoked through a non-standard route.
+
+After exposure to strong light in their sensitivity range, photoreceptors of a given type become desensitized. For a few seconds after the light ceases, they will continue to signal less strongly than they otherwise would. Colors observed during that period will appear to lack the color component detected by the desensitized photoreceptors. This effect is responsible for the phenomenon of afterimages, in which the eye may continue to see a bright figure after looking away from it, but in a complementary color.
+
+Afterimage effects have also been utilized by artists, including Vincent van Gogh.
+
+When an artist uses a limited color palette, the eye tends to compensate by seeing any gray or neutral color as the color which is missing from the color wheel. For example, in a limited palette consisting of red, yellow, black, and white, a mixture of yellow and black will appear as a variety of green, a mixture of red and black will appear as a variety of purple, and pure gray will appear bluish.[15]
+
+The trichromatic theory is strictly true when the visual system is in a fixed state of adaptation. In reality, the visual system is constantly adapting to changes in the environment and compares the various colors in a scene to reduce the effects of the illumination. If a scene is illuminated with one light, and then with another, as long as the difference between the light sources stays within a reasonable range, the colors in the scene appear relatively constant to us. This was studied by Edwin Land in the 1970s and led to his retinex theory of color constancy.
+
+Both phenomena are readily explained and mathematically modeled with modern theories of chromatic adaptation and color appearance (e.g. CIECAM02, iCAM).[16] There is no need to dismiss the trichromatic theory of vision, but rather it can be enhanced with an understanding of how the visual system adapts to changes in the viewing environment.
+
+Colors vary in several different ways, including hue (shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet), saturation, brightness, and gloss. Some color words are derived from the name of an object of that color, such as "orange" or "salmon", while others are abstract, like "red".
+
+In the 1969 study Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay describe a pattern in naming "basic" colors (like "red" but not "red-orange" or "dark red" or "blood red", which are "shades" of red). All languages that have two "basic" color names distinguish dark/cool colors from bright/warm colors. The next colors to be distinguished are usually red and then yellow or green. All languages with six "basic" colors include black, white, red, green, blue, and yellow. The pattern holds up to a set of twelve: black, gray, white, pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, and azure (distinct from blue in Russian and Italian, but not English).
+
+Colors, their meanings and associations can play major role in works of art, including literature.[17]
+
+Individual colors have a variety of cultural associations such as national colors (in general described in individual color articles and color symbolism). The field of color psychology attempts to identify the effects of color on human emotion and activity. Chromotherapy is a form of alternative medicine attributed to various Eastern traditions. Colors have different associations in different countries and cultures.[18]
+
+Different colors have been demonstrated to have effects on cognition. For example, researchers at the University of Linz in Austria demonstrated that the color red significantly decreases cognitive functioning in men.[19]
+
+Most light sources are mixtures of various wavelengths of light. Many such sources can still effectively produce a spectral color, as the eye cannot distinguish them from single-wavelength sources. For example, most computer displays reproduce the spectral color orange as a combination of red and green light; it appears orange because the red and green are mixed in the right proportions to allow the eye's cones to respond the way they do to the spectral color orange.
+
+A useful concept in understanding the perceived color of a non-monochromatic light source is the dominant wavelength, which identifies the single wavelength of light that produces a sensation most similar to the light source. Dominant wavelength is roughly akin to hue.
+
+There are many color perceptions that by definition cannot be pure spectral colors due to desaturation or because they are purples (mixtures of red and violet light, from opposite ends of the spectrum). Some examples of necessarily non-spectral colors are the achromatic colors (black, gray, and white) and colors such as pink, tan, and magenta.
+
+Two different light spectra that have the same effect on the three color receptors in the human eye will be perceived as the same color. They are metamers of that color. This is exemplified by the white light emitted by fluorescent lamps, which typically has a spectrum of a few narrow bands, while daylight has a continuous spectrum. The human eye cannot tell the difference between such light spectra just by looking into the light source, although reflected colors from objects can look different. (This is often exploited; for example, to make fruit or tomatoes look more intensely red.)
+
+Similarly, most human color perceptions can be generated by a mixture of three colors called primaries. This is used to reproduce color scenes in photography, printing, television, and other media. There are a number of methods or color spaces for specifying a color in terms of three particular primary colors. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages depending on the particular application.
+
+No mixture of colors, however, can produce a response truly identical to that of a spectral color, although one can get close, especially for the longer wavelengths, where the CIE 1931 color space chromaticity diagram has a nearly straight edge. For example, mixing green light (530 nm) and blue light (460 nm) produces cyan light that is slightly desaturated, because response of the red color receptor would be greater to the green and blue light in the mixture than it would be to a pure cyan light at 485 nm that has the same intensity as the mixture of blue and green.
+
+Because of this, and because the primaries in color printing systems generally are not pure themselves, the colors reproduced are never perfectly saturated spectral colors, and so spectral colors cannot be matched exactly. However, natural scenes rarely contain fully saturated colors, thus such scenes can usually be approximated well by these systems. The range of colors that can be reproduced with a given color reproduction system is called the gamut. The CIE chromaticity diagram can be used to describe the gamut.
+
+Another problem with color reproduction systems is connected with the acquisition devices, like cameras or scanners. The characteristics of the color sensors in the devices are often very far from the characteristics of the receptors in the human eye. In effect, acquisition of colors can be relatively poor if they have special, often very "jagged", spectra caused for example by unusual lighting of the photographed scene.
+A color reproduction system "tuned" to a human with normal color vision may give very inaccurate results for other observers.
+
+The different color response of different devices can be problematic if not properly managed. For color information stored and transferred in digital form, color management techniques, such as those based on ICC profiles, can help to avoid distortions of the reproduced colors. Color management does not circumvent the gamut limitations of particular output devices, but can assist in finding good mapping of input colors into the gamut that can be reproduced.
+
+Additive color is light created by mixing together light of two or more different colors. Red, green, and blue are the additive primary colors normally used in additive color systems such as projectors and computer terminals.
+
+Subtractive coloring uses dyes, inks, pigments, or filters to absorb some wavelengths of light and not others. The color that a surface displays comes from the parts of the visible spectrum that are not absorbed and therefore remain visible. Without pigments or dye, fabric fibers, paint base and paper are usually made of particles that scatter white light (all colors) well in all directions. When a pigment or ink is added, wavelengths are absorbed or "subtracted" from white light, so light of another color reaches the eye.
+
+If the light is not a pure white source (the case of nearly all forms of artificial lighting), the resulting spectrum will appear a slightly different color. Red paint, viewed under blue light, may appear black. Red paint is red because it scatters only the red components of the spectrum. If red paint is illuminated by blue light, it will be absorbed by the red paint, creating the appearance of a black object.
+
+Structural colors are colors caused by interference effects rather than by pigments. Color effects are produced when a material is scored with fine parallel lines, formed of one or more parallel thin layers, or otherwise composed of microstructures on the scale of the color's wavelength. If the microstructures are spaced randomly, light of shorter wavelengths will be scattered preferentially to produce Tyndall effect colors: the blue of the sky (Rayleigh scattering, caused by structures much smaller than the wavelength of light, in this case air molecules), the luster of opals, and the blue of human irises. If the microstructures are aligned in arrays, for example the array of pits in a CD, they behave as a diffraction grating: the grating reflects different wavelengths in different directions due to interference phenomena, separating mixed "white" light into light of different wavelengths. If the structure is one or more thin layers then it will reflect some wavelengths and transmit others, depending on the layers' thickness.
+
+Structural color is studied in the field of thin-film optics. The most ordered or the most changeable structural colors are iridescent. Structural color is responsible for the blues and greens of the feathers of many birds (the blue jay, for example), as well as certain butterfly wings and beetle shells. Variations in the pattern's spacing often give rise to an iridescent effect, as seen in peacock feathers, soap bubbles, films of oil, and mother of pearl, because the reflected color depends upon the viewing angle. Numerous scientists have carried out research in butterfly wings and beetle shells, including Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke. Since 1942, electron micrography has been used, advancing the development of products that exploit structural color, such as "photonic" cosmetics.[20]

en/1355.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+
+
+A coup or coup d'état /ˌkuː deɪˈtɑː/ listen (help·info) (French: [ku deta], literally "blow of state"; plural: coups d'état, pronounced like the singular form, also known simply as an ousting, overthrow, or putsch) is the removal of an existing government from power through non-legal, often coercive, means. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator.[1] Many scholars consider a coup d'état successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.[1]
+
+The phrase coup d'état comes from French, literally meaning a "stroke of state" or "blow against the state". In French, the word État (French: [eta]), denoting a sovereign political entity, is capitalized.[2][3][4][5][6]
+
+Although the concept of a coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage;[7] the Oxford English Dictionary identifies it as a French expression meaning a "stroke of state". The phrase did not appear within an English text before the 19th century except when used in translation of a French source, there being no simple phrase in English to convey the contextualized idea of a 'knockout blow to the existing administration within a state'.
+
+One early use within text translated from French was in 1785 in a printed translation of a letter from a French merchant, commenting on an arbitrary decree or arrêt issued by the French king restricting the import of British wool.[8] What may be its first published use within a text composed in English is an editor's note in the London Morning Chronicle, 7 January 1802, reporting the arrest by Napoleon in France, of Moreau, Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte: "There was a report in circulation yesterday of a sort of coup d'état having taken place in France, in consequence of some formidable conspiracy against the existing government."
+
+In post-Revolutionary France, the phrase came to be used to describe the various murders by Napoleon's hated secret police, the Gens d'Armes d'Elite, who murdered the Duke of Enghien: "...the actors in torture, the distributors of the poisoning draughts, and the secret executioners of those unfortunate individuals or families, whom Bonaparte's measures of safety require to remove. In what revolutionary tyrants call grand[s] coups d'état, as butchering, or poisoning, or drowning, en masse, they are exclusively employed."[9]
+
+Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's dataset of coups defines attempted coups as "illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive."[1] They arrive at this definition by combining common definitions in the existing literature, and removing specificities and ambiguities that exist in many definitions.[1]
+
+In looser usage, as in "intelligence coup" or "boardroom coup", the term simply refers to gaining a sudden advantage on a rival.
+
+Since an unsuccessful coup d'état in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss-German word Putsch (pronounced [pʊtʃ], coined for the Züriputsch of 6 September 1839, in Zurich), also denotes the politico-military actions of an unsuccessful minority reactionary coup.[10][11][12]
+
+Other recent and notable unsuccessful minority reactionary coups that are often referred to as Putsches are the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and Küstrin Putsch, the 1961 Algiers Putsch and the 1991 August Putsch. Putsch was used as disinformation by Hitler and other Nazi party members to falsely claim that he had to suppress a reactionary coup during the Night of the Long Knives. Germans still use the term Röhm-Putsch to describe the murders, the term given to it by the Nazi regime, despite its unproven implication that the murders were necessary to prevent a coup. Thus, German authors often use quotation marks or write about the sogenannter Röhm-Putsch ('so-called Röhm Putsch') for emphasis.[13]
+
+Pronunciamiento ("pronouncement") is a term of Spanish origin for a special type of coup d'état. The coup d'état (called golpe de estado in Spanish) was more common in Spain and South America, while the pronunciamiento was more common in Central America and Mexico. The pronunciamiento is the formal explanation for deposing the regnant government, justifying the installation of the new government that was effected with the golpe de estado. A "barracks revolt" or cuartelazo is also a term for military revolt, from the Spanish term cuartel ("quarter" or "barracks"). Specific military garrisons are the sparking factor for a larger military revolt against the government.[14]
+
+One author makes a distinction between a coup and a pronunciamiento. In a coup, it is the military, paramilitary, or opposing political faction that deposes the current government and assumes power; whereas, in the pronunciamiento, the military deposes the existing government and installs an (ostensibly) civilian government.[15]
+
+According to Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's coup dataset, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, of which 227 (49.7%) were successful and 230 (50.3%) were unsuccessful.[1] They find that coups have "been most common in Africa and the Americas (36.5% and 31.9%, respectively). Asia and the Middle East have experienced 13.1% and 15.8% of total global coups, respectively. Europe has experienced by far the fewest coup attempts: 2.6%."[1] Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early-1990s.[1] Numbers of successful coups have decreased over time.[1] Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems.[16][17][18] Coups that occur during civil wars shorten the war's duration.[19] Research suggests that protests spur coups, as they help elites within the state apparatus to coordinate coups.[20]
+
+A 2016 study categorizes coups into four possible outcomes:[17]
+
+The study also found that about half of all coups—both during and after the Cold War—install new autocratic regimes.[17] New dictatorships launched by coups engage in higher levels of repression in the year that follows the coup than existed in the year leading to the coup.[17] One-third of coups during the Cold War and 10% of post-Cold War coups reshuffled the regime leadership.[17] Democracies were installed in the wake of 12% of Cold War coups and 40% of post-Cold War coups.[17]
+
+A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors were associated with coups:
+
+The literature review in a 2016 study includes mentions of ethnic factionalism, supportive foreign governments, leader inexperience, slow growth, commodity price shocks, and poverty.[23]
+
+The cumulative number of coups is a strong predictor of future coups.[22][24][25] Hybrid regimes are more vulnerable to coups than are very authoritarian states or democratic states.[26] A 2015 study finds that terrorism is strongly associated with re-shuffling coups.[27] A 2016 study finds that there is an ethnic component to coups: "When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers."[28] Another 2016 study shows that protests increase the risk of coups, presumably because they ease coordination obstacles among coup plotters and make international actors less likely to punish coup leaders.[29] A third 2016 study finds that coups become more likely in the wake of elections in autocracies when the results reveal electoral weakness for the incumbent autocrat.[30] A fourth 2016 study finds that inequality between social classes increases the likelihood of coups.[31] A fifth 2016 study rejects the notion that participation in war makes coups more likely; on the contrary, coup risk declines in the presence of enduring interstate conflict.[32] A sixth 2016 study finds no evidence that coups are contagious; one coup in a region does not make other coups in the region likely to follow.[33] One study found that coups are more likely to occur in states with small populations, as there are smaller coordination problems for coup-plotters.[34]
+
+A 2017 study in the journal Security Studies found that autocratic leaders whose states were involved in international rivalries over disputed territory were more likely to be overthrown in a coup. The authors of the study provide the following logic for why this is: "Autocratic incumbents invested in spatial rivalries need to strengthen the military in order to compete with a foreign adversary. The imperative of developing a strong army puts dictators in a paradoxical situation: to compete with a rival state, they must empower the very agency—the military—that is most likely to threaten their own survival in office."[35] However, a 2016 study in the journal Conflict Management and Peace Science found that leaders who were involved in militarized confrontations and conflicts were less likely to face a coup in the year following the dispute.[36]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that coup attempts were less likely in states where the militaries derived significant incomes from peacekeeping missions.[37] The study argued that militaries were dissuaded from staging coups because they feared that the UN would no longer enlist the military in peacekeeping missions.[37]
+
+A 2018 study in the Economic Journal found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries."[38] The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth.[38]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution found that the presence of military academies were linked to coups. The authors argue that military academies make it easier for military officers to plan coups, as the schools build networks among military officers.[39]
+
+A 2019 study in the Journal of Politics found that states that had recently signed civil war peace agreements were much more likely to experience coups, in particular when those agreements contained provisions that jeopardized the interests of the military.[40]
+
+A 2019 study found that regional rebellions made coups by the military more likely.[41]
+
+A 2020 study found that elections had a two-sided impact on coup attempts, depending on the state of the economy. During periods of economic expansion, elections reduced the likelihood of coup attempts, whereas elections during economic crises increased the likelihood of coup attempts.[42]
+
+In autocracies the frequency of coups seem to be affected by the succession rules in place, with monarchies with a fixed succession rule being much less plagued by instability than less institutionalized autocracies.[43][44]
+
+In what is referred to as "coup-proofing", regimes create structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another.[45] Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring.[46][47] However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness,[48][49][50] and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract.[51]
+
+A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts.[52] Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting.[52]
+
+According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region.[53] A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories.[54]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders.[55] A 2019 study in Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler."[56]
+
+Research suggests that coups promoting democratization in staunchly authoritarian regimes have become less likely to end democracy over time, and that the positive influence has strengthened since the end of the Cold War.[16][17][57][58][59]
+
+A 2014 study found that "coups promote democratization, particularly among states that are least likely to democratize otherwise".[57] The authors argue that coup attempts can have this consequence because leaders of successful coups have incentives to democratize quickly in order to establish political legitimacy and economic growth, while leaders who stay in power after failed coup attempts see it as a sign that they must enact meaningful reforms to remain in power.[57] A 2014 study found that 40% of post-Cold War coups were successful. The authors argue that this may be due to the incentives created by international pressure.[16] A 2016 study found that democracies were installed in 12% of Cold War coups and 40% of the post-Cold War coups.[17] A 2020 study found that coups tended to lead to increases in state repression, not reductions.[60]
+
+According to a 2020 study, "external reactions to coups play important roles in whether coup leaders move toward authoritarianism or democratic governance. When supported by external democratic actors, coup leaders have an incentive to push for elections to retain external support and consolidate domestic legitimacy. When condemned, coup leaders are apt to trend toward authoritarianism to assure their survival."[61]
+
+According to legal scholar Ilya Somin a coup to forcibly overthrow democratic government might be sometimes justified.
+He wrote:
+
+According to Naunihal Singh, author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups (2014), it is "fairly rare" for the prevailing existing government to violently purge the army after a coup has been foiled. If it starts the mass killing of elements of the army, including officers who were not involved in the coup, this may trigger a "counter-coup" by soldiers who are afraid they will be next. To prevent such a desperate counter-coup that may be more successful than the initial attempt, governments usually resort to firing prominent officers and replacing them with loyalists instead.[63]
+
+Some research suggests that increased repression and violence typically follow coup attempts (whether they be successes or failures).[64] However, some tentative analysis by political scientist Jay Ulfelder finds no clear pattern of deterioration in human rights practices in wake of failed coups in post-Cold War era.[65]
+
+Notable counter-coups include the Ottoman countercoup of 1909, the 1960 Laotian counter-coup, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, the 1966 Nigerian counter-coup, the 1967 Greek counter-coup, 1971 Sudanese counter-coup, and the Coup d'état of December Twelfth in South Korea.
+
+A 2017 study finds that the use of state broadcasting by the putschist regime after Mali's 2012 coup did not elevate explicit approval for the regime.[66]
+
+According to a 2019 study, coup attempts lead to a reduction in physical integrity rights.[67]
+
+The international community tends to react adversely to coups by reducing aid and imposing sanctions. A 2015 study finds that "coups against democracies, coups after the Cold War, and coups in states heavily integrated into the international community are all more likely to elicit global reaction."[68] Another 2015 study shows that coups are the strongest predictor for the imposition of democratic sanctions.[69] A third 2015 study finds that Western states react strongest against coups of possible democratic and human rights abuses.[69] A 2016 study shows that the international donor community in the post-Cold War period penalizes coups by reducing foreign aid.[70] The US has been inconsistent in applying aid sanctions against coups both during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, a likely consequence of its geopolitical interests.[70]
+
+Organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have adopted anti-coup frameworks. Through the threat of sanctions, the organizations actively try to curb coups. A 2016 study finds that the AU has played a meaningful role in reducing African coups.[71]
+
+A forthcoming study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution finds that negative international responses to regimes created in coups have a significant influence on the sustainability of those regimes.[72] The study finds that "state reactions have the strongest effect during the Cold War, while international organizations matter the most afterward."[72] Negative international responses from strong actors matter the most.[72]
+
+According to a 2020 study, coups increase the cost of borrowing and increase the likelihood of sovereign default.[73]

en/1356.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+
+
+A coup or coup d'état /ˌkuː deɪˈtɑː/ listen (help·info) (French: [ku deta], literally "blow of state"; plural: coups d'état, pronounced like the singular form, also known simply as an ousting, overthrow, or putsch) is the removal of an existing government from power through non-legal, often coercive, means. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator.[1] Many scholars consider a coup d'état successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.[1]
+
+The phrase coup d'état comes from French, literally meaning a "stroke of state" or "blow against the state". In French, the word État (French: [eta]), denoting a sovereign political entity, is capitalized.[2][3][4][5][6]
+
+Although the concept of a coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage;[7] the Oxford English Dictionary identifies it as a French expression meaning a "stroke of state". The phrase did not appear within an English text before the 19th century except when used in translation of a French source, there being no simple phrase in English to convey the contextualized idea of a 'knockout blow to the existing administration within a state'.
+
+One early use within text translated from French was in 1785 in a printed translation of a letter from a French merchant, commenting on an arbitrary decree or arrêt issued by the French king restricting the import of British wool.[8] What may be its first published use within a text composed in English is an editor's note in the London Morning Chronicle, 7 January 1802, reporting the arrest by Napoleon in France, of Moreau, Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte: "There was a report in circulation yesterday of a sort of coup d'état having taken place in France, in consequence of some formidable conspiracy against the existing government."
+
+In post-Revolutionary France, the phrase came to be used to describe the various murders by Napoleon's hated secret police, the Gens d'Armes d'Elite, who murdered the Duke of Enghien: "...the actors in torture, the distributors of the poisoning draughts, and the secret executioners of those unfortunate individuals or families, whom Bonaparte's measures of safety require to remove. In what revolutionary tyrants call grand[s] coups d'état, as butchering, or poisoning, or drowning, en masse, they are exclusively employed."[9]
+
+Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's dataset of coups defines attempted coups as "illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive."[1] They arrive at this definition by combining common definitions in the existing literature, and removing specificities and ambiguities that exist in many definitions.[1]
+
+In looser usage, as in "intelligence coup" or "boardroom coup", the term simply refers to gaining a sudden advantage on a rival.
+
+Since an unsuccessful coup d'état in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss-German word Putsch (pronounced [pʊtʃ], coined for the Züriputsch of 6 September 1839, in Zurich), also denotes the politico-military actions of an unsuccessful minority reactionary coup.[10][11][12]
+
+Other recent and notable unsuccessful minority reactionary coups that are often referred to as Putsches are the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and Küstrin Putsch, the 1961 Algiers Putsch and the 1991 August Putsch. Putsch was used as disinformation by Hitler and other Nazi party members to falsely claim that he had to suppress a reactionary coup during the Night of the Long Knives. Germans still use the term Röhm-Putsch to describe the murders, the term given to it by the Nazi regime, despite its unproven implication that the murders were necessary to prevent a coup. Thus, German authors often use quotation marks or write about the sogenannter Röhm-Putsch ('so-called Röhm Putsch') for emphasis.[13]
+
+Pronunciamiento ("pronouncement") is a term of Spanish origin for a special type of coup d'état. The coup d'état (called golpe de estado in Spanish) was more common in Spain and South America, while the pronunciamiento was more common in Central America and Mexico. The pronunciamiento is the formal explanation for deposing the regnant government, justifying the installation of the new government that was effected with the golpe de estado. A "barracks revolt" or cuartelazo is also a term for military revolt, from the Spanish term cuartel ("quarter" or "barracks"). Specific military garrisons are the sparking factor for a larger military revolt against the government.[14]
+
+One author makes a distinction between a coup and a pronunciamiento. In a coup, it is the military, paramilitary, or opposing political faction that deposes the current government and assumes power; whereas, in the pronunciamiento, the military deposes the existing government and installs an (ostensibly) civilian government.[15]
+
+According to Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's coup dataset, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, of which 227 (49.7%) were successful and 230 (50.3%) were unsuccessful.[1] They find that coups have "been most common in Africa and the Americas (36.5% and 31.9%, respectively). Asia and the Middle East have experienced 13.1% and 15.8% of total global coups, respectively. Europe has experienced by far the fewest coup attempts: 2.6%."[1] Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early-1990s.[1] Numbers of successful coups have decreased over time.[1] Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems.[16][17][18] Coups that occur during civil wars shorten the war's duration.[19] Research suggests that protests spur coups, as they help elites within the state apparatus to coordinate coups.[20]
+
+A 2016 study categorizes coups into four possible outcomes:[17]
+
+The study also found that about half of all coups—both during and after the Cold War—install new autocratic regimes.[17] New dictatorships launched by coups engage in higher levels of repression in the year that follows the coup than existed in the year leading to the coup.[17] One-third of coups during the Cold War and 10% of post-Cold War coups reshuffled the regime leadership.[17] Democracies were installed in the wake of 12% of Cold War coups and 40% of post-Cold War coups.[17]
+
+A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors were associated with coups:
+
+The literature review in a 2016 study includes mentions of ethnic factionalism, supportive foreign governments, leader inexperience, slow growth, commodity price shocks, and poverty.[23]
+
+The cumulative number of coups is a strong predictor of future coups.[22][24][25] Hybrid regimes are more vulnerable to coups than are very authoritarian states or democratic states.[26] A 2015 study finds that terrorism is strongly associated with re-shuffling coups.[27] A 2016 study finds that there is an ethnic component to coups: "When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers."[28] Another 2016 study shows that protests increase the risk of coups, presumably because they ease coordination obstacles among coup plotters and make international actors less likely to punish coup leaders.[29] A third 2016 study finds that coups become more likely in the wake of elections in autocracies when the results reveal electoral weakness for the incumbent autocrat.[30] A fourth 2016 study finds that inequality between social classes increases the likelihood of coups.[31] A fifth 2016 study rejects the notion that participation in war makes coups more likely; on the contrary, coup risk declines in the presence of enduring interstate conflict.[32] A sixth 2016 study finds no evidence that coups are contagious; one coup in a region does not make other coups in the region likely to follow.[33] One study found that coups are more likely to occur in states with small populations, as there are smaller coordination problems for coup-plotters.[34]
+
+A 2017 study in the journal Security Studies found that autocratic leaders whose states were involved in international rivalries over disputed territory were more likely to be overthrown in a coup. The authors of the study provide the following logic for why this is: "Autocratic incumbents invested in spatial rivalries need to strengthen the military in order to compete with a foreign adversary. The imperative of developing a strong army puts dictators in a paradoxical situation: to compete with a rival state, they must empower the very agency—the military—that is most likely to threaten their own survival in office."[35] However, a 2016 study in the journal Conflict Management and Peace Science found that leaders who were involved in militarized confrontations and conflicts were less likely to face a coup in the year following the dispute.[36]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that coup attempts were less likely in states where the militaries derived significant incomes from peacekeeping missions.[37] The study argued that militaries were dissuaded from staging coups because they feared that the UN would no longer enlist the military in peacekeeping missions.[37]
+
+A 2018 study in the Economic Journal found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries."[38] The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth.[38]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution found that the presence of military academies were linked to coups. The authors argue that military academies make it easier for military officers to plan coups, as the schools build networks among military officers.[39]
+
+A 2019 study in the Journal of Politics found that states that had recently signed civil war peace agreements were much more likely to experience coups, in particular when those agreements contained provisions that jeopardized the interests of the military.[40]
+
+A 2019 study found that regional rebellions made coups by the military more likely.[41]
+
+A 2020 study found that elections had a two-sided impact on coup attempts, depending on the state of the economy. During periods of economic expansion, elections reduced the likelihood of coup attempts, whereas elections during economic crises increased the likelihood of coup attempts.[42]
+
+In autocracies the frequency of coups seem to be affected by the succession rules in place, with monarchies with a fixed succession rule being much less plagued by instability than less institutionalized autocracies.[43][44]
+
+In what is referred to as "coup-proofing", regimes create structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another.[45] Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring.[46][47] However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness,[48][49][50] and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract.[51]
+
+A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts.[52] Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting.[52]
+
+According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region.[53] A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories.[54]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders.[55] A 2019 study in Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler."[56]
+
+Research suggests that coups promoting democratization in staunchly authoritarian regimes have become less likely to end democracy over time, and that the positive influence has strengthened since the end of the Cold War.[16][17][57][58][59]
+
+A 2014 study found that "coups promote democratization, particularly among states that are least likely to democratize otherwise".[57] The authors argue that coup attempts can have this consequence because leaders of successful coups have incentives to democratize quickly in order to establish political legitimacy and economic growth, while leaders who stay in power after failed coup attempts see it as a sign that they must enact meaningful reforms to remain in power.[57] A 2014 study found that 40% of post-Cold War coups were successful. The authors argue that this may be due to the incentives created by international pressure.[16] A 2016 study found that democracies were installed in 12% of Cold War coups and 40% of the post-Cold War coups.[17] A 2020 study found that coups tended to lead to increases in state repression, not reductions.[60]
+
+According to a 2020 study, "external reactions to coups play important roles in whether coup leaders move toward authoritarianism or democratic governance. When supported by external democratic actors, coup leaders have an incentive to push for elections to retain external support and consolidate domestic legitimacy. When condemned, coup leaders are apt to trend toward authoritarianism to assure their survival."[61]
+
+According to legal scholar Ilya Somin a coup to forcibly overthrow democratic government might be sometimes justified.
+He wrote:
+
+According to Naunihal Singh, author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups (2014), it is "fairly rare" for the prevailing existing government to violently purge the army after a coup has been foiled. If it starts the mass killing of elements of the army, including officers who were not involved in the coup, this may trigger a "counter-coup" by soldiers who are afraid they will be next. To prevent such a desperate counter-coup that may be more successful than the initial attempt, governments usually resort to firing prominent officers and replacing them with loyalists instead.[63]
+
+Some research suggests that increased repression and violence typically follow coup attempts (whether they be successes or failures).[64] However, some tentative analysis by political scientist Jay Ulfelder finds no clear pattern of deterioration in human rights practices in wake of failed coups in post-Cold War era.[65]
+
+Notable counter-coups include the Ottoman countercoup of 1909, the 1960 Laotian counter-coup, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, the 1966 Nigerian counter-coup, the 1967 Greek counter-coup, 1971 Sudanese counter-coup, and the Coup d'état of December Twelfth in South Korea.
+
+A 2017 study finds that the use of state broadcasting by the putschist regime after Mali's 2012 coup did not elevate explicit approval for the regime.[66]
+
+According to a 2019 study, coup attempts lead to a reduction in physical integrity rights.[67]
+
+The international community tends to react adversely to coups by reducing aid and imposing sanctions. A 2015 study finds that "coups against democracies, coups after the Cold War, and coups in states heavily integrated into the international community are all more likely to elicit global reaction."[68] Another 2015 study shows that coups are the strongest predictor for the imposition of democratic sanctions.[69] A third 2015 study finds that Western states react strongest against coups of possible democratic and human rights abuses.[69] A 2016 study shows that the international donor community in the post-Cold War period penalizes coups by reducing foreign aid.[70] The US has been inconsistent in applying aid sanctions against coups both during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, a likely consequence of its geopolitical interests.[70]
+
+Organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have adopted anti-coup frameworks. Through the threat of sanctions, the organizations actively try to curb coups. A 2016 study finds that the AU has played a meaningful role in reducing African coups.[71]
+
+A forthcoming study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution finds that negative international responses to regimes created in coups have a significant influence on the sustainability of those regimes.[72] The study finds that "state reactions have the strongest effect during the Cold War, while international organizations matter the most afterward."[72] Negative international responses from strong actors matter the most.[72]
+
+According to a 2020 study, coups increase the cost of borrowing and increase the likelihood of sovereign default.[73]

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+A coup or coup d'état /ˌkuː deɪˈtɑː/ listen (help·info) (French: [ku deta], literally "blow of state"; plural: coups d'état, pronounced like the singular form, also known simply as an ousting, overthrow, or putsch) is the removal of an existing government from power through non-legal, often coercive, means. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator.[1] Many scholars consider a coup d'état successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.[1]
+
+The phrase coup d'état comes from French, literally meaning a "stroke of state" or "blow against the state". In French, the word État (French: [eta]), denoting a sovereign political entity, is capitalized.[2][3][4][5][6]
+
+Although the concept of a coup d'état has featured in politics since antiquity, the phrase is of relatively recent coinage;[7] the Oxford English Dictionary identifies it as a French expression meaning a "stroke of state". The phrase did not appear within an English text before the 19th century except when used in translation of a French source, there being no simple phrase in English to convey the contextualized idea of a 'knockout blow to the existing administration within a state'.
+
+One early use within text translated from French was in 1785 in a printed translation of a letter from a French merchant, commenting on an arbitrary decree or arrêt issued by the French king restricting the import of British wool.[8] What may be its first published use within a text composed in English is an editor's note in the London Morning Chronicle, 7 January 1802, reporting the arrest by Napoleon in France, of Moreau, Berthier, Masséna, and Bernadotte: "There was a report in circulation yesterday of a sort of coup d'état having taken place in France, in consequence of some formidable conspiracy against the existing government."
+
+In post-Revolutionary France, the phrase came to be used to describe the various murders by Napoleon's hated secret police, the Gens d'Armes d'Elite, who murdered the Duke of Enghien: "...the actors in torture, the distributors of the poisoning draughts, and the secret executioners of those unfortunate individuals or families, whom Bonaparte's measures of safety require to remove. In what revolutionary tyrants call grand[s] coups d'état, as butchering, or poisoning, or drowning, en masse, they are exclusively employed."[9]
+
+Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's dataset of coups defines attempted coups as "illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive."[1] They arrive at this definition by combining common definitions in the existing literature, and removing specificities and ambiguities that exist in many definitions.[1]
+
+In looser usage, as in "intelligence coup" or "boardroom coup", the term simply refers to gaining a sudden advantage on a rival.
+
+Since an unsuccessful coup d'état in 1920 (the Kapp Putsch), the Swiss-German word Putsch (pronounced [pʊtʃ], coined for the Züriputsch of 6 September 1839, in Zurich), also denotes the politico-military actions of an unsuccessful minority reactionary coup.[10][11][12]
+
+Other recent and notable unsuccessful minority reactionary coups that are often referred to as Putsches are the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch and Küstrin Putsch, the 1961 Algiers Putsch and the 1991 August Putsch. Putsch was used as disinformation by Hitler and other Nazi party members to falsely claim that he had to suppress a reactionary coup during the Night of the Long Knives. Germans still use the term Röhm-Putsch to describe the murders, the term given to it by the Nazi regime, despite its unproven implication that the murders were necessary to prevent a coup. Thus, German authors often use quotation marks or write about the sogenannter Röhm-Putsch ('so-called Röhm Putsch') for emphasis.[13]
+
+Pronunciamiento ("pronouncement") is a term of Spanish origin for a special type of coup d'état. The coup d'état (called golpe de estado in Spanish) was more common in Spain and South America, while the pronunciamiento was more common in Central America and Mexico. The pronunciamiento is the formal explanation for deposing the regnant government, justifying the installation of the new government that was effected with the golpe de estado. A "barracks revolt" or cuartelazo is also a term for military revolt, from the Spanish term cuartel ("quarter" or "barracks"). Specific military garrisons are the sparking factor for a larger military revolt against the government.[14]
+
+One author makes a distinction between a coup and a pronunciamiento. In a coup, it is the military, paramilitary, or opposing political faction that deposes the current government and assumes power; whereas, in the pronunciamiento, the military deposes the existing government and installs an (ostensibly) civilian government.[15]
+
+According to Clayton Thyne and Jonathan Powell's coup dataset, there were 457 coup attempts from 1950 to 2010, of which 227 (49.7%) were successful and 230 (50.3%) were unsuccessful.[1] They find that coups have "been most common in Africa and the Americas (36.5% and 31.9%, respectively). Asia and the Middle East have experienced 13.1% and 15.8% of total global coups, respectively. Europe has experienced by far the fewest coup attempts: 2.6%."[1] Most coup attempts occurred in the mid-1960s, but there were also large numbers of coup attempts in the mid-1970s and the early-1990s.[1] Numbers of successful coups have decreased over time.[1] Coups occurring in the post-Cold War period have been more likely to result in democratic systems.[16][17][18] Coups that occur during civil wars shorten the war's duration.[19] Research suggests that protests spur coups, as they help elites within the state apparatus to coordinate coups.[20]
+
+A 2016 study categorizes coups into four possible outcomes:[17]
+
+The study also found that about half of all coups—both during and after the Cold War—install new autocratic regimes.[17] New dictatorships launched by coups engage in higher levels of repression in the year that follows the coup than existed in the year leading to the coup.[17] One-third of coups during the Cold War and 10% of post-Cold War coups reshuffled the regime leadership.[17] Democracies were installed in the wake of 12% of Cold War coups and 40% of post-Cold War coups.[17]
+
+A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors were associated with coups:
+
+The literature review in a 2016 study includes mentions of ethnic factionalism, supportive foreign governments, leader inexperience, slow growth, commodity price shocks, and poverty.[23]
+
+The cumulative number of coups is a strong predictor of future coups.[22][24][25] Hybrid regimes are more vulnerable to coups than are very authoritarian states or democratic states.[26] A 2015 study finds that terrorism is strongly associated with re-shuffling coups.[27] A 2016 study finds that there is an ethnic component to coups: "When leaders attempt to build ethnic armies, or dismantle those created by their predecessors, they provoke violent resistance from military officers."[28] Another 2016 study shows that protests increase the risk of coups, presumably because they ease coordination obstacles among coup plotters and make international actors less likely to punish coup leaders.[29] A third 2016 study finds that coups become more likely in the wake of elections in autocracies when the results reveal electoral weakness for the incumbent autocrat.[30] A fourth 2016 study finds that inequality between social classes increases the likelihood of coups.[31] A fifth 2016 study rejects the notion that participation in war makes coups more likely; on the contrary, coup risk declines in the presence of enduring interstate conflict.[32] A sixth 2016 study finds no evidence that coups are contagious; one coup in a region does not make other coups in the region likely to follow.[33] One study found that coups are more likely to occur in states with small populations, as there are smaller coordination problems for coup-plotters.[34]
+
+A 2017 study in the journal Security Studies found that autocratic leaders whose states were involved in international rivalries over disputed territory were more likely to be overthrown in a coup. The authors of the study provide the following logic for why this is: "Autocratic incumbents invested in spatial rivalries need to strengthen the military in order to compete with a foreign adversary. The imperative of developing a strong army puts dictators in a paradoxical situation: to compete with a rival state, they must empower the very agency—the military—that is most likely to threaten their own survival in office."[35] However, a 2016 study in the journal Conflict Management and Peace Science found that leaders who were involved in militarized confrontations and conflicts were less likely to face a coup in the year following the dispute.[36]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that coup attempts were less likely in states where the militaries derived significant incomes from peacekeeping missions.[37] The study argued that militaries were dissuaded from staging coups because they feared that the UN would no longer enlist the military in peacekeeping missions.[37]
+
+A 2018 study in the Economic Journal found that "oil price shocks are seen to promote coups in onshore-intensive oil countries, while preventing them in offshore-intensive oil countries."[38] The study argues that states which have onshore oil wealth tend to build up their military to protect the oil, whereas states do not do that for offshore oil wealth.[38]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution found that the presence of military academies were linked to coups. The authors argue that military academies make it easier for military officers to plan coups, as the schools build networks among military officers.[39]
+
+A 2019 study in the Journal of Politics found that states that had recently signed civil war peace agreements were much more likely to experience coups, in particular when those agreements contained provisions that jeopardized the interests of the military.[40]
+
+A 2019 study found that regional rebellions made coups by the military more likely.[41]
+
+A 2020 study found that elections had a two-sided impact on coup attempts, depending on the state of the economy. During periods of economic expansion, elections reduced the likelihood of coup attempts, whereas elections during economic crises increased the likelihood of coup attempts.[42]
+
+In autocracies the frequency of coups seem to be affected by the succession rules in place, with monarchies with a fixed succession rule being much less plagued by instability than less institutionalized autocracies.[43][44]
+
+In what is referred to as "coup-proofing", regimes create structures that make it hard for any small group to seize power. These coup-proofing strategies may include the strategic placing of family, ethnic, and religious groups in the military; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; and development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another.[45] Research shows that some coup-proofing strategies reduce the risk of coups occurring.[46][47] However, coup-proofing reduces military effectiveness,[48][49][50] and limits the rents that an incumbent can extract.[51]
+
+A 2016 study shows that the implementation of succession rules reduce the occurrence of coup attempts.[52] Succession rules are believed to hamper coordination efforts among coup plotters by assuaging elites who have more to gain by patience than by plotting.[52]
+
+According to political scientists Curtis Bell and Jonathan Powell, coup attempts in neighbouring countries lead to greater coup-proofing and coup-related repression in a region.[53] A 2017 study finds that countries' coup-proofing strategies are heavily influenced by other countries with similar histories.[54]
+
+A 2018 study in the Journal of Peace Research found that leaders who survive coup attempts and respond by purging known and potential rivals are likely to have longer tenures as leaders.[55] A 2019 study in Conflict Management and Peace Science found that personalist dictatorships are more likely to take coup-proofing measures than other authoritarian regimes; the authors argue that this is because "personalists are characterized by weak institutions and narrow support bases, a lack of unifying ideologies and informal links to the ruler."[56]
+
+Research suggests that coups promoting democratization in staunchly authoritarian regimes have become less likely to end democracy over time, and that the positive influence has strengthened since the end of the Cold War.[16][17][57][58][59]
+
+A 2014 study found that "coups promote democratization, particularly among states that are least likely to democratize otherwise".[57] The authors argue that coup attempts can have this consequence because leaders of successful coups have incentives to democratize quickly in order to establish political legitimacy and economic growth, while leaders who stay in power after failed coup attempts see it as a sign that they must enact meaningful reforms to remain in power.[57] A 2014 study found that 40% of post-Cold War coups were successful. The authors argue that this may be due to the incentives created by international pressure.[16] A 2016 study found that democracies were installed in 12% of Cold War coups and 40% of the post-Cold War coups.[17] A 2020 study found that coups tended to lead to increases in state repression, not reductions.[60]
+
+According to a 2020 study, "external reactions to coups play important roles in whether coup leaders move toward authoritarianism or democratic governance. When supported by external democratic actors, coup leaders have an incentive to push for elections to retain external support and consolidate domestic legitimacy. When condemned, coup leaders are apt to trend toward authoritarianism to assure their survival."[61]
+
+According to legal scholar Ilya Somin a coup to forcibly overthrow democratic government might be sometimes justified.
+He wrote:
+
+According to Naunihal Singh, author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups (2014), it is "fairly rare" for the prevailing existing government to violently purge the army after a coup has been foiled. If it starts the mass killing of elements of the army, including officers who were not involved in the coup, this may trigger a "counter-coup" by soldiers who are afraid they will be next. To prevent such a desperate counter-coup that may be more successful than the initial attempt, governments usually resort to firing prominent officers and replacing them with loyalists instead.[63]
+
+Some research suggests that increased repression and violence typically follow coup attempts (whether they be successes or failures).[64] However, some tentative analysis by political scientist Jay Ulfelder finds no clear pattern of deterioration in human rights practices in wake of failed coups in post-Cold War era.[65]
+
+Notable counter-coups include the Ottoman countercoup of 1909, the 1960 Laotian counter-coup, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66, the 1966 Nigerian counter-coup, the 1967 Greek counter-coup, 1971 Sudanese counter-coup, and the Coup d'état of December Twelfth in South Korea.
+
+A 2017 study finds that the use of state broadcasting by the putschist regime after Mali's 2012 coup did not elevate explicit approval for the regime.[66]
+
+According to a 2019 study, coup attempts lead to a reduction in physical integrity rights.[67]
+
+The international community tends to react adversely to coups by reducing aid and imposing sanctions. A 2015 study finds that "coups against democracies, coups after the Cold War, and coups in states heavily integrated into the international community are all more likely to elicit global reaction."[68] Another 2015 study shows that coups are the strongest predictor for the imposition of democratic sanctions.[69] A third 2015 study finds that Western states react strongest against coups of possible democratic and human rights abuses.[69] A 2016 study shows that the international donor community in the post-Cold War period penalizes coups by reducing foreign aid.[70] The US has been inconsistent in applying aid sanctions against coups both during the Cold War and post-Cold War periods, a likely consequence of its geopolitical interests.[70]
+
+Organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have adopted anti-coup frameworks. Through the threat of sanctions, the organizations actively try to curb coups. A 2016 study finds that the AU has played a meaningful role in reducing African coups.[71]
+
+A forthcoming study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution finds that negative international responses to regimes created in coups have a significant influence on the sustainability of those regimes.[72] The study finds that "state reactions have the strongest effect during the Cold War, while international organizations matter the most afterward."[72] Negative international responses from strong actors matter the most.[72]
+
+According to a 2020 study, coups increase the cost of borrowing and increase the likelihood of sovereign default.[73]

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+The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting rights in 2007. It was the second time that Brazil staged the competition, the first being in 1950, and the fifth time that it was held in South America. Many fans and pundits alike also consider this edition of the World Cup to be one of the greatest ever held.[6][7][8]
+
+31 national teams advanced through qualification competitions to join the host nation in the final tournament (with Bosnia and Herzegovina as only debutant). A total of 64 matches were played in 12 venues located in as many host cities across Brazil. For the first time at a World Cup finals, match officials used goal-line technology, as well as vanishing spray for free kicks.[9] FIFA Fan Fests in each host city gathered a total of 5 million people, and the country received 1 million visitors from 202 countries.[10] Every World Cup-winning team since the first tournament in 1930 – Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Uruguay – qualified for this tournament. Spain, the title holders, were eliminated at the group stage, along with England and Italy. Uruguay were eliminated in the round of 16, and France exited in the quarter-finals. Host nation Brazil, who had won the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, lost to Germany 7–1 in the semi-finals and eventually finished in fourth place.
+
+In the final, Germany defeated Argentina 1–0 to win the tournament and secure the country's fourth world title, the first after the German reunification in 1990, when as West Germany they also beat Argentina in the World Cup final. Germany became the first European team to win a World Cup staged in the Americas,[11] and this result marked the third consecutive title won by a European team, after Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010.[12][13]
+
+In March 2003, FIFA announced that the tournament would be held in South America for the first time since 1978, in line with its then-active policy of rotating the right to host the World Cup among different confederations.[14][15] With the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted in South Africa, it would be the second consecutive World Cup outside Europe, which was a first for the tournament. It was also second in the Southern Hemisphere.[16] Only Brazil and Colombia formally declared their candidacy but, after the withdrawal of the latter from the process,[17] Brazil was officially elected as host nation unopposed on 30 October 2007.[18]
+
+Following qualification matches played between June 2011 and November 2013, the following 32 teams – shown with their last pre-tournament FIFA world ranking[19] – qualified for the final tournament. Twenty-four of these teams were returning participants from the 2010 World Cup. Bosnia and Herzegovina were the only team with no previous appearance at the World Cup finals.[nb 2][20] Colombia qualified for the World Cup after 16 years of absence, while Belgium and Russia  both returned after 12 years. Paraguay failed to qualify for the first time since 1994. This was also the first World Cup for 32 years that did not feature a representative from the Nordic countries. The highest ranked team not to qualify was Ukraine (ranked 16th), while the lowest ranked team that did qualify was Australia (ranked 62nd).[19]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The 32 participating teams were drawn into eight groups. In preparation for this, the teams were organised into four pots with the seven highest-ranked teams joining host nation Brazil in the seeded pot.[21] As with the previous tournaments, FIFA aimed to create groups which maximised geographic separation and therefore the unseeded teams were arranged into pots based on geographic considerations.[22][23] The draw took place on 6 December 2013 at the Costa do Sauípe resort in Bahia, during which the teams were drawn by various past World Cup-winning players.[24][25] Under the draw procedure, one randomly drawn team – Italy – was firstly relocated from Pot 4 to Pot 2 to create four equal pots of eight teams.[22]
+
+In March 2013, FIFA published a list of 52 prospective referees, each paired, on the basis of nationality, with two assistant referees, from all six football confederations for the tournament. On 14 January 2014, the FIFA Referees Committee appointed 25 referee trios and eight support duos representing 43 countries for the tournament.[26][27]
+Yuichi Nishimura from Japan acted as referee in the opening match whereas Nicola Rizzoli from Italy acted as referee in the final.[28][29]
+
+As with the 2010 tournament, each team's squad consists of 23 players (three of whom must be goalkeepers). Each participating national association had to confirm their final 23-player squad no later than 10 days before the start of the tournament.[30] Teams were permitted to make late replacements in the event of serious injury, at any time up to 24 hours before their first game.[30] During a match, all remaining squad members not named in the starting team are available to be one of the three permitted substitutions (provided the player is not serving a suspension).[30]
+
+12 venues (seven new and five renovated) in twelve cities were selected for the tournament. The venues covered all the main regions of Brazil and created more evenly distributed hosting than the 1950 finals in Brazil.[31] Consequently, the tournament required long-distance travel for teams.[32] During the World Cup, Brazilian cities were also home to the participating teams at 32 separate base camps,[33] as well as staging official fan fests where supporters could view the games.[34]
+
+The most used stadiums were the Maracana and Brasilia, which hosted seven matches each. The least-used venues were in Cuiabá, Manaus, Natal, and Curitiba, which hosted four matches each; as the four smallest stadiums in use at the tournament, they did not host any knockout round matches.[35]
+
+Base camps were used by the 32 national squads to stay and train before and during the World Cup tournament. On 31 January 2014, FIFA announced the base camps for each participating team,[33] having earlier circulated a brochure of 84 prospective locations.[36] Most teams opted to stay in the Southeast Region of Brazil, with only eight teams choosing other regions; five teams (Croatia, Germany, Ghana, Greece and Switzerland) opted to stay in the Northeast Region and three teams (Ecuador, South Korea and Spain) opted to stay in the South Region. None opted to stay in the North Region or the Central-West Region.[37]
+
+For a third consecutive World Cup tournament, FIFA staged FIFA Fan Fests in each of the 12 host cities throughout the competition. Prominent examples were the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, which already held a Fan Fest in 2010, and São Paulo's Vale do Anhangabaú.[38][39] The first official event took place on Iracema Beach, in Fortaleza, on 8 June 2014.[40]
+
+To avoid ghost goals the 2014 World Cup introduced goal-line technology following successful trials at among others 2013 Confederations Cup. The chosen Goal Control system featured 14 high speed cameras, 7 directed to each of the goals. Data were sent to the central image-processing centre, where a virtual representation of the ball was output on a widescreen to confirm the goal. The referee was equipped with a watch which vibrated and displayed a signal upon a goal.[41][42][43] France's second goal in their group game against Honduras was the first time goal-line technology was needed to confirm that a goal should be given.[44]
+
+Following successful trials,[nb 4] FIFA approved the use of vanishing spray by the referees for the first time at a World Cup Finals. The water-based spray, which disappears within minutes of application, can be used to mark a ten-yard line for the defending team during a free kick and also to draw where the ball is to be placed for a free kick.[45]
+
+The Adidas Brazuca was the official match ball of the 2014 FIFA World Cup[46][47][48][49] and was supplied by Forward Sports of Sialkot, Pakistan.[46] Adidas created a new design of ball after criticisms of the Adidas Jabulani used in the previous World Cup. The number of panels was reduced to six, with the panels being thermally bonded. This created a ball with increased consistency and aerodynamics compared to its predecessor. Furthermore, Adidas underwent an extensive testing process lasting more than two years to produce a ball that would meet the approval of football professionals.
+
+Because of the relatively high ambient temperatures in Brazil, particularly at the northern venues, cooling breaks for the players were introduced.[50] Breaks could take place at the referee's discretion after the 30th minute of each half if the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature exceeded 32 °C (90 °F).
+
+The first cooling break in a World Cup play took place during the 32nd minute of the match between the Netherlands and Mexico in the round of 16.[51][52][53][54] At the start of the match, FIFA listed the temperature at 32 °C (90 °F) with 68% humidity.[55]
+
+The biological passport was introduced in the FIFA World Cup starting in 2014. Blood and urine samples from all players before the competition, and from two players per team per match, are analysed by the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses.[56] FIFA reported that 91.5% of the players taking part in the tournament were tested before the start of the competition and none tested positive.[57] However, FIFA was criticised for how it conducted doping tests.[58][59]
+
+The first round, or group stage, was a competition between the 32 teams divided among eight groups of four, where each group engaged in a round-robin tournament within itself. The two highest ranked teams in each group advanced to the knockout stage.[30] Teams were awarded three points for a win and one for a draw. When comparing teams in a group over-all result came before head-to-head.
+
+In the knockout stage there were four rounds (round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals, and the final), with each eliminating the losers. The two semi-final losers competed in a third place play-off. For any match in the knockout stage, a draw after 90 minutes of regulation time was followed by two 15 minute periods of extra time to determine a winner. If the teams were still tied, a penalty shoot-out was held to determine a winner.[30]
+
+The match schedule was announced on 20 October 2011[60] with the kick-off times being confirmed on 27 September 2012;[61] after the final draw, the kick-off times of seven matches were adjusted by FIFA.[62] The competition was organised so that teams that played each other in the group stage could not meet again during the knockout phase until the final (or the 3rd place match).[30]
+The group stage began on 12 June, with the host nation competing in the opening game as has been the format since the 2006 tournament. The opening game was preceded by an opening ceremony that began at 15:15 local time.[63]
+
+On 12 June 2014, the 20th edition of the FIFA World Cup began with the opening ceremony at Arena de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. The event saw 660 dancers take to the stadium and perform in a ceremony which celebrated the nature of the country and its love of football. Following the dancers native singer Claudia Leitte emerged on centre stage to perform for the crowd. She was later joined by Cuban-American rapper Pitbull, and American singer Jennifer Lopez to perform the tournament's official song "We Are One (Ole Ola)" which had been released as an official single on 8 April 2014. Following the ceremony, the opening match was played, which saw the hosts come from behind to beat Croatia 3–1.[64][65][66]
+
+The group stage of the cup took place in Brazil from 12 June 2014 to 26 June 2014: each team played three games. The group stage was notable for a scarcity of draws and a large number of goals. The first drawn (and goalless) match did not occur until the 13th match of the tournament, between Iran and Nigeria: a drought longer than any World Cup since 1930.[67] The group stage produced a total of 136 goals (an average of 2.83 goals per match), nine fewer than were scored during the entire 2010 tournament.[68] This is the largest number of goals in the group stage since the 32-team system was implemented in 1998[69] and the largest average in a group stage since 1958.[70] World Cup holders Spain were eliminated after only two games, the quickest exit for the defending champions since Italy's from the 1950 tournament.[71] Spain also became the fourth nation to be eliminated in the first round while holding the World Cup crown, the first one being Italy in 1950 (and again in 2010), Brazil in 1966, and France in 2002.[72]
+
+Scores after extra time are indicated by (aet), and penalty shoot-outs are indicated by (pen.).
+
+All the group winners advanced into the quarter-finals. They included four teams from UEFA, three from CONMEBOL, and one from CONCACAF. Of the eight matches, five required extra-time, and two of these required penalty shoot-outs; this was the first time penalty shoot-outs occurred in more than one game in a round of 16.[nb 5] The goal average per game in the round of 16 was 2.25, a drop of 0.58 goals per game from the group stage.[78] The eight teams to win in the round of 16 included four former champions (Brazil, Germany, Argentina and France), a three-time runner-up (Netherlands), and two first-time quarter-finalists (Colombia and Costa Rica).[79][80] Belgium reached the quarter-finals for the first time since 1986.[81]
+
+All times listed below are at local time (UTC−3)
+
+With a 1–0 victory over France, Germany set a World Cup record with four consecutive semi-final appearances. Brazil beat Colombia 2–1, but Brazil's Neymar was injured and missed the rest of the competition. Argentina reached the final four for the first time since 1990 after a 1–0 win over Belgium. The Netherlands reached the semi-finals for the second consecutive tournament, after overcoming Costa Rica in a penalty shoot-out following a 0–0 draw at the end of extra time, with goalkeeper Tim Krul having been substituted on for the shoot-out and saving two penalties.
+
+Germany qualified for the final for the eighth time with a historic 7–1 win over Brazil – the biggest defeat in Brazilian football since 1920. Miroslav Klose's goal in this match was his 16th throughout all World Cups, breaking the record he had previously shared with Ronaldo.[82] Klose set another record by becoming the first player to appear in four World Cup semi-finals.[83] Argentina reached their first final since 1990, and the fifth overall after overcoming the Netherlands in a penalty shoot-out following a 0–0 draw at the end of extra time.
+
+The Netherlands defeated Brazil 3–0 to secure third place, the first for the Dutch team in their history. Overall, Brazil conceded 14 goals in the tournament; this was the most by a team at any single World Cup since 1986, and the most by a host nation in history, although their fourth-place finish still represented Brazil's best result in a World Cup since their last win in 2002.[84]
+
+The final featured Germany against Argentina for a record third time after 1986 and 1990.
+
+This marked the first time that teams from the same continent had won three consecutive World Cups (following Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010). It was also the first time that a European nation had won the World Cup in the Americas. On aggregate Europe then had 11 victories, compared to South America's 9 victories.
+
+In total, 171 goals were scored by a record 121 players, with five credited as own goals. Goals scored from penalty shoot-outs are not counted.
+James Rodríguez was awarded the Golden Boot for scoring six goals, the first time that a Colombian player received the award.[85]
+
+Source: FIFA[86]
+
+The most notable disciplinary case was that of Uruguayan striker Luis Suárez, who was suspended for nine international matches and banned from taking part in any football-related activity (including entering any stadium) for four months, following a biting incident on Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. He was also fined CHF100,000.[87][88][89] After an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Suárez was later allowed to participate in training and friendly matches with new club Barcelona.[90]
+
+The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:[91][92]
+
+Lionel Messi
+  Thomas Müller
+  Arjen Robben
+
+Ángel Di María
+ James Rodríguez
+ Javier Mascherano
+ Mats Hummels
+ Neymar
+ Philipp Lahm
+ Toni Kroos[93]
+
+James Rodríguez (6 goals, 2 assists)
+  Thomas Müller (5 goals, 3 assists)
+  Neymar (4 goals, 1 assist)[94]
+
+Manuel Neuer
+
+Keylor Navas
+ Sergio Romero[95]
+
+Paul Pogba
+
+Memphis Depay
+ Raphaël Varane[96]
+
+Colombia
+
+The members of the Technical Study Group, the committee that decided which players won the awards, were led by FIFA's head of the Technical Division Jean-Paul Brigger and featured:[97]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+There were changes to the voting procedure for awards for the 2014 edition: while in 2010 accredited media were allowed to vote for the Golden Ball award,[98] in 2014 only the Technical Study Group could select the outcome.[99]
+
+As was the case during the 2010 edition, FIFA did not release an official All-Star Team, but instead invited users of FIFA.com to elect their Dream Team.[100][101]
+
+Manuel Neuer (Germany)
+
+Marcelo (Brazil)
+ Mats Hummels (Germany)
+ Thiago Silva (Brazil)
+ David Luiz (Brazil)
+
+Ángel Di María (Argentina)
+ Toni Kroos (Germany)
+ James Rodríguez (Colombia)
+
+Neymar (Brazil)
+ Lionel Messi (Argentina)
+ Thomas Müller (Germany)
+
+Joachim Löw (Germany)
+
+The total prize money on offer for the tournament was confirmed by FIFA as US$576 million (including payments of $70 million to domestic clubs and $100 million as player insurances), a 37 percent increase from the amount allocated in the 2010 tournament. Before the tournament, each of the 32 entrants received $1.5 million for preparation costs. At the tournament, the prize money was distributed as follows:[102]
+
+Per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.[103]
+
+Costs of the tournament totalled $11.6 billion,[104]  making it the most expensive World Cup to date,[105] until surpassed by 2018 FIFA World Cup which cost an estimated $14.2 billion.[104]  FIFA was expected to spend US$2 billion on staging the finals,[106] with its greatest single expense being the US$576 million prize money pot.[102]
+
+Although organisers originally estimated costs of US$1.1 billion,[107] a reported US$3.6 billion was ultimately spent on stadium works.[108][109] Five of the chosen host cities had brand new venues built specifically for the World Cup, while the Estádio Nacional Mané Garrincha in the capital Brasília was demolished and rebuilt, with the remaining six being extensively renovated.[110]
+
+An additional R$3 billion (US$1.3 billion, €960 million, £780 million at June 2014 rates) was earmarked by the Brazilian government for investment in infrastructure works and projects for use during the 2014 World Cup and beyond.[111] However, the failed completion of many of the proposed works provoked discontent among some Brazilians.[112][113][114]
+
+The Brazilian government pledged US$900 million to be invested into security forces and that the tournament would be "one of the most protected sports events in history."[115]
+
+The marketing of the 2014 FIFA World Cup included sale of tickets, support from sponsors and promotion through events that utilise the symbols and songs of the tournament. Popular merchandise included items featuring the official mascot as well as an official video game that has been developed by EA Sports.[116] The official song of the tournament was "We Are One (Ole Ola)" with vocals from Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Claudia Leitte.[117] As a partner of the German Football Association, the German airline Lufthansa renamed itself "Fanhansa" on some of its planes that flew the German national team, media representatives and football fans to Brazil.[118]
+
+The sponsors of the 2014 World Cup are divided into three categories: FIFA Partners, FIFA World Cup Sponsors and National Supporters.[119]
+
+
+
+
+
+For a fourth consecutive FIFA World Cup Finals, the coverage was provided by HBS (Host Broadcast Services), a subsidiary of Infront Sports & Media.[120] Sony was selected as the official equipment provider and built 12 bespoke high definition production 40-foot-long containers, one for each tournament venue, to house the extensive amount of equipment required.[121][122] Each match utilised 37 standard camera plans, including Aerial and Cablecam, two Ultramotion cameras and dedicated cameras for interviews.[122] The official tournament film, as well as three matches,[nb 6] will be filmed with ultra high definition technology (4K resolution), following a successful trial at the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup.[123]
+
+The broadcasting rights – covering television, radio, internet and mobile coverage – for the tournament were sold to media companies in each individual territory either directly by FIFA, or through licensed companies or organisations such as the European Broadcasting Union, Organización de Televisión Iberoamericana, International Media Content, Dentsu and RS International Broadcasting & Sports Management.[124] The sale of these rights accounted for an estimated 60% of FIFA's income from staging a World Cup.[125] The International Broadcast Centre was situated at the Riocentro in the Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro.[126][127]
+
+Worldwide, several games qualified as the most-watched sporting events in their country in 2014, including 42.9 million people in Brazil for the opening game between Brazil and Croatia, the 34.1 million in Japan who saw their team play Ivory Coast, and 34.7 million in Germany who saw their national team win the World Cup against Argentina,[128] while the 24.7 million viewers during the game between the US and Portugal is joint with the 2010 final as the most-watched football game in the United States.[129] According to FIFA, over 1 billion people tuned in worldwide to watch the final between Germany and Argentina.[130]
+
+The 2014 FIFA World Cup generated various controversies, including demonstrations, some of which took place even before the tournament started. Furthermore, there were various issues with safety, including the death of eight workers and a fire during construction, breaches into stadiums, an unstable makeshift staircase at the Maracanã Stadium, a monorail collapse, and the collapse of an unfinished overpass in Belo Horizonte.[131][132][133][134][135] The houses of thousands of families living in Rio de Janeiro’s slums were cleared for redevelopments for the World Cup in spite of protests and resistance. Favela do Metrô, near the Maracanã Stadium, was completely destroyed as a result, having previously housed 700 families in 2010.[136][137][138]
+
+Prior to the opening ceremony of the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup staged in Brazil, demonstrations took place outside the venue, organised by people unhappy with the amount of public money spent to enable the hosting of the FIFA World Cup.[139] Both the Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and FIFA president Sepp Blatter were heavily booed as they were announced to give their speeches at the 2013 tournament's opening,[140] which resulted in FIFA announcing that the 2014 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony would not feature any speeches.[141] Further protests took place during the Confederations Cup as well as prior to and during the World Cup.[142][143][144][145][146]
+
+At the Group B match between Spain and Chile, around 100 Chilean supporters who had gathered outside Maracanã Stadium forced their way into the stadium and caused damage to the media centre. Military police reported that 85 Chileans were detained during the events, while others reached the stands. Earlier, about 20 Argentinians made a similar breach during Argentina's Group F game against Bosnia and Herzegovina at the same stadium.[147][148]
+
+On 3 July 2014, an overpass under construction in Belo Horizonte as part of the World Cup infrastructure projects collapsed onto a busy carriageway below, leaving two people dead and 22 others injured.[149][150]
+
+During the tournament, FIFA received significant criticism for the way head injuries are handled during matches. Two incidents in particular attracted the most attention. First, in a group stage match, after Uruguayan defender Álvaro Pereira received a blow to the head, he lay unconscious.[151] The Uruguayan doctor signaled for the player to be substituted, but he returned to the match. The incident drew criticism from the professional players' union FIFPro, and from Michel D'Hooghe, a member of the FIFA executive board and chairman of its medical committee.[152]
+
+Second, in the Final, German midfielder Christoph Kramer received a blow to the head from a collision in the 14th minute, but returned to the match before collapsing in the 31st minute. During that time, Kramer was disoriented and confused, and asked the referee Nicola Rizzoli whether the match he was playing in was the World Cup Final.[153]