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+Reading is the complex cognitive process of decoding symbols to derive meaning. It is a form of language processing.
+
+Success in this process is measured as reading comprehension. Reading is a means for language acquisition, communication, and sharing information and ideas. The symbols are typically visual (written or printed) but may be tactile (Braille). Like all languages, it is a complex interaction between text and reader, shaped by prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and the language community—which is culturally and socially situated. Readers use a variety of reading strategies to decode (to translate symbols into sounds or visual representations of speech) and comprehend. Readers may use context clues to identify the meaning of unknown words. Readers integrate the words they have read into their existing framework of knowledge or schema.
+
+Other types of reading are not speech based writing systems, such as music notation or pictograms. The common link is the interpretation of symbols to extract the meaning from the visual notations or tactile signals (as in the case of Braille).
+
+Currently most reading is either of the printed word from ink or toner on paper, such as in a book, magazine, newspaper, leaflet, or notebook, or of electronic displays, such as computer displays, television, mobile phones or e-readers. Handwritten text may also be produced using a graphite pencil or a pen.
+Short texts may be written or painted on an object.
+
+Often the text relates to the object, such as an address on an envelope, product info on packaging, or text on a traffic or street sign. A slogan may be painted on a wall. A text may also be produced by arranging stones of a different color in a wall or road. Short texts like these are sometimes referred to as environmental print.
+
+Sometimes text or images are in relief, with or without using a color contrast. Words or images can be carved in stone, wood, or metal; instructions can be printed in relief on the plastic housing of a home appliance, or myriad other examples.
+
+A requirement for reading is a good contrast between letters and background (depending on colors of letters and background, any pattern or image in the background, and lighting) and a suitable font size. In the case of a computer screen, it is important to see an entire line of text without scrolling.
+
+The field of visual word recognition studies how people read individual words.[1][2][3] A key technique in studying how individuals read text is eye tracking. This has revealed that reading is performed as a series of eye fixations with saccades between them. Humans also do not appear to fixate on every word in a text, but instead pause on some words mentally while their eyes are moving. This is possible because human languages show certain linguistic regularities.[citation needed]
+
+The process of recording information to read later is writing. In the case of computer and microfiche storage there is the separate step of displaying the written text. For humans, reading is usually faster and easier than writing.
+
+Reading is typically an individual activity, though on occasion a person reads out loud for other listeners. Reading aloud for one's own use, for better comprehension, is a form of intrapersonal communication: in the early 1970s[4] has been proposed the dual-route hypothesis to reading aloud, accordingly to which there were two separate mental mechanisms, or cognitive routes, that are involved in this case, with output of both mechanisms contributing to the pronunciation of a written stimulus.[4][5][6]
+
+Reading to young children is recommended by educators and researchers. It helps to stimulate imagination, increase knowledge of the world, and encourage a love of reading; and it builds skills in language, expression, vocabulary, comprehension of text, and spoken language sounds (phonemic awareness). [7] It also is a good introduction to guided reading which can be done at home as well as at school.
+
+Before the reintroduction of separated text in the late Middle Ages, the ability to read silently was considered rather remarkable.[8]
+
+Reading may be used for at school or work, incidentally during everyday life activities (such as reading the instructions in a cooking recipe), or for pleasure.[9]
+
+In the context of school or work, reading is a means of learning necessary information.
+
+As a leisure activity, children and adults read because it is pleasant and interesting.  In the US, about half of all adults read one or more books for pleasure each year.[9]  About 5% read more than 50 books per year.[9]  Americans read more if they have more education, if they read fluently and easily, if they are female, if they live in cities, and if they have higher socioeconomic status.[9]  Children become better readers when they know more about the world in general, and when they perceive reading as fun, rather than another chore to be performed.[9]
+
+Literacy is the ability to use the symbols of a writing system. It is the ability to interpret what the information symbols represent, and re-create those same symbols so that others can derive the same meaning. Illiteracy is the inability to derive meaning from the symbols used in a writing system.
+
+Dyslexia refers to a cognitive difficulty with reading and writing. It is defined as brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read.[10]  The term dyslexia can refer to two disorders: developmental dyslexia[11][12][13][14] which is a learning disability. Alexia (acquired dyslexia) refers to reading difficulties that occur following brain damage, stroke, or progressive illness.[15][16]
+
+Major predictors of an individual's ability to read both alphabetic and nonalphabetic scripts are phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and verbal IQ.[17]  Being taught to read at an early age (such as five years old) does not ultimately result in better reading skills, and if it replaces more developmentally appropriate activities, then it may cause other harms.[18]
+
+Many studies show that increasing reading speed improves comprehension.[19] Reading speed requires a long time to reach adult levels. The table to the right shows how reading-rate varies with age,[20] regardless of the period (1965 to 2005) and the language (English, French, German). The Taylor values probably are higher, for disregarding students who failed the comprehension test. The reading test by the French psychologist Pierre Lefavrais ("L'alouette", published in 1967) tested reading aloud, with a penalty for errors, and could, therefore, not be a rate greater than 150 wpm. According to Carver (1990), children's reading speed increases throughout the school years. On average, from grade 2 to college, reading rate increases 14 standard-length words per minute each year (where one standard-length word is defined as six characters in text, including punctuation and spaces).[21] Note that the data from Taylor (English) and Landerl (German) are based on texts of increasing difficulty; other data were obtained when all age groups were reading the same text.
+
+Rates of reading include reading for memorization (fewer than 100 words per minute [wpm]); reading for learning (100–200 wpm); reading for comprehension (200–400 wpm); and skimming (400–700 wpm). Reading for comprehension is the essence of the daily reading of most people. Skimming is for superficially processing large quantities of text at a low level of comprehension (below 50%).
+
+Advice for choosing the appropriate reading-rate includes reading flexibly, slowing when concepts are closely presented and when the material is new, and increasing when the material is familiar and of thin concept. Speed reading courses and books often encourage the reader to continually accelerate; comprehension tests lead the reader to believe his or her comprehension is continually improving; yet, competence-in-reading requires knowing that skimming is dangerous, as a default habit.[citation needed]
+
+Scientific studies have demonstrated that reading—defined here as capturing and decoding all the words on every page—faster than 900 wpm is not feasible given the limits set by the anatomy of the eye.[22]
+
+Reading speed has been used as a measure in research to determine the effect of interventions on human vision. A Cochrane Systematic Review used reading speed in words per minute as the primary outcome in comparing different reading aids for adults with low vision.[23]
+
+Both lexical and sub-lexical cognitive processes contribute to how we learn to read.
+
+Sub-lexical reading,[24][25][26][27] involves teaching reading by associating characters or groups of characters with sounds or by using phonics or synthetic phonics learning and teaching methodology, which some argue is in competition with whole language methods.
+
+Lexical reading[24][25][26][27] involves acquiring words or phrases without attention to the characters or groups of characters that compose them or by using whole language learning and teaching methodology. Some argue that this competes with phonics and synthetic phonics methods, and that the whole language approach tends to impair learning to spell.
+
+Other methods of teaching and learning to read have developed, and become somewhat controversial.[28]
+
+Learning to read in a second language, especially in adulthood, may be a different process than learning to read a native language in childhood.
+There are cases of very young children learning to read without having been taught.[29] Such was the case with Truman Capote who reportedly taught himself to read and write at the age of five. There are also accounts of people who taught themselves to read by comparing street signs or Biblical passages to speech. The novelist Nicholas Delbanco taught himself to read at age six during a transatlantic crossing by studying a book about boats.[30]
+
+Brain activity in young and older children can be used to predict future reading skill. Cross model mapping between the orthographic and phonologic areas in the brain are critical in reading. Thus, the amount of activation in the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus while performing reading tasks can be used to predict later reading ability and advancement. Young children with higher phonological word characteristic processing have significantly better reading skills later on than older children who focus on whole-word orthographic representation.[31]
+
+There are several types and methods of reading, with differing rates that can be attained for each, for different kinds of material and purposes:
+
+Reading process is therefore a communication context.
+
+Different types of reading tests exist:
+
+Some tests incorporate several of the above components at once. For instance, the Nelson-Denny Reading Test scores readers both on the speed with which they can read a passage, and also their ability to accurately answer questions about this passage.[citation needed] Recent research has questioned the validity of the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, especially with regard to the identification of reading disabilities.[38]
+
+Reading books and writing are among brain-stimulating activities shown to slow down cognitive decline in old age, with people who participated in more mentally stimulating activities over their lifetimes having a slower rate of decline in memory and other mental capacities.[39] Reading for pleasure has been linked to increased cognitive progress in vocabulary and mathematics during adolescence. 
+[40][41] Reading also reduces stress[42], improves memory[42], focus[43], writing skills[43], and enhances imagination[44]. Sustained high volume lifetime reading has been associated with high levels of academic attainment.[45] Moreover, the cognitive benefits of reading continue into mid-life and old age.[46][47][48]
+
+Reading from paper and from some screens requires more lighting than many other activities. Therefore, the possibility of doing this comfortably in cafés, restaurants, buses, at bus stops or in parks greatly varies depending on available lighting and time of day.
+
+Reading from screens that produce their own light does not depend on external light, except that external light may lessen visual fatigue. For controlling what is on the screen (scrolling, turning the page, etc.), a touch screen or keyboard illumination further reduces dependency on external light.
+
+The history of reading dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC. Although reading print text is now an important way for the general population to access information, this has not always been the case. With some exceptions, only a small percentage of the population in many countries was considered literate before the Industrial Revolution. Some of the pre-modern societies with generally high literacy rates included classical Athens and the Islamic Caliphate.[49]
+
+Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin clare legere) was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently (legere tacite or legere sibi) was unusual.[50] In his Confessions, Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD.[50][51]
+
+During the Age of Enlightenment, elite individuals promoted passive reading, rather than creative interpretation. Reading has no concrete laws, but lets readers escape to produce their own products introspectively, promoting deep exploration of texts during interpretation. Some thinkers of that era believed that construction, or the creation of writing and producing a product, was a sign of initiative and active participation in society—and viewed consumption (reading) as simply taking in what constructors made.[52] Also during this era, writing was considered superior to reading in society. They considered readers of that time passive citizens, because they did not produce a product. Michel de Certeau argued that the elites of the Age of Enlightenment were responsible for this general belief. Michel de Certeau believed that reading required venturing into an author's land, but taking away what the reader wanted specifically. This view held that writing was a superior art to reading within the hierarchical constraints of the era.[52]
+
+In 18th-century Europe, the then new practice of reading alone in bed was, for a time, considered dangerous and immoral. As reading became less a communal, oral practice, and more a private, silent one—and as sleeping increasingly moved from communal sleeping areas to individual bedrooms, some raised concern that reading in bed presented various dangers, such as fires caused by bedside candles. Some modern critics, however, speculate that these concerns were based on the fear that readers—especially women—could escape familial and communal obligations and transgress moral boundaries through the private fantasy worlds in books.[53]
+
+Girl Reading (1889), by Fritz von Uhde. Oil paint on canvas
+
+Young Girl Reading (1924) by George Goodwin Kilburne
+
+Young Girls Reading (1891) by Auguste Renoir
+
+A Young Girl Reading (c. 1770), oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
+
+Miss Auras, by John Lavery, depicts a woman reading a book
+
+A girl reading from the public domain image book, "What Shall We Do?" "Five Hundred Games and Pastimes" by Dorothy Canfield published in 1907 by Frederick A Stokes Company of New York.
+
+Youth reading, Persian miniature by Reza Abbasi (1625-6)
+
+Three girls reading (1880)
+
+Girl reading a book featuring the title 'The Children's Hour' and a photograph of a Hippopotamus in Thebarton Primary School, South Australia (1945)
+
+An American girl reading a newspaper (1969)
+
+A young woman reading outside in Riverside Park, Manhattan, New York City (2009).

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+Coordinates: 56°N 10°E / 56°N 10°E / 56; 10
+
+– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green)
+
+Denmark (Danish: Danmark, pronounced [ˈtænmɑk] (listen)), officially the Kingdom of Denmark,[N 10] is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. Denmark proper,[N 2] which is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands,[10] with the largest being Zealand, Funen and the North Jutlandic Island. The islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. Denmark lies southwest of Sweden and south of Norway,[N 11] and is bordered to the south by Germany. The Kingdom of Denmark is constitutionally a unitary state comprising Denmark proper and the two autonomous territories[11] in the North Atlantic Ocean: the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has a total area of 42,924 km2 (16,573 sq mi), land area of 42,394 km2 (16,368 sq mi),[3] and the total area including Greenland and the Faroe Islands is 2,210,579 km2 (853,509 sq mi), and a population of 5.8 million in Denmark proper (as of 2020[update]).[12]
+
+The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 8th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea.[2] Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were ruled together under one sovereign ruler in the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523. The areas of Denmark and Norway remained under the same monarch until 1814, Denmark–Norway. Beginning in the 17th century, there were several devastating wars with the Swedish Empire, ending with large cessions of territory to Sweden. After the Napoleonic Wars, Norway was ceded to Sweden, while Denmark kept the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, which were defeated in the First Schleswig War. After the Second Schleswig War in 1864, Denmark lost the Duchy of Schleswig to Prussia. Denmark remained neutral during World War I, however, in 1920 the northern half of Schleswig became Danish again. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945. An industrialised exporter of agricultural produce in the second half of the 19th century, Denmark introduced social and labour-market reforms in the early 20th century that created the basis for the present welfare state model with a highly developed mixed economy.
+
+The Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy, which had begun in 1660. It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy. The government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nation's capital, largest city, and main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs. Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands
+in 1948; in Greenland home rule was established in 1979 and further autonomy in 2009. Denmark became a member of the European Economic Community (now the EU) in 1973, but negotiated certain opt-outs; it retains its own currency, the krone. It is among the founding members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE, and the United Nations; it is also part of the Schengen Area. Denmark has close ties to its Scandinavian neighbours also linguistically, with the Danish language being partially mutually intelligible with both Norwegian and Swedish.
+
+Denmark is considered to be one of the most economically and socially developed countries in the world.[13] Danes enjoy a high standard of living and the country ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including education, health care, protection of civil liberties, democratic governance, LGBT equality, prosperity, and human development.[14][15][16] The country ranks as having the world's highest social mobility,[17] a high level of income equality,[18] the lowest perceived level of corruption in the world, the eleventh-highest HDI in the world, one of the world's highest per capita incomes, and one of the world's highest personal income tax rates.[19]
+
+The etymology of the name "Denmark", the relationship between "Danes" and "Denmark", and the emergence of Denmark as a unified kingdom are topics of continuous scholarly debate.[20][21] This is centered primarily on the prefix "Dan" and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -"mark" ending.
+
+Most etymological dictionaries and handbooks derive "Dan" from a word meaning "flat land",[22] related to German Tenne "threshing floor", English den "cave".[22] The element mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland (see marches), with probable references to the border forests in south Schleswig.[23]
+
+The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are runestones believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old (c. 955) and Harald Bluetooth (c. 965). The larger of the two stones is popularly cited as the "baptismal certificate" (dåbsattest) of Denmark,[24] though both use the word "Denmark", in the accusative ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚢᚱᚴ tanmaurk ([danmɒrk]) on the large stone, and the genitive ᛏᛅᚾᛘᛅᚱᚴᛅᚱ "tanmarkar" (pronounced [danmarkaɽ]) on the small stone,[25] The inhabitants of Denmark are there called tani ([danɪ]), or "Danes", in the accusative.
+
+The earliest archaeological finds in Denmark date back to the Eem interglacial period from 130,000–110,000 BC.[26] Denmark has been inhabited since around 12,500 BC and agriculture has been evident since 3900 BC.[27] The Nordic Bronze Age (1800–600 BC) in Denmark was marked by burial mounds, which left an abundance of findings including lurs and the Sun Chariot.
+
+During the Pre-Roman Iron Age (500 BC – AD 1), native groups began migrating south, and the first tribal Danes came to the country between the Pre-Roman and the Germanic Iron Age,[28] in the Roman Iron Age (AD 1–400).[27] The Roman provinces maintained trade routes and relations with native tribes in Denmark, and Roman coins have been found in Denmark. Evidence of strong Celtic cultural influence dates from this period in Denmark and much of North-West Europe and is among other things reflected in the finding of the Gundestrup cauldron.
+
+The tribal Danes came from the east Danish islands (Zealand) and Scania and spoke an early form of North Germanic. Historians believe that before their arrival, most of Jutland and the nearest islands were settled by tribal Jutes. The Jutes migrated to Great Britain eventually, some as mercenaries of Brythonic King Vortigern, and were granted the south-eastern territories of Kent, the Isle of Wight and other areas, where they settled. They were later absorbed or ethnically cleansed by the invading Angles and Saxons, who formed the Anglo-Saxons. The remaining Jutish population in Jutland assimilated in with the settling Danes.
+
+A short note about the Dani in "Getica" by the historian Jordanes is believed to be an early mention of the Danes, one of the ethnic groups from whom modern Danes are descended.[29][30] The Danevirke defence structures were built in phases from the 3rd century forward and the sheer size of the construction efforts in AD 737 are attributed to the emergence of a Danish king.[31] A new runic alphabet was first used around the same time and Ribe, the oldest town of Denmark, was founded about AD 700.
+
+From the 8th to the 10th century the wider Scandinavian region was the source of Vikings. They colonised, raided, and traded in all parts of Europe. The Danish Vikings were most active in the eastern and southern British Isles and Western Europe. They conquered and settled parts of England (known as the Danelaw) under King Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013, and France where Danes and Norwegians founded Normandy with Rollo as head of state. More Anglo-Saxon pence of this period have been found in Denmark than in England.[32]
+
+Denmark was largely consolidated by the late 8th century and its rulers are consistently referred to in Frankish sources as kings (reges). Under the reign of Gudfred in 804 the Danish kingdom may have included all the lands of Jutland, Scania and the Danish islands, excluding Bornholm.[33]
+The extant Danish monarchy traces its roots back to Gorm the Old, who established his reign in the early 10th century.[2] As attested by the Jelling stones, the Danes were Christianised around 965 by Harald Bluetooth, the son of Gorm. It is believed that Denmark became Christian for political reasons so as not to get invaded by the rising Christian power in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, which was an important trading area for the Danes. In that case, Harald built six fortresses around Denmark called Trelleborg and built a further Danevirke. In the early 11th century, Canute the Great won and united Denmark, England, and Norway for almost 30 years with a Scandinavian army.[32]
+
+Throughout the High and Late Middle Ages, Denmark also included Skåneland (the areas of Scania, Halland, and Blekinge in present-day south Sweden) and Danish kings ruled Danish Estonia, as well as the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Most of the latter two now form the state of Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany.
+
+In 1397, Denmark entered into a personal union with Norway and Sweden, united under Queen Margaret I.[34] The three countries were to be treated as equals in the union. However, even from the start, Margaret may not have been so idealistic—treating Denmark as the clear "senior" partner of the union.[35] Thus, much of the next 125 years of Scandinavian history revolves around this union, with Sweden breaking off and being re-conquered repeatedly. The issue was for practical purposes resolved on 17 June 1523, as Swedish King Gustav Vasa conquered the city of Stockholm. The Protestant Reformation spread to Scandinavia in the 1530s, and following the Count's Feud civil war, Denmark converted to Lutheranism in 1536. Later that year, Denmark entered into a union with Norway.
+
+After Sweden permanently broke away from the personal union, Denmark tried on several occasions to reassert control over its neighbour. King Christian IV attacked Sweden in the 1611–1613 Kalmar War but failed to accomplish his main objective of forcing it to return to the union. The war led to no territorial changes, but Sweden was forced to pay a war indemnity of 1 million silver riksdaler to Denmark, an amount known as the Älvsborg ransom.[36] King Christian used this money to found several towns and fortresses, most notably Glückstadt (founded as a rival to Hamburg) and Christiania. Inspired by the Dutch East India Company, he founded a similar Danish company and planned to claim Ceylon as a colony, but the company only managed to acquire Tranquebar on India's Coromandel Coast. Denmark's large colonial aspirations included a few key trading posts in Africa and India. While Denmark's trading posts in India were of little note, it played an important role in the highly lucrative transatlantic slave trade, through its trading outposts in Fort Cristiansborg in Osu, Ghana though which 1.5 million slaves were traded.[37] While the Danish colonial empire was sustained by trade with other major powers, and plantations – ultimately a lack of resources led to its stagnation.[38]
+
+In the Thirty Years' War, Christian tried to become the leader of the Lutheran states in Germany but suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Lutter.[39] The result was that the Catholic army under Albrecht von Wallenstein was able to invade, occupy, and pillage Jutland, forcing Denmark to withdraw from the war.[40] Denmark managed to avoid territorial concessions, but King Gustavus Adolphus' intervention in Germany was seen as a sign that the military power of Sweden was on the rise while Denmark's influence in the region was declining. Swedish armies invaded Jutland in 1643 and claimed Scania in 1644.
+
+In the 1645 Treaty of Brømsebro, Denmark surrendered Halland, Gotland, the last parts of Danish Estonia, and several provinces in Norway. In 1657, King Frederick III declared war on Sweden and marched on Bremen-Verden. This led to a massive Danish defeat and the armies of King Charles X Gustav of Sweden conquered Jutland, Funen, and much of Zealand before signing the Peace of Roskilde in February 1658, which gave Sweden control of Scania, Blekinge, Trøndelag, and the island of Bornholm. Charles X Gustav quickly regretted not having ruined Denmark and in August 1658, he began a two-year-long siege of Copenhagen but he failed to take the capital.[41] In the ensuing peace settlement, Denmark managed to maintain its independence and regain control of Trøndelag and Bornholm.
+
+Denmark tried but failed to regain control of Scania in the Scanian War (1675–1679). After the Great Northern War (1700–21), Denmark managed to regain control of the parts of Schleswig and Holstein ruled by the house of Holstein-Gottorp in the 1720 Treaty of Frederiksborg and the 1773 Treaty of Tsarskoye Selo, respectively. Denmark prospered greatly in the last decades of the 18th century due to its neutral status allowing it to trade with both sides in the many contemporary wars. In the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark traded with both France and the United Kingdom and joined the League of Armed Neutrality with Russia, Sweden, and Prussia.[42] The British considered this a hostile act and attacked Copenhagen in 1801 and 1807, in one case carrying off the Danish fleet, in the other, burning large parts of the Danish capital. This led to the so-called Danish-British Gunboat War. British control of the waterways between Denmark and Norway proved disastrous to the union's economy and in 1813 Denmark–Norway went bankrupt.
+
+The union was dissolved by the Treaty of Kiel in 1814; the Danish monarchy "irrevocably and forever" renounced claims to the Kingdom of Norway in favour of the Swedish king.[43] Denmark kept the possessions of Iceland (which retained the Danish monarchy until 1944), the Faroe Islands and Greenland, all of which had been governed by Norway for centuries.[44] Apart from the Nordic colonies, Denmark continued to rule over Danish India from 1620 to 1869, the Danish Gold Coast (Ghana) from 1658 to 1850, and the Danish West Indies from 1671 to 1917.
+
+A nascent Danish liberal and national movement gained momentum in the 1830s; after the European Revolutions of 1848, Denmark peacefully became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849. A new constitution established a two-chamber parliament. Denmark faced war against both Prussia and Austrian Empire in what became known as the Second Schleswig War, lasting from February to October 1864. Denmark was defeated and obliged to cede Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia. This loss came as the latest in the long series of defeats and territorial losses that had begun in the 17th century. After these events, Denmark pursued a policy of neutrality in Europe.
+
+Industrialisation came to Denmark in the second half of the 19th century.[45] The nation's first railways were constructed in the 1850s, and improved communications and overseas trade allowed industry to develop in spite of Denmark's lack of natural resources. Trade unions developed, starting in the 1870s. There was a considerable migration of people from the countryside to the cities, and Danish agriculture became centred on the export of dairy and meat products.
+
+Denmark maintained its neutral stance during World War I. After the defeat of Germany, the Versailles powers offered to return the region of Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark. Fearing German irredentism, Denmark refused to consider the return of the area without a plebiscite; the two Schleswig Plebiscites took place on 10 February and 14 March 1920, respectively. On 10 July 1920, Northern Schleswig was recovered by Denmark, thereby adding some 163,600 inhabitants and 3,984 square kilometres (1,538 sq mi). The country's first social democratic government took office in 1924.[46]
+
+In 1939 Denmark signed a 10-year non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany but Germany invaded Denmark on 9 April 1940 and the Danish government quickly surrendered. World War II in Denmark was characterised by economic co-operation with Germany until 1943, when the Danish government refused further co-operation and its navy scuttled most of its ships and sent many of its officers to Sweden, which was neutral. The Danish resistance performed a rescue operation that managed to evacuate several thousand Jews and their families to safety in Sweden before the Germans could send them to death camps. Some Danes supported Nazism by joining the Danish Nazi Party or volunteering to fight with Germany as part of the Frikorps Danmark.[47] Iceland severed ties with Denmark and became an independent republic in 1944; Germany surrendered in May 1945; in 1948, the Faroe Islands gained home rule; in 1949, Denmark became a founding member of NATO.
+
+Denmark was a founding member of European Free Trade Association (EFTA). During the 1960s, the EFTA countries were often referred to as the Outer Seven, as opposed to the Inner Six of what was then the European Economic Community (EEC).[48] In 1973, along with Britain and Ireland, Denmark joined the European Economic Community (now the European Union) after a public referendum. The Maastricht Treaty, which involved further European integration, was rejected by the Danish people in 1992; it was only accepted after a second referendum in 1993, which provided for four opt-outs from policies. The Danes rejected the euro as the national currency in a referendum in 2000. Greenland gained home rule in 1979 and was awarded self-determination in 2009. Neither the Faroe Islands nor Greenland are members of the European Union, the Faroese having declined membership of the EEC in 1973 and Greenland in 1986, in both cases because of fisheries policies.
+
+Constitutional change in 1953 led to a single-chamber parliament elected by proportional representation, female accession to the Danish throne, and Greenland becoming an integral part of Denmark. The centre-left Social Democrats led a string of coalition governments for most of the second half of the 20th century, introducing the Nordic welfare model. The Liberal Party and the Conservative People's Party have also led centre-right governments.
+
+Located in Northern Europe, Denmark[N 2] consists of the peninsula of Jutland and 443 named islands (1,419 islands above 100 square metres (1,100 sq ft) in total).[50] Of these, 74 are inhabited (January 2015),[51] with the largest being Zealand, the North Jutlandic Island, and Funen. The island of Bornholm is located east of the rest of the country, in the Baltic Sea. Many of the larger islands are connected by bridges; the Øresund Bridge connects Zealand with Sweden; the Great Belt Bridge connects Funen with Zealand; and the Little Belt Bridge connects Jutland with Funen. Ferries or small aircraft connect to the smaller islands. The four cities with populations over 100,000 are the capital Copenhagen on Zealand; Aarhus and Aalborg in Jutland; and Odense on Funen.
+
+The country occupies a total area of 42,924 square kilometres (16,573 sq mi), and land area of 42,394 square kilometres (16,368.4 sq mi),[3] the latter comparable to that of Estonia. The area of inland water is 700 km2 (270 sq mi), variously stated as from 500 – 700 km2 (193–270 sq mi). Lake Arresø northwest of Copenhagen is the largest lake. The size of the land area cannot be stated exactly since the ocean constantly erodes and adds material to the coastline, and because of human land reclamation projects (to counter erosion). Post-glacial rebound raises the land by a bit less than 1 cm (0.4 in) per year in the north and east, extending the coast. A circle enclosing the same area as Denmark would be 234 kilometres (145 miles) in diameter with a circumference of 736 km (457 mi) (land area only:232.33 km (144.36 mi) and 730 km (454 mi) respectively). It shares a border of 68 kilometres (42 mi) with Germany to the south and is otherwise surrounded by 8,750 km (5,437 mi) of tidal shoreline (including small bays and inlets).[52] No location in Denmark is farther from the coast than 52 km (32 mi). On the south-west coast of Jutland, the tide is between 1 and 2 m (3.28 and 6.56 ft), and the tideline moves outward and inward on a 10 km (6.2 mi) stretch.[53] Denmark's territorial waters total 105,000 square kilometres (40,541 square miles).
+
+Denmark's northernmost point is Skagen point (the north beach of the Skaw) at 57° 45' 7" northern latitude; the southernmost is Gedser point (the southern tip of Falster) at 54° 33' 35" northern latitude; the westernmost point is Blåvandshuk at 8° 4' 22" eastern longitude; and the easternmost point is Østerskær at 15° 11' 55" eastern longitude. This is in the small Ertholmene archipelago 18 kilometres (11 mi) north-east of Bornholm. The distance from east to west is 452 kilometres (281 mi), from north to south 368 kilometres (229 mi).
+
+The country is flat with little elevation, having an average height above sea level of 31 metres (102 ft). The highest natural point is Møllehøj, at 170.86 metres (560.56 ft).[54] A sizeable portion of Denmark's terrain consists of rolling plains whilst the coastline is sandy, with large dunes in northern Jutland. Although once extensively forested, today Denmark largely consists of arable land. It is drained by a dozen or so rivers, and the most significant include the Gudenå, Odense, Skjern, Suså and Vidå—a river that flows along its southern border with Germany.
+
+The Kingdom of Denmark includes two overseas territories, both well to the west of Denmark: Greenland, the world's largest island, and the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. These territories are self-governing and form part of the Danish Realm.
+
+Denmark has a temperate climate, characterised by mild winters, with mean temperatures in January of 1.5 °C (34.7 °F), and cool summers, with a mean temperature in August of 17.2 °C (63.0 °F).[55] The most extreme temperatures recorded in Denmark, since 1874 when recordings began, was 36.4 °C (97.5 °F) in 1975 and −31.2 °C (−24.2 °F) in 1982.[56] Denmark has an average of 179 days per year with precipitation, on average receiving a total of 765 millimetres (30 in) per year; autumn is the wettest season and spring the driest.[55] The position between a continent and an ocean means that the weather is often unstable.[57]
+
+Because of Denmark's northern location, there are large seasonal variations in daylight. There are short days during the winter with sunrise coming around 8:45 am and sunset 3:45 pm (standard time), as well as long summer days with sunrise at 4:30 am and sunset at 10 pm (daylight saving time).[58]
+
+Denmark belongs to the Boreal Kingdom and can be subdivided into two ecoregions: the Atlantic mixed forests and Baltic mixed forests.[59] Almost all of Denmark's primeval temperate forests have been destroyed or fragmented, chiefly for agricultural purposes during the last millennia.[60] The deforestation has created large swaths of heathland and devastating sand drifts.[60] In spite of this, there are several larger second growth woodlands in the country and, in total, 12.9% of the land is now forested.[61] Norway spruce is the most widespread tree (2017), being important in the production of Christmas trees.
+
+Roe deer occupy the countryside in growing numbers, and large-antlered red deer can be found in the sparse woodlands of Jutland. Denmark is also home to smaller mammals, such as polecats, hares and hedgehogs.[62] Approximately 400 bird species inhabit Denmark and about 160 of those breed in the country.[63] Large marine mammals include healthy populations of Harbour porpoise, growing numbers of pinnipeds and occasional visits of large whales, including blue whales and orcas. Cod, herring and plaice are abundant fish in Danish waters and form the basis for a large fishing industry.[64]
+
+Land and water pollution are two of Denmark's most significant environmental issues, although much of the country's household and industrial waste is now increasingly filtered and sometimes recycled. The country has historically taken a progressive stance on environmental preservation; in 1971 Denmark established a Ministry of Environment and was the first country in the world to implement an environmental law in 1973.[65] To mitigate environmental degradation and global warming the Danish Government has signed the Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol.[66] However, the national ecological footprint is 8.26 global hectares per person, which is very high compared to a world average of 1.7 in 2010.[67] Contributing factors to this value are an exceptional high value for cropland but also a relatively high value for grazing land,[68] which may be explained by the substantially high meat production in Denmark (115.8 kilograms (255 lb) meat annually per capita) and the large economic role of the meat and dairy industries.[69] In December 2014, the Climate Change Performance Index for 2015 placed Denmark at the top of the table, explaining that although emissions are still quite high, the country was able to implement effective climate protection policies.[70]
+
+Denmark has an outstanding performance in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) with an overall ranking of 4 out of 180 countries in 2016. This recent and significant increase in ranking and performance is mostly due to remarkable achievements in energy efficiency and reductions in CO2 emission levels. A future implementation of air quality improvements are expected. The EPI was established in 2001 by the World Economic Forum as a global gauge to measure how well individual countries perform in implementing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The environmental areas where Denmark performs best (i.e. lowest ranking) are sanitation (12), water resource management (13) and health impacts of environmental issues (14), followed closely by the area of biodiversity and habitat. The latter are due to the many protection laws and protected areas of significance within the country even though the EPI is not considering how well these laws and regulations are affecting the current biodiversity and habitats in reality; one of many weaknesses in the EPI.[71] Denmark performs worst (i.e. highest ranking) in the areas of environmental effects of fisheries (128)[72] and forest management (96). The very poor ranking in the fisheries area are due to alarmingly low and continually rapidly declining fish stocks, placing Denmark among the worst performing countries of the world.[73][74] Denmark's territories, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, catch approximately 650 whales per year.[75][76] Greenland's quotas for the catch of whales are determined according to the advice of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), having quota decision-making powers.[77]
+
+Denmark, with a total area of 43,094 square kilometres (16,639 sq mi), is divided into five administrative regions (Danish: regioner). The regions are further subdivided into 98 municipalities (kommuner). The easternmost land in Denmark, the Ertholmene archipelago, with an area of 39 hectares (0.16 sq mi), is neither part of a municipality nor a region but belongs to the Ministry of Defence.[78]
+
+The regions were created on 1 January 2007 to replace the 16 former counties. At the same time, smaller municipalities were merged into larger units, reducing the number from 270. Most municipalities have a population of at least 20,000 to give them financial and professional sustainability, although a few exceptions were made to this rule.[79] The administrative divisions are led by directly elected councils, elected proportionally every four years; the most recent Danish local elections were held on 21 November 2017. Other regional structures use the municipal boundaries as a layout, including the police districts, the court districts and the electoral wards.
+
+The governing bodies of the regions are the regional councils, each with forty-one councillors elected for four-year terms. The councils are headed by regional district chairmen (regionsrådsformanden), who are elected by the council.[80]
+The areas of responsibility for the regional councils are the national health service, social services and regional development.[80][81] Unlike the counties they replaced, the regions are not allowed to levy taxes and the health service is partly financed by a national health care contribution until 2018 (sundhedsbidrag), partly by funds from both government and municipalities.[19] From 1 January 2019 this contribution will be abolished, as it is being replaced by higher income tax instead.
+
+The area and populations of the regions vary widely; for example, the Capital Region, which encompasses the Copenhagen metropolitan area with the exception of the subtracted province East Zealand but includes the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm, has a population three times larger than that of North Denmark Region, which covers the more sparsely populated area of northern Jutland. Under the county system certain densely populated municipalities, such as Copenhagen Municipality and Frederiksberg, had been given a status equivalent to that of counties, making them first-level administrative divisions. These sui generis municipalities were incorporated into the new regions under the 2007 reforms.
+
+The Kingdom of Denmark is a unitary state that comprises, in addition to Denmark proper, two autonomous territories[11] in the North Atlantic Ocean: Greenland and the Faroe Islands. They have been integrated parts of the Danish Realm since the 18th century; however, due to their separate historical and cultural identities, these parts of the Realm have extensive political powers and have assumed legislative and administrative responsibility in a substantial number of fields.[82] Home rule was granted to the Faroe Islands in 1948 and to Greenland in 1979, each having previously had the status of counties.[83]
+
+Greenland and the Faroe Islands have their own home governments and parliaments and are effectively self-governing in regards to domestic affairs apart from the judicial system and monetary policy.[83] High Commissioners (Rigsombudsmand) act as representatives of the Danish government in the Faroese Løgting and in the Greenlandic Parliament, but they cannot vote.[83] The Faroese home government is defined to be an equal partner with the Danish national government,[84] while the Greenlandic people are defined as a separate people with the right to self-determination.[85]
+
+Politics in Denmark operate under a framework laid out in the Constitution of Denmark.[N 12] First written in 1849, it establishes a sovereign state in the form of a constitutional monarchy, with a representative parliamentary system. The monarch officially retains executive power and presides over the Council of State (privy council).[87][88] In practice, the duties of the monarch are strictly representative and ceremonial,[N 13][89] such as the formal appointment and dismissal of the Prime Minister and other Government ministers. The Monarch is not answerable for his or her actions, and their person is sacrosanct.[90] Hereditary monarch Queen Margrethe II has been head of state since 14 January 1972.
+
+The Danish parliament is unicameral and called the Folketing (Danish: Folketinget). It is the legislature of the Kingdom of Denmark, passing acts that apply in Denmark and, variably, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Folketing is also responsible for adopting the state's budgets, approving the state's accounts, appointing and exercising control of the Government, and taking part in international co-operation. Bills may be initiated by the Government or by members of parliament. All bills passed must be presented before the Council of State to receive Royal Assent within thirty days in order to become law.[91]
+
+Denmark is a representative democracy with universal suffrage.[N 14] Membership of the Folketing is based on proportional representation of political parties,[92] with a 2% electoral threshold. Danes elect 175 members to the Folketing, with Greenland and the Faroe Islands electing an additional two members each—179 members in total.[93] Parliamentary elections are held at least every four years, but it is within the powers of the prime minister to ask the monarch to call for an election before the term has elapsed. On a vote of no confidence, the Folketing may force a single minister or an entire government to resign.[94]
+
+The Government of Denmark operates as a cabinet government, where executive authority is exercised—formally, on behalf of the monarch—by the prime minister and other cabinet ministers, who head ministries. As the executive branch, the Cabinet is responsible for proposing bills and a budget, executing the laws, and guiding the foreign and internal policies of Denmark. The position of prime minister belongs to the person most likely to command the confidence of a majority in the Folketing; this is usually the current leader of the largest political party or, more effectively, through a coalition of parties. A single party generally does not have sufficient political power in terms of the number of seats to form a cabinet on its own; Denmark has often been ruled by coalition governments, themselves sometimes minority governments dependent on non-government parties.[95]
+
+Following a general election defeat, in June 2015 Helle Thorning-Schmidt, leader of the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterne), resigned as prime minister. She was succeeded by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the leader of the Liberal Party (Venstre). Rasmussen became the leader of a cabinet that, unusually, consisted entirely of ministers from his own party. Following the 2019 general election the left-wing coalition led by Social Democrats leader Mette Frederiksen formed a government.[96] Frederiksen became prime minister on 27 June 2019.
+
+Denmark has a civil law system with some references to Germanic law. Denmark resembles Norway and Sweden in never having developed a case-law like that of England and the United States nor comprehensive codes like those of France and Germany. Much of its law is customary.[97]
+
+The judicial system of Denmark is divided between courts with regular civil and criminal jurisdiction and administrative courts with jurisdiction over litigation between individuals and the public administration. Articles sixty-two and sixty-four of the Constitution ensure judicial independence from government and Parliament by providing that judges shall only be guided by the law, including acts, statutes and practice.[98] The Kingdom of Denmark does not have a single unified judicial system – Denmark has one system, Greenland another, and the Faroe Islands a third.[99] However, decisions by the highest courts in Greenland and the Faroe Islands may be appealed to the Danish High Courts. The Danish Supreme Court is the highest civil and criminal court responsible for the administration of justice in the Kingdom.
+
+Denmark wields considerable influence in Northern Europe and is a middle power in international affairs.[100] In recent years, Greenland and the Faroe Islands have been guaranteed a say in foreign policy issues such as fishing, whaling, and geopolitical concerns. The foreign policy of Denmark is substantially influenced by its membership of the European Union (EU); Denmark including Greenland joined the European Economic Community (EEC), the EU's predecessor, in 1973.[N 15] Denmark held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union on seven occasions, most recently from January to June 2012.[101] Following World War II, Denmark ended its two-hundred-year-long policy of neutrality. It has been a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1949, and membership remains highly popular.[102]
+
+As a member of Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Denmark has for a long time been among the countries of the world contributing the largest percentage of gross national income to development aid. In 2015, Denmark contributed 0.85% of its gross national income (GNI) to foreign aid and was one of only six countries meeting the longstanding UN target of 0.7% of GNI.[N 16][103] The country participates in both bilateral and multilateral aid, with the aid usually administered by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The organisational name of Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) is often used, in particular when operating bilateral aid.
+
+Denmark's armed forces are known as the Danish Defence (Danish: Forsvaret). The Minister of Defence is commander-in-chief of the Danish Defence, and serves as chief diplomatic official abroad. During peacetime, the Ministry of Defence employs around 33,000 in total. The main military branches employ almost 27,000: 15,460 in the Royal Danish Army, 5,300 in the Royal Danish Navy and 6,050 in the Royal Danish Air Force (all including conscripts).[citation needed] The Danish Emergency Management Agency employs 2,000 (including conscripts), and about 4,000 are in non-branch-specific services like the Danish Defence Command and the Danish Defence Intelligence Service. Furthermore, around 55,000 serve as volunteers in the Danish Home Guard.
+
+Denmark is a long-time supporter of international peacekeeping, but since the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the War in Afghanistan in 2001, Denmark has also found a new role as a warring nation, participating actively in several wars and invasions. This relatively new situation has stirred some internal critique, but the Danish population has generally been very supportive, in particular of the War in Afghanistan.[104][105] The Danish Defence has around 1,400[106] staff in international missions, not including standing contributions to NATO SNMCMG1. Danish forces were heavily engaged in the former Yugoslavia in the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR), with IFOR,[107] and now SFOR.[108] Between 2003 and 2007, there were approximately 450 Danish soldiers in Iraq.[109] Denmark also strongly supported American operations in Afghanistan and has contributed both monetarily and materially to the ISAF.[110] These initiatives are often described by the authorities as part of a new "active foreign policy" of Denmark.
+
+Denmark has a developed mixed economy that is classed as a high-income economy by the World Bank.[111] In 2017 it ranked 16th in the world in terms of gross national income (PPP) per capita and 10th in nominal GNI per capita.[112] Denmark's economy stands out as one of the most free in the Index of Economic Freedom and the Economic Freedom of the World.[113][114] It is the 10th most competitive economy in the world, and 6th in Europe, according to the World Economic Forum in its Global Competitiveness Report 2018.[115]
+
+Denmark has the fourth highest ratio of tertiary degree holders in the world.[116] The country ranks highest in the world for workers' rights.[117] GDP per hour worked was the 13th highest in 2009. The country has a market income inequality close to the OECD average,[118][119] but after taxes and public cash transfers the income inequality is considerably lower. According to Eurostat, Denmark's Gini coefficient for disposable income was the 7th-lowest among EU countries in 2017.[120]
+According to the International Monetary Fund, Denmark has the world's highest minimum wage.[121] As Denmark has no minimum wage legislation, the high wage floor has been attributed to the power of trade unions. For example, as the result of a collective bargaining agreement between the 3F trade union and the employers group Horesta, workers at McDonald's and other fast food chains make the equivalent of US$20 an hour, which is more than double what their counterparts earn in the United States, and have access to five weeks' paid vacation, parental leave and a pension plan.[122] Union density in 2015 was 68%.[123]
+
+Once a predominantly agricultural country on account of its arable landscape, since 1945 Denmark has greatly expanded its industrial base and service sector. By 2017 services contributed circa 75% of GDP, manufacturing about 15% and agriculture less than 2%.[125] Major industries include wind turbines, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, machinery and transportation equipment, food processing, and construction.[126] Circa 60% of the total export value is due to export of goods, and the remaining 40% is from service exports, mainly sea transport. The country's main export goods are: wind turbines, pharmaceuticals, machinery and instruments, meat and meat products, dairy products, fish, furniture and design.[126] Denmark is a net exporter of food and energy and has for a number of years had a balance of payments surplus which has transformed the country from a net debitor to a net creditor country. By 1 July 2018, the net international investment position (or net foreign assets) of Denmark was equal to 64.6% of GDP.[127]
+
+A liberalisation of import tariffs in 1797 marked the end of mercantilism and further liberalisation in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century established the Danish liberal tradition in international trade that was only to be broken by the 1930s.[128] Even when other countries, such as Germany and France, raised protection for their agricultural sector because of increased American competition resulting in much lower agricultural prices after 1870, Denmark retained its free trade policies, as the country profited from the cheap imports of cereals (used as feedstuffs for their cattle and pigs) and could increase their exports of butter and meat of which the prices were more stable.[129] Today, Denmark is part of the European Union's internal market, which represents more than 508 million consumers. Several domestic commercial policies are determined by agreements among European Union (EU) members and by EU legislation. Support for free trade is high among the Danish public; in a 2016 poll 57% responded saw globalisation as an opportunity whereas 18% viewed it as a threat.[130] 70% of trade flows are inside the European Union. As of 2017[update], Denmark's largest export partners are Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.[66]
+
+Denmark's currency, the krone (DKK), is pegged at approximately 7.46 kroner per euro through the ERM II. Although a September 2000 referendum rejected adopting the euro,[131] the country follows the policies set forth in the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union (EMU) and meets the economic convergence criteria needed to adopt the euro. The majority of the political parties in the Folketing support joining the EMU, but since 2010 opinion polls have consistently shown a clear majority against adopting the euro. In May 2018, 29% of respondents from Denmark in a Eurobarometer opinion poll stated that they were in favour of the EMU and the euro, whereas 65% were against it.[132]
+
+Ranked by turnover in Denmark, the largest Danish companies are: A.P. Møller-Mærsk (international shipping), Novo Nordisk (pharmaceuticals), ISS A/S (facility services), Vestas (wind turbines), Arla Foods (dairy), DSV (transport), Carlsberg Group (beer), Salling Group (retail), Ørsted A/S (power), Danske Bank.[133]
+
+Danes enjoy a high standard of living and the Danish economy is characterised by extensive government welfare provisions. Denmark has a corporate tax rate of 22% and a special time-limited tax regime for expatriates.[134] The Danish taxation system is broad based, with a 25% value-added tax, in addition to excise taxes, income taxes and other fees. The overall level of taxation (sum of all taxes, as a percentage of GDP) was 46% in 2017.[135] The tax structure of Denmark (the relative weight of different taxes) differs from the OECD average, as the Danish tax system in 2015 was characterized by substantially higher revenues from taxes on personal income and a lower proportion of revenues from taxes on corporate income and gains and property taxes than in OECD generally, whereas no revenues at all derive from social security contributions. The proportion deriving from payroll taxes, VAT, and other taxes on goods and services correspond to the OECD average[136]
+
+As of 2014[update], 6% of the population was reported to live below the poverty line, when adjusted for taxes and transfers. Denmark has the 2nd lowest relative poverty rate in the OECD, below the 11.3% OECD average.[137] The share of the population reporting that they feel that they cannot afford to buy sufficient food in Denmark is less than half of the OECD average.[137]
+
+Like other Nordic countries, Denmark has adopted the Nordic Model, which combines free market capitalism with a comprehensive welfare state and strong worker protection.[138] As a result of its acclaimed "flexicurity" model, Denmark has the freest labour market in Europe, according to the World Bank. Employers can hire and fire whenever they want (flexibility), and between jobs, unemployment compensation is relatively high (security). According to OECD, initial as well as long-term net replacement rates for unemployed persons were 65% of previous net income in 2016, against an OECD average of 53%.[139] Establishing a business can be done in a matter of hours and at very low costs.[140] No restrictions apply regarding overtime work, which allows companies to operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.[141] With an employment rate in 2017 of 74.2% for people aged 15–64-years, Denmark ranks 9th highest among the OECD countries, and above the OECD average of 67.8%.[142] The unemployment rate was 5.7% in 2017,[143] which is considered close to or below its structural level.[144]
+
+The level of unemployment benefits is dependent on former employment and normally on membership of an unemployment fund, which is usually closely connected to a trade union, and previous payment of contributions. Circa 65% of the financing comes from earmarked member contributions, whereas the remaining third originates from the central government and hence ultimately from general taxation.[145]
+
+Denmark has a long tradition of scientific and technological invention and engagement, and has been involved internationally from the very start of the scientific revolution. In current times, Denmark is participating in many high-profile international science and technology projects, including CERN, ITER, ESA, ISS and E-ELT.
+
+In the 20th century, Danes have also been innovative in several fields of the technology sector. Danish companies have been influential in the shipping industry with the design of the largest and most energy efficient container ships in the world, the Maersk Triple E class, and Danish engineers have contributed to the design of MAN Diesel engines. In the software and electronic field, Denmark contributed to design and manufacturing of Nordic Mobile Telephones, and the now-defunct Danish company DanCall was among the first to develop GSM mobile phones.
+
+Life science is a key sector with extensive research and development activities. Danish engineers are world-leading in providing diabetes care equipment and medication products from Novo Nordisk and, since 2000, the Danish biotech company Novozymes, the world market leader in enzymes for first generation starch based bioethanol, has pioneered development of enzymes for converting waste to cellulosic ethanol.[147] Medicon Valley, spanning the Øresund Region between Zealand and Sweden, is one of Europe's largest life science clusters, containing a large number of life science companies and research institutions located within a very small geographical area.
+
+Danish-born computer scientists and software engineers have taken leading roles in some of the world's programming languages: Anders Hejlsberg (Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C#); Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP); Bjarne Stroustrup (C++); David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby on Rails); Lars Bak, a pioneer in virtual machines (V8, Java VM, Dart). Physicist Lene Vestergaard Hau is the first person to stop light, leading to advances in quantum computing, nanoscale engineering and linear optics.
+
+Denmark has considerably large deposits of oil and natural gas in the North Sea and ranks as number 32 in the world among net exporters of crude oil[148] and was producing 259,980 barrels of crude oil a day in 2009.[149] Denmark is a long-time leader in wind power: In 2015 wind turbines provided 42.1% of the total electricity consumption.[150] In May 2011[update] Denmark derived 3.1% of its gross domestic product from renewable (clean) energy technology and energy efficiency, or around €6.5 billion ($9.4 billion).[151] Denmark is connected by electric transmission lines to other European countries.
+
+Denmark's electricity sector has integrated energy sources such as wind power into the national grid. Denmark now aims to focus on intelligent battery systems (V2G) and plug-in vehicles in the transport sector.[152] The country is a member nation of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).[153]
+
+Denmark exported roughly 460 million GJ of energy in 2018.[154]
+
+Significant investment has been made in building road and rail links between regions in Denmark, most notably the Great Belt Fixed Link, which connects Zealand and Funen. It is now possible to drive from Frederikshavn in northern Jutland to Copenhagen on eastern Zealand without leaving the motorway. The main railway operator is DSB for passenger services and DB Schenker Rail for freight trains. The railway tracks are maintained by Banedanmark. The North Sea and the Baltic Sea are intertwined by various, international ferry links. Construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, connecting Denmark and Germany with a second link, will start in 2015.[156] Copenhagen has a rapid transit system, the Copenhagen Metro, and an extensive electrified suburban railway network, the S-train. In the four largest cities – Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense, Aalborg – light rail systems are planned to be in operation around 2020.[157]
+
+Cycling in Denmark is a very common form of transport, particularly for the young and for city dwellers. With a network of bicycle routes extending more than 12,000 km[158] and an estimated 7,000 km[159] of segregated dedicated bicycle paths and lanes, Denmark has a solid bicycle infrastructure.
+
+Private vehicles are increasingly used as a means of transport. Because of the high registration tax (150%), VAT (25%), and one of the world's highest income tax rates, new cars are very expensive. The purpose of the tax is to discourage car ownership.
+In 2007, an attempt was made by the government to favour environmentally friendly cars by slightly reducing taxes on high mileage vehicles. However, this has had little effect, and in 2008 Denmark experienced an increase in the import of fuel inefficient old cars,[160] as the cost for older cars—including taxes—keeps them within the budget of many Danes.
+As of 2011[update], the average car age is 9.2 years.[161]
+
+With Norway and Sweden, Denmark is part of the Scandinavian Airlines flag carrier. Copenhagen Airport is Scandinavia's busiest passenger airport, handling over 25 million passengers in 2014.[155] Other notable airports are Billund Airport, Aalborg Airport, and Aarhus Airport.
+
+Population by ancestry (Q2 2020):[12]
+
+The population of Denmark, as registered by Statistics Denmark, was 5.825 million in April 2020.[12] Denmark has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 41.9 years,[162] with 0.97 males per female. Despite a low birth rate, the population is growing at an average annual rate of 0.59%[126] because of net immigration and increasing longevity. The World Happiness Report frequently ranks Denmark's population as the happiest in the world.[163][164][165] This has been attributed to the country's highly regarded education and health care systems,[166] and its low level of income inequality.[167]
+
+Denmark is a historically homogeneous nation.[168] However, as with its Scandinavian neighbours, Denmark has recently transformed from a nation of net emigration, up until World War II, to a nation of net immigration. Today, residence permits are issued mostly to immigrants from other EU countries (54% of all non-Scandinavian immigrants in 2017). Another 31% of residence permits were study- or work-related, 4% were issued to asylum seekers and 10% to persons who arrive as family dependants.[169] Overall, the net migration rate in 2017 was 2.1 migrant(s)/1,000 population, somewhat lower than the United Kingdom and the other Nordic countries.[126][170][171]
+
+There are no official statistics on ethnic groups, but according to 2018 figures from Statistics Denmark, 86.7% of the population was of Danish descent, defined as having at least one parent who was born in Denmark and has Danish citizenship.[12][N 6] The remaining 13.3% were of foreign background, defined as immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. With the same definition, the most common countries of origin were Turkey, Poland, Syria, Germany, Iraq, Romania, Lebanon, Pakistan, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Somalia.[12]
+
+Copenhagen
+Aarhus
+
+Odense
+Aalborg
+
+Danish is the de facto national language of Denmark.[172] Faroese and Greenlandic are the official languages of the Faroe Islands and Greenland respectively.[172] German is a recognised minority language in the area of the former South Jutland County (now part of the Region of Southern Denmark), which was part of the German Empire prior to the Treaty of Versailles.[172] Danish and Faroese belong to the North Germanic (Nordic) branch of the Indo-European languages, along with Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish.[173] There is a limited degree of mutual intelligibility between Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. Danish is more distantly related to German, which is a West Germanic language. Greenlandic or "Kalaallisut" belongs to the Eskimo–Aleut languages; it is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut, and entirely unrelated to Danish.[173]
+
+A large majority (86%) of Danes speak English as a second language,[174] generally with a high level of proficiency. German is the second-most spoken foreign language, with 47% reporting a conversational level of proficiency.[172] Denmark had 25,900 native speakers of German in 2007 (mostly in the South Jutland area).[172]
+
+Christianity is the dominant religion in Denmark. In January 2020, 74.3%[182] of the population of Denmark were members of the Church of Denmark (Den Danske Folkekirke), the officially established church, which is Protestant in classification and Lutheran in orientation.[183][N 17] The membership percentage have been in steadily decline since the 1970's, mainly as fewer newborns are being baptized into it.[184] Only 3% of the population regularly attend Sunday services[185][186] and only 19% of Danes consider religion to be an important part of their life.[187]
+
+The Constitution states that the sovereign must have the Lutheran faith, though the rest of the population is free to adhere to other faiths.[188][189][190] In 1682 the state granted limited recognition to three religious groups dissenting from the Established Church: Roman Catholicism, the Reformed Church and Judaism,[190] although conversion to these groups from the Church of Denmark remained illegal initially. Until the 1970s, the state formally recognised "religious societies" by royal decree. Today, religious groups do not need official government recognition, they can be granted the right to perform weddings and other ceremonies without this recognition.[190] Denmark's Muslims make up approximately 5.3% of the population and form the country's second largest religious community and largest minority religion.[191] The Danish Foreign Ministry estimates that other religious groups comprise less than 1% of the population individually and approximately 2% when taken all together.[192]
+
+According to a 2010 Eurobarometer Poll,[193] 28% of Danish citizens polled responded that they "believe there is a God", 47% responded that they "believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 24% responded that they "do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force". Another poll, carried out in 2009, found that 25% of Danes believe Jesus is the son of God, and 18% believe he is the saviour of the world.[194]
+
+All educational programmes in Denmark are regulated by the Ministry of Education and administered by local municipalities. Folkeskole covers the entire period of compulsory education, encompassing primary and lower secondary education.[195] Most children attend folkeskole for 10 years, from the ages of 6 to 16. There are no final examinations, but pupils can choose to sit an exam when finishing ninth grade (14–15 years old). The test is obligatory if further education is to be attended. Alternatively pupils can attend an independent school (friskole), or a private school (privatskole), such as Christian schools or Waldorf schools.
+
+Following graduation from compulsory education, there are several continuing educational opportunities; the Gymnasium (STX) attaches importance in teaching a mix of humanities and science, Higher Technical Examination Programme (HTX) focuses on scientific subjects and the Higher Commercial Examination Programme emphasises on subjects in economics. Higher Preparatory Examination (HF) is similar to Gymnasium (STX), but is one year shorter. For specific professions, there is vocational education, training young people for work in specific trades by a combination of teaching and apprenticeship.
+
+The government records upper secondary school completion rates of 95% and tertiary enrollment and completion rates of 60%.[196] All university and college (tertiary) education in Denmark is free of charges; there are no tuition fees to enrol in courses. Students aged 18 or above may apply for state educational support grants, known as Statens Uddannelsesstøtte (SU), which provides fixed financial support, disbursed monthly.[197] Danish universities offer international students a range of opportunities for obtaining an internationally recognised qualification in Denmark. Many programmes may be taught in the English language, the academic lingua franca, in bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, doctorates and student exchange programmes.[198]
+
+As of 2015[update], Denmark has a life expectancy of 80.6 years at birth (78.6 for men, 82.5 for women), up from 76.9 years in 2000.[199] This ranks it 27th among 193 nations, behind the other Nordic countries. The National Institute of Public Health of the University of Southern Denmark has calculated 19 major risk factors among Danes that contribute to a lowering of the life expectancy; this includes smoking, alcohol, drug abuse and physical inactivity.[200] Although the obesity rate is lower than in North America and most other European countries,[201] the large number of Danes becoming overweight is an increasing problem and results in an annual additional consumption in the health care system of DKK 1,625 million.[200] In a 2012 study, Denmark had the highest cancer rate of all countries listed by the World Cancer Research Fund International; researchers suggest the reasons are better reporting, but also lifestyle factors like heavy alcohol consumption, smoking and physical inactivity.[202][203]
+
+Denmark has a universal health care system, characterised by being publicly financed through taxes and, for most of the services, run directly by the regional authorities. One of the sources of income is a national health care contribution (sundhedsbidrag) (2007–11:8%; '12:7%; '13:6%; '14:5%; '15:4%; '16:3%; '17:2%; '18:1%; '19:0%) but it is being phased out and will be gone from January 2019, with the income taxes in the lower brackets being raised gradually each year instead.[19] Another source comes from the municipalities that had their income taxes raised by 3 percentage points from 1 January 2007, a contribution confiscated from the former county tax to be used from 1 January 2007 for health purposes by the municipalities instead. This means that most health care provision is free at the point of delivery for all residents. Additionally, roughly two in five have complementary private insurance to cover services not fully covered by the state, such as physiotherapy.[204] As of 2012[update], Denmark spends 11.2% of its GDP on health care; this is up from 9.8% in 2007 (US$3,512 per capita).[204] This places Denmark above the OECD average and above the other Nordic countries.[204][205]
+
+Denmark is the only country to officially use the word 'ghetto' in the 21st century to denote certain residential areas.[206] Since 2010, the Danish Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing publishes the ghettolisten (List of ghettos) which in 2018 consists of 25 areas.[206][207] As a result, the term is widely used in the media and common parlance.[208] The legal designation is applied to areas based on the residents' income levels, employment status, education levels, criminal convictions and 'non-Western' ethnic background.[207][208][209] In 2017, 8.7% of Denmark's population consisted of non-Western immigrants or their descendants. The population proportion of 'ghetto residents' with non-Western background was 66.5%.[210] In 2018, the government has proposed measures to solve the issue of integration and to rid the country of parallel societies and ghettos by 2030.[209][210][211][212] The measures focus on physical redevelopment, control over who is allowed to live in these areas, crime abatement and education.[207] These policies have been criticized for undercutting 'equality before law' and for portraying immigrants, especially Muslim immigrants, in a bad light.[207][213] While some proposals like restricting 'ghetto children' to their homes after 8 p.m. have been rejected for being too radical, most of the 22 proposals have been agreed upon by a parliamentary majority.[206][208]
+
+Denmark shares strong cultural and historic ties with its Scandinavian neighbours Sweden and Norway. It has historically been one of the most socially progressive cultures in the world. In 1969, Denmark was the first country to legalise pornography,[214] and in 2012, Denmark replaced its "registered partnership" laws, which it had been the first country to introduce in 1989,[215][216] with gender-neutral marriage, and allowed same-sex marriages to be performed in the Church of Denmark.[217][218] Modesty and social equality are important parts of Danish culture.[219] In a 2016 study comparing empathy scores of 63 countries, Denmark ranked 4th world-wide having the highest empathy among surveyed European countries.[220]
+
+The astronomical discoveries of Tycho Brahe (1546–1601), Ludwig A. Colding's (1815–1888) neglected articulation of the principle of conservation of energy, and the contributions to atomic physics of Niels Bohr (1885–1962) indicate the range of Danish scientific achievement. The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875), the philosophical essays of Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), the short stories of Karen Blixen (penname Isak Dinesen), (1885–1962), the plays of Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), and the dense, aphoristic poetry of Piet Hein (1905–1996), have earned international recognition, as have the symphonies of Carl Nielsen (1865–1931). From the mid-1990s, Danish films have attracted international attention, especially those associated with Dogme 95 like those of Lars von Trier.
+
+A major feature of Danish culture is Jul (Danish Christmas). The holiday is celebrated throughout December, starting either at the beginning of Advent or on 1 December with a variety of traditions, culminating with the Christmas Eve meal.
+
+There are five Danish heritage sites inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in Northern Europe: Christiansfeld, a Moravian Church Settlement, the Jelling Mounds (Runic Stones and Church), Kronborg Castle, Roskilde Cathedral, and The par force hunting landscape in North Zealand.[221]
+
+Danish mass media date back to the 1540s, when handwritten fly sheets reported on the news. In 1666, Anders Bording, the father of Danish journalism, began a state paper. In 1834, the first liberal, factual newspaper appeared, and the 1849 Constitution established lasting freedom of the press in Denmark. Newspapers flourished in the second half of the 19th century, usually tied to one or another political party or trade union. Modernisation, bringing in new features and mechanical techniques, appeared after 1900. The total circulation was 500,000 daily in 1901, more than doubling to 1.2 million in 1925.[222] The German occupation during World War II brought informal censorship; some offending newspaper buildings were simply blown up by the Nazis. During the war, the underground produced 550 newspapers—small, surreptitiously printed sheets that encouraged sabotage and resistance.[222]
+
+Danish cinema dates back to 1897 and since the 1980s has maintained a steady stream of productions due largely to funding by the state-supported Danish Film Institute. There have been three big internationally important waves of Danish cinema: erotic melodrama of the silent era; the increasingly explicit sex films of the 1960s and 1970s; and lastly, the Dogme 95 movement of the late 1990s, where directors often used hand-held cameras to dynamic effect in a conscious reaction against big-budget studios. Danish films have been noted for their realism, religious and moral themes, sexual frankness and technical innovation. The Danish filmmaker Carl Th. Dreyer (1889–1968) is considered one of the greatest directors of early cinema.[223][224]
+
+Other Danish filmmakers of note include Erik Balling, the creator of the popular Olsen-banden films; Gabriel Axel, an Oscar-winner for Babette's Feast in 1987; and Bille August, the Oscar-, Palme d'Or- and Golden Globe-winner for Pelle the Conqueror in 1988. In the modern era, notable filmmakers in Denmark include Lars von Trier, who co-created the Dogme movement, and multiple award-winners Susanne Bier and Nicolas Winding Refn. Mads Mikkelsen is a world-renowned Danish actor, having starred in films such as King Arthur, Casino Royale, the Danish film The Hunt, and the American TV series Hannibal. Another renowned Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is internationally known for playing the role of Jaime Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
+
+Danish mass media and news programming are dominated by a few large corporations. In printed media JP/Politikens Hus and Berlingske Media, between them, control the largest newspapers Politiken, Berlingske Tidende and Jyllands-Posten and major tabloids B.T. and Ekstra Bladet. In television, publicly owned stations DR and TV 2 have large shares of the viewers.[225] DR in particular is famous for its high quality TV-series often sold to foreign broadcasters and often with leading female characters like internationally known actresses Sidse Babett Knudsen and Sofie Gråbøl. In radio, DR has a near monopoly, currently broadcasting on all four nationally available FM channels, competing only with local stations.[226]
+
+Denmark and its multiple outlying islands have a wide range of folk traditions. The country's famous classical composer is Carl Nielsen, especially remembered for his six symphonies and his Wind Quintet, while the Royal Danish Ballet specialises in the work of the Danish choreographer August Bournonville. The Royal Danish Orchestra is among the world's oldest orchestras.[227] Danes have distinguished themselves as jazz musicians, and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival has acquired international recognition. The modern pop and rock scene has produced a few names of international fame, including Aqua, Alphabeat, D-A-D, King Diamond, Kashmir, Lukas Graham, Mew, Michael Learns to Rock, MØ, Oh Land, The Raveonettes and Volbeat, among others. Lars Ulrich, the drummer of the band Metallica, has become the first Danish musician to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
+
+Roskilde Festival near Copenhagen is the largest music festival in Northern Europe since 1971 and Denmark has many recurring music festivals of all genres throughout, including Aarhus International Jazz Festival, Skanderborg Festival, The Blue Festival in Aalborg, Esbjerg International Chamber Music Festival and Skagen Festival among many others.[228][229]
+
+Denmark has been a part of the Eurovision Song Contest since 1957. Denmark has won the contest three times, in 1963, 2000 and 2013.
+
+Denmark's architecture became firmly established in the Middle Ages when first Romanesque, then Gothic churches and cathedrals sprang up throughout the country. From the 16th century, Dutch and Flemish designers were brought to Denmark, initially to improve the country's fortifications, but increasingly to build magnificent royal castles and palaces in the Renaissance style.
+During the 17th century, many impressive buildings were built in the Baroque style, both in the capital and the provinces. Neoclassicism from France was slowly adopted by native Danish architects who increasingly participated in defining architectural style. A productive period of Historicism ultimately merged into the 19th-century National Romantic style.[230]
+
+The 20th century brought along new architectural styles; including expressionism, best exemplified by the designs of architect Peder Vilhelm Jensen-Klint, which relied heavily on Scandinavian brick Gothic traditions; and Nordic Classicism, which enjoyed brief popularity in the early decades of the century. It was in the 1960s that Danish architects such as Arne Jacobsen entered the world scene with their highly successful Functionalist architecture. This, in turn, has evolved into more recent world-class masterpieces including Jørn Utzon's Sydney Opera House and Johan Otto von Spreckelsen's Grande Arche de la Défense in Paris, paving the way for a number of contemporary Danish designers such as Bjarke Ingels to be rewarded for excellence both at home and abroad.[231]
+
+Danish design is a term often used to describe a style of functionalistic design and architecture that was developed in the mid-20th century, originating in Denmark. Danish design is typically applied to industrial design, furniture and household objects, which have won many international awards. The Royal Porcelain Factory is famous for the quality of its ceramics and export products worldwide. Danish design is also a well-known brand, often associated with world-famous, 20th-century designers and architects such as Børge Mogensen, Finn Juhl, Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen, Poul Henningsen and Verner Panton.[232] Other designers of note include Kristian Solmer Vedel (1923–2003) in the area of industrial design, Jens Quistgaard (1919–2008) for kitchen furniture and implements and Ole Wanscher (1903–1985) who had a classical approach to furniture design.
+
+The first known Danish literature is myths and folklore from the 10th and 11th century. Saxo Grammaticus, normally considered the first Danish writer, worked for bishop Absalon on a chronicle of Danish history (Gesta Danorum). Very little is known of other Danish literature from the Middle Ages. With the Age of Enlightenment came Ludvig Holberg whose comedy plays are still being performed.
+
+In the late 19th century, literature was seen as a way to influence society. Known as the Modern Breakthrough, this movement was championed by Georg Brandes, Henrik Pontoppidan (awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature) and J. P. Jacobsen. Romanticism influenced the renowned writer and poet Hans Christian Andersen, known for his stories and fairy tales, e.g. The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen. In recent history Johannes Vilhelm Jensen was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Karen Blixen is famous for her novels and short stories. Other Danish writers of importance are Herman Bang, Gustav Wied, William Heinesen, Martin Andersen Nexø, Piet Hein, Hans Scherfig, Klaus Rifbjerg, Dan Turèll, Tove Ditlevsen, Inger Christensen and Peter Høeg.
+
+Danish philosophy has a long tradition as part of Western philosophy. Perhaps the most influential Danish philosopher was Søren Kierkegaard, the creator of Christian existentialism. Kierkegaard had a few Danish followers, including Harald Høffding, who later in his life moved on to join the movement of positivism. Among Kierkegaard's other followers include Jean-Paul Sartre who was impressed with Kierkegaard's views on the individual, and Rollo May, who helped create humanistic psychology. Another Danish philosopher of note is Grundtvig, whose philosophy gave rise to a new form of non-aggressive nationalism in Denmark, and who is also influential for his theological and historical works.
+
+While Danish art was influenced over the centuries by trends in Germany and the Netherlands, the 15th and 16th century church frescos, which can be seen in many of the country's older churches, are of particular interest as they were painted in a style typical of native Danish painters.[233]
+
+The Danish Golden Age, which began in the first half of the 19th century, was inspired by a new feeling of nationalism and romanticism, typified in the later previous century by history painter Nicolai Abildgaard. Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg was not only a productive artist in his own right but taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where his students included notable painters such as Wilhelm Bendz, Christen Købke, Martinus Rørbye, Constantin Hansen, and Wilhelm Marstrand.
+
+In 1871, Holger Drachmann and Karl Madsen visited Skagen in the far north of Jutland where they quickly built up one of Scandinavia's most successful artists' colonies specialising in Naturalism and Realism rather than in the traditional approach favoured by the Academy. Hosted by Michael and his wife Anna, they were soon joined by P.S. Krøyer, Carl Locher and Laurits Tuxen. All participated in painting the natural surroundings and local people.[234] Similar trends developed on Funen with the Fynboerne who included Johannes Larsen, Fritz Syberg and Peter Hansen,[235] and on the island of Bornholm with the Bornholm school of painters including Niels Lergaard, Kræsten Iversen and Oluf Høst.[236]
+
+Painting has continued to be a prominent form of artistic expression in Danish culture, inspired by and also influencing major international trends in this area. These include impressionism and the modernist styles of expressionism, abstract painting and surrealism. While international co-operation and activity has almost always been essential to the Danish artistic community, influential art collectives with a firm Danish base includes De Tretten (1909–1912), Linien (1930s and 1940s), COBRA (1948–1951), Fluxus (1960s and 1970s), De Unge Vilde (1980s) and more recently Superflex (founded in 1993). Most Danish painters of modern times have also been very active with other forms of artistic expressions, such as sculpting, ceramics, art installations, activism, film and experimental architecture. Notable Danish painters from modern times representing various art movements include Theodor Philipsen (1840–1920, impressionism and naturalism), Anna Klindt Sørensen (1899–1985, expressionism), Franciska Clausen (1899–1986, Neue Sachlichkeit, cubism, surrealism and others), Henry Heerup (1907–1993, naivism), Robert Jacobsen (1912–1993, abstract painting), Carl Henning Pedersen (1913–2007, abstract painting), Asger Jorn (1914–1973, Situationist, abstract painting), Bjørn Wiinblad (1918–2006, art deco, orientalism), Per Kirkeby (b. 1938, neo-expressionism, abstract painting), Per Arnoldi (b. 1941, pop art), Michael Kvium (b. 1955, neo-surrealism) and Simone Aaberg Kærn (b. 1969, superrealism).
+
+Danish photography has developed from strong participation and interest in the very beginnings of the art of photography in 1839 to the success of a considerable number of Danes in the world of photography today. Pioneers such as Mads Alstrup and Georg Emil Hansen paved the way for a rapidly growing profession during the last half of the 19th century. Today Danish photographers such as Astrid Kruse Jensen and Jacob Aue Sobol are active both at home and abroad, participating in key exhibitions around the world.[237]
+
+The traditional cuisine of Denmark, like that of the other Nordic countries and of Northern Germany, consists mainly of meat, fish and potatoes. Danish dishes are highly seasonal, stemming from the country's agricultural past, its geography, and its climate of long, cold winters.
+
+The open sandwiches on rye bread, known as smørrebrød, which in their basic form are the usual fare for lunch, can be considered a national speciality when prepared and decorated with a variety of fine ingredients. Hot meals traditionally consist of ground meats, such as frikadeller (meat balls of veal and pork) and hakkebøf (minced beef patties), or of more substantial meat and fish dishes such as flæskesteg (roast pork with crackling) and kogt torsk (poached cod) with mustard sauce and trimmings. Denmark is known for its Carlsberg and Tuborg beers and for its akvavit and bitters.
+
+Since around 1970, chefs and restaurants across Denmark have introduced gourmet cooking, largely influenced by French cuisine. Also inspired by continental practices, Danish chefs have recently developed a new innovative cuisine and a series of gourmet dishes based on high-quality local produce known as New Danish cuisine.[238] As a result of these developments, Denmark now have a considerable number of internationally acclaimed restaurants of which several have been awarded Michelin stars. This includes Geranium and Noma in Copenhagen.
+
+Sports are popular in Denmark, and its citizens participate in and watch a wide variety. The national sport is football, with over 320,000 players in more than 1600 clubs.[239] Denmark qualified six times consecutively for the European Championships between 1984 and 2004, and were crowned European champions in 1992; other significant achievements include winning the Confederations Cup in 1995 and reaching the quarter-final of the 1998 World Cup. Notable Danish footballers include Allan Simonsen, named the best player in Europe in 1977, Peter Schmeichel, named the "World's Best Goalkeeper" in 1992 and 1993, and Michael Laudrup, named the best Danish player of all time by the Danish Football Union.[240]
+
+There is much focus on handball, too. The women's national team celebrated great successes during the 1990s and has won a total of 13 medals - seven gold (in 1994, 1996 (2), 1997, 2000, 2002 and 2004), four silver (in 1962, 1993, 1998 and 2004) and two bronze (in 1995 and 2013). On the men's side, Denmark has won 12 medals—four gold (in 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019), four silver (in 1967, 2011, 2013 and 2014) and four bronze (in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2007)—the most that have been won by any team in European Handball Championship history.[241] In 2019, the Danish men's national handball team won their first World Championship title in the tournament that was co-hosted between Germany and Denmark.[citation needed]
+
+In recent years, Denmark has made a mark as a strong cycling nation, with Michael Rasmussenreaching King of the Mountains status in the Tour de France in 2005 and 2006. Other popular sports include golf—which is mostly popular among those in the older demographic;[242] tennis—in which Denmark is successful on a professional level; basketball—Denmark joined the international governing body FIBA in 1951;[243] rugby—the Danish Rugby Union dates back to 1950;[244] hockey— often competing in the top division in the Men's World Championships; rowing—Denmark specialise in lightweight rowing and are particularly known for their lightweight coxless four, having won six gold and two silver World Championship medals and three gold and two bronze Olympic medals; and several indoor sports—especially badminton, table tennis and gymnastics, in each of which Denmark holds World Championships and Olympic medals. Denmark's numerous beaches and resorts are popular locations for fishing, canoeing, kayaking, and many other water-themed sports.

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+
+
+Copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of a creative work, usually for a limited time.[1][2][3][4][5] The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself.[6][7][8] A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
+
+Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders.[citation needed][9][10][11][12] These rights frequently include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.[13]
+
+Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered "territorial rights". This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state, do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works "cross" national borders or national rights are inconsistent.[14]
+
+Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities[5] to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration.
+
+The concept of copyright developed after the printing press came into use in Europe[15] in the 15th and 16th centuries.[16] The printing press made it much cheaper to produce works, but as there was initially no copyright law, anyone could buy or rent a press and print any text. Popular new works were immediately re-set and re-published by competitors, so printers needed a constant stream of new material. Fees paid to authors for new works were high, and significantly supplemented the incomes of many academics.[17]
+
+Printing brought profound social changes. The rise in literacy across Europe led to a dramatic increase in the demand for reading matter.[15] Prices of reprints were low, so publications could be bought by poorer people, creating a mass audience.[17] In German language markets before the advent of copyright, technical materials, like popular fiction, were inexpensive and widely available; it has been suggested this contributed to Germany's industrial and economic success.[17]  After copyright law became established (in 1710 in England and Scotland, and in the 1840s in German-speaking areas) the low-price mass market vanished, and fewer, more expensive editions were published; distribution of scientific and technical information was greatly reduced.[17][18]
+
+The concept of copyright first developed in England. In reaction to the printing of "scandalous books and pamphlets", the English Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act 1662,[15] which required all intended publications to be registered with the government-approved Stationers' Company, giving the Stationers the right to regulate what material could be printed.[19]
+
+The Statute of Anne, enacted in 1710 in England and Scotland provided the first legislation to protect copyrights (but not authors' rights). The Copyright Act of 1814 extended more rights for authors but did not protect British from reprinting in the US. The Berne International Copyright Convention of 1886 finally provided protection for authors among the countries who signed the agreement, although the US did not join the Berne Convention until 1989.[20]
+
+In the US, the Constitution grants Congress the right to establish copyright and patent laws. Shortly after the Constitution was passed, Congress enacted the Copyright Act of 1790, modeling it after the Statute of Anne. While the national law protected authors’ published works, authority was granted to the states to protect authors’ unpublished works. The most recent major overhaul of copyright in the US, the 1976 Copyright Act, extended federal copyright to works as soon as they are created and "fixed", without requiring publication or registration. State law continues to apply to unpublished works that are not otherwise copyrighted by federal law.[20] This act also changed the calculation of copyright term from a fixed term (then a maximum of fifty-six years) to "life of the author plus 50 years". These changes brought the US closer to conformity with the Berne Convention, and in 1989 the United States further revised its copyright law and joined the Berne Convention officially.[20]
+
+Copyright laws allow products of creative human activities, such as literary and artistic production, to be preferentially exploited and thus incentivized. Different cultural attitudes, social organizations, economic models and legal frameworks are seen to account for why copyright emerged in Europe and not, for example, in Asia. In the Middle Ages in Europe, there was generally a lack of any concept of literary property due to the general relations of production, the specific organization of literary production and the role of culture in society. The latter refers to the tendency of oral societies, such as that of Europe in the medieval period, to view knowledge as the product and expression of the collective, rather than to see it as individual property. However, with copyright laws, intellectual production comes to be seen as a product of an individual, with attendant rights. The most significant point is that patent and copyright laws support the expansion of the range of creative human activities that can be commodified. This parallels the ways in which capitalism led to the commodification of many aspects of social life that earlier had no monetary or economic value per se.[21]
+
+Copyright has developed into a concept that has a significant effect on nearly every modern industry, including not just literary work, but also forms of creative work such as sound recordings, films, photographs, software, and architecture.
+
+Often seen as the first real copyright law, the 1709 British Statute of Anne gave the publishers rights for a fixed period, after which the copyright expired.[22]
+The act also alluded to individual rights of the artist. It began, "Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing ... Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors ... to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families:".[23] A right to benefit financially from the work is articulated, and court rulings and legislation have recognized a right to control the work, such as ensuring that the integrity of it is preserved. An irrevocable right to be recognized as the work's creator appears in some countries' copyright laws.
+
+The Copyright Clause of the United States, Constitution (1787) authorized copyright legislation: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." That is, by guaranteeing them a period of time in which they alone could profit from their works, they would be enabled and encouraged to invest the time required to create them, and this would be good for society as a whole. A right to profit from the work has been the philosophical underpinning for much legislation extending the duration of copyright, to the life of the creator and beyond, to their heirs.
+
+The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, they could apply for a second 14‑year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.
+
+Copyright law was enacted rather late in German states, and the historian Eckhard Höffner argues that the absence of copyright laws in the early 19th century encouraged publishing, was profitable for authors, led to a proliferation of books, enhanced knowledge, and was ultimately an important factor in the ascendency of Germany as a power during that century.[24] However, empirical evidence derived from the exogenous differential introduction of copyright in Napoleonic Italy shows that "basic copyrights increased both the number and the quality of operas, measured by their popularity and durability".[25]
+
+The 1886 Berne Convention first established recognition of copyrights among sovereign nations, rather than merely bilaterally. Under the Berne Convention, copyrights for creative works do not have to be asserted or declared, as they are automatically in force at creation: an author need not "register" or "apply for" a copyright in countries adhering to the Berne Convention.[26] As soon as a work is "fixed", that is, written or recorded on some physical medium, its author is automatically entitled to all copyrights in the work, and to any derivative works unless and until the author explicitly disclaims them, or until the copyright expires. The Berne Convention also resulted in foreign authors being treated equivalently to domestic authors, in any country signed onto the Convention. The UK signed the Berne Convention in 1887 but did not implement large parts of it until 100 years later with the passage of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Specially, for educational and scientific research purposes, the Berne Convention provides the developing countries issue compulsory licenses for the translation or reproduction of copyrighted works within the limits prescribed by the Convention. This was a special provision that had been added at the time of 1971 revision of the Convention, because of the strong demands of the developing countries. The United States did not sign the Berne Convention until 1989.[27]
+
+The United States and most Latin American countries instead entered into the Buenos Aires Convention in 1910, which required a copyright notice on the work (such as all rights reserved), and permitted signatory nations to limit the duration of copyrights to shorter and renewable terms.[28][29][30] The Universal Copyright Convention was drafted in 1952 as another less demanding alternative to the Berne Convention, and ratified by nations such as the Soviet Union and developing nations.
+
+The regulations of the Berne Convention are incorporated into the World Trade Organization's TRIPS agreement (1995), thus giving the Berne Convention effectively near-global application.[31]
+
+In 1961, the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property signed the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations. In 1996, this organization was succeeded by the founding of the World Intellectual Property Organization, which launched the 1996 WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty and the 2002 WIPO Copyright Treaty, which enacted greater restrictions on the use of technology to copy works in the nations that ratified it. The Trans-Pacific Partnership includes intellectual Property Provisions relating to copyright.
+
+Copyright laws are standardized somewhat through these international conventions such as the Berne Convention and Universal Copyright Convention. These multilateral treaties have been ratified by nearly all countries, and international organizations such as the European Union or World Trade Organization require their member states to comply with them.
+
+The original holder of the copyright may be the employer of the author rather than the author himself if the work is a "work for hire".[32] For example, in English law the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 provides that if a copyrighted work is made by an employee in the course of that employment, the copyright is automatically owned by the employer which would be a "Work for Hire". Typically, the first owner of a copyright is the person who created the work i.e. the author.[33][33] But when more than one person creates the work, then a case of joint authorship can be made provided some criteria are met.
+
+Copyright may apply to a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms, or "works". Specifics vary by jurisdiction, but these can include poems, theses, fictional characters, plays and other literary works, motion pictures, choreography, musical compositions, sound recordings, paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, computer software, radio and television broadcasts, and industrial designs. Graphic designs and industrial designs may have separate or overlapping laws applied to them in some jurisdictions.[34][35]
+
+Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed.[36] For example, the copyright to a Mickey Mouse cartoon restricts others from making copies of the cartoon or creating derivative works based on Disney's particular anthropomorphic mouse, but does not prohibit the creation of other works about anthropomorphic mice in general, so long as they are different enough to not be judged copies of Disney's.[36] Note additionally that Mickey Mouse is not copyrighted because characters cannot be copyrighted; rather, Steamboat Willie is copyrighted and Mickey Mouse, as a character in that copyrighted work, is afforded protection.
+
+Typically, a work must meet minimal standards of originality in order to qualify for copyright, and the copyright expires after a set period of time (some jurisdictions may allow this to be extended). Different countries impose different tests, although generally the requirements are low; in the United Kingdom there has to be some "skill, labour, and judgment" that has gone into it.[37] In Australia and the United Kingdom it has been held that a single word is insufficient to comprise a copyright work. However, single words or a short string of words can sometimes be registered as a trademark instead.
+
+Copyright law recognizes the right of an author based on whether the work actually is an original creation, rather than based on whether it is unique; two authors may own copyright on two substantially identical works, if it is determined that the duplication was coincidental, and neither was copied from the other.
+
+In all countries where the Berne Convention standards apply, copyright is automatic, and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights.[26] However, while registration isn't needed to exercise copyright, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright and enables the copyright holder to seek statutory damages and attorney's fees.[38] (In the US, registering after an infringement only enables one to receive actual damages and lost profits.)
+
+A widely circulated strategy to avoid the cost of copyright registration is referred to as the poor man's copyright. It proposes that the creator send the work to himself in a sealed envelope by registered mail, using the postmark to establish the date. This technique has not been recognized in any published opinions of the United States courts.  The United States Copyright Office says the technique is not a substitute for actual registration.[39] The United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office discusses the technique and notes that the technique (as well as commercial registries) does not constitute dispositive proof that the work is original or establish who created the work.[40][41]
+
+The Berne Convention allows member countries to decide whether creative works must be "fixed" to enjoy copyright. Article 2, Section 2 of the Berne Convention states: "It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to prescribe that works in general or any specified categories of works shall not be protected unless they have been fixed in some material form." Some countries do not require that a work be produced in a particular form to obtain copyright protection. For instance, Spain, France, and Australia do not require fixation for copyright protection. The United States and Canada, on the other hand, require that most works must be "fixed in a tangible medium of expression" to obtain copyright protection.[42] U.S. law requires that the fixation be stable and permanent enough to be "perceived, reproduced or communicated for a period of more than transitory duration". Similarly, Canadian courts consider fixation to require that the work be "expressed to some extent at least in some material form, capable of identification and having a more or less permanent endurance".[42]
+
+Note this provision of US law: c) Effect of Berne Convention.—No right or interest in a work eligible for protection under this title may be claimed by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto. Any rights in a work eligible for protection under this title that derive from this title, other Federal or State statutes, or the common law, shall not be expanded or reduced by virtue of, or in reliance upon, the provisions of the Berne Convention, or the adherence of the United States thereto.[43]
+
+Before 1989, United States law required the use of a copyright notice, consisting of the copyright symbol (©, the letter C inside a circle), the abbreviation "Copr.", or the word "Copyright", followed by the year of the first publication of the work and the name of the copyright holder.[44][45] Several years may be noted if the work has gone through substantial revisions. The proper copyright notice for sound recordings of musical or other audio works is a sound recording copyright symbol (℗, the letter P inside a circle), which indicates a sound recording copyright, with the letter P indicating a "phonorecord". In addition, the phrase All rights reserved was once required to assert copyright, but that phrase is now legally obsolete. Almost everything on the Internet has some sort of copyright attached to it. Whether these things are watermarked, signed, or have any other sort of indication of the copyright is a different story however.[46]
+
+In 1989 the United States enacted the Berne Convention Implementation Act, amending the 1976 Copyright Act to conform to most of the provisions of the Berne Convention. As a result, the use of copyright notices has become optional to claim copyright, because the Berne Convention makes copyright automatic.[47] However, the lack of notice of copyright using these marks may have consequences in terms of reduced damages in an infringement lawsuit – using notices of this form may reduce the likelihood of a defense of "innocent infringement" being successful.[48]
+
+Copyrights are generally enforced by the holder in a civil law court, but there are also criminal infringement statutes in some jurisdictions. While central registries are kept in some countries which aid in proving claims of ownership, registering does not necessarily prove ownership, nor does the fact of copying (even without permission) necessarily prove that copyright was infringed. Criminal sanctions are generally aimed at serious counterfeiting activity, but are now becoming more commonplace as copyright collectives such as the RIAA are increasingly targeting the file sharing home Internet user. Thus far, however, most such cases against file sharers have been settled out of court. (See: Legal aspects of file sharing)
+
+In most jurisdictions the copyright holder must bear the cost of enforcing copyright. This will usually involve engaging legal representation, administrative or court costs. In light of this, many copyright disputes are settled by a direct approach to the infringing party in order to settle the dispute out of court.
+
+"...by 1978, the scope was expanded to apply to any 'expression' that has been 'fixed' in any medium, this protection granted automatically whether the maker wants it or not, no registration required."[49]
+
+For a work to be considered to infringe upon copyright, its use must have occurred in a nation that has domestic copyright laws or adheres to a bilateral treaty or established international convention such as the Berne Convention or WIPO Copyright Treaty. Improper use of materials outside of legislation is deemed "unauthorized edition", not copyright infringement.[50]
+
+Statistics regarding the effects of copyright infringement are difficult to determine. Studies have attempted to determine whether there is a monetary loss for industries affected by copyright infringement by predicting what portion of pirated works would have been formally purchased if they had not been freely available.[51] Other reports indicate that copyright infringement does not have an adverse effect on the entertainment industry, and can have a positive effect.[52] In particular, a 2014 university study concluded that free music content, accessed on YouTube, does not necessarily hurt sales, instead has the potential to increase sales.[53]
+
+According to World Intellectual Property Organisation, copyright protects two types of rights. Economic rights allow right owners to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others. Moral rights allow authors and creators to take certain actions to preserve and protect their link with their work. The author or creator may be the owner of the economic rights or those rights may be transferred to one or more copyright owners. Many countries do not allow the transfer of moral rights. [54]
+
+With any kind of property, its owner may decide how it is to be used, and others can use it lawfully only if they have the owner's permission, often through a license. The owner's use of the property must, however, respect the legally recognised rights and interests of other members of society. So the owner of a copyright-protected work may decide how to use the work, and may prevent others from using it without permission. National laws usually grant copyright owners exclusive rights to allow third parties to use their works, subject to the legally recognised rights and interests of others.[54] Most copyright laws state that authors or other right owners have the right to authorise or prevent certain acts in relation to a work. Right owners can authorise or prohibit:
+
+Moral rights are concerned with the non-economic rights of a creator. They protect the creator's connection with a work as well as the integrity of the work. Moral rights are only accorded to individual authors and in many national laws they remain with the authors even after the authors have transferred their economic rights. In some EU countries, such as France, moral rights last indefinitely. In the UK, however, moral rights are finite. That is, the right of attribution and the right of integrity last only as long as the work is in copyright. When the copyright term comes to an end, so too do the moral rights in that work. This is just one reason why the moral rights regime within the UK is often regarded as weaker or inferior to the protection of moral rights in continental Europe and elsewhere in the world.[55] The Berne Convention, in Article 6bis, requires its members to grant authors the following rights:
+
+These and other similar rights granted in national laws are generally known as the moral rights of authors. The Berne Convention requires these rights to be independent of authors’ economic rights. Moral rights are only accorded to individual authors and in many national laws they remain with the authors even after the authors have transferred their economic rights. This means that even where, for example, a film producer or publisher owns the economic rights in a work, in many jurisdictions the individual author continues to have moral rights.[54] Recently, as a part of the debates being held at the U.S. Copyright Office on the question of inclusion of Moral Rights as a part of the framework of the Copyright Law in United States, the Copyright Office concluded that many diverse aspects of the current moral rights patchwork—including copyright law's derivative work right, state moral rights statutes, and contract law—are generally working well and should not be changed. Further, the Office concludes that there is no need for the creation of a blanket moral rights statute at this time. However, there are aspects of the U.S. moral rights patchwork that could be improved to the benefit of individual authors and the copyright system as a whole.[56]
+
+The Copyright Law in the United States, several exclusive rights are granted to the holder of a copyright, as are listed below:
+
+The basic right when a work is protected by copyright is that the holder may determine and decide how and under what conditions the protected work may be used by others. This includes the right to decide to distribute the work for free. This part of copyright is often overseen. The phrase "exclusive right" means that only the copyright holder is free to exercise those rights, and others are prohibited from using the work without the holder's permission. Copyright is sometimes called a "negative right", as it serves to prohibit certain people (e.g., readers, viewers, or listeners, and primarily publishers and would be publishers) from doing something they would otherwise be able to do, rather than permitting people (e.g., authors) to do something they would otherwise be unable to do. In this way it is similar to the unregistered design right in English law and European law. The rights of the copyright holder also permit him/her to not use or exploit their copyright, for some or all of the term. There is, however, a critique which rejects this assertion as being based on a philosophical interpretation of copyright law that is not universally shared. There is also debate on whether copyright should be considered a property right or a moral right.[58]
+
+UK copyright law gives creators both economic rights and moral rights. While ‘copying’ someone else's work without permission may constitute an infringement of their economic rights, that is, the reproduction right or the right of communication to the public, whereas, ‘mutilating’ it might infringe the creator's moral rights. In the UK, moral rights include the right to be identified as the author of the work, which is generally identified as the right of attribution, and the right not to have your work subjected to ‘derogatory treatment’, that is the right of integrity.[55]
+
+Indian copyright law is at parity with the international standards as contained in TRIPS. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957, pursuant to the amendments in 1999, 2002 and 2012, fully reflects the Berne Convention for Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 1886 and the Universal Copyrights Convention, to which India is a party. India is also a party to the Geneva Convention for the Protection of Rights of Producers of Phonograms and is an active member of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Indian system provides both the economic and moral rights under different provisions of its Indian Copyright Act of 1957.[59]
+
+Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions. The length of the term can depend on several factors, including the type of work (e.g. musical composition, novel), whether the work has been published, and whether the work was created by an individual or a corporation. In most of the world, the default length of copyright is the life of the author plus either 50 or 70 years. In the United States, the term for most existing works is a fixed number of years after the date of creation or publication. Under most countries' laws (for example, the United States[60] and the United Kingdom[61]), copyrights expire at the end of the calendar year in which they would otherwise expire.
+
+The length and requirements for copyright duration are subject to change by legislation, and since the early 20th century there have been a number of adjustments made in various countries, which can make determining the duration of a given copyright somewhat difficult. For example, the United States used to require copyrights to be renewed after 28 years to stay in force, and formerly required a copyright notice upon first publication to gain coverage. In Italy and France, there were post-wartime extensions that could increase the term by approximately 6 years in Italy and up to about 14 in France. Many countries have extended the length of their copyright terms (sometimes retroactively). International treaties establish minimum terms for copyrights, but individual countries may enforce longer terms than those.[62]
+
+In the United States, all books and other works, except for sound recordings published before 1925 have expired copyrights and are in the public domain. The applicable date for sound recordings in the United States is before 1923.  [63] In addition, works published before 1964 that did not have their copyrights renewed 28 years after first publication year also are in the public domain. Hirtle points out that the great majority of these works (including 93% of the books) were not renewed after 28 years and are in the public domain.[64] Books originally published outside the US by non-Americans are exempt from this renewal requirement, if they are still under copyright in their home country.
+
+But if the intended exploitation of the work includes publication (or distribution of derivative work, such as a film based on a book protected by copyright) outside the U.S., the terms of copyright around the world must be considered. If the author has been dead more than 70 years, the work is in the public domain in most, but not all, countries.
+
+In 1998, the length of a copyright in the United States was increased by 20 years under the Copyright Term Extension Act. This legislation was strongly promoted by corporations which had valuable copyrights which otherwise would have expired, and has been the subject of substantial criticism on this point.[65]
+
+In many jurisdictions, copyright law makes exceptions to these restrictions when the work is copied for the purpose of commentary or other related uses. United States copyright law does not cover names, titles, short phrases or listings (such as ingredients, recipes, labels, or formulas).[66] However, there are protections available for those areas copyright does not cover, such as trademarks and patents.
+
+The idea–expression divide differentiates between ideas and expression, and states that copyright protects only the original expression of ideas, and not the ideas themselves. This principle, first clarified in the 1879 case of Baker v. Selden, has since been codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 at 17 U.S.C. § 102(b).
+
+Copyright law does not restrict the owner of a copy from reselling legitimately obtained copies of copyrighted works, provided that those copies were originally produced by or with the permission of the copyright holder. It is therefore legal, for example, to resell a copyrighted book or CD. In the United States this is known as the first-sale doctrine, and was established by the courts to clarify the legality of reselling books in second-hand bookstores.
+
+Some countries may have parallel importation restrictions that allow the copyright holder to control the aftermarket. This may mean for example that a copy of a book that does not infringe copyright in the country where it was printed does infringe copyright in a country into which it is imported for retailing. The first-sale doctrine is known as exhaustion of rights in other countries and is a principle which also applies, though somewhat differently, to patent and trademark rights. It is important to note that the first-sale doctrine permits the transfer of the particular legitimate copy involved. It does not permit making or distributing additional copies.
+
+In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,[67] in 2013, the United States Supreme Court held in a 6–3 decision that the first-sale doctrine applies to goods manufactured abroad with the copyright owner's permission and then imported into the US without such permission. The case involved a plaintiff who imported Asian editions of textbooks that had been manufactured abroad with the publisher-plaintiff's permission. The defendant, without permission from the publisher, imported the textbooks and resold on eBay. The Supreme Court's holding severely limits the ability of copyright holders to prevent such importation.
+
+In addition, copyright, in most cases, does not prohibit one from acts such as modifying, defacing, or destroying his or her own legitimately obtained copy of a copyrighted work, so long as duplication is not involved. However, in countries that implement moral rights, a copyright holder can in some cases successfully prevent the mutilation or destruction of a work that is publicly visible.
+
+Copyright does not prohibit all copying or replication. In the United States, the fair use doctrine, codified by the Copyright Act of 1976 as 17 U.S.C. Section 107, permits some copying and distribution without permission of the copyright holder or payment to same. The statute does not clearly define fair use, but instead gives four non-exclusive factors to consider in a fair use analysis. Those factors are:
+
+In the United Kingdom and many other Commonwealth countries, a similar notion of fair dealing was established by the courts or through legislation. The concept is sometimes not well defined; however in Canada, private copying for personal use has been expressly permitted by statute since 1999. In Alberta (Education) v. Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright), 2012 SCC 37, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that limited copying for educational purposes could also be justified under the fair dealing exemption. In Australia, the fair dealing exceptions under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) are a limited set of circumstances under which copyrighted material can be legally copied or adapted without the copyright holder's consent. Fair dealing uses are research and study; review and critique; news reportage and the giving of professional advice (i.e. legal advice). Under current Australian law, although it is still a breach of copyright to copy, reproduce or adapt copyright material for personal or private use without permission from the copyright owner, owners of a legitimate copy are permitted to "format shift" that work from one medium to another for personal, private use, or to "time shift" a broadcast work for later, once and only once, viewing or listening. Other technical exemptions from infringement may also apply, such as the temporary reproduction of a work in machine readable form for a computer.
+
+In the United States the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act Codified in Section 10, 1992) prohibits action against consumers making noncommercial recordings of music, in return for royalties on both media and devices plus mandatory copy-control mechanisms on recorders.
+
+Later acts amended US Copyright law so that for certain purposes making 10 copies or more is construed to be commercial, but there is no general rule permitting such copying. Indeed, making one complete copy of a work, or in many cases using a portion of it, for commercial purposes will not be considered fair use. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits the manufacture, importation, or distribution of devices whose intended use, or only significant commercial use, is to bypass an access or copy control put in place by a copyright owner.[34] An appellate court has held that fair use is not a defense to engaging in such distribution.
+
+EU copyright laws recognise the right of EU member states to implement some national exceptions to copyright. Examples of those exceptions are:
+
+It is legal in several countries including the United Kingdom and the United States to produce alternative versions (for example, in large print or braille) of a copyrighted work to provide improved access to a work for blind and visually impaired people without permission from the copyright holder.[69][70]
+
+A copyright, or aspects of it (e.g. reproduction alone, all but moral rights), may be assigned or transferred from one party to another.[71] For example, a musician who records an album will often sign an agreement with a record company in which the musician agrees to transfer all copyright in the recordings in exchange for royalties and other considerations. The creator (and original copyright holder) benefits, or expects to, from production and marketing capabilities far beyond those of the author. In the digital age of music, music may be copied and distributed at minimal cost through the Internet; however, the record industry attempts to provide promotion and marketing for the artist and their work so it can reach a much larger audience. A copyright holder need not transfer all rights completely, though many publishers will insist. Some of the rights may be transferred, or else the copyright holder may grant another party a non-exclusive license to copy or distribute the work in a particular region or for a specified period of time.
+
+A transfer or licence may have to meet particular formal requirements in order to be effective,[72] for example under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 the copyright itself must be expressly transferred in writing. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, a transfer of ownership in copyright must be memorialized in a writing signed by the transferor. For that purpose, ownership in copyright includes exclusive licenses of rights. Thus exclusive licenses, to be effective, must be granted in a written instrument signed by the grantor. No special form of transfer or grant is required. A simple document that identifies the work involved and the rights being granted is sufficient. Non-exclusive grants (often called non-exclusive licenses) need not be in writing under U.S. law. They can be oral or even implied by the behavior of the parties. Transfers of copyright ownership, including exclusive licenses, may and should be recorded in the U.S. Copyright Office. (Information on recording transfers is available on the Office's web site.) While recording is not required to make the grant effective, it offers important benefits, much like those obtained by recording a deed in a real estate transaction.
+
+Copyright may also be licensed.[71] Some jurisdictions may provide that certain classes of copyrighted works be made available under a prescribed statutory license (e.g. musical works in the United States used for radio broadcast or performance). This is also called a compulsory license, because under this scheme, anyone who wishes to copy a covered work does not need the permission of the copyright holder, but instead merely files the proper notice and pays a set fee established by statute (or by an agency decision under statutory guidance) for every copy made.[73] Failure to follow the proper procedures would place the copier at risk of an infringement suit. Because of the difficulty of following every individual work, copyright collectives or collecting societies and performing rights organizations (such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC) have been formed to collect royalties for hundreds (thousands and more) works at once. Though this market solution bypasses the statutory license, the availability of the statutory fee still helps dictate the price per work collective rights organizations charge, driving it down to what avoidance of procedural hassle would justify.
+
+Copyright licenses known as open or free licenses seek to grant several rights to licensees, either for a fee or not. Free in this context is not as much of a reference to price as it is to freedom. What constitutes free licensing has been characterised in a number of similar definitions, including by order of longevity the Free Software Definition, the Debian Free Software Guidelines, the Open Source Definition and the Definition of Free Cultural Works. Further refinements to these definitions have resulted in categories such as copyleft and permissive. Common examples of free licences are the GNU General Public License, BSD licenses and some Creative Commons licenses.
+
+Founded in 2001 by James Boyle, Lawrence Lessig, and Hal Abelson, the Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization[74] which aims to facilitate the legal sharing of creative works. To this end, the organization provides a number of generic copyright license options to the public, gratis. These licenses allow copyright holders to define conditions under which others may use a work and to specify what types of use are acceptable.[74]
+
+Terms of use have traditionally been negotiated on an individual basis between copyright holder and potential licensee. Therefore, a general CC license outlining which rights the copyright holder is willing to waive enables the general public to use such works more freely. Six general types of CC licenses are available (although some of them are not properly free per the above definitions and per Creative Commons' own advice). These are based upon copyright-holder stipulations such as whether he or she is willing to allow modifications to the work, whether he or she permits the creation of derivative works and whether he or she is willing to permit commercial use of the work.[75] As of 2009[update] approximately 130 million individuals had received such licenses.[75]
+
+Some sources are critical of particular aspects of the copyright system. This is known as a debate over copynorms. Particularly to the background of uploading content to internet platforms and the digital exchange of original work, there is discussion about the copyright aspects of downloading and streaming, the copyright aspects of hyperlinking and framing.
+
+Concerns are often couched in the language of digital rights, digital freedom, database rights, open data or censorship.[76] Discussions include Free Culture, a 2004 book by Lawrence Lessig. Lessig coined the term permission culture to describe a worst-case system. Good Copy Bad Copy (documentary) and RiP!: A Remix Manifesto, discuss copyright. Some suggest an alternative compensation system. In Europe consumers are acting up against the raising costs of music, film and books, and as a result Pirate Parties have been created. Some groups reject copyright altogether, taking an anti-copyright stance. The perceived inability to enforce copyright online leads some to advocate ignoring legal statutes when on the web.
+
+Copyright, like other intellectual property rights, is subject to a statutorily determined term. Once the term of a copyright has expired, the formerly copyrighted work enters the public domain and may be used or exploited by anyone without obtaining permission, and normally without payment. However, in paying public domain regimes the user may still have to pay royalties to the state or to an authors' association. Courts in common law countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have rejected the doctrine of a common law copyright. Public domain works should not be confused with works that are publicly available. Works posted in the internet, for example, are publicly available, but are not generally in the public domain. Copying such works may therefore violate the author's copyright.

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+Iron (/ˈaɪərn/) is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from Latin: ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is by mass the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust.
+
+In its metallic state, iron is rare in the Earth's crust, limited mainly to deposition by meteorites. Iron ores, by contrast, are among the most abundant in the Earth's crust, although extracting usable metal from them requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching 1,500 °C (2,730 °F) or higher, about 500 °C (900 °F) higher than what is enough to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia only about 2000 BCE[not verified in body], and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys, in some regions, only around 1200 BCE. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In the modern world, iron alloys, such as steel, inox, cast iron and special steels are by far the most common industrial metals, because of their mechanical properties and low cost.
+
+Pristine and smooth pure iron surfaces are mirror-like silvery-gray. However, iron reacts readily with oxygen and water to give brown to black hydrated iron oxides, commonly known as rust. Unlike the oxides of some other metals, that form passivating layers, rust occupies more volume than the metal and thus flakes off, exposing fresh surfaces for corrosion.
+
+The body of an adult human contains about 4 grams (0.005% body weight) of iron, mostly in hemoglobin and myoglobin. These two proteins play essential roles in vertebrate metabolism, respectively oxygen transport by blood and oxygen storage in muscles. To maintain the necessary levels, human iron metabolism requires a minimum of iron in the diet. Iron is also the metal at the active site of many important redox enzymes dealing with cellular respiration and oxidation and reduction in plants and animals.[5]
+
+Chemically, the most common oxidation states of iron are iron(II) and iron(III). Iron shares many properties of other transition metals, including the other group 8 elements, ruthenium and osmium. Iron forms compounds in a wide range of oxidation states, −2 to +7. Iron also forms many coordination compounds; some of them, such as ferrocene, ferrioxalate, and Prussian blue, have substantial industrial, medical, or research applications.
+
+At least four allotropes of iron (differing atom arrangements in the solid) are known, conventionally denoted α, γ, δ, and ε.
+
+The first three forms are observed at ordinary pressures. As molten iron cools past its freezing point of 1538 °C, it crystallizes into its δ allotrope, which has a body-centered cubic (bcc) crystal structure. As it cools further to 1394 °C, it changes to its γ-iron allotrope, a face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure, or austenite. At 912 °C and below, the crystal structure again becomes the bcc α-iron allotrope.[6]
+
+The physical properties of iron at very high pressures and temperatures have also been studied extensively,[7][8] because of their relevance to theories about the cores of the Earth and other planets. Above approximately 10 GPa and temperatures of a few hundred kelvin or less, α-iron changes into another hexagonal close-packed (hcp) structure, which is also known as ε-iron. The higher-temperature γ-phase also changes into ε-iron, but does so at higher pressure.
+
+Some controversial experimental evidence exists for a stable β phase at pressures above 50 GPa and temperatures of at least 1500 K. It is supposed to have an orthorhombic or a double hcp structure.[9] (Confusingly, the term "β-iron" is sometimes also used to refer to α-iron above its Curie point, when it changes from being ferromagnetic to paramagnetic, even though its crystal structure has not changed.[6])
+
+The inner core of the Earth is generally presumed to consist of an iron-nickel alloy with ε (or β) structure.[10]
+
+The melting and boiling points of iron, along with its enthalpy of atomization, are lower than those of the earlier 3d elements from scandium to chromium, showing the lessened contribution of the 3d electrons to metallic bonding as they are attracted more and more into the inert core by the nucleus;[11] however, they are higher than the values for the previous element manganese because that element has a half-filled 3d subshell and consequently its d-electrons are not easily delocalized. This same trend appears for ruthenium but not osmium.[12]
+
+The melting point of iron is experimentally well defined for pressures less than 50 GPa. For greater pressures, published data (as of 2007) still varies by tens of gigapascals and over a thousand kelvin.[13]
+
+Below its Curie point of 770 °C, α-iron changes from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic: the spins of the two unpaired electrons in each atom generally align with the spins of its neighbors, creating an overall magnetic field.[15] This happens because the orbitals of those two electrons (dz2 and dx2 − y2) do not point toward neighboring atoms in the lattice, and therefore are not involved in metallic bonding.[6]
+
+In the absence of an external source of magnetic field, the atoms get spontaneously partitioned into magnetic domains, about 10 micrometers across,[16] such that the atoms in each domain have parallel spins, but some domains have other orientations. Thus a macroscopic piece of iron will have a nearly zero overall magnetic field.
+
+Application of an external magnetic field causes the domains that are magnetized in the same general direction to grow at the expense of adjacent ones that point in other directions, reinforcing the external field. This effect is exploited in devices that needs to channel magnetic fields, such as electrical transformers, magnetic recording heads, and electric motors. Impurities, lattice defects, or grain and particle boundaries can "pin" the domains in the new positions, so that the effect persists even after the external field is removed -- thus turning the iron object into a (permanent) magnet.[15]
+
+Similar behavior is exhibited by some iron compounds, such as the ferrites and the mineral magnetite, a crystalline form of the mixed iron(II,III) oxide Fe3O4 (although the atomic-scale mechanism, ferrimagnetism, is somewhat different). Pieces of magnetite with natural permanent magnetization (lodestones) provided the earliest compasses for navigation. Particles of magnetite were extensively used in magnetic recording media such as core memories, magnetic tapes, floppies, and disks, until they were replaced by cobalt-based materials.
+
+Iron has four stable isotopes: 54Fe (5.845% of natural iron), 56Fe (91.754%), 57Fe (2.119%) and 58Fe (0.282%). 20-30 artificial isotopes have also been created. Of these stable isotopes, only 57Fe has a nuclear spin (−​1⁄2). The nuclide 54Fe theoretically can undergo double electron capture to 54Cr, but the process has never been observed and only a lower limit on the half-life of 3.1×1022 years has been established.[17]
+
+60Fe is an extinct radionuclide of long half-life (2.6 million years).[18] It is not found on Earth, but its ultimate decay product is its granddaughter, the stable nuclide 60Ni.[17] Much of the past work on isotopic composition of iron has focused on the nucleosynthesis of 60Fe through studies of meteorites and ore formation. In the last decade, advances in mass spectrometry have allowed the detection and quantification of minute, naturally occurring variations in the ratios of the stable isotopes of iron. Much of this work is driven by the Earth and planetary science communities, although applications to biological and industrial systems are emerging.[19]
+
+In phases of the meteorites Semarkona and Chervony Kut, a correlation between the concentration of 60Ni, the granddaughter of 60Fe, and the abundance of the stable iron isotopes provided evidence for the existence of 60Fe at the time of formation of the Solar System. Possibly the energy released by the decay of 60Fe, along with that released by 26Al, contributed to the remelting and differentiation of asteroids after their formation 4.6 billion years ago. The abundance of 60Ni present in extraterrestrial material may bring further insight into the origin and early history of the Solar System.[20]
+
+The most abundant iron isotope 56Fe is of particular interest to nuclear scientists because it represents the most common endpoint of nucleosynthesis.[21] Since 56Ni (14 alpha particles) is easily produced from lighter nuclei in the alpha process in nuclear reactions in supernovae (see silicon burning process), it is the endpoint of fusion chains inside extremely massive stars, since addition of another alpha particle, resulting in 60Zn, requires a great deal more energy. This 56Ni, which has a half-life of about 6 days, is created in quantity in these stars, but soon decays by two successive positron emissions within supernova decay products in the supernova remnant gas cloud, first to radioactive 56Co, and then to stable 56Fe. As such, iron is the most abundant element in the core of red giants, and is the most abundant metal in iron meteorites and in the dense metal cores of planets such as Earth.[22] It is also very common in the universe, relative to other stable metals of approximately the same atomic weight.[22][23] Iron is the sixth most abundant element in the Universe, and the most common refractory element.[24]
+
+Although a further tiny energy gain could be extracted by synthesizing 62Ni, which has a marginally higher binding energy than 56Fe, conditions in stars are unsuitable for this process. Element production in supernovas and distribution on Earth greatly favor iron over nickel, and in any case, 56Fe still has a lower mass per nucleon than 62Ni due to its higher fraction of lighter protons.[25] Hence, elements heavier than iron require a supernova for their formation, involving rapid neutron capture by starting 56Fe nuclei.[22]
+
+In the far future of the universe, assuming that proton decay does not occur, cold fusion occurring via quantum tunnelling would cause the light nuclei in ordinary matter to fuse into 56Fe nuclei. Fission and alpha-particle emission would then make heavy nuclei decay into iron, converting all stellar-mass objects to cold spheres of pure iron.[26]
+
+Iron's abundance in rocky planets like Earth is due to its abundant production by fusion in high-mass stars, where it is the last element to be produced with release of energy before the violent collapse of a supernova, which scatters the iron into space.
+
+Metallic or native iron is rarely found on the surface of the Earth because it tends to oxidize. However, both the Earth's inner and outer core, that account for 35% of the mass of the whole Earth, are believed to consist largely of an iron alloy, possibly with nickel. Electric currents in the liquid outer core are believed to be the origin of the Earth's magnetic field. The other terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, and Mars) as well as the Moon are believed to have a metallic core consisting mostly of iron. The M-type asteroids are also believed to be partly or mostly made of metallic iron alloy.
+
+The rare iron meteorites are the main form of natural metallic iron on the Earth's surface. Items made of cold-worked meteoritic iron have been found in various archaeological sites dating from a time when iron smelting had not yet been developed; and the Inuit in Greenland have been reported to use iron from the Cape York meteorite for tools and hunting weapons.[27] About 1 in 20 meteorites consist of the unique iron-nickel minerals taenite (35–80% iron) and kamacite (90–95% iron).[28] Native iron is also rarely found in basalts that have formed from magmas that have come into contact with carbon-rich sedimentary rocks, which have reduced the oxygen fugacity sufficiently for iron to crystallize. This is known as Telluric iron and is described from a few localities, such as Disko Island in West Greenland, Yakutia in Russia and Bühl in Germany.[29]
+
+Ferropericlase (Mg,Fe)O, a solid solution of periclase (MgO) and wüstite (FeO), makes up about 20% of the volume of the lower mantle of the Earth, which makes it the second most abundant mineral phase in that region after silicate perovskite (Mg,Fe)SiO3; it also is the major host for iron in the lower mantle.[30] At the bottom of the transition zone of the mantle, the reaction γ-(Mg,Fe)2[SiO4] ↔ (Mg,Fe)[SiO3] + (Mg,Fe)O transforms γ-olivine into a mixture of silicate perovskite and ferropericlase and vice versa. In the literature, this mineral phase of the lower mantle is also often called magnesiowüstite.[31] Silicate perovskite may form up to 93% of the lower mantle,[32] and the magnesium iron form, (Mg,Fe)SiO3, is considered to be the most abundant mineral in the Earth, making up 38% of its volume.[33]
+
+While iron is the most abundant element on Earth, it accounts for only 5% of the Earth's crust; thus being only the fourth most abundant element, after oxygen, silicon, and aluminium.[34]
+
+Most of the iron in the crust is combined with various other elements to form many iron minerals. An important class is the iron oxide minerals such as hematite (Fe2O3), magnetite (Fe3O4), and siderite (FeCO3), which are the major ores of iron. Many igneous rocks also contain the sulfide minerals pyrrhotite and pentlandite.[35][36] During weathering, iron tends to leach from sulfide deposits as the sulfate and from silicate deposits as the bicarbonate. Both of these are oxidized in aqueous solution and precipitate in even mildly elevated pH as iron(III) oxide.[37]
+
+Large deposits of iron are banded iron formations, a type of rock consisting of repeated thin layers of iron oxides alternating with bands of iron-poor shale and chert. The banded iron formations were laid down in the time between 3,700 million years ago and 1,800 million years ago.[38][39]
+
+Materials containing finely ground iron(III) oxides or oxide-hydroxides, such as ochre, have been used as yellow, red, and brown pigments since pre-historical times. They contribute as well to the color of various rocks and clays, including entire geological formations like the Painted Hills in Oregon and the Buntsandstein ("colored sandstone", British Bunter).[40] Through Eisensandstein (a jurassic 'iron sandstone', e.g. from Donzdorf in Germany)[41] and Bath stone in the UK, iron compounds are responsible for the yellowish color of many historical buildings and sculptures.[42] The proverbial red color of the surface of Mars is derived from an iron oxide-rich regolith.[43]
+
+Significant amounts of iron occur in the iron sulfide mineral pyrite (FeS2), but it is difficult to extract iron from it and it is therefore not exploited. In fact, iron is so common that production generally focuses only on ores with very high quantities of it.
+
+According to the International Resource Panel's Metal Stocks in Society report, the global stock of iron in use in society is 2200 kg per capita. More-developed countries differ in this respect from less-developed countries (7000–14000 vs 2000 kg per capita).[44]
+
+Iron shows the characteristic chemical properties of the transition metals, namely the ability to form variable oxidation states differing by steps of one and a very large coordination and organometallic chemistry: indeed, it was the discovery of an iron compound, ferrocene, that revolutionalized the latter field in the 1950s.[45] Iron is sometimes considered as a prototype for the entire block of transition metals, due to its abundance and the immense role it has played in the technological progress of humanity.[46] Its 26 electrons are arranged in the configuration [Ar]3d64s2, of which the 3d and 4s electrons are relatively close in energy, and thus it can lose a variable number of electrons and there is no clear point where further ionization becomes unprofitable.[12]
+
+Iron forms compounds mainly in the oxidation states +2 (iron(II), "ferrous") and +3 (iron(III), "ferric"). Iron also occurs in higher oxidation states, e.g. the purple potassium ferrate (K2FeO4), which contains iron in its +6 oxidation state. Although iron(VIII) oxide (FeO4) has been claimed, the report could not be reproduced and such a species (at least with iron in its +8 oxidation state) has been found to be improbable computationally.[47] However, one form of anionic [FeO4]– with iron in its +7 oxidation state, along with an iron(V)-peroxo isomer, has been detected by infrared spectroscopy at 4 K after cocondensation of laser-ablated Fe atoms with a mixture of O2/Ar.[48] Iron(IV) is a common intermediate in many biochemical oxidation reactions.[49][50] Numerous organoiron compounds contain formal oxidation states of +1, 0, −1, or even −2. The oxidation states and other bonding properties are often assessed using the technique of Mössbauer spectroscopy.[51]
+Many mixed valence compounds contain both iron(II) and iron(III) centers, such as magnetite and Prussian blue (Fe4(Fe[CN]6)3).[50] The latter is used as the traditional "blue" in blueprints.[52]
+
+Iron is the first of the transition metals that cannot reach its group oxidation state of +8, although its heavier congeners ruthenium and osmium can, with ruthenium having more difficulty than osmium.[6] Ruthenium exhibits an aqueous cationic chemistry in its low oxidation states similar to that of iron, but osmium does not, favoring high oxidation states in which it forms anionic complexes.[6] In the second half of the 3d transition series, vertical similarities down the groups compete with the horizontal similarities of iron with its neighbors cobalt and nickel in the periodic table, which are also ferromagnetic at room temperature and share similar chemistry. As such, iron, cobalt, and nickel are sometimes grouped together as the iron triad.[46]
+
+Unlike many other metals, iron does not form amalgams with mercury. As a result, mercury is traded in standardized 76 pound flasks (34 kg) made of iron.[53]
+
+Iron is by far the most reactive element in its group; it is pyrophoric when finely divided and dissolves easily in dilute acids, giving Fe2+. However, it does not react with concentrated nitric acid and other oxidizing acids due to the formation of an impervious oxide layer, which can nevertheless react with hydrochloric acid.[6]
+
+Iron forms various oxide and hydroxide compounds; the most common are iron(II,III) oxide (Fe3O4), and iron(III) oxide (Fe2O3). Iron(II) oxide also exists, though it is unstable at room temperature. Despite their names, they are actually all non-stoichiometric compounds whose compositions may vary.[54] These oxides are the principal ores for the production of iron (see bloomery and blast furnace). They are also used in the production of ferrites, useful magnetic storage media in computers, and pigments. The best known sulfide is iron pyrite (FeS2), also known as fool's gold owing to its golden luster.[50] It is not an iron(IV) compound, but is actually an iron(II) polysulfide containing Fe2+ and S2−2 ions in a distorted sodium chloride structure.[54]
+
+The binary ferrous and ferric halides are well-known. The ferrous halides typically arise from treating iron metal with the corresponding hydrohalic acid to give the corresponding hydrated salts.[50]
+
+Iron reacts with fluorine, chlorine, and bromine to give the corresponding ferric halides, ferric chloride being the most common.[55]
+
+Ferric iodide is an exception, being thermodynamically unstable due to the oxidizing power of Fe3+ and the high reducing power of I−:[55]
+
+Ferric iodide, a black solid, is not stable in ordinary conditions, but can be prepared through the reaction of iron pentacarbonyl with iodine and carbon monoxide in the presence of hexane and light at the temperature of −20 °C, with oxygen and water excluded.[55]
+
+The standard reduction potentials in acidic aqueous solution for some common iron ions are given below:[6]
+
+The red-purple tetrahedral ferrate(VI) anion is such a strong oxidizing agent that it oxidizes nitrogen and ammonia at room temperature, and even water itself in acidic or neutral solutions:[55]
+
+The Fe3+ ion has a large simple cationic chemistry, although the pale-violet hexaquo ion [Fe(H2O)6]3+ is very readily hydrolyzed when pH increases above 0 as follows:[56]
+
+As pH rises above 0 the above yellow hydrolyzed species form and as it rises above 2–3, reddish-brown hydrous iron(III) oxide precipitates out of solution. Although Fe3+ has an d5 configuration, its absorption spectrum is not like that of Mn2+ with its weak, spin-forbidden d–d bands, because Fe3+ has higher positive charge and is more polarizing, lowering the energy of its ligand-to-metal charge transfer absorptions. Thus, all the above complexes are rather strongly colored, with the single exception of the hexaquo ion – and even that has a spectrum dominated by charge transfer in the near ultraviolet region.[56] On the other hand, the pale green iron(II) hexaquo ion [Fe(H2O)6]2+ does not undergo appreciable hydrolysis. Carbon dioxide is not evolved when carbonate anions are added, which instead results in white iron(II) carbonate being precipitated out. In excess carbon dioxide this forms the slightly soluble bicarbonate, which occurs commonly in groundwater, but it oxidises quickly in air to form iron(III) oxide that accounts for the brown deposits present in a sizeable number of streams.[57]
+
+Due to its electronic structure, iron has a very large coordination and organometallic chemistry.
+
+Many coordination compounds of iron are known. A typical six-coordinate anion is hexachloroferrate(III), [FeCl6]3−, found in the mixed salt tetrakis(methylammonium) hexachloroferrate(III) chloride.[58][59] Complexes with multiple bidentate ligands have geometric isomers. For example, the trans-chlorohydridobis(bis-1,2-(diphenylphosphino)ethane)iron(II) complex is used as a starting material for compounds with the Fe(dppe)2 moiety.[60][61] The ferrioxalate ion with three oxalate ligands (shown at right) displays helical chirality with its two non-superposable geometries labelled Λ (lambda) for the left-handed screw axis and Δ (delta) for the right-handed screw axis, in line with IUPAC conventions.[56] Potassium ferrioxalate is used in chemical actinometry and along with its sodium salt undergoes photoreduction applied in old-style photographic processes. The dihydrate of iron(II) oxalate has a polymeric structure with co-planar oxalate ions bridging between iron centres with the water of crystallisation located forming the caps of each octahedron, as illustrated below.[62]
+
+Iron(III) complexes are quite similar to those of chromium(III) with the exception of iron(III)'s preference for O-donor instead of N-donor ligands. The latter tend to be rather more unstable than iron(II) complexes and often dissociate in water. Many Fe–O complexes show intense colors and are used as tests for phenols or enols. For example, in the ferric chloride test, used to determine the presence of phenols, iron(III) chloride reacts with a phenol to form a deep violet complex:[56]
+
+Among the halide and pseudohalide complexes, fluoro complexes of iron(III) are the most stable, with the colorless [FeF5(H2O)]2− being the most stable in aqueous solution. Chloro complexes are less stable and favor tetrahedral coordination as in [FeCl4]−; [FeBr4]− and [FeI4]− are reduced easily to iron(II). Thiocyanate is a common test for the presence of iron(III) as it forms the blood-red [Fe(SCN)(H2O)5]2+. Like manganese(II), most iron(III) complexes are high-spin, the exceptions being those with ligands that are high in the spectrochemical series such as cyanide. An example of a low-spin iron(III) complex is [Fe(CN)6]3−. The cyanide ligands may easily be detached in [Fe(CN)6]3−, and hence this complex is poisonous, unlike the iron(II) complex [Fe(CN)6]4− found in Prussian blue,[56] which does not release hydrogen cyanide except when dilute acids are added.[57] Iron shows a great variety of electronic spin states, including every possible spin quantum number value for a d-block element from 0 (diamagnetic) to ​5⁄2 (5 unpaired electrons). This value is always half the number of unpaired electrons. Complexes with zero to two unpaired electrons are considered low-spin and those with four or five are considered high-spin.[54]
+
+Iron(II) complexes are less stable than iron(III) complexes but the preference for O-donor ligands is less marked, so that for example [Fe(NH3)6]2+ is known while [Fe(NH3)6]3+ is not. They have a tendency to be oxidized to iron(III) but this can be moderated by low pH and the specific ligands used.[57]
+
+Organoiron chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds of iron, where carbon atoms are covalently bound to the metal atom. They are many and varied, including cyanide complexes, carbonyl complexes, sandwich and half-sandwich compounds.
+
+Prussian blue or "ferric ferrocyanide", Fe4[Fe(CN)6]3, is an old and well-known iron-cyanide complex, extensively used as pigment and in several other applications. Its formation can be used as a simple wet chemistry test to distinguish between aqueous solutions of Fe2+ and Fe3+ as they react (respectively) with potassium ferricyanide and potassium ferrocyanide to form Prussian blue.[50]
+
+Another old example of organoiron compound is iron pentacarbonyl, Fe(CO)5, in which a neutral iron atom is bound to the carbon atoms of five carbon monoxide molecules. The compound can be used to make carbonyl iron powder, a highly reactive form of metallic iron. Thermolysis of iron pentacarbonyl gives triiron dodecacarbonyl, Fe3(CO)12, a with a cluster of three iron atoms at its core. Collman's reagent, disodium tetracarbonylferrate, is a useful reagent for organic chemistry; it contains iron in the −2 oxidation state. Cyclopentadienyliron dicarbonyl dimer contains iron in the rare +1 oxidation state.[63]
+
+A landmark in this field was the discovery in 1951 of the remarkably stable sandwich compound ferrocene Fe(C5H5)2, by] Paulson and Kealy[64] and independently by Miller and others,[65] whose surprising molecular structure was determined only a year later by Woodward and Wilkinson[66] and Fischer.[67]
+Ferrocene is still one of the most important tools and models in this class.[68]
+
+Iron-centered organometallic species are used as catalysts. The Knölker complex, for example, is a transfer hydrogenation catalyst for ketones.[69]
+
+The iron compounds produced on the largest scale in industry are iron(II) sulfate (FeSO4·7H2O) and iron(III) chloride (FeCl3). The former is one of the most readily available sources of iron(II), but is less stable to aerial oxidation than Mohr's salt ((NH4)2Fe(SO4)2·6H2O). Iron(II) compounds tend to be oxidized to iron(III) compounds in the air.[50]
+
+As iron has been in use for such a long time, it has many names. The source of its chemical symbol Fe is the Latin word ferrum, and its descendants are the names of the element in the Romance languages (for example, French fer, Spanish hierro, and Italian and Portuguese ferro).[70] The word ferrum itself possibly comes from the Semitic languages, via Etruscan, from a root that also gave rise to Old English bræs "brass".[71] The English word iron derives ultimately from Proto-Germanic *isarnan, which is also the source of the German name Eisen. It was most likely borrowed from Celtic *isarnon, which ultimately comes from Proto-Indo-European *is-(e)ro- "powerful, holy" and finally *eis "strong", referencing iron's strength as a metal.[72] Kluge relates *isarnon to Illyric and Latin ira, 'wrath').[citation needed] The Balto-Slavic names for iron (e.g. Russian железо [zhelezo], Polish żelazo, Lithuanian geležis) are the only ones to come directly from the Proto-Indo-European *ghelgh- "iron".[73] In many of these languages, the word for iron may also be used to denote other objects made of iron or steel, or figuratively because of the hardness and strength of the metal.[74] The Chinese tiě (traditional 鐵; simplified 铁) derives from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *hliek,[75] and was borrowed into Japanese as 鉄 tetsu, which also has the native reading kurogane "black metal" (similar to how iron is referenced in the English word blacksmith).[76]
+
+Iron is one of the elements undoubtedly known to the ancient world.[77] It has been worked, or wrought, for millennia. However, iron objects of great age are much rarer than objects made of gold or silver due to the ease with which iron corrodes.[78] The technology developed slowly, and even after the discovery of smelting it took many centuries for iron to replace bronze as the metal of choice for tools and weapons.
+
+Beads made from meteoric iron in 3500 BC or earlier were found in Gerzah, Egypt by G.A. Wainwright.[79] The beads contain 7.5% nickel, which is a signature of meteoric origin since iron found in the Earth's crust generally has only minuscule nickel impurities.
+
+Meteoric iron was highly regarded due to its origin in the heavens and was often used to forge weapons and tools.[79] For example, a dagger made of meteoric iron was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun, containing similar proportions of iron, cobalt, and nickel to a meteorite discovered in the area, deposited by an ancient meteor shower.[80][81][82] Items that were likely made of iron by Egyptians date from 3000 to 2500 BC.[78]
+
+Meteoritic iron is comparably soft and ductile and easily cold forged but may get brittle when heated because of the nickel content.[83]
+
+The first iron production started in the Middle Bronze Age, but it took several centuries before iron displaced bronze. Samples of smelted iron from Asmar, Mesopotamia and Tall Chagar Bazaar in northern Syria were made sometime between 3000 and 2700 BC.[84] The Hittites established an empire in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. They appear to be the first to understand the production of iron from its ores and regard it highly in their society.[85] The Hittites began to smelt iron between 1500 and 1200 BC and the practice spread to the rest of the Near East after their empire fell in 1180 BC.[84] The subsequent period is called the Iron Age.
+
+Artifacts of smelted iron are found in India dating from 1800 to 1200 BC,[86] and in the Levant from about 1500 BC (suggesting smelting in Anatolia or the Caucasus).[87][88] Alleged references (compare history of metallurgy in South Asia) to iron in the Indian Vedas have been used for claims of a very early usage of iron in India respectively to date the texts as such. The rigveda term ayas (metal) probably refers to copper and bronze, while iron or śyāma ayas, literally "black metal", first is mentioned in the post-rigvedic Atharvaveda.[89]
+
+Some archaeological evidence suggests iron was smelted in Zimbabwe and southeast Africa as early as the eighth century BC.[90] Iron working was introduced to Greece in the late 11th century BC, from which it spread quickly throughout Europe.[91]
+
+The spread of ironworking in Central and Western Europe is associated with Celtic expansion. According to Pliny the Elder, iron use was common in the Roman era.[79] The annual iron output of the Roman Empire is estimated at 84750 t,[92] while the similarly populous and contemporary Han China produced around 5000 t.[93] In China, iron only appears circa 700–500 BC.[94] Iron smelting may have been introduced into China through Central Asia.[95] The earliest evidence of the use of a blast furnace in China dates to the 1st century AD,[96] and cupola furnaces were used as early as the Warring States period (403–221 BC).[97] Usage of the blast and cupola furnace remained widespread during the Song and Tang Dynasties.[98]
+
+During the Industrial Revolution in Britain, Henry Cort began refining iron from pig iron to wrought iron (or bar iron) using innovative production systems. In 1783 he patented the puddling process for refining iron ore. It was later improved by others, including Joseph Hall.[99]
+
+Cast iron was first produced in China during 5th century BC,[100] but was hardly in Europe until the medieval period.[101][102] The earliest cast iron artifacts were discovered by archaeologists in what is now modern Luhe County, Jiangsu in China. Cast iron was used in ancient China for warfare, agriculture, and architecture.[103] During the medieval period, means were found in Europe of producing wrought iron from cast iron (in this context known as pig iron) using finery forges. For all these processes, charcoal was required as fuel.[104]
+
+Medieval blast furnaces were about 10 feet (3.0 m) tall and made of fireproof brick; forced air was usually provided by hand-operated bellows.[102] Modern blast furnaces have grown much bigger, with hearths fourteen meters in diameter that allow them to produce thousands of tons of iron each day, but essentially operate in much the same way as they did during medieval times.[104]
+
+In 1709, Abraham Darby I established a coke-fired blast furnace to produce cast iron, replacing charcoal, although continuing to use blast furnaces. The ensuing availability of inexpensive iron was one of the factors leading to the Industrial Revolution. Toward the end of the 18th century, cast iron began to replace wrought iron for certain purposes, because it was cheaper. Carbon content in iron was not implicated as the reason for the differences in properties of wrought iron, cast iron, and steel until the 18th century.[84]
+
+Since iron was becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it also became a major structural material following the building of the innovative first iron bridge in 1778. This bridge still stands today as a monument to the role iron played in the Industrial Revolution. Following this, iron was used in rails, boats, ships, aqueducts, and buildings, as well as in iron cylinders in steam engines.[104] Railways have been central to the formation of modernity and ideas of progress[105] and various languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian and German) refer to railways as iron road.
+
+Steel (with smaller carbon content than pig iron but more than wrought iron) was first produced in antiquity by using a bloomery. Blacksmiths in Luristan in western Persia were making good steel by 1000 BC.[84] Then improved versions, Wootz steel by India and Damascus steel were developed around 300 BC and AD 500 respectively. These methods were specialized, and so steel did not become a major commodity until the 1850s.[106]
+
+New methods of producing it by carburizing bars of iron in the cementation process were devised in the 17th century. In the Industrial Revolution, new methods of producing bar iron without charcoal were devised and these were later applied to produce steel. In the late 1850s, Henry Bessemer invented a new steelmaking process, involving blowing air through molten pig iron, to produce mild steel. This made steel much more economical, thereby leading to wrought iron no longer being produced in large quantities.[107]
+
+In 1774, Antoine Lavoisier used the reaction of water steam with metallic iron inside an incandescent iron tube to produce hydrogen in his experiments leading to the demonstration of the conservation of mass, which was instrumental in changing chemistry from a qualitative science to a quantitative one.[108]
+
+Iron plays a certain role in mythology and has found various usage as a metaphor and in folklore. The Greek poet Hesiod's Works and Days (lines 109–201) lists different ages of man named after metals like gold, silver, bronze and iron to account for successive ages of humanity.[109] The Iron Age was closely related with Rome, and in Ovid's Metamorphoses
+
+The Virtues, in despair, quit the earth; and the depravity of man becomes universal and complete. Hard steel succeeded then.
+
+An example of the importance of iron's symbolic role may be found in the German Campaign of 1813. Frederick William III commissioned then the first Iron Cross as military decoration. Berlin iron jewellery reached its peak production between 1813 and 1815, when the Prussian royal family urged citizens to donate gold and silver jewellery for military funding. The inscription Gold gab ich für Eisen (I gave gold for iron) was used as well in later war efforts.[110]
+
+For a few limited purposes when it is needed, pure iron is produced in the laboratory in small quantities by reducing the pure oxide or hydroxide with hydrogen, or forming iron pentacarbonyl and heating it to 250 °C so that it decomposes to form pure iron powder.[37] Another method is electrolysis of ferrous chloride onto an iron cathode.[111]
+
+Nowadays, the industrial production of iron or steel consists of two main stages. In the first stage, iron ore is reduced with coke in a blast furnace, and the molten metal is separated from gross impurities such as silicate minerals. This stage yields an alloy -- pig iron—that contains relatively large amounts of carbon. In the second stage, the amount of carbon in the pig iron is lowered by oxidation to yield wrought iron, steel, or cast iron.[113] Other metals can be added at this stage to form alloy steels.
+
+The blast furnace is loaded with iron ores, usually hematite Fe2O3 or magnetite Fe3O4, together with coke (coal that has been separately baked to remove volatile components). Air pre-heated to 900 °C is blown through the mixture, in sufficient amount to turn the carbon into carbon monoxide:[113]
+
+This reaction raises the temperature to about 2000 °C The carbon monoxide reduces the iron ore to metallic iron[113]
+
+Some iron in the high-temperature lower region of the furnace reacts directly with the coke:[113]
+
+A flux such as limestone (calcium carbonate) or dolomite (calcium-magnesium carbonate) is also added to the furnace's load. Its purpose is to remove silicaceous minerals in the ore, which would otherwise clog the furnace. The heat of the furnace decomposes the carbonates to calcium oxide, which reacts with any excess silica to form a slag composed of calcium silicate CaSiO3 or other products. At the furnace's temperature, the metal and the slag are both molten. They collect at the bottom as two immiscible liquid layers (with the slag on top), that are then easily separated.[113]
+The slag can be used as a material in road construction or to improve mineral-poor soils for agriculture.[102]
+
+In general, the pig iron produced by the blast furnace process contains up to 4–5% carbon, with small amounts of other impurities like sulfur, magnesium, phosphorus, and manganese. The high level of carbon makes it relatively weak and brittle. Reducing the amount of carbon to 0.002–2.1% by mass produces steel, which may be up to 1000 times harder than pure iron. A great variety of steel articles can then be made by cold working, hot rolling, forging, machining, etc. Removing the other impurities, instead, results in cast iron, which is used to cast articles in foundries; for example stoves, pipes, radiators, lamp-posts, and rails.[113]
+
+Steel products often undergo various heat treatments after they are forged to shape. Annealing consists of heating them to 700–800 °C for several hours and then gradual cooling. It makes the steel softer and more workable.[115]
+
+Owing to environmental concerns, alternative methods of processing iron have been developed. "Direct iron reduction" reduces iron ore to a ferrous lump called "sponge" iron or "direct" iron that is suitable for steelmaking.[102] Two main reactions comprise the direct reduction process:
+
+Natural gas is partially oxidized (with heat and a catalyst):[102]
+
+Iron ore is then treated with these gases in a furnace, producing solid sponge iron:[102]
+
+Silica is removed by adding a limestone flux as described above.[102]
+
+Ignition of a mixture of aluminium powder and iron oxide yields metallic iron via the thermite reaction:
+
+Alternatively pig iron may be made into steel (with up to about 2% carbon) or wrought iron (commercially pure iron). Various processes have been used for this, including finery forges, puddling furnaces, Bessemer converters, open hearth furnaces, basic oxygen furnaces, and electric arc furnaces. In all cases, the objective is to oxidize some or all of the carbon, together with other impurities. On the other hand, other metals may be added to make alloy steels.[104]
+
+Iron is the most widely used of all the metals, accounting for over 90% of worldwide metal production. Its low cost and high strength often make it the material of choice material to withstand stress or transmit forces, such as the construction of machinery and machine tools, rails, automobiles, ship hulls, concrete reinforcing bars, and the load-carrying framework of buildings. Since pure iron is quite soft, it is most commonly combined with alloying elements to make steel.[116]
+
+The mechanical properties of iron and its alloys are extremely relevant to their structural applications. Those properties can be evaluated in various ways, including the Brinell test, the Rockwell test and the Vickers hardness test.
+
+The properties of pure iron are often used to calibrate measurements or to compare tests.[118][119] However, the mechanical properties of iron are significantly affected by the sample's purity: pure, single crystals of iron are actually softer than aluminium,[117] and the purest industrially produced iron (99.99%) has a hardness of 20–30 Brinell.[120]
+
+An increase in the carbon content will cause a significant increase in the hardness and tensile strength of iron. Maximum hardness of 65 Rc is achieved with a 0.6% carbon content, although the alloy has low tensile strength.[121] Because of the softness of iron, it is much easier to work with than its heavier congeners ruthenium and osmium.[12]
+
+α-Iron is a fairly soft metal that can dissolve only a small concentration of carbon (no more than 0.021% by mass at 910 °C).[122] Austenite (γ-iron) is similarly soft and metallic but can dissolve considerably more carbon (as much as 2.04% by mass at 1146 °C). This form of iron is used in the type of stainless steel used for making cutlery, and hospital and food-service equipment.[16]
+
+Commercially available iron is classified based on purity and the abundance of additives. Pig iron has 3.5–4.5% carbon[123] and contains varying amounts of contaminants such as sulfur, silicon and phosphorus. Pig iron is not a saleable product, but rather an intermediate step in the production of cast iron and steel. The reduction of contaminants in pig iron that negatively affect material properties, such as sulfur and phosphorus, yields cast iron containing 2–4% carbon, 1–6% silicon, and small amounts of manganese.[113] Pig iron has a melting point in the range of 1420–1470 K, which is lower than either of its two main components, and makes it the first product to be melted when carbon and iron are heated together.[6] Its mechanical properties vary greatly and depend on the form the carbon takes in the alloy.[12]
+
+"White" cast irons contain their carbon in the form of cementite, or iron carbide (Fe3C).[12] This hard, brittle compound dominates the mechanical properties of white cast irons, rendering them hard, but unresistant to shock. The broken surface of a white cast iron is full of fine facets of the broken iron carbide, a very pale, silvery, shiny material, hence the appellation. Cooling a mixture of iron with 0.8% carbon slowly below 723 °C to room temperature results in separate, alternating layers of cementite and α-iron, which is soft and malleable and is called pearlite for its appearance. Rapid cooling, on the other hand, does not allow time for this separation and creates hard and brittle martensite. The steel can then be tempered by reheating to a temperature in between, changing the proportions of pearlite and martensite. The end product below 0.8% carbon content is a pearlite-αFe mixture, and that above 0.8% carbon content is a pearlite-cementite mixture.[12]
+
+In gray iron the carbon exists as separate, fine flakes of graphite, and also renders the material brittle due to the sharp edged flakes of graphite that produce stress concentration sites within the material.[124] A newer variant of gray iron, referred to as ductile iron, is specially treated with trace amounts of magnesium to alter the shape of graphite to spheroids, or nodules, reducing the stress concentrations and vastly increasing the toughness and strength of the material.[124]
+
+Wrought iron contains less than 0.25% carbon but large amounts of slag that give it a fibrous characteristic.[123] It is a tough, malleable product, but not as fusible as pig iron. If honed to an edge, it loses it quickly. Wrought iron is characterized by the presence of fine fibers of slag entrapped within the metal. Wrought iron is more corrosion resistant than steel. It has been almost completely replaced by mild steel for traditional "wrought iron" products and blacksmithing.
+
+Mild steel corrodes more readily than wrought iron, but is cheaper and more widely available. Carbon steel contains 2.0% carbon or less,[125] with small amounts of manganese, sulfur, phosphorus, and silicon. Alloy steels contain varying amounts of carbon as well as other metals, such as chromium, vanadium, molybdenum, nickel, tungsten, etc. Their alloy content raises their cost, and so they are usually only employed for specialist uses. One common alloy steel, though, is stainless steel. Recent developments in ferrous metallurgy have produced a growing range of microalloyed steels, also termed 'HSLA' or high-strength, low alloy steels, containing tiny additions to produce high strengths and often spectacular toughness at minimal cost.[125][126][127]
+
+Apart from traditional applications, iron is also used for protection from ionizing radiation. Although it is lighter than another traditional protection material, lead, it is much stronger mechanically. The attenuation of radiation as a function of energy is shown in the graph.[128]
+
+The main disadvantage of iron and steel is that pure iron, and most of its alloys, suffer badly from rust if not protected in some way, a cost amounting to over 1% of the world's economy.[129] Painting, galvanization, passivation, plastic coating and bluing are all used to protect iron from rust by excluding water and oxygen or by cathodic protection. The mechanism of the rusting of iron is as follows:[129]
+
+The electrolyte is usually iron(II) sulfate in urban areas (formed when atmospheric sulfur dioxide attacks iron), and salt particles in the atmosphere in seaside areas.[129]
+
+Although the dominant use of iron is in metallurgy, iron compounds are also pervasive in industry. Iron catalysts are traditionally used in the Haber-Bosch process for the production of ammonia and the Fischer-Tropsch process for conversion of carbon monoxide to hydrocarbons for fuels and lubricants.[130] Powdered iron in an acidic solvent was used in the Bechamp reduction the reduction of nitrobenzene to aniline.[131]
+
+Iron(III) oxide mixed with aluminium powder can be ignited to create a thermite reaction, used in welding large iron parts (like rails) and purifying ores. Iron(III) oxide and oxyhidroxide are used as reddish and ocher pigments.
+
+Iron(III) chloride finds use in water purification and sewage treatment, in the dyeing of cloth, as a coloring agent in paints, as an additive in animal feed, and as an etchant for copper in the manufacture of printed circuit boards.[132] It can also be dissolved in alcohol to form tincture of iron, which is used as a medicine to stop bleeding in canaries.[133]
+
+Iron(II) sulfate is used as a precursor to other iron compounds. It is also used to reduce chromate in cement. It is used to fortify foods and treat iron deficiency anemia. Iron(III) sulfate is used in settling minute sewage particles in tank water. Iron(II) chloride is used as a reducing flocculating agent, in the formation of iron complexes and magnetic iron oxides, and as a reducing agent in organic synthesis.[132]
+
+Iron is required for life.[5][134][135] The iron–sulfur clusters are pervasive and include nitrogenase, the enzymes responsible for biological nitrogen fixation. Iron-containing proteins participate in transport, storage and used of oxygen.[5] Iron proteins are involved in electron transfer.[136]
+
+Examples of iron-containing proteins in higher organisms include hemoglobin, cytochrome (see high-valent iron), and catalase.[5][137] The average adult human contains about 0.005% body weight of iron, or about four grams, of which three quarters is in hemoglobin – a level that remains constant despite only about one milligram of iron being absorbed each day,[136] because the human body recycles its hemoglobin for the iron content.[138]
+
+Iron acquisition poses a problem for aerobic organisms because ferric iron is poorly soluble near neutral pH. Thus, these organisms have developed means to absorb iron as complexes, sometimes taking up ferrous iron before oxidising it back to ferric iron.[5] In particular, bacteria have evolved very high-affinity sequestering agents called siderophores.[139][140][141]
+
+After uptake in human cells, iron storage is precisely regulated.[5][142] A major component of this regulation is the protein transferrin, which binds iron ions absorbed from the duodenum and carries it in the blood to cells.[5][143] Transferrin contains Fe3+ in the middle of a distorted octahedron, bonded to one nitrogen, three oxygens and a chelating carbonate anion that traps the Fe3+ ion: it has such a high stability constant that it is very effective at taking up Fe3+ ions even from the most stable complexes. At the bone marrow, transferrin is reduced from Fe3+ and Fe2+ and stored as ferritin to be incorporated into hemoglobin.[136]
+
+The most commonly known and studied bioinorganic iron compounds (biological iron molecules) are the heme proteins: examples are hemoglobin, myoglobin, and cytochrome P450.[5] These compounds participate in transporting gases, building enzymes, and transferring electrons.[136] Metalloproteins are a group of proteins with metal ion cofactors. Some examples of iron metalloproteins are ferritin and rubredoxin.[136] Many enzymes vital to life contain iron, such as catalase,[144] lipoxygenases,[145] and IRE-BP.[146]
+
+Hemoglobin is an oxygen carrier that occurs in red blood cells and contributes their color, transporting oxygen in the arteries from the lungs to the muscles where it is transferred to myoglobin, which stores it until it is needed for the metabolic oxidation of glucose, generating energy.[5] Here the hemoglobin binds to carbon dioxide, produced when glucose is oxidized, which is transported through the veins by hemoglobin (predominantly as bicarbonate anions) back to the lungs where it is exhaled.[136] In hemoglobin, the iron is in one of four heme groups and has six possible coordination sites; four are occupied by nitrogen atoms in a porphyrin ring, the fifth by an imidazole nitrogen in a histidine residue of one of the protein chains attached to the heme group, and the sixth is reserved for the oxygen molecule it can reversibly bind to.[136] When hemoglobin is not attached to oxygen (and is then called deoxyhemoglobin), the Fe2+ ion at the center of the heme group (in the hydrophobic protein interior) is in a high-spin configuration. It is thus too large to fit inside the porphyrin ring, which bends instead into a dome with the Fe2+ ion about 55 picometers above it. In this configuration, the sixth coordination site reserved for the oxygen is blocked by another histidine residue.[136]
+
+When deoxyhemoglobin picks up an oxygen molecule, this histidine residue moves away and returns once the oxygen is securely attached to form a hydrogen bond with it. This results in the Fe2+ ion switching to a low-spin configuration, resulting in a 20% decrease in ionic radius so that now it can fit into the porphyrin ring, which becomes planar.[136] (Additionally, this hydrogen bonding results in the tilting of the oxygen molecule, resulting in a Fe–O–O bond angle of around 120° that avoids the formation of Fe–O–Fe or Fe–O2–Fe bridges that would lead to electron transfer, the oxidation of Fe2+ to Fe3+, and the destruction of hemoglobin.) This results in a movement of all the protein chains that leads to the other subunits of hemoglobin changing shape to a form with larger oxygen affinity. Thus, when deoxyhemoglobin takes up oxygen, its affinity for more oxygen increases, and vice versa.[136] Myoglobin, on the other hand, contains only one heme group and hence this cooperative effect cannot occur. Thus, while hemoglobin is almost saturated with oxygen in the high partial pressures of oxygen found in the lungs, its affinity for oxygen is much lower than that of myoglobin, which oxygenates even at low partial pressures of oxygen found in muscle tissue.[136] As described by the Bohr effect (named after Christian Bohr, the father of Niels Bohr), the oxygen affinity of hemoglobin diminishes in the presence of carbon dioxide.[136]
+
+Carbon monoxide and phosphorus trifluoride are poisonous to humans because they bind to hemoglobin similarly to oxygen, but with much more strength, so that oxygen can no longer be transported throughout the body. Hemoglobin bound to carbon monoxide is known as carboxyhemoglobin. This effect also plays a minor role in the toxicity of cyanide, but there the major effect is by far its interference with the proper functioning of the electron transport protein cytochrome a.[136] The cytochrome proteins also involve heme groups and are involved in the metabolic oxidation of glucose by oxygen. The sixth coordination site is then occupied by either another imidazole nitrogen or a methionine sulfur, so that these proteins are largely inert to oxygen – with the exception of cytochrome a, which bonds directly to oxygen and thus is very easily poisoned by cyanide.[136] Here, the electron transfer takes place as the iron remains in low spin but changes between the +2 and +3 oxidation states. Since the reduction potential of each step is slightly greater than the previous one, the energy is released step-by-step and can thus be stored in adenosine triphosphate. Cytochrome a is slightly distinct, as it occurs at the mitochondrial membrane, binds directly to oxygen, and transports protons as well as electrons, as follows:[136]
+
+Although the heme proteins are the most important class of iron-containing proteins, the iron-sulfur proteins are also very important, being involved in electron transfer, which is possible since iron can exist stably in either the +2 or +3 oxidation states. These have one, two, four, or eight iron atoms that are each approximately tetrahedrally coordinated to four sulfur atoms; because of this tetrahedral coordination, they always have high-spin iron. The simplest of such compounds is rubredoxin, which has only one iron atom coordinated to four sulfur atoms from cysteine residues in the surrounding peptide chains. Another important class of iron-sulfur proteins is the ferredoxins, which have multiple iron atoms. Transferrin does not belong to either of these classes.[136]
+
+The ability of sea mussels to maintain their grip on rocks in the ocean is facilitated by their use of organometallic iron-based bonds in their protein-rich cuticles. Based on synthetic replicas, the presence of iron in these structures increased elastic modulus 770 times, tensile strength 58 times, and toughness 92 times. The amount of stress required to permanently damage them increased 76 times.[148]
+
+Iron is pervasive, but particularly rich sources of dietary iron include red meat, oysters, lentils, beans, poultry, fish, leaf vegetables, watercress, tofu, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, and blackstrap molasses.[5] Bread and breakfast cereals are sometimes specifically fortified with iron.[5][149]
+
+Iron provided by dietary supplements is often found as iron(II) fumarate, although iron(II) sulfate is cheaper and is absorbed equally well.[132] Elemental iron, or reduced iron, despite being absorbed at only one-third to two-thirds the efficiency (relative to iron sulfate),[150] is often added to foods such as breakfast cereals or enriched wheat flour. Iron is most available to the body when chelated to amino acids[151] and is also available for use as a common iron supplement. Glycine, the least expensive amino acid, is most often used to produce iron glycinate supplements.[152]
+
+The U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM) updated Estimated Average Requirements (EARs) and Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for iron in 2001.[5] The current EAR for iron for women ages 14–18 is 7.9 mg/day, 8.1 for ages 19–50 and 5.0 thereafter (post menopause). For men the EAR is 6.0 mg/day for ages 19 and up. The RDA is 15.0 mg/day for women ages 15–18, 18.0 for 19–50 and 8.0 thereafter. For men, 8.0 mg/day for ages 19 and up. RDAs are higher than EARs so as to identify amounts that will cover people with higher than average requirements. RDA for pregnancy is 27 mg/day and, for lactation, 9 mg/day.[5] For children ages 1–3 years 7 mg/day, 10 for ages 4–8 and 8 for ages 9–13. As for safety, the IOM also sets Tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) for vitamins and minerals when evidence is sufficient. In the case of iron the UL is set at 45 mg/day. Collectively the EARs, RDAs and ULs are referred to as Dietary Reference Intakes.[153]
+
+The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) refers to the collective set of information as Dietary Reference Values, with Population Reference Intake (PRI) instead of RDA, and Average Requirement instead of EAR. AI and UL defined the same as in United States. For women the PRI is 13 mg/day ages 15–17 years, 16 mg/day for women ages 18 and up who are premenopausal and 11 mg/day postmenopausal. For pregnancy and lactation, 16 mg/day. For men the PRI is 11 mg/day ages 15 and older. For children ages 1 to 14 the PRI increases from 7 to 11 mg/day. The PRIs are higher than the U.S. RDAs, with the exception of pregnancy.[154] The EFSA reviewed the same safety question did not establish a UL.[155]
+
+Infants may require iron supplements if they are bottle-fed cow's milk.[156] Frequent blood donors are at risk of low iron levels and are often advised to supplement their iron intake.[157]
+
+For U.S. food and dietary supplement labeling purposes the amount in a serving is expressed as a percent of Daily Value (%DV). For iron labeling purposes 100% of the Daily Value was 18 mg, and as of May 27, 2016[update] remained unchanged at 18 mg.[158][159] Compliance with the updated labeling regulations was required by 1 January 2020, for manufacturers with $10 million or more in annual food sales, and by 1 January 2021, for manufacturers with less than $10 million in annual food sales.[160][161][162] During the first six months following the 1 January 2020 compliance date, the FDA plans to work cooperatively with manufacturers to meet the new Nutrition Facts label requirements and will not focus on enforcement actions regarding these requirements during that time.[160] A table of the old and new adult Daily Values is provided at Reference Daily Intake.
+
+Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world.[5][163][164][165] When loss of iron is not adequately compensated by adequate dietary iron intake, a state of latent iron deficiency occurs, which over time leads to iron-deficiency anemia if left untreated, which is characterised by an insufficient number of red blood cells and an insufficient amount of hemoglobin.[166] Children, pre-menopausal women (women of child-bearing age), and people with poor diet are most susceptible to the disease. Most cases of iron-deficiency anemia are mild, but if not treated can cause problems like fast or irregular heartbeat, complications during pregnancy, and delayed growth in infants and children.[167]
+
+Iron uptake is tightly regulated by the human body, which has no regulated physiological means of excreting iron. Only small amounts of iron are lost daily due to mucosal and skin epithelial cell sloughing, so control of iron levels is primarily accomplished by regulating uptake.[168] Regulation of iron uptake is impaired in some people as a result of a genetic defect that maps to the HLA-H gene region on chromosome 6 and leads to abnormally low levels of hepcidin, a key regulator of the entry of iron into the circulatory system in mammals.[169] In these people, excessive iron intake can result in iron overload disorders, known medically as hemochromatosis.[5] Many people have an undiagnosed genetic susceptibility to iron overload, and are not aware of a family history of the problem. For this reason, people should not take iron supplements unless they suffer from iron deficiency and have consulted a doctor. Hemochromatosis is estimated to be the cause of 0.3 to 0.8% of all metabolic diseases of Caucasians.[170]
+
+Overdoses of ingested iron can cause excessive levels of free iron in the blood. High blood levels of free ferrous iron react with peroxides to produce highly reactive free radicals that can damage DNA, proteins, lipids, and other cellular components. Iron toxicity occurs when the cell contains free iron, which generally occurs when iron levels exceed the availability of transferrin to bind the iron. Damage to the cells of the gastrointestinal tract can also prevent them from regulating iron absorption, leading to further increases in blood levels. Iron typically damages cells in the heart, liver and elsewhere, causing adverse effects that include coma, metabolic acidosis, shock, liver failure, coagulopathy, adult respiratory distress syndrome, long-term organ damage, and even death.[171] Humans experience iron toxicity when the iron exceeds 20 milligrams for every kilogram of body mass; 60 milligrams per kilogram is considered a lethal dose.[172] Overconsumption of iron, often the result of children eating large quantities of ferrous sulfate tablets intended for adult consumption, is one of the most common toxicological causes of death in children under six.[172] The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) sets the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for adults at 45 mg/day. For children under fourteen years old the UL is 40 mg/day.[173]
+
+The medical management of iron toxicity is complicated, and can include use of a specific chelating agent called deferoxamine to bind and expel excess iron from the body.[171][174][175]
+
+The role of iron in cancer defense can be described as a "double-edged sword" because of its pervasive presence in non-pathological processes.[176] People having chemotherapy may develop iron deficiency and anemia, for which intravenous iron therapy is used to restore iron levels.[177] Iron overload, which may occur from high consumption of red meat,[5] may initiate tumor growth and increase susceptibility to cancer onset,[177] particularly for colorectal cancer.[5]
+

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+The liver is an organ only found in vertebrates which detoxifies various metabolites, synthesizes proteins and produces biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth.[2][3][4] In humans, it is located in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, below the diaphragm. Its other roles in metabolism include the regulation of glycogen storage, decomposition of red blood cells, and the production of hormones.[4]
+
+The liver is an accessory digestive organ that produces bile, an alkaline fluid containing cholesterol and bile acids,  which helps the breakdown of fat. The gallbladder, a small pouch that sits just under the liver, stores bile produced by the liver which is afterwards moved to the small intestine to complete digestion.[5] The liver's highly specialized tissue, consisting of mostly hepatocytes, regulates a wide variety of high-volume biochemical reactions, including the synthesis and breakdown of small and complex molecules, many of which are necessary for normal vital functions.[6] Estimates regarding the organ's total number of functions vary, but textbooks generally cite it being around 500.[7]
+
+It is not yet known how to compensate for the absence of liver function in the long term, although liver dialysis techniques can be used in the short term. Artificial livers are yet to be developed to promote long-term replacement in the absence of the liver. As of 2018[update],[8] liver transplantation is the only option for complete liver failure.
+
+The liver is a reddish-brown, wedge-shaped organ with two
+lobes of unequal size and shape. A human liver normally weighs approximately 1.5 kg (3.3 lb)[9] and has a width of about 15 cm (6 in).[10] There is considerable size variation between individuals, with the standard reference range for men being 970–1,860 g (2.14–4.10 lb)[11] and for women 600–1,770 g (1.32–3.90 lb).[12] It is both the heaviest internal organ and the largest gland in the human body.
+Located in the right upper quadrant of the abdominal cavity, it rests just below the diaphragm, to the right of the stomach and overlies the gallbladder.[5]
+
+The liver is connected to two large blood vessels: the hepatic artery and the portal vein. The hepatic artery carries oxygen-rich blood from the aorta via the celiac trunk, whereas the portal vein carries blood rich in digested nutrients from the entire gastrointestinal tract and also from the spleen and pancreas.[8] These blood vessels subdivide into small capillaries known as liver sinusoids, which then lead to lobules.
+
+Lobules are the functional units of the liver. Each lobule is made up of millions of hepatic cells (hepatocytes), which are the basic metabolic cells. The lobules are held together by a fine, dense, irregular, fibroelastic connective tissue layer extending from the fibrous capsule covering the entire liver known as Glisson's capsule.[4] This extends into the structure of the liver by accompanying the blood vessels, ducts, and nerves at the hepatic hilum. The whole surface of the liver, except for the bare area, is covered in a serous coat derived from the peritoneum, and this firmly adheres to the inner Glisson's capsule.
+
+Terminology related to the liver often starts in hepat- from ἡπατο-, from the Greek word for liver.[13]
+
+The liver is grossly divided into two parts when viewed from above – a right and a left lobe - and four parts when viewed from below (left, right, caudate, and quadrate lobes).[14]
+
+The falciform ligament divides the liver into a left and right lobe. From below, the two additional lobes are located between the right and left lobes, one in front of the other. A line can be imagined running from the left of the vena cava and all the way forward to divide the liver and gallbladder into two halves.[15] This line is called Cantlie's line.[16]
+
+Other anatomical landmarks include the ligamentum venosum and the round ligament of the liver (ligamentum teres), which further divide the left side of the liver in two sections. An important anatomical landmark, the porta hepatis, divides this left portion into four segments, which can be numbered starting at the caudate lobe as I in an anticlockwise manner. From this parietal view, seven segments can be seen, because the eighth segment is only visible in the visceral view.[17]
+
+On the diaphragmatic surface, apart from a triangular bare area where it connects to the diaphragm, the liver is covered by a thin, double-layered membrane, the peritoneum, that helps to reduce friction against other organs.[18] This surface covers the convex shape of the two lobes where it accommodates the shape of the diaphragm. The peritoneum folds back on itself to form the falciform ligament and the right and left triangular ligaments.[19]
+
+These peritoneal ligaments are not related to the anatomic ligaments in joints, and the right and left triangular ligaments have no known functional importance, though they serve as surface landmarks.[19] The falciform ligament functions to attach the liver to the posterior portion of the anterior body wall.
+
+The visceral surface or inferior surface is uneven and concave. It is covered in peritoneum apart from where it attaches the gallbladder and the porta hepatis.[18] The fossa of gall bladder lies to the right of the quadrate lobe, occupied by the gallbladder with its cystic duct close to the right end of porta hepatis.
+
+Several impressions on the surface of the liver accommodate the various adjacent structures and organs. Underneath the right lobe and to the right of the gallbladder fossa are two impressions, one behind the other and separated by a ridge. The one in front is a shallow colic impression, formed by the hepatic flexure and the one behind is a deeper renal impression accommodating part of the right kidney and part of the suprarenal gland.[20]
+
+The suprarenal impression is a small, triangular, depressed area on the liver. It is located close to the right of the fossa, between the bare area and the caudate lobe, and immediately above the renal impression. The greater part of the suprarenal impression is devoid of peritoneum and it lodges the right suprarenal gland.[21]
+
+Medial to the renal impression is a third and slightly marked impression, lying between it and the neck of the gall bladder. This is caused by the descending portion of the duodenum, and is known as the duodenal impression.[21]
+
+The inferior surface of the left lobe of the liver presents behind and to the left of the gastric impression.[21] This is moulded over the upper front surface of the stomach, and to the right of this is a rounded eminence, the tuber omentale, which fits into the concavity of the lesser curvature of the stomach and lies in front of the anterior layer of the lesser omentum.
+
+Microscopically, each liver lobe is seen to be made up of hepatic lobules. The lobules are roughly hexagonal and consist of plates of hepatocytes radiating from a central vein.[22][page needed]The central vein joins to the hepatic vein to carry blood out from the liver. A distinctive component of a lobule is the portal triad, which can be found running along each of the lobule's corners. The portal triad, misleadingly named, consists of five structures: a branch of the hepatic artery, a branch of the hepatic portal vein, and a bile duct, as well as lymphatic vessels and a branch of the vagus nerve.[23] Between the hepatocyte plates are liver sinusoids, which are enlarged capillaries through which blood from the hepatic portal vein and hepatic artery enters via the portal triads, then drains to the central vein.[22][page needed]
+
+Histology, the study of microscopic anatomy, shows two major types of liver cell: parenchymal cells and nonparenchymal cells. About 70–85% of the liver volume is occupied by parenchymal hepatocytes. Nonparenchymal cells constitute 40% of the total number of liver cells but only 6.5% of its volume.[24] The liver sinusoids are lined with two types of cell, sinusoidal endothelial cells, and phagocytic Kupffer cells.[25] Hepatic stellate cells are nonparenchymal cells found in the perisinusoidal space, between a sinusoid and a hepatocyte.[24]
+Additionally, intrahepatic lymphocytes are often present in the sinusoidal lumen.[24]
+
+The central area or hepatic hilum, includes the opening known as the porta hepatis which carries the common bile duct and common hepatic artery, and the opening for the portal vein. The duct, vein, and artery divide into left and right branches, and the areas of the liver supplied by these branches constitute the functional left and right lobes. The functional lobes are separated by the imaginary plane, Cantlie's line, joining the gallbladder fossa to the inferior vena cava. The plane separates the liver into the true right and left lobes. The middle hepatic vein also demarcates the true right and left lobes. The right lobe is further divided into an anterior and posterior segment by the right hepatic vein. The left lobe is divided into the medial and lateral segments by the left hepatic vein.
+
+The hilum of the liver is described in terms of three plates that contain the bile ducts and blood vessels. The contents of the whole plate system are surrounded by a sheath.[26] The three plates are the hilar plate, the cystic plate and the umbilical plate and the plate system is the site of the many anatomical variations to be found in the liver.[26]
+
+In the widely used Couinaud system, the functional lobes are further divided into a total of eight subsegments based on a transverse plane through the bifurcation of the main portal vein.[27] The caudate lobe is a separate structure that receives blood flow from both the right- and left-sided vascular branches.[28][29] The Couinaud classification divides the liver into eight functionally independent liver segments. Each segment has its own vascular inflow, outflow and biliary drainage. In the centre of each segment are branches of the portal vein, hepatic artery, and bile duct. In the periphery of each segment is vascular outflow through the hepatic veins.[30] The classification system uses the vascular supply in the liver to separate the functional units (numbered I to VIII) with unit 1, the caudate lobe, receiving its supply from both the right and the left branches of the portal vein. It contains one or more hepatic veins which drain directly into the inferior vena cava.[27] The remainder of the units (II to VIII) are numbered in a clockwise fashion:[30]
+
+About 20,000 protein coding genes are expressed in human cells and 60% of these genes are expressed in a normal, adult liver.[31][32] Over 400 genes are more specifically expressed in the liver, with some 150 genes highly specific for liver tissue. A large fraction of the corresponding liver specific proteins are mainly expressed in hepatocytes and secreted into the blood and constitute plasma proteins. Other liver specific proteins are certain liver enzymes such as HAO1 and RDH16, proteins involved in bile synthesis such as BAAT and SLC27A5, and transporter proteins involved in the metabolism of drugs, such as ABCB11 and SLC2A2. Examples of highly liver-specific proteins include apolipoprotein A II, coagulation factors F2 and F9, complement factor related proteins, and the fibrinogen beta chain protein.[33]
+
+Organogenesis, the development of the organs, takes place from the third to the eighth week during embryogenesis. The origins of the liver lie in both the ventral portion of the foregut endoderm (endoderm being one of the three embryonic germ layers) and the constituents of the adjacent septum transversum mesenchyme. In the human embryo, the hepatic diverticulum is the tube of endoderm that extends out from the foregut into the surrounding mesenchyme. The mesenchyme of septum transversum induces this endoderm to proliferate, to branch, and to form the glandular epithelium of the liver. A portion of the hepatic diverticulum (that region closest to the digestive tube) continues to function as the drainage duct of the liver, and a branch from this duct produces the gallbladder.[34] Besides signals from the septum transversum mesenchyme, fibroblast growth factor from the developing heart also contributes to hepatic competence, along with retinoic acid emanating from the lateral plate mesoderm. The hepatic endodermal cells undergo a morphological transition from columnar to pseudostratified resulting in thickening into the early liver bud. Their expansion forms a population of the bipotential hepatoblasts.[35] Hepatic stellate cells are derived from mesenchyme.[36]
+
+After migration of hepatoblasts into the septum transversum mesenchyme, the hepatic architecture begins to be established, with liver sinusoids and bile canaliculi appearing. The liver bud separates into the lobes. The left umbilical vein becomes the ductus venosus and the right vitelline vein becomes the portal vein. The expanding liver bud is colonized by hematopoietic cells. The bipotential hepatoblasts begin differentiating into biliary epithelial cells and hepatocytes. The biliary epithelial cells differentiate from hepatoblasts around portal veins, first producing a monolayer, and then a bilayer of cuboidal cells. In ductal plate, focal dilations emerge at points in the bilayer, become surrounded by portal mesenchyme, and undergo tubulogenesis into intrahepatic bile ducts. Hepatoblasts not adjacent to portal veins instead differentiate into hepatocytes and arrange into cords lined by sinudoidal epithelial cells and bile canaliculi. Once hepatoblasts are specified into hepatocytes and undergo further expansion, they begin acquiring the functions of a mature hepatocyte, and eventually mature hepatocytes appear as highly polarized epithelial cells with abundant glycogen accumulation. In the adult liver, hepatocytes are not equivalent, with position along the portocentrovenular axis within a liver lobule dictating expression of metabolic genes involved in drug metabolism, carbohydrate metabolism, ammonia detoxification, and bile production and secretion. WNT/β-catenin has now been identified to be playing a key role in this phenomenon.[35]
+
+At birth, the liver comprises roughly 4% of body weight and weighs on average about 120 g (4 oz). Over the course of further development, it will increase to 1.4–1.6 kg (3.1–3.5 lb) but will only take up 2.5–3.5% of body weight.[37]
+
+In the growing fetus, a major source of blood to the liver is the umbilical vein, which supplies nutrients to the growing fetus. The umbilical vein enters the abdomen at the umbilicus and passes upward along the free margin of the falciform ligament of the liver to the inferior surface of the liver. There, it joins with the left branch of the portal vein. The ductus venosus carries blood from the left portal vein to the left hepatic vein and then to the inferior vena cava, allowing placental blood to bypass the liver. In the fetus, the liver does not perform the normal digestive processes and filtration of the infant liver because nutrients are received directly from the mother via the placenta. The fetal liver releases some blood stem cells that migrate to the fetal thymus, creating the T-cells or T-lymphocytes. After birth, the formation of blood stem cells shifts to the red bone marrow. After 2–5 days, the umbilical vein and ductus venosus are completely obliterated; the former becomes the round ligament of liver and the latter becomes the ligamentum venosum.  In the disorders of cirrhosis and portal hypertension, the umbilical vein can open up again.
+
+The various functions of the liver are carried out by the liver cells or hepatocytes. The liver is thought to be responsible for up to 500 separate functions, usually in combination with other systems and organs. Currently, no artificial organ or device is capable of reproducing all the functions of the liver.  Some functions can be carried out by liver dialysis, an experimental treatment for liver failure. The liver also accounts for about 20% of resting total body oxygen consumption.
+
+The liver receives a dual blood supply from the hepatic portal vein and hepatic arteries. The hepatic portal vein delivers around 75% of the liver's blood supply and carries venous blood drained from the spleen, gastrointestinal tract, and its associated organs. The hepatic arteries supply arterial blood to the liver, accounting for the remaining quarter of its blood flow. Oxygen is provided from both sources; about half of the liver's oxygen demand is met by the hepatic portal vein, and half is met by the hepatic arteries.[38] The hepatic artery also has both alpha- and beta-adrenergic receptors; therefore, flow through the artery is controlled, in part, by the splanchnic nerves of the autonomic nervous system.
+
+Blood flows through the liver sinusoids and empties into the central vein of each lobule.  The central veins coalesce into hepatic veins, which leave the liver and drain into the inferior vena cava.[23]
+
+The biliary tract is derived from the branches of the bile ducts. The biliary tract, also known as the biliary tree, is the path by which bile is secreted by the liver then transported to the first part of the small intestine, the duodenum. The bile produced in the liver is collected in bile canaliculi, small grooves between the faces of adjacent hepatocytes. The canaliculi radiate to the edge of the liver lobule, where they merge to form bile ducts. Within the liver, these ducts are termed intrahepatic bile ducts, and once they exit the liver, they are considered extrahepatic. The intrahepatic ducts eventually drain into the right and left hepatic ducts, which exit the liver at the transverse fissure, and merge to form the common hepatic duct. The cystic duct from the gallbladder joins with the common hepatic duct to form the common bile duct.[23] The biliary system and connective tissue is supplied by the hepatic artery alone
+
+Bile either drains directly into the duodenum via the common bile duct, or is temporarily stored in the gallbladder via the cystic duct. The common bile duct and the pancreatic duct enter the second part of the duodenum together at the hepatopancreatic ampulla, also known as the ampulla of Vater.
+
+The liver plays a major role in carbohydrate, protein, amino acid, and lipid metabolism. The liver performs several roles in carbohydrate metabolism: The liver synthesizes and stores around 100 g of glycogen via glycogenesis, the formation of glycogen from glucose. When needed, the liver releases glucose into the blood by performing glycogenolysis, the breakdown of glycogen into glucose.[39] The liver is also responsible for gluconeogenesis, which is the synthesis of glucose from certain amino acids, lactate, or glycerol. Adipose and liver cells produce glycerol by breakdown of fat, which the liver uses for gluconeogenesis.[39]
+
+The liver is responsible for the mainstay of protein metabolism, synthesis as well as degradation. It is also responsible for a large part of amino acid synthesis. The liver plays a role in the production of clotting factors, as well as red blood cell production. Some of the proteins synthesized by the liver include coagulation factors I (fibrinogen), II (prothrombin), V, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, as well as protein C, protein S and antithrombin. In the first trimester fetus, the liver is the main site of red blood cell production. By the 32nd week of gestation, the bone marrow has almost completely taken over that task. The liver is a major site of production for thrombopoietin, a glycoprotein hormone that regulates the production of platelets by the bone marrow.[40]
+
+The liver plays several roles in lipid metabolism: it performs cholesterol synthesis, lipogenesis, and the production of triglycerides, and a bulk of the body's lipoproteins are synthesized in the liver. The liver plays a key role in digestion, as it produces and excretes bile (a yellowish liquid) required for emulsifying fats and help the absorption of vitamin K from the diet. Some of the bile drains directly into the duodenum, and some is stored in the gallbladder. The liver produces insulin-like growth factor 1, a polypeptide protein hormone that plays an important role in childhood growth and continues to have anabolic effects in adults.
+
+The liver is responsible for the breakdown of insulin and other hormones. The liver breaks down bilirubin via glucuronidation, facilitating its excretion into bile.
+The liver is responsible for the breakdown and excretion of many waste products. It plays a key role in breaking down or modifying toxic substances (e.g., methylation) and most medicinal products in a process called drug metabolism. This sometimes results in toxication, when the metabolite is more toxic than its precursor. Preferably, the toxins are conjugated to avail excretion in bile or urine. The liver converts ammonia into urea as part of the urea cycle, and the urea is excreted in the urine.[22]
+
+Because the liver is an expandable organ, large quantities of
+blood can be stored in its blood vessels. Its normal blood
+volume, including both that in the hepatic veins and that in
+the hepatic sinuses, is about 450 milliliters, or almost 10 percent of the body's total blood volume. When high pressure
+in the right atrium causes backpressure in the liver, the liver
+expands, and 0.5 to 1 liter of extra blood is occasionally stored
+in the hepatic veins and sinuses. This occurs especially in cardiac failure with peripheral congestion. Thus, in effect, the liver is a large, expandable,
+venous organ capable of acting as a valuable blood reservoir
+in times of excess blood volume and capable of supplying
+extra blood in times of diminished blood volume.
+
+Because the pores in the hepatic sinusoids are very permeable and allow ready passage of both fluid and proteins into the spaces of disse, the lymph draining from the liver usually has a protein concentration of about 6 g/dl, which is only
+slightly less than the protein concentration of plasma. Also,
+the high permeability of the liver sinusoid epithelium allows
+large quantities of lymph to form. Therefore, about half of
+all the lymph formed in the body under resting conditions
+arises in the liver.
+
+The oxidative capacity of the liver decreases with aging, and therefore any medications that require oxidation (for instance, benzodiazepines) are more likely to accumulate to toxic levels. However, medications with shorter half-lives, such as lorazepam and oxazepam, are preferred in most cases when benzodiazepines are required in regard to geriatric medicine.
+
+The liver is a vital organ and supports almost every other organ in the body. Because of its strategic location and multidimensional functions, the liver is also prone to many diseases.[42] The bare area of the liver is a site that is vulnerable to the passing of infection from the abdominal cavity to the thoracic cavity. Liver diseases may be diagnosed by liver function tests–blood tests that can identify various markers. For example, acute-phase reactants are produced by the liver in response to injury or inflammation.
+
+Hepatitis is a common condition of inflammation of the liver. The most usual cause of this is viral, and the most common of these infections are hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E. Some of these infections are sexually transmitted. Inflammation can also be caused by other viruses in the family Herpesviridae such as the herpes simplex virus.  Chronic (rather than acute) infection with hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus is the main cause of  liver cancer.[43]  Globally, about 248 million individuals are chronically infected with hepatitis B (with 843,724 in the U.S.),[44] and 142 million are chronically infected with hepatitis C[45] (with 2.7 million in the U.S.[46]).  Globally there are about 114 million and  20 million cases of hepatitis A[45] and hepatitis E[47] respectively, but these generally resolve and do not become chronic.  Hepatitis D virus is a "satellite" of hepatitis B virus (can only infect in the presence of hepatitis B), and co-infects nearly 20 million people with hepatitis B, globally.[48]
+
+Hepatic encephalopathy is caused by an accumulation of toxins in the bloodstream that are normally removed by the liver. This condition can result in coma and can prove fatal. Budd–Chiari syndrome is a condition caused by blockage of the hepatic veins (including thrombosis) that drain the liver. It presents with the classical triad of abdominal pain, ascites and liver enlargement.[49] Many diseases of the liver are accompanied by jaundice caused by increased levels of bilirubin in the system. The bilirubin results from the breakup of the hemoglobin of dead red blood cells; normally, the liver removes bilirubin from the blood and excretes it through bile.
+
+Other disorders caused by excessive alcohol consumption are grouped under alcoholic liver diseases and these include alcoholic hepatitis, fatty liver, and cirrhosis. Factors contributing to the development of alcoholic liver diseases are not only the quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption, but can also include gender, genetics, and liver insult. Liver damage can also be caused by drugs, particularly paracetamol and drugs used to treat cancer. A rupture of the liver can be caused by a liver shot used in combat sports.
+
+Primary biliary cholangitis is an autoimmune disease of the liver.[50][51] It is marked by slow progressive destruction of the small bile ducts of the liver, with the intralobular ducts (Canals of Hering) affected early in the disease.[52] When these ducts are damaged, bile and other toxins build up in the liver (cholestasis) and over time damages the liver tissue in combination with ongoing immune related damage. This can lead to scarring (fibrosis) and cirrhosis. Cirrhosis increases the resistance to blood flow in the liver, and can result in portal hypertension. Congested anastomoses between the portal venous system and the systemic circulation, can be a subsequent condition.
+
+There are also many pediatric liver diseases, including biliary atresia, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, alagille syndrome, progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis, Langerhans cell histiocytosis and hepatic hemangioma a benign tumour the most common type of liver tumour, thought to be congenital. A genetic disorder causing multiple cysts to form in the liver tissue, usually in later life, and usually asymptomatic, is polycystic liver disease. Diseases that interfere with liver function will lead to derangement of these processes. However, the liver has a great capacity to regenerate and has a large reserve capacity. In most cases, the liver only produces symptoms after extensive damage.
+
+Hepatomegaly refers to an enlarged liver and can be due to many causes. It can be palpated in a liver span measurement.
+
+The classic symptoms of liver damage include the following:
+
+The diagnosis of liver disease is made by liver function tests, groups of blood tests, that can readily show the extent of liver damage. If infection is suspected, then other serological tests will be carried out. A physical examination of the liver can only reveal its size and any tenderness, and some form of imaging such as an ultrasound or CT scan may also be needed.[54]
+Sometimes a liver biopsy will be necessary, and a tissue sample is taken through a needle inserted into the skin just below the rib cage. This procedure may be helped by a sonographer providing ultrasound guidance to an interventional radiologist.[55]
+
+Axial CT image showing anomalous hepatic veins coursing on the subcapsular anterior surface of the liver.[56]
+
+Maximum intensity projection (MIP) CT image as viewed anteriorly showing the anomalous hepatic veins coursing on the anterior surface of the liver
+
+Lateral MIP view in the same patient
+
+A CT scan in which the liver and portal vein are shown.
+
+The liver is the only human internal organ capable of natural regeneration of lost tissue; as little as 25% of a liver can regenerate into a whole liver.[57]  This is, however, not true regeneration but rather compensatory growth in mammals.[58]  The lobes that are removed do not regrow and the growth of the liver is a restoration of function, not original form.  This contrasts with true regeneration where both original function and form are restored. In some other species, such as zebrafish, the liver undergoes true regeneration by restoring both shape and size of the organ.[59] In the liver, large areas of the tissues are formed but for the formation of new cells there must be sufficient amount of material so the circulation of the blood becomes more active.[60]
+
+This is predominantly due to the hepatocytes re-entering the cell cycle. That is, the hepatocytes go from the quiescent G0 phase to the G1 phase and undergo mitosis. This process is activated by the p75 receptors.[61] There is also some evidence of bipotential stem cells, called hepatic oval cells or ovalocytes (not to be confused with oval red blood cells of ovalocytosis), which are thought to reside in the canals of Hering. These cells can differentiate into either hepatocytes or cholangiocytes. Cholangiocytes are the epithelial lining cells of the bile ducts.[62] They are cuboidal epithelium in the small interlobular bile ducts, but become columnar and mucus secreting in larger bile ducts approaching the porta hepatis and the extrahepatic ducts. Research is being carried out on the use of stem cells for the generation of an artificial liver.
+
+Scientific and medical works about liver regeneration often refer to the Greek Titan Prometheus who was chained to a rock in the Caucasus where, each day, his liver was devoured by an eagle, only to grow back each night. The myth suggests the ancient Greeks may have known about the liver's remarkable capacity for self-repair.[63]
+
+Human liver transplants were first performed by Thomas Starzl in the United States and Roy Calne in Cambridge, England in 1963 and 1967, respectively.
+
+Liver transplantation is the only option for those with irreversible liver failure. Most transplants are done for chronic liver diseases leading to cirrhosis, such as chronic hepatitis C, alcoholism, and autoimmune hepatitis. Less commonly, liver transplantation is done for fulminant hepatic failure, in which liver failure occurs over days to weeks.
+
+Liver allografts for transplant usually come from donors who have died from fatal brain injury. Living donor liver transplantation is a technique in which a portion of a living person's liver is removed (hepatectomy) and used to replace the entire liver of the recipient.  This was first performed in 1989 for pediatric liver transplantation.  Only 20 percent of an adult's liver (Couinaud segments 2 and 3) is needed to serve as a liver allograft for an infant or small child.
+
+More recently,[when?] adult-to-adult liver transplantation has been done using the donor's right hepatic lobe, which amounts to 60 percent of the liver.  Due to the ability of the liver to regenerate, both the donor and recipient end up with normal liver function if all goes well. This procedure is more controversial, as it entails performing a much larger operation on the donor, and indeed there were at least two donor deaths out of the first several hundred cases. A 2006 publication addressed the problem of donor mortality and found at least fourteen cases.[64] The risk of postoperative complications (and death) is far greater in right-sided operations than that in left-sided operations.
+
+With the recent advances of noninvasive imaging, living liver donors usually have to undergo imaging examinations for liver anatomy to decide if the anatomy is feasible for donation. The evaluation is usually performed by multidetector row computed tomography (MDCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MDCT is good in vascular anatomy and volumetry. MRI is used for biliary tree anatomy. Donors with very unusual vascular anatomy, which makes them unsuitable for donation, could be screened out to avoid unnecessary operations.
+
+MDCT image. Arterial anatomy contraindicated for liver donation
+
+MDCT image. Portal venous anatomy contraindicated for liver donation
+
+MDCT image. 3D image created by MDCT can clearly visualize the liver, measure the liver volume, and plan the dissection plane to facilitate the liver transplantation procedure.
+
+Phase contrast CT image. Contrast is perfusing the right liver but not the left due to a left portal vein thrombus.
+
+Some cultures regard the liver as the seat of the soul.[65] In Greek mythology, the gods punished Prometheus for revealing fire to humans by chaining him to a rock where a vulture (or an eagle) would peck out his liver, which would regenerate overnight. (The liver is the only human internal organ that actually can regenerate itself to a significant extent.) Many ancient peoples of the Near East and Mediterranean areas practiced a type of divination called haruspicy or hepatomancy, where they tried to obtain information by examining the livers of sheep and other animals.
+
+In Plato, and in later physiology, the liver was thought to be the seat of the darkest emotions (specifically wrath, jealousy and greed) which drive men to action.[66] The Talmud (tractate Berakhot 61b) refers to the liver as the seat of anger, with the gallbladder counteracting this. The Persian, Urdu, and Hindi languages (جگر or जिगर or jigar) refer to the liver figurative speech to indicate courage and strong feelings, or "their best"; e.g., "This Mecca has thrown to you the pieces of its liver!".[67] The term jan e jigar, literally "the strength (power) of my liver", is a term of endearment in Urdu. In Persian slang, jigar is used as an adjective for any object which is desirable, especially women. In the Zulu language, the word for liver (isibindi) is the same as the word for courage.
+
+Humans commonly eat the livers of mammals, fowl, and fish as food. Domestic pig, ox, lamb, calf, chicken, and goose livers are widely available from butchers and supermarkets. In the Romance languages, the anatomical word for "liver" (French foie, Spanish hígado, etc.) derives not from the Latin anatomical term, jecur, but from the culinary term ficatum, literally "stuffed with figs," referring to the livers of geese that had been fattened on figs.[68] Animal livers are rich in iron, vitamin A and vitamin B12; and cod liver oil is commonly used as a dietary supplement.
+
+Liver can be baked, boiled, broiled, fried, stir-fried, or eaten raw (asbeh nayeh or sawda naye in Lebanese cuisine, or liver sashimi in Japanese cuisine). In many preparations, pieces of liver are combined with pieces of meat or kidneys, as in the various forms of Middle Eastern mixed grill (e.g. meurav Yerushalmi). Well-known examples include liver pâté, foie gras, chopped liver, and leverpastej. Liver sausages such as Braunschweiger and liverwurst are also a valued meal. Liver sausages may also be used as spreads. A traditional South African delicacy, skilpadjies, is made of minced lamb's liver wrapped in netvet (caul fat), and grilled over an open fire. Traditionally, some fish livers were valued as food, especially the stingray liver. It was used to prepare delicacies, such as poached skate liver on toast in England, as well as the beignets de foie de raie and foie de raie en croute in French cuisine.[69]
+
+The Humr, one of the tribes in the Baggara ethnic grouping, native to southwestern Kordofan in Sudan and speakers of Shuwa or Chadian Arabic, prepare a non-alcoholic drink from the liver and bone marrow of the giraffe which they call umm nyolokh, and which they claim is intoxicating  ( Arabic  سكران  sakran ), causing dreams and even waking hallucinations.[70] Anthropologist Ian Cunnison, who accompanied the Humr on one of their giraffe-hunting expeditions in the late 1950s, notes that:
+
+It is said that a person, once he has drunk umm nyolokh, will return to giraffe again and again. Humr, being Mahdists, are strict abstainers [ from alcohol ] and a Humrawi is never drunk ( sakran ) on liquor or beer. But he uses this word to describe the effects which umm nyolokh has upon him.[71]
+
+Cunnison's remarkable account of an apparently psychoactive mammal found its way from a somewhat obscure scientific paper into more mainstream literature through a conversation between Dr. Wendy James of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford and specialist on the use of hallucinogens and intoxicants in society Richard Rudgley, who considered its implications in his popular work The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances. Rudgley hypothesises that the presence of the hallucinogenic compound DMT might account for the putative intoxicating properties of umm nyolokh.[70]
+
+Cunnison himself, on the other hand, had found it hard fully to believe in the literal truth of the Humr's assertion that their drink was intoxicating:
+
+I can only assume that there is no intoxicating substance in the drink and that the effect it produces is simply a matter of convention, although it may be brought about subconsciously.[71]
+
+The study of entheogens in general - including entheogens of animal origin ( e.g. hallucinogenic fish and toad venom ) - has, however, made considerable progress in the sixty-odd years since Cunnison's report and the idea that some intoxicating principle might reside in giraffe liver no longer seems as far-fetched as it was in Cunnison's day, although conclusive proof ( or disproof ) will have to await detailed analyses of the animal organ  in question and the drink prepared therefrom.[70]
+
+Certain Tungusic peoples formerly prepared a type of arrow poison from rotting animal livers, which was, in later times, also applied to bullets. Russian anthropologist Sergei Mikhailovich Shirokogorov notes that:
+
+Formerly the using of poisoned arrows was common. For instance, among the Kumarčen, [ a subgroup of the Oroqen ] even in recent times a poison was used which was prepared from decaying liver. * ( Note ) This has been confirmed by the Kumarčen. I am not competent to judge as to the chemical conditions of production of poison which is not destroyed by the heat of explosion. However, the Tungus themselves compare this method [ of poisoning ammunition ] with the poisoning of arrows.[72]
+
+The liver is found in all vertebrates and is typically the largest visceral (internal) organ. Its form varies considerably in different species, and is largely determined by the shape and arrangement of the surrounding organs. Nonetheless, in most species it is divided into right and left lobes; exceptions to this general rule include snakes, where the shape of the body necessitates a simple cigar-like form. The internal structure of the liver is broadly similar in all vertebrates.[73]
+
+An organ sometimes referred to as a liver is found associated with the digestive tract of the primitive chordate Amphioxus. Although it performs many functions of a liver, it is not considered a true liver but a homolog of the vertebrate liver.[74][75][76] The amphioxus hepatic caecum produces the liver-specific proteins vitellogenin, antithrombin, plasminogen, alanine aminotransferase, and insulin/Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)[77]

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+
+
+
+
+Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer,[a] is a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of 11 players. It is played by approximately 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to outscore the opposition by moving the ball beyond the goal line into the opposing goal. The team with the higher number of goals wins the game.
+
+Football is played in accordance with a set of rules known as the Laws of the Game. The ball is 68–70 cm (27–28 in) in circumference and known as the football. The two teams each compete to get the ball into the other team's goal (between the posts and under the bar), thereby scoring a goal. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals then the game is a draw. Each team is led by a captain who has only one official responsibility as mandated by the Laws of the Game: to represent their team in the coin toss prior to kick-off or penalty kicks.[5]
+
+Players are not allowed to touch the ball with hands or arms while it is in play, except for the goalkeepers within the penalty area. Other players mainly use their feet to strike or pass the ball, but may also use any other part of their body except the hands and the arms. The team that scores most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is level at the end of the game, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time or a penalty shootout depending on the format of the competition.
+
+Football is governed internationally by the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA; French: Fédération Internationale de Football Association), which organises World Cups for both men and women every four years.[6] The FIFA World Cup has taken place every four years since 1930 with the exception of 1942 and 1946 tournaments, which were cancelled due to World War II. Approximately 190–200 national teams compete in qualifying tournaments within the scope of continental confederations for a place in the finals. The finals tournament, which is held every four years, involves 32 national teams competing over a four-week period.[b] It is the most prestigious football tournament in the world as well as the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding the Olympic Games.
+
+The most prestigious competition in club football is the UEFA Champions League which attracts an extensive television audience throughout the world. The final of the tournament has been, in recent years, the most-watched annual sporting event in the world.[7] The top five European leagues are the Premier League (England), La Liga (Spain), Bundesliga (Germany), Serie A (Italy), and Ligue 1 (France). Attracting most of the world's best players, each of the leagues has a total wage cost in excess of £600 million/€763 million/US$1.185 billion.[8]
+
+Football is one of a family of football codes, which emerged from various ball games played worldwide since antiquity. The modern game traces its origins to 1863 when the Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by The Football Association.
+
+
+
+The rules of association football were codified in England by FA in 1863 and the name association football was coined to distinguish the game from the other forms of football played at the time, specifically rugby football. The first written "reference to the inflated ball used in the game" was in the mid-14th century: "Þe heued fro þe body went, Als it were a foteballe."[9] The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the "rules of the game" were made in 1848, before the "split off in 1863".[10] The term soccer comes from a slang or jocular abbreviation of the word "association", with the suffix "-er" appended to it.[11] The word soccer (which arrived at its final form in 1895) was first recorded in 1889 in the earlier form of socca.[12]
+
+Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called "football" in the United Kingdom and mainly "soccer" in Canada and the United States. People in countries where other codes of football are prevalent (Australia, Ireland, Wales, South Africa and New Zealand) may use either term, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use "football" for the formal name.[13]
+
+Kicking ball games arose independently multiple times across multiple cultures. According to FIFA, the Chinese competitive game cuju (蹴鞠, literally "kick ball") is the earliest form of football for which there is evidence.[4] Cuju players could use any part of the body apart from hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net. It was remarkably similar to modern football, though similarities to rugby occurred.[15][16] During the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), cuju games were standardised and rules were established.[15]
+
+Phaininda and episkyros were Greek ball games.[17][18] An image of an episkyros player depicted in low relief on a vase at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens[14] appears on the UEFA European Championship Cup.[19] Athenaeus, writing in 228 AD, referenced the Roman ball game harpastum. Phaininda, episkyros and harpastum were played involving hands and violence. They all appear to have resembled rugby football, wrestling and volleyball more than what is recognizable as modern football.[15][20][21][22][23][24] As with pre-codified "mob football", the antecedent of all modern football codes, these three games involved more handling the ball than kicking.[25][26] Other games included kemari in Japan and chuk-guk in Korea.[27][28]
+
+Association football in itself does not have a classical history.[19] Notwithstanding any similarities to other ball games played around the world FIFA has recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe.[29] The modern rules of association football are based on the mid-19th century efforts to standardise the widely varying forms of football played in the public schools of England. The history of football in England dates back to at least the eighth century AD.[30]
+
+The Cambridge Rules, first drawn up at Cambridge University in 1848, were particularly influential in the development of subsequent codes, including association football. The Cambridge Rules were written at Trinity College, Cambridge, at a meeting attended by representatives from Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester and Shrewsbury schools. They were not universally adopted. During the 1850s, many clubs unconnected to schools or universities were formed throughout the English-speaking world, to play various forms of football. Some came up with their own distinct codes of rules, most notably the Sheffield Football Club, formed by former public school pupils in 1857,[31] which led to formation of a Sheffield FA in 1867. In 1862, John Charles Thring of Uppingham School also devised an influential set of rules.[32]
+
+These ongoing efforts contributed to the formation of The Football Association (The FA) in 1863, which first met on the morning of 26 October 1863 at the Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London.[33] The only school to be represented on this occasion was Charterhouse. The Freemason's Tavern was the setting for five more meetings between October and December, which eventually produced the first comprehensive set of rules. At the final meeting, the first FA treasurer, the representative from Blackheath, withdrew his club from the FA over the removal of two draft rules at the previous meeting: the first allowed for running with the ball in hand; the second for obstructing such a run by hacking (kicking an opponent in the shins), tripping and holding. Other English rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA and instead in 1871 formed the Rugby Football Union. The eleven remaining clubs, under the charge of Ebenezer Cobb Morley, went on to ratify the original thirteen laws of the game.[33] These rules included handling of the ball by "marks" and the lack of a crossbar, rules which made it remarkably similar to Victorian rules football being developed at that time in Australia. The Sheffield FA played by its own rules until the 1870s with the FA absorbing some of its rules until there was little difference between the games.[34]
+
+The world's oldest football competition is the FA Cup, which was founded by C.W. Alcock and has been contested by English teams since 1872. The first official international football match also took place in 1872, between Scotland and England in Glasgow, again at the instigation of C.W. Alcock. England is also home to the world's first football league, which was founded in Birmingham in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor.[35] The original format contained 12 clubs from the Midlands and Northern England.[36]
+
+The laws of the game are determined by the International Football Association Board (IFAB).[37] The board was formed in 1886[38] after a meeting in Manchester of The Football Association, the Scottish Football Association, the Football Association of Wales, and the Irish Football Association. FIFA, the international football body, was formed in Paris in 1904 and declared that they would adhere to Laws of the Game of the Football Association.[39] The growing popularity of the international game led to the admittance of FIFA representatives to the International Football Association Board in 1913. The board consists of four representatives from FIFA and one representative from each of the four British associations.[40]
+
+Today, football is played at a professional level all over the world. Millions of people regularly go to football stadiums to follow their favourite teams,[41] while billions more watch the game on television or on the internet.[42][43] A very large number of people also play football at an amateur level. According to a survey conducted by FIFA published in 2001, over 240 million people from more than 200 countries regularly play football.[44] Football has the highest global television audience in sport.[45]
+
+In many parts of the world football evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations. R. Kapuscinski says that Europeans who are polite, modest, or humble fall easily into rage when playing or watching football games.[46] The Ivory Coast national football team helped secure a truce to the nation's civil war in 2006[47] and it helped further reduce tensions between government and rebel forces in 2007 by playing a match in the rebel capital of Bouaké, an occasion that brought both armies together peacefully for the first time.[48] By contrast, football is widely considered to have been the final proximate cause for the Football War in June 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras.[49] The sport also exacerbated tensions at the beginning of the Croatian Independence War of the 1990s, when a match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade degenerated into rioting in May 1990.[50]
+
+Women may have been playing "football" for as long as the game has existed. Evidence shows that an ancient version of the game (Tsu Chu) was played by women during the Han Dynasty (25–220 CE). Two female figures are depicted in Han Dynasty (25–220 CE) frescoes, playing Tsu Chu.[51] There are, however, a number of opinions about the accuracy of dates, the earliest estimates at 5000 BCE.[52]
+
+Association football, the modern game, also has documented early involvement of women. An annual competition in Mid-Lothian, Scotland during the 1790s is reported, too.[53][54] In 1863, football governing bodies introduced standardised rules to prohibit violence on the pitch, making it more socially acceptable for women to play.[55] The first match recorded by the Scottish Football Association took place in 1892 in Glasgow. In England, the first recorded game of football between women took place in 1895.[55][56]
+
+The most well-documented early European team was founded by activist Nettie Honeyball in England in 1894. It was named the British Ladies' Football Club. Nettie Honeyball is quoted, "I founded the association late last year [1894], with the fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the 'ornamental and useless' creatures men have pictured. I must confess, my convictions on all matters where the sexes are so widely divided are all on the side of emancipation, and I look forward to the time when ladies may sit in Parliament and have a voice in the direction of affairs, especially those which concern them most."[57] Honeyball and those like her paved the way for women's football. However, the women's game was frowned upon by the British football associations, and continued without their support. It has been suggested that this was motivated by a perceived threat to the 'masculinity' of the game.[58]
+
+Women's football became popular on a large scale at the time of the First World War, when employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men fifty years earlier. The most successful team of the era was Dick, Kerr's Ladies of Preston, England. The team played in the first women's international matches in 1920, against a team from Paris, France, in April, and also made up most of the England team against a Scottish Ladies XI in 1920, and winning 22–0.[53]
+
+Despite being more popular than some men's football events (one match saw a 53,000 strong crowd),[59] women's football in England suffered a blow in 1921 when The Football Association outlawed the playing of the game on Association members' pitches, on the grounds that the game (as played by women) was distasteful.[60] Some speculated that this may have also been due to envy of the large crowds that women's matches attracted.[61] This led to the formation of the English Ladies Football Association and play moved to rugby grounds.[62]
+
+Association football has been played by women since at least the time of the first recorded women's games in the late 19th century.[63][64] It has traditionally been associated with charity games and physical exercise, particularly in the United Kingdom.[64] In the late 1960s and early 1970s, women's association football was organised in the United Kingdom, eventually becoming the most prominent team sport for British women.[64]
+
+The growth in women's football has seen major competitions being launched at both national and international level mirroring the male competitions. Women's football has faced many struggles. It had a "golden age" in the United Kingdom in the early 1920s when crowds reached 50,000 at some matches;[65] this was stopped on 5 December 1921 when England's Football Association voted to ban the game from grounds used by its member clubs. The FA's ban was rescinded in December 1969 with UEFA voting to officially recognise women's football in 1971.[64] The FIFA Women's World Cup was inaugurated in 1991 and has been held every four years since,[66] while women's football has been an Olympic event since 1996.[67]
+
+Association football is played in accordance with a set of rules known as the Laws of the Game. The game is played using a spherical ball of 68–70 cm (27–28 in) circumference,[68] known as the football (or soccer ball). Two teams of eleven players each compete to get the ball into the other team's goal (between the posts and under the bar), thereby scoring a goal. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals then the game is a draw. Each team is led by a captain who has only one official responsibility as mandated by the Laws of the Game: to represent their team in the coin toss prior to kick-off or penalty kicks.[5]
+
+The primary law is that players other than goalkeepers may not deliberately handle the ball with their hands or arms during play, though they must use both their hands during a throw-in restart. Although players usually use their feet to move the ball around they may use any part of their body (notably, "heading" with the forehead)[69] other than their hands or arms.[70] Within normal play, all players are free to play the ball in any direction and move throughout the pitch, though players may not pass to teammates who are in an offside position.[71]
+
+During gameplay, players attempt to create goal-scoring opportunities through individual control of the ball, such as by dribbling, passing the ball to a teammate, and by taking shots at the goal, which is guarded by the opposing goalkeeper. Opposing players may try to regain control of the ball by intercepting a pass or through tackling the opponent in possession of the ball; however, physical contact between opponents is restricted. Football is generally a free-flowing game, with play stopping only when the ball has left the field of play or when play is stopped by the referee for an infringement of the rules. After a stoppage, play recommences with a specified restart.[72]
+
+At a professional level, most matches produce only a few goals. For example, the 2005–06 season of the English Premier League produced an average of 2.48 goals per match.[73] The Laws of the Game do not specify any player positions other than goalkeeper,[74] but a number of specialised roles have evolved. Broadly, these include three main categories: strikers, or forwards, whose main task is to score goals; defenders, who specialise in preventing their opponents from scoring; and midfielders, who dispossess the opposition and keep possession of the ball to pass it to the forwards on their team. Players in these positions are referred to as outfield players, to distinguish them from the goalkeeper. These positions are further subdivided according to the area of the field in which the player spends most time. For example, there are central defenders, and left and right midfielders. The ten outfield players may be arranged in any combination. The number of players in each position determines the style of the team's play; more forwards and fewer defenders creates a more aggressive and offensive-minded game, while the reverse creates a slower, more defensive style of play. While players typically spend most of the game in a specific position, there are few restrictions on player movement, and players can switch positions at any time.[75] The layout of a team's players is known as a formation. Defining the team's formation and tactics is usually the prerogative of the team's manager.[76]
+
+There are 17 laws in the official Laws of the Game, each containing a collection of stipulation and guidelines. The same laws are designed to apply to all levels of football, although certain modifications for groups such as juniors, seniors, women and people with physical disabilities are permitted. The laws are often framed in broad terms, which allow flexibility in their application depending on the nature of the game. The Laws of the Game are published by FIFA, but are maintained by the International Football Association Board (IFAB).[77] In addition to the seventeen laws, numerous IFAB decisions and other directives contribute to the regulation of football.
+
+Each team consists of a maximum of eleven players (excluding substitutes), one of whom must be the goalkeeper. Competition rules may state a minimum number of players required to constitute a team, which is usually seven. Goalkeepers are the only players allowed to play the ball with their hands or arms, provided they do so within the penalty area in front of their own goal. Though there are a variety of positions in which the outfield (non-goalkeeper) players are strategically placed by a coach, these positions are not defined or required by the Laws.[74]
+
+The basic equipment or kit players are required to wear includes a shirt, shorts, socks, footwear and adequate shin guards. An athletic supporter and protective cup is highly recommended for male players by medical experts and professionals.[78][79] Headgear is not a required piece of basic equipment, but players today may choose to wear it to protect themselves from head injury.[80] Players are forbidden to wear or use anything that is dangerous to themselves or another player, such as jewellery or watches. The goalkeeper must wear clothing that is easily distinguishable from that worn by the other players and the match officials.[81]
+
+A number of players may be replaced by substitutes during the course of the game. The maximum number of substitutions permitted in most competitive international and domestic league games is three in ninety minutes with each team being allowed one more if the game should go into extra-time, though the permitted number may vary in other competitions or in friendly matches. Common reasons for a substitution include injury, tiredness, ineffectiveness, a tactical switch, or timewasting at the end of a finely poised game. In standard adult matches, a player who has been substituted may not take further part in a match.[82] IFAB recommends "that a match should not continue if there are fewer than seven players in either team". Any decision regarding points awarded for abandoned games is left to the individual football associations.[83]
+
+A game is officiated by a referee, who has "full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match to which he has been appointed" (Law 5), and whose decisions are final. The referee is assisted by two assistant referees. In many high-level games there is also a fourth official who assists the referee and may replace another official should the need arise.[84]
+
+Goal line technology is used to measure if the whole ball has crossed the goal-line thereby determining whether a goal has been scored or not; this was brought in to prevent there being controversy. video assistant referees (VAR) have also been increasingly introduced in high-level matches to assist officials through video replays to correct clear and obvious mistakes. There are four types of calls that can be reviewed: mistaken identity in awarding a red or yellow card, goals and whether there was a violation during the buildup, direct red card decisions, and penalty decisions.[85]
+
+The ball is spherical with a circumference of between 68 and 70 cm (27 and 28 in), a weight in the range of 410 to 450 g (14 to 16 oz), and a pressure between 0.6 and 1.1 standard atmospheres (8.5 and 15.6 pounds per square inch)  at sea level. In the past the ball was made up of leather panels sewn together, with a latex bladder for pressurisation but modern balls at all levels of the game are now synthetic.[86][87]
+
+As the Laws were formulated in England, and were initially administered solely by the four British football associations within IFAB, the standard dimensions of a football pitch were originally expressed in imperial units. The Laws now express dimensions with approximate metric equivalents (followed by traditional units in brackets), though use of imperial units remains popular in English-speaking countries with a relatively recent history of metrication (or only partial metrication), such as Britain.[88]
+
+The length of the pitch, or field, for international adult matches is in the range of 100–110 m (110–120 yd) and the width is in the range of 64–75 m (70–80 yd). Fields for non-international matches may be 90–120 m (100–130 yd) length and 45–90 m (50–100 yd) in width, provided that the pitch does not become square. In 2008, the IFAB initially approved a fixed size of 105 m (115 yd) long and 68 m (74 yd) wide as a standard pitch dimension for international matches;[89] however, this decision was later put on hold and was never actually implemented.[90]
+
+The longer boundary lines are touchlines, while the shorter boundaries (on which the goals are placed) are goal lines. A rectangular goal is positioned at the middle of each goal line.[91] The inner edges of the vertical goal posts must be 7.32 m (24 ft) apart, and the lower edge of the horizontal crossbar supported by the goal posts must be 2.44 m (8 ft) above the ground. Nets are usually placed behind the goal, but are not required by the Laws.[92]
+
+In front of the goal is the penalty area. This area is marked by the goal line, two lines starting on the goal line 16.5 m (18 yd) from the goalposts and extending 16.5 m (18 yd) into the pitch perpendicular to the goal line, and a line joining them. This area has a number of functions, the most prominent being to mark where the goalkeeper may handle the ball and where a penalty foul by a member of the defending team becomes punishable by a penalty kick. Other markings define the position of the ball or players at kick-offs, goal kicks, penalty kicks and corner kicks.[93]
+
+A standard adult football match consists of two halves of 45 minutes each. Each half runs continuously, meaning that the clock is not stopped when the ball is out of play. There is usually a 15-minute half-time break between halves. The end of the match is known as full-time.[94] The referee is the official timekeeper for the match, and may make an allowance for time lost through substitutions, injured players requiring attention, or other stoppages. This added time is called additional time in FIFA documents,[95][96] but is most commonly referred to as stoppage time or injury time, while lost time can also be used as a synonym. The duration of stoppage time is at the sole discretion of the referee. Stoppage time does not fully compensate for the time in which the ball is out of play, and a 90-minute game typically involves about an hour of "effective playing time".[97] The referee alone signals the end of the match. In matches where a fourth official is appointed, towards the end of the half the referee signals how many minutes of stoppage time they intend to add. The fourth official then informs the players and spectators by holding up a board showing this number. The signalled stoppage time may be further extended by the referee.[94] Added time was introduced because of an incident which happened in 1891 during a match between Stoke and Aston Villa. Trailing 1–0 and with just two minutes remaining, Stoke were awarded a penalty. Villa's goalkeeper kicked the ball out of the ground, and by the time the ball had been recovered, the 90 minutes had elapsed and the game was over.[98] The same law also states that the duration of either half is extended until the penalty kick to be taken or retaken is completed, thus no game shall end with a penalty to be taken.[99]
+
+In league competitions, games may end in a draw. In knockout competitions where a winner is required various methods may be employed to break such a deadlock; some competitions may invoke replays.[100] A game tied at the end of regulation time may go into extra time, which consists of two further 15-minute periods. If the score is still tied after extra time, some competitions allow the use of penalty shootouts (known officially in the Laws of the Game as "kicks from the penalty mark") to determine which team will progress to the next stage of the tournament. Goals scored during extra time periods count towards the final score of the game, but kicks from the penalty mark are only used to decide the team that progresses to the next part of the tournament (with goals scored in a penalty shootout not making up part of the final score).[5]
+
+In competitions using two-legged matches, each team competes at home once, with an aggregate score from the two matches deciding which team progresses. Where aggregates are equal, the away goals rule may be used to determine the winners, in which case the winner is the team that scored the most goals in the leg they played away from home. If the result is still equal, extra time and potentially a penalty shootout are required.[5]
+
+Under the Laws, the two basic states of play during a game are ball in play and ball out of play. From the beginning of each playing period with a kick-off until the end of the playing period, the ball is in play at all times, except when either the ball leaves the field of play, or play is stopped by the referee. When the ball becomes out of play, play is restarted by one of eight restart methods depending on how it went out of play:
+
+A foul occurs when a player commits an offence listed in the Laws of the Game while the ball is in play. The offences that constitute a foul are listed in Law 12. Handling the ball deliberately, tripping an opponent, or pushing an opponent, are examples of "penal fouls", punishable by a direct free kick or penalty kick depending on where the offence occurred. Other fouls are punishable by an indirect free kick.[70]
+
+The referee may punish a player's or substitute's misconduct by a caution (yellow card) or dismissal (red card). A second yellow card in the same game leads to a red card, which results in a dismissal. A player given a yellow card is said to have been "booked", the referee writing the player's name in their official notebook. If a player has been dismissed, no substitute can be brought on in their place and the player may not participate in further play. Misconduct may occur at any time, and while the offences that constitute misconduct are listed, the definitions are broad. In particular, the offence of "unsporting behaviour" may be used to deal with most events that violate the spirit of the game, even if they are not listed as specific offences. A referee can show a yellow or red card to a player, substitute or substituted player. Non-players such as managers and support staff cannot be shown the yellow or red card, but may be expelled from the technical area if they fail to conduct themselves in a responsible manner.[70]
+
+Rather than stopping play, the referee may allow play to continue if doing so will benefit the team against which an offence has been committed. This is known as "playing an advantage".[106] The referee may "call back" play and penalise the original offence if the anticipated advantage does not ensue within "a few seconds". Even if an offence is not penalised due to advantage being played, the offender may still be sanctioned for misconduct at the next stoppage of play.[107]
+
+The referee's decision in all on-pitch matters is considered final.[108] The score of a match cannot be altered after the game, even if later evidence shows that decisions (including awards/non-awards of goals) were incorrect.
+
+Along with the general administration of the sport, football associations and competition organisers also enforce good conduct in wider aspects of the game, dealing with issues such as comments to the press, clubs' financial management, doping, age fraud and match fixing. Most competitions enforce mandatory suspensions for players who are sent off in a game.[109] Some on-field incidents, if considered very serious (such as allegations of racial abuse), may result in competitions deciding to impose heavier sanctions than those normally associated with a red card.[c] Some associations allow for appeals against player suspensions incurred on-field if clubs feel a referee was incorrect or unduly harsh.[109]
+
+Sanctions for such infractions may be levied on individuals or on to clubs as a whole. Penalties may include fines, points deductions (in league competitions) or even expulsion from competitions. For example, the English Football League deduct 12 points from any team that enters financial administration.[110] Among other administrative sanctions are penalties against game forfeiture. Teams that had forfeited a game or had been forfeited against would be awarded a technical loss or win.
+
+The recognised international governing body of football (and associated games, such as futsal and beach soccer) is FIFA. The FIFA headquarters are located in Zürich, Switzerland. Six regional confederations are associated with FIFA; these are:[111]
+
+National associations oversee football within individual countries. These are generally synonymous with sovereign states, (for example: the Cameroonian Football Federation in Cameroon) but also include a smaller number of associations responsible for sub-national entities or autonomous regions (for example the Scottish Football Association in Scotland). 209 national associations are affiliated both with FIFA and with their respective continental confederations.[111]
+
+While FIFA is responsible for arranging competitions and most rules related to international competition, the actual Laws of the Game are set by the International Football Association Board, where each of the UK Associations has one vote, while FIFA collectively has four votes.[40]
+
+International competitions in association football principally consist of two varieties: competitions involving representative national teams or those involving clubs based in multiple nations and national leagues. International football, without qualification, most often refers to the former. In the case of international club competition, it is the country of origin of the clubs involved, not the nationalities of their players, that renders the competition international in nature.
+
+The major international competition in football is the World Cup, organised by FIFA. This competition takes place every four years since 1930 with the exception of 1942 and 1946 tournaments, which were cancelled due to World War II. Approximately 190–200 national teams compete in qualifying tournaments within the scope of continental confederations for a place in the finals. The finals tournament, which is held every four years, involves 32 national teams competing over a four-week period.[d] The World Cup is the most prestigious association football tournament in the world as well as the most widely viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games; the cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 FIFA World Cup was estimated to be 26.29 billion with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the final match, a ninth of the entire population of the planet.[112][113][114][115] The current champions are France, who won their second title at the 2018 tournament in Russia. FIFA Women's World Cup has been held every four years since 1991. Under the tournament's current format, national teams vie for 23 slots in a three-year qualification phase. (The host nation's team is automatically entered as the 24th slot.) The current champions are the United States, after winning their fourth title in the 2019 tournament.
+
+There has been a football tournament at every Summer Olympic Games since 1900, except at the 1932 games in Los Angeles.[116] Before the inception of the World Cup, the Olympics (especially during the 1920s) were the most prestigious international event. Originally, the tournament was for amateurs only.[39] As professionalism spread around the world, the gap in quality between the World Cup and the Olympics widened. The countries that benefited most were the Soviet Bloc countries of Eastern Europe, where top athletes were state-sponsored while retaining their status as amateurs. Between 1948 and 1980, 23 out of 27 Olympic medals were won by Eastern Europe, with only Sweden (gold in 1948 and bronze in 1952), Denmark (bronze in 1948 and silver in 1960) and Japan (bronze in 1968) breaking their dominance. For the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the IOC decided to admit professional players. FIFA still did not want the Olympics to rival the World Cup, so a compromise was struck that allowed teams from Africa, Asia, Oceania and CONCACAF to field their strongest professional sides, while restricting UEFA and CONMEBOL teams to players who had not played in a World Cup. Since 1992 male competitors must be under 23 years old, and since 1996, players under 23 years old, with three over-23-year-old players, are allowed per squad. A women's tournament was added in 1996; in contrast to the men's event, full international sides without age restrictions play the women's Olympic tournament.[117]
+
+After the World Cup, the most important international football competitions are the continental championships, which are organised by each continental confederation and contested between national teams. These are the European Championship (UEFA), the Copa América (CONMEBOL), African Cup of Nations (CAF), the Asian Cup (AFC), the CONCACAF Gold Cup (CONCACAF) and the OFC Nations Cup (OFC). The FIFA Confederations Cup was contested by the winners of all six continental championships, the current FIFA World Cup champions and the country which was hosting the next World Cup. This was generally regarded as a warm-up tournament for the upcoming FIFA World Cup and did not carry the same prestige as the World Cup itself. The tournament was discontinued following the 2017 edition.
+
+The most prestigious competitions in club football are the respective continental championships, which are generally contested between national champions, for example the UEFA Champions League in Europe and the Copa Libertadores in South America. The winners of each continental competition contest the FIFA Club World Cup.[118]
+
+The governing bodies in each country operate league systems in a domestic season, normally comprising several divisions, in which the teams gain points throughout the season depending on results. Teams are placed into tables, placing them in order according to points accrued. Most commonly, each team plays every other team in its league at home and away in each season, in a round-robin tournament. At the end of a season, the top team is declared the champion. The top few teams may be promoted to a higher division, and one or more of the teams finishing at the bottom are relegated to a lower division.[120]
+
+The teams finishing at the top of a country's league may be eligible also to play in international club competitions in the following season. The main exceptions to this system occur in some Latin American leagues, which divide football championships into two sections named Apertura and Clausura (Spanish for Opening and Closing), awarding a champion for each.[121] The majority of countries supplement the league system with one or more "cup" competitions organised on a knock-out basis.
+
+Some countries' top divisions feature highly paid star players; in smaller countries, lower divisions, and most of women's clubs, players may be part-timers with a second job, or amateurs. The five top European leagues – the Bundesliga (Germany), Premier League (England),[122] La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), and Ligue 1 (France) – attract most of the world's best players and each of the leagues has a total wage cost in excess of £600 million/€763 million/US$1.185 billion.[8]
+
+Clubs first started to pay their players in 1885.
+
+Football hooliganism is disorderly, violent, or destructive behaviour perpetrated by spectators at football events.[123][124]
+
+Variants of football have been codified for reduced-sized teams (i.e. five-a-side football) play in non-field environments (i.e. beach soccer, indoor soccer, and futsal) and for teams with disabilities (i.e. paralympic association football).
+
+Casual games can be played with only minimal equipment – a basic game can be played on almost any open area of reasonable size with just a ball and items to mark the positions of two sets of goalposts. Such games can have team sizes that vary from eleven-a-side, can use a limited or modified subset of the official rules, and can be self-officiated by the players.
+

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+
+
+Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or compound molecules made from a variety of atoms (e.g. carbon dioxide). A gas mixture, such as air, contains a variety of pure gases. What distinguishes a gas from liquids and solids is the vast separation of the individual gas particles. This separation usually makes a colorless gas invisible to the human observer. The interaction of gas particles in the presence of  electric and  gravitational fields are considered[by whom?] negligible, as indicated by the constant velocity vectors in the image.
+
+The gaseous state of matter occurs between the liquid and plasma states,[1] the latter of which provides the upper temperature boundary for gases. Bounding the lower end of the temperature scale lie degenerative quantum gases[2] which are gaining increasing attention.[3]
+High-density atomic gases super-cooled to very low temperatures are classified by their statistical behavior as either Bose gases or Fermi gases. For a comprehensive listing of these exotic states of matter see list of states of matter.
+
+The only chemical elements that are stable diatomic homonuclear molecules at STP are hydrogen (H2), nitrogen (N2), oxygen (O2), and two halogens: fluorine (F2) and chlorine (Cl2). When grouped together with the monatomic noble gases – helium (He), neon (Ne), argon (Ar), krypton (Kr), xenon (Xe), and radon (Rn) – these gases are called "elemental gases".
+
+The word gas was first used by the early 17th-century Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont.[4] He identified carbon dioxide, the first known gas other than air.[5] Van Helmont's word appears to have been simply a phonetic transcription of the Ancient Greek word χάος Chaos – the g in Dutch being pronounced like ch in "loch" (voiceless velar fricative, /x/) – in which case Van Helmont was simply following the established alchemical usage first attested in the works of Paracelsus. According to Paracelsus's terminology, chaos meant something like "ultra-rarefied water".[6]
+
+An alternative story[7] is that Van Helmont's word is corrupted from gahst (or geist), signifying a ghost or spirit. This was because certain gases suggested a supernatural origin, such as from their ability to cause death, extinguish flames, and to occur in "mines, bottom of wells, churchyards and other lonely places". In contrast, French-American historian Jacques Barzun[8] speculated that Van Helmont had borrowed the word from the German Gäscht, meaning the froth resulting from fermentation.
+
+Because most gases are difficult to observe directly, they are described through the use of four physical properties or macroscopic characteristics: pressure, volume, number of particles (chemists group them by moles) and temperature. These four characteristics were repeatedly observed by scientists such as Robert Boyle, Jacques Charles, John Dalton, Joseph Gay-Lussac and Amedeo Avogadro for a variety of gases in various settings. Their detailed studies ultimately led to a mathematical relationship among these properties expressed by the ideal gas law (see simplified models section below).
+
+Gas particles are widely separated from one another, and consequently, have weaker intermolecular bonds than liquids or solids. These intermolecular forces result from electrostatic interactions between gas particles. Like-charged areas of different gas particles repel, while oppositely charged regions of different gas particles attract one another; gases that contain permanently charged ions are known as plasmas. Gaseous compounds with polar covalent bonds contain permanent charge imbalances and so experience relatively strong intermolecular forces, although the molecule while the compound's net charge remains neutral.  Transient, randomly induced charges exist across non-polar covalent bonds of molecules and electrostatic interactions caused by them are referred to as Van der Waals forces. The interaction of these intermolecular forces varies within a substance which determines many of the physical properties unique to each gas.[9][10] A comparison of boiling points for compounds formed by ionic and covalent bonds leads us to this conclusion.[11] The drifting smoke particles in the image provides some insight into low-pressure gas behavior.
+
+Compared to the other states of matter, gases have low density and viscosity. Pressure and temperature influence the particles within a certain volume. This variation in particle separation and speed is referred to as compressibility. This particle separation and size influences optical properties of gases as can be found in the following list of refractive indices. Finally, gas particles spread apart or diffuse in order to homogeneously distribute themselves throughout any container.
+
+When observing a gas, it is typical to specify a frame of reference or length scale. A larger length scale corresponds to a macroscopic or global point of view of the gas. This region (referred to as a volume) must be sufficient in size to contain a large sampling of gas particles. The resulting statistical analysis of this sample size produces the "average" behavior (i.e. velocity, temperature or pressure) of all the gas particles within the region. In contrast, a smaller length scale corresponds to a microscopic or particle point of view.
+
+Macroscopically, the gas characteristics measured are either in terms of the gas particles themselves (velocity, pressure, or temperature) or their surroundings (volume). For example, Robert Boyle studied pneumatic chemistry for a small portion of his career. One of his experiments related the macroscopic properties of pressure and volume of a gas. His experiment used a J-tube manometer which looks like a test tube in the shape of the letter J. Boyle trapped an inert gas in the closed end of the test tube with a column of mercury, thereby making the number of particles and the temperature constant. He observed that when the pressure was increased in the gas, by adding more mercury to the column, the trapped gas' volume decreased (this is known as an inverse relationship). Furthermore, when Boyle multiplied the pressure and volume of each observation, the product was constant. This relationship held for every gas that Boyle observed leading to the law, (PV=k), named to honor his work in this field.
+
+There are many mathematical tools available for analyzing gas properties. As gases are subjected to extreme conditions, these tools become more complex, from the Euler equations  for inviscid flow to the Navier–Stokes equations[12] that fully account for viscous effects. These equations are adapted to the conditions of the gas system in question. Boyle's lab equipment allowed the use of algebra to obtain his analytical results. His results were possible because he was studying gases in relatively low pressure situations where they behaved in an "ideal" manner. These ideal relationships apply to safety calculations for a variety of flight conditions on the materials in use. The high technology equipment in use today was designed to help us safely explore the more exotic operating environments where the gases no longer behave in an "ideal" manner. This advanced math, including statistics and multivariable calculus, makes possible the solution to such complex dynamic situations as space vehicle reentry. An example is the analysis of the space shuttle reentry pictured to ensure the material properties under this loading condition are appropriate.  In this flight regime, the gas is no longer behaving ideally.
+
+The symbol used to represent pressure in equations is "p" or "P" with SI units of pascals.
+
+When describing a container of gas, the term pressure (or absolute pressure) refers to the average force per unit area that the gas exerts on the surface of the container. Within this volume, it is sometimes easier to visualize the gas particles moving in straight lines until they collide with the container (see diagram at top of the article). The force imparted by a gas particle into the container during this collision is the change in momentum of the particle.[13] During a collision only the normal component of velocity changes. A particle traveling parallel to the wall does not change its momentum. Therefore, the average force on a surface must be the average change in linear momentum from all of these gas particle collisions.
+
+Pressure is the sum of all the normal components of force exerted by the particles impacting the walls of the container divided by the surface area of the wall.
+
+The symbol used to represent temperature in equations is T with SI units of kelvins.
+
+The speed of a gas particle is proportional to its absolute temperature. The volume of the balloon in the video shrinks when the trapped gas particles slow down with the addition of extremely cold nitrogen. The temperature of any physical system is related to the motions of the particles (molecules and atoms) which make up the [gas] system.[14] In statistical mechanics, temperature is the measure of the average kinetic energy stored in a particle. The methods of storing this energy are dictated by the degrees of freedom of the particle itself (energy modes). Kinetic energy added (endothermic process) to gas particles by way of collisions produces linear, rotational, and vibrational motion. In contrast, a molecule in a solid can only increase its vibrational modes with the addition of heat as the lattice crystal structure prevents both linear and rotational motions. These heated gas molecules have a greater speed range which constantly varies due to constant collisions with other particles. The speed range can be described by the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. Use of this distribution implies ideal gases near thermodynamic equilibrium for the system of particles being considered.
+
+The symbol used to represent specific volume in equations is "v" with SI units of cubic meters per kilogram.
+
+The symbol used to represent volume in equations is "V" with SI units of cubic meters.
+
+When performing a thermodynamic analysis, it is typical to speak of intensive and extensive properties. Properties which depend on the amount of gas (either by mass or volume) are called extensive properties, while properties that do not depend on the amount of gas are called intensive properties. Specific volume is an example of an intensive property because it is the ratio of volume occupied by a unit of mass of a gas that is identical throughout a system at equilibrium.[15] 1000 atoms a gas occupy the same space as any other 1000 atoms for any given temperature and pressure. This concept is easier to visualize for solids such as iron which are incompressible compared to gases.  However, volume itself --- not specific --- is an extensive property.
+
+The symbol used to represent density in equations is ρ (rho) with SI units of kilograms per cubic meter. This term is the reciprocal of specific volume.
+
+Since gas molecules can move freely within a container, their mass is normally characterized by density. Density is the amount of mass per unit volume of a substance, or the inverse of specific volume. For gases, the density can vary over a wide range because the particles are free to move closer together when constrained by pressure or volume. This variation of density is referred to as compressibility. Like pressure and temperature, density is a state variable of a gas and the change in density during any process is governed by the laws of thermodynamics. For a static gas, the density is the same throughout the entire container. Density is therefore a scalar quantity. It can be shown by kinetic theory that the density is inversely proportional to the size of the container in which a fixed mass of gas is confined. In this case of a fixed mass, the density decreases as the volume increases.
+
+If one could observe a gas under a powerful microscope, one would see a collection of particles (molecules, atoms, ions, electrons, etc.) without any definite shape or volume that are in more or less random motion. These neutral gas particles only change direction when they collide with another particle or with the sides of the container. In an ideal gas, these collisions are perfectly elastic. This particle or microscopic view of a gas is described by the kinetic-molecular theory. The assumptions behind this theory can be found in the postulates section of kinetic theory.
+
+Kinetic theory provides insight into the macroscopic properties of gases by considering their molecular composition and motion. Starting with the definitions of momentum and kinetic energy,[16] one can use the conservation of momentum and geometric relationships of a cube to relate macroscopic system properties of temperature and pressure to the microscopic property of kinetic energy per molecule. The theory provides averaged values for these two properties.
+
+The theory also explains how the gas system responds to change. For example, as a gas is heated from absolute zero, when it is (in theory) perfectly still, its internal energy (temperature) is increased. As a gas is heated, the particles speed up and its temperature rises. This results in greater numbers of collisions with the container per unit time due to the higher particle speeds associated with elevated temperatures.  The pressure increases in proportion to the number of collisions per unit time.
+
+Brownian motion is the mathematical model used to describe the random movement of particles suspended in a fluid. The gas particle animation, using pink and green particles, illustrates how this behavior results in the spreading out of gases (entropy). These events are also described by particle theory.
+
+Since it is at the limit of (or beyond) current technology to observe individual gas particles (atoms or molecules), only theoretical calculations give suggestions about how they move, but their motion is different from Brownian motion because Brownian motion involves a smooth drag due to the frictional force of many gas molecules, punctuated by violent collisions of an individual (or several) gas molecule(s) with the particle. The particle (generally consisting of millions or billions of atoms) thus moves in a jagged course, yet not so jagged as would be expected if an individual gas molecule were examined.
+
+As discussed earlier, momentary attractions (or repulsions) between particles have an effect on gas dynamics. In physical chemistry, the name given to these intermolecular forces is van der Waals force. These forces play a key role in determining physical properties of a gas such as viscosity and flow rate (see physical characteristics section). Ignoring these forces in certain conditions allows a real gas to be treated like an ideal gas. This assumption allows the use of ideal gas laws which greatly simplifies calculations.
+
+Proper use of these gas relationships requires the kinetic-molecular theory (KMT). When gas particles experience intermolecular forces they gradually influence one another as the spacing between them is reduced (the hydrogen bond model illustrates one example). In the absence of any charge, at some point when the spacing between gas particles is greatly reduced they can no longer avoid collisions between themselves at normal gas temperatures. Another case for increased collisions among gas particles would include a fixed volume of gas, which upon heating would contain very fast particles. This means that these ideal equations provide reasonable results except for extremely high pressure (compressible) or high temperature (ionized) conditions. All of these excepted conditions allow energy transfer to take place within the gas system. The absence of these internal transfers is what is referred to as ideal conditions in which the energy exchange occurs only at the boundaries of the system. Real gases experience some of these collisions and intermolecular forces. When these collisions are statistically negligible (incompressible), results from these ideal equations are still meaningful. If the gas particles are compressed into close proximity they behave more like a liquid (see fluid dynamics).
+
+An equation of state (for gases) is a mathematical model used to roughly describe or predict the state properties of a gas. At present, there is no single equation of state that accurately predicts the properties of all gases under all conditions. Therefore, a number of much more accurate equations of state have been developed for gases in specific temperature and pressure ranges. The "gas models" that are most widely discussed are "perfect gas", "ideal gas" and "real gas". Each of these models has its own set of assumptions to facilitate the analysis of a given thermodynamic system.[17] Each successive model expands the temperature range of coverage to which it applies.
+
+The equation of state for an ideal or perfect gas is the ideal gas law and reads
+
+where P is the pressure, V is the volume, n is amount of gas (in mol units), R is the universal gas constant,  8.314 J/(mol K), and T is the temperature. Written this way, it is sometimes called the "chemist's version", since it emphasizes the number of molecules n. It can also be written as
+
+where 
+
+
+
+
+R
+
+s
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle R_{s}}
+
+ is the specific gas constant for a particular gas, in units J/(kg K), and ρ = m/V is density. This notation is the "gas dynamicist's" version, which is more practical in modeling of gas flows involving acceleration without chemical reactions.
+
+The ideal gas law does not make an assumption about the specific heat of a gas. In the most general case, the specific heat is a function of both temperature and pressure. If the pressure-dependence is neglected (and possibly the temperature-dependence as well) in a particular application, sometimes the gas is said to be a perfect gas, although the exact assumptions may vary depending on the author and/or field of science.
+
+For an ideal gas, the ideal gas law applies without restrictions on the specific heat. An ideal gas is a simplified "real gas" with the assumption that the compressibility factor Z is set to 1 meaning that this pneumatic ratio remains constant. A compressibility factor of one also requires the four state variables to follow the ideal gas law.
+
+This approximation is more suitable for applications in engineering although simpler models can be used to produce a "ball-park" range as to where the real solution should lie. An example where the "ideal gas approximation" would be suitable would be inside a combustion chamber of a jet engine.[18] It may also be useful to keep the elementary reactions and chemical dissociations for calculating emissions.
+
+Each one of the assumptions listed below adds to the complexity of the problem's solution. As the density of a gas increases with rising pressure, the intermolecular forces play a more substantial role in gas behavior which results in the ideal gas law no longer providing "reasonable" results. At the upper end of the engine temperature ranges (e.g. combustor sections – 1300 K), the complex fuel particles absorb internal energy by means of rotations and vibrations that cause their specific heats to vary from those of diatomic molecules and noble gases. At more than double that temperature, electronic excitation and dissociation of the gas particles begins to occur causing the pressure to adjust to a greater number of particles (transition from gas to plasma).[19] Finally, all of the thermodynamic processes were presumed to describe uniform gases whose velocities varied according to a fixed distribution. Using a non-equilibrium situation implies the flow field must be characterized in some manner to enable a solution. One of the first attempts to expand the boundaries of the ideal gas law was to include coverage for different thermodynamic processes by adjusting the equation to read pVn = constant and then varying the n through different values such as the specific heat ratio, γ.
+
+Real gas effects include those adjustments made to account for a greater range of gas behavior:
+
+For most applications, such a detailed analysis is excessive. Examples where real gas effects would have a significant impact would be on the Space Shuttle re-entry where extremely high temperatures and pressures were present or the gases produced during geological events as in the image of the 1990 eruption of Mount Redoubt.
+
+Boyle's law was perhaps the first expression of an equation of state. In 1662 Robert Boyle performed a series of experiments employing a J-shaped glass tube, which was sealed on one end. Mercury was added to the tube, trapping a fixed quantity of air in the short, sealed end of the tube. Then the volume of gas was carefully measured as additional mercury was added to the tube. The pressure of the gas could be determined by the difference between the mercury level in the short end of the tube and that in the long, open end. The image of Boyle's equipment shows some of the exotic tools used by Boyle during his study of gases.
+
+Through these experiments, Boyle noted that the pressure exerted by a gas held at a constant temperature varies inversely with the volume of the gas.[20]  For example, if the volume is halved, the pressure is doubled; and if the volume is doubled, the pressure is halved. Given the inverse relationship between pressure and volume, the product of pressure (P) and volume (V) is a constant (k) for a given mass of confined gas as long as the temperature is constant. Stated as a formula, thus is:
+
+Because the before and after volumes and pressures of the fixed amount of gas, where the before and after temperatures are the same both equal the constant k, they can be related by the equation:
+
+P
+
+1
+
+
+
+V
+
+1
+
+
+=
+
+P
+
+2
+
+
+
+V
+
+2
+
+
+.
+
+
+{\displaystyle \qquad P_{1}V_{1}=P_{2}V_{2}.}
+
+In 1787, the French physicist and balloon pioneer, Jacques Charles, found that oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and air expand to the same extent over the same 80 kelvin interval. He noted that, for an ideal gas at constant pressure, the volume is directly proportional to its temperature:
+
+In 1802, Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac published results of similar, though more extensive experiments.[21] Gay-Lussac credited Charles' earlier work by naming the law in his honor. Gay-Lussac himself is credited with the law describing pressure, which he found in 1809. It states that the pressure exerted on a container's sides by an ideal gas is proportional to its temperature.
+
+In 1811, Amedeo Avogadro verified that equal volumes of pure gases contain the same number of particles. His theory was not generally accepted until 1858 when another Italian chemist Stanislao Cannizzaro was able to explain non-ideal exceptions. For his work with gases a century prior, the number that bears his name Avogadro's constant represents the number of atoms found in 12 grams of elemental carbon-12 (6.022×1023 mol−1). This specific number of gas particles, at standard temperature and pressure (ideal gas law) occupies 22.40 liters, which is referred to as the molar volume.
+
+Avogadro's law states that the volume occupied by an ideal gas is proportional to the number of moles (or molecules) present in the container. This gives rise to the molar volume of a gas, which at STP is 22.4 dm3 (or litres). The relation is given by
+
+where n is equal to the number of moles of gas (the number of molecules divided by Avogadro's number).
+
+In 1801, John Dalton published the law of partial pressures from his work with ideal gas law relationship: The pressure of a mixture of non reactive gases is equal to the sum of the pressures of all of the constituent gases alone. Mathematically, this can be represented for n species as:
+
+The image of Dalton's journal depicts symbology he used as shorthand to record the path he followed. Among his key journal observations upon mixing unreactive "elastic fluids" (gases) were the following:[22]
+
+Thermodynamicists use this factor (Z) to alter the ideal gas equation to account for compressibility effects of real gases. This factor represents the ratio of actual to ideal specific volumes. It is sometimes referred to as a "fudge-factor" or correction to expand the useful range of the ideal gas law for design purposes. Usually this Z value is very close to unity. The compressibility factor image illustrates how Z varies over a range of very cold temperatures.
+
+In fluid mechanics, the Reynolds number is the ratio of inertial forces (vsρ) to viscous forces (μ/L). It is one of the most important dimensionless numbers in fluid dynamics and is used, usually along with other dimensionless numbers, to provide a criterion for determining dynamic similitude. As such, the Reynolds number provides the link between modeling results (design) and the full-scale actual conditions. It can also be used to characterize the flow.
+
+Viscosity, a physical property, is a measure of how well adjacent molecules stick to one another. A solid can withstand a shearing force due to the strength of these sticky intermolecular forces. A fluid will continuously deform when subjected to a similar load. While a gas has a lower value of viscosity than a liquid, it is still an observable property. If gases had no viscosity, then they would not stick to the surface of a wing and form a boundary layer. A study of the delta wing in the Schlieren image reveals that the gas particles stick to one another (see Boundary layer section).
+
+In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic, stochastic property changes. This includes low momentum diffusion, high momentum convection, and rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time. The satellite view of weather around Robinson Crusoe Islands illustrates one example.
+
+Particles will, in effect, "stick" to the surface of an object moving through it. This layer of particles is called the boundary layer. At the surface of the object, it is essentially static due to the friction of the surface. The object, with its boundary layer is effectively the new shape of the object that the rest of the molecules "see" as the object approaches. This boundary layer can separate from the surface, essentially creating a new surface and completely changing the flow path. The classical example of this is a stalling airfoil. The delta wing image clearly shows the boundary layer thickening as the gas flows from right to left along the leading edge.
+
+As the total number of degrees of freedom approaches infinity, the system will be found in the macrostate that corresponds to the highest multiplicity. In order to illustrate this principle, observe the skin temperature of a frozen metal bar. Using a thermal image of the skin temperature, note the temperature distribution on the surface. This initial observation of temperature represents a "microstate". At some future time, a second observation of the skin temperature produces a second microstate. By continuing this observation process, it is possible to produce a series of microstates that illustrate the thermal history of the bar's surface. Characterization of this historical series of microstates is possible by choosing the macrostate that successfully classifies them all into a single grouping.
+
+When energy transfer ceases from a system, this condition is referred to as thermodynamic equilibrium. Usually, this condition implies the system and surroundings are at the same temperature so that heat no longer transfers between them. It also implies that external forces are balanced (volume does not change), and all chemical reactions within the system are complete. The timeline varies for these events depending on the system in question. A container of ice allowed to melt at room temperature takes hours, while in semiconductors the heat transfer that occurs in the device transition from an on to off state could be on the order of a few nanoseconds.

en/3256.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions perceived or believed both by teller and listeners to have taken place within human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility," but may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time, in order to keep them fresh, vital, and realistic. Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted.[1]
+
+The Brothers Grimm defined legend as "folktale historically grounded".[2] A modern folklorist's professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:[3]
+
+Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified[4] historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs.
+
+Legend is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage circa 1340. The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda.[5] In its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun (introduced in the 1510s) meaning a collection or corpus of legends.[6][7] This word changed to legendry, and legendary became the adjectival form.[6]
+
+By 1613, English-speaking Protestants began to use the word when they wished to imply that an event (especially the story of any saint not acknowledged in John Foxe's Actes and Monuments) was fictitious. Thus, legend gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and "spurious", which distinguish it from the meaning of chronicle.[8]
+
+In 1866, Jacob Grimm described the fairy tale as "poetic, legend historic."[9] Early scholars such as Karl Wehrhan [de][10] Friedrich Ranke[11] and Will Erich Peuckert[12] followed Grimm's example in focussing solely on the literary narrative, an approach that was enriched particularly after the 1960s,[13] by addressing questions of performance and the anthropological and psychological insights provided in considering legends' social context. Questions of categorising legends, in hopes of compiling a content-based series of categories on the line of the Aarne–Thompson folktale index, provoked a search for a broader new synthesis.
+
+In an early attempt at defining some basic questions operative in examining folk tales, Friedrich Ranke [de] in 1925[15] characterised the folk legend as "a popular narrative with an objectively untrue imaginary content"  a dismissive position that was subsequently largely abandoned.[16]
+
+Compared to the highly structured folktale, legend is comparatively amorphous, Helmut de Boor noted in 1928.[17] The narrative content of legend is in realistic mode, rather than the wry irony of folktale;[18] Wilhelm Heiske[19] remarked on the similarity of motifs in legend and folktale and concluded that, in spite of its realistic mode, legend is not more historical than folktale.
+
+In Einleitung in der Geschichtswissenschaft (1928), Ernst Bernheim asserted that a legend is simply a longstanding rumour.[20] Gordon Allport credited the staying-power of some rumours to the persistent cultural state-of-mind that they embody and capsulise;[21] thus "Urban legends" are a feature of rumour.[22] When Willian Jansen suggested that legends that disappear quickly were "short-term legends" and the persistent ones be termed "long-term legends", the distinction between legend and rumour was effectively obliterated, Tangherlini concluded.[23]
+
+In the narrow Christian sense, legenda ("things to be read [on a certain day, in church]") were hagiographical accounts, often collected in a legendary. Because saints' lives are often included in many miracle stories, legend, in a wider sense, came to refer to any story that is set in a historical context but that contains supernatural, divine or fantastic elements.[24]
+
+Hippolyte Delehaye distinguished legend from myth: "The legend, on the other hand, has, of necessity, some historical or topographical connection. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localizes romantic stories in some definite spot."[25]
+
+From the moment a legend is retold as fiction, its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,  Washington Irving transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a literary anecdote with "Gothic" overtones, which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend.[26]
+
+Stories that exceed the boundaries of "realism" are called "fables". For example, the talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief stories as fables, not legends. The parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included a donkey that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable.[citation needed]
+
+Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Jacob de Voragine's Legenda Aurea or "The Golden Legend" comprises a series of vitae or instructive  biographical narratives, tied to the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography. The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day.[27]
+
+Urban legends are a modern genre of folklore that is rooted in local popular culture, usually comprising fictional stories that are often presented as true, with macabre or humorous elements. These legends can be used for entertainment purposes, as well as semi-serious explanations for seemingly-mysterious events, such as disappearances and strange objects.
+
+The term "urban legend," as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968.[28] Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (1981) to make two points: first, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales.

en/3257.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions perceived or believed both by teller and listeners to have taken place within human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility," but may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time, in order to keep them fresh, vital, and realistic. Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted.[1]
+
+The Brothers Grimm defined legend as "folktale historically grounded".[2] A modern folklorist's professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:[3]
+
+Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified[4] historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs.
+
+Legend is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage circa 1340. The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda.[5] In its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun (introduced in the 1510s) meaning a collection or corpus of legends.[6][7] This word changed to legendry, and legendary became the adjectival form.[6]
+
+By 1613, English-speaking Protestants began to use the word when they wished to imply that an event (especially the story of any saint not acknowledged in John Foxe's Actes and Monuments) was fictitious. Thus, legend gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and "spurious", which distinguish it from the meaning of chronicle.[8]
+
+In 1866, Jacob Grimm described the fairy tale as "poetic, legend historic."[9] Early scholars such as Karl Wehrhan [de][10] Friedrich Ranke[11] and Will Erich Peuckert[12] followed Grimm's example in focussing solely on the literary narrative, an approach that was enriched particularly after the 1960s,[13] by addressing questions of performance and the anthropological and psychological insights provided in considering legends' social context. Questions of categorising legends, in hopes of compiling a content-based series of categories on the line of the Aarne–Thompson folktale index, provoked a search for a broader new synthesis.
+
+In an early attempt at defining some basic questions operative in examining folk tales, Friedrich Ranke [de] in 1925[15] characterised the folk legend as "a popular narrative with an objectively untrue imaginary content"  a dismissive position that was subsequently largely abandoned.[16]
+
+Compared to the highly structured folktale, legend is comparatively amorphous, Helmut de Boor noted in 1928.[17] The narrative content of legend is in realistic mode, rather than the wry irony of folktale;[18] Wilhelm Heiske[19] remarked on the similarity of motifs in legend and folktale and concluded that, in spite of its realistic mode, legend is not more historical than folktale.
+
+In Einleitung in der Geschichtswissenschaft (1928), Ernst Bernheim asserted that a legend is simply a longstanding rumour.[20] Gordon Allport credited the staying-power of some rumours to the persistent cultural state-of-mind that they embody and capsulise;[21] thus "Urban legends" are a feature of rumour.[22] When Willian Jansen suggested that legends that disappear quickly were "short-term legends" and the persistent ones be termed "long-term legends", the distinction between legend and rumour was effectively obliterated, Tangherlini concluded.[23]
+
+In the narrow Christian sense, legenda ("things to be read [on a certain day, in church]") were hagiographical accounts, often collected in a legendary. Because saints' lives are often included in many miracle stories, legend, in a wider sense, came to refer to any story that is set in a historical context but that contains supernatural, divine or fantastic elements.[24]
+
+Hippolyte Delehaye distinguished legend from myth: "The legend, on the other hand, has, of necessity, some historical or topographical connection. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localizes romantic stories in some definite spot."[25]
+
+From the moment a legend is retold as fiction, its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,  Washington Irving transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a literary anecdote with "Gothic" overtones, which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend.[26]
+
+Stories that exceed the boundaries of "realism" are called "fables". For example, the talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief stories as fables, not legends. The parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included a donkey that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable.[citation needed]
+
+Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Jacob de Voragine's Legenda Aurea or "The Golden Legend" comprises a series of vitae or instructive  biographical narratives, tied to the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography. The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day.[27]
+
+Urban legends are a modern genre of folklore that is rooted in local popular culture, usually comprising fictional stories that are often presented as true, with macabre or humorous elements. These legends can be used for entertainment purposes, as well as semi-serious explanations for seemingly-mysterious events, such as disappearances and strange objects.
+
+The term "urban legend," as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968.[28] Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (1981) to make two points: first, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales.

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+A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions perceived or believed both by teller and listeners to have taken place within human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants, includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility," but may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time, in order to keep them fresh, vital, and realistic. Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted.[1]
+
+The Brothers Grimm defined legend as "folktale historically grounded".[2] A modern folklorist's professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:[3]
+
+Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified[4] historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs.
+
+Legend is a loanword from Old French that entered English usage circa 1340. The Old French noun legende derives from the Medieval Latin legenda.[5] In its early English-language usage, the word indicated a narrative of an event. The word legendary was originally a noun (introduced in the 1510s) meaning a collection or corpus of legends.[6][7] This word changed to legendry, and legendary became the adjectival form.[6]
+
+By 1613, English-speaking Protestants began to use the word when they wished to imply that an event (especially the story of any saint not acknowledged in John Foxe's Actes and Monuments) was fictitious. Thus, legend gained its modern connotations of "undocumented" and "spurious", which distinguish it from the meaning of chronicle.[8]
+
+In 1866, Jacob Grimm described the fairy tale as "poetic, legend historic."[9] Early scholars such as Karl Wehrhan [de][10] Friedrich Ranke[11] and Will Erich Peuckert[12] followed Grimm's example in focussing solely on the literary narrative, an approach that was enriched particularly after the 1960s,[13] by addressing questions of performance and the anthropological and psychological insights provided in considering legends' social context. Questions of categorising legends, in hopes of compiling a content-based series of categories on the line of the Aarne–Thompson folktale index, provoked a search for a broader new synthesis.
+
+In an early attempt at defining some basic questions operative in examining folk tales, Friedrich Ranke [de] in 1925[15] characterised the folk legend as "a popular narrative with an objectively untrue imaginary content"  a dismissive position that was subsequently largely abandoned.[16]
+
+Compared to the highly structured folktale, legend is comparatively amorphous, Helmut de Boor noted in 1928.[17] The narrative content of legend is in realistic mode, rather than the wry irony of folktale;[18] Wilhelm Heiske[19] remarked on the similarity of motifs in legend and folktale and concluded that, in spite of its realistic mode, legend is not more historical than folktale.
+
+In Einleitung in der Geschichtswissenschaft (1928), Ernst Bernheim asserted that a legend is simply a longstanding rumour.[20] Gordon Allport credited the staying-power of some rumours to the persistent cultural state-of-mind that they embody and capsulise;[21] thus "Urban legends" are a feature of rumour.[22] When Willian Jansen suggested that legends that disappear quickly were "short-term legends" and the persistent ones be termed "long-term legends", the distinction between legend and rumour was effectively obliterated, Tangherlini concluded.[23]
+
+In the narrow Christian sense, legenda ("things to be read [on a certain day, in church]") were hagiographical accounts, often collected in a legendary. Because saints' lives are often included in many miracle stories, legend, in a wider sense, came to refer to any story that is set in a historical context but that contains supernatural, divine or fantastic elements.[24]
+
+Hippolyte Delehaye distinguished legend from myth: "The legend, on the other hand, has, of necessity, some historical or topographical connection. It refers imaginary events to some real personage, or it localizes romantic stories in some definite spot."[25]
+
+From the moment a legend is retold as fiction, its authentic legendary qualities begin to fade and recede: in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,  Washington Irving transformed a local Hudson River Valley legend into a literary anecdote with "Gothic" overtones, which actually tended to diminish its character as genuine legend.[26]
+
+Stories that exceed the boundaries of "realism" are called "fables". For example, the talking animal formula of Aesop identifies his brief stories as fables, not legends. The parable of the Prodigal Son would be a legend if it were told as having actually happened to a specific son of a historical father. If it included a donkey that gave sage advice to the Prodigal Son it would be a fable.[citation needed]
+
+Legend may be transmitted orally, passed on person-to-person, or, in the original sense, through written text. Jacob de Voragine's Legenda Aurea or "The Golden Legend" comprises a series of vitae or instructive  biographical narratives, tied to the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. They are presented as lives of the saints, but the profusion of miraculous happenings and above all their uncritical context are characteristics of hagiography. The Legenda was intended to inspire extemporized homilies and sermons appropriate to the saint of the day.[27]
+
+Urban legends are a modern genre of folklore that is rooted in local popular culture, usually comprising fictional stories that are often presented as true, with macabre or humorous elements. These legends can be used for entertainment purposes, as well as semi-serious explanations for seemingly-mysterious events, such as disappearances and strange objects.
+
+The term "urban legend," as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968.[28] Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (1981) to make two points: first, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales.

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+
+
+
+
+Lego (/ˈlɛɡoʊ/ LEG-oh, Danish: [ˈle̝ːko];[1][2] stylised as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously coloured interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart again, and the pieces reused to make new things.[3][4]
+
+The Lego Group began manufacturing the interlocking toy bricks in 1949. Movies, games, competitions, and six Legoland amusement parks have been developed under the brand. As of July 2015, 600 billion Lego parts had been produced.[5]
+
+In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance's "world's most powerful brand".[6] At certain points, investing in Lego sets was more valuable than investing in gold.[7]
+
+The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891–1958), a carpenter from Billund, Denmark, who began making wooden toys in 1932.[8][9] In 1934, his company came to be called "Lego", derived from the Danish phrase leg godt [lɑjˀ ˈkʌt], which means "play well".[10] In 1947, Lego expanded to begin producing plastic toys.[11] In 1949 Lego began producing, among other new products, an early version of the now familiar interlocking bricks, calling them "Automatic Binding Bricks". These bricks were based on the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Bricks, which had been patented in the United Kingdom in 1939[12] and released in 1947. Lego had received a sample of the Kiddicraft bricks from the supplier of an injection-molding machine that it purchased.[13] The bricks, originally manufactured from cellulose acetate,[14] were a development of the traditional stackable wooden blocks of the time.[11]
+
+The Lego Group's motto, "only the best is good enough" (Danish: det bedste er ikke for godt) was created in 1936.[15][9] This motto, which is still used today, was created by Christiansen to encourage his employees never to skimp on quality, a value he believed in strongly.[9] By 1951 plastic toys accounted for half of the Lego company's output, even though the Danish trade magazine Legetøjs-Tidende ("Toy Times"), visiting the Lego factory in Billund in the early 1950s, felt that plastic would never be able to replace traditional wooden toys.[16] Although a common sentiment, Lego toys seem to have become a significant exception to the dislike of plastic in children's toys, due in part to the high standards set by Ole Kirk.[17]
+
+By 1954, Christiansen's son, Godtfred, had become the junior managing director of the Lego Group.[16] It was his conversation with an overseas buyer that led to the idea of a toy system. Godtfred saw the immense potential in Lego bricks to become a system for creative play, but the bricks still had some problems from a technical standpoint: their locking ability was limited and they were not versatile.[3] In 1958, the modern brick design was developed; it took five years to find the right material for it, ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer.[13][14] The modern Lego brick design was patented on 28 January 1958.[18]
+
+The Lego Group's Duplo product line was introduced in 1969 and is a range of simple blocks whose lengths measure twice the width, height, and depth of standard Lego blocks and are aimed towards younger children.[16][19]
+
+In 1978, Lego produced the first minifigures, which have since become a staple in most sets.[20]
+
+In May 2011, Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134 brought 13 Lego kits to the International Space Station, where astronauts built models to see how they would react in microgravity, as a part of the Lego Bricks in Space program.[21][22]
+
+In May 2013, the largest model ever created was displayed in New York City and was made of over 5 million bricks; a 1:1 scale model of an X-wing fighter.[23] Other records include a 112-foot (34 m) tower[24] and a 4 km (2.5 mi) railway.[25][26]
+
+In February 2015, Lego replaced Ferrari as the "world's most powerful brand."[6][27]
+
+Lego's popularity is demonstrated by its wide representation and usage in many forms of cultural works, including books, films and art work. It has even been used in the classroom as a teaching tool.[28] In the US, Lego Education North America is a joint venture between Pitsco, Inc. and the educational division of the Lego Group.[29]
+
+In 1998, Lego bricks were one of the original inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York.[30]
+
+Lego pieces of all varieties constitute a universal system. Despite variation in the design and the purposes of individual pieces over the years, each piece remains compatible in some way with existing pieces. Lego bricks from 1958 still interlock with those made in the current time, and Lego sets for young children are compatible with those made for teenagers. Six bricks of 2 �� 4 studs[31] can be combined in 915,103,765 ways.[32]
+
+Each Lego piece must be manufactured to an exacting degree of precision. When two pieces are engaged they must fit firmly, yet be easily disassembled. The machines that manufacture Lego bricks have tolerances as small as 10 micrometres.[33]
+
+Primary concept and development work takes place at the Billund headquarters, where the company employs approximately 120 designers. The company also has smaller design offices in the UK, Spain, Germany, and Japan which are tasked with developing products aimed specifically at these markets. The average development period for a new product is around twelve months, split into three stages. The first stage is to identify market trends and developments, including contact by the designers directly with the market; some are stationed in toy shops close to holidays, while others interview children. The second stage is the design and development of the product based upon the results of the first stage. As of September 2008 the design teams use 3D modelling software to generate CAD drawings from initial design sketches. The designs are then prototyped using an in-house stereolithography machine. These prototypes are presented to the entire project team for comment and for testing by parents and children during the "validation" process. Designs may then be altered in accordance with the results from the focus groups. Virtual models of completed Lego products are built concurrently with the writing of the user instructions. Completed CAD models are also used in the wider organisation, for marketing and packaging.[36]
+
+Lego Digital Designer is an official piece of Lego software for Mac OS X and Windows which allows users to create their own digital Lego designs.[37] The program once allowed customers to order their custom designs[38] with a service to ship physical models from Digital Designer to consumers; the service ended in 2012.[39]
+
+Since 1963, Lego pieces have been manufactured from a strong, resilient plastic known as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS).[14][33] As of September 2008, Lego engineers use the NX CAD/CAM/CAE PLM software suite to model the elements. The software allows the parts to be optimised by way of mould flow and stress analysis. Prototype moulds are sometimes built before the design is committed to mass production. The ABS plastic is heated to 232 °C (450 °F) until it reaches a dough-like consistency. It is then injected into the moulds at pressures between 25 and 150 tonnes, and takes approximately 15 seconds to cool. The moulds are permitted a tolerance of up to twenty micrometres, to ensure the bricks remain connected.[36] Human inspectors check the output of the moulds, to eliminate significant variations in colour or thickness. According to the Lego Group, about eighteen bricks out of every million fail to meet the standard required.[40] Lego factories recycle all but about 1 percent of their plastic waste from the manufacturing process. If the plastic cannot be re-used in Lego bricks, it is processed and sold on to industries that can make use of it.[41][42] Lego has a self-imposed 2030 deadline to find a more eco-friendly alternative to the ABS plastic it currently uses in its bricks.[43]
+
+Manufacturing of Lego bricks occurs at several locations around the world. Moulding is done in Billund, Denmark; Nyíregyháza, Hungary; Monterrey, Mexico and most recently in Jiaxing, China. Brick decorations and packaging are done at plants in Denmark, Hungary, Mexico and Kladno in the Czech Republic. The Lego Group estimates that in five decades it has produced 400 billion Lego blocks.[44] Annual production of Lego bricks averages approximately 36 billion, or about 1140 elements per second. According to an article in BusinessWeek in 2006, Lego could be considered the world's No. 1 tire manufacturer; the factory produces about 306 million small rubber tires a year.[45] The claim was reiterated in 2012.[46]
+
+In December 2012, the BBC's More or Less radio program asked the Open University's engineering department to determine "how many Lego bricks, stacked one on top of the other, it would take for the weight to destroy the bottom brick?"[47] Using a hydraulic testing machine, the engineering department determined the average maximum force a 2×2 Lego brick can stand is 4,240 newtons; since an average 2×2 Lego brick has a mass of 1.152 grams (0.0406 oz), according to their calculations it would take a stack of 375,000 bricks to cause the bottom brick to collapse, which represents a stack 3,591 metres (11,781 ft) in height.[47]
+
+Private tests have shown several thousand assembly-disassembly cycles before the bricks begin to wear out,[48] although Lego tests show fewer cycles.[49]
+
+In 2018, Lego announced that it will be using bio-derived polyethylene to make its botanical elements (parts such as leaves, bushes and trees).[50]
+
+Since the 1950s, the Lego Group has released thousands of sets with a variety of themes, including space, robots, pirates, trains, Vikings, castle, dinosaurs, undersea exploration, and wild west. Some of the classic themes that continue to the present day include Lego City (a line of sets depicting city life introduced in 1973) and Lego Technic (a line aimed at emulating complex machinery, introduced in 1977).[51]
+
+Over the years, Lego has licensed themes from numerous cartoon and film franchises and even some from video games. These include Batman, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and Minecraft. Although some of the licensed themes, Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones, had highly successful sales, Lego has expressed a desire to rely more upon their own characters and classic themes, and less upon licensed themes related to movie releases.[52]
+
+For the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Lego released a special Team GB Minifigures series exclusively in the United Kingdom to mark the opening of the games. For the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Lego released a kit with the Olympic and Paralympic mascots Vinicius and Tom.[53]
+
+One of the largest Lego sets commercially produced was a minifig-scaled edition of the Star Wars Millennium Falcon. Designed by Jens Kronvold Fredericksen, it was released in 2007 and contained 5,195 pieces. It was surpassed by a 5,922-piece Taj Mahal.  A redesigned Millennium Falcon retook the top spot in 2017 with 7,541 pieces.[54]
+
+Lego also initiated a robotics line of toys called 'Mindstorms' in 1999, and has continued to expand and update this range ever since. The roots of the product originate from a programmable brick developed at the MIT Media Lab, and the name is taken from a paper by Seymour Papert, a computer scientist and educator who developed the educational theory of constructionism, and whose research was at times funded by the Lego Group.[55]
+
+The programmable Lego brick which is at the heart of these robotics sets has undergone several updates and redesigns, with the latest being called the 'EV3' brick, being sold under the name of Lego Mindstorms EV3. The set includes sensors that detect touch, light, sound and ultrasonic waves, with several others being sold separately, including an RFID reader.[56]
+
+The intelligent brick can be programmed using official software available for Windows and Mac computers, and is downloaded onto the brick via Bluetooth or a USB cable. There are also several unofficial programs and compatible programming languages that have been made to work with the brick, and many books have been written to support this community.[56]
+
+There are several robotics competitions which use the Lego robotics sets. The earliest is Botball, a national U.S. middle- and high-school competition stemming from the MIT 6.270 Lego robotics tournament. Other Lego robotics competitions include Junior FIRST LEGO League (Jr.FLL) for students ages 6–9 and FIRST Lego League (FLL) for students ages 9–16 (age 9–14 in the United States, Canada, and Mexico). Jr.FLL and FLL offer real-world engineering challenges to participants. FLL uses Lego-based robots to complete tasks. Jr.FLL participants build models out of Lego elements. In its 2010 season, there were 16,070 FLL teams in over 55 countries. In its 2010 season, there were 2,147 Jr.FLL teams with 12,882 total student participants in the United States and Canada. The international RoboCup Junior football competition involves extensive use of Lego Mindstorms equipment which is often pushed to its extreme limits.[57]
+
+The capabilities of the Mindstorms range have now been harnessed for use in Iko Creative Prosthetic System, a prosthetic limbs system designed for children. Designs for these Lego prosthetics allow everything from mechanical diggers to laser-firing spaceships to be screwed on to the end of a child's limb. Iko is the work of the Chicago-based Colombian designer Carlos Arturo Torres, and is a modular system that allows children to customise their own prosthetics with the ease of clicking together plastic bricks. Designed with Lego's Future Lab, the Danish toy company's experimental research department, and Cirec, a Colombian foundation for physical rehabilitation, the modular prosthetic incorporates myoelectric sensors that register the activity of the muscle in the stump and send a signal to control movement in the attachment. A processing unit in the body of the prosthetic contains an engine compatible with Lego Mindstorms, the company's robotics line, which lets the wearer build an extensive range of customised, programmable limbs.[58][59]
+
+The definitive shape of the Lego bricks, with the inner tubes, was patented by the Lego Group in 1958.[18][60] Several competitors have attempted to take advantage of Lego's popularity by producing blocks of similar dimensions, and advertising them as being compatible with Lego bricks. In 2002, Lego sued the CoCo Toy Company in Beijing for copyright infringement over its "Coko bricks" product. CoCo was ordered to cease manufacture of the products, publish a formal apology and pay damages.[61] Lego sued the English company Best-Lock Construction Toys in German courts in 2004[62] and 2009;[63] the Federal Patent Court of Germany denied Lego trademark protection for the shape of its bricks for the latter case.[64] In 2005, the Lego Company sued Canadian company Mega Bloks for trademark violation, but the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Mega Bloks' rights to sell their product.[65] In 2010, the European Court of Justice ruled that the eight-peg design of the original Lego brick "merely performs a technical function [and] cannot be registered as a trademark."[66]
+
+First launched in 1996, the Lego website has developed over the years, and provides many extra services beyond an online store and a product catalogue. There are also moderated message boards that were founded in 2001.[67] The site also includes instruction booklets for all Lego sets dating back to 2002.[68]
+
+My Lego Network is a social networking site that involves items, blueprints, ranks, badges which are earned for completing certain tasks, trading and trophies called masterpieces which allow users to progress to go to the next rank. The website has a built in inbox which allows users to send pre written messages to one another. The Lego Network includes automated non-player characters within called "Networkers", who are able to do things which normal users cannot do, sending custom messages, and selling masterpieces and blueprints. The site also has modules which are set up on the user's page that give the user items, or that display picture compositions. Before My Lego Network, there were Lego Club Pages, which essentially held the same purpose, although the design lacked complex interaction.[69]
+
+Merlin Entertainments operates eight Legoland amusement parks, the original in Billund, Denmark, the second in Windsor, England, the third in Günzburg, Germany, the fourth in Carlsbad, California, the fifth in Winter Haven, Florida, the sixth in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia,[70] the seventh in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,[71] and the eighth in Nagoya, Japan.[72] A ninth is planned to open in 2020 in Goshen, New York, United States,[72] and a tenth in 2022 in Shanghai, China.[73] On 13 July 2005, the control of 70% of the Legoland parks was sold for $460 million to the Blackstone Group of New York while the remaining 30% is still held by Lego Group.[74] There are also eight Legoland Discovery Centres, two in Germany, four in the United States, one in Japan and one in the United Kingdom. Two Legoland Discovery Centres opened in 2013: one at the Westchester Ridge Hill shopping complex in Yonkers, New York, and one at the Vaughan Mills in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. Another opened at the Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 2014.[75]
+
+Lego operates 132 so-called "Lego Store" retail shops.[76] There are stores at the Downtown Disney shopping complexes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts as well as in Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The opening of each store is celebrated with weekend-long event in which a Master Model Builder creates, with the help of volunteers—most of whom are children—a larger-than-life Lego statue, which is then displayed at the new store for several weeks.[77]
+
+Since around 2000, the Lego Group has been promoting "Lego Serious Play", a form of business consultancy fostering creative thinking, in which team members build metaphors of their organizational identities and experiences using Lego bricks. Participants work through imaginary scenarios using visual three-dimensional Lego constructions, imaginatively exploring possibilities in a serious form of play.[78]
+
+Lego branched out into the video game market in 1997 by founding Lego Media International Limited, and Lego Island was released that year by Mindscape. After this Lego released titles such as Lego Creator and Lego Racers.
+
+After Lego closed down their publishing subsidiary, they moved on to a partnership with Traveller's Tales, and went on to make games like Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Batman, and many more including the very well-received Lego Marvel Super Heroes game, featuring New York City as the overworld and including Marvel characters from the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and more.[79][80] More recently, Lego has created a game based on The Lego Movie, due to its popularity.[81]
+
+Lego Games launched in 2009, was a series of Lego-themed board games designed by Cephas Howard and Reiner Knizia[82][83] in which the players usually build the playing board out of Lego bricks and then play with Lego-style players. Examples of the games include "Minotaurus", in which players roll dice to move characters within a brick-build labyrinth, "Creationary", in which players must build something which appears on a card, or "Ramses Pyramid", in which players collect gems and climb up a customisable pyramid. Like many board games, the games use dice. In Lego Games, the dice are Lego, with Lego squares with symbols on Lego studs on the dice, surrounded by rubber. The games vary from simple to complex, some are similar to "traditional" board games, while others are completely different.[84]
+
+The first official Lego film was the straight-to-DVD release of Bionicle: Mask of Light in 2003 developed by Creative Capers Entertainment and distributed by Miramax Home Entertainment. Several other straight-to-DVD computer animated Bionicle sequels and Hero Factory movies were produced in the following years. Lego: The Adventures of Clutch Powers was released on DVD in February 2010, a computer-animated film made by Tinseltown Toons.[85]
+
+The Lego Movie, a feature film based on Lego toys, was released by Warner Bros. in February 2014.[86] It featured Chris Pratt in the lead role, with substantial supporting characters voiced by Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Alison Brie, Will Ferrell and Nick Offerman.[87] A contest was held for contestants to submit designs for vehicles to be used in the film.[88] After the release of The Lego Movie, independent Canadian toy retailers reported issues with shortages of Lego products and cited cancellations of Lego pre-orders without warning[89] as a motive to stock compatible, rival products.[90]
+
+A spin-off of The Lego Movie, entitled The Lego Batman Movie, directed by Chris McKay was released in the US in February 2017.[91]
+
+In June 2013, it was reported that Warner Bros. was developing a feature film adaptation of Lego Ninjago. Brothers Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman were attached to write the adaptation, while Dan Lin and Roy Lee, along with Phil Lord and Chris Miller, were announced as producers.[92] The film, The Lego Ninjago Movie, was released in September 2017.[93] A computer-generated animated series based on Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu began in 2011, and another based on Legends of Chima began in 2013. A television series of Lego City has also been announced.[94]
+
+Lego has an ongoing deal with publisher Dorling Kindersley (DK), who are producing a series of illustrated hardback books looking at different aspects of the construction toy. The first was The Ultimate Lego Book, published in 1999. More recently, in 2009, the same publisher produced The LEGO Book, which was sold within a slipcase along with Standing Small: A celebration of 30 years of the LEGO minifigure, a smaller book focused on the minifigure. In 2012, a revised edition was published. Also in 2009, DK also published books on Lego Star Wars and a range of Lego-based sticker books.[95]
+
+Although no longer being published in the United States by Scholastic, books covering events in the Bionicle storyline are written by Greg Farshtey. They are still being published in Europe by AMEET. Bionicle comics, also written by Farshtey, are compiled into graphic novels and were released by Papercutz. This series ended in 2009, after nine years.[96]
+
+There is also the Lego Club and Brickmaster magazine, the latter discontinued in 2011.[97]
+
+Kabooki, a Danish company founded in 1993, produces clothes branded as "Lego Wear" under licence from the Lego Group.[98]

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+The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), also known as the great white, white shark or "white pointer", is a species of large mackerel shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major oceans. It is notable for its size, with larger female individuals growing to 6.1 m (20 ft) in length and 1,905–2,268 kg (4,200–5,000 lb) in weight at maturity.[3][4][5] However, most are smaller; males measure 3.4 to 4.0 m (11 to 13 ft), and females measure 4.6 to 4.9 m (15 to 16 ft) on average.[4][6] According to a 2014 study, the lifespan of great white sharks is estimated to be as long as 70 years or more, well above previous estimates,[7] making it one of the longest lived cartilaginous fishes currently known.[8] According to the same study, male great white sharks take 26 years to reach sexual maturity, while the females take 33 years to be ready to produce offspring.[9] Great white sharks can swim at speeds of 25 km/hr (16 mph)[10] for short bursts and to depths of 1,200 m (3,900 ft).[11]
+
+The great white shark has no known natural predators other than, on very rare occasions, the killer whale.[12] It is arguably the world's largest-known extant macropredatory fish, and is one of the primary predators of marine mammals, up to the size of large baleen whales. This shark is also known to prey upon a variety of other marine animals, including fish, and seabirds. It is the only known surviving species of its genus Carcharodon, and is responsible for more recorded human bite incidents than any other shark.[13][14]
+
+The species faces numerous ecological challenges which has resulted in international protection. The IUCN lists the great white shark as a vulnerable species,[2] and it is included in Appendix II of CITES.[15] It is also protected by several national governments such as Australia (as of 2018).[16]
+
+The novel Jaws by Peter Benchley and its subsequent film adaptation by Steven Spielberg depicted the great white shark as a "ferocious man-eater". Humans are not the preferred prey of the great white shark,[17] but the great white is nevertheless responsible for the largest number of reported and identified fatal unprovoked shark attacks on humans.[18]
+
+Due to their need to travel long distances for seasonal migration and extremely demanding diet, it is not logistically feasible to keep great white sharks in captivity. No aquarium in the world is currently believed to own one.[19]
+
+The great white shark was one of the many amphibia originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae,[20] with its first scientific name, Squalus carcharias. Later, Sir Andrew Smith gave it Carcharodon as its generic name in 1833, and also in 1873. The generic name was identified with Linnaeus' specific name and the current scientific name, Carcharodon carcharias, was finalized. Carcharodon comes from the Ancient Greek words κάρχαρος (kárkharos, 'sharp' or 'jagged'), and ὀδούς (odoús), ὀδών (odṓn, 'tooth').[21]
+
+The earliest-known fossils of the great white shark are about 16 million years old, during the mid-Miocene epoch.[1] However, the phylogeny of the great white is still in dispute. The original hypothesis for the great white's origins is that it shares a common ancestor with a prehistoric shark, such as the C. megalodon. C. megalodon had teeth that were superficially not too dissimilar with those of great white sharks, but its teeth were far larger. Although cartilaginous skeletons do not fossilize, C. megalodon is estimated to have been considerably larger than the great white shark, estimated at up to 17 m (56 ft) and 59,413 kg (130,983 lb).[22] Similarities among the physical remains and the extreme size of both the great white and C. megalodon led many scientists to believe these sharks were closely related, and the name Carcharodon megalodon was applied to the latter.
+
+However, a new hypothesis proposes that the great white is also more closely related to an ancient mako shark, Isurus hastalis, than to the C. megalodon. The theory seems to be supported with the earlier discovery of a complete set of jaws with 222 teeth and 45 vertebrae of the extinct transitional species Carcharodon hubbelli in 1988.[23] In addition, the new hypothesis assigns C. megalodon to the genus Carcharocles, which also comprises the other megatoothed sharks.[24]
+
+Great white sharks live in almost all coastal and offshore waters which have water temperature between 12 and 24 °C (54 and 75 °F), with greater concentrations in the United States (Northeast and California), South Africa, Japan, Oceania, Chile, and the Mediterranean including Sea of Marmara and Bosphorus.[25][26] One of the densest-known populations is found around Dyer Island, South Africa.[27]
+
+The great white is an epipelagic fish, observed mostly in the presence of rich game, such as fur seals (Arctocephalus ssp.), sea lions, cetaceans, other sharks, and large bony fish species. In the open ocean, it has been recorded at depths as great as 1,200��m (3,900 ft).[11] These findings challenge the traditional notion that the great white is a coastal species.[11]
+
+According to a recent study, California great whites have migrated to an area between Baja California Peninsula and Hawaii known as the White Shark Café to spend at least 100 days before migrating back to Baja. On the journey out, they swim slowly and dive down to around 900 m (3,000 ft). After they arrive, they change behaviour and do short dives to about 300 m (980 ft) for up to ten minutes. Another white shark that was tagged off the South African coast swam to the southern coast of Australia and back within the year. A similar study tracked a different great white shark from South Africa swimming to Australia's northwestern coast and back, a journey of 20,000 km (12,000 mi; 11,000 nmi) in under nine months.[28]
+These observations argue against traditional theories that white sharks are coastal territorial predators, and open up the possibility of interaction between shark populations that were previously thought to have been discrete. The reasons for their migration and what they do at their destination is still unknown. Possibilities include seasonal feeding or mating.[29]
+
+In the Northwest Atlantic the white shark populations off the New England coast were nearly eradicated due to over-fishing.[30] However, in recent years the populations have begun to grow greatly,[31] largely due to the increase in seal populations on Cape Cod, Massachusetts since the enactment of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972.[32] Currently very little is known about the hunting and movement patterns of great whites off Cape Cod, but ongoing studies hope to offer insight into this growing shark population.[33]
+
+A 2018 study indicated that white sharks prefer to congregate deep in anticyclonic eddies in the North Atlantic Ocean. The sharks studied tended to favour the warm water eddies, spending the daytime hours at 450 meters and coming to the surface at night.[34]
+
+The great white shark has a robust, large, conical snout. The upper and lower lobes on the tail fin are approximately the same size which is similar to some mackerel sharks. A great white displays countershading, by having a white underside and a grey dorsal area (sometimes in a brown or blue shade) that gives an overall mottled appearance. The coloration makes it difficult for prey to spot the shark because it breaks up the shark's outline when seen from the side. From above, the darker shade blends with the sea and from below it exposes a minimal silhouette against the sunlight. Leucism is extremely rare in this species, but has been documented in one great white shark (a pup that washed ashore in Australia and died).[35] Great white sharks, like many other sharks, have rows of serrated teeth behind the main ones, ready to replace any that break off. When the shark bites, it shakes its head side-to-side, helping the teeth saw off large chunks of flesh.[36] Great white sharks, like other mackerel sharks, have larger eyes than other shark species in proportion to their body size. The iris of the eye is a deep blue instead of black.[37]
+
+In great white sharks, sexual dimorphism is present, and females are generally larger than males. Male great whites on average measure 3.4 to 4.0 m (11 to 13 ft) long, while females at 4.6 to 4.9 m (15 to 16 ft).[6] Adults of this species weigh 522–771 kg (1,151–1,700 lb) on average;[40] however, mature females can have an average mass of 680–1,110 kg (1,500–2,450 lb).[4] The largest females have been verified up to 6.1 m (20 ft) in length and an estimated 1,905 kg (4,200 lb) in weight,[3][4] perhaps up to 2,268 kg (5,000 lb).[5] The maximum size is subject to debate because some reports are rough estimations or speculations performed under questionable circumstances.[41] Among living cartilaginous fish, only the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) and the giant manta ray (Manta birostris), in that order, are on average larger and heavier. These three species are generally quite docile in disposition and given to passively filter-feeding on very small organisms.[40] This makes the great white shark the largest extant macropredatory fish. Great white sharks are at around 1.2 m (3.9 ft) when born, and grow about 25 cm (9.8 in) each year.[42]
+
+According to J. E. Randall, the largest white shark reliably measured was a 6 m (20 ft) individual reported from Ledge Point, Western Australia in 1987.[43] Another great white specimen of similar size has been verified by the Canadian Shark Research Center: A female caught by David McKendrick of Alberton, Prince Edward Island, in August 1988 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence off Prince Edward Island. This female great white was 6.1 m (20 ft) long.[4] However, there was a report considered reliable by some experts in the past, of a larger great white shark specimen from Cuba in 1945.[39][44][45][46] This specimen was reportedly 6.4 m (21 ft) long and had a body mass estimated at 3,324 kg (7,328 lb).[39][45] However, later studies also revealed that this particular specimen was actually around 4.9 m (16 ft) in length, a specimen in the average maximum size range.[4]
+
+The largest great white recognized by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) is one caught by Alf Dean in south Australian waters in 1959, weighing 1,208 kg (2,663 lb).[41] Several larger great whites caught by anglers have since been verified, but were later disallowed from formal recognition by IGFA monitors for rules violations.
+
+A number of very large unconfirmed great white shark specimens have been recorded.[47] For decades, many ichthyological works, as well as the Guinness Book of World Records, listed two great white sharks as the largest individuals: In the 1870s, a 10.9 m (36 ft) great white captured in southern Australian waters, near Port Fairy, and an 11.3 m (37 ft) shark trapped in a herring weir in New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1930s. However, these measurements were not obtained in a rigorous, scientifically valid manner, and researchers have questioned the reliability of these measurements for a long time, noting they were much larger than any other accurately reported sighting. Later studies proved these doubts to be well founded. This New Brunswick shark may have been a misidentified basking shark, as the two have similar body shapes. The question of the Port Fairy shark was settled in the 1970s when J. E. Randall examined the shark's jaws and "found that the Port Fairy shark was of the order of 5 m (16 ft) in length and suggested that a mistake had been made in the original record, in 1870, of the shark's length".[43] These wrong measurements would make the alleged shark more than five times heavier than it really was.
+
+While these measurements have not been confirmed, some great white sharks caught in modern times have been estimated to be more than 7 m (23 ft) long,[48] but these claims have received some criticism.[41][48] However, J. E. Randall believed that great white shark may have exceeded 6.1 m (20 ft) in length.[43] A great white shark was captured near Kangaroo Island in Australia on 1 April 1987. This shark was estimated to be more than 6.9 m (23 ft) long by Peter Resiley,[43][49] and has been designated as KANGA.[48] Another great white shark was caught in Malta by Alfredo Cutajar on 16 April 1987. This shark was also estimated to be around 7.13 m (23.4 ft) long by John Abela and has been designated as MALTA.[48] However, Cappo drew criticism because he used shark size estimation methods proposed by J. E. Randall to suggest that the KANGA specimen was 5.8–6.4 m (19–21 ft) long.[48] In a similar fashion, I. K. Fergusson also used shark size estimation methods proposed by J. E. Randall to suggest that the MALTA specimen was 5.3–5.7 m (17–19 ft) long.[48] However, photographic evidence suggested that these specimens were larger than the size estimations yielded through Randall's methods.[48] Thus, a team of scientists—H. F. Mollet, G. M. Cailliet, A. P. Klimley, D. A. Ebert, A. D. Testi, and L. J. V. Compagno—reviewed the cases of the KANGA and MALTA specimens in 1996 to resolve the dispute by conducting a comprehensive morphometric analysis of the remains of these sharks and re-examination of photographic evidence in an attempt to validate the original size estimations and their findings were consistent with them. The findings indicated that estimations by P. Resiley and J. Abela are reasonable and could not be ruled out.[48] A particularly large female great white nicknamed "Deep Blue", estimated measuring at 6.1 m (20 ft) was filmed off Guadalupe during shooting for the 2014 episode of Shark Week "Jaws Strikes Back". Deep Blue would also later gain significant attention when she was filmed interacting with researcher Mauricio Hoyas Pallida in a viral video that Mauricio posted on Facebook on 11 June 2015.[50] Deep Blue was later seen off Oahu in January 2019 while scavenging a sperm whale carcass, whereupon she was filmed swimming beside divers including dive tourism operator and model Ocean Ramsey in open water.[51][52][53] In July 2019, a fisherman, J. B. Currell, was on a trip to Cape Cod from Bermuda with Tom Brownell when they saw a large shark about 40 mi (64 km) southeast of Martha's Vineyard. Recording it on video, he said that it weighed about 5,000 lb (2,300 kg), and measured 25–30 ft (7.6–9.1 m), evoking a comparison with the fictional shark Jaws. The video was shared with the page "Troy Dando Fishing" on Facebook.[54][55] A particularly infamous great white shark, supposedly of record proportions, once patrolled the area that comprises False Bay, South Africa, was said to be well over 7 m (23 ft) during the early 1980s. This shark, known locally as the "Submarine", had a legendary reputation that was supposedly well founded. Though rumours have stated this shark was exaggerated in size or non-existent altogether, witness accounts by the then young Craig Anthony Ferreira, a notable shark expert in South Africa, and his father indicate an unusually large animal of considerable size and power (though it remains uncertain just how massive the shark was as it escaped capture each time it was hooked). Ferreira describes the four encounters with the giant shark he participated in with great detail in his book "Great White Sharks On Their Best Behavior".[56]
+
+One contender in maximum size among the predatory sharks is the tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier). While tiger sharks which are typically both a few feet smaller and have a leaner, less heavy body structure than white sharks, have been confirmed to reach at least 5.5 m (18 ft) in the length, an unverified specimen was reported to have measured 7.4 m (24 ft) in length and weighed 3,110 kg (6,860 lb), more than two times heavier than the largest confirmed specimen at 1,524 kg (3,360 lb).[40][57][58] Some other macropredatory sharks such as the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus) and the Pacific sleeper shark (S. pacificus) are also reported to rival these sharks in length (but probably weigh a bit less since they are more slender in build than a great white) in exceptional cases.[59][60] The question of maximum weight is complicated by the unresolved question of whether or not to include the shark's stomach contents when weighing the shark. With a single bite a great white can take in up to 14 kg (31 lb) of flesh and can also consume several hundred kilograms of food.
+
+Great white sharks, like all other sharks, have an extra sense given by the ampullae of Lorenzini which enables them to detect the electromagnetic field emitted by the movement of living animals. Great whites are so sensitive they can detect variations of half a billionth of a volt. At close range, this allows the shark to locate even immobile animals by detecting their heartbeat. Most fish have a less-developed but similar sense using their body's lateral line.[75]
+
+To more successfully hunt fast and agile prey such as sea lions, the great white has adapted to maintain a body temperature warmer than the surrounding water. One of these adaptations is a "rete mirabile" (Latin for "wonderful net"). This close web-like structure of veins and arteries, located along each lateral side of the shark, conserves heat by warming the cooler arterial blood with the venous blood that has been warmed by the working muscles. This keeps certain parts of the body (particularly the stomach) at temperatures up to 14 °C (25 °F) [76] above that of the surrounding water, while the heart and gills remain at sea temperature. When conserving energy, the core body temperature can drop to match the surroundings. A great white shark's success in raising its core temperature is an example of gigantothermy. Therefore, the great white shark can be considered an endothermic poikilotherm or mesotherm because its body temperature is not constant but is internally regulated.[36][77] Great whites also rely on the fat and oils stored within their livers for long-distance migrations across nutrient-poor areas of the oceans.[78] Studies by Stanford University and the Monterey Bay Aquarium published on 17 July 2013 revealed that in addition to controlling the sharks' buoyancy, the liver of great whites is essential in migration patterns. Sharks that sink faster during drift dives were revealed to use up their internal stores of energy quicker than those which sink in a dive at more leisurely rates.[79]
+
+Toxicity from heavy metals seems to have little negative effects on great white sharks. Blood samples taken from forty-three individuals of varying size, age and sex off the South African coast led by biologists from the University of Miami in 2012 indicates that despite high levels of mercury, lead, and arsenic, there was no sign of raised white blood cell count and granulate to lymphocyte ratios, indicating the sharks had healthy immune systems. This discovery suggests a previously unknown physiological defence against heavy metal poisoning. Great whites are known to have a propensity for "self-healing and avoiding age-related ailments".[80]
+
+A 2007 study from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, used CT scans of a shark's skull and computer models to measure the shark's maximum bite force. The study reveals the forces and behaviours its skull is adapted to handle and resolves competing theories about its feeding behaviour.[81] In 2008, a team of scientists led by Stephen Wroe conducted an experiment to determine the great white shark's jaw power and findings indicated that a specimen massing 3,324 kg (7,328 lb) could exert a bite force of 18,216 newtons (4,095 lbf).[45]
+
+This shark's behaviour and social structure is complex.[82] In South Africa, white sharks have a dominance hierarchy depending on the size, sex and squatter's rights: Females dominate males, larger sharks dominate smaller sharks, and residents dominate newcomers. When hunting, great whites tend to separate and resolve conflicts with rituals and displays. White sharks rarely resort to combat although some individuals have been found with bite marks that match those of other white sharks. This suggests that when a great white approaches too closely to another, they react with a warning bite. Another possibility is that white sharks bite to show their dominance.
+
+The great white shark is one of only a few sharks known to regularly lift its head above the sea surface to gaze at other objects such as prey. This is known as spy-hopping. This behaviour has also been seen in at least one group of blacktip reef sharks, but this might be learned from interaction with humans (it is theorized that the shark may also be able to smell better this way because smell travels through air faster than through water). White sharks are generally very curious animals, display intelligence and may also turn to socializing if the situation demands it. At Seal Island, white sharks have been observed arriving and departing in stable "clans" of two to six individuals on a yearly basis. Whether clan members are related is unknown, but they get along peacefully enough. In fact, the social structure of a clan is probably most aptly compared to that of a wolf pack; in that each member has a clearly established rank and each clan has an alpha leader. When members of different clans meet, they establish social rank nonviolently through any of a variety of interactions.[83]
+
+Great white sharks are carnivorous and prey upon fish (e.g. tuna, rays, other sharks),[83] cetaceans (i.e., dolphins, porpoises, whales), pinnipeds (e.g. seals, fur seals,[83] and sea lions), sea turtles,[83] sea otters (Enhydra lutris) and seabirds.[84] Great whites have also been known to eat objects that they are unable to digest. Juvenile white sharks predominantly prey on fish, including other elasmobranchs, as their jaws are not strong enough to withstand the forces required to attack larger prey such as pinnipeds and cetaceans until they reach a length of 3 m (9.8 ft) or more, at which point their jaw cartilage mineralizes enough to withstand the impact of biting into larger prey species.[85] Upon approaching a length of nearly 4 m (13 ft), great white sharks begin to target predominantly marine mammals for food, though individual sharks seem to specialize in different types of prey depending on their preferences.[86][87] They seem to be highly opportunistic.[88][89] These sharks prefer prey with a high content of energy-rich fat. Shark expert Peter Klimley used a rod-and-reel rig and trolled carcasses of a seal, a pig, and a sheep from his boat in the South Farallons. The sharks attacked all three baits but rejected the sheep carcass.[90]
+
+Off California, sharks immobilize northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) with a large bite to the hindquarters (which is the main source of the seal's mobility) and wait for the seal to bleed to death. This technique is especially used on adult male elephant seals, which are typically larger than the shark, ranging between 1,500 and 2,000 kg (3,300 and 4,400 lb), and are potentially dangerous adversaries.[91][92] Most commonly though, juvenile elephant seals are the most frequently eaten at elephant seal colonies.[93] Prey is normally attacked sub-surface. Harbor seals (Phoca vitulina) are taken from the surface and dragged down until they stop struggling. They are then eaten near the bottom. California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) are ambushed from below and struck mid-body before being dragged and eaten.[94]
+
+In the Northwest Atlantic mature great whites are known to feed on both harbor and grey seals.[32] Unlike adults, juvenile white sharks in the area feed on smaller fish species until they are large enough to prey on marine mammals such as seals.[95]
+
+White sharks also attack dolphins and porpoises from above, behind or below to avoid being detected by their echolocation. Targeted species include dusky dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obscurus),[48] Risso's dolphins (Grampus griseus),[48] bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops ssp.),[48][96] humpback dolphins (Sousa ssp.),[96] harbour porpoises (Phocoena phocoena),[48] and Dall's porpoises (Phocoenoides dalli).[48] Groups of dolphins have occasionally been observed defending themselves from sharks with mobbing behaviour.[96] White shark predation on other species of small cetacean has also been observed. In August 1989, a 1.8 m (5.9 ft) juvenile male pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) was found stranded in central California with a bite mark on its caudal peduncle from a great white shark.[97] In addition, white sharks attack and prey upon beaked whales.[48][96] Cases where an adult Stejneger's beaked whale (Mesoplodon stejnegeri), with a mean mass of around 1,100 kg (2,400 lb),[98] and a juvenile Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris), an individual estimated at 3 m (9.8 ft), were hunted and killed by great white sharks have also been observed.[99] When hunting sea turtles, they appear to simply bite through the carapace around a flipper, immobilizing the turtle. The heaviest species of bony fish, the oceanic sunfish (Mola mola), has been found in great white shark stomachs.[88]
+
+Off Seal Island, False Bay in South Africa, the sharks ambush brown fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus) from below at high speeds, hitting the seal mid-body. They can go so fast that they completely leave the water. The peak burst speed is estimated to be above 40 km/h (25 mph).[100] They have also been observed chasing prey after a missed attack. Prey is usually attacked at the surface.[101] Shark attacks most often occur in the morning, within 2 hours of sunrise, when visibility is poor. Their success rate is 55% in the first 2 hours, falling to 40% in late morning after which hunting stops.[83]
+
+Whale carcasses comprise an important part of the diet of white sharks. However, this has rarely been observed due to whales dying in remote areas. It has been estimated that 30 kg (66 lb) of whale blubber could feed a 4.5 m (15 ft) white shark for 1.5 months. Detailed observations were made of four whale carcasses in False Bay between 2000 and 2010. Sharks were drawn to the carcass by chemical and odour detection, spread by strong winds. After initially feeding on the whale caudal peduncle and fluke, the sharks would investigate the carcass by slowly swimming around it and mouthing several parts before selecting a blubber-rich area. During feeding bouts of 15–20 seconds the sharks removed flesh with lateral headshakes, without the protective ocular rotation they employ when attacking live prey. The sharks were frequently observed regurgitating chunks of blubber and immediately returning to feed, possibly in order to replace low energy yield pieces with high energy yield pieces, using their teeth as mechanoreceptors to distinguish them. After feeding for several hours, the sharks appeared to become lethargic, no longer swimming to the surface; they were observed mouthing the carcass but apparently unable to bite hard enough to remove flesh, they would instead bounce off and slowly sink. Up to eight sharks were observed feeding simultaneously, bumping into each other without showing any signs of aggression; on one occasion a shark accidentally bit the head of a neighbouring shark, leaving two teeth embedded, but both continued to feed unperturbed. Smaller individuals hovered around the carcass eating chunks that drifted away. Unusually for the area, large numbers of sharks over five metres long were observed, suggesting that the largest sharks change their behaviour to search for whales as they lose the manoeuvrability required to hunt seals. The investigating team concluded that the importance of whale carcasses, particularly for the largest white sharks, has been underestimated.[102] In another documented incident, white sharks were observed scavenging on a whale carcass alongside tiger sharks.[103] In 2020, Marine biologists Dines and Gennari et al., published a documented incident in the journal "Marine and Freshwater Research" of a group of great white sharks exhibiting pack-like behaviour, successfully attacking and killing a live adult humpback whale. The sharks utilized the classic attack strategy utilized on pinnipeds when attacking the whale, even utilizing the bite-and-spit tactic they employ on smaller prey items. The whale was an entangled individual, heavily emaciated and thus more vulnerable to the sharks' attacks. The incident is the first known documentation of great whites actively killing a large baleen whale.[104][105] A second incident regarding great white sharks killing humpback whales involving a single large female great white nicknamed Helen was documented off the coast of South Africa. Working alone, the shark attacked a 33 ft (10 m) emaciated and entangled humpback whale by attacking the whale's tail to cripple it before she managed to drown the whale by biting onto its head and pulling it underwater. The attack was witnessed via aerial drone by marine biologist Ryan Johnson, who said the attack went on for roughly 50 minutes before the shark successfully killed the whale. Johnson suggested that the shark may have strategized its attack in order to kill such a large animal.[106][107]
+
+Stomach contents of great whites also indicates that whale sharks both juvenile and adult may also be included on the animal's menu, though whether this is active hunting or scavenging is not known at present.[108][109]
+
+Great white sharks were previously thought to reach sexual maturity at around 15 years of age, but are now believed to take far longer; male great white sharks reach sexual maturity at age 26, while females take 33 years to reach sexual maturity.[9][110][111] Maximum life span was originally believed to be more than 30 years, but a study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution placed it at upwards of 70 years. Examinations of vertebral growth ring count gave a maximum male age of 73 years and a maximum female age of 40 years for the specimens studied. The shark's late sexual maturity, low reproductive rate, long gestation period of 11 months and slow growth make it vulnerable to pressures such as overfishing and environmental change.[8]
+
+Little is known about the great white shark's mating habits, and mating behaviour has not yet been observed in this species. It is possible that whale carcasses are an important location for sexually mature sharks to meet for mating.[102] Birth has never been observed, but pregnant females have been examined. Great white sharks are ovoviviparous, which means eggs develop and hatch in the uterus and continue to develop until birth.[112] The great white has an 11-month gestation period. The shark pup's powerful jaws begin to develop in the first month. The unborn sharks participate in oophagy, in which they feed on ova produced by the mother. Delivery is in spring and summer.[113] The largest number of pups recorded for this species is 14 pups from a single mother measuring 4.5 m (15 ft) that was killed incidentally off Taiwan in 2019.[114] The Northern Pacific population of great whites is suspected to breed off the Sea of Cortez, as evidenced by local fisherman who have said to have caught them and evidenced by teeth found at dump sites for discarded parts from their catches.[citation needed]
+
+A breach is the result of a high speed approach to the surface with the resulting momentum taking the shark partially or completely clear of the water. This is a hunting technique employed by great white sharks whilst hunting seals. This technique is often used on cape fur seals at Seal Island in False Bay, South Africa. Because the behaviour is unpredictable, it is very hard to document. It was first photographed by Chris Fallows and Rob Lawrence who developed the technique of towing a slow-moving seal decoy to trick the sharks to breach.[115] Between April and September, scientists may observe around 600 breaches. The seals swim on the surface and the great white sharks launch their predatory attack from the deeper water below. They can reach speeds of up to 40 km/h (25 mph) and can at times launch themselves more than 3 m (10 ft) into the air. Just under half of observed breach attacks are successful.[116] In 2011, a 3-m-long shark jumped onto a seven-person research vessel off Seal Island in Mossel Bay. The crew were undertaking a population study using sardines as bait, and the incident was judged not to be an attack on the boat but an accident.[117]
+
+Interspecific competition between the great white shark and the orca is probable in regions where dietary preferences of both species may overlap.[96] An incident was documented on 4 October 1997, in the Farallon Islands off California in the United States. An estimated 4.7–5.3 m (15–17 ft) female orca immobilized an estimated 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) great white shark.[118] The orca held the shark upside down to induce tonic immobility and kept the shark still for fifteen minutes, causing it to suffocate. The orca then proceeded to eat the dead shark's liver.[96][118][119] It is believed that the scent of the slain shark's carcass caused all the great whites in the region to flee, forfeiting an opportunity for a great seasonal feed.[120] Another similar attack apparently occurred there in 2000, but its outcome is not clear.[121] After both attacks, the local population of about 100 great whites vanished.[119][121] Following the 2000 incident, a great white with a satellite tag was found to have immediately submerged to a depth of 500 m (1,600 ft) and swum to Hawaii.[121] In 2015, a pod of orcas was recorded to have killed a great white shark off South Australia.[122] In 2017, three great whites were found washed ashore near Gaansbai, South Africa, with their body cavities torn open and the livers removed by what is likely to have been killer whales.[123] Killer whales also generally impact great white distribution. Studies published in 2019 of killer whale and great white shark distribution and interactions around the Farallon Islands indicate that the cetaceans impact the sharks negatively, with brief appearances by killer whales causing the sharks to seek out new feeding areas until the next season.[124] Occasionally, however, some great whites have been seen to swim near orcas without fear.[125]
+
+Of all shark species, the great white shark is responsible for by far the largest number of recorded shark bite incidents on humans, with 272 documented unprovoked bite incidents on humans as of 2012.[18]
+
+More than any documented bite incident, Peter Benchley's best-selling novel Jaws and the subsequent 1975 film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg provided the great white shark with the image of being a "man-eater" in the public mind.[126] While great white sharks have killed humans in at least 74 documented unprovoked bite incidents, they typically do not target them: for example, in the Mediterranean Sea there have been 31 confirmed bite incidents against humans in the last two centuries, most of which were non-fatal. Many of the incidents seemed to be "test-bites". Great white sharks also test-bite buoys, flotsam, and other unfamiliar objects, and they might grab a human or a surfboard to identify what it is.
+
+Contrary to popular belief, great white sharks do not mistake humans for seals.[127] Many bite incidents occur in waters with low visibility or other situations which impair the shark's senses. The species appears to not like the taste of humans, or at least finds the taste unfamiliar. Further research shows that they can tell in one bite whether or not the object is worth predating upon. Humans, for the most part, are too bony for their liking. They much prefer seals, which are fat and rich in protein.[128]
+
+Humans are not appropriate prey because the shark's digestion is too slow to cope with a human's high ratio of bone to muscle and fat. Accordingly, in most recorded shark bite incidents, great whites broke off contact after the first bite. Fatalities are usually caused by blood loss from the initial bite rather than from critical organ loss or from whole consumption. From 1990 to 2011 there have been a total of 139 unprovoked great white shark bite incidents, 29 of which were fatal.[129]
+
+However, some researchers have hypothesized that the reason the proportion of fatalities is low is not because sharks do not like human flesh, but because humans are often able to escape after the first bite. In the 1980s, John McCosker, chair of aquatic biology at the California Academy of Sciences, noted that divers who dove solo and were bitten by great whites were generally at least partially consumed, while divers who followed the buddy system were generally rescued by their companion. McCosker and Timothy C. Tricas, an author and professor at the University of Hawaii, suggest that a standard pattern for great whites is to make an initial devastating attack and then wait for the prey to weaken before consuming the wounded animal. Humans' ability to move out of reach with the help of others, thus foiling the attack, is unusual for a great white's prey.[130]
+
+Shark culling is the deliberate killing of sharks by a government in an attempt to reduce shark attacks; shark culling is often called "shark control".[131] These programs have been criticized by environmentalists and scientists—they say these programs harm the marine ecosystem; they also say such programs are "outdated, cruel, and ineffective".[132] Many different species (dolphins, turtles, etc.) are also killed in these programs (because of their use of shark nets and drum lines)—15,135 marine animals were killed in New South Wales' nets between 1950 and 2008,[131] and 84,000 marine animals were killed by Queensland authorities from 1962 to 2015.[133]
+
+Great white sharks are currently killed in both Queensland and New South Wales in "shark control" (shark culling) programs.[131] Queensland uses shark nets and drum lines with baited hooks, while New South Wales only uses nets. From 1962 to 2018, Queensland authorities killed about 50,000 sharks, many of which were great whites.[134] From 2013 to 2014 alone, 667 sharks were killed by Queensland authorities, including great white sharks.[131] In Queensland, great white sharks found alive on the drum lines are shot.[135] In New South Wales, between 1950 and 2008, a total of 577 great white sharks were killed in nets.[131] Between September 2017 and April 2018, fourteen great white sharks were killed in New South Wales.[136]
+
+KwaZulu-Natal (an area of South Africa) also has a "shark control" program that kills great white sharks and other marine life. In a 30-year period, more than 33,000 sharks were killed in KwaZulu-Natal's shark-killing program, including great whites.[137]
+
+In 2014 the state government of Western Australia led by Premier Colin Barnett implemented a policy of killing large sharks. The policy, colloquially referred to as the Western Australian shark cull, was intended to protect users of the marine environment from shark bite incidents, following the deaths of seven people on the Western Australian coastline in the years 2010–2013.[138] Baited drum lines were deployed near popular beaches using hooks designed to catch great white sharks, as well as bull and tiger sharks. Large sharks found hooked but still alive were shot and their bodies discarded at sea.[139] The government claimed they were not culling the sharks, but were using a "targeted, localised, hazard mitigation strategy".[140] Barnett described opposition as "ludicrous" and "extreme", and said that nothing could change his mind.[141] This policy was met with widespread condemnation from the scientific community, which showed that species responsible for bite incidents were notoriously hard to identify, that the drum lines failed to capture white sharks, as intended, and that the government also failed to show any correlation between their drum line policy and a decrease in shark bite incidents in the region.[142]
+
+Great white sharks infrequently bite and sometimes even sink boats. Only five of the 108 authenticated unprovoked shark bite incidents reported from the Pacific Coast during the 20th century involved kayakers.[143] In a few cases they have bitten boats up to 10 m (33 ft) in length. They have bumped or knocked people overboard, usually biting the boat from the stern. In one case in 1936, a large shark leapt completely into the South African fishing boat Lucky Jim, knocking a crewman into the sea. Tricas and McCosker's underwater observations suggest that sharks are attracted to boats by the electrical fields they generate, which are picked up by the ampullae of Lorenzini and confuse the shark about whether or not wounded prey might be near-by.[144]
+
+Prior to August 1981, no great white shark in captivity lived longer than 11 days. In August 1981, a great white survived for 16 days at SeaWorld San Diego before being released.[145] The idea of containing a live great white at SeaWorld Orlando was used in the 1983 film Jaws 3-D.
+
+Monterey Bay Aquarium first attempted to display a great white in 1984, but the shark died after 11 days because it did not eat.[146] In July 2003, Monterey researchers captured a small female and kept it in a large netted pen near Malibu for five days. They had the rare success of getting the shark to feed in captivity before its release.[147] Not until September 2004 was the aquarium able to place a great white on long-term exhibit. A young female, which was caught off the coast of Ventura, was kept in the aquarium's 3.8 million l (1 million US gal) Outer Bay exhibit for 198 days before she was released in March 2005. She was tracked for 30 days after release.[148] On the evening of 31 August 2006, the aquarium introduced a juvenile male caught outside Santa Monica Bay.[149] His first meal as a captive was a large salmon steak on 8 September 2006, and as of that date, he was estimated to be 1.72 m (68 in) in length and to weigh approximately 47 kg (104 lb). He was released on 16 January 2007, after 137 days in captivity.
+
+Monterey Bay Aquarium housed a third great white, a juvenile male, for 162 days between 27 August 2007, and 5 February 2008. On arrival, he was 1.4 m (4.6 ft) long and weighed 30.6 kg (67 lb). He grew to 1.8 m (5.9 ft) and 64 kg (141 lb) before release. A juvenile female came to the Outer Bay Exhibit on 27 August 2008. While she did swim well, the shark fed only one time during her stay and was tagged and released on 7 September 2008. Another juvenile female was captured near Malibu on 12 August 2009, introduced to the Outer Bay exhibit on 26 August 2009, and was successfully released into the wild on 4 November 2009.[150] The Monterey Bay Aquarium introduced a 1.4-m-long male into their redesigned "Open Sea" exhibit on 31 August 2011. He was exhibited for 55 days, and was released into the wild on the 25th October the same year. However, the shark was determined to have died shortly after release via an attached electronic tag. The cause of death is not known.[151][152][153]
+
+The Monterey Bay Aquarium does not plan to exhibit any more great whites, as the main purpose of containing them was scientific. As data from captive great whites were no longer needed, the institute has instead shifted its focus to study wild sharks.[154]
+
+One of the largest adult great whites ever exhibited was at Japan's Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in 2016, where a 3.5 m (11 ft) male was exhibited for three days before dying.[155][156] Probably the most famous captive was a 2.4 m (7.9 ft) female named Sandy, which in August 1980 became the only great white to be housed at the California Academy of Sciences' Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco, California. She was released because she would not eat and constantly bumped against the walls.[157]
+
+Cage diving is most common at sites where great whites are frequent including the coast of South Africa, the Neptune Islands in South Australia,[158] and Guadalupe Island in Baja California. The popularity of cage diving and swimming with sharks is at the focus of a booming tourist industry.[159][160] A common practice is to chum the water with pieces of fish to attract the sharks. These practices may make sharks more accustomed to people in their environment and to associate human activity with food; a potentially dangerous situation. By drawing bait on a wire towards the cage, tour operators lure the shark to the cage, possibly striking it, exacerbating this problem. Other operators draw the bait away from the cage, causing the shark to swim past the divers.
+
+At present, hang baits are illegal off Isla Guadalupe and reputable dive operators do not use them. Operators in South Africa and Australia continue to use hang baits and pinniped decoys.[161] In South Australia, playing rock music recordings underwater, including the AC/DC album Back in Black has also been used experimentally to attract sharks.[162]
+
+Companies object to being blamed for shark bite incidents, pointing out that lightning tends to strike humans more often than sharks bite humans.[163] Their position is that further research needs to be done before banning practices such as chumming, which may alter natural behaviour.[164] One compromise is to only use chum in areas where whites actively patrol anyway, well away from human leisure areas. Also, responsible dive operators do not feed sharks. Only sharks that are willing to scavenge follow the chum trail and if they find no food at the end then the shark soon swims off and does not associate chum with a meal. It has been suggested that government licensing strategies may help enforce these responsible tourism.[161]
+
+The shark tourist industry has some financial leverage in conserving this animal. A single set of great white jaws can fetch up to £20,000. That is a fraction of the tourism value of a live shark; tourism is a more sustainable economic activity than shark fishing. For example, the dive industry in Gansbaai, South Africa consists of six boat operators with each boat guiding 30 people each day. With fees between £50 and £150 per person, a single live shark that visits each boat can create anywhere between £9,000 and £27,000 of revenue daily.[citation needed]
+
+Putting chum in the water
+
+A great white shark approaches divers in a cage off Dyer Island, Western Cape, South Africa
+
+A great white shark approaches a cage
+
+Tourists in a cage near Gansbaai
+
+It is unclear how much of a concurrent increase in fishing for great white sharks has caused the decline of great white shark populations from the 1970s to the present. No accurate global population numbers are available, but the great white shark is now considered vulnerable.[2] Sharks taken during the long interval between birth and sexual maturity never reproduce, making population recovery and growth difficult.
+
+The IUCN notes that very little is known about the actual status of the great white shark, but as it appears uncommon compared to other widely distributed species, it is considered vulnerable.[2] It is included in Appendix II of CITES,[15] meaning that international trade in the species requires a permit.[165] As of March 2010, it has also been included in Annex I of the CMS Migratory Sharks MoU, which strives for increased international understanding and coordination for the protection of certain migratory sharks.[166] A February 2010 study by Barbara Block of Stanford University estimated the world population of great white sharks to be lower than 3,500 individuals, making the species more vulnerable to extinction than the tiger, whose population is in the same range.[167] According to another study from 2014 by George H. Burgess, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, there are about 2,000 great white sharks near the California coast, which is 10 times higher than the previous estimate of 219 by Barbara Block.[168][169]
+
+Fishermen target many sharks for their jaws, teeth, and fins, and as game fish in general. The great white shark, however, is rarely an object of commercial fishing, although its flesh is considered valuable. If casually captured (it happens for example in some tonnare in the Mediterranean), it is misleadingly sold as smooth-hound shark.[170]
+
+The great white shark was declared vulnerable by the Australian Government in 1999 because of significant population decline and is currently protected under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.[171] The causes of decline prior to protection included mortality from sport fishing harvests as well as being caught in beach protection netting.[172]
+
+The national conservation status of the great white shark is reflected by all Australian states under their respective laws, granting the species full protection throughout Australia regardless of jurisdiction.[171] Many states had prohibited the killing or possession of great white sharks prior to national legislation coming into effect. The great white shark is further listed as threatened in Victoria under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, and as rare or likely to become extinct under Schedule 5 of the Wildlife Conservation Act in Western Australia.[171]
+
+In 2002, the Australian government created the White Shark Recovery Plan, implementing government-mandated conservation research and monitoring for conservation in addition to federal protection and stronger regulation of shark-related trade and tourism activities.[172] An updated recovery plan was published in 2013 to review progress, research findings, and to implement further conservation actions.[16] A study in 2012 revealed that Australia's white shark population was separated by Bass Strait into genetically distinct eastern and western populations, indicating a need for the development of regional conservation strategies.[173]
+
+Presently, human-caused shark mortality is continuing, primarily from accidental and illegal catching in commercial and recreational fishing as well as from being caught in beach protection netting, and the populations of great white shark in Australia are yet to recover.[16]
+
+In spite of official protections in Australia, great white sharks continue to be killed in state "shark control" programs within Australia. For example, the government of Queensland has a "shark control" program (shark culling) which kills great white sharks (as well as other marine life) using shark nets and drum lines with baited hooks.[174][131] In Queensland, great white sharks that are found alive on the baited hooks are shot.[135] The government of New South Wales also kills great white sharks in its "shark control" program.[131] Partly because of these programs, shark numbers in eastern Australia have decreased.[134]
+
+The Australasian population of great white sharks is believed to be in excess of 8,000–10,000 individuals according to genetic research studies done by CSIRO, with an adult population estimated to be around 2,210 individuals in both Eastern and Western Australia. The annual survival rate for juveniles in these two separate populations was estimated in the same study to be close to 73 percent, while adult sharks had a 93 percent annual survival rate. Whether or not mortality rates in great white sharks have declined, or the population has increased as a result of the protection of this species in Australian waters is as yet unknown due to the slow growth rates of this species.[175]
+
+As of April 2007, great white sharks were fully protected within 370 km (230 mi) of New Zealand and additionally from fishing by New Zealand-flagged boats outside this range. The maximum penalty is a $250,000 fine and up to six months in prison.[176] In June 2018 the New Zealand Department of Conservation classified the great white shark under the New Zealand Threat Classification System as "Nationally Endangered". The species meets the criteria for this classification as there exists a moderate, stable population of between 1000 and 5000 mature individuals. This classification has the qualifiers "Data Poor" and "Threatened Overseas".[177]
+
+In 2013, great white sharks were added to California's Endangered Species Act. From data collected, the population of great whites in the North Pacific was estimated to be fewer than 340 individuals. Research also reveals these sharks are genetically distinct from other members of their species elsewhere in Africa, Australia, and the east coast of North America, having been isolated from other populations.[178]
+
+A 2014 study estimated the population of great white sharks along the California coastline to be approximately 2,400.[179][180]
+
+In 2015 Massachusetts banned catching, cage diving, feeding, towing decoys, or baiting and chumming for its significant and highly predictable migratory great white population without an appropriate research permit. The goal of these restrictions is to both protect the sharks and public health.[181]
+

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+
+
+in the Kingdom of Denmark (red and beige)
+
+Greenland (Greenlandic: Kalaallit Nunaat, pronounced [kalaːɬit nunaːt]; Danish: Grønland, pronounced [ˈkʁɶnˌlænˀ]) is the world's largest island,[d] located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. It is an autonomous territory[10] within the Kingdom of Denmark. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark, the colonial powers, as well as the nearby island of Iceland) for more than a millennium.[11] The majority of its residents are Inuit, whose ancestors migrated from Alaska through Northern Canada, gradually settling across the island by the 13th century.[12]
+
+Nowadays, the population is largely concentrated on the southwest coast, while the rest of the island is sparsely populated. Greenland is divided into five municipalities – Sermersooq, Kujalleq, Qeqertalik, Qeqqata, and Avannaata. It has two unincorporated areas – the Northeast Greenland National Park and the Thule Air Base. The latter, while under Danish control, is administered by the United States Air Force.[13] Three-quarters of Greenland is covered by the only permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica. With a population of 56,081 (2020),[6] it is the least densely populated territory in the world.[14] About a third of the population lives in Nuuk, the capital and largest city; the second largest city in terms of population is Sisimiut, 320 kilometres (200 mi) north of Nuuk. The Arctic Umiaq Line ferry acts as a lifeline for western Greenland, connecting the various cities and settlements.
+
+Greenland has been inhabited at intervals over at least the last 4,500 years by Arctic peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada.[15][16] Norsemen settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century, having previously settled Iceland. These Norsemen would later set sail from Greenland and Iceland, with Leif Erikson becoming the first known European to reach North America nearly 500 years before Columbus reached the Caribbean islands. Inuit peoples arrived in the 13th century. Though under continuous influence of Norway and Norwegians, Greenland was not formally under the Norwegian crown until 1261. The Norse colonies disappeared in the late 15th century when Norway was hit by the Black Death and entered a severe decline. Soon after their demise, beginning in 1499, the Portuguese briefly explored and claimed the island, naming it Terra do Lavrador (later applied to Labrador in Canada).[17]
+
+In the early 17th century, Danish explorers reached Greenland again. To strengthen trading and power, Denmark–Norway affirmed sovereignty over the island. Because of Norway's weak status, it lost sovereignty over Greenland in 1814 when the union was dissolved. Greenland became Danish in 1814, and was fully integrated in the Danish state in 1953 under the Constitution of Denmark. In 1973, Greenland joined the European Economic Community with Denmark. However, in a referendum in 1982, a majority of the population voted for Greenland to withdraw from the EEC, which was effected in 1985. Greenland contains the world's largest and most northerly national park, Northeast Greenland National Park (Kalaallit Nunaanni nuna eqqissisimatitaq). Established in 1974, and expanded to its present size in 1988, it protects 972,001 square kilometres (375,292 sq mi) of the interior and northeastern coast of Greenland and is bigger than all but twenty-nine countries in the world.
+
+In 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland; in 2008, Greenlanders voted in favor of the Self-Government Act, which transferred more power from the Danish government to the local Greenlandic government. Under the new structure, in effect since 21 June 2009,[18] Greenland can gradually assume responsibility for policing, judicial system, company law, accounting, and auditing; mineral resource activities; aviation; law of legal capacity, family law and succession law; aliens and border controls; the working environment; and financial regulation and supervision, while the Danish government retains control of foreign affairs and defence. It also retains control of monetary policy, providing an initial annual subsidy of DKK 3.4 billion, which is planned to diminish gradually over time. Greenland expects to grow its economy based on increased income from the extraction of natural resources. The capital, Nuuk, held the 2016 Arctic Winter Games. At 70%, Greenland has one of the highest shares of renewable energy in the world, mostly coming from hydropower.[19][additional citation(s) needed]
+
+The early Norse settlers named the island as Greenland. In the Icelandic sagas, the Norwegian-born Icelander Erik the Red was said to be exiled from Iceland for manslaughter. Along with his extended family and his thralls (i.e. slaves or serfs), he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest. After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in the hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers.[20][21][22] The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name."[23]
+
+The name of the country in the indigenous Greenlandic language is Kalaallit Nunaat ("land of the Kalaallit").[24] The Kalaallit are the indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people who inhabit the country's western region.
+
+In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Paleo-Eskimo cultures known today primarily through archaeological finds. The earliest entry of the Paleo-Eskimo into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC. From around 2500 BC to 800 BC, southern and western Greenland were inhabited by the Saqqaq culture. Most finds of Saqqaq-period archaeological remains have been around Disko Bay, including the site of Saqqaq, after which the culture is named.[25][26]
+
+From 2400 BC to 1300 BC, the Independence I culture existed in northern Greenland. It was a part of the Arctic small tool tradition.[27][28][29] Towns, including Deltaterrasserne, started to appear.
+
+Around 800 BC, the Saqqaq culture disappeared and the Early Dorset culture emerged in western Greenland and the Independence II culture in northern Greenland.[30] The Dorset culture was the first culture to extend throughout the Greenlandic coastal areas, both on the west and east coasts. It lasted until the total onset of the Thule culture in 1500 AD. The Dorset culture population lived primarily from hunting of whales and caribou.[31][32][33][34]
+
+From 986, Greenland's west coast was settled by Icelanders and Norwegians, through a contingent of 14 boats led by Erik the Red. They formed three settlements – known as the Eastern Settlement, the Western Settlement and the Middle Settlement – on fjords near the southwesternmost tip of the island.[11][35] They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants who occupied the northern and western parts, and later with the Thule culture that entered from the north. Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in 1261 under the Kingdom of Norway (872–1397). Later the Kingdom of Norway entered into a personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union.[36]
+
+The Norse settlements, such as Brattahlíð, thrived for centuries but disappeared sometime in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age.[37] Apart from some runic inscriptions, no contemporary records or historiography survives from the Norse settlements. Medieval Norwegian sagas and historical works mention Greenland's economy as well as the bishops of Gardar and the collection of tithes. A chapter in the Konungs skuggsjá (The King's Mirror) describes Norse Greenland's exports and imports as well as grain cultivation.
+
+Icelandic saga accounts of life in Greenland were composed in the 13th century and later, and do not constitute primary sources for the history of early Norse Greenland.[22] Modern understanding therefore mostly depends on the physical data from archeological sites. Interpretation of ice core and clam shell data suggests that between 800 and 1300, the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a relatively mild climate several degrees Celsius higher than usual in the North Atlantic,[38] with trees and herbaceous plants growing, and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel.[39] What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has had dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years.[40] Similarly the Icelandic Book of Settlements records famines during the winters, in which "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs".[38]
+
+These Icelandic settlements vanished during the 14th and early 15th centuries.[41] The demise of the Western Settlement coincides with a decrease in summer and winter temperatures. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability during the Little Ice Age showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning in the late 13th century to early 14th century – as much as 6 to 8 °C (11 to 14 °F) lower than modern summer temperatures.[42] The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. The Eastern Settlement was likely abandoned in the early to mid-15th century, during this cold period.
+
+Theories drawn from archeological excavations at Herjolfsnes in the 1920s, suggest that the condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, maybe due to soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation in the course of farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting. Malnutrition may also have resulted from widespread deaths due to pandemic plague;[43] the decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age; and armed conflicts with the Skrælings (Norse word for Inuit, meaning "wretches"[37]). In 1379, the Inuit attacked the Eastern Settlement, killed 18 men and captured two boys and a woman.[37] Recent archeological studies somewhat challenge the general assumption that the Norse colonisation had a dramatic negative environmental effect on the vegetation. Data support traces of a possible Norse soil amendment strategy.[44] More recent evidence suggests that the Norse, who never numbered more than about 2,500, gradually abandoned the Greenland settlements over the 1400s as walrus ivory,[45] the most valuable export from Greenland, decreased in price due to competition with other sources of higher-quality ivory, and that there was actually little evidence of starvation or difficulties.[46]
+
+Other theories about the disappearance of the Norse settlement have been proposed;
+
+The Thule people are the ancestors of the current Greenlandic population. No genes from the Paleo-Eskimos have been found in the present population of Greenland.[48] The Thule Culture migrated eastward from what is now known as Alaska around 1000, reaching Greenland around 1300. The Thule culture was the first to introduce to Greenland such technological innovations as dog sleds and toggling harpoons.
+
+In 1500, King Manuel I of Portugal sent Gaspar Corte-Real to Greenland in search of a Northwest Passage to Asia which, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas, was part of Portugal's sphere of influence. In 1501, Corte-Real returned with his brother, Miguel Corte-Real. Finding the sea frozen, they headed south and arrived in Labrador and Newfoundland. Upon the brothers' return to Portugal, the cartographic information supplied by Corte-Real was incorporated into a new map of the world which was presented to Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, by Alberto Cantino in 1502. The Cantino planisphere, made in Lisbon, accurately depicts the southern coastline of Greenland.[49]
+
+In 1605–1607, King Christian IV of Denmark sent a series of expeditions to Greenland and Arctic waterways to locate the lost eastern Norse settlement and assert Danish sovereignty over Greenland. The expeditions were mostly unsuccessful, partly due to leaders who lacked experience with the difficult arctic ice and weather conditions, and partly because the expedition leaders were given instructions to search for the Eastern Settlement on the east coast of Greenland just north of Cape Farewell, which is almost inaccessible due to southward drifting ice. The pilot on all three trips was English explorer James Hall.
+
+After the Norse settlements died off, Greenland came under the de facto control of various Inuit groups, but the Danish government never forgot or relinquished the claims to Greenland that it had inherited from the Norse. When it re-established contact with Greenland in the early 17th century, Denmark asserted its sovereignty over the island. In 1721, a joint mercantile and clerical expedition led by Danish-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland, not knowing whether a Norse civilization remained there. This expedition is part of the Dano-Norwegian colonization of the Americas. After 15 years in Greenland, Hans Egede left his son Paul Egede in charge of the mission there and returned to Denmark, where he established a Greenland Seminary. This new colony was centred at Godthåb ("Good Hope") on the southwest coast. Gradually, Greenland was opened up to Danish merchants, and closed to those from other countries.
+
+When the union between the crowns of Denmark and Norway was dissolved in 1814, the Treaty of Kiel severed Norway's former colonies and left them under the control of the Danish monarch. Norway occupied then-uninhabited eastern Greenland as Erik the Red's Land in July 1931, claiming that it constituted terra nullius. Norway and Denmark agreed to submit the matter in 1933 to the Permanent Court of International Justice, which decided against Norway.[50]
+
+Greenland's connection to Denmark was severed on 9 April 1940, early in World War II, after Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany. On 8 April 1941, the United States occupied Greenland to defend it against a possible invasion by Germany.[51] The United States occupation of Greenland continued until 1945. Greenland was able to buy goods from the United States and Canada by selling cryolite from the mine at Ivittuut. The major air bases were Bluie West-1 at Narsarsuaq and Bluie West-8 at Søndre Strømfjord (Kangerlussuaq), both of which are still used as Greenland's major international airports. Bluie was the military code name for Greenland.
+
+During this war, the system of government changed: Governor Eske Brun ruled the island under a law of 1925 that allowed governors to take control under extreme circumstances; Governor Aksel Svane was transferred to the United States to lead the commission to supply Greenland. The Danish Sirius Patrol guarded the northeastern shores of Greenland in 1942 using dogsleds. They detected several German weather stations and alerted American troops, who destroyed the facilities. After the collapse of the Third Reich, Albert Speer briefly considered escaping in a small aeroplane to hide out in Greenland, but changed his mind and decided to surrender to the United States Armed Forces.[52]
+
+Greenland had been a protected and very isolated society until 1940. The Danish government had maintained a strict monopoly of Greenlandic trade, allowing only small scale troaking with Scottish whalers. In wartime Greenland developed a sense of self-reliance through self-government and independent communication with the outside world. Despite this change, in 1946 a commission including the highest Greenlandic council, the Landsrådene, recommended patience and no radical reform of the system. Two years later, the first step towards a change of government was initiated when a grand commission was established. A final report (G-50) was presented in 1950: Greenland was to be a modern welfare state with Denmark as sponsor and example. In 1953, Greenland was made an equal part of the Danish Kingdom. Home rule was granted in 1979.
+
+Following World War II, the United States developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland, and in 1946 the United States offered to buy the island from Denmark for $100,000,000. Denmark refused to sell it.[53][54] Historically this repeated an interest by Secretary of State William H. Seward. In 1867 he worked with former senator Robert J. Walker to explore the possibility of buying Greenland and perhaps Iceland. Opposition in Congress ended this project.[55] In the 21st century, the United States, according to WikiLeaks, remains interested in investing in the resource base of Greenland and in tapping hydrocarbons off the Greenlandic coast.[56][57] In August 2019, the American president Donald Trump again proposed to buy the territory, prompting premier Kim Kielsen to issue the statement, "Greenland is not for sale and cannot be sold, but Greenland is open for trade and cooperation with other countries – including the United States."[58]
+
+In 1950, Denmark agreed to allow the US to reestablish Thule Air Base in Greenland; it was greatly expanded between 1951 and 1953 as part of a unified NATO Cold War defense strategy. The local population of three nearby villages was moved more than 100 kilometres (62 mi) away in the winter. The United States tried to construct a subterranean network of secret nuclear missile launch sites in the Greenlandic ice cap, named Project Iceworm. It managed this project from Camp Century from 1960 to 1966 before abandoning it as unworkable.[59] The Danish government did not become aware of the program's mission until 1997, when they discovered it while looking for records related to the crash of a nuclear-equipped B-52 bomber at Thule in 1968.[60]
+
+With the 1953 Danish constitution, Greenland's colonial status ended as the island was incorporated into the Danish realm as an amt (county). Danish citizenship was extended to Greenlanders. Danish policies toward Greenland consisted of a strategy of cultural assimilation – or de-Greenlandification. During this period, the Danish government promoted the exclusive use of the Danish language in official matters, and required Greenlanders to go to Denmark for their post-secondary education. Many Greenlandic children grew up in boarding schools in southern Denmark, and a number lost their cultural ties to Greenland. While the policies "succeeded" in the sense of shifting Greenlanders from being primarily subsistence hunters into being urbanized wage earners, the Greenlandic elite began to reassert a Greenlandic cultural identity. A movement developed in favour of independence, reaching its peak in the 1970s.[61] As a consequence of political complications in relation to Denmark's entry into the European Common Market in 1972, Denmark began to seek a different status for Greenland, resulting in the Home Rule Act of 1979.
+
+This gave Greenland limited autonomy with its own legislature taking control of some internal policies, while the Parliament of Denmark maintained full control of external policies, security, and natural resources. The law came into effect on 1 May 1979. The Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, remains Greenland's head of state. In 1985, Greenland left the European Economic Community (EEC) upon achieving self-rule, as it did not agree with the EEC's commercial fishing regulations and an EEC ban on seal skin products.[62] Greenland voters approved a referendum on greater autonomy on 25 November 2008.[63][64] According to one study, the 2008 vote created what "can be seen as a system between home rule and full independence."[65]
+
+On 21 June 2009, Greenland gained self-rule with provisions for assuming responsibility for self-government of judicial affairs, policing, and natural resources. Also, Greenlanders were recognized as a separate people under international law.[66] Denmark maintains control of foreign affairs and defence matters. Denmark upholds the annual block grant of 3.2 billion Danish kroner, but as Greenland begins to collect revenues of its natural resources, the grant will gradually be diminished. This is generally considered to be a step toward eventual full independence from Denmark.[67] Greenlandic was declared the sole official language of Greenland at the historic ceremony.[2][4][68][69][70]
+
+Greenland is the world's largest non-continental island[71] and the third largest area in North America after Canada and the United States.[72] It is between latitudes 59° and 83°N, and longitudes 11° and 74°W. Greenland is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Greenland Sea to the east, the North Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, the Davis Strait to the southwest, Baffin Bay to the west, the Nares Strait and Lincoln Sea to the northwest. The nearest countries are Canada, to the west and southwest across Nares Strait and Baffin Bay; and Iceland, southeast of Greenland in the Atlantic Ocean. Greenland also contains the world's largest national park, and it is the largest dependent territory by area in the world, as well as the fourth largest country subdivision in the world, after Sakha Republic in Russia, Australia's state of Western Australia, and Russia's Krasnoyarsk Krai, and the largest in North America.
+
+The average daily temperature of Nuuk varies over the seasons from −5.1 to 9.9 °C (23 to 50 °F)[73] The total area of Greenland is 2,166,086 km2 (836,330 sq mi) (including other offshore minor islands), of which the Greenland ice sheet covers 1,755,637 km2 (677,855 sq mi) (81%) and has a volume of approximately 2,850,000 km3 (680,000 cu mi).[74] The highest point on Greenland is Gunnbjørn Fjeld at 3,700 m (12,139 ft) of the Watkins Range (East Greenland mountain range). The majority of Greenland, however, is less than 1,500 m (4,921 ft) in elevation.
+
+The weight of the ice sheet has depressed the central land area to form a basin lying more than 300 m (984 ft) below sea level,[75][76] while elevations rise suddenly and steeply near the coast.[77]
+
+The ice flows generally to the coast from the centre of the island. A survey led by French scientist Paul-Emile Victor in 1951 concluded that, under the ice sheet, Greenland is composed of three large islands.[78] This is disputed, but if it is so, they would be separated by narrow straits, reaching the sea at Ilulissat Icefjord, at Greenland's Grand Canyon and south of Nordostrundingen.
+
+All towns and settlements of Greenland are situated along the ice-free coast, with the population being concentrated along the west coast. The northeastern part of Greenland is not part of any municipality, but it is the site of the world's largest national park, Northeast Greenland National Park.[79]
+
+At least four scientific expedition stations and camps had been established on the ice sheet in the ice-covered central part of Greenland (indicated as pale blue in the adjacent map): Eismitte, North Ice, North GRIP Camp and The Raven Skiway. There is a year-round station Summit Camp on the ice sheet, established in 1989. The radio station Jørgen Brønlund Fjord was, until 1950, the northernmost permanent outpost in the world.
+
+The extreme north of Greenland, Peary Land, is not covered by an ice sheet, because the air there is too dry to produce snow, which is essential in the production and maintenance of an ice sheet. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt away completely, the world's sea level would rise by more than 7 m (23 ft).[80]
+
+In 2003, a small island, 35 by 15 metres (115 by 49 feet) in length and width, was discovered by arctic explorer Dennis Schmitt and his team at the coordinates of 83-42. Whether this island is permanent is not yet confirmed. If it is, it is the northernmost permanent known land on Earth.
+
+In 2007, the existence of a new island was announced. Named "Uunartoq Qeqertaq" (English: Warming Island), this island has always been present off the coast of Greenland, but was covered by a glacier. This glacier was discovered in 2002 to be shrinking rapidly, and by 2007 had completely melted away, leaving the exposed island.[81] The island was named Place of the Year by the Oxford Atlas of the World in 2007.[82] Ben Keene, the atlas's editor, commented: "In the last two or three decades, global warming has reduced the size of glaciers throughout the Arctic and earlier this year, news sources confirmed what climate scientists already knew: water, not rock, lay beneath this ice bridge on the east coast of Greenland. More islets are likely to appear as the sheet of frozen water covering the world's largest island continues to melt".[83] Some controversy surrounds the history of the island, specifically over whether the island might have been revealed during a brief warm period in Greenland during the mid-20th century.[84]
+
+Between 1989 and 1993, US and European climate researchers drilled into the summit of Greenland's ice sheet, obtaining a pair of 3 km (1.9 mi) long ice cores. Analysis of the layering and chemical composition of the cores has provided a revolutionary new record of climate change in the Northern Hemisphere going back about 100,000 years and illustrated that the world's weather and temperature have often shifted rapidly from one seemingly stable state to another, with worldwide consequences.[85] The glaciers of Greenland are also contributing to a rise in the global sea level faster than was previously believed.[86] Between 1991 and 2004, monitoring of the weather at one location (Swiss Camp) showed that the average winter temperature had risen almost 6 °C (11 °F).[87] Other research has shown that higher snowfalls from the North Atlantic oscillation caused the interior of the ice cap to thicken by an average of 6 cm or 2.36 in/y between 1994 and 2005.[88]
+
+The 1,310-metre (4,300 ft) Qaqugdluit mountain land on the south side of Nuussuaq peninsula, 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of the Greenland inland ice at 70°7′50″N 51°44′30″W / 70.13056°N 51.74167°W / 70.13056; -51.74167, is an example of the many mountainous areas of west Greenland. Up to 1979 (Stage 0) it showed postglacial glacier stages dating back about 7,000–10,000 years.[89][90] In 1979 the glacier tongues retreated – according to the extent and height of the glacier-nourishing area – from 140 to 660 metres (460 to 2,170 feet) above sea level. The climatic glacier snowline (ELA) was at about 800 metres (2,600 feet). The snowline of the oldest (VII) of the three Holocene glacier stages (V–VII) was about 230 metres (750 feet) deeper, i.e. at about 570 metres (1,870 feet).[91] The four youngest glacier stages (IV-I) can be classified as belonging to the global glacier advances in the years 1811 to 1850 and 1880 to 1900 ("Little Ice Age"), 1910 to 1930, 1948 and 1953.[90] Their snowlines rose step by step up to the level of 1979. The current snowline (Stage 0) is nearly unchanged. During the oldest Postglacial Stage VII an ice-stream network from valley glaciers joined each other and completely covered the land. Its nourishing areas consist of high-lying plateau glaciers and local ice caps. However, due to the rise of the snowline about 230 metres (750 feet) – corresponding to a warming of about 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) since 1979 - there is now only plateau-glaciation with small glacier tongues that hardly reach the main valley bottoms.[91] 96 polar scientists of the IMBIE research community from 50 scientific bodies, led by Professor Andrew Schaefer of the University of Leeds, produced the most complete study during the 1992–2018 period. Findings show that Greenland has lost 3.8 trillion tonnes of ice since 1992, enough to raise sea levels by almost 11mm (1.06 cm). The rate of ice loss has increased from an average of 33 billion tonnes a year in the 1990s, to 254 billion tonnes a year in the last decade.[92]
+
+There are approximately 700 known species of insects in Greenland, which is low compared with other countries (over one million species have been described worldwide). The sea is rich in fish and invertebrates, especially in the milder West Greenland Current; a large part of the Greenland fauna is associated with marine-based food chains, including large colonies of seabirds. The few native land mammals in Greenland include the polar bear, reindeer (introduced by Europeans), arctic fox, arctic hare, musk ox, collared lemming, ermine, and arctic wolf. The last four are found naturally only in East Greenland, having immigrated from Ellesmere Island. There are dozens of species of seals and whales along the coast. Land fauna consists predominantly of animals which have spread from North America or, in the case of many birds and insects, from Europe. There are no native or free-living reptiles or amphibians on the island.[93]
+
+Phytogeographically, Greenland belongs to the Arctic province of the Circumboreal Region within the Boreal Kingdom. The island is sparsely populated in vegetation; plant life consists mainly of grassland and small shrubs, which are regularly grazed by livestock. The most common tree native to Greenland is the European white birch (Betula pubescens) along with gray-leaf willow (Salix glauca), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), common juniper (Juniperus communis) and other smaller trees, mainly willows.
+
+Greenland's flora consists of about 500 species of "higher" plants, i.e. flowering plants, ferns, horsetails and lycopodiophyta. Of the other groups, the lichens are the most diverse, with about 950 species; there are 600–700 species of fungi; mosses and bryophytes are also found. Most of Greenland's higher plants have circumpolar or circumboreal distributions; only a dozen species of saxifrage and hawkweed are endemic. A few plant species were introduced by the Norsemen, such as cow vetch.
+
+The terrestrial vertebrates of Greenland include the Greenland dog, which was introduced by the Inuit, as well as European-introduced species such as Greenlandic sheep, goats, cattle, reindeer, horse, chicken and sheepdog, all descendants of animals imported by Europeans.[citation needed] Marine mammals include the hooded seal (Cystophora cristata) as well as the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus).[94] Whales frequently pass very close to Greenland's shores in the late summer and early autumn. Whale species include the beluga whale, blue whale, Greenland whale, fin whale, humpback whale, minke whale, narwhal, pilot whale, sperm whale.[95]
+
+As of 2009, 269 species of fish from over 80 different families are known from the waters surrounding Greenland. Almost all are marine species with only a few in freshwater, notably Atlantic salmon and charr.[96] The fishing industry is the primary industry of Greenland's economy, accounting for the majority of the country's total exports.[97]
+
+Birds, particularly seabirds, are an important part of Greenland's animal life; breeding populations of auks, puffins, skuas, and kittiwakes are found on steep mountainsides.[citation needed] Greenland's ducks and geese include common eider, long-tailed duck, king eider, white-fronted goose, pink-footed goose and barnacle goose. Breeding migratory birds include the snow bunting, lapland bunting, ringed plover, red-throated loon and red-necked phalarope. Non-migratory land birds include the arctic redpoll, ptarmigan, short-eared owl, snowy owl, gyrfalcon and white-tailed eagle.[93]
+
+The Kingdom of Denmark is a constitutional monarchy, in which Queen Margrethe II is the head of state. The monarch officially retains executive power and presides over the Council of State (privy council).[98][99] However, following the introduction of a parliamentary system of government, the duties of the monarch have since become strictly representative and ceremonial,[100] such as the formal appointment and dismissal of the prime minister and other ministers in the executive government. The monarch is not answerable for his or her actions, and the monarch's person is sacrosanct.[101]
+
+The party system is dominated by the social-democratic Forward Party, and the democratic socialist Inuit Community Party, both of which broadly argue for greater independence from Denmark. While the 2009 election saw the unionist Democrat Party (two MPs) decline greatly, the 2013 election consolidated the power of the two main parties at the expense of the smaller groups, and saw the eco-socialist Inuit Party elected to the Parliament for the first time. The dominance of the Forward and Inuit Community parties began to wane after the snap 2014 and 2018 elections.
+
+The non-binding 2008 referendum on self-governance favoured increased self-governance by 21,355 votes to 6,663.
+
+In 1985, Greenland left the European Economic Community (EEC), unlike Denmark, which remains a member. The EEC later became the European Union (EU, renamed and expanded in scope in 1992). Greenland retains some ties with the EU via Denmark. However, EU law largely does not apply to Greenland except in the area of trade.
+
+Greenland's head of state is Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. The Queen's government in Denmark appoints a high commissioner (Rigsombudsmand) to represent it on the island. The commissioner is Mikaela Engell.
+
+Greenlanders elect two representatives to the Folketing, Denmark's parliament, out of a total of 179. The representatives are Aleqa Hammond of the Siumut Party and Aaja Chemnitz Larsen of the Inuit Community Party.[102]
+
+Greenland also has its own Parliament, which has 31 members. The government is the Naalakkersuisut whose members are appointed by the premier. The head of government is the premier, usually the leader of the majority party in Parliament. The premier is Kim Kielsen of the Siumut party.
+
+Several American and Danish military bases are located in Greenland, including Thule Air Base, which is home to the United States Space Force's 21st Space Wing's global network of sensors providing missile warning, space surveillance and space control to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).[103]
+
+In 1995, a political scandal resulted in Denmark after a report revealed the government had given tacit permission for nuclear weapons to be located in Greenland, in contravention of Denmark's 1957 nuclear-free zone policy.[104][60] The United States built a secret nuclear powered base, called Camp Century, in the Greenland ice sheet.[105] On 21 January 1968, a B-52G, with four nuclear bombs aboard as part of Operation Chrome Dome, crashed on the ice of the North Star Bay while attempting an emergency landing at Thule Air Base.[106] The resulting fire caused extensive radioactive contamination.[107] One of the H-bombs remains lost.[108][109]
+
+Formerly consisting of three counties comprising a total of 18 municipalities, Greenland abolished these in 2009 and has since been divided into large territories known as "municipalities" (Greenlandic: kommuneqarfiit, Danish: kommuner): Sermersooq ("Much Ice") around the capital Nuuk and also including all East Coast communities; Kujalleq ("South") around Cape Farewell; Qeqqata ("Centre") north of the capital along the Davis Strait; Qeqertalik ("The one with islands") surrounding Disko Bay; and Avannaata ("Northern") in the northwest; the latter two having come into being as a result of the Qaasuitsup municipality, one of the original four, being partitioned in 2018. The northeast of the island composes the unincorporated Northeast Greenland National Park. Thule Air Base is also unincorporated, an enclave within Avannaata municipality administered by the United States Air Force. During its construction, there were as many as 12,000 American residents but in recent years the number has been below 1,000.
+
+The Greenlandic economy is highly dependent on fishing. Fishing accounts for more than 90% of Greenland's exports.[110] The shrimp and fish industry is by far the largest income earner.[5]
+
+Greenland is abundant in minerals.[110] Mining of ruby deposits began in 2007. Other mineral prospects are improving as prices are increasing. These include iron, uranium, aluminium, nickel, platinum, tungsten, titanium, and copper. Despite resumption[when?] of several hydrocarbon and mineral exploration activities, it will take several years before hydrocarbon production can materialize. The state oil company Nunaoil was created to help develop the hydrocarbon industry in Greenland. The state company Nunamineral has been launched on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange to raise more capital to increase the production of gold, started in 2007.
+
+Electricity has traditionally been generated by oil or diesel power plants, even if there is a large surplus of potential hydropower. There is a programme to build hydro power plants. The first, and still the largest, is Buksefjord hydroelectric power plant.
+
+There are also plans to build a large aluminium smelter, using hydropower to create an exportable product. It is expected that much of the labour needed will be imported.[111]
+
+The European Union has urged Greenland to restrict People's Republic of China development of rare-earth projects, as China accounts for 95% of the world's current supply. In early 2013, the Greenland government said that it had no plans to impose such restrictions.[112]
+
+The public sector, including publicly owned enterprises and the municipalities, plays a dominant role in Greenland's economy. About half the government revenues come from grants from the Danish government, an important supplement to the gross domestic product (GDP). Gross domestic product per capita is equivalent to that of the average economies of Europe.
+
+Greenland suffered an economic contraction in the early 1990s. But, since 1993, the economy has improved. The Greenland Home Rule Government (GHRG) has pursued a tight fiscal policy since the late 1980s, which has helped create surpluses in the public budget and low inflation. Since 1990, Greenland has registered a foreign-trade deficit following the closure of the last remaining lead and zinc mine that year. In 2017, new sources of ruby in Greenland have been discovered, promising to bring new industry and a new export from the country.[113] (See Gemstone industry in Greenland).
+
+There is air transport both within Greenland and between the island and other nations. There is also scheduled boat traffic, but the long distances lead to long travel times and low frequency. There are virtually no roads between cities because the coast has many fjords that would require ferry service to connect a road network. The only exception is a gravel road of 5 km (3 mi) length between Kangilinnguit and the now abandoned former cryolite mining town of Ivittuut.[114] In addition, the lack of agriculture, forestry and similar countryside activities has meant that very few country roads have been built.
+
+Kangerlussuaq Airport (SFJ) [115] is the largest airport and the main aviation hub for international passenger transport. It serves international and domestic airline operated flight.[116] SFJ is far from the vicinity of the larger metropolitan capital areas, 317 km (197 mi) to the capital Nuuk, and airline passenger services are available.[117] Greenland has no passenger railways.
+
+Nuuk Airport (GOH) [118] is the second-largest airport located just 6.0 km (3.7 mi) from the centre of the capital. GOH serves general aviation traffic and has daily- or regular domestic flights within Greenland. GOH also serves international flights to Iceland, business and private airplanes.
+
+Ilulissat Airport (JAV) [119] is a domestic airport that also serves international flights to Iceland. There are a total of 13 registered civil airports and 47 helipads in Greenland; most of them are unpaved and located in rural areas. The second longest runway is at Narsarsuaq, a domestic airport with limited international service in south Greenland.
+
+All civil aviation matters are handled by the Danish Transport Authority. Most airports including Nuuk Airport have short runways and can only be served by special fairly small aircraft on fairly short flights. Kangerlussuaq Airport around 100 kilometres (62 miles) inland from the west coast is the major airport of Greenland and the hub for domestic flights. Intercontinental flights connect mainly to Copenhagen. Travel between international destinations (except Iceland) and any city in Greenland requires a plane change.
+
+Air Iceland operates flights from Reykjavík to a number of airports in Greenland, and the company promotes the service as a day-trip option from Iceland for tourists.[120]
+
+There are no direct flights to the United States or Canada, although there have been flights Kangerlussuaq – Baltimore,[121] and Nuuk – Iqaluit,[122] which were cancelled because of too few passengers and financial losses.[123] An alternative between Greenland and the United States/Canada is Air Iceland/Icelandair with a plane change in Iceland.[124]
+
+Sea passenger transport is served by several coastal ferries. Arctic Umiaq Line makes a single round trip per week, taking 80 hours each direction.[125]
+
+Cargo freight by sea is handled by the shipping company Royal Arctic Line from, to and across Greenland. It provides trade and transport opportunities between Greenland, Europe and North America.
+
+Greenland has a population of 56,081 (January 2020 Estimate),[6] of whom 88% are Greenlandic Inuit (including Danish-Inuit mixed). The remaining 12% of people are of European descent, mainly Greenland Danes. A 2015 wide genetic study of Greenlanders found modern-day Inuit in Greenland are direct descendants of the first Inuit pioneers of the Thule culture with ∼25 % admixture of the European colonizers from the 16th century. Despite previous speculations, no evidence of Viking settlers predecessors has been found. [126]
+
+Several thousand Greenlandic Inuit reside in Denmark proper. The majority of the population is Lutheran. Nearly all Greenlanders live along the fjords in the south-west of the main island, which has a relatively mild climate.[127] In 2020, 18,326 people reside in Nuuk, the capital city. Greenland's warmest climates such as the vegetated area around Narsarsuaq are sparsely populated, whereas the majority of the population lives north of 64°N in colder coastal climates.
+
+
+
+Both Greenlandic (an Eskimo–Aleut language) and Danish have been used in public affairs since the establishment of home rule in 1979; the majority of the population can speak both languages. Greenlandic became the sole official language in June 2009,[129] In practice, Danish is still widely used in the administration and in higher education, as well as remaining the first or only language for some Danish immigrants in Nuuk and other larger towns. Debate about the roles of Greenlandic and Danish in the country's future is ongoing. The orthography of Greenlandic was established in 1851[130] and revised in 1973. The country has a 100% literacy rate.[5]
+
+A majority of the population speaks Greenlandic, most of them bilingually. It is spoken by about 50,000 people, making it the most populous of the Eskimo–Aleut language family, spoken by more people than all the other languages of the family combined.
+
+Kalaallisut is the Greenlandic dialect of West Greenland, which has long been the most populous area of the island. This has led to its de facto status as the official "Greenlandic" language, although the northern dialect Inuktun remains spoken by 1,000 or so people around Qaanaaq, and the eastern dialect Tunumiisut by around 3,000.[131] Each of these dialects is almost unintelligible to the speakers of the other and are considered by some linguists to be separate languages.[citation needed] A UNESCO report has labelled the other dialects as endangered, and measures are now being considered to protect the East Greenlandic dialects.[132]
+
+About 12% of the population speak Danish as a first or sole language, particularly Danish immigrants in Greenland, many of whom fill positions such as administrators, professionals, academics, or skilled tradesmen. While Greenlandic is dominant in all smaller settlements, a part of the population of Inuit or mixed ancestry, especially in towns, speaks Danish. Most of the Inuit population speaks Danish as a second language. In larger towns, especially Nuuk and in the higher social strata, this is still a large group. While one strategy aims at promoting Greenlandic in public life and education, developing its vocabulary and suitability for all complex contexts, there are opponents of this.[133]
+
+English is another important language for Greenland, taught in schools from the first school year.[134]
+
+Education is organised in a similar way to Denmark. There is ten year mandatory primary school. There is also a secondary school, with either work education or preparatory for university education. There is one university, the University of Greenland (Greenlandic: Ilisimatusarfik) in Nuuk. Many Greenlanders attend universities in Denmark or elsewhere.
+
+Religion in Greenland (2010):[135][136]
+
+The nomadic Inuit people were traditionally shamanistic, with a well-developed mythology primarily concerned with appeasing a vengeful and fingerless sea goddess who controlled the success of the seal and whale hunts.
+
+The first Norse colonists worshipped the Norse gods, but Erik the Red's son Leif was converted to Christianity by King Olaf Trygvesson on a trip to Norway in 999 and sent missionaries back to Greenland. These swiftly established sixteen parishes, some monasteries, and a bishopric at Garðar.
+
+Rediscovering these colonists and spreading ideas of the Protestant Reformation among them was one of the primary reasons for the Danish recolonization in the 18th century. Under the patronage of the Royal Mission College in Copenhagen, Norwegian and Danish Lutherans and German Moravian missionaries searched for the missing Norse settlements, but no Norse were found, and instead they began preaching to the Inuit. The principal figures in the Christianization of Greenland were Hans and Poul Egede and Matthias Stach. The New Testament was translated piecemeal from the time of the very first settlement on Kangeq Island, but the first translation of the whole Bible was not completed until 1900. An improved translation using the modern orthography was completed in 2000.[137]
+
+Today, the major religion is Protestant Christianity, represented mainly by the Church of Denmark, which is Lutheran in orientation. While there are no official census data on religion in Greenland, the Bishop of Greenland Sofie Petersen[138] estimates that 85% of the Greenlandic population are members of her congregation.[139] The Church of Denmark is the established church through the Constitution of Denmark.[140]
+
+The Roman Catholic minority is pastorally served by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Copenhagen. There are still Christian missionaries on the island, but mainly from charismatic movements proselytizing fellow Christians.[141]
+
+The rate of suicide in Greenland is very high. According to a 2010 census, Greenland holds the highest suicide rate in the world.[142][143] Another significant social issue faced by Greenland is a high rate of alcoholism.[144] Alcohol consumption rates in Greenland reached their height in the 1980s, when it was twice as high as in Denmark, and had by 2010 fallen slightly below the average level of consumption in Denmark (which at the time were 12th highest in the world, but has since fallen). However, at the same time, alcohol prices are far higher, meaning that consumption has a large social impact.[145][146] Prevalence of HIV/AIDS used to be high in Greenland and peaked in the 1990s when the fatality rate also was relatively high. Through a number of initiatives the prevalence (along with the fatality rate through efficient treatment) has fallen and is now low, c. 0.13%,[147][148] below most other countries. In recent decades, the unemployment rates have generally been somewhat above those in Denmark;[149] in 2017, the rate was 6.8% in Greenland,[150] compared to 5.6% in Denmark.[151]
+
+Today Greenlandic culture is a blending of traditional Inuit (Kalaallit) and Scandinavian culture. Inuit, or Kalaallit, culture has a strong artistic tradition, dating back thousands of years. The Kalaallit are known for an art form of figures called tupilak or a "spirit object." Traditional art-making practices thrive in the Ammassalik.[152] Sperm whale ivory remains a valued medium for carving.[153]
+
+Greenland also has a successful, albeit small, music culture. Some popular Greenlandic bands and artists include Sume (classic rock), Chilly Friday (rock), Nanook (rock), Siissisoq (rock), Nuuk Posse (hip hop) and Rasmus Lyberth (folk), who performed in the Danish national final for the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, performing in Greenlandic. The singer-songwriter Simon Lynge is the first musical artist from Greenland to have an album released across the United Kingdom, and to perform at the UK's Glastonbury Festival. The music culture of Greenland also includes traditional Inuit music, largely revolving around singing and drums.
+
+Sport is an important part of Greenlandic culture, as the population is generally quite active.[154] Popular sports include association football, track and field, handball and skiing. Handball is often referred to as the national sport,[155] and Greenland's men's national team was ranked among the top 20 in the world in 2001.
+
+Greenland has excellent conditions for skiing, fishing, snowboarding, ice climbing and rock climbing, although mountain climbing and hiking are preferred by the general public. Although the environment is generally ill-suited for golf, there is a golf course in Nuuk.
+
+The national dish of Greenland is suaasat. Meat from marine mammals, game, birds, and fish play a large role in the Greenlandic diet. Due to the glacial landscape, most ingredients come from the ocean.[156] Spices are seldom used besides salt and pepper.[157] Greenlandic coffee is a "flaming" dessert coffee (set alight before serving) made with coffee, whiskey, Kahlúa, Grand Marnier, and whipped cream. It is stronger than the familiar Irish dessert coffee.[158]
+
+Coordinates: 72°00′N 40°00′W / 72.000°N 40.000°W / 72.000; -40.000

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+The cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) is a large cat native to Africa and central Iran. It is the fastest land animal, capable of running at 80 to 128 km/h (50 to 80 mph), and as such has several adaptations for speed, including a light build, long thin legs and a long tail. Cheetahs typically reach 67–94 cm (26–37 in) at the shoulder, and the head-and-body length is between 1.1 and 1.5 m (3.6 and 4.9 ft). Adults typically weigh between 20 and 65 kg (44 and 143 lb). Its head is small, rounded, and has a short snout and black tear-like facial streaks. The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale buff and is mostly covered with evenly spaced, solid black spots. Four subspecies are recognised.
+
+More gregarious than many other cats, the cheetah has three main social groups—females and their cubs, male "coalitions" and solitary males. While females lead a nomadic life searching for prey in large home ranges, males are more sedentary and may instead establish much smaller territories in areas with plentiful prey and access to females. The cheetah is active mainly during the day and hunting is its major preoccupation, with peaks during dawn and dusk. It feeds on small- to medium-sized prey, mostly weighing under 40 kg (88 lb), and prefers medium-sized ungulates such as impala, springbok and Thomson's gazelles. The cheetah will typically stalk its prey to within 60–70 m (200–230 ft), charge towards it, trip it during the chase and bite its throat to suffocate it to death. Breeding occurs throughout the year; after a gestation of nearly three months a litter of typically three to five cubs is born; cheetah cubs are highly vulnerable to predation by other large carnivores such as hyenas and lions. Weaning happens at around four months, and cubs are independent by around 20 months of age.
+
+The cheetah occurs in a variety of habitats such as savannahs in the Serengeti, arid mountain ranges in the Sahara and hilly desert terrain in Iran. The cheetah is threatened by several factors such as habitat loss, conflict with humans, poaching and high susceptibility to diseases. Earlier ranging throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa and extending eastward into the Middle East up to the Indian subcontinent, the cheetah is now distributed mainly in small, fragmented populations in central Iran and southern, eastern and northwestern Africa. In 2016, the global cheetah population was estimated at around 7,100 individuals in the wild; it is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. In the past, cheetahs used to be tamed and trained for hunting ungulates. They have been widely depicted in art, literature, advertising, and animation.
+
+The vernacular name "cheetah" is derived from Hindustani, which today is split into Hindi: चीता (cītā) and Urdu: چیتا‎ (chītā),[4] which in turn comes from Sanskrit: चित्रय (cītra) meaning variegated, adorned or painted.[5] In the past, cheetahs were often called "hunting leopards" because they could be tamed and used as hunting companions.[6] The generic name Acinonyx probably derives from the combination of two Greek words: ἁκινητος (akinitos) meaning unmoved or motionless, and ὄνυξ (onyx) meaning nail or hoof.[7] A rough translation would be "immobile nails", a reference to the cheetah's limited ability to retract its claws.[8] A similar meaning can be obtained by the combination of the Greek prefix a– (implying a lack of) and κῑνέω (kīnéō) meaning to move or set in motion.[9] A few old generic names such as Cynailurus and Cynofelis allude to the similarities between the cheetah and canids.[10] The specific name jubatus is Latin for "crested", in reference to the long hair on the nape.[11]
+
+In 1777, Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber described the cheetah based on a skin from the Cape of Good Hope and gave it the scientific name Felis jubatus.[12] Joshua Brookes proposed the generic name Acinonyx in 1828.[13] In 1917, Reginald Innes Pocock placed the cheetah in a subfamily of its own, Acinonychinae,[14] given its striking morphological resemblance to the greyhound as well as significant deviation from typical felid features; the cheetah was classified in Felinae in later taxonomic revisions.[15]
+
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, several cheetah specimens were described; some were proposed as subspecies. An example is the South African specimen known as the "woolly cheetah", named for its notably dense fur—this was described as a new species (Felis lanea) by Philip Sclater in 1877,[16] but the classification was mostly disputed.[17] There has been considerable confusion in the nomenclature of cheetahs and leopards (Panthera pardus) as authors often confused the two; some considered "hunting leopards" an independent species, or equal to the leopard.[18][19]
+
+In 1975, five subspecies were considered valid taxa: A. j. hecki, A. j. jubatus, A. j. raineyi, A. j. soemmeringii and A. j. venaticus.[20] In 2011, a phylogeographic study found minimal genetic variation between A. j. jubatus and A. j. raineyi; only four subspecies were identified.[21] In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and recognised these four subspecies as valid. Their details are tabulated below:[20][22]
+
+Lynx
+
+Acinonyx jubatus  (Cheetah)
+
+Puma concolor  (Cougar)
+
+Herpailurus yagouaroundi  (Jaguarundi)
+
+Felis
+
+Otocolobus
+
+Prionailurus
+
+The cheetah's closest relatives are the cougar (Puma concolor) and the jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi).[20] Together, these three species form the Puma lineage, one of the eight lineages of the extant felids; the Puma lineage diverged from the rest 6.7 mya. The sister group of the Puma lineage is a clade of smaller Old World cats that includes the genera Felis, Otocolobus and Prionailurus.[31]
+
+The oldest cheetah fossils, excavated in eastern and southern Africa, date to 3.5–3 mya; the earliest known specimen from South Africa is from the lowermost deposits of the Silderberg Grotto (Sterkfontein).[3][9] Though incomplete, these fossils indicate forms larger but less cursorial than the modern cheetah.[32] Fossil remains from Europe are limited to a few Middle Pleistocene specimens from Hundsheim (Austria) and Mosbach Sands (Germany).[33] Cheetah-like cats are known from as late as 10,000 years ago from the Old World. The giant cheetah (A. pardinensis), significantly larger and slower compared to the modern cheetah, occurred in Eurasia and eastern and southern Africa in the Villafranchian period roughly 3.8–1.9 mya.[15][34] In the Middle Pleistocene a smaller cheetah, A. intermedius, ranged from Europe to China.[3] The modern cheetah appeared in Africa around 1.9 mya; its fossil record is restricted to Africa.[32]
+
+Extinct North American cheetah-like cats had historically been classified in Felis, Puma or Acinonyx; two such species, F. studeri and F. trumani, were considered to be closer to the puma than the cheetah, despite their close similarities to the latter. Noting this, palaeontologist Daniel Adams proposed Miracinonyx, a new subgenus under Acinonyx, in 1979 for the North American cheetah-like cats;[35] this was later elevated to genus rank.[36] Adams pointed out that North American and Old World cheetah-like cats may have had a common ancestor, and Acinonyx might have originated in North America instead of Eurasia.[35] However, subsequent research has shown that Miracinonyx is phylogenetically closer to the cougar than the cheetah;[37] the similarities to cheetahs have been attributed to convergent evolution.[31]
+
+The three species of the Puma lineage may have had a common ancestor during the Miocene (roughly 8.25 mya).[35][38] Some suggest that North American cheetahs possibly migrated to Asia via the Bering Strait, then dispersed southward to Africa through Eurasia at least 100,000 years ago;[39][40][41] some authors have expressed doubt over the occurrence of cheetah-like cats in North America, and instead suppose the modern cheetah to have evolved from Asian populations that eventually spread to Africa.[37][42] The cheetah is thought to have experienced two population bottlenecks that greatly decreased the genetic variability in populations; one occurred about 100,000 years ago that has been correlated to migration from North America to Asia, and the second 10,000–12,000 years ago in Africa, possibly as part of the Late Pleistocene extinction event.[40][43][44]
+
+The diploid number of chromosomes in the cheetah is 38, the same as in most other felids.[45] The cheetah was the first felid observed to have unusually low genetic variability among individuals,[46] which has led to poor breeding in captivity, increased spermatozoal defects, high juvenile mortality and increased susceptibility to diseases and infections.[47][48] A prominent instance was the deadly feline coronavirus outbreak in a cheetah breeding facility of Oregon in 1983 which had a mortality rate of 60%—higher than that recorded for previous epizootics of feline infectious peritonitis in any felid.[49] The remarkable homogeneity in cheetah genes has been demonstrated by experiments involving the major histocompatibility complex (MHC); unless the MHC genes are highly homogeneous in a population, skin grafts exchanged between a pair of unrelated individuals would be rejected. Skin grafts exchanged between unrelated cheetahs are accepted well and heal, as if their genetic makeup were the same.[50][51]
+
+The king cheetah is a variety of cheetah with a rare mutation for cream-coloured fur marked with large, blotchy spots and three dark, wide stripes extending from the neck to the tail.[52] Natives knew the animal as nsuifisi, believing it to be a cross between a leopard and a hyena.[53] In 1926 Major A. Cooper wrote about a cheetah-like animal he had shot near modern-day Harare, with fur as thick as that of a snow leopard and spots that merged to form stripes. He suggested it could be a cross between a leopard and a cheetah. As more such individuals were observed it was seen that they had non-retractable claws like the cheetah.[54][55]
+
+In 1927 Pocock described these individuals as a new species by the name of Acinonyx rex ("king cheetah").[55] However, in the absence of proof to support his claim, he withdrew his proposal in 1939. Abel Chapman considered it a colour morph of the normally spotted cheetah.[56] Since 1927 the king cheetah has been reported five more times in the wild in Zimbabwe, Botswana and northern Transvaal; one was photographed in 1975.[53]
+
+In 1981 two female cheetahs that had mated with a wild male from Transvaal at the De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre (South Africa) gave birth to one king cheetah each; subsequently, more king cheetahs were born at the Centre.[56] In 2012 the cause of this coat pattern was found to be a mutation in the gene for transmembrane aminopeptidase  (Taqpep), the same gene responsible for the striped "mackerel" versus blotchy "classic" pattern seen in tabby cats.[57] The appearance is caused by reinforcement of a recessive allele; hence if two mating cheetahs carry the mutated allele, a quarter of their offspring can be expected to be king cheetahs.[58]
+
+The cheetah is a lightly built, spotted cat characterised by a small rounded head, a short snout, black tear-like facial streaks, a deep chest, long thin legs and a long tail. Its slender, canine-like form is highly adapted for speed, and contrasts sharply with the robust build of the big cats (genus Panthera).[10][59] Cheetahs typically reach 67–94 cm (26–37 in) at the shoulder and the head-and-body length is between 1.1 and 1.5 m (3.6 and 4.9 ft).[9][60][61] The weight can vary with age, health, location, sex and subspecies; adults typically range between 20 and 65 kg (44 and 143 lb). Cubs born in the wild weigh 150–300 g (5.3–10.6 oz) at birth, while those born in captivity tend to be larger and weigh around 500 g (18 oz).[10][58][60] Cheetahs are sexually dimorphic, with males larger and heavier than females, but not to the extent seen in other large cats.[61][62][63] Studies differ significantly on morphological variations among the subspecies.[63]
+
+The coat is typically tawny to creamy white or pale buff (darker in the mid-back portion).[9][60] The chin, throat and underparts of the legs and the belly are white and devoid of markings. The rest of the body is covered with around 2,000 evenly spaced, oval or round solid black spots, each measuring roughly 3–5 cm (1.2–2.0 in).[58][64][65] Each cheetah has a distinct pattern of spots which can be used to identify unique individuals.[61] Besides the clearly visible spots, there are other faint, irregular black marks on the coat.[64] Newly born cubs are covered in fur with an unclear pattern of spots that gives them a dark appearance—pale white above and nearly black on the underside.[10] The hair is mostly short and often coarse, but the chest and the belly are covered in soft fur; the fur of king cheetahs has been reported to be silky.[9][66] There is a short, rough mane, covering at least 8 cm (3.1 in) along the neck and the shoulders; this feature is more prominent in males. The mane starts out as a cape of long, loose blue to grey hair in juveniles.[58][66] Melanistic cheetahs are rare and have been seen in Zambia and Zimbabwe.[64] In 1877–1878, Sclater described two partially albino specimens from South Africa.[58]
+
+The head is small and more rounded compared to the big cats.[67] Saharan cheetahs have canine-like slim faces.[64] The ears are small, short and rounded; they are tawny at the base and on the edges and marked with black patches on the back. The eyes are set high and have round pupils.[61] The whiskers, shorter and fewer than those of other felids, are fine and inconspicuous.[68] The pronounced tear streaks (or malar stripes), unique to the cheetah, originate from the corners of the eyes and run down the nose to the mouth. The role of these streaks is not well understood—they may protect the eyes from the sun's glare (a helpful feature as the cheetah hunts mainly during the day), or they could be used to define facial expressions.[64] The exceptionally long and muscular tail, with a bushy white tuft at the end, measures 60–80 cm (24–31 in).[69] While the first two-thirds of the tail are covered in spots, the final third is marked with four to six dark rings or stripes.[58][65]
+
+The cheetah is superficially similar to the leopard, but the leopard has rosettes instead of spots and lacks tear streaks.[62][70] Moreover, the cheetah is slightly taller than the leopard. The serval resembles the cheetah in physical build, but is significantly smaller, has a shorter tail and its spots fuse to form stripes on the back.[71] The cheetah appears to have evolved convergently with canids in morphology as well as behaviour; it has canine-like features such as a relatively long snout, long legs, a deep chest, tough paw pads and blunt, semi-retractable claws.[72][73] The cheetah has often been likened to the greyhound, as both have similar morphology and the ability to reach tremendous speeds in a shorter time than other mammals,[66][69] but the cheetah can attain higher maximum speeds.[74]
+
+Sharply contrasting with the big cats in its morphology, the cheetah shows several adaptations for prolonged chases to catch prey at some of the fastest recorded speeds.[75] Its light, streamlined body makes it well-suited to short, explosive bursts of speed, rapid acceleration, and an ability to execute extreme changes in direction while moving at high speed.[76][77][78] The large nasal passages, accommodated well due to the smaller size of the canine teeth, ensure fast flow of sufficient air, and the enlarged heart and lungs allow the enrichment of blood with oxygen in a short time. This allows cheetahs to rapidly regain their stamina after a chase.[3] During a typical chase, their respiratory rate increases from 60 to 150 breaths per minute.[79] Moreover, the reduced viscosity of the blood at higher temperatures (common in frequently moving muscles) could ease blood flow and increase oxygen transport.[80] While running, in addition to having good traction due to their semi-retractable claws, cheetahs use their tail as a rudder-like means of steering that enables them to make sharp turns, necessary to outflank antelopes which often change direction to escape during a chase.[58][67] The protracted claws increase grip over the ground, while paw pads make the sprint more convenient over tough ground. The limbs of the cheetah are longer than what is typical for other cats its size; the thigh muscles are large, and the tibia and fibula are held close together making the lower legs less likely to rotate. This reduces the risk of losing balance during runs, but compromises the ability to climb. The highly reduced clavicle is connected through ligaments to the scapula, whose pendulum-like motion increases the stride length and assists in shock absorption. The extension of the vertebral column can add as much as 76 cm (30 in) to the stride length.[81][82]
+
+The cheetah resembles the smaller cats in cranial features, and in having a long and flexible spine, as opposed to the stiff and short one in other large felids.[3] The roughly triangular skull has light, narrow bones and the sagittal crest is poorly developed, possibly to reduce weight and enhance speed. The mouth can not be opened as widely as in other cats given the shorter length of muscles between the jaw and the skull.[58][62] A study suggested that the limited retraction of the cheetah's claws may result from the earlier truncation of the development of the middle phalanx bone in cheetahs.[75]
+
+The cheetah has a total of 30 teeth; the dental formula is 3.1.3.13.1.2.1. The sharp, narrow carnassials are larger than those of leopards and lions, suggesting the cheetah can consume larger amount of food in a given time period. The small, flat canines are used to bite the throat and suffocate the prey. A study gave the bite force quotient (BFQ) of the cheetah as 119, close to that for the lion (112), suggesting that adaptations for a lighter skull may not have reduced the power of the cheetah's bite.[3][10] Unlike other cats, the cheetah's canines have no gap behind them when the jaws close, as the top and bottom cheek teeth show extensive overlap; this equips the upper and lower teeth to effectively tear through the meat. The slightly curved claws, shorter as well as straighter than those of other cats, lack a protective sheath and are partly retractable.[58][61] The claws are blunt due to lack of protection,[64] but the large and strongly curved dewclaw is remarkably sharp.[83] Cheetahs have a high concentration of nerve cells arranged in a band in the centre of the eyes (a visual streak), the most efficient among felids. This significantly sharpens the vision and enables the cheetah to swiftly locate prey against the horizon.[59][84] The cheetah is unable to roar due to the presence of a sharp-edged vocal fold within the larynx.[3][85]
+
+The cheetah is the fastest land animal.[86][87][88][89][90] Estimates of the maximum speed attained range from 80 to 128 km/h (50 to 80 mph).[58][61][91][92] A commonly quoted value is 112 km/h (70 mph), recorded in 1957, but this measurement is disputed.[93] In 2012, an 11-year-old cheetah (named Sarah) from the Cincinnati Zoo set a world record by running 100 m (330 ft) in 5.95 seconds over a set run, recording a maximum speed of 98 km/h (61 mph).[94]
+
+Contrary to the common belief that cheetahs hunt by simply chasing its prey at high speeds, the findings of two studies in 2013 observing hunting cheetahs using GPS collars show that cheetahs hunt at speeds much lower than the highest recorded for them during most of the chase, interspersed with a few short bursts (lasting only seconds) when they attain peak speeds. In one of the studies, the average speed recorded during the high speed phase was 53.64 km/h (33.3 mph), or within the range 41.4–65.88 km/h (25.7–40.9 mph) including error. The highest recorded value was 93.24 km/h (57.9 mph). The researchers suggested that a hunt consists of two phases—an initial fast acceleration phase when the cheetah tries to catch up with the prey, followed by slowing down as it closes in on it, the deceleration varying by the prey in question. The peak acceleration observed was 2.5 m (8.2 ft) per square second, while the peak deceleration value was 7.5 m (25 ft) per square second. Speed and acceleration values for a hunting cheetah may be different from those for a non-hunter because while engaged in the chase, the cheetah is more likely to be twisting and turning and may be running through vegetation.[95][96] The speeds attained by the cheetah may be only slightly greater than those achieved by the pronghorn at 88.5 km/h (55.0 mph)[97] and the springbok at 88 km/h (55 mph),[98] but the cheetah additionally has an exceptional acceleration.[99]
+
+One stride of a galloping cheetah measures 4 to 7 m (13 to 23 ft); the stride length and the number of jumps increases with speed.[58] During more than half the duration of the sprint, the cheetah has all four limbs in the air, increasing the stride length.[100] Running cheetahs can retain up to 90% of the heat generated during the chase. A 1973 study suggested the length of the sprint is limited by excessive build-up of body heat when the body temperature reaches 40–41 °C (104–106 °F). However, a 2013 study recorded the average temperature of cheetahs after hunts to be 38.6 °C (101.5 °F), suggesting high temperatures need not cause hunts to be abandoned.[101][102]
+
+Cheetahs are active mainly during the day,[66] whereas other carnivores such as leopards and lions are active mainly at night;[62][99] These larger carnivores can kill cheetahs and steal their kills;[58] hence, the diurnal tendency of cheetahs helps them avoid larger predators in areas where they are sympatric, such as the Okavango Delta. In areas where the cheetah is the major predator (such as farmlands in Botswana and Namibia), activity tends to increase at night. This may also happen in highly arid regions such as the Sahara, where daytime temperatures can reach 43 °C (109 °F). The lunar cycle can also influence the cheetah's routine—activity might increase on moonlit nights as prey can be sighted easily, though this comes with the danger of encountering larger predators.[58][103] Hunting is the major activity throughout the day, with peaks during dawn and dusk.[64] Groups rest in grassy clearings after dusk. Cheetahs often inspect their vicinity at observation points such as elevations to check for prey or larger carnivores; even while resting, they take turns at keeping a lookout.[58]
+
+Cheetahs have a flexible and complex social structure and tend to be more gregarious than several other cats (except the lion). Individuals typically avoid one another but are generally amicable; males may fight over territories or access to females in oestrus, and on rare occasions such fights can result in severe injury and death. Females are not social and have minimal interaction with other individuals, barring the interaction with males when they enter their territories or during the mating season. Some females, generally mother and offspring or siblings, may rest beside one another during the day. Females tend to lead a solitary life or live with offspring in undefended home ranges; young females often stay close to their mothers for life but young males leave their mother's range to live elsewhere.[58][61][64]
+
+Some males are territorial, and group together for life forming coalitions that collectively defend a territory which ensures maximum access to females—this is unlike the behaviour of the male lion who mates with a particular group (pride) of females. In most cases, a coalition will consist of brothers born in the same litter who stayed together after weaning, but biologically unrelated males are often allowed into the group; in the Serengeti 30% members in coalitions are unrelated males.[64] Males in a coalition are affectionate toward each other, grooming mutually and calling out if any member is lost; unrelated males may face some aversion in their initial days in the group. All males in the coalition typically have equal access to kills when the group hunts together, and possibly also to females who may enter their territory.
+[104] If a cub is the only male in a litter he will typically join an existing group, or form a small group of solitary males with two or three other lone males who may or may not be territorial. In the Kalahari Desert around 40% of the males live in solitude. A coalition generally has a greater chance of encountering and acquiring females for mating, however, its large membership demands greater resources than do solitary males.[61][64] A 1987 study showed that solitary and grouped males have a nearly equal chance of coming across females, but the males in coalitions are notably healthier and have better chances of survival than their solitary counterparts.[105]
+
+Unlike many other felids, among cheetahs, females tend to occupy larger areas compared to males.[61] Females typically disperse over large areas in pursuit of prey, but they are less nomadic and roam in a smaller area if prey availability in the area is high. As such, the size of their home range depends on the distribution of prey in a region. In central Namibia, where most prey species are sparsely distributed, home ranges average 554–7,063 km2 (214–2,727 sq mi), whereas in the woodlands of the Phinda Game Reserve (South Africa), which have plentiful prey, home ranges are 34–157 km2 (13–61 sq mi) in size.[64] Cheetahs can travel long stretches overland in search of food; a study in the Kalahari Desert recorded an average displacement of nearly 11 km (6.8 mi) every day and walking speeds ranged between 2.5 and 3.8 km/h (1.6 and 2.4 mph).[103]
+
+Males are generally less nomadic than females; often males in coalitions (and sometimes solitary males staying far from coalitions) establish territories.[58][61] Whether males settle in territories or disperse over large areas forming home ranges depends primarily on the movements of females. Territoriality is preferred only if females tend to be more sedentary, which is more feasible in areas with plenty of prey. Some males, called floaters, switch between territoriality and nomadism depending on the availability of females.[64] A 1987 study showed territoriality depended on the size and age of males and the membership of the coalition.[105] The ranges of floaters averaged 777 km2 (300 sq mi) in the Serengeti to 1,464 km2 (565 sq mi) in central Namibia. In the Kruger National Park (South Africa) territories were much smaller. A coalition of three males occupied a territory measuring 126 km2 (49 sq mi), and the territory of a solitary male measured 195 km2 (75 sq mi).[64] When a female enters a territory, the males will surround her; if she tries to escape, the males will bite or snap at her. Generally, the female can not escape on her own; the males themselves leave after they lose interest in her. They may smell the spot she was sitting or lying on to determine if she was in oestrus.[104]
+
+The cheetah is a vocal felid with a broad repertoire of calls and sounds; the acoustic features and the use of many of these have been studied in detail.[106] The vocal characteristics, such as the way they are produced, are often different from those of other cats.[107] For instance, a study showed that exhalation is louder than inhalation in cheetahs, while no such distinction was observed in the domestic cat.[108][109] Listed below are some commonly recorded vocalisations observed in cheetahs:
+
+Another major means of communication is by scent—the male will often investigate urine-marked places (territories or common landmarks) for a long time by crouching on his forelegs and carefully smelling the place. Then he will stand close to an elevated spot (such as tree trunks, stumps or rocks) with the tail raised, and the penis pointed at the area to be marked; other observing individuals might repeat the ritual. Females may also show marking behaviour but less prominently than males do. Among females, those in oestrus will show maximum urine-marking, and their excrement can attract males from far off. In Botswana, cheetahs are frequently captured by ranchers to protect livestock by setting up traps in traditional marking spots; the calls of the trapped cheetah can attract more cheetahs to the place.[66][61]
+
+Touch and visual cues are other ways of signalling in cheetahs. Social meetings involve mutual sniffing of the mouth, anus and genitals. Individuals will groom one another, lick each other's faces and rub cheeks. However, they seldom lean on or rub their flanks against each other. The tear streaks on the face can sharply define expressions at close range. Mothers probably use the alternate light and dark rings on the tail to signal their cubs to follow them.[66]
+
+The cheetah is a carnivore that hunts small to medium-sized prey weighing 20 to 60 kg (44 to 132 lb), but mostly less than 40 kg (88 lb). Its primary prey are medium-sized ungulates. They are the major component of the diet in certain areas, such as Dama and Dorcas gazelles in the Sahara, impala in the eastern and southern African woodlands, springbok in the arid savannas to the south and Thomson's gazelle in the Serengeti. Smaller antelopes like the common duiker are a frequent prey in the southern Kalahari. Larger ungulates are typically avoided, though nyala, whose males weigh around 120 kg (260 lb), were found to be the major prey in a study in the Phinda Game Reserve. In Namibia cheetahs are the major predators of livestock.[9][58][114] The diet of the Asiatic cheetah consists of livestock as well as chinkara, desert hare, goitered gazelle, urial and wild goats; in India cheetahs used to prey mostly on blackbuck.[64][115] There are no records of cheetahs killing humans.[64][62] Cheetahs in the Kalahari have been reported feeding on citron melons for their water content.[64] Prey preferences and hunting success vary with the age, sex and number of cheetahs involved in the hunt and on the vigilance of the prey. Generally only groups of cheetahs (coalitions or mother and cubs) will try to kill larger prey; mothers with cubs especially look out for larger prey and tend to be more successful than females without cubs. Individuals on the periphery of the prey herd are common targets; vigilant prey which would react quickly on seeing the cheetah are not preferred.[45][58][116]
+
+Cheetahs hunt primarily throughout the day, sometimes with peaks at dawn and dusk; they tend to avoid larger predators like the primarily nocturnal lion.[64] Cheetahs in the Sahara and Maasai Mara (Kenya) hunt after sunset to escape the high temperatures of the day.[117] Cheetahs use their vision to hunt instead of their sense of smell; they keep a lookout for prey from resting sites or low branches. The cheetah will stalk its prey, trying to conceal itself in cover, and approach as close as possible, often within 60 to 70 m (200 to 230 ft) of the prey (or even farther for less alert prey). Alternatively the cheetah can lie hidden in cover and wait for the prey to come nearer. A stalking cheetah assumes a partially crouched posture, with the head lower than the shoulders; it will move slowly and be still at times. In areas of minimal cover the cheetah will approach within 200 m (660 ft) of the prey and start the chase. The chase typically lasts a minute; in a 2013 study, the length of chases averaged 173 m (568 ft), and the longest run measured 559 m (1,834 ft). The cheetah can give up the chase if it is detected by the prey early or if it can not make a kill quickly. Cheetahs kill their prey by tripping it during the chase by hitting its rump with the forepaw or using the strong dewclaw to knock the prey off its balance, bringing it down with much force and sometimes even breaking some of its limbs.[58][66] Cheetahs can decelerate dramatically towards the end of the hunt, slowing down from 93 km/h (58 mph) to 23 km/h (14 mph) in just three strides, and can easily follow any twists and turns the prey makes as it tries to flee.[64] To kill medium- to large-sized prey, the cheetah bites the prey's throat to suffocate it, maintaining the bite for around five minutes, within which the prey stops struggling. A bite on the nape of the neck or the snout (and sometimes on the skull) suffices to kill smaller prey.[58][66] Cheetahs have an average hunting success rate of 25–40%, higher for smaller and more vulnerable prey.[64][79]
+
+Once the hunt is over, the prey is taken near a bush or under a tree; the cheetah, highly exhausted after the chase, rests beside the kill and pants heavily for five to 55 minutes. Meanwhile cheetahs nearby, who did not take part in the hunt, might feed on the kill immediately. Groups of cheetah devour the kill peacefully, though minor noises and snapping may be observed.[58] Cheetahs can consume large quantities of food; a cheetah at the Etosha National Park (Namibia) was found to consume as much as 10 kilograms (22 lb) within two hours.[118] However, on a daily basis, a cheetah feeds on around 4 kg (8.8 lb) meat.[66] Cheetahs, especially mothers with cubs, remain cautious even as they eat, pausing to look around for fresh prey or for predators who may steal the kill.[119] Cheetahs move their heads from side to side so the sharp carnassial teeth tear the flesh, which can then be swallowed without chewing. They typically begin with the hindquarters, and then progress toward the abdomen and the spine. Ribs are chewed on at the ends, and the limbs are not generally torn apart while eating. Unless the prey is very small, the skeleton is left almost intact after feeding on the meat. Cheetahs might lose 10−15% of their kills to large carnivores such as hyenas and lions (and grey wolves in Iran). To defend itself or its prey, a cheetah will hold its body low to the ground and snarl with its mouth wide open, the eyes staring threateningly ahead and the ears folded backward. This may be accompanied by moans, hisses and growls, and hitting the ground with the forepaws.[66] Cheetahs have rarely been observed scavenging kills; this may be due to vultures and spotted hyena adroitly capturing and consuming heavy carcasses within a short time.[58][120]
+
+Cheetahs are induced ovulators and can breed throughout the year. Females can have their first litter at two to three years of age. Polyestrous, females have an oestrus ("heat") cycle 12– days long on average, but this can vary broadly from three days to a month. A female can conceive again after 17 to 20 months from giving birth, or even sooner if a whole litter is lost. Males can breed at less than two years of age in captivity, but this may be delayed in the wild until the male acquires a territory.[3][66][104][121] A 2007 study showed that females who gave birth to more litters early in their life often died younger, indicating a trade-off between longevity and yearly reproductive success.[122]
+
+Urine-marking in males can become more pronounced when a female in their vicinity comes into oestrus. Males, sometimes even those in coalitions, fight among one another to secure access to the female.[123] Often one male will eventually win dominance over the others and mate with the female, though a female can mate with different males.[124] Mating begins with the male approaching the female, who lies down on the ground; individuals often chirp, purr or yelp at this time. No courtship behaviour is observed; the male immediately secures hold of the female's nape, and copulation takes place. The pair then ignore each other, but meet and copulate a few more times three to five times a day for the next two to three days before finally parting ways.[3][66][125]
+
+After a gestation of nearly three months, a litter of one to eight cubs is born (though those of three to four cubs are more common). Births take place at 20–25 minute intervals in a sheltered place such as thick vegetation. The eyes are shut at birth, and open in four to 11 days. Newborn cubs might spit a lot and make soft churring noises; they start walking by two weeks. Their nape, shoulders and back are thickly covered with long bluish grey hair, called a mantle, which gives them a mohawk-type appearance; this fur is shed as the cheetah grows older.[66][15] A study suggested that this mane gives a cheetah cub the appearance of a honey badger, and could act as camouflage from attacks by these badgers or predators that tend to avoid them.[126] Compared to other felids, cheetah cubs are highly vulnerable to several predators during the first few weeks of their life.[127][128] Mothers keep their cubs hidden in dense vegetation for the first two months and nurse in the early morning. The mother is extremely vigilant at this stage; she stays within 1 km (0.62 mi) of the lair, frequently visits her cubs, moves them every five to six days, and remains with them after dark. Though she tries to make minimal noise she usually can not defend her litter from these predators. Predation is the leading cause of mortality in cheetah cubs; a study showed that in areas with a low density of predators (such as Namibian farmlands) around 70% of the cubs make it beyond the age of 14 months, whereas in areas like the Serengeti National Park, where several large carnivores exist, the survival rate was just 17%. Deaths also occur from starvation if their mothers abandon them, fires, or pneumonia because of exposure to bad weather.[66][104] Generation length of the cheetah is six years.[129]
+
+Cubs start coming out of the lair at two months of age, trailing after their mother wherever she goes. At this point the mother nurses less and brings solid food to the cubs; they retreat away from the carcass in fear initially, but gradually start eating it. The cubs might purr as the mother licks them clean after the meal. Weaning occurs at four to six months. To train her cubs in hunting, the mother will catch and let go of live prey in front of her cubs.[104] Cubs' play behaviour includes chasing, crouching, pouncing and wrestling; there is plenty of agility, and attacks are seldom lethal.[66][104] Playing can improve catching skills in cubs, though the ability to crouch and hide may not develop remarkably.[130] Cubs as young as six months try to capture small prey like hares and young gazelles. However, they may have to wait until as long as 15 months of age to make a successful kill on their own. At around 20 months, offspring become independent; mothers might have conceived again by then. Siblings may remain together for a few more months before parting ways. While females stay close to their mothers, males move farther off.[66][104][131] The lifespan of wild cheetahs is 14 to 15 years for females, and their reproductive cycle typically ends by 12 years of age; males generally live as long as ten years.[1]
+
+Cheetahs appear to be less selective in habitat choice than other felids and inhabit a variety of ecosystems; areas with greater availability of prey, good visibility and minimal chances of encountering larger predators are preferred. They seldom occur in tropical forests. Cheetahs have been reported at elevations as high as 4,000 m (13,000 ft). An open area with some cover, such as diffused bushes, is probably ideal for the cheetah because it needs to stalk and pursue its prey over a distance. This also minimises the risk of encountering larger carnivores. Unlike the big cats, the cheetah tends to occur in low densities typically between 0.3 and 3.0 adults per 100 km2 (39 sq mi)—these values are 10–30% of those reported for leopards and lions.[1][103]
+
+Cheetahs in eastern and southern Africa occur mostly in savannas like the Kalahari and Serengeti. In central, northern and western Africa cheetahs inhabit arid mountain ranges and valleys; in the harsh climate of the Sahara, cheetahs prefer high mountains, which receive more rainfall than the surrounding desert. The vegetation and water resources in these mountains supports antelopes. Iranian cheetahs occur in hilly terrain of deserts at elevations up to 2,000–3,000 m (6,600–9,800 ft), where annual precipitation is generally below 100 mm (3.9 in); the primary vegetation in these areas is thinly distributed shrubs, less than 1 m (3.3 ft) tall.[1][64][103]
+
+In prehistoric times, the cheetah was distributed throughout Africa, Asia and Europe.[58] It gradually fell to extinction in Europe, possibly because of competition with the lion.[15] Today the cheetah has been extirpated in most of its historical range; the numbers of the Asiatic cheetah had begun plummeting since the late 1800s, long before the other subspecies started their decline. As of 2017, cheetahs occur in just nine per cent of their erstwhile range in Africa, mostly in unprotected areas.[26]
+
+In the past until the mid-20th century, the cheetah ranged across vast stretches in Asia, from the Arabian Peninsula in the west to the Indian subcontinent in the east, and as far north as the Aral and Caspian Seas.[132] A few centuries ago the cheetah was abundant in India, and its range coincided with the distribution of major prey like the blackbuck.[58] However, its numbers in India plummeted from the 19th century onward; Divyabhanusinh of the Bombay Natural History Society notes that the last three individuals in the wild were killed by Maharaja Ramanuj Pratap Singh of Surguja (a man also noted for holding a record for shooting 1,360 tigers) in 1947.[133][134] The last confirmed sighting in India was of a cheetah that drowned in a well near Hyderabad in 1957.[135] In Iran there were around 400 cheetahs before World War II, distributed across deserts and steppes to the east and the borderlands with Iraq to the west; the numbers were falling because of a decline in prey. In Iraq, cheetahs were reported from Basra in the 1920s. Conservation efforts in the 1950s stabilised the population, but prey species declined again in the wake of the Iranian Revolution (1979) and the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), leading to a significant contraction of the cheetah's historical range in the region.[26][136]
+
+The first survey of cheetah populations in Africa by Norman Myers in 1975 estimated a population of 15,000 individuals throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. The range covered most of eastern and southern Africa, except for the desert region on the western coast of modern-day Angola and Namibia.[137] In the following years, as their natural habitat has been modified dramatically, cheetah populations across the region have become smaller and more fragmented.[138]
+
+The cheetah occurs mostly in eastern and southern Africa; its presence in Asia is limited to the central deserts of Iran, though there have been unconfirmed reports of sightings in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan in the last few decades.[1][26] The global population of cheetahs was estimated at nearly 7,100 individuals in 2016. The Iranian population appears to have decreased from 60 to 100 individuals in 2007 to 43 in 2016, distributed in three subpopulations over less than 150,000 km2 (58,000 sq mi) in Iran's central plateau.[24][139] The largest population (nearly 4,000 individuals) is sparsely distributed over Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. Another population, spread in Kenya and Tanzania, comprises 1,000 individuals. All other cheetahs occur in small, fragmented groups (mostly less than 100 individuals in each) throughout the range. Populations are feared to be declining, especially those of adults.[24] The cheetah was reintroduced in Malawi in 2017.[140]
+
+The cheetah is threatened by several factors, like habitat loss and fragmentation of populations. Habitat loss is caused mainly by the introduction of commercial land use, such as agriculture and industry;[1] it is further aggravated by ecological degradation, like bush encroachment common in southern Africa.[141][142] Moreover, the species apparently requires a sizeable area to live in as indicated by its low population densities. Shortage of prey and conflict with other species such as humans and large carnivores are other major threats.[1][143] The cheetah appears to be less capable of coexisting with humans than the leopard.[144] With 76% of its range consisting of unprotected land, the cheetah is often targeted by farmers and pastoralists who attempt to protect their livestock, especially in Namibia.[145] Illegal wildlife trade and trafficking is another problem in some places (like Ethiopia). Some tribes, like the Maasai people in Tanzania, have been reported to use cheetah skins in ceremonies.[6][32] Roadkill is another threat, especially in areas where roads have been constructed near natural habitat or protected areas. Cases of roadkill involving cheetahs have been reported from Kalmand, Touran National Park, and Bafq in Iran.[1] The reduced genetic variability makes cheetahs more vulnerable to diseases;[48] however, the threat posed by infectious diseases may be minor, given the low population densities and hence a reduced chance of infection.[1]
+
+The cheetah has been classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN; it is listed under Appendix I of the CMS and Appendix I of CITES.[1] The Endangered Species Act enlists the cheetah as Endangered.[2]
+
+Until the 1970s, cheetahs and other carnivores were frequently killed to protect livestock in Africa. Gradually the understanding of cheetah ecology increased and their falling numbers became a matter of concern. The De Wildt Cheetah and Wildlife Centre was set up in 1971 in South Africa to provide care for wild cheetahs regularly trapped or injured by Namibian farmers.[6] By 1987, the first major research project to outline cheetah conservation strategies was underway.[146] The Cheetah Conservation Fund, founded in 1990 in Namibia, put efforts into field research and education about cheetahs on the global platform.[6] The CCF runs a cheetah genetics laboratory, the only one of its kind, in Otjiwarongo (Namibia);[147] "Bushblok" is an initiative to restore habitat systematically through targeted bush thinning and biomass utilisation.[141][148] Several more cheetah-specific conservation programmes have since been established, like Cheetah Outreach in South Africa.[6]
+
+The Global Cheetah Action Plan Workshop in 2002 laid emphasis on the need for a rangewide survey of wild cheetahs to demarcate areas for conservation efforts and on creating awareness through training programs.[149] The Range Wide Conservation Program for Cheetah and African Wild Dogs (RWCP) began in 2007 as a joint initiative of the IUCN Cat and Canid Specialist Groups, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Zoological Society of London. National conservation plans have been developed successfully for several African countries.[150][151] In 2014, the CITES Standing Committee recognised the cheetah as a "species of priority" in their strategies in northeastern Africa to counter wildlife trafficking.[152] In December 2016 the results of an extensive survey detailing the distribution and demography of cheetahs throughout the range were published; the researchers recommended listing the cheetah as Endangered on the IUCN Red List.[24]
+
+In 2001 the Iranian government collaborated with the CCF, the IUCN, Panthera Corporation, UNDP and the Wildlife Conservation Society on the Conservation of Asiatic Cheetah Project (CACP) to protect the natural habitat of the Asiatic cheetah and its prey.[153][154] In 2004, the Iranian Centre for Sustainable Development (CENESTA) conducted an international workshop to discuss conservation plans with local stakeholders.[6] Iran declared 31 August as National Cheetah Day in 2006.[155] The Iranian Cheetah Strategic Planning meet in 2010 formulated a five-year conservation plan for Asiatic cheetahs.[6] The CACP Phase II was implemented in 2009, and the third phase was drafted in 2018.[156]
+
+During the early 2000s scientists from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (Hyderabad) proposed a plan to clone Asiatic cheetahs from Iran for reintroduction in India, but Iran denied the proposal.[157] In September 2009, the then Minister of Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, assigned the Wildlife Trust of India and the Wildlife Institute of India with examining the potential of importing African cheetahs to India.[158] The report, submitted in 2010, suggested that the Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary and Nauradehi Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh and Shahgarh Landscape in Rajasthan had a high potential to support reintroduced cheetah populations due to their broad area and high prey density.[159][160] However, plans for reintroduction were stalled in May 2012 by the Supreme Court of India because of a political dispute and concerns over introducing a non-native species to the country. Opponents stated the plan was "not a case of intentional movement of an organism into a part of its native range".[161][162] On 28 January 2020, the Supreme Court allowed the central government to introduce cheetahs to a suitable habitat in India on an experimental basis to see if they can adapt to it.[163][164]
+
+The cheetah shows little aggression toward humans, and can be tamed easily, as it has been since antiquity.[15] The earliest known depictions of the cheetah are from the Chauvet Cave in France, dating back to 32,000–26,000 BC.[165] According to historians such as Heinz Friederichs and Burchard Brentjes, the cheetah was first tamed in Sumer and this gradually spread out to central and northern Africa, from where it reached India. The evidence for this is mainly pictorial; for instance, a Sumerian seal dating back to c. 3000 BC, featuring a long-legged leashed animal has fuelled speculation that the cheetah might have been first tamed in Sumer. However, Thomas Allsen argues that the depicted animal might be a large dog.[166] Other historians, such as Frederick Zeuner, have opined that ancient Egyptians were the first to tame the cheetah, from where it gradually spread into central Asia, Iran and India.[167]
+
+In comparison, theories of the cheetah's taming in Egypt are stronger and include timelines proposed on this basis.[167] Mafdet, one of the ancient Egyptian deities worshiped during the First Dynasty (3100–2900 BC), was sometimes depicted as a cheetah. Ancient Egyptians believed the spirits of deceased pharaohs were taken away by cheetahs.[165] Reliefs in the Deir el-Bahari temple complex tell of an expedition by Egyptians to the Land of Punt during the reign of Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC) that fetched, among other things, animals called "panthers". During the New Kingdom (16th to 11th centuries BC), cheetahs were common pets for royalty, who adorned them with ornate collars and leashes.[167] The Egyptians would use their dogs to bring the concealed prey out in the open, after which a cheetah would be set upon it to kill it. Rock carvings depicting cheetahs dating back to 2000–6000 years ago have been found in Twyfelfontein; little else has been discovered in connection to the taming of cheetahs (or other cats) in southern Africa.[165]
+
+Hunting cheetahs are known in pre-Islamic Arabic art from Yemen.[168] Hunting with cheetahs became more prevalent toward the seventh century AD. In the Middle East, the cheetah would accompany the nobility to hunts in a special seat on the back of the saddle. Taming was an elaborate process and could take a year to complete.[165] The Romans may have referred to the cheetah as the leopardos (λεοπάρδος) or leontopardos (λεοντόπαρδος), believing it to be a hybrid between a leopard and a lion because of the mantle seen in cheetah cubs and the difficulty of breeding them in captivity.[169] A Roman hunting cheetah is depicted in a 4th century mosaic from Lod, Israel.[170] Cheetahs continued to be used into the Byzantine period of the Roman empire, with "hunting leopards" being mentioned in the Cynegetica (283/284 AD).[169][171][172]
+
+In eastern Asia, records are confusing as regional names for the leopard and the cheetah may be used interchangeably. The earliest depiction of cheetahs from eastern Asia dates back to the Tang dynasty (7th to 10th centuries AD); paintings depict tethered cheetahs and cheetahs mounted on horses. Chinese emperors would use cheetahs, as well as caracals, as gifts. In the 13th and the 14th centuries, the Yuan rulers bought numerous cheetahs from the western parts of the empire and from Muslim merchants. According to the Ming Shilu, the subsequent Ming dynasty (14th to 17th centuries) continued this practice.[167] Tomb figurines from the Mongol empire, dating back to the reign of Kublai Khan (1260–1294 BC), represent cheetahs on horseback.[165] The Mughal ruler Akbar the Great (1556–1605 AD) is said to have kept as many as 1000 khasa (imperial) cheetahs.[79][165] His son Jahangir wrote in his memoirs, Tuzk-e-Jahangiri, that only one of them gave birth.[167] Mughal rulers trained cheetahs as well as caracals in a similar way as the western Asians, and used them to hunt game (especially blackbuck). The rampant hunting severely affected the populations of wild animals in India; by 1927, cheetahs had to be imported from Africa.[165]
+
+The first cheetah to be brought into captivity in a zoo was at the Zoological Society of London in 1829. Early captive cheetahs showed a high mortality rate, with an average lifespan of 3–4 years. After trade of wild cheetahs was delimited by the enforcement of CITES in 1975, more efforts were put into breeding in captivity; in 2014 the number of captive cheetahs worldwide was estimated at around 1730 individuals, with 87% born in captivity.[6][173]
+
+Mortality under captivity is generally high; in 2014, 23% of the captive cheetahs worldwide died under one year of age, mostly within a month of birth.[173] Deaths result from several reasons—stillbirths, birth defects, cannibalism, hypothermia, neglect of cubs by mothers, and infectious diseases.[174] Compared to other felids, cheetahs need specialised care because of their higher vulnerability to stress-induced diseases; this has been attributed to their low genetic variability and factors of captive life.[175] Common diseases of cheetahs include feline herpesvirus, feline infectious peritonitis, gastroenteritis, glomerulosclerosis, leukoencephalopathy, myelopathy, nephrosclerosis and veno-occlusive disease.[175][176] High density of cheetahs in a place, closeness to other large carnivores in enclosures, improper handling, exposure to public and frequent movement between zoos can be sources of stress for cheetahs. Recommended management practices for cheetahs include spacious and ample access to outdoors, stress minimisation by exercise and limited handling, and following proper hand-rearing protocols (especially for pregnant females).[177]
+
+Cheetahs are poor breeders in captivity, while wild individuals are far more successful;[178] this has also been linked to increased stress levels in captive individuals.[175] In a study in Serengeti, females were found to have a 95% success rate in breeding, compared to 20% recorded for North American captive cheetahs in another study.[121][179] On 26 November 2017, a female cheetah named Bingwa gave birth to eight cubs in the St. Louis Zoo, setting a record for the most births recorded by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.[180][181] A 2013 study suggested that replication of social groups observed in the wild, like coalitions, could improve chances of successful mating in captive males.[182]
+
+The cheetah has been widely portrayed in a variety of artistic works. In Bacchus and Ariadne, an oil painting by the 16th-century Italian painter Titian, the chariot of the Greek god Dionysus (Bacchus) is depicted as being drawn by two cheetahs. The cheetahs in the painting were previously considered to be leopards.[183] In 1764 English painter George Stubbs commemorated the gifting of a cheetah to George III by the English Governor of Madras, Sir George Pigot in his painting Cheetah with Two Indian Attendants and a Stag. The painting depicts a cheetah, hooded and collared by two Indian servants, along with a stag it was supposed to prey upon.[184][185] The 1896 painting The Caress, by the 19th-century Belgian symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff, is a representation of the myth of Oedipus and the Sphinx. It portrays a creature with a woman's head and a cheetah's body (often misidentified as a leopard's).[186]
+
+The Bill Thomas Cheetah American sports/racing car, a Chevrolet-based coupe first designed and driven in 1963, was an attempt to challenge Carroll Shelby's Shelby Cobra in American sports car competition of the 1960s era. Because only two dozen or fewer chassis were built, with only a dozen complete cars, the Cheetah was never homologated for competition beyond prototype status; its production ended in 1966.[187]
+
+A variety of literature mentions the cheetah. In 1969 author Joy Adamson, of Born Free fame, wrote The Spotted Sphinx, a biography of her pet cheetah Pippa.[188] Hussein, An Entertainment, a novel by Patrick O'Brian set in the British Raj period in India, illustrates the practice of royalty keeping and training cheetahs to hunt antelopes.[189] The book How It Was with Dooms tells the true story of a family raising an orphaned cheetah cub named Dooms in Kenya. The 2005 film Duma was based loosely on this book.[190][191]
+
+The cheetah has often been featured in marketing and animation. In 1986, Frito-Lay introduced Chester Cheetah, an anthropomorphic cheetah, as the mascot for their snack food Cheetos.[192][193] The first release of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, the Mac OS X 10.0, was code-named "Cheetah"; the subsequent versions released before 2013 were all named after cats.[194] The animated series ThunderCats had a character named "Cheetara", an anthropomorphic cheetah, voiced by Lynne Lipton.[195] Comic book superheroine Wonder Woman's chief adversary is Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva, alias The Cheetah.[196]
+
+Two cheetahs are depicted standing upright and supporting a crown in the coat of arms of the Free State (South Africa).[197]

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+
+
+Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food.  The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, and seeds. The alternate definition of the term is applied somewhat arbitrarily, often by culinary and cultural tradition. It may exclude foods derived from some plants that are fruits, flowers, nuts, and cereal grains, but include savoury fruits such as tomatoes and courgettes, flowers such as broccoli, and seeds such as pulses.
+
+Originally, vegetables were collected from the wild by hunter-gatherers and entered cultivation in several parts of the world, probably during the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, when a new agricultural way of life developed. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, but as time went on, trade brought exotic crops from elsewhere to add to domestic types. Nowadays, most vegetables are grown all over the world as climate permits, and crops may be cultivated in protected environments in less suitable locations. China is the largest producer of vegetables, and global trade in agricultural products allows consumers to purchase vegetables grown in faraway countries. The scale of production varies from subsistence farmers supplying the needs of their family for food, to agribusinesses with vast acreages of single-product crops. Depending on the type of vegetable concerned, harvesting the crop is followed by grading, storing, processing, and marketing.
+
+Vegetables can be eaten either raw or cooked and play an important role in human nutrition, being mostly low in fat and carbohydrates, but high in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Many nutritionists encourage people to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, five or more portions a day often being recommended.
+
+The word vegetable was first recorded in English in the early 15th century. It comes from Old French,[1] and was originally applied to all plants; the word is still used in this sense in biological contexts.[2] It derives from Medieval Latin vegetabilis "growing, flourishing" (i.e. of a plant), a semantic change from a Late Latin meaning "to be enlivening, quickening".[1]
+
+The meaning of "vegetable" as a "plant grown for food" was not established until the 18th century.[3] In 1767, the word was specifically used to mean a "plant cultivated for food, an edible herb or root". The year 1955 saw the first use of the shortened, slang term "veggie".[4]
+
+As an adjective, the word vegetable is used in scientific and technical contexts with a different and much broader meaning, namely of "related to plants" in general, edible or not—as in vegetable matter, vegetable kingdom, vegetable origin, etc.[2]
+
+The exact definition of "vegetable" may vary simply because of the many parts of a plant consumed as food worldwide—roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. The broadest definition is the word's use adjectivally to mean "matter of plant origin". More specifically, a vegetable may be defined as "any plant, part of which is used for food",[5] a secondary meaning then being "the edible part of such a plant".[5] A more precise definition is "any plant part consumed for food that is not a fruit or seed, but including mature fruits that are eaten as part of a main meal".[6][7] Falling outside these definitions are edible fungi (such as edible mushrooms)  and edible seaweed which, although not parts of plants, are often treated as vegetables.[8]
+
+In the latter-mentioned definition of "vegetable", which is used in everyday language, the words "fruit" and "vegetable" are mutually exclusive. "Fruit" has a precise botanical meaning, being a part that developed from the ovary of a flowering plant. This is considerably different from the word's culinary meaning. While peaches, plums, and oranges are "fruit" in both senses, many items commonly called "vegetables", such as eggplants, bell peppers, and tomatoes, are botanically fruits. The question of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The court ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is correctly identified as, and thus taxed as, a vegetable, for the purposes of the Tariff of 1883 on imported produce. The court did acknowledge, however, that, botanically speaking, a tomato is a fruit.[9]
+
+Before the advent of agriculture, humans were hunter-gatherers. They foraged for edible fruit, nuts, stems, leaves, corms, and tubers, scavenged for dead animals and hunted living ones for food.[10] Forest gardening in a tropical jungle clearing is thought to be the first example of agriculture; useful plant species were identified and encouraged to grow while undesirable species were removed. Plant breeding through the selection of strains with desirable traits such as large fruit and vigorous growth soon followed.[11] While the first evidence for the domestication of grasses such as wheat and barley has been found in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, it is likely that various peoples around the world started growing crops in the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC.[12] Subsistence agriculture continues to this day, with many rural farmers in Africa, Asia, South America, and elsewhere using their plots of land to produce enough food for their families, while any surplus produce is used for exchange for other goods.[13]
+
+Throughout recorded history, the rich have been able to afford a varied diet including meat, vegetables and fruit, but for poor people, meat was a luxury and the food they ate was very dull, typically comprising mainly some staple product made from rice, rye, barley, wheat, millet or maize. The addition of vegetable matter provided some variety to the diet. The staple diet of the Aztecs in Central America was maize and they cultivated tomatoes, avocados, beans, peppers, pumpkins, squashes, peanuts, and amaranth seeds to supplement their tortillas and porridge.  In Peru, the Incas subsisted on maize in the lowlands and potatoes at higher altitudes. They also used seeds from quinoa, supplementing their diet with peppers, tomatoes, and avocados.[14]
+
+In Ancient China, rice was the staple crop in the south and wheat in the north, the latter made into dumplings, noodles, and pancakes. Vegetables used to accompany these included yams, soybeans, broad beans, turnips, spring onions, and garlic. The diet of the ancient Egyptians was based on bread, often contaminated with sand which wore away their teeth. Meat was a luxury but fish was more plentiful. These were accompanied by a range of vegetables including marrows, broad beans, lentils, onions, leeks, garlic, radishes, and lettuces.[14]
+
+The mainstay of the Ancient Greek diet was bread, and this was accompanied by goat's cheese, olives, figs, fish, and occasionally meat. The vegetables grown included onions, garlic, cabbages, melons, and lentils.[15] In Ancient Rome, a thick porridge was made of emmer wheat or beans, accompanied by green vegetables but little meat, and fish was not esteemed. The Romans grew broad beans, peas, onions and turnips and ate the leaves of beets rather than their roots.[16]
+
+Vegetables play an important role in human nutrition. Most are low in fat and calories but are bulky and filling.[18] They supply dietary fiber and are important sources of essential vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. Particularly important are the antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E. When vegetables are included in the diet, there is found to be a reduction in the incidence of cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic ailments.[19][20][21] Research has shown that, compared with individuals who eat less than three servings of fruits and vegetables each day, those that eat more than five servings have an approximately twenty percent lower risk of developing coronary heart disease or stroke.[22]
+The nutritional content of vegetables varies considerably; some contain useful amounts of protein though generally they contain little fat,[23] and varying proportions of vitamins such as vitamin A, vitamin K, and vitamin B6; provitamins; dietary minerals; and carbohydrates.
+
+However, vegetables often also contain toxins and antinutrients which interfere with the absorption of nutrients. These include α-solanine, α-chaconine,[24] enzyme inhibitors (of cholinesterase, protease, amylase, etc.), cyanide and cyanide precursors, oxalic acid, tannins and others.[citation needed] These toxins are natural defenses, used to ward off the insects, predators and fungi that might attack the plant. Some beans contain phytohaemagglutinin, and cassava roots contain cyanogenic glycoside as do bamboo shoots. These toxins can be deactivated by adequate cooking. Green potatoes contain glycoalkaloids and should be avoided.[25]
+
+Fruit and vegetables, particularly leafy vegetables, have been implicated in nearly half the gastrointestinal infections caused by norovirus in the United States. These foods are commonly eaten raw and may become contaminated during their preparation by an infected food handler. Hygiene is important when handling foods to be eaten raw, and such products need to be properly cleaned, handled, and stored to limit contamination.[26]
+
+The USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends consuming five to nine servings of fruit and vegetables daily.[28] The total amount consumed will vary according to age and gender, and is determined based upon the standard portion sizes typically consumed, as well as general nutritional content. Potatoes are not included in the count as they are mainly providers of starch. For most vegetables and vegetable juices, one serving is half of a cup and can be eaten raw or cooked. For leafy greens, such as lettuce and spinach, a single serving is typically a full cup.[29] A variety of products should be chosen as no single fruit or vegetable provides all the nutrients needed for health.[22]
+
+International dietary guidelines are similar to the ones established by the USDA. Japan, for example, recommends the consumption of five to six servings of vegetables daily.[30] French recommendations provide similar guidelines and set the daily goal at five servings.[31] In India, the daily recommendation for adults is 275 grams (9.7 oz) of vegetables per day.[19]
+
+Vegetables have been part of the human diet from time immemorial. Some are staple foods but most are accessory foodstuffs, adding variety to meals with their unique flavors and at the same time, adding nutrients necessary for health. Some vegetables are perennials but most are annuals and biennials, usually harvested within a year of sowing or planting. Whatever system is used for growing crops, cultivation follows a similar pattern; preparation of the soil by loosening it, removing or burying weeds, and adding organic manures or fertilisers; sowing seeds or planting young plants; tending the crop while it grows to reduce weed competition, control pests, and provide sufficient water; harvesting the crop when it is ready; sorting, storing, and marketing the crop or eating it fresh from the ground.[32]
+
+Different soil types suit different crops, but in general in temperate climates, sandy soils dry out fast but warm up quickly in the spring and are suitable for early crops, while heavy clays retain moisture better and are more suitable for late season crops. The growing season can be lengthened by the use of fleece, cloches, plastic mulch, polytunnels, and greenhouses.[32] In hotter regions, the production of vegetables is constrained by the climate, especially the pattern of rainfall, while in temperate zones, it is constrained by the temperature and day length.[33]
+
+On a domestic scale, the spade, fork, and hoe are the tools of choice while on commercial farms a range of mechanical equipment is available. Besides tractors, these include ploughs, harrows, drills, transplanters, cultivators, irrigation equipment, and harvesters. New techniques are changing the cultivation procedures involved in growing vegetables with computer monitoring systems, GPS locators, and self-steer programs for driverless machines giving economic benefits.[33]
+
+When a vegetable is harvested, it is cut off from its source of water and nourishment. It continues to transpire and loses moisture as it does so, a process most noticeable in the wilting of green leafy crops. Harvesting root vegetables when they are fully mature improves their storage life, but alternatively, these root crops can be left in the ground and harvested over an extended period. The harvesting process should seek to minimise damage and bruising to the crop. Onions and garlic can be dried for a few days in the field and root crops such as potatoes benefit from a short maturation period in warm, moist surroundings, during which time wounds heal and the skin thickens up and hardens. Before marketing or storage, grading needs to be done to remove damaged goods and select produce according to its quality, size, ripeness, and color.[34]
+
+All vegetables benefit from proper post harvest care. A large proportion of vegetables and perishable foods are lost after harvest during the storage period. These losses may be as high as thirty to fifty percent in developing countries where adequate cold storage facilities are not available. The main causes of loss include spoilage caused by moisture, moulds, micro-organisms, and vermin.[35]
+
+Storage can be short-term or long-term. Most vegetables are perishable and short-term storage for a few days provides flexibility in marketing. During storage, leafy vegetables lose moisture, and the vitamin C in them degrades rapidly. A few products such as potatoes and onions have better keeping qualities and can be sold when higher prices may be available, and by extending the marketing season, a greater total volume of crop can be sold. If refrigerated storage is not available, the priority for most crops is to store high-quality produce, to maintain a high humidity level, and to keep the produce in the shade.[34]
+
+Proper post-harvest storage aimed at extending and ensuring shelf life is best effected by efficient cold chain application.[36] Cold storage is particularly useful for vegetables such as cauliflower, eggplant, lettuce, radish, spinach, potatoes, and tomatoes, the optimum temperature depending on the type of produce. There are temperature-controlling technologies that do not require the use of electricity such as evaporative cooling.[6] Storage of fruit and vegetables in controlled atmospheres with high levels of carbon dioxide or high oxygen levels can inhibit microbial growth and extend storage life.[37]
+
+The irradiation of vegetables and other agricultural produce by ionizing radiation can be used to preserve it from both microbial infection and insect damage, as well as from physical deterioration. It can extend the storage life of food without noticeably changing its properties.[38]
+
+The objective of preserving vegetables is to extend their availability for consumption or marketing purposes. The aim is to harvest the food at its maximum state of palatability and nutritional value, and preserve these qualities for an extended period. The main causes of deterioration in vegetables after they are gathered are the actions of naturally-occurring enzymes and the spoilage caused by micro-organisms.[39] Canning and freezing are the most commonly used techniques, and vegetables preserved by these methods are generally similar in nutritional value to comparable fresh products with regards to carotenoids, vitamin E, minerals. and dietary fiber.[40]
+
+Canning is a process during which the enzymes in vegetables are deactivated and the micro-organisms present killed by heat. The sealed can excludes air from the foodstuff to prevent subsequent deterioration. The lowest necessary heat and the minimum processing time are used in order to prevent the mechanical breakdown of the product and to preserve the flavor as far as is possible. The can is then able to be stored at ambient temperatures for a long period.[39]
+
+Freezing vegetables and maintaining their temperature at below −10 °C (14 °F) will prevent their spoilage for a short period, whereas a temperature of −18 °C (0 °F) is required for longer-term storage. The enzyme action will merely be inhibited, and blanching of suitably sized prepared vegetables before freezing mitigates this and prevents off-flavors developing. Not all micro-organisms will be killed at these temperatures and after thawing the vegetables should be used promptly because otherwise, any microbes present may proliferate.[41]
+
+Traditionally, sun drying has been used for some products such as tomatoes, mushrooms, and beans, spreading the produce on racks and turning the crop at intervals. This method suffers from several disadvantages including lack of control over drying rates, spoilage when drying is slow, contamination by dirt, wetting by rain, and attack by rodents, birds, and insects. These disadvantages can be alleviated by using solar powered driers.[35] The dried produce must be prevented from reabsorbing moisture during storage.[39]
+
+High levels of both sugar and salt can preserve food by preventing micro-organisms from growing. Green beans can be salted by layering the pods with salt, but this method of preservation is unsuited to most vegetables. Marrows, beetroot, carrot, and some other vegetables can be boiled with sugar to create jams.[39] Vinegar is widely used in food preservation; a sufficient concentration of acetic acid prevents the development of destructive micro-organisms, a fact made use of in the preparation of pickles, chutneys and relishes.[39] Fermentation is another method of preserving vegetables for later use. Sauerkraut is made from chopped cabbage and relies on lactic acid bacteria which produce compounds that are inhibitory to the growth of other micro-organisms.[6]
+
+In 2010, China was the largest vegetable producing nation, with over half the world's production. India, the United States, Turkey, Iran, and Egypt were the next largest producers. China had the highest area of land devoted to vegetable production, while the highest average yields were obtained in Spain and the Republic of Korea.[42]
+
+The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) sets international standards to ensure that products and services are safe, reliable, and of good quality. There are a number of ISO standards regarding fruits and vegetables.[43]  ISO 1991-1:1982 lists the botanical names of sixty-one species of plants used as vegetables along with the common names of the vegetables in English, French, and Russian.[44] ISO 67.080.20 covers the storage and transport of vegetables and their derived products.[45]

en/3265.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+
+
+Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food.  The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, leaves, roots, and seeds. The alternate definition of the term is applied somewhat arbitrarily, often by culinary and cultural tradition. It may exclude foods derived from some plants that are fruits, flowers, nuts, and cereal grains, but include savoury fruits such as tomatoes and courgettes, flowers such as broccoli, and seeds such as pulses.
+
+Originally, vegetables were collected from the wild by hunter-gatherers and entered cultivation in several parts of the world, probably during the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, when a new agricultural way of life developed. At first, plants which grew locally would have been cultivated, but as time went on, trade brought exotic crops from elsewhere to add to domestic types. Nowadays, most vegetables are grown all over the world as climate permits, and crops may be cultivated in protected environments in less suitable locations. China is the largest producer of vegetables, and global trade in agricultural products allows consumers to purchase vegetables grown in faraway countries. The scale of production varies from subsistence farmers supplying the needs of their family for food, to agribusinesses with vast acreages of single-product crops. Depending on the type of vegetable concerned, harvesting the crop is followed by grading, storing, processing, and marketing.
+
+Vegetables can be eaten either raw or cooked and play an important role in human nutrition, being mostly low in fat and carbohydrates, but high in vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber. Many nutritionists encourage people to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, five or more portions a day often being recommended.
+
+The word vegetable was first recorded in English in the early 15th century. It comes from Old French,[1] and was originally applied to all plants; the word is still used in this sense in biological contexts.[2] It derives from Medieval Latin vegetabilis "growing, flourishing" (i.e. of a plant), a semantic change from a Late Latin meaning "to be enlivening, quickening".[1]
+
+The meaning of "vegetable" as a "plant grown for food" was not established until the 18th century.[3] In 1767, the word was specifically used to mean a "plant cultivated for food, an edible herb or root". The year 1955 saw the first use of the shortened, slang term "veggie".[4]
+
+As an adjective, the word vegetable is used in scientific and technical contexts with a different and much broader meaning, namely of "related to plants" in general, edible or not—as in vegetable matter, vegetable kingdom, vegetable origin, etc.[2]
+
+The exact definition of "vegetable" may vary simply because of the many parts of a plant consumed as food worldwide—roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds. The broadest definition is the word's use adjectivally to mean "matter of plant origin". More specifically, a vegetable may be defined as "any plant, part of which is used for food",[5] a secondary meaning then being "the edible part of such a plant".[5] A more precise definition is "any plant part consumed for food that is not a fruit or seed, but including mature fruits that are eaten as part of a main meal".[6][7] Falling outside these definitions are edible fungi (such as edible mushrooms)  and edible seaweed which, although not parts of plants, are often treated as vegetables.[8]
+
+In the latter-mentioned definition of "vegetable", which is used in everyday language, the words "fruit" and "vegetable" are mutually exclusive. "Fruit" has a precise botanical meaning, being a part that developed from the ovary of a flowering plant. This is considerably different from the word's culinary meaning. While peaches, plums, and oranges are "fruit" in both senses, many items commonly called "vegetables", such as eggplants, bell peppers, and tomatoes, are botanically fruits. The question of whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable found its way into the United States Supreme Court in 1893. The court ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden that a tomato is correctly identified as, and thus taxed as, a vegetable, for the purposes of the Tariff of 1883 on imported produce. The court did acknowledge, however, that, botanically speaking, a tomato is a fruit.[9]
+
+Before the advent of agriculture, humans were hunter-gatherers. They foraged for edible fruit, nuts, stems, leaves, corms, and tubers, scavenged for dead animals and hunted living ones for food.[10] Forest gardening in a tropical jungle clearing is thought to be the first example of agriculture; useful plant species were identified and encouraged to grow while undesirable species were removed. Plant breeding through the selection of strains with desirable traits such as large fruit and vigorous growth soon followed.[11] While the first evidence for the domestication of grasses such as wheat and barley has been found in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, it is likely that various peoples around the world started growing crops in the period 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC.[12] Subsistence agriculture continues to this day, with many rural farmers in Africa, Asia, South America, and elsewhere using their plots of land to produce enough food for their families, while any surplus produce is used for exchange for other goods.[13]
+
+Throughout recorded history, the rich have been able to afford a varied diet including meat, vegetables and fruit, but for poor people, meat was a luxury and the food they ate was very dull, typically comprising mainly some staple product made from rice, rye, barley, wheat, millet or maize. The addition of vegetable matter provided some variety to the diet. The staple diet of the Aztecs in Central America was maize and they cultivated tomatoes, avocados, beans, peppers, pumpkins, squashes, peanuts, and amaranth seeds to supplement their tortillas and porridge.  In Peru, the Incas subsisted on maize in the lowlands and potatoes at higher altitudes. They also used seeds from quinoa, supplementing their diet with peppers, tomatoes, and avocados.[14]
+
+In Ancient China, rice was the staple crop in the south and wheat in the north, the latter made into dumplings, noodles, and pancakes. Vegetables used to accompany these included yams, soybeans, broad beans, turnips, spring onions, and garlic. The diet of the ancient Egyptians was based on bread, often contaminated with sand which wore away their teeth. Meat was a luxury but fish was more plentiful. These were accompanied by a range of vegetables including marrows, broad beans, lentils, onions, leeks, garlic, radishes, and lettuces.[14]
+
+The mainstay of the Ancient Greek diet was bread, and this was accompanied by goat's cheese, olives, figs, fish, and occasionally meat. The vegetables grown included onions, garlic, cabbages, melons, and lentils.[15] In Ancient Rome, a thick porridge was made of emmer wheat or beans, accompanied by green vegetables but little meat, and fish was not esteemed. The Romans grew broad beans, peas, onions and turnips and ate the leaves of beets rather than their roots.[16]
+
+Vegetables play an important role in human nutrition. Most are low in fat and calories but are bulky and filling.[18] They supply dietary fiber and are important sources of essential vitamins, minerals, and trace elements. Particularly important are the antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E. When vegetables are included in the diet, there is found to be a reduction in the incidence of cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic ailments.[19][20][21] Research has shown that, compared with individuals who eat less than three servings of fruits and vegetables each day, those that eat more than five servings have an approximately twenty percent lower risk of developing coronary heart disease or stroke.[22]
+The nutritional content of vegetables varies considerably; some contain useful amounts of protein though generally they contain little fat,[23] and varying proportions of vitamins such as vitamin A, vitamin K, and vitamin B6; provitamins; dietary minerals; and carbohydrates.
+
+However, vegetables often also contain toxins and antinutrients which interfere with the absorption of nutrients. These include α-solanine, α-chaconine,[24] enzyme inhibitors (of cholinesterase, protease, amylase, etc.), cyanide and cyanide precursors, oxalic acid, tannins and others.[citation needed] These toxins are natural defenses, used to ward off the insects, predators and fungi that might attack the plant. Some beans contain phytohaemagglutinin, and cassava roots contain cyanogenic glycoside as do bamboo shoots. These toxins can be deactivated by adequate cooking. Green potatoes contain glycoalkaloids and should be avoided.[25]
+
+Fruit and vegetables, particularly leafy vegetables, have been implicated in nearly half the gastrointestinal infections caused by norovirus in the United States. These foods are commonly eaten raw and may become contaminated during their preparation by an infected food handler. Hygiene is important when handling foods to be eaten raw, and such products need to be properly cleaned, handled, and stored to limit contamination.[26]
+
+The USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends consuming five to nine servings of fruit and vegetables daily.[28] The total amount consumed will vary according to age and gender, and is determined based upon the standard portion sizes typically consumed, as well as general nutritional content. Potatoes are not included in the count as they are mainly providers of starch. For most vegetables and vegetable juices, one serving is half of a cup and can be eaten raw or cooked. For leafy greens, such as lettuce and spinach, a single serving is typically a full cup.[29] A variety of products should be chosen as no single fruit or vegetable provides all the nutrients needed for health.[22]
+
+International dietary guidelines are similar to the ones established by the USDA. Japan, for example, recommends the consumption of five to six servings of vegetables daily.[30] French recommendations provide similar guidelines and set the daily goal at five servings.[31] In India, the daily recommendation for adults is 275 grams (9.7 oz) of vegetables per day.[19]
+
+Vegetables have been part of the human diet from time immemorial. Some are staple foods but most are accessory foodstuffs, adding variety to meals with their unique flavors and at the same time, adding nutrients necessary for health. Some vegetables are perennials but most are annuals and biennials, usually harvested within a year of sowing or planting. Whatever system is used for growing crops, cultivation follows a similar pattern; preparation of the soil by loosening it, removing or burying weeds, and adding organic manures or fertilisers; sowing seeds or planting young plants; tending the crop while it grows to reduce weed competition, control pests, and provide sufficient water; harvesting the crop when it is ready; sorting, storing, and marketing the crop or eating it fresh from the ground.[32]
+
+Different soil types suit different crops, but in general in temperate climates, sandy soils dry out fast but warm up quickly in the spring and are suitable for early crops, while heavy clays retain moisture better and are more suitable for late season crops. The growing season can be lengthened by the use of fleece, cloches, plastic mulch, polytunnels, and greenhouses.[32] In hotter regions, the production of vegetables is constrained by the climate, especially the pattern of rainfall, while in temperate zones, it is constrained by the temperature and day length.[33]
+
+On a domestic scale, the spade, fork, and hoe are the tools of choice while on commercial farms a range of mechanical equipment is available. Besides tractors, these include ploughs, harrows, drills, transplanters, cultivators, irrigation equipment, and harvesters. New techniques are changing the cultivation procedures involved in growing vegetables with computer monitoring systems, GPS locators, and self-steer programs for driverless machines giving economic benefits.[33]
+
+When a vegetable is harvested, it is cut off from its source of water and nourishment. It continues to transpire and loses moisture as it does so, a process most noticeable in the wilting of green leafy crops. Harvesting root vegetables when they are fully mature improves their storage life, but alternatively, these root crops can be left in the ground and harvested over an extended period. The harvesting process should seek to minimise damage and bruising to the crop. Onions and garlic can be dried for a few days in the field and root crops such as potatoes benefit from a short maturation period in warm, moist surroundings, during which time wounds heal and the skin thickens up and hardens. Before marketing or storage, grading needs to be done to remove damaged goods and select produce according to its quality, size, ripeness, and color.[34]
+
+All vegetables benefit from proper post harvest care. A large proportion of vegetables and perishable foods are lost after harvest during the storage period. These losses may be as high as thirty to fifty percent in developing countries where adequate cold storage facilities are not available. The main causes of loss include spoilage caused by moisture, moulds, micro-organisms, and vermin.[35]
+
+Storage can be short-term or long-term. Most vegetables are perishable and short-term storage for a few days provides flexibility in marketing. During storage, leafy vegetables lose moisture, and the vitamin C in them degrades rapidly. A few products such as potatoes and onions have better keeping qualities and can be sold when higher prices may be available, and by extending the marketing season, a greater total volume of crop can be sold. If refrigerated storage is not available, the priority for most crops is to store high-quality produce, to maintain a high humidity level, and to keep the produce in the shade.[34]
+
+Proper post-harvest storage aimed at extending and ensuring shelf life is best effected by efficient cold chain application.[36] Cold storage is particularly useful for vegetables such as cauliflower, eggplant, lettuce, radish, spinach, potatoes, and tomatoes, the optimum temperature depending on the type of produce. There are temperature-controlling technologies that do not require the use of electricity such as evaporative cooling.[6] Storage of fruit and vegetables in controlled atmospheres with high levels of carbon dioxide or high oxygen levels can inhibit microbial growth and extend storage life.[37]
+
+The irradiation of vegetables and other agricultural produce by ionizing radiation can be used to preserve it from both microbial infection and insect damage, as well as from physical deterioration. It can extend the storage life of food without noticeably changing its properties.[38]
+
+The objective of preserving vegetables is to extend their availability for consumption or marketing purposes. The aim is to harvest the food at its maximum state of palatability and nutritional value, and preserve these qualities for an extended period. The main causes of deterioration in vegetables after they are gathered are the actions of naturally-occurring enzymes and the spoilage caused by micro-organisms.[39] Canning and freezing are the most commonly used techniques, and vegetables preserved by these methods are generally similar in nutritional value to comparable fresh products with regards to carotenoids, vitamin E, minerals. and dietary fiber.[40]
+
+Canning is a process during which the enzymes in vegetables are deactivated and the micro-organisms present killed by heat. The sealed can excludes air from the foodstuff to prevent subsequent deterioration. The lowest necessary heat and the minimum processing time are used in order to prevent the mechanical breakdown of the product and to preserve the flavor as far as is possible. The can is then able to be stored at ambient temperatures for a long period.[39]
+
+Freezing vegetables and maintaining their temperature at below −10 °C (14 °F) will prevent their spoilage for a short period, whereas a temperature of −18 °C (0 °F) is required for longer-term storage. The enzyme action will merely be inhibited, and blanching of suitably sized prepared vegetables before freezing mitigates this and prevents off-flavors developing. Not all micro-organisms will be killed at these temperatures and after thawing the vegetables should be used promptly because otherwise, any microbes present may proliferate.[41]
+
+Traditionally, sun drying has been used for some products such as tomatoes, mushrooms, and beans, spreading the produce on racks and turning the crop at intervals. This method suffers from several disadvantages including lack of control over drying rates, spoilage when drying is slow, contamination by dirt, wetting by rain, and attack by rodents, birds, and insects. These disadvantages can be alleviated by using solar powered driers.[35] The dried produce must be prevented from reabsorbing moisture during storage.[39]
+
+High levels of both sugar and salt can preserve food by preventing micro-organisms from growing. Green beans can be salted by layering the pods with salt, but this method of preservation is unsuited to most vegetables. Marrows, beetroot, carrot, and some other vegetables can be boiled with sugar to create jams.[39] Vinegar is widely used in food preservation; a sufficient concentration of acetic acid prevents the development of destructive micro-organisms, a fact made use of in the preparation of pickles, chutneys and relishes.[39] Fermentation is another method of preserving vegetables for later use. Sauerkraut is made from chopped cabbage and relies on lactic acid bacteria which produce compounds that are inhibitory to the growth of other micro-organisms.[6]
+
+In 2010, China was the largest vegetable producing nation, with over half the world's production. India, the United States, Turkey, Iran, and Egypt were the next largest producers. China had the highest area of land devoted to vegetable production, while the highest average yields were obtained in Spain and the Republic of Korea.[42]
+
+The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) sets international standards to ensure that products and services are safe, reliable, and of good quality. There are a number of ISO standards regarding fruits and vegetables.[43]  ISO 1991-1:1982 lists the botanical names of sixty-one species of plants used as vegetables along with the common names of the vegetables in English, French, and Russian.[44] ISO 67.080.20 covers the storage and transport of vegetables and their derived products.[45]

en/3266.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,421 @@
+Coordinates: 26°N 30°E / 26°N 30°E / 26; 30
+
+Egypt (/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (listen) EE-jipt; Arabic: مِصر‎ Miṣr), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip (Palestine) and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia, and across the Mediterranean lie Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, although none share a land border with Egypt.
+
+Egypt has one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government.[14] Iconic monuments such as the Giza Necropolis and its Great Sphinx, as well the ruins of Memphis, Thebes, Karnak, and the Valley of the Kings, reflect this legacy and remain a significant focus of scientific and popular interest. Egypt's long and rich cultural heritage is an integral part of its national identity, which has endured, and often assimilated, various foreign influences, including Greek, Persian, Roman, Arab, Ottoman Turkish, and Nubian. Egypt was an early and important centre of Christianity, but was largely Islamised in the seventh century and remains a predominantly Muslim country, albeit with a significant Christian minority.
+
+From the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century, Egypt was ruled by foreign imperial powers: the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire. Modern Egypt dates back to 1922, when it gained nominal independence from the British Empire as a monarchy. However, British military occupation of Egypt continued, and many Egyptians believed that the monarchy was an instrument of British colonialism. Following the 1952 revolution, Egypt expelled British soldiers and bureaucrats and ended British occupation, nationalized the British-held Suez Canal, exiled King Farouk and his family, and declared itself a republic. In 1958 it merged with Syria to form the United Arab Republic, which dissolved in 1961. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Egypt endured social and religious strife and political instability, fighting several armed conflicts with Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, and occupying the Gaza Strip intermittently until 1967. In 1978, Egypt signed the Camp David Accords, officially withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and recognising Israel. The country continues to face challenges, from political unrest, including the recent 2011 revolution and its aftermath, to terrorism and economic underdevelopment. Egypt's current government is a semi-presidential republic headed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which has been described by a number of watchdogs as authoritarian.
+
+Islam is the official religion of Egypt and Arabic is its official language.[15] With over 100 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa (after Nigeria and Ethiopia), and the thirteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypt's territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
+
+Egypt is considered to be a regional power in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world, and a middle power worldwide.[16] With one of the largest and most diversified economies in the Middle East, which is projected to become one of the largest in the world in the 21st century, Egypt has the third-largest economy in Africa, the world's 40th-largest economy by nominal GDP, and the 19-largest by PPP. Egypt is a founding member of the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Arab League, the African Union, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
+
+"Miṣr" (Arabic pronunciation: [mesˤɾ]; "مِصر") is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern official name of Egypt, while "Maṣr" (Egyptian Arabic pronunciation: [mɑsˤɾ]; مَصر) is the local pronunciation in Egyptian Arabic.[18] The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew "מִצְרַיִם" ("Mitzráyim"). The oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian "mi-iṣ-ru" ("miṣru")[19][20] related to miṣru/miṣirru/miṣaru, meaning "border" or "frontier".[21] The Neo-Assyrian Empire used the derived term , Mu-ṣur.[22]
+
+There is evidence of rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in desert oases. In the 10th millennium BCE, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishers was replaced by a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes or overgrazing around 8000 BCE began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralised society.[28]
+
+By about 6000 BCE, a Neolithic culture rooted in the Nile Valley.[29] During the Neolithic era, several predynastic cultures developed independently in Upper and Lower Egypt. The Badarian culture and the successor Naqada series are generally regarded as precursors to dynastic Egypt. The earliest known Lower Egyptian site, Merimda, predates the Badarian by about seven hundred years. Contemporaneous Lower Egyptian communities coexisted with their southern counterparts for more than two thousand years, remaining culturally distinct, but maintaining frequent contact through trade. The earliest known evidence of Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions appeared during the predynastic period on Naqada III pottery vessels, dated to about 3200 BCE.[30]
+
+A unified kingdom was founded c. 3150 BCE by King Menes, leading to a series of dynasties that ruled Egypt for the next three millennia. Egyptian culture flourished during this long period and remained distinctively Egyptian in its religion, arts, language and customs. The first two ruling dynasties of a unified Egypt set the stage for the Old Kingdom period, c. 2700–2200 BCE, which constructed many pyramids, most notably the Third Dynasty pyramid of Djoser and the Fourth Dynasty Giza pyramids.
+
+The First Intermediate Period ushered in a time of political upheaval for about 150 years.[31] Stronger Nile floods and stabilisation of government, however, brought back renewed prosperity for the country in the Middle Kingdom c. 2040 BCE, reaching a peak during the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhat III. A second period of disunity heralded the arrival of the first foreign ruling dynasty in Egypt, that of the Semitic Hyksos. The Hyksos invaders took over much of Lower Egypt around 1650 BCE and founded a new capital at Avaris. They were driven out by an Upper Egyptian force led by Ahmose I, who founded the Eighteenth Dynasty and relocated the capital from Memphis to Thebes.
+
+The New Kingdom c. 1550–1070 BCE began with the Eighteenth Dynasty, marking the rise of Egypt as an international power that expanded during its greatest extension to an empire as far south as Tombos in Nubia, and included parts of the Levant in the east. This period is noted for some of the most well known Pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. The first historically attested expression of monotheism came during this period as Atenism. Frequent contacts with other nations brought new ideas to the New Kingdom. The country was later invaded and conquered by Libyans, Nubians and Assyrians, but native Egyptians eventually drove them out and regained control of their country.[32]
+
+In 525 BCE, the powerful Achaemenid Persians, led by Cambyses II, began their conquest of Egypt, eventually capturing the pharaoh Psamtik III at the battle of Pelusium. Cambyses II then assumed the formal title of pharaoh, but ruled Egypt from his home of Susa in Persia (modern Iran), leaving Egypt under the control of a satrapy. The entire Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt, from 525–402 BCE, save for Petubastis III, was an entirely Persian ruled period, with the Achaemenid Emperors all being granted the title of pharaoh. A few temporarily successful revolts against the Persians marked the fifth century BCE, but Egypt was never able to permanently overthrow the Persians.[33]
+
+The Thirtieth Dynasty was the last native ruling dynasty during the Pharaonic epoch. It fell to the Persians again in 343 BCE after the last native Pharaoh, King Nectanebo II, was defeated in battle. This Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt, however, did not last long, for the Persians were toppled several decades later by Alexander the Great. The Macedonian Greek general of Alexander, Ptolemy I Soter, founded the Ptolemaic dynasty.
+
+The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to Cyrene to the west, and south to the frontier with Nubia. Alexandria became the capital city and a centre of Greek culture and trade. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves as the successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life.[34][35]
+
+The last ruler from the Ptolemaic line was Cleopatra VII, who committed suicide following the burial of her lover Mark Antony who had died in her arms (from a self-inflicted stab wound), after Octavian had captured Alexandria and her mercenary forces had fled.
+The Ptolemies faced rebellions of native Egyptians often caused by an unwanted regime and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its annexation by Rome. Nevertheless, Hellenistic culture continued to thrive in Egypt well after the Muslim conquest.
+
+Christianity was brought to Egypt by Saint Mark the Evangelist in the 1st century.[36] Diocletian's reign (284–305 CE) marked the transition from the Roman to the Byzantine era in Egypt, when a great number of Egyptian Christians were persecuted. The New Testament had by then been translated into Egyptian. After the Council of Chalcedon in CE 451, a distinct Egyptian Coptic Church was firmly established.[37]
+
+The Byzantines were able to regain control of the country after a brief Sasanian Persian invasion early in the 7th century amidst the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 during which they established a new short-lived province for ten years known as Sasanian Egypt, until 639–42, when Egypt was invaded and
+conquered by the Islamic Empire by the Muslim Arabs. When they defeated the Byzantine armies in Egypt, the Arabs brought Sunni Islam to the country. Early in this period, Egyptians began to blend their new faith with indigenous beliefs and practices, leading to various Sufi orders that have flourished to this day.[36] These earlier rites had survived the period of Coptic Christianity.[38]
+
+In 639 an army of some 4,000 men were sent against Egypt by the second caliph, Umar, under the command of Amr ibn al-As. This army was joined by another 5,000 men in 640 and defeated a Byzantine army at the battle of Heliopolis. Amr next proceeded in the direction of Alexandria, which was surrendered to him by a treaty signed on 8 November 641. Alexandria was regained for the Byzantine Empire in 645 but was retaken by Amr in 646. In 654 an invasion fleet sent by Constans II was repulsed. From that time no serious effort was made by the Byzantines to regain possession of the country.
+
+The Arabs founded the capital of Egypt called Fustat, which was later burned down during the Crusades. Cairo was later built in the year 986 to grow to become the largest and richest city in the Arab Empire, and one of the biggest and richest in the world.
+
+The Abbasid period was marked by new taxations, and the Copts revolted again in the fourth year of Abbasid rule. At the beginning of the 9th century the practice of ruling Egypt through a governor was resumed under Abdallah ibn Tahir, who decided to reside at Baghdad, sending a deputy to Egypt to govern for him. In 828 another Egyptian revolt broke out, and in 831 the Copts joined with native Muslims against the government. Eventually the power loss of the Abbasids in Baghdad has led for general upon general to take over rule of Egypt, yet being under Abbasid allegiance, the Ikhshids and the Tulunids dynasties were among the most successful to defy the Abbasid Caliph.
+
+Muslim rulers nominated by the Caliphate remained in control of Egypt for the next six centuries, with Cairo as the seat of the Fatimid Caliphate. With the end of the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty, the Mamluks, a Turco-Circassian military caste, took control about 1250. By the late 13th century, Egypt linked the Red Sea, India, Malaya, and East Indies.[39] The mid-14th-century Black Death killed about 40% of the country's population.[40]
+
+Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1517, after which it became a province of the Ottoman Empire. The defensive militarisation damaged its civil society and economic institutions.[39] The weakening of the economic system combined with the effects of plague left Egypt vulnerable to foreign invasion. Portuguese traders took over their trade.[39] Between 1687 and 1731, Egypt experienced six famines.[41] The 1784 famine cost it roughly one-sixth of its population.[42]
+
+Egypt was always a difficult province for the Ottoman Sultans to control, due in part to the continuing power and influence of the Mamluks, the Egyptian military caste who had ruled the country for centuries.
+
+Egypt remained semi-autonomous under the Mamluks until it was invaded by the French forces of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 (see French campaign in Egypt and Syria). After the French were defeated by the British, a power vacuum was created in Egypt, and a three-way power struggle ensued between the Ottoman Turks, Egyptian Mamluks who had ruled Egypt for centuries, and Albanian mercenaries in the service of the Ottomans.
+
+After the French were expelled, power was seized in 1805 by Muhammad Ali Pasha, an Albanian military commander of the Ottoman army in Egypt. While he carried the title of viceroy of Egypt, his subordination to the Ottoman porte was merely nominal.[citation needed] Muhammad Ali massacred the Mamluks and established a dynasty that was to rule Egypt until the revolution of 1952.
+
+The introduction in 1820 of long-staple cotton transformed its agriculture into a cash-crop monoculture before the end of the century, concentrating land ownership and shifting production towards international markets.[43]
+
+Muhammad Ali annexed Northern Sudan (1820–1824), Syria (1833), and parts of Arabia and Anatolia; but in 1841 the European powers, fearful lest he topple the Ottoman Empire itself, forced him to return most of his conquests to the Ottomans. His military ambition required him to modernise the country: he built industries, a system of canals for irrigation and transport, and reformed the civil service.[43]
+
+He constructed a military state with around four percent of the populace serving the army to raise Egypt to a powerful positioning in the Ottoman Empire in a way showing various similarities to the Soviet strategies (without communism) conducted in the 20th century.[44]
+
+Muhammad Ali Pasha evolved the military from one that convened under the tradition of the corvée to a great modernised army. He introduced conscription of the male peasantry in 19th century Egypt, and took a novel approach to create his great army, strengthening it with numbers and in skill. Education and training of the new soldiers became mandatory; the new concepts were furthermore enforced by isolation. The men were held in barracks to avoid distraction of their growth as a military unit to be reckoned with. The resentment for the military way of life eventually faded from the men and a new ideology took hold, one of nationalism and pride. It was with the help of this newly reborn martial unit that Muhammad Ali imposed his rule over Egypt.[45]
+
+The policy that Mohammad Ali Pasha followed during his reign explains partly why the numeracy in Egypt compared to other North-African and Middle-Eastern countries increased only at a remarkably small rate, as investment in further education only took place in the military and industrial sector.[46]
+
+Muhammad Ali was succeeded briefly by his son Ibrahim (in September 1848), then by a grandson Abbas I (in November 1848), then by Said (in 1854), and Isma'il (in 1863) who encouraged science and agriculture and banned slavery in Egypt.[44]
+
+Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty remained nominally an Ottoman province. It was granted the status of an autonomous vassal state or Khedivate in 1867, a legal status which was to remain in place until 1914 although the Ottomans had no power or presence.
+
+The Suez Canal, built in partnership with the French, was completed in 1869. Its construction was financed by European banks. Large sums also went to patronage and corruption. New taxes caused popular discontent.  In 1875 Isma'il avoided bankruptcy by selling all Egypt's shares in the canal to the British government. Within three years this led to the imposition of British and French controllers who sat in the Egyptian cabinet, and, "with the financial power of the bondholders behind them, were the real power in the Government."[47]
+
+Other circumstances like epidemic diseases (cattle disease in the 1880s), floods and wars drove the economic downturn and increased Egypt's dependency on foreign debt even further.[48]
+
+Local dissatisfaction with the Khedive and with European intrusion led to the formation of the first nationalist groupings in 1879, with Ahmed ʻUrabi a prominent figure. After increasing tensions and nationalist revolts, the United Kingdom invaded Egypt in 1882, crushing the Egyptian army at the Battle of Tell El Kebir and militarily occupying the country.[49] Following this, the Khedivate became a de facto British protectorate under nominal Ottoman sovereignty.[50]
+
+In 1899 the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement was signed: the Agreement stated that Sudan would be jointly governed by the Khedivate of Egypt and the United Kingdom. However, actual control of Sudan was in British hands only.
+
+In 1906, the Denshawai incident prompted many neutral Egyptians to join the nationalist movement.
+
+In 1914 the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in alliance with the Central Empires; Khedive Abbas II (who had grown increasingly hostile to the British in preceding years) decided to support the motherland in war. Following such decision, the British forcibly removed him from power and replaced him with his brother Hussein Kamel.[51][52]
+
+Hussein Kamel declared Egypt's independence from the Ottoman Empire, assuming the title of Sultan of Egypt. Shortly following independence, Egypt was declared a protectorate of the United Kingdom.
+
+After World War I, Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party led the Egyptian nationalist movement to a majority at the local Legislative Assembly. When the British exiled Zaghlul and his associates to Malta on 8 March 1919, the country arose in its first modern revolution. The revolt led the UK government to issue a unilateral declaration of Egypt's independence on 22 February 1922.[53]
+
+Following independence from the United Kingom, Sultan Fuad I assumed the title of King of Egypt; despite being nominally independent, the Kingdom was still under British military occupation and the UK still had great influence over the state.
+
+The new government drafted and implemented a constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary system. The nationalist Wafd Party won a landslide victory in the 1923–1924 election and Saad Zaghloul was appointed as the new Prime Minister.
+
+In 1936, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was concluded and British troops withdrew from Egypt, except for the Suez Canal. The treaty did not resolve the question of Sudan, which, under the terms of the existing Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement of 1899, stated that Sudan should be jointly governed by Egypt and Britain, but with real power remaining in British hands.[54]
+
+Britain used Egypt as a base for Allied operations throughout the region, especially the battles in North Africa against Italy and Germany. Its highest priorities were control of the Eastern Mediterranean, and especially keeping the Suez Canal open for merchant ships and for military connections with India and Australia. The government of Egypt, and the Egyptian population, played a minor role in the Second World War. When the war began in September 1939, Egypt declared martial law and broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. It did not declare war on Germany, but the Prime Minister associated Egypt with the British war effort. It broke diplomatic relations with Italy in 1940, but never declared war, even when the Italian army invaded Egypt. King Farouk took practically a neutral position, which accorded with elite opinion among the Egyptians. The Egyptian army did no fighting. It was apathetic about the war, with the leading officers looking on the British as occupiers and sometimes holding some private sympathy with the Axis. In June 1940 the King dismissed Prime Minister Aly Maher, who got on poorly with the British. A new coalition Government was formed with the Independent Hassan Pasha Sabri as Prime Minister.
+
+Following a ministerial crisis in February 1942, the ambassador Sir Miles Lampson, pressed Farouk to have a Wafd or Wafd-coalition government replace Hussein Sirri Pasha's government. On the night of 4 February 1942, British troops and tanks surrounded Abdeen Palace in Cairo and Lampson presented Farouk with an ultimatum. Farouk capitulated, and Nahhas formed a government shortly thereafter. However, the humiliation meted out to Farouk, and the actions of the Wafd in cooperating with the British and taking power, lost support for both the British and the Wafd among both civilians and, more importantly, the Egyptian military.
+
+Most British troops were withdrawn to the Suez Canal area in 1947 (although the British army maintained a military base in the area), but nationalist, anti-British feelings continued to grow after the War. Anti-monarchy sentiments further increased following the disastrous performance of the Kingdom in the First Arab-Israeli War. The 1950 election saw a landslide victory of the nationalist Wafd Party and the King was forced to appoint Mostafa El-Nahas as new Prime Minister. In 1951 Egypt unilaterally withdrew from the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 and ordered all remaining British troops to leave the Suez Canal.
+
+As the British refused to leave their base around the Suez Canal, the Egyptian government cut off the water and refused to allow food into the Suez Canal base, announced a boycott of British goods, forbade Egyptian workers from entering the base and sponsored guerrilla attacks, turning the area around the Suez Canal into a low level war zone. On 24 January 1952, Egyptian guerrillas staged a fierce attack on the British forces around the Suez Canal, during which the Egyptian Auxiliary Police were observed helping the guerrillas. In response, on 25 January, General George Erskine sent out British tanks and infantry to surround the auxiliary police station in Ismailia and gave the policemen an hour to surrender their arms on the grounds the police were arming the guerrillas. The police commander called the Interior Minister, Fouad Serageddin, Nahas's right-hand man, who was smoking cigars in his bath at the time, to ask if he should surrender or fight. Serageddin ordered the police to fight "to the last man and the last bullet". The resulting battle saw the police station levelled and 43 Egyptian policemen killed together with 3 British soldiers. The Ismailia incident outraged Egypt. The next day, 26 January 1952 was "Black Saturday", as the anti-British riot was known, that saw much of downtown Cairo which the Khedive Ismail the Magnificent had rebuilt in the style of Paris, burned down. Farouk blamed the Wafd for the Black Saturday riot, and dismissed Nahas as prime minister the next day. He was replaced by Aly Maher Pasha.[55]
+
+On July 22–23, 1952, the Free Officers Movement, led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, launched a coup d'état (Egyptian Revolution of 1952) against the king. Farouk I abdicated the throne to his son Fouad II, who was, at the time, a seven month old baby. The Royal Family left Egypt some days later and the Council of Regency, led by Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim was formed, The Council, however, held only nominal authority and the real power was actually in the hands of the Revolutionary Command Council, led by Naguib and Nasser.
+
+Popular expectations for immediate reforms led to the workers' riots in Kafr Dawar on 12 August 1952, which resulted in two death sentences. Following a brief experiment with civilian rule, the Free Officers abrogated the monarchy and the 1923 constitution and declared Egypt a republic on 18 June 1953. Naguib was proclaimed as president, while Nasser was appointed as the new Prime Minister.
+
+Following the 1952 Revolution by the Free Officers Movement, the rule of Egypt passed to military hands and all political parties were banned. On 18 June 1953, the Egyptian Republic was declared, with General Muhammad Naguib as the first President of the Republic, serving in that capacity for a little under one and a half years.
+
+Naguib was forced to resign in 1954 by Gamal Abdel Nasser – a Pan-Arabist and the real architect of the 1952 movement – and was later put under house arrest.  After Naguib's resignation, the position of President was vacant until the election of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956.[56]
+
+In October 1954 Egypt and the United Kingdom agreed to abolish the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement of 1899 and grant Sudan independence; the agreement came into force on 1 January 1956.
+
+Nasser assumed power as President in June 1956. British forces completed their withdrawal from the occupied Suez Canal Zone on 13 June 1956. He nationalised the Suez Canal on 26 July 1956; his hostile approach towards Israel and economic nationalism prompted the beginning of the Second Arab-Israeli War (Suez Crisis), in which Israel (with support from France and the United Kingdom) occupied the Sinai peninsula and the Canal. The war came to an end because of US and USSR diplomatic intervention and the status quo was restored.
+
+In 1958, Egypt and Syria formed a sovereign union known as the United Arab Republic. The union was short-lived, ending in 1961 when Syria seceded, thus ending the union. During most of its existence, the United Arab Republic was also in a loose confederation with North Yemen (or the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen), known as the United Arab States. In 1959, the All-Palestine Government of the Gaza Strip, an Egyptian client state, was absorbed into the United Arab Republic under the pretext of Arab union, and was never restored.  The Arab Socialist Union, a new nasserist state-party was founded in 1962.
+
+In the early 1960s, Egypt became fully involved in the North Yemen Civil War. The Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, supported the Yemeni republicans with as many as 70,000 Egyptian troops and chemical weapons. Despite several military moves and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate. Egyptian commitment in Yemen was greatly undermined later.
+
+In mid May 1967, the Soviet Union issued warnings to Nasser of an impending Israeli attack on Syria. Although the chief of staff Mohamed Fawzi verified them as "baseless",[57][58] Nasser took three successive steps that made the war virtually inevitable: on 14 May he deployed his troops in Sinai near the border with Israel, on 19 May he expelled the UN peacekeepers stationed in the Sinai Peninsula border with Israel, and on 23 May he closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping.[59] On 26 May Nasser declared, "The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel".[60]
+
+Israel re-iterated that the Straits of Tiran closure was a Casus belli. This prompted the beginning of the Third Arab Israeli War (Six-Day War) in which Israel attacked Egypt, and occupied Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, which Egypt had occupied since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. During the 1967 war, an Emergency Law was enacted, and remained in effect until 2012, with the exception of an 18-month break in 1980/81.[61] Under this law, police powers were extended, constitutional rights suspended and censorship legalised.[citation needed]
+
+At the time of the fall of the Egyptian monarchy in the early 1950s, less than half a million Egyptians were considered upper class and rich, four million middle class and 17 million lower class and poor.[62] Fewer than half of all primary-school-age children attended school, most of them being boys. Nasser's policies changed this. Land reform and distribution, the dramatic growth in university education, and government support to national industries greatly improved social mobility and flattened the social curve. From academic year 1953–54 through 1965–66, overall public school enrolments more than doubled. Millions of previously poor Egyptians, through education and jobs in the public sector, joined the middle class. Doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, journalists, constituted the bulk of the swelling middle class in Egypt under Nasser.[62] During the 1960s, the Egyptian economy went from sluggish to the verge of collapse, the society became less free, and Nasser's appeal waned considerably.[63]
+
+In 1970, President Nasser died of a heart attack and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat. Sadat switched Egypt's Cold War allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States, expelling Soviet advisors in 1972. He launched the Infitah economic reform policy, while clamping down on religious and secular opposition. In 1973, Egypt, along with Syria, launched the Fourth Arab-Israeli War (Yom Kippur War), a surprise attack to regain part of the Sinai territory Israel had captured 6 years earlier. It presented Sadat with a victory that allowed him to regain the Sinai later in return for peace with Israel.[64]
+
+In 1975, Sadat shifted Nasser's economic policies and sought to use his popularity to reduce government regulations and encourage foreign investment through his program of Infitah. Through this policy, incentives such as reduced taxes and import tariffs attracted some investors, but investments were mainly directed at low risk and profitable ventures like tourism and construction, abandoning Egypt's infant industries.[65] Even though Sadat's policy was intended to modernise Egypt and assist the middle class, it mainly benefited the higher class, and, because of the elimination of subsidies on basic foodstuffs, led to the 1977 Egyptian Bread Riots.
+
+In 1977, Sadat dissolved the Arab Socialist Union and replaced it with the National Democratic Party.
+
+Sadat made a historic visit to Israel in 1977, which led to the 1979 peace treaty in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from Sinai. Sadat's initiative sparked enormous controversy in the Arab world and led to Egypt's expulsion from the Arab League, but it was supported by most Egyptians.[66] Sadat was assassinated by an Islamic extremist in October 1981.
+
+Hosni Mubarak came to power after the assassination of Sadat in a referendum in which he was the only candidate.[67]
+
+Hosni Mubarak reaffirmed Egypt's relationship with Israel yet eased the tensions with Egypt's Arab neighbours. Domestically, Mubarak faced serious problems. Even though farm and industry output expanded, the economy could not keep pace with the population boom. Mass poverty and unemployment led rural families to stream into cities like Cairo where they ended up in crowded slums, barely managing to survive.
+
+On 25 February 1986 Security Police started rioting, protesting against reports that their term of duty was to be extended from 3 to 4 years. Hotels, nightclubs, restaurants and casinos were attacked in Cairo and there were riots in other cities. A day time curfew was imposed. It took the army 3 days to restore order. 107 people were killed.[68]
+
+In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, terrorist attacks in Egypt became numerous and severe, and began to target Christian Copts, foreign tourists and government officials.[69] In the 1990s an Islamist group, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, engaged in an extended campaign of violence, from the murders and attempted murders of prominent writers and intellectuals, to the repeated targeting of tourists and foreigners. Serious damage was done to the largest sector of Egypt's economy—tourism[70]—and in turn to the government, but it also devastated the livelihoods of many of the people on whom the group depended for support.[71]
+
+During Mubarak's reign, the political scene was dominated by the National Democratic Party, which was created by Sadat in 1978. It passed the 1993 Syndicates Law, 1995 Press Law, and 1999 Nongovernmental Associations Law which hampered freedoms of association and expression by imposing new regulations and draconian penalties on violations.[citation needed] As a result, by the late 1990s parliamentary politics had become virtually irrelevant and alternative avenues for political expression were curtailed as well.[72]
+
+On 17 November 1997, 62 people, mostly tourists, were massacred near Luxor.
+
+In late February 2005, Mubarak announced a reform of the presidential election law, paving the way for multi-candidate polls for the first time since the 1952 movement.[73] However, the new law placed restrictions on the candidates, and led to Mubarak's easy re-election victory.[74] Voter turnout was less than 25%.[75] Election observers also alleged government interference in the election process.[76] After the election, Mubarak imprisoned Ayman Nour, the runner-up.[77]
+
+Human Rights Watch's 2006 report on Egypt detailed serious human rights violations, including routine torture, arbitrary detentions and trials before military and state security courts.[78] In 2007, Amnesty International released a report alleging that Egypt had become an international centre for torture, where other nations send suspects for interrogation, often as part of the War on Terror.[79] Egypt's foreign ministry quickly issued a rebuttal to this report.[80]
+
+Constitutional changes voted on 19 March 2007 prohibited parties from using religion as a basis for political activity, allowed the drafting of a new anti-terrorism law, authorised broad police powers of arrest and surveillance, and gave the president power to dissolve parliament and end judicial election monitoring.[81] In 2009, Dr. Ali El Deen Hilal Dessouki, Media Secretary of the National Democratic Party (NDP), described Egypt as a "pharaonic" political system, and democracy as a "long-term goal". Dessouki also stated that "the real center of power in Egypt is the military".[82]
+
+On 25 January 2011, widespread protests began against Mubarak's government. On 11 February 2011, Mubarak resigned and fled Cairo. Jubilant celebrations broke out in Cairo's Tahrir Square at the news.[83] The Egyptian military then assumed the power to govern.[84][85] Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, became the de facto interim head of state.[86][87] On 13 February 2011, the military dissolved the parliament and suspended the constitution.[88]
+
+A constitutional referendum was held on 19 March 2011. On 28 November 2011, Egypt held its first parliamentary election since the previous regime had been in power. Turnout was high and there were no reports of major irregularities or violence.[89]
+
+Mohamed Morsi was elected president on 24 June 2012.[90] On 2 August 2012, Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandil announced his 35-member cabinet comprising 28 newcomers, including four from the Muslim Brotherhood.[91]
+
+Liberal and secular groups walked out of the constituent assembly because they believed that it would impose strict Islamic practices, while Muslim Brotherhood backers threw their support behind Morsi.[92] On 22 November 2012, President Morsi issued a temporary declaration immunising his decrees from challenge and seeking to protect the work of the constituent assembly.[93]
+
+The move led to massive protests and violent action throughout Egypt.[94] On 5 December 2012, tens of thousands of supporters and opponents of President Morsi clashed, in what was described as the largest violent battle between Islamists and their foes since the country's revolution.[95] Mohamed Morsi offered a "national dialogue" with opposition leaders but refused to cancel the December 2012 constitutional referendum.[96]
+
+On 3 July 2013, after a wave of public discontent with autocratic excesses of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government,[97] the military removed Morsi from office, dissolved the Shura Council and installed a temporary interim government.[98]
+
+On 4 July 2013, 68-year-old Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt Adly Mansour was sworn in as acting president over the new government following the removal of Morsi. The new Egyptian authorities cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters, jailing thousands and forcefully dispersing pro-Morsi and/or pro-Brotherhood protests.[99][100] Many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders and activists have either been sentenced to death or life imprisonment in a series of mass trials.[101][102][103]
+
+On 18 January 2014, the interim government instituted a new constitution following a referendum approved by an overwhelming majority of voters (98.1%). 38.6% of registered voters participated in the referendum[104] a higher number than the 33% who voted in a referendum during Morsi's tenure.[105]
+
+On 26 March 2014, Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egyptian Defence Minister and Commander-in-Chief Egyptian Armed Forces, retired from the military, announcing he would stand as a candidate in the 2014 presidential election.[106] The poll, held between 26 and 28 May 2014, resulted in a landslide victory for el-Sisi.[107] Sisi was sworn into office as President of Egypt on 8 June 2014. The Muslim Brotherhood and some liberal and secular activist groups boycotted the vote.[108] Even though the interim authorities extended voting to a third day, the 46% turnout was lower than the 52% turnout in the 2012 election.[109]
+
+A new parliamentary election was held in December 2015, resulting in a landslide victory for pro-Sisi parties, which secured a strong majority in the newly-formed House of Representatives.
+
+In 2016, Egypt entered in a diplomatic crisis with Italy following the murder of researcher Giulio Regeni: in April 2016, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi recalled the Italian ambassador from El-Cairo because of lack of co-operation from the Egyptian Government in the investigation. The ambassador was sent back to Egypt in 2017 by the new Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.
+
+El-Sisi was re-elected in 2018, facing no serious opposition. In 2019, a series of constitutional amendments were approved by the parliament, further increasing the President's and the military's power, increasing presidential terms from 4 years to 6 years and allowing El-Sisi to run for other two mandates. The proposals were approved in a referendum.
+
+The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam escalated in 2020.[110][111] Egypt sees the dam as an existential threat,[112] fearing that the dam will reduce the amount of water it receives from the Nile.[113]
+
+Egypt lies primarily between latitudes 22° and 32°N, and longitudes 25° and 35°E. At 1,001,450 square kilometres (386,660 sq mi),[114] it is the world's 30th-largest country. Due to the extreme aridity of Egypt's climate, population centres are concentrated along the narrow Nile Valley and Delta, meaning that about 99% of the population uses about 5.5% of the total land area.[115] 98% of Egyptians live on 3% of the territory.[116]
+
+Egypt is bordered by Libya to the west, the Sudan to the south, and the Gaza Strip and Israel to the east. Egypt's important role in geopolitics stems from its strategic position: a transcontinental nation, it possesses a land bridge (the Isthmus of Suez) between Africa and Asia, traversed by a navigable waterway (the Suez Canal) that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean by way of the Red Sea.
+
+Apart from the Nile Valley, the majority of Egypt's landscape is desert, with a few oases scattered about. Winds create prolific sand dunes that peak at more than 30 metres (100 ft) high. Egypt includes parts of the Sahara desert and of the Libyan Desert. These deserts protected the Kingdom of the Pharaohs from western threats and were referred to as the "red land" in ancient Egypt.
+
+Towns and cities include Alexandria, the second largest city; Aswan; Asyut; Cairo, the modern Egyptian capital and largest city; El Mahalla El Kubra; Giza, the site of the Pyramid of Khufu; Hurghada; Luxor; Kom Ombo; Port Safaga; Port Said; Sharm El Sheikh; Suez, where the south end of the Suez Canal is located; Zagazig; and Minya. Oases include Bahariya, Dakhla, Farafra, Kharga and Siwa. Protectorates include Ras Mohamed National Park, Zaranik Protectorate and Siwa.
+
+On 13 March 2015, plans for a proposed new capital of Egypt were announced.[117]
+
+Most of Egypt's rain falls in the winter months.[118] South of Cairo, rainfall averages only around 2 to 5 mm (0.1 to 0.2 in) per year and at intervals of many years. On a very thin strip of the northern coast the rainfall can be as high as 410 mm (16.1 in),[119] mostly between October and March. Snow falls on Sinai's mountains and some of the north coastal cities such as Damietta, Baltim and Sidi Barrani, and rarely in Alexandria. A very small amount of snow fell on Cairo on 13 December 2013, the first time in many decades.[120] Frost is also known in mid-Sinai and mid-Egypt. Egypt is the driest and the sunniest country in the world, and most of its land surface is desert.
+
+Egypt has an unusually hot, sunny and dry climate. Average high temperatures are high in the north but very to extremely high in the rest of the country during summer. The cooler Mediterranean winds consistently blow over the northern sea coast, which helps to get more moderated temperatures, especially at the height of the summertime. The Khamaseen is a hot, dry wind that originates from the vast deserts in the south and blows in the spring or in the early summer. It brings scorching sand and dust particles, and usually brings daytime temperatures over 40 °C (104 °F) and sometimes over 50 °C (122 °F) in the interior, while the relative humidity can drop to 5% or even less. The absolute highest temperatures in Egypt occur when the Khamaseen blows. The weather is always sunny and clear in Egypt, especially in cities such as Aswan, Luxor and Asyut. It is one of the least cloudy and least rainy regions on Earth.
+
+Prior to the construction of the Aswan Dam, the Nile flooded annually (colloquially The Gift of the Nile) replenishing Egypt's soil. This gave Egypt a consistent harvest throughout the years.
+
+The potential rise in sea levels due to global warming could threaten Egypt's densely populated coastal strip and have grave consequences for the country's economy, agriculture and industry. Combined with growing demographic pressures, a significant rise in sea levels could turn millions of Egyptians into environmental refugees by the end of the 21st century, according to some climate experts.[121][122]
+
+Egypt signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 9 June 1992, and became a party to the convention on 2 June 1994.[123] It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 31 July 1998.[124] Where many CBD National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans neglect biological kingdoms apart from animals and plants,[125] Egypt's plan was unusual in providing balanced information about all forms of life.
+
+The plan stated that the following numbers of species of different groups had been recorded from Egypt: algae (1483 species), animals (about 15,000 species of which more than 10,000 were insects), fungi (more than 627 species), monera (319 species), plants (2426 species), protozoans (371 species). For some major groups, for example lichen-forming fungi and nematode worms, the number was not known. Apart from small and well-studied groups like amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles, the many of those numbers are likely to increase as further species are recorded from Egypt. For the fungi, including lichen-forming species, for example, subsequent work has shown that over 2200 species have been recorded from Egypt, and the final figure of all fungi actually occurring in the country is expected to be much higher.[126] For the grasses, 284 native and naturalised species have been identified and recorded in Egypt.[127]
+
+The House of Representatives, whose members are elected to serve five-year terms, specialises in legislation. Elections were last held between November 2011 and January 2012 which was later dissolved. The next parliamentary election was announced to be held within 6 months of the constitution's ratification on 18 January 2014, and were held in two phases, from 17 October to 2 December 2015.[128] Originally, the parliament was to be formed before the president was elected, but interim president Adly Mansour pushed the date.[129] The Egyptian presidential election, 2014, took place on 26–28 May 2014. Official figures showed a turnout of 25,578,233 or 47.5%, with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi winning with 23.78 million votes, or 96.9% compared to 757,511 (3.1%) for Hamdeen Sabahi.[130]
+
+After a wave of public discontent with autocratic excesses of the Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi,[97] on 3 July 2013 then-General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi announced the removal of Morsi from office and the suspension of the constitution. A 50-member constitution committee was formed for modifying the constitution which was later published for public voting and was adopted on 18 January 2014.[131]
+
+In 2013, Freedom House rated political rights in Egypt at 5 (with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least), and civil liberties at 5, which gave it the freedom rating of "Partly Free".[132]
+
+Egyptian nationalism predates its Arab counterpart by many decades, having roots in the 19th century and becoming the dominant mode of expression of Egyptian anti-colonial activists and intellectuals until the early 20th century.[133] The ideology espoused by Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood is mostly supported by the lower-middle strata of Egyptian society.[134]
+
+Egypt has the oldest continuous parliamentary tradition in the Arab world.[135] The first popular assembly was established in 1866. It was disbanded as a result of the British occupation of 1882, and the British allowed only a consultative body to sit. In 1923, however, after the country's independence was declared, a new constitution provided for a parliamentary monarchy.[135]
+
+The legal system is based on Islamic and civil law (particularly Napoleonic codes); and judicial review by a Supreme Court, which accepts compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction only with reservations.[55]
+
+Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation. Sharia courts and qadis are run and licensed by the Ministry of Justice.[136] The personal status law that regulates matters such as marriage, divorce and child custody is governed by Sharia. In a family court, a woman's testimony is worth half of a man's testimony.[137]
+
+On 26 December 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to institutionalise a controversial new constitution. It was approved by the public in a referendum held 15–22 December 2012 with 64% support, but with only 33% electorate participation.[138] It replaced the 2011 Provisional Constitution of Egypt, adopted following the revolution.
+
+The Penal code was unique as it contains a "Blasphemy Law."[139] The present court system allows a death penalty including against an absent individual tried in absentia. Several Americans and Canadians were sentenced to death in 2012.[140]
+
+On 18 January 2014, the interim government successfully institutionalised a more secular constitution.[141] The president is elected to a four-year term and may serve 2 terms.[141] The parliament may impeach the president.[141] Under the constitution, there is a guarantee of gender equality and absolute freedom of thought.[141] The military retains the ability to appoint the national Minister of Defence for the next two full presidential terms since the constitution took effect.[141] Under the constitution, political parties may not be based on "religion, race, gender or geography".[141]
+
+The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights is one of the longest-standing bodies for the defence of human rights in Egypt.[142] In 2003, the government established the National Council for Human Rights.[143] Shortly after its foundation, the council came under heavy criticism by local activists, who contend it was a propaganda tool for the government to excuse its own violations[144] and to give legitimacy to repressive laws such as the Emergency Law.[145]
+
+The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life ranks Egypt as the fifth worst country in the world for religious freedom.[146][147] The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan independent agency of the US government, has placed Egypt on its watch list of countries that require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the government.[148] According to a 2010 Pew Global Attitudes survey, 84% of Egyptians polled supported the death penalty for those who leave Islam; 77% supported whippings and cutting off of hands for theft and robbery; and 82% support stoning a person who commits adultery.[149]
+
+In February 2016 Giulio Regeni, an Italian Ph.D student from the University of Cambridge studying trade unions and worker's rights in the country, was found brutally murdered in Cairo after he went missing in January of the same year. Subsequently, Italy withdrew its ambassador to Egypt. Egyptian law enforcement produced conflicting information on the fate of the Italian citizen, which was unacceptable to Italian investigators. As a result, the Italian press and foreign ministry pointed at the systematic human rights violations in Egypt, and threatened with political sanctions unless police leadership and practices undergo significant revisions.[150]
+
+Coptic Christians face discrimination at multiple levels of the government, ranging from underrepresentation in government ministries to laws that limit their ability to build or repair churches.[151] Intolerance of Bahá'ís and non-orthodox Muslim sects, such as Sufis, Shi'a and Ahmadis, also remains a problem.[78] When the government moved to computerise identification cards, members of religious minorities, such as Bahá'ís, could not obtain identification documents.[152] An Egyptian court ruled in early 2008 that members of other faiths may obtain identity cards without listing their faiths, and without becoming officially recognised.[153]
+
+Clashes continued between police and supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi. During violent clashes that ensued as part of the August 2013 sit-in dispersal, 595 protesters were killed[154] with 14 August 2013 becoming the single deadliest day in Egypt's modern history.[155]
+
+Egypt actively practices capital punishment. Egypt's authorities do not release figures on death sentences and executions, despite repeated requests over the years by human rights organisations.[156] The United Nations human rights office[157] and various NGOs[156][158] expressed "deep alarm" after an Egyptian Minya Criminal Court sentenced 529 people to death in a single hearing on 25 March 2014. Sentenced supporters of former President Mohamed Morsi were to be executed for their alleged role in violence following his removal in July 2013. The judgement was condemned as a violation of international law.[159] By May 2014, approximately 16,000 people (and as high as more than 40,000 by one independent count, according to The Economist),[160] mostly Brotherhood members or supporters, have been imprisoned after Morsi's removal[161] after the Muslim Brotherhood was labelled as terrorist organisation by the post-Morsi interim Egyptian government.[162]
+
+After Morsi was ousted by the military, the judiciary system aligned itself with the new government, actively supporting the repression of Muslim Brotherhood members. This resulted in a sharp increase in mass death sentences that arose criticism from then-U.S. President Barack Obama and the General Secretary of the UN, Ban Ki Moon.
+
+Homosexuality is illegal in Egypt.[163] According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 95% of Egyptians believe that homosexuality should not be accepted by society.[164]
+
+In 2017, Cairo was voted the most dangerous megacity for women with more than 10 million inhabitants in a poll by Thomson Reuters Foundation. Sexual harassment was described as occurring on a daily basis.[165]
+
+Reporters Without Borders  ranked Egypt in their 2017 World Press Freedom Index at No. 160 out of 180 nations. At least 18 journalists were imprisoned in Egypt, as of August 2015[update]. A new anti-terror law was enacted in August 2015 that threatens members of the media with fines ranging from about US$25,000 to $60,000 for the distribution of wrong information on acts of terror inside the country "that differ from official declarations of the Egyptian Department of Defense".[166]
+
+Some critics of the government have been arrested for allegedly spreading false information about the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt.[167][168]
+
+The military is influential in the political and economic life of Egypt and exempts itself from laws that apply to other sectors. It enjoys considerable power, prestige and independence within the state and has been widely considered part of the Egyptian "deep state".[67][169][170]
+
+According to the former chair of Israel's Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuval Steinitz, the Egyptian Air Force has roughly the same number of modern warplanes as the Israeli Air Force and far more Western tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft batteries and warships than the IDF.[171] Egypt is speculated by Israel to be the second country in the region with a spy satellite, EgyptSat 1[172] in addition to EgyptSat 2 launched on 16 April 2014.[173]
+
+The United States provides Egypt with annual military assistance, which in 2015 amounted to US$1.3 billion.[174] In 1989, Egypt was designated as a major non-NATO ally of the United States.[175] Nevertheless, ties between the two countries have partially soured since the July 2013 overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi,[176] with the Obama administration denouncing Egypt over its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, and cancelling future military exercises involving the two countries.[177] There have been recent attempts, however, to normalise relations between the two, with both governments frequently calling for mutual support in the fight against regional and international terrorism.[178][179][180] However, following the election of Republican Donald Trump as the President of the United States, the two countries were looking to improve the Egyptian-American relations. al-Sisi and Trump had met during the opening of the seventy-first session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2016.[181] The absence of Egypt in President Trump's travel ban towards seven Muslim countries was noted in Washington although the Congress has voiced human rights concerns over the handling of dissidents.[182] On 3 April 2017 al-Sisi met with Trump at the White House, marking the first visit of an Egyptian president to Washington in 8 years. Trump praised al-Sisi in what was reported as a public relations victory for the Egyptian president, and signaled it was time for a normalization of the relations between Egypt and the US.[183]
+
+The Egyptian military has dozens of factories manufacturing weapons as well as consumer goods. The Armed Forces' inventory includes equipment from different countries around the world. Equipment from the former Soviet Union is being progressively replaced by more modern US, French, and British equipment, a significant portion of which is built under license in Egypt, such as the M1 Abrams tank.[citation needed] Relations with Russia have improved significantly following Mohamed Morsi's removal[184] and both countries have worked since then to strengthen military[185] and trade ties[186] among other aspects of bilateral co-operation. Relations with China have also improved considerably. In 2014, Egypt and China established a bilateral "comprehensive strategic partnership".[187] In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Egypt, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.[188]
+
+The permanent headquarters of the Arab League are located in Cairo and the body's secretary general has traditionally been Egyptian. This position is currently held by former foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. The Arab League briefly moved from Egypt to Tunis in 1978 to protest the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, but it later returned to Cairo in 1989. Gulf monarchies, including the United Arab Emirates[189] and Saudi Arabia,[190] have pledged billions of dollars to help Egypt overcome its economic difficulties since the overthrow of Morsi.[191]
+
+Following the 1973 war and the subsequent peace treaty, Egypt became the first Arab nation to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Despite that, Israel is still widely considered as a hostile state by the majority of Egyptians.[192] Egypt has played a historical role as a mediator in resolving various disputes in the Middle East, most notably its handling of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the peace process.[193] Egypt's ceasefire and truce brokering efforts in Gaza have hardly been challenged following Israel's evacuation of its settlements from the strip in 2005, despite increasing animosity towards the Hamas government in Gaza following the ouster of Mohamed Morsi,[194] and despite recent attempts by countries like Turkey and Qatar to take over this role.[195]
+
+Ties between Egypt and other non-Arab Middle Eastern nations, including Iran and Turkey, have often been strained. Tensions with Iran are mostly due to Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and Iran's rivalry with traditional Egyptian allies in the Gulf.[196] Turkey's recent support for the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its alleged involvement in Libya also made of both countries bitter regional rivals.[197][198]
+
+Egypt is a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations. It is also a member of the Organisation internationale de la francophonie, since 1983. Former Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1991 to 1996.
+
+In 2008, Egypt was estimated to have two million African refugees, including over 20,000 Sudanese nationals registered with UNHCR as refugees fleeing armed conflict or asylum seekers. Egypt adopted "harsh, sometimes lethal" methods of border control.[199]
+
+Egypt is divided into 27 governorates. The governorates are further divided into regions. The regions contain towns and villages. Each governorate has a capital, sometimes carrying the same name as the governorate.[200]
+
+Egypt's economy depends mainly on agriculture, media, petroleum imports, natural gas, and tourism; there are also more than three million Egyptians working abroad, mainly in Libya, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf and Europe. The completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1970 and the resultant Lake Nasser have altered the time-honoured place of the Nile River in the agriculture and ecology of Egypt. A rapidly growing population, limited arable land, and dependence on the Nile all continue to overtax resources and stress the economy.
+
+The government has invested in communications and physical infrastructure. Egypt has received United States foreign aid since 1979 (an average of $2.2 billion per year) and is the third-largest recipient of such funds from the United States following the Iraq war. Egypt's economy mainly relies on these sources of income: tourism, remittances from Egyptians working abroad and revenues from the Suez Canal.[202]
+
+Egypt has a developed energy market based on coal, oil, natural gas, and hydro power. Substantial coal deposits in the northeast Sinai are mined at the rate of about 600,000 tonnes (590,000 long tons; 660,000 short tons) per year. Oil and gas are produced in the western desert regions, the Gulf of Suez, and the Nile Delta. Egypt has huge reserves of gas, estimated at 2,180 cubic kilometres (520 cu mi),[203] and LNG up to 2012 exported to many countries. In 2013, the Egyptian General Petroleum Co (EGPC) said the country will cut exports of natural gas and tell major industries to slow output this summer to avoid an energy crisis and stave off political unrest, Reuters has reported. Egypt is counting on top liquid natural gas (LNG) exporter Qatar to obtain additional gas volumes in summer, while encouraging factories to plan their annual maintenance for those months of peak demand, said EGPC chairman, Tarek El Barkatawy. Egypt produces its own energy, but has been a net oil importer since 2008 and is rapidly becoming a net importer of natural gas.[204]
+
+Economic conditions have started to improve considerably, after a period of stagnation, due to the adoption of more liberal economic policies by the government as well as increased revenues from tourism and a booming stock market. In its annual report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rated Egypt as one of the top countries in the world undertaking economic reforms.[205] Some major economic reforms undertaken by the government since 2003 include a dramatic slashing of customs and tariffs. A new taxation law implemented in 2005 decreased corporate taxes from 40% to the current 20%, resulting in a stated 100% increase in tax revenue by the year 2006.
+
+Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Egypt increased considerably before the removal of Hosni Mubarak, exceeding $6 billion in 2006, due to economic liberalisation and privatisation measures taken by minister of investment Mahmoud Mohieddin.[citation needed] Since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Egypt has experienced a drastic fall in both foreign investment and tourism revenues, followed by a 60% drop in foreign exchange reserves, a 3% drop in growth, and a rapid devaluation of the Egyptian pound.[206]
+
+Although one of the main obstacles still facing the Egyptian economy is the limited trickle down of wealth to the average population, many Egyptians criticise their government for higher prices of basic goods while their standards of living or purchasing power remains relatively stagnant. Corruption is often cited by Egyptians as the main impediment to further economic growth.[207][208] The government promised major reconstruction of the country's infrastructure, using money paid for the newly acquired third mobile license ($3 billion) by Etisalat in 2006.[209] In the Corruption Perceptions Index 2013, Egypt was ranked 114 out of 177.[210]
+
+Egypt's most prominent multinational companies are the Orascom Group and Raya Contact Center. The information technology (IT) sector has expanded rapidly in the past few years, with many start-ups selling outsourcing services to North America and Europe, operating with companies such as Microsoft, Oracle and other major corporations, as well as many small and medium size enterprises. Some of these companies are the Xceed Contact Center, Raya, E Group Connections and C3. The IT sector has been stimulated by new Egyptian entrepreneurs with government encouragement.[citation needed]
+
+An estimated 2.7 million Egyptians abroad contribute actively to the development of their country through remittances (US$7.8 billion in 2009), as well as circulation of human and social capital and investment.[211] Remittances, money earned by Egyptians living abroad and sent home, reached a record US$21 billion in 2012, according to the World Bank.[212]
+
+Egyptian society is moderately unequal in terms of income distribution, with an estimated 35–40% of Egypt's population earning less than the equivalent of $2 a day, while only around 2–3% may be considered wealthy.[213]
+
+Tourism is one of the most important sectors in Egypt's economy. More than 12.8 million tourists visited Egypt in 2008, providing revenues of nearly $11 billion. The tourism sector employs about 12% of Egypt's workforce.[214] Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou told industry professionals and reporters that tourism generated some $9.4 billion in 2012, a slight increase over the $9 billion seen in 2011.[215]
+
+The Giza Necropolis is one of Egypt's best-known tourist attractions; it is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still in existence.
+
+Egypt's beaches on the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, which extend to over 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles), are also popular tourist destinations; the Gulf of Aqaba beaches, Safaga, Sharm el-Sheikh, Hurghada, Luxor, Dahab, Ras Sidr and Marsa Alam are popular sites.
+
+Egypt produced 691,000 bbl/d of oil and 2,141.05 Tcf of natural gas in 2013, making the country the largest non-OPEC producer of oil and the second-largest dry natural gas producer in Africa. In 2013, Egypt was the largest consumer of oil and natural gas in Africa, as more than 20% of total oil consumption and more than 40% of total dry natural gas consumption in Africa. Also, Egypt possesses the largest oil refinery capacity in Africa 726,000 bbl/d (in 2012).[203]
+
+Egypt is currently planning to build its first nuclear power plant in El Dabaa, in the northern part of the country, with $25 billion in Russian financing.[216]
+
+Transport in Egypt is centred around Cairo and largely follows the pattern of settlement along the Nile. The main line of the nation's 40,800-kilometre (25,400 mi) railway network runs from Alexandria to Aswan and is operated by Egyptian National Railways. The vehicle road network has expanded rapidly to over 34,000 km (21,000 mi), consisting of 28 line, 796 stations, 1800 train covering the Nile Valley and Nile Delta, the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts, the Sinai, and the Western oases.
+
+The Cairo Metro in Egypt is the first of only two full-fledged metro systems in Africa and the Arab World. It is considered one of the most important recent projects in Egypt which cost around 12 billion Egyptian pounds. The system consists of three operational lines with a fourth line expected in the future.
+
+EgyptAir, which is now the country's flag carrier and largest airline, was founded in 1932 by Egyptian industrialist Talaat Harb, today owned by the Egyptian government. The airline is based at Cairo International Airport, its main hub, operating scheduled passenger and freight services to more than 75 destinations in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The Current EgyptAir fleet includes 80 aeroplanes.
+
+The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt considered the most important centre of the maritime transport in the Middle East, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows ship transport between Europe and Asia without navigation around Africa. The northern terminus is Port Said and the southern terminus is Port Tawfiq at the city of Suez. Ismailia lies on its west bank, 3 kilometres (1 7⁄8 miles) from the half-way point.
+
+The canal is 193.30 km (120 1⁄8 mi) long, 24 metres (79 feet) deep and 205 m (673 ft) wide as of 2010[update]. It consists of the northern access channel of 22 km (14 mi), the canal itself of 162.25 km (100 7⁄8 mi) and the southern access channel of 9 km (5 1⁄2 mi). The canal is a single lane with passing places in the Ballah By-Pass and the Great Bitter Lake. It contains no locks; seawater flows freely through the canal. In general, the canal north of the Bitter Lakes flows north in winter and south in summer. The current south of the lakes changes with the tide at Suez.
+
+On 26 August 2014 a proposal was made for opening a New Suez Canal. Work on the New Suez Canal was completed in July 2015.[217][218] The channel was officially inaugurated with a ceremony attended by foreign leaders and featuring military flyovers on 6 August 2015, in accordance with the budgets laid out for the project.[219][220]
+
+The piped water supply in Egypt increased between 1990 and 2010 from 89% to 100% in urban areas and from 39% to 93% in rural areas despite rapid population growth. Over that period, Egypt achieved the elimination of open defecation in rural areas and invested in infrastructure. Access to an improved water source in Egypt is now practically universal with a rate of 99%. About one half of the population is connected to sanitary sewers.[221]
+
+Partly because of low sanitation coverage about 17,000 children die each year because of diarrhoea.[222] Another challenge is low cost recovery due to water tariffs that are among the lowest in the world. This in turn requires government subsidies even for operating costs, a situation that has been aggravated by salary increases without tariff increases after the Arab Spring. Poor operation of facilities, such as water and wastewater treatment plants, as well as limited government accountability and transparency, are also issues.
+
+Due to the absence of appreciable rainfall, Egypt's agriculture depends entirely on irrigation. The main source of irrigation water is the river Nile of which the flow is controlled by the high dam at Aswan. It releases, on average, 55 cubic kilometres (45,000,000 acre·ft) water per year, of which some 46 cubic kilometres (37,000,000 acre·ft) are diverted into the irrigation canals.[223]
+
+In the Nile valley and delta, almost 33,600 square kilometres (13,000 sq mi) of land benefit from these irrigation waters producing on average 1.8 crops per year.[223]
+
+Egypt is the most populated country in the Arab world and the third most populous on the African continent, with about 95 million inhabitants as of 2017[update].[225] Its population grew rapidly from 1970 to 2010 due to medical advances and increases in agricultural productivity[226] enabled by the Green Revolution.[227] Egypt's population was estimated at 3 million when Napoleon invaded the country in 1798.[228]
+
+Egypt's people are highly urbanised, being concentrated along the Nile (notably Cairo and Alexandria), in the Delta and near the Suez Canal. Egyptians are divided demographically into those who live in the major urban centres and the fellahin, or farmers, that reside in rural villages.  The total inhabited area constitutes  only 77,041 km², putting the physiological density at over 1,200 people per km2, similar to Bangladesh.
+
+While emigration was restricted under Nasser, thousands of Egyptian professionals were dispatched abroad in the context of the Arab Cold War.[229] Egyptian emigration was liberalised in 1971, under President Sadat, reaching record numbers after the 1973 oil crisis.[230] An estimated 2.7 million Egyptians live abroad. Approximately 70% of Egyptian migrants live in Arab countries (923,600 in Saudi Arabia, 332,600 in Libya, 226,850 in Jordan, 190,550 in Kuwait with the rest elsewhere in the region) and the remaining 30% reside mostly in Europe and North America (318,000 in the United States, 110,000 in Canada and 90,000 in Italy).[211] The process of emigrating to non-Arab states has been ongoing since the 1950s.[231]
+
+Ethnic Egyptians are by far the largest ethnic group in the country, constituting 99.7% of the total population.[55] Ethnic minorities include the Abazas, Turks, Greeks, Bedouin Arab tribes living in the eastern deserts and the Sinai Peninsula, the Berber-speaking Siwis (Amazigh) of the Siwa Oasis, and the Nubian communities clustered along the Nile. There are also tribal Beja communities concentrated in the southeasternmost corner of the country, and a number of Dom clans mostly in the Nile Delta and Faiyum who are progressively becoming assimilated as urbanisation increases.
+
+Some 5 million immigrants live in Egypt, mostly Sudanese, "some of whom have lived in Egypt for generations."[232] Smaller numbers of immigrants come from Iraq, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, and Eritrea.[232]
+
+The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that the total number of "people of concern" (refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people) was about 250,000. In 2015, the number of registered Syrian refugees in Egypt was 117,000, a decrease from the previous year.[232] Egyptian government claims that a half-million Syrian refugees live in Egypt are thought to be exaggerated.[232] There are 28,000 registered Sudanese refugees in Egypt.[232]
+
+The once-vibrant and ancient Greek and Jewish communities in Egypt have almost disappeared, with only a small number remaining in the country, but many Egyptian Jews visit on religious or other occasions and tourism. Several important Jewish archaeological and historical sites are found in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities.
+
+The official language of the Republic is Arabic.[233] The spoken languages are: Egyptian Arabic (68%), Sa'idi Arabic (29%), Eastern Egyptian Bedawi Arabic (1.6%), Sudanese Arabic (0.6%), Domari (0.3%), Nobiin (0.3%), Beja (0.1%), Siwi and others. Additionally, Greek, Armenian and Italian, and more recently, African languages like Amharic and Tigrigna are the main languages of immigrants.
+
+The main foreign languages taught in schools, by order of popularity, are English, French, German and Italian.
+
+Historically Egyptian was spoken, of which the latest stage is Coptic Egyptian. Spoken Coptic was mostly extinct by the 17th century but may have survived in isolated pockets in Upper Egypt as late as the 19th century. It remains in use as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria.[234][235] It forms a separate branch among the family of Afroasiatic languages.
+
+Egypt is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country with Islam as its state religion. The percentage of adherents of various religions is a controversial topic in Egypt. An estimated 85–90% are identified as Muslim, 10–15% as Coptic Christians, and 1% as other Christian denominations, although without a census the numbers cannot be known. Other estimates put the Christian population as high as 15–20%.[note 1] Non-denominational Muslims form roughly 12% of the population.[242][243]
+
+Egypt was a Christian country before the 7th century, and after Islam arrived, the country was gradually Islamised into a majority-Muslim country.[244][245] It is not known when Muslims reached a majority variously estimated from c. 1000 CE to as late as the 14th century. Egypt emerged as a centre of politics and culture in the Muslim world. Under Anwar Sadat, Islam became the official state religion and Sharia the main source of law.[246] It is estimated that 15 million Egyptians follow Native Sufi orders,[247][248][249] with the Sufi leadership asserting that the numbers are much greater as many Egyptian Sufis are not officially registered with a Sufi order.[248] At least 305 people were killed during a November 2017 attack on a Sufi mosque in Sinai.[250]
+
+There is also a Shi'a minority. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs estimates the Shia population at 1 to 2.2 million[251] and could measure as much as 3 million.[252] The Ahmadiyya population is estimated at less than 50,000,[253] whereas the Salafi (ultra-conservative) population is estimated at five to six million.[254] Cairo is famous for its numerous mosque minarets and has been dubbed "The City of 1,000 Minarets".[255]
+
+Of the Christian population in Egypt over 90% belong to the native Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Oriental Orthodox Christian Church.[256] Other native Egyptian Christians are adherents of the Coptic Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church of Egypt and various other Protestant denominations. Non-native Christian communities are largely found in the urban regions of Cairo and Alexandria, such as the Syro-Lebanese, who belong to Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Maronite Catholic denominations.[257]
+
+Ethnic Greeks also made up a large Greek Orthodox population in the past. Likewise, Armenians made up the then larger Armenian Orthodox and Catholic communities. Egypt also used to have a large Roman Catholic community, largely made up of Italians and Maltese. These non-native communities were much larger in Egypt before the Nasser regime and the nationalisation that took place.
+
+Egypt hosts the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. It was founded back in the first century, considered to be the largest church in the country.
+
+Egypt is also the home of Al-Azhar University (founded in 969 CE, began teaching in 975 CE), which is today the world's "most influential voice of establishment Sunni Islam" and is, by some measures, the second-oldest continuously operating university in world.[258]
+
+Egypt recognises only three religions: Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Other faiths and minority Muslim sects practised by Egyptians, such as the small Bahá'í and Ahmadi community, are not recognised by the state and face persecution by the government, which labels these groups a threat to Egypt's national security.[259][260] Individuals, particularly Baha'is and atheists, wishing to include their religion (or lack thereof) on their mandatory state issued identification cards are denied this ability (see Egyptian identification card controversy), and are put in the position of either not obtaining required identification or lying about their faith. A 2008 court ruling allowed members of unrecognised faiths to obtain identification and leave the religion field blank.[152][153]
+
+Egypt is a recognised cultural trend-setter of the Arabic-speaking world. Contemporary Arabic and Middle-Eastern culture is heavily influenced by Egyptian literature, music, film and television. Egypt gained a regional leadership role during the 1950s and 1960s, giving a further enduring boost to the standing of Egyptian culture in the Arabic-speaking world.[261]
+
+Egyptian identity evolved in the span of a long period of occupation to accommodate Islam, Christianity and Judaism; and a new language, Arabic, and its spoken descendant, Egyptian Arabic which is also based on many Ancient Egyptian words.[262]
+
+The work of early 19th century scholar Rifa'a al-Tahtawi renewed interest in Egyptian antiquity and exposed Egyptian society to Enlightenment principles. Tahtawi co-founded with education reformer Ali Mubarak a native Egyptology school that looked for inspiration to medieval Egyptian scholars, such as Suyuti and Maqrizi, who themselves studied the history, language and antiquities of Egypt.[263]
+
+Egypt's renaissance peaked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the work of people like Muhammad Abduh, Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed, Muhammad Loutfi Goumah, Tawfiq el-Hakim, Louis Awad, Qasim Amin, Salama Moussa, Taha Hussein and Mahmoud Mokhtar. They forged a liberal path for Egypt expressed as a commitment to personal freedom, secularism and faith in science to bring progress.[264]
+
+The Egyptians were one of the first major civilisations to codify design elements in art and architecture. Egyptian blue, also known as calcium copper silicate is a pigment used by Egyptians for thousands of years. It is considered to be the first synthetic pigment. The wall paintings done in the service of the Pharaohs followed a rigid code of visual rules and meanings. Egyptian civilisation is renowned for its colossal pyramids, temples and monumental tombs.
+
+Well-known examples are the Pyramid of Djoser designed by ancient architect and engineer Imhotep, the Sphinx, and the temple of Abu Simbel. Modern and contemporary Egyptian art can be as diverse as any works in the world art scene, from the vernacular architecture of Hassan Fathy and Ramses Wissa Wassef, to Mahmoud Mokhtar's sculptures, to the distinctive Coptic iconography of Isaac Fanous. The Cairo Opera House serves as the main performing arts venue in the Egyptian capital.
+
+Egyptian literature traces its beginnings to ancient Egypt and is some of the earliest known literature. Indeed, the Egyptians were the first culture to develop literature as we know it today, that is, the book.[265] It is an important cultural element in the life of Egypt. Egyptian novelists and poets were among the first to experiment with modern styles of Arabic literature, and the forms they developed have been widely imitated throughout the Arab world.[266] The first modern Egyptian novel Zaynab by Muhammad Husayn Haykal was published in 1913 in the Egyptian vernacular.[267] Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Egyptian women writers include Nawal El Saadawi, well known for her feminist activism, and Alifa Rifaat who also writes about women and tradition.
+
+Vernacular poetry is perhaps the most popular literary genre among Egyptians, represented by the works of Ahmed Fouad Negm (Fagumi), Salah Jaheen and Abdel Rahman el-Abnudi.[citation needed]
+
+Egyptian media are highly influential throughout the Arab World, attributed to large audiences and increasing freedom from government control.[268][269] Freedom of the media is guaranteed in the constitution; however, many laws still restrict this right.[268][270]
+
+Egyptian cinema became a regional force with the coming of sound. In 1936, Studio Misr, financed by industrialist Talaat Harb, emerged as the leading Egyptian studio, a role the company retained for three decades.[271] For over 100 years, more than 4000 films have been produced in Egypt, three quarters of the total Arab production.[citation needed] Egypt is considered the leading country in the field of cinema in the Arab world. Actors from all over the Arab world seek to appear in the Egyptian cinema for the sake of fame. The Cairo International Film Festival has been rated as one of 11 festivals with a top class rating worldwide by the International Federation of Film Producers' Associations.[272]
+
+Egyptian music is a rich mixture of indigenous, Mediterranean, African and Western elements. It has been an integral part of Egyptian culture since antiquity. The ancient Egyptians credited one of their gods Hathor with the invention of music, which Osiris in turn used as part of his effort to civilise the world. Egyptians used music instruments since then.[273]
+
+Contemporary Egyptian music traces its beginnings to the creative work of people such as Abdu al-Hamuli, Almaz and Mahmoud Osman, who influenced the later work of Sayed Darwish, Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Abdel Halim Hafez whose age is considered the golden age of music in Egypt and the whole Arab world. Prominent contemporary Egyptian pop singers include Amr Diab and Mohamed Mounir.
+
+Today, Egypt is often considered the home of belly dance. Egyptian belly dance has two main styles – raqs baladi and raqs sharqi. There are also numerous folkloric and character dances that may be part of an Egyptian-style belly dancer's repertoire, as well as the modern shaabi street dance which shares some elements with raqs baladi.
+
+Egypt has one of the oldest civilisations in the world. It has been in contact with many other civilisations and nations and has been through so many eras, starting from prehistoric age to the modern age, passing through so many ages such as; Pharonic, Roman, Greek, Islamic and many other ages. Because of this wide variation of ages, the continuous contact with other nations and the big number of conflicts Egypt had been through, at least 60 museums may be found in Egypt, mainly covering a wide area of these ages and conflicts.
+
+The three main museums in Egypt are The Egyptian Museum which has more than 120,000 items, the Egyptian National Military Museum and the 6th of October Panorama.
+
+The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), also known as the Giza Museum, is an under construction museum that will house the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts in the world, it has been described as the world's largest archaeological museum.[274] The museum was scheduled to open in 2015 and will be sited on 50 hectares (120 acres) of land approximately two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the Giza Necropolis and is part of a new master plan for the plateau. The Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh al-Damaty announced in May 2015 that the museum will be partially opened in May 2018.[275]
+
+Egypt celebrates many festivals and religious carnivals, also known as mulid. They are usually associated with a particular Coptic or Sufi saint, but are often celebrated by Egyptians irrespective of creed or religion. Ramadan has a special flavour in Egypt, celebrated with sounds, lights (local lanterns known as fawanees) and much flare that many Muslim tourists from the region flock to Egypt to witness during Ramadan.
+
+The ancient spring festival of Sham en Nisim (Coptic: Ϭⲱⲙ‘ⲛⲛⲓⲥⲓⲙ shom en nisim) has been celebrated by Egyptians for thousands of years, typically between the Egyptian months of Paremoude (April) and Pashons (May), following Easter Sunday.
+
+Egyptian cuisine is notably conducive to vegetarian diets, as it relies heavily on legume and vegetable dishes. Although food in Alexandria and the coast of Egypt tends to use a great deal of fish and other seafood, for the most part Egyptian cuisine is based on foods that grow out of the ground. Meat has been very expensive for most Egyptians throughout history, so a great number of vegetarian dishes have been developed.
+
+Some consider kushari (a mixture of rice, lentils, and macaroni) to be the national dish. Fried onions can be also added to kushari. In addition, ful medames (mashed fava beans) is one of the most popular dishes. Fava bean is also used in making falafel (also known as "ta‘miya"), which may have originated in Egypt and spread to other parts of the Middle East. Garlic fried with coriander is added to molokhiya, a popular green soup made from finely chopped jute leaves, sometimes with chicken or rabbit.
+
+Football is the most popular national sport of Egypt. The Cairo Derby is one of the fiercest derbies in Africa, and the BBC picked it as one of the 7 toughest derbies in the world.[276] Al Ahly is the most successful club of the 20th century in the African continent according to CAF, closely followed by their rivals Zamalek SC. They're known as the "African Club of the Century". With twenty titles, Al Ahly is currently the world's most successful club in terms of international trophies, surpassing Italy's A.C. Milan and Argentina's Boca Juniors, both having eighteen.[277]
+
+The Egyptian national football team, known as the Pharaohs, won the African Cup of Nations seven times, including three times in a row in 2006, 2008, and 2010. Considered the most successful African national team and one which has reached the top 10 of the FIFA world rankings, Egypt has qualified for the FIFA World Cup three times. Two goals from star player Mohamed Salah in their last qualifying game took Egypt through to the 2018 FIFA World Cup.[278] The Egyptian Youth National team Young Pharaohs won the Bronze Medal of the 2001 FIFA youth world cup in Argentina. Egypt was 4th place in the football tournament in the 1928 and the 1964 Olympics.
+
+Squash and tennis are other popular sports in Egypt. The Egyptian squash team has been competitive in international championships since the 1930s. Amr Shabana and Ramy Ashour are Egypt's best players and both were ranked the world's number one squash player. Egypt has won the Squash World Championships four times, with the last title being in 2017.
+
+In 1999, Egypt hosted the IHF World Men's Handball Championship, and will host it again in 2021. In 2001, the national handball team achieved its best result in the tournament by reaching fourth place. Egypt has won in the African Men's Handball Championship five times, being the best team in Africa. In addition to that, it also championed the Mediterranean Games in 2013, the Beach Handball World Championships in 2004 and the Summer Youth Olympics in 2010.
+Among all African nations, the Egypt national basketball team holds the record for best performance at the Basketball World Cup and at the Summer Olympics.[279][280] Further, the team has won a record number of 16 medals at the African Championship.
+
+Egypt has taken part in the Summer Olympic Games since 1912 and hosted and Alexandria h the first Mediterranean Games in 1951. Egypt has hosted several international competitions. The last one being the 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup which took place between 24 September – 16 October 2009.
+
+On Friday 19 September 2014, Guinness World Records announced that Egyptian scuba diver Ahmed Gabr is the new title holder for deepest salt water scuba dive, at 332.35 metres (1,090.4 feet).[281] Ahmed set a new world record Friday when he reached a depth of more than 1,000 feet (300 metres). The 14-hour feat took Gabr 1,066 feet (325 metres) down into the abyss near the Egyptian town of Dahab in the Red Sea, where he works as a diving instructor.[282]
+
+On 1 September 2015 Raneem El Weleily was ranked as the world number one woman squash player.[283] Other female Egyptian squash players include Nour El Tayeb, Omneya Abdel Kawy, Nouran Gohar and Nour El Sherbini.
+
+The wired and wireless telecommunication industry in Egypt started in 1854 with the launch of the country's first telegram line connecting Cairo and Alexandria. The first telephone line between the two cities was installed in 1881.[284] In September 1999 a national project for a technological renaissance was announced reflecting the commitment of the Egyptian government to developing the country's IT-sector.
+
+Egypt Post is the company responsible for postal service in Egypt. Established in 1865, it is one of the oldest governmental institutions in the country. Egypt is one of 21 countries that contributed to the establishment of the Universal Postal Union, initially named the General Postal Union, as signatory of the Treaty of Bern.
+
+In September 2018, Egypt ratified the law granting authorities the right to monitor social media users in the country as part of tightening internet controls.[285][286]
+
+The illiteracy rate has decreased since 1996 from 39.4 to 25.9 percent in 2013. The adult literacy rate as of July 2014[update] was estimated at 73.9%.[287] The illiteracy rate is highest among those over 60 years of age being estimated at around 64.9%, while illiteracy among youth between 15 and 24 years of age was listed at 8.6 percent.[288]
+
+A European-style education system was first introduced in Egypt by the Ottomans in the early 19th century to nurture a class of loyal bureaucrats and army officers.[289] Under British occupation investment in education was curbed drastically, and secular public schools, which had previously been free, began to charge fees.[289]
+
+In the 1950s, President Nasser phased in free education for all Egyptians.[289] The Egyptian curriculum influenced other Arab education systems, which often employed Egyptian-trained teachers.[289] Demand soon outstripped the level of available state resources, causing the quality of public education to deteriorate.[289] Today this trend has culminated in poor teacher–student ratios (often around one to fifty) and persistent gender inequality.[289]
+
+Basic education, which includes six years of primary and three years of preparatory school, is a right for Egyptian children from the age of six.[290] After grade 9, students are tracked into one of two strands of secondary education: general or technical schools. General secondary education prepares students for further education, and graduates of this track normally join higher education institutes based on the results of the Thanaweya Amma, the leaving exam.[290]
+
+Technical secondary education has two strands, one lasting three years and a more advanced education lasting five. Graduates of these schools may have access to higher education based on their results on the final exam, but this is generally uncommon.[290]
+
+Cairo University is ranked as 401–500 according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking)[291] and 551–600 according to QS World University Rankings. American University in Cairo is ranked as 360 according to QS World University Rankings and Al-Azhar University, Alexandria University and Ain Shams University fall in the 701+ range.[292]
+Egypt is currently opening new research institutes for the aim of modernising research in the nation, the most recent example of which is Zewail City of Science and Technology.
+
+Egyptian life expectancy at birth was 73.20 years in 2011, or 71.30 years for males and 75.20 years for females. Egypt spends 3.7 percent of its gross domestic product on health including treatment costs 22 percent incurred by citizens and the rest by the state.[293] In 2010, spending on healthcare accounted for 4.66% of the country's GDP. In 2009, there were 16.04 physicians and 33.80 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants.[294]
+
+As a result of modernisation efforts over the years, Egypt's healthcare system has made great strides forward. Access to healthcare in both urban and rural areas greatly improved and immunisation programs are now able to cover 98% of the population. Life expectancy increased from 44.8 years during the 1960s to 72.12 years in 2009. There was a noticeable decline of the infant mortality rate (during the 1970s to the 1980s the infant mortality rate was 101-132/1000 live births, in 2000 the rate was 50-60/1000, and in 2008 it was 28-30/1000).[295]
+
+According to the World Health Organization in 2008, an estimated 91.1% of Egypt's girls and women aged 15 to 49 have been subjected to genital mutilation,[296] despite being illegal in the country. In 2016 the law was amended to impose tougher penalties on those convicted of performing the procedure, pegging the highest jail term at 15 years. Those who escort victims to the procedure can also face jail terms up to 3 years.[297]
+
+The total number of Egyptians with health insurance reached 37 million in 2009, of which 11 million are minors, providing an insurance coverage of approximately 52 percent of Egypt's population.[298]

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+Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball)[3] is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.
+
+Modern handball is played on a court of 40 by 20 metres (131 by 66 ft), with a goal in the middle of each end. The goals are surrounded by a 6-meter (20 ft) zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while "diving" into it. The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball, Czech handball (which were more common in the past) and beach handball. The game is fast and high-scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Players may score hat tricks. Body contact is permitted for the defenders trying to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. No protective equipment is mandated, but players may wear soft protective bands, pads and mouth guards.[4]
+
+The game was codified at the end of the 19th century in Denmark. The modern set of rules was published on 29 October 1917 in Berlin, which is seen as the date of birth of the sport,[5][1] and had several revisions since. The first official handball match was played in the same year in Germany.[1] The first international games were played under these rules for men in 1925 and for women in 1930. Men's handball was first played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as outdoors, and the next time at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich as indoors, and has been an Olympic sport since. Women's team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
+
+The International Handball Federation was formed in 1946 and, as of 2016[update], has 197 member federations.[6] The sport is most popular in Europe, and European countries have won all medals but one in the men's world championships since 1938. In the women's world championships, only two non-European countries have won the title: South Korea and Brazil. The game also enjoys popularity in East Asia, North Africa and parts of South America.
+
+Games similar to handball were played in Ancient Greece and are represented on amphoras and stone carvings. Although detailed textual reference is rare, there are numerous descriptions of ball games being played where players throw the ball to one another; sometimes this is done in order to avoid interception by a player on the opposing team. Such games were played widely and served as both a form of exercise and a social event.[7]
+
+There is evidence of ancient Roman women playing a version of handball called expulsim ludere.[8] There are records of handball-like games in medieval France, and among the Inuit in Greenland, in the Middle Ages. By the 19th century, there existed similar games of håndbold from Denmark, házená in the Czech Republic, handbol in Ukraine, and torball in Germany.[9]
+
+The team handball game of today was codified at the end of the 19th century in northern Europe: primarily in Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden. The first written set of team handball rules was published in 1906 by the Danish gym teacher, lieutenant and Olympic medalist Holger Nielsen from Ordrup grammar school, north of Copenhagen. The modern set of rules was published on 29 October 1917 by Max Heiser, Karl Schelenz, and Erich Konigh from Berlin, Germany. 29 October 1917 is therefore seen as the "date of birth" of the sport.[5][1] The first ever official handball match was played on 2 December 1917 in Berlin.[1] After 1919 the rules were improved by Karl Schelenz. The first international games were played under these rules, between Germany and Belgium by men in 1925 and between Germany and Austria by women in 1930.
+
+In 1926, the Congress of the International Amateur Athletics Federation nominated a committee to draw up international rules for field handball. The International Amateur Handball Federation was formed in 1928 and later the International Handball Federation was formed in 1946.
+
+Men's field handball was played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. During the next several decades, indoor handball flourished and evolved in the Scandinavian countries. The sport re-emerged onto the world stage as team handball for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Women's team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Due to its popularity in the region, the Eastern European countries that refined the event became the dominant force in the sport when it was reintroduced.
+
+The International Handball Federation organised the men's world championship in 1938 and every four (sometimes three) years from World War II to 1995. Since the 1995 world championship in Iceland, the competition has been held every two years. The women's world championship has been held since 1957. The IHF also organizes women's and men's junior world championships. By July 2009, the IHF listed 166 member federations - approximately 795,000 teams and 19 million players.
+
+The rules are laid out in the IHF's set of rules.[10]
+
+Two teams of seven players (six field players plus one goalkeeper) take the field and attempt to score points by putting the game ball into the opposing team's goal. In handling the ball, players are subject to the following restrictions:
+
+Notable scoring opportunities can occur when attacking players jump into the goal area. For example, an attacking player may catch a pass while launching inside the goal area, and then shoot or pass before touching the floor. Doubling occurs when a diving attacking player passes to another diving teammate.
+
+Handball is played on a court 40 by 20 metres (131 ft × 66 ft), with a goal in the centre of each end. The goals are surrounded by a near-semicircular area, called the zone or the crease, defined by a line six meters from the goal. A dashed near-semicircular line nine metres from the goal marks the free-throw line. Each line on the court is part of the area it encompasses. This implies that the middle line belongs to both halves at the same time.
+
+The goals are two meters high and three meters wide. They must be securely bolted either to the floor or the wall behind.
+
+The goal posts and the crossbar must be made out of the same material (e.g., wood or aluminium) and feature a quadratic cross section with sides of 8 cm (3 in). The three sides of the beams visible from the playing field must be painted alternatingly in two contrasting colors which both have to contrast against the background. The colors on both goals must be the same.
+
+Each goal must feature a net. This must be fastened in such a way that a ball thrown into the goal does not leave or pass the goal under normal circumstances. If necessary, a second net may be clasped to the back of the net on the inside.
+
+The goals are surrounded by the crease. This area is delineated by two quarter circles with a radius of six metres around the far corners of each goal post and a connecting line parallel to the goal line. Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed inside this zone. However, the court players may catch and touch the ball in the air within it as long as the player starts his jump outside the zone and releases the ball before he lands (landing inside the perimeter is allowed in this case as long as the ball has been released).
+
+If a player without the ball contacts the ground inside the goal perimeter, or the line surrounding the perimeter, he must take the most direct path out of it. However, should a player cross the zone in an attempt to gain an advantage (e.g., better position) their team cedes the ball. Similarly, violation of the zone by a defending player is penalized only if they do so in order to gain an advantage in defending.
+
+Outside of one long edge of the court to both sides of the middle line are the substitution areas for each team. Team officials, substitutes, and suspended players must wait within this area. A team's area is the same side as the goal the team is defending; during halftime, substitution areas are swapped. Any player entering or leaving the play must cross the substitution line which is part of the side line and extends 4.5 metres (15 ft) from the middle line to the team's side.
+
+A standard match has two 30-minute halves with a 10- or 15-minute (major Championships/Olympics) halftime intermission. At half-time, teams switch sides of the court as well as benches. For youths, the length of the halves is reduced—25 minutes at ages 12 to 15, and 20 minutes at ages 8 to 11; though national federations of some countries may differ in their implementation from the official guidelines.[11]
+
+If a decision must be reached in a particular match (e.g., in a tournament) and it ends in a draw after regular time, there are at maximum two overtimes, each consisting of two straight 5-minute periods with a one-minute break in between. Should these not decide the game either, the winning team is determined in a penalty shootout (best-of-five rounds; if still tied, extra rounds are added until one team wins).
+
+The referees may call timeout according to their sole discretion; typical reasons are injuries, suspensions, or court cleaning. Penalty throws should trigger a timeout only for lengthy delays, such as a change of the goalkeeper.
+
+Since 2012, teams can call 3 team timeouts per game (up to two per half), which last one minute each. This right may only be invoked by the team in possession of the ball. Team representatives must show a green card marked with a black T on the timekeeper's desk. The timekeeper then immediately interrupts the game by sounding an acoustic signal to stop the clock. Before 2012,  teams were allowed only one timeout per half. For the purpose of calling timeouts, overtime and shootouts are extensions of the second half.
+
+A handball match is adjudicated by two equal referees. Some national bodies allow games with only a single referee in special cases like illness on short notice. Should the referees disagree on any occasion, a decision is made on mutual agreement during a short timeout; or, in case of punishments, the more severe of the two comes into effect. The referees are obliged to make their decisions "on the basis of their observations of facts".[12] Their judgements are final and can be appealed against only if not in compliance with the rules.
+
+The referees position themselves in such a way that the team players are confined between them. They stand diagonally aligned so that each can observe one side line. Depending on their positions, one is called field referee and the other goal referee. These positions automatically switch on ball turnover. They physically exchange their positions approximately every 10 minutes (long exchange), and change sides every five minutes (short exchange).
+
+The IHF defines 18 hand signals for quick visual communication with players and officials. The signal for warning is accompanied by a yellow card.[13] A disqualification for the game is indicated by a red card,[14] followed by a blue card if the disqualification will be accompanied by a report.[15] The referees also use whistle blows to indicate infractions or to restart the play.
+
+The referees are supported by a scorekeeper and a timekeeper who attend to formal things such as keeping track of goals and suspensions, or starting and stopping the clock, respectively. They also keep an eye on the benches and notify the referees on substitution errors. Their desk is located between the two substitution areas.
+
+Each team consists of seven players on court and seven substitute players on the bench. One player on the court must be the designated goalkeeper, differing in his clothing from the rest of the field players. Substitution of players can be done in any number and at any time during game play. An exchange takes place over the substitution line. A prior notification of the referees is not necessary.
+
+Some national bodies, such as the Deutsche Handball Bund (DHB, "German Handball Federation"), allow substitution in junior teams only when in ball possession or during timeouts. This restriction is intended to prevent early specialization of players to offence or defence.
+
+Field players are allowed to touch the ball with any part of their bodies above and including the knee. As in several other team sports, a distinction is made between catching and dribbling. A player who is in possession of the ball may stand stationary for only three seconds, and may take only three steps. They must then either shoot, pass, or dribble the ball. Taking more than three steps at any time is considered travelling, and results in a turnover. A player may dribble as many times as they want (though, since passing is faster, it is the preferred method of attack), as long as during each dribble the hand contacts only the top of the ball. Therefore, carrying is completely prohibited, and results in a turnover. After the dribble is picked up, the player has the right to another three seconds or three steps. The ball must then be passed or shot, as further holding or dribbling will result in a double dribble turnover and a free throw for the other team. Other offensive infractions that result in a turnover include charging and setting an illegal screen. Carrying the ball into the six-meter zone results either in ball possession by the goalkeeper (by attacker) or turnover (by defender).
+
+Only the goalkeepers are allowed to move freely within the goal perimeter, although they may not cross the goal perimeter line while carrying or dribbling the ball. Within the zone, they are allowed to touch the ball with all parts of their bodies, including their feet, with a defensive aim (for other actions, they are subject to the same restrictions as the field players). The goalkeepers may participate in the normal play of their teammates. They may be substituted by a regular field player if their team elects to use this scheme in order to outnumber the defending players. Earlier, this field player become the designated goalkeeper on the court; and had to wear some vest or bib to be identified as such. That shirt had to be equal in colour and form to the goalkeeper's shirt, to avoid confusion. A rule change meant to make the game more offensive now allows any player to substitute with the goalkeeper. The new rule resembles the one used in ice hockey. This rule was first used in the women's world championship in December 2015 and has since been used by the men's European championship in January 2016 and by both genders in the Olympic tournament in Rio in 2016.
+
+If either goalkeeper deflects the ball over the outer goal line, their team stays in possession of the ball, in contrast to other sports like football. The goalkeeper resumes the play with a throw from within the zone ("goalkeeper throw"). Passing to one's own goalkeeper results in a turnover. In a penalty shot, throwing the ball against the head of a goalkeeper who is not moving risks a direct disqualification ("red card").
+
+Outside of own D-zone, the goalkeeper is treated as a current field player, and has to follow field players' rules; holding or tackling an opponent player outside the area risks a direct disqualification.[clarification needed] The goalkeeper may not return to the area with the ball.
+
+Each team is allowed to have a maximum of four team officials seated on the benches. An official is anybody who is neither player nor substitute. One official must be the designated representative who is usually the team manager. Since 2012, representatives can call up to 3 team timeouts (up to twice per half), and may address the scorekeeper, timekeeper, and referees (before that, it was once per half); overtime and shootouts are considered extensions of the second half. Other officials typically include physicians or managers. Neither official is allowed to enter the playing court without the permission of the referees.
+
+The ball is spherical and must be made either of leather or a synthetic material. It is not allowed to have a shiny or slippery surface. As the ball is intended to be operated by a single hand, its official sizes vary depending on age and gender of the participating teams.
+
+The referees may award a special throw to a team. This usually happens after certain events such as scored goals, off-court balls, turnovers and timeouts. All of these special throws require the thrower to obtain a certain position, and pose restrictions on the positions of all other players. Sometimes the execution must wait for a whistle blow by the referee.
+
+Penalties are given to players, in progressive format, for fouls that require more punishment than just a free-throw. Actions directed mainly at the opponent and not the ball (such as reaching around, holding, pushing, tripping, and jumping into opponent) as well as contact from the side, from behind a player or impeding the opponent's counterattack are all considered illegal and are subject to penalty. Any infraction that prevents a clear scoring opportunity will result in a seven-meter penalty shot.
+
+Typically the referee will give a warning yellow card for an illegal action; but, if the contact was particularly dangerous, like striking the opponent in the head, neck or throat, the referee can forego the warning for an immediate two-minute suspension. Players are warned once before given a yellow card; they risk being red-carded if they draw three yellows.
+
+A red card results in an ejection from the game and a two-minute penalty for the team. A player may receive a red card directly for particularly rough penalties. For instance, any contact from behind during a fast break is now being treated with a red card; as does any deliberate intent to injure opponents. A red-carded player has to leave the playing area completely. A player who is disqualified may be substituted with another player after the two-minute penalty is served. A coach or official can also be penalized progressively. Any coach or official who receives a two-minute suspension will have to pull out one of their players for two minutes; however, the player is not the one punished, and can be substituted in again, as the penalty consists of the team playing with one fewer player than the opposing team.
+
+After referees award the ball to the opponents for whatever reason, the player currently in possession of the ball has to lay it down quickly, or risk a two-minute suspension. Also, gesticulating or verbally questioning the referee's order, as well as arguing with the officials' decisions, will normally risk a yellow card. If the suspended player protests further, does not walk straight off the field to the bench, or if the referee deems the tempo deliberately slow, that player risks a double yellow card. Illegal substitution (outside of the dedicated area, or if the replacement player enters too early) is prohibited; if they do, they risk a yellow card.
+
+Players are typically referred to by the positions they are playing. The positions are always denoted from the view of the respective goalkeeper, so that a defender on the right opposes an attacker on the left. However, not all of the following positions may be occupied depending on the formation or potential suspensions.
+
+Sometimes, the offense uses formations with two pivot players.
+
+There are many variations in defensive formations. Usually, they are described as n:m formations, where n is the number of players defending at the goal line and m the number of players defending more offensive. Exceptions are the 3:2:1 defense and n+m formation (e.g. 5+1), where m players defend some offensive player in man coverage (instead of the usual zone coverage).
+
+Attacks are played with all field players on the side of the defenders. Depending on the speed of the attack, one distinguishes between three attack waves with a decreasing chance of success:
+
+The third wave evolves into the normal offensive play when all defenders not only reach the zone, but gain their accustomed positions. Some teams then substitute specialised offence players. However, this implies that these players must play in the defence should the opposing team be able to switch quickly to offence. The latter is another benefit for fast playing teams.
+
+If the attacking team does not make sufficient progress (eventually releasing a shot on goal), the referees can call passive play (since about 1995, the referee gives a passive warning some time before the actual call by holding one hand up in the air, signalling that the attacking team should release a shot soon), turning control over to the other team. A shot on goal or an infringement leading to a yellow card or two-minute penalty will mark the start of a new attack, causing the hand to be taken down; but a shot blocked by the defense or a normal free throw will not. If it were not for this rule, it would be easy for an attacking team to stall the game indefinitely, as it is difficult to intercept a pass without at the same time conceding dangerous openings towards the goal.
+
+The usual formations of the defense are 6–0, when all the defense players line up between the 6-metre (20 ft) and 9-metre (30 ft) lines to form a wall; the 5–1, when one of the players cruises outside the 9-metre (30 ft) perimeter, usually targeting the center forwards while the other 5 line up on the 6-metre (20 ft) line; and the less common 4–2 when there are two such defenders out front. Very fast teams will also try a 3–3 formation which is close to a switching man-to-man style. The formations vary greatly from country to country, and reflect each country's style of play. 6–0 is sometimes known as "flat defense", and all other formations are usually called "offensive defense".
+
+Handball teams are usually organised as clubs. On a national level, the clubs are associated in federations which organize matches in leagues and tournaments.
+
+The International Handball Federation (IHF) is the administrative and controlling body for international handball. Handball is an Olympic sport played during the Summer Olympics.[16]
+
+The IHF organizes world championships, held in odd-numbered years, with separate competitions for men and women.[17]
+The IHF World Men's Handball Championship 2019 title holders are Denmark.[18] The IHF World Women's Handball Championship 2019 title holders are Netherlands.[19]
+
+The IHF is composed of five continental federations: Asian Handball Federation, African Handball Confederation, Pan-American Team Handball Federation, European Handball Federation and Oceania Handball Federation. These federations organize continental championships held every other second year. Handball is played during the Pan American Games,[20] All-Africa Games,[21] and Asian Games.[16] It is also played at the Mediterranean Games. In addition to continental competitions between national teams, the federations arrange international tournaments between club teams.[22]
+
+The current worldwide attendance record for seven-a-side handball was set on September 6, 2014, during a neutral venue German league game between HSV Hamburg and the Mannheim-based Rhein-Neckar Lions.[23] The matchup drew 44,189 spectators to Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, exceeding the previous record of 36,651 set at Copenhagen's Parken Stadium during the 2011 Danish Cup final.[23]
+
+Handball events have been selected as a main motif in numerous collectors' coins. One of the recent samples is the €10 Greek Handball commemorative coin, minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics. On the coin, the modern athlete directs the ball in his hands towards his target, while in the background the ancient athlete is just about to throw a ball, in a game known as cheirosphaira, in a representation taken from a black-figure pottery vase of the Archaic period.[24]
+
+The most recent commemorative coin featuring handball is the British 50 pence coin, part of the series of coins commemorating the London 2012 Olympic Games.[25]
+
+Notes
+
+Media related to Handball at Wikimedia Commons
+

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+
+Le Havre (/lə ˈhɑːv(rə)/,[5][6][7] French: [lə ɑvʁ(ə)] (listen); Norman: Lé Hâvre) is an urban French commune and city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northwestern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux. Le Havre is the most populous commune of Upper Normandy, although the total population of the greater Le Havre conurbation is smaller than that of Rouen. After Reims, it is also the second largest subprefecture in France. The name Le Havre means "the harbour" or "the port". Its inhabitants are known as Havrais or Havraises.[8]
+
+The city and port were founded by King Francis I in 1517. Economic development in the Early modern period was hampered by religious wars, conflicts with the English, epidemics, and storms. It was from the end of the 18th century that Le Havre started growing and the port took off first with the slave trade then other international trade. After the 1944 bombings the firm of Auguste Perret began to rebuild the city in concrete. The oil, chemical, and automotive industries were dynamic during the Trente Glorieuses (postwar boom) but the 1970s marked the end of the golden age of ocean liners and the beginning of the economic crisis: the population declined, unemployment increased and remains at a high level today.
+
+Changes in years 1990–2000 were numerous. The right won the municipal elections and committed the city to the path of reconversion, seeking to develop the service sector and new industries (Aeronautics, Wind turbines). The Port 2000 project increased the container capacity to compete with ports of northern Europe, transformed the southern districts of the city, and ocean liners returned. Modern Le Havre remains deeply influenced by its employment and maritime traditions. Its port is the second largest in France, after that of Marseille, for total traffic, and the largest French container port.
+
+In 2005, UNESCO inscribed the central city of Le Havre as a World Heritage Site. The André Malraux Modern Art Museum is the second of France for the number of impressionist paintings. The city has been awarded two flowers by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.[9]
+
+Le Havre is located 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Rouen on the shore of the English Channel and at the mouth of the Seine. Numerous roads link to Le Havre with the main access roads being the A29 autoroute from Amiens and the A13 autoroute from Paris linking to the A131 autoroute.
+
+Administratively, Le Havre is a commune in the Normandy region in the west of the department of Seine-Maritime. The urban area of Le Havre corresponds roughly to the territory of the Agglomeration community of Le Havre (CODAH)[10] which includes 17 communes and 250,000 people.[11] It occupies the south-western tip of the natural region of Pays de Caux where it is the largest city. Le Havre is sandwiched between the coast of the Channel from south-west to north-west and the estuary of the Seine to the south.
+
+Le Havre belongs to the Paris Basin which was formed in the Mesozoic period. The Paris Basin consists of sedimentary rocks. The commune of Le Havre consists of two areas separated by a natural cliff edge: one part in the lower part of the town to the south including the harbour, the city centre and the suburbs. It was built on former marshland and mudflats that were drained in the 16th century.[13] The soil consists of several metres of alluvium or silt deposited by the Seine.[13] The city centre was rebuilt after the Second World War using a metre of flattened rubble as a foundation.[14][15]
+
+The upper town to the north, is part of the cauchois plateau: the neighbourhood of Dollemard is its highest point (between 90 to 115 metres (295 to 377 feet) above sea level). The plateau is covered with a layer of flinty clay and a fertile silt.[16] The bedrock consists of a large thickness of chalk measuring up to 200 m (656 ft) deep.[17] Because of the slope the coast is affected by the risk of landslides.[18]
+
+Due to its location on the coast of the Channel, the climate of Le Havre is temperate oceanic. Days without wind are rare. There are maritime influences throughout the year. According to the records of the meteorological station of the Cap de la Heve (from 1961 to 1990), the temperature drops below 0 °C (32 °F) on 24.9 days per year and it rises above 25 °C (77 °F) on 11.3 days per year. The average annual sunshine duration is 1,785.8 hours per year.[19]
+
+Precipitation is distributed throughout the year, with a maximum in autumn and winter. The months of June and July are marked by some thunderstorms on average 2 days per month.[19] One of the characteristics of the region is the high variability of the temperature, even during the day.[20] The prevailing winds are from the southwest sector for strong winds and north-north-east for breezes,[21] snowstorms occur in winter, especially in January and February.[19]
+
+The absolute speed record for wind at Le Havre – Cap de la Heve was recorded on 16 October 1987 at 180 kilometres per hour (112 miles per hour).[19]
+
+The main natural hazards are floods, storms, and storm surges. The lower town is subject to a rising water table.[22] The lack of watercourses within the commune prevents flooding from overflows. Le Havre's beach may rarely experience flooding known as "flooding from storms". These are caused by the combination of strong winds, high waves, and a large tidal range.
+
+Weather Data for Le Havre
+
+A study by Aphekom comparing ten large French cities showed that Le Havre is the least polluted urban commune of France.[27] Le Havre is also the third best city in France with more than 100,000 inhabitants for air quality.[28] A Carbon accounting showed in 2009 that the municipality ejected some 32,500 tonnes of CO2 per year.[29] In 2011 the average annual emissions of sulfur dioxide by industry was between three micrograms per cubic metre in the centre of Le Havre to twelve micrograms per cubic metre in the district of Caucriauville.[30]
+
+The municipality has set a target to reduce emissions of CO2 by 3% per year.[29] To achieve this solar panels have been installed on several municipal buildings (city hall, hanging gardens).[31] Since 2008, Le Havre has been part of the network of Energy Cities and, in this context, it applies the steps of Agenda 21 and an Environmental Approach to Urban Planning. The city has received many awards of eco-labels several times (Energy of the Future label in 2009–2011, sustainable Earth label in 2009). Since 1998, Le Havre's beach has received the Blue Flag yearly thanks to its range of facilities, which extend over 30,000 Sq. M.[32]
+
+Le Havre has kept extensive green areas (750 hectares or 41 Sq. M per inhabitant[31]): the two largest areas are the Montgeon Forest and Rouelles Park which are both located in the upper town. The gardens of the Priory of Graville and the hanging gardens offer views of the lower city. In the city centre, Saint-Roch Square and the City Hall Gardens provide the people with urban recreation areas. Various ecosystems are represented in the Beach Gardens and the Hauser Park (caves). Finally, the Plateau of Dollemard was classified as a "Sensitive Natural Area" of the department in 2001 to protect its landscape and ecosystems on the cliff.[31] The streets are lined with 13,000 trees of 150 different varieties.[33]
+
+For a long time Le Havre has exploited the strengths of its coastal location but also suffered from its relative isolation. This is why the accessibility of the city has been improved with the harbour highway A131 (E05) which links Le Havre to the A13 autoroute over Tancarville Bridge. The city is one hour from Rouen and one and a half-hour from Île-de-France.[34] More recently the A29 autoroute (E44) has connected Le Havre to the north of France and passes over the Normandy Bridge which makes Amiens (in the north-east) two hours away and Caen (in the south-west) one hour.
+
+The TER network was modernized with the creation of the LER line in 2001 and direct services to Fécamp in 2005. Thirteen Corail trains of the Paris–Le Havre line link stations at Bréauté-Beuzeville, Yvetot, and Rouen, with Paris Saint-Lazare station.[34] In addition there is a TGV daily service to Le Havre: it has connected the city to Marseille since December 2004 serving Rouen, Mantes-la-Jolie, Versailles, Massy, Lyon, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, and Saint Charles station in Marseilles.[34]
+
+No direct rail link connects Le Havre and Caen yet many projects – known as the "Southwest Line" – to link Le Havre to the left bank of the Seine downstream from Rouen, near the estuary of the river, were studied in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century but none have been realized. By public transport it is necessary to go to Rouen by train or bus (using No. 20 Green Bus). There is a Gray Coach to Etretat and Fécamp and there is VTNI for destinations in the Seine valley and Rouen who provide inter-urban services on behalf of the Department of Seine-Maritime. Finally, the company AirPlus provides a shuttle service to the train stations and airports of Paris.
+
+For air transport, there is Le Havre Octeville Airport which is located 5 km (3 mi) north of Le Havre at the town of Octeville-sur-Mer and managed by CODAH.
+
+The main destination is the Transport hub of Lyon. Many holiday destinations are offered each year (Tunisia, Balearic Islands, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, etc.) through local travel agencies that charter aircraft.[verification needed] There is also the Flying club Jean Maridor at the airport.
+
+The Channel maritime links with Portsmouth in southern England with P&O Ferries ended on 30 September 2005 to be taken over by LD Lines who have changed the configuration. Two services to Portsmouth are provided daily[34] from the Terminal de la Citadelle. The link to Ireland was moved to the port of Cherbourg.
+
+Crossing times to Portsmouth vary from five hours and thirty minutes to eight hours.[35] Popular alternative routes going to areas close to Le Havre include Newhaven to Dieppe, and Poole to Cherbourg.
+
+The city and the metropolitan area has a dense transport network. This solves the problem of a break between the lower town and the upper town and the two parts of the city are connected by long boulevards, winding roads, many stairs, a funicular, and finally the Jenner tunnel.
+
+The CODAH transport network is called Lia[36] and is operated by the Ocean Port Transport company (CTPO), a subsidiary of Veolia Transport. The overhaul of the bus network in 2008 helped to ensure a better service for all the towns in the metropolitan area. The CTPO operates a bus network consisting of 19 regular urban routes and six evening routes called the "Midnight Bus".[36] The Le Havre urban area is served by 165 vehicles and 41 regular bus routes with an average of 100,000 passengers per day.[36] From January 2011 there has been a regular shuttle service specific to the Industrial Zone and Port of Le Havre, thus adding to the cross-estuary service of VTNI.[34] Since 1890 the funicular has provided a link between the upper town and the lower town in four minutes with a cable car.[37]
+
+Le Havre had a tramway system from 1894 until it closed in 1957. More recently a new tramway system, with 23 stations and 13 km (8 mi) of route,[38] was built, and opened on 12 December 2012. The first part of the line connects the beach to the station climbing to the upper town through a new tunnel near the Jenner tunnel then it splits into two: one link going to Mont-Gaillard, the other to Caucriauville.
+
+Finally, since 2001 Le Havre agglomeration has operated the LER, a TER line connecting the Le Havre station to Rolleville passing through five other SNCF railway stations of the urban area.
+
+From 2005, development work for Segregated cycle facilities have increased including a connection to the Greenway which promises to be an important network of quality. Between 2007 and 2011, the total length of cycle paths has doubled to 46 km (29 mi) in total length.[31] It is possible to rent bicycles through agencies of the Océane bus or from the town hall (Vel-H)[37] which has them on hand. Finally, 140 taxis work in Le Havre and serve 25 stations.[39]
+
+Largely destroyed during the Second World War, the city was rebuilt according to the plans of the architect Auguste Perret between 1945 and 1964. Only the town hall and the Church of Saint Joseph (107m high) were personally designed by Auguste Perret. In commending the reconstruction work UNESCO listed the city of Le Havre on 15 July 2005 as a World Heritage Site.[40] This area of 133 hectares is one of the few inscribed contemporary sites in Europe.[40] The architecture of the area is characterized by the use of precast concrete using a system of a modular frame of 6.24 metres and straight lines.[40][41]
+
+Another notable architectural work of the central city is that of the House of Culture built in 1982 by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and nicknamed "the Volcano" because of the shape of the building.[42] From 2012, this place was refurbished both inside and outside with fairly significant changes approved by the architect including greater openness to the outside of the plaza.
+
+The Notre Dame and Perrey neighbourhoods are mainly residential. Les Halles is one of the commercial hubs of the city. The Saint Francis neighborhood was also rebuilt after 1945[citation needed] but in a radically different architectural style: the buildings are brick and have pitched slate roofs. This is the restaurant district and the fish market.
+
+To the east and north of the rebuilt central city are a stretch of old neighbourhoods (Danton, Saint-Vincent, Graville, Massillon, etc.) which were spared the bombings of World War II. The buildings, usually in brick, dated to the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The shops are concentrated along several major roads in the Rond-Point neighbourhood. During the 1990s and 2000s, these neighborhoods have seen major redevelopments, particularly in the context of an OPAH: improvement of habitat by rehabilitation or reconstruction, creation of public facilities, and revitalization of business.[43]
+
+At the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, the area around the railway station has undergone a major transformation. As the station is the gateway to the city with the main avenues intersecting here. New buildings have sprung up (University of Le Havre, the conservatory, headquarters of the SPB (Provident Society Bank), and of CMA CGM, Novotel, Matmut, new CCI) some of which were designed by renowned architects. The bus station, certified NF since 2005, has been refurbished. North of the station, another construction project in place of the dilapidated island of Turgot-Magellan will be opened in 2013,[44] including 12,500 m2 (135,000 sq ft) of office space and an eight-storey hotel, complete with shops on the ground-floor.
+
+The southern districts of Le Havre are mainly used for industrial and port activities. There are buildings in brick from the 19th century, large developments (Chicago, Les Neiges), worker estates, SMEs, warehouses, dock and port facilities, and transport infrastructure.[citation needed]
+
+The southern districts have for some years experienced profound change due to European funding. It is revitalizing areas neglected by industrial and port activities by developing tertiary activities. Thus, the docks have been completely transformed into sports and entertainment complexes (Dock Océane), a mall (Docks Vauban), and an exhibition hall (Docks Café). Les Bains Des Docks was designed by the architect Jean Nouvel. At the end of 2012 students from Sciences-Po Europe Asia and from INSA integrated new buildings next to the ISEL (Higher Institute of logistics studies) and the future ENSM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure Maritime).[45] The new medical axis around the new Clinic des Ormeaux was built in the neighbourhoods where many homes are planned with the aim of promoting social mix. The City of the Sea and of Sustainable Development (Odyssey 21) will be organized around a metal tower one hundred metres high designed by Jean Nouvel: the project was suspended in 2007 but the work should finally begin in 2013.[46] The municipality has to attract some 300,000 visitors per year.[47]
+
+The upper town is composed of three parts: the "coast", the suburban districts of the plateau, and large peripheral housing estates.
+
+The neighbourhoods on the "coast" (the Dead Cliff) are residential – more prosperous in the western part (Les Ormeaux, Rue Felix Faure) and more modest to the east (St. Cecilia, Aplemont). The Jenner tunnel passes under the "coast" and connects the upper town to the lower town. It is also on the coast that there are two fortifications of the city, Forts Sainte-Adresse and Tourneville, and the main cemetery (Sainte-Marie cenetery). With the demise of the military functions of the city, the forts are gradually being converted: Fort Sainte-Adresse houses the Hanging Gardens and Fort Tourneville hosted the Tetris project in 2013 – an axis of contemporary music with concert halls and rehearsal studios.[48]
+
+To the north of the "coast" suburban districts such as Rouelles, Sainte-Cecile, la Mare au Clerc, Sanvic, Bleville, and Dollemard were developed during the first half of the 19th century.[49] In their extension North-west between Bleville and Octeville airport a new area is being developed: "Les Hauts de Bleville". This eco-district made up of housing units to HQE standards, a Joint Development Area (ZAC), and a school should have a total of 1,000 housing units.[50]
+
+The peripheral suburbs of the commune grew in the postwar period. These are large housing estates in Caucriauville, Bois de Bleville, Mont-Gaillard, and Mare-rouge where a disadvantaged population is concentrated. In October 2004 the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU) signed with the municipality of Havre the first agreement to finance the rehabilitation of these areas. This finance agreement provides more than 340 million euros for the housing estates in the northern districts, where about 41,000 people reside. This development extends the budget for the Grand Projet de Ville (GPV). It allows the demolition and rebuilding of more than 1,700 homes.
+
+When founded in 1517, the city was named Franciscopolis after Francis I of France. It was subsequently named Le Havre-de-Grâce ("Harbor of Grace"; hence Havre de Grace, Maryland). Its construction was ordered to replace the ancient harbours of Honfleur and Harfleur whose utility had decreased due to silting.
+
+The history of the city is inextricably linked to its harbour. In the 18th century, as trade from the West Indies was added to that of France and Europe, Le Havre began to grow.  On 19 November 1793, the city changed its name to Hâvre de Marat and later Hâvre-Marat in honor of the recently deceased Jean-Paul Marat, who was seen as a martyr of the French Revolution.  By early 1795, however, Marat's memory had become somewhat tarnished, and on 13 January 1795, Hâvre-Marat changed its name once more to simply Le Havre, its modern name. During the 19th century, it became an industrial center.
+
+At the end of World War I Le Havre played a major role as the transit port used to wind up affairs after the war.[51]
+
+The city was devastated during the Battle of Normandy when 5,000 people were killed and 12,000 homes were totally destroyed before its capture in Operation Astonia. The center was rebuilt in a modernist style by Auguste Perret.
+
+The name of the town was attested in 1489, even before it was founded by François I in the form le Hable de Grace then Ville de Grace in 1516, two years before its official founding.[52] The learned and transient name of Franciscopolis in tribute to the same king, is encountered in some documents then that of Havre Marat, referring to Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution but was not imposed. However it explains why the complementary determinant -de-Grace was not restored.[52] This qualifier undoubtedly referred to the Chapel of Notre Dame located at the site of the cathedral of the same name. The chapel faced the Chapel Notre Dame de Grace of Honfleur across the estuary.[52] The common noun havre meaning "port" was out of use at the end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th centuries but is still preserved in the phrase havre de paix meaning "safe haven". It is generally considered a loan from Middle Dutch from the 12th century.[53] A Germanic origin can explain the "aspiration" of the initial h.
+
+New research however focuses on the fact that the term was attested very early (12th century) and in Norman texts in the forms Hable, hafne, havene, havne, and haule makes a Dutch origin unlikely. By contrast, a Scandinavian etymology is relevant given the old Scandinavian höfn (genitive hafnar) or hafn meaning "natural harbour" or "haven" and the phonetic evolution of the term étrave which is assuredly of Scandinavian origin is also attested in similar forms such as estable and probably dates back to the ancient Scandinavian stafn.[54]
+
+Le Havre is one of two sub-prefectures of Seine-Maritime and the second largest subprefecture in France after Reims. It is also the capital of the Arrondissement of Le Havre which includes 20 Cantons and 176 communes.[55] It is also the largest member of the Le Havre Seine Métropole.
+
+The city of Le Havre is divided into nine Cantons as shown in the following table with the councillors in 2011:[56]
+
+For the parliamentary elections, Le Havre spans two constituencies: the seventh (cantons I, V, VI, and VII) and the eighth (cantons II, III, IV, VIII, IX).[57]
+
+Several politicians have spent part of their lives in the city: Jules Lecesne (1818–1878), Jules Siegfried (1837–1922), and Félix Faure (1841–1899) were elected as municipal councillors and MPs. A pool, a shopping centre and a street have been named after René Coty from Le Havre, who served as President of the French Republic from 1954 to 1959. Christine Lagarde (born 1956) attended high schools in Le Havre before becoming Minister of the Economy and Director-General of the International Monetary Fund in 2011.
+
+Since 23 October 2010 the mayor has been Édouard Philippe (UMP). He also holds the presidency of the CODAH and has held a seat in the National Assembly for the 7th district of Seine-Maritime since 2012.[58] He succeeded Antoine Rufenacht (UMP), who was mayor of Le Havre for fifteen years before resigning, as the head of the municipality. The city of Le Havre has long been the strongest bastion of the Communist Party of France, who directed it from 1956 to 1995.[59] Overall, the inhabitants of Le Havre in the 7th electoral district (city centre and western neighbourhoods) tend to vote for the right while those of the 8th electoral district (eastern neighbourhoods) tend to choose the candidate of the left. For example, in the presidential election of 2007, the 7th electoral district voted for Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) by 55.05% against 44.95% for Ségolène Royal (PS) while in the 8th electoral district 55.02% voted for the Socialist candidate.[60][61] However, the results of the 2012 presidential elections gave the PS wins in both districts with a smaller margin in the 7th (Hollande: 51.71% / Sarkozy: 48.29%) than in the 8th (Hollande 64.21% / Sarkozy: 35.79%).[60][61]
+
+The number of inhabitants in Le Havre is between 150,000 and 199,999 so the number of councillors is 59 members. The mayor, 41 aldermen and 17 deputies form the council of Le Havre elected in 2008.[62] It meets on average once a month at the town hall. The debates are generally public except for certain proceedings.[62]
+
+Le Havre has experienced many territorial extensions by annexing neighbouring communes:
+
+List of Successive Mayors of Le Havre from the French Revolution to 1940[63]
+
+The Le Havre Palace of Justice is located on the Boulevard de Strasbourg. With its annex, it includes a high court, a juvenile court, and a commercial court. The city also has a Labour Court and District Court. Among the legal services offered there are legal aid services and the application of penalties. Le Havre depends on the Court of Appeal of Rouen. The prison, which dates from the Second Empire, was completely destroyed in 2012. The new prison for Le Havre was completed in 2010 at Saint-Aubin-Routot east of the Le Havre agglomeration. It has an area of 32,000 m2 on a site of 15 hectares and can accommodate 690 people.[64]
+
+The Hospital Group of Havre is a public health facility managed by a Supervisory Board chaired by the Mayor of Le Havre. Its main structures are Flaubert Hospital (the oldest, located downtown), the Monod Hospital (in Montivilliers), the Pierre Janet Hospital (psychiatry), the house for adolescents, day hospitals, and seniors' residences. It is the largest employer in the CODAH. Built in 1987, the Jacques Monod Hospital offers a full range of care in medicine, surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics, geriatrics, mental health follow-up care, rehabilitation, reintegration, and public health.
+
+Finally, there are several private clinics that offer complete care: the private clinic of the Estuary groups together the old clinics of Petit Colmoulins and François I. The private clinic of Ormeaux is located in the neighbourhood of Eure.
+
+During the first half of the 20th century, the 129th regiment of infantry of the line was stationed at Le Havre and left an important mark on the city so a street was named after them. The 74th Infantry Regiment of commandos was present from 1963 to 1976. Finally, Le Havre is the godmother city for BPC Mistral. The ceremony was held at the City Hall on 15 November 2009, during a stopover at the Building.[65]
+
+Le Havre is twinned with:[66]
+
+Le Havre experienced a population boom in the second half of the 19th century. Subsequently, the population drain of the First World War was offset by the annexation of the town of Graville (the city gained 27,215 people between 1911 and 1921). During the Second World War the population decreased significantly (a loss of 57,149 people between 1936 and 1946) because of the exodus and bombings. After the war the commune saw its population increase until 1975. Since then population has decreased again, especially between 1975 and 1982: during these years of industrial crisis the population fell by 18,494 people. The trend continued in the 1980s although at a slower pace. The current policy of the municipality is to build new housing to attract new residents with the goal of exceeding 200,000 inhabitants, a level that was reached in the 1960s. The population of the commune of Le Havre was 191,000 inhabitants in 1999 which placed the city at 12th place among the most populated cities in France and in the first place in Normandy. In 2009 INSEE counted 177,259 people lived in the commune of Le Havre[67] while the urban area of Le Havre had 242,474 people[68] (25th place nationally) and the Metropolitan area of Havre had 293,361 inhabitants.[69]
+
+In 2009, the commune had 177,259 inhabitants. The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses conducted in the commune since 1793. From the 21st century, a census of communes with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants is held every five years, unlike larger towns that have a sample survey every year.[Note 1]
+
+
+
+In 2009, the birth rate was 14.2 per thousand and the mortality rate was 9.4 per thousand: even though the Rate of natural increase is positive it does not compensate for the clearly negative Net migration rate.[49] In 2009 19% of Le Havre's population was under 15 years old and 40% were under 29 years old which was above the average for metropolitan France.[70] 18.4% of men and 25.6% of women were over 60 years old.[70] The population is mainly concentrated in the city centre and Côte-Ormeaux.[49] In 2009 the foreign population was estimated at 8,525 persons or 4.8% of the population.[71] 12,148 immigrants lived in Havre, or 6.8% of the urban population.[72] Most had North African (5060) or African (3114) origins.[73]
+
+With the economic changes that have affected the city, the Professions and Socio-professional categories (PCS) have changed dramatically since the 1980s: between 1982 and 1999, the number of workers has declined by about a third (−10,593), their share of the active labour force was 16% in 1982 and 12.5% in 1999.[74] The population of workers is concentrated in the southern suburbs close to the port and the industrial zone.[49] At the same time the numbers of executives and intellectual professions increased by 24.5%, which is explained in part by the creation and development of the University of Le Havre. In 2009 the city had a lower proportion of managers and intellectual occupations than the national average (4.2% against 6.7%).[75] The proportion of workers (15.9%) was one point higher than the national average.[75] Going from 13.5% to 11.7% of the labour force, the rate of unemployment has decreased between 1999 and 2009. However, it remains higher than in the rest of the country.[76] The proportion Le Havre people in short-term employment (CDD and interim work) is higher than the national average.[77] Finally, the proportion of Le Havre people with a degree from higher education dramatically increased from about 21% in 1999 to 32.1% in 2009[70] against 24.5% for metropolitan France.[78] However, this proportion has increased since 2009.
+
+Le Havre is located in the Academy of Rouen. The city operates 55 kindergartens (254 classes) and 49 communal primary schools (402 classes).[79] The department manages 16 colleges and the region of Normandy manages 9 schools.[80] The Jules Valles collage in Caucriauville is classified as a sensitive institution and eleven colleges are in a priority education zone (ZEP). A boarding school of excellence, the Claude Bernard college, opened in 2011. The first college in Le Havre dates to the 16th century, the high school François I was founded during the Second Empire and is the oldest in Le Havre. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Raymond Aron (1905–1983) taught there. The writer Armand Salacrou (1899–1989) studied in this institution.
+
+List of public junior high schools (coll��ges) in Le Havre
+
+Private junior high schools
+
+List of Public Sixth-form Colleges/Senior High Schools in Le Havre
+
+Private Sixth-form Colleges/Senior High Schools
+
+Public Vocational High Schools
+
+Private Vocational High Schools
+
+In 2011 there were approximately 12,000 students in all disciplines in Le Havre.[91] Opened in 1986, the University of Le Havre is recent, medium-sized and well located: the largest campus is virtually in the centre of the city near railway and tram stations.[92] The campus includes a University Library (2006), a gym, several dining halls with student housing, a structure incorporating a theatre, an orientation service, and student associations. In 2010–2011, 6,914 students were enrolled including 5,071 undergraduates, 1,651 Masters students, and 192 postgraduate students.[93] The university also trains 317 engineering students[93] including the Logistical Studies Higher Education Institute (ISEL). It offers 120 Diplomas of State prepared by the Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of International Affairs, and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Many courses are offered are related to the port operations, logistics, industry, and sustainable development. Twelve languages are taught and 17% of students are foreigners.[94] The University of Le Havre is also a research centre with nine laboratories. It works in partnership with other higher education institutions (INSA Rouen, IEP, IUFM, and Normandy University). The University Institutes of Technology of Le Havre occupies two main sites: one in the upper town in the Caucriauville-Rouelles district which was opened in 1967 and another in the Eure district since 2011. The IUT has a total of 1,881 students divided into ten departments preparing for the DUT.[93] There is also a branch of the teacher training institute of Rouen (IUFM) for two courses (CAPET of technology and CRPE school teacher).
+
+In addition there is a large number of specialized higher education institutions covering a wide range of different areas. Founded in 1871,[95] the Ecole Superieure de Commerce du Havre, one of the oldest in France, has merged with Sup Europe and l'IPER to create the Normandy Business School in 2006. This School had over 2,800 students on its five campuses (Le Havre, Caen, Deauville, Oxford and Paris ) in 2015.[96] Since the 2007 school year, the Institute of Political Studies of Paris opened a Euro-Asia cycle[97] in Le Havre. The National School of The Merchant Marine trains Officers of the First Class for the Merchant Marine: currently located at Sainte-Adresse, it will move to the Bassin Vauban in 2015 in a building that will house 1,000 students.[98] The National Higher School of Petrol and Motors (ENSPM) is a school for specialist petroleum engineers, petrochemists, and engine makers. The ITIP (National Institute for International Transportation and Ports) prepares students for careers in the multimodal transport and port business. The (Institut national des sciences appliquées|National Institute of Applied Sciences of Rouen) (INSA) opened a branch in Le Havre in 2008 with a civil engineering and sustainable construction department. The SPI (Axis of Science for the Engineer) is expected to reopen in 2012 in a new building in the Eure district.[99]
+
+In the arts, the Conservatory of Departmental Radiance Arthur Honegger is attended by 1,680 students (music, dance and drama).[100] The Graduate School of Art of Le Havre (ESAH) offers several degrees and preparation for competition. Finally 800 people study in paramedical and social schools mostly in the IFSI (Institute of Training in Nursing) which has approximately 600 students.[93][101]
+
+The city of Le Havre has some of the oldest sports clubs in France: the Le Havre Rowing Society (1838),[102] the Regatta Society of Le Havre (1838), and Le Havre Athletic Club (1872), doyen of French football and rugby clubs.[103][104][105]
+
+The city also hosted the sailing events for the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics, respectively.
+
+Le Havre is dominated by three professional sports teams: the first is the Le Havre AC football team who played in Ligue 1 for the last time in 2008–2009 and is currently in Ligue 2. Its training centre is well-reputed for having trained a number of international French players, including Vikash Dhorasoo, Julien Faubert, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Lassana Diarra, and Steve Mandanda. The second major sports team is Saint Thomas Basketball who represent the city in LNB Pro A. Thirdly the HAC women's team who play in the first division with many international players in its ranks. The team won their first major national title, the Coupe de France for women's handball in 2006. Le Havre Rugby athletic club plays in Fédérale 3 (equivalent to 5th division). The Hockey Club of Le Havre played at the fourth level nationally (Division 3) for the 2008–2009 season. The team is nicknamed the "Dock's du Havre".[106]
+
+The maritime side of the city is found in many sports: for example, the tradition of sailing is old. On 29 July 1840 the first French pleasure boat regatta was held. Today, Le Havre is known as a water sports and Seaside resort. The marina can host deepwater vessels around the clock in any weather. Built in the Interwar period, it is now the largest in Seine-Maritime with about 1,300 moorings[107] additional moorings were installed in the Vauban basin in 2011–2012.[108] The Havraise Rowing Society has trained many rowers to a high level as Thierry Renault. The Club Nautique Le Havrais (CNH) is the centre of mixed swimming, synchronized swimming, and men's water polo. The Centre Nautique Paul Vatine is the fifth largest club in the country for the number of sports licenses it holds; it ranks second in the Division 1 of the Championship France for Catamaran Clubs.[109]
+
+Several major local sportsmen began their career at Le Havre: the swimmer Hugues Duboscq was an Olympic medallist several times. In judo the French team has two members from Le Havre: Dimitri Dragin and Baptiste Leroy. Jerome Le Banner is a professional kick-boxer at world level who participates in the K-1 championship. Finally the navigator Paul Vatine, who was lost at sea in 1999, won the Transat Jacques Vabre several times.
+
+The city has 99 sports facilities including 46 gymnasiums, 23 sports fields, and 5 swimming pools.[110] The Stade Océane (Ocean Stadium), inaugurated in July 2012, replaced the Stade Jules Deschaseaux. With 25,000 seats, it can host football matches as well as other sporting and cultural events.[111] Basketball and Handball matches are playued in the Dock Océane hall (3600 seats) while ice hockey is played at the ice hockey rink (900 seats). Of the five swimming pools in the city, two are operated by the municipality: the CNH (which has an Olympic pool for competitions) and Les Bains Des Docks (which was designed by the architect Jean Nouvel). Le Havre has the largest free outdoor skatepark in France with approximately 7,000 m2 allocated to the urban Boardsport.[112] The port infrastructure allows for many water activities such as sailing, fishing, canoeing, and rowing. Finally, the beach is a place for kitesurfing, windsurfing and surfing.
+
+Le Havre has been and is still the venue of major sports events: the Tour de France has passed a dozen times by the Ocean Gate, the last stage took place here in 2015. Sailing events are often held and the Transat Jacques Vabre transatlantic race has been held every two years since 1993 linking Le Havre to Latin America. The course of the Solitaire du Figaro was partly in Le Havre in 2010. Since 2006, weekends of freestyle board sports have been popular (skateboarding, rollerblading, funboard, kiteboarding, skydiving etc.). Every summer roller blade events are organized in the city on Friday evening every fortnight and have great success. The first International Triathlon was held in 2012.[113] Finally, there are several opportunities for runners with ten kilometres (6.2 miles) in Le Havre or the strides of Montgeon.
+
+Five newspapers cover the Le Havre agglomeration: the dailies Le Havre libre, Le Havre Presse, Paris Normandie in its Le Havre edition in collaboration with Le Havre Presse and Liberté-Dimanche (communal Sunday edition of the previous three) are part of the Hersant group which is currently in serious financial trouble and looking for a buyer. A free weekly of information, Le Havre Infos (PubliHebdo group[114]) has been published since 2010 every Wednesday and is available in many places in the city.[115][116]
+
+Several magazines provide local information: LH Océanes (Municipal magazine) and Terres d'Agglo (Agglomeration Area magazine) to which must be added several free magazines: Aux Arts (cultural information more focused on the Basse-Normandie region) Bazart (cultural events in Le Havre but now with circulation across all of Normandy), and HAC Magazine (news about HAC). Several newspapers are also available on the Internet: Infocéane, Le Havre on the Internet.
+
+A local televised edition on France 3, France 3 Baie de Seine, is broadcast every evening then again on France 3 Haute Normandie. Radio Albatros is a local station installed in the Sanvic du Havre district transmitting on FM frequency 88.2.[117] Radio Vallée de la Lézarde, based in Épouville, RESONANCE on 98.9, and RCF Le Havre are other radio stations. It was in Le Havre radio stations that the journalist and television host Laurent Ruquier, who was born in Le Havre in 1963, began his career. Several national and regional radio stations are relays for Le Havre: local information on France Bleu Haute Normandie, local relay from 12 noon to 4pm on Virgin radio Normandie 101.8 FM, local relay for Information from 6am to 9am and from 4pm to 8pm on NRJ Le Havre 92.5 FM. Associations like LHnouslanuit and Only-Hit have tried to develop alternative and cultural local radio by featuring local community associations (Papa's Production, Ben Salad Prod, Asso6Sons, Agend'Havre, Pied Nu, I Love LH).[118]
+
+At the request of Monsigneur André Mulch, Archbishop of Rouen, Pope Paul VI decided on 6 July 1974 through the papal bull Quae Sacrosanctum on the creation of the diocese of Le Havre (Portus Gratiae in Latin meaning "Port of Grace"). The diocese was created from part of the parishes of the Archdiocese of Rouen to the west of a line joining Norville to Sassetot-le-Mauconduit. Monseigneur Michel Saudreau, its first bishop, was ordained on 22 September 1974. The church of Notre Dame was promoted to Cathedral Notre Dame du Havre. Today, the commune of Le Havre is divided into eight parishes[119] and 24 places of worship (churches and chapels). The oldest chapel is Saint-Michel d'Ingouville which dates back to the 11th century. The Church of Saint Joseph du Havre, built by Auguste Perret, dominates the city with its spire 107m high. There are several monastic establishments (Carmel of the Transfiguration, Franciscan Monastery, Little Sisters of the Poor, etc.).
+
+The Protestant Church of Le Havre was built in the city centre in 1862. Bombed in 1941, it lost its pediment, its bell tower, and roof. Rebuilt in 1953 by the architects Jacques Lamy and Gérard Dupasquier,[120] who worked in the Auguste Perret office, is the only building in Le Havre uniting the original architecture of the 19th century with the architecture of the Perret school. Le Havre also has seven evangelical Protestant churches: Salvation Army, Seventh Day Adventist, Apostolic Church, Assembly of God, Baptist Church, Good News Church, et Church of Le Havre as well as several Protestant churches of African origin.
+
+The city also has seven Muslim places of worship: the socio-cultural association of Muslims in Upper Normandy, En-Nour Mosque on Rue Paul Claudel, El Fath Mosque on rue Victor Hugo, Bellevue mosque on rue Gustavus Brindeau, and three prayer rooms located on rue Audran, Boulevard Jules Durant, and rue Lodi. The synagogue, located in the rebuilt central city, was visited by President Jacques Chirac in April 2002.[121] It is the seat of the association consistoriale israélite du Havre whose president is Victor Elgressy.
+
+In 2006 the median household income tax was 14,667 euros, which put Le Havre at 22,251th place among the 30,687 communes of more than 50 households in France.[122] Although well developed and diversified, the local economy relies heavily on industrial sites, international groups, and subcontracted SMEs. The Le Havre economy is far from decision centres which are located mainly in Paris and major European economic cities. There is therefore a low representation of head offices in the city with the exception of some local economic successes such as the Sidel Group (now a subsidiary of Tetra Pak) – a distributor of interior furniture, and the ship-owner Delmas which was recently acquired by the CMA-CGM group.
+
+With 68.6 million tons of cargo in 2011, the port of Le Havre is the second largest French seaport in trade volume behind that of Marseille and 50th largest port in the world.[123] It represents 60% of total French container traffic with nearly 2.2 million Twenty-foot equivalent unit|EVP]s in 2011.[124][125] At the European level, it is 8th largest for container traffic and 6th largest for total traffic. The Port receives a large number of oil tankers that transported 27.5 million tonnes of crude oil and 11.7 million tonnes of refined product in 2011.[124] Finally, 340,500 vehicles passed through the Roll-on/roll-off terminal in 2010.[125] 75 regular shipping lines serve 500 ports around the world.[125] The largest trading partner of the port of Le Havre is the Asian continent which alone accounts for 58% of imports by container and 39.6% of exports.[124] The rest of the traffic is distributed mainly to Europe and America.
+
+Le Havre occupies the north bank of the estuary of the Seine on the Channel. Its location is favourable for several reasons: it is on the most frequented waterway in the world; it is the first and last port in the North Range of European ports – the largest in Europe which handles a quarter of all global maritime trade.[126] As a deepwater port, it is accessible to all types of ships whatever their size around the clock.[126] At the national level, Le Havre is 200 kilometres (124 mi) west of the most populous and richest region in France: Île-de-France. Since its founding in 1517 on the orders of François I, Le Havre has continued to grow: today it measures 27 km (17 mi) from east to west, about 5 km (3 mi) from north to south with an area of 10,000 hectares (24,711 acres).[126] The last big project called Port 2000 increased the handling capacity for containers.
+
+The port provides 16,000 direct jobs[125] to the Le Havre region, to which must be added indirect jobs in industry and transport. With approximately 3,000 employees in 2006, the activities of distribution and warehousing provide more jobs,[127] followed by road transport (2,420 jobs) and handling (2,319 jobs).[127]
+
+In 2011, 715,279 passengers passed through the port of Le Havre[124] and there were 95 visits by cruise ships carrying 185,000 passengers.[128] The port expects 110 cuise ship calls in 2012. Created in 1934, the leisure boat harbour of Le Havre is located to the west and is the largest French boat harbour in the Channel with a capacity of 1,160 moorings.[129] Finally, there is a small fishing port in the Saint-François district and a Hawker centre.
+
+Most industries are located in the industrial-port area north of the estuary and east of the city of Le Havre. The largest industrial employer (2,400 employees[130]) of the Le Havre region is the Renault public company in the commune of Sandouville. The second important sector for the industrial zone is petrochemicals. The Le Havre region has more than a third of French refining capacity. It provides about 50% of the production of basic plastics and 80% of additives and oils[131] with more than 3,500 researchers working in private and public laboratories. Large firms in the chemical industry are mainly in the communes of Le Havre (Millenium Chemicals Le Havre), Montivilliers (Total S.A., Yara, Chevron Oronite SA, Lanxess, etc.) and Sandouville (Goodyear Chemicals Europe). A total of 28 industrial establishments manufacture plastics in the Le Havre area many of which are classed as SECESO.[citation needed]
+
+There are several firms in the aerospace industry: SAFRAN Nacelles, a supplier to Airbus, Boeing and other commercial air-framers, making jet engine nacelles and thrust reversers, is located in Harfleur and employs 1,200 people from the Le Havre area.[132] Finally, Dresser-Rand SA manufactures equipment for the oil and gas industry and employs about 700 people.[133] In the energy field, the EDF thermal power plant of Le Havre has an installed capacity of 1,450MW and operates using coal with 357 employees.[134] The AREVA group announced the opening of a factory for building wind turbines: installed in the port of Le Havre, it should create some 1,800 jobs.[135] The machines are designed for Offshore wind power in Brittany, the UK, and Normandy.
+
+Other industries are dispersed throughout the Le Havre agglomeration: the Brûlerie du Havre, which belongs to Legal-Legoût, located in the district of Dollemard that roasts coffee, Sidel located both in the industrial area of Port of Le Havre and Octeville-sur-Mer designs and manufactures blow moulding machines and complete filling line machines for plastic bottles.
+
+The two largest employers in the service sector are the Groupe Hospitalier du Havre with 4,384 staff[136] and the City of Le Havre with 3,467 permanent employees.[137] The city has long been home to many service companies whose activity is related to port operations: primarily the ship-owning companies and also the marine insurance companies. The headquarters of Delmas (transport and communications, 1,200 employees) and SPB (Provident Society Banking, insurance, 500 employees) have settled recently at the entrance to the city. The head office of Groupama Transport (300 employees) is also present.
+
+The transport sector is the largest economic sector in Le Havre with 15.5% of employment. Logistics occupies a large part of the population and the ISEL trains engineers in this field. Since September 2007 the ICC has welcomed local students in their first year in the relocated Europe-Asia campus of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris. Higher Education is represented by the University of Le Havre which employs 399 permanent professors and 850 lecturers[138] as well as by engineering companies like Auxitec and SERO.
+
+There are many growth factors in the tourist industry: blue flag rating, World Heritage status from UNESCO, the label French Towns and Lands of Art and History, cruise ship development, a policy of value-creation from heritage, and the City of the Sea project. In early 2010 the city had 22 hotels with a total of 1,064 rooms.[139]
+
+Le Havre is the seat of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Le Havre. It manages the Le Havre Octeville Airport.
+
+Le Havre's festival calendar is punctuated by a wide range of events.
+
+In spring a Children's Book Festival was recently created. In May there is the Fest Yves, a Breton festival in the Saint-François district. On the beach of Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse there is a jazz festival called Dixie Days in June. In July, detective novels are featured in the Polar room at the Beach hosted by The Black Anchors. Between the latter also in the context of Z'Estivales is an event offering many shows of street art throughout the summer supplemented by the festival of world music MoZaïques at the fort of Sainte-Adresse in August since 2010. In mid-August there is a Flower parade which passes through the streets of the central city.
+
+In the first weekend of September the marine element is highlighted in the Festival of the Sea. This is a race between Le Havre and Bahia in Brazil. Also every November there is a fair held in the Docks Café. The Autumn Festival in Normandy, organized by the departments of Seine-Maritime and Eure, and the Region of Normandy, runs from September to November and offers numerous concerts throughout the region as well as theatre performances and dance. In late October, since 2009, there is rock music festival which has been at the fort of Tourneville since the moving of the Papa's Production association site there. The West Park Festival, after its inauguration in 2004, has been held in the park of the town hall of Harfleur.
+
+Since 1 June 2006 a Biennale of contemporary Art has been organized by the group Partouche.[140]
+
+Many buildings in the city are classified as "historical monuments", but the 2000s marked the real recognition of Le Havre's architectural heritage. The city received the label "City of Art and History" in 2001, then in 2005 UNESCO inscribed the city of Le Havre as a World Heritage Site.[141]
+
+The oldest building still standing in Le Havre is the Graville Abbey. The other medieval building in the city is the Chapel of Saint-Michel of Ingouville. Because of the bombing in 1944, heritage from the modern era is rare: Le Havre Cathedral, the Church of Saint Francis, the Museum of the Hotel Dubocage of Bleville, the House of the ship-owner and the old palace of justice (now the Natural History Museum) are concentrated in the Notre-Dame and Saint-François areas. The buildings of the 19th century testify to the maritime and military vocations of the city: the Hanging Gardens, the Fort of Tourneville, Vauban docks, and the Maritime Villa. The heritage of the 1950s and 1960s which were the work of the Auguste Perret workshop forms the most coherent architecture: the Church of Saint Francis and the Town Hall are the centrepieces. The all curved architecture of the "Volcano", designed by Oscar Niemeyer, contrasts with that of the rebuilt centre. Finally, the reconstruction of many districts is a showcase for the architecture of the 21st century. Among the achievements by renowned architects are the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (René and Phine Weeke Dottelond), Les Bains Des Docks (Jean Nouvel).[141]
+°
+
+Five Museums in Le Havre have the distinction of being classified as Musées de France (Museums of France)[149] an official label granted only to museums of a high status. The five museums are:
+
+The most important of the five, Museum Malraux was built in 1955 by the Atelier LWD and was opened in 1961 by André Malraux.[150] This museum houses a collection of art from the late Middle Ages until the 20th century. The impressionist paintings collections are the second most extensive in France after those of the Orsay Museum in Paris. The museum houses some paintings of Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Raoul Dufy, Edgar Degas...[151] I.
+
+A Museum dedicated to the history of Le Havre with many objects from the Ancien Régime and the 19th century: furniture, old maps, statues, and paintings.
+
+Founded in 1881 but heavily damaged during World War II, the Museum of Natural History is housed in Le Havre's former law courts, built in the mid-18th century; the façade and monumental staircase are listed as historical monuments. The museum houses mineralogy, zoology, ornithology, palaeontology and prehistory departments as well as 8,000 early 19th-century paintings from the collection of local naturalist and traveller Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846).[152] The museum was destroyed during Allied bombings on 5 September 1944. The library was lost, along with its collections of photographs, scientific instruments and archives. The mineral and geological collections were all destroyed, including a rare collection of local mineral specimens of Normandy. The destruction of the museum was so intense, that all the catalogues, lists of donations, lists of purchases and other archives prevented even a precise inventory of all that was lost."[153]
+
+From the 18th century; like the Museum of Old Havre it is dedicated to the History of Le Havre and contains many relics from the Ancien Régime as well as furniture, old maps, statues, and paintings.
+
+The Museum at the Priory of Graville displays many items of religious art including statues, madonnas, and other religious objects many of which are classified by the Ministry of Culture. It also houses the Gosselin collection of 206 model houses created by Jules Gosselin in the 19th century.[154]
+
+Other less important museums reflect the history of Le Havre and its maritime vocation. The apartment-control (Apartement-Temoine) was a standard apartment designed by in 1947–1950 and shows a place of daily life in the 1950s. The maritime museum displays objects related to the sea and the port. Finally, there are numerous exhibitions in the city such as the SPOT, a centre for contemporary art,[155] art galleries, and Le Portique – a contemporary art space opened in 2008; the municipal library of Le Havre regularly organizes exhibitions.
+
+Other attractions include:
+
+There are two main cultural axes in Le Havre: the central city and the Eure district. The Espace Oscar Niemeyer consists of a part of the "Great Volcano", a national theatre seating 1,093[156] (which houses the National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Haute-Normandie directed by Hervé Robbe) and secondly the "Little Volcano" with a 250-seat multi-purpose hall[156] for live performances. The whole Espace Oscar Niemeyer has been worked on since 2011: the little volcano will be transformed into a multimedia library. As for the performances at the Great Volcano, they are now taking place in the old ferry terminal until the end of construction. Other cultural institutions of the city centre are being transformed: the cinema of art and a trial of Le Sirius facing the University will reopen in 2013. Le Tetris at the fort of Tourneville will, in 2013, be a place devoted to contemporary music. Other cultural venues are scattered in the city centre: the cinema Le Studio, the theatre of the City Hall (700 seats),[157] the Little Theatre (450 seats),[158] the Théâtre des Bains Douches (94 seats), Akté theatre (60 seats), and the Poulailler (Henhouse)) (associative theatre with 50 seats) host numerous shows each year. The National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Haute-Normandie specialises in the creation and production of dance shows. Other shows and performances are given in other places and at the Conservatory Arthur Honegger.
+
+The second cultural centre of the city is in the Eure district near the Basin Vauban. Docks Océane is a multi-purpose hall (concerts, shows, and sporting events) which can accommodate up to 4,700 spectators in 1,800 square metres (19,000 sq ft).[159] The largest cinema in Le Havre is located on the Docks Vauban (2,430 seats).[160] The Docks Café is an exhibition centre of 17,500 square metres (188,000 sq ft) used for shows, fairs, and exhibitions. The Magic Mirrors offers many concerts managed by the city and leased to private organizers.
+
+Following the closure of Cabaret Electric which was located in the Espace Oscar Niemeyer in 2011 a new auditorium, Le Tetris, is under construction at the Fort of Tourneville. It was scheduled to open in September 2013 with a large festival free-of-charge.[citation needed] It will consist of two halls with 800 and 200 seats, exhibition space, housing for artists in residence, a restaurant etc. Le Tetris will be a venue for contemporary music as well as theatre, dance, and visual arts. An "expectation" outside the walls was held on the site of the fort during 2012 and early 2013.[citation needed]
+
+The main library is located in the city centre, named after the writer Armand Salacrou. It has branches in all districts. A new multimedia library at the "Volcano" is being refurbished for 2014. Thousands of references are available in specialized libraries in the Higher School of Art, the Museum of André Malraux, and the Natural History Museum. Of medieval manuscripts and Incunables are conserved at the public library. The archives of the city, at the Fort of Tourneville, possesses documents from the 16th to the 20th centuries.[161]
+
+The Port of Le Havre and the light on the estuary of the Seine inspired many painters: Louis-Philippe Crepin (1772–1851), Jean-Baptiste Corot (1796–1875), Eugène Isabey (1803–1886), Theodore Gudin (1802–1880), Adolphe-Felix Cals (1810–1880), Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) in 1845,[162] Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) etc.. It is to Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) who created many representations of Le Havre in the 19th century. The artist lived for a time in the city. Thanks to its proximity to Honfleur, Le Havre was also represented by foreign artists such as William Turner, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Alfred Stevens, and Richard Parkes Bonington.
+
+Claude Monet (1840–1926), a resident of Le Havre from the age of five, in 1872 painted Impression soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), a painting that gave its name to the impressionist movement. In 1867–1868, he painted many seascapes in the Le Havre region (Terrasse a Sainte-Adresse (Garden at Sainte-Adresse), 1867 Bateaux quittant le port (Boats Leaving the Port), 1874). The Musée Malraux houses some of his paintings : Waterlilies, London Parliament et Winter Sun at Lavacourt. Two other Impressionists, Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) and Maxime Maufra (1861–1918) also represented the port of Le Havre which also inspired Paul Signac (1863–1935), Albert Marquet (1875–1947), and Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958).
+
+Then came the school of Fauvism in which many artists did their training at Le Havre: Othon Friesz (1879–1949), Henri de Saint-Delis (1876–1958), Raoul Dufy (1877–1953), Georges Braque (1882–1963), Raymond Lecourt (1882–1946), Albert Copieux (1885–1956), who followed the course of the School of Fine Arts of Le Havre in the time of Charles Lhuillier. They left a number of paintings on the theme of the city and the port. In 1899, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) painted  La serveuse anglaise du Star (The English waitress of Star) (Museum Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi) of a girl he met in a bar in the city.
+
+Other painters who painted Le Havre and/or its surroundings such as Sainte-Adresse can be cited in particular: Frédéric Bazille, John Gendall, Thomas Couture, Ambroise Louis Garneray, Pablo Picasso (Souvenir du Havre). Jean Dubuffet studied at the School of Art in Le Havre.
+
+With nearly 70 films, Le Havre is one of the provincial cities most represented in the cinema.[163] Several directors have chosen the port facilities as part of their movie:
+
+The city has also hosted the filming of several comedies such as:
+
+The film by Sophie Marceau, La Disparue de Deauville, made in 2007, contains many scenes around the port of Le Havre, in the Coty shopping centre of Coty and in the streets of the central city.
+
+The film Le Havre by Aki Kaurismäki received two prizes at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and also the Louis Delluc Prize.[164] It was nominated three times for the 37th César Awards.
+
+Le Havre appears in several literary works as a point of departure to America: in the 18th century, Father Prevost embarked Manon Lescaut and Des Grieux for French Louisiana. Fanny Loviot departed from Le Havre in 1852, as an emigrant to San Francisco and points further west, and recounted her adventures in Les pirates chinois (A Lady's Captivity among Chinese Pirates in the Chinese Seas, 1858).
+
+In the 19th century, Le Havre was the setting for several French novels: Honoré de Balzac described the failure of a Le Havre merchant family in Modeste Mignon. Later, the Norman writer Guy de Maupassant located several of his works at Le Havre such as Au muséum d'histoire naturelle (At the Museum of Natural History) a text published in Le Gaulois on 23 March 1881 and again in Pierre et Jean. Alphonse Allais located his intrigues at Le Havre too. La Bête humaine (The Human Beast) by Émile Zola evokes the world of the railway and runs along the Paris–Le Havre railway. Streets, buildings, and public places in Le Havre pay tribute to other famous Le Havre people from this period: the writer Casimir Delavigne (1793–1843) has a street named after him and a statue in front of the palace of justice alongside another man of letters, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814).
+
+In the 20th century, Henry Miller located part of the action in Le Havre in his masterpiece Tropic of Cancer, published in 1934. Bouville was the commune where the writer lived who wrote his diary in  La Nausée (The Nausea) (1938) by Jean-Paul Sartre who was inspired by Le Havre city where he wrote his first novel. There are also the testimonies of Raymond Queneau (1903–1976), born in Le Havre, the city served as a framework for his novel Un rude hiver (A harsh winter) (1939). The plot of Une maison soufflée aux vents (A house blown to the winds) by Emile Danoën, winner of the Popular Novel Prize in 1951, and its sequel Idylle dans un quartier muré (Idyll in a walled neighbourhood) were located in Le Havre during the Second World War. Under the name Port de Brume Le Havre is the setting for three other novels by this author: Cerfs-volants (Kites), L'Aventure de Noël (The Adventure at Christmas), and La Queue à la pègre (Queue to the underworld). Michel Leiris wrote De la littérature considérée comme une tauromachie (Of literature considered like a bullfight) in December 1945.
+
+Diana Gabaldon set the second novel in her Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber (1992), partly in Le Havre.
+
+Two mystery novels take place in Le Havre: Le Bilan Maletras (The Maletras Balance) by Georges Simenon and Le Crime de Rouletabille (Crime at the Roulette table) by Gaston Leroux. In Rouge Brésil (Red Brazil), winner of the Goncourt Prize in 2001, Jean-Christophe Rufin describes Le Havre in the 16th century as the port of departure of French expeditions to the New World: the hero Villegagnon leaves of the port to conquer new lands for the French crown which become Brazil. Martine–Marie Muller tells the saga of a clan of Stevedores from Le Havre in the 1950s to the 1970s in Quai des Amériques (Quay of the Americas).
+
+Benoît Duteurtre published in 2001, Le Voyage en France (Travel in France), for which he received the Prix Médicis: the main character, a young American impassioned by France, lands at Le Havre which he describes in the first part of the novel. In 2008, Benoît Duteurtre publishes Les pieds dans l'eau (Feet in the water), a highly autobiographical book in which he describes his youth spent between Le Havre and Etretat. The city hosted writers such as Emile Danoën (1920–1999) who grew up in the district of Saint-François, Yoland Simon (born 1941), and Philippe Huet (born 1955). Canadian poet Octave Crémazie (1827–1879) died at Le Havre and was buried in Saint Marie Cemetery. The playwright Jacques-François Ancelot (1794–1854) was also a native of Le Havre. Two famous historians, Gabriel Monod (1844–1912) and André Siegfried (1875–1959) were from the city.
+
+Le Havre also appears in comic books: for example, in  L'Oreille cassée (The Broken Ear) (1937), Tintin embarks on the vessel City of Lyon sailing to South America. The meeting between Tintin and General Alcazar in Les Sept Boules de cristal (The Seven Crystal Balls) (1948) is in Le Havre, according to notes by Hergé in the margins of Le Soir, the first publisher of this adventure. The first adventure of Ric Hochet (1963), the designer Tibet and André-Paul Duchâteau, Traquenard au Havre (Trap at Le Havre) shows the seaside and the port. Similarly, in 1967, for the album Rapt sur le France (Rapt on France), the hero passes by the ocean port. Frank Le Gall, in  Novembre toute l'année (November all year) (2000) embarks Theodore Poussin at Le Havre on the Cap Padaran.
+
+Le Havre is the birthplace of many musicians and composers such as Henri Woollett (1864–1936), André Caplet (1878–1925) and Arthur Honegger (1892–1955). There was also Victor Mustel (1815–1890) who was famous for having perfected the harmonium.
+
+Le Havre has long been regarded as one of the cradles of French rock and blues. In the 1980s many groups have emerged after a first dynamic development in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous personality of Le Havre rock is Little Bob who began his career in the 1970s. The port tradition in many of the groups was repeated in the unused sheds of the port, such as Bovis hall which could hold 20,000 spectators. A blues festival, driven by Jean-François Skrobek, Blues a Gogo existed for eight years from 1995 to 2002. Several artists have been produced such as: Youssou N'Dour, Popa Chubby, Amadou & Mariam, Patrick Verbeke etc. It was organized by the Coup de Bleu association whose former president was head of music Café L'Agora in the Niemeyer Centre which produced the new Le Havre scene. During these same years, the Festival of the Future, the local version of the Fête de l'Humanité (Festival of Humanity), attracted a large audience.
+
+Currently, the musical tradition continues in the Symphony Orchestra of the city of Le Havre, the orchestra of Concerts André Caplet, the conservatory, and music schools such as the Centre for Vocal and Musical Expression (rock) or the JUPO (mainly jazz), associations or labels like Papa's Production (la Folie Ordinaire, Mob's et Travaux, Dominique Comont, Souinq, Your Happy End etc.). The organization by the association of West Park Festival since the 2000s in Harfleur and since 2004 at the Fort of Tourneville is a demonstration. Moreover, since 2008, the association I Love LH was started and promotes Le Havre culture and especially its music scene by organizing original cultural events as well as the free distribution of compilation music by local artists.
+
+Main articles: Le Havre (board game)
+
+Le Havre is a board game about the development of the town of Le Havre. It was inspired by the games Caylus and Agricola and was developed in December 2007.[citation needed]
+
+Main articles: Norman language and Cauchois dialect.
+
+The legacy of the Norman language is present in the language used by the people of Le Havre, part of which is identified as speaking cauchois. Among the Norman words most used in Le Havre there are: boujou (hello, goodbye), clenche (door handle), morveux (veuse) (child), and bezot (te) (last born).
+
+Le Havre was the birthplace of:
+
+French

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+Le Havre (/lə ˈhɑːv(rə)/,[5][6][7] French: [lə ɑvʁ(ə)] (listen); Norman: Lé Hâvre) is an urban French commune and city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northwestern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux. Le Havre is the most populous commune of Upper Normandy, although the total population of the greater Le Havre conurbation is smaller than that of Rouen. After Reims, it is also the second largest subprefecture in France. The name Le Havre means "the harbour" or "the port". Its inhabitants are known as Havrais or Havraises.[8]
+
+The city and port were founded by King Francis I in 1517. Economic development in the Early modern period was hampered by religious wars, conflicts with the English, epidemics, and storms. It was from the end of the 18th century that Le Havre started growing and the port took off first with the slave trade then other international trade. After the 1944 bombings the firm of Auguste Perret began to rebuild the city in concrete. The oil, chemical, and automotive industries were dynamic during the Trente Glorieuses (postwar boom) but the 1970s marked the end of the golden age of ocean liners and the beginning of the economic crisis: the population declined, unemployment increased and remains at a high level today.
+
+Changes in years 1990–2000 were numerous. The right won the municipal elections and committed the city to the path of reconversion, seeking to develop the service sector and new industries (Aeronautics, Wind turbines). The Port 2000 project increased the container capacity to compete with ports of northern Europe, transformed the southern districts of the city, and ocean liners returned. Modern Le Havre remains deeply influenced by its employment and maritime traditions. Its port is the second largest in France, after that of Marseille, for total traffic, and the largest French container port.
+
+In 2005, UNESCO inscribed the central city of Le Havre as a World Heritage Site. The André Malraux Modern Art Museum is the second of France for the number of impressionist paintings. The city has been awarded two flowers by the National Council of Towns and Villages in Bloom in the Competition of cities and villages in Bloom.[9]
+
+Le Havre is located 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Rouen on the shore of the English Channel and at the mouth of the Seine. Numerous roads link to Le Havre with the main access roads being the A29 autoroute from Amiens and the A13 autoroute from Paris linking to the A131 autoroute.
+
+Administratively, Le Havre is a commune in the Normandy region in the west of the department of Seine-Maritime. The urban area of Le Havre corresponds roughly to the territory of the Agglomeration community of Le Havre (CODAH)[10] which includes 17 communes and 250,000 people.[11] It occupies the south-western tip of the natural region of Pays de Caux where it is the largest city. Le Havre is sandwiched between the coast of the Channel from south-west to north-west and the estuary of the Seine to the south.
+
+Le Havre belongs to the Paris Basin which was formed in the Mesozoic period. The Paris Basin consists of sedimentary rocks. The commune of Le Havre consists of two areas separated by a natural cliff edge: one part in the lower part of the town to the south including the harbour, the city centre and the suburbs. It was built on former marshland and mudflats that were drained in the 16th century.[13] The soil consists of several metres of alluvium or silt deposited by the Seine.[13] The city centre was rebuilt after the Second World War using a metre of flattened rubble as a foundation.[14][15]
+
+The upper town to the north, is part of the cauchois plateau: the neighbourhood of Dollemard is its highest point (between 90 to 115 metres (295 to 377 feet) above sea level). The plateau is covered with a layer of flinty clay and a fertile silt.[16] The bedrock consists of a large thickness of chalk measuring up to 200 m (656 ft) deep.[17] Because of the slope the coast is affected by the risk of landslides.[18]
+
+Due to its location on the coast of the Channel, the climate of Le Havre is temperate oceanic. Days without wind are rare. There are maritime influences throughout the year. According to the records of the meteorological station of the Cap de la Heve (from 1961 to 1990), the temperature drops below 0 °C (32 °F) on 24.9 days per year and it rises above 25 °C (77 °F) on 11.3 days per year. The average annual sunshine duration is 1,785.8 hours per year.[19]
+
+Precipitation is distributed throughout the year, with a maximum in autumn and winter. The months of June and July are marked by some thunderstorms on average 2 days per month.[19] One of the characteristics of the region is the high variability of the temperature, even during the day.[20] The prevailing winds are from the southwest sector for strong winds and north-north-east for breezes,[21] snowstorms occur in winter, especially in January and February.[19]
+
+The absolute speed record for wind at Le Havre – Cap de la Heve was recorded on 16 October 1987 at 180 kilometres per hour (112 miles per hour).[19]
+
+The main natural hazards are floods, storms, and storm surges. The lower town is subject to a rising water table.[22] The lack of watercourses within the commune prevents flooding from overflows. Le Havre's beach may rarely experience flooding known as "flooding from storms". These are caused by the combination of strong winds, high waves, and a large tidal range.
+
+Weather Data for Le Havre
+
+A study by Aphekom comparing ten large French cities showed that Le Havre is the least polluted urban commune of France.[27] Le Havre is also the third best city in France with more than 100,000 inhabitants for air quality.[28] A Carbon accounting showed in 2009 that the municipality ejected some 32,500 tonnes of CO2 per year.[29] In 2011 the average annual emissions of sulfur dioxide by industry was between three micrograms per cubic metre in the centre of Le Havre to twelve micrograms per cubic metre in the district of Caucriauville.[30]
+
+The municipality has set a target to reduce emissions of CO2 by 3% per year.[29] To achieve this solar panels have been installed on several municipal buildings (city hall, hanging gardens).[31] Since 2008, Le Havre has been part of the network of Energy Cities and, in this context, it applies the steps of Agenda 21 and an Environmental Approach to Urban Planning. The city has received many awards of eco-labels several times (Energy of the Future label in 2009–2011, sustainable Earth label in 2009). Since 1998, Le Havre's beach has received the Blue Flag yearly thanks to its range of facilities, which extend over 30,000 Sq. M.[32]
+
+Le Havre has kept extensive green areas (750 hectares or 41 Sq. M per inhabitant[31]): the two largest areas are the Montgeon Forest and Rouelles Park which are both located in the upper town. The gardens of the Priory of Graville and the hanging gardens offer views of the lower city. In the city centre, Saint-Roch Square and the City Hall Gardens provide the people with urban recreation areas. Various ecosystems are represented in the Beach Gardens and the Hauser Park (caves). Finally, the Plateau of Dollemard was classified as a "Sensitive Natural Area" of the department in 2001 to protect its landscape and ecosystems on the cliff.[31] The streets are lined with 13,000 trees of 150 different varieties.[33]
+
+For a long time Le Havre has exploited the strengths of its coastal location but also suffered from its relative isolation. This is why the accessibility of the city has been improved with the harbour highway A131 (E05) which links Le Havre to the A13 autoroute over Tancarville Bridge. The city is one hour from Rouen and one and a half-hour from Île-de-France.[34] More recently the A29 autoroute (E44) has connected Le Havre to the north of France and passes over the Normandy Bridge which makes Amiens (in the north-east) two hours away and Caen (in the south-west) one hour.
+
+The TER network was modernized with the creation of the LER line in 2001 and direct services to Fécamp in 2005. Thirteen Corail trains of the Paris–Le Havre line link stations at Bréauté-Beuzeville, Yvetot, and Rouen, with Paris Saint-Lazare station.[34] In addition there is a TGV daily service to Le Havre: it has connected the city to Marseille since December 2004 serving Rouen, Mantes-la-Jolie, Versailles, Massy, Lyon, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, and Saint Charles station in Marseilles.[34]
+
+No direct rail link connects Le Havre and Caen yet many projects – known as the "Southwest Line" – to link Le Havre to the left bank of the Seine downstream from Rouen, near the estuary of the river, were studied in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century but none have been realized. By public transport it is necessary to go to Rouen by train or bus (using No. 20 Green Bus). There is a Gray Coach to Etretat and Fécamp and there is VTNI for destinations in the Seine valley and Rouen who provide inter-urban services on behalf of the Department of Seine-Maritime. Finally, the company AirPlus provides a shuttle service to the train stations and airports of Paris.
+
+For air transport, there is Le Havre Octeville Airport which is located 5 km (3 mi) north of Le Havre at the town of Octeville-sur-Mer and managed by CODAH.
+
+The main destination is the Transport hub of Lyon. Many holiday destinations are offered each year (Tunisia, Balearic Islands, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, etc.) through local travel agencies that charter aircraft.[verification needed] There is also the Flying club Jean Maridor at the airport.
+
+The Channel maritime links with Portsmouth in southern England with P&O Ferries ended on 30 September 2005 to be taken over by LD Lines who have changed the configuration. Two services to Portsmouth are provided daily[34] from the Terminal de la Citadelle. The link to Ireland was moved to the port of Cherbourg.
+
+Crossing times to Portsmouth vary from five hours and thirty minutes to eight hours.[35] Popular alternative routes going to areas close to Le Havre include Newhaven to Dieppe, and Poole to Cherbourg.
+
+The city and the metropolitan area has a dense transport network. This solves the problem of a break between the lower town and the upper town and the two parts of the city are connected by long boulevards, winding roads, many stairs, a funicular, and finally the Jenner tunnel.
+
+The CODAH transport network is called Lia[36] and is operated by the Ocean Port Transport company (CTPO), a subsidiary of Veolia Transport. The overhaul of the bus network in 2008 helped to ensure a better service for all the towns in the metropolitan area. The CTPO operates a bus network consisting of 19 regular urban routes and six evening routes called the "Midnight Bus".[36] The Le Havre urban area is served by 165 vehicles and 41 regular bus routes with an average of 100,000 passengers per day.[36] From January 2011 there has been a regular shuttle service specific to the Industrial Zone and Port of Le Havre, thus adding to the cross-estuary service of VTNI.[34] Since 1890 the funicular has provided a link between the upper town and the lower town in four minutes with a cable car.[37]
+
+Le Havre had a tramway system from 1894 until it closed in 1957. More recently a new tramway system, with 23 stations and 13 km (8 mi) of route,[38] was built, and opened on 12 December 2012. The first part of the line connects the beach to the station climbing to the upper town through a new tunnel near the Jenner tunnel then it splits into two: one link going to Mont-Gaillard, the other to Caucriauville.
+
+Finally, since 2001 Le Havre agglomeration has operated the LER, a TER line connecting the Le Havre station to Rolleville passing through five other SNCF railway stations of the urban area.
+
+From 2005, development work for Segregated cycle facilities have increased including a connection to the Greenway which promises to be an important network of quality. Between 2007 and 2011, the total length of cycle paths has doubled to 46 km (29 mi) in total length.[31] It is possible to rent bicycles through agencies of the Océane bus or from the town hall (Vel-H)[37] which has them on hand. Finally, 140 taxis work in Le Havre and serve 25 stations.[39]
+
+Largely destroyed during the Second World War, the city was rebuilt according to the plans of the architect Auguste Perret between 1945 and 1964. Only the town hall and the Church of Saint Joseph (107m high) were personally designed by Auguste Perret. In commending the reconstruction work UNESCO listed the city of Le Havre on 15 July 2005 as a World Heritage Site.[40] This area of 133 hectares is one of the few inscribed contemporary sites in Europe.[40] The architecture of the area is characterized by the use of precast concrete using a system of a modular frame of 6.24 metres and straight lines.[40][41]
+
+Another notable architectural work of the central city is that of the House of Culture built in 1982 by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer and nicknamed "the Volcano" because of the shape of the building.[42] From 2012, this place was refurbished both inside and outside with fairly significant changes approved by the architect including greater openness to the outside of the plaza.
+
+The Notre Dame and Perrey neighbourhoods are mainly residential. Les Halles is one of the commercial hubs of the city. The Saint Francis neighborhood was also rebuilt after 1945[citation needed] but in a radically different architectural style: the buildings are brick and have pitched slate roofs. This is the restaurant district and the fish market.
+
+To the east and north of the rebuilt central city are a stretch of old neighbourhoods (Danton, Saint-Vincent, Graville, Massillon, etc.) which were spared the bombings of World War II. The buildings, usually in brick, dated to the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. The shops are concentrated along several major roads in the Rond-Point neighbourhood. During the 1990s and 2000s, these neighborhoods have seen major redevelopments, particularly in the context of an OPAH: improvement of habitat by rehabilitation or reconstruction, creation of public facilities, and revitalization of business.[43]
+
+At the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, the area around the railway station has undergone a major transformation. As the station is the gateway to the city with the main avenues intersecting here. New buildings have sprung up (University of Le Havre, the conservatory, headquarters of the SPB (Provident Society Bank), and of CMA CGM, Novotel, Matmut, new CCI) some of which were designed by renowned architects. The bus station, certified NF since 2005, has been refurbished. North of the station, another construction project in place of the dilapidated island of Turgot-Magellan will be opened in 2013,[44] including 12,500 m2 (135,000 sq ft) of office space and an eight-storey hotel, complete with shops on the ground-floor.
+
+The southern districts of Le Havre are mainly used for industrial and port activities. There are buildings in brick from the 19th century, large developments (Chicago, Les Neiges), worker estates, SMEs, warehouses, dock and port facilities, and transport infrastructure.[citation needed]
+
+The southern districts have for some years experienced profound change due to European funding. It is revitalizing areas neglected by industrial and port activities by developing tertiary activities. Thus, the docks have been completely transformed into sports and entertainment complexes (Dock Océane), a mall (Docks Vauban), and an exhibition hall (Docks Café). Les Bains Des Docks was designed by the architect Jean Nouvel. At the end of 2012 students from Sciences-Po Europe Asia and from INSA integrated new buildings next to the ISEL (Higher Institute of logistics studies) and the future ENSM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure Maritime).[45] The new medical axis around the new Clinic des Ormeaux was built in the neighbourhoods where many homes are planned with the aim of promoting social mix. The City of the Sea and of Sustainable Development (Odyssey 21) will be organized around a metal tower one hundred metres high designed by Jean Nouvel: the project was suspended in 2007 but the work should finally begin in 2013.[46] The municipality has to attract some 300,000 visitors per year.[47]
+
+The upper town is composed of three parts: the "coast", the suburban districts of the plateau, and large peripheral housing estates.
+
+The neighbourhoods on the "coast" (the Dead Cliff) are residential – more prosperous in the western part (Les Ormeaux, Rue Felix Faure) and more modest to the east (St. Cecilia, Aplemont). The Jenner tunnel passes under the "coast" and connects the upper town to the lower town. It is also on the coast that there are two fortifications of the city, Forts Sainte-Adresse and Tourneville, and the main cemetery (Sainte-Marie cenetery). With the demise of the military functions of the city, the forts are gradually being converted: Fort Sainte-Adresse houses the Hanging Gardens and Fort Tourneville hosted the Tetris project in 2013 – an axis of contemporary music with concert halls and rehearsal studios.[48]
+
+To the north of the "coast" suburban districts such as Rouelles, Sainte-Cecile, la Mare au Clerc, Sanvic, Bleville, and Dollemard were developed during the first half of the 19th century.[49] In their extension North-west between Bleville and Octeville airport a new area is being developed: "Les Hauts de Bleville". This eco-district made up of housing units to HQE standards, a Joint Development Area (ZAC), and a school should have a total of 1,000 housing units.[50]
+
+The peripheral suburbs of the commune grew in the postwar period. These are large housing estates in Caucriauville, Bois de Bleville, Mont-Gaillard, and Mare-rouge where a disadvantaged population is concentrated. In October 2004 the National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU) signed with the municipality of Havre the first agreement to finance the rehabilitation of these areas. This finance agreement provides more than 340 million euros for the housing estates in the northern districts, where about 41,000 people reside. This development extends the budget for the Grand Projet de Ville (GPV). It allows the demolition and rebuilding of more than 1,700 homes.
+
+When founded in 1517, the city was named Franciscopolis after Francis I of France. It was subsequently named Le Havre-de-Grâce ("Harbor of Grace"; hence Havre de Grace, Maryland). Its construction was ordered to replace the ancient harbours of Honfleur and Harfleur whose utility had decreased due to silting.
+
+The history of the city is inextricably linked to its harbour. In the 18th century, as trade from the West Indies was added to that of France and Europe, Le Havre began to grow.  On 19 November 1793, the city changed its name to Hâvre de Marat and later Hâvre-Marat in honor of the recently deceased Jean-Paul Marat, who was seen as a martyr of the French Revolution.  By early 1795, however, Marat's memory had become somewhat tarnished, and on 13 January 1795, Hâvre-Marat changed its name once more to simply Le Havre, its modern name. During the 19th century, it became an industrial center.
+
+At the end of World War I Le Havre played a major role as the transit port used to wind up affairs after the war.[51]
+
+The city was devastated during the Battle of Normandy when 5,000 people were killed and 12,000 homes were totally destroyed before its capture in Operation Astonia. The center was rebuilt in a modernist style by Auguste Perret.
+
+The name of the town was attested in 1489, even before it was founded by François I in the form le Hable de Grace then Ville de Grace in 1516, two years before its official founding.[52] The learned and transient name of Franciscopolis in tribute to the same king, is encountered in some documents then that of Havre Marat, referring to Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution but was not imposed. However it explains why the complementary determinant -de-Grace was not restored.[52] This qualifier undoubtedly referred to the Chapel of Notre Dame located at the site of the cathedral of the same name. The chapel faced the Chapel Notre Dame de Grace of Honfleur across the estuary.[52] The common noun havre meaning "port" was out of use at the end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th centuries but is still preserved in the phrase havre de paix meaning "safe haven". It is generally considered a loan from Middle Dutch from the 12th century.[53] A Germanic origin can explain the "aspiration" of the initial h.
+
+New research however focuses on the fact that the term was attested very early (12th century) and in Norman texts in the forms Hable, hafne, havene, havne, and haule makes a Dutch origin unlikely. By contrast, a Scandinavian etymology is relevant given the old Scandinavian höfn (genitive hafnar) or hafn meaning "natural harbour" or "haven" and the phonetic evolution of the term étrave which is assuredly of Scandinavian origin is also attested in similar forms such as estable and probably dates back to the ancient Scandinavian stafn.[54]
+
+Le Havre is one of two sub-prefectures of Seine-Maritime and the second largest subprefecture in France after Reims. It is also the capital of the Arrondissement of Le Havre which includes 20 Cantons and 176 communes.[55] It is also the largest member of the Le Havre Seine Métropole.
+
+The city of Le Havre is divided into nine Cantons as shown in the following table with the councillors in 2011:[56]
+
+For the parliamentary elections, Le Havre spans two constituencies: the seventh (cantons I, V, VI, and VII) and the eighth (cantons II, III, IV, VIII, IX).[57]
+
+Several politicians have spent part of their lives in the city: Jules Lecesne (1818–1878), Jules Siegfried (1837–1922), and Félix Faure (1841–1899) were elected as municipal councillors and MPs. A pool, a shopping centre and a street have been named after René Coty from Le Havre, who served as President of the French Republic from 1954 to 1959. Christine Lagarde (born 1956) attended high schools in Le Havre before becoming Minister of the Economy and Director-General of the International Monetary Fund in 2011.
+
+Since 23 October 2010 the mayor has been Édouard Philippe (UMP). He also holds the presidency of the CODAH and has held a seat in the National Assembly for the 7th district of Seine-Maritime since 2012.[58] He succeeded Antoine Rufenacht (UMP), who was mayor of Le Havre for fifteen years before resigning, as the head of the municipality. The city of Le Havre has long been the strongest bastion of the Communist Party of France, who directed it from 1956 to 1995.[59] Overall, the inhabitants of Le Havre in the 7th electoral district (city centre and western neighbourhoods) tend to vote for the right while those of the 8th electoral district (eastern neighbourhoods) tend to choose the candidate of the left. For example, in the presidential election of 2007, the 7th electoral district voted for Nicolas Sarkozy (UMP) by 55.05% against 44.95% for Ségolène Royal (PS) while in the 8th electoral district 55.02% voted for the Socialist candidate.[60][61] However, the results of the 2012 presidential elections gave the PS wins in both districts with a smaller margin in the 7th (Hollande: 51.71% / Sarkozy: 48.29%) than in the 8th (Hollande 64.21% / Sarkozy: 35.79%).[60][61]
+
+The number of inhabitants in Le Havre is between 150,000 and 199,999 so the number of councillors is 59 members. The mayor, 41 aldermen and 17 deputies form the council of Le Havre elected in 2008.[62] It meets on average once a month at the town hall. The debates are generally public except for certain proceedings.[62]
+
+Le Havre has experienced many territorial extensions by annexing neighbouring communes:
+
+List of Successive Mayors of Le Havre from the French Revolution to 1940[63]
+
+The Le Havre Palace of Justice is located on the Boulevard de Strasbourg. With its annex, it includes a high court, a juvenile court, and a commercial court. The city also has a Labour Court and District Court. Among the legal services offered there are legal aid services and the application of penalties. Le Havre depends on the Court of Appeal of Rouen. The prison, which dates from the Second Empire, was completely destroyed in 2012. The new prison for Le Havre was completed in 2010 at Saint-Aubin-Routot east of the Le Havre agglomeration. It has an area of 32,000 m2 on a site of 15 hectares and can accommodate 690 people.[64]
+
+The Hospital Group of Havre is a public health facility managed by a Supervisory Board chaired by the Mayor of Le Havre. Its main structures are Flaubert Hospital (the oldest, located downtown), the Monod Hospital (in Montivilliers), the Pierre Janet Hospital (psychiatry), the house for adolescents, day hospitals, and seniors' residences. It is the largest employer in the CODAH. Built in 1987, the Jacques Monod Hospital offers a full range of care in medicine, surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics, geriatrics, mental health follow-up care, rehabilitation, reintegration, and public health.
+
+Finally, there are several private clinics that offer complete care: the private clinic of the Estuary groups together the old clinics of Petit Colmoulins and François I. The private clinic of Ormeaux is located in the neighbourhood of Eure.
+
+During the first half of the 20th century, the 129th regiment of infantry of the line was stationed at Le Havre and left an important mark on the city so a street was named after them. The 74th Infantry Regiment of commandos was present from 1963 to 1976. Finally, Le Havre is the godmother city for BPC Mistral. The ceremony was held at the City Hall on 15 November 2009, during a stopover at the Building.[65]
+
+Le Havre is twinned with:[66]
+
+Le Havre experienced a population boom in the second half of the 19th century. Subsequently, the population drain of the First World War was offset by the annexation of the town of Graville (the city gained 27,215 people between 1911 and 1921). During the Second World War the population decreased significantly (a loss of 57,149 people between 1936 and 1946) because of the exodus and bombings. After the war the commune saw its population increase until 1975. Since then population has decreased again, especially between 1975 and 1982: during these years of industrial crisis the population fell by 18,494 people. The trend continued in the 1980s although at a slower pace. The current policy of the municipality is to build new housing to attract new residents with the goal of exceeding 200,000 inhabitants, a level that was reached in the 1960s. The population of the commune of Le Havre was 191,000 inhabitants in 1999 which placed the city at 12th place among the most populated cities in France and in the first place in Normandy. In 2009 INSEE counted 177,259 people lived in the commune of Le Havre[67] while the urban area of Le Havre had 242,474 people[68] (25th place nationally) and the Metropolitan area of Havre had 293,361 inhabitants.[69]
+
+In 2009, the commune had 177,259 inhabitants. The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses conducted in the commune since 1793. From the 21st century, a census of communes with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants is held every five years, unlike larger towns that have a sample survey every year.[Note 1]
+
+
+
+In 2009, the birth rate was 14.2 per thousand and the mortality rate was 9.4 per thousand: even though the Rate of natural increase is positive it does not compensate for the clearly negative Net migration rate.[49] In 2009 19% of Le Havre's population was under 15 years old and 40% were under 29 years old which was above the average for metropolitan France.[70] 18.4% of men and 25.6% of women were over 60 years old.[70] The population is mainly concentrated in the city centre and Côte-Ormeaux.[49] In 2009 the foreign population was estimated at 8,525 persons or 4.8% of the population.[71] 12,148 immigrants lived in Havre, or 6.8% of the urban population.[72] Most had North African (5060) or African (3114) origins.[73]
+
+With the economic changes that have affected the city, the Professions and Socio-professional categories (PCS) have changed dramatically since the 1980s: between 1982 and 1999, the number of workers has declined by about a third (−10,593), their share of the active labour force was 16% in 1982 and 12.5% in 1999.[74] The population of workers is concentrated in the southern suburbs close to the port and the industrial zone.[49] At the same time the numbers of executives and intellectual professions increased by 24.5%, which is explained in part by the creation and development of the University of Le Havre. In 2009 the city had a lower proportion of managers and intellectual occupations than the national average (4.2% against 6.7%).[75] The proportion of workers (15.9%) was one point higher than the national average.[75] Going from 13.5% to 11.7% of the labour force, the rate of unemployment has decreased between 1999 and 2009. However, it remains higher than in the rest of the country.[76] The proportion Le Havre people in short-term employment (CDD and interim work) is higher than the national average.[77] Finally, the proportion of Le Havre people with a degree from higher education dramatically increased from about 21% in 1999 to 32.1% in 2009[70] against 24.5% for metropolitan France.[78] However, this proportion has increased since 2009.
+
+Le Havre is located in the Academy of Rouen. The city operates 55 kindergartens (254 classes) and 49 communal primary schools (402 classes).[79] The department manages 16 colleges and the region of Normandy manages 9 schools.[80] The Jules Valles collage in Caucriauville is classified as a sensitive institution and eleven colleges are in a priority education zone (ZEP). A boarding school of excellence, the Claude Bernard college, opened in 2011. The first college in Le Havre dates to the 16th century, the high school François I was founded during the Second Empire and is the oldest in Le Havre. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) and Raymond Aron (1905–1983) taught there. The writer Armand Salacrou (1899–1989) studied in this institution.
+
+List of public junior high schools (coll��ges) in Le Havre
+
+Private junior high schools
+
+List of Public Sixth-form Colleges/Senior High Schools in Le Havre
+
+Private Sixth-form Colleges/Senior High Schools
+
+Public Vocational High Schools
+
+Private Vocational High Schools
+
+In 2011 there were approximately 12,000 students in all disciplines in Le Havre.[91] Opened in 1986, the University of Le Havre is recent, medium-sized and well located: the largest campus is virtually in the centre of the city near railway and tram stations.[92] The campus includes a University Library (2006), a gym, several dining halls with student housing, a structure incorporating a theatre, an orientation service, and student associations. In 2010–2011, 6,914 students were enrolled including 5,071 undergraduates, 1,651 Masters students, and 192 postgraduate students.[93] The university also trains 317 engineering students[93] including the Logistical Studies Higher Education Institute (ISEL). It offers 120 Diplomas of State prepared by the Faculty of Science and Technology, Faculty of International Affairs, and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Many courses are offered are related to the port operations, logistics, industry, and sustainable development. Twelve languages are taught and 17% of students are foreigners.[94] The University of Le Havre is also a research centre with nine laboratories. It works in partnership with other higher education institutions (INSA Rouen, IEP, IUFM, and Normandy University). The University Institutes of Technology of Le Havre occupies two main sites: one in the upper town in the Caucriauville-Rouelles district which was opened in 1967 and another in the Eure district since 2011. The IUT has a total of 1,881 students divided into ten departments preparing for the DUT.[93] There is also a branch of the teacher training institute of Rouen (IUFM) for two courses (CAPET of technology and CRPE school teacher).
+
+In addition there is a large number of specialized higher education institutions covering a wide range of different areas. Founded in 1871,[95] the Ecole Superieure de Commerce du Havre, one of the oldest in France, has merged with Sup Europe and l'IPER to create the Normandy Business School in 2006. This School had over 2,800 students on its five campuses (Le Havre, Caen, Deauville, Oxford and Paris ) in 2015.[96] Since the 2007 school year, the Institute of Political Studies of Paris opened a Euro-Asia cycle[97] in Le Havre. The National School of The Merchant Marine trains Officers of the First Class for the Merchant Marine: currently located at Sainte-Adresse, it will move to the Bassin Vauban in 2015 in a building that will house 1,000 students.[98] The National Higher School of Petrol and Motors (ENSPM) is a school for specialist petroleum engineers, petrochemists, and engine makers. The ITIP (National Institute for International Transportation and Ports) prepares students for careers in the multimodal transport and port business. The (Institut national des sciences appliquées|National Institute of Applied Sciences of Rouen) (INSA) opened a branch in Le Havre in 2008 with a civil engineering and sustainable construction department. The SPI (Axis of Science for the Engineer) is expected to reopen in 2012 in a new building in the Eure district.[99]
+
+In the arts, the Conservatory of Departmental Radiance Arthur Honegger is attended by 1,680 students (music, dance and drama).[100] The Graduate School of Art of Le Havre (ESAH) offers several degrees and preparation for competition. Finally 800 people study in paramedical and social schools mostly in the IFSI (Institute of Training in Nursing) which has approximately 600 students.[93][101]
+
+The city of Le Havre has some of the oldest sports clubs in France: the Le Havre Rowing Society (1838),[102] the Regatta Society of Le Havre (1838), and Le Havre Athletic Club (1872), doyen of French football and rugby clubs.[103][104][105]
+
+The city also hosted the sailing events for the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics, respectively.
+
+Le Havre is dominated by three professional sports teams: the first is the Le Havre AC football team who played in Ligue 1 for the last time in 2008–2009 and is currently in Ligue 2. Its training centre is well-reputed for having trained a number of international French players, including Vikash Dhorasoo, Julien Faubert, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Lassana Diarra, and Steve Mandanda. The second major sports team is Saint Thomas Basketball who represent the city in LNB Pro A. Thirdly the HAC women's team who play in the first division with many international players in its ranks. The team won their first major national title, the Coupe de France for women's handball in 2006. Le Havre Rugby athletic club plays in Fédérale 3 (equivalent to 5th division). The Hockey Club of Le Havre played at the fourth level nationally (Division 3) for the 2008–2009 season. The team is nicknamed the "Dock's du Havre".[106]
+
+The maritime side of the city is found in many sports: for example, the tradition of sailing is old. On 29 July 1840 the first French pleasure boat regatta was held. Today, Le Havre is known as a water sports and Seaside resort. The marina can host deepwater vessels around the clock in any weather. Built in the Interwar period, it is now the largest in Seine-Maritime with about 1,300 moorings[107] additional moorings were installed in the Vauban basin in 2011–2012.[108] The Havraise Rowing Society has trained many rowers to a high level as Thierry Renault. The Club Nautique Le Havrais (CNH) is the centre of mixed swimming, synchronized swimming, and men's water polo. The Centre Nautique Paul Vatine is the fifth largest club in the country for the number of sports licenses it holds; it ranks second in the Division 1 of the Championship France for Catamaran Clubs.[109]
+
+Several major local sportsmen began their career at Le Havre: the swimmer Hugues Duboscq was an Olympic medallist several times. In judo the French team has two members from Le Havre: Dimitri Dragin and Baptiste Leroy. Jerome Le Banner is a professional kick-boxer at world level who participates in the K-1 championship. Finally the navigator Paul Vatine, who was lost at sea in 1999, won the Transat Jacques Vabre several times.
+
+The city has 99 sports facilities including 46 gymnasiums, 23 sports fields, and 5 swimming pools.[110] The Stade Océane (Ocean Stadium), inaugurated in July 2012, replaced the Stade Jules Deschaseaux. With 25,000 seats, it can host football matches as well as other sporting and cultural events.[111] Basketball and Handball matches are playued in the Dock Océane hall (3600 seats) while ice hockey is played at the ice hockey rink (900 seats). Of the five swimming pools in the city, two are operated by the municipality: the CNH (which has an Olympic pool for competitions) and Les Bains Des Docks (which was designed by the architect Jean Nouvel). Le Havre has the largest free outdoor skatepark in France with approximately 7,000 m2 allocated to the urban Boardsport.[112] The port infrastructure allows for many water activities such as sailing, fishing, canoeing, and rowing. Finally, the beach is a place for kitesurfing, windsurfing and surfing.
+
+Le Havre has been and is still the venue of major sports events: the Tour de France has passed a dozen times by the Ocean Gate, the last stage took place here in 2015. Sailing events are often held and the Transat Jacques Vabre transatlantic race has been held every two years since 1993 linking Le Havre to Latin America. The course of the Solitaire du Figaro was partly in Le Havre in 2010. Since 2006, weekends of freestyle board sports have been popular (skateboarding, rollerblading, funboard, kiteboarding, skydiving etc.). Every summer roller blade events are organized in the city on Friday evening every fortnight and have great success. The first International Triathlon was held in 2012.[113] Finally, there are several opportunities for runners with ten kilometres (6.2 miles) in Le Havre or the strides of Montgeon.
+
+Five newspapers cover the Le Havre agglomeration: the dailies Le Havre libre, Le Havre Presse, Paris Normandie in its Le Havre edition in collaboration with Le Havre Presse and Liberté-Dimanche (communal Sunday edition of the previous three) are part of the Hersant group which is currently in serious financial trouble and looking for a buyer. A free weekly of information, Le Havre Infos (PubliHebdo group[114]) has been published since 2010 every Wednesday and is available in many places in the city.[115][116]
+
+Several magazines provide local information: LH Océanes (Municipal magazine) and Terres d'Agglo (Agglomeration Area magazine) to which must be added several free magazines: Aux Arts (cultural information more focused on the Basse-Normandie region) Bazart (cultural events in Le Havre but now with circulation across all of Normandy), and HAC Magazine (news about HAC). Several newspapers are also available on the Internet: Infocéane, Le Havre on the Internet.
+
+A local televised edition on France 3, France 3 Baie de Seine, is broadcast every evening then again on France 3 Haute Normandie. Radio Albatros is a local station installed in the Sanvic du Havre district transmitting on FM frequency 88.2.[117] Radio Vallée de la Lézarde, based in Épouville, RESONANCE on 98.9, and RCF Le Havre are other radio stations. It was in Le Havre radio stations that the journalist and television host Laurent Ruquier, who was born in Le Havre in 1963, began his career. Several national and regional radio stations are relays for Le Havre: local information on France Bleu Haute Normandie, local relay from 12 noon to 4pm on Virgin radio Normandie 101.8 FM, local relay for Information from 6am to 9am and from 4pm to 8pm on NRJ Le Havre 92.5 FM. Associations like LHnouslanuit and Only-Hit have tried to develop alternative and cultural local radio by featuring local community associations (Papa's Production, Ben Salad Prod, Asso6Sons, Agend'Havre, Pied Nu, I Love LH).[118]
+
+At the request of Monsigneur André Mulch, Archbishop of Rouen, Pope Paul VI decided on 6 July 1974 through the papal bull Quae Sacrosanctum on the creation of the diocese of Le Havre (Portus Gratiae in Latin meaning "Port of Grace"). The diocese was created from part of the parishes of the Archdiocese of Rouen to the west of a line joining Norville to Sassetot-le-Mauconduit. Monseigneur Michel Saudreau, its first bishop, was ordained on 22 September 1974. The church of Notre Dame was promoted to Cathedral Notre Dame du Havre. Today, the commune of Le Havre is divided into eight parishes[119] and 24 places of worship (churches and chapels). The oldest chapel is Saint-Michel d'Ingouville which dates back to the 11th century. The Church of Saint Joseph du Havre, built by Auguste Perret, dominates the city with its spire 107m high. There are several monastic establishments (Carmel of the Transfiguration, Franciscan Monastery, Little Sisters of the Poor, etc.).
+
+The Protestant Church of Le Havre was built in the city centre in 1862. Bombed in 1941, it lost its pediment, its bell tower, and roof. Rebuilt in 1953 by the architects Jacques Lamy and Gérard Dupasquier,[120] who worked in the Auguste Perret office, is the only building in Le Havre uniting the original architecture of the 19th century with the architecture of the Perret school. Le Havre also has seven evangelical Protestant churches: Salvation Army, Seventh Day Adventist, Apostolic Church, Assembly of God, Baptist Church, Good News Church, et Church of Le Havre as well as several Protestant churches of African origin.
+
+The city also has seven Muslim places of worship: the socio-cultural association of Muslims in Upper Normandy, En-Nour Mosque on Rue Paul Claudel, El Fath Mosque on rue Victor Hugo, Bellevue mosque on rue Gustavus Brindeau, and three prayer rooms located on rue Audran, Boulevard Jules Durant, and rue Lodi. The synagogue, located in the rebuilt central city, was visited by President Jacques Chirac in April 2002.[121] It is the seat of the association consistoriale israélite du Havre whose president is Victor Elgressy.
+
+In 2006 the median household income tax was 14,667 euros, which put Le Havre at 22,251th place among the 30,687 communes of more than 50 households in France.[122] Although well developed and diversified, the local economy relies heavily on industrial sites, international groups, and subcontracted SMEs. The Le Havre economy is far from decision centres which are located mainly in Paris and major European economic cities. There is therefore a low representation of head offices in the city with the exception of some local economic successes such as the Sidel Group (now a subsidiary of Tetra Pak) – a distributor of interior furniture, and the ship-owner Delmas which was recently acquired by the CMA-CGM group.
+
+With 68.6 million tons of cargo in 2011, the port of Le Havre is the second largest French seaport in trade volume behind that of Marseille and 50th largest port in the world.[123] It represents 60% of total French container traffic with nearly 2.2 million Twenty-foot equivalent unit|EVP]s in 2011.[124][125] At the European level, it is 8th largest for container traffic and 6th largest for total traffic. The Port receives a large number of oil tankers that transported 27.5 million tonnes of crude oil and 11.7 million tonnes of refined product in 2011.[124] Finally, 340,500 vehicles passed through the Roll-on/roll-off terminal in 2010.[125] 75 regular shipping lines serve 500 ports around the world.[125] The largest trading partner of the port of Le Havre is the Asian continent which alone accounts for 58% of imports by container and 39.6% of exports.[124] The rest of the traffic is distributed mainly to Europe and America.
+
+Le Havre occupies the north bank of the estuary of the Seine on the Channel. Its location is favourable for several reasons: it is on the most frequented waterway in the world; it is the first and last port in the North Range of European ports – the largest in Europe which handles a quarter of all global maritime trade.[126] As a deepwater port, it is accessible to all types of ships whatever their size around the clock.[126] At the national level, Le Havre is 200 kilometres (124 mi) west of the most populous and richest region in France: Île-de-France. Since its founding in 1517 on the orders of François I, Le Havre has continued to grow: today it measures 27 km (17 mi) from east to west, about 5 km (3 mi) from north to south with an area of 10,000 hectares (24,711 acres).[126] The last big project called Port 2000 increased the handling capacity for containers.
+
+The port provides 16,000 direct jobs[125] to the Le Havre region, to which must be added indirect jobs in industry and transport. With approximately 3,000 employees in 2006, the activities of distribution and warehousing provide more jobs,[127] followed by road transport (2,420 jobs) and handling (2,319 jobs).[127]
+
+In 2011, 715,279 passengers passed through the port of Le Havre[124] and there were 95 visits by cruise ships carrying 185,000 passengers.[128] The port expects 110 cuise ship calls in 2012. Created in 1934, the leisure boat harbour of Le Havre is located to the west and is the largest French boat harbour in the Channel with a capacity of 1,160 moorings.[129] Finally, there is a small fishing port in the Saint-François district and a Hawker centre.
+
+Most industries are located in the industrial-port area north of the estuary and east of the city of Le Havre. The largest industrial employer (2,400 employees[130]) of the Le Havre region is the Renault public company in the commune of Sandouville. The second important sector for the industrial zone is petrochemicals. The Le Havre region has more than a third of French refining capacity. It provides about 50% of the production of basic plastics and 80% of additives and oils[131] with more than 3,500 researchers working in private and public laboratories. Large firms in the chemical industry are mainly in the communes of Le Havre (Millenium Chemicals Le Havre), Montivilliers (Total S.A., Yara, Chevron Oronite SA, Lanxess, etc.) and Sandouville (Goodyear Chemicals Europe). A total of 28 industrial establishments manufacture plastics in the Le Havre area many of which are classed as SECESO.[citation needed]
+
+There are several firms in the aerospace industry: SAFRAN Nacelles, a supplier to Airbus, Boeing and other commercial air-framers, making jet engine nacelles and thrust reversers, is located in Harfleur and employs 1,200 people from the Le Havre area.[132] Finally, Dresser-Rand SA manufactures equipment for the oil and gas industry and employs about 700 people.[133] In the energy field, the EDF thermal power plant of Le Havre has an installed capacity of 1,450MW and operates using coal with 357 employees.[134] The AREVA group announced the opening of a factory for building wind turbines: installed in the port of Le Havre, it should create some 1,800 jobs.[135] The machines are designed for Offshore wind power in Brittany, the UK, and Normandy.
+
+Other industries are dispersed throughout the Le Havre agglomeration: the Brûlerie du Havre, which belongs to Legal-Legoût, located in the district of Dollemard that roasts coffee, Sidel located both in the industrial area of Port of Le Havre and Octeville-sur-Mer designs and manufactures blow moulding machines and complete filling line machines for plastic bottles.
+
+The two largest employers in the service sector are the Groupe Hospitalier du Havre with 4,384 staff[136] and the City of Le Havre with 3,467 permanent employees.[137] The city has long been home to many service companies whose activity is related to port operations: primarily the ship-owning companies and also the marine insurance companies. The headquarters of Delmas (transport and communications, 1,200 employees) and SPB (Provident Society Banking, insurance, 500 employees) have settled recently at the entrance to the city. The head office of Groupama Transport (300 employees) is also present.
+
+The transport sector is the largest economic sector in Le Havre with 15.5% of employment. Logistics occupies a large part of the population and the ISEL trains engineers in this field. Since September 2007 the ICC has welcomed local students in their first year in the relocated Europe-Asia campus of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris. Higher Education is represented by the University of Le Havre which employs 399 permanent professors and 850 lecturers[138] as well as by engineering companies like Auxitec and SERO.
+
+There are many growth factors in the tourist industry: blue flag rating, World Heritage status from UNESCO, the label French Towns and Lands of Art and History, cruise ship development, a policy of value-creation from heritage, and the City of the Sea project. In early 2010 the city had 22 hotels with a total of 1,064 rooms.[139]
+
+Le Havre is the seat of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Le Havre. It manages the Le Havre Octeville Airport.
+
+Le Havre's festival calendar is punctuated by a wide range of events.
+
+In spring a Children's Book Festival was recently created. In May there is the Fest Yves, a Breton festival in the Saint-François district. On the beach of Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse there is a jazz festival called Dixie Days in June. In July, detective novels are featured in the Polar room at the Beach hosted by The Black Anchors. Between the latter also in the context of Z'Estivales is an event offering many shows of street art throughout the summer supplemented by the festival of world music MoZaïques at the fort of Sainte-Adresse in August since 2010. In mid-August there is a Flower parade which passes through the streets of the central city.
+
+In the first weekend of September the marine element is highlighted in the Festival of the Sea. This is a race between Le Havre and Bahia in Brazil. Also every November there is a fair held in the Docks Café. The Autumn Festival in Normandy, organized by the departments of Seine-Maritime and Eure, and the Region of Normandy, runs from September to November and offers numerous concerts throughout the region as well as theatre performances and dance. In late October, since 2009, there is rock music festival which has been at the fort of Tourneville since the moving of the Papa's Production association site there. The West Park Festival, after its inauguration in 2004, has been held in the park of the town hall of Harfleur.
+
+Since 1 June 2006 a Biennale of contemporary Art has been organized by the group Partouche.[140]
+
+Many buildings in the city are classified as "historical monuments", but the 2000s marked the real recognition of Le Havre's architectural heritage. The city received the label "City of Art and History" in 2001, then in 2005 UNESCO inscribed the city of Le Havre as a World Heritage Site.[141]
+
+The oldest building still standing in Le Havre is the Graville Abbey. The other medieval building in the city is the Chapel of Saint-Michel of Ingouville. Because of the bombing in 1944, heritage from the modern era is rare: Le Havre Cathedral, the Church of Saint Francis, the Museum of the Hotel Dubocage of Bleville, the House of the ship-owner and the old palace of justice (now the Natural History Museum) are concentrated in the Notre-Dame and Saint-François areas. The buildings of the 19th century testify to the maritime and military vocations of the city: the Hanging Gardens, the Fort of Tourneville, Vauban docks, and the Maritime Villa. The heritage of the 1950s and 1960s which were the work of the Auguste Perret workshop forms the most coherent architecture: the Church of Saint Francis and the Town Hall are the centrepieces. The all curved architecture of the "Volcano", designed by Oscar Niemeyer, contrasts with that of the rebuilt centre. Finally, the reconstruction of many districts is a showcase for the architecture of the 21st century. Among the achievements by renowned architects are the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (René and Phine Weeke Dottelond), Les Bains Des Docks (Jean Nouvel).[141]
+°
+
+Five Museums in Le Havre have the distinction of being classified as Musées de France (Museums of France)[149] an official label granted only to museums of a high status. The five museums are:
+
+The most important of the five, Museum Malraux was built in 1955 by the Atelier LWD and was opened in 1961 by André Malraux.[150] This museum houses a collection of art from the late Middle Ages until the 20th century. The impressionist paintings collections are the second most extensive in France after those of the Orsay Museum in Paris. The museum houses some paintings of Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Raoul Dufy, Edgar Degas...[151] I.
+
+A Museum dedicated to the history of Le Havre with many objects from the Ancien Régime and the 19th century: furniture, old maps, statues, and paintings.
+
+Founded in 1881 but heavily damaged during World War II, the Museum of Natural History is housed in Le Havre's former law courts, built in the mid-18th century; the façade and monumental staircase are listed as historical monuments. The museum houses mineralogy, zoology, ornithology, palaeontology and prehistory departments as well as 8,000 early 19th-century paintings from the collection of local naturalist and traveller Charles-Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846).[152] The museum was destroyed during Allied bombings on 5 September 1944. The library was lost, along with its collections of photographs, scientific instruments and archives. The mineral and geological collections were all destroyed, including a rare collection of local mineral specimens of Normandy. The destruction of the museum was so intense, that all the catalogues, lists of donations, lists of purchases and other archives prevented even a precise inventory of all that was lost."[153]
+
+From the 18th century; like the Museum of Old Havre it is dedicated to the History of Le Havre and contains many relics from the Ancien Régime as well as furniture, old maps, statues, and paintings.
+
+The Museum at the Priory of Graville displays many items of religious art including statues, madonnas, and other religious objects many of which are classified by the Ministry of Culture. It also houses the Gosselin collection of 206 model houses created by Jules Gosselin in the 19th century.[154]
+
+Other less important museums reflect the history of Le Havre and its maritime vocation. The apartment-control (Apartement-Temoine) was a standard apartment designed by in 1947–1950 and shows a place of daily life in the 1950s. The maritime museum displays objects related to the sea and the port. Finally, there are numerous exhibitions in the city such as the SPOT, a centre for contemporary art,[155] art galleries, and Le Portique – a contemporary art space opened in 2008; the municipal library of Le Havre regularly organizes exhibitions.
+
+Other attractions include:
+
+There are two main cultural axes in Le Havre: the central city and the Eure district. The Espace Oscar Niemeyer consists of a part of the "Great Volcano", a national theatre seating 1,093[156] (which houses the National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Haute-Normandie directed by Hervé Robbe) and secondly the "Little Volcano" with a 250-seat multi-purpose hall[156] for live performances. The whole Espace Oscar Niemeyer has been worked on since 2011: the little volcano will be transformed into a multimedia library. As for the performances at the Great Volcano, they are now taking place in the old ferry terminal until the end of construction. Other cultural institutions of the city centre are being transformed: the cinema of art and a trial of Le Sirius facing the University will reopen in 2013. Le Tetris at the fort of Tourneville will, in 2013, be a place devoted to contemporary music. Other cultural venues are scattered in the city centre: the cinema Le Studio, the theatre of the City Hall (700 seats),[157] the Little Theatre (450 seats),[158] the Théâtre des Bains Douches (94 seats), Akté theatre (60 seats), and the Poulailler (Henhouse)) (associative theatre with 50 seats) host numerous shows each year. The National Choreographic Centre of Le Havre Haute-Normandie specialises in the creation and production of dance shows. Other shows and performances are given in other places and at the Conservatory Arthur Honegger.
+
+The second cultural centre of the city is in the Eure district near the Basin Vauban. Docks Océane is a multi-purpose hall (concerts, shows, and sporting events) which can accommodate up to 4,700 spectators in 1,800 square metres (19,000 sq ft).[159] The largest cinema in Le Havre is located on the Docks Vauban (2,430 seats).[160] The Docks Café is an exhibition centre of 17,500 square metres (188,000 sq ft) used for shows, fairs, and exhibitions. The Magic Mirrors offers many concerts managed by the city and leased to private organizers.
+
+Following the closure of Cabaret Electric which was located in the Espace Oscar Niemeyer in 2011 a new auditorium, Le Tetris, is under construction at the Fort of Tourneville. It was scheduled to open in September 2013 with a large festival free-of-charge.[citation needed] It will consist of two halls with 800 and 200 seats, exhibition space, housing for artists in residence, a restaurant etc. Le Tetris will be a venue for contemporary music as well as theatre, dance, and visual arts. An "expectation" outside the walls was held on the site of the fort during 2012 and early 2013.[citation needed]
+
+The main library is located in the city centre, named after the writer Armand Salacrou. It has branches in all districts. A new multimedia library at the "Volcano" is being refurbished for 2014. Thousands of references are available in specialized libraries in the Higher School of Art, the Museum of André Malraux, and the Natural History Museum. Of medieval manuscripts and Incunables are conserved at the public library. The archives of the city, at the Fort of Tourneville, possesses documents from the 16th to the 20th centuries.[161]
+
+The Port of Le Havre and the light on the estuary of the Seine inspired many painters: Louis-Philippe Crepin (1772–1851), Jean-Baptiste Corot (1796–1875), Eugène Isabey (1803–1886), Theodore Gudin (1802–1880), Adolphe-Felix Cals (1810–1880), Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) in 1845,[162] Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) etc.. It is to Eugène Boudin (1824–1898) who created many representations of Le Havre in the 19th century. The artist lived for a time in the city. Thanks to its proximity to Honfleur, Le Havre was also represented by foreign artists such as William Turner, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Alfred Stevens, and Richard Parkes Bonington.
+
+Claude Monet (1840–1926), a resident of Le Havre from the age of five, in 1872 painted Impression soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), a painting that gave its name to the impressionist movement. In 1867–1868, he painted many seascapes in the Le Havre region (Terrasse a Sainte-Adresse (Garden at Sainte-Adresse), 1867 Bateaux quittant le port (Boats Leaving the Port), 1874). The Musée Malraux houses some of his paintings : Waterlilies, London Parliament et Winter Sun at Lavacourt. Two other Impressionists, Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) and Maxime Maufra (1861–1918) also represented the port of Le Havre which also inspired Paul Signac (1863–1935), Albert Marquet (1875–1947), and Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958).
+
+Then came the school of Fauvism in which many artists did their training at Le Havre: Othon Friesz (1879–1949), Henri de Saint-Delis (1876–1958), Raoul Dufy (1877–1953), Georges Braque (1882–1963), Raymond Lecourt (1882–1946), Albert Copieux (1885–1956), who followed the course of the School of Fine Arts of Le Havre in the time of Charles Lhuillier. They left a number of paintings on the theme of the city and the port. In 1899, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) painted  La serveuse anglaise du Star (The English waitress of Star) (Museum Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi) of a girl he met in a bar in the city.
+
+Other painters who painted Le Havre and/or its surroundings such as Sainte-Adresse can be cited in particular: Frédéric Bazille, John Gendall, Thomas Couture, Ambroise Louis Garneray, Pablo Picasso (Souvenir du Havre). Jean Dubuffet studied at the School of Art in Le Havre.
+
+With nearly 70 films, Le Havre is one of the provincial cities most represented in the cinema.[163] Several directors have chosen the port facilities as part of their movie:
+
+The city has also hosted the filming of several comedies such as:
+
+The film by Sophie Marceau, La Disparue de Deauville, made in 2007, contains many scenes around the port of Le Havre, in the Coty shopping centre of Coty and in the streets of the central city.
+
+The film Le Havre by Aki Kaurismäki received two prizes at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and also the Louis Delluc Prize.[164] It was nominated three times for the 37th César Awards.
+
+Le Havre appears in several literary works as a point of departure to America: in the 18th century, Father Prevost embarked Manon Lescaut and Des Grieux for French Louisiana. Fanny Loviot departed from Le Havre in 1852, as an emigrant to San Francisco and points further west, and recounted her adventures in Les pirates chinois (A Lady's Captivity among Chinese Pirates in the Chinese Seas, 1858).
+
+In the 19th century, Le Havre was the setting for several French novels: Honoré de Balzac described the failure of a Le Havre merchant family in Modeste Mignon. Later, the Norman writer Guy de Maupassant located several of his works at Le Havre such as Au muséum d'histoire naturelle (At the Museum of Natural History) a text published in Le Gaulois on 23 March 1881 and again in Pierre et Jean. Alphonse Allais located his intrigues at Le Havre too. La Bête humaine (The Human Beast) by Émile Zola evokes the world of the railway and runs along the Paris–Le Havre railway. Streets, buildings, and public places in Le Havre pay tribute to other famous Le Havre people from this period: the writer Casimir Delavigne (1793–1843) has a street named after him and a statue in front of the palace of justice alongside another man of letters, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814).
+
+In the 20th century, Henry Miller located part of the action in Le Havre in his masterpiece Tropic of Cancer, published in 1934. Bouville was the commune where the writer lived who wrote his diary in  La Nausée (The Nausea) (1938) by Jean-Paul Sartre who was inspired by Le Havre city where he wrote his first novel. There are also the testimonies of Raymond Queneau (1903–1976), born in Le Havre, the city served as a framework for his novel Un rude hiver (A harsh winter) (1939). The plot of Une maison soufflée aux vents (A house blown to the winds) by Emile Danoën, winner of the Popular Novel Prize in 1951, and its sequel Idylle dans un quartier muré (Idyll in a walled neighbourhood) were located in Le Havre during the Second World War. Under the name Port de Brume Le Havre is the setting for three other novels by this author: Cerfs-volants (Kites), L'Aventure de Noël (The Adventure at Christmas), and La Queue à la pègre (Queue to the underworld). Michel Leiris wrote De la littérature considérée comme une tauromachie (Of literature considered like a bullfight) in December 1945.
+
+Diana Gabaldon set the second novel in her Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber (1992), partly in Le Havre.
+
+Two mystery novels take place in Le Havre: Le Bilan Maletras (The Maletras Balance) by Georges Simenon and Le Crime de Rouletabille (Crime at the Roulette table) by Gaston Leroux. In Rouge Brésil (Red Brazil), winner of the Goncourt Prize in 2001, Jean-Christophe Rufin describes Le Havre in the 16th century as the port of departure of French expeditions to the New World: the hero Villegagnon leaves of the port to conquer new lands for the French crown which become Brazil. Martine–Marie Muller tells the saga of a clan of Stevedores from Le Havre in the 1950s to the 1970s in Quai des Amériques (Quay of the Americas).
+
+Benoît Duteurtre published in 2001, Le Voyage en France (Travel in France), for which he received the Prix Médicis: the main character, a young American impassioned by France, lands at Le Havre which he describes in the first part of the novel. In 2008, Benoît Duteurtre publishes Les pieds dans l'eau (Feet in the water), a highly autobiographical book in which he describes his youth spent between Le Havre and Etretat. The city hosted writers such as Emile Danoën (1920–1999) who grew up in the district of Saint-François, Yoland Simon (born 1941), and Philippe Huet (born 1955). Canadian poet Octave Crémazie (1827–1879) died at Le Havre and was buried in Saint Marie Cemetery. The playwright Jacques-François Ancelot (1794–1854) was also a native of Le Havre. Two famous historians, Gabriel Monod (1844–1912) and André Siegfried (1875–1959) were from the city.
+
+Le Havre also appears in comic books: for example, in  L'Oreille cassée (The Broken Ear) (1937), Tintin embarks on the vessel City of Lyon sailing to South America. The meeting between Tintin and General Alcazar in Les Sept Boules de cristal (The Seven Crystal Balls) (1948) is in Le Havre, according to notes by Hergé in the margins of Le Soir, the first publisher of this adventure. The first adventure of Ric Hochet (1963), the designer Tibet and André-Paul Duchâteau, Traquenard au Havre (Trap at Le Havre) shows the seaside and the port. Similarly, in 1967, for the album Rapt sur le France (Rapt on France), the hero passes by the ocean port. Frank Le Gall, in  Novembre toute l'année (November all year) (2000) embarks Theodore Poussin at Le Havre on the Cap Padaran.
+
+Le Havre is the birthplace of many musicians and composers such as Henri Woollett (1864–1936), André Caplet (1878–1925) and Arthur Honegger (1892–1955). There was also Victor Mustel (1815–1890) who was famous for having perfected the harmonium.
+
+Le Havre has long been regarded as one of the cradles of French rock and blues. In the 1980s many groups have emerged after a first dynamic development in the 1960s and 1970s. The most famous personality of Le Havre rock is Little Bob who began his career in the 1970s. The port tradition in many of the groups was repeated in the unused sheds of the port, such as Bovis hall which could hold 20,000 spectators. A blues festival, driven by Jean-François Skrobek, Blues a Gogo existed for eight years from 1995 to 2002. Several artists have been produced such as: Youssou N'Dour, Popa Chubby, Amadou & Mariam, Patrick Verbeke etc. It was organized by the Coup de Bleu association whose former president was head of music Café L'Agora in the Niemeyer Centre which produced the new Le Havre scene. During these same years, the Festival of the Future, the local version of the Fête de l'Humanité (Festival of Humanity), attracted a large audience.
+
+Currently, the musical tradition continues in the Symphony Orchestra of the city of Le Havre, the orchestra of Concerts André Caplet, the conservatory, and music schools such as the Centre for Vocal and Musical Expression (rock) or the JUPO (mainly jazz), associations or labels like Papa's Production (la Folie Ordinaire, Mob's et Travaux, Dominique Comont, Souinq, Your Happy End etc.). The organization by the association of West Park Festival since the 2000s in Harfleur and since 2004 at the Fort of Tourneville is a demonstration. Moreover, since 2008, the association I Love LH was started and promotes Le Havre culture and especially its music scene by organizing original cultural events as well as the free distribution of compilation music by local artists.
+
+Main articles: Le Havre (board game)
+
+Le Havre is a board game about the development of the town of Le Havre. It was inspired by the games Caylus and Agricola and was developed in December 2007.[citation needed]
+
+Main articles: Norman language and Cauchois dialect.
+
+The legacy of the Norman language is present in the language used by the people of Le Havre, part of which is identified as speaking cauchois. Among the Norman words most used in Le Havre there are: boujou (hello, goodbye), clenche (door handle), morveux (veuse) (child), and bezot (te) (last born).
+
+Le Havre was the birthplace of:
+
+French

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+The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book remains popular and is recognized as a classic in children's literature.
+
+The Hobbit is set within Tolkien's fictional universe and follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the titular hobbit, to win a share of the treasure guarded by Smaug the dragon. Bilbo's journey takes him from light-hearted, rural surroundings into more sinister territory.
+
+The story is told in the form of an episodic quest, and most chapters introduce a specific creature or type of creature of Tolkien's geography. Bilbo gains a new level of maturity, competence, and wisdom by accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey, and adventurous sides of his nature and applying his wits and common sense. The story reaches its climax in the Battle of Five Armies, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict.
+
+Personal growth and forms of heroism are central themes of the story, along with motifs of warfare. These themes have led critics to view Tolkien's own experiences during World War I as instrumental in shaping the story. The author's scholarly knowledge of Germanic philology and interest in mythology and fairy tales are often noted as influences.
+
+The publisher was encouraged by the book's critical and financial success and, therefore, requested a sequel. As Tolkien's work progressed on the successor The Lord of the Rings, he made retrospective accommodations for it in The Hobbit. These few but significant changes were integrated into the second edition. Further editions followed with minor emendations, including those reflecting Tolkien's changing concept of the world into which Bilbo stumbled.
+
+The work has never been out of print. Its ongoing legacy encompasses many adaptations for stage, screen, radio, board games, and video games. Several of these adaptations have received critical recognition on their own merits.
+
+Bilbo Baggins, the titular protagonist, is a respectable, reserved hobbit—a race resembling very short humans with furry feet who live in underground houses and are mainly pastoral farmers and gardeners.[1][2][3] During his adventure, Bilbo often refers to the contents of his larder at home and wishes he had more food. Until he finds a magic ring, he is more baggage than help. Gandalf, an itinerant wizard,[4] introduces Bilbo to a company of thirteen dwarves. During the journey the wizard disappears on side errands dimly hinted at, only to appear again at key moments in the story. Thorin Oakenshield, the proud, pompous[5][6] head of the company of dwarves and heir to the destroyed dwarvish kingdom under the Lonely Mountain, makes many mistakes in his leadership, relying on Gandalf and Bilbo to get him out of trouble, but proves himself a mighty warrior. Smaug is a dragon who long ago pillaged the dwarvish kingdom of Thorin's grandfather and sleeps upon the vast treasure.
+
+The plot involves a host of other characters of varying importance, such as the twelve other dwarves of the company; two types of elves: both puckish and more serious warrior types;[7] Men; man-eating trolls; boulder-throwing giants; evil cave-dwelling goblins; forest-dwelling giant spiders who can speak; immense and heroic eagles who also speak; evil wolves, or Wargs, who are allied with the goblins; Elrond the sage; Gollum, a strange creature inhabiting an underground lake; Beorn, a man who can assume bear form; and Bard the Bowman, a grim but honourable archer of Lake-town.[6][8]
+
+Gandalf tricks Bilbo Baggins into hosting a party for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils Thrór's map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "burglar". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself.
+
+The group travels into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. When they attempt to cross the Misty Mountains they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase, but the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of Beorn.
+
+The company enters the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travels to the Lonely Mountain and finds the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and espying a gap in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A thrush had overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability and reports it to Lake-town defender Bard. Bard's arrow finds the hollow spot and kills the dragon.
+
+When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's family, and hides it away. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the Iron Hills, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is only enraged at the betrayal. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable.
+
+Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies.
+
+Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit roughly a year and a month after he first left.
+
+In the early 1930s Tolkien was pursuing an academic career at Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College. Several of his poems had been published in magazines and small collections, including Goblin Feet[9] and The Cat and the Fiddle: A Nursery Rhyme Undone and its Scandalous Secret Unlocked,[10] a reworking of the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle. His creative endeavours at this time also included letters from Father Christmas to his children—illustrated manuscripts that featured warring gnomes and goblins, and a helpful polar bear—alongside the creation of elven languages and an attendant mythology, including the Book of Lost Tales, which he had been creating since 1917. These works all saw posthumous publication.[11]
+
+In a 1955 letter to W. H. Auden, Tolkien recollects that he began work on The Hobbit one day early in the 1930s, when he was marking School Certificate papers. He found a blank page. Suddenly inspired, he wrote the words, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." By late 1932 he had finished the story and then lent the manuscript to several friends, including C. S. Lewis[12] and a student of Tolkien's named Elaine Griffiths.[13] In 1936, when Griffiths was visited in Oxford by Susan Dagnall, a staff member of the publisher George Allen & Unwin, she is reported to have either lent Dagnall the book[13] or suggested she borrow it from Tolkien.[14] In any event, Dagnall was impressed by it, and showed the book to Stanley Unwin, who then asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it. Rayner's favourable comments settled Allen & Unwin's decision to publish Tolkien's book.[15]
+
+The setting of The Hobbit, as described on its original dust jacket, is "ancient time between the age of Faerie and the dominion of men" in an unnamed fantasy world.[16] The world is shown on the endpaper map as "Western Lands" westward and "Wilderland" as the east. Originally this world was self-contained, but as Tolkien began work on The Lord of the Rings, he decided these stories could fit into the legendarium he had been working on privately for decades. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings became the end of the "Third Age" of Middle Earth within  Arda. Eventually those tales of the earlier periods became published as The Silmarillion and other posthumous works.
+
+One of the greatest influences on Tolkien was the 19th-century Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris. Tolkien wished to imitate Morris's prose and poetry romances,[17] following the general style and approach of the work. The Desolation of Smaug as portraying dragons as detrimental to landscape, has been noted as an explicit motif borrowed from Morris.[18] Tolkien wrote also of being impressed as a boy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett's historical novel The Black Douglas and of basing the Necromancer—Sauron—on its villain, Gilles de Retz.[19] Incidents in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are similar in narrative and style to the novel,[20] and its overall style and imagery have been suggested as having had an influence on Tolkien.[21]
+
+Tolkien's portrayal of goblins in The Hobbit was particularly influenced by George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.[22] However, MacDonald influenced Tolkien more profoundly than just to shape individual characters and episodes; his works further helped Tolkien form his whole thinking on the role of fantasy within his Christian faith.[23]
+
+Tolkien scholar Mark T. Hooker has catalogued a lengthy series of parallels between The Hobbit and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. These include, among other things, a hidden runic message and a celestial alignment that direct the adventurers to the goals of their quests.[24]
+
+Tolkien's works show much influence from Norse mythology, reflecting his lifelong passion for those stories and his academic interest in Germanic philology.[25] The Hobbit is no exception to this; the work shows influences from northern European literature, myths and languages,[26] especially from the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda. Examples include the names of characters,[27] such as Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Dwalin, Balin, Dain, Nain, Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf (deriving from the Old Norse names Fíli, Kíli, Oin, Glói, Bivör, Bávörr, Bömburr, Dori, Nóri, Dvalinn, Bláin, Dain, Nain, Þorin Eikinskialdi and Gandálfr).[28] But while their names are from Old Norse, the characters of the dwarves are more directly taken from fairy tales such as Snow White and Snow-White and Rose-Red as collected by the Brothers Grimm. The latter tale may also have influenced the character of Beorn.[29]
+
+Tolkien's use of descriptive names such as Misty Mountains and Bag End echoes the names used in Old Norse sagas.[30] The names of the dwarf-friendly ravens, such as Roäc, are derived from Old Norse words for "raven" and "rook",[31] but their peaceful characters are unlike the typical carrion birds from Old Norse and Old English literature.[32] Tolkien is not simply skimming historical sources for effect: the juxtaposition of old and new styles of expression is seen by Shippey as one of the major themes explored in The Hobbit.[33] Maps figure in both saga literature and The Hobbit.[30] Several of the author's illustrations incorporate Anglo-Saxon runes, an English adaptation of the Germanic runic alphabets.
+
+Themes from Old English literature, and specifically from Beowulf, shape the ancient world Bilbo stepped into. Tolkien, a scholar of Beowulf, counted the epic among his "most valued sources" for The Hobbit.[34] Tolkien was one of the first critics to treat Beowulf as a literary work with value beyond the merely historical, and his 1936 lecture Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics is still required in some Old English courses.[citation needed] Tolkien borrowed several elements from Beowulf, including a monstrous, intelligent dragon.[35]  Certain descriptions in The Hobbit seem to have been lifted straight out of Beowulf with some minor rewording, such as when the dragon stretches its neck out to sniff for intruders.[36] Likewise, Tolkien's descriptions of the lair as accessed through a secret passage mirror those in Beowulf. Other specific plot elements and features in The Hobbit that show similarities to Beowulf include the title thief, as Bilbo is called by Gollum and later by Smaug, and Smaug's personality, which leads to the destruction of Lake-town.[37] Tolkien refines parts of Beowulf's plot that he appears to have found less than satisfactorily described, such as details about the cup-thief and the dragon's intellect and personality.[38]
+
+Another influence from Old English sources is the appearance of named blades of renown, adorned in runes. In using his elf-blade Bilbo finally takes his first independent heroic action. By his naming the blade "Sting" we see Bilbo's acceptance of the kinds of cultural and linguistic practices found in Beowulf, signifying his entrance into the ancient world in which he found himself.[39] This progression culminates in Bilbo stealing a cup from the dragon's hoard, rousing him to wrath—an incident directly mirroring Beowulf and an action entirely determined by traditional narrative patterns. As Tolkien wrote, "The episode of the theft arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances. It is difficult to think of any other way of conducting the story at this point. I fancy the author of Beowulf would say much the same."[34]
+
+The name of the wizard Radagast is widely recognized to be taken from the name of the Slavic deity Rodegast.[40]
+
+The representation of the dwarves in The Hobbit was influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history.[41] The dwarves' characteristics of being dispossessed of their ancient homeland at the Lonely Mountain, and living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture are all derived from the medieval image of Jews,[41][42] whilst their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible.[41] The Dwarvish calendar invented for The Hobbit reflects the Jewish calendar in beginning in late autumn.[41] And although Tolkien denied allegory, the dwarves taking Bilbo out of his complacent existence has been seen as an eloquent metaphor for the "impoverishment of Western society without Jews."[42]
+
+George Allen & Unwin Ltd. of London published the first edition of The Hobbit on 21 September 1937 with a print run of 1,500 copies, which sold out by December because of enthusiastic reviews.[43] This first printing was illustrated in black and white by Tolkien, who designed the dust jacket as well. Houghton Mifflin of Boston and New York reset type for an American edition, to be released early in 1938, in which four of the illustrations would be colour plates. Allen & Unwin decided to incorporate the colour illustrations into their second printing, released at the end of 1937.[44] Despite the book's popularity, paper rationing due to World War II and not ending until 1949 meant that the Allen & Unwin edition of the book was often unavailable during this period.[45]
+
+Subsequent editions in English were published in 1951, 1966, 1978 and 1995. Numerous English-language editions of The Hobbit have been produced by several publishers.[46] In addition, The Hobbit has been translated into over sixty languages, with more than one published version for some languages.[47]
+
+In December 1937 The Hobbit's publisher, Stanley Unwin, asked Tolkien for a sequel. In response Tolkien provided drafts for The Silmarillion, but the editors rejected them, believing that the public wanted "more about hobbits".[48] Tolkien subsequently began work on The New Hobbit, which would eventually become The Lord of the Rings,[48] a course that would not only change the context of the original story, but lead to substantial changes to the character of Gollum.
+
+In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum willingly bets his magic ring on the outcome of the riddle-game, and he and Bilbo part amicably.[7] In the second edition edits, to reflect the new concept of the One Ring and its corrupting abilities, Tolkien made Gollum more aggressive towards Bilbo and distraught at losing the ring. The encounter ends with Gollum's curse, "Thief! Thief, Thief, Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!" This presages Gollum's portrayal in The Lord of the Rings.
+
+Tolkien sent this revised version of the chapter "Riddles in the Dark" to Unwin as an example of the kinds of changes needed to bring the book into conformity with The Lord of the Rings, but he heard nothing back for years. When he was sent galley proofs of a new edition, Tolkien was surprised to find the sample text had been incorporated.[49] In The Lord of the Rings, the original version of the riddle game is explained as a "lie" made up by Bilbo under the harmful influence of the Ring, whereas the revised version contains the "true" account.[50] The revised text became the second edition, published in 1951 in both the UK and the US.[51]
+
+Tolkien began a new version in 1960, attempting to adjust the tone of The Hobbit to its sequel. He abandoned the new revision at chapter three after he received criticism that it "just wasn't The Hobbit", implying it had lost much of its light-hearted tone and quick pace.[52]
+
+After an unauthorized paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings appeared from Ace Books in 1965, Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine asked Tolkien to refresh the text of The Hobbit to renew the US copyright.[53] This text became the 1966 third edition. Tolkien took the opportunity to align the narrative even more closely to The Lord of the Rings and to cosmological developments from his still unpublished Quenta Silmarillion as it stood at that time.[54] These small edits included, for example, changing the phrase "elves that are now called Gnomes" from the first,[55] and second editions,[56] on page 63, to "High Elves of the West, my kin" in the third edition.[57] Tolkien had used "gnome" in his earlier writing to refer to the second kindred of the High Elves—the Noldor (or "Deep Elves")—thinking "gnome", derived from the Greek gnosis (knowledge), was a good name for the wisest of the elves. However, because of its common denotation of a garden gnome, derived from the 16th-century Paracelsus, Tolkien abandoned the term.[58] He also changed "tomatoes" to "pickles" but retained other anachronisms, such as clocks and tobacco. In The Lord of the Rings, he has Merry explain that tobacco had been brought from the West by the Númenóreans.
+
+Since the author's death, two editions of The Hobbit have been published with commentary on the creation, emendation and development of the text. In The Annotated Hobbit, Douglas Anderson provides the text of the published book alongside commentary and illustrations. Later editions added the text of "The Quest of Erebor". Anderson's commentary makes note of the sources Tolkien brought together in preparing the text, and chronicles the changes Tolkien made to the published editions. The text is also accompanied by illustrations from foreign language editions, among them work by Tove Jansson.[59] The edition also presents a number of little-known texts such as the 1923 version of Tolkien's poem "Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden".
+
+With The History of The Hobbit, published in two parts in 2007, John D. Rateliff provides the full text of the earliest and intermediary drafts of the book, alongside commentary that shows relationships to Tolkien's scholarly and creative works, both contemporary and later. Rateliff provides the abandoned 1960s retelling and previously unpublished illustrations by Tolkien. The book separates commentary from Tolkien's text, allowing the reader to read the original drafts as self-contained stories.[31]
+
+Tolkien's correspondence and publisher's records show that he was involved in the design and illustration of the entire book. All elements were the subject of considerable correspondence and fussing over by Tolkien. Rayner Unwin, in his publishing memoir, comments: "In 1937 alone Tolkien wrote 26 letters to George Allen & Unwin... detailed, fluent, often pungent, but infinitely polite and exasperatingly precise... I doubt any author today, however famous, would get such scrupulous attention."[60]
+
+Even the maps, of which Tolkien originally proposed five, were considered and debated. He wished Thror's Map to be tipped in (that is, glued in after the book has been bound) at first mention in the text, and with the moon letter Cirth on the reverse so they could be seen when held up to the light.[45] In the end the cost, as well as the shading of the maps, which would be difficult to reproduce, resulted in the final design of two maps as endpapers, Thror's map, and the Map of Wilderland (see Rhovanion), both printed in black and red on the paper's cream background.[62]
+
+Originally Allen & Unwin planned to illustrate the book only with the endpaper maps, but Tolkien's first tendered sketches so charmed the publisher's staff that they opted to include them without raising the book's price despite the extra cost. Thus encouraged, Tolkien supplied a second batch of illustrations. The publisher accepted all of these as well, giving the first edition ten black-and-white illustrations plus the two endpaper maps. The illustrated scenes were: The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water, The Trolls, The Mountain Path, The Misty Mountains looking West from the Eyrie towards Goblin Gate, Beorn's Hall, Mirkwood, The Elvenking's Gate, Lake Town, The Front Gate, and The Hall at Bag-End. All but one of the illustrations were a full page, and one, the Mirkwood illustration, required a separate plate.[63]
+
+Satisfied with his skills, the publishers asked Tolkien to design a dust jacket. This project, too, became the subject of many iterations and much correspondence, with Tolkien always writing disparagingly of his own ability to draw. The runic inscription around the edges of the illustration are a phonetic transliteration of English, giving the title of the book and details of the author and publisher.[64] The original jacket design contained several shades of various colours, but Tolkien redrew it several times using fewer colours each time. His final design consisted of four colours. The publishers, mindful of the cost, removed the red from the sun to end up with only black, blue, and green ink on white stock.[65]
+
+The publisher's production staff designed a binding, but Tolkien objected to several elements. Through several iterations, the final design ended up as mostly the author's. The spine shows runes: two "þ" (Thráin and Thrór) runes and one "d" (door). The front and back covers were mirror images of each other, with an elongated dragon characteristic of Tolkien's style stamped along the lower edge, and with a sketch of the Misty Mountains stamped along the upper edge.[66]
+
+Once illustrations were approved for the book, Tolkien proposed colour plates as well. The publisher would not relent on this, so Tolkien pinned his hopes on the American edition to be published about six months later. Houghton Mifflin rewarded these hopes with the replacement of the frontispiece (The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water) in colour and the addition of new colour plates: Rivendell, Bilbo Woke Up with the Early Sun in His Eyes, Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves and Conversation with Smaug, which features a dwarvish curse written in Tolkien's invented script Tengwar, and signed with two "þ" ("Th") runes.[67] The additional illustrations proved so appealing that George Allen & Unwin adopted the colour plates as well for their second printing, with exception of Bilbo Woke Up with the Early Sun in His Eyes.[68]
+
+Different editions have been illustrated in diverse ways. Many follow the original scheme at least loosely, but many others are illustrated by other artists, especially the many translated editions. Some cheaper editions, particularly paperback, are not illustrated except with the maps. "The Children's Book Club" edition of 1942 includes the black-and-white pictures but no maps, an anomaly.[69]
+
+Tolkien's use of runes, both as decorative devices and as magical signs within the story, has been cited as a major cause for the popularization of runes within "New Age" and esoteric literature,[70] stemming from Tolkien's popularity with the elements of counter-culture in the 1970s.[71]
+
+The Hobbit takes cues from narrative models of children's literature, as shown by its omniscient narrator and characters that young children can relate to, such as the small, food-obsessed, and morally ambiguous Bilbo. The text emphasizes the relationship between time and narrative progress and it openly distinguishes "safe" from "dangerous" in its geography. Both are key elements of works intended for children,[72] as is the "home-away-home" (or there and back again) plot structure typical of the Bildungsroman.[73] While Tolkien later claimed to dislike the aspect of the narrative voice addressing the reader directly,[74] the narrative voice contributes significantly to the success of the novel.[75] Emer O'Sullivan, in her Comparative Children's Literature, notes The Hobbit as one of a handful of children's books that have been accepted into mainstream literature, alongside Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World (1991) and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997–2007).[76]
+
+Tolkien intended The Hobbit as a "fairy-story" and wrote it in a tone suited to addressing children[77] although he said later that the book was not specifically written for children but had rather been created out of his interest in mythology and legend.[78] Many of the initial reviews refer to the work as a fairy story. However, according to Jack Zipes writing in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, Bilbo is an atypical character for a fairy tale.[79] The work is much longer than Tolkien's ideal proposed in his essay On Fairy-Stories. Many fairy tale motifs, such as the repetition of similar events seen in the dwarves' arrival at Bilbo's and Beorn's homes, and folklore themes, such as trolls turning to stone, are to be found in the story.[80]
+
+The book is popularly called (and often marketed as) a fantasy novel, but like Peter Pan and Wendy by J. M. Barrie and The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, both of which influenced Tolkien and contain fantasy elements, it is primarily identified as being children's literature.[81][82] The two genres are not mutually exclusive, so some definitions of high fantasy include works for children by authors such as L. Frank Baum and Lloyd Alexander alongside the works of Gene Wolfe and Jonathan Swift, which are more often considered adult literature. The Hobbit has been called "the most popular of all twentieth-century fantasies written for children".[83] Jane Chance, however, considers the book to be a children's novel only in the sense that it appeals to the child in an adult reader.[84] Sullivan credits the first publication of The Hobbit as an important step in the development of high fantasy, and further credits the 1960s paperback debuts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as essential to the creation of a mass market for fiction of this kind as well as the fantasy genre's current status.[26]
+
+Tolkien's prose is unpretentious and straightforward, taking as given the existence of his imaginary world and describing its details in a matter-of-fact way, while often introducing the new and fantastic in an almost casual manner. This down-to-earth style, also found in later fantasy such as Richard Adams' Watership Down and Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn, accepts readers into the fictional world, rather than cajoling or attempting to convince them of its reality.[85] While The Hobbit is written in a simple, friendly language, each of its characters has a unique voice. The narrator, who occasionally interrupts the narrative flow with asides (a device common to both children's and Anglo-Saxon literature),[26] has his own linguistic style separate from those of the main characters.[86]
+
+The basic form of the story is that of a quest,[87] told in episodes. For the most part of the book, each chapter introduces a different denizen of the Wilderland, some helpful and friendly towards the protagonists, and others threatening or dangerous. However the general tone is kept light-hearted, being interspersed with songs and humour. One example of the use of song to maintain tone is when Thorin and Company are kidnapped by goblins, who, when marching them into the underworld, sing:
+
+Clap! Snap! the black crack!
+Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
+And down down to Goblin-town
+   You go, my lad!
+
+This onomatopoeic singing undercuts the dangerous scene with a sense of humour. Tolkien achieves balance of humour and danger through other means as well, as seen in the foolishness and Cockney dialect of the trolls and in the drunkenness of the elven captors.[88] The general form—that of a journey into strange lands, told in a light-hearted mood and interspersed with songs—may be following the model of The Icelandic Journals by William Morris, an important literary influence on Tolkien.[89]
+
+The evolution and maturation of the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is central to the story. This journey of maturation, where Bilbo gains a clear sense of identity and confidence in the outside world, may be seen as a Bildungsroman rather than a traditional quest.[90] The Jungian concept of individuation is also reflected through this theme of growing maturity and capability, with the author contrasting Bilbo's personal growth against the arrested development of the dwarves.[91] Thus, while Gandalf exerts a parental influence over Bilbo early on, it is Bilbo who gradually takes over leadership of the party, a fact the dwarves could not bear to acknowledge.[92] The analogue of the "underworld" and the hero returning from it with a boon (such as the ring, or Elvish blades) that benefits his society is seen to fit the mythic archetypes regarding initiation and male coming-of-age as described by Joseph Campbell.[88] Chance compares the development and growth of Bilbo against other characters to the concepts of just kingship versus sinful kingship derived from the Ancrene Wisse (which Tolkien had written on in 1929) and a Christian understanding of Beowulf.[93]
+
+The overcoming of greed and selfishness has been seen as the central moral of the story.[94] Whilst greed is a recurring theme in the novel, with many of the episodes stemming from one or more of the characters' simple desire for food (be it trolls eating dwarves or dwarves eating Wood-elf fare) or a desire for beautiful objects, such as gold and jewels,[95] it is only by the Arkenstone's influence upon Thorin that greed, and its attendant vices "coveting" and "malignancy", come fully to the fore in the story and provide the moral crux of the tale. Bilbo steals the Arkenstone—a most ancient relic of the dwarves—and attempts to ransom it to Thorin for peace. However, Thorin turns on the Hobbit as a traitor, disregarding all the promises and "at your services" he had previously bestowed.[96] In the end Bilbo gives up the precious stone and most of his share of the treasure to help those in greater need. Tolkien also explores the motif of jewels that inspire intense greed that corrupts those who covet them in the Silmarillion, and there are connections between the words "Arkenstone" and "Silmaril" in Tolkien's invented etymologies.[97]
+
+The Hobbit employs themes of animism. An important concept in anthropology and child development, animism is the idea that all things—including inanimate objects and natural events, such as storms or purses, as well as living things like animals and plants—possess human-like intelligence. John D. Rateliff calls this the "Doctor Dolittle Theme" in The History of the Hobbit, and cites the multitude of talking animals as indicative of this theme. These talking creatures include ravens, a thrush, spiders and the dragon Smaug, alongside the anthropomorphic goblins and elves. Patrick Curry notes that animism is also found in Tolkien's other works, and mentions the "roots of mountains" and "feet of trees" in The Hobbit as a linguistic shifting in level from the inanimate to animate.[98] Tolkien saw the idea of animism as closely linked to the emergence of human language and myth: "...The first men to talk of 'trees and stars' saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings... To them the whole of creation was 'myth-woven and elf-patterned'."[99]
+
+As in plot and setting, Tolkien brings his literary theories to bear in forming characters and their interactions. He portrays Bilbo as a modern anachronism exploring an essentially antique world. Bilbo is able to negotiate and interact within this antique world because language and tradition make connections between the two worlds. For example, Gollum's riddles are taken from old historical sources, while those of Bilbo come from modern nursery books. It is the form of the riddle game, familiar to both, which allows Gollum and Bilbo to engage each other, rather than the content of the riddles themselves. This idea of a superficial contrast between characters' individual linguistic style, tone and sphere of interest, leading to an understanding of the deeper unity between the ancient and modern, is a recurring theme in The Hobbit.[33]
+
+Smaug is the main antagonist. In many ways the Smaug episode reflects and references the dragon of Beowulf, and Tolkien uses the episode to put into practice some of the ground-breaking literary theories he had developed about the Old English poem in its portrayal of the dragon as having bestial intelligence.[35] Tolkien greatly prefers this motif over the later medieval trend of using the dragon as a symbolic or allegorical figure, such as in the legend of St. George.[100] Smaug the dragon with his golden hoard may be seen as an example of the traditional relationship between evil and metallurgy as collated in the depiction of Pandæmonium with its "Belched fire and rolling smoke" in Milton's Paradise Lost.[101] Of all the characters, Smaug's speech is the most modern, using idioms such as "Don't let your imagination run away with you!"
+
+Just as Tolkien's literary theories have been seen to influence the tale, so have Tolkien's experiences. The Hobbit may be read as Tolkien's parable of World War I with the hero being plucked from his rural home and thrown into a far-off war where traditional types of heroism are shown to be futile.[102] The tale as such explores the theme of heroism. As Janet Croft notes, Tolkien's literary reaction to war at this time differed from most post-war writers by eschewing irony as a method for distancing events and instead using mythology to mediate his experiences.[103] Similarities to the works of other writers who faced the Great War are seen in The Hobbit, including portraying warfare as anti-pastoral: in "The Desolation of Smaug", both the area under the influence of Smaug before his demise and the setting for the Battle of Five Armies later are described as barren, damaged landscapes.[104] The Hobbit makes a warning against repeating the tragedies of World War I,[105] and Tolkien's attitude as a veteran may well be summed up by Bilbo's comment: "Victory after all, I suppose! Well, it seems a very gloomy business."[103]
+
+On first publication in October 1937, The Hobbit was met with almost unanimously favourable reviews from publications both in the UK and the US, including The Times, Catholic World and New York Post. C. S. Lewis, friend of Tolkien (and later author of The Chronicles of Narnia between 1949 and 1954), writing in The Times reports:
+
+The truth is that in this book a number of good things, never before united, have come together: a fund of humour, an understanding of children, and a happy fusion of the scholar's with the poet's grasp of mythology... The professor has the air of inventing nothing. He has studied trolls and dragons at first hand and describes them with that fidelity that is worth oceans of glib "originality."
+
+Lewis compares the book to Alice in Wonderland in that both children and adults may find different things to enjoy in it, and places it alongside Flatland, Phantastes, and The Wind in the Willows.[106] W. H. Auden, in his review of the sequel The Fellowship of the Ring calls The Hobbit "one of the best children's stories of this century".[107] Auden was later to correspond with Tolkien, and they became friends. The Hobbit was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction of the year (1938).[108] More recently, the book has been recognized as "Most Important 20th-Century Novel (for Older Readers)" in the Children's Books of the Century poll in Books for Keeps.[109]
+
+Publication of the sequel The Lord of the Rings altered many critics' reception of the work. Instead of approaching The Hobbit as a children's book in its own right, critics such as Randell Helms picked up on the idea of The Hobbit as being a "prelude", relegating the story to a dry-run for the later work. Countering a presentist interpretation are those who say this approach misses out on much of the original's value as a children's book and as a work of high fantasy in its own right, and that it disregards the book's influence on these genres.[26] Commentators such as Paul Kocher,[110] John D. Rateliff[111] and C. W. Sullivan[26] encourage readers to treat the works separately, both because The Hobbit was conceived, published, and received independently of the later work, and to avoid dashing readers' expectations of tone and style.
+
+While The Hobbit has been adapted and elaborated upon in many ways, its sequel The Lord of the Rings is often claimed to be its greatest legacy. The plots share the same basic structure progressing in the same sequence: the stories begin at Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins; Bilbo hosts a party that sets the novel's main plot into motion; Gandalf sends the protagonist into a quest eastward; Elrond offers a haven and advice; the adventurers escape dangerous creatures underground (Goblin Town/Moria); they engage another group of elves (Mirkwood/Lothlórien); they traverse a desolate region (Desolation of Smaug/the Dead Marshes); they are received and nourished by a small settlement of men (Esgaroth/Ithilien); they fight in a massive battle (The Battle of Five Armies/Battle of Pelennor Fields); their journey climaxes within an infamous mountain peak (Lonely Mountain/Mount Doom); a descendant of kings is restored to his ancestral throne (Bard/Aragorn); and the questing party returns home to find it in a deteriorated condition (having possessions auctioned off / the Scouring of the Shire).[112]
+
+The Lord of the Rings contains several more supporting scenes, and has a more sophisticated plot structure, following the paths of multiple characters. Tolkien wrote the later story in much less humorous tones and infused it with more complex moral and philosophical themes. The differences between the two stories can cause difficulties when readers, expecting them to be similar, find that they are not.[112] Many of the thematic and stylistic differences arose because Tolkien wrote The Hobbit as a story for children, and The Lord of the Rings for the same audience, who had subsequently grown up since its publication. Further, Tolkien's concept of Middle-earth was to continually change and slowly evolve throughout his life and writings.[113]
+
+The style and themes of the book have been seen to help stretch young readers' literacy skills, preparing them to approach the works of Dickens and Shakespeare. By contrast, offering advanced younger readers modern teenage-oriented fiction may not exercise their reading skills, while the material may contain themes more suited to adolescents.[114] As one of several books that have been recommended for 11- to 14-year-old boys to encourage literacy in that demographic, The Hobbit is promoted as "the original and still the best fantasy ever written."[115]
+
+Several teaching guides and books of study notes have been published to help teachers and students gain the most from the book. The Hobbit introduces literary concepts, notably allegory, to young readers, as the work has been seen to have allegorical aspects reflecting the life and times of the author.[104] Meanwhile, the author himself rejected an allegorical reading of his work.[116] This tension can help introduce readers to readerly and writerly interpretations, to tenets of New Criticism, and critical tools from Freudian analysis, such as sublimation, in approaching literary works.[117]
+
+Another approach to critique taken in the classroom has been to propose the insignificance of female characters in the story as sexist. While Bilbo may be seen as a literary symbol of small folk of any gender,[118] a gender-conscious approach can help students establish notions of a "socially symbolic text" where meaning is generated by tendentious readings of a given work.[119] By this interpretation, it is ironic that the first authorized adaptation was a stage production in a girls' school.[46]
+
+The first authorized adaptation of The Hobbit appeared in March 1953, a stage production by St. Margaret's School, Edinburgh.[46] The Hobbit has since been adapted for other media many times.
+
+The first motion picture adaptation of The Hobbit, a 12-minute film of cartoon stills, was commissioned from Gene Deitch by William L. Snyder in 1966, as related by Deitch himself.[120][121] This film was publicly screened in New York City.[120][122] In 1969 (over 30 years after first publication), Tolkien sold the film and merchandising rights to The Hobbit to United Artists under an agreement stipulating a lump sum payment of £10,000[123][124] plus a 7.5% royalty after costs, payable to Allen & Unwin and the author.[125] In 1976 (three years after the author's death) United Artists sold the rights to Saul Zaentz Company, who trade as Tolkien Enterprises. Since then all "authorized" adaptations have been signed-off by Tolkien Enterprises. In 1997 Tolkien Enterprises licensed the film rights to Miramax, which assigned them in 1998 to New Line Cinema.[126] The heirs of Tolkien, including his son Christopher Tolkien, filed suit against New Line Cinema in February 2008 seeking payment of profits and to be "entitled to cancel... all future rights of New Line... to produce, distribute, and/or exploit future films based upon the Trilogy and/or the Films... and/or... films based on The Hobbit."[127][128] In September 2009, he and New Line reached an undisclosed settlement, and he has withdrawn his legal objection to The Hobbit films.[129]
+
+The BBC Radio 4 series The Hobbit radio drama was an adaptation by Michael Kilgarriff, broadcast in eight parts (four hours in total) from September to November 1968. It starred Anthony Jackson as narrator, Paul Daneman as Bilbo and Heron Carvic as Gandalf. The series was released on audio cassette in 1988 and on CD in 1997.[130]
+
+The Hobbit, an animated version of the story produced by Rankin/Bass, debuted as a television movie in the United States in 1977. In 1978, Romeo Muller won a Peabody Award for his teleplay for The Hobbit. The film was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, but lost to Star Wars. The adaptation has been called "execrable"[47] and confusing for those not already familiar with the plot.[131]
+
+A children's opera was written and premiered in 2004.  Composer and librettist Dean Burry was commissioned by the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus, who produced the premiere in Toronto, Ontario, and subsequently toured it to the Maritime provinces the same year.[132] The opera has since been produced several times in North America including in Tulsa, Sarasota and Toronto.
+
+In Decembers of 2012,[133] 2013,[134] and 2014,[135] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and New Line Cinema released one part each of a three-part live-action film version produced and directed by Peter Jackson. The titles were The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
+
+A three-part comic book adaptation with script by Chuck Dixon and Sean Deming and illustrated by David Wenzel was published by Eclipse Comics in 1989. In 1990 a one-volume edition was released by Unwin Paperbacks. The cover was artwork by the original illustrator David Wenzel. A reprint collected in one volume was released by Del Rey Books in 2001. Its cover, illustrated by Donato Giancola, was awarded the Association of Science Fiction Artists Award for Best Cover Illustration in 2002.[136]
+
+In 1999, The Hobbit: A 3-D Pop-Up Adventure was published, with illustrations by John Howe and paper engineering by Andrew Baron.[137]
+
+Middle-earth Strategic Gaming (formerly Middle-earth Play-by-Mail), which has won several Origins Awards, uses the Battle of Five Armies as an introductory scenario to the full game and includes characters and armies from the book.[138]
+
+Several computer and video games, both licensed and unlicensed, have been based on the story. One of the most successful was The Hobbit, an award-winning computer game published in 1982 by Beam Software and published by Melbourne House with compatibility for most computers available at the time. A copy of the novel was included in each game package.[139] The game does not retell the story, but rather sits alongside it, using the book's narrative to both structure and motivate gameplay.[140] The game won the Golden Joystick Award for Strategy Game of the Year in 1983[141] and was responsible for popularizing the phrase, "Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold."[142]
+
+While reliable figures are difficult to obtain, estimated global sales of The Hobbit run between 35[98] and 100[143] million copies since 1937. In the UK The Hobbit has not retreated from the top 5,000 bestselling books measured by Nielsen BookScan since 1998, when the index began,[144] achieving a three-year sales peak rising from 33,084 (2000) to 142,541 (2001), 126,771 (2002) and 61,229 (2003), ranking it at the 3rd position in Nielsen's "Evergreen" book list.[145] The enduring popularity of The Hobbit makes early printings of the book attractive collectors' items. The first printing of the first English-language edition can sell for between £6,000 and £20,000 at auction,[146][147] although the price for a signed first edition has reached over £60,000.[143]

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+Leipzig (/ˈlaɪpsɪɡ/, also /-(t)sɪx/, /-(t)sɪk/,[3][4][5] German: [ˈlaɪptsɪç] (listen); Upper Saxon: Leibzsch) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. With a population of 600,000 inhabitants as of 2019[6] (1.1 million[7] residents in the larger urban zone),[1] it is Germany's eighth most populous city[8][9] as well as the second most populous city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin. Together with Halle (Saale), the largest city of the neighbouring state of Saxony-Anhalt, the city forms the polycentric conurbation of Leipzig-Halle.[citation needed] Between the two cities (in Schkeuditz) lies Leipzig/Halle Airport.
+
+Leipzig is located about 160 kilometres (99 mi) southwest of Berlin in the Leipzig Bay, which constitutes the southernmost part of the North German Plain, at the confluence of the White Elster River (progression: Saale→ Elbe→ North Sea) and two of its tributaries: the Pleiße and the Parthe. The name of the city as well as the names of many of its boroughs are of Slavic origin.
+
+Leipzig has been a trade city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire.[10] The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and the Via Imperii, two important medieval trade routes. Leipzig was once one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing.[11] After the  Second World War and during the period of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Leipzig remained a major urban centre in East Germany, but its cultural and economic importance declined.[11] Events in Leipzig in 1989 played a significant role in precipitating the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly through demonstrations starting from St. Nicholas Church. The immediate effects of the reunification of Germany included the collapse of the local economy, which had come to depend on highly polluting heavy industry, severe unemployment, and urban blight. Starting around 2000, however, the decline was first arrested and then reversed and, since then, Leipzig has seen significant changes with the restoration of major historical buildings, the demolition of derelict properties of little historical value, and the development of new industries and a modern transport infrastructure.[12][13]
+
+Leipzig today is an economic centre, is rated as the most livable city in Germany by the GfK marketing research institution, and has the second-best future prospects of all cities in Germany according to HWWI[clarification needed] and Berenberg Bank.[14][15] The city is one of two seats of the German National Library, as well as the seat of the German Federal Administrative Court. Leipzig Zoo is one of the most modern zoos in Europe and ranks first in Germany and second in Europe.[16][17] Since the opening of the Leipzig City Tunnel in 2013, Leipzig forms the centrepiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system.[18] Leipzig is currently listed as a Gamma World City,[19] Germany's "Boomtown"[20] and was the 2019 European City of the Year.[21][22]
+
+Leipzig has long been a major centre for music, both classical as well as modern "dark alternative music" or darkwave genres. The Oper Leipzig is one of the most prominent opera houses in Germany. Leipzig is also home to the University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy". The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, established in 1743, is one of the oldest symphony orchestras in the world. Johann Sebastian Bach is one among many major composers who lived and worked in Leipzig and, during a stay in the city, Friedrich Schiller wrote his poem "Ode to Joy".
+
+The name Leipzig is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the linden trees (British English: lime trees; U.S. English: basswood trees) stand".[23] An older spelling of the name in English is Leipsic. The Latin name Lipsia was also used.[24] The name is cognate with Lipetsk (Липецк) in Russia and Liepāja in Latvia.[25]
+
+In 1937 the Nazi government officially renamed the city Reichsmessestadt Leipzig (Imperial Trade Fair City Leipzig).[26]
+
+Since 1989 Leipzig has been informally dubbed "Hero City" (Heldenstadt), in recognition of the role that the Monday demonstrations there played in the fall of the East German regime – the name alludes to the honorary title awarded in the former Soviet Union to certain cities that played a key role in the victory of the Allies during the Second World War.[27] The common usage of this nickname for Leipzig up until the present is reflected, for example, in the name of a blog for local arts and culture, Heldenstadt.de.[28]
+
+More recently, the city has sometimes been nicknamed the "Boomtown of eastern Germany", "Hypezig" or "The better Berlin" and is celebrated by the media as a hip urban centre for its vital lifestyle and for its creative scene with many startups.[29][30][31][32]
+
+Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as urbs Libzi (Chronikon VII, 25) and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Otto the Rich. Leipzig Trade Fair, started in the Middle Ages, has become an event of international importance and is the oldest surviving trade fair in the world.
+
+There are records of commercial fishing operations on the river Pleiße that, most likely, refer to Leipzig dating back to 1305, when the Margrave Dietrich the Younger granted the fishing rights to the church and convent of St Thomas.[33]
+
+There were a number of monasteries in and around the city, including a Franciscan monastery after which the Barfußgäßchen (Barefoot Alley) is named and a monastery of Irish monks (Jacobskirche, destroyed in 1544) near the present day Ranstädter Steinweg (the old Via Regia).
+
+The University of Leipzig was founded in 1409 and Leipzig developed into an important centre of German law and of the publishing industry in Germany, resulting, in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the Reichsgericht (Imperial Court of Justice) and the German National Library being located here.
+
+During the Thirty Years' War, two battles took place in Breitenfeld, about 8 kilometres (5.0 miles) outside Leipzig city walls. The first Battle of Breitenfeld took place in 1631 and the second in 1642. Both battles resulted in victories for the Swedish-led side.
+
+On 24 December 1701, an oil-fueled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a specific schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns.
+
+The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and an allied coalition of Prussia, Russia, Austria and Sweden. It was the largest battle in Europe before the First World War and the coalition victory ended Napoleon's presence in Germany and would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba. The Monument to the Battle of the Nations celebrating the centenary of this event was completed in 1913. In addition to stimulating German nationalism, the war had a major impact in mobilizing a civic spirit in numerous volunteer activities. Many volunteer militias and civic associations were formed, and collaborated with churches and the press to support local and state militias, patriotic wartime mobilization, humanitarian relief and postwar commemorative practices and rituals.[34]
+
+When it was made a terminus of the first German long-distance railway to Dresden (the capital of Saxony) in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with Leipzig Hauptbahnhof the largest terminal station by area in Europe. The railway station has two grand entrance halls, the eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways.
+
+In the 19th century, Leipzig was a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements. The first German labor party, the General German Workers' Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein, ADAV) was founded in Leipzig on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle; about 600 workers from across Germany travelled to the foundation on the new railway. Leipzig expanded rapidly to more than 700,000 inhabitants. Huge Gründerzeit areas were built, which mostly survived both war and post-war demolition.
+
+With the opening of a fifth production hall in 1907, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei became the largest cotton mill company on the continent, housing over 240,000 spindles. Daily production surpassed 5 million kilograms of yarn.[35]
+
+During the 1930s and 1940s, music was prominent throughout Leipzig. Many students attended Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy College of Music and Theatre (then named Landeskonservatorium.) However, in 1944, it was closed due to World War II. It re-opened soon after the war ended in 1945.
+
+On 22 May 1930, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was elected mayor of Leipzig. He was well known as an opponent of the Nazi regime.[36] He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of Felix Mendelssohn. On Kristallnacht in 1938, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue, one of the city's most architecturally significant buildings, was deliberately destroyed. Goerdeler was later executed by the Nazis on 2 February 1945.
+
+Several thousand forced labourers were stationed in Leipzig during the Second World War.
+
+Beginning in 1933, many Jewish citizens of Leipzig were members of the Gemeinde, a large Jewish religious community spread throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In October 1935, the Gemeinde helped found the Lehrhaus (English: a house of study) in Leipzig to provide different forms of studies to Jewish students who were prohibited from attending any institutions in Germany. Jewish studies were emphasized and much of the Jewish community of Leipzig became involved.[37]
+
+Like all other cities claimed by the Nazis, Leipzig was subject to aryanisation. Beginning in 1933 and increasing in 1939, Jewish business owners were forced to give up their possessions and stores. This eventually intensified to the point where Nazi officials were strong enough to evict the Jews from their own homes. They also had the power to force many of the Jews living in the city to sell their houses. Many people who sold their homes emigrated elsewhere, outside of Leipzig. Others moved to Judenhäuser, which were smaller houses that acted as ghettos, housing large groups of people.[37]
+
+As with other cities in Europe during the Holocaust, the Jews of Leipzig were greatly affected by the Nuremberg Laws. However, due to the Leipzig Trade Fair and the international attention it garnered, Leipzig was especially cautious about its public image. Despite this, the Leipzig authorities were not afraid to strictly apply and enforce anti-semitic measures.[37] Shortly before Kristallnacht, Polish Jews living in the city were expelled.[37]
+
+On 20 December 1937, after the Nazis took control of the city, they renamed it Reichsmessestadt Leipzig, meaning the "Imperial Trade Fair City Leipzig".[38] In early 1938, Leipzig saw an increase in Zionism through Jewish citizens. Many of these Zionists attempted to flee before deportations began.[37] On 28 October 1938, Heinrich Himmler ordered the deportation of Polish Jews from Leipzig to Poland.[37][39]
+
+On 9 November 1938, as part of Kristallnacht, in Gottschedstrasse (German: Gottschedstraße), now a popular dining and nightlife area in Leipzig, synagogues and businesses were set on fire.[37] Only a couple of days later, on 11 November 1938, many Jews in the Leipzig area were deported to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.[40] As World War II came to an end, much of Leipzig was destroyed. Following the war, the Communist Party of Germany (German: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) provided aid for the reconstruction of the city.[41]
+
+In 1933, a census recorded that over 11,000 Jews were living in Leipzig. In the 1939 census, the number had fallen to roughly 4,500, and by January 1942 only 2,000 remained. In that month, these 2,000 Jews began to be deported.[37] On 13 July 1942, 170 Jews were deported from Leipzig to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. On 19 September 1942, 440 Jews were deported from Leipzig to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp. On 18 June 1943, the remaining 18 Jews still in Leipzig were deported from Leipzig to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. According to records of the two waves of deportations to Auschwitz there were no survivors. According to records of the Theresienstadt deportation, only 53 Jews survived.[37][42]
+
+Until late 1943, there was little threat of aerial bombings to the city. However, on the morning of 4 December 1943, the British Royal Air Force dropped over 1,000 tons of explosives, resulting in the death of nearly 1,000 civilians.[43] This bombing was the largest up to that time. Due to the close proximity of many of the buildings hit, a firestorm occurred. This prompted firefighters to rush to the city; however, they were unable to control the fires. Unlike the neighbouring city of Dresden, this was a largely conventional bombing with high explosives rather than incendiaries. The resultant pattern of loss was a patchwork, rather than wholesale loss of its centre, but was nevertheless extensive.
+
+The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Leipzig in late April 1945. The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and U.S. 69th Infantry Division fought their way into the city on 18 April and completed its capture after fierce urban action, in which fighting was often house-to-house and block-to-block, on 19 April 1945.[44] In April 1945 the SS Gruppehfuhrer/Mayor of Leipzig Bruno Erich Alfred Freyberg, his wife and daughter; the Deputy Mayor/Treasurer of Leipzig, Ernest Kurt Lisso, his wife, daughter, and a Volkssturm Major Walter Dönicke committed suicide in Leipzig City Hall.
+
+The United States turned the city over to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the designated occupation zone boundaries. Leipzig became one of the major cities of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
+
+Following the end of World War II in 1945, Leipzig saw a slow return of Jews to the city.[37][45]
+
+In the mid-20th century, the city's trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member. At this time, trade fairs were held at a site in the south of the city, near the Monument to the Battle of the Nations.
+
+The planned economy of the German Democratic Republic, however, was not kind to Leipzig. Before the Second World War, Leipzig had developed a mixture of industry, creative business (notably publishing), and services (including legal services). During the period of the German Democratic Republic, services became the concern of the state, concentrated in (East) Berlin; creative business moved to West Germany; and Leipzig was left only with heavy industry. To make bad worse, this industry was extremely polluting, making Leipzig an even less attractive city to live in.[46] Between 1950 and the end of the German Democratic Republic, the population of Leipzig fell from 600,000 to 500,000.[13]
+
+In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St. Nicholas Church, established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, the Monday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against the East German government.[47][48] The reunification of Germany, however, was at first not good for Leipzig. The centrally planned heavy industry that had become the city's speciality was, in terms of the advanced economy of  reunited Germany, almost completely unviable, and closed. Within only six years, 90% of jobs in industry had vanished.[13] As unemployment rocketed, the population fell dramatically; some 100,000 people left Leipzig in the ten years after reunificaiton, and vacant and derelict housing became an urgent problem.[13]
+
+Starting in 2000, an ambitious (and subsequently much-praised) urban-renewal plan first stopped Leipzig's decline and then reversed it. The plan focused on saving and improving as much as possible of the city's urban structure, especially its attractive historic center and various architectural gems, and attracting new industries, partly through infrastructure improvement.[46][13]
+
+Nowadays, Leipzig is an important economic center in Germany. Since the 2010s, the city has been celebrated by the media as a hip urban center with a very high quality of living.[49][50][51] It is often called "The new Berlin".[52] Leipzig is also Germany's fastest growing city.[53] Leipzig was the German candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but was unsuccessful. After ten years of construction, the Leipzig City Tunnel opened on 14 December 2013.[54] Leipzig forms the centerpiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland public transit system, which operates in the four German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Brandenburg.
+
+Leipzig lies at the confluence of the rivers White Elster, Pleiße and Parthe, in the Leipzig Bay, on the most southerly part of the North German Plain, which is the part of the North European Plain in Germany. The site is characterized by swampy areas such as the Leipzig Riverside Forest, though there are also some limestone areas to the north of the city. The landscape is mostly flat though there is also some evidence of moraine and drumlins.
+
+Although there are some forest parks within the city limits, the area surrounding Leipzig is relatively unforested. During the 20th century, there were several open-cast mines in the region, many of which are being converted to use as lakes.[55] Also see: Neuseenland
+
+Leipzig is also situated at the intersection of the ancient roads known as the Via Regia (King's highway), which traversed Germany in an east–west direction, and the Via Imperii (Imperial Highway), a north–south road.
+
+Leipzig was a walled city in the Middle Ages and the current "ring" road around the historic centre of the city follows the line of the old city walls.
+
+Since 1992 Leipzig has been divided administratively into ten districts, which in turn contain a total of 63 subdistricts. Some of these correspond to outlying villages which have been annexed by Leipzig.
+
+Like many places located in Eastern parts of Germany, Leipzig has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb close to a Dfb [0 °C US isotherm]) with significant continental influences due to inland location. Winters are cool to cold, with an average of around 1 °C (34 °F). Summers are generally warm, averaging at 19 °C (66 °F) with daytime temperatures of 24 °C (75 °F). Precipitation in winter is about half that of the summer. The amount of sunshine differs significantly between winter and summer, with an average of around 51 hours of sunshine in December (1.7 hours a day) compared with 229 hours of sunshine in July (7.4 hours a day).[57]
+
+Leipzig has a population of about 570,000. In 1930, the population reached its historical peak of over 700,000. It decreased steadily from 1950 to about 530,000 in 1989. In the 1990s, the population decreased rather rapidly to 437,000 in 1998. This reduction was mostly due to outward migration and suburbanisation. After almost doubling the city area by incorporation of surrounding towns in 1999, the number stabilised and started to rise again, with an increase of 1,000 in 2000.[59] As of 2015[update], Leipzig is the fastest-growing city in Germany with over 500,000 inhabitants.[60]
+The growth of the past 10–15 years has mostly been due to inward migration. In recent years, inward migration accelerated, reaching an increase of 12,917 in 2014.[61]
+
+In the years following German reunification, many people of working age took the opportunity to move to the states of the former West Germany to seek employment opportunities. This was a contributory factor to falling birth rates. Births dropped from 7,000 in 1988 to less than 3,000 in 1994.[62] However, the number of children born in Leipzig has risen since the late 1990s. In 2011, it reached 5,490 births resulting in a RNI of −17.7 (−393.7 in 1995).[63]
+
+The unemployment rate decreased from 18.2% in 2003 to 9.8% in 2014 and 7.6% in June 2017.[64][65][66]
+
+The percentage of the population from an immigrant background is low compared with other German cities. As of 2012[update], only 5.6% of the population were foreigners, compared to the German national average of 7.7%.[67]
+
+The number of people with an immigrant background (immigrants and their children) grew from 49,323 in 2012 to 77,559 in 2016, making them 13.3% of the city's population (Leipzig's population 579,530 in 2016).[68]
+
+The largest minorities (first and second generation) in Leipzig by country of origin as of 31.12.2018 are:[69]
+
+The historic central area of Leipzig features a Renaissance-style ensemble of buildings from the sixteenth century, including the old city hall in the marketplace. There are also several baroque period trading houses and former residences of rich merchants. As Leipzig grew considerably during the economic boom of the late-nineteenth century, the town has many buildings in the historicist style representative of the Gründerzeit era. Approximately 35% of Leipzig's flats are in buildings of this type. The new city hall, completed in 1905, is built in the same style.
+
+Some 64,000 apartments in Leipzig were built in Plattenbau buildings during Communist rule in East Germany.[70] and although some of these have been demolished and the numbers living in this type of accommodation have declined in recent years, at least 10% of Leipzig's population (50,000 people) are still living in Plattenbau accommodation.[71] Grünau, for example, has approximately 40,000 people living in this sort of accommodation.[72]
+
+The St. Paul's Church was destroyed by the Communist government in 1968 to make room for a new main building for the university. After some debate, the city decided to establish a new, mainly secular building at the same location, called Paulinum, which was completed in 2012. Its architecture alludes to the look of the former church and it includes space for religious use by the faculty of theology, including the original altar from the old church and two newly built organs.
+
+Many commercial buildings were built in the 1990s as a result of tax breaks after German reunification.
+
+The tallest structure in Leipzig is the chimney of the Stahl- und Hartgusswerk Bösdorf GmbH with a height of 205 metres (673 feet). With 142 metres (466 feet), the City-Hochhaus Leipzig is the tallest high-rise building in Leipzig. From 1972 to 1973 it was Germany's tallest building.
+
+One of the highlights of the city's contemporary arts was the Neo Rauch retrospective opening in April 2010 at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts. This is a show devoted to the father of the New Leipzig School[73][74] of artists. According to The New York Times,[75] this scene "has been the toast of the contemporary art world" for the past decade. In addition, there are eleven galleries in the so-called Spinnerei.[76]
+
+The Grassi Museum complex contains three more of Leipzig's major collections:[77] the Ethnography Museum, Applied Arts Museum and Musical Instrument Museum (the last of which is run by the University of Leipzig). The university also runs the Museum of Antiquities.[78]
+
+Founded in March 2015, the G2 Kunsthalle houses the Hildebrand Collection.[79] This private collection focuses on the so-called New Leipzig School. Leipzig's first private museum dedicated to contemporary art in Leipzig after the turn of the millennium is located in the city centre close to the famous St. Thomas Church on the third floor of the former GDR processing centre.[80]
+
+Other museums in Leipzig include the following:
+
+German Museum of Books and Writing
+
+Exhibits of the Egyptian Museum
+
+Grassi Museum
+
+Inside Gasometer, next to the Panometer
+
+Museum in der Runden Ecke
+
+Museum of Fine Arts
+
+Baumwollspinnerei
+
+Augustusplatz
+
+Inside Gondwanaland at Leipzig Zoological Garden
+
+Monument to the Battle of the Nations
+
+Federal Administrative Court of Germany
+
+New city hall
+
+Old city hall at market square
+
+City-Hochhaus
+
+New Augusteum of the University of Leipzig
+
+Leipzig Trade Fair
+
+Leipzig main station
+
+Auerbachs Keller in the Mädlerpassage
+
+Riquethaus (former Tradehouse)
+
+Old Leipzig bourse
+
+Südfriedhof
+
+German National Library
+
+Leipzig Bayerischer Bahnhof
+
+Gohliser Schlösschen
+
+Leipzig Synagogue Memorial
+
+'Everest' at Leipzig Panometer
+
+St. Nicholas Church.
+
+St. Thomas Church.
+
+St. Peter.
+
+Propsteikirche in May 2015, New Town Hall in the background
+
+Continental Reformed church of Leipzig.
+
+Russian Church of Leipzig.
+
+St. Michael's Church with the headquarters of Stadtwerke Leipzig to the right.
+
+Leipzig is well known for its large parks. The Leipziger Auwald (riparian forest) lies mostly within the city limits. Neuseenland is an area south of Leipzig where old open-cast mines are being converted into a huge lake district. It is planned to be finished in 2060.
+
+Inside Leipzig Botanical Garden
+
+Johannapark
+
+Leipziger Auwald
+
+Rosental in the morning
+
+Friedenspark
+
+Markkleeberger See
+
+Cospudener See
+
+Johann Sebastian Bach worked in Leipzig from 1723–50, conducting the Thomanerchor (St. Thomas Church Choir), at the St. Thomas Church, the St. Nicholas Church and the Paulinerkirche, the university church of Leipzig (destroyed in 1968). The composer Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig in 1813, in the Brühl. Robert Schumann was also active in Leipzig music, having been invited by Felix Mendelssohn when the latter established Germany's first musical conservatoire in the city in 1843. Gustav Mahler was second conductor (working under Artur Nikisch) at the Leipzig Opera from June 1886 until May 1888, and achieved his first significant recognition while there by completing and publishing Carl Maria von Weber's opera Die Drei Pintos. Mahler also completed his own 1st Symphony while living in Leipzig.
+
+Today the conservatory is the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.[83] A broad range of subjects are taught, including artistic and teacher training in all orchestral instruments, voice, interpretation, coaching, piano chamber music, orchestral conducting, choir conducting and musical composition in various musical styles. The drama departments teach acting and scriptwriting.
+
+The Bach-Archiv Leipzig, an institution for the documentation and research of the life and work of Bach (and also of the Bach family), was founded in Leipzig in 1950 by Werner Neumann. The Bach-Archiv organizes the prestigious International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition, initiated in 1950 as part of a music festival marking the bicentennial of Bach's death. The competition is now held every two years in three changing categories. The Bach-Archiv also organizes performances, especially the international festival Bachfest Leipzig (de) and runs the Bach-Museum.
+
+The city's musical tradition is also reflected in the worldwide fame of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, under its chief conductor Andris Nelsons, and the Thomanerchor.
+
+The MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra is Leipzig's second largest symphony orchestra. Its current chief conductor is Kristjan Järvi. Both the Gewandhausorchester and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra make use of in the Gewandhaus concert hall.
+
+For over sixty years Leipzig has been offering a "school concert"[84] programme for children in Germany, with over 140 concerts every year in venues such as the Gewandhaus and over 40,000 children attending.
+
+As for contemporary music, Leipzig is known for its independent music scene and subcultural events. Leipzig has for twenty years been home to the world's largest Gothic festival, the annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen (WGT), where thousands of fans of gothic and dark styled music from across Europe and the world gather in the early summer. The first Wave Gotik Treffen was held at the Eiskeller club, today known as Conne Island, in the Connewitz district. Mayhem's notorious album Live in Leipzig was also recorded at the Eiskeller club.[85] Leipzig Pop Up is an annual music trade fair for the independent music scene as well as a music festival taking place on Pentecost weekend.[86] Its most famous indie-labels are Moon Harbour Recordings (House) and Kann Records (House/Techno/Psychedelic). Several venues offer live music on a daily basis, including the Moritzbastei[87] which was once part of the city's fortifications, and is one of the oldest student clubs in Europe with concerts in various styles. For over 15 years "Tonelli's"[88] has been offering free weekly concerts every day of the week, though door charges may apply Saturdays.
+
+The cover photo for the Beirut band's 2005 album Gulag Orkestar, according to the sleeve notes, was stolen from a Leipzig library by Zach Condon.
+
+The city of Leipzig is also the birthplace of Till Lindemann, best known as the lead vocalist of Rammstein, a band formed in 1994.
+
+Leipzig Opera
+
+View over Augustusplatz with the Gewandhaus.
+
+Moritzbastei is the largest student club in Germany and is famous for its atmosphere and large number of cultural and music events.
+
+Monument of Johann Sebastian Bach
+
+Haus Auensee, a concert hall
+
+Leipzig Trade Fair
+
+Leipzig Book Fair 2015
+
+Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2016, Belantis park in the background
+
+Leipzig Christmas market entrance
+
+DOK Leipzig
+
+More than 300 sport clubs in the city represent 78 different disciplines. Over 400 athletic facilities are available to citizens and club members.[95]
+
+The German Football Association (DFB) was founded in Leipzig in 1900. The city was the venue for the 2006 FIFA World Cup draw, and hosted four first-round matches and one match in the round of 16 in the central stadium.
+
+VfB Leipzig won the first national Association football championship in 1903. The club was reformed as 1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig in 1966 and has had a glorious past in international competition as well, having been champions of the 1965–66 Intertoto Cup, semi-finalists in the 1973–74 UEFA Cup, and runners-up in the 1986–87 European Cup Winners' Cup.
+
+Red Bull entered the local football in May 2009, after having previously been denied the right to buy into FC Sachsen Leipzig in 2006. The newly founded RB Leipzig declared the intention to come up through the ranks of German football and to bring Bundesliga football back to the region.[96] RB Leipzig was finally promoted to the top level of the Bundesliga after finishing the 2015–16 2. Bundesliga season as runners-up. The club finished runners-up in its first ever Bundesliga season and made its debut in the UEFA Champions League in 2017.
+
+List of Leipzig men and women's football clubs playing at state level and above:
+
+Note 1: The RB Leipzig women's football team was formed in 2016 and began play in the 2016–17 season.
+Note 2: The club began play in the 2008–09 season.
+
+Since the beginning of the 20th century, ice hockey gained popularity, and several local clubs established departments dedicated to that sport.[97]
+
+SC DHfK Leipzig is the men's handball club in Leipzig and were six times (1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1965 and 1966) the champion of East Germany handball league and was winner of EHF Champions League in 1966. They finally promoted to Handball-Bundesliga as champions of 2. Bundesliga in 2014–15 season. They play in the Arena Leipzig which has a capacity of 6,327 spectators in HBL games but can take up to 7,532 spectators for handball in maximum capacity.
+
+Handball-Club Leipzig is one of the most successful women's handball clubs in Germany, winning 20 domestic championships since 1956 and 3 Champions League titles. The team was however relegated to the third tier league in 2017 due to failing to achieve the economic standard demanded by the league licence.
+
+From 1950 to 1990 Leipzig was host of the Deutsche Hochschule für Körperkultur (DHfK, German College of Physical Culture), the national sports college of the GDR.
+
+Leipzig also hosted the Fencing World Cup in 2005 and hosts a number of international competitions in a variety of sports each year.
+
+Leipzig made a bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. The bid did not make the shortlist after the International Olympic Committee pared the bids down to 5.
+
+Markkleeberger See is a new lake next to Markkleeberg, a suburb on the south side of Leipzig. A former open-pit coal mine, it was flooded in 1999 with groundwater and developed in 2006 as a tourist area. On its southeastern shore is Germany's only pump-powered artificial whitewater slalom course, Markkleeberg Canoe Park (Kanupark Markkleeberg), a venue which rivals the Eiskanal in Augsburg for training and international canoe/kayak competition.
+
+Leipzig Rugby Club competes in the German Rugby Bundesliga but finished at the bottom of their group in 2013.[98]
+
+Leipziger Lerchen
+
+Historical Gose bottle (c. 1900)
+
+Leipzig University, founded 1409, is one of Europe's oldest universities. The philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646, and attended the university from 1661 to 1666. Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg worked here as a physics professor (from 1927 to 1942), as did Nobel Prize laureates Gustav Ludwig Hertz (physics), Wilhelm Ostwald (chemistry) and Theodor Mommsen (Nobel Prize in literature). Other former staff of faculty include mineralogist Georg Agricola, writer Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, philosopher Ernst Bloch, eccentric founder of psychophysics Gustav Theodor Fechner, and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. Among the university's many noteworthy students were writers Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Erich Kästner, and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, political activist Karl Liebknecht, and composer Richard Wagner. Germany's chancellor since 2006, Angela Merkel, studied physics at Leipzig University.[99] The university has about 30,000 students.
+
+A part of Leipzig University is the German Institute for Literature which was founded in 1955 under the name "Johannes R. Becher-Institut". Many noted writers have graduated from this school, including Heinz Czechowski, Kurt Drawert, Adolf Endler, Ralph Giordano, Kerstin Hensel, Sarah and Rainer Kirsch, Angela Krauß, Erich Loest, Fred Wander. After its closure in 1990 the institute was refounded in 1995 with new teachers.
+
+The Academy of Visual Arts (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst) was established in 1764. Its 530 students (as of 2006[update]) are enrolled in courses in painting and graphics, book design/graphic design, photography and media art. The school also houses an Institute for Theory.
+
+The University of Music and Theatre offers a broad range of subjects ranging from training in orchestral instruments, voice, interpretation, coaching, piano chamber music, orchestral conducting, choir conducting and musical composition to acting and scriptwriting.
+
+The Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (HTWK)[100] has approximately 6,200 students (as of 2007[update]) and is (as of 2007[update]) the second biggest institution of higher education in Leipzig. It was founded in 1992, merging several older schools. As a university of applied sciences (German: Fachhochschule) its status is slightly below that of a university, with more emphasis on the practical part of the education. The HTWK offers many engineering courses, as well as courses in computer science, mathematics, business administration, librarianship, museum studies and social work. It is mainly located in the south of the city.
+
+The private Leipzig Graduate School of Management, (in German Handelshochschule Leipzig (HHL)), is the oldest business school in Germany. According to The Economist, HHL is one of the best schools in the world, rankend at number six overall.[101][102]
+
+Leipzig is currently the home of twelve research institutes and the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
+
+Max Planck Society: Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
+
+Fraunhofer Society institutes: Fraunhofer IZI and Fraunhofer IMW.
+
+Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres: Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
+
+Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum – DBFZ
+
+Leibniz Association: Leibniz-Institute for Tropospheric Research, Leibniz-Institute IOM, Leibniz-Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe, Leibniz-Institute IfL, Leibniz-Institute Jewish history.
+
+Leipzig is home to one of the world's oldest schools Thomasschule zu Leipzig (St. Thomas' School, Leipzig), which gained fame for its long association with the Bach family of musicians and composers.
+
+The Lutheran Theological Seminary is a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church in Leipzig.[103][104] The seminary trains students to become pastors for the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church or for member church bodies of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference.[105]
+
+The city is a location for automobile manufacturing by BMW and Porsche in large plants north of the city. In 2011 and 2012 DHL transferred the bulk of its European air operations from Brussels Airport to Leipzig/Halle Airport. Kirow Ardelt AG, the world market leader in breakdown cranes, is based in Leipzig. The city also houses the European Energy Exchange, the leading energy exchange in Central Europe. With VNG – Verbundnetz Gas AG, one of Germany's large natural gas suppliers is headquartered at Leipzig. In addition, inside its larger metropolitan area, Leipzig has developed an important petrochemical center.
+
+Some of the largest employers in the area (outside of manufacturing) include software companies such as Spreadshirt and the various schools and universities in and around the Leipzig/Halle region. The University of Leipzig attracts millions of euros of investment yearly and is in the middle of a massive construction and refurbishment to celebrate its 600th anniversary.
+
+Leipzig also benefits from world leading medical research (Leipzig Heart Centre) and a growing biotechnology industry.[106]
+
+Many bars, restaurants and stores found in the downtown area are patronized by German and foreign tourists. Leipzig Hauptbahnhof itself is the location of a shopping mall.[107] Leipzig is one of Germany's most visited cities with over 3 million overnight stays in 2017.[108]
+
+In 2010, Leipzig was included in the top 10 cities to visit by The New York Times,[75] and ranked 39th globally out of 289 cities for innovation in the 4th Innovation Cities Index published by Australian agency 2thinknow.[109] In 2015, Leipzig have among the 30 largest German cities the third best prospects for the future.[110] In recent years Leipzig has often been nicknamed the "Boomtown of eastern Germany" or "Hypezig".[30] As of 2013[update] it had the highest rate of population growth of any German city.[31]
+
+Companies with operations in or around Leipzig include:
+
+Porsche Diamond, the customer center building of Porsche Leipzig
+
+BMW production facility in Leipzig
+
+Amazon in Leipzig
+
+Leipzig is the hub of DHL
+
+Headquarters of the Sparkasse Leipzig bank
+
+Tourism in and around Leipzig plays a significant role. The photo shows the Markkleeberger See.
+
+Leipzig is a well known shopping destination (picture shows the Höfe am Brühl)
+
+In December 2013, according to a study by GfK, Leipzig was ranked as the most livable city in Germany.[15][116]
+
+In 2015/2016, Leipzig was named the second-best city for students in Germany (after Munich).[117]
+
+In a 2017 study, the Leipzig inner city ranked first among all large cities in Germany due to its urban aesthetics, gastronomy, and shopping opportunities.[118][119]
+
+Since 2018 it also has the second-best future prospects of all cities in Germany, only surpassed by Munich in 2018 and Berlin in 2019.[14][120]
+
+According to the 2017 Global Least & Most Stressful Cities Ranking, Leipzig was one of the least stressful cities in the World. It was ranked 25th out of 150 cities worldwide and above Dortmund, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Berlin.[121]
+
+In 2018, Leipzig won the European Cities of Future prize in the category of "Best Large City for Human Capital & Lifestyle".[122]
+
+Leipzig was named European City of the Year at the 2019 Urbanism Awards.[123]
+
+According to the 2019 study by Forschungsinstitut Prognos, Leipzig is the most dynamic region in Germany. Within 15 years, the city climbed 230 places and occupied in 2019 rank 104 of all 401 German regions.[124][125]
+
+Leipzig is one of 52 places to go in 2020 by The New York Times and the highest-ranking German destination.[126]
+
+Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is the best railway station in Germany and the third-best in Europe (only surpassed by St Pancras railway station and Zürich Hauptbahnhof).[127]
+
+Founded at the crossing of Via Regia and Via Imperii, Leipzig has been a major interchange of inter-European traffic and commerce since medieval times. After the Reunification of Germany, immense efforts to restore and expand the traffic network have been undertaken and left the city area with an excellent infrastructure.
+
+Opened in 1915, Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (lit. main station) is the largest overhead railway station in Europe in terms of its built-up area. At the same time, it is an important supra-regional junction in the Intercity-Express (ICE) and Intercity network of the Deutsche Bahn as well as a connection point for S-Bahn and regional traffic in the Halle/Leipzig area.
+
+In Leipzig, the Intercity Express routes (Hamburg-)Berlin-Leipzig-Nuremberg-Munich and Dresden-Leipzig-Erfurt-Frankfurt am Main-(Wiesbaden/Saarbrücken) intersect. Leipzig is also the starting point for the intercity lines Leipzig-Halle (Saale)-Magdeburg-Braunschweig-Hannover-Dortmund-Köln and -Bremen-Oldenburg(-Norddeich Mole). Both lines complement each other at hourly intervals and also stop at Leipzig/Halle Airport. The only international connection is the daily EuroCity Leipzig-Prague.
+
+Most major and medium-sized towns in Saxony and southern Saxony-Anhalt can be reached without changing trains. There are also direct connections via regional express lines to Falkenberg/Elster-Cottbus, Hoyerswerda and Dessau-Magdeburg as well as Chemnitz. Neighbouring Halle (Saale) can be reached via three S-Bahn lines, two of which run via Leipzig/Halle Airport. The surrounding area of Leipzig is served by numerous regional and S-Bahn lines.
+
+The city's rail connections are currently being greatly improved by major construction projects, particularly within the framework of the German Unity transport projects. The line to Berlin has been extended and has been passable at 200 km/h since 2006. On 13 December 2015, the high-speed line from Leipzig to Erfurt, designed for 300 km/h, was put into operation. Its continuation to Nuremberg followed in December 2017. This integration into the high-speed network considerably reduced the journey times of the ICE from Leipzig to Nuremberg, Munich and Frankfurt am Main. The Leipzig-Dresden railway line, which was the first German long-distance railway to go into operation in 1839, is also undergoing expansion for 200 km/h. The most important construction project in regional transport was the four-kilometer-long City Tunnel, which went into operation in December 2013 as the main line of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland.
+
+For freight traffic, there are freight stations in the districts of Wahren and Engelsdorf. In addition, a large freight traffic centre has been set up near the Schkeuditzer Kreuz junction for goods handling between road and rail, as well as a freight station on the site of the DHL hub at Leipzig/Halle Airport.
+
+Leipzig is the core of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland line network. Together with the tram, six of the ten lines form the backbone of local public transport and an important link to the region and the neighbouring Halle. The main line of the S-Bahn consists of the underground S-Bahn stations Hauptbahnhof, Markt, Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz and Bayerischer Bahnhof leading through the City Tunnel as well as the above-ground station Leipzig MDR. There are a total of 30 S-Bahn stations in the Leipzig city area. Endpoints of the S-Bahn lines include Oschatz, Zwickau, Geithain and Bitterfeld. Two lines run to Halle, one of them via Leipzig/Halle Airport. In 2015, the network will be extended to Dessau and Lutherstadt Wittenberg.
+
+With the timetable change in December 2004, the networks of Leipzig and Halle were combined to form the Leipzig-Halle S-Bahn. However, this network only served as a transitional solution and was replaced by the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland on 15 December 2013. At the same time, the main line tunnel, marketed as the Leipzig City Tunnel, went into operation. The tunnel, which is almost four kilometres long, crosses the entire city centre from the main railway station to the Bavarian railway station. The S-Bahn stations are up to 22 metres underground. This construction was the first to create a continuous north–south axis, which had not existed until now due to the north-facing terminus station. The connection to the south of the city and the federal state will thus be greatly improved.
+
+The Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe, existing since 1 January 1917, operate a total of 13 tram lines and 51 bus lines in the city.
+
+The total length of the tram network is 149.9 km (93.1 mi), making it the largest in Saxony ahead of Dresden (130.2 km (80.9 mi)) and the second largest in Germany after Berlin (193.6 km (120.3 mi)).
+
+The longest line in the Leipzig network is line 11, which connects Schkeuditz with Markkleeberg over 22 kilometres and is the only tram line in Leipzig to run in three tariff zones of the Central German Transport Association.
+
+Night bus lines N1 to N9 and the night tram N17 operate in the night traffic. On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays the tram line N10 and the bus line N60 also operate. The central transfer point between the bus and tram lines as well as to the S-Bahn is Leipzig Central Station.
+
+Like most German cities, Leipzig has a traffic layout designed to be bicycle-friendly. There is an extensive cycle network. In most of the one-way central streets, cyclists are explicitly allowed to cycle both ways. A few cycle paths have been built or declared since 1990.
+
+Since 2004 there is a bicycle-sharing system. Bikes can be borrowed and returned via smartphone app or by telephone. Since 2018, the system has enabled flexible borrowing and returning of bicycles in the inner city; in this zone, bicycles can be handed in and borrowed from almost any street corner. Outside these zones, there are stations where the bikes are waiting. The current locations of the bikes can be seen via the app. There are cooperation offers with the Leipzig public transport companies and car sharing in order to offer as complete a mobility chain as possible.
+
+Several federal motorways pass by Leipzig: the A 14 in the north, the A 9 in the west and the A 38 in the south. The three motorways form a triangular partial ring of the double ring Mitteldeutsche Schleife around Halle and Leipzig. To the south towards Chemnitz, the A 72 is also partly under construction or being planned.
+
+The federal roads B 2, B 6, B 87, B 181, B 184 and B 186 lead through the city area.
+
+The ring, which corresponds to the course of the old city fortification, surrounds the city centre of Leipzig, which today is largely traffic-calmed.
+
+Leipzig has a dense network of carsharing stations. Additionally, since 2018 there is also a stationless car sharing system in Leipzig. Here the cars can be parked and booked anywhere in the inner city without having to define a specific car or period in advance. Finding and booking is done via a smartphone app.
+
+Apart from the usual taxi traffic, Leipzig is one of the few cities in Germany with a ridesharing provider. Taxi-like rides can be booked via an app. However, in contrast to a taxi, the start and destination must be defined beforehand and other passengers can be taken along at the same time if they share a route.
+
+Since March 2018 there has been a central bus station directly east of Leipzig Central Station.
+
+In addition to a large number of national lines, several international lines also serve Leipzig. The cities of Bregenz, Budapest, Milan, Prague, Sofia and Zurich, among others, can be reached without having to change trains. Around 30,000 journeys and 1.5 million passengers a year are expected at the new bus station.
+
+Some lines also use Leipzig/Halle Airport, located at the A 9/A 14 motorway junction, and Leipziger Messe for a stop. Passengers can take the S-Bahn from there to the city centre.
+
+Leipzig/Halle Airport is the international commercial airport of the region. It is located at the Schkeuditzer Kreuz junction northwest of Leipzig, halfway between the two major cities. The easternmost section of the new Erfurt-Leipzig/Halle line under construction gave the airport a long-distance railway station, which was also integrated into the ICE network when the railway line was completed in 2015.
+
+Passenger flights are operated to the major German hub airports, European metropolises and holiday destinations, especially in the Mediterranean region and North Africa. The airport is of international importance in the cargo sector. In Germany, it ranks second behind Frankfurt am Main, fifth in Europe and 26th worldwide (as of 2011). DHL uses the airport as its central European hub. It is also the home base of the freight airlines Aerologic and European Air Transport Leipzig.
+
+The former military airport near Altenburg, Thuringia called Leipzig-Altenburg Airport about a half-hour drive from Leipzig was served by Ryanair until 2010.
+
+In the first half of the 20th century, the construction of the Elster-Saale canal, White Elster and Saale was started in Leipzig in order to connect to the network of waterways. The outbreak of the Second World War stopped most of the work, though some may have continued through the use of forced labor. The Lindenauer port was almost completed but not yet connected to the Elster-Saale and Karl-Heine canal respectively. The Leipzig rivers (White Elster, New Luppe, Pleiße, and Parthe) in the city have largely artificial river beds and are supplemented by some channels. These waterways are suitable only for small leisure boat traffic.
+
+Through the renovation and reconstruction of existing mill races and watercourses in the south of the city and flooded disused open cast mines, the city's navigable water network is being expanded. The city commissioned planning for a link between Karl Heine Canal and the disused Lindenauer port in 2008. Still more work was scheduled to complete the Elster-Saale canal. Such a move would allow small boats to reach the Elbe from Leipzig. The intended completion date has been postponed because of an unacceptable cost-benefit ratio.
+
+Tram of Leipziger Verkehrsbetriebe
+
+Tramsystem at the Georg-Schumann-Straße
+
+Leipzig City Tunnel, part of Leipzig's new S-Bahn network
+
+A new train of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland at Leipzig Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz railway station, August 2016
+
+Inside the S-Bahn train
+
+Mein Leipzig lob' ich mir! Es ist ein klein Paris und bildet seine Leute. (I praise my Leipzig! It is a small Paris and educates its people.) – Frosch, a university student in Goethe's Faust, Part One
+
+Ich komme nach Leipzig, an den Ort, wo man die ganze Welt im Kleinen sehen kann. (I'm coming to Leipzig, to the place where one can see the whole world in miniature.) – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
+
+Extra Lipsiam vivere est miserrime vivere. (To live outside Leipzig is to live miserably.) – Benedikt Carpzov the Younger
+
+Das angenehme Pleis-Athen, Behält den Ruhm vor allen, Auch allen zu gefallen, Denn es ist wunderschön. (The pleasurable Pleiss-Athens, earns its fame above all, appealing to every one, too, for it is mightily beauteous.) – Johann Sigismund Scholze
+
+Leipzig is twinned with:[128]

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+
+The jaguar (Panthera onca) is a large felid species and the only extant member of the genus Panthera native to the Americas. The jaguar's present range extends from Southwestern United States and Mexico in North America, across much of Central America, and south to Paraguay and northern Argentina in South America. Though there are single cats now living within the Western United States, the species has largely been extirpated from the United States since the early 20th century. It is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List; and its numbers are declining. Threats include loss and fragmentation of habitat.
+
+Overall, the jaguar is the largest native cat species of the New World and the third largest in the world. This spotted cat closely resembles the leopard, but is usually larger and sturdier. It ranges across a variety of forested and open terrains, but its preferred habitat is tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forest, swamps and wooded regions. The jaguar enjoys swimming and is largely a solitary, opportunistic, stalk-and-ambush predator at the top of the food chain. As a keystone species it plays an important role in stabilizing ecosystems and regulating prey populations.
+
+While international trade in jaguars or their body parts is prohibited, the cat is still frequently killed, particularly in conflicts with ranchers and farmers in South America. Although reduced, its range remains large. Given its historical distribution, the jaguar has featured prominently in the mythology of numerous indigenous American cultures, including those of the Maya and Aztec.
+
+The word 'jaguar' is thought to derive from the Tupian word yaguara, meaning "beast of prey".[2] The word entered English presumably via the Amazonian trade language Tupinambá, via Portuguese jaguar.[3][4] The specific word for jaguar is yaguareté, with the suffix -eté meaning "real" or "true".[5]
+
+The word 'panther' derives from classical Latin panthēra, itself from the ancient Greek pánthēr (πάνθηρ).[6]
+
+In Mexican Spanish, its nickname is el tigre: 16th century Spaniards had no native word in their language for the jaguar, which is smaller than a lion, but bigger than a leopard, nor had ever encountered it in the Old World, and so named it after the tiger, since its ferocity would have been known to them through Roman writings and popular literature during the Renaissance.[7]
+
+Onca is the Portuguese onça, with the cedilla dropped for typographical reasons, found in English as ounce for the snow leopard, Panthera uncia. It derives from the Latin lyncea lynx, with the letter L confused with the definite article (Italian lonza, Old French l'once).[8]
+
+In 1758, Carl Linnaeus described the jaguar in his work Systema Naturae and gave it the scientific name Felis onca.[9]
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, several jaguar type specimens formed the basis for descriptions of subspecies.[10] In 1939, Reginald Innes Pocock recognized eight subspecies based on geographic origins and skull morphology of these specimens.[11] Pocock did not have access to sufficient zoological specimens to critically evaluate their subspecific status, but expressed doubt about the status of several. Later consideration of his work suggested only three subspecies should be recognized. The description of P. o. palustris was based on a fossil skull.[12] The author of Mammal Species of the World listed nine subspecies and both P. o. palustris or P. o. paraguensis separately.[10]
+
+Results of morphologic and genetic research indicate a clinal north–south variation between populations, but no evidence for subspecific differentiation.[13][14] A subsequent, more detailed study confirmed the predicted population structure within jaguar populations in Colombia.[15]
+
+IUCN Red List assessors for the species and members of the Cat Specialist Group do not recognize any jaguar subspecies as valid.[1][16] The following table is based on the former classification of the species provided in Mammal Species of the World.[10]
+
+The genus Panthera probably evolved in Asia between six and ten million years ago.[17] The jaguar is thought to have diverged from a common ancestor of the Panthera at least 1.5 million years ago and to have entered the American continent in the Early Pleistocene via Beringia, the land bridge that once spanned the Bering Strait. Results of jaguar mitochondrial DNA analysis indicate that the species' lineage evolved between 280,000 and 510,000 years ago.[13]
+Its immediate ancestor was Panthera onca augusta, which was larger than the contemporary jaguar.[15]
+
+Phylogenetic studies generally have shown the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) is basal to this group.[18][19][20]
+
+Fossils of extinct Panthera species, such as the European jaguar (P. gombaszoegensis) and the American lion (P. atrox), show characteristics of both the jaguar and the lion (P. leo).[18] Based on morphological evidence, the British zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock concluded that the jaguar is most closely related to the leopard (P. pardus).[11] However, DNA-based evidence is inconclusive, and the position of the jaguar relative to the other species varies between studies.[17][18][19][20]
+
+The jaguar is a compact and well-muscled animal. It is the largest cat native to the Americas and the third largest in the world, exceeded in size by the tiger and the lion.[12][21][22] Its coat is generally a tawny yellow, but ranges to reddish-brown, for most of the body. The ventral areas are white.[23] The fur is covered with rosettes for camouflage in the dappled light of its forest habitat. The spots and their shapes vary between individual jaguars: rosettes may include one or several dots. The spots on the head and neck are generally solid, as are those on the tail, where they may merge to form a band.[12] Forest jaguars are frequently darker and considerably smaller than those in open areas, possibly due to the smaller numbers of large, herbivorous prey in forest areas.[24] While the jaguar closely resembles the leopard, it is generally more robust, with a stockier limbs and a squarer head.  The rosettes on a jaguar's coat are larger, darker, fewer in number and have thicker lines with a small spot in the middle .[25]
+
+Its size and weight vary considerably: weights are normally in the range of 56–96 kg (123–212 lb). Exceptionally big males have been recorded to weigh as much as 158 kg (348 lb).[26][27] The smallest females weigh about 36 kg (79 lb).[26] Females are typically 10–20 percent smaller than males. The length, from the nose to the base of the tail, varies from 1.12 to 1.85 m (3 ft 8 in to 6 ft 1 in). The tail is the shortest of any big cat, at 45 to 75 cm (18 to 30 in) in length.[26][28] Legs are also short, but thick and powerful, considerably shorter when compared to a small tiger or lion in a similar weight range. The jaguar stands 63 to 76 cm (25 to 30 in) tall at the shoulders.[23]
+
+Further variations in size have been observed across regions and habitats, with size tending to increase from north to south. Jaguars in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the Pacific coast weighed around 50 kg (110 lb), about the size of a female cougar.[29] South American jaguars in Venezuela or Brazil are much larger with average weights of about 95 kg (209 lb) in males and of about 56–78 kg (123–172 lb) in females.[12]
+
+A short and stocky limb structure makes the jaguar adept at climbing, crawling, and swimming.[23] The head is robust and the jaw extremely powerful, it has the third highest bite force of all felids, after the tiger and the lion.[30] A 100 kg (220 lb) jaguar can bite with a force of 4.939 kilonewtons (1,110 pounds-force) with the canine teeth and 6.922 kN (1,556 lbf) at the carnassial notch.[31] This allows it to pierce the shells of armored reptiles and turtles.[32] A comparative study of bite force adjusted for body size ranked it as the top felid, alongside the clouded leopard and ahead of the tiger and lion.[33] It has been reported that an individual jaguar can drag an 360 kg (800 lb) bull 8 m (25 ft) in its jaws and pulverize the heaviest bones.[34]
+
+Melanistic jaguars are informally known as black panthers, but as with all forms of polymorphism they do not form a separate species. The black morph is less common than the spotted morph, estimated at occurring in about 6% of the South American jaguar population.[35] In Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental, the first black jaguar was recorded in 2004.[36]
+
+Some evidence indicates that the melanistic allele is dominant, and being supported by natural selection.[37] The black form may be an example of heterozygote advantage; breeding in captivity is not yet conclusive on this. Melanistic jaguars (or "black" jaguars) occur primarily in parts of South America, and are virtually unknown in wild populations residing in the subtropical and temperate regions of North America; they have rarely been documented north of Mexico's Isthmus of Tehuantepec.[38]
+
+Extremely rare albino individuals, sometimes called white panthers, also occur among jaguars, as with the other big cats.[24] As usual with albinos in the wild, selection keeps the frequency close to the rate of mutation.
+
+At present, the jaguar's range extends from Mexico through Central America to South America, including much of Amazonian Brazil. The countries included in this range are Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica (particularly on the Osa Peninsula), Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, the United States and Venezuela. It is now locally extinct in El Salvador and Uruguay.[1]
+
+The inclusion of the United States in the list is based on occasional sightings in the southwest, particularly in Arizona,[39] New Mexico and Texas. There are rock drawings made by the Hopi, Anasazi, and Pueblo all over the desert and chaparral regions of the American Southwest of an explicitly spotted cat: the only other feline that could even come close to such a profile would be the ocelot, but the pictographs distinctly display a much larger beast more than twice as large as any known ocelot.[40][41] There are records of the beast being sold for its pelt in the vicinity of San Antonio, Texas for $18 apiece in the mid 19th century[42] and there are records from well before California was a state that fit the description of this cat perfectly, mostly written down in Spanish.[43]
+
+The historic range of the species included much of the southern half of the United States, and in the south extended much farther to cover most of the South American continent. In total, its northern range has receded 1,000 km (600 mi) southward and its southern range 2,000 km (1,200 mi) northward. Ice age fossils of the jaguar, dated between 40,000 and 11,500 years ago, have been discovered in the United States, including some at an important site as far north as Missouri. Fossil evidence shows jaguars of up to 190 kg (420 lb), much larger than the contemporary average for the animal.[44]
+
+The habitat of the cat typically includes the rain forests and cloud forests of South and Central America, open, seasonally flooded wetlands, and dry grassland terrain. Of these habitats, the jaguar much prefers dense forest;[24] the cat has lost range most rapidly in regions of drier habitat, such as the Argentine pampas, the arid grasslands of Mexico, and the southwestern United States.[1] The cat will range across tropical, subtropical, and dry deciduous forests (including, historically, oak forests in the United States). The jaguar prefers to live by rivers, swamps, and in dense rainforest with thick cover for stalking prey. Jaguars have been found at elevations as high as 3,800 m, but they typically avoid montane forest and are not found in the high plateau of central Mexico or in the Andes.[24] The jaguars preferred habitats are usually swamps and wooded regions, but jaguars also live in scrublands and deserts.[45]
+
+
+
+The adult jaguar is an apex predator, meaning it exists at the top of its food chain and is not preyed on in the wild. The jaguar has also been termed a keystone species, as it is assumed, through controlling the population levels of prey such as herbivorous and granivorous mammals, apex felids maintain the structural integrity of forest systems.[29][46] However, accurately determining what effect species like the jaguar have on ecosystems is difficult, because data must be compared from regions where the species is absent as well as its current habitats, while controlling for the effects of human activity. It is accepted that mid-sized prey species undergo population increases in the absence of the keystone predators, and this has been hypothesized to have cascading negative effects.[47] However, field work has shown this may be natural variability and the population increases may not be sustained. Thus, the keystone predator hypothesis is not accepted by all scientists.[48]
+
+The jaguar also has an effect on other predators. The jaguar and the cougar, which is the next-largest feline of South America, but the biggest in Central or North America,[29] are often sympatric (related species sharing overlapping territory) and have often been studied in conjunction. The jaguar tends to take larger prey, usually over 22 kg (49 lb) and the cougar smaller, usually between 2 and 22 kg (4 and 49 lb), reducing the latter's size.[49][50] This situation may be advantageous to the cougar. Its broader prey niche, including its ability to take smaller prey, may give it an advantage over the jaguar in human-altered landscapes;[29] while both are classified as near-threatened species, the cougar has a significantly larger current distribution. Depending on the availability of prey, the cougar and jaguar may even share it.[51]
+
+Jaguar females reach sexual maturity at about two years of age, and males at three or four. The cat probably mates throughout the year in the wild, with births increasing when prey is plentiful.[52] Research on captive male jaguars supports the year-round mating hypothesis, with no seasonal variation in semen traits and ejaculatory quality; low reproductive success has also been observed in captivity.[53] Generation length of the jaguar is 9.8 years.[54]
+
+Female estrus is 6–17 days out of a full 37-day cycle, and females will advertise fertility with urinary scent marks and increased vocalization.[52] Females range more widely than usual during courtship. Pairs separate after mating, and females provide all parenting. The gestation period lasts 93–105 days; females give birth to up to four cubs, and most commonly to two. The mother will not tolerate the presence of males after the birth of cubs, given a risk of infanticide; this behavior is also found in the tiger.[55]
+
+The young are born blind, gaining sight after two weeks. Cubs are weaned at three months, but remain in the birth den for six months before leaving to accompany their mother on hunts.[56] They will continue in their mother's company for one to two years before leaving to establish a territory for themselves. Young males are at first nomadic, jostling with their older counterparts until they succeed in claiming a territory. Typical lifespan in the wild is estimated at around 12–15 years; in captivity, the jaguar lives up to 23 years, placing it among the longest-lived cats.[57]
+
+Like most cats, the jaguar is solitary outside mother–cub groups. Adults generally meet only to court and mate (though limited noncourting socialization has been observed anecdotally[55]) and carve out large territories for themselves. Female territories, which range from 25 to 40 km2 in size, may overlap, but the animals generally avoid one another. Male ranges cover roughly twice as much area, varying in size with the availability of game and space, and do not overlap. The territory of a male can contain those of several females.[55][58] The jaguar uses scrape marks, urine, and feces to mark its territory.[59][60]
+
+Like the other big cats except the snow leopard, the jaguar is capable of roaring[61][62] and does so to warn territorial and mating competitors away; intensive bouts of counter-calling between individuals have been observed in the wild.[32] Their roar often resembles a repetitive cough, and they may also vocalize mews and grunts.[57] Mating fights between males occur, but are rare, and aggression avoidance behavior has been observed in the wild.[59] When it occurs, conflict is typically over territory: a male's range may encompass that of two or three females, and he will not tolerate intrusions by other adult males.[55]
+
+The jaguar is often described as nocturnal, but is more specifically crepuscular (peak activity around dawn and dusk). Both sexes hunt, but males travel farther each day than females, befitting their larger territories. The jaguar may hunt during the day if game is available and is a relatively energetic feline, spending as much as 50–60 percent of its time active.[24] The jaguar's elusive nature and the inaccessibility of much of its preferred habitat make it a difficult animal to sight, let alone study.
+
+Like all cats, the jaguar is an obligate carnivore, feeding only on meat. It is an opportunistic hunter and its diet encompasses at least 87 species.[24] Range-wide, jaguars prefer prey weighing 45–85 kg (99–187 lb) and the most significantly preferred species are capybara and giant anteater. Other commonly taken prey include wild boar, common caiman, collared peccary, deer in more northern parts of their range, frogs, fish, nine-banded armadillo and white-nosed coati. Other species like the agouti, other carnivorans, primates, common opossum and tapir are generally avoided.[21] Jagaurs are unusual among large felids in that they do not have a special preference for even-toed ungulates.[21][63]  Some jaguars also prey on livestock and they will actively target horses, cattle, and llamas.[64]
+
+The activity patterns of the jaguar have been found to coincide with the activity of their main prey species in their biomes.[65] Camera trap studies have shown that jaguars primarily have a crepuscular–nocturnal activity pattern in all the biomes that they are found in; however jaguars have  been recorded to have considerable diurnal activity in thickly forested regions of the Amazon Rainforest and the Pantanal, as well as purely nocturnal activity in other regions such as the Atlantic forest.[66].
+
+The jaguar is a stalk-and-ambush rather than a chase predator. The cat will walk slowly down forest paths, listening for and stalking prey before rushing or ambushing. The jaguar attacks from cover and usually from a target's blind spot with a quick pounce; the species' ambushing abilities are considered nearly peerless in the animal kingdom by both indigenous people and field researchers, and are probably a product of its role as an apex predator in several different environments.[55] The ambush may include leaping into water after prey, as a jaguar is quite capable of carrying a large kill while swimming; its strength is such that carcasses as large as a heifer can be hauled up a tree to avoid flood levels.[55]  While the jaguar often employs the deep throat-bite and suffocation technique typical among Panthera, it sometimes uses a killing method unique among cats: it pierces directly through the temporal bones of the skull between the ears of prey (especially the capybara) with its canine teeth, piercing the brain.[67] This may be an adaptation to "cracking open" turtle shells; following the late Pleistocene extinctions, armored reptiles such as turtles would have formed an abundant prey base for the jaguar.[24][32] After killing prey, the jaguar will drag the carcass to a thicket or other secluded spot. It begins eating at the neck and chest, rather than the midsection. The heart and lungs are consumed, followed by the shoulders.[55]
+
+The daily food requirement of a 34 kg (75 lb) animal, at the extreme low end of the species' weight range, has been estimated at 1.4 kg (3 lb).[68] For captive animals in the 50–60 kg (110–130 lb) range, more than 2 kg (4 lb) of meat daily are recommended.[69] In the wild, consumption is naturally more erratic; wild cats expend considerable energy in the capture and kill of prey, and they may consume up to 25 kg (55 lb) of meat at one feeding, followed by periods of famine.[70] Though carnivorous, there is evidence that wild jaguars consume the roots of Banisteriopsis caapi.[71]
+
+Jaguars very rarely attack humans. Upon catching the scent or sight of a human, overwhelmingly they run as fast as their legs can carry them or will climb a tree to hide rather than fight.[72] They did not evolve eating large primates and do not normally see man as food.[73] Experts have cited them as the least likely of all big cats to kill and eat man and the majority of attacks come when the feline has been cornered or wounded.[74][75] However, such behavior appears to be more frequent where humans enter jaguar habitat and decrease prey.[76] Captive jaguars sometimes attack zookeepers.[77] When the conquistadors arrived in the Americas, they feared jaguars. Nevertheless, even in those times, the jaguar's chief prey was the capybara in South America and peccary further north. Charles Darwin reported a saying of Native Americans that people would not have to fear the jaguar as long as capybaras were abundant.[78]
+
+Jaguar populations are rapidly declining. The species is listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. The loss of parts of its range, including its virtual elimination from its historic northern areas and the increasing fragmentation of the remaining range, have contributed to this status.[1] Particularly significant declines occurred in the 1960s, when more than 15,000 jaguars were killed for their skins in the Brazilian Amazon yearly; the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of 1973 brought about a sharp decline in the pelt trade.[79] Detailed work performed under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society revealed the species has lost 37% of its historic range, with its status unknown in an additional 18% of the global range. More encouragingly, the probability of long-term survival was considered high in 70% of its remaining range, particularly in the Amazon basin and the adjoining Gran Chaco and Pantanal.[80]
+
+The major risks to the jaguar include deforestation across its habitat, increasing competition for food with human beings, especially in dry and unproductive habitat,[1][81] poaching, hurricanes in northern parts of its range, and the behavior of ranchers who will often kill the cat where it preys on livestock. When adapted to the prey, the jaguar has been shown to take cattle as a large portion of its diet; while land clearance for grazing is a problem for the species, the jaguar population may have increased when cattle were first introduced to South America, as the animals took advantage of the new prey base. This willingness to take livestock has induced ranch owners to hire full-time jaguar hunters.[57]
+
+The skins of wild cats and other mammals have been highly valued by the fur trade for many decades. From the beginning of the 20th-century Jaguars were hunted in large numbers, but over-harvest and habitat destruction reduced the availability and induced hunters and traders to gradually shift to smaller species by the 1960s. The international trade of jaguar skins had its largest boom between the end of the Second World War and the early 1970, due to the growing economy and lack of regulations. From 1967 onwards, the regulations introduced by national laws and international agreements diminished the reported international trade from as high as 13000 skins in 1967, through 7000 skins in 1969, until it became negligible after 1976, although illegal trade and smuggling continue to be a problem. During this period, the biggest exporters were Brazil and Paraguay, and the biggest importers were the US and Germany.[82]
+
+The jaguar is listed on CITES Appendix I, which means that all international trade in jaguars or their body parts is prohibited. Hunting jaguars is prohibited in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, French Guiana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Suriname, the United States, and Venezuela. Hunting jaguars is restricted in Guatemala and Peru.[1] Trophy hunting is still permitted in Bolivia, and it is not protected in Ecuador or Guyana.[83]
+
+Jaguar conservation is complicated because of the species' large range spanning 18 countries with different policies and regulations. Specific areas of high importance for jaguar conservation, so-called "Jaguar Conservation Units" (JCU) were determined in 2000. These are large areas inhabited by at least 50 jaguars. Each unit was assessed and evaluated on the basis of size, connectivity, habitat quality for both jaguar and prey, and jaguar population status. That way, 51 Jaguar Conservation Units were determined in 36 geographic regions as priority areas for jaguar conservation including:[80]
+
+Recent studies underlined that to maintain the robust exchange across the jaguar gene pool necessary for maintaining the species, it is important that jaguar habitats are interconnected. To facilitate this, a new project, the Paseo del Jaguar, has been established to connect several jaguar hotspots.[84]
+
+In 1986, the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary was established in Belize as the world's first protected area for jaguar conservation.[85]
+
+Given the inaccessibility of much of the species' range, particularly the central Amazon, estimating jaguar numbers is difficult. Researchers typically focus on particular bioregions, thus species-wide analysis is scant. In 1991, 600–1,000 (the highest total) were estimated to be living in Belize. A year earlier, 125–180 jaguars were estimated to be living in Mexico's 4,000-km2 (2400-mi2) Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, with another 350 in the state of Chiapas. The adjoining Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala, with an area measuring 15,000 km2 (9,000 mi2), may have 465–550 animals.[86] Work employing GPS telemetry in 2003 and 2004 found densities of only six to seven jaguars per 100 km2 in the critical Pantanal region, compared with 10 to 11 using traditional methods; this suggests the widely used sampling methods may inflate the actual numbers of cats.[87]
+
+In setting up protected reserves, efforts generally also have to be focused on the surrounding areas, as jaguars are unlikely to confine themselves to the bounds of a reservation, especially if the population is increasing in size. Human attitudes in the areas surrounding reserves and laws and regulations to prevent poaching are essential to make conservation areas effective.[88]
+
+To estimate population sizes within specific areas and to keep track of individual jaguars, camera trapping and wildlife tracking telemetry are widely used, and feces may be sought out with the help of detector dogs to study jaguar health and diet.[89][90]
+Current conservation efforts often focus on educating ranch owners and promoting ecotourism.[91] The jaguar is generally defined as an umbrella species – its home range and habitat requirements are sufficiently broad that, if protected, numerous other species of smaller range will also be protected.[92] Umbrella species serve as "mobile links" at the landscape scale, in the jaguar's case through predation. Conservation organizations may thus focus on providing viable, connected habitat for the jaguar, with the knowledge other species will also benefit.[91]
+
+Ecotourism setups are being used to generate public interest in charismatic animals such as the jaguar, while at the same time generating revenue that can be used in conservation efforts. Audits done in Africa have shown that ecotourism has helped in African cat conservation. As with large African cats, a key concern in jaguar ecotourism is the considerable habitat space the species requires, so if ecotourism is used to aid in jaguar conservation, some considerations need to be made as to how existing ecosystems will be kept intact, or how new ecosystems that are large enough to support a growing jaguar population will be put into place.[93]
+
+The only extant cat native to North America that roars,[94] the jaguar was recorded as an animal of the Americas by Thomas Jefferson in 1799.[95] Jaguars are still occasionally sighted in Arizona and New Mexico, such as El Jefe,[96][97] prompting actions for its conservation by authorities.[94] For example, on 20 August 2012, the USFWS proposed setting aside 838,232 acres in Arizona and New Mexico – an area larger than Rhode Island – as critical jaguar habitat.[98]
+
+In pre-Columbian Central and South America, the jaguar was a symbol of power and strength. Among the Andean cultures, a jaguar cult disseminated by the early Chavín culture became accepted over most of what is today Peru by 900 BC. The later Moche culture of northern Peru used the jaguar as a symbol of power in many of their ceramics.[99][100][101] In the religion of the Muisca, who inhabited the cool Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the Colombian Andes, the jaguar was considered a sacred animal and during their religious rituals the people dressed in jaguar skins.[102] The skins were traded with the lowland peoples of the tropical Llanos Orientales.[103] The name of zipa Nemequene was derived from the Muysccubun words nymy and quyne, meaning "force of the jaguar".[104][105]
+
+In Mesoamerica, the Olmec—an early and influential culture of the Gulf Coast region roughly contemporaneous with the Chavín—developed a distinct "were-jaguar" motif of sculptures and figurines showing stylised jaguars or humans with jaguar characteristics. In the later Maya civilization, the jaguar was believed to facilitate communication between the living and the dead and to protect the royal household. The Maya saw these powerful felines as their companions in the spiritual world, and a number of Maya rulers bore names that incorporated the Mayan word for jaguar (b'alam in many of the Mayan languages). Balam (Jaguar) remains a common Maya surname, and it is also the name of Chilam Balam, a legendary author to whom are attributed 17th and 18th-centuries Maya miscellanies preserving much important knowledge. The Aztec civilization shared this image of the jaguar as the representative of the ruler and as a warrior. The Aztecs formed an elite warrior class known as the Jaguar Knights. In Aztec mythology, the jaguar was considered to be the totem animal of the powerful deity Tezcatlipoca.[55][106] Remains of jaguar bones were discovered in a burial site in Guatemala which indicates that Mayans kept jaguars as pets.[107]
+
+The jaguar and its name are widely used as a symbol in contemporary culture. It is the national animal of Guyana, and is featured in its coat of arms.[108] The flag of the Department of Amazonas, a Colombian department, features a black jaguar silhouette pouncing towards a hunter.[109] The jaguar also appears in banknotes of Brazilian real. The jaguar is also a common fixture in the mythology of many contemporary native cultures in South America,[110] usually being portrayed as the creature which gave humans the power over fire.
+
+Jaguar is widely used as a product name, most prominently for a British luxury car brand. The name has been adopted by sports franchises, including the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars and the Mexican soccer club Chiapas F.C. The crest of Argentina's national federation in rugby union features a jaguar; however, because of a journalist error, the country's national team is nicknamed Los Pumas.[111] In the spirit of the ancient Mayan culture, the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City adopted a red jaguar as the first official Olympic mascot.[112]
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+Judaism (originally from Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah";[1][2] via Latin and Greek) is an ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people.[3][4] Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel.[5] It encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide,[6] Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world.
+
+Within Judaism there are a variety of movements, most of which emerged from Rabbinic Judaism,[7] which holds that God revealed his laws and commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai in the form of both the Written and Oral Torah.[8] Historically, all or part of this assertion was challenged by various groups such as the Sadducees and Hellenistic Judaism during the Second Temple period;[9] the Karaites and Sabbateans during the early and later medieval period;[10] and among segments of the modern non-Orthodox denominations. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic.[11] Today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism (Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodox Judaism), Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between these groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition, and the significance of the State of Israel.[12] Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, and that they should be strictly followed. Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditionalist interpretation of Judaism's requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of general guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews.[13][14] Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law; today, these courts still exist but the practice of Judaism is mostly voluntary.[15] Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, but in the sacred texts and the rabbis and scholars who interpret them.[16]
+
+Judaism has its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age.[17] It evolved from ancient Israelite religions around 500 BCE,[18] and is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions.[19][20] The Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as "Jews" in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title "Children of Israel".[21] Judaism's texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam and the Baha'i Faith.[22][23] Hebraism, like  Hellenism[disambiguation needed], played a seminal role in the formation of Western civilization  through its impact as  a core background  element of Early Christianity.[24]
+
+Jews are an ethnoreligious group[25] including those born Jewish, in addition to converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, or roughly 0.2% of the total world population.[26] About 43% of all Jews reside in Israel and another 43% reside in the United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe, and other minority groups spread throughout Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Australia.[26]
+
+Unlike other ancient Near Eastern gods, the Hebrew God is portrayed as unitary and solitary; consequently, the Hebrew God's principal relationships are not with other gods, but with the world, and more specifically, with the people he created.[27] Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism: the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of mankind.[28] According to the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation.[29] Many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God; that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate God's concern for the world.[30] He also commanded the Jewish people to love one another; that is, Jews are to imitate God's love for people.[31] These commandments are but two of a large corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism.
+
+Thus, although there is an esoteric tradition in Judaism (Kabbalah), Rabbinic scholar Max Kadushin has characterized normative Judaism as "normal mysticism", because it involves everyday personal experiences of God through ways or modes that are common to all Jews.[32] This is played out through the observance of the Halakha (Jewish law) and given verbal expression in the Birkat Ha-Mizvot, the short blessings that are spoken every time a positive commandment is to be fulfilled.
+
+Whereas Jewish philosophers often debate whether God is immanent or transcendent, and whether people have free will or their lives are determined, Halakha is a system through which any Jew acts to bring God into the world.
+
+Ethical monotheism is central in all sacred or normative texts of Judaism. However, monotheism has not always been followed in practice. The Jewish Bible (Tanakh) records and repeatedly condemns the widespread worship of other gods in ancient Israel.[34] In the Greco-Roman era, many different interpretations of monotheism existed in Judaism, including the interpretations that gave rise to Christianity.[35]
+
+Moreover, some have argued that Judaism is a non-creedal religion that does not require one to believe in God.[36][37] For some, observance of Jewish law is more important than belief in God per se.[38] In modern times, some liberal Jewish movements do not accept the existence of a personified deity active in history.[39][40] The debate about whether one can speak of authentic or normative Judaism is not only a debate among religious Jews but also among historians.[41]
+
+—Maimonides
+
+Scholars throughout Jewish history have proposed numerous formulations of Judaism's core tenets, all of which have met with criticism.[42] The most popular formulation is Maimonides' thirteen principles of faith, developed in the 12th century. According to Maimonides, any Jew who rejects even one of these principles would be considered an apostate and a heretic.[43][44] Jewish scholars have held points of view diverging in various ways from Maimonides' principles.[45][46]
+
+In Maimonides' time, his list of tenets was criticized by Hasdai Crescas and Joseph Albo. Albo and the Raavad argued that Maimonides' principles contained too many items that, while true, were not fundamentals of the faith.
+
+Along these lines, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and observances rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe Jewish law and maintaining that the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs. Maimonides' principles were largely ignored over the next few centuries.[47] Later, two poetic restatements of these principles ("Ani Ma'amin" and "Yigdal") became integrated into many Jewish liturgies,[48] leading to their eventual near-universal acceptance.[49][50]
+
+In modern times, Judaism lacks a centralized authority that would dictate an exact religious dogma.[16][51] Because of this, many different variations on the basic beliefs are considered within the scope of Judaism.[45] Even so, all Jewish religious movements are, to a greater or lesser extent, based on the principles of the Hebrew Bible and various commentaries such as the Talmud and Midrash. Judaism also universally recognizes the Biblical Covenant between God and the Patriarch Abraham as well as the additional aspects of the Covenant revealed to Moses, who is considered Judaism's greatest prophet.[45][52][53][54][55] In the Mishnah, a core text of Rabbinic Judaism, acceptance of the Divine origins of this covenant is considered an essential aspect of Judaism and those who reject the Covenant forfeit their share in the World to Come.[56]
+
+Establishing the core tenets of Judaism in the modern era is even more difficult, given the number and diversity of the contemporary Jewish denominations. Even if to restrict the problem to the most influential intellectual trends of the nineteenth and twentieth century, the matter remains complicated. Thus for instance, Joseph Soloveitchik's (associated with the Modern Orthodox movement) answer to modernity is constituted upon the identification of Judaism with following the halakha whereas its ultimate goal is to bring the holiness down to the world. Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of the Reconstructionist Judaism, abandons the idea of religion for the sake of identifying Judaism with civilization and by means of the latter term and secular translation of the core ideas, he tries to embrace as many Jewish denominations as possible. In turn, Solomon Schechter's Conservative Judaism was identical with the tradition understood as the interpretation of Torah, in itself being the history of the constant updates and adjustment of the Law performed by means of the creative interpretation. Finally, David Philipson draws the outlines of the Reform movement in Judaism by opposing it to the strict and traditional rabbinical approach and thus comes to the conclusions similar to that of the Conservative movement.[57]
+
+The following is a basic, structured list of the central works of Jewish practice and thought.
+
+Many traditional Jewish texts are available online in various Torah databases (electronic versions of the Traditional Jewish Bookshelf). Many of these have advanced search options available.
+
+The basis of Jewish law and tradition (halakha) is the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses). According to rabbinic tradition, there are 613 commandments in the Torah. Some of these laws are directed only to men or to women, some only to the ancient priestly groups, the Kohanim and Leviyim (members of the tribe of Levi), some only to farmers within the Land of Israel. Many laws were only applicable when the Temple in Jerusalem existed, and only 369 of these commandments are still applicable today.[59]
+
+While there have been Jewish groups whose beliefs were based on the written text of the Torah alone (e.g., the Sadducees, and the Karaites), most Jews believe in the oral law. These oral traditions were transmitted by the Pharisee school of thought of ancient Judaism and were later recorded in written form and expanded upon by the rabbis.
+
+According to Rabbinical Jewish tradition, God gave both the Written Law (the Torah) and the Oral law to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Oral law is the oral tradition as relayed by God to Moses and from him, transmitted and taught to the sages (rabbinic leaders) of each subsequent generation.
+
+For centuries, the Torah appeared only as a written text transmitted in parallel with the oral tradition. Fearing that the oral teachings might be forgotten, Rabbi Judah haNasi undertook the mission of consolidating the various opinions into one body of law which became known as the Mishnah.[60]
+
+The Mishnah consists of 63 tractates codifying Jewish law, which are the basis of the Talmud. According to Abraham ben David, the Mishnah was compiled by Rabbi Judah haNasi after the destruction of Jerusalem, in anno mundi 3949, which corresponds to 189 CE.[61]
+
+Over the next four centuries, the Mishnah underwent discussion and debate in both of the world's major Jewish communities (in Israel and Babylonia). The commentaries from each of these communities were eventually compiled into the two Talmuds, the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi) and the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli). These have been further expounded by commentaries of various Torah scholars during the ages.
+
+In the text of the Torah, many words are left undefined and many procedures are mentioned without explanation or instructions. Such phenomena are sometimes offered to validate the viewpoint that the Written Law has always been transmitted with a parallel oral tradition, illustrating the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the details from other, i.e., oral, sources.[62]
+
+Halakha, the rabbinic Jewish way of life, then, is based on a combined reading of the Torah, and the oral tradition—the Mishnah, the halakhic Midrash, the Talmud and its commentaries. The Halakha has developed slowly, through a precedent-based system. The literature of questions to rabbis, and their considered answers, is referred to as responsa (in Hebrew, Sheelot U-Teshuvot.) Over time, as practices develop, codes of Jewish law are written that are based on the responsa; the most important code, the Shulchan Aruch, largely determines Orthodox religious practice today.
+
+Jewish philosophy refers to the conjunction between serious study of philosophy and Jewish theology. Major Jewish philosophers include Solomon ibn Gabirol, Saadia Gaon, Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Gersonides. Major changes occurred in response to the Enlightenment (late 18th to early 19th century) leading to the post-Enlightenment Jewish philosophers. Modern Jewish philosophy consists of both Orthodox and non-Orthodox oriented philosophy. Notable among Orthodox Jewish philosophers are Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and Yitzchok Hutner. Well-known non-Orthodox Jewish philosophers include Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Mordecai Kaplan, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Will Herberg, and Emmanuel Lévinas.
+
+—R. Ishmael[63]
+
+Orthodox and many other Jews do not believe that the revealed Torah consists solely of its written contents, but of its interpretations as well. The study of Torah (in its widest sense, to include both poetry, narrative, and law, and both the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud) is in Judaism itself a sacred act of central importance. For the sages of the Mishnah and Talmud, and for their successors today, the study of Torah was therefore not merely a means to learn the contents of God's revelation, but an end in itself. According to the Talmud,
+
+In Judaism, "the study of Torah can be a means of experiencing God".[64] Reflecting on the contribution of the Amoraim and Tanaim to contemporary Judaism, Professor Jacob Neusner observed:
+
+To study the Written Torah and the Oral Torah in light of each other is thus also to study how to study the word of God.
+
+In the study of Torah, the sages formulated and followed various logical and hermeneutical principles. According to David Stern, all Rabbinic hermeneutics rest on two basic axioms:
+
+These two principles make possible a great variety of interpretations. According to the Talmud,
+
+Observant Jews thus view the Torah as dynamic, because it contains within it a host of interpretations.[67]
+
+According to Rabbinic tradition, all valid interpretations of the written Torah were revealed to Moses at Sinai in oral form, and handed down from teacher to pupil (The oral revelation is in effect coextensive with the Talmud itself). When different rabbis forwarded conflicting interpretations, they sometimes appealed to hermeneutic principles to legitimize their arguments; some rabbis claim that these principles were themselves revealed by God to Moses at Sinai.[68]
+
+Thus, Hillel called attention to seven commonly used hermeneutical principles in the interpretation of laws (baraita at the beginning of Sifra); R. Ishmael, thirteen (baraita at the beginning of Sifra; this collection is largely an amplification of that of Hillel).[69] Eliezer b. Jose ha-Gelili listed 32, largely used for the exegesis of narrative elements of Torah. All the hermeneutic rules scattered through the Talmudim and Midrashim have been collected by Malbim in Ayyelet ha-Shachar, the introduction to his commentary on the Sifra. Nevertheless, R. Ishmael's 13 principles are perhaps the ones most widely known; they constitute an important, and one of Judaism's earliest, contributions to logic, hermeneutics, and jurisprudence.[70] Judah Hadassi incorporated Ishmael's principles into Karaite Judaism in the 12th century.[71] Today R. Ishmael's 13 principles are incorporated into the Jewish prayer book to be read by observant Jews on a daily basis.[72][73][74][75]
+
+The term "Judaism" derives from Iudaismus, a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek Ioudaismos (Ἰουδαϊσμός) (from the verb ἰουδαΐζειν, "to side with or imitate the [Judeans]").[76] Its ultimate source was the Hebrew יהודה, Yehudah, "Judah",[1][77] which is also the source of the Hebrew term for Judaism: יַהֲדוּת, Yahadut. The term Ἰουδαϊσμός first appears in the Hellenistic Greek book of 2 Maccabees in the 2nd century BCE. In the context of the age and period it meant "seeking or forming part of a cultural entity"[78] and it resembled its antonym hellenismos, a word that signified a people's submission to Hellenic (Greek) cultural norms. The conflict between iudaismos and hellenismos lay behind the Maccabean revolt and hence the invention of the term iudaismos.[78]
+
+Shaye J. D. Cohen writes in his book The Beginnings of Jewishness:
+
+We are tempted, of course, to translate [Ioudaïsmós] as "Judaism," but this translation is too narrow, because in this first occurrence of the term, Ioudaïsmós has not yet been reduced to the designation of a religion. It means rather "the aggregate of all those characteristics that makes Judaeans Judaean (or Jews Jewish)." Among these characteristics, to be sure, are practices and beliefs that we would today call "religious," but these practices and beliefs are not the sole content of the term. Thus Ioudaïsmós should be translated not as "Judaism" but as Judaeanness.[79]
+
+According to the Oxford English Dictionary the earliest citation in English where the term was used to mean "the profession or practice of the Jewish religion; the religious system or polity of the Jews" is Robert Fabyan's The newe cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce (1516).[80] "Judaism" as a direct translation of the Latin Iudaismus first occurred in a 1611 English translation of the apocrypha (Deuterocanon in Catholic and Eastern Orthodoxy), 2 Macc. ii. 21: "Those that behaved themselves manfully to their honour for Iudaisme."[81]
+
+According to Daniel Boyarin, the underlying distinction between religion and ethnicity is foreign to Judaism itself, and is one form of the dualism between spirit and flesh that has its origin in Platonic philosophy and that permeated Hellenistic Judaism.[82] Consequently, in his view, Judaism does not fit easily into conventional Western categories, such as religion, ethnicity, or culture. Boyarin suggests that this in part reflects the fact that much of Judaism's more than 3,000-year history predates the rise of Western culture and occurred outside the West (that is, Europe, particularly medieval and modern Europe). During this time, Jews experienced slavery, anarchic and theocratic self-government, conquest, occupation, and exile. In the Diaspora, they were in contact with, and influenced by, ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, and Hellenic cultures, as well as modern movements such as the Enlightenment (see Haskalah) and the rise of nationalism, which would bear fruit in the form of a Jewish state in their ancient homeland, the Land of Israel. They also saw an elite population convert to Judaism (the Khazars), only to disappear as the centers of power in the lands once occupied by that elite fell to the people of Rus and then the Mongols.[citation needed] Thus, Boyarin has argued that "Jewishness disrupts the very categories of identity, because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these, in dialectical tension."[83]
+
+In contrast to this point of view, practices such as Humanistic Judaism reject the religious aspects of Judaism, while retaining certain cultural traditions.
+
+According to Rabbinic Judaism, a Jew is anyone who was either born of a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism in accordance with Jewish Law. Reconstructionist Judaism and the larger denominations of worldwide Progressive Judaism (also known as Liberal or Reform Judaism) accept the child as Jewish if one of the parents is Jewish, if the parents raise the child with a Jewish identity, but not the smaller regional branches.[clarification needed] All mainstream forms of Judaism today are open to sincere converts, although conversion has traditionally been discouraged since the time of the Talmud. The conversion process is evaluated by an authority, and the convert is examined on his or her sincerity and knowledge.[84] Converts are called "ben Abraham" or "bat Abraham", (son or daughter of Abraham). Conversions have on occasion been overturned. In 2008, Israel's highest religious court invalidated the conversion of 40,000 Jews, mostly from Russian immigrant families, even though they had been approved by an Orthodox rabbi.[85]
+
+Rabbinical Judaism maintains that a Jew, whether by birth or conversion, is a Jew forever. Thus a Jew who claims to be an atheist or converts to another religion is still considered by traditional Judaism to be Jewish. According to some sources, the Reform movement has maintained that a Jew who has converted to another religion is no longer a Jew,[86] and the Israeli Government has also taken that stance after Supreme Court cases and statutes.[87] However, the Reform movement has indicated that this is not so cut and dried, and different situations call for consideration and differing actions. For example, Jews who have converted under duress may be permitted to return to Judaism "without any action on their part but their desire to rejoin the Jewish community" and "A proselyte who has become an apostate remains, nevertheless, a Jew".[88]
+
+Karaite Judaism believes that Jewish identity can only be transmitted by patrilineal descent. Although a minority of modern Karaites believe that Jewish identity requires that both parents be Jewish, and not only the father. They argue that only patrilineal descent can transmit Jewish identity on the grounds that all descent in the Torah went according to the male line.[89]
+
+The question of what determines Jewish identity in the State of Israel was given new impetus when, in the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion requested opinions on mihu Yehudi ("Who is a Jew") from Jewish religious authorities and intellectuals worldwide in order to settle citizenship questions. This is still not settled, and occasionally resurfaces in Israeli politics.
+
+Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud, around 200 CE. Interpretations of sections of the Tanakh, such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, by Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and Canaanites because "[the non-Jewish husband] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods (i.e., idols) of others." Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children.[90][91] A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about the law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period.[92][93] Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.[94]
+
+The total number of Jews worldwide is difficult to assess because the definition of "who is a Jew" is problematic; not all Jews identify themselves as Jewish, and some who identify as Jewish are not considered so by other Jews. According to the Jewish Year Book (1901), the global Jewish population in 1900 was around 11 million. The latest available data is from the World Jewish Population Survey of 2002 and the Jewish Year Calendar (2005). In 2002, according to the Jewish Population Survey, there were 13.3 million Jews around the world. The Jewish Year Calendar cites 14.6 million. Jewish population growth is currently near zero percent, with 0.3% growth from 2000 to 2001.
+
+Rabbinic Judaism (or in some Christian traditions, Rabbinism) (Hebrew: "Yahadut Rabanit" – יהדות רבנית) has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Talmud. It is characterised by the belief that the Written Torah (Written Law) cannot be correctly interpreted without reference to the Oral Torah and the voluminous literature specifying what behavior is sanctioned by the Law.
+
+The Jewish Enlightenment of the late 18th century resulted in the division of Ashkenazi (Western) Jewry into religious movements or denominations, especially in North America and Anglophone countries. The main denominations today outside Israel (where the situation is rather different) are Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.
+
+While traditions and customs (see also "Sephardic law and customs") vary between discrete communities, it can be said that Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish communities do not generally adhere to the "movement" framework popular in and among Ashkenazi Jewry.[97] Historically, Sephardi and Mizrahi communities have eschewed denominations in favour of a "big tent" approach.[98] This is particularly the case in contemporary Israel, which is home to the largest communities of Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in the world. (However, individual Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews may be members of or attend synagogues that do adhere to one Ashkenazi-inflected movement or another.)
+
+Sephardi and Mizrahi observance of Judaism tends toward the conservative, and prayer rites are reflective of this, with the text of each rite being largely unchanged since their respective inception. Observant Sephardim may follow the teachings of a particular rabbi or school of thought; for example, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel.
+
+Most Jewish Israelis classify themselves as "secular" (hiloni), "traditional" (masorti), "religious" (dati) or Haredi. The term "secular" is more popular as a self-description among Israeli families of western (European) origin, whose Jewish identity may be a very powerful force in their lives, but who see it as largely independent of traditional religious belief and practice. This portion of the population largely ignores organized religious life, be it of the official Israeli rabbinate (Orthodox) or of the liberal movements common to diaspora Judaism (Reform, Conservative).
+
+The term "traditional" (masorti) is most common as a self-description among Israeli families of "eastern" origin (i.e., the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa). This term, as commonly used, has nothing to do with the Conservative Judaism, which also names itself "Masorti" outside North America. There is a great deal of ambiguity in the ways "secular" and "traditional" are used in Israel: they often overlap, and they cover an extremely wide range in terms of worldview and practical religious observance. The term "Orthodox" is not popular in Israeli discourse, although the percentage of Jews who come under that category is far greater than in the diaspora. What would be called "Orthodox" in the diaspora includes what is commonly called dati (religious) or haredi (ultra-Orthodox) in Israel. The former term includes what is called "Religious Zionism" or the "National Religious" community, as well as what has become known over the past decade or so as haredi-leumi (nationalist haredi), or "Hardal", which combines a largely haredi lifestyle with nationalist ideology. (Some people, in Yiddish, also refer to observant Orthodox Jews as frum, as opposed to frei (more liberal Jews)).
+
+Haredi applies to a populace that can be roughly divided into three separate groups along both ethnic and ideological lines: (1) "Lithuanian" (non-hasidic) haredim of Ashkenazic origin; (2) Hasidic haredim of Ashkenazic origin; and (3) Sephardic haredim.
+
+Karaite Judaism defines itself as the remnants of the non-Rabbinic Jewish sects of the Second Temple period, such as the Sadducees. The Karaites ("Scripturalists") accept only the Hebrew Bible and what they view as the Peshat ("simple" meaning); they do not accept non-biblical writings as authoritative. Some European Karaites do not see themselves as part of the Jewish community at all, although most do.
+
+The Samaritans, a very small community located entirely around Mount Gerizim in the Nablus/Shechem region of the West Bank and in Holon, near Tel Aviv in Israel, regard themselves as the descendants of the Israelites of the Iron Age kingdom of Israel. Their religious practices are based on the literal text of the written Torah (Five Books of Moses), which they view as the only authoritative scripture (with a special regard also for the Samaritan Book of Joshua).
+
+See also: Haymanot; Beta Israel.
+
+Haymanot (meaning "religion" in Ge'ez and Amharic) refers the Judaism practiced by Ethiopian Jews. This version of Judaism differs substantially from Rabbinic, Karaite, and Samaritan Judaisms, Ethiopian Jews having diverged from their coreligionists earlier. Sacred scriptures (the Orit) are written in Ge'ez, not Hebrew, and dietary laws are based strictly on the text of the Orit, without explication from ancillary commentaries. Holidays also differ, with some Rabbinic holidays not observed in Ethiopian Jewish communities, and some additional holidays, like Sigd.
+
+See also: Noahidism.
+
+Noahidism (/ˈnoʊə.haɪd.ɪsm/) or Noachidism (/ˈnoʊə.xaɪd.ɪsm/) is a monotheistic branch of Judaism based on the Seven Laws of Noah, and their traditional interpretations within Rabbinic Judaism. According to the Jewish law, non-Jews (Gentiles) are not obligated to convert to Judaism, but they are required to observe the Seven Laws of Noah to be assured of a place in the World to Come (Olam Ha-Ba), the final reward of the righteous. The divinely ordained penalty for violating any of these Noahide Laws is discussed in the Talmud, but in practical terms it is subject to the working legal system which is established by the society at large. Those who subscribe to the observance of the Noahic Covenant are referred to as B'nei Noach (Hebrew: בני נח, "Children of Noah") or Noahides (/ˈnoʊ.ə.haɪdɪs/). Supporting organizations have been established around the world over the past decades by either Noahides or Orthodox Jews.
+
+Historically, the Hebrew term B'nei Noach has applied to all non-Jews as descendants of Noah. However, nowadays it's primarily used to refer specifically to those non-Jews who observe the Seven Laws of Noah.
+
+Jewish ethics may be guided by halakhic traditions, by other moral principles, or by central Jewish virtues. Jewish ethical practice is typically understood to be marked by values such as justice, truth, peace, loving-kindness (chesed), compassion, humility, and self-respect. Specific Jewish ethical practices include practices of charity (tzedakah) and refraining from negative speech (lashon hara). Proper ethical practices regarding sexuality and many other issues are subjects of dispute among Jews.
+
+Traditionally, Jews recite prayers three times daily, Shacharit, Mincha, and Ma'ariv with a fourth prayer, Mussaf added on Shabbat and holidays. At the heart of each service is the Amidah or Shemoneh Esrei. Another key prayer in many services is the declaration of faith, the Shema Yisrael (or Shema). The Shema is the recitation of a verse from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4): Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad—"Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God! The Lord is One!"
+
+Most of the prayers in a traditional Jewish service can be recited in solitary prayer, although communal prayer is preferred. Communal prayer requires a quorum of ten adult Jews, called a minyan. In nearly all Orthodox and a few Conservative circles, only male Jews are counted toward a minyan; most Conservative Jews and members of other Jewish denominations count female Jews as well.
+
+In addition to prayer services, observant traditional Jews recite prayers and benedictions throughout the day when performing various acts. Prayers are recited upon waking up in the morning, before eating or drinking different foods, after eating a meal, and so on.
+
+The approach to prayer varies among the Jewish denominations. Differences can include the texts of prayers, the frequency of prayer, the number of prayers recited at various religious events, the use of musical instruments and choral music, and whether prayers are recited in the traditional liturgical languages or the vernacular. In general, Orthodox and Conservative congregations adhere most closely to tradition, and Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues are more likely to incorporate translations and contemporary writings in their services. Also, in most Conservative synagogues, and all Reform and Reconstructionist congregations, women participate in prayer services on an equal basis with men, including roles traditionally filled only by men, such as reading from the Torah. In addition, many Reform temples use musical accompaniment such as organs and mixed choirs.
+
+A kippah (Hebrew: כִּפָּה, plural kippot; Yiddish: יאַרמלקע, yarmulke) is a slightly rounded brimless skullcap worn by many Jews while praying, eating, reciting blessings, or studying Jewish religious texts, and at all times by some Jewish men. In Orthodox communities, only men wear kippot; in non-Orthodox communities, some women also wear kippot. Kippot range in size from a small round beanie that covers only the back of the head to a large, snug cap that covers the whole crown.
+
+Tzitzit (Hebrew: צִיציִת) (Ashkenazi pronunciation: tzitzis) are special knotted "fringes" or "tassels" found on the four corners of the tallit (Hebrew: טַלִּית) (Ashkenazi pronunciation: tallis), or prayer shawl. The tallit is worn by Jewish men and some Jewish women during the prayer service. Customs vary regarding when a Jew begins wearing a tallit. In the Sephardi community, boys wear a tallit from bar mitzvah age. In some Ashkenazi communities, it is customary to wear one only after marriage. A tallit katan (small tallit) is a fringed garment worn under the clothing throughout the day. In some Orthodox circles, the fringes are allowed to hang freely outside the clothing.
+
+Tefillin (Hebrew: תְפִלִּין), known in English as phylacteries (from the Greek word φυλακτήριον, meaning safeguard or amulet), are two square leather boxes containing biblical verses, attached to the forehead and wound around the left arm by leather straps. They are worn during weekday morning prayer by observant Jewish men and some Jewish women.[99]
+
+A kittel (Yiddish: קיטל), a white knee-length overgarment, is worn by prayer leaders and some observant traditional Jews on the High Holidays. It is traditional for the head of the household to wear a kittel at the Passover seder in some communities, and some grooms wear one under the wedding canopy. Jewish males are buried in a tallit and sometimes also a kittel which are part of the tachrichim (burial garments).
+
+Jewish holidays are special days in the Jewish calendar, which celebrate moments in Jewish history, as well as central themes in the relationship between God and the world, such as creation, revelation, and redemption.
+
+Shabbat, the weekly day of rest lasting from shortly before sundown on Friday night to nightfall on Saturday night, commemorates God's day of rest after six days of creation.[100] It plays a pivotal role in Jewish practice and is governed by a large corpus of religious law. At sundown on Friday, the woman of the house welcomes the Shabbat by lighting two or more candles and reciting a blessing. The evening meal begins with the Kiddush, a blessing recited aloud over a cup of wine, and the Mohtzi, a blessing recited over the bread. It is customary to have challah, two braided loaves of bread, on the table. During Shabbat, Jews are forbidden to engage in any activity that falls under 39 categories of melakhah, translated literally as "work". In fact the activities banned on the Sabbath are not "work" in the usual sense: They include such actions as lighting a fire, writing, using money and carrying in the public domain. The prohibition of lighting a fire has been extended in the modern era to driving a car, which involves burning fuel and using electricity.
+
+Jewish holy days (chaggim), celebrate landmark events in Jewish history, such as the Exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, and sometimes mark the change of seasons and transitions in the agricultural cycle. The three major festivals, Sukkot, Passover and Shavuot, are called "regalim" (derived from the Hebrew word "regel", or foot). On the three regalim, it was customary for the Israelites to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices in the Temple.
+
+The High Holidays (Yamim Noraim or "Days of Awe") revolve around judgment and forgiveness.
+
+Purim (Hebrew: פורים (help·info) Pûrîm "lots") is a joyous Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Persian Jews from the plot of the evil Haman, who sought to exterminate them, as recorded in the biblical Book of Esther. It is characterized by public recitation of the Book of Esther, mutual gifts of food and drink, charity to the poor, and a celebratory meal (Esther 9:22). Other customs include drinking wine, eating special pastries called hamantashen, dressing up in masks and costumes, and organizing carnivals and parties.
+
+Purim has celebrated annually on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar, which occurs in February or March of the Gregorian calendar.
+
+Hanukkah (Hebrew: חֲנֻכָּה‎, "dedication") also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday that starts on the 25th day of Kislev (Hebrew calendar). The festival is observed in Jewish homes by the kindling of lights on each of the festival's eight nights, one on the first night, two on the second night and so on.
+
+The holiday was called Hanukkah (meaning "dedication") because it marks the re-dedication of the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Spiritually, Hanukkah commemorates the "Miracle of the Oil". According to the Talmud, at the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem following the victory of the Maccabees over the Seleucid Empire, there was only enough consecrated oil to fuel the eternal flame in the Temple for one day. Miraculously, the oil burned for eight days—which was the length of time it took to press, prepare and consecrate new oil.
+
+Hanukkah is not mentioned in the Bible and was never considered a major holiday in Judaism, but it has become much more visible and widely celebrated in modern times, mainly because it falls around the same time as Christmas and has national Jewish overtones that have been emphasized since the establishment of the State of Israel.
+
+Tisha B'Av (Hebrew: תשעה באב‎ or ט׳ באב, "the Ninth of Av") is a day of mourning and fasting commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples, and in later times, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
+
+There are three more minor Jewish fast days that commemorate various stages of the destruction of the Temples. They are the 17th Tamuz, the 10th of Tevet and Tzom Gedaliah (the 3rd of Tishrei).
+
+The modern holidays of Yom Ha-shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day) and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day) commemorate the horrors of the Holocaust, the fallen soldiers of Israel and victims of terrorism, and Israeli independence, respectively.
+
+There are some who prefer to commemorate those who were killed in the Holocaust on the 10th of Tevet.
+
+The core of festival and Shabbat prayer services is the public reading of the Torah, along with connected readings from the other books of the Tanakh, called Haftarah. Over the course of a year, the whole Torah is read, with the cycle starting over in the autumn, on Simchat Torah.
+
+Synagogues are Jewish houses of prayer and study. They usually contain separate rooms for prayer (the main sanctuary), smaller rooms for study, and often an area for community or educational use. There is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. The Reform movement mostly refer to their synagogues as temples. Some traditional features of a synagogue are:
+
+In addition to synagogues, other buildings of significance in Judaism include yeshivas, or institutions of Jewish learning, and mikvahs, which are ritual baths.
+
+The Jewish dietary laws are known as kashrut. Food prepared in accordance with them is termed kosher, and food that is not kosher is also known as treifah or treif. People who observe these laws are colloquially said to be "keeping kosher".[101]
+
+Many of the laws apply to animal-based foods. For example, in order to be considered kosher, mammals must have split hooves and chew their cud. The pig is arguably the most well-known example of a non-kosher animal.[102] Although it has split hooves, it does not chew its cud.[103] For seafood to be kosher, the animal must have fins and scales. Certain types of seafood, such as shellfish, crustaceans, and eels, are therefore considered non-kosher. Concerning birds, a list of non-kosher species is given in the Torah. The exact translations of many of the species have not survived, and some non-kosher birds' identities are no longer certain. However, traditions exist about the kashrut status of a few birds. For example, both chickens and turkeys are permitted in most communities. Other types of animals, such as amphibians, reptiles, and most insects, are prohibited altogether.[101]
+
+In addition to the requirement that the species be considered kosher, meat and poultry (but not fish) must come from a healthy animal slaughtered in a process known as shechitah. Without the proper slaughtering practices even an otherwise kosher animal will be rendered treif. The slaughtering process is intended to be quick and relatively painless to the animal. Forbidden parts of animals include the blood, some fats, and the area in and around the sciatic nerve.[101]
+
+Jewish law also forbids the consumption of meat and dairy products together. The waiting period between eating meat and eating dairy varies by the order in which they are consumed and by community, and can extend for up to six hours. Based on the Biblical injunction against cooking a kid in its mother's milk, this rule is mostly derived from the Oral Torah, the Talmud and Rabbinic law.[101] Chicken and other kosher birds are considered the same as meat under the laws of kashrut, but the prohibition is Rabbinic, not Biblical.[104]
+
+The use of dishes, serving utensils, and ovens may make food treif that would otherwise be kosher. Utensils that have been used to prepare non-kosher food, or dishes that have held meat and are now used for dairy products, render the food treif under certain conditions.[101]
+
+Furthermore, all Orthodox and some Conservative authorities forbid the consumption of processed grape products made by non-Jews, due to ancient pagan practices of using wine in rituals.[101] Some Conservative authorities permit wine and grape juice made without rabbinic supervision.[105]
+
+The Torah does not give specific reasons for most of the laws of kashrut.[101] However, a number of explanations have been offered, including maintaining ritual purity, teaching impulse control, encouraging obedience to God, improving health, reducing cruelty to animals and preserving the distinctness of the Jewish community.[106] The various categories of dietary laws may have developed for different reasons, and some may exist for multiple reasons. For example, people are forbidden from consuming the blood of birds and mammals because, according to the Torah, this is where animal souls are contained.[107] In contrast, the Torah forbids Israelites from eating non-kosher species because "they are unclean".[108] The Kabbalah describes sparks of holiness that are released by the act of eating kosher foods, but are too tightly bound in non-kosher foods to be released by eating.[109]
+
+Survival concerns supersede all the laws of kashrut, as they do for most halakhot.[110][111]
+
+The Tanakh describes circumstances in which a person who is tahor or ritually pure may become tamei or ritually impure. Some of these circumstances are contact with human corpses or graves, seminal flux, vaginal flux, menstruation, and contact with people who have become impure from any of these.[112][113] In Rabbinic Judaism, Kohanim, members of the hereditary caste that served as priests in the time of the Temple, are mostly restricted from entering grave sites and touching dead bodies.[114] During the Temple period, such priests (Kohanim) were required to eat their bread offering (Terumah) in a state of ritual purity, which laws eventually led to more rigid laws being enacted, such as hand-washing which became a requisite of all Jews before consuming ordinary bread.
+
+An important subcategory of the ritual purity laws relates to the segregation of menstruating women. These laws are also known as niddah, literally "separation", or family purity. Vital aspects of halakha for traditionally observant Jews, they are not usually followed by Jews in liberal denominations.[115]
+
+Especially in Orthodox Judaism, the Biblical laws are augmented by Rabbinical injunctions. For example, the Torah mandates that a woman in her normal menstrual period must abstain from sexual intercourse for seven days. A woman whose menstruation is prolonged must continue to abstain for seven more days after bleeding has stopped.[112] The Rabbis conflated ordinary niddah with this extended menstrual period, known in the Torah as zavah, and mandated that a woman may not have sexual intercourse with her husband from the time she begins her menstrual flow until seven days after it ends. In addition, Rabbinical law forbids the husband from touching or sharing a bed with his wife during this period. Afterwards, purification can occur in a ritual bath called a mikveh.[115]
+
+Traditional Ethiopian Jews keep menstruating women in separate huts and, similar to Karaite practice, do not allow menstruating women into their temples because of a temple's special sanctity. Emigration to Israel and the influence of other Jewish denominations have led to Ethiopian Jews adopting more normative Jewish practices.[116][117]
+
+Life-cycle events, or rites of passage, occur throughout a Jew's life that serves to strengthen Jewish identity and bind him/her to the entire community.
+
+The role of the priesthood in Judaism has significantly diminished since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE when priests attended to the Temple and sacrifices. The priesthood is an inherited position, and although priests no longer have any but ceremonial duties, they are still honored in many Jewish communities. Many Orthodox Jewish communities believe that they will be needed again for a future Third Temple and need to remain in readiness for future duty.
+
+From the time of the Mishnah and Talmud to the present, Judaism has required specialists or authorities for the practice of very few rituals or ceremonies. A Jew can fulfill most requirements for prayer by himself. Some activities—reading the Torah and haftarah (a supplementary portion from the Prophets or Writings), the prayer for mourners, the blessings for bridegroom and bride, the complete grace after meals—require a minyan, the presence of ten Jews.
+
+The most common professional clergy in a synagogue are:
+
+Jewish prayer services do involve two specified roles, which are sometimes, but not always, filled by a rabbi or hazzan in many congregations. In other congregations these roles are filled on an ad-hoc basis by members of the congregation who lead portions of services on a rotating basis:
+
+Many congregations, especially larger ones, also rely on a:
+
+The three preceding positions are usually voluntary and considered an honor. Since the Enlightenment large synagogues have often adopted the practice of hiring rabbis and hazzans to act as shatz and baal kriyah, and this is still typically the case in many Conservative and Reform congregations. However, in most Orthodox synagogues these positions are filled by laypeople on a rotating or ad-hoc basis. Although most congregations hire one or more Rabbis, the use of a professional hazzan is generally declining in American congregations, and the use of professionals for other offices is rarer still.
+
+At its core, the Tanakh is an account of the Israelites' relationship with God from their earliest history until the building of the Second Temple (c. 535 BCE). Abraham is hailed as the first Hebrew and the father of the Jewish people. As a reward for his act of faith in one God, he was promised that Isaac, his second son, would inherit the Land of Israel (then called Canaan). Later, the descendants of Isaac's son Jacob were enslaved in Egypt, and God commanded Moses to lead the Exodus from Egypt. At Mount Sinai, they received the Torah—the five books of Moses. These books, together with Nevi'im and Ketuvim are known as Torah Shebikhtav as opposed to the Oral Torah, which refers to the Mishnah and the Talmud. Eventually, God led them to the land of Israel where the tabernacle was planted in the city of Shiloh for over 300 years to rally the nation against attacking enemies. As time went on, the spiritual level of the nation declined to the point that God allowed the Philistines to capture the tabernacle. The people of Israel then told Samuel the prophet that they needed to be governed by a permanent king, and Samuel appointed Saul to be their King. When the people pressured Saul into going against a command conveyed to him by Samuel, God told Samuel to appoint David in his stead.
+
+Once King David was established, he told the prophet Nathan that he would like to build a permanent temple, and as a reward for his actions, God promised David that he would allow his son, Solomon, to build the First Temple and the throne would never depart from his children.
+
+Rabbinic tradition holds that the details and interpretation of the law, which are called the Oral Torah or oral law, were originally an unwritten tradition based upon what God told Moses on Mount Sinai. However, as the persecutions of the Jews increased and the details were in danger of being forgotten, these oral laws were recorded by Rabbi Judah HaNasi (Judah the Prince) in the Mishnah, redacted circa 200 CE. The Talmud was a compilation of both the Mishnah and the Gemara, rabbinic commentaries redacted over the next three centuries. The Gemara originated in two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia.[118] Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud. It was compiled sometime during the 4th century in Palestine.[118] The Babylonian Talmud was compiled from discussions in the houses of study by the scholars Ravina I, Ravina II, and Rav Ashi by 500 CE, although it continued to be edited later.
+
+According to critical scholars, the Torah consists of inconsistent texts edited together in a way that calls attention to divergent accounts.[119][page needed][120][121] Several of these scholars, such as Professor Martin Rose and John Bright, suggest that during the First Temple period the people of Israel believed that each nation had its own god, but that their god was superior to other gods.[122][page needed][123][page needed] Some suggest that strict monotheism developed during the Babylonian Exile, perhaps in reaction to Zoroastrian dualism.[124] In this view, it was only by the Hellenic period that most Jews came to believe that their god was the only god and that the notion of a clearly bounded Jewish nation identical with the Jewish religion formed.[125] John Day argues that the origins of biblical Yahweh, El, Asherah, and Ba'al, may be rooted in earlier Canaanite religion, which was centered on a pantheon of gods much like the Greek pantheon.[126]
+
+According to the Hebrew Bible, the United Monarchy was established under Saul and continued under King David and Solomon with its capital in Jerusalem. After Solomon's reign, the nation split into two kingdoms, the Kingdom of Israel (in the north) and the Kingdom of Judah (in the south). The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Assyrian ruler Sargon II in the late 8th century BCE with many people from the capital Samaria being taken captive to Media and the Khabur River valley. The Kingdom of Judah continued as an independent state until it was conquered by a Babylonian army in the early 6th century BCE, destroying the First Temple that was at the center of ancient Jewish worship. The Judean elite was exiled to Babylonia and this is regarded as the first Jewish Diaspora. Later many of them returned to their homeland after the subsequent conquest of Babylonia by the Persians seventy years later, a period known as the Babylonian Captivity. A new Second Temple was constructed, and old religious practices were resumed.
+
+During the early years of the Second Temple, the highest religious authority was a council known as the Great Assembly, led by Ezra of the Book of Ezra. Among other accomplishments of the Great Assembly, the last books of the Bible were written at this time and the canon sealed.
+
+Hellenistic Judaism spread to Ptolemaic Egypt from the 3rd century BCE. After the Great Revolt (66–73 CE), the Romans destroyed the Temple. Hadrian built a pagan idol on the Temple grounds and prohibited circumcision; these acts of ethnocide provoked the Bar Kokhba revolt 132–136 CE after which the Romans banned the study of the Torah and the celebration of Jewish holidays, and forcibly removed virtually all Jews from Judea. In 200 CE, however, Jews were granted Roman citizenship and Judaism was recognized as a religio licita ("legitimate religion") until the rise of Gnosticism and Early Christianity in the fourth century.
+
+Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews, Jewish worship stopped being centrally organized around the Temple, prayer took the place of sacrifice, and worship was rebuilt around the community (represented by a minimum of ten adult men) and the establishment of the authority of rabbis who acted as teachers and leaders of individual communities (see Jewish diaspora).
+
+Around the 1st century CE, there were several small Jewish sects: the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, and Christians. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, these sects vanished.[127] Christianity survived, but by breaking with Judaism and becoming a separate religion; the Pharisees survived but in the form of Rabbinic Judaism (today, known simply as "Judaism"). The Sadducees rejected the divine inspiration of the Prophets and the Writings, relying only on the Torah as divinely inspired. Consequently, a number of other core tenets of the Pharisees' belief system (which became the basis for modern Judaism), were also dismissed by the Sadducees. (The Samaritans practiced a similar religion, which is traditionally considered separate from Judaism.)
+
+Like the Sadducees who relied only on the Torah, some Jews in the 8th and 9th centuries rejected the authority and divine inspiration of the oral law as recorded in the Mishnah (and developed by later rabbis in the two Talmuds), relying instead only upon the Tanakh. These included the Isunians, the Yudganites, the Malikites, and others. They soon developed oral traditions of their own, which differed from the rabbinic traditions, and eventually formed the Karaite sect. Karaites exist in small numbers today, mostly living in Israel. Rabbinical and Karaite Jews each hold that the others are Jews, but that the other faith is erroneous.
+
+Over a long time, Jews formed distinct ethnic groups in several different geographic areas—amongst others, the Ashkenazi Jews (of central and Eastern Europe), the Sephardi Jews (of Spain, Portugal, and North Africa), the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, the Yemenite Jews from the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula and the Malabari and Cochin Jews from Kerala . Many of these groups have developed differences in their prayers, traditions and accepted canons; however, these distinctions are mainly the result of their being formed at some cultural distance from normative (rabbinic) Judaism, rather than based on any doctrinal dispute.
+
+Antisemitism arose during the Middle Ages, in the form of persecutions, pogroms, forced conversions, expulsions, social restrictions and ghettoization.
+
+This was different in quality from the repressions of Jews which had occurred in ancient times. Ancient repressions were politically motivated and Jews were treated the same as members of other ethnic groups. With the rise of the Churches, the main motive for attacks on Jews changed from politics to religion and the religious motive for such attacks was specifically derived from Christian views about Jews and Judaism.[128] During the Middle Ages, Jewish people who lived under Muslim rule generally experienced tolerance and integration,[129] but there were occasional outbreaks of violence like Almohad's persecutions.[130]
+
+Hasidic Judaism was founded by Yisroel ben Eliezer (1700–1760), also known as the Ba'al Shem Tov (or Besht). It originated in a time of persecution of the Jewish people when European Jews had turned inward to Talmud study; many felt that most expressions of Jewish life had become too "academic", and that they no longer had any emphasis on spirituality or joy. Its adherents favored small and informal gatherings called Shtiebel, which, in contrast to a traditional synagogue, could be used both as a place of worship and for celebrations involving dancing, eating, and socializing.[131] Ba'al Shem Tov's disciples attracted many followers; they themselves established numerous Hasidic sects across Europe. Unlike other religions, which typically expanded through word of mouth or by use of print, Hasidism spread largely owing to Tzadiks, who used their influence to encourage others to follow the movement. Hasidism appealed to many Europeans because it was easy to learn, did not require full immediate commitment, and presented a compelling spectacle.[132] Hasidic Judaism eventually became the way of life for many Jews in Eastern Europe. Waves of Jewish immigration in the 1880s carried it to the United States. The movement itself claims to be nothing new, but a refreshment of original Judaism. As some have put it: "they merely re-emphasized that which the generations had lost". Nevertheless, early on there was a serious schism between Hasidic and non-Hasidic Jews. European Jews who rejected the Hasidic movement were dubbed by the Hasidim as Misnagdim, (lit. "opponents"). Some of the reasons for the rejection of Hasidic Judaism were the exuberance of Hasidic worship, its deviation from tradition in ascribing infallibility and miracles to their leaders, and the concern that it might become a messianic sect. Over time differences between the Hasidim and their opponents have slowly diminished and both groups are now considered part of Haredi Judaism.
+
+In the late 18th century CE, Europe was swept by a group of intellectual, social and political movements known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment led to reductions in the European laws that prohibited Jews to interact with the wider secular world, thus allowing Jews access to secular education and experience. A parallel Jewish movement, Haskalah or the "Jewish Enlightenment", began, especially in Central Europe and Western Europe, in response to both the Enlightenment and these new freedoms. It placed an emphasis on integration with secular society and a pursuit of non-religious knowledge through reason. With the promise of political emancipation, many Jews saw no reason to continue to observe Jewish law and increasing numbers of Jews assimilated into Christian Europe. Modern religious movements of Judaism all formed in reaction to this trend.
+
+In Central Europe, followed by Great Britain and the United States, Reform (or Liberal) Judaism developed, relaxing legal obligations (especially those that limited Jewish relations with non-Jews), emulating Protestant decorum in prayer, and emphasizing the ethical values of Judaism's Prophetic tradition. Modern Orthodox Judaism developed in reaction to Reform Judaism, by leaders who argued that Jews could participate in public life as citizens equal to Christians while maintaining the observance of Jewish law. Meanwhile, in the United States, wealthy Reform Jews helped European scholars, who were Orthodox in practice but critical (and skeptical) in their study of the Bible and Talmud, to establish a seminary to train rabbis for immigrants from Eastern Europe. These left-wing Orthodox rabbis were joined by right-wing Reform rabbis who felt that Jewish law should not be entirely abandoned, to form the Conservative movement. Orthodox Jews who opposed the Haskalah formed Haredi Orthodox Judaism. After massive movements of Jews following The Holocaust and the creation of the state of Israel, these movements have competed for followers from among traditional Jews in or from other countries.
+
+Countries such as the United States, Israel, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina and South Africa contain large Jewish populations. Jewish religious practice varies widely through all levels of observance. According to the 2001 edition of the National Jewish Population Survey, in the United States' Jewish community—the world's second largest—4.3 million Jews out of 5.1 million had some sort of connection to the religion.[133] Of that population of connected Jews, 80% participated in some sort of Jewish religious observance, but only 48% belonged to a congregation, and fewer than 16% attend regularly.[134]
+
+Birth rates for American Jews have dropped from 2.0 to 1.7.[135] (Replacement rate is 2.1.) Intermarriage rates range from 40–50% in the US, and only about a third of children of intermarried couples are raised as Jews. Due to intermarriage and low birth rates, the Jewish population in the US shrank from 5.5 million in 1990 to 5.1 million in 2001. This is indicative of the general population trends among the Jewish community in the Diaspora, but a focus on total population obscures growth trends in some denominations and communities, such as Haredi Judaism. The Baal teshuva movement is a movement of Jews who have "returned" to religion or become more observant.
+
+Christianity was originally a sect of Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions diverged in the first century. The differences between Christianity and Judaism originally centered on whether Jesus was the Jewish Messiah but eventually became irreconcilable. Major differences between the two faiths include the nature of the Messiah, of atonement and sin, the status of God's commandments to Israel, and perhaps most significantly of the nature of God himself. Due to these differences, Judaism traditionally regards Christianity as Shituf or worship of the God of Israel which is not monotheistic. Christianity has traditionally regarded Judaism as obsolete with the invention of Christianity and Jews as a people replaced by the Church, though a Christian belief in dual-covenant theology emerged as a phenomenon following Christian reflection on how their theology influenced the Nazi Holocaust.[136] While the consensus among historians is that Nazism as a whole was either unrelated to Christianity or actively opposed to it.[137]
+
+Since the time of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church upheld the Constitutio pro Judæis (Formal Statement on the Jews), which stated
+
+We decree that no Christian shall use violence to force them to be baptized, so long as they are unwilling and refuse. ... Without the judgment of the political authority of the land, no Christian shall presume to wound them or kill them or rob them of their money or change the good customs that they have thus far enjoyed in the place where they live."[138]
+
+Until their emancipation in the late 18th and the 19th century, Jews in Christian lands were subject to humiliating legal restrictions and limitations. They included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as the Jewish hat and the yellow badge, restricting Jews to certain cities and towns or in certain parts of towns (ghettos), and forbidding Jews to enter certain trades (for example selling new clothes in medieval Sweden). Disabilities also included special taxes levied on Jews, exclusion from public life, restraints on the performance of religious ceremonies, and linguistic censorship. Some countries went even further and completely expelled Jews, for example, England in 1290 (Jews were readmitted in 1655) and Spain in 1492 (readmitted in 1868). The first Jewish settlers in North America arrived in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1654; they were forbidden to hold public office, open a retail shop, or establish a synagogue. When the colony was seized by the British in 1664 Jewish rights remained unchanged, but by 1671 Asser Levy was the first Jew to serve on a jury in North America.[139]
+In 1791, Revolutionary France was the first country to abolish disabilities altogether, followed by Prussia in 1848. Emancipation of the Jews in the United Kingdom was achieved in 1858 after an almost 30-year struggle championed by Isaac Lyon Goldsmid[140] with the ability of Jews to sit in parliament with the passing of the Jews Relief Act 1858. The newly created German Empire in 1871 abolished Jewish disabilities in Germany, which were reinstated in the Nuremberg Laws in 1935.
+
+Jewish life in Christian lands was marked by frequent blood libels, expulsions, forced conversions and massacres. Religious prejudice was an underlying source against Jews in Europe. Christian rhetoric and antipathy towards Jews developed in the early years of Christianity and was reinforced by ever increasing anti-Jewish measures over the ensuing centuries. The action taken by Christians against Jews included acts of violence, and murder culminating in the Holocaust.[141]:21[142]:169[143] These attitudes were reinforced by Christian preaching, in art and popular teaching for two millennia which expressed contempt for Jews,[144] as well as statutes which were designed to humiliate and stigmatise Jews. The Nazi Party was known for its persecution of Christian Churches; many of them, such as the Protestant Confessing Church and the Catholic Church,[145] as well as Quakers and Jehovah's Witnesses, aided and rescued Jews who were being targeted by the antireligious régime.[146]
+
+The attitude of Christians and Christian Churches toward the Jewish people and Judaism have changed in a mostly positive direction since World War II. Pope John Paul II and the Catholic Church have "upheld the Church's acceptance of the continuing and permanent election of the Jewish people" as well as a reaffirmation of the covenant between God and the Jews.[147] In December 2015, the Vatican released a 10,000-word document that, among other things, stated that Catholics should work with Jews to fight antisemitism.[148]
+
+Both Judaism and Islam track their origins from the patriarch Abraham, and they are therefore considered Abrahamic religions. In both Jewish and Muslim tradition, the Jewish and Arab peoples are descended from the two sons of Abraham—Isaac and Ishmael, respectively. While both religions are monotheistic and share many commonalities, they differ based on the fact that Jews do not consider Jesus or Muhammad to be prophets. The religions' adherents have interacted with each other since the 7th century when Islam originated and spread in the Arabian peninsula. Indeed, the years 712 to 1066 CE under the Ummayad and the Abbasid rulers have been called the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain. Non-Muslim monotheists living in these countries, including Jews, were known as dhimmis. Dhimmis were allowed to practice their own religions and administer their own internal affairs, but they were subject to certain restrictions that were not imposed on Muslims.[149] For example, they had to pay the jizya, a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males,[149] and they were also forbidden to bear arms or testify in court cases involving Muslims.[150] Many of the laws regarding dhimmis were highly symbolic. For example, dhimmis in some countries were required to wear distinctive clothing, a practice not found in either the Qur'an or the hadiths but invented in early medieval Baghdad and inconsistently enforced.[151] Jews in Muslim countries were not entirely free from persecution—for example, many were killed, exiled or forcibly converted in the 12th century, in Persia, and by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in North Africa and Al-Andalus,[152] as well as by the Zaydi imams of Yemen in the 17th century (see: Mawza Exile). At times, Jews were also restricted in their choice of residence—in Morocco, for example, Jews were confined to walled quarters (mellahs) beginning in the 15th century and increasingly since the early 19th century.[153]
+
+In the mid-20th century, Jews were expelled from nearly all of the Arab countries.[154][155][156] Most have chosen to live in Israel. Today, antisemitic themes including Holocaust denial have become commonplace in the propaganda of Islamic movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Refah Partisi.[157]
+
+There are some movements that combine elements of Judaism with those of other religions. The most well-known of these is Messianic Judaism, a religious movement, which arose in the 1960s,[158][159][160][161] that incorporates elements of Judaism with the tenets of Christianity.[161][162][163][164][165] The movement generally states that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, that he is one of the Three Divine Persons,[166][167] and that salvation is only achieved through acceptance of Jesus as one's savior.[168] Some members of the movement argue that Messianic Judaism is a sect of Judaism.[169] Jewish organizations of every denomination reject this, stating that Messianic Judaism is a Christian sect, because it teaches creeds which are identical to those of Pauline Christianity.[170]
+
+Other examples of syncretism include Semitic neopaganism, a loosely organized sect which incorporates pagan or Wiccan beliefs with some Jewish religious practices; Jewish Buddhists, another loosely organized group that incorporates elements of Asian spirituality in their faith; and some Renewal Jews who borrow freely and openly from Buddhism, Sufism, Native American religions, and other faiths.
+
+The Kabbalah Centre, which employs teachers from multiple religions, is a New Age movement that claims to popularize the kabbalah, part of the Jewish esoteric tradition.
+
+Jews in Islamic countries:
+
+See also Torah database for links to more Judaism e-texts.
+
+Text study projects at Wikisource. In many instances, the Hebrew versions of these projects are more fully developed than the English.

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+The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear[a]  (Phascolarctos cinereus) is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the wombats, which are members of the family Vombatidae. The koala is found in coastal areas of the mainland's eastern and southern regions, inhabiting Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is easily recognisable by its stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and large, spoon-shaped nose. The koala has a body length of 60–85 cm (24–33 in) and weighs 4–15 kg (9–33 lb). Fur colour ranges from silver grey to chocolate brown. Koalas from the northern populations are typically smaller and lighter in colour than their counterparts further south. These populations possibly are separate subspecies, but this is disputed.
+
+Koalas typically inhabit open eucalypt woodlands, and the leaves of these trees make up most of their diet. Because this eucalypt diet has limited nutritional and caloric content, koalas are largely sedentary and sleep up to 20 hours a day. They are asocial animals, and bonding exists only between mothers and dependent offspring. Adult males communicate with loud bellows that intimidate rivals and attract mates. Males mark their presence with secretions from scent glands located on their chests. Being marsupials, koalas give birth to underdeveloped young that crawl into their mothers' pouches, where they stay for the first six to seven months of their lives. These young koalas, known as joeys, are fully weaned around a year old. Koalas have few natural predators and parasites, but are threatened by various pathogens, such as Chlamydiaceae bacteria and the koala retrovirus.
+
+Koalas were hunted by Indigenous Australians and depicted in myths and cave art for millennia. The first recorded encounter between a European and a koala was in 1798, and an image of the animal was published in 1810 by naturalist George Perry. Botanist Robert Brown wrote the first detailed scientific description of the koala in 1814, although his work remained unpublished for 180 years. Popular artist John Gould illustrated and described the koala, introducing the species to the general British public. Further details about the animal's biology were revealed in the 19th century by several English scientists. Because of its distinctive appearance, the koala is recognised worldwide as a symbol of Australia. Koalas are listed as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The animal was hunted heavily in the early 20th century for its fur, and large-scale cullings in Queensland resulted in a public outcry that initiated a movement to protect the species. Sanctuaries were established, and translocation efforts moved to new regions koalas whose habitat had become fragmented or reduced. Among the many threats to their existence are habitat destruction caused by agriculture, urbanisation, droughts and associated bushfires, some related to climate change.[4] Increased habitat loss may also increase risks from vehicle traffic, dog attacks, pesticides in waterways, and increased food competition.[5][6][7]
+
+The word koala comes from the Dharug gula, meaning no water.  It was at one time thought, since the animals were not observed to come down from trees often, that they were able to survive without drinking.  The leaves of the eucalyptus tree have a high water content, so the koala does not need to drink often.[8] But the notion that they do not need to drink water at all was shown to be a myth.[9] Although the vowel 'u' was originally written in the English orthography as "oo" (in spellings such as coola or koolah), it was changed to "oa", possibly in error.[10] Because of the koala's supposed resemblance to a bear, it was often miscalled the koala bear, particularly by early settlers.[11] The generic name, Phascolarctos, is derived from the Greek words phaskolos "pouch" and arktos "bear". The specific name, cinereus, is Latin for "ash coloured".[12]
+
+Peramelidae
+
+Dasyuridae
+
+Dromiciops
+
+Petauroidea
+
+Phalangeroidea
+
+Hypsiprymnodon moschatus
+
+Potoroinae
+
+Macropodinae
+
+Phascolarctos cinereus
+
+Thylacoleo carnifex
+
+Ngapakaldia
+
+Diprotodon optatum
+
+Zygomaturus trilobus
+
+Nimbadon lavarackorum
+
+Muramura williamsi
+
+Ilaria illumidens
+
+Vombatidae
+
+The koala was given its generic name Phascolarctos in 1816 by French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville,[14] who would not give it a specific name until further review. In 1819, German zoologist Georg August Goldfuss gave it the binomial Lipurus cinereus. Because Phascolarctos was published first, according to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, it has priority as the official name of the genus.[15] French naturalist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest proposed the name Phascolarctos fuscus in 1820, suggesting that the brown-coloured versions were a different species than the grey ones. Other names suggested by European authors included Marodactylus cinereus by Goldfuss in 1820, P. flindersii by René Primevère Lesson in 1827, and P. koala by John Edward Gray in 1827.[2]
+
+The koala is classified with wombats (family Vombatidae) and several extinct families (including marsupial tapirs, marsupial lions and giant wombats) in the suborder Vombatiformes within the order Diprotodontia.[16] The Vombatiformes are a sister group to a clade that includes macropods (kangaroos and wallabies) and possums.[17] The ancestors of vombatiforms were likely arboreal,[13] and the koala's lineage was possibly the first to branch off around 40 million years ago during the Eocene.[18]
+
+The modern koala is the only extant member of Phascolarctidae, a family that once included several genera and species. During the Oligocene and Miocene, koalas lived in rainforests and had less specialised diets.[19] Some species, such as the Riversleigh rainforest koala (Nimiokoala greystanesi) and some species of Perikoala, were around the same size as the modern koala, while others, such as species of Litokoala, were one-half to two-thirds its size.[20] Like the modern species, prehistoric koalas had well developed ear structures which suggests that long-distance vocalising and sedentism developed early.[19] During the Miocene, the Australian continent began drying out, leading to the decline of rainforests and the spread of open Eucalyptus woodlands. The genus Phascolarctos split from Litokoala in the late Miocene[19][21] and had several adaptations that allowed it to live on a specialised eucalyptus diet: a shifting of the palate towards the front of the skull; larger molars and premolars; smaller pterygoid fossa;[19] and a larger gap between the molar and the incisor teeth.[22]
+
+During the Pliocene and Pleistocene, when Australia experienced changes in climate and vegetation, koala species grew larger.[20] P. cinereus may have emerged as a dwarf form of the giant koala (P. stirtoni). The reduction in the size of large mammals has been seen as a common phenomenon worldwide during the late Pleistocene, and several Australian mammals, such as the agile wallaby, are traditionally believed to have resulted from this dwarfing. A 2008 study questions this hypothesis, noting that P. cinereus and P. stirtoni were sympatric during the middle to late Pleistocene, and possibly as early as the Pliocene.[23] The fossil record of the modern koala extends back at least to the middle Pleistocene.[24]
+
+Traditionally, three distinct subspecies have been recognised: the Queensland koala (P. c. adustus, Thomas 1923), the New South Wales koala (P. c. cinereus, Goldfuss 1817), and the Victorian koala (P. c. victor, Troughton 1935). These forms are distinguished by pelage colour and thickness, body size, and skull shape. The Queensland koala is the smallest of the three, with shorter, silver fur and a shorter skull. The Victorian koala is the largest, with shaggier, brown fur and a wider skull.[25][26] The boundaries of these variations are based on state borders, and their status as subspecies is disputed. A 1999 genetic study suggests that the variations represent differentiated populations with limited gene flow between them, and that the three subspecies comprise a single evolutionarily significant unit.[26] Other studies have found that koala populations have high levels of inbreeding and low genetic variation.[27][28] Such low genetic diversity may have been a characteristic of koala populations since the late Pleistocene.[29] Rivers and roads have been shown to limit gene flow and contribute to the genetic differentiation of southeast Queensland populations.[30] In April 2013, scientists from the Australian Museum and Queensland University of Technology announced they had fully sequenced the koala genome.[31]
+
+The koala is a stocky animal with a large head and vestigial or non-existent tail.[32][33] It has a body length of 60–85 cm (24–33 in) and a weight of 4–15 kg (9–33 lb),[33] making it among the largest arboreal marsupials.[34] Koalas from Victoria are twice as heavy as those from Queensland.[25] The species is sexually dimorphic, with males 50% larger than females. Males are further distinguished from females by their more curved noses[34] and the presence of chest glands, which are visible as hairless patches.[35] As in most marsupials, the male koala has a bifurcated penis,[36] and the female has two lateral vaginas and two separate uteri.[32] The male's penile sheath contains naturally occurring bacteria that play an important role in fertilisation.[37] The female's pouch opening is tightened by a sphincter that keeps the young from falling out.[38]
+
+The pelage of the koala is thicker and longer on the back, and shorter on the belly. The ears have thick fur on both the inside and outside.[34] The back fur colour varies from light grey to chocolate brown.[32] The belly fur is whitish; on the rump it is dappled whitish, and darker at the back.[33] The koala has the most effective insulating back fur of any marsupial and is highly resilient to wind and rain, while the belly fur can reflect solar radiation.[39] The koala's curved, sharp claws are well adapted for climbing trees. The large forepaws have two opposable digits (the first and second, which are opposable to the other three) that allow them to grasp small branches. On the hindpaws, the second and third digits are fused, a typical condition for members of the Diprotodontia, and the attached claws (which are still separate) are used for grooming.[40] As in humans and other primates, koalas have friction ridges on their paws.[41] The animal has a sturdy skeleton and a short, muscular upper body with proportionately long upper limbs that contribute to its climbing and grasping abilities. Additional climbing strength is achieved with thigh muscles that attach to the shinbone lower than other animals.[42] The koala has a cartilaginous pad at the end of the spine that may make it more comfortable when it perches in the fork of a tree.[38]
+
+The koala has one of the smallest brains in proportion to body weight of any mammal,[43] being 60% smaller than that of a typical diprotodont, weighing only 19.2 g (0.68 oz) on average.[44] The brain's surface is fairly smooth, typical for a "primitive" animal.[45] It occupies only 61% of the cranial cavity[43] and is pressed against the inside surface by cerebrospinal fluid. The function of this relatively large amount of fluid is not known, although one possibility is that it acts as a shock absorber, cushioning the brain if the animal falls from a tree.[45] The koala's small brain size may be an adaptation to the energy restrictions imposed by its diet, which is insufficient to sustain a larger brain.[43] Because of its small brain, the koala has a limited ability to perform complex, unfamiliar behaviours. For example, when presented with plucked leaves on a flat surface, the animal cannot adapt to the change in its normal feeding routine and will not eat the leaves.[46] The koala's olfactory senses are normal, and it is known to sniff the oils of individual branchlets to assess their edibility.[43] Its nose is fairly large and covered in leathery skin. Its round ears provide it with good hearing,[38] and it has a well-developed middle ear.[19] A koala's vision is not well developed,[38] and its relatively small eyes are unusual among marsupials in that the pupils have vertical slits.[34] Koalas make use of a novel vocal organ to produce low-pitched sounds (see social spacing, below). Unlike typical mammalian vocal cords, which are folds in the larynx, these organs are placed in the velum (soft palate) and are called velar vocal cords.[47]
+
+The koala has several adaptations for its eucalypt diet, which is of low nutritive value, of high toxicity, and high in dietary fibre.[48] The animal's dentition consists of the incisors and cheek teeth (a single premolar and four molars on each jaw), which are separated by a large gap (a characteristic feature of herbivorous mammals). The incisors are used for grasping leaves, which are then passed to the premolars to be snipped at the petiole before being passed to the highly cusped molars, where they are shredded into small pieces.[49] Koalas may also store food in their cheek pouches before it is ready to be chewed.[50] The partially worn molars of middle-aged koalas are optimal for breaking the leaves into small particles, resulting in more efficient stomach digestion and nutrient absorption in the small intestine,[51] which digests the eucalyptus leaves to provide most of the animal's energy.[49] A koala sometimes regurgitates the food into the mouth to be chewed a second time.[52]
+
+Unlike kangaroos and eucalyptus-eating possums, koalas are hindgut fermenters, and their digestive retention can last for up to 100 hours in the wild, or up to 200 hours in captivity.[49] This is made possible by the extraordinary length of their caecum—200 cm (80 in) long and 10 cm (4 in) in diameter—the largest proportionally of any animal.[53] Koalas can select which food particles to retain for longer fermentation and which to pass through. Large particles typically pass through more quickly, as they would take more time to digest.[49] While the hindgut is proportionally larger in the koala than in other herbivores, only 10% of the animal's energy is obtained from fermentation. Since the koala gains a low amount of energy from its diet, its metabolic rate is half that of a typical mammal,[48] although this can vary between seasons and sexes.[49] They are able to digest the toxins present in eucalyptus leaves due to their production of cytochrome P450, which breaks down these poisons in the liver.[54][55] The koala conserves water by passing relatively dry faecal pellets high in undigested fibre, and by storing water in the caecum.[51]
+
+The koala's geographic range covers roughly 1,000,000 km2 (390,000 sq mi), and 30 ecoregions.[56] It extends throughout eastern and southeastern Australia, encompassing northeastern, central and southeastern Queensland, eastern New South Wales, Victoria, and southeastern South Australia. The koala was introduced near Adelaide and on several islands, including Kangaroo Island and French Island.[1] The population on Magnetic Island represents the northern limit of its range.[56] Fossil evidence shows that the koala's range stretched as far west as southwestern Western Australia during the late Pleistocene. They were likely driven to extinction in these areas by environmental changes and hunting by Indigenous Australians.[57]
+
+In Queensland, koalas are unevenly distributed and uncommon except in the southeast, where they are numerous. In New South Wales, they are abundant only in Pilliga, while in Victoria they are common nearly everywhere. In South Australia, koalas were extirpated by 1920 and subsequently reintroduced.[1] Koalas can be found in habitats ranging from relatively open forests to woodlands, and in climates ranging from tropical to cool temperate.[34] In semi-arid climates, they prefer riparian habitats, where nearby streams and creeks provide refuge during times of drought and extreme heat.[58]
+
+Koalas are herbivorous, and while most of their diet consists of eucalypt leaves, they can be found in trees of other genera, such as Acacia, Allocasuarina, Callitris, Leptospermum, and Melaleuca.[59] Though the foliage of over 600 species of Eucalyptus is available, the koala shows a strong preference for around 30.[60] They tend to choose species that have a high protein content and low proportions of fibre and lignin.[51] The most favoured species are Eucalyptus microcorys, E. tereticornis, and E. camaldulensis, which, on average, make up more than 20% of their diet.[61] Despite its reputation as a fussy eater, the koala is more generalist than some other marsupial species, such as the greater glider. Since eucalypt leaves have a high water content, the koala does not need to drink often;[59] its daily water turnover rate ranges from 71 to 91 ml/kg of body weight. Although females can meet their water requirements from eating leaves, larger males require additional water found on the ground or in tree hollows.[51] When feeding, a koala holds onto a branch with hindpaws and one forepaw while the other forepaw grasps foliage. Small koalas can move close to the end of a branch, but larger ones stay near the thicker bases.[62] Koalas consume up to 400 grams (14 oz) of leaves a day, spread over four to six feeding sessions.[63] Despite their adaptations to a low-energy lifestyle, they have meagre fat reserves and need to feed often.[64]
+
+Because they get so little energy from their diet, koalas must limit their energy use and sleep or rest 20 hours a day;[65][66] They are predominantly active at night and spend most of their waking hours feeding. They typically eat and sleep in the same tree, possibly for as long as a day.[67] On very hot days, a koala may climb down to the coolest part of the tree which is cooler than the surrounding air.  The koala hugs the tree to lose heat without panting.[68][69] On warm days, a koala may rest with its back against a branch or lie on its stomach or back with its limbs dangling.[65] During cold, wet periods, it curls itself into a tight ball to conserve energy.[67] On windy days, a koala finds a lower, thicker branch on which to rest. While it spends most of the time in the tree, the animal descends to the ground to move to another tree, walking on all fours.[65] The koala usually grooms itself with its hindpaws, but sometimes uses its forepaws or mouth.[70]
+
+Koalas are asocial animals and spend just 15 minutes a day on social behaviours. In Victoria, home ranges are small and have extensive overlap, while in central Queensland they are larger and overlap less.[71] Koala society appears to consist of "residents" and "transients", the former being mostly adult females and the latter males. Resident males appear to be territorial and dominate others with their larger body size.[72] Alpha males tend to establish their territories close to breeding females, while younger males are subordinate until they mature and reach full size.[73] Adult males occasionally venture outside their home ranges; when they do so, dominant ones retain their status.[71] When a male enters a new tree, he marks it by rubbing his chest gland against the trunk or a branch; males have occasionally been observed to dribble urine on the trunk. This scent-marking behaviour probably serves as communication, and individuals are known to sniff the base of a tree before climbing.[74] Scent marking is common during aggressive encounters.[75] Chest gland secretions are complex chemical mixtures—about 40 compounds were identified in one analysis—that vary in composition and concentration with the season and the age of the individual.[76]
+
+Adult males communicate with loud bellows—low pitched sounds that consist of snore-like inhalations and resonant exhalations that sound like growls.[77] These sounds are thought to be generated by unique vocal organs found in koalas.[47] Because of their low frequency, these bellows can travel far through air and vegetation.[78] Koalas may bellow at any time of the year, particularly during the breeding season, when it serves to attract females and possibly intimidate other males.[79] They also bellow to advertise their presence to their neighbours when they enter a new tree.[78] These sounds signal the male's actual body size, as well as exaggerate it;[80] females pay more attention to bellows that originate from larger males.[81] Female koalas bellow, though more softly, in addition to making snarls, wails, and screams. These calls are produced when in distress and when making defensive threats.[77] Young koalas squeak when in distress. As they get older, the squeak develops into a "squawk" produced both when in distress and to show aggression. When another individual climbs over it, a koala makes a low grunt with its mouth closed. Koalas make numerous facial expressions. When snarling, wailing, or squawking, the animal curls the upper lip and points its ears forward. During screams, the lips retract and the ears are drawn back. Females bring their lips forward and raise their ears when agitated.[82]
+
+Agonistic behaviour typically consists of squabbles between individuals climbing over or passing each other. This occasionally involves biting. Males that are strangers may wrestle, chase, and bite each other.[83] In extreme situations, a male may try to displace a smaller rival from a tree. This involves the larger aggressor climbing up and attempting to corner the victim, which tries either to rush past him and climb down or to move to the end of a branch. The aggressor attacks by grasping the target by the shoulders and repeatedly biting him. Once the weaker individual is driven away, the victor bellows and marks the tree.[84] Pregnant and lactating females are particularly aggressive and attack individuals that come too close.[83] In general, however, koalas tend to avoid energy-wasting aggressive behaviour.[73]
+
+Koalas are seasonal breeders, and births take place from the middle of spring through the summer to early autumn, from October to May. Females in oestrus tend to hold their heads further back than usual and commonly display tremors and spasms. However, males do not appear to recognise these signs, and have been observed to mount non-oestrous females. Because of his much larger size, a male can usually force himself on a female, mounting her from behind, and in extreme cases, the male may pull the female out of the tree. A female may scream and vigorously fight off her suitors, but will submit to one that is dominant or is more familiar. The bellows and screams that accompany matings can attract other males to the scene, obliging the incumbent to delay mating and fight off the intruders. These fights may allow the female to assess which is dominant.[85] Older males usually have accumulated scratches, scars, and cuts on the exposed parts of their noses and on their eyelids.[86]
+
+The koala's gestation period lasts 33–35 days,[87] and a female gives birth to a single joey (although twins occur on occasion). As with all marsupials, the young are born while at the embryonic stage, weighing only 0.5 g (0.02 oz). However, they have relatively well-developed lips, forelimbs, and shoulders, as well as functioning respiratory, digestive, and urinary systems. The joey crawls into its mother's pouch to continue the rest of its development.[88] Unlike most other marsupials, the koala does not clean her pouch.[89]
+
+A female koala has two teats; the joey attaches itself to one of them and suckles for the rest of its pouch life.[88] The koala has one of the lowest milk energy production rates in relation to body size of any mammal. The female makes up for this by lactating for as long as 12 months.[90] At seven weeks of age, the joey's head grows longer and becomes proportionally large, pigmentation begins to develop, and its sex can be determined (the scrotum appears in males and the pouch begins to develop in females). At 13 weeks, the joey weighs around 50 g (1.8 oz) and its head has doubled in size. The eyes begin to open and fine fur grows on the forehead, nape, shoulders, and arms. At 26 weeks, the fully furred animal resembles an adult, and begins to poke its head out of the pouch.[91]
+
+As the young koala approaches six months, the mother begins to prepare it for its eucalyptus diet by predigesting the leaves, producing a faecal pap that the joey eats from her cloaca. The pap is quite different in composition from regular faeces, resembling instead the contents of the caecum, which has a high concentration of bacteria. Eaten for about a month, the pap provides a supplementary source of protein at a transition time from a milk to a leaf diet.[92] The joey fully emerges from the pouch for the first time at six or seven months of age, when it weighs 300–500 g (11–18 oz). It explores its new surroundings cautiously, clinging to its mother for support. By nine months, it weighs over 1 kg (2.2 lb) and develops its adult fur colour. Having permanently left the pouch, it rides on its mother's back for transportation, learning to climb by grasping branches.[93] Gradually, it spends more time away from its mother, and at 12 months it is fully weaned, weighing around 2.5 kg (5.5 lb). When the mother becomes pregnant again, her bond with her previous offspring is permanently severed. Newly weaned young are encouraged to disperse by their mothers' aggressive behaviour towards them.[94]
+
+Females become sexually mature at about three years of age and can then become pregnant; in comparison, males reach sexual maturity when they are about four years old,[95] although they can produce sperm as early as two years.[94] While the chest glands can be functional as early as 18 months of age, males do not begin scent-marking behaviours until they reach sexual maturity.[76] Because the offspring have a long dependent period, female koalas usually breed in alternate years. Favourable environmental factors, such as a plentiful supply of high-quality food trees, allow them to reproduce every year.[96]
+
+Koalas may live from 13 to 18 years in the wild. While female koalas usually live this long, males may die sooner because of their more hazardous lives.[97] Koalas usually survive falls from trees and immediately climb back up, but injuries and deaths from falls do occur, particularly in inexperienced young and fighting males.[98] Around six years of age, the koala's chewing teeth begin to wear down and their chewing efficiency decreases. Eventually, the cusps disappear completely and the animal will die of starvation.[99]
+
+Koalas have few predators; dingos and large pythons may prey on them; birds of prey (such as powerful owls and wedge-tailed eagles) are threats to young. Koalas are generally not subject to external parasites, other than ticks in coastal areas. Koalas may also suffer mange from the mite Sarcoptes scabiei, and skin ulcers from the bacterium Mycobacterium ulcerans, but neither is common. Internal parasites are few and largely harmless.[98] These include the tapeworm Bertiella obesa, commonly found in the intestine, and the nematodes Marsupostrongylus longilarvatus and Durikainema phascolarcti, which are infrequently found in the lungs.[100] In a three-year study of almost 600 koalas admitted to the Australian Zoo Wildlife Hospital in Queensland, 73.8% of the animals were infected with at least one species of the parasitic protozoal genus Trypanosoma, the most common of which was T. irwini.[101]
+
+Koalas can be subject to pathogens such as Chlamydiaceae bacteria,[98] which can cause keratoconjunctivitis, urinary tract infection, and reproductive tract infection.[102] Such infections are widespread on the mainland, but absent in some island populations.[103] The koala retrovirus (KoRV) may cause koala immune deficiency syndrome (KIDS) which is similar to AIDS in humans. Prevalence of KoRV in koala populations suggests a trend spreading from the north to the south of Australia. Northern populations are completely infected, while some southern populations (including Kangaroo Island) are free.[104]
+
+The animals are vulnerable to bushfires due to their slow movements and the flammability of eucalypt trees.[105] The koala instinctively seeks refuge in the higher branches, where it is vulnerable to intense heat and flames. Bushfires also fragment the animal's habitat, which restricts their movement and leads to population decline and loss of genetic diversity.[106] Dehydration and overheating can also prove fatal.[107] Consequently, the koala is vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Models of climate change in Australia predict warmer and drier climates, suggesting that the koala's range will shrink in the east and south to more mesic habitats.[108] Droughts also affect the koala's well-being. For example, a severe drought in 1980 caused many Eucalyptus trees to lose their leaves. Subsequently, 63% of the population in southwestern Queensland died, especially young animals that were excluded from prime feeding sites by older, dominant koalas, and recovery of the population was slow.[46] Later, this population declined from an estimated mean population of 59,000 in 1995 to 11,600 in 2009, a reduction attributed largely to hotter and drier conditions resulting from droughts in most years between 2002 and 2007.[109]
+
+According to Australian health minister Sussan Ley, the 2019–20 Australian bushfire season, and especially fires in NSW, resulted in the death of up to 8,400 koalas (30% of the local population) on New South Wales's mid-north coast.[110] A local veterinarian estimated as many as 30,000 may have died in the Kangaroo Island fires[111], out of an estimated population of 50,000.[112]
+
+Another predicted negative outcome of climate change is the effect of elevations in atmospheric CO2 levels on the koala's food supply: increases in CO2 cause Eucalyptus trees to reduce protein and increase tannin concentrations in their leaves, reducing the quality of the food source.[113][114]
+
+The first written reference of the koala was recorded by John Price, servant of John Hunter, the Governor of New South Wales. Price encountered the "cullawine" on 26 January 1798, during an expedition to the Blue Mountains,[115] although his account was not published until nearly a century later in Historical Records of Australia.[116] In 1802, French-born explorer Francis Louis Barrallier encountered the animal when his two Aboriginal guides, returning from a hunt, brought back two koala feet they were intending to eat. Barrallier preserved the appendages and sent them and his notes to Hunter's successor, Philip Gidley King, who forwarded them to Joseph Banks. Similar to Price, Barrallier's notes were not published until 1897.[117] Reports of the first capture of a live "koolah" appeared in The Sydney Gazette in August 1803.[118] Within a few weeks Flinders' astronomer, James Inman, purchased a specimen pair for live shipment to Joseph Banks in England. They were described as 'somewhat larger than the Waumbut (Wombat)'. These encounters helped provide the impetus for King to commission the artist John Lewin to paint watercolours of the animal. Lewin painted three pictures, one of which was subsequently made into a print that was reproduced in Georges Cuvier's Le Règne Animal (The Animal Kingdom) (first published in 1817) and several European works on natural history.[119]
+
+Botanist Robert Brown was the first to write a detailed scientific description of the koala in 1803, based on a female specimen captured near what is now Mount Kembla in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. Austrian botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer drew the animal's skull, throat, feet, and paws. Brown's work remained unpublished and largely unnoticed, however, as his field books and notes remained in his possession until his death, when they were bequeathed to the British Museum (Natural History) in London. They were not identified until 1994, while Bauer's koala watercolours were not published until 1989.[120] British surgeon Everard Home included details of the koala based on eyewitness accounts of William Paterson, who had befriended Brown and Bauer during their stay in New South Wales.[121] Home, who in 1808 published his report in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,[122] gave the animal the scientific name Didelphis coola.[123]
+
+The first published image of the koala appeared in George Perry's (1810) natural history work Arcana.[124] Perry called it the "New Holland Sloth" on account of its perceived similarities to the Central and South American tree-living mammals of genus Bradypus. His disdain for the koala, evident in his description of the animal, was typical of the prevailing early 19th-century British attitude about the primitiveness and oddity of Australian fauna:[125]
+
+"... the eye is placed like that of the Sloth, very close to the mouth and nose, which gives it a clumsy awkward appearance, and void of elegance in the combination ... they have little either in their character or appearance to interest the Naturalist or Philosopher. As Nature however provides nothing in vain, we may suppose that even these torpid, senseless creatures are wisely intended to fill up one of the great links of the chain of animated nature ...".[126]
+
+Naturalist and popular artist John Gould illustrated and described the koala in his three-volume work The Mammals of Australia (1845–63) and introduced the species, as well as other members of Australia's little-known faunal community, to the general British public.[127] Comparative anatomist Richard Owen, in a series of publications on the physiology and anatomy of Australian mammals, presented a paper on the anatomy of the koala to the Zoological Society of London.[128] In this widely cited publication, he provided the first careful description of its internal anatomy, and noted its general structural similarity to the wombat.[129] English naturalist George Robert Waterhouse, curator of the Zoological Society of London, was the first to correctly classify the koala as a marsupial in the 1840s. He identified similarities between it and its fossil relatives Diprotodon and Nototherium, which had been discovered just a few years before.[130] Similarly, Gerard Krefft, curator of the Australian Museum in Sydney, noted evolutionary mechanisms at work when comparing the koala to its ancestral relatives in his 1871 The Mammals of Australia.[131]
+
+The first living koala in Britain arrived in 1881, purchased by the Zoological Society of London. As related by prosecutor to the society, William Alexander Forbes, the animal suffered an accidental demise when the heavy lid of a washstand fell on it and it was unable to free itself. Forbes used the opportunity to dissect the fresh female specimen, thus was able to provide explicit anatomical details on the female reproductive system, the brain, and the liver—parts not previously described by Owen, who had access only to preserved specimens.[132] Scottish embryologist William Caldwell—well known in scientific circles for determining the reproductive mechanism of the platypus—described the uterine development of the koala in 1884,[133] and used the new information to convincingly place the koala and the monotremes into an evolutionary time frame.[134]
+
+Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, visited the Koala Park Sanctuary in Sydney in 1934[135] and was "intensely interested in the bears". His photograph, with Noel Burnet, the founder of the park, and a koala, appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald. After World War II, when tourism to Australia increased and the animals were exported to zoos overseas, the koala's international popularity rose. Several political leaders and members of royal families had their pictures taken with koalas, including Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Harry, Crown Prince Naruhito, Crown Princess Masako, Pope John Paul II, US President Bill Clinton, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev, South African President Nelson Mandela,[136] Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.[137]
+
+The koala is well known worldwide and is a major draw for Australian zoos and wildlife parks.  It has been featured in advertisements, games, cartoons, and as soft toys.[138] It benefited the national tourism industry by over an estimated billion Australian dollars in 1998, a figure that has since grown.[139] In 1997, half of visitors to Australia, especially those from Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, sought out zoos and wildlife parks; about 75% of European and Japanese tourists placed the koala at the top of their list of animals to see.[140] According to biologist Stephen Jackson: "If you were to take a straw poll of the animal most closely associated with Australia, it's a fair bet that the koala would come out marginally in front of the kangaroo".[138] Factors that contribute to the koala's enduring popularity include its childlike body proportions and Teddy bear-like face.[141]
+
+The koala is featured in the Dreamtime stories and mythology of Indigenous Australians. The Tharawal people believed that the animal helped row the boat that brought them to the continent.[142] Another myth tells of how a tribe killed a koala and used its long intestines to create a bridge for people from other parts of the world. This narrative highlights the koala's status as a game animal and the length of its intestines.[143] Several stories tell of how the koala lost its tail. In one, a kangaroo cuts it off to punish the koala for being lazy and greedy.[144] Tribes in both Queensland and Victoria regarded the koala as a wise animal and sought its advice. Bidjara-speaking people credited the koala for turning barren lands into lush forests.[145] The animal is also depicted in rock carvings, though not as much as some other species.[146]
+
+Early European settlers in Australia considered the koala to be a prowling sloth-like animal with a "fierce and menacing look".[147] At the beginning of the 20th century, the koala's reputation took a more positive turn, largely due to its growing popularity and depiction in several widely circulated children's stories.[148] It is featured in Ethel Pedley's 1899 book Dot and the Kangaroo, in which it is portrayed as the "funny native bear".[147] Artist Norman Lindsay depicted a more anthropomorphic koala in The Bulletin cartoons, starting in 1904. This character also appeared as Bunyip Bluegum in Lindsay's 1918 book The Magic Pudding.[149] Perhaps the most famous fictional koala is Blinky Bill. Created by Dorothy Wall in 1933, the character appeared in several books and has been the subject of films, TV series, merchandise, and a 1986 environmental song by John Williamson.[150] The first Australian stamp featuring a koala was issued by the Commonwealth in 1930.[151] A television ad campaign for Australia's national airline Qantas, starting in 1967 and running for several decades, featured a live koala (voiced by Howard Morris), who complained that too many tourists were coming to Australia and concluded "I hate Qantas".[152] The series has been ranked among the greatest commercials of all time.[153]
+
+The song "Ode to a Koala Bear" appears on the B-side of the 1983 Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson duet single Say Say Say.[150] A koala is the main character in Hanna-Barbera's The Kwicky Koala Show and Nippon Animation's Noozles, both of which were animated cartoons of the early 1980s. Food products shaped like the koala include the Caramello Koala chocolate bar and the bite-sized cookie snack Koala's March. Dadswells Bridge in Victoria features a tourist complex shaped like a giant koala,[136] and the Queensland Reds rugby team has a koala as its mascot.[154] The Platinum Koala coin features the animal on the reverse and Elizabeth II on the obverse.[155]
+
+The drop bear is an imaginary creature in contemporary Australian folklore featuring a predatory, carnivorous version of the koala. This hoax animal is commonly spoken about in tall tales designed to scare tourists. While koalas are typically docile herbivores, drop bears are described as unusually large and vicious marsupials that inhabit treetops and attack unsuspecting people (or other prey) that walk beneath them by dropping onto their heads from above.[156][157][158]
+
+While the koala was previously classified as Least Concern on the Red List, it was uplisted to Vulnerable in 2016.[1] Australian policy makers declined a 2009 proposal to include the koala in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.[24] In 2012, the Australian government listed koala populations in Queensland and New South Wales as Vulnerable, because of a 40% population decline in the former and a 33% decline in the latter. A 2017 WWF report found a 53% decline per generation in Queensland, and a 26% decline in New South Wales.[159] Populations in Victoria and South Australia appear to be abundant; however, the Australian Koala Foundation argues that the exclusion of Victorian populations from protective measures is based on a misconception that the total koala population is 200,000, whereas they believe it is probably less than 100,000.[160]
+
+Koalas were hunted for food by Aboriginals. A common technique used to capture the animals was to attach a loop of ropey bark to the end of a long, thin pole, so as to form a noose. This would be used to snare an animal high in a tree, beyond the reach of a climbing hunter; an animal brought down this way would then be killed with a stone hand axe or hunting stick (waddy).[161] According to the customs of some tribes, it was considered taboo to skin the animal, while other tribes thought the animal's head had a special status, and saved them for burial.[162]
+
+The koala was heavily hunted by European settlers in the early 20th century,[163] largely for its thick, soft fur. More than two million pelts are estimated to have left Australia by 1924. Pelts were in demand for use in rugs, coat linings, muffs, and as trimming on women's garments.[164] Extensive cullings occurred in Queensland in 1915, 1917, and again in 1919, when over one million koalas were killed with guns, poisons, and nooses. The public outcry over these cullings was probably the first wide-scale environmental issue that rallied Australians. Novelist and social critic Vance Palmer, writing in a letter to The Courier-Mail, expressed the popular sentiment:
+
+"The shooting of our harmless and lovable native bear is nothing less than barbarous ... No one has ever accused him of spoiling the farmer's wheat, eating the squatter's grass, or even the spreading of the prickly pear. There is no social vice that can be put down to his account ... He affords no sport to the gun-man ... And he has been almost blotted out already from some areas."[165]
+
+Despite the growing movement to protect native species, the poverty brought about by the drought of 1926–28 led to the killing of another 600,000 koalas during a one-month open season in August 1927.[166] In 1934, Frederick Lewis, the Chief Inspector of Game in Victoria, said that the once-abundant animal had been brought to near extinction in that state, suggesting that only 500–1000 remained.[167] · [168]
+
+The first successful efforts at conserving the species were initiated by the establishment of Brisbane's Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and Sydney's Koala Park Sanctuary in the 1920s and 1930s. The owner of the latter park, Noel Burnet, became the first to successfully breed koalas and earned a reputation as the foremost contemporary authority on the marsupial.[169] In 1934, David Fleay, curator of Australian mammals at the Melbourne Zoo, established the first Australian faunal enclosure at an Australian zoo, and featured the koala. This arrangement allowed him to undertake a detailed study of its diet in captivity. Fleay later continued his conservation efforts at Healesville Sanctuary and the David Fleay Wildlife Park.[170]
+
+Since 1870, koalas have been introduced to several coastal and offshore islands, including Kangaroo Island and French Island. Their numbers have significantly increased,[171] and since the islands are not large enough to sustain such high koala numbers, overbrowsing has become a problem.[172] In the 1920s, Lewis initiated a program of large-scale relocation and rehabilitation programs to transfer koalas whose habitat had become fragmented or reduced to new regions, with the intent of eventually returning them to their former range. For example, in 1930–31, 165 koalas were translocated to Quail Island. After a period of population growth, and subsequent overbrowsing of gum trees on the island, about 1,300 animals were released into mainland areas in 1944.  The practice of translocating koalas became commonplace; Victorian State manager Peter Menkorst estimated that from 1923 to 2006, about 25,000 animals were translocated to more than 250 release sites across Victoria.[173] Since the 1990s, government agencies have tried to control their numbers by culling, but public and international outcry has forced the use of translocation and sterilisation, instead.[174]
+
+One of the biggest anthropogenic threats to the koala is habitat destruction and fragmentation. In coastal areas, the main cause of this is urbanisation, while in rural areas, habitat is cleared for agriculture. Native forest trees are also taken down to be made into wood products.[175] In 2000, Australia ranked fifth in the world by deforestation rates, having cleared 564,800 hectares (1,396,000 acres).[176] The distribution of the koala has shrunk by more than 50% since European arrival, largely due to fragmentation of habitat in Queensland.[56] The koala's "vulnerable" status in Queensland and New South Wales means that developers in these states must consider the impacts on this species when making building applications.[160] In addition, koalas live in many protected areas.[1]
+
+While urbanisation can pose a threat to koala populations, the animals can survive in urban areas provided enough trees are present.[177] Urban populations have distinct vulnerabilities: collisions with vehicles and attacks by domestic dogs kill about 4,000 animals every year.[178] Injured koalas are often taken to wildlife hospitals and rehabilitation centres.[177] In a 30-year retrospective study performed at a New South Wales koala rehabilitation centre, trauma (usually resulting from a motor vehicle accident or dog attack) was found to be the most frequent cause of admission, followed by symptoms of Chlamydia infection.[179] Wildlife caretakers are issued special permits, but must release the animals back into the wild when they are either well enough or, in the case of joeys, old enough. As with most native animals, the koala cannot legally be kept as a pet in Australia or anywhere else.[180]
+
+One virtually unknown risk to koalas is that of water in the lungs (aspiration pneumonia), which can happen when drinking water from a bottle, as seen in numerous viral videos of well-meaning, but uninformed, people giving thirsty koalas water bottles to drink. The safer way to provide a koala drinking water is via a bowl, cup, helmet or hat from which the koala can lap up the water it needs.[181][182][183]
+
+Koala populations and habitat were impacted by the 2020 bushfires.  In June 2020, a New South Wales parliamentary committee released a report stating that koalas could be extirpated from the state by 2050.  Recommendations included establishing national parks on the George's River and Mid-North coast.[184][185]

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+Swan Lake (Russian: Лебеди́ное о́зеро, romanized: Lebedínoye ózero), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76.  Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular ballets of all time.
+
+The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian and German folk tales[a] and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger (Václav Reisinger). The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March [O.S. 20 February] 1877[1][2] at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's chief conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo.[3]
+
+There is no evidence to prove who wrote the original libretto, or where the idea for the plot came from. Russian and German folk tales have been proposed as possible sources, including "The White Duck" and "The Stolen Veil" by Johann Karl August Musäus, but both those tales differ significantly from the ballet.[4]
+
+One theory is that the original choreographer, Julius Reisinger, who was a Bohemian (and therefore likely to be familiar with The Stolen Veil), created the story. Another theory is that it was written by Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, director of the Moscow Imperial Theatres at the time, possibly with Vasily Geltser, danseur of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre (a surviving copy of the libretto bears his name). Since the first published libretto does not correspond with Tchaikovsky's music in many places, one theory is that the first published version was written by a journalist after viewing initial rehearsals (new opera and ballet productions were always reported in the newspapers, along with their respective scenarios).
+
+Some contemporaries of Tchaikovsky recalled the composer taking great interest in the life story of Bavarian King Ludwig II, whose life had supposedly been marked by the sign of Swan and could have been the prototype of the dreamer Prince Siegfried.[5] However, Ludwig's death happened 10 years after the first performance of the ballet.
+
+Begichev commissioned the score of Swan Lake from Tchaikovsky in May 1875 for 800 rubles. Tchaikovsky worked with only a basic outline from Julius Reisinger of the requirements for each dance.[6] However, unlike the instructions for the scores of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, no written instruction is known to have survived.
+
+From around the time of the turn of the 19th century until the beginning of the 1890s, scores for ballets were almost always written by composers known as "specialists," who were highly skilled at scoring the light, decorative, melodious, and rhythmically clear music that was at that time in vogue for ballet. Tchaikovsky studied the music of "specialists" such as the Italian Cesare Pugni and the Austrian Ludwig Minkus, before setting to work on Swan Lake.
+
+Tchaikovsky had a rather negative opinion of the "specialist" ballet music until he studied it in detail, being impressed by the nearly limitless variety of infectious melodies their scores contained. Tchaikovsky most admired the ballet music of such composers as Léo Delibes, Adolphe Adam, and later, Riccardo Drigo. He would later write to his protégé, the composer Sergei Taneyev, "I listened to the Delibes ballet Sylvia ... what charm, what elegance, what wealth of melody, rhythm, and harmony. I was ashamed, for if I had known of this music then, I would not have written Swan Lake." Tchaikovsky most admired Adam's 1844 score for Giselle, which used the Leitmotif technique: associating certain themes with certain characters or moods, a technique he would use in Swan Lake, and later, The Sleeping Beauty.
+
+Tchaikovsky drew on previous compositions for his Swan Lake score. According to two of Tchaikovsky's relatives – his nephew Yuri Lvovich Davydov and his niece Anna Meck-Davydova – the composer had earlier created a little ballet called The Lake of the Swans at their home in 1871. This ballet included the famous Leitmotif, the Swan's Theme or Song of the Swans. He also made use of material from The Voyevoda, an opera he had abandoned in 1868. The Grand adage (a.k.a. the Love Duet) from the second scene of Swan Lake was fashioned from an aria from that opera, as was the Valse des fiancées from the third scene. Another number which included a theme from The Voyevoda was the Entr'acte of the fourth scene.
+
+By April 1876 the score was complete, and rehearsals began. Soon Reisinger began setting certain numbers aside that he dubbed "undanceable." Reisinger even began choreographing dances to other composers' music, but Tchaikovsky protested and his pieces were reinstated. Although the two artists were required to collaborate, each seemed to prefer working as independently of the other as possible.[7]
+
+Tchaikovsky's excitement with Swan Lake is evident from the speed with which he composed: commissioned in the spring of 1875, the piece was created within one year. His letters to Sergei Taneyev from August 1875 indicate, however, that it was not only his excitement that compelled him to create it so quickly but his wish to finish it as soon as possible, so as to allow him to start on an opera. Respectively, he created scores of the first three numbers of the ballet, then the orchestration in the fall and winter, and was still struggling with the instrumentation in the spring. By April 1876, the work was complete. Tchaikovsky's mention of a draft suggests the presence of some sort of abstract but no such draft has ever been seen. Tchaikovsky wrote various letters to friends expressing his longstanding desire to work with this type of music, and his excitement concerning his current stimulating, albeit laborious task.[8]
+
+Moscow première (world première)
+
+St. Petersburg première
+
+Other notable productions
+
+Original interpreters
+
+The première on Friday, 4 March 1877, was given as a benefit performance for the ballerina Pelageya Karpakova (also known as Polina Karpakova), who performed the role of Odette, with première danseur Victor Gillert as Prince Siegfried. Karpakova may also have danced the part Odile, although it is believed the ballet originally called for two different dancers. It is now common practice for the same ballerina to dance both Odette and Odile.
+
+The Russian ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya was originally cast as Odette, but was replaced when a governing official in Moscow complained about her, claiming she had accepted jewelry from him, only to then marry a fellow danseur and sell the pieces for cash.
+
+The première was not well-received. Though there were a few critics who recognised the virtues of the score, most considered it to be far too complicated for ballet. It was labelled "too noisy, too 'Wagnerian' and too symphonic."[10] The critics also thought Reisinger's choreography was "unimaginative and altogether unmemorable."[10] The German origins of the story were "treated with suspicion while the tale itself was regarded as 'stupid' with unpronounceable surnames for its characters."[10] Karpakova was a secondary soloist and "not particularly convincing."[10]
+
+The poverty of the production, meaning the décor and costumes, the absence of outstanding performers, the Balletmaster's weakness of imagination, and, finally, the orchestra ... all of this together permitted (Tchaikovsky) with good reason to cast the blame for the failure on others.
+
+Yet the fact remains (and is too often omitted in accounts of this initial production) that this staging survived for six years with a total of 41 performances – many more than several other ballets from the repertoire of this theatre.[11]
+
+On 26 April 1877, Anna Sobeshchanskaya made her début as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, and from the start, she was completely dissatisfied with the ballet. Sobeshchanskaya asked Marius Petipa—Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres—to choreograph a pas de deux to replace the pas de six in the third act (for a ballerina to request a supplemental pas or variation was standard practice in 19th century ballet, and often these "custom-made" dances were the legal property of the ballerina they were composed for).
+
+Petipa created the pas de deux to music by Ludwig Minkus, ballet composer to the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The piece was a standard pas de deux classique consisting of a short entrée, the grand adage, a variation for each dancer individually, and a coda.
+
+Tchaikovsky was angered by this change, stating that whether the ballet was good or bad, he alone should be held responsible for its music. He agreed to compose a new pas de deux, but soon a problem arose: Sobeshchanskaya wanted to retain Petipa's choreography. Tchaikovsky agreed to compose a pas de deux that would match to such a degree, the ballerina would not even be required to rehearse. Sobeshchanskaya was so pleased with Tchaikovsky's new music, she requested he compose an additional variation, which he did.
+
+Until 1953 this pas de deux was thought to be lost, until a repétiteur score was accidentally found in the archives of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, among orchestral parts for Alexander Gorsky's revival of Le Corsaire (Gorsky had included the piece in his version of Le Corsaire staged in 1912). In 1960 George Balanchine choreographed a pas de deux to this music for Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow, performed at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York City as Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,[12] as it is still known and performed today.
+
+Julius Reisinger's successor as balletmaster was Joseph Peter Hansen. Hansen made considerable efforts to salvage Swan Lake and on 13 January 1880 he presented a new production of the ballet for his own benefit performance. The part of Odette/Odile was danced by Evdokia Kalmykova, a student of the Moscow Imperial Ballet School, with Alfred Bekefi as Prince Siegfried. This production was better-received than the original, but by no means a great success. Hansen presented another version of Swan Lake on 28 October 1882, again with Kalmykova as Odette/Odile. For this production Hansen arranged a Grand Pas for the ballroom scene which he titled La Cosmopolitana. This was taken from the European section of the Grand Pas d'action known as The Allegory of the Continents from Marius Petipa's 1875 ballet The Bandits to the music of Ludwig Minkus. Hansen's version of Swan Lake was given only four times, the final performance being on 2 January 1883, and soon the ballet was dropped from the repertory altogether.
+
+In all, Swan Lake was performed 41 times between its première and the final performance of 1883 – a rather lengthy run for a ballet that was so poorly received upon its première. Hansen became Balletmaster to the Alhambra Theatre in London and on 1 December 1884 he presented a one-act ballet titled The Swans, which was inspired by the second scene of Swan Lake. The music was composed by the Alhambra Theatre's chef d'orchestre Georges Jacoby.
+
+The second scene of Swan Lake was then presented on 21 February in Prague by the Ballet of the National Theatre in a version mounted by the Balletmaster August Berger. The ballet was given during two concerts which were conducted by Tchaikovsky. The composer noted in his diary that he experienced "a moment of absolute happiness" when the ballet was performed. Berger's production followed the 1877 libretto, though the names of Prince Siegfried and Benno were changed to Jaroslav and Zdeňek, with the rôle of Benno danced by a female dancer en travestie. The rôle of Prince Siegfried was danced by Berger himself with the ballerina Giulietta Paltriniera-Bergrova as Odette. Berger's production was only given eight performances and was even planned for production at the Fantasia Garden in Moscow in 1893, but it never materialised.
+
+During the late 1880s and early 1890s, Petipa and Vsevolozhsky discussed with Tchaikovsky the possibility of reviving Swan Lake. However, Tchaikovsky died on 6 November 1893, just when plans to revive Swan Lake were beginning to come to fruition. It remains uncertain whether Tchaikovsky was prepared to revise the music for this revival. Whatever the case, as a result of Tchaikovsky's death, Drigo was forced to revise the score himself, after receiving approval from Tchaikovsky's younger brother, Modest. There are major differences between Drigo's and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake score. Today, it is Riccardo Drigo's revision of Tchaikovsky's score, and not Tchaikovsky's original score of 1877, that most ballet companies use.
+
+In February 1894, two memorial concerts planned by Vsevolozhsky were given in honor of Tchaikovsky. The production included the second act of Swan Lake, choreographed by Lev Ivanov, Second Balletmaster to the Imperial Ballet. Ivanov's choreography for the memorial concert was unanimously hailed as wonderful.
+
+The revival of Swan Lake was planned for Pierina Legnani's benefit performance in the 1894–1895 season. The death of Tsar Alexander III on 1 November 1894 and the ensuing period of official mourning brought all ballet performances and rehearsals to a close for some time, and as a result all efforts could be concentrated on the pre-production of the full revival of Swan Lake. Ivanov and Petipa collaborated on the production, with Ivanov retaining his dances for the second act while choreographing the fourth, with Petipa staging the first and third acts.
+
+Modest Tchaikovsky was called upon to make changes to the ballet's libretto, including the character of Odette changing from a fairy swan-maiden into a cursed mortal woman, the ballet's villain changing from Odette's stepmother to the magician von Rothbart, and the ballet's finale: instead of the lovers simply drowning at the hand of Odette's stepmother as in the original 1877 scenario, Odette commits suicide by drowning herself, with Prince Siegfried choosing to die as well, rather than live without her, and soon the lovers' spirits are reunited in an apotheosis.[13] Aside from the revision of the libretto the ballet was changed from four acts to three—with act 2 becoming act 1, scene 2.
+
+All was ready by the beginning of 1895 and the ballet had its première on Friday, 27 January. Pierina Legnani danced Odette/Odile, with Pavel Gerdt as Prince Siegfried, Alexei Bulgakov as Rothbart, and Alexander Oblakov as Benno. Most of the reviews in the St. Petersburg newspapers were positive.
+
+Unlike the première of The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake did not dominate the repertory of the Mariinsky Theatre in its first season. It was given only sixteen performances between the première and the 1895–1896 season, and was not performed at all in 1897. Even more surprising, the ballet was performed only four times in 1898 and 1899. The ballet belonged solely to Legnani until she left St. Petersburg for her native Italy in 1901. After her departure, the ballet was taken over by Mathilde Kschessinskaya, who was as much celebrated in the rôle as was her Italian predecessor.
+
+Throughout the performance history of Swan Lake, the 1895 edition has served as the version on which most stagings have been based. Nearly every balletmaster or choreographer who has re-staged Swan Lake has made modifications to the ballet's scenario, while still maintaining much of the traditional choreography for the dances, which is regarded as virtually sacrosanct. Likewise, over time the rôle of Siegfried has become more prominent, due largely to the evolution of ballet technique.
+
+In 1940, San Francisco Ballet became the first American company to stage a complete production of Swan Lake. The enormously successful production starred Lew Christensen as Prince Siegfried, Jacqueline Martin as Odette, and Janet Reed as Odile. Willam Christensen based his choreography on the Petipa–Ivanov production, turning to San Francisco's large population of Russian émigrés, headed by Princess and Prince Vasili Alexandrovich of Russia, to help him ensure that the production succeeded in its goal of preserving Russian culture in San Francisco.[14]
+
+Several notable productions have diverged from the original and its 1895 revival:
+
+Swan Lake is scored for the typical late 19th-century large orchestra:
+
+By 1895, Benno von Sommerstern had become just "Benno," and Odette "Queen of the Swans." Also Baron von Stein, his wife, and Freiherr von Schwarzfels and his wife were no longer identified on the program. The sovereign or ruling Princess is often rendered "Queen Mother."
+
+The character of Rothbart (sometimes spelled Rotbart) has been open to many interpretations. The reason for his curse upon Odette is unknown; several versions, including two feature films, have suggested reasons, but none is typically explained by the ballet. He is rarely portrayed in human form, except in act 3. He is usually shown as an owl-like creature. In most productions, the couple's sacrifice results in his destruction. However, there are versions in which he is triumphant. Yury Grigorovich's version, which has been danced for several decades by the Bolshoi Ballet, is noted for including both endings: Rothbart was defeated in the original 1969 version, in line with Soviet-era expectations of an upbeat conclusion, but in the 2001 revision, Rothbart plays a wicked game of fate with Siegfried, which he wins at the end, causing Siegfried to lose everything. In the second American Ballet Theatre production of Swan Lake, he is portrayed by two dancers: a young, handsome one who lures Odette to her doom in the prologue, and a reptilian creature. In this version, the lovers' suicide inspires the rest of Rothbart's imprisoned swans to turn on him and overcome his spell.
+
+Odile, Rothbart's daughter usually wears jet black (though in the 1895 production, she did not), and appears only in act 3. In most modern productions, she is portrayed as Odette's exact double (though the resemblance is because of Rothbart's magic), and therefore Siegfried cannot be blamed for believing her to be Odette. There is a suggestion that in the original production, Odette and Odile were danced by two different ballerinas. This is also the case in some avant garde productions.
+
+Swan Lake is generally presented in either four acts, four scenes (primarily outside Russia and Eastern Europe) or three acts, four scenes (primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe). The biggest difference of productions all over the world is that the ending, originally tragic, is now sometimes altered to a happy ending.
+
+Some productions include a prologue that shows how Odette first meets Rothbart, who turns Odette into a swan.
+
+A magnificent park before a palace
+
+[Scène: Allegro giusto] Prince Siegfried is celebrating his birthday with his tutor, friends and peasants [Waltz]. The revelries are interrupted by Siegfried's mother, the Queen [Scène: Allegro moderato], who is concerned about her son's carefree lifestyle. She tells him that he must choose a bride at the royal ball the following evening (some productions include the presentation of some possible candidates). Siegfried is upset that he cannot marry for love. His friend Benno and the tutor try to lift his troubled mood. As evening falls [Sujet], Benno sees a flock of swans flying overhead and suggests they go on a hunt [Finale I]. Siegfried and his friends take their crossbows and set off in pursuit of the swans.
+
+A lakeside clearing in a forest by the ruins of a chapel. A moonlit night.
+
+Siegfried has become separated from his friends. He arrives at the lakeside clearing, just as a flock of swans land [Scène. Moderato]. He aims his crossbow [Scène. Allegro moderato], but freezes when one of them transforms into a beautiful maiden, Odette [Scène. Moderato]. At first, she is terrified of Siegfried. When he promises not to harm her, she explains that she and her companions are victims of a spell cast by the evil owl-like sorcerer Rothbart. By day they are turned into swans and only at night, by the side of the enchanted lake – created from the tears of Odette's mother – do they return to human form. The spell can only be broken if one who has never loved before swears to love Odette forever. Rothbart suddenly appears [Scène. Allegro vivo]. Siegfried threatens to kill him but Odette intercedes – if Rothbart dies before the spell is broken, it can never be undone.
+
+As Rothbart disappears, the swan maidens fill the clearing [Scène: Allegro, Moderato assai quasi andante]. Siegfried breaks his crossbow, and sets about winning Odette's trust as the two fall in love. But as dawn arrives, the evil spell draws Odette and her companions back to the lake and they are turned into swans again.
+
+An opulent hall in the palace
+
+Guests arrive at the palace for a costume ball. Six princesses are presented to the prince [Entrance of the Guests and Waltz], as candidates for marriage. Rothbart arrives in disguise [Scène: Allegro, Allegro giusto] with his daughter, Odile, who is transformed to look like Odette. Though the princesses try to attract the prince with their dances [Pas de six], Siegfried has eyes only for Odile. [Scène: Allegro, Tempo di valse, Allegro vivo] Odette appears at the castle window and attempts to warn Siegfried, but he does not see her. He then proclaims to the court that he will marry Odile before Rothbart shows him a magical vision of Odette. Grief-stricken and realizing his mistake (he vowed only to love Odette), Siegfried hurries back to the lake.
+
+By the lakeside
+
+Odette is distraught. The swan-maidens try to comfort her. Siegfried returns to the lake and makes a passionate apology. She forgives him, but his betrayal cannot be undone. Rather than remain a swan forever, Odette chooses to die. Siegfried chooses to die with her and they leap into the lake, where they will stay together forever. This breaks Rothbart's spell over the swan maidens, causing him to lose his power over them and he dies. In an apotheosis, the swan maidens, who transform to maidens, watch as Siegfried and Odette ascend into the Heavens together, forever united in love.
+
+Act 1: Prince Siegfried, his friends, and a group of peasants are celebrating the Prince's coming of age. Siegfried's mother arrives to inform him she wishes for him to marry soon so she may make sure he does not disgrace their family line by his marriage. She has organised a ball where Siegfried is to choose his bride from among the daughters of the nobility. After the celebration, Siegfried and his friend, Benno, spot a flock of flying swans and decide to hunt them.
+
+Act 2: Siegfried and Benno track the swans to a lake, but they vanish. A woman wearing a crown appears and meets the two men. She tells them her name is Odette and she was one of the swans they were hunting. She tells them her story: Odette's mother, a good fairy, had married a knight, but she died and the knight remarried. Odette's stepmother was a witch who wanted to kill her, but her grandfather saved her. Odette's grandfather had cried so much over the death of Odette's mother, he created the lake with his tears. Odette and her companions live in the lake with Odette's grandfather, and can transform themselves into swans whenever they wish. Odette's stepmother still wants to kill her and stalks her in the form of an owl, but Odette has a crown which protects her from harm. When Odette gets married, the witch will lose the power to harm her. Siegfried falls in love with Odette but Odette fears the witch will ruin their happiness.
+
+Act 3: Several young noblewomen dance at Siegfried's ball, but the Prince refuses to marry any of them. Baron von Rothbart and his daughter, Odile, arrive. Siegfried thinks Odile looks like Odette, but Benno doesn't agree. Siegfried dances with Odile as he grows more and more enamored with her, and eventually agrees to marry her. At that moment, Rothbart transforms into a demon, Odile laughs, and a white swan wearing a crown appears in the window. The Prince runs out of the castle.
+
+Act 4: In tears, Odette tells her friends Siegfried did not keep his vow of love. Seeing Siegfried is coming, Odette's friends leave and urge her to go with them, but Odette wants to see Siegfried one last time. A storm begins. Siegfried enters and begs Odette for forgiveness. Odette refuses and attempts to leave. Siegfried snatches the crown from her head and throws it in the lake, saying "Willing or unwilling, you will always remain with me!" The owl flies overhead, carrying away the crown. "What have you done? I am dying!" Odette says, and falls into Siegfried's arms. The lake rises from the storm and drowns Odette and Siegfried. The storm quiets, and a group of swans appears on the lake.[23]
+
+Many different endings exist, ranging from romantic to tragic.
+
+The score used in this résumé is Tchaikovsky's score as he originally composed it (including later additions of the original 1877 production).[31] The score as listed here is different from the score as revised by Riccardo Drigo for the revival of Petipa and Ivanov that is still used to one extent or another by most ballet companies today. The titles for each number are taken from the original published score. Some of the numbers are titled simply as musical indications, those that are not are translated from their original French titles.
+
+In 2014 the Little Princess Ballet Academy (LPBA) performed the entire Swan Lake in Second Life. The adaption follows the original, but some parts like the pas de deux were not possible to perform in Second Life and has been changed. All parts are played by individual avatars.[citation needed]
+
+Audio
+
+Video
+
+Source
+
+Background
+
+Video recordings
+
+Scores
+
+List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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+Swan Lake (Russian: Лебеди́ное о́зеро, romanized: Lebedínoye ózero), Op. 20, is a ballet composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–76.  Despite its initial failure, it is now one of the most popular ballets of all time.
+
+The scenario, initially in two acts, was fashioned from Russian and German folk tales[a] and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger (Václav Reisinger). The ballet was premiered by the Bolshoi Ballet on 4 March [O.S. 20 February] 1877[1][2] at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. Although it is presented in many different versions, most ballet companies base their stagings both choreographically and musically on the 1895 revival of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, first staged for the Imperial Ballet on 15 January 1895, at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. For this revival, Tchaikovsky's score was revised by the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatre's chief conductor and composer Riccardo Drigo.[3]
+
+There is no evidence to prove who wrote the original libretto, or where the idea for the plot came from. Russian and German folk tales have been proposed as possible sources, including "The White Duck" and "The Stolen Veil" by Johann Karl August Musäus, but both those tales differ significantly from the ballet.[4]
+
+One theory is that the original choreographer, Julius Reisinger, who was a Bohemian (and therefore likely to be familiar with The Stolen Veil), created the story. Another theory is that it was written by Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, director of the Moscow Imperial Theatres at the time, possibly with Vasily Geltser, danseur of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre (a surviving copy of the libretto bears his name). Since the first published libretto does not correspond with Tchaikovsky's music in many places, one theory is that the first published version was written by a journalist after viewing initial rehearsals (new opera and ballet productions were always reported in the newspapers, along with their respective scenarios).
+
+Some contemporaries of Tchaikovsky recalled the composer taking great interest in the life story of Bavarian King Ludwig II, whose life had supposedly been marked by the sign of Swan and could have been the prototype of the dreamer Prince Siegfried.[5] However, Ludwig's death happened 10 years after the first performance of the ballet.
+
+Begichev commissioned the score of Swan Lake from Tchaikovsky in May 1875 for 800 rubles. Tchaikovsky worked with only a basic outline from Julius Reisinger of the requirements for each dance.[6] However, unlike the instructions for the scores of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, no written instruction is known to have survived.
+
+From around the time of the turn of the 19th century until the beginning of the 1890s, scores for ballets were almost always written by composers known as "specialists," who were highly skilled at scoring the light, decorative, melodious, and rhythmically clear music that was at that time in vogue for ballet. Tchaikovsky studied the music of "specialists" such as the Italian Cesare Pugni and the Austrian Ludwig Minkus, before setting to work on Swan Lake.
+
+Tchaikovsky had a rather negative opinion of the "specialist" ballet music until he studied it in detail, being impressed by the nearly limitless variety of infectious melodies their scores contained. Tchaikovsky most admired the ballet music of such composers as Léo Delibes, Adolphe Adam, and later, Riccardo Drigo. He would later write to his protégé, the composer Sergei Taneyev, "I listened to the Delibes ballet Sylvia ... what charm, what elegance, what wealth of melody, rhythm, and harmony. I was ashamed, for if I had known of this music then, I would not have written Swan Lake." Tchaikovsky most admired Adam's 1844 score for Giselle, which used the Leitmotif technique: associating certain themes with certain characters or moods, a technique he would use in Swan Lake, and later, The Sleeping Beauty.
+
+Tchaikovsky drew on previous compositions for his Swan Lake score. According to two of Tchaikovsky's relatives – his nephew Yuri Lvovich Davydov and his niece Anna Meck-Davydova – the composer had earlier created a little ballet called The Lake of the Swans at their home in 1871. This ballet included the famous Leitmotif, the Swan's Theme or Song of the Swans. He also made use of material from The Voyevoda, an opera he had abandoned in 1868. The Grand adage (a.k.a. the Love Duet) from the second scene of Swan Lake was fashioned from an aria from that opera, as was the Valse des fiancées from the third scene. Another number which included a theme from The Voyevoda was the Entr'acte of the fourth scene.
+
+By April 1876 the score was complete, and rehearsals began. Soon Reisinger began setting certain numbers aside that he dubbed "undanceable." Reisinger even began choreographing dances to other composers' music, but Tchaikovsky protested and his pieces were reinstated. Although the two artists were required to collaborate, each seemed to prefer working as independently of the other as possible.[7]
+
+Tchaikovsky's excitement with Swan Lake is evident from the speed with which he composed: commissioned in the spring of 1875, the piece was created within one year. His letters to Sergei Taneyev from August 1875 indicate, however, that it was not only his excitement that compelled him to create it so quickly but his wish to finish it as soon as possible, so as to allow him to start on an opera. Respectively, he created scores of the first three numbers of the ballet, then the orchestration in the fall and winter, and was still struggling with the instrumentation in the spring. By April 1876, the work was complete. Tchaikovsky's mention of a draft suggests the presence of some sort of abstract but no such draft has ever been seen. Tchaikovsky wrote various letters to friends expressing his longstanding desire to work with this type of music, and his excitement concerning his current stimulating, albeit laborious task.[8]
+
+Moscow première (world première)
+
+St. Petersburg première
+
+Other notable productions
+
+Original interpreters
+
+The première on Friday, 4 March 1877, was given as a benefit performance for the ballerina Pelageya Karpakova (also known as Polina Karpakova), who performed the role of Odette, with première danseur Victor Gillert as Prince Siegfried. Karpakova may also have danced the part Odile, although it is believed the ballet originally called for two different dancers. It is now common practice for the same ballerina to dance both Odette and Odile.
+
+The Russian ballerina Anna Sobeshchanskaya was originally cast as Odette, but was replaced when a governing official in Moscow complained about her, claiming she had accepted jewelry from him, only to then marry a fellow danseur and sell the pieces for cash.
+
+The première was not well-received. Though there were a few critics who recognised the virtues of the score, most considered it to be far too complicated for ballet. It was labelled "too noisy, too 'Wagnerian' and too symphonic."[10] The critics also thought Reisinger's choreography was "unimaginative and altogether unmemorable."[10] The German origins of the story were "treated with suspicion while the tale itself was regarded as 'stupid' with unpronounceable surnames for its characters."[10] Karpakova was a secondary soloist and "not particularly convincing."[10]
+
+The poverty of the production, meaning the décor and costumes, the absence of outstanding performers, the Balletmaster's weakness of imagination, and, finally, the orchestra ... all of this together permitted (Tchaikovsky) with good reason to cast the blame for the failure on others.
+
+Yet the fact remains (and is too often omitted in accounts of this initial production) that this staging survived for six years with a total of 41 performances – many more than several other ballets from the repertoire of this theatre.[11]
+
+On 26 April 1877, Anna Sobeshchanskaya made her début as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, and from the start, she was completely dissatisfied with the ballet. Sobeshchanskaya asked Marius Petipa—Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres—to choreograph a pas de deux to replace the pas de six in the third act (for a ballerina to request a supplemental pas or variation was standard practice in 19th century ballet, and often these "custom-made" dances were the legal property of the ballerina they were composed for).
+
+Petipa created the pas de deux to music by Ludwig Minkus, ballet composer to the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The piece was a standard pas de deux classique consisting of a short entrée, the grand adage, a variation for each dancer individually, and a coda.
+
+Tchaikovsky was angered by this change, stating that whether the ballet was good or bad, he alone should be held responsible for its music. He agreed to compose a new pas de deux, but soon a problem arose: Sobeshchanskaya wanted to retain Petipa's choreography. Tchaikovsky agreed to compose a pas de deux that would match to such a degree, the ballerina would not even be required to rehearse. Sobeshchanskaya was so pleased with Tchaikovsky's new music, she requested he compose an additional variation, which he did.
+
+Until 1953 this pas de deux was thought to be lost, until a repétiteur score was accidentally found in the archives of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, among orchestral parts for Alexander Gorsky's revival of Le Corsaire (Gorsky had included the piece in his version of Le Corsaire staged in 1912). In 1960 George Balanchine choreographed a pas de deux to this music for Violette Verdy and Conrad Ludlow, performed at the City Center of Music and Drama in New York City as Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux,[12] as it is still known and performed today.
+
+Julius Reisinger's successor as balletmaster was Joseph Peter Hansen. Hansen made considerable efforts to salvage Swan Lake and on 13 January 1880 he presented a new production of the ballet for his own benefit performance. The part of Odette/Odile was danced by Evdokia Kalmykova, a student of the Moscow Imperial Ballet School, with Alfred Bekefi as Prince Siegfried. This production was better-received than the original, but by no means a great success. Hansen presented another version of Swan Lake on 28 October 1882, again with Kalmykova as Odette/Odile. For this production Hansen arranged a Grand Pas for the ballroom scene which he titled La Cosmopolitana. This was taken from the European section of the Grand Pas d'action known as The Allegory of the Continents from Marius Petipa's 1875 ballet The Bandits to the music of Ludwig Minkus. Hansen's version of Swan Lake was given only four times, the final performance being on 2 January 1883, and soon the ballet was dropped from the repertory altogether.
+
+In all, Swan Lake was performed 41 times between its première and the final performance of 1883 – a rather lengthy run for a ballet that was so poorly received upon its première. Hansen became Balletmaster to the Alhambra Theatre in London and on 1 December 1884 he presented a one-act ballet titled The Swans, which was inspired by the second scene of Swan Lake. The music was composed by the Alhambra Theatre's chef d'orchestre Georges Jacoby.
+
+The second scene of Swan Lake was then presented on 21 February in Prague by the Ballet of the National Theatre in a version mounted by the Balletmaster August Berger. The ballet was given during two concerts which were conducted by Tchaikovsky. The composer noted in his diary that he experienced "a moment of absolute happiness" when the ballet was performed. Berger's production followed the 1877 libretto, though the names of Prince Siegfried and Benno were changed to Jaroslav and Zdeňek, with the rôle of Benno danced by a female dancer en travestie. The rôle of Prince Siegfried was danced by Berger himself with the ballerina Giulietta Paltriniera-Bergrova as Odette. Berger's production was only given eight performances and was even planned for production at the Fantasia Garden in Moscow in 1893, but it never materialised.
+
+During the late 1880s and early 1890s, Petipa and Vsevolozhsky discussed with Tchaikovsky the possibility of reviving Swan Lake. However, Tchaikovsky died on 6 November 1893, just when plans to revive Swan Lake were beginning to come to fruition. It remains uncertain whether Tchaikovsky was prepared to revise the music for this revival. Whatever the case, as a result of Tchaikovsky's death, Drigo was forced to revise the score himself, after receiving approval from Tchaikovsky's younger brother, Modest. There are major differences between Drigo's and Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake score. Today, it is Riccardo Drigo's revision of Tchaikovsky's score, and not Tchaikovsky's original score of 1877, that most ballet companies use.
+
+In February 1894, two memorial concerts planned by Vsevolozhsky were given in honor of Tchaikovsky. The production included the second act of Swan Lake, choreographed by Lev Ivanov, Second Balletmaster to the Imperial Ballet. Ivanov's choreography for the memorial concert was unanimously hailed as wonderful.
+
+The revival of Swan Lake was planned for Pierina Legnani's benefit performance in the 1894–1895 season. The death of Tsar Alexander III on 1 November 1894 and the ensuing period of official mourning brought all ballet performances and rehearsals to a close for some time, and as a result all efforts could be concentrated on the pre-production of the full revival of Swan Lake. Ivanov and Petipa collaborated on the production, with Ivanov retaining his dances for the second act while choreographing the fourth, with Petipa staging the first and third acts.
+
+Modest Tchaikovsky was called upon to make changes to the ballet's libretto, including the character of Odette changing from a fairy swan-maiden into a cursed mortal woman, the ballet's villain changing from Odette's stepmother to the magician von Rothbart, and the ballet's finale: instead of the lovers simply drowning at the hand of Odette's stepmother as in the original 1877 scenario, Odette commits suicide by drowning herself, with Prince Siegfried choosing to die as well, rather than live without her, and soon the lovers' spirits are reunited in an apotheosis.[13] Aside from the revision of the libretto the ballet was changed from four acts to three—with act 2 becoming act 1, scene 2.
+
+All was ready by the beginning of 1895 and the ballet had its première on Friday, 27 January. Pierina Legnani danced Odette/Odile, with Pavel Gerdt as Prince Siegfried, Alexei Bulgakov as Rothbart, and Alexander Oblakov as Benno. Most of the reviews in the St. Petersburg newspapers were positive.
+
+Unlike the première of The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake did not dominate the repertory of the Mariinsky Theatre in its first season. It was given only sixteen performances between the première and the 1895–1896 season, and was not performed at all in 1897. Even more surprising, the ballet was performed only four times in 1898 and 1899. The ballet belonged solely to Legnani until she left St. Petersburg for her native Italy in 1901. After her departure, the ballet was taken over by Mathilde Kschessinskaya, who was as much celebrated in the rôle as was her Italian predecessor.
+
+Throughout the performance history of Swan Lake, the 1895 edition has served as the version on which most stagings have been based. Nearly every balletmaster or choreographer who has re-staged Swan Lake has made modifications to the ballet's scenario, while still maintaining much of the traditional choreography for the dances, which is regarded as virtually sacrosanct. Likewise, over time the rôle of Siegfried has become more prominent, due largely to the evolution of ballet technique.
+
+In 1940, San Francisco Ballet became the first American company to stage a complete production of Swan Lake. The enormously successful production starred Lew Christensen as Prince Siegfried, Jacqueline Martin as Odette, and Janet Reed as Odile. Willam Christensen based his choreography on the Petipa–Ivanov production, turning to San Francisco's large population of Russian émigrés, headed by Princess and Prince Vasili Alexandrovich of Russia, to help him ensure that the production succeeded in its goal of preserving Russian culture in San Francisco.[14]
+
+Several notable productions have diverged from the original and its 1895 revival:
+
+Swan Lake is scored for the typical late 19th-century large orchestra:
+
+By 1895, Benno von Sommerstern had become just "Benno," and Odette "Queen of the Swans." Also Baron von Stein, his wife, and Freiherr von Schwarzfels and his wife were no longer identified on the program. The sovereign or ruling Princess is often rendered "Queen Mother."
+
+The character of Rothbart (sometimes spelled Rotbart) has been open to many interpretations. The reason for his curse upon Odette is unknown; several versions, including two feature films, have suggested reasons, but none is typically explained by the ballet. He is rarely portrayed in human form, except in act 3. He is usually shown as an owl-like creature. In most productions, the couple's sacrifice results in his destruction. However, there are versions in which he is triumphant. Yury Grigorovich's version, which has been danced for several decades by the Bolshoi Ballet, is noted for including both endings: Rothbart was defeated in the original 1969 version, in line with Soviet-era expectations of an upbeat conclusion, but in the 2001 revision, Rothbart plays a wicked game of fate with Siegfried, which he wins at the end, causing Siegfried to lose everything. In the second American Ballet Theatre production of Swan Lake, he is portrayed by two dancers: a young, handsome one who lures Odette to her doom in the prologue, and a reptilian creature. In this version, the lovers' suicide inspires the rest of Rothbart's imprisoned swans to turn on him and overcome his spell.
+
+Odile, Rothbart's daughter usually wears jet black (though in the 1895 production, she did not), and appears only in act 3. In most modern productions, she is portrayed as Odette's exact double (though the resemblance is because of Rothbart's magic), and therefore Siegfried cannot be blamed for believing her to be Odette. There is a suggestion that in the original production, Odette and Odile were danced by two different ballerinas. This is also the case in some avant garde productions.
+
+Swan Lake is generally presented in either four acts, four scenes (primarily outside Russia and Eastern Europe) or three acts, four scenes (primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe). The biggest difference of productions all over the world is that the ending, originally tragic, is now sometimes altered to a happy ending.
+
+Some productions include a prologue that shows how Odette first meets Rothbart, who turns Odette into a swan.
+
+A magnificent park before a palace
+
+[Scène: Allegro giusto] Prince Siegfried is celebrating his birthday with his tutor, friends and peasants [Waltz]. The revelries are interrupted by Siegfried's mother, the Queen [Scène: Allegro moderato], who is concerned about her son's carefree lifestyle. She tells him that he must choose a bride at the royal ball the following evening (some productions include the presentation of some possible candidates). Siegfried is upset that he cannot marry for love. His friend Benno and the tutor try to lift his troubled mood. As evening falls [Sujet], Benno sees a flock of swans flying overhead and suggests they go on a hunt [Finale I]. Siegfried and his friends take their crossbows and set off in pursuit of the swans.
+
+A lakeside clearing in a forest by the ruins of a chapel. A moonlit night.
+
+Siegfried has become separated from his friends. He arrives at the lakeside clearing, just as a flock of swans land [Scène. Moderato]. He aims his crossbow [Scène. Allegro moderato], but freezes when one of them transforms into a beautiful maiden, Odette [Scène. Moderato]. At first, she is terrified of Siegfried. When he promises not to harm her, she explains that she and her companions are victims of a spell cast by the evil owl-like sorcerer Rothbart. By day they are turned into swans and only at night, by the side of the enchanted lake – created from the tears of Odette's mother – do they return to human form. The spell can only be broken if one who has never loved before swears to love Odette forever. Rothbart suddenly appears [Scène. Allegro vivo]. Siegfried threatens to kill him but Odette intercedes – if Rothbart dies before the spell is broken, it can never be undone.
+
+As Rothbart disappears, the swan maidens fill the clearing [Scène: Allegro, Moderato assai quasi andante]. Siegfried breaks his crossbow, and sets about winning Odette's trust as the two fall in love. But as dawn arrives, the evil spell draws Odette and her companions back to the lake and they are turned into swans again.
+
+An opulent hall in the palace
+
+Guests arrive at the palace for a costume ball. Six princesses are presented to the prince [Entrance of the Guests and Waltz], as candidates for marriage. Rothbart arrives in disguise [Scène: Allegro, Allegro giusto] with his daughter, Odile, who is transformed to look like Odette. Though the princesses try to attract the prince with their dances [Pas de six], Siegfried has eyes only for Odile. [Scène: Allegro, Tempo di valse, Allegro vivo] Odette appears at the castle window and attempts to warn Siegfried, but he does not see her. He then proclaims to the court that he will marry Odile before Rothbart shows him a magical vision of Odette. Grief-stricken and realizing his mistake (he vowed only to love Odette), Siegfried hurries back to the lake.
+
+By the lakeside
+
+Odette is distraught. The swan-maidens try to comfort her. Siegfried returns to the lake and makes a passionate apology. She forgives him, but his betrayal cannot be undone. Rather than remain a swan forever, Odette chooses to die. Siegfried chooses to die with her and they leap into the lake, where they will stay together forever. This breaks Rothbart's spell over the swan maidens, causing him to lose his power over them and he dies. In an apotheosis, the swan maidens, who transform to maidens, watch as Siegfried and Odette ascend into the Heavens together, forever united in love.
+
+Act 1: Prince Siegfried, his friends, and a group of peasants are celebrating the Prince's coming of age. Siegfried's mother arrives to inform him she wishes for him to marry soon so she may make sure he does not disgrace their family line by his marriage. She has organised a ball where Siegfried is to choose his bride from among the daughters of the nobility. After the celebration, Siegfried and his friend, Benno, spot a flock of flying swans and decide to hunt them.
+
+Act 2: Siegfried and Benno track the swans to a lake, but they vanish. A woman wearing a crown appears and meets the two men. She tells them her name is Odette and she was one of the swans they were hunting. She tells them her story: Odette's mother, a good fairy, had married a knight, but she died and the knight remarried. Odette's stepmother was a witch who wanted to kill her, but her grandfather saved her. Odette's grandfather had cried so much over the death of Odette's mother, he created the lake with his tears. Odette and her companions live in the lake with Odette's grandfather, and can transform themselves into swans whenever they wish. Odette's stepmother still wants to kill her and stalks her in the form of an owl, but Odette has a crown which protects her from harm. When Odette gets married, the witch will lose the power to harm her. Siegfried falls in love with Odette but Odette fears the witch will ruin their happiness.
+
+Act 3: Several young noblewomen dance at Siegfried's ball, but the Prince refuses to marry any of them. Baron von Rothbart and his daughter, Odile, arrive. Siegfried thinks Odile looks like Odette, but Benno doesn't agree. Siegfried dances with Odile as he grows more and more enamored with her, and eventually agrees to marry her. At that moment, Rothbart transforms into a demon, Odile laughs, and a white swan wearing a crown appears in the window. The Prince runs out of the castle.
+
+Act 4: In tears, Odette tells her friends Siegfried did not keep his vow of love. Seeing Siegfried is coming, Odette's friends leave and urge her to go with them, but Odette wants to see Siegfried one last time. A storm begins. Siegfried enters and begs Odette for forgiveness. Odette refuses and attempts to leave. Siegfried snatches the crown from her head and throws it in the lake, saying "Willing or unwilling, you will always remain with me!" The owl flies overhead, carrying away the crown. "What have you done? I am dying!" Odette says, and falls into Siegfried's arms. The lake rises from the storm and drowns Odette and Siegfried. The storm quiets, and a group of swans appears on the lake.[23]
+
+Many different endings exist, ranging from romantic to tragic.
+
+The score used in this résumé is Tchaikovsky's score as he originally composed it (including later additions of the original 1877 production).[31] The score as listed here is different from the score as revised by Riccardo Drigo for the revival of Petipa and Ivanov that is still used to one extent or another by most ballet companies today. The titles for each number are taken from the original published score. Some of the numbers are titled simply as musical indications, those that are not are translated from their original French titles.
+
+In 2014 the Little Princess Ballet Academy (LPBA) performed the entire Swan Lake in Second Life. The adaption follows the original, but some parts like the pas de deux were not possible to perform in Second Life and has been changed. All parts are played by individual avatars.[citation needed]
+
+Audio
+
+Video
+
+Source
+
+Background
+
+Video recordings
+
+Scores
+
+List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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+
+
+Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha (along with the hare and the pika).  Oryctolagus cuniculus includes the European rabbit species and its descendants, the world's 305 breeds[1] of domestic rabbit. Sylvilagus includes 13 wild rabbit species, among them the seven types of cottontail. The European rabbit, which has been introduced on every continent except Antarctica, is familiar throughout the world as a wild prey animal and as a domesticated form of livestock and pet. With its widespread effect on ecologies and cultures, the rabbit (or bunny) is, in many areas of the world, a part of daily life—as food, clothing, a companion, and as a source of artistic inspiration.
+
+Although once considered rodents, lagomorphs like rabbits have been placed in their own, separate family because of a number of traits their rodent cousins lack, like two extra incisors.
+
+Male rabbits are called bucks; females are called does.  An older term for an adult rabbit is coney (derived ultimately from the Latin cuniculus), while rabbit once referred only to the young animals.[2] Another term for a young rabbit is bunny, though this term is often applied informally (particularly by children) to rabbits generally, especially domestic ones. More recently, the term kit or kitten has been used to refer to a young rabbit.
+
+A group of rabbits is known as a colony or nest (or, occasionally, a warren, though this more commonly refers to where the rabbits live).[3] A group of baby rabbits produced from a single mating is referred to as a litter,[4] and a group of domestic rabbits living together is sometimes called a herd.[5]
+
+Rabbits and hares were formerly classified in the order Rodentia (rodent) until 1912, when they were moved into a new order, Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). Below are some of the genera and species of the rabbit.
+
+Brachylagus IdahoensisPygmy rabbit
+
+Nesolagus netscheriSumatran Striped Rabbit(Model)
+
+Oryctolagus cuniculusEuropean rabbit(Feral Tasmanian specimen)
+
+Pentalagus furnessiAmami rabbit(Taxidermy specimen)
+
+Romerolagus diaziVolcano rabbit(Taxidermy specimen)
+
+
+
+Sylvilagus aquaticusSwamp rabbit(Juvenile)
+
+Sylvilagus auduboniiDesert cottontail
+
+Sylvilagus bachmaniBrush rabbit
+
+Sylvilagus brasiliensisTapeti(Taxidermy specimen)
+
+Sylvilagus palustrishefneriLower Keysmarsh rabbit
+
+Order Lagomorpha
+
+    Family Leporidae
+
+Family Ochtonidae
+
+Hares are precocial, born relatively mature and mobile with hair and good vision, while rabbits are altricial, born hairless and blind, and requiring closer care. Hares (and cottontail rabbits) live a relatively solitary life in a simple nest above the ground, while most rabbits live in social groups in burrows or warrens. Hares are generally larger than rabbits, with ears that are more elongated, and with hind legs that are larger and longer. Hares have not been domesticated, while descendants of the European rabbit are commonly bred as livestock and kept as pets.
+
+Rabbits have long been domesticated.  Beginning in the Middle Ages, the European rabbit has been widely kept as livestock, starting in ancient Rome. Selective breeding has generated a wide variety of rabbit breeds, many of which (since the early 19th century) are also kept as pets. Some strains of rabbit have been bred specifically as research subjects.
+
+As livestock, rabbits are bred for their meat and fur.  The earliest breeds were important sources of meat, and so became larger than wild rabbits, but domestic rabbits in modern times range in size from dwarf to giant. Rabbit fur, prized for its softness, can be found in a broad range of coat colors and patterns, as well as lengths. The Angora rabbit breed, for example, was developed for its long, silky fur, which is often hand-spun into yarn. Other domestic rabbit breeds have been developed primarily for the commercial fur trade, including the Rex, which has a short plush coat.
+
+Because the rabbit's epiglottis is engaged over the soft palate except when swallowing, the rabbit is an obligate nasal breather. Rabbits have two sets of incisor teeth, one behind the other. This way they can be distinguished from rodents, with which they are often confused.[6] Carl Linnaeus originally grouped rabbits and rodents under the class Glires; later, they were separated as the scientific consensus is that many of their similarities were a result of convergent evolution. However, recent DNA analysis and the discovery of a common ancestor has supported the view that they do share a common lineage, and thus rabbits and rodents are now often referred to together as members of the superorder Glires.[7]
+
+Since speed and agility are a rabbit's main defenses against predators (including the swift fox), rabbits have large hind leg bones and well developed musculature. Though plantigrade at rest, rabbits are on their toes while running, assuming a more digitigrade form. Rabbits use their strong claws for digging and (along with their teeth) for defense.[8] Each front foot has four toes plus a dewclaw. Each hind foot has four toes (but no dewclaw).[9]
+
+Most wild rabbits (especially compared to hares) have relatively full, egg-shaped bodies. The soft coat of the wild rabbit is agouti in coloration (or, rarely, melanistic), which aids in camouflage. The tail of the rabbit (with the exception of the cottontail species) is dark on top and white below. Cottontails have white on the top of their tails.[10]
+
+As a result of the position of the eyes in its skull, the rabbit has a field of vision that encompasses nearly 360 degrees, with just a small blind spot at the bridge of the nose.[11]
+
+The anatomy of rabbits' hind limbs are structurally similar to that of other land mammals and contribute to their specialized form of locomotion. The bones of the hind limbs consist of long bones (the femur, tibia, fibula, and phalanges) as well as short bones (the tarsals). These bones are created through endochondral ossification during development.[12] Like most land mammals, the round head of the femur articulates with the acetabulum of the ox coxae. The femur articulates with the tibia, but not the fibula, which is fused to the tibia. The tibia and fibula articulate with the tarsals of the pes, commonly called the foot. The hind limbs of the rabbit are longer than the front limbs. This allows them to produce their hopping form of locomotion. Longer hind limbs are more capable of producing faster speeds. Hares, which have longer legs than cottontail rabbits, are able to move considerably faster.[13] Rabbits stay just on their toes when moving this is called Digitigrade locomotion. The hind feet have four long toes that allow for this and are webbed to prevent them from spreading when hopping.[14] Rabbits do not have paw pads on their feet like most other animals that use digitigrade locomotion. Instead, they have coarse compressed hair that offers protection.[15]
+
+Rabbits have muscled hind legs that allow for maximum force, maneuverability, and acceleration that is divided into three main parts; foot, thigh, and leg. The hind limbs of a rabbit are an exaggerated feature, that are much longer than the forelimbs providing more force. Rabbits run on their toes to gain the optimal stride during locomotion. The force put out by the hind limbs is contributed to both the structural anatomy of the fusion tibia and fibula, and muscular features.[16] Bone formation and removal, from a cellular standpoint, is directly correlated to hind limb muscles. Action pressure from muscles creates force that is then distributed through the skeletal structures. Rabbits that generate less force, putting less stress on bones are more prone to osteoporosis due to bone rarefaction.[17] In rabbits, the more fibers in a muscle, the more resistant to fatigue. For example, hares have a greater resistance to fatigue than cottontails. The muscles of rabbit's hind limbs can be classified into four main categories: hamstrings, quadriceps, dorsiflexors, or plantar flexors. The quadriceps muscles are in charge of force production when jumping. Complementing these muscles are the hamstrings which aid in short bursts of action. These muscles play off of one another in the same way as the plantar flexors and doriflexors, contributing to the generation and actions associated with force.[18]
+
+Within the order lagomorphs, the ears are utilized to detect and avoid predators. In the family leporidae, the ears are typically longer than they are wide. For example, in black tailed jack rabbits, their long ears cover a greater surface area relative to their body size that allow them to detect predators from far away. Contrasted to cotton tailed rabbits, their ears are smaller and shorter, requiring predators to be closer to detect them before they can flee. Evolution has favored rabbits to have shorter ears so the larger surface area does not cause them to lose heat in more temperate regions. The opposite can be seen in rabbits that live in hotter climates, mainly because they possess longer ears that have a larger surface area that help with dispersion of heat as well as the theory that sound does not travel well in more arid air, opposed to cooler air. Therefore, longer ears are meant to aid the organism in detecting predators sooner rather than later in warmer temperatures.[19] The rabbit is characterized by its shorter ears while hares are characterized by their longer ears.[20] Rabbits' ears are an important structure to aid thermoregulation and detect predators due to how the outer, middle, and inner ear muscles coordinate with one another. The ear muscles also aid in maintaining balance and movement when fleeing predators.[21]
+
+Outer ear
+
+The Auricle (anatomy), also known as the pinna is a rabbit's outer ear.[22] The rabbit's pinnae represent a fair part of the body surface area. It is theorized that the ears aid in dispersion of heat at temperatures above 30 °C with rabbits in warmer climates having longer pinnae due to this. Another theory is that the ears function as shock absorbers that could aid and stabilize rabbit's vision when fleeing predators, but this has typically only been seen in hares.[23] The rest of the outer ear has bent canals that lead to the eardrum or tympanic membrane.[24]
+
+Middle ear
+
+The middle ear is filled with three bones called ossicles and is separated by the outer eardrum in the back of the rabbit's skull. The three ossicles are called hammer, anvil, and stirrup and act to decrease sound before it hits the inner ear. In general, the ossicles act as a barrier to the inner ear for sound energy.[24]
+
+Inner ear
+
+Inner ear fluid called endolymph receives the sound energy. After receiving the energy, later within the inner ear there are two parts: the cochlea that  utilizes sound waves from the ossicles and the vestibular apparatus that manages the rabbit's position in regards to movement. Within the cochlea there is a basilar membrane that contains sensory hair structures utilized to send nerve signals to the brain so it can recognize different sound frequencies. Within the vestibular apparatus the rabbit possesses three semicircular canals to help detect angular motion.[24]
+
+Thermoregulation is the process that an organism utilizes to maintain an optimal body temperature independent of external conditions.[25] This process is carried out by the pinnae which takes up most of the rabbit's body surface and contain a vascular network and arteriovenous shunts.[26] In a rabbit, the optimal body temperature is around 38.5–40℃.[27] If their body temperature exceeds or does not meet this optimal temperature, the rabbit must return to homeostasis. Homeostasis of body temperature is maintained by the use of their large, highly vascularized ears that are able to change the amount of blood flow that passes through the ears.
+
+Constriction and dilation of blood vessels in the ears are used to control the core body temperature of a rabbit. If the core temperature exceeds its optimal temperature greatly, blood flow is constricted to limit the amount of blood going through the vessels. With this constriction, there is only a limited amount of blood that is passing through the ears where ambient heat would be able to heat the blood that is flowing through the ears and therefore, increasing the body temperature. Constriction is also used when the ambient temperature is much lower than that of the rabbit's core body temperature. When the ears are constricted it again limits blood flow through the ears to conserve the optimal body temperature of the rabbit. If the ambient temperature is either 15 degrees above or below the optimal body temperature, the blood vessels will dilate. With the blood vessels being enlarged, the blood is able to pass through the large surface area which causes it to either heat or cool down.
+
+During the summer, the rabbit has the capability to stretch its pinnae which allows for greater surface area and increase heat dissipation. In the winter, the rabbit does the opposite and folds its ears in order to decrease its surface area to the ambient air which would decrease their body temperature.
+
+The jackrabbit has the largest ears within the Oryctolagus cuniculus group. Their ears contribute to 17% of their total body surface area.  Their large pinna were evolved to maintain homeostasis while in the extreme temperatures of the desert.
+
+The rabbit's nasal cavity lies dorsal to the oral cavity, and the two compartments are separated by the hard and soft palate.[28] The nasal cavity itself is separated into a left and right side by a cartilage barrier, and it is covered in fine hairs that trap dust before it can enter the respiratory tract.[29][28] As the rabbit breathes, air flows in through the nostrils along the alar folds. From there, the air moves into the nasal cavity, also known as the nasopharynx, down through the trachea, through the larynx, and into the lungs.[29][30] The larynx functions as the rabbit's voice box, which enables it to produce a wide variety of sounds.[29] The trachea is a long tube embedded with cartilaginous rings that prevent the tube from collapsing as air moves in and out of the lungs. The trachea then splits into a left and right bronchus, which meet the lungs at a structure called the hilum. From there, the bronchi split into progressively more narrow and numerous branches. The bronchi branch into bronchioles, into respiratory bronchioles, and ultimately terminate at the alveolar ducts. The branching that is typically found in rabbit lungs is a clear example of monopodial branching, in which smaller branches divide out laterally from a larger central branch.[31]
+
+Rabbits breathe primarily through their noses due to the fact that the epiglottis is fixed to the backmost portion of the soft palate.[30] Within the oral cavity, a layer of tissue sits over the opening of the glottis, which blocks airflow from the oral cavity to the trachea.[28]  The epiglottis functions to prevent the rabbit from aspirating on its food. Further, the presence of a soft and hard palate allow the rabbit to breathe through its nose while it feeds.[29]
+
+Rabbits lungs are divided into four lobes: the cranial, middle, caudal, and accessory lobes. The right lung is made up of all four lobes, while the left lung only has two: the cranial and caudal lobes.[31] In order to provide space for the heart, the left cranial lobe of the lungs is significantly smaller than that of the right.[28] The diaphragm is a muscular structure that lies caudal to the lungs and contracts to facilitate respiration.[28][30]
+
+Rabbits are herbivores that feed by grazing on grass, forbs, and leafy weeds. In consequence, their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem via a form of hindgut fermentation. They pass two distinct types of feces: hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are known as caecotrophs or "night droppings" [32] and are immediately eaten (a behaviour known as coprophagy). Rabbits reingest their own droppings (rather than chewing the cud as do cows and numerous other herbivores) to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients.[33]
+
+Rabbits graze heavily and rapidly for roughly the first half-hour of a grazing period (usually in the late afternoon), followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding.[citation needed] In this time, the rabbit will also excrete many hard fecal pellets, being waste pellets that will not be reingested.[citation needed] If the environment is relatively non-threatening, the rabbit will remain outdoors for many hours, grazing at intervals.[citation needed] While out of the burrow, the rabbit will occasionally reingest its soft, partially digested pellets; this is rarely observed, since the pellets are reingested as they are produced.[citation needed]
+
+Hard pellets are made up of hay-like fragments of plant cuticle and stalk, being the final waste product after redigestion of soft pellets. These are only released outside the burrow and are not reingested. Soft pellets are usually produced several hours after grazing, after the hard pellets have all been excreted.[citation needed] They are made up of micro-organisms and undigested plant cell walls.[citation needed]
+
+Rabbits are hindgut digesters. This means that most of their digestion takes place in their large intestine and cecum. In rabbits, the cecum is about 10 times bigger than the stomach and it along with the large intestine makes up roughly 40% of the rabbit's digestive tract.[34] The unique musculature of the cecum allows the intestinal tract of the rabbit to separate fibrous material from more digestible material; the fibrous material is passed as feces, while the more nutritious material is encased in a mucous lining as a cecotrope. Cecotropes, sometimes called "night feces", are high in minerals, vitamins and proteins that are necessary to the rabbit's health. Rabbits eat these to meet their nutritional requirements; the mucous coating allows the nutrients to pass through the acidic stomach for digestion in the intestines. This process allows rabbits to extract the necessary nutrients from their food.[35]
+
+The chewed plant material collects in the large cecum, a secondary chamber between the large and small intestine containing large quantities of symbiotic bacteria that help with the digestion of cellulose and also produce certain B vitamins. The pellets are about 56% bacteria by dry weight, largely accounting for the pellets being 24.4% protein on average. The soft feces form here and contain up to five times the vitamins of hard feces. After being excreted, they are eaten whole by the rabbit and redigested in a special part of the stomach. The pellets remain intact for up to six hours in the stomach; the bacteria within continue to digest the plant carbohydrates. This double-digestion process enables rabbits to use nutrients that they may have missed during the first passage through the gut, as well as the nutrients formed by the microbial activity and thus ensures that maximum nutrition is derived from the food they eat.[10] This process serves the same purpose in the rabbit as rumination does in cattle and sheep.[36]
+
+Rabbits are incapable of vomiting.[37] Because rabbits cannot vomit, if buildup occurs within the intestines (due often to a diet with insufficient fiber[38]), intestinal blockage can occur.[39]
+
+The adult male reproductive system forms the same as most mammals with the seminiferous tubular compartment containing the Sertoli cells and an adluminal compartment that contains the Leydig cells.[40] The Leydig cells produce testosterone, which maintains libido[40] and creates secondary sex characteristics such as the genital tubercle and penis. The Sertoli cells triggers the production of Anti-Müllerian duct hormone, which absorbs the Müllerian duct. In an adult male rabbit, the sheath of the penis is cylinder-like and can be extruded as early as two months of age.[41] The scrotal sacs lay lateral to the penis and contain epididymal fat pads which protect the testes. Between 10–14 weeks, the testes descend and are able to retract into the pelvic cavity in order to thermoregulate.[41] Furthermore, the secondary sex characteristics, such as the testes, are complex and secrete many compounds. These compounds includes fructose, citric acid, minerals, and a uniquely high amount of catalase.[40]
+
+The adult female reproductive tract is bipartite, which prevents an embryo from translocating between uteri.[42] The two uterine horns communicate to two cervixes and forms one vaginal canal. Along with being bipartite, the female rabbit does not go through an estrus cycle, which causes mating induced ovulation.[41]
+
+The average female rabbit becomes sexually mature at 3 to 8 months of age and can conceive at any time of the year for the duration of her life. However, egg and sperm production can begin to decline after three years.[40] During mating, the male rabbit will mount the female rabbit from behind and insert his penis into the female and make rapid pelvic hip thrusts. The encounter lasts only 20–40 seconds and after, the male will throw himself backwards off the female.[43]
+
+The rabbit gestation period is short and ranges from 28 to 36 days with an average period of 31 days. A longer gestation period will generally yield a smaller litter while shorter gestation periods will give birth to a larger litter. The size of a single litter can range from four to 12 kits allowing a female to deliver up to 60 new kits a year. After birth, the female can become pregnant again as early as the next day.[41]
+
+The mortality rates of embryos are high in rabbits and can be due to infection, trauma, poor nutrition and environmental stress so a high fertility rate is necessary to counter this.[41]
+
+Rabbits may appear to be crepuscular, but their natural inclination is toward nocturnal activity.[44] In 2011, the average sleep time of a rabbit in captivity was calculated at 8.4 hours per day.[45] As with other prey animals, rabbits often sleep with their eyes open, so that sudden movements will awaken the rabbit to respond to potential danger.[46]
+
+In addition to being at risk of disease from common pathogens such as Bordetella bronchiseptica and Escherichia coli, rabbits can contract the virulent, species-specific viruses RHD ("rabbit hemorrhagic disease", a form of calicivirus)[47] or myxomatosis. Among the parasites that infect rabbits are tapeworms (such as Taenia serialis), external parasites (including fleas and mites), coccidia species, and Toxoplasma gondii.[48][49] Domesticated rabbits with a diet lacking in high fiber sources, such as hay and grass, are susceptible to potentially lethal gastrointestinal stasis.[50] Rabbits and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.[51]
+
+Encephalitozoon cuniculi, an obligate intracellular parasite is also capable of infecting many mammals including rabbits.
+
+Rabbits are prey animals and are therefore constantly aware of their surroundings. For instance, in Mediterranean Europe, rabbits are the main prey of red foxes, badgers, and Iberian lynxes.[52] If confronted by a potential threat, a rabbit may freeze and observe then warn others in the warren with powerful thumps on the ground. Rabbits have a remarkably wide field of vision, and a good deal of it is devoted to overhead scanning.[53] They survive predation by burrowing, hopping away in a zig-zag motion, and, if captured, delivering powerful kicks with their hind legs. Their strong teeth allow them to eat and to bite in order to escape a struggle.[54] The longest-lived rabbit on record, a domesticated European rabbit living in Tasmania, died at age 18.[55] The lifespan of wild rabbits is much shorter; the average longevity of an eastern cottontail, for instance, is less than one year.[56]
+
+Rabbit habitats include meadows, woods, forests, grasslands, deserts and wetlands.[57] Rabbits live in groups, and the best known species, the European rabbit, lives in burrows, or rabbit holes. A group of burrows is called a warren.[57]
+
+More than half the world's rabbit population resides in North America.[57] They are also native to southwestern Europe, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, some islands of Japan, and in parts of Africa and South America. They are not naturally found in most of Eurasia, where a number of species of hares are present. Rabbits first entered South America relatively recently, as part of the Great American Interchange. Much of the continent has just one species of rabbit, the tapeti, while most of South America's southern cone is without rabbits.
+
+The European rabbit has been introduced to many places around the world.[10]
+
+Rabbits have been a source of environmental problems when introduced into the wild by humans. As a result of their appetites, and the rate at which they breed, feral rabbit depredation can be problematic for agriculture. Gassing, barriers (fences), shooting, snaring, and ferreting have been used to control rabbit populations, but the most effective measures are diseases such as myxomatosis (myxo or mixi, colloquially) and calicivirus. In Europe, where rabbits are farmed on a large scale, they are protected against myxomatosis and calicivirus with a genetically modified virus. The virus was developed in Spain, and is beneficial to rabbit farmers. If it were to make its way into wild populations in areas such as Australia, it could create a population boom, as those diseases are the most serious threats to rabbit survival. Rabbits in Australia and New Zealand are considered to be such a pest that land owners are legally obliged to control them.[58][59]
+
+In some areas, wild rabbits and hares are hunted for their meat, a lean source of high quality protein.[60] In the wild, such hunting is accomplished with the aid of trained falcons, ferrets, or dogs, as well as with snares or other traps, and rifles. A caught rabbit may be dispatched with a sharp blow to the back of its head, a practice from which the term rabbit punch is derived.
+
+Wild leporids comprise a small portion of global rabbit-meat consumption. Domesticated descendants of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) that are bred and kept as livestock (a practice called cuniculture) account for the estimated 200 million tons of rabbit meat produced annually.[61] Approximately 1.2 billion rabbits are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide.[62] In 1994, the countries with the highest consumption per capita of rabbit meat were Malta with 8.89 kg (19 lb 10 oz), Italy with 5.71 kg (12 lb 9 oz), and Cyprus with 4.37 kg (9 lb 10 oz), falling to 0.03 kg (1 oz) in Japan. The figure for the United States was 0.14 kg (5 oz) per capita. The largest producers of rabbit meat in 1994 were China, Russia, Italy, France, and Spain.[63] Rabbit meat was once a common commodity in Sydney, Australia, but declined after the myxomatosis virus was intentionally introduced to control the exploding population of feral rabbits in the area.
+
+In the United Kingdom, fresh rabbit is sold in butcher shops and markets, and some supermarkets sell frozen rabbit meat. At farmers markets there, including the famous Borough Market in London, rabbit carcasses are sometimes displayed hanging, unbutchered (in the traditional style), next to braces of pheasant or other small game. Rabbit meat is a feature of Moroccan cuisine, where it is cooked in a tajine with "raisins and grilled almonds added a few minutes before serving".[64] In China, rabbit meat is particularly popular in Sichuan cuisine, with its stewed rabbit, spicy diced rabbit, BBQ-style rabbit, and even spicy rabbit heads, which have been compared to spicy duck neck.[61] Rabbit meat is comparatively unpopular elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific.
+
+An extremely rare infection associated with rabbits-as-food is tularemia (also known as rabbit fever), which may be contracted from an infected rabbit.[65] Hunters are at higher risk for tularemia because of the potential for inhaling the bacteria during the skinning process. An even more rare condition is protein poisoning, which was first noted as a consequence of eating rabbit meat to exclusion (hence the colloquial term, "rabbit starvation"). Protein poisoning, which is associated with extreme conditions of the total absence of dietary fat in protein, was noted by Vilhjalmur Stefansson in the late 19th century and in the journals of Charles Darwin.
+
+In addition to their meat, rabbits are used for their wool, fur, and pelts, as well as their nitrogen-rich manure and their high-protein milk.[66] Production industries have developed domesticated rabbit breeds (such as the well-known Angora rabbit) to efficiently fill these needs.
+
+
+
+Rabbits are often used as a symbol of fertility or rebirth, and have long been associated with spring and Easter as the Easter Bunny. The species' role as a prey animal with few defenses evokes vulnerability and innocence, and in folklore and modern children's stories, rabbits often appear as sympathetic characters, able to connect easily with youth of all kinds (for example, the Velveteen Rabbit, or Thumper in Bambi).
+
+With its reputation as a prolific breeder, the rabbit juxtaposes sexuality with innocence, as in the Playboy Bunny. The rabbit (as a swift prey animal) is also known for its speed, agility, and endurance, symbolized (for example) by the marketing icons the Energizer Bunny and the Duracell Bunny.
+
+The rabbit often appears in folklore as the trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies.
+
+The rabbit as trickster is a part of American popular culture, as Br'er Rabbit (from African-American folktales and, later, Disney animation) and Bugs Bunny (the cartoon character from Warner Bros.), for example.
+
+Anthropomorphized rabbits have appeared in film and literature, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (the White Rabbit and the March Hare characters), in Watership Down (including the film and television adaptations), in Rabbit Hill (by Robert Lawson), and in the Peter Rabbit stories (by Beatrix Potter).  In the 1920s, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, was a popular cartoon character.
+
+A rabbit's foot may be carried as an amulet, believed to bring protection and good luck. This belief is found in many parts of the world, with the earliest use being recorded in Europe c. 600 BC.[69]
+
+On the Isle of Portland in Dorset, UK, the rabbit is said to be unlucky and even speaking the creature's name can cause upset among older island residents. This is thought to date back to early times in the local quarrying industry where (to save space) extracted stones that were not fit for sale were set aside in what became tall, unstable walls. The local rabbits' tendency to burrow there would weaken the walls and their collapse resulted in injuries or even death. Thus, invoking the name of the culprit became an unlucky act to be avoided. In the local culture to this day, the rabbit (when he has to be referred to) may instead be called a “long ears” or “underground mutton”, so as not to risk bringing a downfall upon oneself. While it was true 50 years ago[when?] that a pub on the island could be emptied by calling out the word "rabbit", this has become more fable than fact in modern times.[citation needed]
+
+In other parts of Britain and in North America, invoking the rabbit's name may instead bring good luck. "Rabbit rabbit rabbit" is one variant of an apotropaic or talismanic superstition that involves saying or repeating the word "rabbit" (or "rabbits" or "white rabbits" or some combination thereof) out loud upon waking on the first day of each month, because doing so will ensure good fortune for the duration of that month.
+
+The "rabbit test" is a term, first used in 1949, for the Friedman test, an early diagnostic tool for detecting a pregnancy in humans. It is a common misconception (or perhaps an urban legend) that the test-rabbit would die if the woman was pregnant. This led to the phrase "the rabbit died" becoming a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test.

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+
+
+Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwell's equations. Various common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others.
+
+The presence of an electric charge, which can be either positive or negative, produces an electric field. The movement of electric charges is an electric current and produces a magnetic field.
+
+When a charge is placed in a location with a non-zero electric field, a force will act on it. The magnitude of this force is given by Coulomb's law. If the charge moves, the electric field would be doing work on the electric charge. Thus we can speak of electric potential at a certain point in space, which is equal to the work done by an external agent in carrying a unit of positive charge from an arbitrarily chosen reference point to that point without any acceleration and is typically measured in volts.
+
+Electricity is at the heart of many modern technologies, being used for:
+
+Electrical phenomena have been studied since antiquity, though progress in theoretical understanding remained slow until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The theory of electromagnetism was developed in the 19th century, and by the end of that century electricity was being put to industrial and residential use by electrical engineers. The rapid expansion in electrical technology at this time transformed industry and society, becoming a driving force for the Second Industrial Revolution. Electricity's extraordinary versatility means it can be put to an almost limitless set of applications which include transport, heating, lighting, communications, and computation. Electrical power is now the backbone of modern industrial society.[1]
+
+Long before any knowledge of electricity existed, people were aware of shocks from electric fish. Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish. Electric fish were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians.[2] Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by electric catfish and electric rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects.[3] Patients suffering from ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them.[4]
+
+Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as rods of amber, could be rubbed with cat's fur to attract light objects like feathers. Thales of Miletus made a series of observations on static electricity around 600 BCE, from which he believed that friction rendered amber magnetic, in contrast to minerals such as magnetite, which needed no rubbing.[5][6][7][8] Thales was incorrect in believing the attraction was due to a magnetic effect, but later science would prove a link between magnetism and electricity. According to a controversial theory, the Parthians may have had knowledge of electroplating, based on the 1936 discovery of the Baghdad Battery, which resembles a galvanic cell, though it is uncertain whether the artifact was electrical in nature.[9]
+
+Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia until 1600, when the English scientist William Gilbert wrote De Magnete, in which he made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber.[5] He coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from ἤλεκτρον, elektron, the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed.[10] This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.[11]
+
+Further work was conducted in the 17th and early 18th centuries by Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay.[12] Later in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research in electricity, selling his possessions to fund his work. In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a storm-threatened sky.[13] A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of his hand showed that lightning was indeed electrical in nature.[14] He also explained the apparently paradoxical behavior[15] of the Leyden jar as a device for storing large amounts of electrical charge in terms of electricity consisting of both positive and negative charges.[12]
+
+In 1791, Luigi Galvani published his discovery of bioelectromagnetics, demonstrating that electricity was the medium by which neurons passed signals to the muscles.[16][17][12] Alessandro Volta's battery, or voltaic pile, of 1800, made from alternating layers of zinc and copper, provided scientists with a more reliable source of electrical energy than the electrostatic machines previously used.[16][17] The recognition of electromagnetism, the unity of electric and magnetic phenomena, is due to Hans Christian Ørsted and André-Marie Ampère in 1819–1820. Michael Faraday invented the electric motor in 1821, and Georg Ohm mathematically analysed the electrical circuit in 1827.[17] Electricity and magnetism (and light) were definitively linked by James Clerk Maxwell, in particular in his "On Physical Lines of Force" in 1861 and 1862.[18]
+
+While the early 19th century had seen rapid progress in electrical science, the late 19th century would see the greatest progress in electrical engineering. Through such people as Alexander Graham Bell, Ottó Bláthy, Thomas Edison, Galileo Ferraris, Oliver Heaviside, Ányos Jedlik, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Charles Algernon Parsons, Werner von Siemens, Joseph Swan, Reginald Fessenden, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, electricity turned from a scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life.
+
+In 1887, Heinrich Hertz[19]:843–44[20] discovered that electrodes illuminated with ultraviolet light create electric sparks more easily. In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper that explained experimental data from the photoelectric effect as being the result of light energy being carried in discrete quantized packets, energising electrons. This discovery led to the quantum revolution. Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for "his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".[21] The photoelectric effect is also employed in photocells such as can be found in solar panels and this is frequently used to make electricity commercially.
+
+The first solid-state device was the "cat's-whisker detector" first used in the 1900s in radio receivers. A whisker-like wire is placed lightly in contact with a solid crystal (such as a germanium crystal) to detect a radio signal by the contact junction effect.[22] In a solid-state component, the current is confined to solid elements and compounds engineered specifically to switch and amplify it. Current flow can be understood in two forms: as negatively charged electrons, and as positively charged electron deficiencies called holes. These charges and holes are understood in terms of quantum physics. The building material is most often a crystalline semiconductor.[23][24]
+
+Solid-state electronics came into its own with the emergence of transistor technology. The first working transistor, a germanium-based point-contact transistor, was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947,[25] followed by the bipolar junction transistor in 1948.[26] These early transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis.[27]:168 They were followed by the silicon-based MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor), invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959.[28][29][30] It was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses,[27]:165,179 leading to the silicon revolution.[31] Solid-state devices started becoming prevalent from the 1960s, with the transition from vacuum tubes to semiconductor diodes, transistors, integrated circuit (IC) chips, MOSFETs, and light-emitting diode (LED) technology.
+
+The most common electronic device is the MOSFET,[29][32] which has become the most widely manufactured device in history.[33] Common solid-state MOS devices include microprocessor chips[34] and semiconductor memory.[35][36] A special type of semiconductor memory is flash memory, which is used in USB flash drives and mobile devices, as well as solid-state drive (SSD) technology to replace mechanically rotating magnetic disc hard disk drive (HDD) technology.
+
+The presence of charge gives rise to an electrostatic force: charges exert a force on each other, an effect that was known, though not understood, in antiquity.[19]:457 A lightweight ball suspended from a string can be charged by touching it with a glass rod that has itself been charged by rubbing with a cloth. If a similar ball is charged by the same glass rod, it is found to repel the first: the charge acts to force the two balls apart. Two balls that are charged with a rubbed amber rod also repel each other. However, if one ball is charged by the glass rod, and the other by an amber rod, the two balls are found to attract each other. These phenomena were investigated in the late eighteenth century by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, who deduced that charge manifests itself in two opposing forms. This discovery led to the well-known axiom: like-charged objects repel and opposite-charged objects attract.[19]
+
+The force acts on the charged particles themselves, hence charge has a tendency to spread itself as evenly as possible over a conducting surface. The magnitude of the electromagnetic force, whether attractive or repulsive, is given by Coulomb's law, which relates the force to the product of the charges and has an inverse-square relation to the distance between them.[37][38]:35 The electromagnetic force is very strong, second only in strength to the strong interaction,[39] but unlike that force it operates over all distances.[40] In comparison with the much weaker gravitational force, the electromagnetic force pushing two electrons apart is 1042 times that of the gravitational attraction pulling them together.[41]
+
+Study has shown that the origin of charge is from certain types of subatomic particles which have the property of electric charge. Electric charge gives rise to and interacts with the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature. The most familiar carriers of electrical charge are the electron and proton. Experiment has shown charge to be a conserved quantity, that is, the net charge within an electrically isolated system will always remain constant regardless of any changes taking place within that system.[42] Within the system, charge may be transferred between bodies, either by direct contact, or by passing along a conducting material, such as a wire.[38]:2–5 The informal term static electricity refers to the net presence (or 'imbalance') of charge on a body, usually caused when dissimilar materials are rubbed together, transferring charge from one to the other.
+
+The charge on electrons and protons is opposite in sign, hence an amount of charge may be expressed as being either negative or positive. By convention, the charge carried by electrons is deemed negative, and that by protons positive, a custom that originated with the work of Benjamin Franklin.[43] The amount of charge is usually given the symbol Q and expressed in coulombs;[44] each electron carries the same charge of approximately −1.6022×10−19 coulomb. The proton has a charge that is equal and opposite, and thus +1.6022×10−19  coulomb. Charge is possessed not just by matter, but also by antimatter, each antiparticle bearing an equal and opposite charge to its corresponding particle.[45]
+
+Charge can be measured by a number of means, an early instrument being the gold-leaf electroscope, which although still in use for classroom demonstrations, has been superseded by the electronic electrometer.[38]:2–5
+
+The movement of electric charge is known as an electric current, the intensity of which is usually measured in amperes. Current can consist of any moving charged particles; most commonly these are electrons, but any charge in motion constitutes a current. Electric current can flow through some things, electrical conductors, but will not flow through an electrical insulator.[46]
+
+By historical convention, a positive current is defined as having the same direction of flow as any positive charge it contains, or to flow from the most positive part of a circuit to the most negative part. Current defined in this manner is called conventional current. The motion of negatively charged electrons around an electric circuit, one of the most familiar forms of current, is thus deemed positive in the opposite direction to that of the electrons.[47] However, depending on the conditions, an electric current can consist of a flow of charged particles in either direction, or even in both directions at once. The positive-to-negative convention is widely used to simplify this situation.
+
+The process by which electric current passes through a material is termed electrical conduction, and its nature varies with that of the charged particles and the material through which they are travelling. Examples of electric currents include metallic conduction, where electrons flow through a conductor such as metal, and electrolysis, where ions (charged atoms) flow through liquids, or through plasmas such as electrical sparks. While the particles themselves can move quite slowly, sometimes with an average drift velocity only fractions of a millimetre per second,[38]:17 the electric field that drives them itself propagates at close to the speed of light, enabling electrical signals to pass rapidly along wires.[48]
+
+Current causes several observable effects, which historically were the means of recognising its presence. That water could be decomposed by the current from a voltaic pile was discovered by Nicholson and Carlisle in 1800, a process now known as electrolysis. Their work was greatly expanded upon by Michael Faraday in 1833. Current through a resistance causes localised heating, an effect James Prescott Joule studied mathematically in 1840.[38]:23–24 One of the most important discoveries relating to current was made accidentally by Hans Christian Ørsted in 1820, when, while preparing a lecture, he witnessed the current in a wire disturbing the needle of a magnetic compass.[49] He had discovered electromagnetism, a fundamental interaction between electricity and magnetics. The level of electromagnetic emissions generated by electric arcing is high enough to produce electromagnetic interference, which can be detrimental to the workings of adjacent equipment.[50]
+
+In engineering or household applications, current is often described as being either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC). These terms refer to how the current varies in time. Direct current, as produced by example from a battery and required by most electronic devices, is a unidirectional flow from the positive part of a circuit to the negative.[51]:11 If, as is most common, this flow is carried by electrons, they will be travelling in the opposite direction. Alternating current is any current that reverses direction repeatedly; almost always this takes the form of a sine wave.[51]:206–07 Alternating current thus pulses back and forth within a conductor without the charge moving any net distance over time. The time-averaged value of an alternating current is zero, but it delivers energy in first one direction, and then the reverse. Alternating current is affected by electrical properties that are not observed under steady state direct current, such as inductance and capacitance.[51]:223–25 These properties however can become important when circuitry is subjected to transients, such as when first energised.
+
+The concept of the electric field was introduced by Michael Faraday. An electric field is created by a charged body in the space that surrounds it, and results in a force exerted on any other charges placed within the field. The electric field acts between two charges in a similar manner to the way that the gravitational field acts between two masses, and like it, extends towards infinity and shows an inverse square relationship with distance.[40] However, there is an important difference. Gravity always acts in attraction, drawing two masses together, while the electric field can result in either attraction or repulsion. Since large bodies such as planets generally carry no net charge, the electric field at a distance is usually zero. Thus gravity is the dominant force at distance in the universe, despite being much weaker.[41]
+
+An electric field generally varies in space,[52] and its strength at any one point is defined as the force (per unit charge) that would be felt by a stationary, negligible charge if placed at that point.[19]:469–70 The conceptual charge, termed a 'test charge', must be vanishingly small to prevent its own electric field disturbing the main field and must also be stationary to prevent the effect of magnetic fields. As the electric field is defined in terms of force, and force is a vector, having both magnitude and direction, so it follows that an electric field is a vector field.[19]:469–70
+
+The study of electric fields created by stationary charges is called electrostatics. The field may be visualised by a set of imaginary lines whose direction at any point is the same as that of the field. This concept was introduced by Faraday,[53] whose term 'lines of force' still sometimes sees use. The field lines are the paths that a point positive charge would seek to make as it was forced to move within the field; they are however an imaginary concept with no physical existence, and the field permeates all the intervening space between the lines.[53] Field lines emanating from stationary charges have several key properties: first, that they originate at positive charges and terminate at negative charges; second, that they must enter any good conductor at right angles, and third, that they may never cross nor close in on themselves.[19]:479
+
+A hollow conducting body carries all its charge on its outer surface. The field is therefore zero at all places inside the body.[38]:88 This is the operating principal of the Faraday cage, a conducting metal shell which isolates its interior from outside electrical effects.
+
+The principles of electrostatics are important when designing items of high-voltage equipment. There is a finite limit to the electric field strength that may be withstood by any medium. Beyond this point, electrical breakdown occurs and an electric arc causes flashover between the charged parts. Air, for example, tends to arc across small gaps at electric field strengths which exceed 30 kV per centimetre. Over larger gaps, its breakdown strength is weaker, perhaps 1 kV per centimetre.[54] The most visible natural occurrence of this is lightning, caused when charge becomes separated in the clouds by rising columns of air, and raises the electric field in the air to greater than it can withstand. The voltage of a large lightning cloud may be as high as 100 MV and have discharge energies as great as 250 kWh.[55]
+
+The field strength is greatly affected by nearby conducting objects, and it is particularly intense when it is forced to curve around sharply pointed objects. This principle is exploited in the lightning conductor, the sharp spike of which acts to encourage the lightning stroke to develop there, rather than to the building it serves to protect[56]:155
+
+The concept of electric potential is closely linked to that of the electric field. A small charge placed within an electric field experiences a force, and to have brought that charge to that point against the force requires work. The electric potential at any point is defined as the energy required to bring a unit test charge from an infinite distance slowly to that point. It is usually measured in volts, and one volt is the potential for which one joule of work must be expended to bring a charge of one coulomb from infinity.[19]:494–98 This definition of potential, while formal, has little practical application, and a more useful concept is that of electric potential difference, and is the energy required to move a unit charge between two specified points. An electric field has the special property that it is conservative, which means that the path taken by the test charge is irrelevant: all paths between two specified points expend the same energy, and thus a unique value for potential difference may be stated.[19]:494–98 The volt is so strongly identified as the unit of choice for measurement and description of electric potential difference that the term voltage sees greater everyday usage.
+
+For practical purposes, it is useful to define a common reference point to which potentials may be expressed and compared. While this could be at infinity, a much more useful reference is the Earth itself, which is assumed to be at the same potential everywhere. This reference point naturally takes the name earth or ground. Earth is assumed to be an infinite source of equal amounts of positive and negative charge, and is therefore electrically uncharged—and unchargeable.[57]
+
+Electric potential is a scalar quantity, that is, it has only magnitude and not direction. It may be viewed as analogous to height: just as a released object will fall through a difference in heights caused by a gravitational field, so a charge will 'fall' across the voltage caused by an electric field.[58] As relief maps show contour lines marking points of equal height, a set of lines marking points of equal potential (known as equipotentials) may be drawn around an electrostatically charged object. The equipotentials cross all lines of force at right angles. They must also lie parallel to a conductor's surface, otherwise this would produce a force that will move the charge carriers to even the potential of the surface.
+
+The electric field was formally defined as the force exerted per unit charge, but the concept of potential allows for a more useful and equivalent definition: the electric field is the local gradient of the electric potential. Usually expressed in volts per metre, the vector direction of the field is the line of greatest slope of potential, and where the equipotentials lie closest together.[38]:60
+
+Ørsted's discovery in 1821 that a magnetic field existed around all sides of a wire carrying an electric current indicated that there was a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. Moreover, the interaction seemed different from gravitational and electrostatic forces, the two forces of nature then known. The force on the compass needle did not direct it to or away from the current-carrying wire, but acted at right angles to it.[49] Ørsted's words were that "the electric conflict acts in a revolving manner." The force also depended on the direction of the current, for if the flow was reversed, then the force did too.[59]
+
+Ørsted did not fully understand his discovery, but he observed the effect was reciprocal: a current exerts a force on a magnet, and a magnetic field exerts a force on a current. The phenomenon was further investigated by Ampère, who discovered that two parallel current-carrying wires exerted a force upon each other: two wires conducting currents in the same direction are attracted to each other, while wires containing currents in opposite directions are forced apart.[60] The interaction is mediated by the magnetic field each current produces and forms the basis for the international definition of the ampere.[60]
+
+This relationship between magnetic fields and currents is extremely important, for it led to Michael Faraday's invention of the electric motor in 1821. Faraday's homopolar motor consisted of a permanent magnet sitting in a pool of mercury. A current was allowed through a wire suspended from a pivot above the magnet and dipped into the mercury. The magnet exerted a tangential force on the wire, making it circle around the magnet for as long as the current was maintained.[61]
+
+Experimentation by Faraday in 1831 revealed that a wire moving perpendicular to a magnetic field developed a potential difference between its ends. Further analysis of this process, known as electromagnetic induction, enabled him to state the principle, now known as Faraday's law of induction, that the potential difference induced in a closed circuit is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux through the loop. Exploitation of this discovery enabled him to invent the first electrical generator in 1831, in which he converted the mechanical energy of a rotating copper disc to electrical energy.[61] Faraday's disc was inefficient and of no use as a practical generator, but it showed the possibility of generating electric power using magnetism, a possibility that would be taken up by those that followed on from his work.
+
+The ability of chemical reactions to produce electricity, and conversely the ability of electricity to drive chemical reactions has a wide array of uses.
+
+Electrochemistry has always been an important part of electricity. From the initial invention of the Voltaic pile, electrochemical cells have evolved into the many different types of batteries, electroplating and electrolysis cells. Aluminium is produced in vast quantities this way, and many portable devices are electrically powered using rechargeable cells.
+
+An electric circuit is an interconnection of electric components such that electric charge is made to flow along a closed path (a circuit), usually to perform some useful task.
+
+The components in an electric circuit can take many forms, which can include elements such as resistors, capacitors, switches, transformers and electronics. Electronic circuits contain active components, usually semiconductors, and typically exhibit non-linear behaviour, requiring complex analysis. The simplest electric components are those that are termed passive and linear: while they may temporarily store energy, they contain no sources of it, and exhibit linear responses to stimuli.[62]:15–16
+
+The resistor is perhaps the simplest of passive circuit elements: as its name suggests, it resists the current through it, dissipating its energy as heat. The resistance is a consequence of the motion of charge through a conductor: in metals, for example, resistance is primarily due to collisions between electrons and ions. Ohm's law is a basic law of circuit theory, stating that the current passing through a resistance is directly proportional to the potential difference across it. The resistance of most materials is relatively constant over a range of temperatures and currents; materials under these conditions are known as 'ohmic'. The ohm, the unit of resistance, was named in honour of Georg Ohm, and is symbolised by the Greek letter Ω. 1 Ω is the resistance that will produce a potential difference of one volt in response to a current of one amp.[62]:30–35
+
+The capacitor is a development of the Leyden jar and is a device that can store charge, and thereby storing electrical energy in the resulting field. It consists of two conducting plates separated by a thin insulating dielectric layer; in practice, thin metal foils are coiled together, increasing the surface area per unit volume and therefore the capacitance. The unit of capacitance is the farad, named after Michael Faraday, and given the symbol F: one farad is the capacitance that develops a potential difference of one volt when it stores a charge of one coulomb. A capacitor connected to a voltage supply initially causes a current as it accumulates charge; this current will however decay in time as the capacitor fills, eventually falling to zero. A capacitor will therefore not permit a steady state current, but instead blocks it.[62]:216–20
+
+The inductor is a conductor, usually a coil of wire, that stores energy in a magnetic field in response to the current through it. When the current changes, the magnetic field does too, inducing a voltage between the ends of the conductor. The induced voltage is proportional to the time rate of change of the current. The constant of proportionality is termed the inductance. The unit of inductance is the henry, named after Joseph Henry, a contemporary of Faraday. One henry is the inductance that will induce a potential difference of one volt if the current through it changes at a rate of one ampere per second. The inductor's behaviour is in some regards converse to that of the capacitor: it will freely allow an unchanging current, but opposes a rapidly changing one.[62]:226–29
+
+Electric power is the rate at which electric energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second.
+
+Electric power, like mechanical power, is the rate of doing work, measured in watts, and represented by the letter P. The term wattage is used colloquially to mean "electric power in watts." The electric power in watts produced by an electric current I consisting of a charge of Q coulombs every t seconds passing through an electric potential (voltage) difference of V is
+
+where
+
+Electricity generation is often done with electric generators, but can also be supplied by chemical sources such as electric batteries or by other means from a wide variety of sources of energy. Electric power is generally supplied to businesses and homes by the electric power industry. Electricity is usually sold by the kilowatt hour (3.6 MJ) which is the product of power in kilowatts multiplied by running time in hours. Electric utilities measure power using electricity meters, which keep a running total of the electric energy delivered to a customer. Unlike fossil fuels, electricity is a low entropy form of energy and can be converted into motion or many other forms of energy with high efficiency.[63]
+
+Electronics deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes, optoelectronics, sensors and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies. The nonlinear behaviour of active components and their ability to control electron flows makes amplification of weak signals possible and electronics is widely used in information processing, telecommunications, and signal processing. The ability of electronic devices to act as switches makes digital information processing possible. Interconnection technologies such as circuit boards, electronics packaging technology, and other varied forms of communication infrastructure complete circuit functionality and transform the mixed components into a regular working system.
+
+Today, most electronic devices use semiconductor components to perform electron control. The study of semiconductor devices and related technology is considered a branch of solid state physics, whereas the design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems come under electronics engineering.
+
+Faraday's and Ampère's work showed that a time-varying magnetic field acted as a source of an electric field, and a time-varying electric field was a source of a magnetic field. Thus, when either field is changing in time, then a field of the other is necessarily induced.[19]:696–700 Such a phenomenon has the properties of a wave, and is naturally referred to as an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves were analysed theoretically by James Clerk Maxwell in 1864. Maxwell developed a set of equations that could unambiguously describe the interrelationship between electric field, magnetic field, electric charge, and electric current. He could moreover prove that such a wave would necessarily travel at the speed of light, and thus light itself was a form of electromagnetic radiation. Maxwell's Laws, which unify light, fields, and charge are one of the great milestones of theoretical physics.[19]:696–700
+
+Thus, the work of many researchers enabled the use of electronics to convert signals into high frequency oscillating currents, and via suitably shaped conductors, electricity permits the transmission and reception of these signals via radio waves over very long distances.
+
+In the 6th century BC, the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus experimented with amber rods and these experiments were the first studies into the production of electrical energy. While this method, now known as the triboelectric effect, can lift light objects and generate sparks, it is extremely inefficient.[64] It was not until the invention of the voltaic pile in the eighteenth century that a viable source of electricity became available. The voltaic pile, and its modern descendant, the electrical battery, store energy chemically and make it available on demand in the form of electrical energy.[64] The battery is a versatile and very common power source which is ideally suited to many applications, but its energy storage is finite, and once discharged it must be disposed of or recharged. For large electrical demands electrical energy must be generated and transmitted continuously over conductive transmission lines.
+
+Electrical power is usually generated by electro-mechanical generators driven by steam produced from fossil fuel combustion, or the heat released from nuclear reactions; or from other sources such as kinetic energy extracted from wind or flowing water. The modern steam turbine invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884 today generates about 80 percent of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources. Such generators bear no resemblance to Faraday's homopolar disc generator of 1831, but they still rely on his electromagnetic principle that a conductor linking a changing magnetic field induces a potential difference across its ends.[65] The invention in the late nineteenth century of the transformer meant that electrical power could be transmitted more efficiently at a higher voltage but lower current. Efficient electrical transmission meant in turn that electricity could be generated at centralised power stations, where it benefited from economies of scale, and then be despatched relatively long distances to where it was needed.[66][67]
+
+Since electrical energy cannot easily be stored in quantities large enough to meet demands on a national scale, at all times exactly as much must be produced as is required.[66] This requires electricity utilities to make careful predictions of their electrical loads, and maintain constant co-ordination with their power stations. A certain amount of generation must always be held in reserve to cushion an electrical grid against inevitable disturbances and losses.
+
+Demand for electricity grows with great rapidity as a nation modernises and its economy develops. The United States showed a 12% increase in demand during each year of the first three decades of the twentieth century,[68] a rate of growth that is now being experienced by emerging economies such as those of India or China.[69][70] Historically, the growth rate for electricity demand has outstripped that for other forms of energy.[71]:16
+
+Environmental concerns with electricity generation have led to an increased focus on generation from renewable sources, in particular from wind and solar. While debate can be expected to continue over the environmental impact of different means of electricity production, its final form is relatively clean.[71]:89
+
+Electricity is a very convenient way to transfer energy, and it has been adapted to a huge, and growing, number of uses.[72] The invention of a practical incandescent light bulb in the 1870s led to lighting becoming one of the first publicly available applications of electrical power. Although electrification brought with it its own dangers, replacing the naked flames of gas lighting greatly reduced fire hazards within homes and factories.[73] Public utilities were set up in many cities targeting the burgeoning market for electrical lighting. In the late 20th century and in modern times, the trend has started to flow in the direction of deregulation in the electrical power sector.[74]
+
+The resistive Joule heating effect employed in filament light bulbs also sees more direct use in electric heating. While this is versatile and controllable, it can be seen as wasteful, since most electrical generation has already required the production of heat at a power station.[75] A number of countries, such as Denmark, have issued legislation restricting or banning the use of resistive electric heating in new buildings.[76] Electricity is however still a highly practical energy source for heating and refrigeration,[77] with air conditioning/heat pumps representing a growing sector for electricity demand for heating and cooling, the effects of which electricity utilities are increasingly obliged to accommodate.[78]
+
+Electricity is used within telecommunications, and indeed the electrical telegraph, demonstrated commercially in 1837 by Cooke and Wheatstone, was one of its earliest applications. With the construction of first transcontinental, and then transatlantic, telegraph systems in the 1860s, electricity had enabled communications in minutes across the globe. Optical fibre and satellite communication have taken a share of the market for communications systems, but electricity can be expected to remain an essential part of the process.
+
+The effects of electromagnetism are most visibly employed in the electric motor, which provides a clean and efficient means of motive power. A stationary motor such as a winch is easily provided with a supply of power, but a motor that moves with its application, such as an electric vehicle, is obliged to either carry along a power source such as a battery, or to collect current from a sliding contact such as a pantograph. Electrically powered vehicles are used in public transportation, such as electric buses and trains,[79] and an increasing number of battery-powered electric cars in private ownership.
+
+Electronic devices make use of the transistor, perhaps one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century,[80] and a fundamental building block of all modern circuitry. A modern integrated circuit may contain several billion miniaturised transistors in a region only a few centimetres square.[81]
+
+A voltage applied to a human body causes an electric current through the tissues, and although the relationship is non-linear, the greater the voltage, the greater the current.[82] The threshold for perception varies with the supply frequency and with the path of the current, but is about 0.1 mA to 1 mA for mains-frequency electricity, though a current as low as a microamp can be detected as an electrovibration effect under certain conditions.[83] If the current is sufficiently high, it will cause muscle contraction, fibrillation of the heart, and tissue burns.[82] The lack of any visible sign that a conductor is electrified makes electricity a particular hazard. The pain caused by an electric shock can be intense, leading electricity at times to be employed as a method of torture. Death caused by an electric shock is referred to as electrocution. Electrocution is still the means of judicial execution in some jurisdictions, though its use has become rarer in recent times.[84]
+
+Electricity is not a human invention, and may be observed in several forms in nature, a prominent manifestation of which is lightning. Many interactions familiar at the macroscopic level, such as touch, friction or chemical bonding, are due to interactions between electric fields on the atomic scale. The Earth's magnetic field is thought to arise from a natural dynamo of circulating currents in the planet's core.[85] Certain crystals, such as quartz, or even sugar, generate a potential difference across their faces when subjected to external pressure.[86] This phenomenon is known as piezoelectricity, from the Greek piezein (πιέζειν), meaning to press, and was discovered in 1880 by Pierre and Jacques Curie. The effect is reciprocal, and when a piezoelectric material is subjected to an electric field, a small change in physical dimensions takes place.[86]
+
+§Bioelectrogenesis in microbial life is a prominent phenomenon in soils and sediment ecology resulting from anaerobic respiration. The microbial fuel cell mimics this ubiquitous natural phenomenon.
+
+Some organisms, such as sharks, are able to detect and respond to changes in electric fields, an ability known as electroreception,[87] while others, termed electrogenic, are able to generate voltages themselves to serve as a predatory or defensive weapon.[3] The order Gymnotiformes, of which the best known example is the electric eel, detect or stun their prey via high voltages generated from modified muscle cells called electrocytes.[3][4] All animals transmit information along their cell membranes with voltage pulses called action potentials, whose functions include communication by the nervous system between neurons and muscles.[88] An electric shock stimulates this system, and causes muscles to contract.[89] Action potentials are also responsible for coordinating activities in certain plants.[88]
+
+In 1850, William Gladstone asked the scientist Michael Faraday why electricity was valuable. Faraday answered, “One day sir, you may tax it.”[90]
+
+In the 19th and early 20th century, electricity was not part of the everyday life of many people, even in the industrialised Western world. The popular culture of the time accordingly often depicted it as a mysterious, quasi-magical force that can slay the living, revive the dead or otherwise bend the laws of nature.[91] This attitude began with the 1771 experiments of Luigi Galvani in which the legs of dead frogs were shown to twitch on application of animal electricity. "Revitalization" or resuscitation of apparently dead or drowned persons was reported in the medical literature shortly after Galvani's work. These results were known to Mary Shelley when she authored Frankenstein (1819), although she does not name the method of revitalization of the monster. The revitalization of monsters with electricity later became a stock theme in horror films.
+
+As the public familiarity with electricity as the lifeblood of the Second Industrial Revolution grew, its wielders were more often cast in a positive light,[92] such as the workers who "finger death at their gloves' end as they piece and repiece the living wires" in Rudyard Kipling's 1907 poem Sons of Martha.[92] Electrically powered vehicles of every sort featured large in adventure stories such as those of Jules Verne and the Tom Swift books.[92] The masters of electricity, whether fictional or real—including scientists such as Thomas Edison, Charles Steinmetz or Nikola Tesla—were popularly conceived of as having wizard-like powers.[92]
+
+With electricity ceasing to be a novelty and becoming a necessity of everyday life in the later half of the 20th century, it required particular attention by popular culture only when it stops flowing,[92] an event that usually signals disaster.[92] The people who keep it flowing, such as the nameless hero of Jimmy Webb’s song "Wichita Lineman" (1968),[92] are still often cast as heroic, wizard-like figures.[92]
+

en/3279.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,227 @@
+
+
+Elephants are mammals of the family Elephantidae and the largest existing land animals. Three species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. Elephantidae is the only surviving family of the order Proboscidea; extinct members include the mastodons. The family Elephantidae also contains several now-extinct groups, including the mammoths and straight-tusked elephants. African elephants have larger ears and concave backs, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears, and convex or level backs. Distinctive features of all elephants include a long trunk, tusks, large ear flaps, massive legs, and tough but sensitive skin. The trunk, also called a proboscis, is used for breathing, bringing food and water to the mouth, and grasping objects. Tusks, which are derived from the incisor teeth, serve both as weapons and as tools for moving objects and digging. The large ear flaps assist in maintaining a constant body temperature as well as in communication. The pillar-like legs carry their great weight.
+
+Elephants are scattered throughout sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and are found in different habitats, including savannahs, forests, deserts, and marshes. They are herbivorous, and they stay near water when it is accessible. They are considered to be keystone species, due to their impact on their environments. Other animals tend to keep their distance from elephants; the exception is their predators such as lions, tigers, hyenas, and wild dogs, which usually target only young elephants (calves). Elephants have a fission–fusion society, in which multiple family groups come together to socialise. Females (cows) tend to live in family groups, which can consist of one female with her calves or several related females with offspring. The groups, which do not include bulls, are led by the (usually) oldest cow, known as the matriarch.
+
+Males (bulls) leave their family groups when they reach puberty, and may live alone or with other males. Adult bulls mostly interact with family groups when looking for a mate. They enter a state of increased testosterone and aggression known as musth, which helps them gain dominance over other males as well as reproductive success. Calves are the centre of attention in their family groups and rely on their mothers for as long as three years. Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild. They communicate by touch, sight, smell, and sound; elephants use infrasound, and seismic communication over long distances. Elephant intelligence has been compared with that of primates and cetaceans. They appear to have self-awareness, as well as appearing to show empathy for dying and dead family members.
+
+African elephants are listed as vulnerable and Asian elephants as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). One of the biggest threats to elephant populations is the ivory trade, as the animals are poached for their ivory tusks. Other threats to wild elephants include habitat destruction and conflicts with local people. Elephants are used as working animals in Asia. In the past, they were used in war; today, they are often controversially put on display in zoos, or exploited for entertainment in circuses. Elephants are highly recognisable and have been featured in art, folklore, religion, literature, and popular culture.
+
+The word "elephant" is based on the Latin elephas (genitive elephantis) ("elephant"), which is the Latinised form of the Greek ἐλέφας (elephas) (genitive ἐλέφαντος (elephantos[1]), probably from a non-Indo-European language, likely Phoenician.[2] It is attested in Mycenaean Greek as e-re-pa (genitive e-re-pa-to) in Linear B syllabic script.[3][4] As in Mycenaean Greek, Homer used the Greek word to mean ivory, but after the time of Herodotus, it also referred to the animal.[1] The word "elephant" appears in Middle English as olyfaunt (c.1300) and was borrowed from Old French oliphant (12th century).[2]
+
+Orycteropodidae
+
+Macroscelididae
+
+Chrysochloridae
+
+Tenrecidae
+
+Procaviidae
+
+Elephantidae
+
+Dugongidae
+
+Trichechidae
+
+early proboscideans, e.g. Moeritherium
+
+Deinotheriidae
+
+Mammutidae
+
+Gomphotheriidae
+
+Stegodontidae
+
+Loxodonta
+
+Mammuthus
+
+Elephas
+
+Mammuthus primigenius
+
+Mammuthus columbi
+
+Elephas maximus
+
+Loxodonta cyclotis
+
+Palaeoloxodon antiquus
+
+Loxodonta africana
+
+Mammut americanum
+
+Elephants belong to the family Elephantidae, the sole remaining family within the order Proboscidea which belongs to the superorder Afrotheria. Their closest extant relatives are the sirenians (dugongs and manatees) and the hyraxes, with which they share the clade Paenungulata within the superorder Afrotheria.[8] Elephants and sirenians are further grouped in the clade Tethytheria.[9]
+
+Three species of elephants are recognised; the African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) and forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) of sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) of South and Southeast Asia.[10] African elephants have larger ears, a concave back, more wrinkled skin, a sloping abdomen, and two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk. Asian elephants have smaller ears, a convex or level back, smoother skin, a horizontal abdomen that occasionally sags in the middle and one extension at the tip of the trunk. The looped ridges on the molars are narrower in the Asian elephant while those of the African are more diamond-shaped. The Asian elephant also has dorsal bumps on its head and some patches of depigmentation on its skin.[11]
+
+Among African elephants, forest elephants have smaller and more rounded ears and thinner and straighter tusks than bush elephants and are limited in range to the forested areas of western and Central Africa.[12] Both kinds of elephant were traditionally considered to be the same species Loxodonta africana, but molecular studies have affirmed their status as separate species.[13][14][15] In 2017, DNA sequence analysis showed that L. cyclotis is more closely related to the extinct Palaeoloxodon antiquus, than it is to L. africana, possibly undermining the genus Loxodonta as a whole.[16]
+
+Over 180 extinct members and three major evolutionary radiations of the order Proboscidea have been recorded.[17] The earliest proboscids, the African Eritherium and Phosphatherium of the late Paleocene, heralded the first radiation.[18] The Eocene included Numidotherium, Moeritherium, and Barytherium from Africa. These animals were relatively small and aquatic. Later on, genera such as Phiomia and Palaeomastodon arose; the latter likely inhabited forests and open woodlands. Proboscidean diversity declined during the Oligocene.[19] One notable species of this epoch was Eritreum melakeghebrekristosi of the Horn of Africa, which may have been an ancestor to several later species.[20] The beginning of the Miocene saw the second diversification, with the appearance of the deinotheres and the mammutids. The former were related to Barytherium and lived in Africa and Eurasia,[21] while the latter may have descended from Eritreum[20] and spread to North America.[21]
+
+The second radiation was represented by the emergence of the gomphotheres in the Miocene,[21] which likely evolved from Eritreum[20] and originated in Africa, spreading to every continent except Australia and Antarctica. Members of this group included Gomphotherium and Platybelodon.[21] The third radiation started in the late Miocene and led to the arrival of the elephantids, which descended from, and slowly replaced, the gomphotheres.[22] The African Primelephas gomphotheroides gave rise to Loxodonta, Mammuthus, and Elephas. Loxodonta branched off earliest around the Miocene and Pliocene boundary while Mammuthus and Elephas diverged later during the early Pliocene. Loxodonta remained in Africa while Mammuthus and Elephas spread to Eurasia, and the former reached North America. At the same time, the stegodontids, another proboscidean group descended from gomphotheres, spread throughout Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, China, southeast Asia, and Japan. Mammutids continued to evolve into new species, such as the American mastodon.[23]
+
+At the beginning of the Pleistocene, elephantids experienced a high rate of speciation.[24] The Pleistocene also saw the arrival of Palaeoloxodon namadicus, the largest terrestrial mammal of all time.[25] Loxodonta atlantica became the most common species in northern and southern Africa but was replaced by Elephas iolensis later in the Pleistocene. Only when Elephas disappeared from Africa did Loxodonta become dominant once again, this time in the form of the modern species. Elephas diversified into new species in Asia, such as E. hysudricus and E. platycephus;[26] the latter the likely ancestor of the modern Asian elephant.[24] Mammuthus evolved into several species, including the well-known woolly mammoth.[26] Interbreeding appears to have been common among elephantid species, which in some cases led to species with three ancestral genetic components, such as the Palaeoloxodon antiquus.[7] In the Late Pleistocene, most proboscidean species vanished during the Quaternary glaciation which killed off 50% of genera weighing over 5 kg (11 lb) worldwide.[27]
+
+Proboscideans experienced several evolutionary trends, such as an increase in size, which led to many giant species that stood up to 500 cm (16 ft 5 in) tall.[25] As with other megaherbivores, including the extinct sauropod dinosaurs, the large size of elephants likely developed to allow them to survive on vegetation with low nutritional value.[28] Their limbs grew longer and the feet shorter and broader.[6] The feet were originally plantigrade and developed into a digitigrade stance with cushion pads and the sesamoid bone providing support.[29] Early proboscideans developed longer mandibles and smaller craniums while more derived ones developed shorter mandibles, which shifted the head's centre of gravity. The skull grew larger, especially the cranium, while the neck shortened to provide better support for the skull. The increase in size led to the development and elongation of the mobile trunk to provide reach. The number of premolars, incisors and canines decreased.[6] The cheek teeth (molars and premolars) became larger and more specialized, especially after elephants started to switch from C3-plants to C4-grasses, which caused their teeth to undergo a three-fold increase in teeth height as well as substantial multiplication of lamellae after about five million years ago. Only in the last million years or so did they return to a diet mainly consisting of C3 trees and shrubs.[30][31] The upper second incisors grew into tusks, which varied in shape from straight, to curved (either upward or downward), to spiralled, depending on the species. Some proboscideans developed tusks from their lower incisors.[6] Elephants retain certain features from their aquatic ancestry, such as their middle ear anatomy.[32]
+
+Several species of proboscideans lived on islands and experienced insular dwarfism. This occurred primarily during the Pleistocene when some elephant populations became isolated by fluctuating sea levels, although dwarf elephants did exist earlier in the Pliocene. These elephants likely grew smaller on islands due to a lack of large or viable predator populations and limited resources. By contrast, small mammals such as rodents develop gigantism in these conditions. Dwarf proboscideans are known to have lived in Indonesia, the Channel Islands of California, and several islands of the Mediterranean.[33]
+
+Elephas celebensis of Sulawesi is believed to have descended from Elephas planifrons. Palaeoloxodon falconeri of Malta and Sicily was only 100 cm (3 ft 3 in) and had probably evolved from the straight-tusked elephant. Other descendants of the straight-tusked elephant existed in Cyprus. Dwarf elephants of uncertain descent lived in Crete, Cyclades, and Dodecanese while dwarf mammoths are known to have lived in Sardinia.[33] The Columbian mammoth colonised the Channel Islands and evolved into the pygmy mammoth. This species reached a height of 120–180 cm (3 ft 11 in–5 ft 11 in) and weighed 200–2,000 kg (400–4,400 lb). A population of small woolly mammoths survived on Wrangel Island, now 140 km (87 mi) north of the Siberian coast, as recently as 4,000 years ago.[33] After their discovery in 1993, they were considered dwarf mammoths.[34] This classification has been re-evaluated and since the Second International Mammoth Conference in 1999, these animals are no longer considered to be true "dwarf mammoths".[35]
+
+Elephants are the largest living terrestrial animals. African bush elephants are the largest species, with males being 304–336 cm (10 ft 0 in–11 ft 0 in) tall at the shoulder with a body mass of 5.2–6.9 t (5.7–7.6 short tons) and females standing 247–273 cm (8 ft 1 in–8 ft 11 in) tall at the shoulder with a body mass of 2.6–3.5 t (2.9–3.9 short tons). Male Asian elephants are usually about 261–289 cm (8 ft 7 in–9 ft 6 in) tall at the shoulder and 3.5–4.6 t (3.9–5.1 short tons) whereas females are 228–252 cm (7 ft 6 in–8 ft 3 in) tall at the shoulder and 2.3–3.1 t (2.5–3.4 short tons). African forest elephants are the smallest species, with males usually being around 209–231 cm (6 ft 10 in–7 ft 7 in) tall at the shoulder and 1.7–2.3 t (1.9–2.5 short tons). Male African bush elephants are typically 23% taller than females, whereas male Asian elephants are only around 15% taller than females.[25]
+
+The skeleton of the elephant is made up of 326–351 bones.[36] The vertebrae are connected by tight joints, which limit the backbone's flexibility. African elephants have 21 pairs of ribs, while Asian elephants have 19 or 20 pairs.[37]
+
+An elephant's skull is resilient enough to withstand the forces generated by the leverage of the tusks and head-to-head collisions. The back of the skull is flattened and spread out, creating arches that protect the brain in every direction.[38] The skull contains air cavities (sinuses) that reduce the weight of the skull while maintaining overall strength. These cavities give the inside of the skull a honeycomb-like appearance. The cranium is particularly large and provides enough room for the attachment of muscles to support the entire head. The lower jaw is solid and heavy.[36] Because of the size of the head, the neck is relatively short to provide better support.[6] Lacking a lacrimal apparatus, the eye relies on the harderian gland to keep it moist. A durable nictitating membrane protects the eye globe. The animal's field of vision is compromised by the location and limited mobility of the eyes.[39] Elephants are considered dichromats[40] and they can see well in dim light but not in bright light.[41] The core body temperature averages 35.9 °C (96.6 °F), similar to that of a human. Like all mammals, an elephant can raise or lower its temperature a few degrees from the average in response to extreme environmental conditions.[42]
+
+Elephant ears have thick bases with thin tips. The ear flaps, or pinnae, contain numerous blood vessels called capillaries. Warm blood flows into the capillaries, helping to release excess body heat into the environment. This occurs when the pinnae are still, and the animal can enhance the effect by flapping them. Larger ear surfaces contain more capillaries, and more heat can be released. Of all the elephants, African bush elephants live in the hottest climates, and have the largest ear flaps.[43] Elephants are capable of hearing at low frequencies and are most sensitive at 1 kHz (in close proximity to the Soprano C).[44]
+
+The trunk, or proboscis, is a fusion of the nose and upper lip, although in early fetal life, the upper lip and trunk are separated.[6] The trunk is elongated and specialised to become the elephant's most important and versatile appendage. It contains up to 150,000 separate muscle fascicles, with no bone and little fat. These paired muscles consist of two major types: superficial (surface) and internal. The former are divided into dorsals, ventrals, and laterals while the latter are divided into transverse and radiating muscles. The muscles of the trunk connect to a bony opening in the skull. The nasal septum is composed of tiny muscle units that stretch horizontally between the nostrils. Cartilage divides the nostrils at the base.[45] As a muscular hydrostat, the trunk moves by precisely coordinated muscle contractions. The muscles work both with and against each other. A unique proboscis nerve – formed by the maxillary and facial nerves – runs along both sides of the trunk.[46]
+
+Elephant trunks have multiple functions, including breathing, olfaction, touching, grasping, and sound production.[6] The animal's sense of smell may be four times as sensitive as that of a bloodhound.[47] The trunk's ability to make powerful twisting and coiling movements allows it to collect food, wrestle with other elephants,[48] and lift up to 350 kg (770 lb).[6] It can be used for delicate tasks, such as wiping an eye and checking an orifice,[48] and is capable of cracking a peanut shell without breaking the seed.[6] With its trunk, an elephant can reach items at heights of up to 7 m (23 ft) and dig for water under mud or sand.[48] Individuals may show lateral preference when grasping with their trunks: some prefer to twist them to the left, others to the right.[46] Elephants can suck up water both to drink and to spray on their bodies.[6] An adult Asian elephant is capable of holding 8.5 L (2.2 US gal) of water in its trunk.[45] They will also spray dust or grass on themselves.[6] When underwater, the elephant uses its trunk as a snorkel.[32]
+
+The African elephant has two finger-like extensions at the tip of the trunk that allow it to grasp and bring food to its mouth. The Asian elephant has only one, and relies more on wrapping around a food item and squeezing it into its mouth.[11] Asian elephants have more muscle coordination and can perform more complex tasks.[45] Losing the trunk would be detrimental to an elephant's survival,[6] although in rare cases, individuals have survived with shortened ones. One elephant has been observed to graze by kneeling on its front legs, raising on its hind legs and taking in grass with its lips.[45] Floppy trunk syndrome is a condition of trunk paralysis in African bush elephants caused by the degradation of the peripheral nerves and muscles beginning at the tip.[49]
+
+Elephants usually have 26 teeth: the incisors, known as the tusks, 12 deciduous premolars, and 12 molars. Unlike most mammals, which grow baby teeth and then replace them with a single permanent set of adult teeth, elephants are polyphyodonts that have cycles of tooth rotation throughout their lives. The chewing teeth are replaced six times in a typical elephant's lifetime. Teeth are not replaced by new ones emerging from the jaws vertically as in most mammals. Instead, new teeth grow in at the back of the mouth and move forward to push out the old ones. The first chewing tooth on each side of the jaw falls out when the elephant is two to three years old. The second set of chewing teeth falls out at four to six years old. The third set falls out at 9–15 years of age, and set four lasts until 18–28 years of age. The fifth set of teeth falls out at the early 40s. The sixth (and usually final) set must last the elephant the rest of its life. Elephant teeth have loop-shaped dental ridges, which are thicker and more diamond-shaped in African elephants.[50]
+
+The tusks of an elephant are modified second incisors in the upper jaw. They replace deciduous milk teeth at 6–12 months of age and grow continuously at about 17 cm (7 in) a year. A newly developed tusk has a smooth enamel cap that eventually wears off. The dentine is known as ivory and its cross-section consists of crisscrossing line patterns, known as "engine turning", which create diamond-shaped areas. As a piece of living tissue, a tusk is relatively soft; it is as hard as the mineral calcite. Much of the tusk can be seen outside; the rest is in a socket in the skull. At least one-third of the tusk contains the pulp and some have nerves stretching to the tip. Thus it would be difficult to remove it without harming the animal. When removed, ivory begins to dry up and crack if not kept cool and moist. Tusks serve multiple purposes. They are used for digging for water, salt, and roots; debarking or marking trees; and for moving trees and branches when clearing a path. When fighting, they are used to attack and defend, and to protect the trunk.[51]
+
+Like humans, who are typically right- or left-handed, elephants are usually right- or left-tusked. The dominant tusk, called the master tusk, is generally more worn down, as it is shorter with a rounder tip. For the African elephants, tusks are present in both males and females, and are around the same length in both sexes, reaching up to 300 cm (9 ft 10 in),[51] but those of males tend to be thicker.[52] In earlier times, elephant tusks weighing over 200 pounds (more than 90 kg) were not uncommon, though it is rare today to see any over 100 pounds (45 kg).[53]
+
+In the Asian species, only the males have large tusks. Female Asians have very small tusks, or none at all.[51] Tuskless males exist and are particularly common among Sri Lankan elephants.[54] Asian males can have tusks as long as Africans', but they are usually slimmer and lighter; the largest recorded was 302 cm (9 ft 11 in) long and weighed 39 kg (86 lb). Hunting for elephant ivory in Africa[55] and Asia[56] has led to natural selection for shorter tusks[57][58] and tusklessness.[59][60]
+
+An elephant's skin is generally very tough, at 2.5 cm (1 in) thick on the back and parts of the head. The skin around the mouth, anus, and inside of the ear is considerably thinner. Elephants typically have grey skin, but African elephants look brown or reddish after wallowing in coloured mud. Asian elephants have some patches of depigmentation, particularly on the forehead and ears and the areas around them. Calves have brownish or reddish hair, especially on the head and back. As elephants mature, their hair darkens and becomes sparser, but dense concentrations of hair and bristles remain on the end of the tail as well as the chin, genitals and the areas around the eyes and ear openings. Normally the skin of an Asian elephant is covered with more hair than its African counterpart.[61]
+
+An elephant uses mud as a sunscreen, protecting its skin from ultraviolet light. Although tough, an elephant's skin is very sensitive. Without regular mud baths to protect it from burning, insect bites and moisture loss, an elephant's skin suffers serious damage. After bathing, the elephant will usually use its trunk to blow dust onto its body and this dries into a protective crust.
+
+Elephants have difficulty releasing heat through the skin because of their low surface-area-to-volume ratio, which is many times smaller than that of a human. They have even been observed lifting up their legs, presumably in an effort to expose their soles to the air.[61]
+
+To support the animal's weight, an elephant's limbs are positioned more vertically under the body than in most other mammals. The long bones of the limbs have cancellous bone in place of medullary cavities. This strengthens the bones while still allowing haematopoiesis.[62] Both the front and hind limbs can support an elephant's weight, although 60% is borne by the front.[63] Since the limb bones are placed on top of each other and under the body, an elephant can stand still for long periods of time without using much energy. Elephants are incapable of rotating their front legs, as the ulna and radius are fixed in pronation; the "palm" of the manus faces backward.[62] The pronator quadratus and the pronator teres are either reduced or absent.[64] The circular feet of an elephant have soft tissues or "cushion pads" beneath the manus or pes, which distribute the weight of the animal.[63] They appear to have a sesamoid, an extra "toe" similar in placement to a giant panda's extra "thumb", that also helps in weight distribution.[65] As many as five toenails can be found on both the front and hind feet.[11]
+
+Elephants can move both forwards and backwards, but cannot trot, jump, or gallop. They use only two gaits when moving on land: the walk and a faster gait similar to running.[62] In walking, the legs act as pendulums, with the hips and shoulders rising and falling while the foot is planted on the ground. With no "aerial phase", the fast gait does not meet all the criteria of running, although the elephant uses its legs much like other running animals, with the hips and shoulders falling and then rising while the feet are on the ground.[66] Fast-moving elephants appear to 'run' with their front legs, but 'walk' with their hind legs and can reach a top speed of 25 km/h (16 mph).[67] At this speed, most other quadrupeds are well into a gallop, even accounting for leg length. Spring-like kinetics could explain the difference between the motion of elephants and other animals.[67] During locomotion, the cushion pads expand and contract, and reduce both the pain and noise that would come from a very heavy animal moving.[63] Elephants are capable swimmers. They have been recorded swimming for up to six hours without touching the bottom, and have travelled as far as 48 km (30 mi) at a stretch and at speeds of up to 2.1 km/h (1 mph).[68]
+
+The brain of an elephant weighs 4.5–5.5 kg (10–12 lb) compared to 1.6 kg (4 lb) for a human brain. While the elephant brain is larger overall, it is proportionally smaller. At birth, an elephant's brain already weighs 30–40% of its adult weight. The cerebrum and cerebellum are well developed, and the temporal lobes are so large that they bulge out laterally.[42] The throat of an elephant appears to contain a pouch where it can store water for later use.[6] The larynx of the elephant is the largest known among mammals. The vocal folds are long and are attached close to the epiglottis base. When comparing an elephant's vocal folds to those of a human, an elephant's are longer, thicker, and have a larger cross-sectional area. In addition, they are tilted at 45 degrees and positioned more anteriorly than a human's vocal folds.[69]
+
+The heart of an elephant weighs 12–21 kg (26–46 lb). It has a double-pointed apex, an unusual trait among mammals.[42] In addition, the ventricles separate near the top of the heart, a trait they share with sirenians.[70] When standing, the elephant's heart beats approximately 30 times per minute. Unlike many other animals, the heart rate speeds up by 8 to 10 beats per minute when the elephant is lying down.[71] The blood vessels in most of the body are wide and thick and can withstand high blood pressures.[70] The lungs are attached to the diaphragm, and breathing relies mainly on the diaphragm rather than the expansion of the ribcage.[42] Connective tissue exists in place of the pleural cavity. This may allow the animal to deal with the pressure differences when its body is underwater and its trunk is breaking the surface for air,[32] although this explanation has been questioned.[72] Another possible function for this adaptation is that it helps the animal suck up water through the trunk.[32] Elephants inhale mostly through the trunk, although some air goes through the mouth. They have a hindgut fermentation system, and their large and small intestines together reach 35 m (115 ft) in length. The majority of an elephant's food intake goes undigested despite the process lasting up to a day.[42]
+
+A male elephant's testes are located internally near the kidneys.[73] The elephant's penis can reach a length of 100 cm (39 in) and a diameter of 16 cm (6 in) at the base. It is S-shaped when fully erect and has a Y-shaped orifice. The female has a well-developed clitoris at up to 40 cm (16 in). The vulva is located between the hind legs instead of near the tail as in most mammals. Determining pregnancy status can be difficult due to the animal's large abdominal cavity. The female's mammary glands occupy the space between the front legs, which puts the suckling calf within reach of the female's trunk.[42] Elephants have a unique organ, the temporal gland, located in both sides of the head. This organ is associated with sexual behaviour, and males secrete a fluid from it when in musth.[74] Females have also been observed with secretions from the temporal glands.[47]
+
+The core body temperature averages 35.9 °C (96.6 °F), similar to that of a human. Like all mammals, an elephant can raise or lower its temperature a few degrees from the average in response to extreme environmental conditions.[42]
+
+The African bush elephant can be found in habitats as diverse as dry savannahs, deserts, marshes, and lake shores, and in elevations from sea level to mountain areas above the snow line. Forest elephants mainly live in equatorial forests but will enter gallery forests and ecotones between forests and savannahs.[12] Asian elephants prefer areas with a mix of grasses, low woody plants, and trees, primarily inhabiting dry thorn-scrub forests in southern India and Sri Lanka and evergreen forests in Malaya.[75] Elephants are herbivorous and will eat leaves, twigs, fruit, bark, grass and roots.[12] They are born with sterile intestines and require bacteria obtained from their mother's feces to digest vegetation.[76] African elephants are mostly browsers while Asian elephants are mainly grazers. They can consume as much as 150 kg (330 lb) of food and 40 L (11 US gal) of water in a day. Elephants tend to stay near water sources.[12] Major feeding bouts take place in the morning, afternoon and night. At midday, elephants rest under trees and may doze off while standing. Sleeping occurs at night while the animal is lying down.[62][77] Elephants average 3–4 hours of sleep per day.[78] Both males and family groups typically move 10–20 km (6–12 mi) a day, but distances as far as 90–180 km (56–112 mi) have been recorded in the Etosha region of Namibia. Elephants go on seasonal migrations in search of food, water, minerals, and mates.[79] At Chobe National Park, Botswana, herds travel 325 km (202 mi) to visit the river when the local waterholes dry up.[80]
+
+Because of their large size, elephants have a huge impact on their environments and are considered keystone species. Their habit of uprooting trees and undergrowth can transform savannah into grasslands; when they dig for water during drought, they create waterholes that can be used by other animals. They can enlarge waterholes when they bathe and wallow in them. At Mount Elgon, elephants excavate caves that are used by ungulates, hyraxes, bats, birds and insects.[81] Elephants are important seed dispersers; African forest elephants ingest and defecate seeds, with either no effect or a positive effect on germination. The seeds are typically dispersed in large amounts over great distances.[82] In Asian forests, large seeds require giant herbivores like elephants and rhinoceros for transport and dispersal. This ecological niche cannot be filled by the next largest herbivore, the tapir.[83] Because most of the food elephants eat goes undigested, their dung can provide food for other animals, such as dung beetles and monkeys.[81] Elephants can have a negative impact on ecosystems. At Murchison Falls National Park in Uganda, the overabundance of elephants has threatened several species of small birds that depend on woodlands. Their weight can compact the soil, which causes the rain to run off, leading to erosion.[77]
+
+Elephants typically coexist peacefully with other herbivores, which will usually stay out of their way. Some aggressive interactions between elephants and rhinoceros have been recorded. At Aberdare National Park, Kenya, a rhino attacked an elephant calf and was killed by the other elephants in the group.[77] At Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, South Africa, introduced young orphan elephants went on a killing spree that claimed the lives of 36 rhinos during the 1990s, but ended with the introduction of older males.[84] The size of adult elephants makes them nearly invulnerable to predators,[75] though there are rare reports of adult elephants falling prey to tigers.[85] Calves may be preyed on by lions, spotted hyenas, and wild dogs in Africa[86] and tigers in Asia.[75] The lions of Savuti, Botswana, have adapted to hunting elephants, mostly juveniles or sub-adults, during the dry season, and a pride of 30 lions has been recorded killing juvenile individuals between the ages of four and eleven years.[87][88] Elephants appear to distinguish between the growls of larger predators like tigers and smaller predators like leopards (which have not been recorded killing calves); they react to leopards less fearfully and more aggressively.[89] Elephants tend to have high numbers of parasites, particularly nematodes, compared to other herbivores. This is due to lower predation pressures that would otherwise kill off many of the individuals with significant parasite loads.[90]
+
+Female elephants spend their entire lives in tight-knit matrilineal family groups, some of which are made up of more than ten members, including three mothers and their dependent offspring, and are led by the matriarch which is often the eldest female.[91] She remains leader of the group until death[86] or if she no longer has the energy for the role;[92] a study on zoo elephants showed that when the matriarch died, the levels of faecal corticosterone ('stress hormone') dramatically increased in the surviving elephants.[93] When her tenure is over, the matriarch's eldest daughter takes her place; this occurs even if her sister is present.[86] One study found that younger matriarchs are more likely than older ones to under-react to severe danger.[94] Family groups may split after becoming too large for the available resources.[95]
+
+The social circle of the female elephant does not necessarily end with the small family unit. In the case of elephants in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, a female's life involves interaction with other families, clans, and subpopulations. Families may associate and bond with each other, forming what are known as bond groups which typically made of two family groups. During the dry season, elephant families may cluster together and form another level of social organisation known as the clan. Groups within these clans do not form strong bonds, but they defend their dry-season ranges against other clans. There are typically nine groups in a clan. The Amboseli elephant population is further divided into the "central" and "peripheral" subpopulations.[91]
+
+Some elephant populations in India and Sri Lanka have similar basic social organisations. There appear to be cohesive family units and loose aggregations. They have been observed to have "nursing units" and "juvenile-care units". In southern India, elephant populations may contain family groups, bond groups and possibly clans. Family groups tend to be small, consisting of one or two adult females and their offspring. A group containing more than two adult females plus offspring is known as a "joint family". Malay elephant populations have even smaller family units, and do not have any social organisation higher than a family or bond group.[91] Groups of African forest elephants typically consist of one adult female with one to three offspring. These groups appear to interact with each other, especially at forest clearings.[91]
+
+The social life of the adult male is very different. As he matures, a male spends more time at the edge of his group and associates with outside males or even other families. At Amboseli, young males spend over 80% of their time away from their families when they are 14–15. When males permanently leave, they either live alone or with other males. The former is typical of bulls in dense forests. Asian males are usually solitary, but occasionally form groups of two or more individuals; the largest consisted of seven bulls. Larger bull groups consisting of over 10 members occur only among African bush elephants, the largest of which numbered up to 144 individuals.[96]
+
+Male elephants can be quite sociable when not competing for dominance or mates, and will form long-term relationships.[97] A dominance hierarchy exists among males, whether they range socially or solitarily. Dominance depends on the age, size and sexual condition,[96] and when in groups, males follow the lead of the dominant bull. Young bulls may seek out the company and leadership of older, more experienced males,[97] whose presence appears to control their aggression and prevent them from exhibiting "deviant" behaviour.[98] Adult males and females come together for reproduction. Bulls associate with family groups if an oestrous cow is present.[96]
+
+A family of African bush elephants: note the protected position of the calves in the middle of the group
+
+Lone bull: Adult male elephants spend much of their time alone or in single-sex groups
+
+Male elephants sparring
+
+Adult males enter a state of increased testosterone known as musth. In a population in southern India, males first enter musth at the age of 15, but it is not very intense until they are older than 25. At Amboseli, bulls under 24 do not go into musth, while half of those aged 25–35 and all those over 35 do. Young bulls appear to enter musth during the dry season (January–May), while older bulls go through it during the wet season (June–December). The main characteristic of a bull's musth is a fluid secreted from the temporal gland that runs down the side of his face. He may urinate with his penis still in his sheath, which causes the urine to spray on his hind legs. Behaviours associated with musth include walking with the head held high and swinging, picking at the ground with the tusks, marking, rumbling and waving only one ear at a time. This can last from a day to four months.[99]
+
+Males become extremely aggressive during musth. Size is the determining factor in agonistic encounters when the individuals have the same condition. In contests between musth and non-musth individuals, musth bulls win the majority of the time, even when the non-musth bull is larger. A male may stop showing signs of musth when he encounters a musth male of higher rank. Those of equal rank tend to avoid each other. Agonistic encounters typically consist of threat displays, chases, and minor sparring with the tusks. Serious fights are rare.[99]
+
+Elephants are polygynous breeders,[100] and copulations are most frequent during the peak of the wet season.[101] A cow in oestrus releases chemical signals (pheromones) in her urine and vaginal secretions to signal her readiness to mate. A bull will follow a potential mate and assess her condition with the flehmen response, which requires the male to collect a chemical sample with his trunk and bring it to the vomeronasal organ.[102][103] The oestrous cycle of a cow lasts 14–16 weeks with a 4–6-week follicular phase and an 8- to 10-week luteal phase. While most mammals have one surge of luteinizing hormone during the follicular phase, elephants have two. The first (or anovulatory) surge, could signal to males that the female is in oestrus by changing her scent, but ovulation does not occur until the second (or ovulatory) surge.[104] Fertility rates in cows decline around 45–50 years of age.[92]
+
+Bulls engage in a behaviour known as mate-guarding, where they follow oestrous females and defend them from other males.[105] Most mate-guarding is done by musth males, and females actively seek to be guarded by them, particularly older ones.[106] Thus these bulls have more reproductive success.[96] Musth appears to signal to females the condition of the male, as weak or injured males do not have normal musths.[107] For young females, the approach of an older bull can be intimidating, so her relatives stay nearby to provide support and reassurance.[108] During copulation, the male lays his trunk over the female's back.[109] The penis is very mobile, being able to move independently of the pelvis.[110] Prior to mounting, it curves forward and upward. Copulation lasts about 45 seconds and does not involve pelvic thrusting or ejaculatory pause.[111] Elephant sperm must swim close to 2 m (6.6 ft) to reach the egg. By comparison, human sperm has to swim around only 76.2 mm (3.00 in).[112]
+
+Homosexual behaviour is frequent in both sexes. As in heterosexual interactions, this involves mounting. Male elephants sometimes stimulate each other by playfighting and "championships" may form between old bulls and younger males. Female same-sex behaviours have been documented only in captivity where they are known to masturbate one another with their trunks.[113]
+
+Gestation in elephants typically lasts around two years with interbirth intervals usually lasting four to five years. Births tend to take place during the wet season.[114] Calves are born 85 cm (33 in) tall and weigh around 120 kg (260 lb).[108] Typically, only a single young is born, but twins sometimes occur.[115][116] The relatively long pregnancy is maintained by five corpus luteums (as opposed to one in most mammals) and gives the foetus more time to develop, particularly the brain and trunk.[115] As such, newborn elephants are precocial and quickly stand and walk to follow their mother and family herd.[117] A new calf is usually the centre of attention for herd members. Adults and most of the other young will gather around the newborn, touching and caressing it with their trunks. For the first few days, the mother is intolerant of other herd members near her young. Alloparenting – where a calf is cared for by someone other than its mother – takes place in some family groups. Allomothers are typically two to twelve years old.[108] When a predator is near, the family group gathers together with the calves in the centre.[118]
+
+For the first few days, the newborn is unsteady on its feet, and needs the support of its mother. It relies on touch, smell, and hearing, as its eyesight is poor. It has little precise control over its trunk, which wiggles around and may cause it to trip. By its second week of life, the calf can walk more firmly and has more control over its trunk. After its first month, a calf can pick up, hold, and put objects in its mouth, but cannot suck water through the trunk and must drink directly through the mouth. It is still dependent on its mother and keeps close to her.[117]
+
+For its first three months, a calf relies entirely on milk from its mother for nutrition, after which it begins to forage for vegetation and can use its trunk to collect water. At the same time, improvements in lip and leg coordination occur. Calves continue to suckle at the same rate as before until their sixth month, after which they become more independent when feeding. By nine months, mouth, trunk and foot coordination is perfected. After a year, a calf's abilities to groom, drink, and feed itself are fully developed. It still needs its mother for nutrition and protection from predators for at least another year. Suckling bouts tend to last 2–4 min/hr for a calf younger than a year and it continues to suckle until it reaches three years of age or older. Suckling after two years may serve to maintain growth rate, body condition and reproductive ability.[117]
+
+Play behaviour in calves differs between the sexes; females run or chase each other while males play-fight. The former are sexually mature by the age of nine years[108] while the latter become mature around 14–15 years.[96] Adulthood starts at about 18 years of age in both sexes.[119][120] Elephants have long lifespans, reaching 60–70 years of age.[50] Lin Wang, a captive male Asian elephant, lived for 86 years.[121]
+
+Touching is an important form of communication among elephants. Individuals greet each other by stroking or wrapping their trunks; the latter also occurs during mild competition. Older elephants use trunk-slaps, kicks, and shoves to discipline younger ones. Individuals of any age and sex will touch each other's mouths, temporal glands, and genitals, particularly during meetings or when excited. This allows individuals to pick up chemical cues. Touching is especially important for mother–calf communication. When moving, elephant mothers will touch their calves with their trunks or feet when side-by-side or with their tails if the calf is behind them. If a calf wants to rest, it will press against its mother's front legs and when it wants to suckle, it will touch her breast or leg.[122]
+
+Visual displays mostly occur in agonistic situations. Elephants will try to appear more threatening by raising their heads and spreading their ears. They may add to the display by shaking their heads and snapping their ears, as well as throwing dust and vegetation. They are usually bluffing when performing these actions. Excited elephants may raise their trunks. Submissive ones will lower their heads and trunks, as well as flatten their ears against their necks, while those that accept a challenge will position their ears in a V shape.[123]
+
+Elephants produce several sounds, usually through the larynx, though some may be modified by the trunk.[124] Perhaps the most well known call is the trumpet which is made by blowing through the trunk. Trumpeting is made during excitement, distress or aggression.[111][124] Fighting elephants may roar or squeal, and wounded ones may bellow.[125] Rumbles are produced during mild arousal[126] and some appear to be infrasonic.[127] These calls occur at frequencies less than 20 Hz.[128] Infrasonic calls are important, particularly for long-distance communication,[124] in both Asian and African elephants. For Asian elephants, these calls have a frequency of 14–24 Hz, with sound pressure levels of 85–90 dB and last 10–15 seconds.[127] For African elephants, calls range from 15–35 Hz with sound pressure levels as high as 117 dB, allowing communication for many kilometres, with a possible maximum range of around 10 km (6 mi).[129]
+
+From various experiments, the elephant larynx is shown to produce various and complex vibratory phenomena. During in vivo situations, these phenomena could be triggered when the vocal folds and vocal tract interact to raise or lower the fundamental frequency.[128] One of the vibratory phenomena that occurred inside the larynx is alternating A-P (anterior-posterior) and P-A traveling waves, which happened due to the unusual larynx layout. This can be characterized by its unique glottal opening/closing pattern. When the trachea is at pressure of approximately 6 kPa, phonation begins in the larynx and the laryngeal tissue starts to vibrate at approximately 15 kPa. Vocal production mechanisms at certain frequencies are similar to that of humans and other mammals and the laryngeal tissues are subjected to self-maintained oscillations. Two biomechanical features can trigger these traveling wave patterns, which are a low fundamental frequency and in the vocal folds, increasing longitudinal tension.[69]
+
+At Amboseli, several different infrasonic calls have been identified. A greeting rumble is emitted by members of a family group after having been separated for several hours. Contact calls are soft, unmodulated sounds made by individuals that have been separated from their group and may be responded to with a "contact answer" call that starts out loud, but becomes softer. A "let's go" soft rumble is emitted by the matriarch to signal to the other herd members that it is time to move to another spot. Bulls in musth emit a distinctive, low-frequency pulsated rumble nicknamed the "motorcycle". Musth rumbles may be answered by the "female chorus", a low-frequency, modulated chorus produced by several cows. A loud postcopulatory call may be made by an oestrous cow after mating. When a cow has mated, her family may produce calls of excitement known as the "mating pandemonium".[126]
+
+Elephants are known to communicate with seismics, vibrations produced by impacts on the earth's surface or acoustical waves that travel through it. They appear to rely on their leg and shoulder bones to transmit the signals to the middle ear. When detecting seismic signals, the animals lean forward and put more weight on their larger front feet; this is known as the "freezing behaviour". Elephants possess several adaptations suited for seismic communication. The cushion pads of the feet contain cartilaginous nodes and have similarities to the acoustic fat found in marine mammals like toothed whales and sirenians. A unique sphincter-like muscle around the ear canal constricts the passageway, thereby dampening acoustic signals and allowing the animal to hear more seismic signals.[130] Elephants appear to use seismics for a number of purposes. An individual running or mock charging can create seismic signals that can be heard at great distances.[131] When detecting the seismics of an alarm call signalling danger from predators, elephants enter a defensive posture and family groups will pack together. Seismic waveforms produced by locomotion appear to travel distances of up to 32 km (20 mi) while those from vocalisations travel 16 km (10 mi).[132]
+
+Elephants exhibit mirror self-recognition, an indication of self-awareness and cognition that has also been demonstrated in some apes and dolphins.[133] One study of a captive female Asian elephant suggested the animal was capable of learning and distinguishing between several visual and some acoustic discrimination pairs. This individual was even able to score a high accuracy rating when re-tested with the same visual pairs a year later.[134] Elephants are among the species known to use tools. An Asian elephant has been observed modifying branches and using them as flyswatters.[135] Tool modification by these animals is not as advanced as that of chimpanzees. Elephants are popularly thought of as having an excellent memory. This could have a factual basis; they possibly have cognitive maps to allow them to remember large-scale spaces over long periods of time. Individuals appear to be able to keep track of the current location of their family members.[41]
+
+Scientists debate the extent to which elephants feel emotion. They appear to show interest in the bones of their own kind, regardless of whether they are related.[136] As with chimps and dolphins, a dying or dead elephant may elicit attention and aid from others, including those from other groups. This has been interpreted as expressing "concern";[137] however, others would dispute such an interpretation as being anthropomorphic;[138][139] the Oxford Companion to Animal Behaviour (1987) advised that "one is well advised to study the behaviour rather than attempting to get at any underlying emotion".[140]
+
+African elephants were listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2008, with no independent assessment of the conservation status of the two forms.[141] In 1979, Africa had an estimated minimum population of 1.3 million elephants, with a possible upper limit of 3.0 million. By 1989, the population was estimated to be 609,000; with 277,000 in Central Africa, 110,000 in eastern Africa, 204,000 in southern Africa, and 19,000 in western Africa. About 214,000 elephants were estimated to live in the rainforests, fewer than had previously been thought. From 1977 to 1989, elephant populations declined by 74% in East Africa. After 1987, losses in elephant numbers accelerated, and savannah populations from Cameroon to Somalia experienced a decline of 80%. African forest elephants had a total loss of 43%. Population trends in southern Africa were mixed, with anecdotal reports of losses in Zambia, Mozambique and Angola while populations grew in Botswana and Zimbabwe and were stable in South Africa.[142] Conversely, studies in 2005 and 2007 found populations in eastern and southern Africa were increasing by an average annual rate of 4.0%.[141] Due to the vast areas involved, assessing the total African elephant population remains difficult and involves an element of guesswork. The IUCN estimates a total of around 440,000 individuals for 2012 while TRAFFIC estimates as many as 55 are poached daily.[143][144]
+
+African elephants receive at least some legal protection in every country where they are found, but 70% of their range exists outside protected areas. Successful conservation efforts in certain areas have led to high population densities. As of 2008, local numbers were controlled by contraception or translocation. Large-scale cullings ceased in 1988, when Zimbabwe abandoned the practice. In 1989, the African elephant was listed under Appendix I by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), making trade illegal. Appendix II status (which allows restricted trade) was given to elephants in Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe in 1997 and South Africa in 2000. In some countries, sport hunting of the animals is legal; Botswana, Cameroon, Gabon, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have CITES export quotas for elephant trophies.[141] In June 2016, the First Lady of Kenya, Margaret Kenyatta, helped launch the East Africa Grass-Root Elephant Education Campaign Walk, organised by elephant conservationist Jim Nyamu. The event was conducted to raise awareness of the value of elephants and rhinos, to help mitigate human-elephant conflicts, and to promote anti-poaching activities.[145]
+
+In 2008, the IUCN listed the Asian elephant as endangered due to a 50% population decline over the past 60–75 years[146] while CITES lists the species under Appendix I.[146] Asian elephants once ranged from Syria and Iraq (the subspecies Elephas maximus asurus), to China (up to the Yellow River)[147] and Java. It is now extinct in these areas,[146] and the current range of Asian elephants is highly fragmented.[147] The total population of Asian elephants is estimated to be around 40,000–50,000, although this may be a loose estimate. It is likely that around half of the population is in India. Although Asian elephants are declining in numbers overall, particularly in Southeast Asia, the population in the Western Ghats appears to be increasing.[146]
+
+The poaching of elephants for their ivory, meat and hides has been one of the major threats to their existence.[146] Historically, numerous cultures made ornaments and other works of art from elephant ivory, and its use rivalled that of gold.[149] The ivory trade contributed to the African elephant population decline in the late 20th century.[141] This prompted international bans on ivory imports, starting with the United States in June 1989, and followed by bans in other North American countries, western European countries, and Japan.[149] Around the same time, Kenya destroyed all its ivory stocks.[150] CITES approved an international ban on ivory that went into effect in January 1990. Following the bans, unemployment rose in India and China, where the ivory industry was important economically. By contrast, Japan and Hong Kong, which were also part of the industry, were able to adapt and were not badly affected.[149] Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Malawi wanted to continue the ivory trade and were allowed to, since their local elephant populations were healthy, but only if their supplies were from elephants that had been culled or died of natural causes.[150]
+
+The ban allowed the elephant to recover in parts of Africa.[149] In January 2012, 650 elephants in Bouba Njida National Park, Cameroon, were killed by Chadian raiders.[151] This has been called "one of the worst concentrated killings" since the ivory ban.[150] Asian elephants are potentially less vulnerable to the ivory trade, as females usually lack tusks. Still, members of the species have been killed for their ivory in some areas, such as Periyar National Park in India.[146] China was the biggest market for poached ivory but announced they would phase out the legal domestic manufacture and sale of ivory products in May 2015, and in September 2015, China and the United States said "they would enact a nearly complete ban on the import and export of ivory" due to causes of extinction.[152]
+
+Other threats to elephants include habitat destruction and fragmentation.[141] The Asian elephant lives in areas with some of the highest human populations. Because they need larger amounts of land than other sympatric terrestrial mammals, they are the first to be affected by human encroachment. In extreme cases, elephants may be confined to small islands of forest among human-dominated landscapes. Elephants cannot coexist with humans in agricultural areas due to their size and food requirements. Elephants commonly trample and consume crops, which contributes to conflicts with humans, and both elephants and humans have died by the hundreds as a result. Mitigating these conflicts is important for conservation.[146] One proposed solution is the provision of 'urban corridors' which allow the animals access to key areas.[153]
+
+Elephants have been working animals since at least the Indus Valley Civilization[154] and continue to be used in modern times. There were 13,000–16,500 working elephants employed in Asia in 2000. These animals are typically captured from the wild when they are 10–20 years old when they can be trained quickly and easily, and will have a longer working life.[155] They were traditionally captured with traps and lassos, but since 1950, tranquillisers have been used.[156]
+
+Individuals of the Asian species have been often trained as working animals. Asian elephants perform tasks such as hauling loads into remote areas, moving logs to rivers and roads, transporting tourists around national parks, pulling wagons, and leading religious processions.[155] In northern Thailand, the animals are used to digest coffee beans for Black Ivory coffee.[157] They are valued over mechanised tools because they can work in relatively deep water, require relatively little maintenance, need only vegetation and water as fuel and can be trained to memorise specific tasks. Elephants can be trained to respond to over 30 commands.[155] Musth bulls can be difficult and dangerous to work with and are chained and semi-starved until the condition passes.[158] In India, many working elephants are alleged to have been subject to abuse. They and other captive elephants are thus protected under The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960.[159]
+
+In both Myanmar and Thailand, deforestation and other economic factors have resulted in sizable populations of unemployed elephants resulting in health problems for the elephants themselves as well as economic and safety problems for the people amongst whom they live.[160][161]
+
+The practice of working elephants has also been attempted in Africa. The taming of African elephants in the Belgian Congo began by decree of Leopold II of Belgium during the 19th century and continues to the present with the Api Elephant Domestication Centre.[162]
+
+Historically, elephants were considered formidable instruments of war. They were equipped with armour to protect their sides, and their tusks were given sharp points of iron or brass if they were large enough. War elephants were trained to grasp an enemy soldier and toss him to the person riding on them or to pin the soldier to the ground and impale him.[163]
+
+One of the earliest references to war elephants is in the Indian epic Mahabharata (written in the 4th century BC, but said to describe events between the 11th and 8th centuries BC). They were not used as much as horse-drawn chariots by either the Pandavas or Kauravas. During the Magadha Kingdom (which began in the 6th century BC), elephants began to achieve greater cultural importance than horses, and later Indian kingdoms used war elephants extensively; 3,000 of them were used in the Nandas (5th and 4th centuries BC) army while 9,000 may have been used in the Mauryan army (between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC). The Arthashastra (written around 300 BC) advised the Mauryan government to reserve some forests for wild elephants for use in the army, and to execute anyone who killed them.[164] From South Asia, the use of elephants in warfare spread west to Persia[163] and east to Southeast Asia.[165] The Persians used them during the Achaemenid Empire (between the 6th and 4th centuries BC)[163] while Southeast Asian states first used war elephants possibly as early as the 5th century BC and continued to the 20th century.[165]
+
+In his 326 B.C. Indian campaign, Alexander the Great confronted elephants for the first time, and suffered heavy casualties. Among the reasons for the refusal of the rank-and-file Macedonian soldiers to continue the Indian conquest were rumors of even larger elephant armies in India.[166] Alexander trained his foot soldiers to injure the animals and cause them to panic during wars with both the Persians and Indians. Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander's generals, used corps of Asian elephants during his reign as the ruler of Egypt (which began in 323 BC). His son and successor Ptolemy II (who began his rule in 285 BC) obtained his supply of elephants further south in Nubia. From then on, war elephants were employed in the Mediterranean and North Africa throughout the classical period. The Greek king Pyrrhus used elephants in his attempted invasion of Rome in 280 BC. While they frightened the Roman horses, they were not decisive and Pyrrhus ultimately lost the battle. The Carthaginian general Hannibal took elephants across the Alps during his war with the Romans and reached the Po Valley in 217 BC with all of them alive, but they later succumbed to disease.[163]
+
+Overall, elephants owed their initial successes to the element of surprise and to the fear that their great size invoked. With time, strategists devised counter-measures and war elephants turned into an expensive liability and were hardly ever used by Romans and Parthians.[166]
+
+Elephants were historically kept for display in the menageries of Ancient Egypt, China, Greece, and Rome. The Romans in particular pitted them against humans and other animals in gladiator events. In the modern era, elephants have traditionally been a major part of zoos and circuses around the world. In circuses, they are trained to perform tricks. The most famous circus elephant was probably Jumbo (1861 – 15 September 1885), who was a major attraction in the Barnum & Bailey Circus.[167] These animals do not reproduce well in captivity, due to the difficulty of handling musth bulls and limited understanding of female oestrous cycles. Asian elephants were always more common than their African counterparts in modern zoos and circuses. After CITES listed the Asian elephant under Appendix I in 1975, the number of African elephants in zoos increased in the 1980s, although the import of Asians continued. Subsequently, the US received many of its captive African elephants from Zimbabwe, which had an overabundance of the animals.[168] As of 2000, around 1,200 Asian and 700 African elephants were kept in zoos and circuses. The largest captive population is in North America, which has an estimated 370 Asian and 350 African elephants. About 380 Asians and 190 Africans are known to exist in Europe, and Japan has around 70 Asians and 67 Africans.[168]
+
+Keeping elephants in zoos has met with some controversy. Proponents of zoos argue that they offer researchers easy access to the animals and provide money and expertise for preserving their natural habitats, as well as safekeeping for the species. Critics claim that the animals in zoos are under physical and mental stress.[169] Elephants have been recorded displaying stereotypical behaviours in the form of swaying back and forth, trunk swaying, or route tracing. This has been observed in 54% of individuals in UK zoos.[170] Elephants in European zoos appear to have shorter lifespans than their wild counterparts at only 17 years, although other studies suggest that zoo elephants live as long those in the wild.[171]
+
+The use of elephants in circuses has also been controversial; the Humane Society of the United States has accused circuses of mistreating and distressing their animals.[172] In testimony to a US federal court in 2009, Barnum & Bailey Circus CEO Kenneth Feld acknowledged that circus elephants are struck behind their ears, under their chins and on their legs with metal-tipped prods, called bull hooks or ankus. Feld stated that these practices are necessary to protect circus workers and acknowledged that an elephant trainer was reprimanded for using an electric shock device, known as a hot shot or electric prod, on an elephant. Despite this, he denied that any of these practices harm elephants.[173] Some trainers have tried to train elephants without the use of physical punishment. Ralph Helfer is known to have relied on gentleness and reward when training his animals, including elephants and lions.[174] Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey circus retired its touring elephants in May 2016.[175]
+
+African elephants at the Barcelona Zoo
+
+Circus poster, c. 1900
+
+Elephants can exhibit bouts of aggressive behaviour and engage in destructive actions against humans.[176] In Africa, groups of adolescent elephants damaged homes in villages after cullings in the 1970s and 1980s. Because of the timing, these attacks have been interpreted as vindictive.[177][178] In parts of India, male elephants regularly enter villages at night, destroying homes and killing people. Elephants killed around 300 people between 2000 and 2004 in Jharkhand while in Assam, 239 people were reportedly killed between 2001 and 2006.[176]
+Local people have reported their belief that some elephants were drunk during their attacks, although officials have disputed this explanation.[179][180] Purportedly drunk elephants attacked an Indian village a second time in December 2002, killing six people, which led to the killing of about 200 elephants by locals.[181]
+
+In many cultures, elephants represent strength, power, wisdom, longevity, stamina, leadership, sociability, nurturance and loyalty.[182][183][184] Several cultural references emphasise the elephant's size and exotic uniqueness. For instance, a "white elephant" is a byword for something expensive, useless, and bizarre.[185] The expression "elephant in the room" refers to an obvious truth that is ignored or otherwise unaddressed.[186] The story of the blind men and an elephant teaches that reality can be observed from different perspectives.[187]
+
+Elephants have been represented in art since Paleolithic times. Africa, in particular, contains many rock paintings and engravings of the animals, especially in the Sahara and southern Africa.[188] In Asia, the animals are depicted as motifs in Hindu and Buddhist shrines and temples.[189] Elephants were often difficult to portray by people with no first-hand experience of them.[190] The ancient Romans, who kept the animals in captivity, depicted anatomically accurate elephants on mosaics in Tunisia and Sicily. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, when Europeans had little to no access to the animals, elephants were portrayed more like fantasy creatures. They were often depicted with horse- or bovine-like bodies with trumpet-like trunks and tusks like a boar; some were even given hooves. Elephants were commonly featured in motifs by the stonemasons of the Gothic churches. As more elephants began to be sent to European kings as gifts during the 15th century, depictions of them became more accurate, including one made by Leonardo da Vinci. Despite this, some Europeans continued to portray them in a more stylised fashion.[191] Max Ernst's 1921 surrealist painting, The Elephant Celebes, depicts an elephant as a silo with a trunk-like hose protruding from it.[192]
+
+Elephants have been the subject of religious beliefs. The Mbuti people of central Africa believe that the souls of their dead ancestors resided in elephants.[189] Similar ideas existed among other African societies, who believed that their chiefs would be reincarnated as elephants. During the 10th century AD, the people of Igbo-Ukwu, near the Niger Delta, buried their leaders with elephant tusks.[193] The animals' religious importance is only totemic in Africa[194] but is much more significant in Asia. In Sumatra, elephants have been associated with lightning. Likewise in Hinduism, they are linked with thunderstorms as Airavata, the father of all elephants, represents both lightning and rainbows.[189] One of the most important Hindu deities, the elephant-headed Ganesha, is ranked equal with the supreme gods Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma.[195] Ganesha is associated with writers and merchants and it is believed that he can give people success as well as grant them their desires.[189] In Buddhism, Buddha is said to have been a white elephant reincarnated as a human.[196] In Islamic tradition, the year 570 when Muhammad was born is known as the Year of the Elephant.[197] Elephants were thought to be religious themselves by the Romans, who believed that they worshipped the sun and stars.[189]
+
+Elephants are ubiquitous in Western popular culture as emblems of the exotic, especially since – as with the giraffe, hippopotamus and rhinoceros – there are no similar animals familiar to Western audiences.[185] The use of the elephant as a symbol of the U.S. Republican Party began with an 1874 cartoon by Thomas Nast.[198] As characters, elephants are most common in children's stories, in which they are generally cast as models of exemplary behaviour. They are typically surrogates for humans with ideal human values. Many stories tell of isolated young elephants returning to a close-knit community, such as "The Elephant's Child" from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, Disney's Dumbo, and Kathryn and Byron Jackson's The Saggy Baggy Elephant. Other elephant heroes given human qualities include Jean de Brunhoff's Babar, David McKee's Elmer, and Dr. Seuss's Horton.[185]
+
+Parable of the elephant and the blind monks; illustrated by Hanabusa Itchō. (Ukiyo-e woodcut, 1888)
+
+Stone carving Elephant. AD 7. Mahabalipuram, Tamil Nadu. (UNESCO World Heritage Sites)
+
+Woodcut illustration for "The Elephant's Child" by Rudyard Kipling
+

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+
+
+See Subspecies of Canis lupus
+
+The wolf (Canis lupus[a]), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus have been recognized, and gray wolves, as colloquially understood, comprise non-domestic/feral subspecies. The wolf is the largest extant member of Canidae, males averaging 40 kg (88 lb) and females 37 kg (82 lb). Wolves measure 105–160 cm (41–63 in) in length and 80–85 cm (31–33 in) at shoulder height. The wolf is also distinguished from other Canis species by its less pointed ears and muzzle, as well as a shorter torso and a longer tail. The wolf is nonetheless related closely enough to smaller Canis species, such as the coyote and the golden jackal, to produce fertile hybrids with them. The banded fur of a wolf is usually mottled white, brown, gray, and black, although subspecies in the arctic region may be nearly all white.
+
+Of all members of the genus Canis, the wolf is most specialized for cooperative game hunting as demonstrated by its physical adaptations to tackling large prey, its more social nature, and its highly advanced expressive behaviour. It travels in nuclear families consisting of a mated pair accompanied by their offspring. Offspring may leave to form their own packs on the onset of sexual maturity and in response to competition for food within the pack. Wolves are also territorial and fights over territory are among the principal causes of wolf mortality. The wolf is mainly a carnivore and feeds on large wild hooved mammals as well as smaller animals, livestock, carrion, and garbage. Single wolves or mated pairs typically have higher success rates in hunting than do large packs. Pathogens and parasites, notably rabies, may infect wolves.
+
+The global wild wolf population was estimated to be 300,000 in 2003 and is considered to be of Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Wolves have a long history of interactions with humans, having been despised and hunted in most pastoral communities because of their attacks on livestock, while conversely being respected in some agrarian and hunter-gatherer societies. Although the fear of wolves exists in many human societies, the majority of recorded attacks on people have been attributed to animals suffering from rabies. Wolf attacks on humans are rare because wolves are relatively few, live away from people, and have developed a fear of humans because of their experiences with hunters, ranchers, and shepherds.
+
+The English "wolf" stems from the Old English wulf, which is itself thought to be derived from the Proto-Germanic *wulfaz. The Proto-Indo-European root *wĺ̥kʷos may also be the source of the Latin word for the animal lupus (*lúkʷos).[4][5] The name "gray wolf" refers to the grayish colour of the species.[6]
+
+Since pre-Christian times, Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons took on wulf as a prefix or suffix in their names. Examples include Wulfhere ("Wolf Army", or "He whose army is the wolf"), Cynewulf ("Royal Wolf"), Cēnwulf ("Bold Wolf"), Wulfheard ("Wolf-hard"), Earnwulf ("Eagle Wolf"), Wulfstān ("Wolf Stone") Æðelwulf ("Noble Wolf"), Wolfhroc ("Wolf-Frock"), Wolfhetan ("Wolf Hide"), Isangrim ("Gray Mask"), Scrutolf ("Garb Wolf"), Wolfgang ("Wolf Gait") and Wolfdregil ("Wolf Runner").[7]
+
+Gray wolf
+
+Coyote
+
+African golden wolf
+
+Ethiopian wolf
+
+Golden jackal
+
+Dhole
+
+African wild dog
+
+Side-striped jackal
+
+Black-backed jackal
+
+In 1758, the Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus published in his Systema Naturae the binomial nomenclature.[3] Canis is the Latin word meaning "dog",[9] and under this genus he listed the doglike carnivores including domestic dogs, wolves, and jackals. He classified the domestic dog as Canis familiaris, and the wolf as Canis lupus.[3] Linnaeus considered the dog to be a separate species from the wolf because of its cauda recurvata—its upturning tail—which is not found in any other canid.[10]
+
+In the third edition of Mammal Species of the World published in 2005, the mammalogist W. Christopher Wozencraft listed under C. lupus 36 wild subspecies, and proposed two additional subspecies: familiaris (Linnaeus, 1758) and dingo (Meyer, 1793). Wozencraft included hallstromi—the New Guinea singing dog—as a taxonomic synonym for the dingo. Wozencraft referred to a 1999 mitochondrial DNA study as one of the guides in forming his decision, and listed the 38 subspecies of C. lupus under the biological common name of "wolf", the nominate subspecies being the Eurasian wolf (C. l. lupus) based on the type specimen that Linnaeus studied in Sweden.[11] Studies using paleogenomic techniques reveal that the modern wolf and the dog are sister taxa, as modern wolves are not closely related to the population of wolves that was first domesticated.[12] In 2019, a workshop hosted by the IUCN/Species Survival Commission's Canid Specialist Group considered the New Guinea singing dog and the dingo to be feral dogs Canis familiaris, and therefore should not be assessed for the IUCN Red List.[13]
+
+The phylogenetic descent of the extant wolf C. lupus from C. etruscus through C. mosbachensis is widely accepted.[14] The earliest fossils of C. lupus were found in what was once eastern Beringia at Old Crow, Yukon, Canada, and at Cripple Creek Sump, Fairbanks, Alaska. The age is not agreed upon but could date to one million years ago. Considerable morphological diversity existed among wolves by the Late Pleistocene. They had more robust skulls and teeth than modern wolves, often with a shortened snout, a pronounced development of the temporalis muscle, and robust premolars. It is proposed that these features were specialized adaptations for the processing of carcass and bone associated with the hunting and scavenging of Pleistocene megafauna. Compared with modern wolves, some Pleistocene wolves showed an increase in tooth breakage similar to that seen in the extinct dire wolf. This suggests they either often processed carcasses, or that they competed with other carnivores and needed to consume their prey quickly. Compared with those found in the modern spotted hyena, the frequency and location of tooth fractures in these wolves indicates they were habitual bone crackers.[15] In June 2019, the severed yet preserved head of a Pleistocene wolf, dated to over 40,000 years ago, was found close to the Tirekhtyakh River in Yakutia, Russia, near the Arctic Circle. The head was about 16 in (41 cm) long, much bigger than a modern wolf's head.[16][17][18]
+
+Genomic studies suggest modern wolves and dogs descend from a common ancestral wolf population[19][20][21] that existed 20,000 years ago.[19] Studies in 2017 and 2018 found that the Himalayan wolf is part of a lineage that is basal to other wolves and split from them 691,000–740,000 years ago.[22][23] Other wolves appear to have originated in Beringia in an expansion that was driven by the huge ecological changes during the close of the Late Pleistocene.[23] A study in 2016 indicates that a population bottleneck was followed by a rapid radiation from an ancestral population at a time during, or just after, the Last Glacial Maximum. This implies that the original morphologically diverse wolf populations were out-competed and replaced by more modern wolves.[24]
+
+A 2016 genomic study suggests that Old World and New World wolves split around 12,500 years ago followed by the divergence of the lineage that led to dogs from other Old World wolves around 11,100–12,300 years ago.[21] An extinct Late Pleistocene wolf may have been the ancestor of the dog,[25][15] with the dog's similarity to the extant wolf being the result of genetic admixture between the two.[15] The dingo, Basenji, Tibetan Mastiff and Chinese indigenous breeds are basal members of the domestic dog clade. The divergence time for wolves in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia is estimated to be fairly recent at around 1,600 years ago. Among New World wolves, the Mexican wolf diverged around 5,400 years ago.[21]
+
+In the distant past, there has been gene flow between African golden wolves, golden jackals, and gray wolves. The African golden wolf is a descendant of a genetically admixed canid of 72% wolf and 28% Ethiopian wolf ancestry. One African golden wolf from the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula shows admixture with Middle Eastern wolves and dogs.[26] There is evidence of gene flow between golden jackals and Middle Eastern wolves, less so with European and Asian wolves, and least with North American wolves. This indicates the golden jackal ancestry found in North American wolves may have occurred before the divergence of the Eurasian and North American wolves.[27]
+
+The common ancestor of the coyote and the wolf has admixed with a ghost population of an extinct unidentified canid. This canid is genetically close to the dhole and evolved after the divergence of the African hunting dog from the other canid species. The basal position of the coyote compared to the wolf is proposed to be due to the coyote retaining more of the mitochondrial genome of this unidentified canid.[26] Similarly, a museum specimen of a wolf from southern China collected in 1963 showed a genome that was 12–14% admixed from this unknown canid.[28] In North America, most coyotes and wolves show varying degrees of past genetic admixture. The red wolf of the southeastern United States is a hybrid animal with 40%:60% wolf to coyote ancestry. In addition, there was found to be 60%:40% wolf to coyote genetics in Eastern timber wolves, and 75%:25% in the Great Lakes region wolves.[27]
+
+In more recent times, some male Italian wolves originated from dog ancestry, which indicates female wolves will breed with male dogs in the wild.[29] In the Caucasus Mountains, 10% of dogs including livestock guardian dogs, are first generation hybrids.[30] Although mating between golden jackals and wolves has never been observed, evidence of jackal-wolf hybridization was discovered through mitochondrial DNA analysis of jackals living in the Caucasus Mountains[30] and in Bulgaria.[31]
+
+The wolf is the largest member of the Canidae family,[32] and is further distinguished from coyotes and jackals by a broader snout, shorter ears, a shorter torso and a longer tail.[33][32] It is slender and powerfully built with a large, deeply descending rib cage, a sloping back, and a heavily muscled neck.[34] The wolf's legs are moderately longer than those of other canids, which enables the animal to move swiftly, and to overcome the deep snow that covers most of its geographical range in winter.[35] The ears are relatively small and triangular.[34] The wolf's head is large and heavy, with a wide forehead, strong jaws and a long, blunt muzzle.[36] The skull is 230–280 mm (9–11 in) in length and 130–150 mm (5–6 in) in width.[37] The teeth are heavy and large, making them better suited to crushing bone than those of other canids. They are not as specialized as those found in hyenas though.[38][39] Its molars have a flat chewing surface, but not to the same extent as the coyote, whose diet contains more vegetable matter.[40] Females tend to have narrower muzzles and foreheads, thinner necks, slightly shorter legs, and less massive shoulders than males.[41]
+
+Adult wolves measure 105–160 cm (41–63 in) in length and 80–85 cm (31–33 in) at shoulder height.[36] The tail measures 29–50 cm (11–20 in) in length, the ears 90–110 mm (3 1⁄2–4 3⁄8 in) in height, and the hind feet are 220–250 mm (8 5⁄8–9 7⁄8 in).[42] The size and weight of the modern wolf increases proportionally with latitude in accord with Bergmann's rule.[43] The mean body mass of the wolf is 40 kg (88 lb), the smallest specimen recorded at 12 kg (26 lb) and the largest at 79.4 kg (175 lb).[44][36] On average, European wolves weigh 38.5 kg (85 lb), North American wolves 36 kg (79 lb), and Indian and Arabian wolves 25 kg (55 lb).[45] Females in any given wolf population typically weigh 2.3–4.5 kg (5–10 lb) less than males. Wolves weighing over 54 kg (119 lb) are uncommon, though exceptionally large individuals have been recorded in Alaska and Canada.[46] In middle Russia, exceptionally large males are given a maximum weight of 69–79 kg (152–174 lb).[42]
+
+The wolf has very dense and fluffy winter fur, with a short undercoat and long, coarse guard hairs.[36] Most of the undercoat and some guard hairs are shed in spring and grow back in autumn.[45] The longest hairs occur on the back, particularly on the front quarters and neck. Especially long hairs grow on the shoulders and almost form a crest on the upper part of the neck. The hairs on the cheeks are elongated and form tufts. The ears are covered in short hairs and project from the fur. Short, elastic and closely adjacent hairs are present on the limbs from the elbows down to the calcaneal tendons.[36] The winter fur is highly resistant to the cold. Wolves in northern climates can rest comfortably in open areas at −40 °C (−40 °F) by placing their muzzles between the rear legs and covering their faces with their tail. Wolf fur provides better insulation than dog fur and does not collect ice when warm breath is condensed against it.[45]
+
+In cold climates, the wolf can reduce the flow of blood near its skin to conserve body heat. The warmth of the foot pads is regulated independently from the rest of the body and is maintained at just above tissue-freezing point where the pads come in contact with ice and snow.[47] In warm climates, the fur is coarser and scarcer than in northern wolves.[36] Female wolves tend to have smoother furred limbs than males and generally develop the smoothest overall coats as they age. Older wolves generally have more white hairs on the tip of the tail, along the nose, and on the forehead. Winter fur is retained longest by lactating females, although with some hair loss around their teats.[41] Hair length on the middle of the back is 60–70 mm (2 3⁄8–2 3⁄4 in), and the guard hairs on the shoulders generally do not exceed 90 mm (3 1⁄2 in), but can reach 110–130 mm (4 3⁄8–5 1⁄8 in).[36]
+
+A wolf's coat colour is determined by its guard hairs. Wolves usually have some hairs that are white, brown, gray and black.[48] The coat of the Eurasian wolf is a mixture of ochreous (yellow to orange) and rusty ochreous (orange/red/brown) colours with light gray. The muzzle is pale ochreous gray, and the area of the lips, cheeks, chin, and throat is white. The top of the head, forehead, under and between the eyes, and between the eyes and ears is gray with a reddish film. The neck is ochreous. Long, black tips on the hairs along the back form a broad stripe, with black hair tips on the shoulders, upper chest and rear of the body. The sides of the body, tail, and outer limbs are a pale dirty ochreous colour, while the inner sides of the limbs, belly, and groin are white. Apart from those wolves which are pure white or black, these tones vary little across geographical areas, although the patterns of these colours vary between individuals.[49]
+
+In North America, the coat colours of wolves follow Gloger's rule, wolves in the Canadian arctic being white and those in southern Canada, the U.S., and Mexico being predominantly gray. In some areas of the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and British Columbia, the coat colour is predominantly black, some being blue-gray and some with silver and black.[48] Differences in coat colour between sexes is absent in Eurasia;[50] females tend to have redder tones in North America.[51] Black-coloured wolves in North America acquired their colour from wolf-dog admixture after the first arrival of dogs that accompanied humans across the Bering Strait 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.[52] Research into the inheritance of white colour from dogs into wolves has yet to be undertaken.[53]
+
+Wolves occurred originally across Eurasia and North America. Deliberate human persecution because of livestock predation and fear of attacks on humans has reduced the wolf's range to about one-third of what it once was. The wolf is now extirpated (locally extinct) in much of Western Europe, the United States and Mexico, and in Japan. In modern times, the wolf occurs mostly in wilderness and remote areas. The wolf can be found between sea level and 3,000 m (9,800 ft). Wolves live in forests, inland wetlands, shrublands, grasslands (including Arctic tundra), pastures, deserts, and rocky peaks on mountains.[2] Habitat use by wolves depends on the abundance of prey, snow conditions, livestock densities, road densities, human presence and topography.[40]
+
+Like all land mammals that are pack hunters, the wolf feeds predominantly on wild herbivorous hoofed mammals that can be divided into large size 240–650 kg (530–1,430 lb) and medium size 23–130 kg (51–287 lb), and have a body mass similar to that of the combined mass of the pack members.[54][55] The wolf specializes in preying on the vulnerable individuals of large prey,[40] with a pack of 15 able to bring down an adult moose.[56] The variation in diet between wolves living on different continents is based on the variety of hoofed mammals and of available smaller and domesticated prey.[57]
+
+In North America, the wolf's diet is dominated by wild large hoofed mammals (ungulates) and medium-sized mammals. In Asia and Europe, their diet is dominated by wild medium-sized hoofed mammals and domestic species. The wolf depends on wild species, and if these are not readily available, as in Asia, the wolf is more reliant on domestic species.[57] Across Eurasia, wolves prey mostly on moose, red deer, roe deer and wild boar.[58] In North America, important range-wide prey are elk, moose, caribou, white-tailed deer and mule deer.[59] Wolves can digest their meal in a few hours and can feed several times in one day, making quick use of large quantities of meat.[60] A well-fed wolf stores fat under the skin, around the heart, intestines, kidneys, and bone marrow, particularly during the autumn and winter.[61]
+
+Nonetheless, wolves are not fussy eaters. Smaller-sized animals that may supplement their diet include rodents, hares, insectivores and smaller carnivores. They frequently eat waterfowl and their eggs. When such foods are insufficient, they prey on lizards, snakes, frogs, and large insects when available.[62] Wolves in northern Minnesota prey on northern pike in freshwater streams.[63] The diet of coastal wolves in Alaska includes 20% salmon,[64] while those of coastal wolves in British Columbia includes 25% marine sources, and those on the nearby islands 75%.[65]
+
+In Europe, wolves eat apples, pears, figs, melons, berries and cherries. In North America, wolves eat blueberries and raspberries. Wolves also eat grass, which may provide some vitamins.[66] They are known to eat the berries of mountain-ash, lily of the valley, bilberries, cowberries, European black nightshade, grain crops, and the shoots of reeds.[62]
+
+In times of scarcity, wolves will readily eat carrion.[62] In Eurasian areas with dense human activity, many wolf populations are forced to subsist largely on livestock and garbage.[58] Prey in North America continue to occupy suitable habitats with low human density, the wolves eating livestock and garbage only in dire circumstances.[67] Cannibalism is not uncommon in wolves during harsh winters, when packs often attack weak or injured wolves and may eat the bodies of dead pack members.[62][68][69]
+
+Wolves typically dominate other canid species in areas where they both occur. In North America, incidents of wolves killing coyotes are common, particularly in winter, when coyotes feed on wolf kills. Wolves may attack coyote den sites, digging out and killing their pups, though rarely eating them. There are no records of coyotes killing wolves, though coyotes may chase wolves if they outnumber them.[70] According to a press release by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1921, the infamous Custer Wolf relied on coyotes to accompany him and warn him of danger. Though they fed from his kills, he never allowed them to approach him.[71] Interactions have been observed in Eurasia between wolves and golden jackals, the latter's numbers being comparatively small in areas with high wolf densities.[36][70][72] Wolves also kill red, Arctic and corsac foxes, usually in disputes over carcasses, sometimes eating them.[36][73]
+
+Brown bears typically dominate wolf packs in disputes over carcasses, while wolf packs mostly prevail against bears when defending their den sites. Both species kill each other's young. Wolves eat the brown bears they kill, while brown bears seem to eat only young wolves.[74] Wolf interactions with American black bears are much rarer because of differences in habitat preferences. Wolves have been recorded on numerous occasions actively seeking out American black bears in their dens and killing them without eating them. Unlike brown bears, American black bears frequently lose against wolves in disputes over kills.[75] Wolves also dominate and sometimes kill wolverines, and will chase off those that attempt to scavenge from their kills. Wolverines escape from wolves in caves or up trees.[76]
+
+Wolves may interact and compete with felids, such as the Eurasian lynx, which may feed on smaller prey where wolves are present[77] and may be suppressed by large wolf populations.[78] Wolves encounter cougars along portions of the Rocky Mountains and adjacent mountain ranges. Wolves and cougars typically avoid encountering each other by hunting at different elevations for different prey (niche partitioning). In winter, when snow accumulation forces their prey into valleys, interactions between the two species become more likely. Wolves in packs usually dominate cougars and can steal their kills or even kill them,[79] while one-to-one encounters tend to be dominated by the cat. There are several documented cases of cougars killing wolves.[80] Wolves more broadly affect cougar population dynamics and distribution by dominating territory and prey opportunities and disrupting the feline's behaviour.[81] Wolf and Siberian tiger interactions are well-documented in the Russian Far East, where tigers significantly depress wolf numbers, sometimes to the point of localized extinction. Only human depletion of tiger numbers appears to protect wolves from competitive exclusion from them. With perhaps only four proven records of tigers killing wolves, these cases are rare; attacks appear to be competitive rather than predatory in nature.[82][77]
+
+In Israel, Central Asia and India wolves may encounter striped hyenas, usually in disputes over carcasses. Striped hyenas feed extensively on wolf-killed carcasses in areas where the two species interact. One-to-one, hyenas dominate wolves, and may prey on them,[83] but wolf packs can drive off single or outnumbered hyenas.[84][85] There is at least one case in Israel of a hyena associating and cooperating with a wolf pack. It is proposed that the hyena could benefit from the wolves' superior ability to hunt large, agile prey. The wolves could benefit from the hyena's superior sense of smell, to locate and dig out tortoises, to crack open large bones, and to tear open discarded food containers like tin cans.[86]
+
+
+
+The wolf is a social animal.[36] Its populations consist of packs and lone wolves, most lone wolves being temporarily alone while they disperse from packs to form their own or join another one.[87] The wolf's basic social unit is the nuclear family consisting of a mated pair accompanied by their offspring.[36] The average pack size in North America is eight wolves and in Europe 5.5 wolves.[43] The average pack across Eurasia consists of a family of eight wolves (two adults, juveniles, and yearlings),[36] or sometimes two or three such families,[40] with examples of exceptionally large packs consisting of up to 42 wolves being known.[88] Cortisol levels in wolves rise significantly when a pack member dies, indicating the presence of stress.[89] During times of prey abundance caused by calving or migration, different wolf packs may join together temporarily.[36]
+
+Offspring typically stay in the pack for 10–54 months before dispersing.[90] Triggers for dispersal include the onset of sexual maturity and competition within the pack for food.[91] The distance travelled by dispersing wolves varies widely; some stay in the vicinity of the parental group, while other individuals may travel great distances of upwards of 206 km (128 mi), 390 km (240 mi), and 670 km (420 mi) from their natal (birth) packs.[92] A new pack is usually founded by an unrelated dispersing male and female, travelling together in search of an area devoid of other hostile packs.[93] Wolf packs rarely adopt other wolves into their fold and typically kill them. In the rare cases where other wolves are adopted, the adoptee is almost invariably an immature animal of one to three years old, and unlikely to compete for breeding rights with the mated pair. This usually occurs between the months of February and May. Adoptee males may mate with an available pack female and then form their own pack. In some cases, a lone wolf is adopted into a pack to replace a deceased breeder.[88]
+
+Wolves are territorial and generally establish territories far larger than they require to survive assuring a steady supply of prey. Territory size depends largely on the amount of prey available and the age of the pack's pups. They tend to increase in size in areas with low prey populations,[94] or when the pups reach the age of six months when they have the same nutritional needs as adults.[95] Wolf packs travel constantly in search of prey, covering roughly 9% of their territory per day, on average 25 km/d (16 mi/d). The core of their territory is on average 35 km2 (14 sq mi) where they spend 50% of their time.[94] Prey density tends to be much higher on the territory's periphery. Except out of desperation, wolves tend to avoid hunting on the fringes of their range to avoid fatal confrontations with neighbouring packs.[96] The smallest territory on record was held by a pack of six wolves in northeastern Minnesota, which occupied an estimated 33 km2 (13 sq mi), while the largest was held by an Alaskan pack of ten wolves encompassing 6,272 km2 (2,422 sq mi).[95] Wolf packs are typically settled, and usually leave their accustomed ranges only during severe food shortages.[36]
+
+Wolves advertise their territories to other packs through howling and scent marking. Scent marking involves urine, feces, and anal gland scents. This is more effective at advertising territory than howling and is often used in combination with scratch marks. Wolves increase their rate of scent marking when they encounter the marks of wolves from other packs. Lone wolves will rarely mark, but newly bonded pairs will scent mark the most.[40] These marks are generally left every 240 m (260 yd) throughout the territory on regular travelways and junctions. Such markers can last for two to three weeks,[95] and are typically placed near rocks, boulders, trees, or the skeletons of large animals.[36] Territorial fights are among the principal causes of wolf mortality, one study concluding that 14–65% of wolf deaths in Minnesota and the Denali National Park and Preserve were due to other wolves.[97]
+
+Wolves communicate to anticipate what their pack mates or other wolves might do next.[98] This includes the use of vocalization, body posture, scent, touch, and taste.[99] The phases of the moon have no effect on wolf vocalization, and despite popular belief, wolves do not howl at the moon.[100] Wolves howl to assemble the pack usually before and after hunts, to pass on an alarm particularly at a den site, to locate each other during a storm, while crossing unfamiliar territory, and to communicate across great distances.[101] Wolf howls can under certain conditions be heard over areas of up to 130 km2 (50 sq mi).[40] Other vocalizations include growls, barks and whines. Wolves do not bark as loudly or continuously as dogs do in confrontations, rather barking a few times and then retreating from a perceived danger.[102] Aggressive or self-assertive wolves are characterized by their slow and deliberate movements, high body posture and raised hackles, while submissive ones carry their bodies low, flatten their fur, and lower their ears and tail.[103] Raised leg urination is considered to be one of the most important forms of scent communication in the wolf, making up 60–80% of all scent marks observed.[104]
+
+Wolves are monogamous, mated pairs usually remaining together for life. Should one of the pair die, another mate is found quickly.[105] With wolves in the wild, inbreeding does not occur where outbreeding is possible.[106] Wolves become mature at the age of two years and sexually mature from the age of three years.[105] The age of first breeding in wolves depends largely on environmental factors: when food is plentiful, or when wolf populations are heavily managed, wolves can rear pups at younger ages to better exploit abundant resources. Females are capable of producing pups every year, one litter annually being the average.[107] Oestrus and rut begin in the second half of winter and lasts for two weeks.[105]
+
+Dens are usually constructed for pups during the summer period. When building dens, females make use of natural shelters like fissures in rocks, cliffs overhanging riverbanks and holes thickly covered by vegetation. Sometimes, the den is the appropriated burrow of smaller animals such as foxes, badgers or marmots. An appropriated den is often widened and partly remade. On rare occasions, female wolves dig burrows themselves, which are usually small and short with one to three openings. The den is usually constructed not more than 500 m (550 yd) away from a water source. It typically faces southwards where it can be better warmed by sunlight exposure, and the snow can thaw more quickly. Resting places, play areas for the pups, and food remains are commonly found around wolf dens. The odor of urine and rotting food emanating from the denning area often attracts scavenging birds like magpies and ravens. Though they mostly avoid areas within human sight, wolves have been known to nest near domiciles, paved roads and railways.[108] During pregnancy, female wolves remain in a den located away from the peripheral zone of their territories, where violent encounters with other packs are less likely to occur.[109]
+
+The gestation period lasts 62–75 days with pups usually being born in the spring months or early summer in very cold places such as on the tundra. Young females give birth to four to five young, and older females from six to eight young and up to 14. Their mortality rate is 60–80%.[110] Newborn wolf pups look similar to German Shepherd Dog pups.[111] They are born blind and deaf and are covered in short soft grayish-brown fur. They weigh 300–500 g (10 1⁄2–17 3⁄4 oz) at birth and begin to see after nine to 12 days. The milk canines erupt after one month. Pups first leave the den after three weeks. At one-and-a-half months of age, they are agile enough to flee from danger. Mother wolves do not leave the den for the first few weeks, relying on the fathers to provide food for them and their young. Pups begin to eat solid food at the age of three to four weeks. They have a fast growth rate during their first four months of life: during this period, a pup's weight can increase nearly 30 times.[110][112] Wolf pups begin play-fighting at the age of three weeks, though unlike young coyotes and foxes, their bites are gentle and controlled. Actual fights to establish hierarchy usually occur at five to eight weeks of age. This is in contrast to young coyotes and foxes, which may begin fighting even before the onset of play behaviour.[113] By autumn, the pups are mature enough to accompany the adults on hunts for large prey.[109]
+
+Single wolves or mated pairs typically have higher success rates in hunting than do large packs; single wolves have occasionally been observed to kill large prey such as moose, bison and muskoxen unaided.[114][115] This contrasts with the commonly held belief that larger packs benefit from cooperative hunting to bring down large game.[115] The size of a wolf hunting pack is related to the number of pups that survived the previous winter, adult survival, and the rate of dispersing wolves leaving the pack. The optimal pack size for hunting elk is four wolves, and for bison a large pack size is more successful.[116]
+
+As well as their physical adaptations for hunting hoofed mammals, wolves possess certain behavioural, cognitive, and psychological adaptations to assist with their hunting lifestyle. Wolves are excellent learners that match or outperform domestic dogs. They can use gaze to focus attention on where other wolves are looking. This is important because wolves do not use vocalization when hunting. In laboratory tests, they appear to exhibit insight, foresight, understanding, and the ability to plan. [117] To survive, wolves must be able to solve two problems—finding a prey animal, then confronting it.[117]
+
+Wolves move around their territory when hunting, using the same trails for extended periods. After snowfalls, wolves find their old trails and continue using them. These follow the banks of rivers, the shorelines of lakes, through ravines overgrown with shrubs, through plantations, or roads and human paths.[118] Wolves are nocturnal predators. During the winter, a pack will commence hunting in the twilight of early evening and will hunt all night, traveling tens of kilometres. Sometimes hunting large prey occurs during the day. During the summer, wolves generally tend to hunt individually, ambushing their prey and rarely giving pursuit.[119]
+
+The wolf usually travels at a loping pace, placing one of its paws directly in front of the other. This gait can be maintained for hours at a rate of 8–9 km/h (5.0–5.6 mph).[120] On bare paths, a wolf can quickly achieve speeds of 50–60 km/h (31–37 mph). The wolf has a running gait of 55–70 km/h (34–43 mph), can leap 5 m (16 ft) horizontally in a single bound, and can maintain rapid pursuit for at least 20 minutes.[92] A wolf's foot is large and flexible, which allows it to tread on a wide variety of terrain. A wolf's legs are long compared to their body size allowing them to travel up to 76 km (47 mi) in 12 hours. This adaptation allows wolves to locate prey within hours, but it can take days to find prey that can be killed without great risk. Moose and deer live singly in the summer. Caribou live in herds of thousands which presents dangers for wolves. Elk live in small herds and these are a safer target.[117]
+
+A wolf carries its head at the same level as its back, lifting it only when alert.[36] In one study, wolves detected moose using scent ten times, vision six times, and once by following tracks in the snow. Their vision is as good as a human's, and they can smell prey at least 2.4 km (1 1⁄2 mi) away. One wolf travelled to a herd 103 km (64 mi) away. A human can detect the smell of a forest fire over the same distance from downwind. The wolf's sense of smell is at least comparable to that of the domestic dog, which is at least 10,000 times more sensitive than a human's.[117]
+
+When hunting large gregarious prey, wolves will try to isolate an individual from its group.[121] If successful, a wolf pack can bring down game that will feed it for days, but one error in judgement can lead to serious injury or death. Most large prey have developed defensive adaptations and behaviours. Wolves have been killed while attempting to bring down bison, elk, moose, muskoxen, and even by one of their smallest hoofed prey, the white-tailed deer.[117] Although people often believe that wolves can easily overcome any of their prey, their success rate in hunting hoofed prey is usually low.[122]
+
+Generally, bison, elk, and moose will stand their ground, then the wolves must struggle with them to bring them down. Often caribou and deer will flee, but sometimes deer also make a stand. With smaller prey like beaver, geese, and hares, there is no risk to the wolf.[117] If the targeted animal stands its ground, wolves either ignore it, or try to intimidate it into running.[114] Wolves, or even a wolf on its own, will attempt to frighten a herd into panicking and dispersing.[123]
+
+When wolves encounter prey that flees, they give chase. The speed of sprinting prey is closely related to the speed of their main predators. Wolves can run at 56–64 km/h (35–40 mph) across several kilometres and will often pursue prey for at least 1 km (1⁄2 mi). One wolf chased a caribou for 8 km (5 mi), another chased and tracked a deer for 20 km (12 mi), and one 11-year-old wolf chased and caught an Arctic hare after seven minutes. Most wolf prey will try to run to water, where they will either escape or be better placed to attempt to ward off the wolves.[117]
+
+The wolf must give chase and gain on its fleeing prey, slow it down by biting through thick hair and hide, and then disable it enough to begin feeding.[117] After chasing and then confronting a large prey animal, the wolf makes use of its 6 cm (2 1⁄2 in) fangs and its powerful masseter muscles to deliver a bite force of 28 kg/cm2 (400 lbf/in2), which is capable of breaking open the skulls of many of its prey animals. The wolf leaps at its quarry and tears at it. One wolf was observed being dragged for dozens of metres attached to the hind leg of a moose; another was seen being dragged over a fallen log while attached to a bull elk's nose.[116]
+
+The most common point of wolf attacks on moose is the upper hind legs.[124][125][126] Hind leg wounds are inflicted from the rear, midway up the hock with the canine teeth. These leave gaping skin perforations over 4 cm (1 1⁄2 in) in diameter. Although blood loss, muscle damage, and tendon exposure may occur, there is no evidence of hamstringing. Attacks also occur on the fleshy nose, the back and sides of the neck, the ears, and the perineum.[126] Wolves may wound large prey and then lie around resting for hours before killing it when it is weaker due to blood loss, thereby lessening the risk of injury to themselves.[127]
+
+With medium-sized prey, such as roe deer or sheep, wolves kill by biting the throat, severing nerve tracks and the carotid artery, thus causing the animal to die within a few seconds to a minute. With small, mouselike prey, wolves leap in a high arc and immobilize it with their forepaws.[128] When prey is vulnerable and abundant, wolves may occasionally surplus kill. Such instances are common with domestic animals, but rare with wild prey. In the wild, surplus killing occurs primarily during late winter or spring, when snow is unusually deep (thus impeding the movements of prey)[129] or during the denning period, when den bound wolves require a ready supply of meat.[130] Medium-sized prey are especially vulnerable to surplus killing, as the swift throat-biting method allows wolves to kill one animal quickly and move on to another.[128]
+
+Once prey is brought down, wolves begin to feed excitedly, ripping and tugging at the carcass in all directions, and bolting down large chunks of it.[131] The breeding pair typically monopolizes food to continue producing pups. When food is scarce, this is done at the expense of other family members, especially non-pups.[132] The breeding pair typically eats first. They usually work the hardest at killing prey, and may rest after a long hunt and allow the rest of the family to eat undisturbed. Once the breeding pair has finished eating, the rest of the family tears off pieces of the carcass and transports them to secluded areas where they can eat in peace. Wolves typically commence feeding by consuming the larger internal organs, like the heart, liver, lungs, and stomach lining. The kidneys and spleen are eaten once they are exposed, followed by the muscles.[133] A wolf can eat 15–19% of its body weight in a single feeding.[61]
+
+Viral diseases carried by wolves include: rabies, canine distemper, canine parvovirus, infectious canine hepatitis, papillomatosis, and canine coronavirus.[134] Wolves are a major host for rabies in Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and India.[135] In wolves, the incubation period is eight to 21 days, and results in the host becoming agitated, deserting its pack, and travelling up to 80 km (50 mi) a day, thus increasing the risk of infecting other wolves. Infected wolves do not show any fear of humans, most documented wolf attacks on people being attributed to rabid animals. Although canine distemper is lethal in dogs, it has not been recorded to kill wolves, except in Canada and Alaska. The canine parvovirus, which causes death by dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, and endotoxic shock or sepsis, is largely survivable in wolves, but can be lethal to pups. Wolves may catch infectious canine hepatitis from dogs, though there are no records of wolves dying from it. Papillomatosis has been recorded only once in wolves, and likely does not cause serious illness or death, though it may alter feeding behaviours. The canine coronavirus has been recorded in Alaskan wolves, infections being most prevalent in winter months.[134]
+
+Bacterial diseases carried by wolves include: brucellosis, Lyme disease, leptospirosis, tularemia, bovine tuberculosis,[136] listeriosis and anthrax.[135] Wolves can catch Brucella suis from wild and domestic reindeer. While adult wolves tend not to show any clinical signs, it can severely weaken the pups of infected females. Although lyme disease can debilitate individual wolves, it does not appear to significantly affect wolf populations. Leptospirosis can be contracted through contact with infected prey or urine, and can cause fever, anorexia, vomiting, anemia, hematuria, icterus, and death. Wolves living near farms are more vulnerable to the disease than those living in the wilderness, probably because of prolonged contact with infected domestic animal waste. Wolves may catch tularemia from lagomorph prey, though its effect on wolves is unknown. Although bovine tuberculosis is not considered a major threat to wolves, it has been recorded to have killed two wolf pups in Canada.[136]
+
+Wolves carry ectoparasites and endoparasites; those in the former Soviet Union have been recorded to carry at least 50 species.[135] Most of these parasites infect wolves without adverse effects, though the effects may become more serious in sick or malnourished specimens.[137] Parasitic infection in wolves is of particular concern to people. Wolves can spread them to dogs, which in turn can carry the parasites to humans. In areas where wolves inhabit pastoral areas, the parasites can be spread to livestock.[135]
+
+Wolves are often infested with a variety of arthropod exoparasites, including fleas, ticks, lice, and mites. The most harmful to wolves, particularly pups, is the mange mite (Sarcoptes scabiei),[137] though they rarely develop full-blown mange, unlike foxes.[36] Lice, such as Trichodectes canis, may cause sickness in wolves, but rarely death. Ticks of the genus Ixodes can infect wolves with Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.[137] The tick Dermacentor pictus also infests wolves. Other ectoparasites include chewing lice, sucking lice and the fleas Pulex irritans and Ctenocephalides canis.[36]
+
+Endoparasites known to infect wolves include: protozoans and helminths (flukes, tapeworms, roundworms and thorny-headed worms). Of 30,000 protozoan species, only a few have been recorded to infect wolves: Isospora, Toxoplasma, Sarcocystis, Babesia, and Giardia.[137] Some wolves carry Neospora caninum, which can be spread to cattle and is correlated with bovine miscarriages.[138] Among flukes, the most common in North American wolves is Alaria, which infects small rodents and amphibians that are eaten by wolves. Upon reaching maturity, Alaria migrates to the wolf's intestine, but does little harm. Metorchis conjunctus, which enters wolves through eating fish, infects the wolf's liver or gall bladder, causing liver disease, inflammation of the pancreas, and emaciation. Most other fluke species reside in the wolf's intestine, though Paragonimus westermani lives in the lungs. Tapeworms are commonly found in wolves, as their primary hosts are ungulates, small mammals, and fish, which wolves feed upon. Tapeworms generally cause little harm in wolves, though this depends on the number and size of the parasites, and the sensitivity of the host. Symptoms often include constipation, toxic and allergic reactions, irritation of the intestinal mucosa, and malnutrition. Infections by the tapeworm Echinococcus granulosus in ungulate populations tend to increase in areas with high wolf densities, as wolves can shed Echinoccocus eggs in their feces onto grazing areas.[137]
+
+Wolves can carry over 30 roundworm species, though most roundworm infections appear benign, depending on the number of worms and the age of the host. Ancylostoma caninum attaches itself on the intestinal wall to feed on the host's blood, and can cause hyperchromic anemia, emaciation, diarrhea, and possibly death. Toxocara canis, a hookworm known to infect wolf pups in the uterus, can cause intestinal irritation, bloating, vomiting, and diarrhea. Wolves may catch Dioctophyma renale from minks, which infects the kidneys, and can grow to lengths of 100 cm (40 in). D. renale causes the complete destruction of the kidney's functional tissue and can be fatal if both kidneys are infected. Wolves can tolerate low levels of Dirofilaria immitis for many years without showing any ill effects, though high levels can kill wolves through cardiac enlargement and congestive hepatopathy. Wolves probably become infected with Trichinella spiralis by eating infected ungulates. Although T. spiralis is not known to produce clinical signs in wolves, it can cause emaciation, salivation, and crippling muscle pains in dogs. Thorny-headed worms rarely infect wolves, though three species have been identified in Russian wolves: Nicolla skrjabini, Macrocantorhynchus catulinus, and Moniliformis moniliformis.[137]
+
+The global wild wolf population in 2003 was estimated at 300,000.[139] Wolf population declines have been arrested since the 1970s. This has fostered recolonization and reintroduction in parts of its former range as a result of legal protection, changes in land use, and rural human population shifts to cities. Competition with humans for livestock and game species, concerns over the danger posed by wolves to people, and habitat fragmentation pose a continued threat to the wolf. Despite these threats, the IUCN classifies the wolf as Least Concern on its Red List due to its relatively widespread range and stable population. The species is listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora in its Appendix II, indicating that it is not threatened with extinction. However, those wolf populations living in Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are listed in its Appendix I, indicating that these may become extinct without restrictions on their trade.[2]
+
+In Canada, 50,000–60,000 wolves live in 80% of their historical range, making Canada an important stronghold for the species.[40] Under Canadian law, First Nations people can hunt wolves without restrictions, but others must acquire licenses for the hunting and trapping seasons. As many as 4,000 wolves may be harvested in Canada each year.[140] The wolf is a protected species in national parks under the Canada National Parks Act.[141] In Alaska, 7,000–11,000 wolves are found on 85% of the state's 1,517,733 km2 (586,000 sq mi). Wolves may be hunted or trapped with a license; around 1,200 wolves are harvested annually.[142]
+
+In the contiguous United States, wolf declines were caused by the expansion of agriculture, the decimation of the wolf's main prey species like the American bison, and extermination campaigns.[40] Wolves were given protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973, and have since returned to parts of their former range thanks to both natural recolonizations and reintroductions.[143] Wolf populations in the Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan number over 4,000 as of 2018.[144] Wolves also occupy much of the northern Rocky Mountains region, with at least 1,704 wolves in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming as of 2015. They have also established populations in Washington and Oregon.[145] In Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States, the Mexican and U.S. governments collaborated from 1977 to 1980 in capturing all Mexican wolves remaining in the wild to prevent their extinction and established captive breeding programs for reintroduction.[146] As of 2018, there were 230 Mexican wolves living in Mexico, 64 in Arizona, 67 in New Mexico, and 240 in captive breeding programs in both countries.[147]
+
+Europe, excluding Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, has 17,000 wolves in more than 28 countries.[148] In the European Union, the wolf is strictly protected under the 1979 Berne Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Appendix II) and the 1992 Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora (Annex II and IV). There is extensive legal protection in many European countries, although there are national exceptions and enforcement is variable and often non-existent.[2]
+
+Wolves have been persecuted in Europe for centuries, having been exterminated in Great Britain by 1684, in Ireland by 1770, in Central Europe by 1899, in France by the 1930s, and in much of Scandinavia by the early 1970s. They continued to survive in parts of Finland, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe.[149] Since 1980, European wolves have rebounded and expanded into parts of their former range. The decline of the traditional pastoral and rural economies seems to have ended the need to exterminate the wolf in parts of Europe.[140] As of 2016, estimates of wolf numbers include: 4,000 in the Balkans, 3,460–3,849 in the Carpathian Mountains, 1,700–2,240 in the Baltic states, 1,100–2,400 in the Italian peninsula, and around 2,500 in the northwest Iberian peninsula as of 2007.[148]
+
+In the former Soviet Union, wolf populations have retained much of their historical range despite Soviet-era large scale extermination campaigns. Their numbers range from 1,500 in Georgia, to 20,000 in Kazakhstan and up to 45,000 in Russia.[150] In Russia, the wolf is regarded as a pest because of its attacks on livestock, and wolf management means controlling their numbers by destroying them throughout the year. Russian history over the past century shows that reduced hunting leads to an abundance of wolves.[151] The Russian government has continued to pay bounties for wolves and annual harvests of 20-30% do not appear to significantly affect their numbers.[152]
+
+During the 19th century, wolves were widespread in many parts of the Holy Land east and west of the Jordan River, but decreased considerably in number between 1964 and 1980, largely due to persecution by farmers.[153] In the Middle East, only Israel and Oman give wolves explicit legal protection.[154] Israel has protected its wolves since 1954 and has maintained a moderately sized population of 150 through effective enforcement of conservation policies. These wolves have moved into neighboring countries. Approximately 300–600 wolves inhabit the Arabian Peninsula.[155] The wolf also appears to be widespread in Iran.[156] Turkey has an estimated population of about 7,000 wolves.[157] Outside of Turkey, wolf populations in the Middle East may total 1,000–2,000.[154]
+
+In southern Asia, the northern regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan are important strongholds for wolves. The wolf has been protected in India since 1972.[158] Hindus traditionally considered the hunting of wolves, even dangerous ones, as taboo, for fear of causing a bad harvest. The Santals considered them fair game, as they did every other forest-dwelling animal.[159] During British rule in India, wolves were not considered game species, and were killed primarily in response to them attacking game herds, livestock, and people.[160] The Indian wolf is distributed across the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.[161] As of 2019, it is estimated that there are around 2,000–3,000 Indian wolves in the country.[162] In East Asia, Mongolia's population numbers 10,000–20,000. In China, Heilongjiang has roughly 650 wolves, Xinjiang has 10,000 and Tibet has 2,000.[163] 2017 evidence suggests that wolves range across all of mainland China.[164] Wolves have been historically persecuted in China[165] but have been legally protected since 1998.[166] The last Japanese wolf was captured and killed in 1905.[167]
+
+The wolf is a common motif in the mythologies and cosmologies of peoples throughout its historical range. The Ancient Greeks associated wolves with Apollo, the god of light and order.[168] The Ancient Romans connected the wolf with their god of war and agriculture Mars,[169] and believed their city's founders, Romulus and Remus, were suckled by a she-wolf.[170] Norse mythology includes the feared giant wolf Fenrir, eldest child of Loki and the giantess Angrboda,[171] and Geri and Freki, Odin's faithful pets.[172] The wolf was held in high esteem by the Dacians, who viewed it as the lord of all animals and as the only effective defender against evil.[173]
+
+In the Pawnee creation myth, the wolf was the first animal brought to Earth. When humans killed it, they were punished with death, destruction and the loss of immortality.[174] For the Pawnee, Sirius is the "wolf star" and its disappearance and reappearance signified the wolf moving to and from the spirit world. Both the Pawnee and Blackfoot call the Milky Way the "wolf trail".[175] The wolf is also an important totem animal for the Tlingit and Tsimshian.[176] In Chinese astronomy, the wolf represents Sirius as the "blue beast" and the star itself is called the "heavenly wolf".[177] In China, the wolf was traditionally associated with greed and cruelty and wolf epithets were used to describe negative behaviours such as cruelty ("wolf's heart"), mistrust ("wolf's look") and lechery ("wolf-sex").[178]
+
+Tengrism places high importance on the wolf, as it is thought that, when howling, it is praying to Tengri, thus making it the only creature other than man to worship a deity.[179] In both Hinduism and Buddhism, the wolf is ridden by gods of protection. In Vedic Hinduism, the wolf is a symbol of the night and the daytime quail must escape from its jaws.[178] In Hindu mythology, Krishna, to convince the people of Vraja to migrate to Vṛndāvana, creates hundreds of wolves from his hairs, which frighten the inhabitants of Vraja into making the journey.[180] In Tantric Buddhism, wolves are depicted as inhabitants of graveyards and destroyers of corpses.[178] In Zoroastrianism, the wolf has been demonized as the creation of Ahriman.[181]
+
+The concept of people turning into wolves has been present in many cultures. One Greek myth tells of Lycaon of Arcadia being transformed into a wolf by Zeus as punishment for his evil deeds.[182] The legend of the werewolf has been widespread in European folklore and involves people willingly turning into wolves to attack and kill others.[183] The Navajo have traditionally believed that witches would turn into wolves by donning wolf skins and would kill people and raid graveyards.[184] The Dena'ina believed wolves were once men and viewed them as brothers.[168] Similarly, in Turkic mythology wolves were believed to be the ancestors of their people.[185]
+
+Aesop featured wolves in several of his fables, playing on the concerns of Ancient Greece's settled, sheep-herding world. His most famous is the fable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf", which is directed at those who knowingly raise false alarms, and from which the idiomatic phrase "to cry wolf" is derived. Some of his other fables concentrate on maintaining the trust between shepherds and guard dogs in their vigilance against wolves, as well as anxieties over the close relationship between wolves and dogs. Although Aesop used wolves to warn, criticize and moralize about human behaviour, his portrayals added to the wolf's image as a deceitful and dangerous animal.[186] The Bible contains 13 references to wolves, usually as metaphors for greed and destructiveness. In the New Testament, Jesus is said to have used wolves as illustrations of the dangers his followers, whom he represents as sheep, would face should they follow him.(Matthew 7:15, Matthew 10:16 and Acts 20:29).[187] In the Jataka tales the wolf is portrayed as a trickster, including one story in which it makes a hunter stop playing dead by pulling on his club.[188] In another story, the wolf tricks and eats some rats by pretending to be lame but is foiled by the chief rat.[189]
+
+Isengrim the wolf, a character first appearing in the 12th-century Latin poem Ysengrimus, is a major character in the Reynard Cycle, where he stands for the low nobility, whilst his adversary, Reynard the fox, represents the peasant hero. Isengrim is forever the victim of Reynard's wit and cruelty, often dying at the end of each story.[190] The tale of "Little Red Riding Hood", first written in 1697 by Charles Perrault, is considered to have further contributed to the wolf's negative reputation in the Western world. The Big Bad Wolf is portrayed as a villain capable of imitating human speech and disguising itself with human clothing. The character has been interpreted as an allegorical sexual predator.[191] Villainous wolf characters also appear in The Three Little Pigs and "The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats".[192] The hunting of wolves, and their attacks on humans and livestock, feature prominently in Russian literature, and are included in the works of Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Nikolay Nekrasov, Ivan Bunin, Leonid Pavlovich Sabaneyev, and others. Tolstoy's War and Peace and Chekhov's Peasants both feature scenes in which wolves are hunted with hounds and Borzois.[193] The musical Peter and the Wolf involves a wolf being captured for eating a farm duck, but is spared and sent to a zoo.[194]
+
+Wolves are among the central characters of Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. His portrayal of wolves has been praised posthumously by wolf biologists for his depiction of them: rather than being villainous or gluttonous, as was common in wolf portrayals at the time of the book's publication, they are shown as living in amiable family groups and drawing on the experience of infirm but experienced elder pack members.[195] Farley Mowat's largely fictional 1963 memoir Never Cry Wolf is widely considered to be the most popular book on wolves, having been adapted into a Hollywood film and taught in several schools decades after its publication. Although credited with having changed popular perceptions on wolves by portraying them as loving, cooperative and noble, it has been criticized for its idealization of wolves and its factual inaccuracies.[196][197][198] Lü Jiamin's 2004 semi-autobiographical novel Wolf Totem uses wolves as symbols of freedom and independence. He associates the Mongolian nomads with wolves and compares the Han Chinese of the present day to sheep, claiming they accept any leadership. As such, the novel has caused controversy with the Chinese Communist Party.[199][200]
+
+The wolf is a frequent charge in English heraldry. It is illustrated as a supporter on the shields of Lord Welby, Rendel, and Viscount Wolseley, and can be found on the coat of arms of Lovett and the vast majority of the Wilsons and Lows. The demi-wolf is a common crest, appearing in the arms and crests of members of many families, including that of the Wolfes, whose crest depicts a demi-wolf holding a crown in its paws, in reference to the assistance the family gave to Charles II during the Battle of Worcester. Wolf heads are common in Scottish heraldry, particularly in the coats of Clan Robertson and Skene. The wolf is the most common animal in Spanish heraldry and is often depicted as carrying a lamb in its mouth, or across its back.[201]
+
+The wolf is featured on the flags of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and the Pawnee.[202] The Chechen wolf has been a symbol of the Chechen Nation.[203] In modern times, the wolf is widely used as an emblem for military and paramilitary groups. It is the unofficial symbol of the spetsnaz, and serves as the logo of the Turkish Gray Wolves. During the Yugoslav Wars, several Serb paramilitary units adopted the wolf as their symbol, including the White Wolves and the Wolves of Vučjak.[204]
+
+Human presence appears to stress wolves, as seen by increased cortisol levels in instances such as snowmobiling near their territory.[205]
+
+Livestock depredation has been one of the primary reasons for hunting wolves and can pose a severe problem for wolf conservation. As well as causing economic losses, the threat of wolf predation causes great stress on livestock producers, and no foolproof solution of preventing such attacks short of exterminating wolves has been found.[206] Some nations help offset economic losses to wolves through compensation programs or state insurance.[207] Domesticated animals are easy prey for wolves, as they have been bred under constant human protection, and are thus unable to defend themselves very well.[208] Wolves typically resort to attacking livestock when wild prey is depleted. In Eurasia, a large part of the diet of some wolf populations consists of livestock, while such incidents are rare in North America, where healthy populations of wild prey have been largely restored.[206]
+
+The majority of losses occur during the summer grazing period, untended livestock in remote pastures being the most vulnerable to wolf predation.[209] The most frequently targeted livestock species are sheep (Europe), domestic reindeer (northern Scandinavia), goats (India), horses (Mongolia), cattle and turkeys (North America).[206] The number of animals killed in single attacks varies according to species: most attacks on cattle and horses result in one death, while turkeys, sheep and domestic reindeer may be killed in surplus.[210] Wolves mainly attack livestock when the animals are grazing, though they occasionally break into fenced enclosures.[211]
+
+A review of the studies on the competitive effects of dogs on sympatric carnivores did not mention any research on competition between dogs and wolves.[212][213] Competition would favour the wolf, which is known to kill dogs; however wolves usually live in pairs or in small packs in areas with high human persecution, giving them a disadvantage facing large groups of dogs.[213][214]
+
+Wolves kill dogs on occasion, and some wolf populations rely on dogs as an important food source. In Croatia, wolves kill more dogs than sheep, and wolves in Russia appear to limit stray dog populations. Wolves may display unusually bold behaviour when attacking dogs accompanied by people, sometimes ignoring nearby humans. Wolf attacks on dogs may occur both in house yards and in forests. Wolf attacks on hunting dogs are considered a major problem in Scandinavia and Wisconsin.[206][215] The most frequently killed hunting breeds in Scandinavia are Harriers, older animals being most at risk, likely because they are less timid than younger animals, and react to the presence of wolves differently. Large hunting dogs such as Swedish Elkhounds are more likely to survive wolf attacks because of their better ability to defend themselves.[215]
+
+Although the number of dogs killed each year by wolves is relatively low, it induces a fear of wolves' entering villages and farmyards to prey on them. In many cultures, dogs are seen as family members, or at least working team members, and losing one can lead to strong emotional responses such as demanding more liberal hunting regulations.[213]
+
+Dogs that are employed to guard sheep help to mitigate human–wolf conflicts, and are often proposed as one of the non-lethal tools in the conservation of wolves.[213][216] Shepherd dogs are not particularly aggressive, but they can disrupt potential wolf predation by displaying what is to the wolf ambiguous behaviours, such as barking, social greeting, invitation to play or aggression. The historical use of shepherd dogs across Eurasia has been effective against wolf predation,[213][217] especially when confining sheep in the presence of several livestock guardian dogs.[213][218] Shepherd dogs are sometimes killed by wolves.[213]
+
+The fear of wolves has been pervasive in many societies, though humans are not part of the wolf's natural prey.[219] How wolves react to humans depends largely on their prior experience with people: wolves lacking any negative experience of humans, or which are food-conditioned, may show little fear of people.[220] Although wolves may react aggressively when provoked, such attacks are mostly limited to quick bites on extremities, and the attacks are not pressed.[219]
+
+Predatory attacks may be preceded by a long period of habituation, in which wolves gradually lose their fear of humans. The victims are repeatedly bitten on the head and face, and are then dragged off and consumed unless the wolves are driven off. Such attacks typically occur only locally and do not stop until the wolves involved are eliminated. Predatory attacks can occur at any time of the year, with a peak in the June–August period, when the chances of people entering forested areas (for livestock grazing or berry and mushroom picking) increase.[219] Cases of non-rabid wolf attacks in winter have been recorded in Belarus, Kirov and Irkutsk oblasts, Karelia and Ukraine. Also, wolves with pups experience greater food stresses during this period.[36] The majority of victims of predatory wolf attacks are children under the age of 18 and, in the rare cases where adults are killed, the victims are almost always women.[219] Indian wolves have a history of preying on children, a phenomenon called "child-lifting". They may be taken primarily in the summer period in the evening hours, and often within human settlements.[221]
+
+Cases of rabid wolves are low when compared to other species, as wolves do not serve as primary reservoirs of the disease, but can be infected by animals such as dogs, jackals and foxes. Incidents of rabies in wolves are very rare in North America, though numerous in the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Central Asia. Wolves apparently develop the "furious" phase of rabies to a very high degree. This, coupled with their size and strength, makes rabid wolves perhaps the most dangerous of rabid animals.[219] Bites from rabid wolves are 15 times more dangerous than those of rabid dogs.[222] Rabid wolves usually act alone, travelling large distances and often biting large numbers of people and domestic animals. Most rabid wolf attacks occur in the spring and autumn periods. Unlike with predatory attacks, the victims of rabid wolves are not eaten, and the attacks generally occur only on a single day. The victims are chosen at random, though most cases involve adult men. During the fifty years up to 2002, there were eight fatal attacks in Europe and Russia, and more than two hundred in southern Asia.[219]
+
+Theodore Roosevelt said wolves are difficult to hunt because of their elusiveness, sharp senses, high endurance, and ability to quickly incapacitate and kill a dog.[223] Historic methods included killing of spring-born litters in their dens, coursing with dogs (usually combinations of sighthounds, Bloodhounds and Fox Terriers), poisoning with strychnine, and trapping.[224][225]
+
+A popular method of wolf hunting in Russia involves trapping a pack within a small area by encircling it with fladry poles carrying a human scent. This method relies heavily on the wolf's fear of human scents, though it can lose its effectiveness when wolves become accustomed to the odor. Some hunters can lure wolves by imitating their calls. In Kazakhstan and Mongolia, wolves are traditionally hunted with eagles and falcons, though this practice is declining, as experienced falconers are becoming few in number. Shooting wolves from aircraft is highly effective, due to increased visibility and direct lines of fire.[225] Several types of dog, including the Borzoi and Kyrgyz Tajgan, have been specifically bred for wolf hunting.[213]
+
+Wolves and wolf-dog hybrids are sometimes kept as exotic pets. Although closely related to domestic dogs, wolves do not show the same tractability as dogs in living alongside humans, being generally less responsive to human commands and more likely to act aggressively. A person is more likely to be fatally mauled by a pet wolf or wolf-dog hybrid than by a dog.[226]
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+The Louvre (English: /ˈluːv(rə)/ LOOV(-rə)[3]), or the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] (listen)), is the world's  largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward). Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet).[4] In 2019, the Louvre received 9.6 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the world.[2][5]
+
+The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.[6] The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.[7] In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years.[8] During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.
+
+The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.
+
+The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, was begun as a fortress by Philip II in the 12th century to protect the city from English soldiers which were in Normandy. Remnants of this castle are still visible in the crypt.[9] Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known; it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower.[10] According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).[10][11] In the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery,[12] this territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, however.
+
+The Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis I renovated the site in French Renaissance style.[13] Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvre's holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.[14] After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed; however, the move permitted the Louvre to be used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage.[13][15][16] Four generations of Boulle were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre in the following order: Pierre Boulle, Jean Boulle, Andre-Charles Boulle and his four sons (Jean-Philippe,[17] Pierre-Benoît (c. 1683–1741), Charles-André (1685–1749) and Charles-Joseph (1688–1754)), after him. André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732[18]) is the most famous French cabinetmaker and the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry,[19][20] also known as "Inlay".[21]  Boulle was "the most remarkable of all French cabinetmakers".[22] He was commended to Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King", by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683) as being "the most skilled craftsman in his profession".  Before the fire of 1720 destroyed them, André-Charles Boulle held priceless works of art in the Louvre, including forty-eight drawings by Raphael'.[23]
+
+By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery, with the art critic La Font de Saint-Yenne publishing, in 1747, a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the Tableaux du Roy on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and contained Andrea del Sarto's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck, until its closing in 1780 as a result of the gift of the palace to the Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778.[24] Under Louis XVI, the royal museum idea became policy.[25] The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the "French Museum". Many proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum; however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution.[24]
+
+During the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts".[24] On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation as urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display.[26]
+
+The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the monarchy's demise. The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated".[28] The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property (biens nationaux).[29][30] To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 livres per year.[24] In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as Laocoön and His Sons and the Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty".[29][31]
+
+The early days were hectic; privileged artists continued to live in residence, and the unlabelled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling".[29] The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns.[29]
+
+Under Napoleon I, a northern wing paralleling the Grande Galerie was begun, and the collection grew through successful military campaigns.[32] Following the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, Napoléon appointed the museum's first director, Dominique Vivant Denon. In tribute, the museum was renamed the "Musée Napoléon" in 1803, and acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as spoils or through treaties such as the Treaty of Tolentino.[33] At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of the Austrian Monarchy. This treaty not only marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy, but also the end of the first phases of the French Revolutionary Wars. Under this treaty, Italian cities were required to contribute pieces of art and patrimony to take part in Napoleon's "parades of booty" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum.[34] One of the most famous pieces taken under this program was the Horses of Saint Mark. The four antique bronze horses, which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris to reside atop Napoleon's Arc du Carrousel in Paris in 1797.[34]
+
+Several churches and palaces, including Saint Mark's Basilica, were looted by the French, which outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities.[35] In 1797, the Treaty of Tolentino was signed by Napoleon, and two statues, the Nile and Tiber, were taken to Paris. These statues had previously been in the Vatican, and both were housed in the Louvre until 1815. After the defeat of Napoleon, the Nile was returned to Italy.[36] However, the Tiber remained in the Louvre Museum and can be seen in the collections today.
+
+The Italian Peninsula was not the only region from which Napoleon took art. Under the Directory government of the 1790s, Napoleon (then a General) led an expedition to Egypt. The campaign was an expansionist effort on the part of the government, but the Directory had another goal to make Paris the center of art, science, and culture.[37] The Directory wanted France to assume responsibility for liberating the works of art they deemed in danger in order to protect and nationalize the heritage and culture of their subjects.[38] As a result, there were teams of artists and scientists who accompanied the armies into battle equipped with lists of paintings, sculptures, and other pieces of patrimony that would be collected, crated, and shipped back to France.[39]
+
+Dominique Vivant Denon was Napoleon's art advisor, and accompanied him on the expedition to Egypt. Through his initiative, the Valley of the Kings in Egypt was discovered and studied extensively.[40] As a result, he was later installed by Napoleon as the director of Musée Napoléon, formerly the Louvre, cementing the status of the museum as a center for global patrimony and storehouse for cultural heritage.[41]
+
+One of the most important discoveries made during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt was the Rosetta Stone. It was discovered in 1799, and eventually led to the ability to decipher ancient hieroglyphs. Although the Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French, it actually never made it to the Louvre Museum. It was seized by British Forces following the defeat of Napoleon in Egypt and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801.[42] It is now on display at the British Museum.[43]
+
+After the French defeat at Waterloo, the works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrators were loath to comply and hid many works in their private collections. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, even some that had been restored by the Louvre.[33][44] In 1815 Louis XVIII finally concluded agreements with the Austrian government[45][46] for the keeping of pieces such as Veronese's Wedding at Cana which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection.
+
+During the Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X between them added 135 pieces at a cost of 720,000 francs and created the department of Egyptian antiquities curated by Champollion, increased by more than 7,000 works with the acquisition of antiquities in the Edme-Antoine Durand, the Egyptian collection of Henry Salt or the second collection former by Bernardino Drovetti. This was less than the amount given for rehabilitation of Versailles, and the Louvre suffered relative to the rest of Paris. After the creation of the French Second Republic in 1848, the new government allocated two million francs for repair work and ordered the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon, the Salon Carré, and the Grande Galérie.[47] In 1861, Napoleon III bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection. Between  1852 and 1870, under Napoleon III, the museum added 20,000 new pieces to its collections, and the Pavillon de Flore and the Grande Galérie were remodelled under architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel.[47]
+
+The Louvre was damaged during the suppression of the Paris Commune.  On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Palace. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the palace and spreading to the museum next to it.  The library of the museum and some of the adjoining halls were destroyed, but the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees.[48]
+
+During the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new pieces mainly via donations and gifts. The Société des Amis du Louvre (established in 1897) donated the Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, and in 1863 an expedition uncovered the sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. This piece, though heavily damaged, has been prominently displayed since 1884.[50] The 583-item Collection La Caze donated in 1869, included works by Chardin; Fragonard; Rembrandt – such as Bathsheba at Her Bath – and Gilles by Watteau.[50]
+
+Museum expansion slowed after World War I, and the collection did not acquire many significant new works; exceptions were Georges de La Tour's Saint Thomas and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's (1845–1934) 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books.[30]
+At the beginning of World War II the museum removed most of the art and hid valuable pieces. When Germany occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord. When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to the Château de Valençay.[51] On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement".[52] In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre.[53]
+
+By 1874, the Louvre Palace had achieved its present form of an almost rectangular structure with the Sully Wing to the east containing the Cour Carrée (Square Court) and the oldest parts of the Louvre; and two wings which wrap the Cour Napoléon, the Richelieu Wing to the north and the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south.[54] In 1983, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, the Grand Louvre plan to renovate the building and relocate the Finance Ministry, allowing displays throughout the building. Architect I. M. Pei was awarded the project and proposed a glass pyramid to stand over a new entrance in the main court, the Cour Napoléon.[55] The pyramid and its underground lobby were inaugurated on 15 October 1988 and the Louvre Pyramid was completed in 1989. The second phase of the Grand Louvre plan, the Pyramide Inversée (Inverted Pyramid), was completed in 1993. As of 2002, attendance had doubled since completion.[56]
+
+The Napoleon Courtyard and Ieoh Ming Pei's pyramid in its center, at dusk.
+
+The Louvre Palace and the pyramid (by day)
+
+The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 square metres (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection.[1] The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds.[30] It is the world's most visited museum, averaging 15,000 visitors per day, 65 percent of whom are foreign tourists.[56][57]
+
+After architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti had won an international competition to create its new galleries for Islamic art, the new 3,000 sq m[58] pavilion eventually opened in 2012, consisting of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof (fashioned from almost 9,000 steel tubes that form an interior web) that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing.[59] The galleries, which the museum had initially hoped to open by 2009, represent the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since the addition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989.[60]
+
+On 5 February 2015, about one hundred archaeologists, protesting against commercial private involvement to protect France's heritage, blocked Louvre's ticket desks to facilitate free access to the museum.[61] At least one announcement reading "Free entrance offered by the archeologists" has been attached to the ticket desk and a number of people visited the museum free of charge.[61]
+
+The Louvre is owned by the French government; however, since the 1990s it has become more independent.[57][62][63][64] Since 2003, the museum has been required to generate funds for projects.[63] By 2006, government funds had dipped from 75 percent of the total budget to 62 percent. Every year, the Louvre now raises as much as it gets from the state, about €122 million. The government pays for operating costs (salaries, safety and maintenance), while the rest – new wings, refurbishments, acquisitions – is up to the museum to finance.[65] A further €3 million to €5 million a year is raised by the Louvre from exhibitions that it curates for other museums, while the host museum keeps the ticket money.[65] As the Louvre became a point of interest in the book The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 film based on the book, the museum earned $2.5 million by allowing filming in its galleries.[66][67] In 2008, the French government provided $180 million of the Louvre's yearly $350 million budget; the remainder came from private contributions and ticket sales.[62]
+
+The Louvre employs a staff of 2,000 led by Director Jean-Luc Martinez,[68] who reports to the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. Martinez replaced Henri Loyrette in April 2013. Under Loyrette, who replaced Pierre Rosenberg in 2001, the Louvre has undergone policy changes that allow it to lend and borrow more works than before.[57][63] In 2006, it loaned 1,300 works, which enabled it to borrow more foreign works. From 2006 to 2009, the Louvre lent artwork to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and received a $6.9 million payment to be used for renovations.[63]
+
+In 2012, the Louvre and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced a five-year collaboration on exhibitions, publications, art conservation and educational programming.[69] The €98.5 million expansion of the Islamic Art galleries in 2012 received state funding of €31 million, as well as €17 million from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. The republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated in total €26 million. In addition, the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is supposed to provide €400 million over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum's brand.[58] Loyrette has tried to improve weak parts of the collection through income generated from loans of art and by guaranteeing that "20% of admissions receipts will be taken annually for acquisitions".[63] He has more administrative independence for the museum and achieved 90 percent of galleries to be open daily, as opposed to 80 percent previously. He oversaw the creation of extended hours and free admission on Friday nights and an increase in the acquisition budget to $36 million from $4.5 million.[62][63]
+
+On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci's death, the Louvre held the largest ever single exhibit of his work, from 24 October  2019 to 24 February  2020. The event included over a hundred items: paintings, drawings and notebooks. A full 11 of the fewer than 20 paintings that Da Vinci completed in his lifetime were displayed. Five of them are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is in such great demand among visitors to the Louvre museum; the work remained on display in its gallery. Salvator Mundi was also not included since the Saudi owner did not agree to move the work from its hiding place. Vitruvian Man, however, was on display, after a successful legal battle with its owner, the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice.[70][71]
+
+In 2004, French officials decided to build a satellite museum on the site of an abandoned coal pit in the former mining town of Lens to relieve the crowded Paris Louvre, increase total museum visits, and improve the industrial north's economy.[72] Six cities were considered for the project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. In 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens to be the site of the new building, the Louvre-Lens. Japanese architects SANAA were selected to design the Lens project in 2005. Museum officials predicted that the new building, capable of receiving about 600 works of art, would attract up to 500,000 visitors a year when it opened in 2012.[72]
+
+On 8 November 2017, a direct extension of the Louvre, Louvre Abu Dhabi, opened its doors to the public in the city of Abu Dhabi. A 30-year agreement, signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, established the museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi in exchange for €832,000,000 (US$1.3 billion). The Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel and the engineering firm of Buro Happold, occupy 24,000 square metres (260,000 sq ft) and is covered by an iconic metallic roof designed to cast rays of light mimicking sunlight passing through date palm fronds in an oasis. France agreed to rotate between 200 and 300 artworks during a 10-year period; to provide management expertise; and to provide four temporary exhibitions a year for 15 years. The art will come from multiple museums, including the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Centre, the Musée d'Orsay, Versailles, the Musée Guimet, the Musée Rodin, and the Musée du quai Branly.[73]
+
+In March 2018 an exhibition of dozens of artworks and relics belonging to France's Louvre Museum was opened to visitors in Tehran, as a result of an agreement between Iranian and French presidents in 2016. In the Louvre, two departments were allocated to the antiquities of the Iranian civilization, and the managers of the two departments visited Tehran. Relics belonging to Ancient Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia as well as French royal items were showcased at the Tehran exhibition.
+
+Iran's National Museum building was designed and constructed by French architect André Godard.[74] Following its time in Tehran, the exhibition is set to be held in the Khorasan Grand Museum in Mashhad, northeastern Iran in June 2018.[75]
+
+In 2009, Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand approved a plan that would have created a storage facility 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Paris to hold objects from the Louvre and two other national museums in Paris's flood zone, the Musée du Quai Branly and the Musée d'Orsay; the plan was later scrapped. In 2013, his successor Aurélie Filippetti announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of art[76] held in a 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft) basement storage area in Liévin; the cost of the project, estimated at €60 million, will be split between the region (49%) and the Louvre (51%).[77] The Louvre will be the sole owner and manager of the store.[76] In July 2015, a team led by British firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was selected to design the complex, which will have light-filled work spaces under one vast, green roof.[76]
+
+The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property seized under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II by the Nazis. During Nazi occupation, thousands of artworks were stolen. But after the war, 61,233 articles of more than 150,000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Louvre's Office des Biens Privés. In 1949, it entrusted 2,130 unclaimed pieces (including 1,001 paintings) to the Direction des Musées de France in order to keep them under appropriate conditions of conservation until their restitution and meanwhile classified them as MNRs (Musées Nationaux Recuperation or, in English, the National Museums of Recovered Artwork). Some 10% to 35% of the pieces are believed to come from Jewish spoliations[78] and until the identification of their rightful owners, which declined at the end of the 1960s, they are registered indefinitely on separate inventories from the museum's collections.
+
+They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (1950–1954) in order to allow rightful claimants to identify their properties, then stored or displayed, according to their interest, in several French museums including the Louvre. From 1951 to 1965, about 37 pieces were restituted. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 1947–1949 has been accessible online and completed. In 1997, Prime Minister Alain Juppé initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by Jean Mattéoli, to investigate the matter and according to the government, the Louvre is in charge of 678 pieces of artwork still unclaimed by their rightful owners.[79] During the late 1990s, the comparison of the American war archives, which had not been done before, with the French and German ones as well as two court cases which finally settled some of the heirs' rights (Gentili di Giuseppe and Rosenberg families) allowed more accurate investigations. Since 1996, the restitutions, according sometimes to less formal criteria, concerned 47 more pieces (26 paintings, with 6 from the Louvre including a then displayed Tiepolo), until the last claims of French owners and their heirs ended again in 2006.
+
+According to Serge Klarsfeld, since the now complete and constant publicity which the artworks got in 1996, the majority of the French Jewish community is nevertheless in favour of the return to the normal French civil rule of prescription acquisitive of any unclaimed good after another long period of time and consequently to their ultimate integration into the common French heritage instead of their transfer to foreign institutions like during World War II.
+
+Napoleon's campaigns acquired Italian pieces by treaties, as war reparations, and Northern European pieces as spoils as well as some antiquities excavated in Egypt, though the vast majority of the latter were seized as war reparations by the British army and are now part of collections of the British Museum. On the other hand, the Dendera zodiac is, like the Rosetta Stone, claimed by Egypt even though it was acquired in 1821, before the Egyptian Anti-export legislation of 1835. The Louvre administration has thus argued in favor of retaining this item despite requests by Egypt for its return. The museum participates too in arbitration sessions held via UNESCO's Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin.[80] The museum consequently returned in 2009 five Egyptian fragments of frescoes (30 cm x 15 cm each) whose existence of the tomb of origin had only been brought to the authorities attention in 2008, eight to five years after their good-faith acquisition by the museum from two private collections and after the necessary respect of the procedure of déclassement from French public collections before the Commission scientifique nationale des collections des musées de France.[81]
+
+The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments.[1]
+
+The department, comprising over 50,000 pieces,[82] includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century AD.[83] The collection, among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.[83]
+
+The department's origins lie in the royal collection, but it was augmented by Napoleon's 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Vivant, the future director of the Louvre.[82] After Jean-François Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt and Bernardino Drovet; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including The Seated Scribe.[82][85]
+
+Guarded by the Large Sphinx (c. 2000 BC), the collection is housed in more than 20 rooms. Holdings include art, papyrus scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons.[82][83] Pieces from the ancient period include the Gebel el-Arak Knife from 3400 BC, The Seated Scribe, and the Head of King Djedefre. Middle Kingdom art, "known for its gold work and statues", moved from realism to idealization; this is exemplified by the schist statue of Amenemhatankh and the wooden Offering Bearer. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess Nephthys and the limestone depiction of the goddess Hathor demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth.[83][85]
+
+Near Eastern antiquities, the second newest department, dates from 1881 and presents an overview of early Near Eastern civilization and "first settlements", before the arrival of Islam. The department is divided into three geographic areas: the Levant, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-Émile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of Sargon II's palace.[83][86] These finds formed the basis of the Assyrian museum, the precursor to today's department.[83]
+
+The museum contains exhibits from Sumer and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's Stele of the Vultures from 2450 BC and the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains. The 2.25-metre (7.38 ft) Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901, displays Babylonian Laws prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the Investiture of Zimrilim and the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il found in the ancient city-state of Mari are also on display at the museum.
+
+The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I.[83][87] This section also contains rare objects from Persepolis which were also lent to the British Museum for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005.[88]
+
+The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the Neolithic to the 6th century.[89] The collection spans from the Cycladic period to the decline of the Roman Empire. This department is one of the museum's oldest; it began with appropriated royal art, some of which was acquired under Francis I.[83][90] Initially, the collection focused on marble sculptures, such as the Venus de Milo. Works such as the Apollo Belvedere arrived during the Napoleonic Wars, but these pieces were returned after Napoleon I's fall in 1815. In the 19th century, the Louvre acquired works including vases from the Durand collection, bronzes such as the Borghese Vase from the Bibliothèque nationale.[84][89]
+
+The archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre, from 640 BC; and the cylindrical Hera of Samos, c. 570–560 BC.[83][91] After the 4th century BC, focus on the human form increased, exemplified by the Borghese Gladiator. The Louvre holds masterpieces from the Hellenistic era, including The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC) and the Venus de Milo, symbolic of classical art.[90] The long Galerie Campana displays an outstanding collection of more than one thousand Greek potteries. In the galleries paralleling the Seine, much of the museum's Roman sculpture is displayed.[89] The Roman portraiture is representative of that genre; examples include the portraits of Agrippa and Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino.
+
+The Islamic art collection, the museum's newest, spans "thirteen centuries and three continents".[92] These exhibits, comprising ceramics, glass, metalware, wood, ivory, carpet, textiles, and miniatures, include more than 5,000 works and 1,000 shards.[93] Originally part of the decorative arts department, the holdings became separate in 2003. Among the works are the Pyxide d'al-Mughira, a 10th century ivory box from Andalusia; the Baptistery of Saint-Louis, an engraved brass basin from the 13th or 14th century Mamluk period; and the 10th century Shroud of Saint-Josse from Iran.[86][92] The collection contains three pages of the Shahnameh, an epic book of poems by Ferdowsi in Persian, and a Syrian metalwork named the Barberini Vase.[93] In September 2019, a new and improved Islamic art department was opened by Princess Lamia bint Majed Al-Saud. The new department exhibits 3,000 pieces were collected from Spain to India via the Arabian peninsula dating from the 7th to the 19th centuries.[94]
+
+The sculpture department comprises work created before 1850 that does not belong in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department.[95] The Louvre has been a repository of sculpted material since its time as a palace; however, only ancient architecture was displayed until 1824, except for Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave.[96] Initially the collection included only 100 pieces, the rest of the royal sculpture collection being at Versailles. It remained small until 1847, when Léon Laborde was given control of the department. Laborde developed the medieval section and purchased the first such statues and sculptures in the collection, King Childebert and stanga door, respectively.[96] The collection was part of the Department of Antiquities but was given autonomy in 1871 under Louis Courajod, a director who organized a wider representation of French works.[95][96] In 1986, all post-1850 works were relocated to the new Musée d'Orsay. The Grand Louvre project separated the department into two exhibition spaces; the French collection is displayed in the Richelieu wing, and foreign works in the Denon wing.[95]
+
+The collection's overview of French sculpture contains Romanesque works such as the 11th-century Daniel in the Lions' Den and the 12th-century Virgin of Auvergne. In the 16th century, Renaissance influence caused French sculpture to become more restrained, as seen in Jean Goujon's bas-reliefs, and Germain Pilon's Descent from the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1640–1 Bust of Cardinal Richelieu, Étienne Maurice Falconet's Woman Bathing and Amour menaçant, and François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassical works includes Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1787).[96] The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptor Alfred Barye.
+
+The Objets d'art collection spans the time from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. The department began as a subset of the sculpture department, based on royal property and the transfer of work from the Basilique Saint-Denis, the burial ground of French monarchs that held the Coronation Sword of the Kings of France.[97][98] Among the budding collection's most prized works were pietre dure vases and bronzes. The Durand collection's 1825 acquisition added "ceramics, enamels, and stained glass", and 800 pieces were given by Pierre Révoil. The onset of Romanticism rekindled interest in Renaissance and Medieval artwork, and the Sauvageot donation expanded the department with 1,500 middle-age and faïence works. In 1862, the Campana collection added gold jewelry and maiolicas, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries.[98][99]
+
+The works are displayed on the Richelieu Wing's first floor and in the Apollo Gallery, named by the painter Charles Le Brun, who was commissioned by Louis XIV (the Sun King) to decorate the space in a solar theme. The medieval collection contains the coronation crown of Louis XIV, Charles V's sceptre, and the 12th century porphyry vase.[100] The Renaissance art holdings include Giambologna's bronze Nessus and Deianira and the tapestry Maximillian's Hunt.[97] From later periods, highlights include Madame de Pompadour's Sèvres vase collection and Napoleon III's apartments.[97]
+
+In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the Gilbert Chagoury and Rose-Marie Chagoury Gallery to display tapestries donated by the Chagourys, including a 16th-century six-part tapestry suite, sewn with gold and silver threads representing sea divinities, which was commissioned in Paris for Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy.
+
+The painting collection has more than 7,500 works[101] from the 13th century to 1848 and is managed by 12 curators who oversee the collection's display. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200 are Northern European. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of Francis I and Louis XIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era, and some were bought.[102][103] The collection began with Francis, who acquired works from Italian masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo[104] and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court.[14][105] After the French Revolution, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the d'Orsay train station was converted into the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the 1848 Revolution were moved to the new museum. French and Northern European works are in the Richelieu wing and Cour Carrée; Spanish and Italian paintings are on the first floor of the Denon wing.[103]
+
+Exemplifying the French School are the early Avignon Pietà of Enguerrand Quarton; the anonymous painting of King Jean le Bon (c. 1360), possibly the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era;[106] Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa; and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Brun, La Tour, Watteau, Fragonard, Ingres, Corot, and Delacroix are well represented.[107]
+
+Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's The Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox.
+
+The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. The works include Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini's Calvarys, which reflect realism and detail "meant to depict the significant events of a greater spiritual world".[108] The High Renaissance collection includes Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John the Baptist, and Madonna of the Rocks. Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and Death of the Virgin. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays Titian's Le Concert Champetre, The Entombment and The Crowning with Thorns.[109][110]
+
+The La Caze Collection, a bequest to the Musée du Louvre in 1869 by Louis La Caze, was the largest contribution of a person in the history of the Louvre. La Caze gave 584 paintings of his personal collection to the museum. The bequest included Antoine Watteau's Commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot ("Gilles"). In 2007, this bequest was the topic of the exhibition "1869: Watteau, Chardin... entrent au Louvre. La collection La Caze".[111]
+
+Some of the best known paintings of the museum have been digitized by the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France.[112]
+
+The prints and drawings department encompasses works on paper.[113] The origins of the collection were the 8,600 works in the Royal Collection (Cabinet du Roi), which were increased via state appropriation, purchases such as the 1,200 works from Fillipo Baldinucci's collection in 1806, and donations.[84][114] The department opened on 5 August 1797, with 415 pieces displayed in the Galerie d'Apollon. The collection is organized into three sections: the core Cabinet du Roi, 14,000 royal copper printing-plates, and the donations of Edmond de Rothschild, which include 40,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 5,000 illustrated books. The holdings are displayed in the Pavillon de Flore; due to the fragility of the paper medium, only a portion are displayed at one time.[113]
+
+The museum lies in the center of Paris on the Right Bank, in the 1st arrondissement. It was home to the former Tuileries Palace, which closed off the western end of the Louvre entrance courtyard, but was heavily damaged by fire during the Paris Commune of 1871 and later demolished. The adjacent Tuileries Gardens, created in 1564 by Catherine de' Medici, was designed in 1664 by André Le Nôtre. The gardens house the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, a contemporary art exhibition space which was used to store confiscated Jewish cultural property during the 1940 to 1944 German occupation of France.[115] Parallel to the Jeu de Paume is the Orangerie, home to the famous Water Lilies paintings by Claude Monet.
+
+The Louvre is slightly askew of the Historic Axis (Axe historique), a roughly eight-kilometre (five-mile) architectural line bisecting the city. It begins on the east in the Louvre courtyard and runs west along the Champs-Élysées. In 1871, the burning of the Tuileries Palace by the Paris Commune revealed that the Louvre was slightly askew of the Axe despite past appearances to the contrary.[116] The Louvre can be reached by the Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Métro or the Louvre-Rivoli stations.[117]
+
+The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre underground shopping mall, and an entrance at the Porte des Lions (near the western end of the Denon wing).
+
+Under the main entrance to the museum is the Carrousel du Louvre, a shopping mall operated by Unibail-Rodamco. Among other stores, it has the first Apple Store in France, and a McDonald's restaurant, the presence of which has created controversy.[118]
+
+The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.
+
+Statue, plaster and reed, Ain Ghazal, Jordan, 6050–7050 BC
+
+Cycladic, a votive head, 2700–2300 BC
+
+Egyptian, stele, Priest burning incense before Ra-Horakhty-Atum, c. 900 BC
+
+The Osorkon Bust, inscribed with both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Phoenician script, 900 BC
+
+Ancient Persia, the Ibex Rhyton, 600–300 BC
+
+Ancient Greek, Athens, The Rampin Rider,
+
+Etruscan amphora, Diomedes and Polyxena, c. 540–530 BC
+
+Hellenic Near East, The Eros Medallion, c. 250–200 BC
+
+Fayum Egyptian, Fayum mummy portrait
+
+Roman, portrait of Marcus Agrippa, 25 BC
+
+Frankish, ivory, Christ between two apostles, 5th century
+
+Islamic art from Iraq, terracotta cup, 9th century
+
+Romanesque art from Maastricht, Reliquary, 11th century
+
+Romanesque architecture from France, St Michael and the Devil, 12th century
+
+Italian Renaissance painting, St Francis receiving the stigmata, Giotto, c.  1300
+
+Early Netherlandish painting, The Annunciation, Rogier van der Weyden, 1435
+
+Gothic art from France, The Pieta of Villeneuve les Avignon, Enguerrand Quarton, 1460
+
+Italian Renaissance painting, Portrait of an old man and his grandson, Ghirlandaio, 1488
+
+Flemish painting, The Money Changer and His Wife, Quentin Massys, 1514
+
+Italian Renaissance painting, Baltasar de Castiglione, Raphael, c. 1515
+
+Italian Renaissance sculpture, Dying Slave, Michelangelo, 1513–1516
+
+Venetian Mannerist painting, The Crucifixion, Paolo Veronese, c. 1550
+
+Italian Baroque painting, The Fortune Teller, Caravaggio, c. 1600
+
+English painting, Charles I at the Hunt, van Dyck, 1635
+
+Dutch Baroque, The Lacemaker, Vermeer, 1664
+
+Spanish painting, Infanta María Margarita, Velázquez, 1655
+
+French Classicism, The Shepherds of Arcadia, Poussin, c. 1640
+
+French Rococo, Diana bathing, Boucher, 1742
+
+French Classical painting, The Bather, Ingres, 1808
+
+French Romantic art, Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix, 1830
+
+André-Charles Boulle Cabinet sur piètement, 1690–1710
+
+André-Charles Boulle Cabinet sur piètement
+
+André-Charles Boulle
+
+André-Charles Boulle, 1700–1720
+
+André-Charles Boulle
+
+André-Charles Boulle 1714–1719
+

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+The Louvre (English: /ˈluːv(rə)/ LOOV(-rə)[3]), or the Louvre Museum (French: Musée du Louvre [myze dy luvʁ] (listen)), is the world's  largest art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement (district or ward). Approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square meters (782,910 square feet).[4] In 2019, the Louvre received 9.6 million visitors, making it the most visited museum in the world.[2][5]
+
+The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as the Louvre castle in the late 12th to 13th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to urban expansion, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function, and in 1546 Francis I converted it into the primary residence of the French Kings.[6] The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection, including, from 1692, a collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture.[7] In 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years.[8] During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nation's masterpieces.
+
+The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed Musée Napoléon, but after Napoleon's abdication, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners. The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic. The collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.
+
+The Louvre Palace, which houses the museum, was begun as a fortress by Philip II in the 12th century to protect the city from English soldiers which were in Normandy. Remnants of this castle are still visible in the crypt.[9] Whether this was the first building on that spot is not known; it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower.[10] According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den (via Latin: lupus, lower Empire: lupara).[10][11] In the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her "Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris" to a monastery,[12] this territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, however.
+
+The Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis I renovated the site in French Renaissance style.[13] Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvre's holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.[14] After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed; however, the move permitted the Louvre to be used as a residence for artists, under Royal patronage.[13][15][16] Four generations of Boulle were granted Royal patronage and resided in the Louvre in the following order: Pierre Boulle, Jean Boulle, Andre-Charles Boulle and his four sons (Jean-Philippe,[17] Pierre-Benoît (c. 1683–1741), Charles-André (1685–1749) and Charles-Joseph (1688–1754)), after him. André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732[18]) is the most famous French cabinetmaker and the preeminent artist in the field of marquetry,[19][20] also known as "Inlay".[21]  Boulle was "the most remarkable of all French cabinetmakers".[22] He was commended to Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King", by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683) as being "the most skilled craftsman in his profession".  Before the fire of 1720 destroyed them, André-Charles Boulle held priceless works of art in the Louvre, including forty-eight drawings by Raphael'.[23]
+
+By the mid-18th century there were an increasing number of proposals to create a public gallery, with the art critic La Font de Saint-Yenne publishing, in 1747, a call for a display of the royal collection. On 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. A hall was opened by Le Normant de Tournehem and the Marquis de Marigny for public viewing of the Tableaux du Roy on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and contained Andrea del Sarto's Charity and works by Raphael; Titian; Veronese; Rembrandt; Poussin or Van Dyck, until its closing in 1780 as a result of the gift of the palace to the Count of Provence (the future king, Louis XVIII) by the king in 1778.[24] Under Louis XVI, the royal museum idea became policy.[25] The comte d'Angiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the "French Museum". Many proposals were offered for the Louvre's renovation into a museum; however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution.[24]
+
+During the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts".[24] On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation as urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display.[26]
+
+The museum opened on 10 August 1793, the first anniversary of the monarchy's demise. The public was given free accessibility on three days per week, which was "perceived as a major accomplishment and was generally appreciated".[28] The collection showcased 537 paintings and 184 objects of art. Three quarters were derived from the royal collections, the remainder from confiscated émigrés and Church property (biens nationaux).[29][30] To expand and organize the collection, the Republic dedicated 100,000 livres per year.[24] In 1794, France's revolutionary armies began bringing pieces from Northern Europe, augmented after the Treaty of Tolentino (1797) by works from the Vatican, such as Laocoön and His Sons and the Apollo Belvedere, to establish the Louvre as a museum and as a "sign of popular sovereignty".[29][31]
+
+The early days were hectic; privileged artists continued to live in residence, and the unlabelled paintings hung "frame to frame from floor to ceiling".[29] The structure itself closed in May 1796 due to structural deficiencies. It reopened on 14 July 1801, arranged chronologically and with new lighting and columns.[29]
+
+Under Napoleon I, a northern wing paralleling the Grande Galerie was begun, and the collection grew through successful military campaigns.[32] Following the Egyptian campaign of 1798–1801, Napoléon appointed the museum's first director, Dominique Vivant Denon. In tribute, the museum was renamed the "Musée Napoléon" in 1803, and acquisitions were made of Spanish, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian works, either as spoils or through treaties such as the Treaty of Tolentino.[33] At the end of Napoleon's First Italian Campaign in 1797, the Treaty of Campo Formio was signed with Count Philipp von Cobenzl of the Austrian Monarchy. This treaty not only marked the completion of Napoleon's conquest of Italy, but also the end of the first phases of the French Revolutionary Wars. Under this treaty, Italian cities were required to contribute pieces of art and patrimony to take part in Napoleon's "parades of booty" through Paris before being put into the Louvre Museum.[34] One of the most famous pieces taken under this program was the Horses of Saint Mark. The four antique bronze horses, which had adorned the basilica of San Marco in Venice after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, were brought to Paris to reside atop Napoleon's Arc du Carrousel in Paris in 1797.[34]
+
+Several churches and palaces, including Saint Mark's Basilica, were looted by the French, which outraged the Italians and their artistic and cultural sensibilities.[35] In 1797, the Treaty of Tolentino was signed by Napoleon, and two statues, the Nile and Tiber, were taken to Paris. These statues had previously been in the Vatican, and both were housed in the Louvre until 1815. After the defeat of Napoleon, the Nile was returned to Italy.[36] However, the Tiber remained in the Louvre Museum and can be seen in the collections today.
+
+The Italian Peninsula was not the only region from which Napoleon took art. Under the Directory government of the 1790s, Napoleon (then a General) led an expedition to Egypt. The campaign was an expansionist effort on the part of the government, but the Directory had another goal to make Paris the center of art, science, and culture.[37] The Directory wanted France to assume responsibility for liberating the works of art they deemed in danger in order to protect and nationalize the heritage and culture of their subjects.[38] As a result, there were teams of artists and scientists who accompanied the armies into battle equipped with lists of paintings, sculptures, and other pieces of patrimony that would be collected, crated, and shipped back to France.[39]
+
+Dominique Vivant Denon was Napoleon's art advisor, and accompanied him on the expedition to Egypt. Through his initiative, the Valley of the Kings in Egypt was discovered and studied extensively.[40] As a result, he was later installed by Napoleon as the director of Musée Napoléon, formerly the Louvre, cementing the status of the museum as a center for global patrimony and storehouse for cultural heritage.[41]
+
+One of the most important discoveries made during Napoleon's campaign in Egypt was the Rosetta Stone. It was discovered in 1799, and eventually led to the ability to decipher ancient hieroglyphs. Although the Rosetta Stone was discovered by the French, it actually never made it to the Louvre Museum. It was seized by British Forces following the defeat of Napoleon in Egypt and the subsequent signing of the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801.[42] It is now on display at the British Museum.[43]
+
+After the French defeat at Waterloo, the works' former owners sought their return. The Louvre's administrators were loath to comply and hid many works in their private collections. In response, foreign states sent emissaries to London to seek help, and many pieces were returned, even some that had been restored by the Louvre.[33][44] In 1815 Louis XVIII finally concluded agreements with the Austrian government[45][46] for the keeping of pieces such as Veronese's Wedding at Cana which was exchanged for a large Le Brun or the repurchase of the Albani collection.
+
+During the Restoration (1814–1830), Louis XVIII and Charles X between them added 135 pieces at a cost of 720,000 francs and created the department of Egyptian antiquities curated by Champollion, increased by more than 7,000 works with the acquisition of antiquities in the Edme-Antoine Durand, the Egyptian collection of Henry Salt or the second collection former by Bernardino Drovetti. This was less than the amount given for rehabilitation of Versailles, and the Louvre suffered relative to the rest of Paris. After the creation of the French Second Republic in 1848, the new government allocated two million francs for repair work and ordered the completion of the Galerie d'Apollon, the Salon Carré, and the Grande Galérie.[47] In 1861, Napoleon III bought 11,835 artworks including 641 paintings, Greek gold and other antiquities of the Campana collection. Between  1852 and 1870, under Napoleon III, the museum added 20,000 new pieces to its collections, and the Pavillon de Flore and the Grande Galérie were remodelled under architects Louis Visconti and Hector Lefuel.[47]
+
+The Louvre was damaged during the suppression of the Paris Commune.  On 23 May 1871, as the French Army advanced into Paris, a force of Communards led by Jules Bergeret set fire to the adjoining Tuileries Palace. The fire burned for forty-eight hours, entirely destroying the interior of the palace and spreading to the museum next to it.  The library of the museum and some of the adjoining halls were destroyed, but the museum was saved by the efforts of Paris firemen and museum employees.[48]
+
+During the Third Republic (1870–1940) the Louvre acquired new pieces mainly via donations and gifts. The Société des Amis du Louvre (established in 1897) donated the Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, and in 1863 an expedition uncovered the sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Aegean Sea. This piece, though heavily damaged, has been prominently displayed since 1884.[50] The 583-item Collection La Caze donated in 1869, included works by Chardin; Fragonard; Rembrandt – such as Bathsheba at Her Bath – and Gilles by Watteau.[50]
+
+Museum expansion slowed after World War I, and the collection did not acquire many significant new works; exceptions were Georges de La Tour's Saint Thomas and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's (1845–1934) 1935 donation of 4,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 500 illustrated books.[30]
+At the beginning of World War II the museum removed most of the art and hid valuable pieces. When Germany occupied the Sudetenland, many important artworks such as the Mona Lisa were temporarily moved to the Château de Chambord. When war was formally declared a year later, most of the museum's paintings were sent there as well. Select sculptures such as Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo were sent to the Château de Valençay.[51] On 27 August 1939, after two days of packing, truck convoys began to leave Paris. By 28 December, the museum was cleared of most works, except those that were too heavy and "unimportant paintings [that] were left in the basement".[52] In early 1945, after the liberation of France, art began returning to the Louvre.[53]
+
+By 1874, the Louvre Palace had achieved its present form of an almost rectangular structure with the Sully Wing to the east containing the Cour Carrée (Square Court) and the oldest parts of the Louvre; and two wings which wrap the Cour Napoléon, the Richelieu Wing to the north and the Denon Wing, which borders the Seine to the south.[54] In 1983, French President François Mitterrand proposed, as one of his Grands Projets, the Grand Louvre plan to renovate the building and relocate the Finance Ministry, allowing displays throughout the building. Architect I. M. Pei was awarded the project and proposed a glass pyramid to stand over a new entrance in the main court, the Cour Napoléon.[55] The pyramid and its underground lobby were inaugurated on 15 October 1988 and the Louvre Pyramid was completed in 1989. The second phase of the Grand Louvre plan, the Pyramide Inversée (Inverted Pyramid), was completed in 1993. As of 2002, attendance had doubled since completion.[56]
+
+The Napoleon Courtyard and Ieoh Ming Pei's pyramid in its center, at dusk.
+
+The Louvre Palace and the pyramid (by day)
+
+The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments with more than 60,600 square metres (652,000 sq ft) dedicated to the permanent collection.[1] The Louvre exhibits sculptures, objets d'art, paintings, drawings, and archaeological finds.[30] It is the world's most visited museum, averaging 15,000 visitors per day, 65 percent of whom are foreign tourists.[56][57]
+
+After architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti had won an international competition to create its new galleries for Islamic art, the new 3,000 sq m[58] pavilion eventually opened in 2012, consisting of ground- and lower-ground-level interior spaces topped by a golden, undulating roof (fashioned from almost 9,000 steel tubes that form an interior web) that seems to float within the neo-Classical Visconti Courtyard in the middle of the Louvre's south wing.[59] The galleries, which the museum had initially hoped to open by 2009, represent the first major architectural intervention at the Louvre since the addition of I.M. Pei's glass pyramid in 1989.[60]
+
+On 5 February 2015, about one hundred archaeologists, protesting against commercial private involvement to protect France's heritage, blocked Louvre's ticket desks to facilitate free access to the museum.[61] At least one announcement reading "Free entrance offered by the archeologists" has been attached to the ticket desk and a number of people visited the museum free of charge.[61]
+
+The Louvre is owned by the French government; however, since the 1990s it has become more independent.[57][62][63][64] Since 2003, the museum has been required to generate funds for projects.[63] By 2006, government funds had dipped from 75 percent of the total budget to 62 percent. Every year, the Louvre now raises as much as it gets from the state, about €122 million. The government pays for operating costs (salaries, safety and maintenance), while the rest – new wings, refurbishments, acquisitions – is up to the museum to finance.[65] A further €3 million to €5 million a year is raised by the Louvre from exhibitions that it curates for other museums, while the host museum keeps the ticket money.[65] As the Louvre became a point of interest in the book The Da Vinci Code and the 2006 film based on the book, the museum earned $2.5 million by allowing filming in its galleries.[66][67] In 2008, the French government provided $180 million of the Louvre's yearly $350 million budget; the remainder came from private contributions and ticket sales.[62]
+
+The Louvre employs a staff of 2,000 led by Director Jean-Luc Martinez,[68] who reports to the French Ministry of Culture and Communications. Martinez replaced Henri Loyrette in April 2013. Under Loyrette, who replaced Pierre Rosenberg in 2001, the Louvre has undergone policy changes that allow it to lend and borrow more works than before.[57][63] In 2006, it loaned 1,300 works, which enabled it to borrow more foreign works. From 2006 to 2009, the Louvre lent artwork to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, and received a $6.9 million payment to be used for renovations.[63]
+
+In 2012, the Louvre and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced a five-year collaboration on exhibitions, publications, art conservation and educational programming.[69] The €98.5 million expansion of the Islamic Art galleries in 2012 received state funding of €31 million, as well as €17 million from the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation founded by the eponymous Saudi prince. The republic of Azerbaijan, the Emir of Kuwait, the Sultan of Oman and King Mohammed VI of Morocco donated in total €26 million. In addition, the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi is supposed to provide €400 million over the course of 30 years for its use of the museum's brand.[58] Loyrette has tried to improve weak parts of the collection through income generated from loans of art and by guaranteeing that "20% of admissions receipts will be taken annually for acquisitions".[63] He has more administrative independence for the museum and achieved 90 percent of galleries to be open daily, as opposed to 80 percent previously. He oversaw the creation of extended hours and free admission on Friday nights and an increase in the acquisition budget to $36 million from $4.5 million.[62][63]
+
+On the 500th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci's death, the Louvre held the largest ever single exhibit of his work, from 24 October  2019 to 24 February  2020. The event included over a hundred items: paintings, drawings and notebooks. A full 11 of the fewer than 20 paintings that Da Vinci completed in his lifetime were displayed. Five of them are owned by the Louvre, but the Mona Lisa was not included because it is in such great demand among visitors to the Louvre museum; the work remained on display in its gallery. Salvator Mundi was also not included since the Saudi owner did not agree to move the work from its hiding place. Vitruvian Man, however, was on display, after a successful legal battle with its owner, the Galleria dell'Accademia in Venice.[70][71]
+
+In 2004, French officials decided to build a satellite museum on the site of an abandoned coal pit in the former mining town of Lens to relieve the crowded Paris Louvre, increase total museum visits, and improve the industrial north's economy.[72] Six cities were considered for the project: Amiens, Arras, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Lens, and Valenciennes. In 2004, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin chose Lens to be the site of the new building, the Louvre-Lens. Japanese architects SANAA were selected to design the Lens project in 2005. Museum officials predicted that the new building, capable of receiving about 600 works of art, would attract up to 500,000 visitors a year when it opened in 2012.[72]
+
+On 8 November 2017, a direct extension of the Louvre, Louvre Abu Dhabi, opened its doors to the public in the city of Abu Dhabi. A 30-year agreement, signed by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheik Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, established the museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi in exchange for €832,000,000 (US$1.3 billion). The Louvre Abu Dhabi, designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel and the engineering firm of Buro Happold, occupy 24,000 square metres (260,000 sq ft) and is covered by an iconic metallic roof designed to cast rays of light mimicking sunlight passing through date palm fronds in an oasis. France agreed to rotate between 200 and 300 artworks during a 10-year period; to provide management expertise; and to provide four temporary exhibitions a year for 15 years. The art will come from multiple museums, including the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Centre, the Musée d'Orsay, Versailles, the Musée Guimet, the Musée Rodin, and the Musée du quai Branly.[73]
+
+In March 2018 an exhibition of dozens of artworks and relics belonging to France's Louvre Museum was opened to visitors in Tehran, as a result of an agreement between Iranian and French presidents in 2016. In the Louvre, two departments were allocated to the antiquities of the Iranian civilization, and the managers of the two departments visited Tehran. Relics belonging to Ancient Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia as well as French royal items were showcased at the Tehran exhibition.
+
+Iran's National Museum building was designed and constructed by French architect André Godard.[74] Following its time in Tehran, the exhibition is set to be held in the Khorasan Grand Museum in Mashhad, northeastern Iran in June 2018.[75]
+
+In 2009, Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand approved a plan that would have created a storage facility 30 km (19 mi) northwest of Paris to hold objects from the Louvre and two other national museums in Paris's flood zone, the Musée du Quai Branly and the Musée d'Orsay; the plan was later scrapped. In 2013, his successor Aurélie Filippetti announced that the Louvre would move more than 250,000 works of art[76] held in a 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft) basement storage area in Liévin; the cost of the project, estimated at €60 million, will be split between the region (49%) and the Louvre (51%).[77] The Louvre will be the sole owner and manager of the store.[76] In July 2015, a team led by British firm Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was selected to design the complex, which will have light-filled work spaces under one vast, green roof.[76]
+
+The Louvre is involved in controversies that surround cultural property seized under Napoleon I, as well as during World War II by the Nazis. During Nazi occupation, thousands of artworks were stolen. But after the war, 61,233 articles of more than 150,000 seized artworks returned to France and were assigned to the Louvre's Office des Biens Privés. In 1949, it entrusted 2,130 unclaimed pieces (including 1,001 paintings) to the Direction des Musées de France in order to keep them under appropriate conditions of conservation until their restitution and meanwhile classified them as MNRs (Musées Nationaux Recuperation or, in English, the National Museums of Recovered Artwork). Some 10% to 35% of the pieces are believed to come from Jewish spoliations[78] and until the identification of their rightful owners, which declined at the end of the 1960s, they are registered indefinitely on separate inventories from the museum's collections.
+
+They were exhibited in 1946 and shown all together to the public during four years (1950–1954) in order to allow rightful claimants to identify their properties, then stored or displayed, according to their interest, in several French museums including the Louvre. From 1951 to 1965, about 37 pieces were restituted. Since November 1996, the partly illustrated catalogue of 1947–1949 has been accessible online and completed. In 1997, Prime Minister Alain Juppé initiated the Mattéoli Commission, headed by Jean Mattéoli, to investigate the matter and according to the government, the Louvre is in charge of 678 pieces of artwork still unclaimed by their rightful owners.[79] During the late 1990s, the comparison of the American war archives, which had not been done before, with the French and German ones as well as two court cases which finally settled some of the heirs' rights (Gentili di Giuseppe and Rosenberg families) allowed more accurate investigations. Since 1996, the restitutions, according sometimes to less formal criteria, concerned 47 more pieces (26 paintings, with 6 from the Louvre including a then displayed Tiepolo), until the last claims of French owners and their heirs ended again in 2006.
+
+According to Serge Klarsfeld, since the now complete and constant publicity which the artworks got in 1996, the majority of the French Jewish community is nevertheless in favour of the return to the normal French civil rule of prescription acquisitive of any unclaimed good after another long period of time and consequently to their ultimate integration into the common French heritage instead of their transfer to foreign institutions like during World War II.
+
+Napoleon's campaigns acquired Italian pieces by treaties, as war reparations, and Northern European pieces as spoils as well as some antiquities excavated in Egypt, though the vast majority of the latter were seized as war reparations by the British army and are now part of collections of the British Museum. On the other hand, the Dendera zodiac is, like the Rosetta Stone, claimed by Egypt even though it was acquired in 1821, before the Egyptian Anti-export legislation of 1835. The Louvre administration has thus argued in favor of retaining this item despite requests by Egypt for its return. The museum participates too in arbitration sessions held via UNESCO's Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to Its Countries of Origin.[80] The museum consequently returned in 2009 five Egyptian fragments of frescoes (30 cm x 15 cm each) whose existence of the tomb of origin had only been brought to the authorities attention in 2008, eight to five years after their good-faith acquisition by the museum from two private collections and after the necessary respect of the procedure of déclassement from French public collections before the Commission scientifique nationale des collections des musées de France.[81]
+
+The Musée du Louvre contains more than 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art in eight curatorial departments.[1]
+
+The department, comprising over 50,000 pieces,[82] includes artifacts from the Nile civilizations which date from 4,000 BC to the 4th century AD.[83] The collection, among the world's largest, overviews Egyptian life spanning Ancient Egypt, the Middle Kingdom, the New Kingdom, Coptic art, and the Roman, Ptolemaic, and Byzantine periods.[83]
+
+The department's origins lie in the royal collection, but it was augmented by Napoleon's 1798 expeditionary trip with Dominique Vivant, the future director of the Louvre.[82] After Jean-François Champollion translated the Rosetta Stone, Charles X decreed that an Egyptian Antiquities department be created. Champollion advised the purchase of three collections, formed by Edmé-Antoine Durand, Henry Salt and Bernardino Drovet; these additions added 7,000 works. Growth continued via acquisitions by Auguste Mariette, founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Mariette, after excavations at Memphis, sent back crates of archaeological finds including The Seated Scribe.[82][85]
+
+Guarded by the Large Sphinx (c. 2000 BC), the collection is housed in more than 20 rooms. Holdings include art, papyrus scrolls, mummies, tools, clothing, jewelry, games, musical instruments, and weapons.[82][83] Pieces from the ancient period include the Gebel el-Arak Knife from 3400 BC, The Seated Scribe, and the Head of King Djedefre. Middle Kingdom art, "known for its gold work and statues", moved from realism to idealization; this is exemplified by the schist statue of Amenemhatankh and the wooden Offering Bearer. The New Kingdom and Coptic Egyptian sections are deep, but the statue of the goddess Nephthys and the limestone depiction of the goddess Hathor demonstrate New Kingdom sentiment and wealth.[83][85]
+
+Near Eastern antiquities, the second newest department, dates from 1881 and presents an overview of early Near Eastern civilization and "first settlements", before the arrival of Islam. The department is divided into three geographic areas: the Levant, Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Persia (Iran). The collection's development corresponds to archaeological work such as Paul-Émile Botta's 1843 expedition to Khorsabad and the discovery of Sargon II's palace.[83][86] These finds formed the basis of the Assyrian museum, the precursor to today's department.[83]
+
+The museum contains exhibits from Sumer and the city of Akkad, with monuments such as the Prince of Lagash's Stele of the Vultures from 2450 BC and the stele erected by Naram-Sin, King of Akkad, to celebrate a victory over barbarians in the Zagros Mountains. The 2.25-metre (7.38 ft) Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901, displays Babylonian Laws prominently, so that no man could plead their ignorance. The 18th-century BC mural of the Investiture of Zimrilim and the 25th-century BC Statue of Ebih-Il found in the ancient city-state of Mari are also on display at the museum.
+
+The Persian portion of Louvre contains work from the archaic period, like the Funerary Head and the Persian Archers of Darius I.[83][87] This section also contains rare objects from Persepolis which were also lent to the British Museum for its Ancient Persia exhibition in 2005.[88]
+
+The Greek, Etruscan, and Roman department displays pieces from the Mediterranean Basin dating from the Neolithic to the 6th century.[89] The collection spans from the Cycladic period to the decline of the Roman Empire. This department is one of the museum's oldest; it began with appropriated royal art, some of which was acquired under Francis I.[83][90] Initially, the collection focused on marble sculptures, such as the Venus de Milo. Works such as the Apollo Belvedere arrived during the Napoleonic Wars, but these pieces were returned after Napoleon I's fall in 1815. In the 19th century, the Louvre acquired works including vases from the Durand collection, bronzes such as the Borghese Vase from the Bibliothèque nationale.[84][89]
+
+The archaic is demonstrated by jewellery and pieces such as the limestone Lady of Auxerre, from 640 BC; and the cylindrical Hera of Samos, c. 570–560 BC.[83][91] After the 4th century BC, focus on the human form increased, exemplified by the Borghese Gladiator. The Louvre holds masterpieces from the Hellenistic era, including The Winged Victory of Samothrace (190 BC) and the Venus de Milo, symbolic of classical art.[90] The long Galerie Campana displays an outstanding collection of more than one thousand Greek potteries. In the galleries paralleling the Seine, much of the museum's Roman sculpture is displayed.[89] The Roman portraiture is representative of that genre; examples include the portraits of Agrippa and Annius Verus; among the bronzes is the Greek Apollo of Piombino.
+
+The Islamic art collection, the museum's newest, spans "thirteen centuries and three continents".[92] These exhibits, comprising ceramics, glass, metalware, wood, ivory, carpet, textiles, and miniatures, include more than 5,000 works and 1,000 shards.[93] Originally part of the decorative arts department, the holdings became separate in 2003. Among the works are the Pyxide d'al-Mughira, a 10th century ivory box from Andalusia; the Baptistery of Saint-Louis, an engraved brass basin from the 13th or 14th century Mamluk period; and the 10th century Shroud of Saint-Josse from Iran.[86][92] The collection contains three pages of the Shahnameh, an epic book of poems by Ferdowsi in Persian, and a Syrian metalwork named the Barberini Vase.[93] In September 2019, a new and improved Islamic art department was opened by Princess Lamia bint Majed Al-Saud. The new department exhibits 3,000 pieces were collected from Spain to India via the Arabian peninsula dating from the 7th to the 19th centuries.[94]
+
+The sculpture department comprises work created before 1850 that does not belong in the Etruscan, Greek, and Roman department.[95] The Louvre has been a repository of sculpted material since its time as a palace; however, only ancient architecture was displayed until 1824, except for Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave.[96] Initially the collection included only 100 pieces, the rest of the royal sculpture collection being at Versailles. It remained small until 1847, when Léon Laborde was given control of the department. Laborde developed the medieval section and purchased the first such statues and sculptures in the collection, King Childebert and stanga door, respectively.[96] The collection was part of the Department of Antiquities but was given autonomy in 1871 under Louis Courajod, a director who organized a wider representation of French works.[95][96] In 1986, all post-1850 works were relocated to the new Musée d'Orsay. The Grand Louvre project separated the department into two exhibition spaces; the French collection is displayed in the Richelieu wing, and foreign works in the Denon wing.[95]
+
+The collection's overview of French sculpture contains Romanesque works such as the 11th-century Daniel in the Lions' Den and the 12th-century Virgin of Auvergne. In the 16th century, Renaissance influence caused French sculpture to become more restrained, as seen in Jean Goujon's bas-reliefs, and Germain Pilon's Descent from the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. The 17th and 18th centuries are represented by Gian Lorenzo Bernini's 1640–1 Bust of Cardinal Richelieu, Étienne Maurice Falconet's Woman Bathing and Amour menaçant, and François Anguier's obelisks. Neoclassical works includes Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss (1787).[96] The 18th and 19th centuries are represented by the French sculptor Alfred Barye.
+
+The Objets d'art collection spans the time from the Middle Ages to the mid-19th century. The department began as a subset of the sculpture department, based on royal property and the transfer of work from the Basilique Saint-Denis, the burial ground of French monarchs that held the Coronation Sword of the Kings of France.[97][98] Among the budding collection's most prized works were pietre dure vases and bronzes. The Durand collection's 1825 acquisition added "ceramics, enamels, and stained glass", and 800 pieces were given by Pierre Révoil. The onset of Romanticism rekindled interest in Renaissance and Medieval artwork, and the Sauvageot donation expanded the department with 1,500 middle-age and faïence works. In 1862, the Campana collection added gold jewelry and maiolicas, mainly from the 15th and 16th centuries.[98][99]
+
+The works are displayed on the Richelieu Wing's first floor and in the Apollo Gallery, named by the painter Charles Le Brun, who was commissioned by Louis XIV (the Sun King) to decorate the space in a solar theme. The medieval collection contains the coronation crown of Louis XIV, Charles V's sceptre, and the 12th century porphyry vase.[100] The Renaissance art holdings include Giambologna's bronze Nessus and Deianira and the tapestry Maximillian's Hunt.[97] From later periods, highlights include Madame de Pompadour's Sèvres vase collection and Napoleon III's apartments.[97]
+
+In September 2000, the Louvre Museum dedicated the Gilbert Chagoury and Rose-Marie Chagoury Gallery to display tapestries donated by the Chagourys, including a 16th-century six-part tapestry suite, sewn with gold and silver threads representing sea divinities, which was commissioned in Paris for Colbert de Seignelay, Secretary of State for the Navy.
+
+The painting collection has more than 7,500 works[101] from the 13th century to 1848 and is managed by 12 curators who oversee the collection's display. Nearly two-thirds are by French artists, and more than 1,200 are Northern European. The Italian paintings compose most of the remnants of Francis I and Louis XIV's collections, others are unreturned artwork from the Napoleon era, and some were bought.[102][103] The collection began with Francis, who acquired works from Italian masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo[104] and brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court.[14][105] After the French Revolution, the Royal Collection formed the nucleus of the Louvre. When the d'Orsay train station was converted into the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, the collection was split, and pieces completed after the 1848 Revolution were moved to the new museum. French and Northern European works are in the Richelieu wing and Cour Carrée; Spanish and Italian paintings are on the first floor of the Denon wing.[103]
+
+Exemplifying the French School are the early Avignon Pietà of Enguerrand Quarton; the anonymous painting of King Jean le Bon (c. 1360), possibly the oldest independent portrait in Western painting to survive from the postclassical era;[106] Hyacinthe Rigaud's Louis XIV; Jacques-Louis David's The Coronation of Napoleon; Théodore Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa; and Eugène Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. Nicolas Poussin, the Le Nain brothers, Philippe de Champaigne, Le Brun, La Tour, Watteau, Fragonard, Ingres, Corot, and Delacroix are well represented.[107]
+
+Northern European works include Johannes Vermeer's The Lacemaker and The Astronomer; Caspar David Friedrich's The Tree of Crows; Rembrandt's The Supper at Emmaus, Bathsheba at Her Bath, and The Slaughtered Ox.
+
+The Italian holdings are notable, particularly the Renaissance collection. The works include Andrea Mantegna and Giovanni Bellini's Calvarys, which reflect realism and detail "meant to depict the significant events of a greater spiritual world".[108] The High Renaissance collection includes Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Virgin and Child with St. Anne, St. John the Baptist, and Madonna of the Rocks. Caravaggio is represented by The Fortune Teller and Death of the Virgin. From 16th century Venice, the Louvre displays Titian's Le Concert Champetre, The Entombment and The Crowning with Thorns.[109][110]
+
+The La Caze Collection, a bequest to the Musée du Louvre in 1869 by Louis La Caze, was the largest contribution of a person in the history of the Louvre. La Caze gave 584 paintings of his personal collection to the museum. The bequest included Antoine Watteau's Commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot ("Gilles"). In 2007, this bequest was the topic of the exhibition "1869: Watteau, Chardin... entrent au Louvre. La collection La Caze".[111]
+
+Some of the best known paintings of the museum have been digitized by the French Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France.[112]
+
+The prints and drawings department encompasses works on paper.[113] The origins of the collection were the 8,600 works in the Royal Collection (Cabinet du Roi), which were increased via state appropriation, purchases such as the 1,200 works from Fillipo Baldinucci's collection in 1806, and donations.[84][114] The department opened on 5 August 1797, with 415 pieces displayed in the Galerie d'Apollon. The collection is organized into three sections: the core Cabinet du Roi, 14,000 royal copper printing-plates, and the donations of Edmond de Rothschild, which include 40,000 prints, 3,000 drawings, and 5,000 illustrated books. The holdings are displayed in the Pavillon de Flore; due to the fragility of the paper medium, only a portion are displayed at one time.[113]
+
+The museum lies in the center of Paris on the Right Bank, in the 1st arrondissement. It was home to the former Tuileries Palace, which closed off the western end of the Louvre entrance courtyard, but was heavily damaged by fire during the Paris Commune of 1871 and later demolished. The adjacent Tuileries Gardens, created in 1564 by Catherine de' Medici, was designed in 1664 by André Le Nôtre. The gardens house the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, a contemporary art exhibition space which was used to store confiscated Jewish cultural property during the 1940 to 1944 German occupation of France.[115] Parallel to the Jeu de Paume is the Orangerie, home to the famous Water Lilies paintings by Claude Monet.
+
+The Louvre is slightly askew of the Historic Axis (Axe historique), a roughly eight-kilometre (five-mile) architectural line bisecting the city. It begins on the east in the Louvre courtyard and runs west along the Champs-Élysées. In 1871, the burning of the Tuileries Palace by the Paris Commune revealed that the Louvre was slightly askew of the Axe despite past appearances to the contrary.[116] The Louvre can be reached by the Palais Royal – Musée du Louvre Métro or the Louvre-Rivoli stations.[117]
+
+The Louvre has three entrances: the main entrance at the pyramid, an entrance from the Carrousel du Louvre underground shopping mall, and an entrance at the Porte des Lions (near the western end of the Denon wing).
+
+Under the main entrance to the museum is the Carrousel du Louvre, a shopping mall operated by Unibail-Rodamco. Among other stores, it has the first Apple Store in France, and a McDonald's restaurant, the presence of which has created controversy.[118]
+
+The use of cameras and video recorders is permitted inside, but flash photography is forbidden.
+
+Statue, plaster and reed, Ain Ghazal, Jordan, 6050–7050 BC
+
+Cycladic, a votive head, 2700–2300 BC
+
+Egyptian, stele, Priest burning incense before Ra-Horakhty-Atum, c. 900 BC
+
+The Osorkon Bust, inscribed with both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Phoenician script, 900 BC
+
+Ancient Persia, the Ibex Rhyton, 600–300 BC
+
+Ancient Greek, Athens, The Rampin Rider,
+
+Etruscan amphora, Diomedes and Polyxena, c. 540–530 BC
+
+Hellenic Near East, The Eros Medallion, c. 250–200 BC
+
+Fayum Egyptian, Fayum mummy portrait
+
+Roman, portrait of Marcus Agrippa, 25 BC
+
+Frankish, ivory, Christ between two apostles, 5th century
+
+Islamic art from Iraq, terracotta cup, 9th century
+
+Romanesque art from Maastricht, Reliquary, 11th century
+
+Romanesque architecture from France, St Michael and the Devil, 12th century
+
+Italian Renaissance painting, St Francis receiving the stigmata, Giotto, c.  1300
+
+Early Netherlandish painting, The Annunciation, Rogier van der Weyden, 1435
+
+Gothic art from France, The Pieta of Villeneuve les Avignon, Enguerrand Quarton, 1460
+
+Italian Renaissance painting, Portrait of an old man and his grandson, Ghirlandaio, 1488
+
+Flemish painting, The Money Changer and His Wife, Quentin Massys, 1514
+
+Italian Renaissance painting, Baltasar de Castiglione, Raphael, c. 1515
+
+Italian Renaissance sculpture, Dying Slave, Michelangelo, 1513–1516
+
+Venetian Mannerist painting, The Crucifixion, Paolo Veronese, c. 1550
+
+Italian Baroque painting, The Fortune Teller, Caravaggio, c. 1600
+
+English painting, Charles I at the Hunt, van Dyck, 1635
+
+Dutch Baroque, The Lacemaker, Vermeer, 1664
+
+Spanish painting, Infanta María Margarita, Velázquez, 1655
+
+French Classicism, The Shepherds of Arcadia, Poussin, c. 1640
+
+French Rococo, Diana bathing, Boucher, 1742
+
+French Classical painting, The Bather, Ingres, 1808
+
+French Romantic art, Liberty Leading the People, Delacroix, 1830
+
+André-Charles Boulle Cabinet sur piètement, 1690–1710
+
+André-Charles Boulle Cabinet sur piètement
+
+André-Charles Boulle
+
+André-Charles Boulle, 1700–1720
+
+André-Charles Boulle
+
+André-Charles Boulle 1714–1719
+

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+– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green)
+
+Luxembourg (/ˈlʌksəmbɜːrɡ/ (listen) LUK-səm-burg;[6] Luxembourgish: Lëtzebuerg [ˈlətsəbuə̯ɕ] (listen); French: Luxembourg; German: Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg,[c] is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital, Luxembourg City, is one of the four official capitals of the European Union[7] (together with Brussels, Frankfurt, and Strasbourg) and the seat of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest judicial authority in the EU. Its culture, people, and languages are highly intertwined with its neighbours, making it essentially a mixture of French and German cultures, as evident by the nation's three official languages: French, German, and the national language of Luxembourgish. The repeated invasions by Germany, especially in World War II, resulted in the country's strong will for mediation between France and Germany and, among other things, led to the foundation of the European Union.[8]
+
+With an area of 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi), it is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe.[9] In 2019, Luxembourg had a population of 626,108, which makes it one of the least-populous countries in Europe,[10] but by far the one with the highest population growth rate.[11] Foreigners account for nearly half of Luxembourg's population.[12] As a representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is headed by Grand Duke Henri and is the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy. Luxembourg is a developed country, with an advanced economy and one of the world's highest GDP (PPP) per capita, as well as being one of the smallest countries in Europe. The City of Luxembourg with its old quarters and fortifications was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 due to the exceptional preservation of the vast fortifications and the old city.[13]
+
+The history of Luxembourg is considered to begin in 963, when count Siegfried acquired a rocky promontory and its Roman-era fortifications known as Lucilinburhuc, "little castle", and the surrounding area from the Imperial Abbey of St. Maximin in nearby Trier.[14][15] Siegfried's descendants increased their territory through marriage, war and vassal relations. At the end of the 13th century, the counts of Luxembourg reigned over a considerable territory.[16] In 1308, Henry VII became King of the Germans and later Holy Roman Emperor. The House of Luxembourg produced four emperors during the High Middle Ages. In 1354, Charles IV elevated the county to the Duchy of Luxembourg. The duchy eventually became part of the Burgundian Circle and then one of the Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands.[17]
+Over the centuries, the City and Fortress of Luxembourg, of great strategic importance situated between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg territories, was gradually built up to be one of the most reputed fortifications in Europe. After belonging to both the France of Louis XIV and the Austria of Maria Theresa, Luxembourg became part of the First French Republic and Empire under Napoleon.[18]
+
+The present-day state of Luxembourg first emerged at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Grand Duchy, with its powerful fortress, became an independent state under the personal possession of William I of the Netherlands with a Prussian garrison to guard the city against another invasion from France.[19] In 1839, following the turmoil of the Belgian Revolution, the purely French-speaking part of Luxembourg was ceded to Belgium and the Luxembourgish-speaking part (except the Arelerland, the area around Arlon) became what is the present state of Luxembourg.[20]
+
+Luxembourg is a founding member of the European Union, OECD, United Nations, NATO, and Benelux. The city of Luxembourg, which is the country's capital and largest city, is the seat of several institutions and agencies of the EU. Luxembourg served on the United Nations Security Council for the years 2013 and 2014, which was a first in the country's history.[21] As of 2020, Luxembourg citizens had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 187 countries and territories, ranking the Luxembourgish passport fifth in the world, tied with Denmark and Spain.[22]
+
+The recorded history of Luxembourg begins with the acquisition of Lucilinburhuc[24] (today Luxembourg Castle) situated on the Bock rock by Siegfried, Count of Ardennes, in 963 through an exchange act with St. Maximin's Abbey, Trier.[25] Around this fort, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a state of great strategic value.
+
+In the 14th and early 15th centuries, three members of the House of Luxembourg reigned as Holy Roman Emperors. In 1437, the House of Luxembourg suffered a succession crisis, precipitated by the lack of a male heir to assume the throne, which led to the territories being sold by Duchess Elisabeth to Philip the Good of Burgundy.[26]
+
+In the following centuries, Luxembourg's fortress was steadily enlarged and strengthened by its successive occupants, the Bourbons, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and the French.
+
+After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Luxembourg was disputed between Prussia and the Netherlands. The Congress of Vienna formed Luxembourg as a Grand Duchy within the German Confederation. The Dutch king became, in personal union, the grand duke. Although he was supposed to rule the grand duchy as an independent country with an administration of its own, in reality he treated it similarly to a Dutch province. The Fortress of Luxembourg was manned by Prussian troops for the German Confederation.[27] This arrangement was revised by the 1839 First Treaty of London, from which date Luxembourg's full independence is reckoned.[28][29][30][31]
+
+At the time of the Belgian Revolution of 1830–1839, and by the 1839 Treaty establishing full independence, Luxembourg's territory was reduced by more than half, as the predominantly francophone western part of the country was transferred to Belgium. In 1842 Luxembourg joined the German Customs Union (Zollverein).[32][33] This resulted in the opening of the German market, the development of Luxembourg's steel industry, and expansion of Luxembourg's railway network from 1855 to 1875, particularly the construction of the Luxembourg-Thionville railway line, with connections from there to the European industrial regions.[34] While Prussian troops still manned the fortress, in 1861, the Passerelle was opened, the first road bridge spanning the Pétrusse river valley, connecting the Ville Haute and the main fortification on the Bock with Luxembourg railway station, opened in 1859, on the then fortified Bourbon plateau to the south.
+
+After the Luxembourg Crisis of 1866 nearly led to war between Prussia and France, the Grand Duchy's independence and neutrality were again affirmed by the 1867 Second Treaty of London, Prussia's troops were withdrawn from the Fortress of Luxembourg, and its Bock and surrounding fortifications were dismantled.[35]
+
+The King of the Netherlands remained Head of State as Grand Duke of Luxembourg, maintaining a personal union between the two countries until 1890. At the death of William III, the throne of the Netherlands passed to his daughter Wilhelmina, while Luxembourg (then restricted to male heirs by the Nassau Family Pact) passed to Adolph of Nassau-Weilburg.[36]
+
+At the time of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, despite allegations about French use of the Luxembourg railways for passing soldiers from Metz (then part of France) through the Duchy, and for forwarding provisions to Thionville, Luxembourg's neutrality was respected by Germany, and neither France nor Germany invaded the country.[37][38] But in 1871, as a result of Germany's victory over France, Luxembourg's boundary with Lorraine, containing Metz and Thionville, changed from being a frontier with a part of France to a frontier with territory annexed to the German Empire as Alsace-Lorraine under the Treaty of Frankfurt. This allowed Germany the military advantage of controlling and expanding the railways there.
+
+In August 1914, Imperial Germany violated Luxembourg's neutrality in the war by invading it in the war against France. This allowed Germany to use the railway lines, while at the same time denying them to France. Nevertheless, despite the German occupation, Luxembourg was allowed to maintain much of its independence and political mechanisms.
+
+In 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, Luxembourg's neutrality was again violated when the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany entered the country, "entirely without justification".[39] In contrast to the First World War, under the German occupation of Luxembourg during World War II, the country was treated as German territory and informally annexed to the adjacent province of the Third Reich. A government in exile based in London supported the Allies, sending a small group of volunteers who participated in the Normandy invasion. Luxembourg was liberated in September 1944, and became a founding member of the United Nations in 1945. Luxembourg's neutral status under the constitution formally ended in 1948, and in 1949 it became a founding member of NATO.
+
+In 1951, Luxembourg became one of the six founding countries of the European Coal and Steel Community, which in 1957 would become the European Economic Community and in 1993 the European Union. In 1999 Luxembourg joined the Eurozone. In 2005, a referendum on the EU treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was held.[40]
+
+The steel industry exploiting the Red Lands' rich iron-ore grounds in the beginning of the 20th century drove the country's industrialisation. After the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s, the country focused on establishing itself as a global financial centre and developed into the banking hub it is reputed for. Since the beginning of the 21st century, its governments have focused on developing the country into a knowledge economy, with the founding of the University of Luxembourg and a national space programme, projecting the first involvement in a robotic lunar expedition by 2020.[41]
+
+Luxembourg is described as a "full democracy",[42] with a parliamentary democracy headed by a constitutional monarch. Executive power is exercised by the grand duke and the cabinet, which consists of several other ministers.[43] The Constitution of Luxembourg, the supreme law of Luxembourg, was adopted on 17 October 1868.[44] The grand duke has the power to dissolve the legislature, in which case new elections must be held within three months. However, since 1919, sovereignty has resided with the nation, exercised by the grand duke in accordance with the Constitution and the law.[45]
+
+Legislative power is vested in the Chamber of Deputies, a unicameral legislature of sixty members, who are directly elected to five-year terms from four constituencies. A second body, the Council of State (Conseil d'État), composed of twenty-one ordinary citizens appointed by the grand duke, advises the Chamber of Deputies in the drafting of legislation.[46]
+
+Luxembourg has three lower tribunals (justices de paix; in Esch-sur-Alzette, the city of Luxembourg, and Diekirch), two district tribunals (Luxembourg and Diekirch), and a Superior Court of Justice (Luxembourg), which includes the Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation. There is also an Administrative Tribunal and an Administrative Court, as well as a Constitutional Court, all of which are located in the capital.
+
+Luxembourg is divided into 12 cantons, which are further divided into 102 communes.[47] Twelve of the communes have city status; the city of Luxembourg is the largest.
+
+Luxembourg has long been a prominent supporter of European political and economic integration. In 1921, Luxembourg and Belgium formed the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU) to create a regime of inter-exchangeable currency and a common customs, foreshadowing later efforts at European integration.[33] Luxembourg is a member of the Benelux Economic Union and was one of the founding members of the European Economic Community (now the European Union). It also participates in the Schengen Group (named after the Luxembourg village of Schengen where the agreements were signed), whose goal is the free movement of citizens among member states. At the same time, the majority of Luxembourgers have consistently believed that European unity makes sense only in the context of a dynamic transatlantic relationship, and thus have traditionally pursued a pro-NATO, pro-US foreign policy.[citation needed]
+
+Luxembourg is the site of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Court of Auditors, the Statistical Office of the European Communities ("Eurostat") and other vital EU organs. The Secretariat of the European Parliament is located in Luxembourg, but the Parliament usually meets in Brussels and sometimes in Strasbourg.
+
+The Army is situated on the "Härebierg" which is Luxemburgish and translates to "men's mountain".[48] The army is under civilian control, with the grand duke as Commander-in-Chief. The Minister for Defence, François Bausch, oversees army operations. The professional head of the army is the Chief of Defence, who answers to the minister and holds the rank of general.
+
+Being a landlocked country, it has no navy. Luxembourg also lacks an air force, though the 17 NATO AWACS aeroplanes are, for convenience, registered as aircraft of Luxembourg.[49] In accordance with a joint agreement with Belgium, both countries have put forth funding for one A400M military cargo plane.[50]
+
+Luxembourg has participated in the Eurocorps, has contributed troops to the UNPROFOR and IFOR missions in former Yugoslavia, and has participated with a small contingent in the NATO SFOR mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Luxembourg troops have also deployed to Afghanistan, to support ISAF. The army has also participated in humanitarian relief missions such as setting up refugee camps for Kurds and providing emergency supplies to Albania.[51]
+
+Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe, and ranked 167th in size of all the 194 independent countries of the world; the country is about 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi) in size, and measures 82 km (51 mi) long and 57 km (35 mi) wide. It lies between latitudes 49° and 51° N, and longitudes 5° and 7° E.[52]
+
+To the east, Luxembourg borders the German Bundesländer of Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, and to the south, it borders the French région of Grand Est (Lorraine). The Grand Duchy borders the Belgian Walloon Region, in particular the latter's provinces of Luxembourg and Liège, part of which comprises the German-speaking Community of Belgium, to the west and to the north, respectively.
+
+The northern third of the country is known as the 'Oesling', and forms part of the Ardennes. It is dominated by hills and low mountains, including the Kneiff near Wilwerdange,[53] which is the highest point, at 560 metres (1,837 ft). Other mountains are the 'Buurgplaaz' at 559 metres near Huldange and the 'Napoléonsgaard' at 554 metres near Rambrouch. The region is sparsely populated, with only one town (Wiltz) with a population of more than four thousand people.
+
+The southern two-thirds of the country is called the "Gutland", and is more densely populated than the Oesling. It is also more diverse and can be divided into five geographic sub-regions. The Luxembourg plateau, in south-central Luxembourg, is a large, flat, sandstone formation, and the site of the city of Luxembourg. Little Switzerland, in the east of Luxembourg, has craggy terrain and thick forests. The Moselle valley is the lowest-lying region, running along the southeastern border. The Red Lands, in the far south and southwest, are Luxembourg's industrial heartland and home to many of Luxembourg's largest towns.
+
+The border between Luxembourg and Germany is formed by three rivers: the Moselle, the Sauer, and the Our. Other major rivers are the Alzette, the Attert, the Clerve, and the Wiltz. The valleys of the mid-Sauer and Attert form the border between the Gutland and the Oesling.
+
+According to the 2012 Environmental Performance Index, Luxembourg is one of the world's best performers in environmental protection, ranking 4th out of 132 assessed countries[54] Luxembourg also ranks 6th among the top ten most livable cities in the world by Mercer's.[55]
+
+Luxembourg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), marked by high precipitation, particularly in late summer. The summers are warm and winters cool.[56]
+
+Luxembourg's stable and high-income market economy features moderate growth, low inflation, and a high level of innovation.[57] Unemployment is traditionally low, although it had risen to 6.1% by May 2012, due largely to the effect of the 2008 global financial crisis.[58]  In 2011, according to the IMF, Luxembourg was the second richest country in the world, with a per capita GDP on a purchasing-power parity (PPP) basis of $80,119.[59] Its GDP per capita in purchasing power standards was 261% of the EU average (100%) in 2019.[60] Luxembourg is ranked 13th in The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom,[61] 26th in the United Nations Human Development Index, and 4th in the Economist Intelligence Unit's quality of life index.[62]
+
+The industrial sector, which was dominated by steel until the 1960s, has since diversified to include chemicals, rubber, and other products. During the past decades, growth in the financial sector has more than compensated for the decline in steel production. Services, especially banking and finance, account for the majority of economic output. Luxembourg is the world's second largest investment fund centre (after the United States), the most important private banking centre in the Eurozone and Europe's leading centre for reinsurance companies. Moreover, the Luxembourg government has aimed to attract Internet start-ups, with Skype and Amazon being two of the many Internet companies that have shifted their regional headquarters to Luxembourg. Other high-tech companies have established themselves in Luxembourg, including 3D scanner developer/manufacturer Artec 3D.
+
+In April 2009, concern about Luxembourg's banking secrecy laws, as well as its reputation as a tax haven, led to its being added to a "grey list" of nations with questionable banking arrangements by the G20. In response, the country soon after adopted OECD standards on exchange of information and was subsequently added into the category of "jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard".[63][64] In March 2010, the Sunday Telegraph reported that most of Kim Jong-Il's $4 billion in secret accounts is in Luxembourg banks.[65] Amazon.co.uk also benefits from Luxembourg tax loopholes by channeling substantial UK revenues as reported by The Guardian in April 2012.[66] Luxembourg ranked third on the Tax Justice Network's 2011 Financial Secrecy Index of the world's major tax havens, scoring only slightly behind the Cayman Islands.[67] In 2013, Luxembourg is ranked as the 2nd safest tax haven in the world, behind Switzerland.
+
+In early November 2014, just days after becoming head of the European Commission, the Luxembourg's former Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker was hit by media disclosures—derived from a document leak known as Luxembourg Leaks—that Luxembourg under his premiership had turned into a major European centre of corporate tax avoidance.[68]
+
+Agriculture employed about 2.1% percent of Luxembourg's active population in 2010, when there were 2200 agricultural holdings with an average area per holding of 60 hectares.[69]
+
+Luxembourg has especially close trade and financial ties to Belgium and the Netherlands (see Benelux), and as a member of the EU it enjoys the advantages of the open European market.
+
+With $171 billion in May 2015, the country ranks eleventh in the world in holdings of U.S. Treasury securities.[70] However, securities owned by non-Luxembourg residents, but held in custodial accounts in Luxembourg, are also included in this figure.[71]
+
+As of 2019[update], public debt of Luxembourg was at $15,687,000,000, or a per capita debt of $25,554. The debt to GDP was 22.10%.[72]
+
+Luxembourg has road, rail and air transport facilities and services. The road network has been significantly modernised in recent years with 147 km (91 mi) of motorways connecting the capital to adjacent countries. The advent of the high-speed TGV link to Paris has led to renovation of the city's railway station and a new passenger terminal at Luxembourg Airport was opened in 2008. Luxembourg city reintroduced trams in December 2017 and there are plans to open light-rail lines in adjacent areas within the next few years.
+
+The number of cars per 1000 persons amount to 680.1 in Luxembourg — higher than all but two states, namely the Principality of Monaco and the British overseas territory of Gibraltar.[73]
+
+On 29 February 2020 Luxembourg became the first country to introduce no-charge public transportation which will be almost completely funded through tax revenue.[74]
+
+The telecommunications industry in Luxembourg is liberalised and the electronic communications networks are significantly developed. Competition between the different operators is guaranteed by the legislative framework Paquet Telecom[75] of the Government of 2011 which transposes the European Telecom Directives into Luxembourgish law. This encourages the investment in networks and services. The regulator ILR – Institut Luxembourgeois de Régulation[76] ensures the compliance to these legal rules.
+
+Luxembourg has modern and widely deployed optical fiber and cable networks throughout the country. In 2010, the Luxembourg Government launched its National strategy for very high-speed networks with the aim to become a global leader in terms of very high-speed broadband by achieving full 1 Gbit/s coverage of the country by 2020.[77] In 2011, Luxembourg had an NGA coverage of 75%.[78] In April 2013 Luxembourg featured the 6th highest download speed worldwide and the 2nd highest in Europe: 32,46 Mbit/s.[79] The country's location in Central Europe, stable economy and low taxes favour the telecommunication industry.[80][81][82]
+
+It ranks 2nd in the world in the development of the Information and Communication Technologies in the ITU ICT Development Index and 8th in the Global Broadband Quality Study 2009 by the University of Oxford and the University of Oviedo.[83][84][85][86]
+
+Luxembourg is connected to all major European Internet Exchanges (AMS-IX Amsterdam,[87] DE-CIX Frankfurt,[88] LINX London),[89] datacenters and POPs through redundant optical networks.[90][91][92][93][94] In addition, the country is connected to the virtual meetme room services (vmmr)[95] of the international data hub operator Ancotel.[96] This enables Luxembourg to interconnect with all major telecommunication operators[97] and data carriers worldwide. The interconnection points are in Frankfurt, London, New York and Hong Kong.[98] Luxembourg has established itself as one of the leading financial technology (FinTech) hubs in Europe, with the Luxembourg government supporting initiatives like the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology.[99]
+
+Some 20 data centres[100][101][102] are operating in Luxembourg. Six data centers are Tier IV Design certified: three of ebrc,[103] two of LuxConnect[104][105] and one of European Data Hub.[106] In a survey on nine international data centers carried out in December 2012 and January 2013 and measuring availability (up-time) and performance (delay by which the data from the requested website was received), the top three positions were held by Luxembourg data centers.[107][108]
+
+The people of Luxembourg are called Luxembourgers.[110] The immigrant population increased in the 20th century due to the arrival of immigrants from Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, and Portugal, with the majority coming from the latter: in 2013 there were about 88,000 inhabitants with Portuguese nationality.[111] In 2013, there were 537,039 permanent residents, 44.5% of which were of foreign background or foreign nationals; the largest foreign ethnic groups were the Portuguese, comprising 16.4% of the total population, followed by the French (6.6%), Italians (3.4%), Belgians (3.3%) and Germans (2.3%). Another 6.4% were of other EU background, while the remaining 6.1% were of other non-EU, but largely other European, background.[112]
+
+Since the beginning of the Yugoslav wars, Luxembourg has seen many immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. Annually, over 10,000 new immigrants arrive in Luxembourg, mostly from the EU states, as well as Eastern Europe. In 2000 there were 162,000 immigrants in Luxembourg, accounting for 37% of the total population. There were an estimated 5,000 illegal immigrants in Luxembourg in 1999.[113]
+
+The linguistic situation of Luxembourg is characterized by the existence of a language specific to the local population (Luxembourgish), which is partially mutually intelligible with the neighboring High German, as well as the historical presence of the French and German languages.
+
+Three languages are recognised as official in Luxembourg: French, German and Luxembourgish, a Franconian language of the Moselle region that is also spoken in neighbouring parts of Belgium, Germany and France. Though Luxembourgish is part of the West Central German group of High German languages, more than 5,000 words in the language are of French origin.[114][115] The first printed sentences in Luxembourgish appeared in a weekly journal, the Luxemburger Wochenblatt, in the second edition on 14 April 1821.
+
+Apart from being one of the three official languages, Luxembourgish is also considered the national language of the Grand Duchy; it is the mother tongue or "language of the heart" for the local population.[116] 
+Every citizen or resident has the right to address the administration in the language of their choice among the three official languages and to be answered in that language.
+
+Due to the historical influence of the Napoleonic Code on the legal system of the Grand Duchy, French is the sole language of the legislation. French is generally the preferred language of the government, administration and justice. The parliamentary debates are however mostly conducted in Luxembourgish, whereas the written government communications and the official documents (e.g. administrative or judicial decisions, passports etc.) are drafted only in French.
+
+Each of the three languages is used as the primary language in certain spheres of everyday life, without being exclusive. Luxembourgish is the language that Luxembourgers generally use to speak to each other, but it is seldom used as written language and the numerous expatriate workers (approximately 60% of the population) generally do not use it to speak to each other. Since the 1980s, however, an increasing number of novels have been written in Luxembourgish. Most official business is carried out in French. German is very often used in much of the media along with French.[117] French is mostly used for written communications to the public (written official statements, advertising displays, road signs etc. are generally in French).
+
+A 2009 survey pointed out that French was the language spoken by most inhabitants (99%), followed by Luxembourgish (82%), German (81%), and English (72%).[118]
+
+Although professional life is largely multilingual, French is described by private sector business leaders as the main working language of their companies (56%), followed by Luxembourgish (20%), English (18%), and German (6%).[119]
+
+Due to the large community of Portuguese origin, the Portuguese language is de facto fairly present in Luxembourg though it remains limited to the relationships inside this community; although Portuguese does not have any official status, the administration sometimes holds certain informative documents available in Portuguese.
+
+Luxembourg is a secular state, but the state recognises certain religions as officially mandated religions. This gives the state a hand in religious administration and appointment of clergy, in exchange for which the state pays certain running costs and wages. Religions covered by such arrangements are Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Greek Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Russian Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Mennonitism, and Islam.[120]
+
+Since 1980 it has been illegal for the government to collect statistics on religious beliefs or practices.[121] An estimation by the CIA Factbook for the year 2000 is that 87% of Luxembourgers are Catholic, including the grand ducal family, the remaining 13% being made up of Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, Muslims, and those of other or no religion.[122] According to a 2010 Pew Research Center study, 70.4% are Christian, 2.3% Muslim, 26.8% unaffiliated, and 0.5% other religions.[123]
+
+According to a 2005 Eurobarometer poll,[124] 44% of Luxembourg citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 28% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force", and 22% that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force".
+
+Luxembourg's education system is trilingual: the first years of primary school are in Luxembourgish, before changing to German; while in secondary school, the language of instruction changes to French.[125] Proficiency in all three languages is required for graduation from secondary school, but half the students leave school without a certified qualification, with the children of immigrants being particularly disadvantaged.[126] In addition to the three national languages, English is taught in compulsory schooling and much of the population of Luxembourg can speak English. The past two decades have highlighted the growing importance of English in several sectors, in particular the financial sector. Portuguese, the language of the largest immigrant community, is also spoken by large segments of the population, but by relatively few from outside the Portuguese-speaking community.[127]
+
+The University of Luxembourg is the only university based in Luxembourg. In 2014, Luxembourg School of Business, a graduate business school, has been created through private initiative and has received the accreditation from the Ministry of Higher Education and Research of Luxembourg in 2017.[128][129] Two American universities maintain satellite campuses in the country, Miami University (Dolibois European Center) and Sacred Heart University (Luxembourg Campus).[130]
+
+According to data from the World Health Organization, healthcare spending on behalf of the government of Luxembourg topped $4.1 Billion, amounting to about $8,182 for each citizen in the nation.[131][132] The nation of Luxembourg collectively spent nearly 7% of its Gross Domestic Product on health, placing it among the highest spending countries on health services and related programs in 2010 among other well-off nations in Europe with high average income among its population.[133]
+
+Luxembourg has been overshadowed by the culture of its neighbours. It retains a number of folk traditions, having been for much of its history a profoundly rural country. There are several notable museums, located mostly in the capital. These include the National Museum of History and Art (NMHA), the Luxembourg City History Museum, and the new Grand Duke Jean Museum of Modern Art (Mudam). The National Museum of Military History (MNHM) in Diekirch is especially known for its representations of the Battle of the Bulge. The city of Luxembourg itself is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, on account of the historical importance of its fortifications.[134]
+
+The country has produced some internationally known artists, including the painters Théo Kerg, Joseph Kutter and Michel Majerus, and photographer Edward Steichen, whose The Family of Man exhibition has been placed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register, and is now permanently housed in Clervaux. Movie star Loretta Young was of Luxembourgish descent.
+
+Luxembourg was the first city to be named European Capital of Culture twice. The first time was in 1995. In 2007, the European Capital of Culture[135] was to be a cross-border area consisting of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland in Germany, the Walloon Region and the German-speaking part of Belgium, and the Lorraine area in France. The event was an attempt to promote mobility and the exchange of ideas, crossing borders physically, psychologically, artistically and emotionally.
+
+Luxembourg was represented at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China, from 1 May to 31 October 2010 with its own pavilion.[136][137] The pavilion was based on the transliteration of the word Luxembourg into Chinese, "Lu Sen Bao", which means "Forest and Fortress". It represented Luxembourg as the "Green Heart in Europe".[138]
+
+Unlike most countries in Europe, sport in Luxembourg is not concentrated upon a particular national sport, but encompasses a number of sports, both team and individual. Despite the lack of a central sporting focus, over 100,000 people in Luxembourg, out of a total population of near 500,000–600,000, are licensed members of one sports federation or another.[139] The largest sports venue in the country is d'Coque, an indoor arena and Olympic swimming pool in Kirchberg, north-eastern Luxembourg City, which has a capacity of 8,300. The arena is used for basketball, handball, gymnastics, and volleyball, including the final of the 2007 Women's European Volleyball Championship. The national stadium (also the country's largest) is the Stade Josy Barthel, in western Luxembourg City; named after the country's only official Olympic gold medallist, the stadium has a capacity of 8,054.
+
+Luxembourg cuisine reflects its position on the border between the Latin and Germanic worlds, being heavily influenced by the cuisines of neighboring France and Germany. More recently, it has been enriched by its many Italian and Portuguese immigrants.
+
+Most native Luxembourg dishes, consumed as the traditional daily fare, share roots in the country's folk dishes the same as in neighboring Germany.
+
+Luxembourg sells the most alcohol in Europe per capita.[140] However, the large proportion of alcohol purchased by customers from neighboring countries contributes to the statistically high level of alcohol sales per capita; this level of alcohol sales is thus not representative of the actual alcohol consumption of the Luxembourg population.[141]
+
+The main languages of media in Luxembourg are French and German. The newspaper with the largest circulation is the German-language daily Luxemburger Wort.[142] Because of the strong multilingualism in Luxembourg, newspapers often alternate articles in French and articles in German, without translation. In addition there are both English and Portuguese radio and national print publications, but accurate audience figures are difficult to gauge since the national media survey by ILRES[143] is conducted in French.
+
+Luxembourg is known in Europe for its radio and television stations (Radio Luxembourg and RTL Group). It is also the uplink home of SES, carrier of major European satellite services for Germany and Britain.
+
+Due to a 1988 law that established a special tax scheme for audiovisual investment, the film and co-production in Luxembourg has grown steadily.[144] There are some 30 registered production companies in Luxembourg.[145][146]
+
+Luxembourg won an Oscar in 2014 in the Animated Short Films category with Mr Hublot.

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+
+
+
+
+A lynx (/lɪŋks/;[2] plural lynx or lynxes[3]) is any of the four species (Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx, bobcat) within the medium-sized wild cat genus Lynx. The name lynx originated in Middle English via Latin from the Greek word λύγξ,[2] derived from the Indo-European root leuk- ('light, brightness')[4] in reference to the luminescence of its reflective eyes.[4]
+
+Lynx have a short tail, characteristic tufts of black hair on the tips of their ears, large, padded paws for walking on snow and long whiskers on the face. Under their neck they have a ruff which has black bars resembling a bow tie, although this is often not visible.
+
+Body colour varies from medium brown to goldish to beige-white, and is occasionally marked with dark brown spots, especially on the limbs. All species of lynx have white fur on their chests, bellies and on the insides of their legs, fur which is an extension of the chest and belly fur. The lynx's colouring, fur length and paw size vary according to the climate in their range. In the Southwestern United States, they are short-haired, dark in colour and their paws are smaller and less padded. As climates get colder and more northerly, lynx have progressively thicker fur, lighter colour, and their paws are larger and more padded to adapt to the snow. Their paws may be larger than a human hand or foot.
+
+The smallest species are the bobcat and the Canada lynx, while the largest is the Eurasian lynx, with considerable variations within species.
+
+The four living species of the genus Lynx are believed to have evolved from the "Issoire lynx", which lived in Europe and Africa during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The Pliocene felid Felis rexroadensis from North America has been proposed as an even earlier ancestor; however, this was larger than any living species, and is not currently classified as a true lynx.[11][12]
+
+Of the four lynx species, the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest in size. It is native to European, Central Asian, and Siberian forests. While its conservation status has been classified as "least concern", populations of Eurasian lynx have been reduced or extirpated from Europe, where it is now being reintroduced.
+
+The Eurasian lynx is the third largest predator in Europe after the brown bear and the grey wolf. It is a strict carnivore, consuming about one or two kilograms of meat every day. The Eurasian lynx is one of the widest-ranging.[13]
+
+During the summer, the Eurasian lynx has a relatively short, reddish or brown coat which is replaced by a much thicker silver-grey to greyish-brown coat during winter. The lynx hunts by stalking and jumping on its prey, helped by the rugged, forested country in which it resides. A favorite prey for the lynx in its woodland habitat is roe deer. It will feed however on whatever animal appears easiest, as it is an opportunistic predator much like its cousins.[11]
+
+The Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), or Canadian lynx, is a North American felid that ranges in forest and tundra regions[14] across Canada and into Alaska, as well as some parts of the northern United States.  Historically, the Canadian lynx ranged from Alaska across Canada and into many of the northern U.S. states. In the eastern states, it resided in the transition zone in which boreal coniferous forests yielded to deciduous forests.[15] By 2010, after an 11-year effort, it had been successfully reintroduced into Colorado, where it had become extirpated in the 1970s.[16][17][18] In 2000, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the Canada lynx a threatened species in the lower 48 states.[19]
+
+The Canada lynx is a good climber and swimmer; it constructs rough shelters under fallen trees or rock ledges. It has a thick coat and broad paws, and is twice as effective as the bobcat at supporting its weight on the snow. The Canada lynx feeds almost exclusively on snowshoe hares; its population is highly dependent on the population of this prey animal. It will also hunt medium-sized mammals and birds if hare numbers fall.[14]
+
+The Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) is an endangered species native to the Iberian Peninsula in Southern Europe. It was the most endangered cat species in the world,[20] but conservation efforts have changed its status from critical to endangered. According to the Portuguese conservation group SOS Lynx, if this species dies out, it will be the first feline extinction since the Smilodon 10,000 years ago.[21] The species used to be classified as a subspecies of the Eurasian lynx, but is now considered a separate species. Both species occurred together in central Europe in the Pleistocene epoch, being separated by habitat choice.[22] The Iberian lynx is believed to have evolved from Lynx issiodorensis.[23]
+
+In 2004, a Spanish government survey showed just two isolated breeding populations of Iberian lynx in southern Spain, totaling about 100 lynx (including only 25 breeding females).[24] An agreement signed in 2003 by the Spanish Environment Ministry and the Andalusian Environment Council seeks to breed the Iberian lynx in captivity.[24] Three Iberian lynx cubs were born as part of the Spanish program in 2005, at the Centro El Acebuche facility in Doñana National Park.[24]
+
+As a result of the Spanish government program and efforts by others (such as the WWF and the EU's Life projects), the Iberian lynx "has recovered from the brink of extinction";[25] from 2000 to 2015, the population of Iberian lynx more than tripled.[26]  The IUCN reassessed the species from "critically endangered" to "endangered" in 2015.[25] A 2014 census of the species showed 327 animals in Andalucia in the "reintroduction areas" of Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha, Spain), the Matachel Valley (Extremadura, Spain), and the Guadiana Valley (Portugal).[25]
+
+The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a North American wild cat. With 13 recognized subspecies, the bobcat is common throughout southern Canada, the continental United States, and northern Mexico.[27] The bobcat is an adaptable predator that inhabits deciduous, coniferous, or mixed woodlands, but unlike other Lynx, does not depend exclusively on the deep forest, and ranges from swamps and desert lands to mountainous and agricultural areas, its spotted coat serving as camouflage.[28] The population of the bobcat depends primarily on the population of its prey.[29] Nonetheless, the bobcat is often killed by larger predators such as coyotes.[30]
+
+The bobcat resembles other species of the genus Lynx, but is on average the smallest of the four. Its coat is variable, though generally tan to grayish brown, with black streaks on the body and dark bars on the forelegs and tail. The ears are black-tipped and pointed, with short, black tufts. There is generally an off-white color on the lips, chin, and underparts. Bobcats in the desert regions of the southwest have the lightest-colored coats, while those in the northern, forested regions have the darkest.[10]
+
+The lynx is usually solitary, although a small group of lynx may travel and hunt together occasionally. Mating takes place in the late winter and once a year the female gives birth to between one and four kittens. The gestation time of the lynx is about 70 days. The young stay with the mother for one more winter, a total of around nine months, before moving out to live on their own as young adults. The lynx creates its den in crevices or under ledges. It feeds on a wide range of animals from white-tailed deer, reindeer, roe deer, small red deer, and chamois, to smaller, more usual prey: snowshoe hares, fish, foxes, sheep, squirrels, mice, turkeys and other birds, and goats. It also eats ptarmigans, voles, and grouse.
+
+The lynx inhabits high altitude forests with dense cover of shrubs, reeds, and tall grass. Although this cat hunts on the ground, it can climb trees and can swim swiftly, catching fish.
+
+The Eurasian lynx ranges from central and northern Europe across Asia up to Northern Pakistan and India. In Iran, they live in Mount Damavand area.[31] Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Eurasian lynx was considered extinct in the wild in Slovenia and Croatia. A resettlement project, begun in 1973, has successfully reintroduced lynx to the Slovenian Alps and the Croatian regions of Gorski Kotar and Velebit, including Croatia's Plitvice Lakes National Park and Risnjak National Park. In both countries, the lynx is listed as an endangered species and protected by law. The lynx was distributed throughout Japan during Jōmon period, but no archeological evidence thereafter suggesting extinction at that time.[32]
+
+Several lynx resettlement projects begun in the 1970s have been successful in various regions of Switzerland. Since the 1990s, there have been numerous efforts to resettle the Eurasian lynx in Germany, and since  2000, a small population can now be found in the Harz mountains near Bad Lauterberg.
+
+The lynx is found in the Białowieża Forest in northeastern Poland, in Estonia and in the northern and western parts of China, particularly the Tibetan Plateau. In Romania, the numbers exceed 2,000, the largest population in Europe outside of Russia, although most experts consider the official population numbers to be overestimated.[33]
+
+The lynx is more common in northern Europe, especially in Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Finland, and the northern parts of Russia. The Swedish population is estimated to be 1200–1500 individuals, spread all over the country, but more common in middle Sweden and in the mountain range. The lynx population in Finland was 1900–2100 individuals in 2008, and the numbers have been increasing every year since 1992. The lynx population in Finland is estimated currently to be larger than ever before.[34] Lynx in Britain were wiped out in the 17th century, but there have been calls to reintroduce them to curb the numbers of deer.[35]
+
+The endangered Iberian lynx lives in southern Spain and formerly in eastern Portugal. There is an Iberian lynx reproduction center outside Silves in the Algarve in southern Portugal.
+
+The two Lynx species in North America, Canada lynx and bobcats, are both found in the temperate zone. While the bobcat is common throughout southern Canada, the continental United States and northern Mexico, the Canada lynx is present mainly in boreal forests of Canada and Alaska.[27]
+
+The lynx is considered a national animal in North Macedonia[36][37] and is displayed on the reverse of the 5 denar coin.[38]
+It is also the national animal of Romania.[39]

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+A fairy tale, fairytale, wonder tale, magic tale, or Märchen is an instance of a folklore genre that takes the form of a short story. Such stories typically feature entities such as dwarfs, dragons, elves, fairies, giants, gnomes, goblins, griffins, mermaids, talking animals, trolls, unicorns, or witches, and usually magic or enchantments. In most cultures, there is no clear line separating myth from folk or fairy tale; all these together form the literature of preliterate societies.[1] Fairy tales may be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described)[2] and explicit moral tales, including beast fables.
+
+In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy-tale ending" (a happy ending)[3] or "fairy-tale romance". Colloquially, the term "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale; it is used especially of any story that not only is not true, but could not possibly be true. Legends are perceived[by whom?] as real; fairy tales may merge into legends, where the narrative is perceived both by teller and hearers as being grounded in historical truth. However, unlike legends and epics, fairy tales usually do not contain more than superficial references to religion and to actual places, people, and events; they take place "once upon a time" rather than in actual times.[4]
+
+Fairy tales occur both in oral and in literary form; the name "fairy tale" ("conte de fées" in French) was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world.[5] The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, according to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, such stories may date back thousands of years, some to the Bronze Age more than 6,500 years ago.[6][7] Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today.
+
+Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The Aarne-Thompson classification system and the morphological analysis of Vladimir Propp are among the most notable. Other folklorists have interpreted the tales' significance, but no school has been definitively established for the meaning of the tales.
+
+Some folklorists prefer to use the German term Märchen or "wonder tale"[8] to refer to the genre rather than fairy tale, a practice given weight by the definition of Thompson in his 1977 [1946] edition of The Folktale: "a tale of some length involving a succession of motifs or episodes. It moves in an unreal world without definite locality or definite creatures and is filled with the marvellous. In this never-never land, humble heroes kill adversaries, succeed to kingdoms and marry princesses."[9] The characters and motifs of fairy tales are simple and archetypal: princesses and goose-girls; youngest sons and gallant princes; ogres, giants, dragons, and trolls; wicked stepmothers and false heroes; fairy godmothers and other magical helpers, often talking horses, or foxes, or birds; glass mountains; and prohibitions and breaking of prohibitions.[10]
+
+Although the fairy tale is a distinct genre within the larger category of folktale, the definition that marks a work as a fairy tale is a source of considerable dispute.[11] The term itself comes from the translation of Madame D'Aulnoy's Conte de fées, first used in her collection in 1697.[12] Common parlance conflates fairy tales with beast fables and other folktales, and scholars differ on the degree to which the presence of fairies and/or similarly mythical beings (e.g., elves, goblins, trolls, giants, huge monsters, or mermaids) should be taken as a differentiator. Vladimir Propp, in his Morphology of the Folktale, criticized the common distinction between "fairy tales" and "animal tales" on the grounds that many tales contained both fantastic elements and animals.[13] Nevertheless, to select works for his analysis, Propp used all Russian folktales classified as a folklore Aarne-Thompson 300-749 – in a cataloguing system that made such a distinction – to gain a clear set of tales.[14] His own analysis identified fairy tales by their plot elements, but that in itself has been criticized, as the analysis does not lend itself easily to tales that do not involve a quest, and furthermore, the same plot elements are found in non-fairy tale works.[15]
+
+Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale ... of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.
+
+As Stith Thompson points out, talking animals and the presence of magic seem to be more common to the fairy tale than fairies themselves.[16] However, the mere presence of animals that talk does not make a tale a fairy tale, especially when the animal is clearly a mask on a human face, as in fables.[17]
+
+In his essay "On Fairy-Stories", J. R. R. Tolkien agreed with the exclusion of "fairies" from the definition, defining fairy tales as stories about the adventures of men in Faërie, the land of fairies, fairytale princes and princesses, dwarves, elves, and not only other magical species but many other marvels.[18] However, the same essay excludes tales that are often considered fairy tales, citing as an example The Monkey's Heart, which Andrew Lang included in The Lilac Fairy Book.[17]
+
+Steven Swann Jones identified the presence of magic as the feature by which fairy tales can be distinguished from other sorts of folktales.[19] Davidson and Chaudri identify "transformation" as the key feature of the genre.[8] From a psychological point of view, Jean Chiriac argued for the necessity of the fantastic in these narratives.[20]
+
+In terms of aesthetic values, Italo Calvino cited the fairy tale as a prime example of "quickness" in literature, because of the economy and concision of the tales.[21]
+
+Originally, stories that would contemporarily be considered fairy tales were not marked out as a separate genre. The German term "Märchen" stems from the old German word "Mär", which means story or tale. The word "Märchen" is the diminutive of the word "Mär", therefore it means a "little story". Together with the common beginning "once upon a time" it means a fairy tale or a märchen was originally a little story from a long time ago when the world was still magic. (Indeed, one less regular German opening is "In the old times when wishing was still effective".)
+
+The English term "fairy tale" stems from the fact that the French contes often included fairies.
+
+Roots of the genre come from different oral stories passed down in European cultures. The genre was first marked out by writers of the Renaissance, such as Giovanni Francesco Straparola and Giambattista Basile, and stabilized through the works of later collectors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm.[22] In this evolution, the name was coined when the précieuses took up writing literary stories; Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term Conte de fée, or fairy tale, in the late 17th century.[23]
+
+Before the definition of the genre of fantasy, many works that would now be classified as fantasy were termed "fairy tales", including Tolkien's The Hobbit, George Orwell's Animal Farm, and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.[24] Indeed, Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories" includes discussions of world-building and is considered a vital part of fantasy criticism. Although fantasy, particularly the subgenre of fairytale fantasy, draws heavily on fairy tale motifs,[25] the genres are now regarded as distinct.
+
+The fairy tale, told orally, is a sub-class of the folktale. Many writers have written in the form of the fairy tale. These are the literary fairy tales, or Kunstmärchen.[12] The oldest forms, from Panchatantra to the Pentamerone, show considerable reworking from the oral form.[26] The Grimm brothers were among the first to try to preserve the features of oral tales. Yet the stories printed under the Grimm name have been considerably reworked to fit the written form.[27]
+
+Literary fairy tales and oral fairy tales freely exchanged plots, motifs, and elements with one another and with the tales of foreign lands.[28] The literary fairy tale came into fashion during the 17th century, developed by aristocratic women as a parlour game. This, in turn, helped to maintain the oral tradition. According to Jack Zipes, "The subject matter of the conversations consisted of literature, mores, taste, and etiquette, whereby the speakers all endeavoured to portray ideal situations in the most effective oratorical style that would gradually have a major effect on literary forms." [29] Many 18th-century folklorists attempted to recover the "pure" folktale, uncontaminated by literary versions. Yet while oral fairy tales likely existed for thousands of years before the literary forms, there is no pure folktale, and each literary fairy tale draws on folk traditions, if only in parody.[30] This makes it impossible to trace forms of transmission of a fairy tale. Oral story-tellers have been known to read literary fairy tales to increase their own stock of stories and treatments.[31]
+
+The oral tradition of the fairy tale came long before the written page. Tales were told or enacted dramatically, rather than written down, and handed down from generation to generation. Because of this, the history of their development is necessarily obscure and blurred. Fairy tales appear, now and again, in written literature throughout literate cultures, as in The Golden Ass, which includes Cupid and Psyche (Roman, 100–200 AD),[32] or the Panchatantra (India 3rd century BC),[32] but it is unknown to what extent these reflect the actual folk tales even of their own time. The stylistic evidence indicates that these, and many later collections, reworked folk tales into literary forms.[26] What they do show is that the fairy tale has ancient roots, older than the Arabian Nights collection of magical tales (compiled circa 1500 AD),[32] such as Vikram and the Vampire, and Bel and the Dragon. Besides such collections and individual tales, in China, Taoist philosophers such as Liezi and Zhuangzi recounted fairy tales in their philosophical works.[33] In the broader definition of the genre, the first famous Western fairy tales are those of Aesop (6th century BC) in ancient Greece.
+
+Scholarship point that Medieval literature contains early versions or predecessor of later known tales and motifs, such as the grateful dead, the bird lover or quest for the lost wife.[34]
+
+Jack Zipes writes in When Dreams Came True, "There are fairy tale elements in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and ... in many of William Shakespeare plays."[35] King Lear can be considered a literary variant of fairy tales such as Water and Salt and Cap O' Rushes.[36] The tale itself resurfaced in Western literature in the 16th and 17th centuries, with The Facetious Nights of Straparola by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (Italy, 1550 and 1553),[32] which contains many fairy tales in its inset tales, and the Neapolitan tales of Giambattista Basile (Naples, 1634–36),[32] which are all fairy tales.[37] Carlo Gozzi made use of many fairy tale motifs among his Commedia dell'Arte scenarios,[38] including among them one based on The Love For Three Oranges (1761).[39] Simultaneously, Pu Songling, in China, included many fairy tales in his collection, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (published posthumously, 1766).[33] The fairy tale itself became popular among the précieuses of upper-class France (1690–1710),[32] and among the tales told in that time were the ones of La Fontaine and the Contes of Charles Perrault (1697), who fixed the forms of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.[40] Although Straparola's, Basile's and Perrault's collections contain the oldest known forms of various fairy tales, on the stylistic evidence, all the writers rewrote the tales for literary effect.[41]
+
+In the mid-17th century, a vogue for magical tales emerged among the intellectuals who frequented the salons of Paris. These salons were regular gatherings hosted by prominent aristocratic women, where women and men could gather together to discuss the issues of the day.
+
+In the 1630s, aristocratic women began to gather in their own living rooms, salons, in order to discuss the topics of their choice: arts and letters, politics, and social matters of immediate concern to the women of their class: marriage, love, financial and physical independence, and access to education. This was a time when women were barred from receiving a formal education. Some of the most gifted women writers of the period came out of these early salons (such as Madeleine de Scudéry and Madame de Lafayette), which encouraged women's independence and pushed against the gender barriers that defined their lives. The salonnières argued particularly for love and intellectual compatibility between the sexes, opposing the system of arranged marriages.
+
+Sometime in the middle of the 17th century, a passion for the conversational parlour game based on the plots of old folk tales swept through the salons. Each salonnière was called upon to retell an old tale or rework an old theme, spinning clever new stories that not only showcased verbal agility and imagination but also slyly commented on the conditions of aristocratic life. Great emphasis was placed on a mode of delivery that seemed natural and spontaneous. The decorative language of the fairy tales served an important function: disguising the rebellious subtext of the stories and sliding them past the court censors. Critiques of court life (and even of the king) were embedded in extravagant tales and in dark, sharply dystopian ones. Not surprisingly, the tales by women often featured young (but clever) aristocratic girls whose lives were controlled by the arbitrary whims of fathers, kings, and elderly wicked fairies, as well as tales in which groups of wise fairies (i.e., intelligent, independent women) stepped in and put all to rights.
+
+The salon tales as they were originally written and published have been preserved in a monumental work called Le Cabinet des Fées, an enormous collection of stories from the 17th and 18th centuries.[12]
+
+The first collectors to attempt to preserve not only the plot and characters of the tale, but also the style in which they were told, was the Brothers Grimm, collecting German fairy tales; ironically, this meant although their first edition (1812 & 1815)[32] remains a treasure for folklorists, they rewrote the tales in later editions to make them more acceptable, which ensured their sales and the later popularity of their work.[42]
+
+Such literary forms did not merely draw from the folktale, but also influenced folktales in turn. The Brothers Grimm rejected several tales for their collection, though told orally to them by Germans, because the tales derived from Perrault, and they concluded they were thereby French and not German tales; an oral version of Bluebeard was thus rejected, and the tale of Little Briar Rose, clearly related to Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty, was included only because Jacob Grimm convinced his brother that the figure of Brynhildr, from much earlier Norse mythology, proved that the sleeping princess was authentically Germanic folklore.[43]
+
+This consideration of whether to keep Sleeping Beauty reflected a belief common among folklorists of the 19th century: that the folk tradition preserved fairy tales in forms from pre-history except when "contaminated" by such literary forms, leading people to tell inauthentic tales.[44] The rural, illiterate, and uneducated peasants, if suitably isolated, were the folk and would tell pure folk tales.[45] Sometimes they regarded fairy tales as a form of fossil, the remnants of a once-perfect tale.[46] However, further research has concluded that fairy tales never had a fixed form, and regardless of literary influence, the tellers constantly altered them for their own purposes.[47]
+
+The work of the Brothers Grimm influenced other collectors, both inspiring them to collect tales and leading them to similarly believe, in a spirit of romantic nationalism, that the fairy tales of a country were particularly representative of it, to the neglect of cross-cultural influence. Among those influenced were the Russian Alexander Afanasyev (first published in 1866),[32] the Norwegians Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe (first published in 1845),[32] the Romanian Petre Ispirescu (first published in 1874), the English Joseph Jacobs (first published in 1890),[32] and Jeremiah Curtin, an American who collected Irish tales (first published in 1890).[30] Ethnographers collected fairy tales throughout the world, finding similar tales in Africa, the Americas, and Australia; Andrew Lang was able to draw on not only the written tales of Europe and Asia, but those collected by ethnographers, to fill his "coloured" fairy books series.[48] They also encouraged other collectors of fairy tales, as when Yei Theodora Ozaki created a collection, Japanese Fairy Tales (1908), after encouragement from Lang.[49] Simultaneously, writers such as Hans Christian Andersen and George MacDonald continued the tradition of literary fairy tales. Andersen's work sometimes drew on old folktales, but more often deployed fairytale motifs and plots in new tales.[50] MacDonald incorporated fairytale motifs both in new literary fairy tales, such as The Light Princess, and in works of the genre that would become fantasy, as in The Princess and the Goblin or Lilith.[51]
+
+Two theories of origins, have attempted to explain the common elements in fairy tales found spread over continents. One is that a single point of origin generated any given tale, which then spread over the centuries; the other is that such fairy tales stem from common human experience and therefore can appear separately in many different origins.[52]
+
+Fairy tales with very similar plots, characters, and motifs are found spread across many different cultures. Many researchers hold this to be caused by the spread of such tales, as people repeat tales they have heard in foreign lands, although the oral nature makes it impossible to trace the route except by inference.[53] Folklorists have attempted to determine the origin by internal evidence, which can not always be clear; Joseph Jacobs, comparing the Scottish tale The Ridere of Riddles with the version collected by the Brothers Grimm, The Riddle, noted that in The Ridere of Riddles one hero ends up polygamously married, which might point to an ancient custom, but in The Riddle, the simpler riddle might argue greater antiquity.[54]
+
+Folklorists of the "Finnish" (or historical-geographical) school attempted to place fairy tales to their origin, with inconclusive results.[55] Sometimes influence, especially within a limited area and time, is clearer, as when considering the influence of Perrault's tales on those collected by the Brothers Grimm. Little Briar-Rose appears to stem from Perrault's The Sleeping Beauty, as the Grimms' tale appears to be the only independent German variant.[56] Similarly, the close agreement between the opening of the Grimms' version of Little Red Riding Hood and Perrault's tale points to an influence, although the Grimms' version adds a different ending (perhaps derived from The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids).[57]
+
+Fairy tales tend to take on the color of their location, through the choice of motifs, the style in which they are told, and the depiction of character and local color.[58]
+
+The Brothers Grimm believed that European fairy tales derived from the cultural history shared by all Indo-European peoples and were therefore ancient, far older than written records. This view is supported by research by the anthropologist Jamie Tehrani and the folklorist Sara Graca Da Silva using phylogenetic analysis, a technique developed by evolutionary biologists to trace the relatedness of living and fossil species. Among the tales analysed were Jack and the Beanstalk, traced to the time of splitting of Eastern and Western Indo-European, over 5000 years ago. Both Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin appear to have been created some 4000 years ago. The story of The Smith and the Devil (Deal with the Devil) appears to date from the Bronze Age, some 6000 years ago.[59] However, the choice of the corpus of folktales[60] and the method used by this study[61] both make the results very suspicious. On the other hand, various studies converge to show that some fairy tales, for example the swan maiden,[62] could go back to the Upper Palaeolithic.
+
+Originally, adults were the audience of a fairy tale just as often as children.[63] Literary fairy tales appeared in works intended for adults, but in the 19th and 20th centuries the fairy tale became associated with children's literature.
+
+The précieuses, including Madame d'Aulnoy, intended their works for adults, but regarded their source as the tales that servants, or other women of lower class, would tell to children.[64] Indeed, a novel of that time, depicting a countess's suitor offering to tell such a tale, has the countess exclaim that she loves fairy tales as if she were still a child.[65] Among the late précieuses, Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont redacted a version of Beauty and the Beast for children, and it is her tale that is best known today.[66] The Brothers Grimm titled their collection Children's and Household Tales and rewrote their tales after complaints that they were not suitable for children.[67]
+
+In the modern era, fairy tales were altered so that they could be read to children. The Brothers Grimm concentrated mostly on sexual references;[68] Rapunzel, in the first edition, revealed the prince's visits by asking why her clothing had grown tight, thus letting the witch deduce that she was pregnant, but in subsequent editions carelessly revealed that it was easier to pull up the prince than the witch.[69] On the other hand, in many respects, violence‍—‌particularly when punishing villains‍—‌was increased.[70] Other, later, revisions cut out violence; J. R. R. Tolkien noted that The Juniper Tree often had its cannibalistic stew cut out in a version intended for children.[71] The moralizing strain in the Victorian era altered the classical tales to teach lessons, as when George Cruikshank rewrote Cinderella in 1854 to contain temperance themes. His acquaintance Charles Dickens protested, "In an utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected."[72][73]
+
+Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim, who regarded the cruelty of older fairy tales as indicative of psychological conflicts, strongly criticized this expurgation, because it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues.[74] Fairy tales do teach children how to deal with difficult times. To quote Rebecca Walters (2017, p. 56) “Fairytales and folktales are part of the cultural conserve that can be used to address children’s fears …. and give them some role training in an approach that honors the children’s window of tolerance”. These fairy tales teach children how to deal with certain social situations and helps them to find their place in society.[75] Fairy tales teach children other important lessons too. For example, Tsitsani et al. carried out a study on children to determine the benefits of fairy tales. Parents of the children who took part in the study found that fairy tales, especially the color in them, triggered their child's imagination as the read them.[76]Jungian Analyst and fairy tale scholar, Marie Louise Von Franz interprets fairy tales[77] based on Jung's view of fairy tales as a spontaneous and naive product of soul, which can only express what soul is.[78] That means, she looks at fairy tales as images of different phases of experiencing the reality of the soul. They are the “purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes” and “they represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest and most concise form” because they are less overlaid with conscious material than myths and legends. “In this pure form, the archetypal images afford us the best clues to the understanding of the processes going on in the collective psyche”. “The fairy tale itself is its own best explanation; that is, its meaning is contained in the totality of its motifs connected by the thread of the story. [...] Every fairy tale is a relatively closed system compounding one essential psychological meaning which is expressed in a series of symbolical pictures and events and is discoverable in these”. “I have come to the conclusion that all fairy tales endeavour to describe one and the same psychic fact, but a fact so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects that hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician’s variation are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted. This unknown fact is what Jung calls the Self, which is the psychic reality of the collective unconscious. [...] Every archetype is in its essence only one aspect of the collective unconscious as well as always representing also the whole collective unconscious.[79]
+
+Other famous people commented on the importance of fairy tales, especially for children. For example, Albert Einstein once showed how important he believed fairy tales were for children’s intelligence in the quote “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales."[80]
+
+The adaptation of fairy tales for children continues. Walt Disney's influential Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was largely (although certainly not solely) intended for the children's market.[81] The anime Magical Princess Minky Momo draws on the fairy tale Momotarō.[82] Jack Zipes has spent many years working to make the older traditional stories accessible to modern readers and their children.[83]
+
+Many fairy tales feature an absentee mother, as an example Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood and Donkeyskin, where the mother is deceased or absent and unable to help the heroines. Mothers are depicted as absent or wicked in the most popular contemporary versions of tales like Rapunzel, Snow White, Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel, however,
+some lesser known tales or variants such as those found in volumes edited by Angela Carter and Jane Yolen depict mothers in a more positive light.[84]
+
+Carter's protagonist in The Bloody Chamber is an impoverished piano student married to a Marquis who was much older than herself to "banish the spectre of poverty". The story a variant on Bluebeard, a tale about a wealthy man who murders numerous young women. Carter's protagonist, who is unnamed, describes her mother as "eagle-featured" and "indomitable". Her mother is depicted as a woman who is prepared for violence, instead of hiding from it or sacrificing herself to it. The protagonist recalls how her mother kept an "antique service revolver" and once "shot a man-eating tiger with her own hand."[84]
+
+In contemporary literature, many authors have used the form of fairy tales for various reasons, such as examining the human condition from the simple framework a fairytale provides.[85] Some authors seek to recreate a sense of the fantastic in a contemporary discourse.[86] Some writers use fairy tale forms for modern issues;[87] this can include using the psychological dramas implicit in the story, as when Robin McKinley retold Donkeyskin as the novel Deerskin, with emphasis on the abusive treatment the father of the tale dealt to his daughter.[88] Sometimes, especially in children's literature, fairy tales are retold with a twist simply for comic effect, such as The Stinky Cheese Man by Jon Scieszka and The ASBO Fairy Tales by Chris Pilbeam. A common comic motif is a world where all the fairy tales take place, and the characters are aware of their role in the story,[89] such as in the film series Shrek.
+
+Other authors may have specific motives, such as multicultural or feminist reevaluations of predominantly Eurocentric masculine-dominated fairy tales, implying critique of older narratives.[90] The figure of the damsel in distress has been particularly attacked by many feminist critics. Examples of narrative reversal rejecting this figure include The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch, a picture book aimed at children in which a princess rescues a prince, and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, which retells a number of fairy tales from a female point of view.[91]
+
+There are also many contemporary erotic retellings of fairy tales, which explicitly draw upon the original spirit of the tales, and are specifically for adults. Modern retellings focus on exploring the tale through use of the erotic, explicit sexuality, dark and/or comic themes, female empowerment, fetish and BDSM, multicultural, and heterosexual characters. Cleis Press has released several fairy tale themed erotic anthologies, including Fairy Tale Lust, Lustfully Ever After, and A Princess Bound.
+
+It may be hard to lay down the rule between fairy tales and fantasies that use fairy tale motifs, or even whole plots, but the distinction is commonly made, even within the works of a single author: George MacDonald's Lilith and Phantastes are regarded as fantasies, while his "The Light Princess", "The Golden Key", and "The Wise Woman" are commonly called fairy tales. The most notable distinction is that fairytale fantasies, like other fantasies, make use of novelistic writing conventions of prose, characterization, or setting.[92]
+
+Fairy tales have been enacted dramatically; records exist of this in commedia dell'arte,[93] and later in pantomime.[94] The advent of cinema has meant that such stories could be presented in a more plausible manner, with the use of special effects and animation. The Walt Disney Company has had a significant impact on the evolution of the fairy tale film. Some of the earliest short silent films from the Disney studio were based on fairy tales, and some fairy tales were adapted into shorts in the musical comedy series "Silly Symphony", such as Three Little Pigs. Walt Disney's first feature-length film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, released in 1937, was a ground-breaking film for fairy tales and, indeed, fantasy in general.[81] Disney and his creative successors have returned to traditional and literary fairy tales numerous times with films such as Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Disney's influence helped establish the fairy tale genre as a genre for children, and has been accused by some of bowdlerizing the gritty naturalism – and sometimes unhappy endings – of many folk fairy tales.[88] However, others note that the softening of fairy tales occurred long before Disney, some of which was even done by the Grimm brothers themselves.[95][96]
+
+Many filmed fairy tales have been made primarily for children, from Disney's later works to Aleksandr Rou's retelling of Vasilissa the Beautiful, the first Soviet film to use Russian folk tales in a big-budget feature.[97] Others have used the conventions of fairy tales to create new stories with sentiments more relevant to contemporary life, as in Labyrinth,[98] My Neighbor Totoro, Happily N'Ever After, and the films of Michel Ocelot.[99]
+
+Other works have retold familiar fairy tales in a darker, more horrific or psychological variant aimed primarily at adults. Notable examples are Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast[100] and The Company of Wolves, based on Angela Carter's retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.[101] Likewise, Princess Mononoke,[102] Pan's Labyrinth,[103] Suspiria, and Spike[104] create new stories in this genre from fairy tale and folklore motifs.
+
+In comics and animated TV series, The Sandman, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Princess Tutu, Fables and MÄR all make use of standard fairy tale elements to various extents but are more accurately categorised as fairytale fantasy due to the definite locations and characters which a longer narrative requires.
+
+A more modern cinematic fairy tale would be Luchino Visconti's Le Notti Bianche, starring Marcello Mastroianni before he became a superstar. It involves many of the romantic conventions of fairy tales, yet it takes place in post-World War II Italy, and it ends realistically.
+
+Any comparison of fairy tales quickly discovers that many fairy tales have features in common with each other. Two of the most influential classifications are those of Antti Aarne, as revised by Stith Thompson into the Aarne-Thompson classification system, and Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale.
+
+This system groups fairy and folk tales according to their overall plot. Common, identifying features are picked out to decide which tales are grouped together. Much therefore depends on what features are regarded as decisive.
+
+For instance, tales like Cinderella – in which a persecuted heroine, with the help of the fairy godmother or similar magical helper, attends an event (or three) in which she wins the love of a prince and is identified as his true bride‍—‌are classified as type 510, the persecuted heroine. Some such tales are The Wonderful Birch; Aschenputtel; Katie Woodencloak; The Story of Tam and Cam; Ye Xian; Cap O' Rushes; Catskin; Fair, Brown and Trembling; Finette Cendron; Allerleirauh.
+
+Further analysis of the tales shows that in Cinderella, The Wonderful Birch, The Story of Tam and Cam, Ye Xian, and Aschenputtel, the heroine is persecuted by her stepmother and refused permission to go to the ball or other event, and in Fair, Brown and Trembling and Finette Cendron by her sisters and other female figures, and these are grouped as 510A; while in Cap O' Rushes, Catskin, and Allerleirauh, the heroine is driven from home by her father's persecutions, and must take work in a kitchen elsewhere, and these are grouped as 510B. But in Katie Woodencloak, she is driven from home by her stepmother's persecutions and must take service in a kitchen elsewhere, and in Tattercoats, she is refused permission to go to the ball by her grandfather. Given these features common with both types of 510, Katie Woodencloak is classified as 510A because the villain is the stepmother, and Tattercoats as 510B because the grandfather fills the father's role.
+
+This system has its weaknesses in the difficulty of having no way to classify subportions of a tale as motifs. Rapunzel is type 310 (The Maiden in the Tower), but it opens with a child being demanded in return for stolen food, as does Puddocky; but Puddocky is not a Maiden in the Tower tale, while The Canary Prince, which opens with a jealous stepmother, is.
+
+It also lends itself to emphasis on the common elements, to the extent that the folklorist describes The Black Bull of Norroway as the same story as Beauty and the Beast. This can be useful as a shorthand but can also erase the coloring and details of a story.[105]
+
+Vladimir Propp specifically studied a collection of Russian fairy tales, but his analysis has been found useful for the tales of other countries.[106] Having criticized Aarne-Thompson type analysis for ignoring what motifs did in stories, and because the motifs used were not clearly distinct,[107] he analyzed the tales for the function each character and action fulfilled and concluded that a tale was composed of thirty-one elements ('functions') and seven characters or 'spheres of action' ('the princess and her father' are a single sphere). While the elements were not all required for all tales, when they appeared they did so in an invariant order – except that each individual element might be negated twice, so that it would appear three times, as when, in Brother and Sister, the brother resists drinking from enchanted streams twice, so that it is the third that enchants him.[108] Propp's 31 functions also fall within six 'stages' (preparation, complication, transference, struggle, return, recognition), and a stage can also be repeated, which can affect the perceived order of elements.
+
+One such element is the donor who gives the hero magical assistance, often after testing him.[109] In The Golden Bird, the talking fox tests the hero by warning him against entering an inn and, after he succeeds, helps him find the object of his quest; in The Boy Who Drew Cats, the priest advised the hero to stay in small places at night, which protects him from an evil spirit; in Cinderella, the fairy godmother gives Cinderella the dresses she needs to attend the ball, as their mothers' spirits do in Bawang Putih Bawang Merah and The Wonderful Birch; in The Fox Sister, a Buddhist monk gives the brothers magical bottles to protect against the fox spirit. The roles can be more complicated.[110] In The Red Ettin, the role is split into the mother‍—‌who offers the hero the whole of a journey cake with her curse or half with her blessing‍—‌and when he takes the half, a fairy who gives him advice; in Mr Simigdáli, the sun, the moon, and the stars all give the heroine a magical gift. Characters who are not always the donor can act like the donor.[111] In Kallo and the Goblins, the villain goblins also give the heroine gifts, because they are tricked; in Schippeitaro, the evil cats betray their secret to the hero, giving him the means to defeat them. Other fairy tales, such as The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was, do not feature the donor.
+
+Analogies have been drawn between this and the analysis of myths into the hero's journey.[112]
+
+Many fairy tales have been interpreted for their (purported) significance. One mythological interpretation saw many fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and The Frog King, as solar myths; this mode of interpretation subsequently became rather less popular.[113] Freudian, Jungian, and other psychological analyses have also explicated many tales, but no mode of interpretation has established itself definitively.[114]
+
+Specific analyses have often been criticized[by whom?] for lending great importance to motifs that are not, in fact, integral to the tale; this has often stemmed from treating one instance of a fairy tale as the definitive text, where the tale has been told and retold in many variations.[115] In variants of Bluebeard, the wife's curiosity is betrayed by a blood-stained key, by an egg's breaking, or by the singing of a rose she wore, without affecting the tale, but interpretations of specific variants have claimed that the precise object is integral to the tale.[116]
+
+Other folklorists have interpreted tales as historical documents. Many[quantify] German folklorists, believing the tales to have preserved details from ancient times, have used the Grimms' tales to explain ancient customs.[117]
+
+One approach sees the topography of European Märchen as echoing the period immediately following the last Ice Age.[118]
+Other folklorists have explained the figure of the wicked stepmother in a historical/sociological context: many women did die in childbirth, their husbands remarried, and the new stepmothers competed with the children of the first marriage for resources.[119]
+
+In a 2012 lecture, Jack Zipes reads fairy tales as examples of what he calls "childism". He suggests that there are terrible aspects to the tales, which (among other things) have conditioned children to accept mistreatment and even abuse.[120]
+
+Fairy tales have inspired music, namely opera, such as the French Opéra féerie and the German Märchenoper. French examples include Gretry's Zémire et Azor, and Auber's Le cheval de bronze, German operas are Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Siegfried Wagner's An allem ist Hütchen schuld!, which is based on many fairy tales, and Carl Orff's Die Kluge. Even contemporary fairy tales have been written for the purpose of inspiration in the music world. "Raven Girl" by Audrey Niffenegger was written to inspire a new dance for the Royal Ballet in London.
+
+The song "Singring and the Glass Guitar" by the American band Utopia, recorded for their album "Ra", is called "An Electrified Fairytale". Composed by the four members of the band, Roger Powell, Kasim Sulton, Willie Wilcox and Todd Rundgren, it tells the story of the theft of the Glass Guitar by Evil Forces, which has to be recovered by the four heroes.
+
+Authors and works:

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+The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer, pronounced [bɛʁˈliːnɐ ˈmaʊ̯ɐ] (listen)) was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Construction of the wall was commenced by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) on 13 August 1961. The Wall cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany, including East Berlin.[2] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[3] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails, and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from fascist elements conspiring to prevent the "will of the people" from building a socialist state in East Germany.
+
+GDR authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). The West Berlin city government sometimes referred to it as the "Wall of Shame", a term coined by mayor Willy Brandt in reference to the Wall's restriction on freedom of movement.[4] Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB), which demarcated the border between East and West Germany, it came to physically symbolize the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.[5]
+
+Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin; from there they could then travel to West Germany and to other Western European countries. Between 1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration.[6] During this period, over 100,000[5] people attempted to escape, and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall, with an estimated death toll ranging from 136[7] to more than 200[5][8] in and around Berlin.
+
+In 1989, a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries—in Poland and Hungary in particular—caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall.[9] After several weeks of civil unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall.[5] The Brandenburg Gate, a few meters from the Berlin Wall, was opened on 22 December 1989. The demolition of the Wall officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in November 1991. The "fall of the Berlin Wall" paved the way for German reunification, which formally took place on 3 October 1990.[5]
+
+After the end of World War II in Europe, what remained of pre-war Germany west of the Oder-Neisse line was divided into four occupation zones (as per the Potsdam Agreement), each one controlled by one of the four occupying Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. The capital of Berlin, as the seat of the Allied Control Council, was similarly subdivided into four sectors despite the city's location, which was fully within the Soviet zone.[10]
+
+Within two years, political divisions increased between the Soviets and the other occupying powers. These included the Soviets' refusal to agree to reconstruction plans making post-war Germany self-sufficient, and to a detailed accounting of industrial plants, goods and infrastructure—some of which had already been removed by the Soviets.[11] France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Benelux countries later met to combine the non-Soviet zones of Germany into one zone for reconstruction, and to approve the extension of the Marshall Plan.[5]
+
+Following the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the Soviet Union engineered the installation of friendly Communist governments in most of the countries occupied by Soviet military forces at the end of the War, including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and the GDR, which together with Albania formed the Comecon in 1949 and later a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact.[citation needed] This bloc of nations was set up by the Soviets in opposition to NATO in the capitalist West in what became the Cold War.[citation needed]
+
+Since the end of the War, the Soviets together with like-minded East Germans created a new Soviet-style regime in the Soviet Zone and later the GDR, on a centrally planned socialist economic model with nationalized means of production, and with repressive police state institutions, under party dictatorship of the SED similar to the party dictatorship of the Soviet Communist Party in the USSR.[citation needed]
+
+At the same time, a parallel regime was established under the strict control of the Western powers in the zones of post-war Germany occupied by them, culminating in the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949,[12] which initially claimed to be the sole legitimate power in all of Germany, East and West. The material standard of life in the Western zones of Berlin began to improve quickly, and residents of the Soviet Zone soon began leaving for the West in large numbers, fleeing hunger, poverty and repression in the Soviet Zone for a better life in the West. Soon residents of other parts of the Soviet Zone began to escape to the West through Berlin, and this migration, called in Germany "Republikflucht", deprived the Soviet Zone not only of working forces desperately needed for post-war reconstruction, but disproportionately highly educated people, which came to be known as the "Brain Drain".[citation needed]
+
+In 1948, in response to moves by the Western powers to establish a separate, federal system of government in the Western zones, and to extend the Marshall Plan to Germany, the Soviets instituted the Berlin Blockade, preventing people, food, materials and supplies from arriving in West Berlin by land routes through the Soviet zone.[13] The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began a massive "airlift", supplying West Berlin with food and other supplies.[14] The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the Western policy change. Communists attempted to disrupt the elections of 1948, preceding large losses therein,[15] while 300,000 Berliners demonstrated for the international airlift to continue.[16] In May 1949, Stalin lifted the blockade, permitting the resumption of Western shipments to Berlin.[17][18]
+
+The German Democratic Republic (the "GDR"; East Germany) was declared on 7 October 1949. On that day, the USSR ended the Soviet military government which had governed the Soviet Occupation Zone (Sowetische Besatzungszone) since the end of the War, and handed over legal power [19] to the Provisorische Volkskammer under the new Constitution of the GDR which came into force that day. However, until 1955, the Soviets maintained considerable legal control over the GDR state, including the regional governments, through the Sowetische Kontrollkommission and maintained a presence in various East German administrative, military, and secret police structures.[20][21] Even after legal sovereignty of the GDR was restored in 1955, the Soviet Union continued to maintain considerable influence over administration and lawmaking in the GDR through the Soviet embassy and through the implicit threat of force which could be exercised through the continuing large Soviet military presence in the GDR, which was used to bloodily repress protests in East Germany in June 1953.[22]
+
+East Germany differed from West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), which developed into a Western capitalist country with a social market economy and a democratic parliamentary government. Continual economic growth starting in the 1950s fueled a 20-year "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). As West Germany's economy grew, and its standard of living steadily improved, many East Germans wanted to move to West Germany.[23]
+
+After the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe at the end of World War II, the majority of those living in the newly acquired areas of the Eastern Bloc aspired to independence and wanted the Soviets to leave.[24] Taking advantage of the zonal border between occupied zones in Germany, the number of GDR citizens moving to West Germany totaled 187,000 in 1950; 165,000 in 1951; 182,000 in 1952; and 331,000 in 1953.[25][26] One reason for the sharp 1953 increase was fear of potential further Sovietization, given the increasingly paranoid actions of Joseph Stalin in late 1952 and early 1953.[27] 226,000 had fled in just the first six months of 1953.[28]
+
+By the early 1950s, the Soviet approach to controlling national movement, restricting emigration, was emulated by most of the rest of the Eastern Bloc, including East Germany.[29] The restrictions presented a quandary for some Eastern Bloc states, which had been more economically advanced and open than the Soviet Union, such that crossing borders seemed more natural—especially where no prior border existed between East and West Germany.[30]
+
+Up until 1952, the demarcation lines between East Germany and the western occupied zones could be easily crossed in most places.[31] On 1 April 1952, East German leaders met the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Moscow; during the discussions Stalin's foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov proposed that the East Germans should "introduce a system of passes for visits of West Berlin residents to the territory of East Berlin [so as to stop] free movement of Western agents" in the GDR. Stalin agreed, calling the situation "intolerable". He advised the East Germans to build up their border defenses, telling them that "The demarcation line between East and West Germany should be considered a border—and not just any border, but a dangerous one ... The Germans will guard the line of defence with their lives."[32]
+
+Consequently, the inner German border between the two German states was closed, and a barbed-wire fence erected. The border between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin, however, remained open, although traffic between the Soviet and the Western sectors was somewhat restricted. This resulted in Berlin becoming a magnet for East Germans desperate to escape life in the GDR, and also a flashpoint for tension between the United States and the Soviet Union.[5]
+
+In 1955, the Soviets gave East Germany authority over civilian movement in Berlin, passing control to a regime not recognized in the West.[33] Initially, East Germany granted "visits" to allow its residents access to West Germany. However, following the defection of large numbers of East Germans (known as Republikflucht) under this regime, the new East German state legally restricted virtually all travel to the West in 1956.[31] Soviet East German ambassador Mikhail Pervukhin observed that "the presence in Berlin of an open and essentially uncontrolled border between the socialist and capitalist worlds unwittingly prompts the population to make a comparison between both parts of the city, which unfortunately does not always turn out in favour of Democratic [East] Berlin."[34]
+
+With the closing of the inner German border officially in 1952,[34] the border in Berlin remained considerably more accessible because it was administered by all four occupying powers.[31] Accordingly, Berlin became the main route by which East Germans left for the West.[35] On 11 December 1957, East Germany introduced a new passport law that reduced the overall number of refugees leaving Eastern Germany.[5]
+
+It had the unintended result of drastically increasing the percentage of those leaving through West Berlin from 60% to well over 90% by the end of 1958.[34] Those caught trying to leave East Berlin were subjected to heavy penalties, but with no physical barrier and subway train access still available to West Berlin, such measures were ineffective.[36] The Berlin sector border was essentially a "loophole" through which Eastern Bloc citizens could still escape.[34] The 3.5 million East Germans who had left by 1961 totalled approximately 20% of the entire East German population.[36]
+
+An important reason that passage between East Germany and West Berlin was not stopped earlier was that doing so would cut off much of the railway traffic in East Germany. Construction of a new railway bypassing West Berlin, the Berlin outer ring, commenced in 1951. Following the completion of the railway in 1961, closing the border became a more practical proposition. (See History of rail transport in Germany.)
+
+The emigrants tended to be young and well-educated, leading to the "brain drain" feared by officials in East Germany.[24] Yuri Andropov, then the CPSU Director on Relations with Communist and Workers' Parties of Socialist Countries, wrote an urgent letter on 28 August 1958, to the Central Committee about the significant 50% increase in the number of East German intelligentsia among the refugees.[37] Andropov reported that, while the East German leadership stated that they were leaving for economic reasons, testimony from refugees indicated that the reasons were more political than material.[37] He stated "the flight of the intelligentsia has reached a particularly critical phase."[37]
+
+By 1960, the combination of World War II and the massive emigration westward left East Germany with only 61% of its population of working age, compared to 70.5% before the war. The loss was disproportionately heavy among professionals: engineers, technicians, physicians, teachers, lawyers and skilled workers. The direct cost of manpower losses to East Germany (and corresponding gain to the West) has been estimated at $7 billion to $9 billion, with East German party leader Walter Ulbricht later claiming that West Germany owed him $17 billion in compensation, including reparations as well as manpower losses.[36] In addition, the drain of East Germany's young population potentially cost it over 22.5 billion marks in lost educational investment.[38] The brain drain of professionals had become so damaging to the political credibility and economic viability of East Germany that the re-securing of the German communist frontier was imperative.[39]
+
+The exodus of emigrants from East Germany presented two minor potential benefits: an easy opportunity to smuggle East German secret agents to West Germany, and a reduction in the number of citizens hostile to the communist regime. Neither of these advantages, however, proved particularly useful.[40]
+
+
+
+On 15 June 1961, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party and GDR State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht stated in an international press conference, "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten!" (No one has the intention of erecting a wall!). It was the first time the colloquial term Mauer (wall) had been used in this context.[41]
+
+The transcript of a telephone call between Nikita Khrushchev and Ulbricht, on 1 August in the same year, suggests that the initiative for the construction of the Wall came from Khrushchev.[42][43] However, other sources suggest that Khrushchev had initially been wary about building a wall, fearing negative Western reaction. Nevertheless, Ulbricht had pushed for a border closure for quite some time, arguing that East Germany's very existence was at stake.[44]
+
+Khrushchev had become emboldened upon seeing US president John F. Kennedy's youth and inexperience, a weakness against Khrushchev's brutal, undiplomatic aggression. In the 1961 Vienna summit, Kennedy made the error of admitting that the US wouldn't actively oppose the building of a barrier.[45] A feeling of miscalculation and failure immediately afterwards was admitted by Kennedy in a candid interview with New York Times columnist James "Scotty" Reston.[46] On Saturday, 12 August 1961, the leaders of the GDR attended a garden party at a government guesthouse in Döllnsee, in a wooded area to the north of East Berlin. There, Ulbricht signed the order to close the border and erect a wall.[5]
+
+At midnight, the police and units of the East German army began to close the border and, by Sunday morning, 13 August, the border with West Berlin was closed. East German troops and workers had begun to tear up streets running alongside the border to make them impassable to most vehicles and to install barbed wire entanglements and fences along the 156 kilometres (97 mi) around the three western sectors, and the 43 kilometres (27 mi) that divided West and East Berlin.[47] The date of 13 August became commonly referred to as Barbed Wire Sunday in Germany.[5]
+
+The barrier was built inside East Berlin or East German territory to ensure that it did not encroach on West Berlin at any point. Generally, the Wall was only slightly inside East Berlin, but in a few places it was some distance from the legal border, most notably at Potsdamer Bahnhof[48] and the Lenné Triangle[49] that is now much of the Potsdamer Platz development.
+
+Later, the initial barrier was built up into the Wall proper, the first concrete elements and large blocks being put in place on 17 August. During the construction of the Wall, National People's Army (NVA) and Combat Groups of the Working Class (KdA) soldiers stood in front of it with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to defect. Additionally, chain fences, walls, minefields and other obstacles were installed along the length of East Germany's western border with West Germany proper. A huge no man's land was cleared to provide a clear line of fire at fleeing refugees.[50]
+
+With the closing of the east–west sector boundary in Berlin, the vast majority of East Germans could no longer travel or emigrate to West Germany. Berlin soon went from being the easiest place to make an unauthorized crossing between East and West Germany to being the most difficult.[51] Many families were split, while East Berliners employed in the West were cut off from their jobs. West Berlin became an isolated exclave in a hostile land. West Berliners demonstrated against the Wall, led by their Mayor (Oberbürgermeister) Willy Brandt, who strongly criticized the United States for failing to respond. Allied intelligence agencies had hypothesized about a wall to stop the flood of refugees, but the main candidate for its location was around the perimeter of the city. In 1961, Secretary of State Dean Rusk proclaimed, "The Wall certainly ought not to be a permanent feature of the European landscape. I see no reason why the Soviet Union should think it is—it is to their advantage in any way to leave there that monument to communist failure."[50]
+
+United States and UK sources had expected the Soviet sector to be sealed off from West Berlin, but were surprised by how long the East Germans took for such a move. They considered the Wall as an end to concerns about a GDR/Soviet retaking or capture of the whole of Berlin; the Wall would presumably have been an unnecessary project if such plans were afloat. Thus, they concluded that the possibility of a Soviet military conflict over Berlin had decreased.[52]
+
+The East German government claimed that the Wall was an "anti-fascist protective rampart" (German: "antifaschistischer Schutzwall") intended to dissuade aggression from the West.[53] Another official justification was the activities of Western agents in Eastern Europe.[54] The Eastern German government also claimed that West Berliners were buying out state-subsidized goods in East Berlin. East Germans and others greeted such statements with skepticism, as most of the time, the border was only closed for citizens of East Germany traveling to the West, but not for residents of West Berlin travelling to the East.[55] The construction of the Wall had caused considerable hardship to families divided by it. Most people believed that the Wall was mainly a means of preventing the citizens of East Germany from entering or fleeing to West Berlin.[56]
+
+The National Security Agency was the only American intelligence agency that was aware that East Germany was to take action to deal with the brain drain problem. On 9 August 1961, the NSA intercepted an advance warning information of the Socialist Unity Party's plan to close the intra-Berlin border between East and West Berlin completely for foot traffic. The interagency intelligence Berlin Watch Committee assessed that this intercept "might be the first step in a plan to close the border."[57][58] This warning did not reach John F. Kennedy until noon on 13 August 1961, while he was vacationing in his yacht off the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. While Kennedy was angry that he had no advance warning, he was relieved that the East Germans and the Soviets had only divided Berlin without taking any action against West Berlin's access to the West. However, he denounced the Berlin Wall, whose erection worsened the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.[57][58]
+
+In response to the erection of the Berlin Wall, a retired general, Lucius D. Clay, was appointed by Kennedy as his special advisor and sent to Berlin with ambassadorial rank. Clay had been the Military Governor of the US Zone of Occupation in Germany during the period of the Berlin Blockade and had ordered the first measures in what became the Berlin Airlift. He was immensely popular with the residents of West Berlin, and his appointment was an unambiguous sign that Kennedy would not compromise on the status of West Berlin. Clay and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson arrived at Tempelhof Airport on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 August 1961.[5]
+
+They arrived in a city defended by three Allied brigades—one each from the UK (Berlin Infantry Brigade), the US (Berlin Brigade), and France (Forces Françaises à Berlin). On 16 August, Kennedy had given the order for them to be reinforced. Early on 19 August, the 1st Battle Group, 18th Infantry (commanded by Colonel Glover S. Johns Jr.) was alerted.[59]
+
+On Sunday morning, U.S. troops marched from West Germany through East Germany, bound for West Berlin. Lead elements—arranged in a column of 491 vehicles and trailers carrying 1,500 men, divided into five march units—left the Helmstedt-Marienborn checkpoint at 06:34. At Marienborn, the Soviet checkpoint next to Helmstedt on the West German-East German border, US personnel were counted by guards. The column was 160 kilometres (99 mi) long, and covered 177 kilometres (110 mi) from Marienborn to Berlin in full battle gear. East German police watched from beside trees next to the autobahn all the way along.[5]
+
+The front of the convoy arrived at the outskirts of Berlin just before noon, to be met by Clay and Johnson, before parading through the streets of Berlin in front of a large crowd. At 04:00 on 21 August, Lyndon Johnson left West Berlin in the hands of General Frederick O. Hartel and his brigade of 4,224 officers and men. "For the next three and a half years, American battalions would rotate into West Berlin, by autobahn, at three month intervals to demonstrate Allied rights to the city".[60]
+
+The creation of the Wall had important implications for both German states. By stemming the exodus of people from East Germany, the East German government was able to reassert its control over the country: in spite of discontent with the Wall, economic problems caused by dual currency and the black market were largely eliminated. The economy in the GDR began to grow. However, the Wall proved a public relations disaster for the communist bloc as a whole. Western powers portrayed it as a symbol of communist tyranny, particularly after East German border guards shot and killed would-be defectors. Such fatalities were later treated as acts of murder by the reunified Germany.[61]
+
+The Berlin Wall was more than 140 kilometres (87 mi) long. In June 1962, a second, parallel fence, also known as a “hinterland” wall (inner wall),[64] was built some 100 metres (110 yd) farther into East German territory. The houses contained between the wall and fences were razed and the inhabitants relocated, thus establishing what later became known as the death strip. The death strip was covered with raked sand or gravel, rendering footprints easy to notice, easing the detection of trespassers and also enabling officers to see which guards had neglected their task;[65] it offered no cover; and, most importantly, it offered clear fields of fire for the Wall guards.
+
+Through the years, the Berlin Wall evolved through four versions:[66]
+
+The "fourth-generation Wall", known officially as "Stützwandelement UL 12.11" (retaining wall element UL 12.11), was the final and most sophisticated version of the Wall. Begun in 1975[67] and completed about 1980,[68] it was constructed from 45,000 separate sections of reinforced concrete, each 3.6 metres (12 ft) high and 1.2 metres (3.9 ft) wide, and cost DDM16,155,000 or about US$3,638,000.[69] The concrete provisions added to this version of the Wall were done to prevent escapees from driving their cars through the barricades.[70] At strategic points, the Wall was constructed to a somewhat weaker standard, so that East German and Soviet armored vehicles could easily break through in the event of war.[70]
+
+The top of the wall was lined with a smooth pipe, intended to make it more difficult to scale. The Wall was reinforced by mesh fencing, signal fencing, anti-vehicle trenches, barbed wire, dogs on long lines, "beds of nails" (also known as "Stalin's Carpet") under balconies hanging over the "death strip", over 116 watchtowers,[71] and 20 bunkers with hundreds of guards. This version of the Wall is the one most commonly seen in photographs, and surviving fragments of the Wall in Berlin and elsewhere around the world are generally pieces of the fourth-generation Wall. The layout came to resemble the inner German border in most technical aspects, except that the Berlin Wall had no landmines nor spring-guns.[65] Maintenance was performed on the outside of the wall by personnel who accessed the area outside it either via ladders or via hidden doors within the wall.[72] These doors could not be opened by a single person, needing two separate keys in two separate keyholes to unlock.[73]
+
+As was the case with the inner German border, an unfortified strip of Eastern territory was left outside the wall.[74] This outer strip was used by workers to paint over graffiti and perform other maintenance on the outside of the wall [74] Unlike the inner German border, however, the outer strip was usually no more than four meters wide, and, in photos from the era, the exact location of the actual border in many places appears not even to have been marked. Also in contrast with the inner German border, little interest was shown by East German law enforcement in keeping outsiders off the outer strip; sidewalks of West Berlin streets even ran inside it.[74]
+
+Despite the East German government's general policy of benign neglect, vandals were known to have been pursued in the outer strip, and even arrested. In 1986, defector and political activist Wolfram Hasch and four other defectors were standing inside the outer strip defacing the wall when East German personnel emerged from one of the hidden doors to apprehend them. All but Hasch escaped back into the western sector. Hasch himself was arrested, dragged through the door into the death strip, and later convicted of illegally crossing the de jure border outside the wall.[75] Graffiti artist Thierry Noir has reported having often been pursued there by East German soldiers.[76] While some graffiti artists were chased off the outer strip, others, such as Keith Haring, were seemingly tolerated.[77]
+
+Besides the sector-sector boundary within Berlin itself, the Wall also separated West Berlin from the present-day state of Brandenburg. The following present-day municipalities, listed in counter-clockwise direction, share a border with the former West Berlin:
+
+There were nine border crossings between East and West Berlin. These allowed visits by West Berliners, other West Germans, Western foreigners and Allied personnel into East Berlin, as well as visits by GDR citizens and citizens of other socialist countries into West Berlin, provided that they held the necessary permits. These crossings were restricted according to which nationality was allowed to use it (East Germans, West Germans, West Berliners, other countries). The best known was the vehicle and pedestrian checkpoint at the corner of Friedrichstraße and Zimmerstraße (Checkpoint Charlie), which was restricted to Allied personnel and foreigners.[78]
+
+Several other border crossings existed between West Berlin and surrounding East Germany. These could be used for transit between West Germany and West Berlin, for visits by West Berliners into East Germany, for transit into countries neighbouring East Germany (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Denmark), and for visits by East Germans into West Berlin carrying a permit. After the 1972 agreements, new crossings were opened to allow West Berlin waste to be transported into East German dumps, as well as some crossings for access to West Berlin's exclaves (see Steinstücken).
+
+Four autobahns connected West Berlin to West Germany, including Berlin-Helmstedt autobahn, which entered East German territory between the towns of Helmstedt and Marienborn (Checkpoint Alpha), and which entered West Berlin at Dreilinden (Checkpoint Bravo for the Allied forces) in southwestern Berlin. Access to West Berlin was also possible by railway (four routes) and by boat for commercial shipping via canals and rivers.[5][66][79]
+
+Non-German Westerners could cross the border at Friedrichstraße station in East Berlin and at Checkpoint Charlie. When the Wall was erected, Berlin's complex public transit networks, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, were divided with it.[68] Some lines were cut in half; many stations were shut down. Three western lines traveled through brief sections of East Berlin territory, passing through eastern stations (called Geisterbahnhöfe, or ghost stations) without stopping. Both the eastern and western networks converged at Friedrichstraße, which became a major crossing point for those (mostly Westerners) with permission to cross.[79][80]
+
+West Germans and citizens of other Western countries could generally visit East Germany, often after applying for a visa[81] at an East German embassy several weeks in advance. Visas for day trips restricted to East Berlin were issued without previous application in a simplified procedure at the border crossing. However, East German authorities could refuse entry permits without stating a reason. In the 1980s, visitors from the western part of the city who wanted to visit the eastern part had to exchange at least DM 25 into East German currency at the poor exchange rate of 1:1. It was forbidden to export East German currency from the East, but money not spent could be left at the border for possible future visits. Tourists crossing from the west had to also pay for a visa, which cost DM 5; West Berliners did not have to pay this fee.[80]
+
+West Berliners initially could not visit East Berlin or East Germany at all—all crossing points were closed to them between 26 August 1961 and 17 December 1963. In 1963, negotiations between East and West resulted in a limited possibility for visits during the Christmas season that year (Passierscheinregelung). Similar, very limited arrangements were made in 1964, 1965 and 1966.[80]
+
+In 1971, with the Four Power Agreement on Berlin, agreements were reached that allowed West Berliners to apply for visas to enter East Berlin and East Germany regularly, comparable to the regulations already in force for West Germans. However, East German authorities could still refuse entry permits.[80]
+
+East Berliners and East Germans could not, at first, travel to West Berlin or West Germany at all. This regulation remained in force essentially until the fall of the Wall, but over the years several exceptions to these rules were introduced, the most significant being:
+
+For each of these exceptions, GDR citizens had to apply for individual approval, which was never guaranteed. In addition, even if travel was approved, GDR travellers could exchange only a very small amount of East German Marks into Deutsche Marks (DM), thus limiting the financial resources available for them to travel to the West. This led to the West German practice of granting a small amount of DM annually (Begrüßungsgeld, or welcome money) to GDR citizens visiting West Germany and West Berlin to help alleviate this situation.[80]
+
+Citizens of other East European countries were in general subject to the same prohibition of visiting Western countries as East Germans, though the applicable exception (if any) varied from country to country.[80]
+
+Allied military personnel and civilian officials of the Allied forces could enter and exit East Berlin without submitting to East German passport controls, purchasing a visa or being required to exchange money. Likewise, Soviet military patrols could enter and exit West Berlin. This was a requirement of the post-war Four Powers Agreements. A particular area of concern for the Western Allies involved official dealings with East German authorities when crossing the border, since Allied policy did not recognize the authority of the GDR to regulate Allied military traffic to and from West Berlin, as well as the Allied presence within Greater Berlin, including entry into, exit from, and presence within East Berlin.[80]
+
+The Allies held that only the Soviet Union, and not the GDR, had authority to regulate Allied personnel in such cases. For this reason, elaborate procedures were established to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when engaged in travel through the GDR and when in East Berlin. Special rules applied to travel by Western Allied military personnel assigned to the military liaison missions accredited to the commander of Soviet forces in East Germany, located in Potsdam.[80]
+
+Allied personnel were restricted by policy when travelling by land to the following routes:
+
+As with military personnel, special procedures applied to travel by diplomatic personnel of the Western Allies accredited to their respective embassies in the GDR. This was intended to prevent inadvertent recognition of East German authority when crossing between East and West Berlin, which could jeopardize the overall Allied position governing the freedom of movement by Allied forces personnel within all Berlin.
+
+Ordinary citizens of the Western Allied powers, not formally affiliated with the Allied forces, were authorized to use all designated transit routes through East Germany to and from West Berlin. Regarding travel to East Berlin, such persons could also use the Friedrichstraße train station to enter and exit the city, in addition to Checkpoint Charlie. In these instances, such travelers, unlike Allied personnel, had to submit to East German border controls.[80]
+
+During the years of the Wall, around 5,000 people successfully defected to West Berlin. The number of people who died trying to cross the Wall, or as a result of the Wall's existence, has been disputed. The most vocal claims by Alexandra Hildebrandt, Director of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and widow of the Museum's founder, estimated the death toll to be well above 200.[7][8] A historic research group at the Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF) in Potsdam has confirmed at least 140 deaths.[8] Prior official figures listed 98 as being killed.
+
+The East German government issued shooting orders (Schießbefehl) to border guards dealing with defectors, though such orders are not the same as "shoot to kill" orders. GDR officials denied issuing the latter. In an October 1973 order later discovered by researchers, guards were instructed that people attempting to cross the Wall were criminals and needed to be shot:
+
+"Do not hesitate to use your firearm, not even when the border is breached in the company of women and children, which is a tactic the traitors have often used".[83]
+
+Early successful escapes involved people jumping the initial barbed wire or leaping out of apartment windows along the line, but these ended as the Wall was fortified. East German authorities no longer permitted apartments near the Wall to be occupied, and any building near the Wall had its windows boarded and later bricked up. On 15 August 1961, Conrad Schumann was the first East German border guard to escape by jumping the barbed wire to West Berlin.[84]
+
+On 22 August 1961, Ida Siekmann was the first casualty at the Berlin Wall: she died after she jumped out of her third floor apartment at 48 Bernauer Strasse.[85] The first person to be shot and killed while trying to cross to West Berlin was Günter Litfin, a twenty-four-year-old tailor. He attempted to swim across the Spree to West Berlin on 24 August 1961, the same day that East German police had received shoot-to-kill orders to prevent anyone from escaping.[86]
+
+Another dramatic escape was carried out in April 1963 by Wolfgang Engels, a 19-year-old civilian employee of the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA). Engels stole a Soviet armored personnel carrier from a base where he was deployed and drove it right into the Wall. He was fired at and seriously wounded by border guards. But a West German policeman intervened, firing his weapon at the East German border guards. The policeman removed Engels from the vehicle, which had become entangled in the barbed wire.[87]
+
+East Germans successfully defected by a variety of methods: digging long tunnels under the Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking a hot air balloon, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralights and, in one instance, simply driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications. When a metal beam was placed at checkpoints to prevent this kind of defection, up to four people (two in the front seats and possibly two in the boot) drove under the bar in a sports car that had been modified to allow the roof and windscreen to come away when it made contact with the beam. They lay flat and kept driving forward. The East Germans then built zig-zagging roads at checkpoints. The sewer system predated the Wall, and some people escaped through the sewers,[88] in a number of cases with assistance from the Unternehmen Reisebüro.[89] In September 1962, 29 people escaped through a tunnel to the west. At least 70 tunnels were dug under the wall; only 19 were successful in allowing fugitives—about 400 persons—to escape. The East Germany authorities eventually used seismographic and acoustic equipment to detect the practice.[90][91] In 1962, they planned an attempt to use explosives to destroy one tunnel, but this was not carried out as it was apparently sabotaged by a member of the Stasi.[91]
+
+An airborne escape was made by Thomas Krüger, who landed a Zlin Z 42M light aircraft of the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik, an East German youth military training organization, at RAF Gatow. His aircraft, registration DDR-WOH, was dismantled and returned to the East Germans by road, complete with humorous slogans painted on it by airmen of the Royal Air Force, such as "Wish you were here" and "Come back soon".[citation needed]
+
+If an escapee was wounded in a crossing attempt and lay on the death strip, no matter how close they were to the Western wall, Westerners could not intervene for fear of triggering engaging fire from the 'Grepos', the East Berlin border guards. The guards often let fugitives bleed to death in the middle of this ground, as in the most notorious failed attempt, that of Peter Fechter (aged 18) at a point near Zimmerstrasse in East Berlin. He was shot and bled to death, in full view of the Western media, on 17 August 1962.[92] Fechter's death created negative publicity worldwide that led the leaders of East Berlin to place more restrictions on shooting in public places, and provide medical care for possible "would-be escapers".[93] The last person to be shot and killed while trying to cross the border was Chris Gueffroy on 6 February 1989, while the final person to die in an escape attempt was Winfried Freudenberg who was killed when his homemade natural gas-filled balloon crashed on 8 March 1989.
+
+The Wall gave rise to a widespread sense of desperation and oppression in East Berlin, as expressed in the private thoughts of one resident, who confided to her diary "Our lives have lost their spirit… we can do nothing to stop them."[94]
+
+Every stone bears witness to the moral bankruptcy of the society it encloses
+
+— Margaret Thatcher commenting about the wall, West Berlin, 1982[95]
+
+On 6 June 1987, David Bowie, who earlier for several years lived and recorded in West Berlin, played a concert close to the Wall. This was attended by thousands of Eastern concertgoers across the Wall,[96] followed by violent rioting in East Berlin. According to Tobias Ruther, these protests in East Berlin were the first in the sequence of riots that led to those of November 1989.[97][98]
+Although other factors were probably more influential in the fall of the Wall,[96] upon his death, the German Foreign Office tweeted "Good-bye, David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall."[99]
+
+On 19 July 1988, 16 months before the Wall came down, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, played Rocking the Wall, a live concert in East Berlin, which was attended by 300,000 in person and broadcast on television. Springsteen spoke to the crowd in German, saying: "I'm not here for or against any government. I've come to play rock 'n' roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down".[100] East Germany and its FDJ youth organization were worried they were losing an entire generation. They hoped that by letting Springsteen in, they could improve their sentiment among East Germans. However, this strategy of "one step backwards, two steps forwards" backfired, and the concert only made East Germans hungrier for more of the freedoms that Springsteen epitomized. While John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan delivered their famous speeches from the safety of West Berlin, Springsteen's speaking out against the Wall in the middle of East Berlin added to the euphoria.[100]
+
+On 31 December 1989, American TV actor and pop music singer David Hasselhoff was the headlining performer for the Freedom Tour Live concert, which was attended by over 500,000 people on both sides of the Wall. The live concert footage was directed by music video director Thomas Mignone and aired on broadcast television station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen ZDF throughout Europe. During shooting film crew personnel pulled people up from both sides to stand and celebrate on top of the wall. Hasselhoff sang his number one hit song "Looking For Freedom" on a platform at the end of a twenty-meter steel crane that swung above and over the Wall adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate.[101]
+
+On 26 June 1963, 22 months after the erection of the Berlin Wall, U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited West Berlin. Speaking from a platform erected on the steps of Rathaus Schöneberg for an audience of 450,000 he declared in his Ich bin ein Berliner speech the support of the United States for West Germany and the people of West Berlin in particular:
+
+Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was civis romanus sum ["I am a Roman citizen"]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"... All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
+
+The message was aimed as much at the Soviets as it was at Berliners and was a clear statement of U.S. policy in the wake of the construction of the Berlin Wall. The speech is considered one of Kennedy's best, both a significant moment in the Cold War and a high point of the New Frontier. It was a great morale boost for West Berliners, who lived in an exclave deep inside East Germany and feared a possible East German occupation.
+
+In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate commemorating the 750th anniversary of Berlin[102] on 12 June 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Mikhail Gorbachev, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to tear down the Wall as a symbol of increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc:
+
+We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall![103]
+
+The fall of the communist government in neighboring Poland's 1989 Polish legislative election in June played a role in the fall of the Berlin Wall. Also in June 1989 the Hungarian government began dismantling the electrified fence along its border with Austria (with Western TV crews present), and then, in September, more than 13,000 East German tourists escaped through Hungary to Austria.[104] This set up a chain of events. The Hungarians prevented many more East Germans from crossing the border and returned them to Budapest. These East Germans flooded the West German embassy and refused to return to East Germany.[105]
+
+The East German government responded by disallowing any further travel to Hungary, but allowed those already there to return to East Germany.[9] This triggered similar events in neighboring Czechoslovakia. This time, however, the East German authorities allowed people to leave, provided that they did so by train through East Germany. This was followed by mass demonstrations within East Germany itself.[106] Despite the policy of state atheism in East Germany, Christian pastor Christian Führer regularly met with his congregation at Leipzig's St. Nicholas Church for prayer since 1982.[106][107] Over the next seven years, the Church grew, despite authorities barricading the streets leading to it, and after church services, peaceful candlelit marches took place.[106] The secret police issued death threats and even attacked some of the marchers, but the crowd still continued to gather.[106] Protest demonstrations spread throughout East Germany in September 1989. Initially, protesters were mostly people wanting to leave to the West, chanting "Wir wollen raus!" ("We want out!"). Then protestors began to chant "Wir bleiben hier!" ("We are staying here!"). This was the start of what East Germans generally call the "Peaceful Revolution" of late 1989.[108] The protest demonstrations grew considerably by early November. The movement neared its height on 4 November, when half a million people gathered to demand political change, at the Alexanderplatz demonstration, East Berlin's large public square and transportation hub.[109] On 9 October 1989, the police and army units were given permission to use force against those assembled, but this did not deter the church service and march from taking place, which gathered 70,000 people.[106][107] Many of those people started to cross into West Berlin,[citation needed] without a shot being fired.[106]
+
+The longtime leader of East Germany, Erich Honecker, resigned on 18 October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz that day. Honecker had predicted in January of that year that the Wall would stand for 50 or 100 more years[110] if the conditions that had caused its construction did not change.
+
+The wave of refugees leaving East Germany for the West kept increasing. By early November refugees were finding their way to Hungary via Czechoslovakia, or via the West German Embassy in Prague. This was tolerated by the new Krenz government, because of long-standing agreements with the communist Czechoslovak government, allowing free travel across their common border. However this movement of people grew so large it caused difficulties for both countries. To ease the difficulties, the politburo led by Krenz decided on 9 November to allow refugees to exit directly through crossing points between East Germany and West Germany, including between East and West Berlin. Later the same day, the ministerial administration modified the proposal to include private, round-trip, and travel. The new regulations were to take effect the next day.[111]
+
+Günter Schabowski, the party boss in East Berlin and the spokesman for the SED Politburo, had the task of announcing the new regulations. However, he had not been involved in the discussions about the new regulations and had not been fully updated.[112] Shortly before a press conference on 9 November, he was handed a note announcing the changes, but given no further instructions on how to handle the information. These regulations had only been completed a few hours earlier and were to take effect the following day, so as to allow time to inform the border guards. But this starting time delay was not communicated to Schabowski.[44] At the end of the press conference, Schabowski read out loud the note he had been given. A reporter, ANSA's Riccardo Ehrman,[113] asked when the regulations would take effect. After a few seconds' hesitation, Schabowski replied, "As far as I know, it takes effect immediately, without delay".[44] After further questions from journalists, he confirmed that the regulations included the border crossings through the Wall into West Berlin, which he had not mentioned until then.[114] He repeated that it was immediate in an interview with American journalist Tom Brokaw.[115] (In 2009 Ehrman said that a GDR official who was a personal friend had actually specifically requested that Ehrman ask about the travel law during the press conference, but Schabowski called that absurd.[113])
+
+Excerpts from Schabowski's press conference were the lead story on West Germany's two main news programs that night—at 7:17 p.m. on ZDF's heute and at 8 p.m. on ARD's Tagesschau. As ARD and ZDF had broadcast to nearly all of East Germany since the late 1950s and had become accepted by the East German authorities, the news was broadcast there as well simultaneously. Later that night, on ARD's Tagesthemen, anchorman Hanns Joachim Friedrichs proclaimed, "This 9 November is a historic day. The GDR has announced that, starting immediately, its borders are open to everyone. The gates in the Wall stand open wide."[44][112]
+
+After hearing the broadcast, East Germans began gathering at the Wall, at the six checkpoints between East and West Berlin, demanding that border guards immediately open the gates.[112] The surprised and overwhelmed guards made many hectic telephone calls to their superiors about the problem. At first, they were ordered to find the "more aggressive" people gathered at the gates and stamp their passports with a special stamp that barred them from returning to East Germany—in effect, revoking their citizenship. However, this still left thousands of people demanding to be let through "as Schabowski said we can".[44] It soon became clear that no one among the East German authorities would take personal responsibility for issuing orders to use lethal force, so the vastly outnumbered soldiers had no way to hold back the huge crowd of East German citizens. Finally, at 10:45 p.m. on 9 November, Harald Jäger, the commander of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing yielded, allowing for the guards to open the checkpoints and allowing people through with little or no identity checking.[116] As the Ossis swarmed through, they were greeted by Wessis waiting with flowers and champagne amid wild rejoicing. Soon afterward, a crowd of West Berliners jumped on top of the Wall, and were soon joined by East German youngsters.[117] The evening of 9 November 1989 is known as the night the Wall came down.[118]
+
+Another border crossing to the south may have been opened earlier. An account by Heinz Schäfer indicates that he also acted independently and ordered the opening of the gate at Waltersdorf-Rudow a couple of hours earlier.[119] This may explain reports of East Berliners appearing in West Berlin earlier than the opening of the Bornholmer Straße border crossing.[citation needed]
+
+Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Guardian collected short stories from 9 November 1989 by five German writers who reflect on the day. In this, Kathrin Schmidt remembers comically: 'I downed almost an entire bottle of schnapps'.[120]
+
+Remaining stretch of the Wall near Ostbahnhof in Friedrichshain called East Side Gallery, August 2006
+
+Remains of the Wall adjacent to the Topography of Terror, August 2007
+
+A memorial of over a thousand crosses and a segment of the Wall for those who died trying to cross. The memorial stood for ten months in 2004 and 2005 before it was removed.
+
+A "BERLINER MAUER 1961–1989" plaque near Checkpoint Charlie signifying where the Wall stood
+
+Display of two sections of the Wall and a "You are leaving" sign at Fort Gordon, Georgia
+
+The Berlin Wall from the East Berlin side, 1967
+
+A sign reading "Until we see each other again in the capital of the GDR"
+
+Czech hedgehog anti-tank obstacles and the Wall
+
+An exhibition dedicated to the 25th anniversary to the Berlin Wall destruction was located at Potsdamer Platz Arkaden
+
+Line indicating where the inner part of the wall once stood on Leipziger Platz, just off Potsdamer Platz, in 2015
+
+A hole in the Berlin wall, 2019
+
+Little is left of the Wall at its original site, which was destroyed almost in its entirety. Three long sections are still standing: an 80-metre-long (260 ft) piece of the first (westernmost) wall at the Topography of Terror, site of the former Gestapo headquarters, halfway between Checkpoint Charlie and Potsdamer Platz; a longer section of the second (easternmost) wall along the Spree River near the Oberbaumbrücke, nicknamed East Side Gallery; and a third section that is partly reconstructed, in the north at Bernauer Straße, which was turned into a memorial in 1999. Other isolated fragments, lampposts, other elements, and a few watchtowers also remain in various parts of the city.
+
+Nothing still accurately represents the Wall's original appearance better than a very short stretch at Bernauer Straße associated with the Berlin Wall Documentation Center.[122] Other remnants are badly damaged by souvenir seekers. Fragments of the Wall were taken and some were sold around the world. Appearing both with and without certificates of authenticity, these fragments are now a staple on the online auction service eBay as well as German souvenir shops. Today, the eastern side is covered in graffiti that did not exist while the Wall was guarded by the armed soldiers of East Germany. Previously, graffiti appeared only on the western side. Along some tourist areas of the city centre, the city government has marked the location of the former Wall by a row of cobblestones in the street. In most places only the "first" wall is marked, except near Potsdamer Platz where the stretch of both walls is marked, giving visitors an impression of the dimension of the barrier system.[citation needed]
+
+After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were initiatives that they want to preserve the death strip walkways and redevelop it into a hiking and cycling area, known as Berliner Mauerweg. It is part of the initiative by Berlin Senate since 2005.[citation needed]
+
+For many years after reunification, people in Germany talked about cultural differences between East and West Germans (colloquially Ossis and Wessis), sometimes described as Mauer im Kopf (The wall in the head). A September 2004 poll found that 25 percent of West Germans and 12 percent of East Germans wished that East and West should be separated again by a "Wall".[123] A poll taken in October 2009 on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall indicated, however, that only about a tenth of the population was still unhappy with the unification (8 percent in the East; 12 percent in the West). Although differences are still perceived between East and West, Germans make similar distinctions between North and South.[124]
+
+A 2009 poll conducted by Russia's VTsIOM, found that more than half of all Russians do not know who built the Berlin Wall. Ten percent of people surveyed thought Berlin residents built it themselves. Six percent said Western powers built it and four percent thought it was a "bilateral initiative" of the Soviet Union and the West. Fifty-eight percent said they did not know who built it, with just 24 percent correctly naming the Soviet Union and its then-communist ally East Germany.[125]
+
+Not all segments of the Wall were ground up as the Wall was being torn down. Many segments have been given to various institutions in the world. They can be found, for instance, in presidential and historical museums, lobbies of hotels and corporations, at universities and government buildings, and in public spaces in different countries of the world.[126]
+
+On 13 August 2011, Germany marked the 50th anniversary of East Germany beginning the erection of the Berlin Wall. Chancellor Angela Merkel joined with President Christian Wulff and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit at the Bernauer Straße memorial park to remember lives and liberty. Speeches extolled freedom and a minute of silence at noon honored those who died trying to flee to the West. "It is our shared responsibility to keep the memory alive and to pass it on to the coming generations as a reminder to stand up for freedom and democracy to ensure that such injustice may never happen again," entreated Mayor Wowereit. "It has been shown once again: Freedom is invincible at the end. No wall can permanently withstand the desire for freedom", proclaimed President Wulff.[127][128][129][130]
+
+Documentary films specifically about the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Fictional films featuring the Berlin Wall have included:
+
+Some novels specifically about the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Music related to the Berlin Wall includes:
+
+Artworks related to the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Video games related to the Berlin Wall include:
+
+Notes
+
+Bibliography
+
+Further reading

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+
+
+An encyclopedia or encyclopaedia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either from all branches or from a particular field or discipline.[1]
+Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are often arranged alphabetically by article name[2] and sometimes by thematic categories. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries.[2] Generally speaking, unlike dictionary entries—which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms—encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article's title.[3][4][5][6]
+
+Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years and have evolved considerably during that time as regards to language (written in a major international or a vernacular language), size (few or many volumes), intent (presentation of a global or a limited range of knowledge), cultural perspective (authoritative, ideological, didactic, utilitarian), authorship (qualifications, style), readership (education level, background, interests, capabilities), and the technologies available for their production and distribution (hand-written manuscripts, small or large print runs, Internet). As a valued source of reliable information compiled by experts, printed versions found a prominent place in libraries, schools and other educational institutions.
+
+The appearance of digital and open-source versions in the 21st century has vastly expanded the accessibility, authorship, readership, and variety of encyclopedia entries.
+
+Diderot[7]
+
+The word encyclopedia (encyclo|pedia) comes from the Koine Greek ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία,[8] transliterated enkyklios paedia, meaning "general education" from enkyklios (ἐγκύκλιος), meaning "circular, recurrent, required regularly, general"[9] and paedia (παιδεία), meaning "education, rearing of a child"; together, the phrase literally translates as "complete instruction" or "complete knowledge".[10] However, the two separate words were reduced to a single word due to a scribal error[11] by copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of Quintillian in 1470.[12] The copyists took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word "encyclopaedia", which in turn came into English. Because of this compounded word, fifteenth century readers and since have often, and incorrectly, thought that the Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre.[13]
+
+In the sixteenth century there was a level of ambiguity as to how to use this new word. As several titles illustrate, there was not a settled notion about its spelling nor its status as a noun. For example: Jacobus Philomusus's Margarita philosophica encyclopaediam exhibens (1508); Johannes Aventinus's Encyclopedia orbisque doctrinarum, hoc est omnium artium, scientiarum, ipsius philosophiae index ac divisio; Joachimus Fortius Ringelbergius's Lucubrationes vel potius absolutissima kyklopaideia (1538, 1541); Paul Skalich's Encyclopaediæ, seu orbis disciplinarum, tam sacrarum quam prophanarum, epistemon (1559); Gregor Reisch's Margarita philosophica (1503, retitled Encyclopaedia in 1583); and Samuel Eisenmenger's Cyclopaedia Paracelsica (1585).[15]
+
+There have been two examples of the oldest vernacular use of the compounded word. In approximately 1490, Franciscus Puccius wrote a letter to Politianus thanking him for his Miscellanea, calling it an encyclopedia.[16] More commonly, François Rabelais is cited for his use of the term in Pantagruel (1532).[17][18]
+
+Several encyclopedias have names that include the suffix -p(a)edia, to mark the text as belonging to the genre of encyclopedias. An example is Banglapedia (on matters relevant for Bangladesh).
+
+Today in English, the word is most commonly spelled encyclopedia, though encyclopaedia (from encyclopædia) is also used in Britain.[19]
+
+The modern encyclopedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts, but they are significantly different in structure. A dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge. An encyclopedia is, theoretically, not written in order to convince, although one of its goals is indeed to convince its reader of its own veracity.
+
+To address those needs, an encyclopedia article is typically not limited to simple definitions, and is not limited to defining an individual word, but provides a more extensive meaning for a subject or discipline. In addition to defining and listing synonymous terms for the topic, the article is able to treat the topic's more extensive meaning in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject. An encyclopedia article also often includes many maps and illustrations, as well as bibliography and statistics.
+
+Four major elements define an encyclopedia: its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production:
+
+Some works entitled "dictionaries" are actually similar to encyclopedias, especially those concerned with a particular field (such as the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and Black's Law Dictionary). The Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, became an encyclopedic dictionary after its first edition in recognition of the use of proper nouns in common communication, and the words derived from such proper nouns.
+
+There are some broad differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries. Most noticeably, encyclopedia articles are longer, fuller and more thorough than entries in most general-purpose dictionaries.[2][21] There are differences in content as well. Generally speaking, dictionaries provide linguistic information about words themselves, while encyclopedias focus more on the thing for which those words stand.[3][4][5][6] Thus, while dictionary entries are inextricably fixed to the word described, encyclopedia articles can be given a different entry name. As such, dictionary entries are not fully translatable into other languages, but encyclopedia articles can be.[3]
+
+In practice, however, the distinction is not concrete, as there is no clear-cut difference between factual, "encyclopedic" information and linguistic information such as appears in dictionaries.[5][21][22] Thus encyclopedias may contain material that is also found in dictionaries, and vice versa.[22] In particular, dictionary entries often contain factual information about the thing named by the word.[21][22]
+
+Information in traditional encyclopedias can be assessed by measures related to such quality dimension as authority, completeness, format, objectivity, style, timeliness and uniqueness.[20]
+
+Encyclopedias have progressed from written form in antiquity, to print in modern times. Today they can also be distributed and displayed electronically.
+
+One of the earliest encyclopedic works to have survived to modern times is the Naturalis Historiae of Pliny the Elder, a Roman statesman living in the first century AD. He compiled a work of 37 chapters covering natural history, architecture, medicine, geography, geology, and other aspects of the world around him. He stated in the preface that he had compiled 20,000 facts from 2000 works by over 200 authors, and added many others from his own experience. The work was published around AD 77–79, although Pliny probably never finished editing the work before his death in the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.[23]
+
+Isidore of Seville, one of the greatest scholars of the early Middle Ages, is widely recognized for writing the first encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, the Etymologiae (The Etymologies) or Origines (around 630), in which he compiled a sizable portion of the learning available at his time, both ancient and contemporary. The work has 448 chapters in 20 volumes, and is valuable because of the quotes and fragments of texts by other authors that would have been lost had he not collected them.
+
+The most popular encyclopedia of the Carolingian Age was the De universo or De rerum naturis by Rabanus Maurus, written about 830; it was based on Etymologiae.[24]
+
+The encyclopedia of Suda, a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, had 30 000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. The text was arranged alphabetically with some slight deviations from common vowel order and place in the Greek alphabet.
+
+The early Muslim compilations of knowledge in the Middle Ages included many comprehensive works. Around year 960, the Brethren of Purity of Basra were engaged in their Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity.[25] Notable works include Abu Bakr al-Razi's encyclopedia of science, the Mutazilite Al-Kindi's prolific output of 270 books, and Ibn Sina's medical encyclopedia, which was a standard reference work for centuries. Also notable are works of universal history (or sociology) from Asharites, al-Tabri, al-Masudi, Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings, Ibn Rustah, al-Athir, and Ibn Khaldun, whose Muqadimmah contains cautions regarding trust in written records that remain wholly applicable today.
+
+The enormous encyclopedic work in China of the Four Great Books of Song, compiled by the 11th century during the early Song dynasty (960–1279), was a massive literary undertaking for the time. The last encyclopedia of the four, the Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau, amounted to 9.4 million Chinese characters in 1000 written volumes. The 'period of the encyclopedists' spanned from the tenth to seventeenth centuries, during which the government of China employed hundreds of scholars to assemble massive encyclopedias.[26] The largest of which is the Yongle Encyclopedia; it was completed in 1408 and consisted of almost 23,000 folio volumes in manuscript form.[26]
+
+In late medieval Europe, several authors had the ambition of compiling the sum of human knowledge in a certain field or overall, for example Bartholomew of England, Vincent of Beauvais, Radulfus Ardens, Sydrac, Brunetto Latini, Giovanni da Sangiminiano, Pierre Bersuire. Some were women, like Hildegard of Bingen and Herrad of Landsberg. The most successful of those publications were the Speculum maius (Great Mirror) of Vincent of Beauvais and the De proprietatibus rerum (On the Properties of Things) by Bartholomew of England. The latter was translated (or adapted) into French, Provençal, Italian, English, Flemish, Anglo-Norman, Spanish, and German during the Middle Ages. Both were written in the middle of the 13th century. No medieval encyclopedia bore the title Encyclopaedia – they were often called On nature (De natura, De naturis rerum), Mirror (Speculum maius, Speculum universale), Treasure (Trésor).[27]
+
+Medieval encyclopedias were all hand-copied and thus available mostly to wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning; they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it.[28]
+
+During the Renaissance, the creation of printing allowed a wider diffusion of encyclopedias and every scholar could have his or her own copy. The De expetendis et fugiendis rebus by Giorgio Valla was posthumously printed in 1501 by Aldo Manuzio in Venice. This work followed the traditional scheme of liberal arts. However, Valla added the translation of ancient Greek works on mathematics (firstly by Archimedes), newly discovered and translated. The Margarita Philosophica by Gregor Reisch, printed in 1503, was a complete encyclopedia explaining the seven liberal arts.
+
+The term encyclopaedia was coined by 16th-century humanists who misread copies of their texts of Pliny[29] and Quintilian,[30] and combined the two Greek words "enkyklios paedia" into one word, έγκυκλοπαιδεία.[31] The phrase enkyklios paedia (ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) was used by Plutarch and the Latin word encyclopaedia came from him.
+
+The first work titled in this way was the Encyclopedia orbisque doctrinarum, hoc est omnium artium, scientiarum, ipsius philosophiae index ac divisio written by Johannes Aventinus in 1517.[citation needed]
+
+The English physician and philosopher, Sir Thomas Browne used the word 'encyclopaedia' in 1646 in the preface to the reader to define his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a major work of the 17th-century scientific revolution. Browne structured his encyclopaedia upon the time-honoured scheme of the Renaissance, the so-called 'scale of creation' which ascends through the mineral, vegetable, animal, human, planetary, and cosmological worlds. Pseudodoxia Epidemica was a European best-seller, translated into French, Dutch, and German as well as Latin it went through no fewer than five editions, each revised and augmented, the last edition appearing in 1672.
+
+Financial, commercial, legal, and intellectual factors changed the size of encyclopedias. During the Renaissance, middle classes had more time to read and encyclopedias helped them to learn more. Publishers wanted to increase their output so some countries like Germany started selling books missing alphabetical sections, to publish faster. Also, publishers could not afford all the resources by themselves, so multiple publishers would come together with their resources to create better encyclopedias. When publishing at the same rate became financially impossible, they turned to subscriptions and serial publications. This was risky for publishers because they had to find people that would pay all upfront or make payments. When this worked, capital would rise and there would be a steady income for encyclopedias. Later, rivalry grew, causing copyright to occur due to weak underdeveloped laws. Some publishers would copy another publisher's work to produce an encyclopedia faster and cheaper so consumers did not have to pay a lot and they would sell more. Encyclopedias made it to where middle-class citizens could basically have a small library in their own house. Europeans were becoming more curious about their society around them causing them to revolt against their government.[32]
+
+The beginnings of the modern idea of the general-purpose, widely distributed printed encyclopedia precede the 18th century encyclopedists. However, Chambers' Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1728), and the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (1751 onwards), as well as Encyclopædia Britannica and the Conversations-Lexikon, were the first to realize the form we would recognize today, with a comprehensive scope of topics, discussed in depth and organized in an accessible, systematic method. Chambers, in 1728, followed the earlier lead of John Harris's Lexicon Technicum of 1704 and later editions (see also below); this work was by its title and content "A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves".
+
+Popular and affordable encyclopedias such as Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia and the Children's Encyclopaedia appeared in the early 1920s.
+
+In the United States, the 1950s and 1960s saw the introduction of several large popular encyclopedias, often sold on installment plans. The best known of these were World Book and Funk and Wagnalls. As many as 90% were sold door to door. Jack Lynch says in his book You Could Look It Up that encyclopedia salespeople were so common that they became the butt of jokes. He describes their sales pitch saying, “They were selling not books but a lifestyle, a future, a promise of social mobility."  A 1961 World Book ad said, “You are holding your family’s future in your hands right now,” while showing a feminine hand holding an order form.[33]
+
+The second half of the 20th century also saw the proliferation of specialized encyclopedias that compiled topics in specific fields, mainly to support specific industries and professionals. This trend has continued. Encyclopedias of at least one volume in size now exist for most if not all academic disciplines, including such narrow topics such as bioethics.
+
+By the late 20th century, encyclopedias were being published on CD-ROMs for use with personal computers. Microsoft's Encarta, published between 1993 and 2009, was a landmark example as it had no printed equivalent. Articles were supplemented with both video and audio files as well as numerous high-quality images.[34]
+
+Digital technologies and online crowdsourcing allowed encyclopedias to break away from traditional limitations in both breath and depth of topics covered. Wikipedia, a crowd-sourced, multilingual, open licence, free online encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation and open source MediaWiki software opened in 2001. Unlike commercial online encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica Online, which are written by experts, Wikipedia is collaboratively created and maintained by volunteer editors, organized by collaboratively agreed guidelines and user-roles. Most contributors use pseudonyms and stay anonymous. Content is therefore reviewed, checked, kept or removed based on its own intrinsic value and external sources supporting it.
+
+Traditional encyclopedias' reliability, on their side, stand upon authorship and associated professional expertise. Many academics, teachers, and journalists rejected and continue to reject open, crowd sourced encyclopedias, especially Wikipedia, as a reliable source of information, and Wikipedia is itself not a reliable source according to its own standards because of its openly editable and anonymous crowdsourcing model.[35] A study by Nature in 2005 found that Wikipedia's science articles were roughly comparable in accuracy to those of Encyclopædia Britannica, containing the same number of serious errors and about 1/3 more minor factual inaccuracies, but that Wikipedia's writing tended to be confusing and less readable.[36] Encyclopædia Britannica rejected the study's conclusions, deeming the study fatally flawed.[37] As of February 2014, Wikipedia had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.[38] Critics argue Wikipedia exhibits systemic bias.[39][40]
+
+There are several much smaller, usually more specialized, encyclopedias on various themes, sometimes dedicated to a specific geographic region or time period.[41] One example is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
+
+As of the early 2020s, the largest encyclopedias are the Chinese Baidu Baike (16 million articles) and Hudong Baike (13 million), followed by Wikipedias for English (6 million), German (+2 million) and French (+2 million).[42] More than a dozen other Wikipedias have 1 million articles or more, of variable quality and length.[42] Measuring an encyclopedia's size by its articles is an ambiguous method since the online Chinese encyclopedias cited above allow multiple articles on the same topic, while Wikipedias accept only one single common article per topic but allow automated creation of nearly empty articles.

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+
+
+Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaics, solar thermal energy, solar architecture, molten salt power plants and artificial photosynthesis.[1][2]
+
+It is an essential source of renewable energy, and its technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on how they capture and distribute solar energy or convert it into solar power. Active solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic systems, concentrated solar power, and solar water heating to harness the energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light-dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.
+
+The large magnitude of solar energy available makes it a highly appealing source of electricity. The United Nations Development Programme in its 2000 World Energy Assessment found that the annual potential of solar energy was 1,575–49,837 exajoules (EJ). This is several times larger than the total world energy consumption, which was 559.8 EJ in 2012.[3][4]
+
+In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that "the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries' energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible, and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating global warming, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. Hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments; they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared".[1]
+
+The Earth receives 174 petawatts (PW) of incoming solar radiation (insolation) at the upper atmosphere.[5] Approximately 30% is reflected back to space while the rest is absorbed by clouds, oceans and land masses. The spectrum of solar light at the Earth's surface is mostly spread across the visible and near-infrared ranges with a small part in the near-ultraviolet.[6] Most of the world's population live in areas with insolation levels of 150–300 watts/m², or 3.5–7.0 kWh/m² per day.[citation needed]
+
+Solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth's land surface, oceans – which cover about 71% of the globe – and atmosphere. Warm air containing evaporated water from the oceans rises, causing atmospheric circulation or convection. When the air reaches a high altitude, where the temperature is low, water vapor condenses into clouds, which rain onto the Earth's surface, completing the water cycle. The latent heat of water condensation amplifies convection, producing atmospheric phenomena such as wind, cyclones and anti-cyclones.[7] Sunlight absorbed by the oceans and land masses keeps the surface at an average temperature of 14 °C.[8] By photosynthesis, green plants convert solar energy into chemically stored energy, which produces food, wood and the biomass from which fossil fuels are derived.[9]
+
+The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year.[10] In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year.[11][12] Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass.[13] The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet is so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth's non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uranium combined,[14]
+
+The potential solar energy that could be used by humans differs from the amount of solar energy present near the surface of the planet because factors such as geography, time variation, cloud cover, and the land available to humans limit the amount of solar energy that we can acquire.
+
+Geography affects solar energy potential because areas that are closer to the equator have a higher amount of solar radiation. However, the use of photovoltaics that can follow the position of the Sun can significantly increase the solar energy potential in areas that are farther from the equator.[4] Time variation effects the potential of solar energy because during the nighttime, there is little solar radiation on the surface of the Earth for solar panels to absorb. This limits the amount of energy that solar panels can absorb in one day. Cloud cover can affect the potential of solar panels because clouds block incoming light from the Sun and reduce the light available for solar cells.
+
+Besides, land availability has a large effect on the available solar energy because solar panels can only be set up on land that is otherwise unused and suitable for solar panels. Roofs are a suitable place for solar cells, as many people have discovered that they can collect energy directly from their homes this way. Other areas that are suitable for solar cells are lands that are not being used for businesses where solar plants can be established.[4]
+
+Solar technologies are characterized as either passive or active depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute sunlight and enable solar energy to be harnessed at different levels around the world, mostly depending on the distance from the equator. Although solar energy refers primarily to the use of solar radiation for practical ends, all renewable energies, other than Geothermal power and Tidal power, derive their energy either directly or indirectly from the Sun.
+
+Active solar techniques use photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, solar thermal collectors, pumps, and fans to convert sunlight into useful outputs. Passive solar techniques include selecting materials with favorable thermal properties, designing spaces that naturally circulate air, and referencing the position of a building to the Sun. Active solar technologies increase the supply of energy and are considered supply side technologies, while passive solar technologies reduce the need for alternate resources and are generally considered demand-side technologies.[19]
+
+In 2000, the United Nations Development Programme, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and World Energy Council published an estimate of the potential solar energy that could be used by humans each year that took into account factors such as insolation, cloud cover, and the land that is usable by humans. The estimate found that solar energy has a global potential of 1,600 to 49,800 exajoules (4.4×1014 to 1.4×1016 kWh) per year (see table below).[4]
+
+Quantitative relation of global solar potential vs. the world's primary energy consumption:
+
+Source: United Nations Development Programme – World Energy Assessment (2000)[4]
+
+Solar thermal technologies can be used for water heating, space heating, space cooling and process heat generation.[20]
+
+In 1878, at the Universal Exposition in Paris, Augustin Mouchot successfully demonstrated a solar steam engine, but couldn't continue development because of cheap coal and other factors.
+
+In 1897, Frank Shuman, a US inventor, engineer and solar energy pioneer built a small demonstration solar engine that worked by reflecting solar energy onto square boxes filled with ether, which has a lower boiling point than water and were fitted internally with black pipes which in turn powered a steam engine. In 1908 Shuman formed the Sun Power Company with the intent of building larger solar power plants. He, along with his technical advisor A.S.E. Ackermann and British physicist Sir Charles Vernon Boys,[citation needed] developed an improved system using mirrors to reflect solar energy upon collector boxes, increasing heating capacity to the extent that water could now be used instead of ether. Shuman then constructed a full-scale steam engine powered by low-pressure water, enabling him to patent the entire solar engine system by 1912.
+
+Shuman built the world's first solar thermal power station in Maadi, Egypt, between 1912 and 1913. His plant used parabolic troughs to power a 45–52 kilowatts (60–70 hp) engine that pumped more than 22,000 litres (4,800 imp gal; 5,800 US gal) of water per minute from the Nile River to adjacent cotton fields. Although the outbreak of World War I and the discovery of cheap oil in the 1930s discouraged the advancement of solar energy, Shuman's vision, and basic design were resurrected in the 1970s with a new wave of interest in solar thermal energy.[21] In 1916 Shuman was quoted in the media advocating solar energy's utilization, saying:
+
+We have proved the commercial profit of sun power in the tropics and have more particularly proved that after our stores of oil and coal are exhausted the human race can receive unlimited power from the rays of the Sun.
+
+Solar hot water systems use sunlight to heat water. In middle geographical latitudes (between 40 degrees north and 40 degrees south), 60 to 70% of the domestic hot water use, with water temperatures up to 60 °C (140 °F), can be provided by solar heating systems.[23] The most common types of solar water heaters are evacuated tube collectors (44%) and glazed flat plate collectors (34%) generally used for domestic hot water; and unglazed plastic collectors (21%) used mainly to heat swimming pools.[24]
+
+As of 2007, the total installed capacity of solar hot water systems was approximately 154 thermal gigawatt (GWth).[25] China is the world leader in their deployment with 70 GWth installed as of 2006 and a long-term goal of 210 GWth by 2020.[26] Israel and Cyprus are the per capita leaders in the use of solar hot water systems with over 90% of homes using them.[27] In the United States, Canada, and Australia, heating swimming pools is the dominant application of solar hot water with an installed capacity of 18 GWth as of 2005.[19]
+
+In the United States, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 30% (4.65 EJ/yr) of the energy used in commercial buildings and nearly 50% (10.1 EJ/yr) of the energy used in residential buildings.[28][29] Solar heating, cooling and ventilation technologies can be used to offset a portion of this energy.
+
+Thermal mass is any material that can be used to store heat—heat from the Sun in the case of solar energy. Common thermal mass materials include stone, cement, and water. Historically they have been used in arid climates or warm temperate regions to keep buildings cool by absorbing solar energy during the day and radiating stored heat to the cooler atmosphere at night. However, they can be used in cold temperate areas to maintain warmth as well. The size and placement of thermal mass depend on several factors such as climate, daylighting, and shading conditions. When duly incorporated, thermal mass maintains space temperatures in a comfortable range and reduces the need for auxiliary heating and cooling equipment.[30]
+
+A solar chimney (or thermal chimney, in this context) is a passive solar ventilation system composed of a vertical shaft connecting the interior and exterior of a building. As the chimney warms, the air inside is heated, causing an updraft that pulls air through the building. Performance can be improved by using glazing and thermal mass materials[31] in a way that mimics greenhouses.
+
+Deciduous trees and plants have been promoted as a means of controlling solar heating and cooling. When planted on the southern side of a building in the northern hemisphere or the northern side in the southern hemisphere, their leaves provide shade during the summer, while the bare limbs allow light to pass during the winter.[32] Since bare, leafless trees shade 1/3 to 1/2 of incident solar radiation, there is a balance between the benefits of summer shading and the corresponding loss of winter heating.[33] In climates with significant heating loads, deciduous trees should not be planted on the Equator-facing side of a building because they will interfere with winter solar availability. They can, however, be used on the east and west sides to provide a degree of summer shading without appreciably affecting winter solar gain.[34]
+
+Solar cookers use sunlight for cooking, drying, and pasteurization. They can be grouped into three broad categories: box cookers, panel cookers, and reflector cookers.[35] The simplest solar cooker is the box cooker first built by Horace de Saussure in 1767.[36] A basic box cooker consists of an insulated container with a transparent lid. It can be used effectively with partially overcast skies and will typically reach temperatures of 90–150 °C (194–302 °F).[37] Panel cookers use a reflective panel to direct sunlight onto an insulated container and reach temperatures comparable to box cookers. Reflector cookers use various concentrating geometries (dish, trough, Fresnel mirrors) to focus light on a cooking container. These cookers reach temperatures of 315 °C (599 °F) and above but require direct light to function properly and must be repositioned to track the Sun.[38]
+
+Solar concentrating technologies such as parabolic dish, trough and Scheffler reflectors can provide process heat for commercial and industrial applications. The first commercial system was the Solar Total Energy Project (STEP) in Shenandoah, Georgia, US where a field of 114 parabolic dishes provided 50% of the process heating, air conditioning and electrical requirements for a clothing factory. This grid-connected cogeneration system provided 400 kW of electricity plus thermal energy in the form of 401 kW steam and 468 kW chilled water, and had a one-hour peak load thermal storage.[39] Evaporation ponds are shallow pools that concentrate dissolved solids through evaporation. The use of evaporation ponds to obtain salt from seawater is one of the oldest applications of solar energy. Modern uses include concentrating brine solutions used in leach mining and removing dissolved solids from waste streams.[40] Clothes lines, clotheshorses, and clothes racks dry clothes through evaporation by wind and sunlight without consuming electricity or gas. In some states of the United States legislation protects the "right to dry" clothes.[41] Unglazed transpired collectors (UTC) are perforated sun-facing walls used for preheating ventilation air. UTCs can raise the incoming air temperature up to 22 °C (40 °F) and deliver outlet temperatures of 45–60 °C (113–140 °F).[42] The short payback period of transpired collectors (3 to 12 years) makes them a more cost-effective alternative than glazed collection systems.[42] As of 2003, over 80 systems with a combined collector area of 35,000 square metres (380,000 sq ft) had been installed worldwide, including an 860 m2 (9,300 sq ft) collector in Costa Rica used for drying coffee beans and a 1,300 m2 (14,000 sq ft) collector in Coimbatore, India, used for drying marigolds.[43]
+
+Solar distillation can be used to make saline or brackish water potable. The first recorded instance of this was by 16th-century Arab alchemists.[44] A large-scale solar distillation project was first constructed in 1872 in the Chilean mining town of Las Salinas.[45] The plant, which had solar collection area of 4,700 m2 (51,000 sq ft), could produce up to 22,700 L (5,000 imp gal; 6,000 US gal) per day and operate for 40 years.[45] Individual still designs include single-slope, double-slope (or greenhouse type), vertical, conical, inverted absorber, multi-wick, and multiple effect. These stills can operate in passive, active, or hybrid modes. Double-slope stills are the most economical for decentralized domestic purposes, while active multiple effect units are more suitable for large-scale applications.[44]
+
+Solar water disinfection (SODIS) involves exposing water-filled plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles to sunlight for several hours.[46] Exposure times vary depending on weather and climate from a minimum of six hours to two days during fully overcast conditions.[47] It is recommended by the World Health Organization as a viable method for household water treatment and safe storage.[48] Over two million people in developing countries use this method for their daily drinking water.[47]
+
+Solar energy may be used in a water stabilization pond to treat waste water without chemicals or electricity. A further environmental advantage is that algae grow in such ponds and consume carbon dioxide in photosynthesis, although algae may produce toxic chemicals that make the water unusable.[49][50]
+
+Molten salt can be employed as a thermal energy storage method to retain thermal energy collected by a solar tower or solar trough of a concentrated solar power plant so that it can be used to generate electricity in bad weather or at night. It was demonstrated in the Solar Two project from 1995–1999. The system is predicted to have an annual efficiency of 99%, a reference to the energy retained by storing heat before turning it into electricity, versus converting heat directly into electricity.[51][52][53] The molten salt mixtures vary. The most extended mixture contains sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate and calcium nitrate. It is non-flammable and non-toxic, and has already been used in the chemical and metals industries as a heat-transport fluid. Hence, experience with such systems exists in non-solar applications.
+
+The salt melts at 131 °C (268 °F). It is kept liquid at 288 °C (550 °F) in an insulated "cold" storage tank. The liquid salt is pumped through panels in a solar collector where the focused irradiance heats it to 566 °C (1,051 °F). It is then sent to a hot storage tank. This is so well insulated that the thermal energy can be usefully stored for up to a week.[54]
+
+When electricity is needed, the hot salt is pumped to a conventional steam-generator to produce superheated steam for a turbine/generator as used in any conventional coal, oil, or nuclear power plant. A 100-megawatt turbine would need a tank about 9.1 metres (30 ft) tall and 24 metres (79 ft) in diameter to drive it for four hours by this design.
+
+Several parabolic trough power plants in Spain[55] and solar power tower developer SolarReserve use this thermal energy storage concept. The Solana Generating Station in the U.S. has six hours of storage by molten salt. The María Elena plant[56]  is a 400 MW thermo-solar complex in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta employing molten salt technology.
+
+Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). CSP systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. PV converts light into electric current using the photoelectric effect.
+
+Solar power is anticipated to become the world's largest source of electricity by 2050, with solar photovoltaics and concentrated solar power contributing 16 and 11 percent to the global overall consumption, respectively.[57] In 2016, after another year of rapid growth, solar generated 1.3% of global power.[58]
+
+Commercial concentrated solar power plants were first developed in the 1980s. The 392 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, in the Mojave Desert of California, is the largest solar power plant in the world. Other large concentrated solar power plants include the 150 MW Solnova Solar Power Station and the 100 MW Andasol solar power station, both in Spain. The 250 MW Agua Caliente Solar Project, in the United States, and the 221 MW Charanka Solar Park in India, are the world's largest photovoltaic plants. Solar projects exceeding 1 GW are being developed, but most of the deployed photovoltaics are in small rooftop arrays of less than 5 kW, which are connected to the grid using net metering or a feed-in tariff.[59]
+
+Worldwide growth of PV capacity grouped by region in MW (2006–2014)
+
+In the last two decades, photovoltaics (PV), also known as solar PV, has evolved from a pure niche market of small scale applications towards becoming a mainstream electricity source. A solar cell is a device that converts light directly into electricity using the photoelectric effect. The first solar cell was constructed by Charles Fritts in the 1880s.[60] In 1931 a German engineer, Dr Bruno Lange, developed a photo cell using silver selenide in place of copper oxide.[61] Although the prototype selenium cells converted less than 1% of incident light into electricity, both Ernst Werner von Siemens and James Clerk Maxwell recognized the importance of this discovery.[62] Following the work of Russell Ohl in the 1940s, researchers Gerald Pearson, Calvin Fuller and Daryl Chapin created the crystalline silicon solar cell in 1954.[63] These early solar cells cost US$286/watt and reached efficiencies of 4.5–6%.[64] By 2012 available efficiencies exceeded 20%, and the maximum efficiency of research photovoltaics was in excess of 40%.[65]
+
+Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. The concentrated heat is then used as a heat source for a conventional power plant. A wide range of concentrating technologies exists; the most developed are the parabolic trough, the concentrating linear fresnel reflector, the Stirling dish, and the solar power tower. Various techniques are used to track the Sun and focus light. In all of these systems a working fluid is heated by the concentrated sunlight, and is then used for power generation or energy storage.[66]
+
+Sunlight has influenced building design since the beginning of architectural history.[68] Advanced solar architecture and urban planning methods were first employed by the Greeks and Chinese, who oriented their buildings toward the south to provide light and warmth.[69]
+
+The common features of passive solar architecture are orientation relative to the Sun, compact proportion (a low surface area to volume ratio), selective shading (overhangs) and thermal mass.[68] When these features are tailored to the local climate and environment, they can produce well-lit spaces that stay in a comfortable temperature range. Socrates' Megaron House is a classic example of passive solar design.[68] The most recent approaches to solar design use computer modeling tying together solar lighting, heating and ventilation systems in an integrated solar design package.[70] Active solar equipment such as pumps, fans, and switchable windows can complement passive design and improve system performance.
+
+Urban heat islands (UHI) are metropolitan areas with higher temperatures than that of the surrounding environment. The higher temperatures result from increased absorption of solar energy by urban materials such as asphalt and concrete, which have lower albedos and higher heat capacities than those in the natural environment. A straightforward method of counteracting the UHI effect is to paint buildings and roads white and to plant trees in the area. Using these methods, a hypothetical "cool communities" program in Los Angeles has projected that urban temperatures could be reduced by approximately 3 °C at an estimated cost of US$1  billion, giving estimated total annual benefits of US$530  million from reduced air-conditioning costs and healthcare savings.[71]
+
+Agriculture and horticulture seek to optimize the capture of solar energy to optimize the productivity of plants. Techniques such as timed planting cycles, tailored row orientation, staggered heights between rows and the mixing of plant varieties can improve crop yields.[72][73] While sunlight is generally considered a plentiful resource, the exceptions highlight the importance of solar energy to agriculture. During the short growing seasons of the Little Ice Age, French and English farmers employed fruit walls to maximize the collection of solar energy. These walls acted as thermal masses and accelerated ripening by keeping plants warm. Early fruit walls were built perpendicular to the ground and facing south, but over time, sloping walls were developed to make better use of sunlight. In 1699, Nicolas Fatio de Duillier even suggested using a tracking mechanism which could pivot to follow the Sun.[74] Applications of solar energy in agriculture aside from growing crops include pumping water, drying crops, brooding chicks and drying chicken manure.[43][75] More recently the technology has been embraced by vintners, who use the energy generated by solar panels to power grape presses.[76]
+
+Greenhouses convert solar light to heat, enabling year-round production and the growth (in enclosed environments) of specialty crops and other plants not naturally suited to the local climate. Primitive greenhouses were first used during Roman times to produce cucumbers year-round for the Roman emperor Tiberius.[77] The first modern greenhouses were built in Europe in the 16th century to keep exotic plants brought back from explorations abroad.[78] Greenhouses remain an important part of horticulture today. Plastic transparent materials have also been used to similar effect in polytunnels and row covers.
+
+Development of a solar-powered car has been an engineering goal since the 1980s. The World Solar Challenge is a biannual solar-powered car race, where teams from universities and enterprises compete over 3,021 kilometres (1,877 mi) across central Australia from Darwin to Adelaide. In 1987, when it was founded, the winner's average speed was 67 kilometres per hour (42 mph) and by 2007 the winner's average speed had improved to 90.87 kilometres per hour (56.46 mph).[79]
+The North American Solar Challenge and the planned South African Solar Challenge are comparable competitions that reflect an international interest in the engineering and development of solar powered vehicles.[80][81]
+
+Some vehicles use solar panels for auxiliary power, such as for air conditioning, to keep the interior cool, thus reducing fuel consumption.[82][83]
+
+In 1975, the first practical solar boat was constructed in England.[84] By 1995, passenger boats incorporating PV panels began appearing and are now used extensively.[85] In 1996, Kenichi Horie made the first solar-powered crossing of the Pacific Ocean, and the Sun21 catamaran made the first solar-powered crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the winter of 2006–2007.[86] There were plans to circumnavigate the globe in 2010.[87]
+
+In 1974, the unmanned AstroFlight Sunrise airplane made the first solar flight. On 29 April 1979, the Solar Riser made the first flight in a solar-powered, fully controlled, man-carrying flying machine, reaching an altitude of 40 ft (12 m). In 1980, the Gossamer Penguin made the first piloted flights powered solely by photovoltaics. This was quickly followed by the Solar Challenger which crossed the English Channel in July 1981. In 1990 Eric Scott Raymond in 21 hops flew from California to North Carolina using solar power.[88] Developments then turned back to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with the Pathfinder (1997) and subsequent designs, culminating in the Helios which set the altitude record for a non-rocket-propelled aircraft at 29,524 metres (96,864 ft) in 2001.[89] The Zephyr, developed by BAE Systems, is the latest in a line of record-breaking solar aircraft, making a 54-hour flight in 2007, and month-long flights were envisioned by 2010.[90] As of 2016, Solar Impulse, an electric aircraft, is currently circumnavigating the globe. It is a single-seat plane powered by solar cells and capable of taking off under its own power. The design allows the aircraft to remain airborne for several days.[91]
+
+A solar balloon is a black balloon that is filled with ordinary air. As sunlight shines on the balloon, the air inside is heated and expands, causing an upward buoyancy force, much like an artificially heated hot air balloon. Some solar balloons are large enough for human flight, but usage is generally limited to the toy market as the surface-area to payload-weight ratio is relatively high.[92]
+
+Solar chemical processes use solar energy to drive chemical reactions. These processes offset energy that would otherwise come from a fossil fuel source and can also convert solar energy into storable and transportable fuels. Solar induced chemical reactions can be divided into thermochemical or photochemical.[93] A variety of fuels can be produced by artificial photosynthesis.[94] The multielectron catalytic chemistry involved in making carbon-based fuels (such as methanol) from reduction of carbon dioxide is challenging; a feasible alternative is hydrogen production from protons, though use of water as the source of electrons (as plants do) requires mastering the multielectron oxidation of two water molecules to molecular oxygen.[95] Some have envisaged working solar fuel plants in coastal metropolitan areas by 2050 –  the splitting of seawater providing hydrogen to be run through adjacent fuel-cell electric power plants and the pure water by-product going directly into the municipal water system.[96] Another vision involves all human structures covering the Earth's surface (i.e., roads, vehicles and buildings) doing photosynthesis more efficiently than plants.[97]
+
+Hydrogen production technologies have been a significant area of solar chemical research since the 1970s. Aside from electrolysis driven by photovoltaic or photochemical cells, several thermochemical processes have also been explored. One such route uses concentrators to split water into oxygen and hydrogen at high temperatures (2,300–2,600 °C or 4,200–4,700 °F).[98] Another approach uses the heat from solar concentrators to drive the steam reformation of natural gas thereby increasing the overall hydrogen yield compared to conventional reforming methods.[99] Thermochemical cycles characterized by the decomposition and regeneration of reactants present another avenue for hydrogen production. The Solzinc process under development at the Weizmann Institute of Science uses a 1 MW solar furnace to decompose zinc oxide (ZnO) at temperatures above 1,200 °C (2,200 °F). This initial reaction produces pure zinc, which can subsequently be reacted with water to produce hydrogen.[100]
+
+Thermal mass systems can store solar energy in the form of heat at domestically useful temperatures for daily or interseasonal durations. Thermal storage systems generally use readily available materials with high specific heat capacities such as water, earth and stone. Well-designed systems can lower peak demand, shift time-of-use to off-peak hours and reduce overall heating and cooling requirements.[101][102]
+
+Phase change materials such as paraffin wax and Glauber's salt are another thermal storage medium. These materials are inexpensive, readily available, and can deliver domestically useful temperatures (approximately 64 °C or 147 °F). The "Dover House" (in Dover, Massachusetts) was the first to use a Glauber's salt heating system, in 1948.[103] Solar energy can also be stored at high temperatures using molten salts. Salts are an effective storage medium because they are low-cost, have a high specific heat capacity, and can deliver heat at temperatures compatible with conventional power systems. The Solar Two project used this method of energy storage, allowing it to store 1.44 terajoules (400,000 kWh) in its 68 m³ storage tank with an annual storage efficiency of about 99%.[104]
+
+Off-grid PV systems have traditionally used rechargeable batteries to store excess electricity. With grid-tied systems, excess electricity can be sent to the transmission grid, while standard grid electricity can be used to meet shortfalls. Net metering programs give household systems credit for any electricity they deliver to the grid. This is handled by 'rolling back' the meter whenever the home produces more electricity than it consumes. If the net electricity use is below zero, the utility then rolls over the kilowatt-hour credit to the next month.[105] Other approaches involve the use of two meters, to measure electricity consumed vs. electricity produced. This is less common due to the increased installation cost of the second meter. Most standard meters accurately measure in both directions, making a second meter unnecessary.
+
+Pumped-storage hydroelectricity stores energy in the form of water pumped when energy is available from a lower elevation reservoir to a higher elevation one. The energy is recovered when demand is high by releasing the water, with the pump becoming a hydroelectric power generator.[106]
+
+Beginning with the surge in coal use, which accompanied the Industrial Revolution, energy consumption has steadily transitioned from wood and biomass to fossil fuels. The early development of solar technologies starting in the 1860s was driven by an expectation that coal would soon become scarce. However, development of solar technologies stagnated in the early 20th  century in the face of the increasing availability, economy, and utility of coal and petroleum.[107]
+
+The 1973 oil embargo and 1979 energy crisis caused a reorganization of energy policies around the world. It brought renewed attention to developing solar technologies.[108][109] Deployment strategies focused on incentive programs such as the Federal Photovoltaic Utilization Program in the US and the Sunshine Program in Japan. Other efforts included the formation of research facilities in the US (SERI, now NREL), Japan (NEDO), and Germany (Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE).[110]
+
+Commercial solar water heaters began appearing in the United States in the 1890s.[111] These systems saw increasing use until the 1920s but were gradually replaced by cheaper and more reliable heating fuels.[112] As with photovoltaics, solar water heating attracted renewed attention as a result of the oil crises in the 1970s, but interest subsided in the 1980s due to falling petroleum prices. Development in the solar water heating sector progressed steadily throughout the 1990s, and annual growth rates have averaged 20% since 1999.[25] Although generally underestimated, solar water heating and cooling is by far the most widely deployed solar technology with an estimated capacity of 154  GW as of 2007.[25]
+
+The International Energy Agency has said that solar energy can make considerable contributions to solving some of the most urgent problems the world now faces:[1]
+
+The development of affordable, inexhaustible, and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries' energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible, and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating climate change, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. Hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments; they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared.[1]
+
+In 2011, a report by the International Energy Agency found that solar energy technologies such as photovoltaics, solar hot water, and concentrated solar power could provide a third of the world's energy by 2060 if politicians commit to limiting climate change and transitioning to renewable energy. The energy from the Sun could play a key role in de-carbonizing the global economy alongside improvements in energy efficiency and imposing costs on greenhouse gas emitters. "The strength of solar is the incredible variety and flexibility of applications, from small scale to big scale".[113]
+
+We have proved ... that after our stores of oil and coal are exhausted the human race can receive unlimited power from the rays of the Sun.
+
+The International Organization for Standardization has established several standards relating to solar energy equipment. For example, ISO 9050 relates to glass in the building, while ISO 10217 relates to the materials used in solar water heaters.
+

en/329.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,241 @@
+
+
+
+
+Mesothelae
+Opisthothelae
+ See Spider taxonomy.
+
+Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom,[2] and spinnerets that extrude silk.[3] They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all orders of organisms.[4] Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea colonization. As of July 2019[update], at least 48,200 spider species, and 120 families have been recorded by taxonomists.[1] However, there has been dissension within the scientific community as to how all these families should be classified, as evidenced by the over 20 different classifications that have been proposed since 1900.[5]
+
+Anatomically, spiders (as with all arachnids) differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the prosoma, or cephalothorax, and opisthosoma, or abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel (however, as there is currently neither paleontological nor embryological evidence that spiders ever had a separate thorax-like division, there exists an argument against the validity of the term cephalothorax, which means fused cephalon (head) and the thorax. Similarly, arguments can be formed against use of the term abdomen, as the opisthosoma of all spiders contains a heart and respiratory organs, organs atypical of an abdomen[6]). Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae. In all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure.
+
+Their abdomens bear appendages that have been modified into spinnerets that extrude silk from up to six types of glands. Spider webs vary widely in size, shape and the amount of sticky thread used. It now appears that the spiral orb web may be one of the earliest forms, and spiders that produce tangled cobwebs are more abundant and diverse than orb-web spiders. Spider-like arachnids with silk-producing spigots appeared in the Devonian period about 386 million years ago, but these animals apparently lacked spinnerets. True spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks from 318 to 299 million years ago, and are very similar to the most primitive surviving suborder, the Mesothelae. The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appeared in the Triassic period, before 200 million years ago.
+
+The species Bagheera kiplingi was described as herbivorous in 2008,[7] but all other known species are predators, mostly preying on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards. It is estimated that the world's 25 million tons of spiders kill 400–800 million tons of prey per year.[8] Spiders use a wide range of strategies to capture prey: trapping it in sticky webs, lassoing it with sticky bolas, mimicking the prey to avoid detection, or running it down. Most detect prey mainly by sensing vibrations, but the active hunters have acute vision, and hunters of the genus Portia show signs of intelligence in their choice of tactics and ability to develop new ones. Spiders' guts are too narrow to take solids, so they liquefy their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes. They also grind food with the bases of their pedipalps, as arachnids do not have the mandibles that crustaceans and insects have.
+
+To avoid being eaten by the females, which are typically much larger, male spiders identify themselves to potential mates by a variety of complex courtship rituals. Males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Females weave silk egg-cases, each of which may contain hundreds of eggs. Females of many species care for their young, for example by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A minority of species are social, building communal webs that may house anywhere from a few to 50,000 individuals. Social behavior ranges from precarious toleration, as in the widow spiders, to co-operative hunting and food-sharing. Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other mygalomorph spiders can live up to 25 years in captivity.
+
+While the venom of a few species is dangerous to humans, scientists are now researching the use of spider venom in medicine and as non-polluting pesticides. Spider silk provides a combination of lightness, strength and elasticity that is superior to that of synthetic materials, and spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories. As a result of their wide range of behaviors, spiders have become common symbols in art and mythology symbolizing various combinations of patience, cruelty and creative powers. An abnormal fear of spiders is called arachnophobia.
+
+1: pedipalp
+ 2: trichobothria
+ 3: carapace of prosoma (cephalothorax)
+ 4: opisthosoma (abdomen)
+ 5: eyes – AL (anterior lateral)
+    AM (anterior median)
+    PL (posterior lateral)
+    PM (posterior median)
+Leg segments:
+ 6: costa
+ 7: trochanter
+ 8: patella
+ 9: tibia
+10: metatarsus
+11: tarsus
+13: claw
+14: chelicera
+
+15: sternum of prosoma
+16: pedicel (also called pedicle)
+17: book lung sac
+18: book lung stigma
+19: epigastric fold
+20: epigyne
+21: anterior spinneret
+22: posterior spinneret
+
+Spiders are chelicerates and therefore arthropods.[9] As arthropods they have: segmented bodies with jointed limbs, all covered in a cuticle made of chitin and proteins; heads that are composed of several segments that fuse during the development of the embryo.[10] Being chelicerates, their bodies consist of two tagmata, sets of segments that serve similar functions: the foremost one, called the cephalothorax or prosoma, is a complete fusion of the segments that in an insect would form two separate tagmata, the head and thorax; the rear tagma is called the abdomen or opisthosoma.[9] In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are connected by a small cylindrical section, the pedicel.[11] The pattern of segment fusion that forms chelicerates' heads is unique among arthropods, and what would normally be the first head segment disappears at an early stage of development, so that chelicerates lack the antennae typical of most arthropods. In fact, chelicerates' only appendages ahead of the mouth are a pair of chelicerae, and they lack anything that would function directly as "jaws".[10][12] The first appendages behind the mouth are called pedipalps, and serve different functions within different groups of chelicerates.[9]
+
+Spiders and scorpions are members of one chelicerate group, the arachnids.[12] Scorpions' chelicerae have three sections and are used in feeding.[13] Spiders' chelicerae have two sections and terminate in fangs that are generally venomous, and fold away behind the upper sections while not in use. The upper sections generally have thick "beards" that filter solid lumps out of their food, as spiders can take only liquid food.[11] Scorpions' pedipalps generally form large claws for capturing prey,[13] while those of spiders are fairly small appendages whose bases also act as an extension of the mouth; in addition, those of male spiders have enlarged last sections used for sperm transfer.[11]
+
+In spiders, the cephalothorax and abdomen are joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel, which enables the abdomen to move independently when producing silk. The upper surface of the cephalothorax is covered by a single, convex carapace, while the underside is covered by two rather flat plates. The abdomen is soft and egg-shaped. It shows no sign of segmentation, except that the primitive Mesothelae, whose living members are the Liphistiidae, have segmented plates on the upper surface.[11]
+
+Like other arthropods, spiders are coelomates in which the coelom is reduced to small areas round the reproductive and excretory systems. Its place is largely taken by a hemocoel, a cavity that runs most of the length of the body and through which blood flows. The heart is a tube in the upper part of the body, with a few ostia that act as non-return valves allowing blood to enter the heart from the hemocoel but prevent it from leaving before it reaches the front end.[14] However, in spiders, it occupies only the upper part of the abdomen, and blood is discharged into the hemocoel by one artery that opens at the rear end of the abdomen and by branching arteries that pass through the pedicle and open into several parts of the cephalothorax. Hence spiders have open circulatory systems.[11] The blood of many spiders that have book lungs contains the respiratory pigment hemocyanin to make oxygen transport more efficient.[12]
+
+Spiders have developed several different respiratory anatomies, based on book lungs, a tracheal system, or both. Mygalomorph and Mesothelae spiders have two pairs of book lungs filled with haemolymph, where openings on the ventral surface of the abdomen allow air to enter and diffuse oxygen. This is also the case for some basal araneomorph spiders, like the family Hypochilidae, but the remaining members of this group have just the anterior pair of book lungs intact while the posterior pair of breathing organs are partly or fully modified into tracheae, through which oxygen is diffused into the haemolymph or directly to the tissue and organs.[11] The tracheal system has most likely evolved in small ancestors to help resist desiccation.[12] The trachea were originally connected to the surroundings through a pair of openings called spiracles, but in the majority of spiders this pair of spiracles has fused into a single one in the middle, and moved backwards close to the spinnerets.[11] Spiders that have tracheae generally have higher metabolic rates and better water conservation.[15] Spiders are ectotherms, so environmental temperatures affect their activity.[16]
+
+Uniquely among chelicerates, the final sections of spiders' chelicerae are fangs, and the great majority of spiders can use them to inject venom into prey from venom glands in the roots of the chelicerae.[11] The families Uloboridae and Holarchaeidae, and some Liphistiidae spiders, have lost their venom glands, and kill their prey with silk instead.[17] Like most arachnids, including scorpions,[12] spiders have a narrow gut that can only cope with liquid food and two sets of filters to keep solids out.[11] They use one of two different systems of external digestion. Some pump digestive enzymes from the midgut into the prey and then suck the liquified tissues of the prey into the gut, eventually leaving behind the empty husk of the prey. Others grind the prey to pulp using the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps, while flooding it with enzymes; in these species, the chelicerae and the bases of the pedipalps form a preoral cavity that holds the food they are processing.[11]
+
+The stomach in the cephalothorax acts as a pump that sends the food deeper into the digestive system. The midgut bears many digestive ceca, compartments with no other exit, that extract nutrients from the food; most are in the abdomen, which is dominated by the digestive system, but a few are found in the cephalothorax.[11]
+
+Most spiders convert nitrogenous waste products into uric acid, which can be excreted as a dry material. Malphigian tubules ("little tubes") extract these wastes from the blood in the hemocoel and dump them into the cloacal chamber, from which they are expelled through the anus.[11] Production of uric acid and its removal via Malphigian tubules are a water-conserving feature that has evolved independently in several arthropod lineages that can live far away from water,[18] for example the tubules of insects and arachnids develop from completely different parts of the embryo.[12] However, a few primitive spiders, the suborder Mesothelae and infraorder Mygalomorphae, retain the ancestral arthropod nephridia ("little kidneys"),[11] which use large amounts of water to excrete nitrogenous waste products as ammonia.[18]
+
+The basic arthropod central nervous system consists of a pair of nerve cords running below the gut, with paired ganglia as local control centers in all segments; a brain formed by fusion of the ganglia for the head segments ahead of and behind the mouth, so that the esophagus is encircled by this conglomeration of ganglia.[19] Except for the primitive Mesothelae, of which the Liphistiidae are the sole surviving family, spiders have the much more centralized nervous system that is typical of arachnids: all the ganglia of all segments behind the esophagus are fused, so that the cephalothorax is largely filled with nervous tissue and there are no ganglia in the abdomen;[11][12][19] in the Mesothelae, the ganglia of the abdomen and the rear part of the cephalothorax remain unfused.[15]
+
+Despite the relatively small central nervous system, some spiders (like Portia) exhibit complex behaviour, including the ability to use a trial-and-error approach.[20][21]
+
+Spiders have primarily four pairs of eyes on the top-front area of the cephalothorax, arranged in patterns that vary from one family to another.[11] The principal pair at the front are of the type called pigment-cup ocelli ("little eyes"), which in most arthropods are only capable of detecting the direction from which light is coming, using the shadow cast by the walls of the cup. However, in spiders these eyes are capable of forming images.[22][23] The other pairs, called secondary eyes, are thought to be derived from the compound eyes of the ancestral chelicerates, but no longer have the separate facets typical of compound eyes. Unlike the principal eyes, in many spiders these secondary eyes detect light reflected from a reflective tapetum lucidum, and wolf spiders can be spotted by torchlight reflected from the tapeta. On the other hand, jumping spiders' secondary eyes have no tapeta.[11]
+
+Other differences between the principal and secondary eyes are that the latter have rhabdomeres that point away from incoming light, just like in vertebrates, while the arrangement is the opposite in the former. The principal eyes are also the only ones with eye muscles, allowing them to move the retina. Having no muscles, the secondary eyes are immobile.[24]
+
+Some jumping spiders' visual acuity exceeds by a factor of ten that of dragonflies, which have by far the best vision among insects; in fact the human eye is only about five times sharper than a jumping spider's. They achieve this by a telephotographic series of lenses, a four-layer retina and the ability to swivel their eyes and integrate images from different stages in the scan. The downside is that the scanning and integrating processes are relatively slow.[20]
+
+There are spiders with a reduced number of eyes. Of these, those with six eyes (such as Periegops suterii) are the most numerous and are missing a pair of eyes on the anterior median line;[25] other species have four eyes and some just two. Cave dwelling species have no eyes, or possess vestigial eyes incapable of sight.
+
+As with other arthropods, spiders' cuticles would block out information about the outside world, except that they are penetrated by many sensors or connections from sensors to the nervous system. In fact, spiders and other arthropods have modified their cuticles into elaborate arrays of sensors. Various touch sensors, mostly bristles called setae, respond to different levels of force, from strong contact to very weak air currents. Chemical sensors provide equivalents of taste and smell, often by means of setae.[22] An adult Araneus may have up to 1,000 such chemosensitive setae, most on the tarsi of the first pair of legs. Males have more chemosensitive bristles on their pedipalps than females. They have been shown to be responsive to sex pheromones produced by females, both contact and air-borne.[26] The jumping spider Evarcha culicivora uses the scent of blood from mammals and other vertebrates, which is obtained by capturing blood-filled mosquitoes, to attract the opposite sex. Because they are able to tell the sexes apart, it is assumed the blood scent is mixed with pheromones.[27] Spiders also have in the joints of their limbs slit sensillae that detect force and vibrations. In web-building spiders, all these mechanical and chemical sensors are more important than the eyes, while the eyes are most important to spiders that hunt actively.[11]
+
+Like most arthropods, spiders lack balance and acceleration sensors and rely on their eyes to tell them which way is up. Arthropods' proprioceptors, sensors that report the force exerted by muscles and the degree of bending in the body and joints, are well-understood. On the other hand, little is known about what other internal sensors spiders or other arthropods may have.[22]
+
+Each of the eight legs of a spider consists of seven distinct parts. The part closest to and attaching the leg to the cephalothorax is the coxa; the next segment is the short trochanter that works as a hinge for the following long segment, the femur; next is the spider's knee, the patella, which acts as the hinge for the tibia; the metatarsus is next, and it connects the tibia to the tarsus (which may be thought of as a foot of sorts); the tarsus ends in a claw made up of either two or three points, depending on the family to which the spider belongs. Although all arthropods use muscles attached to the inside of the exoskeleton to flex their limbs, spiders and a few other groups still use hydraulic pressure to extend them, a system inherited from their pre-arthropod ancestors.[28] The only extensor muscles in spider legs are located in the three hip joints (bordering the coxa and the trochanter).[29] As a result, a spider with a punctured cephalothorax cannot extend its legs, and the legs of dead spiders curl up.[11] Spiders can generate pressures up to eight times their resting level to extend their legs,[30] and jumping spiders can jump up to 50 times their own length by suddenly increasing the blood pressure in the third or fourth pair of legs.[11] Although larger spiders use hydraulics to straighten their legs, unlike smaller jumping spiders they depend on their flexor muscles to generate the propulsive force for their jumps.[29]
+
+Most spiders that hunt actively, rather than relying on webs, have dense tufts of fine bristles between the paired claws at the tips of their legs. These tufts, known as scopulae, consist of bristles whose ends are split into as many as 1,000 branches, and enable spiders with scopulae to walk up vertical glass and upside down on ceilings. It appears that scopulae get their grip from contact with extremely thin layers of water on surfaces.[11] Spiders, like most other arachnids, keep at least four legs on the surface while walking or running.[31]
+
+The abdomen has no appendages except those that have been modified to form one to four (usually three) pairs of short, movable spinnerets, which emit silk. Each spinneret has many spigots, each of which is connected to one silk gland. There are at least six types of silk gland, each producing a different type of silk.[11]
+
+Silk is mainly composed of a protein very similar to that used in insect silk. It is initially a liquid, and hardens not by exposure to air but as a result of being drawn out, which changes the internal structure of the protein.[32] It is similar in tensile strength to nylon and biological materials such as chitin, collagen and cellulose, but is much more elastic. In other words, it can stretch much further before breaking or losing shape.[11]
+
+Some spiders have a cribellum, a modified spinneret with up to 40,000 spigots, each of which produces a single very fine fiber. The fibers are pulled out by the calamistrum, a comblike set of bristles on the jointed tip of the cribellum, and combined into a composite woolly thread that is very effective in snagging the bristles of insects. The earliest spiders had cribella, which produced the first silk capable of capturing insects, before spiders developed silk coated with sticky droplets. However, most modern groups of spiders have lost the cribellum.[11]
+
+Even species that do not build webs to catch prey use silk in several ways: as wrappers for sperm and for fertilized eggs; as a "safety rope"; for nest-building; and as "parachutes" by the young of some species.[11]
+
+Spiders reproduce sexually and fertilization is internal but indirect, in other words the sperm is not inserted into the female's body by the male's genitals but by an intermediate stage. Unlike many land-living arthropods,[33] male spiders do not produce ready-made spermatophores (packages of sperm), but spin small sperm webs onto which they ejaculate and then transfer the sperm to special syringe-styled structures, palpal bulbs or palpal organs, borne on the tips of the pedipalps of mature males. When a male detects signs of a female nearby he checks whether she is of the same species and whether she is ready to mate; for example in species that produce webs or "safety ropes", the male can identify the species and sex of these objects by "smell".[11]
+
+Spiders generally use elaborate courtship rituals to prevent the large females from eating the small males before fertilization, except where the male is so much smaller that he is not worth eating. In web-weaving species, precise patterns of vibrations in the web are a major part of the rituals, while patterns of touches on the female's body are important in many spiders that hunt actively, and may "hypnotize" the female. Gestures and dances by the male are important for jumping spiders, which have excellent eyesight. If courtship is successful, the male injects his sperm from the palpal bulbs into the female via one or two openings on the underside of her abdomen.[11]
+
+Female spiders' reproductive tracts are arranged in one of two ways. The ancestral arrangement ("haplogyne" or "non-entelegyne") consists of a single genital opening, leading to two seminal receptacles (spermathecae) in which females store sperm. In the more advanced arrangement ("entelegyne" ), there are two further openings leading directly to the spermathecae, creating a "flow through" system rather than a "first-in first-out" one. Eggs are as a general rule only fertilized during oviposition when the stored sperm is released from its chamber, rather than in the ovarian cavity.[34] A few exceptions exist, such as Parasteatoda tepidariorum. In these species the female appears to be able to activate the dormant sperm before oviposition, allowing them to migrate to the ovarian cavity where fertilization occurs.[35][36][37] The only known example of direct fertilization between male and female is an Israeli spider, Harpactea sadistica, which has evolved traumatic insemination. In this species the male will penetrate its pedipalps through the female's body wall and inject his sperm directly into her ovaries, where the embryos inside the fertilized eggs will start to develop before being laid.[38]
+
+Males of the genus Tidarren amputate one of their palps before maturation and enter adult life with one palp only. The palps are 20% of the male's body mass in this species, and detaching one of the two improves mobility. In the Yemeni species Tidarren argo, the remaining palp is then torn off by the female. The separated palp remains attached to the female's epigynum for about four hours and apparently continues to function independently. In the meantime, the female feeds on the palpless male.[39] In over 60% of cases, the female of the Australian redback spider kills and eats the male after it inserts its second palp into the female's genital opening; in fact, the males co-operate by trying to impale themselves on the females' fangs. Observation shows that most male redbacks never get an opportunity to mate, and the "lucky" ones increase the likely number of offspring by ensuring that the females are well-fed.[40] However, males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Some even live for a while in their mates' webs.[41]
+
+The tiny male of the Golden orb weaver (Trichonephila clavipes) (near the top of the leaf) is protected from the female by producing the right vibrations in the web, and may be too small to be worth eating.
+
+Orange spider egg sac hanging from ceiling
+
+Gasteracantha mammosa spiderlings next to their eggs capsule
+
+Wolf spider carrying its young on its abdomen
+
+Females lay up to 3,000 eggs in one or more silk egg sacs,[11] which maintain a fairly constant humidity level.[41] In some species, the females die afterwards, but females of other species protect the sacs by attaching them to their webs, hiding them in nests, carrying them in the chelicerae or attaching them to the spinnerets and dragging them along.[11]
+
+Baby spiders pass all their larval stages inside the egg and hatch as spiderlings, very small and sexually immature but similar in shape to adults. Some spiders care for their young, for example a wolf spider's brood clings to rough bristles on the mother's back,[11] and females of some species respond to the "begging" behaviour of their young by giving them their prey, provided it is no longer struggling, or even regurgitate food.[41]
+
+Like other arthropods, spiders have to molt to grow as their cuticle ("skin") cannot stretch.[42] In some species males mate with newly-molted females, which are too weak to be dangerous to the males.[41] Most spiders live for only one to two years, although some tarantulas can live in captivity for over 20 years,[11][43] and an Australian female trapdoor spider was documented to have lived in the wild for 43 years, dying of a parasitic wasp attack.[44]
+
+Spiders occur in a large range of sizes. The smallest, Patu digua from Colombia, are less than 0.37 mm (0.015 in) in body length. The largest and heaviest spiders occur among tarantulas, which can have body lengths up to 90 mm (3.5 in) and leg spans up to 250 mm (9.8 in).[45]
+
+Only three classes of pigment (ommochromes, bilins and guanine) have been identified in spiders, although other pigments have been detected but not yet characterized. Melanins, carotenoids and pterins, very common in other animals, are apparently absent. In some species, the exocuticle of the legs and prosoma is modified by a tanning process, resulting in a brown coloration.[46]
+Bilins are found, for example, in Micrommata virescens, resulting in its green color. Guanine is responsible for the white markings of the European garden spider Araneus diadematus. It is in many species accumulated in specialized cells called guanocytes. In genera such as Tetragnatha, Leucauge, Argyrodes or Theridiosoma, guanine creates their silvery appearance. While guanine is originally an end-product of protein metabolism, its excretion can be blocked in spiders, leading to an increase in its storage.[46] Structural colors occur in some species, which are the result of the diffraction, scattering or interference of light, for example by modified setae or scales. The white prosoma of Argiope results from bristles reflecting the light, Lycosa and Josa both have areas of modified cuticle that act as light reflectors.[46]
+
+While in many spiders color is fixed throughout their lifespan, in some groups, color may be variable in response to environmental and internal conditions.[46] Choice of prey may be able to alter the color of spiders. For example, the abdomen of Theridion grallator will become orange if the spider ingests certain species of Diptera and adult Lepidoptera, but if it consumes Homoptera or larval Lepidoptera, then the abdomen becomes green.[47] Environmentally induced color changes may be morphological (occurring over several days) or physiological (occurring near instantly). Morphological changes require pigment synthesis and degradation. In contrast to this, physiological changes occur by changing the position of pigment-containing cells.[46] An example of morphological color changes is background matching. Misumena vatia for instance can change its body color to match the substrate it lives on which makes it more difficult to be detected by prey.[48] An example of physiological color change is observed in Cyrtophora cicatrosa, which can change its body color from white to brown near instantly.[46]
+
+Although spiders are generally regarded as predatory, the jumping spider Bagheera kiplingi gets over 90% of its food from fairly solid plant material produced by acacias as part of a mutually beneficial relationship with a species of ant.[49]
+
+Juveniles of some spiders in the families Anyphaenidae, Corinnidae, Clubionidae, Thomisidae and Salticidae feed on plant nectar. Laboratory studies show that they do so deliberately and over extended periods, and periodically clean themselves while feeding. These spiders also prefer sugar solutions to plain water, which indicates that they are seeking nutrients. Since many spiders are nocturnal, the extent of nectar consumption by spiders may have been underestimated. Nectar contains amino acids, lipids, vitamins and minerals in addition to sugars, and studies have shown that other spider species live longer when nectar is available. Feeding on nectar avoids the risks of struggles with prey, and the costs of producing venom and digestive enzymes.[50]
+
+Various species are known to feed on dead arthropods (scavenging), web silk, and their own shed exoskeletons. Pollen caught in webs may also be eaten, and studies have shown that young spiders have a better chance of survival if they have the opportunity to eat pollen. In captivity, several spider species are also known to feed on bananas, marmalade, milk, egg yolk and sausages.[50]
+
+The best-known method of prey capture is by means of sticky webs. Varying placement of webs allows different species of spider to trap different insects in the same area, for example flat horizontal webs trap insects that fly up from vegetation underneath while flat vertical webs trap insects in horizontal flight. Web-building spiders have poor vision, but are extremely sensitive to vibrations.[11]
+
+Females of the water spider Argyroneta aquatica build underwater "diving bell" webs that they fill with air and use for digesting prey, molting, mating and raising offspring. They live almost entirely within the bells, darting out to catch prey animals that touch the bell or the threads that anchor it.[51] A few spiders use the surfaces of lakes and ponds as "webs", detecting trapped insects by the vibrations that these cause while struggling.[11]
+
+Net-casting spiders weave only small webs, but then manipulate them to trap prey. Those of the genus Hyptiotes and the family Theridiosomatidae stretch their webs and then release them when prey strike them, but do not actively move their webs. Those of the family Deinopidae weave even smaller webs, hold them outstretched between their first two pairs of legs, and lunge and push the webs as much as twice their own body length to trap prey, and this move may increase the webs' area by a factor of up to ten. Experiments have shown that Deinopis spinosus has two different techniques for trapping prey: backwards strikes to catch flying insects, whose vibrations it detects; and forward strikes to catch ground-walking prey that it sees. These two techniques have also been observed in other deinopids. Walking insects form most of the prey of most deinopids, but one population of Deinopis subrufa appears to live mainly on tipulid flies that they catch with the backwards strike.[52]
+
+Mature female bolas spiders of the genus Mastophora build "webs" that consist of only a single "trapeze line", which they patrol. They also construct a bolas made of a single thread, tipped with a large ball of very wet sticky silk. They emit chemicals that resemble the pheromones of moths, and then swing the bolas at the moths. Although they miss on about 50% of strikes, they catch about the same weight of insects per night as web-weaving spiders of similar size. The spiders eat the bolas if they have not made a kill in about 30 minutes, rest for a while, and then make new bolas.[53][54] Juveniles and adult males are much smaller and do not make bolas. Instead they release different pheromones that attract moth flies, and catch them with their front pairs of legs.[55]
+
+The primitive Liphistiidae, the "trapdoor spiders" of the family Ctenizidae and many tarantulas are ambush predators that lurk in burrows, often closed by trapdoors and often surrounded by networks of silk threads that alert these spiders to the presence of prey.[15] Other ambush predators do without such aids, including many crab spiders,[11] and a few species that prey on bees, which see ultraviolet, can adjust their ultraviolet reflectance to match the flowers in which they are lurking.[46] Wolf spiders, jumping spiders, fishing spiders and some crab spiders capture prey by chasing it, and rely mainly on vision to locate prey.[11]
+
+Some jumping spiders of the genus Portia hunt other spiders in ways that seem intelligent,[20] outflanking their victims or luring them from their webs. Laboratory studies show that Portia's instinctive tactics are only starting points for a trial-and-error approach from which these spiders learn very quickly how to overcome new prey species.[56] However, they seem to be relatively slow "thinkers", which is not surprising, as their brains are vastly smaller than those of mammalian predators.[20]
+
+Ant-mimicking spiders face several challenges: they generally develop slimmer abdomens and false "waists" in the cephalothorax to mimic the three distinct regions (tagmata) of an ant's body; they wave the first pair of legs in front of their heads to mimic antennae, which spiders lack, and to conceal the fact that they have eight legs rather than six; they develop large color patches round one pair of eyes to disguise the fact that they generally have eight simple eyes, while ants have two compound eyes; they cover their bodies with reflective bristles to resemble the shiny bodies of ants. In some spider species, males and females mimic different ant species, as female spiders are usually much larger than males. Ant-mimicking spiders also modify their behavior to resemble that of the target species of ant; for example, many adopt a zig-zag pattern of movement, ant-mimicking jumping spiders avoid jumping, and spiders of the genus Synemosyna walk on the outer edges of leaves in the same way as Pseudomyrmex. Ant mimicry in many spiders and other arthropods may be for protection from predators that hunt by sight, including birds, lizards and spiders. However, several ant-mimicking spiders prey either on ants or on the ants' "livestock", such as aphids. When at rest, the ant-mimicking crab spider Amyciaea does not closely resemble Oecophylla, but while hunting it imitates the behavior of a dying ant to attract worker ants. After a kill, some ant-mimicking spiders hold their victims between themselves and large groups of ants to avoid being attacked.[57]
+
+There is strong evidence that spiders' coloration is camouflage that helps them to evade their major predators, birds and parasitic wasps, both of which have good color vision. Many spider species are colored so as to merge with their most common backgrounds, and some have disruptive coloration, stripes and blotches that break up their outlines. In a few species, such as the Hawaiian happy-face spider, Theridion grallator, several coloration schemes are present in a ratio that appears to remain constant, and this may make it more difficult for predators to recognize the species. Most spiders are insufficiently dangerous or unpleasant-tasting for warning coloration to offer much benefit. However, a few species with powerful venom, large jaws or irritant bristles have patches of warning colors, and some actively display these colors when threatened.[46][58]
+
+Many of the family Theraphosidae, which includes tarantulas and baboon spiders, have urticating hairs on their abdomens and use their legs to flick them at attackers. These bristles are fine setae (bristles) with fragile bases and a row of barbs on the tip. The barbs cause intense irritation but there is no evidence that they carry any kind of venom.[59] A few defend themselves against wasps by including networks of very robust threads in their webs, giving the spider time to flee while the wasps are struggling with the obstacles.[60] The golden wheeling spider, Carparachne aureoflava, of the Namibian desert escapes parasitic wasps by flipping onto its side and cartwheeling down sand dunes.[61]
+
+A few spider species that build webs live together in large colonies and show social behavior, although not as complex as in social insects. Anelosimus eximius (in the family Theridiidae) can form colonies of up to 50,000 individuals.[62] The genus Anelosimus has a strong tendency towards sociality: all known American species are social, and species in Madagascar are at least somewhat social.[63] Members of other species in the same family but several different genera have independently developed social behavior. For example, although Theridion nigroannulatum belongs to a genus with no other social species, T. nigroannulatum build colonies that may contain several thousand individuals that co-operate in prey capture and share food.[64] Other communal spiders include several Philoponella species (family Uloboridae), Agelena consociata (family Agelenidae) and Mallos gregalis (family Dictynidae).[65] Social predatory spiders need to defend their prey against kleptoparasites ("thieves"), and larger colonies are more successful in this.[66] The herbivorous spider Bagheera kiplingi lives in small colonies which help to protect eggs and spiderlings.[49] Even widow spiders (genus Latrodectus), which are notoriously cannibalistic, have formed small colonies in captivity, sharing webs and feeding together.[67]
+
+There is no consistent relationship between the classification of spiders and the types of web they build: species in the same genus may build very similar or significantly different webs. Nor is there much correspondence between spiders' classification and the chemical composition of their silks. Convergent evolution in web construction, in other words use of similar techniques by remotely related species, is rampant. Orb web designs and the spinning behaviors that produce them are the best understood. The basic radial-then-spiral sequence visible in orb webs and the sense of direction required to build them may have been inherited from the common ancestors of most spider groups.[68] However, the majority of spiders build non-orb webs. It used to be thought that the sticky orb web was an evolutionary innovation resulting in the diversification of the Orbiculariae. Now, however, it appears that non-orb spiders are a subgroup that evolved from orb-web spiders, and non-orb spiders have over 40% more species and are four times as abundant as orb-web spiders. Their greater success may be because sphecid wasps, which are often the dominant predators of spiders, much prefer to attack spiders that have flat webs.[69]
+
+About half the potential prey that hit orb webs escape. A web has to perform three functions: intercepting the prey (intersection), absorbing its momentum without breaking (stopping), and trapping the prey by entangling it or sticking to it (retention). No single design is best for all prey. For example: wider spacing of lines will increase the web's area and hence its ability to intercept prey, but reduce its stopping power and retention; closer spacing, larger sticky droplets and thicker lines would improve retention, but would make it easier for potential prey to see and avoid the web, at least during the day. However, there are no consistent differences between orb webs built for use during the day and those built for use at night. In fact, there is no simple relationship between orb web design features and the prey they capture, as each orb-weaving species takes a wide range of prey.[68]
+
+The hubs of orb webs, where the spiders lurk, are usually above the center, as the spiders can move downwards faster than upwards. If there is an obvious direction in which the spider can retreat to avoid its own predators, the hub is usually offset towards that direction.[68]
+
+Horizontal orb webs are fairly common, despite being less effective at intercepting and retaining prey and more vulnerable to damage by rain and falling debris. Various researchers have suggested that horizontal webs offer compensating advantages, such as reduced vulnerability to wind damage; reduced visibility to prey flying upwards, because of the backlighting from the sky; enabling oscillations to catch insects in slow horizontal flight. However, there is no single explanation for the common use of horizontal orb webs.[68]
+
+Spiders often attach highly visible silk bands, called decorations or stabilimenta, to their webs. Field research suggests that webs with more decorative bands captured more prey per hour.[70] However, a laboratory study showed that spiders reduce the building of these decorations if they sense the presence of predators.[71]
+
+There are several unusual variants of orb web, many of them convergently evolved, including: attachment of lines to the surface of water, possibly to trap insects in or on the surface; webs with twigs through their centers, possibly to hide the spiders from predators; "ladderlike" webs that appear most effective in catching moths. However, the significance of many variations is unclear.[68]
+
+In 1973, Skylab 3 took two orb-web spiders into space to test their web-spinning capabilities in zero gravity. At first, both produced rather sloppy webs, but they adapted quickly.[72]
+
+Members of the family Theridiidae weave irregular, tangled, three-dimensional webs, popularly known as cobwebs. There seems to be an evolutionary trend towards a reduction in the amount of sticky silk used, leading to its total absence in some species. The construction of cobwebs is less stereotyped than that of orb-webs, and may take several days.[69]
+
+The Linyphiidae generally make horizontal but uneven sheets, with tangles of stopping threads above. Insects that hit the stopping threads fall onto the sheet or are shaken onto it by the spider, and are held by sticky threads on the sheet until the spider can attack from below.[73]
+
+Although the fossil record of spiders is considered poor,[74] almost 1000 species have been described from fossils.[75] Because spiders' bodies are quite soft, the vast majority of fossil spiders have been found preserved in amber.[75] The oldest known amber that contains fossil arthropods dates from 130 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous period. In addition to preserving spiders' anatomy in very fine detail, pieces of amber show spiders mating, killing prey, producing silk and possibly caring for their young. In a few cases, amber has preserved spiders' egg sacs and webs, occasionally with prey attached;[76] the oldest fossil web found so far is 100 million years old.[77] Earlier spider fossils come from a few lagerstätten, places where conditions were exceptionally suited to preserving fairly soft tissues.[76]
+
+The oldest known exclusively terrestrial arachnid is the trigonotarbid Palaeotarbus jerami, from about 420 million years ago in the Silurian period, and had a triangular cephalothorax and segmented abdomen, as well as eight legs and a pair of pedipalps.[78] Attercopus fimbriunguis, from 386 million years ago in the Devonian period, bears the earliest known silk-producing spigots, and was therefore hailed as a spider at the time of its discovery.[79] However, these spigots may have been mounted on the underside of the abdomen rather than on spinnerets, which are modified appendages and whose mobility is important in the building of webs. Hence Attercopus and the similar Permian arachnid Permarachne may not have been true spiders, and probably used silk for lining nests or producing egg cases rather than for building webs.[3] The largest known fossil spider as of 2011 is the araneid Nephila jurassica, from about 165 million years ago, recorded from Daohuogo, Inner Mongolia in China.[80] Its body length is almost 25 mm, (i.e., almost one inch).
+
+Several Carboniferous spiders were members of the Mesothelae, a primitive group now represented only by the Liphistiidae.[79]
+The mesothelid Paleothele montceauensis, from the Late Carboniferous over 299 million years ago, had five spinnerets.[81] Although the Permian period 299 to 251 million years ago saw rapid diversification of flying insects, there are very few fossil spiders from this period.[79]
+
+The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appear in the Triassic well before 200 million years ago. Some Triassic mygalomorphs appear to be members of the family Hexathelidae, whose modern members include the notorious Sydney funnel-web spider, and their spinnerets appear adapted for building funnel-shaped webs to catch jumping insects. Araneomorphae account for the great majority of modern spiders, including those that weave the familiar orb-shaped webs. The Jurassic and Cretaceous periods provide a large number of fossil spiders, including representatives of many modern families.[79]
+
+Xiphosura (horseshoe crabs)
+
+Eurypterida†
+
+Chasmataspidida†
+
+Scorpiones
+
+Opiliones (harvestmen)
+
+Pseudoscorpiones
+
+Solifugae (sun spiders)
+
+Palpigradi (microwhip scorpions)
+
+Trigonotarbida†
+
+Araneae (spiders)
+
+Haptopoda†
+
+Amblypygi (whip spiders)
+
+Thelyphonida (whip scorpions)
+
+Schizomida
+
+Ricinulei (hooded tickspiders)
+
+Anactinotrichida
+
+Acariformes (mites)
+
+It is now agreed that spiders (Araneae) are monophyletic (i.e., members of a group of organisms that form a clade, consisting of a last common ancestor and all of its descendants).[83] There has been debate about what their closest evolutionary relatives are, and how all of these evolved from the ancestral chelicerates, which were marine animals. The cladogram on the right is based on J. W. Shultz' analysis (2007). Other views include proposals that: scorpions are more closely related to the extinct marine scorpioid eurypterids than to spiders; spiders and Amblypygi are a monophyletic group. The appearance of several multi-way branchings in the tree on the right shows that there are still uncertainties about relationships between the groups involved.[83]
+
+Arachnids lack some features of other chelicerates, including backward-pointing mouths and gnathobases ("jaw bases") at the bases of their legs;[83] both of these features are part of the ancestral arthropod feeding system.[84] Instead, they have mouths that point forwards and downwards, and all have some means of breathing air.[83] Spiders (Araneae) are distinguished from other arachnid groups by several characteristics, including spinnerets and, in males, pedipalps that are specially adapted for sperm transfer.[85]
+
+Spiders are divided into two suborders, Mesothelae and Opisthothelae, of which the latter contains two infraorders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae. Over 48,000 living species of spiders (order Araneae) have been identified and as of 2019 grouped into 120 families and about 4,100 genera by arachnologists.[1]
+
+The only living members of the primitive Mesothelae are the family Liphistiidae, found only in Southeast Asia, China, and Japan.[85] Most of the Liphistiidae construct silk-lined burrows with thin trapdoors, although some species of the genus Liphistius build camouflaged silk tubes with a second trapdoor as an emergency exit. Members of the genus Liphistius run silk "tripwires" outwards from their tunnels to help them detect approaching prey, while those of the genus Heptathela do not and instead rely on their built-in vibration sensors.[88] Spiders of the genus Heptathela have no venom glands, although they do have venom gland outlets on the fang tip.[89]
+
+The extinct families Arthrolycosidae, found in Carboniferous and Permian rocks, and Arthromygalidae, so far found only in Carboniferous rocks, have been classified as members of the Mesothelae.[90]
+
+The Mygalomorphae, which first appeared in the Triassic period,[79] are generally heavily built and ″hairy″, with large, robust chelicerae and fangs (technically, spiders do not have true hairs, but rather setae).[91][85] Well-known examples include tarantulas, ctenizid trapdoor spiders and the Australasian funnel-web spiders.[11] Most spend the majority of their time in burrows, and some run silk tripwires out from these, but a few build webs to capture prey. However, mygalomorphs cannot produce the pirifom silk that the Araneomorphae use as an instant adhesive to glue silk to surfaces or to other strands of silk, and this makes web construction more difficult for mygalomorphs. Since mygalomorphs rarely "balloon" by using air currents for transport, their populations often form clumps.[85] In addition to arthropods, some mygalomorphs are known to prey on frogs, small mammals, lizards, snakes, snails, and small birds.[92][93]
+
+In addition to accounting for over 90% of spider species, the Araneomorphae, also known as the "true spiders", include orb-web spiders, the cursorial wolf spiders, and jumping spiders,[85] as well as the only known herbivorous spider, Bagheera kiplingi.[49] They are distinguished by having fangs that oppose each other and cross in a pinching action, in contrast to the Mygalomorphae, which have fangs that are nearly parallel in alignment.[94]
+
+Although spiders are widely feared, only a few species are dangerous to people.[96] Spiders will only bite humans in self-defense, and few produce worse effects than a mosquito bite or bee sting.[97] Most of those with medically serious bites, such as recluse spiders (genus Loxosceles) and widow spiders (genus Latrodectus), would rather flee and bite only when trapped, although this can easily arise by accident.[98][99] The defensive tactics of Australian funnel-web spiders (family Atracidae) include fang display. Their venom, although they rarely inject much, has resulted in 13 attributed human deaths over 50 years.[100] They have been deemed to be the world's most dangerous spiders on clinical and venom toxicity grounds,[96] though this claim has also been attributed to the Brazilian wandering spider (genus Phoneutria).[101]
+
+There were about 100 reliably reported deaths from spider bites in the 20th century,[102] compared to about 1,500 from jellyfish stings.[103] Many alleged cases of spider bites may represent incorrect diagnoses,[104] which would make it more difficult to check the effectiveness of treatments for genuine bites.[105] A review published in 2016 agreed with this conclusion, showing that 78% of 134 published medical case studies of supposed spider bites did not meet the necessary criteria for a spider bite to be verified. In the case of the two genera with the highest reported number of bites, Loxosceles and Latrodectus, spider bites were not verified in over 90% of the reports. Even when verification had occurred, details of the treatment and its effects were often lacking.[106]
+
+Spider venoms may be a less polluting alternative to conventional pesticides, as they are deadly to insects but the great majority are harmless to vertebrates. Australian funnel web spiders are a promising source, as most of the world's insect pests have had no opportunity to develop any immunity to their venom, and funnel web spiders thrive in captivity and are easy to "milk". It may be possible to target specific pests by engineering genes for the production of spider toxins into viruses that infect species such as cotton bollworms.[107]
+
+The Ch'ol Maya use a beverage created from the tarantula species Brachypelma vagans for the treatment of a condition they term 'tarantula wind', the symptoms of which include chest pain, asthma and coughing.[108]
+
+Possible medical uses for spider venoms are being investigated, for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmia,[109] Alzheimer's disease,[110] strokes,[111] and erectile dysfunction.[112]
+The peptide GsMtx-4, found in the venom of Brachypelma vagans, is being researched to determine whether or not it could effectively be used for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmia, muscular dystrophy or glioma.[108]
+Because spider silk is both light and very strong, attempts are being made to produce it in goats' milk and in the leaves of plants, by means of genetic engineering.[113][114]
+
+Spiders can also be used as food. Cooked tarantulas are considered a delicacy in Cambodia,[115] and by the Piaroa Indians of southern Venezuela – provided the highly irritant bristles, the spiders' main defense system, are removed first.[116]
+
+Arachnophobia is a specific phobia—it is the abnormal fear of spiders or anything reminiscent of spiders, such as webs or spiderlike shapes. It is one of the most common specific phobias,[117][118] and some statistics show that 50% of women and 10% of men show symptoms.[119] It may be an exaggerated form of an instinctive response that helped early humans to survive,[120] or a cultural phenomenon that is most common in predominantly European societies.[121]
+
+Spiders have been the focus of stories and mythologies of various cultures for centuries.[122] Uttu, the ancient Sumerian goddess of weaving, was envisioned as a spider spinning her web.[123][124] According to her main myth, she resisted her father Enki's sexual advances by ensconcing herself in her web,[124] but let him in after he promised her fresh produce as a marriage gift,[124] thereby allowing him to intoxicate her with beer and rape her.[124] Enki's wife Ninhursag heard Uttu's screams and rescued her,[124] removing Enki's semen from her vagina and planting it in the ground to produce eight previously-nonexistent plants.[124] In a story told by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Arachne was a Lydian girl who challenged the goddess Athena to a weaving contest.[125][126] Arachne won, but Athena destroyed her tapestry out of jealousy,[126][127] causing Arachne to hang herself.[126][127] In an act of mercy, Athena brought Arachne back to life as the first spider.[126][127] Stories about the trickster-spider Anansi are prominent in the folktales of West Africa and the Caribbean.[128]
+
+In some cultures, spiders have symbolized patience due to their hunting technique of setting webs and waiting for prey, as well as mischief and malice due to their venomous bites.[129] The Italian tarantella is a dance to rid the young woman of the lustful effects of a spider bite. Web-spinning also caused the association of the spider with creation myths, as they seem to have the ability to produce their own worlds.[130] Dreamcatchers are depictions of spiderwebs. The Moche people of ancient Peru worshipped nature.[131] They placed emphasis on animals and often depicted spiders in their art.[132]
+

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+Lens may refer to:

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+
+
+Contact lens, or simply contacts, are thin lenses placed directly on the surface of the eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide,[1] and they can be worn to correct vision or for cosmetic or therapeutic reasons.[2] In 2010, the worldwide market for contact lenses was estimated at $6.1 billion, while the US soft lens market was estimated at $2.1 billion.[3] Multiple analysts estimated that the global market for contact lenses would reach $11.7 billion by 2015.[3] As of 2010[update], the average age of contact lens wearers globally was 31 years old, and two-thirds of wearers were female.[4]
+
+People choose to wear contact lenses for many reasons.[5] Aesthetics and cosmetics are the main motivating factors for people who want to avoid wearing glasses or to change the appearance of their eyes.[6] Others wear contact lenses for functional or optical reasons. When compared with spectacles, contact lenses typically provide better peripheral vision, and do not collect moisture (from rain, snow, condensation etc.) or perspiration. This can make them preferable for sports and other outdoor activities. Contact lens wearers can also wear sunglasses, goggles, or other eyewear of their choice without having to fit them with prescription lenses or worry about compatibility with glasses. Additionally, there are conditions such as keratoconus and aniseikonia that are typically corrected better with contact lenses than with glasses.[7]
+
+Leonardo da Vinci is frequently credited with introducing the idea of contact lenses in his 1508 Codex of the eye, Manual D,[8] wherein he described a method of directly altering corneal power by either submerging the head in a bowl of water or wearing a water-filled glass hemisphere over the eye. Neither idea was practically implementable in da Vinci's time.[9]:9 He did not suggest his idea be used for correcting vision; he was more interested in exploring mechanisms of accommodation.[8]
+
+Descartes proposed a device for correcting vision consisting of a liquid-filled glass tube capped with a lens. However, the idea was impracticable, since the device was to be placed in direct contact with the cornea and thus would have made blinking impossible.[citation needed]
+
+In 1801, Thomas Young fashioned a pair of basic contact lenses based on Descartes' model. He used wax to affix water-filled lenses to his eyes, neutralizing their refractive power, which he corrected with another pair of lenses.[9] However his device was not intended to correct refraction errors.[citation needed]
+
+Sir John Herschel, in a footnote to the 1845 edition of the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, posed two ideas for the visual correction: the first "a spherical capsule of glass filled with animal jelly",[10] the second "a mould of the cornea" that could be impressed on "some sort of transparent medium".[11] Though Herschel reportedly never tested these ideas, they were later advanced by independent inventors, including Hungarian physician Joseph Dallos, who perfected a method of making molds from living eyes.[12] This enabled the manufacture of lenses that, for the first time, conformed to the actual shape of the eye.[citation needed]
+
+Although Louis J. Girard invented a scleral contact lens in 1887,[13] it was German ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick who in 1888 fabricated the first successful afocal scleral contact lens.[14] Approximately 18–21 mm (0.71–0.83 in) in diameter, the heavy blown-glass shells rested on the less sensitive rim of tissue surrounding the cornea and floated on a dextrose solution. He experimented with fitting the lenses initially on rabbits, then on himself, and lastly on a small group of volunteers, publishing his work, "Contactbrille", in the March 1888 edition of Archiv für Augenheilkunde.[citation needed] Large and unwieldy, Fick's lens could be worn only for a couple of hours at a time.[citation needed] August Müller of Kiel, Germany, corrected his own severe myopia with a more convenient blown-glass scleral contact lens of his own manufacture in 1888.[15]
+
+The development of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) in the 1930s paved the way for the manufacture of plastic scleral lenses. In 1936, optometrist William Feinbloom introduced a hybrid lens composed of glass and plastic,[16] while in 1939, Hungarian optometrist Dr István Györffy produced the first fully plastic contact lens.[17] The following year, German optometrist Heinrich Wöhlk produced his own version of plastic lenses based on experiments performed during the 1930s.[18]
+
+In 1949, the first "corneal" lenses were developed.[19][20][21][22] These were much smaller than the original scleral lenses, as they sat only on the cornea rather than across all of the visible ocular surface, and could be worn up to 16 hours a day. PMMA corneal lenses became the first contact lenses to have mass appeal through the 1960s, as lens designs became more sophisticated with improving manufacturing technology.[citation needed]  On October 18, 1964, in a television studio in Washington, D.C., Lyndon Baines Johnson became the first President in the history of the United States to appear in public wearing contact lenses, under the supervision of Dr. Alan Isen, who developed the first commercially viable soft-contact lenses in the United States.[23][24][25]
+
+Early corneal lenses of the 1950s and 1960s were relatively expensive and fragile, resulting in the development of a market for contact lens insurance. Replacement Lens Insurance, Inc. (now known as RLI Corp.) phased out its original flagship product in 1994 after contact lenses became more affordable and easier to replace.[citation needed]
+
+One major disadvantage of PMMA lenses is that they allow no oxygen to get through to the conjunctiva and cornea, causing a number of adverse and potentially serious clinical effects. By the end of the 1970s and through the 1980s and 1990s, a range of oxygen-permeable but rigid materials were developed to overcome this problem. Chemist Norman Gaylord played a prominent role in the development of these new oxygen-permeable contact lenses.[26] Collectively, these polymers are referred to as rigid gas permeable or RGP materials or lenses. Though all the above contact lens types—sclerals, PMMAs and RGPs—could be correctly referred to as "rigid" or "hard", the latter term is now used to the original PMMAs, which are still occasionally fitted and worn, whereas "rigid" is a generic term for all these lens types; thus hard lenses (PMMAs) are a subset of rigid contact lenses. Occasionally, the term "gas permeable" is used to describe RGPs, which is somewhat misleading as soft contact lenses are also gas permeable in that they allow oxygen to get through to the ocular surface.
+
+The principal breakthrough in soft lenses was made by Czech chemists Otto Wichterle and Drahoslav Lím, who published their work "Hydrophilic gels for biological use" in the journal Nature in 1959.[27] In 1965, National Patent Development Corporation (NPDC) bought the American rights to produce the lenses and then sublicensed the rights to Bausch & Lomb, which started to manufacture them in the United States.[28] The Czech scientists' work led to the launch of the first soft (hydrogel) contact lenses in some countries in the 1960s and the first approval of the Soflens material by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1971. These soft lenses were soon prescribed more often than rigid ones, due to the immediate and much greater comfort (rigid lenses require a period of adaptation before full comfort is achieved). Polymers from which soft lenses are manufactured improved over the next 25 years, primarily in terms of increasing oxygen permeability, by varying the ingredients. In 1972, British optometrist Rishi Agarwal was the first to suggest disposable soft contact lenses.[29][30]
+
+In 1998, the first silicone hydrogel contact lenses were released by Ciba Vision in Mexico. These new materials encapsulated the benefits of silicone—which has extremely high oxygen permeability—with the comfort and clinical performance of the conventional hydrogels that had been used for the previous 30 years. These contact lenses were initially advocated primarily for extended (overnight) wear, although more recently, daily (no overnight) wear silicone hydrogels have been launched.
+
+In a slightly modified molecule, a polar group is added without changing the structure of the silicone hydrogel. This is referred to as the Tanaka monomer because it was invented and patented by Kyoichi Tanaka of Menicon Co. of Japan in 1979. Second-generation silicone hydrogels, such as galyfilcon A (Acuvue Advance, Vistakon) and senofilcon A (Acuvue Oasys, Vistakon), use the Tanaka monomer. Vistakon improved the Tanaka monomer even further and added other molecules, which serve as an internal wetting agent.[31]
+
+Comfilcon A (Biofinity, CooperVision) was the first third-generation polymer. Its patent claims that the material uses two siloxy macromers of different sizes that, when used in combination, produce very high oxygen permeability (for a given water content). Enfilcon A (Avaira, CooperVision) is another third-generation material that is naturally wettable; its water content is 46%.[31]
+
+Contact lenses are classified in many different ways: by their primary function, material, wear schedule (how long a lens can be worn), and replacement schedule (how long before a lens needs to be discarded).
+
+Corrective contact lenses are designed to improve vision, most commonly by correcting refractive error. This is done by directly focusing light so it enters the eye with the proper power for clear vision.
+
+A spherical contact lens bends light evenly in every direction (horizontally, vertically, etc.). They are typically used to correct myopia and hypermetropia.
+
+A toric contact lens has a different focusing power horizontally than vertically, and as a result can correct for astigmatism. Some spherical rigid lenses can also correct for astigmatism. Because a toric lens must have the proper orientation to correct for a person's astigmatism, such a lens must have additional design characteristics to prevent it from rotating away from the ideal alignment. This can be done by weighting the bottom of the lens or by using other physical characteristics to rotate the lens back into position. Some toric contact lenses have marks or etchings that can assist the eye doctor or the user in fitting the lens. The first disposable toric contact lenses were introduced in 2000 by Vistakon.
+
+Correction of presbyopia (a need for a reading prescription different from the prescription needed for distance) presents an additional challenge in the fitting of contact lenses. Two main strategies exist: multifocal lenses and monovision.
+
+Multifocal contact lenses (e.g. bifocals or progressives) are comparable to spectacles with bifocals or progressive lenses because they have multiple focal points. Multifocal contact lenses are typically designed for constant viewing through the center of the lens, but some designs do incorporate a shift in lens position to view through the reading power (similar to bifocal glasses).
+
+Monovision[32] is the use of single-vision lenses (one focal point per lens) to focus an eye (typically the dominant one) for distance vision and the other for near work. The brain then learns to use this setup to see clearly at all distances. A technique called modified monovision uses multifocal lenses and also specializes one eye for distance and the other for near, thus gaining the benefits of both systems. Care is advised for persons with a previous history of strabismus and those with significant phorias, who are at risk of eye misalignment under monovision.[33]   Studies have shown no adverse effect to driving performance in adapted monovision contact lens wearers.[34]
+
+Alternatively, a person may simply wear reading glasses over their distance contact lenses.
+
+For those with certain color deficiencies, a red-tinted "X-Chrom" contact lens may be used. Although such a lens does not restore normal color vision, it allows some color-blind people to distinguish colors better.[35][36] Red-filtering contact lenses can also be an option for extreme light sensitivity in some visual deficiencies such as achromatopsia.[37]
+
+ChromaGen contact lenses have been used and shown to have some limitations with vision at night although otherwise producing significant improvements in color vision.[38] An earlier study showed very significant improvements in color vision and patient satisfaction.[39]
+
+Later work that used these ChromaGen lenses with dyslexics in a randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled trial showed highly significant[clarification needed] improvements in reading ability over reading without the lenses.[40] This system has been granted FDA approval for use in the United States.[citation needed]
+
+Magnification is another area being researched for future contact lens applications.[41] Embedding of telescopic lenses and electronic components suggests that future uses of contact lenses may become extremely diverse.
+
+A cosmetic contact lens is designed to change the appearance of the eye. These lenses may also correct refractive error. Although many brands of contact lenses are lightly tinted to make them easier to handle, cosmetic lenses worn to change eye color are far less common, accounting for only 3% of contact lens fits in 2004.[42]
+
+In the United States, the FDA labels non-corrective cosmetic contact lenses as decorative contact lenses. Like any contact lens, cosmetic lenses carry risks of mild to serious complications, including ocular redness, irritation and infection.[43]
+
+Due to their medical nature, colored contact lenses, similar to regular ones, are illegal to purchase in the United States without a valid prescription. Those with perfect vision can buy color contacts for cosmetic reasons, but they still need their eyes to be measured for a "plano" prescription, meaning one with zero vision correction. This is for safety reasons so the lenses will fit the eye without causing irritation or redness.[44]
+
+Some colored contact lenses completely cover the iris, thus dramatically changing eye colour. Other colored contact lenses merely tint the iris, highlighting its natural colour.[45] A new trend in Japan, South Korea and China is the circle contact lens, which extend the appearance of the iris onto the sclera by having a dark tinted area all around. The result is an appearance of a bigger, wider iris, a look reminiscent of dolls' eyes.[46]
+
+One of the drawbacks of cosmetic lenses is not knowing how they will look before physically trying them on. This has led to an industry where lens retailers are heavily influenced by digital fashion technology, specifically the Virtual Dressing Room technology. This technology offers users the option to upload a photo so they can virtually try on different lenses and experience how they will look before committing to a purchase. Examples of retailers that currently offer this technology are Freshlook Color Studios and Colorful Eyes.[47][48][promotion?]
+
+Cosmetic lenses can have more direct medical applications. For example, some contact lenses can restore the appearance and, to some extent the function, of a damaged or missing iris.
+
+A scleral lens is a large, firm, transparent, oxygen-permeable contact lens that rests on the sclera and creates a tear-filled vault over the cornea. The cause of this unique positioning is usually relevant to a specific patient whose cornea is too sensitive to support the lens directly. Scleral lenses may be used to improve vision and reduce pain and light sensitivity for people suffering from disorders or injuries to the eye, such as severe dry eye syndrome (keratoconjunctivitis sicca), microphthalmia, keratoconus, corneal ectasia, Stevens–Johnson syndrome, Sjögren's syndrome, aniridia, neurotrophic keratitis (anesthetic corneas), complications post-LASIK, high order aberrations of the eye, complications post-corneal transplant and pellucid degeneration. Injuries to the eye such as surgical complications, distorted corneal implants, as well as chemical and burn injuries also may be treated with scleral lenses.[49]
+
+Soft lenses are often used in the treatment and management of non-refractive disorders of the eye. A bandage contact lens allows the patient to see[50] while protecting an injured or diseased cornea[51] from the constant rubbing of blinking eyelids, thereby allowing it to heal.[52] They are used in the treatment of conditions including bullous keratopathy, dry eyes, corneal abrasions and erosion, keratitis, corneal edema, descemetocele, corneal ectasia, Mooren's ulcer, anterior corneal dystrophy, and neurotrophic keratoconjunctivitis.[53] Contact lenses that deliver drugs to the eye have also been developed.[54]
+
+Glass lenses were never comfortable enough to gain widespread popularity. The first lenses to do so were those made from polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA or Perspex/Plexiglas), now commonly referred to as "hard" lenses. Their main disadvantage is they do not allow oxygen to pass through to the cornea, which can cause a number of adverse, and often serious, clinical events. Starting in the late 1970s, improved rigid materials which were oxygen-permeable were developed. Contact lenses made from these materials are called rigid gas permeable lenses or 'RGPs'.
+
+A rigid lens is able to cover the natural shape of the cornea with a new refracting surface. This means that a spherical rigid contact lens can correct corneal astigmatism. Rigid lenses can also be made as a front-toric, back-toric, or bitoric. Rigid lenses can also correct corneas with irregular geometries, such as those with keratoconus or post surgical ectasias. In most cases, patients with keratoconus see better through rigid lenses than through glasses. Rigid lenses are more chemically inert, allowing them to be worn in more challenging environments than soft lenses.[citation needed]
+
+Soft lenses are more flexible than rigid lenses, and can be gently rolled or folded without damaging the lens. While rigid lenses require a period of adaptation before comfort is achieved, new soft lens wearers typically report lens awareness rather than pain or discomfort.
+
+Hydrogel lenses rely on their water content to transmit oxygen through the lens to the cornea.  As a result, higher water content lenses allowed more oxygen to the cornea.  In 1998, silicone hydrogel, or Si-hy lenses became available. These materials have both the extremely high oxygen permeability of silicone and the comfort and clinical performance of the conventional hydrogels. Because silicone allows more oxygen permeability than water, oxygen permeability of silicone hydrogels is not tied to the lenses' water content. Lenses have now been developed with so much oxygen permeability that they are approved for overnight wear (extended wear). Lenses approved for daily wear are also available in silicone hydrogel materials.[55]
+
+Disadvantages of silicone hydrogels are that they are slightly stiffer and the lens surface can be hydrophobic, thus less "wettable" – factors that can influence comfort of lens use. New manufacturing techniques and changes to multipurpose solutions have minimized these effects. A surface modification process called plasma coating alters the lens surface's hydrophobic nature. Another technique incorporates internal rewetting agents to make the lens surface hydrophilic. A third process uses longer backbone polymer chains that results in less cross linking and increased wetting without surface alterations or additive agents.
+
+Current brands of soft lenses are either traditional hydrogel or silicone hydrogel.  Because of drastic differences in oxygen permeability, replacement schedule, and other design characteristics, it is very important to follow the instructions of the eye care professional prescribing the lenses.
+
+A small number of hybrid lenses exist. Typically these contact lenses consist of a rigid center and a soft "skirt".  A similar technique is the "piggybacking" of a smaller, rigid lens on the surface of a larger, soft lens. These techniques are often chosen to give the vision correction benefits of a rigid lens and the comfort of a soft lens.[56]
+
+A "daily wear" (DW) contact lens is designed to be worn for one day and removed before sleeping. An "extended wear" (EW) contact lens is designed for continuous overnight wear, typically for up to 6 consecutive nights.[57] Newer materials, such as silicone hydrogels, allow for even longer wear periods of up to 30 consecutive nights; these longer-wear lenses are often referred to as "continuous wear" (CW). EW and CW contact lenses can be worn overnight because of their high oxygen permeability. While awake, the eyes are mostly open, allowing oxygen from the air to dissolve into the tears and pass through the lens to the cornea. While asleep, oxygen is supplied from the blood vessels in the back of the eyelid.  A lens hindering passage of oxygen to the cornea causes corneal hypoxia which can result in serious complications, such as corneal ulcer that, if left untreated, can permanently decrease vision. EW and CW contact lenses typically allow for a transfer of 5–6 times more oxygen than conventional softs, allowing the cornea to remain healthy, even with closed eyelids.
+
+Wearing lenses designed for daily wear overnight has an increased risk for corneal infections, corneal ulcers and corneal neovascularization—this latter condition, once it sets in, cannot be reversed and will eventually spoil vision acuity through diminishing corneal transparency. The most common complication of extended wear is giant papillary conjunctivitis (GPC), sometimes associated with a poorly fitting contact lens.
+
+Contact lenses are often categorized by their replacement schedule. Single use lenses (called 1-day or daily disposables) are discarded after one use. Because they do not have to stand up to the wear and tear of repeated uses, these lenses can be made thinner and lighter, greatly improving their comfort. Lenses replaced frequently gather fewer deposits of allergens and germs, making these lenses preferable for patients with ocular allergies or for those who are prone to infection. Single-use lenses are also useful for people who wear contact lenses infrequently, or when losing a lens is likely or not easily replaced (such as when on vacation). They are also considered useful for children because cleaning or disinfecting is not needed, leading to improved compliance.
+
+Other disposable contact lenses are designed for replacement every two or four weeks. Quarterly or annual lenses, which used to be very common, are now much less so. Rigid gas permeable lenses are very durable and may last for several years without the need for replacement. PMMA hards were very durable and were commonly worn for 5 to 10 years, but had several drawbacks.
+
+Lenses with different replacement schedules can be made of the same material. Although the materials are alike, differences in the manufacturing processes determine if the resulting lens will be a "daily disposable" or one recommended for two or four week replacement. However, sometimes manufacturers use absolutely identical lenses and just repackage them with different labels.[58][59]
+
+Typically, soft contact lenses are mass-produced, while rigids are custom-made to exact specifications for the individual patient.
+
+Many companies make contact lenses. In the United States, there are five major manufacturers:[62]
+
+The parameters specified in a contact lens prescription may include:
+
+Prescriptions for contact lenses and glasses may be similar, but are not interchangeable. Prescribing of contact lenses is usually restricted to various combinations of ophthalmologists, optometrists and opticians. An eye examination is needed to determine an individual's suitability for contact lens wear. This typically includes a refraction to determine the proper power of the lens and an assessment of the health of the eye's anterior segment. Many eye diseases prohibits contact lens wear, such as active infections, allergies, and dry eye.[63] Keratometry is especially important in the fitting of rigid lenses.
+
+Contact lenses are prescribed by ophthalmologists, optometrists, or specially licensed opticians under the supervision of an eye doctor. Contact lenses can typically be ordered at the office that conducts the eye exam and fitting. The Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act[64] gives consumers the right to obtain a copy of their contact lens prescription, allowing them to fill it at the lens provider of their choice.
+
+Contact lenses are generally safe as long as they are used correctly. Complications from contact lens wear affect roughly 5% of wearers yearly.[65] Factors leading to eye damage varies,[66] and improper use of a contact lens may affect the eyelid, the conjunctiva, and, most of all, the whole structure of the cornea.[65] Poor lens care can lead to infections by various microorganisms including bacteria, fungi, and Acanthamoeba (Acanthamoeba keratitis).
+
+Many complications arise when contact lenses are worn not as prescribed (improper wear schedule or lens replacement). Sleeping in lenses not designed or approved for extended wear is a common cause of complications. Many people go too long before replacing their contacts, wearing lenses designed for 1, 14, or 30 days of wear for multiple months or years. While this does save on the cost of lenses, it risks permanent damage to the eye and even loss of sight.
+
+One of the major factors that causes complications is that the contact lens is an oxygen barrier. The cornea needs a constant supply of oxygen to remain completely transparent and function as it should; it normally gets that oxygen from the surrounding air while awake, and from the blood vessels in the back of the eyelid while asleep. The most prominent risks associated with long-term, chronic low oxygen to the cornea include corneal neovascularization, increased epithelial permeability, bacterial adherence, microcysts, corneal edema, endothelial polymegethism, dry eye and potential increase in myopia.[67] That is why much of the research into the latest soft and rigid contact lens materials has centered on improving oxygen transmission through the lens.
+
+Mishandling of contact lenses can also cause problems. Corneal abrasions can increase the chances of infection.[68] When combined with improper cleaning and disinfection of the lens, a risk of infection further increases. Decreased corneal sensitivity after extended contact lens wear may cause a patient to miss some of the earliest symptoms of such complications.[69]
+
+The way contact lenses interact with the natural tear layer is a major factor in determining lens comfort and visual clarity. People suffering from dry eyes are particularly vulnerable to discomfort and episodes of brief blurry vision. Proper lens selection can minimize these effects.
+
+Long-term wear (over five years) of contact lenses may "decrease the entire corneal thickness and increase the corneal curvature and surface irregularity."[70] Long-term wear of rigid contacts is associated with decreased corneal keratocyte density[71] and increased number of epithelial Langerhans cells.[72]
+
+All contact lenses sold in the United States are studied and approved as safe by the FDA when specific handling and care procedures, wear schedules, and replacement schedules are followed.
+
+Before touching the contact lens or the eye, it is important to wash hands thoroughly with soap and rinse well. Soaps containing moisturizers or allergens should be avoided as these can cause eye irritation.[73] Drying of hands using towels or tissues before handling contact lenses can transfer lint (fluff) to the hands and, subsequently, to the lenses, causing irritation upon insertion. Towels, unless freshly laundered on high temperature wash, are frequently contaminated with large quantities of bacteria and, as such, should be avoided when handling lenses. Dust, lint and other debris may collect on the outside of contact lenses. Again, hand contact with this material, before handling contact lenses, may transfer it to the lenses themselves. Rinsing the case under a source of clean running water, before opening it, can help alleviate this problem. Next the lens should be removed from its case and inspected for defects (e.g. splits, folds, lint). A 'gritty' or rough appearance to the lens surface may indicate that a considerable quantity of proteins, lipids and debris has built up on it and that additional cleaning is required; this is often accompanied and felt by unusually high irritation upon insertion.
+
+Care should be taken to ensure the soft lens is not inserted inside-out. The edge of a lens turned inside out has a different appearance, especially when the lens is slightly folded. Insertion of an inside-out lens for a brief time (less than one minute) should not cause any damage to the eye. Some brands of lenses have markings on the rim that make it easier to tell the front of the lens apart from the back.
+
+Contact lenses are typically inserted into the eye by placing them on the pad of the index or middle finger with the concave side upward and then using that finger to place the lens on the eye. Rigid lenses should be placed directly on the cornea. Soft lenses may be placed on the sclera (white of the eye) and then slid into place. Another finger of the same hand, or a finger of the other hand, is used to keep the eye wide open. Alternatively, the user may close their eyes and then look towards their nose, sliding the lens into place over the cornea. Problems may arise if the lens folds, turns inside-out, slides off the finger prematurely, or adheres more tightly to the finger than the eye surface. A drop of solution may help the lens adhere to the eye.
+
+When the lens first contacts the eye, it should be comfortable. A brief period of irritation may occur, caused by a difference in pH and/or salinity between that of the lens solution and the tear.[74][75] This discomfort fades quickly as the solution drains away and is replaced by the natural tears. However, if irritation persists, the cause could be a dirty, damaged, or inside-out lens. Removing and inspecting it for damage and proper orientation, and re-cleaning if necessary, should correct the problem. If discomfort continues, the lens should not be worn. In some cases, taking a break from lens wear for a day may correct the problem. In case of severe discomfort, or if it does not resolve by the next day, the person should be seen as soon as possible by an eye doctor to rule out potentially serious complications.
+
+Removing contact lenses incorrectly can result in damage to the lens and injury to the eye, so certain precautions must be taken. Rigid contact lenses can best be removed by pulling the eyelid tight and then blinking, whereupon the lens drops out. With one finger on the outer corner of the eyelids, or lateral canthus, the person stretches the eyelids towards the ear; the increased tension of the eyelid margins against the edge of lens allows the blink to break the capillary action that adheres the lens to the eye. The other hand is typically cupped underneath the eye to catch the lens as it drops out. For soft lenses, which have a stronger adherence to the eye surface, this technique is less suitable.
+
+A soft contact lens may be removed by pinching the edge between the thumb and index finger. Moving the lens off the cornea first can improve comfort during removal and reduce risk of scratching the cornea with a fingernail. It is also possible to push or pull a soft lens far enough to the side or bottom of the eyeball to get it to fold then fall out, without pinching and thereby damaging it. If these techniques are used with a rigid lens, it may scratch the cornea.
+
+There are also small tools specifically for removing lenses. Usually made of flexible plastic, they resemble small tweezers, or plungers that suction onto the front of the lens. Typically, these tools are used only with rigid lenses. Extreme care must be exercised when using mechanical tools or fingernails to insert or remove contact lenses.
+
+Lens care varies depending on material and wear schedule. Daily disposables are discarded after a single use and thus require no cleaning. Other lenses need regular cleaning and disinfecting to prevent surface coating and infections.
+
+There are many ways to clean and care for contact lenses, typically called care systems or lens solutions:
+
+Aside from cleaning the contact lenses, it is highly advised to also clean the cases to avoid any possible infection. Replacing the case monthly, and storing it in a clean and safe environment is also recommended.[89]
+
+Contact lenses can be mechanically cleaned of more substantial protein, lipid and debris build up by rubbing them between the clean pad of a finger and the palm of a hand, using a small amount of cleaning fluid as a lubricant. However, this method does not sterilize the lenses and so should be performed only before a full sterilization cycle (e.g. when putting the contact lens away at night).
+
+Some products must be used only with certain types of contact lenses. Water alone will not at all disinfect the lens, and can lead to lens contamination causing potentially irreparable harm to the eye.
+
+Contact lens solutions often contain preservatives such as benzalkonium chloride and benzyl alcohol. Preservative-free products usually have shorter shelf lives, but are better suited for individuals with an allergy or sensitivity to a preservative. In the past, thiomersal was used as a preservative. In 1989, thiomersal was responsible for about 10% of problems related to contact lenses.[90] As a result, most products no longer contain thiomersal.
+
+Contact lens sensors to monitor the ocular temperature were recently demonstrated.[91] A large segment of current contact lens research is directed towards the treatment and prevention of conditions resulting from contact lens contamination and colonization by foreign organisms. Clinicians tend to agree that the most significant complication of contact lens wear is microbial keratitis and that the most predominant microbial pathogen is Pseudomonas aeruginosa.[92] Other organisms are also major causative factors in bacterial keratitis associated with contact lens wear, although their prevalence varies across different locations. These include both the Staphylococcus species (aureus and epidermidis) and the Streptococcus species, among others.[93][94] Microbial keratitis is a serious focal point of current research due to its potentially devastating effect on the eye, including severe vision loss.[95]
+
+One specific research topic of interest is how microbes such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa invade the eye and cause infection. Although the pathogenesis of microbial keratitis is not well understood, many different factors have been investigated. One group of researchers showed that corneal hypoxia exacerbated Pseudomonas binding to the corneal epithelium, internalization of the microbes, and induction of the inflammatory response.[96] One way to alleviate hypoxia is to increase the amount of oxygen transmitted to the cornea. Although silicone-hydrogel lenses almost eliminate hypoxia in patients due to their very high levels of oxygen transmissibility,[97] they also seem to provide a more efficient platform for bacterial contamination and corneal infiltration than other conventional hydrogel soft contact lenses. A recent study showed that Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus epidermis adhere much more strongly to unworn silicone hydrogel contact lenses than conventional hydrogel lenses and that adhesion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa was 20 times stronger than that of Staphylococcus epidermidis.[98] This might partly explain why Pseudomonas infections are the most predominant. However, another study conducted with worn and unworn silicone and conventional hydrogel contact lenses showed that worn silicone contact lenses were less prone to Staphylococcus epidermidis colonization than conventional hydrogel lenses.[99]
+
+Another important area of contact lens research deals with patient compliance. Compliance is a major issue[100] pertaining to the use of contact lenses because patient noncompliance often leads to contamination of the lens, storage case, or both.[101][102][103] However, careful users can extend the wear of lenses through proper handling: there is, unfortunately, no disinterested research on the issue of "compliance" or the length of time a user can safely wear a lens beyond its stated use. The introduction of multipurpose solutions and daily disposable lenses have helped to alleviate some of the problems observed from inadequate cleaning but new methods of combating microbial contamination are currently being developed. A silver-impregnated lens case has been developed which helps to eradicate any potentially contaminating microbes that come in contact with the lens case.[104] Additionally, a number of antimicrobial agents are being developed that have been embedded into contact lenses themselves. Lenses with covalently attached selenium molecules have been shown to reduce bacterial colonization without adversely affecting the cornea of a rabbit eye[105] and octyl glucoside used as a lens surfactant significantly decreases bacterial adhesion.[106] These compounds are of particular interest to contact lens manufacturers and prescribing optometrists because they do not require any patient compliance to effectively attenuate the effects of bacterial colonization.
+
+A recent area of research is in the field of bionic lenses. These are visual displays that include built-in electric circuits and light-emitting diodes and can harvest radio waves for their electric power. Bionic lenses can display information beamed from a mobile device overcoming the small display size problem. The technology involves embedding nano and microscale electronic devices in lenses. These lenses will also need to have an array of microlenses to focus the image so that it appears suspended in front of the wearer's eyes. The lens could also serve as a head-up display for pilots or gamers.[107]
+
+Drug administration through contact lenses is also becoming an area of research. One application is a lens that releases anesthesia to the eye for post-surgery pain relief, especially after PRK (photorefractive keratectomy) in which the healing process takes several days. One experiment shows that silicone contact lenses that contain vitamin E deliver pain medication for up to seven days compared with less than two hours in usual lenses.[107]
+
+Another study of the usage of contact lens is aimed to address the issue of macular degeneration (AMD or age-related macular degeneration). An international collaboration of researchers was able to develop a contact lens that can shift between magnified and normal vision. Previous solutions to AMD included bulky glasses or surgical implants. But the development this new contact lens, which is made of polymethyl methacrylate, could offer an unobtrusive solution.[108]
+
+One of the earliest known motion pictures to introduce the use of contact lenses as a make-up artist's device for enhancing the eyes was by the innovative actor Lon Chaney in the 1926 film The Road to Mandalay to create the effect of a character who had a blind eye.[109] Dr. Rueben Greenspoon applied them to Orson Welles for the film Citizen Kane in 1940.  In the 1950s, contact lenses were starting to be used in British color horror films. An early example of this is the British actor Christopher Lee as the Dracula character in the 1958 color horror film Dracula, which helped to emphasize his horrific looking black pupils and red bloodshot eyes. Tony Curtis wore them in the 1968 film The Boston Strangler. Contact lenses were also used to better emphasize the sinister gaze of the demonic characters in 1968's Rosemary's Baby and 1973's The Exorcist. Colored custom-made contact lenses are now standard makeup for a number of special effects-based movies.[110]