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+Chinese characters are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese.[2][3][4]  They have been adapted to write a number of other Asian languages. They remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as kanji. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world.[5] By virtue of their widespread current use in East Asia, and historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world by number of users. Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Unlike an alphabet, a character-based writing system associates each logogram with an entire sound and thus may be compared in some aspects to a syllabary.
+
+Functional literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters.[6] In Japan, 2,136 are taught through secondary school (the Jōyō kanji); hundreds more are in everyday use. Due to post-WWII simplifications of characters in Japan as well as in China, the Chinese characters used in Japan today are distinct from those used in China in several respects. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, and pronunciations. Simplified forms of certain characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia; the corresponding traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and to a limited extent in South Korea. In Japan, common characters are written in post-WWII Japan-specific simplified forms, while uncommon characters are written in Japanese traditional forms, which are virtually identical to Chinese traditional forms.
+
+In modern Chinese, the majority of Chinese words today consist of two or more characters.[7] A character almost always corresponds to a single syllable that is also a morpheme.[8] However, there are a few exceptions to this general correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes (written with two characters), bimorphemic syllables (written with two characters) and cases where a single character represents a polysyllabic word or phrase.[9]
+
+Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same spoken syllable may be represented by many characters, depending on meaning. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings; occasionally these correspond to different pronunciations. Cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. In other languages, most significantly today in Japanese and sometimes in Korean, characters are used to represent Chinese loanwords, to represent native words independently of the Chinese pronunciation (e.g., kunyomi in Japanese), and as purely phonetic elements based on their pronunciation in the historical variety of Chinese from which they were acquired. These foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese.
+
+When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, and each character denoted a single word.[10] Increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. It is estimated that about 25–30% of the vocabulary of classic texts from the Warring States period was polysyllabic, though these words were used far less commonly than monosyllables, which accounted for 80–90% of occurrences in these texts.[11]
+The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones.[12]
+It has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables.[13]
+
+The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, written with the characters of the constituent words. Words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication and borrowing from other languages.[14]
+Polysyllabic words are generally written with one character per syllable.[15][a]
+In most cases the character denotes a morpheme descended from an Old Chinese word.[16]
+
+Many characters have multiple readings, with instances denoting different morphemes, sometimes with different pronunciations. In modern Standard Chinese, one fifth of the 2,400 most common characters have multiple pronunciations.
+For the 500 most common characters, the proportion rises to 30%.[17]
+Often these readings are similar in sound and related in meaning. In the Old Chinese period, affixes could be added to a word to form a new word, which was often written with the same character. In many cases the pronunciations diverged due to subsequent sound change. For example, many additional readings have the Middle Chinese departing tone, the major source of the 4th tone in modern Standard Chinese. Scholars now believe that this tone is the reflex of an Old Chinese *-s suffix, with a range of semantic functions.[18]
+For example,
+
+Another common alternation is between voiced and voiceless initials (though the voicing distinction has disappeared on most modern varieties).
+This is believed to reflect an ancient prefix, but scholars disagree on whether the voiced or voiceless form is the original root.
+For example,
+
+Chinese characters represent words of the language using several strategies. A few characters, including some of the most commonly used, were originally pictograms, which depicted the objects denoted, or ideograms, in which meaning was expressed iconically. The vast majority were written using the rebus principle, in which a character for a similarly sounding word was either simply borrowed or (more commonly) extended with a disambiguating semantic marker to form a phono-semantic compound character.[24]
+
+The traditional six-fold classification (liùshū 六书 / 六書 "six writings") was first described by the scholar Xu Shen in the postface of his dictionary Shuowen Jiezi in 100 AD.[25]
+While this analysis is sometimes problematic and arguably fails to reflect the complete nature of the Chinese writing system, it has been perpetuated by its long history and pervasive use.
+
+Pictograms are highly stylized and simplified pictures of material objects.  Examples of pictograms include 日 rì for "sun", 月 yuè for "moon", and 木 mù for "tree" or "wood". Xu Shen placed approximately 4% of characters in this category. 
+Though few in number and expressing literal objects, pictograms and ideograms are nonetheless the basis on which all the more complex characters such as associative idea characters  (会意字) and pictophonetic characters (形声字) are formed.
+
+Pictograms are primary characters in the sense that they, along with ideograms (indicative characters i.e. symbols), are the building blocks of compound characters (意意字) and picto-phonetic characters (形声字).
+
+Over time pictograms were increasingly standardized, simplified, and stylized to make them easier to write. Furthermore, the same kangxi radical character element can be used to depict different objects. 
+Thus, the image depicted by most pictograms is not often immediately evident. For example 口 may indicate the mouth, a window as in 高 which depicts a tall building as a symbol of the idea of "tall" or the lip of a vessel as in 富 a wine jar under a roof as symbol of wealth.  That is, pictograms extended from literal objects to take on symbolic or metaphoric meanings; sometimes even displacing the use of the character as a literal term, or creating ambiguity, which was resolved though character determinants, more commonly but less accurately known as "radicals" i.e. concept keys in the phono-semantic characters.
+
+Also called simple indicatives, this small category contains characters that are direct iconic illustrations. Examples include 上 shàng "up" and 下 xià "down", originally a dot above and below a line. Indicative characters are symbols for abstract concepts which could not be depicted literally but nonetheless can be expressed as a visual symbol e.g. convex 凸 ， concave 凹, flat-and-level 平
+
+Also translated as logical aggregates or associative compounds, these characters have been interpreted as combining two or more pictographic or ideographic characters to suggest a third meaning.  The canonical example is 明 bright. 明 is the association of the two brightest objects in the sky the sun 日 and moon 月, brought together to express the idea of "bright". It is canonical because the term 明白 in Chinese (lit. "bright white") means "to understand, understand". Other commonly cited examples include 休 "rest" (composed of the pictograms 人 "person" and 木 "tree") and 好 "good" (composed of 女 "woman" and 子 "child").
+
+Xu Shen placed approximately 13% of characters in this category, but many of his examples are now believed to be phono-semantic compounds whose origin has been obscured by subsequent changes in their form.[26] Peter Boodberg and William Boltz go so far as to deny that any of the compound characters devised in ancient times were of this type, maintaining that now-lost "secondary readings" are responsible for the apparent absence of phonetic indicators,[27] but their arguments have been rejected by other scholars.[28]
+
+In contrast, associative compound characters are common among characters coined in Japan. Also, a few characters coined in China in modern times, such as 鉑 platinum, "white metal" (see chemical elements in East Asian languages) belong to this category.
+
+Also called borrowings or phonetic loan characters, the rebus category covers cases where an existing character is used to represent an unrelated word with similar or identical pronunciation; sometimes the old meaning is then lost completely, as with characters such as 自 zì, which has lost its original meaning of "nose" completely and exclusively means "oneself", or 萬 wàn, which originally meant "scorpion" but is now used only in the sense of "ten thousand".
+
+Rebus was pivotal in the history of writing in China insofar as it represented the stage at which logographic writing could become purely phonetic (phonographic). Chinese characters used purely for their sound values are attested in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period manuscripts, in which zhi 氏 was used to write shi 是 and vice versa, just lines apart; the same happened with shao 勺 for Zhao 趙, with the characters in question being homophonous or nearly homophonous at the time.[29]
+
+Chinese characters are used rebus-like and exclusively for their phonetic value when transcribing words of foreign origin, such as ancient Buddhist terms or modern foreign names. For example, the word for the country "Romania" is 罗马尼亚 (Luó Mǎ Ní Yà), in which the Chinese characters are only used for their sounds and do not provide any meaning.[30] This usage is similar to that of the Japanese Katakana, although the Katakanas use a special set of simplified forms of Chinese characters, in order to advertize their value as purely phonetic symbols. The same rebus principle for names in particular has also been used in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maya hieroglyphs.[31] In the Chinese usage, in a few instances, the characters used for pronunciation might be carefully chosen in order to connote a specific meaning, as regularly happens for brand names: Coca-Cola is translated phonetically as 可口可乐 (Kěkǒu Kělè), but the characters were carefully selected so as to have the additional meaning of "Delicious and Enjoyable".[30][31]
+
+Semantic-phonetic compounds or pictophonetic compounds are by far the most numerous characters. These characters are composed of at least two parts. A semantic component, often a character key as a clue to the topic to which the character refers, often in an abbreviated form, The semantic component suggests the general meaning of the compound character. The  phonetic component suggests the pronunciation of the compound character. In most cases the semantic indicator is also the 部首 radical under which the character is listed in dictionaries. Because Chinese is replete in homophones phonetic elements may also carry semantic content. In some rare examples phono-semantic characters may also convey pictorial content. Each Chinese character is an attempt to combine sound, image, and idea in a mutually reinforcing fashion.
+
+Examples of phono-semantic characters include 河 hé "river", 湖 hú "lake", 流 liú "stream", 沖 chōng "surge", 滑 huá "slippery". All these characters have on the left a radical of three short strokes (氵), which is a reduced form of the character 水 shuǐ meaning "water", indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water. The right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 沖 chōng (Old Chinese *ɡ-ljuŋ[32]) "surge", the phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng (Old Chinese *k-ljuŋ[33]), which by itself means "middle". In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its phonetic indicator; the effect of historical sound change means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today.
+
+In general, phonetic components do not determine the exact pronunciation of a character, but only give a clue as to its pronunciation. While some characters take the exact pronunciation of their phonetic component, others take only the initial or final sounds.[34] In fact, some characters' pronunciations may not correspond to the pronunciations of their phonetic parts at all, which is sometimes the case with characters after having undergone simplification. The 8 characters in the following table all take 也 for their phonetic part, however, as it is readily apparent, none of them take the pronunciation of 也, which is yě (Old Chinese *lajʔ).  As the table below shows, the sound changes that have taken place since the Shang/Zhou period when most of these characters were created can be dramatic, to the point of not providing any useful hint of the modern pronunciation.
+
+Xu Shen (c. 100 AD) placed approximately 82% of characters into this category, while in the Kangxi Dictionary (1716 AD) the number is closer to 90%, due to the extremely productive use of this technique to extend the Chinese vocabulary.[citation needed] The Chu Nom characters of Vietnam were created using this principle.
+
+This method is used to form new characters, for example 钚 / 鈈 bù ("plutonium") is the metal radical 金 jīn plus the phonetic component 不 bù, described in Chinese as "不 gives sound, 金 gives meaning". Many Chinese names of elements in the periodic table and many other chemistry-related characters were formed this way. In fact, it is possible to tell from a Chinese periodic table at a glance which elements are metal (金), solid nonmetal (石, "stone"), liquid (氵), or gas (气).
+
+Occasionally a bisyllabic word is written with two characters that contain the same radical, as in 蝴蝶 húdié "butterfly", where both characters have the insect radical 虫. A notable example is pipa (a Chinese lute, also a fruit, the loquat, of similar shape) – originally written as 批把 with the hand radical (扌), referring to the down and up strokes when playing this instrument, which was then changed to 枇杷 (tree radical 木), which is still used for the fruit, while the character was changed to 琵琶 when referring to the instrument (radical 玨) .[37] In other cases a compound word may coincidentally share a radical without this being meaningful.
+
+The smallest category of characters is also the least understood.[38] In the postface to the Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen gave as an example the characters 考 kǎo "to verify" and 老 lǎo "old", which had similar Old Chinese pronunciations (*khuʔ and *C-ruʔ respectively[39]) and may once have been the same word, meaning "elderly person", but became lexicalized into two separate words. The term does not appear in the body of the dictionary, and is often omitted from modern systems.[40]
+
+According to legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie, a bureaucrat under the legendary Yellow Emperor. Inspired by his study of the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth and the stars in the sky, Cangjie is said to have invented symbols called zì (字) – the first Chinese characters. The legend relates that on the day the characters were created, grain rained down from the sky and that night the people heard ghosts wailing and demons crying because the human beings could no longer be cheated.[41]
+
+In recent decades, a series of inscribed graphs and pictures have been found at Neolithic sites in China, including Jiahu (c. 6500 BC), Dadiwan and Damaidi from the 6th millennium BC, and Banpo (5th millennium BC).  Often these finds are accompanied by media reports that push back the purported beginnings of Chinese writing by thousands of years.[42][43] However, because these marks occur singly, without any implied context, and are made crudely and simply, Qiu Xigui concluded that "we do not have any basis for stating that these constituted writing nor is there reason to conclude that they were ancestral to Shang dynasty Chinese characters."[44] They do however demonstrate a history of sign use in the Yellow River valley during the Neolithic through to the Shang period.[43]
+
+The earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script yet discovered is the body of inscriptions carved on  bronze vessels and oracle bones from the late Shang dynasty (c. 1250–1050 BC).[45][46] The earliest of these is dated to around 1200 BC.[47][48] In 1899, pieces of these bones were being sold as "dragon bones" for medicinal purposes, when scholars identified the symbols on them as Chinese writing. By 1928, the source of the bones had been traced to a village near Anyang in Henan Province, which was excavated by the Academia Sinica between 1928 and 1937. Over 150,000 fragments have been found.[45]
+
+Oracle bone inscriptions are records of divinations performed in communication with royal ancestral spirits.[45] The shortest are only a few characters long, while the longest are thirty to forty characters in length. The Shang king would communicate with his ancestors on topics relating to the royal family, military success, weather forecasting, ritual sacrifices, and related topics by means of scapulimancy, and the answers would be recorded on the divination material itself.[45]
+
+The oracle-bone script is a well-developed writing system,[49][50] suggesting that the Chinese script's origins may lie earlier than the late second millennium BC.[51]  Although these divinatory inscriptions are the earliest surviving evidence of ancient Chinese writing, it is widely believed that writing was used for many other non-official purposes, but that the materials upon which non-divinatory writing was done – likely wood and bamboo – were less durable than bone and shell and have since decayed away.[51]
+
+The traditional picture of an orderly series of scripts, each one invented suddenly and then completely displacing the previous one, has been conclusively demonstrated to be fiction by the archaeological finds and scholarly research of the later 20th and early 21st centuries.[52] Gradual evolution and the coexistence of two or more scripts was more often the case. As early as the Shang dynasty, oracle-bone script coexisted as a simplified form alongside the normal script of bamboo books (preserved in typical bronze inscriptions), as well as the extra-elaborate pictorial forms (often clan emblems) found on many bronzes.
+
+Based on studies of these bronze inscriptions, it is clear that, from the Shang dynasty writing to that of the Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, the mainstream script evolved in a slow, unbroken fashion, until assuming the form that is now known as seal script in the late Eastern Zhou in the state of Qin, without any clear line of division.[53][54] Meanwhile, other scripts had evolved, especially in the eastern and southern areas during the late Zhou dynasty, including regional forms, such as the gǔwén ("ancient forms") of the eastern Warring States preserved as variant forms in the Han dynasty character dictionary Shuowen Jiezi, as well as decorative forms such as bird and insect scripts.
+
+Seal script, which had evolved slowly in the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, became standardized and adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin dynasty (leading to a popular misconception that it was invented at that time), and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in the Han dynasty period. However, despite the Qin script standardization, more than one script remained in use at the time. For example, a little-known, rectilinear and roughly executed kind of common (vulgar) writing had for centuries coexisted with the more formal seal script in the Qin state, and the popularity of this vulgar writing grew as the use of writing itself became more widespread.[55] By the Warring States period, an immature form of clerical script called "early clerical" or "proto-clerical" had already developed in the state of Qin[56] based upon this vulgar writing, and with influence from seal script as well.[57] The coexistence of the three scripts – small seal, vulgar and proto-clerical, with the latter evolving gradually in the Qin to early Han dynasties into clerical script – runs counter to the traditional belief that the Qin dynasty had one script only, and that clerical script was suddenly invented in the early Han dynasty from the small seal script.
+
+Proto-clerical script, which had emerged by the time of the Warring States period from vulgar Qin writing, matured gradually, and by the early Western Han period, it was little different from that of the Qin.[58] Recently discovered bamboo slips show the script becoming mature clerical script by the middle-to-late reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han,[59] who ruled from 141 to 87 BC.
+
+Contrary to the popular belief of there being only one script per period, there were in fact multiple scripts in use during the Han period.[60] Although mature clerical script, also called 八分 (bāfēn)[61] script, was dominant at that time, an early type of cursive script was also in use by the Han by at least as early as 24 BC (during the very late Western Han period),[b] incorporating cursive forms popular at the time, well as many elements from the vulgar writing of the Warring State of Qin.[62] By around the time of the Eastern Jin dynasty, this Han cursive became known as 章草 zhāngcǎo (also known as 隶草 / 隸草 lìcǎo today), or in English sometimes clerical cursive, ancient cursive, or draft cursive. Some believe that the name, based on 章 zhāng meaning "orderly", arose because the script was a more orderly form[63] of cursive than the modern form, which emerged during the Eastern Jin dynasty and is still in use today, called 今草 jīncǎo or "modern cursive".[64]
+
+Around the mid-Eastern Han period,[63] a simplified and easier-to-write form of clerical script appeared, which Qiu terms "neo-clerical" (新隶体 / 新隸體, xīnlìtǐ).[65] By the late Eastern Han, this had become the dominant daily script,[63] although the formal, mature bāfēn (八分) clerical script remained in use for formal works such as engraved stelae.[63] Qiu describes this neo-clerical script as a transition between clerical and regular script,[63] and it remained in use through the Cao Wei and Jin dynasties.[66]
+
+By the late Eastern Han period, an early form of semi-cursive script appeared,[65] developing out of a cursively written form of neo-clerical script[c] and simple cursive.[67] This semi-cursive script was traditionally attributed to Liu Desheng c. 147–188 AD,[66][d] although such attributions refer to early masters of a script rather than to their actual inventors, since the scripts generally evolved into being over time. Qiu gives examples of early semi-cursive script, showing that it had popular origins rather than being purely Liu's invention.[68]
+
+Regular script has been attributed to Zhong Yao (c. 151–230 AD), during the period at the end of the Han dynasty in the state of Cao Wei. Zhong Yao has been called the "father of regular script". However, some scholars[69] postulate that one person alone could not have developed a new script which was universally adopted, but could only have been a contributor to its gradual formation. The earliest surviving pieces written in regular script are copies of Zhong Yao's works, including at least one copied by Wang Xizhi. This new script, which is the dominant modern Chinese script, developed out of a neatly written form of early semi-cursive, with addition of the pause (顿/頓 dùn) technique to end horizontal strokes, plus heavy tails on strokes which are written to the downward-right diagonal.[70] Thus, early regular script emerged from a neat, formal form of semi-cursive,  which had itself emerged from neo-clerical (a simplified, convenient form of clerical script). It then matured further in the Eastern Jin dynasty in the hands of the "Sage of Calligraphy", Wang Xizhi, and his son Wang Xianzhi. It was not, however, in widespread use at that time, and most writers continued using neo-clerical, or a somewhat semi-cursive form of it, for daily writing,[70] while the conservative bafen clerical script remained in use on some stelae, alongside some semi-cursive, but primarily neo-clerical.[71]
+
+Meanwhile, modern cursive script slowly emerged from the clerical cursive (zhāngcǎo) script during the Cao Wei to Jin period, under the influence of both semi-cursive and the newly emerged regular script.[72] Cursive was formalized in the hands of a few master calligraphers, the most famous and influential of whom was Wang Xizhi.[e]
+
+It was not until the Northern and Southern dynasties that regular script rose to dominant status.[73] During that period, regular script continued evolving stylistically, reaching full maturity in the early Tang dynasty. Some call the writing of the early Tang calligrapher Ouyang Xun (557–641) the first mature regular script. After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script.
+
+Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the republic's formation in 1949.
+One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China. In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, and many Chinese intellectuals and writers have long maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China. In many world languages, literacy has been promoted as a justification for spelling reforms. The People's Republic of China issued its first round of official character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. In the 1950s and 1960s, while confusion about simplified characters was still rampant, transitional characters that mixed simplified parts with yet-to-be simplified parts of characters together appeared briefly, then disappeared.
+
+"Han unification" was an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to map multiple character sets of the so-called CJK languages (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) into a single set of unified characters and was completed for the purposes of Unicode in 1991 (Unicode 1.0).
+
+Apart from Chinese ones, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese normative medium of record-keeping, written historical narratives and official communication are in adaptations and variations of Chinese script.[74]
+
+The Chinese script spread to Korea together with Buddhism from the 2nd century BC to 5th century AD (hanja).[75] This was adopted for recording the Japanese language from the 5th century AD.[f]
+
+Chinese characters were first used in Vietnam during the millennium of Chinese rule starting in 111 BC. They were used to write Classical Chinese and adapted around the 13th century to create the Nôm script to write Vietnamese.
+
+Currently, the only non-Chinese language outside of China that regularly uses the Chinese script is Japanese. Vietnam abandoned their use in the early 20th century in favour of a Latin-based script, and Korea in the late 20th century in favour of its homegrown hangul script, although as Korea switched much more recently, many Koreans still learn them to read texts written before then, or in some cases to disambiguate homophones.[citation needed]
+
+Chinese characters adapted to write Japanese words are known as kanji. Chinese words borrowed into Japanese could be written with Chinese characters, while native Japanese words could also be written using the character(s) for a Chinese word of similar meaning. Most kanji have both the native (and often multi-syllabic) Japanese pronunciation, known as kun'yomi, and the (mono-syllabic) Chinese-based pronunciation, known as on'yomi. For example, the native Japanese word katana is written as 刀 in kanji, which uses the native pronunciation since the word is native to Japanese, while the Chinese loanword nihontō (meaning "Japanese sword") is written as 日本刀, which uses the Chinese-based pronunciation. While nowadays loanwords from non-Sinosphere languages are usually just written in katakana, one of the two syllabary systems of Japanese, loanwords that were borrowed into Japanese before the Meiji Period were typically written with Chinese characters whose on'yomi had the same pronunciation as the loanword itself, words like Amerika (kanji: 亜米利加, katakana: アメリカ, meaning: America), karuta (kanji: 歌留多, 加留多, katakana: カルタ, meaning: card, letter), and tenpura (kanji: 天婦羅, 天麩羅, katakana: テンプラ, meaning: tempura), although the meanings of the characters used often had no relation to the words themselves. Only some of the old kanji spellings are in common use, like kan (缶, meaning: can). Kanji that are used to only represent the sounds of a word are called ateji (当て字).
+Because Chinese words have been borrowed from varying dialects at different times, a single character may have several on'yomi in Japanese.[76]
+
+Written Japanese also includes a pair of syllabaries known as kana, derived by simplifying Chinese characters selected to represent syllables of Japanese.
+The syllabaries differ because they sometimes selected different characters for a syllable, and because they used different strategies to reduce these characters for easy writing: the angular katakana were obtained by selecting a part of each character, while hiragana were derived from the cursive forms of whole characters.[77]
+Modern Japanese writing uses a composite system, using kanji for word stems, hiragana for inflectional endings and grammatical words, and katakana to transcribe non-Chinese loanwords as well as serve as a method to emphasize native words (similar to how italics are used in Latin-script languages).[78]
+
+In times past, until the 15th century, in Korea, Literary Chinese was the dominant form of written communication prior to the creation of hangul, the Korean alphabet. Much of the vocabulary, especially in the realms of science and sociology, comes directly from Chinese, comparable to Latin or Greek root words in European languages. However, due to the lack of tones in Modern Standard Korean,[79]  as the words were imported from Chinese, many dissimilar characters and syllables took on identical pronunciations, and subsequently identical spelling in hangul.[citation needed]  Chinese characters are sometimes used to this day for either clarification in a practical manner, or to give a distinguished appearance, as knowledge of Chinese characters is considered by many Koreans a high class attribute and an indispensable part of a classical education.[citation needed] It is also observed that the preference for Chinese characters is treated as being conservative and Confucian.
+
+In South Korea, hanja have become a politically contentious issue, with some urging a "purification" of the national language and culture by  abandoning their use. Efforts to re-extend Hanja education to elementary schools in the 2015 were met with generally negative reaction from the public and from teachers' organizations.[80]
+
+In South Korea, educational policy on characters has swung back and forth, often swayed by education ministers' personal opinions. At present, middle and high school students (grades 7 to 12) are taught 1,800 characters,[81] albeit with the principal focus on recognition, with the aim of achieving newspaper literacy.
+
+There is a clear trend toward the exclusive use of hangul in day-to-day South Korean society. Hanja are still used to some extent, particularly in newspapers, weddings, place names and calligraphy (although it is nowhere near the extent of kanji use in day-to-day Japanese society). Hanja is also extensively used in situations where ambiguity must be avoided,[citation needed] such as academic papers, high-level corporate reports, government documents, and newspapers; this is due to the large number of homonyms that have resulted from extensive borrowing of Chinese words.
+
+The issue of ambiguity is the main hurdle in any effort to "cleanse" the Korean language of Chinese characters.[citation needed] Characters convey meaning visually, while alphabets convey guidance to pronunciation, which in turn hints at meaning. As an example, in Korean dictionaries, the phonetic entry for 기사 gisa yields more than 30 different entries. In the past, this ambiguity had been efficiently resolved by parenthetically displaying the associated hanja. While hanja is sometimes used for Sino-Korean vocabulary, native Korean words are rarely, if ever, written in hanja.
+
+When learning how to write hanja, students are taught to memorize the native Korean pronunciation for the hanja's meaning and the Sino-Korean pronunciations (the pronunciation based on the Chinese pronunciation of the characters) for each hanja respectively so that students know what the syllable and meaning is for a particular hanja. For example, the name for the hanja 水 is 물 수 (mul-su) in which 물 (mul) is the native Korean pronunciation for "water", while 수 (su) is the Sino-Korean pronunciation of the character. The naming of hanja is similar to if "water" were named "water-aqua", "horse-equus", or "gold-aurum" based on a hybridization of both the English and the Latin names. Other examples include 사람 인 (saram-in) for 人 "person/people", 큰 대 (keun-dae) for 大 "big/large//great", 작을 소 (jakeul-so) for 小 "small/little", 아래 하 (arae-ha) for 下 "underneath/below/low", 아비 부 (abi-bu) for 父 "father", and 나라이름 한 (naraireum-han) for 韓 "Han/Korea".[82]
+
+In North Korea, the hanja system was once completely banned since June 1949 due to fears of collapsed containment of the country; during the 1950s, Kim Il Sung had condemned all sorts of foreign languages (even the newly proposed New Korean Orthography). The ban continued into the 21st century. However, a textbook for university history departments containing 3,323 distinct characters was published in 1971.  In the 1990s, school children were still expected to learn 2,000 characters (more than in South Korea or Japan).[83]
+
+After Kim Jong Il, the second ruler of North Korea, died in December 2011, Kim Jong Un stepped up and began mandating the use of Hanja as a source of definition for the Korean language. Currently, it is said that North Korea teaches around 3,000 Hanja characters to North Korean students, and in some cases, the characters appear within advertisements and newspapers. However, it is also said that the authorities implore students not to use the characters in public.[84] Due to North Korea's strict isolationism, accurate reports about hanja use in North Korea are hard to obtain.
+
+Chinese characters are thought to have been first introduced to the Ryukyu Islands in 1265 by a Japanese Buddhist monk.[85] After the Okinawan kingdoms became tributaries of Ming China, especially the Ryukyu Kingdom, Classical Chinese was used in court documents, but hiragana was mostly used for popular writing and poetry. After Ryukyu became a vassal of Japan's Satsuma Domain, Chinese characters became more popular, as well as the use of Kanbun. In modern Okinawan, which is labeled as a Japanese dialect by the Japanese government, katakana and hiragana are mostly used to write Okinawan, but Chinese characters are still used.
+
+Although Chinese characters in Vietnam are now limited to ceremonial uses, they were once in widespread use. Until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese was used in Vietnam for all official and scholarly writing. Around the 13th century, the Nôm script was developed to record folk literature in the Vietnamese language. The script used Chinese characters to represent both borrowed Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and native words with similar pronunciation or meaning. In addition, thousands of new compound characters were created to write Vietnamese words. This process resulted in a highly complex system that was never mastered by more than 5% of the population.[86] Both Literary Chinese and Nôm were replaced in the early 20th century by Vietnamese written with the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet.[87][88]
+
+Several minority languages of south and southwest China were formerly written with scripts based on Hanzi but also including many locally created characters.
+The most extensive is the sawndip script for the Zhuang language of Guangxi which is still used to this day.
+Other languages written with such scripts include Miao, Yao, Bouyei, Mulam, Kam, Bai and Hani.[89] All these languages are now officially written using Latin-based scripts, while Chinese characters are still used for the Mulam language.[citation needed] Even today for Zhuang, according to survey, the traditional sawndip script has twice as many users as the official Latin script.[90]
+
+The foreign dynasties that ruled northern China between the 10th and 13th centuries developed scripts that were inspired by Hanzi but did not use them directly: the Khitan large script, Khitan small script, Tangut script and Jurchen script.
+Other scripts in China that borrowed or adapted a few Chinese characters but are otherwise distinct include Geba script, Sui script, Yi script and the Lisu syllabary.[89]
+
+Along with Persian and Arabic, Chinese characters were also used as a foreign script to write the Mongolian language, where characters were used to phonetically transcribe Mongolian sounds. Most notably, the only surviving copies of The Secret History of the Mongols were written in such a manner; the Chinese characters 忙豁侖紐察 脫[卜]察安 is the rendering of Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan, the title in Mongolian.
+
+Hanzi was also used to phonetically transcribe the Manchu language in the Qing dynasty.
+
+According to the Rev. John Gulick:  "The inhabitants of other Asiatic nations, who have had occasion to represent the words of their several languages by Chinese characters, have as a rule used unaspirated characters for the sounds, g, d, b. The Muslims from Arabia and Persia have followed this method … The Mongols, Manchu, and Japanese also constantly select unaspirated characters to represent the sounds g, d, b, and j of their languages. These surrounding Asiatic nations, in writing Chinese words in their own alphabets, have uniformly used g, d, b, etc., to represent the unaspirated sounds."[91]
+
+Chinese character simplification is the overall reduction of the number of strokes in the regular script of a set of Chinese characters.
+
+The use of traditional Chinese characters versus simplified Chinese characters varies greatly, and can depend on both the local customs and the medium. Before the official reform, character simplifications were not officially sanctioned and generally adopted vulgar variants and idiosyncratic substitutions. Orthodox variants were mandatory in printed works, while the (unofficial) simplified characters would be used in everyday writing or quick notes. Since the 1950s, and especially with the publication of the 1964 list, the People's Republic of China has officially adopted simplified Chinese characters for use in mainland China, while Hong Kong, Macau, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) were not affected by the reform. There is no absolute rule for using either system, and often it is determined by what the target audience understands, as well as the upbringing of the writer.
+
+Although most often associated with the People's Republic of China, character simplification predates the 1949 communist victory. Caoshu, cursive written text, almost always includes character simplification, and simplified forms have always existed in print, albeit not for the most formal works. In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, and a large number of Chinese intellectuals and writers have long maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China. Indeed, this desire by the Kuomintang to simplify the Chinese writing system (inherited and implemented by the Communist Party of China) also nursed aspirations of some for the adoption of a phonetic script based on the Latin script, and spawned such inventions as the Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
+
+The People's Republic of China issued its first round of official character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. A second round of character simplifications (known as erjian, or "second round simplified characters") was promulgated in 1977. It was poorly received, and in 1986 the authorities rescinded the second round completely, while making six revisions to the 1964 list, including the restoration of three traditional characters that had been simplified: 叠 dié, 覆 fù, 像 xiàng.
+
+The majority of simplified characters are drawn from conventional abbreviated forms, or ancient standard forms.[92] For example, the orthodox character 來 lái ("come") was written with the structure 来 in the clerical script (隶书 / 隸書, lìshū) of the Han dynasty. This clerical form uses one fewer stroke, and was thus adopted as a simplified form. The character 雲 yún ("cloud") was written with the structure 云 in the oracle bone script of the Shang dynasty, and had remained in use later as a phonetic loan in the meaning of "to say" while the 雨 radical was added to differentiate meanings. The simplified form adopts the original structure.
+
+In the years after World War II, the Japanese government also instituted a series of orthographic reforms. Some characters were given simplified forms called shinjitai (新字体, lit. "new character forms"); the older forms were then labelled the kyūjitai (旧字体, lit. "old character forms"). The number of characters in common use was restricted, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established, first the 1850-character tōyō kanji (当用漢字) list in 1945, the 1945-character jōyō kanji (常用漢字) list in 1981, and a 2136-character reformed version of the jōyō kanji in 2010. Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. This was done with the goal of facilitating learning for children and simplifying kanji use in literature and periodicals. These are simply guidelines, hence many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used, especially those used for personal and place names (for the latter, see jinmeiyō kanji),[citation needed] as well as for some common words such as "dragon" (竜/龍, tatsu) in which both old and new forms of the character are both acceptable and widely known amongst native Japanese speakers.
+
+Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification. These resulted in some simplifications that differed from those used in mainland China. It ultimately adopted the reforms of the People's Republic of China in their entirety as official, and has implemented them in the educational system. However, unlike in China, personal names may still be registered in traditional characters.
+
+Malaysia started teaching a set of simplified characters at schools in 1981, which were also completely identical to the Mainland China simplifications. Chinese newspapers in Malaysia are published in either set of characters, typically with the headlines in traditional Chinese while the body is in simplified Chinese.
+
+Although in both countries the use of simplified characters is universal among the younger Chinese generation, a large majority of the older Chinese literate generation still use the traditional characters. Chinese shop signs are also generally written in traditional characters.
+
+In the Philippines, most Chinese schools and businesses still use the traditional characters and bopomofo, owing from influence from the Republic of China (Taiwan) due to the shared Hokkien heritage. Recently, however, more Chinese schools now use both simplified characters and pinyin. Since most readers of Chinese newspapers in the Philippines belong to the older generation, they are still published largely using traditional characters.
+
+Public and private Chinese signage in the United States and Canada most often use traditional characters.[93] There is some effort to get municipal governments to implement more simplified character signage due to recent immigration from mainland China.[94] Most community newspapers printed in North America are also printed in traditional characters.
+
+The following is a comparison of Chinese characters in the Standard Form of National Characters, a common traditional Chinese standard used in Taiwan, the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, the standard for Mainland Chinese jiantizi (simplified), and the jōyō kanji, the standard for Japanese kanji. Generally, the jōyō kanji are more similar to fantizi (traditional) than jiantizi  are to fantizi. "Simplified" refers to having significant differences from the Taiwan standard, not necessarily being a newly created character or a newly performed substitution. The characters in the Hong Kong standard and the Kangxi Dictionary are also known as "Traditional," but are not shown.
+
+There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used.
+
+The Shang dynasty oracle bone script and the Zhou dynasty scripts found on Chinese bronze inscriptions are no longer used; the oldest script that is still in use today is the Seal Script (篆書(篆书), zhuànshū). It evolved organically out of the Spring and Autumn period Zhou script, and was adopted in a standardized form under the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. The seal script, as the name suggests, is now used only in artistic seals. Few people are still able to read it effortlessly today, although the art of carving a traditional seal in the script remains alive; some calligraphers also work in this style.
+
+Scripts that are still used regularly are the "Clerical Script" (隸書(隶书), lìshū) of the Qin dynasty to the Han dynasty, the Weibei (魏碑, wèibēi), the "Regular Script" (楷書(楷书), kǎishū), which is used mostly for printing, and the "Semi-cursive Script" (行書(行书), xíngshū), used mostly for handwriting.
+
+The cursive script (草書(草书), cǎoshū, literally "grass script") is used informally. The basic character shapes are suggested, rather than explicitly realized, and the abbreviations are sometimes extreme. Despite being cursive to the point where individual strokes are no longer differentiable and the characters often illegible to the untrained eye, this script (also known as draft) is highly revered for the beauty and freedom that it embodies. Some of the simplified Chinese characters adopted by the People's Republic of China, and some simplified characters used in Japan, are derived from the cursive script. The Japanese hiragana script is also derived from this script.
+
+There also exist scripts created outside China, such as the Japanese Edomoji styles; these have tended to remain restricted to their countries of origin, rather than spreading to other countries like the Chinese scripts.
+
+The art of writing Chinese characters is called Chinese calligraphy. It is usually done with ink brushes. In ancient China, Chinese calligraphy is one of the Four Arts of the Chinese Scholars. There is a minimalist set of rules of Chinese calligraphy. Every character from the Chinese scripts is built into a uniform shape by means of assigning it a geometric area in which the character must occur. Each character has a set number of brushstrokes; none must be added or taken away from the character to enhance it visually, lest the meaning be lost. Finally, strict regularity is not required, meaning the strokes may be accentuated for dramatic effect of individual style. Calligraphy was the means by which scholars could mark their thoughts and teachings for immortality, and as such, represent some of the most precious treasures that can be found from ancient China.
+
+There are three major families of typefaces used in Chinese typography:
+
+Ming and sans-serif are the most popular in body text and are based on regular script for Chinese characters akin to Western serif and sans-serif typefaces, respectively. Regular script typefaces emulate regular script.
+
+The Song typeface (宋体 / 宋體, sòngtǐ) is known as the Ming typeface (明朝, minchō) in Japan, and it is also somewhat more commonly known as the Ming typeface (明体 / 明體, míngtǐ) than the Song typeface in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The names of these styles come from the Song and Ming dynasties, when block printing flourished in China.
+
+Sans-serif typefaces, called black typeface (黑体 / 黑體, hēitǐ) in Chinese and Gothic typeface (ゴシック体) in Japanese, are characterized by simple lines of even thickness for each stroke, akin to sans-serif styles such as Arial and Helvetica in Western typography.
+
+Regular script typefaces are also commonly used, but not as common as Ming or sans-serif typefaces for body text. Regular script typefaces are often used to teach students Chinese characters, and often aim to match the standard forms of the region where they are meant to be used. Most typefaces in the Song dynasty were regular script typefaces which resembled a particular person's handwriting (e.g. the handwriting of Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, or Liu Gongquan), while most modern regular script typefaces tend toward anonymity and regularity.
+
+Just as Roman letters have a characteristic shape (lower-case letters mostly occupying the x-height, with ascenders or descenders on some letters), Chinese characters occupy a more or less square area in which the components of every character are written to fit in order to maintain a uniform size and shape, especially with small printed characters in Ming and sans-serif styles. Because of this, beginners often practise writing on squared graph paper, and the Chinese sometimes use the term "Square-Block Characters" (方块字 / 方塊字, fāngkuàizì), sometimes translated as tetragraph,[95] in reference to Chinese characters.
+
+Despite standardization, some nonstandard forms are commonly used, especially in handwriting. In older sources, even authoritative ones, variant characters are commonplace. For example, in the preface to the Imperial Dictionary, there are 30 variant characters which are not found in the dictionary itself.[96] A few of these are reproduced at right.
+
+The nature of Chinese characters makes it very easy to produce allographs (variants) for many characters, and there have been many efforts at orthographical standardization throughout history. In recent times, the widespread usage of the characters in several nations has prevented any particular system becoming universally adopted and the standard form of many Chinese characters thus varies in different regions.
+
+Mainland China adopted simplified Chinese characters in 1956. They are also used in Singapore and Malaysia. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Postwar Japan has used its own less drastically simplified characters, Shinjitai, since 1946, while South Korea has limited its use of Chinese characters, and Vietnam and North Korea have completely abolished their use in favour of Vietnamese alphabet and Hangul, respectively.
+
+The standard character forms of each region are described in:
+
+In addition to strictness in character size and shape, Chinese characters are written with very precise rules. The most important rules regard the strokes employed, stroke placement, and stroke order. Just as each region that uses Chinese characters has standardized character forms, each also has standardized stroke orders, with each standard being different. Most characters can be written with just one correct stroke order, though some words also have many valid stroke orders, which may occasionally result in different stroke counts. Some characters are also written with different stroke orders due to character simplification.
+
+Chinese characters are primarily morphosyllabic, meaning that most Chinese morphemes are monosyllabic and are written with a single character, though in modern Chinese most words are disyllabic and dimorphemic, consisting of two syllables, each of which is a morpheme. In modern Chinese 10% of morphemes only occur as part of a given compound. However, a few morphemes are disyllabic, some of them dating back to Classical Chinese.[97] Excluding foreign loan words, these are typically words for plants and small animals. They are usually written with a pair of phono-semantic compound characters sharing a common radical. Examples are 蝴蝶 húdié "butterfly" and 珊瑚 shānhú "coral". Note that the 蝴 hú of húdié and the 瑚 hú of shānhú have the same phonetic, 胡, but different radicals ("insect" and "jade", respectively). Neither exists as an independent morpheme except as a poetic abbreviation of the disyllabic word.
+
+In certain cases compound words and set phrases may be contracted into single characters. Some of these can be considered logograms, where characters represent whole words rather than syllable-morphemes, though these are generally instead considered ligatures or abbreviations (similar to scribal abbreviations, such as & for "et"), and as non-standard. These do see use, particularly in handwriting or decoration, but also in some cases in print. In Chinese, these ligatures are called héwén (合文), héshū (合書) or hétǐzì (合体字), and in the special case of combining two characters, these are known as "two-syllable Chinese characters" (双音节汉字, 雙音節漢字).
+
+A commonly seen example is the double happiness symbol 囍, formed as a ligature of 喜喜 and referred to by its disyllabic name (simplified Chinese: 双喜; traditional Chinese: 雙喜; pinyin: shuāngxǐ). In handwriting, numbers are very frequently squeezed into one space or combined – common ligatures include 廿 niàn, "twenty", normally read as 二十 èrshí, 卅 sà, "thirty", normally read as 三十 sānshí, and 卌 xì "forty", normally read as 四十 "sìshí". Calendars often use numeral ligatures in order to save space;  for example, the "21st of March" can be read as 三月廿一. In some cases counters are also merged into one character, such as 七十人 qīshí rén "seventy people".[clarification needed] Another common abbreviation is 门 with a "T" written inside it, for 問題, 问题, wèntí ("question; problem"), where the "T" is from pinyin for the second syllable tí 题.[9] Since polysyllabic characters are often non-standard, they are often excluded in character dictionaries.
+
+Modern examples particularly include Chinese characters for SI units. In Chinese these units are disyllabic and standardly written with two characters, as 厘米 límǐ "centimeter" (厘 centi-, 米 meter) or 千瓦 qiānwǎ "kilowatt". However, in the 19th century these were often written via compound characters, pronounced disyllabically, such as 瓩 for 千瓦 or 糎 for 厘米 – some of these characters were also used in Japan, where they were pronounced with borrowed European readings instead. These have now fallen out of general use, but are occasionally seen. Less systematic examples include 圕 túshūguǎn "library", a contraction of 圖書館,[98][99]
+
+The use of such contractions is as old as Chinese characters themselves, and they have frequently been found in religious or ritual use. In the Oracle Bone script, personal names, ritual items, and even phrases such as 受又(祐) shòu yòu "receive blessings" are commonly contracted into single characters. A dramatic example is that in medieval manuscripts 菩薩 púsà "bodhisattva" (simplified: 菩萨) is sometimes written with a single character formed of a 2×2 grid of four 十 (derived from the grass radical over two 十).[9] However, for the sake of consistency and standardization, the CPC seeks to limit the use of such polysyllabic characters in public writing to ensure that every character only has one syllable.[100]
+
+Conversely, with the fusion of the diminutive -er suffix in Mandarin, some monosyllabic words may even be written with two characters, as in 花儿 huār "flower", which was formerly disyllabic.
+
+In most other languages that use the Chinese family of scripts, notably Korean, Vietnamese, and Zhuang, Chinese characters are typically monosyllabic, but in Japanese a single character is generally used to represent a borrowed monosyllabic Chinese morpheme (the on'yomi), a polysyllabic native Japanese morpheme (the kun'yomi), or even (in rare cases) a foreign loanword. These uses are completely standard and unexceptional.
+
+Often a character not commonly used (a "rare" or "variant" character) will appear in a personal or place name in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (see Chinese name, Japanese name, Korean name, and Vietnamese name, respectively). This has caused problems as many computer encoding systems include only the most common characters and exclude the less often used characters. This is especially a problem for personal names which often contain rare or classical, antiquated characters.
+
+One man who has encountered this problem is Taiwanese politician Yu Shyi-kun, due to the rarity of the last character in his name. Newspapers have dealt with this problem in varying ways, including using software to combine two existing, similar characters, including a picture of the personality, or, especially as is the case with Yu Shyi-kun, simply substituting a homophone for the rare character in the hope that the reader would be able to make the correct inference. Taiwanese political posters, movie posters etc. will often add the bopomofo phonetic symbols next to such a character. Japanese newspapers may render such names and words in katakana instead, and it is accepted practice for people to write names for which they are unsure of the correct kanji in katakana instead.
+
+There are also some extremely complex characters which have understandably become rather rare. According to Joël Bellassen (1989), the most complex Chinese character is /𪚥 (U+2A6A5) zhé listen (help·info), meaning "verbose" and containing sixty-four strokes; this character fell from use around the 5th century. It might be argued, however, that while containing the most strokes, it is not necessarily the most complex character (in terms of difficulty), as it simply requires writing the same sixteen-stroke character 龍 lóng (lit. "dragon") four times in the space for one. Another 64-stroke character is /𠔻 (U+2053B) zhèng composed of 興 xīng/xìng (lit. "flourish") four times.
+
+One of the most complex characters found in modern Chinese dictionaries[g] is 齉 (U+9F49) (nàng, listen (help·info), pictured below, middle image), meaning "snuffle" (that is, a pronunciation marred by a blocked nose), with "just" thirty-six strokes. Another stroke-rich characters are 靐 (bìng), with 39 strokes and 䨻 (bèng), with 52 strokes, meaning the loud noise thunder. However, these are not in common use. The most complex character that can be input using the Microsoft New Phonetic IME 2002a for traditional Chinese is 龘 (dá, "the appearance of a dragon flying"). It is composed of the dragon radical represented three times, for a total of 16 × 3 = 48 strokes. Among the most complex characters in modern dictionaries and also in frequent modern use are 籲 (yù, "to implore"), with 32 strokes; 鬱 (yù, "luxuriant, lush; gloomy"), with 29 strokes, as in 憂鬱 (yōuyù, "depressed"); 豔 (yàn, "colorful"), with 28 strokes; and 釁 (xìn, "quarrel"), with 25 strokes, as in 挑釁 (tiǎoxìn, "to pick a fight"). Also in occasional modern use is 鱻 (xiān "fresh"; variant of 鮮 xiān) with 33 strokes.
+
+In Japanese, an 84-stroke kokuji exists: , normally read taito. It is composed of triple "cloud" character (䨺) on top of the abovementioned triple "dragon" character (龘). Also meaning "the appearance of a dragon in flight", it has been pronounced おとど otodo, たいと taito, and だいと daito.[101] The most elaborate character in the jōyō kanji list is the 29-stroke 鬱, meaning "depression" or "melancholy".
+
+The most complex Chinese character still in use may be[according to whom?] /𰻞 (U+30EDE) (biáng, pictured right, bottom), with 58 strokes, which refers to biangbiang noodles, a type of noodle from China's Shaanxi province. This character along with the syllable biáng cannot be found in dictionaries. The fact that it represents a syllable that does not exist in any Standard Chinese word means that it could be classified as a dialectal character.
+
+Zhé, "verbose"
+
+Zhèng (unknown meaning)
+
+Nàng, "poor enunciation due to snuffle"
+
+Taito, "the appearance of a dragon in flight"
+
+alternative form of Taito
+
+Biáng, a kind of noodle in Shaanxi
+
+The total number of Chinese characters from past to present remains unknowable because new ones are being developed all the time – for instance, brands may create new characters when none of the existing ones allow for the intended meaning – or they have been invented by whoever wrote them and have never been adopted as official characters. Chinese characters are theoretically an open set and anyone can create new characters, though such inventions are rarely included in official character sets.[102] The number of entries in major Chinese dictionaries is the best means of estimating the historical growth of character inventory.
+
+Even the Zhonghua Zihai does not include characters in the Chinese family of scripts created to represent non-Chinese languages, except the unique characters in use in Japan and Korea. Characters formed by Chinese principles in other languages include the roughly 1,500 Japanese-made kokuji given in the Kokuji no Jiten,[116] the Korean-made gukja, the over 10,000 Sawndip characters still in use in Guangxi, and the almost 20,000 Nôm characters formerly used in Vietnam.[citation needed] More divergent descendants of Chinese script include Tangut script, which created over 5,000 characters with similar strokes but different formation principles to Chinese characters.
+
+Modified radicals and new variants are two common reasons for the ever-increasing number of characters. There are about 300 radicals and 100 are in common use. Creating a new character by modifying the radical is an easy way to disambiguate homographs among xíngshēngzì pictophonetic compounds. This practice began long before the standardization of Chinese script by Qin Shi Huang and continues to the present day. The traditional 3rd-person pronoun tā (他 "he, she, it"), which is written with the "person radical", illustrates modifying significs to form new characters. In modern usage, there is a graphic distinction between tā (她 "she") with the "woman radical", tā (牠 "it") with the "animal radical", tā (它 "it") with the "roof radical", and tā (祂 "He") with the "deity radical", One consequence of modifying radicals is the fossilization of rare and obscure variant logographs, some of which are not even used in Classical Chinese. For instance, he 和  "harmony, peace", which combines the "grain radical" with the "mouth radical", has infrequent variants 咊 with the radicals reversed and 龢 with the "flute radical".
+
+Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words, as the majority of modern Chinese words, unlike their Old Chinese and Middle Chinese counterparts, are written with two or more characters, each character representing one syllable and/or morpheme. Knowing the meanings of the individual characters of a word will often allow the general meaning of the word to be inferred, but this is not always the case.
+
+Studies in China have shown that literate individuals know and use between 3,000 and 4,000 characters.  Specialists in classical literature or history, who would often encounter characters no longer in use, are estimated to have a working vocabulary of between 5,000 and 6,000 characters.[6]
+
+In China, which uses simplified Chinese characters, the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo (现代汉语常用字表, Chart of Common Characters of Modern Chinese) lists 2,500 common characters and 1,000 less-than-common characters, while the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Tōngyòng Zìbiǎo (现代汉语通用字表, Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese) lists 7,000 characters, including the 3,500 characters already listed above. GB2312, an early version of the national encoding standard used in the People's Republic of China, has 6,763 code points. GB18030, the modern, mandatory standard, has a much higher number. The New Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì (汉语水平考试, Chinese Proficiency Test) covers approximately 2,600 characters at its highest level (level six).[118]
+
+In Taiwan, which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Ministry of Education's Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (常用國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Common National Characters) lists 4,808 characters; the Cì Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (次常用國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Less-Than-Common National Characters) lists another 6,341 characters. The Chinese Standard Interchange Code (CNS11643)—the official national encoding standard—supports 48,027 characters, while the most widely used encoding scheme, BIG-5, supports only 13,053.
+
+In Hong Kong, which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Education and Manpower Bureau's Soengjung Zi Zijing Biu (常用字字形表), intended for use in elementary and junior secondary education, lists a total of 4,759 characters.
+
+In addition, there are a number of dialect characters (方言字) that are not generally used in formal written Chinese but represent colloquial terms in nonstandard varieties of Chinese.  In general, it is common practice to use standard characters to transcribe Chinese dialects when obvious cognates with words in Standard Mandarin exist.  However, when no obvious cognate could be found for a word, due to factors like irregular sound change or semantic drift in the meanings of characters, or the word originates from a non-Chinese source like a substratum from an earlier displaced language or a later borrowing from another language family, then characters are borrowed and used according to the rebus principle or invented in an ad hoc manner to transcribe it.  These new characters are generally phonosemantic compounds (e.g., 侬, 'person' in Min), although a few are compound ideographs (e.g., 孬, 'bad', in Northeast Mandarin). Except in the case of Written Cantonese, there is no official orthography, and there may be several ways to write a dialectal word, often one that is etymologically correct and one or several that are based on the current pronunciation (e.g., 触祭 (etymological) vs. 戳鸡 (phonetic), 'eat' (low-register) in Shanghainese).  Speakers of a dialect will generally recognize a dialectal word if it is transcribed according to phonetic considerations, while the etymologically correct form may be more difficult or impossible to recognize.  For example, few Gan speakers would recognize the character meaning 'to lean' in their dialect, because this character (隑) has become archaic in Standard Mandarin. The historically "correct" transcription is often so obscure that it is uncovered only after considerable scholarly research into philology and historical phonology and may be disputed by other researchers.
+
+As an exception, Written Cantonese is in widespread use in Hong Kong, even for certain formal documents, due to the former British colonial administration's recognition of Cantonese for use for official purposes. In Taiwan, there is also a body of semi-official characters used to represent Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka.  For example, the vernacular character 㓾, pronounced cii11 in Hakka, means "to kill".[119] Other varieties of Chinese with a significant number of speakers, like Shanghainese Wu, Gan Chinese, and Sichuanese, also have their own series of characters, but these are not often seen, except on advertising billboards directed toward locals and are not used in formal settings except to give precise transcriptions of witness statements in legal proceedings.  Written Standard Mandarin is the preference for all mainland regions.
+
+In Japanese there are 2,136 jōyō kanji (常用漢字, lit. "frequently used Chinese characters") designated by the Japanese Ministry of Education; these are taught during primary and secondary school. The list is a recommendation, not a restriction, and many characters missing from it are still in common use.[120]
+
+One area where character usage is officially restricted is in names, which may contain only government-approved characters. Since the jōyō kanji list excludes many characters that have been used in personal and place names for generations, an additional list, referred to as the  jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字, lit. "kanji for use in personal names"), is published.[121] It currently contains 983 characters.[citation needed]
+
+Today, a well-educated Japanese person may know upwards of 3,500 characters.[citation needed] The kanji kentei (日本漢字能力検定試験, Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Shiken or Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude) tests a speaker's ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the kanji kentei tests on approximately 6,000 kanji,[122][123] though in practice few people attain (or need to attain) this level.[citation needed]
+
+New characters can in principle be coined at any time, just as new words can be, but they may not be adopted. Significant historically recent coinages date to scientific terms of the 19th century. Specifically, Chinese coined new characters for chemical elements – see chemical elements in East Asian languages – which continue to be used and taught in schools in China and Taiwan. In Japan, in the Meiji era (specifically, late 19th century), new characters were coined for some (but not all) SI units, such as 粁 (米 "meter" + 千 "thousand, kilo-") for kilometer. These kokuji (Japanese-coinages) have found use in China as well – see Chinese characters for SI units for details.
+
+While new characters can be easily coined by writing on paper, they are difficult to represent on a computer – they must generally be represented as a picture, rather than as text – which presents a significant barrier to their use or widespread adoption. Compare this with the use of symbols as names in 20th century musical albums such as Led Zeppelin IV (1971) and Love Symbol Album (1993); an album cover may potentially contain any graphics, but in writing and other computation these symbols are difficult to use.
+
+Dozens of indexing schemes have been created for arranging Chinese characters in Chinese dictionaries. The great majority of these schemes have appeared in only a single dictionary; only one such system has achieved truly widespread use. This is the system of radicals (see for example, the 214 so-called Kangxi radicals).
+
+Chinese character dictionaries often allow users to locate entries in several ways. Many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean dictionaries of Chinese characters list characters in radical order: characters are grouped together by radical, and radicals containing fewer strokes come before radicals containing more strokes (radical-and-stroke sorting). Under each radical, characters are listed by their total number of strokes. It is often also possible to search for characters by sound, using pinyin (in Chinese dictionaries), zhuyin (in Taiwanese dictionaries), kana (in Japanese dictionaries) or hangul (in Korean dictionaries). Most dictionaries also allow searches by total number of strokes, and individual dictionaries often allow other search methods as well.
+
+For instance, to look up the character where the sound is not known, e.g., 松 (pine tree), the user first determines which part of the character is the radical (here 木), then counts the number of strokes in the radical (four), and turns to the radical index (usually located on the inside front or back cover of the dictionary). Under the number "4" for radical stroke count, the user locates 木, then turns to the page number listed, which is the start of the listing of all the characters containing this radical. This page will have a sub-index giving remainder stroke numbers (for the non-radical portions of characters) and page numbers. The right half of the character also contains four strokes, so the user locates the number 4, and turns to the page number given. From there, the user must scan the entries to locate the character he or she is seeking. Some dictionaries have a sub-index which lists every character containing each radical, and if the user knows the number of strokes in the non-radical portion of the character, he or she can locate the correct page directly.
+
+Another dictionary system is the four corner method, where characters are classified according to the shape of each of the four corners.
+
+Most modern Chinese dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries sold to English speakers use the traditional radical-based character index in a section at the front, while the main body of the dictionary arranges the main character entries alphabetically according to their pinyin spelling.[citation needed] To find a character with unknown sound using one of these dictionaries, the reader finds the radical and stroke number of the character, as before, and locates the character in the radical index. The character's entry will have the character's pronunciation in pinyin written down; the reader then turns to the main dictionary section and looks up the pinyin spelling alphabetically.
+
+This article incorporates text from The Chinese recorder and missionary journal, Volume 3, a  publication from 1871 now in the public domain in the United States.
+

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+Carbon (from Latin: carbo "coal") is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table.[13] Three isotopes occur naturally, 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is a radionuclide, decaying with a half-life of about 5,730 years.[14] Carbon is one of the few elements known since antiquity.[15]
+
+Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, and the fourth most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon's abundance, its unique diversity of organic compounds, and its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth enables this element to serve as a common element of all known life. It is the second most abundant element in the human body by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen.[16]
+
+The atoms of carbon can bond together in diverse ways, resulting in various allotropes of carbon. The best known allotropes are graphite, diamond, and buckminsterfullerene.[17] The physical properties of carbon vary widely with the allotropic form. For example, graphite is opaque and black while diamond is highly transparent. Graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper (hence its name, from the Greek verb "γράφειν" which means "to write"), while diamond is the hardest naturally occurring material known. Graphite is a good electrical conductor while diamond has a low electrical conductivity. Under normal conditions, diamond, carbon nanotubes, and graphene have the highest thermal conductivities of all known materials. All carbon allotropes are solids under normal conditions, with graphite being the most thermodynamically stable form at standard temperature and pressure. They are chemically resistant and require high temperature to react even with oxygen.
+
+The most common oxidation state of carbon in inorganic compounds is +4, while +2 is found in carbon monoxide and transition metal carbonyl complexes. The largest sources of inorganic carbon are limestones, dolomites and carbon dioxide, but significant quantities occur in organic deposits of coal, peat, oil, and methane clathrates. Carbon forms a vast number of compounds, more than any other element, with almost ten million compounds described to date,[18] and yet that number is but a fraction of the number of theoretically possible compounds under standard conditions. For this reason, carbon has often been referred to as the "king of the elements".[19]
+
+The allotropes of carbon include graphite, one of the softest known substances, and diamond, the hardest naturally occurring substance. It bonds readily with other small atoms, including other carbon atoms, and is capable of forming multiple stable covalent bonds with suitable multivalent atoms. Carbon is known to form almost ten million compounds, a large majority of all chemical compounds.[18] Carbon also has the highest sublimation point of all elements. At atmospheric pressure it has no melting point, as its triple point is at 10.8±0.2 MPa and 4,600 ± 300 K (4,330 ± 300 °C; 7,820 ± 540 °F),[2][3] so it sublimes at about 3,900 K (3,630 °C; 6,560 °F).[20][21] Graphite is much more reactive than diamond at standard conditions, despite being more thermodynamically stable, as its delocalised pi system is much more vulnerable to attack. For example, graphite can be oxidised by hot concentrated nitric acid at standard conditions to mellitic acid, C6(CO2H)6, which preserves the hexagonal units of graphite while breaking up the larger structure.[22]
+
+Carbon sublimes in a carbon arc, which has a temperature of about 5800 K (5,530 °C or 9,980 °F). Thus, irrespective of its allotropic form, carbon remains solid at higher temperatures than the highest-melting-point metals such as tungsten or rhenium. Although thermodynamically prone to oxidation, carbon resists oxidation more effectively than elements such as iron and copper, which are weaker reducing agents at room temperature.
+
+Carbon is the sixth element, with a ground-state electron configuration of 1s22s22p2, of which the four outer electrons are valence electrons. Its first four ionisation energies, 1086.5, 2352.6, 4620.5 and 6222.7 kJ/mol, are much higher than those of the heavier group-14 elements. The electronegativity of carbon is 2.5, significantly higher than the heavier group-14 elements (1.8–1.9), but close to most of the nearby nonmetals, as well as some of the second- and third-row transition metals. Carbon's covalent radii are normally taken as 77.2 pm (C−C), 66.7 pm (C=C) and 60.3 pm (C≡C), although these may vary depending on coordination number and what the carbon is bonded to. In general, covalent radius decreases with lower coordination number and higher bond order.[23]
+
+Carbon compounds form the basis of all known life on Earth, and the carbon–nitrogen cycle provides some of the energy produced by the Sun and other stars. Although it forms an extraordinary variety of compounds, most forms of carbon are comparatively unreactive under normal conditions. At standard temperature and pressure, it resists all but the strongest oxidizers. It does not react with sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, chlorine or any alkalis. At elevated temperatures, carbon reacts with oxygen to form carbon oxides and will rob oxygen from metal oxides to leave the elemental metal. This exothermic reaction is used in the iron and steel industry to smelt iron and to control the carbon content of steel:
+
+Carbon monoxide can be recycled to smelt even more iron:
+
+with sulfur to form carbon disulfide and with steam in the coal-gas reaction:
+
+Carbon combines with some metals at high temperatures to form metallic carbides, such as the iron carbide cementite in steel and tungsten carbide, widely used as an abrasive and for making hard tips for cutting tools.
+
+The system of carbon allotropes spans a range of extremes:
+
+Atomic carbon is a very short-lived species and, therefore, carbon is stabilized in various multi-atomic structures with diverse molecular configurations called allotropes. The three relatively well-known allotropes of carbon are amorphous carbon, graphite, and diamond. Once considered exotic, fullerenes are nowadays commonly synthesized and used in research; they include buckyballs,[29][30] carbon nanotubes,[31] carbon nanobuds[32] and nanofibers.[33][34] Several other exotic allotropes have also been discovered, such as lonsdaleite,[35] glassy carbon,[36] carbon nanofoam[37] and linear acetylenic carbon (carbyne).[38]
+
+Graphene is a two-dimensional sheet of carbon with the atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. As of 2009, graphene appears to be the strongest material ever tested.[39] The process of separating it from graphite will require some further technological development before it is economical for industrial processes.[40] If successful, graphene could be used in the construction of a space elevator. It could also be used to safely store hydrogen for use in a hydrogen based engine in cars.[41]
+
+The amorphous form is an assortment of carbon atoms in a non-crystalline, irregular, glassy state, not held in a crystalline macrostructure. It is present as a powder, and is the main constituent of substances such as charcoal, lampblack (soot) and activated carbon. At normal pressures, carbon takes the form of graphite, in which each atom is bonded trigonally to three others in a plane composed of fused hexagonal rings, just like those in aromatic hydrocarbons.[42] The resulting network is 2-dimensional, and the resulting flat sheets are stacked and loosely bonded through weak van der Waals forces. This gives graphite its softness and its cleaving properties (the sheets slip easily past one another). Because of the delocalization of one of the outer electrons of each atom to form a π-cloud, graphite conducts electricity, but only in the plane of each covalently bonded sheet. This results in a lower bulk electrical conductivity for carbon than for most metals. The delocalization also accounts for the energetic stability of graphite over diamond at room temperature.
+
+At very high pressures, carbon forms the more compact allotrope, diamond, having nearly twice the density of graphite. Here, each atom is bonded tetrahedrally to four others, forming a 3-dimensional network of puckered six-membered rings of atoms. Diamond has the same cubic structure as silicon and germanium, and because of the strength of the carbon-carbon bonds, it is the hardest naturally occurring substance measured by resistance to scratching. Contrary to the popular belief that "diamonds are forever", they are thermodynamically unstable (ΔfG°(diamond, 298 K) = 2.9 kJ/mol[43]) under normal conditions (298 K, 105 Pa) and transform into graphite.[17] Due to a high activation energy barrier, the transition into graphite is so slow at normal temperature that it is unnoticeable. The bottom left corner of the phase diagram for carbon has not been scrutinized experimentally. However, a recent computational study employing density functional theory methods reached the conclusion that as T → 0 K and p → 0 Pa, diamond becomes more stable than graphite by approximately 1.1 kJ/mol.[44] Under some conditions, carbon crystallizes as lonsdaleite, a hexagonal crystal lattice with all atoms covalently bonded and properties similar to those of diamond.[35]
+
+Fullerenes are a synthetic crystalline formation with a graphite-like structure, but in place of flat hexagonal cells only, some of the cells of which fullerenes are formed may be pentagons, nonplanar hexagons, or even heptagons of carbon atoms. The sheets are thus warped into spheres, ellipses, or cylinders. The properties of fullerenes (split into buckyballs, buckytubes, and nanobuds) have not yet been fully analyzed and represent an intense area of research in nanomaterials. The names fullerene and buckyball are given after Richard Buckminster Fuller, popularizer of geodesic domes, which resemble the structure of fullerenes. The buckyballs are fairly large molecules formed completely of carbon bonded trigonally, forming spheroids (the best-known and simplest is the soccerball-shaped C60 buckminsterfullerene).[29] Carbon nanotubes (buckytubes) are structurally similar to buckyballs, except that each atom is bonded trigonally in a curved sheet that forms a hollow cylinder.[30][31] Nanobuds were first reported in 2007 and are hybrid buckytube/buckyball materials (buckyballs are covalently bonded to the outer wall of a nanotube) that combine the properties of both in a single structure.[32]
+
+Of the other discovered allotropes, carbon nanofoam is a ferromagnetic allotrope discovered in 1997. It consists of a low-density cluster-assembly of carbon atoms strung together in a loose three-dimensional web, in which the atoms are bonded trigonally in six- and seven-membered rings. It is among the lightest known solids, with a density of about 2 kg/m3.[45] Similarly, glassy carbon contains a high proportion of closed porosity,[36] but contrary to normal graphite, the graphitic layers are not stacked like pages in a book, but have a more random arrangement. Linear acetylenic carbon[38] has the chemical structure[38] −(C:::C)n−. Carbon in this modification is linear with sp orbital hybridization, and is a polymer with alternating single and triple bonds. This carbyne is of considerable interest to nanotechnology as its Young's modulus is 40 times that of the hardest known material – diamond.[46]
+
+In 2015, a team at the North Carolina State University announced the development of another allotrope they have dubbed Q-carbon, created by a high energy low duration laser pulse on amorphous carbon dust. Q-carbon is reported to exhibit ferromagnetism, fluorescence, and a hardness superior to diamonds.[47]
+
+In the vapor phase, some of the carbon is in the form of dicarbon (C2). When excited, this gas glows green.
+
+Carbon is the fourth most abundant chemical element in the observable universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. In July 2020, astronomers reported evidence that carbon was formed mainly in white dwarf stars, particularly those bigger than two solar masses.[48][49] Carbon is abundant in the Sun, stars, comets, and in the atmospheres of most planets.[50] Some meteorites contain microscopic diamonds that were formed when the solar system was still a protoplanetary disk.[51] Microscopic diamonds may also be formed by the intense pressure and high temperature at the sites of meteorite impacts.[52]
+
+In 2014 NASA announced a greatly upgraded database for tracking polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the universe. More than 20% of the carbon in the universe may be associated with PAHs, complex compounds of carbon and hydrogen without oxygen.[53] These compounds figure in the PAH world hypothesis where they are hypothesized to have a role in abiogenesis and formation of life. PAHs seem to have been formed "a couple of billion years" after the Big Bang, are widespread throughout the universe, and are associated with new stars and exoplanets.[50]
+
+It has been estimated that the solid earth as a whole contains 730 ppm of carbon, with 2000 ppm in the core and 120 ppm in the combined mantle and crust.[54] Since the mass of the earth is 5.972×1024 kg, this would imply 4360 million gigatonnes of carbon. This is much more than the amount of carbon in the oceans or atmosphere (below).
+
+In combination with oxygen in carbon dioxide, carbon is found in the Earth's atmosphere (approximately 900 gigatonnes of carbon — each ppm corresponds to 2.13 Gt) and dissolved in all water bodies (approximately 36,000 gigatonnes of carbon). Carbon in the biosphere has been estimated at 550 gigatonnes but with a large uncertainty, due mostly to a huge uncertainty in the amount of terrestrial deep subsurface bacteria.[55] Hydrocarbons (such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas) contain carbon as well. Coal "reserves" (not "resources") amount to around 900 gigatonnes with perhaps 18,000 Gt of resources.[56] Oil reserves are around 150 gigatonnes. Proven sources of natural gas are about 175×1012 cubic metres (containing about 105 gigatonnes of carbon), but studies estimate another 900×1012 cubic metres of "unconventional" deposits such as shale gas, representing about 540 gigatonnes of carbon.[57]
+
+Carbon is also found in methane hydrates in polar regions and under the seas. Various estimates put this carbon between 500, 2500 Gt,[58] or 3,000 Gt.[59]
+
+In the past, quantities of hydrocarbons were greater. According to one source, in the period from 1751 to 2008 about 347 gigatonnes of carbon were released as carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels.[60] Another source puts the amount added to the atmosphere for the period since 1750 at 879 Gt, and the total going to the atmosphere, sea, and land (such as peat bogs) at almost 2,000 Gt.[61]
+
+Carbon is a constituent (about 12% by mass) of the very large masses of carbonate rock (limestone, dolomite, marble and so on). Coal is very rich in carbon (anthracite contains 92–98%)[62] and is the largest commercial source of mineral carbon, accounting for 4,000 gigatonnes or 80% of fossil fuel.[63]
+
+As for individual carbon allotropes, graphite is found in large quantities in the United States (mostly in New York and Texas), Russia, Mexico, Greenland, and India. Natural diamonds occur in the rock kimberlite, found in ancient volcanic "necks", or "pipes". Most diamond deposits are in Africa, notably in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, the Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leone. Diamond deposits have also been found in Arkansas, Canada, the Russian Arctic, Brazil, and in Northern and Western Australia. Diamonds are now also being recovered from the ocean floor off the Cape of Good Hope. Diamonds are found naturally, but about 30% of all industrial diamonds used in the U.S. are now manufactured.
+
+Carbon-14 is formed in upper layers of the troposphere and the stratosphere at altitudes of 9–15 km by a reaction that is precipitated by cosmic rays.[64] Thermal neutrons are produced that collide with the nuclei of nitrogen-14, forming carbon-14 and a proton. As such, 1.5%×10−10 of atmospheric carbon dioxide contains carbon-14.[65]
+
+Carbon-rich asteroids are relatively preponderant in the outer parts of the asteroid belt in our solar system. These asteroids have not yet been directly sampled by scientists. The asteroids can be used in hypothetical space-based carbon mining, which may be possible in the future, but is currently technologically impossible.[66]
+
+Isotopes of carbon are atomic nuclei that contain six protons plus a number of neutrons (varying from 2 to 16). Carbon has two stable, naturally occurring isotopes.[14] The isotope carbon-12 (12C) forms 98.93% of the carbon on Earth, while carbon-13 (13C) forms the remaining 1.07%.[14] The concentration of 12C is further increased in biological materials because biochemical reactions discriminate against 13C.[67] In 1961, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) adopted the isotope carbon-12 as the basis for atomic weights.[68] Identification of carbon in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments is done with the isotope 13C.
+
+Carbon-14 (14C) is a naturally occurring radioisotope, created in the upper atmosphere (lower stratosphere and upper troposphere) by interaction of nitrogen with cosmic rays.[69] It is found in trace amounts on Earth of 1 part per trillion (0.0000000001%) or more, mostly confined to the atmosphere and superficial deposits, particularly of peat and other organic materials.[70] This isotope decays by 0.158 MeV β− emission. Because of its relatively short half-life of 5730 years, 14C is virtually absent in ancient rocks. The amount of 14C in the atmosphere and in living organisms is almost constant, but decreases predictably in their bodies after death. This principle is used in radiocarbon dating, invented in 1949, which has been used extensively to determine the age of carbonaceous materials with ages up to about 40,000 years.[71][72]
+
+There are 15 known isotopes of carbon and the shortest-lived of these is 8C which decays through proton emission and alpha decay and has a half-life of 1.98739 × 10−21 s.[73] The exotic 19C exhibits a nuclear halo, which means its radius is appreciably larger than would be expected if the nucleus were a sphere of constant density.[74]
+
+Formation of the carbon atomic nucleus occurs within a giant or supergiant star through the triple-alpha process. This requires a nearly simultaneous collision of three alpha particles (helium nuclei), as the products of further nuclear fusion reactions of helium with hydrogen or another helium nucleus produce lithium-5 and beryllium-8 respectively, both of which are highly unstable and decay almost instantly back into smaller nuclei.[75] The triple-alpha process happens in conditions of temperatures over 100 megakelvins and helium concentration that the rapid expansion and cooling of the early universe prohibited, and therefore no significant carbon was created during the Big Bang.
+
+According to current physical cosmology theory, carbon is formed in the interiors of stars on the horizontal branch.[76] When massive stars die as supernova, the carbon is scattered into space as dust. This dust becomes component material for the formation of the next-generation star systems with accreted planets.[50][77] The Solar System is one such star system with an abundance of carbon, enabling the existence of life as we know it.
+
+The CNO cycle is an additional hydrogen fusion mechanism that powers stars, wherein carbon operates as a catalyst.
+
+Rotational transitions of various isotopic forms of carbon monoxide (for example, 12CO, 13CO, and 18CO) are detectable in the submillimeter wavelength range, and are used in the study of newly forming stars in molecular clouds.[78]
+
+Under terrestrial conditions, conversion of one element to another is very rare. Therefore, the amount of carbon on Earth is effectively constant. Thus, processes that use carbon must obtain it from somewhere and dispose of it somewhere else. The paths of carbon in the environment form the carbon cycle. For example, photosynthetic plants draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (or seawater) and build it into biomass, as in the Calvin cycle, a process of carbon fixation. Some of this biomass is eaten by animals, while some carbon is exhaled by animals as carbon dioxide. The carbon cycle is considerably more complicated than this short loop; for example, some carbon dioxide is dissolved in the oceans; if bacteria do not consume it, dead plant or animal matter may become petroleum or coal, which releases carbon when burned.[79][80]
+
+Carbon can form very long chains of interconnecting carbon–carbon bonds, a property that is called catenation. Carbon-carbon bonds are strong and stable. Through catenation, carbon forms a countless number of compounds. A tally of unique compounds shows that more contain carbon than do not.[81] A similar claim can be made for hydrogen because most organic compounds contain hydrogen chemically bonded to carbon or another common element like oxygen or nitrogen.
+
+The simplest form of an organic molecule is the hydrocarbon—a large family of organic molecules that are composed of hydrogen atoms bonded to a chain of carbon atoms. A hydrocarbon backbone can be substituted by other atoms, known as heteroatoms. Common heteroatoms that appear in organic compounds include oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and the nonradioactive halogens, as well as the metals lithium and magnesium. Organic compounds containing bonds to metal are known as organometallic compounds (see below). Certain groupings of atoms, often including heteroatoms, recur in large numbers of organic compounds. These collections, known as functional groups, confer common reactivity patterns and allow for the systematic study and categorization of organic compounds. Chain length, shape and functional groups all affect the properties of organic molecules.
+
+In most stable compounds of carbon (and nearly all stable organic compounds), carbon obeys the octet rule and is tetravalent, meaning that a carbon atom forms a total of four covalent bonds (which may include double and triple bonds). Exceptions include a small number of stabilized carbocations (three bonds, positive charge), radicals (three bonds, neutral), carbanions (three bonds, negative charge) and carbenes (two bonds, neutral), although these species are much more likely to be encountered as unstable, reactive intermediates.
+
+Carbon occurs in all known organic life and is the basis of organic chemistry. When united with hydrogen, it forms various hydrocarbons that are important to industry as refrigerants, lubricants, solvents, as chemical feedstock for the manufacture of plastics and petrochemicals, and as fossil fuels.
+
+When combined with oxygen and hydrogen, carbon can form many groups of important biological compounds including sugars, lignans, chitins, alcohols, fats, and aromatic esters, carotenoids and terpenes. With nitrogen it forms alkaloids, and with the addition of sulfur also it forms antibiotics, amino acids, and rubber products. With the addition of phosphorus to these other elements, it forms DNA and RNA, the chemical-code carriers of life, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the most important energy-transfer molecule in all living cells.
+
+Commonly carbon-containing compounds which are associated with minerals or which do not contain bonds to the other carbon atoms, halogens, or hydrogen, are treated separately from classical organic compounds; the definition is not rigid, and the classification of some compounds can vary from author to author (see reference articles above). Among these are the simple oxides of carbon. The most prominent oxide is carbon dioxide (CO2). This was once the principal constituent of the paleoatmosphere, but is a minor component of the Earth's atmosphere today.[82] Dissolved in water, it forms carbonic acid (H2CO3), but as most compounds with multiple single-bonded oxygens on a single carbon it is unstable.[83] Through this intermediate, though, resonance-stabilized carbonate ions are produced. Some important minerals are carbonates, notably calcite. Carbon disulfide (CS2) is similar.[22] Nevertheless, due to its physical properties and its association with organic synthesis, carbon disulfide is sometimes classified as an organic solvent.[84]
+
+The other common oxide is carbon monoxide (CO). It is formed by incomplete combustion, and is a colorless, odorless gas. The molecules each contain a triple bond and are fairly polar, resulting in a tendency to bind permanently to hemoglobin molecules, displacing oxygen, which has a lower binding affinity.[85][86] Cyanide (CN−), has a similar structure, but behaves much like a halide ion (pseudohalogen). For example, it can form the nitride cyanogen molecule ((CN)2), similar to diatomic halides. Likewise, the heavier analog of cyanide, cyaphide (CP−), is also considered inorganic, though most simple derivatives are highly unstable. Other uncommon oxides are carbon suboxide (C3O2),[87] the unstable dicarbon monoxide (C2O),[88][89] carbon trioxide (CO3),[90][91] cyclopentanepentone (C5O5),[92] cyclohexanehexone (C6O6),[92] and mellitic anhydride (C12O9). However, mellitic anhydride is the triple acyl anhydride of mellitic acid; moreover, it contains a benzene ring. Thus, many chemists consider it to be organic.
+
+With reactive metals, such as tungsten, carbon forms either carbides (C4−) or acetylides (C2−2) to form alloys with high melting points. These anions are also associated with methane and acetylene, both very weak acids. With an electronegativity of 2.5,[93] carbon prefers to form covalent bonds. A few carbides are covalent lattices, like carborundum (SiC), which resembles diamond. Nevertheless, even the most polar and salt-like of carbides are not completely ionic compounds.[94]
+
+Organometallic compounds by definition contain at least one carbon-metal covalent bond. A wide range of such compounds exist; major classes include simple alkyl-metal compounds (for example, tetraethyllead), η2-alkene compounds (for example, Zeise's salt), and η3-allyl compounds (for example, allylpalladium chloride dimer); metallocenes containing cyclopentadienyl ligands (for example, ferrocene); and transition metal carbene complexes. Many metal carbonyls and metal cyanides exist (for example, tetracarbonylnickel and potassium ferricyanide); some workers consider metal carbonyl and cyanide complexes without other carbon ligands to be purely inorganic, and not organometallic. However, most organometallic chemists consider metal complexes with any carbon ligand, even 'inorganic carbon' (e.g., carbonyls, cyanides, and certain types of carbides and acetylides) to be organometallic in nature. Metal complexes containing organic ligands without a carbon-metal covalent bond (e.g., metal carboxylates) are termed metalorganic compounds.
+
+While carbon is understood to strongly prefer formation of four covalent bonds, other exotic bonding schemes are also known. Carboranes are highly stable dodecahedral derivatives of the [B12H12]2- unit, with one BH replaced with a CH+.  Thus, the carbon is bonded to five boron atoms and one hydrogen atom. The cation [(Ph3PAu)6C]2+ contains an octahedral carbon bound to six phosphine-gold fragments. This phenomenon has been attributed to the aurophilicity of the gold ligands, which provide additional stabilization of an otherwise labile species.[95] In nature, the iron-molybdenum cofactor (FeMoco) responsible for microbial nitrogen fixation likewise has an octahedral carbon center (formally a carbide, C(-IV)) bonded to six iron atoms. In 2016, it was confirmed that, in line with earlier theoretical predictions, the hexamethylbenzene dication contains a carbon atom with six bonds.  More specifically, the dication could be described structurally by the formulation [MeC(η5-C5Me5)]2+, making it an "organic metallocene" in which a MeC3+ fragment is bonded to a η5-C5Me5− fragment through all five of the carbons of the ring.[96]
+
+It is important to note that in the cases above, each of the bonds to carbon contain less than two formal electron pairs.  Thus, the formal electron count of these species does not exceed an octet.  This makes them hypercoordinate but not hypervalent. Even in cases of alleged 10-C-5 species (that is, a carbon with five ligands and a formal electron count of ten), as reported by Akiba and co-workers,[97] electronic structure calculations conclude that the electron population around carbon is still less than eight, as is true for other compounds featuring four-electron three-center bonding.
+
+The English name carbon comes from the Latin carbo for coal and charcoal,[98] whence also comes the French charbon, meaning charcoal. In German, Dutch and Danish, the names for carbon are Kohlenstoff, koolstof and kulstof respectively, all literally meaning coal-substance.
+
+Carbon was discovered in prehistory and was known in the forms of soot and charcoal to the earliest human civilizations. Diamonds were known probably as early as 2500 BCE in China, while carbon in the form of charcoal was made around Roman times by the same chemistry as it is today, by heating wood in a pyramid covered with clay to exclude air.[99][100]
+
+In 1722, René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur demonstrated that iron was transformed into steel through the absorption of some substance, now known to be carbon.[101] In 1772, Antoine Lavoisier showed that diamonds are a form of carbon; when he burned samples of charcoal and diamond and found that neither produced any water and that both released the same amount of carbon dioxide per gram.
+In 1779,[102] Carl Wilhelm Scheele showed that graphite, which had been thought of as a form of lead, was instead identical with charcoal but with a small admixture of iron, and that it gave "aerial acid" (his name for carbon dioxide) when oxidized with nitric acid.[103] In 1786, the French scientists Claude Louis Berthollet, Gaspard Monge and C. A. Vandermonde confirmed that graphite was mostly carbon by oxidizing it in oxygen in much the same way Lavoisier had done with diamond.[104] Some iron again was left, which the French scientists thought was necessary to the graphite structure. In their publication they proposed the name carbone (Latin carbonum) for the element in graphite which was given off as a gas upon burning graphite. Antoine Lavoisier then listed carbon as an element in his 1789 textbook.[105]
+
+A new allotrope of carbon, fullerene, that was discovered in 1985[106] includes nanostructured forms such as buckyballs and nanotubes.[29] Their discoverers – Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley – received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996.[107] The resulting renewed interest in new forms lead to the discovery of further exotic allotropes, including glassy carbon, and the realization that "amorphous carbon" is not strictly amorphous.[36]
+
+Commercially viable natural deposits of graphite occur in many parts of the world, but the most important sources economically are in China, India, Brazil and North Korea. Graphite deposits are of metamorphic origin, found in association with quartz, mica and feldspars in schists, gneisses and metamorphosed sandstones and limestone as lenses or veins, sometimes of a metre or more in thickness. Deposits of graphite in Borrowdale, Cumberland, England were at first of sufficient size and purity that, until the 19th century, pencils were made simply by sawing blocks of natural graphite into strips before encasing the strips in wood. Today, smaller deposits of graphite are obtained by crushing the parent rock and floating the lighter graphite out on water.[108]
+
+There are three types of natural graphite—amorphous, flake or crystalline flake, and vein or lump. Amorphous graphite is the lowest quality and most abundant. Contrary to science, in industry "amorphous" refers to very small crystal size rather than complete lack of crystal structure. Amorphous is used for lower value graphite products and is the lowest priced graphite. Large amorphous graphite deposits are found in China, Europe, Mexico and the United States. Flake graphite is less common and of higher quality than amorphous; it occurs as separate plates that crystallized in metamorphic rock. Flake graphite can be four times the price of amorphous. Good quality flakes can be processed into expandable graphite for many uses, such as flame retardants. The foremost deposits are found in Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany and Madagascar. Vein or lump graphite is the rarest, most valuable, and highest quality type of natural graphite. It occurs in veins along intrusive contacts in solid lumps, and it is only commercially mined in Sri Lanka.[108]
+
+According to the USGS, world production of natural graphite was 1.1 million tonnes in 2010, to which China contributed 800,000 t, India 130,000 t, Brazil 76,000 t, North Korea 30,000 t and Canada 25,000 t. No natural graphite was reported mined in the United States, but 118,000 t of synthetic graphite with an estimated value of $998 million was produced in 2009.[108]
+
+The diamond supply chain is controlled by a limited number of powerful businesses, and is also highly concentrated in a small number of locations around the world (see figure).
+
+Only a very small fraction of the diamond ore consists of actual diamonds. The ore is crushed, during which care has to be taken in order to prevent larger diamonds from being destroyed in this process and subsequently the particles are sorted by density. Today, diamonds are located in the diamond-rich density fraction with the help of X-ray fluorescence, after which the final sorting steps are done by hand. Before the use of X-rays became commonplace, the separation was done with grease belts; diamonds have a stronger tendency to stick to grease than the other minerals in the ore.[109]
+
+Historically diamonds were known to be found only in alluvial deposits in southern India.[110] India led the world in diamond production from the time of their discovery in approximately the 9th century BC[111] to the mid-18th century AD, but the commercial potential of these sources had been exhausted by the late 18th century and at that time India was eclipsed by Brazil where the first non-Indian diamonds were found in 1725.[112]
+
+Diamond production of primary deposits (kimberlites and lamproites) only started in the 1870s after the discovery of the diamond fields in South Africa. Production has increased over time and now an accumulated total of 4.5 billion carats have been mined since that date.[113] About 20% of that amount has been mined in the last 5 years alone, and during the last ten years 9 new mines have started production while 4 more are waiting to be opened soon. Most of these mines are located in Canada, Zimbabwe, Angola, and one in Russia.[113]
+
+In the United States, diamonds have been found in Arkansas, Colorado and Montana.[114][115] In 2004, a startling discovery of a microscopic diamond in the United States[116] led to the January 2008 bulk-sampling of kimberlite pipes in a remote part of Montana.[117]
+
+Today, most commercially viable diamond deposits are in Russia, Botswana, Australia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.[118] In 2005, Russia produced almost one-fifth of the global diamond output, reports the British Geological Survey. Australia has the richest diamantiferous pipe with production reaching peak levels of 42 metric tons (41 long tons; 46 short tons) per year in the 1990s.[114] There are also commercial deposits being actively mined in the Northwest Territories of Canada, Siberia (mostly in Yakutia territory; for example, Mir pipe and Udachnaya pipe), Brazil, and in Northern and Western Australia.
+
+Carbon is essential to all known living systems, and without it life as we know it could not exist (see alternative biochemistry). The major economic use of carbon other than food and wood is in the form of hydrocarbons, most notably the fossil fuel methane gas and crude oil (petroleum). Crude oil is distilled in refineries by the petrochemical industry to produce gasoline, kerosene, and other products. Cellulose is a natural, carbon-containing polymer produced by plants in the form of wood, cotton, linen, and hemp. Cellulose is used primarily for maintaining structure in plants. Commercially valuable carbon polymers of animal origin include wool, cashmere and silk. Plastics are made from synthetic carbon polymers, often with oxygen and nitrogen atoms included at regular intervals in the main polymer chain. The raw materials for many of these synthetic substances come from crude oil.
+
+The uses of carbon and its compounds are extremely varied. It can form alloys with iron, of which the most common is carbon steel. Graphite is combined with clays to form the 'lead' used in pencils used for writing and drawing. It is also used as a lubricant and a pigment, as a molding material in glass manufacture, in electrodes for dry batteries and in electroplating and electroforming, in brushes for electric motors and as a neutron moderator in nuclear reactors.
+
+Charcoal is used as a drawing material in artwork, barbecue grilling, iron smelting, and in many other applications. Wood, coal and oil are used as fuel for production of energy and heating. Gem quality diamond is used in jewelry, and industrial diamonds are used in drilling, cutting and polishing tools for machining metals and stone. Plastics are made from fossil hydrocarbons, and carbon fiber, made by pyrolysis of synthetic polyester fibers is used to reinforce plastics to form advanced, lightweight composite materials.
+
+Carbon fiber is made by pyrolysis of extruded and stretched filaments of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and other organic substances. The crystallographic structure and mechanical properties of the fiber depend on the type of starting material, and on the subsequent processing. Carbon fibers made from PAN have structure resembling narrow filaments of graphite, but thermal processing may re-order the structure into a continuous rolled sheet. The result is fibers with higher specific tensile strength than steel.[119]
+
+Carbon black is used as the black pigment in printing ink, artist's oil paint and water colours, carbon paper, automotive finishes, India ink and laser printer toner. Carbon black is also used as a filler in rubber products such as tyres and in plastic compounds. Activated charcoal is used as an absorbent and adsorbent in filter material in applications as diverse as gas masks, water purification, and kitchen extractor hoods, and in medicine to absorb toxins, poisons, or gases from the digestive system. Carbon is used in chemical reduction at high temperatures. Coke is used to reduce iron ore into iron (smelting). Case hardening of steel is achieved by heating finished steel components in carbon powder. Carbides of silicon, tungsten, boron and titanium, are among the hardest known materials, and are used as abrasives in cutting and grinding tools. Carbon compounds make up most of the materials used in clothing, such as natural and synthetic textiles and leather, and almost all of the interior surfaces in the built environment other than glass, stone and metal.
+
+The diamond industry falls into two categories: one dealing with gem-grade diamonds and the other, with industrial-grade diamonds. While a large trade in both types of diamonds exists, the two markets function dramatically differently.
+
+Unlike precious metals such as gold or platinum, gem diamonds do not trade as a commodity: there is a substantial mark-up in the sale of diamonds, and there is not a very active market for resale of diamonds.
+
+Industrial diamonds are valued mostly for their hardness and heat conductivity, with the gemological qualities of clarity and color being mostly irrelevant. About 80% of mined diamonds (equal to about 100 million carats or 20 tonnes annually) are unsuitable for use as gemstones are relegated for industrial use (known as bort).[120] synthetic diamonds, invented in the 1950s, found almost immediate industrial applications; 3 billion carats (600 tonnes) of synthetic diamond is produced annually.[121]
+
+The dominant industrial use of diamond is in cutting, drilling, grinding, and polishing. Most of these applications do not require large diamonds; in fact, most diamonds of gem-quality except for their small size can be used industrially. Diamonds are embedded in drill tips or saw blades, or ground into a powder for use in grinding and polishing applications.[122] Specialized applications include use in laboratories as containment for high pressure experiments (see diamond anvil cell), high-performance bearings, and limited use in specialized windows.[123][124] With the continuing advances in the production of synthetic diamonds, new applications are becoming feasible. Garnering much excitement is the possible use of diamond as a semiconductor suitable for microchips, and because of its exceptional heat conductance property, as a heat sink in electronics.[125]
+
+Pure carbon has extremely low toxicity to humans and can be handled safely in the form of graphite or charcoal. It is resistant to dissolution or chemical attack, even in the acidic contents of the digestive tract. Consequently, once it enters into the body's tissues it is likely to remain there indefinitely. Carbon black was probably one of the first pigments to be used for tattooing, and Ötzi the Iceman was found to have carbon tattoos that survived during his life and for 5200 years after his death.[126] Inhalation of coal dust or soot (carbon black) in large quantities can be dangerous, irritating lung tissues and causing the congestive lung disease, coalworker's pneumoconiosis. Diamond dust used as an abrasive can be harmful if ingested or inhaled. Microparticles of carbon are produced in diesel engine exhaust fumes, and may accumulate in the lungs.[127] In these examples, the harm may result from contaminants (e.g., organic chemicals, heavy metals) rather than from the carbon itself.
+
+Carbon generally has low toxicity to life on Earth; but carbon nanoparticles are deadly to Drosophila.[128]
+
+Carbon may burn vigorously and brightly in the presence of air at high temperatures. Large accumulations of coal, which have remained inert for hundreds of millions of years in the absence of oxygen, may spontaneously combust when exposed to air in coal mine waste tips, ship cargo holds and coal bunkers,[129][130] and storage dumps.
+
+In nuclear applications where graphite is used as a neutron moderator, accumulation of Wigner energy followed by a sudden, spontaneous release may occur. Annealing to at least 250 °C can release the energy safely, although in the Windscale fire the procedure went wrong, causing other reactor materials to combust.
+
+The great variety of carbon compounds include such lethal poisons as tetrodotoxin, the lectin ricin from seeds of the castor oil plant Ricinus communis, cyanide (CN−), and carbon monoxide; and such essentials to life as glucose and protein.

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+
+
+The heart is a muscular organ in most animals, which pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system.[1] The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to the lungs.[2] In humans, the heart is approximately the size of a closed fist and is located between the lungs, in the middle compartment of the chest.[3]
+
+In humans, other mammals, and birds, the heart is divided into four chambers: upper left and right atria and lower left and right ventricles.[4][5] Commonly the right atrium and ventricle are referred together as the right heart and their left counterparts as the left heart.[6] Fish, in contrast, have two chambers, an atrium and a ventricle, while reptiles have three chambers.[5] In a healthy heart blood flows one way through the heart due to heart valves, which prevent backflow.[3] The heart is enclosed in a protective sac, the pericardium, which also contains a small amount of fluid. The wall of the heart is made up of three layers: epicardium, myocardium, and endocardium.[7]
+
+The heart pumps blood with a rhythm determined by a group of pacemaking cells in the sinoatrial node. These generate a current that causes contraction of the heart, traveling through the atrioventricular node and along the conduction system of the heart. The heart receives blood low in oxygen from the systemic circulation, which enters the right atrium from the superior and inferior venae cavae and passes to the right ventricle. From here it is pumped into the pulmonary circulation, through the lungs where it receives oxygen and gives off carbon dioxide. Oxygenated blood then returns to the left atrium, passes through the left ventricle and is pumped out through the aorta to the systemic circulation−where the oxygen is used and metabolized to carbon dioxide.[8] The heart beats at a resting rate close to 72 beats per minute.[9] Exercise temporarily increases the rate, but lowers resting heart rate in the long term, and is good for heart health.[10]
+
+Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the most common cause of death globally as of 2008, accounting for 30% of deaths.[11][12] Of these more than three quarters are a result of coronary artery disease and stroke.[11] Risk factors include: smoking, being overweight, little exercise, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and poorly controlled diabetes, among others.[13] Cardiovascular diseases frequently do not have symptoms or may cause chest pain or shortness of breath. Diagnosis of heart disease is often done by the taking of a medical history, listening to the heart-sounds with a stethoscope, ECG, and ultrasound.[3] Specialists who focus on diseases of the heart are called cardiologists, although many specialties of medicine may be involved in treatment.[12]
+
+The human heart is situated in the middle mediastinum, at the level of thoracic vertebrae T5-T8. A double-membraned sac called the pericardium surrounds the heart and attaches to the mediastinum.[15] The back surface of the heart lies near the vertebral column, and the front surface sits behind the sternum and rib cartilages.[7] The upper part of the heart is the attachment point for several large blood vessels—the venae cavae, aorta and pulmonary trunk. The upper part of the heart is located at the level of the third costal cartilage.[7] The lower tip of the heart, the apex, lies to the left of the sternum (8 to 9 cm from the midsternal line) between the junction of the fourth and fifth ribs near their articulation with the costal cartilages.[7]
+
+The largest part of the heart is usually slightly offset to the left side of the chest (though occasionally it may be offset to the right) and is felt to be on the left because the left heart is stronger and larger, since it pumps to all body parts. Because the heart is between the lungs, the left lung is smaller than the right lung and has a cardiac notch in its border to accommodate the heart.[7]
+The heart is cone-shaped, with its base positioned upwards and tapering down to the apex.[7] An adult heart has a mass of 250–350 grams (9–12 oz).[16] The heart is often described as the size of a fist: 12 cm (5 in) in length, 8 cm (3.5 in) wide, and 6 cm (2.5 in) in thickness,[7] although this description is disputed, as the heart is likely to be slightly larger.[17] Well-trained athletes can have much larger hearts due to the effects of exercise on the heart muscle, similar to the response of skeletal muscle.[7]
+
+The heart has four chambers, two upper atria, the receiving chambers, and two lower ventricles, the discharging chambers. The atria open into the ventricles via the atrioventricular valves, present in the atrioventricular septum. This distinction is visible also on the surface of the heart as the coronary sulcus.[18] There is an ear-shaped structure in the upper right atrium called the right atrial appendage, or auricle, and another in the upper left atrium, the left atrial appendage.[19] The right atrium and the right ventricle together are sometimes referred to as the right heart. Similarly, the left atrium and the left ventricle together are sometimes referred to as the left heart.[6] The ventricles are separated from each other by the interventricular septum, visible on the surface of the heart as the anterior longitudinal sulcus and the posterior interventricular sulcus.[18]
+
+The cardiac skeleton is made of dense connective tissue and this gives structure to the heart. It forms the atrioventricular septum which separates the atria from the ventricles, and the fibrous rings which serve as bases for the four heart valves.[20] The cardiac skeleton also provides an important boundary in the heart's electrical conduction system since collagen cannot conduct electricity. The interatrial septum separates the atria and the interventricular septum separates the ventricles.[7] The interventricular septum is much thicker than the interatrial septum, since the ventricles need to generate greater pressure when they contract.[7]
+
+The heart has four valves, which separate its chambers. One valve lies between each atrium and ventricle, and one valve rests at the exit of each ventricle.[7]
+
+The valves between the atria and ventricles are called the atrioventricular valves. Between the right atrium and the right ventricle is the tricuspid valve. The tricuspid valve has three cusps,[21] which connect to chordae tendinae and three papillary muscles named the anterior, posterior, and septal muscles, after their relative positions.[21] The mitral valve lies between the left atrium and left ventricle. It is also known as the bicuspid valve due to its having two cusps, an anterior and a posterior cusp. These cusps are also attached via chordae tendinae to two papillary muscles projecting from the ventricular wall.[22]
+
+The papillary muscles extend from the walls of the heart to valves by cartilaginous connections called chordae tendinae. These muscles prevent the valves from falling too far back when they close.[23] During the relaxation phase of the cardiac cycle, the papillary muscles are also relaxed and the tension on the chordae tendineae is slight. As the heart chambers contract, so do the papillary muscles. This creates tension on the chordae tendineae, helping to hold the cusps of the atrioventricular valves in place and preventing them from being blown back into the atria.[7] [g][21]
+
+Two additional semilunar valves sit at the exit of each of the ventricles. The pulmonary valve is located at the base of the pulmonary artery. This has three cusps which are not attached to any papillary muscles. When the ventricle relaxes blood flows back into the ventricle from the artery and this flow of blood fills the pocket-like valve, pressing against the cusps which close to seal the valve. The semilunar aortic valve is at the base of the aorta and also is not attached to papillary muscles. This too has three cusps which close with the pressure of the blood flowing back from the aorta.[7]
+
+The right heart consists of two chambers, the right atrium and the right ventricle, separated by a valve, the tricuspid valve.[7]
+
+The right atrium receives blood almost continuously from the body's two major veins, the superior and inferior venae cavae. A small amount of blood from the coronary circulation also drains into the right atrium via the coronary sinus, which is immediately above and to the middle of the opening of the inferior vena cava.[7] In the wall of the right atrium is an oval-shaped depression known as the fossa ovalis, which is a remnant of an opening in the fetal heart known as the foramen ovale.[7] Most of the internal surface of the right atrium is smooth, the depression of the fossa ovalis is medial, and the anterior surface has prominent ridges of pectinate muscles, which are also present in the right atrial appendage.[7]
+
+The right atrium is connected to the right ventricle by the tricuspid valve.[7] The walls of the right ventricle are lined with trabeculae carneae, ridges of cardiac muscle covered by endocardium. In addition to these muscular ridges, a band of cardiac muscle, also covered by endocardium, known as the moderator band reinforces the thin walls of the right ventricle and plays a crucial role in cardiac conduction. It arises from the lower part of the interventricular septum and crosses the interior space of the right ventricle to connect with the inferior papillary muscle.[7] The right ventricle tapers into the pulmonary trunk, into which it ejects blood when contracting. The pulmonary trunk branches into the left and right pulmonary arteries that carry the blood to each lung. The pulmonary valve lies between the right heart and the pulmonary trunk.[7]
+
+The left heart has two chambers: the left atrium and the left ventricle, separated by the mitral valve.[7]
+
+The left atrium receives oxygenated blood back from the lungs via one of the four pulmonary veins. The left atrium has an outpouching called the left atrial appendage. Like the right atrium, the left atrium is lined by pectinate muscles.[24] The left atrium is connected to the left ventricle by the mitral valve.[7]
+
+The left ventricle is much thicker as compared with the right, due to the greater force needed to pump blood to the entire body. Like the right ventricle, the left also has trabeculae carneae, but there is no moderator band. The left ventricle pumps blood to the body through the aortic valve and into the aorta. Two small openings above the aortic valve carry blood to the heart itself, the left main coronary artery and the right coronary artery.[7]
+
+The heart wall is made up of three layers: the inner endocardium, middle myocardium and outer epicardium. These are surrounded by a double-membraned sac called the pericardium.
+
+The innermost layer of the heart is called the endocardium. It is made up of a lining of simple squamous epithelium and covers heart chambers and valves. It is continuous with the endothelium of the veins and arteries of the heart, and is joined to the myocardium with a thin layer of connective tissue.[7] The endocardium, by secreting endothelins, may also play a role in regulating the contraction of the myocardium.[7]
+
+The middle layer of the heart wall is the myocardium, which is the cardiac muscle—a layer of involuntary striated muscle tissue surrounded by a framework of collagen. The cardiac muscle pattern is elegant and complex, as the muscle cells swirl and spiral around the chambers of the heart, with the outer muscles forming a figure 8 pattern around the atria and around the bases of the great vessels and the inner muscles, forming a figure 8 around the two ventricles and proceeding toward the apex. This complex swirling pattern allows the heart to pump blood more effectively.[7]
+
+There are two types of cells in cardiac muscle: muscle cells which have the ability to contract easily, and pacemaker cells of the conducting system. The muscle cells make up the bulk (99%) of cells in the atria and ventricles. These contractile cells are connected by intercalated discs which allow a rapid response to impulses of action potential from the pacemaker cells. The intercalated discs allow the cells to act as a syncytium and enable the contractions that pump blood through the heart and into the major arteries.[7] The pacemaker cells make up 1% of cells and form the conduction system of the heart. They are generally much smaller than the contractile cells and have few myofibrils which gives them limited contractibility. Their function is similar in many respects to neurons.[7] Cardiac muscle tissue has autorhythmicity, the unique ability to initiate a cardiac action potential at a fixed rate—spreading the impulse rapidly from cell to cell to trigger the contraction of the entire heart.[7]
+
+There are specific proteins expressed in cardiac muscle cells.[25][26] These are mostly associated with muscle contraction, and bind with actin, myosin, tropomyosin, and troponin. They include MYH6, ACTC1, TNNI3, CDH2 and PKP2. Other proteins expressed are MYH7 and LDB3 that are also expressed in skeletal muscle.[27]
+
+The pericardium is the sack that surrounds the heart. The tough outer surface of the pericardium is called the fibrous membrane. This is lined by a double inner membrane called the serous membrane that produces pericardial fluid to lubricate the surface of the heart.[28] The part of the serous membrane attached to the fibrous membrane is called the parietal pericardium, while the part of the serous membrane attached to the heart is known as the visceral pericardium. The pericardium is present in order to lubricate its movement against other structures within the chest, to keep the heart's position stabilised within the chest, and to protect the heart from infection.[29]
+
+Heart tissue, like all cells in the body, needs to be supplied with oxygen, nutrients and a way of removing metabolic wastes. This is achieved by the coronary circulation, which includes arteries, veins, and lymphatic vessels. Blood flow through the coronary vessels occurs in peaks and troughs relating to the heart muscle's relaxation or contraction.[7]
+
+Heart tissue receives blood from two arteries which arise just above the aortic valve. These are the left main coronary artery and the right coronary artery. The left main coronary artery splits shortly after leaving the aorta into two vessels, the left anterior descending and the left circumflex artery. The left anterior descending artery supplies heart tissue and the front, outer side, and the septum of the left ventricle. It does this by branching into smaller arteries—diagonal and septal branches. The left circumflex supplies the back and underneath of the left ventricle. The right coronary artery supplies the right atrium, right ventricle, and lower posterior sections of the left ventricle. The right coronary artery also supplies blood to the atrioventricular node (in about 90% of people) and the sinoatrial node (in about 60% of people). The right coronary artery runs in a groove at the back of the heart and the left anterior descending artery runs in a groove at the front. There is significant variation between people in the anatomy of the arteries that supply the heart [30] The arteries divide at their furtherst reaches into smaller branches that join together at the edges of each arterial distribution.[7]
+
+The coronary sinus is a large vein that drains into the right atrium, and receives most of the venous drainage of the heart. It receives blood from the great cardiac vein (receiving the left atrium and both ventricles), the posterior cardiac vein (draining the back of the left ventricle), the middle cardiac vein (draining the bottom of the left and right ventricles), and small cardiac veins.[31] The anterior cardiac veins drain the front of the right ventricle and drain directly into the right atrium.[7]
+
+Small lymphatic networks called plexuses exist beneath each of the three layers of the heart. These networks collect into a main left and a main right trunk, which travel up the groove between the ventricles that exists on the heart's surface, receiving smaller vessels as they travel up. These vessels then travel into the atrioventricular groove, and receive a third vessel which drains the section of the left ventricle sitting on the diaphragm. The left vessel joins with this third vessel, and travels along the pulmonary artery and left atrium, ending in the inferior tracheobronchial node. The right vessel travels along the right atrium and the part of the right ventricle sitting on the diaphragm. It usually then travels in front of the ascending aorta and then ends in a brachiocephalic node.[32]
+
+The heart receives nerve signals from the vagus nerve and from nerves arising from the sympathetic trunk. These nerves act to influence, but not control, the heart rate. Sympathetic nerves also influence the force of heart contraction.[33] Signals that travel along these nerves arise from two paired cardiovascular centres in the medulla oblongata. The vagus nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system acts to decrease the heart rate, and nerves from the sympathetic trunk act to increase the heart rate.[7] These nerves form a network of nerves that lies over the heart called the cardiac plexus.[7][32]
+
+The vagus nerve is a long, wandering nerve that emerges from the brainstem and provides parasympathetic stimulation to a large number of organs in the thorax and abdomen, including the heart.[34] The nerves from the sympathetic trunk emerge through the T1-T4 thoracic ganglia and travel to both the sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodes, as well as to the atria and ventricles. The ventricles are more richly innervated by sympathetic fibers than parasympathetic fibers. Sympathetic stimulation causes the release of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine (also known as noradrenaline) at the neuromuscular junction of the cardiac nerves. This shortens the repolarization period, thus speeding the rate of depolarization and contraction, which results in an increased heart rate. It opens chemical or ligand-gated sodium and calcium ion channels, allowing an influx of positively charged ions.[7] Norepinephrine binds to the beta–1 receptor.[7]
+
+
+
+The heart is the first functional organ to develop and starts to beat and pump blood at about three weeks into embryogenesis. This early start is crucial for subsequent embryonic and prenatal development.
+
+The heart derives from splanchnopleuric mesenchyme in the neural plate which forms the cardiogenic region. Two endocardial tubes form here that fuse to form a primitive heart tube known as the tubular heart.[35] Between the third and fourth week, the heart tube lengthens, and begins to fold to form an S-shape within the pericardium. This places the chambers and major vessels into the correct alignment for the developed heart. Further development will include the septa and valves formation and remodelling of the heart chambers. By the end of the fifth week the septa are complete and the heart valves are completed by the ninth week.[7]
+
+Before the fifth week, there is an opening in the fetal heart known as the foramen ovale. The foramen ovale allowed blood in the fetal heart to pass directly from the right atrium to the left atrium, allowing some blood to bypass the lungs. Within seconds after birth, a flap of tissue known as the septum primum that previously acted as a valve closes the foramen ovale and establishes the typical cardiac circulation pattern. A depression in the surface of the right atrium remains where the foramen ovale was, called the fossa ovalis.[7]
+
+The embryonic heart begins beating at around 22 days after conception (5 weeks after the last normal menstrual period, LMP). It starts to beat at a rate near to the mother's which is about 75–80 beats per minute (bpm). The embryonic heart rate then accelerates and reaches a peak rate of 165–185 bpm early in the early 7th week (early 9th week after the LMP).[36][37] After 9 weeks (start of the fetal stage) it starts to decelerate, slowing to around 145 (±25) bpm at birth. There is no difference in female and male heart rates before birth.[38]
+
+
+
+The heart functions as a pump in the circulatory system to provide a continuous flow of blood throughout the body. This circulation consists of the systemic circulation to and from the body and the pulmonary circulation to and from the lungs. Blood in the pulmonary circulation exchanges carbon dioxide for oxygen in the lungs through the process of respiration. The systemic circulation then transports oxygen to the body and returns carbon dioxide and relatively deoxygenated blood to the heart for transfer to the lungs.[7]
+
+The right heart collects deoxygenated blood from two large veins, the superior and inferior venae cavae. Blood collects in the right and left atrium continuously.[7] The superior vena cava drains blood from above the diaphragm and empties into the upper back part of the right atrium. The inferior vena cava drains the blood from below the diaphragm and empties into the back part of the atrium below the opening for the superior vena cava. Immediately above and to the middle of the opening of the inferior vena cava is the opening of the thin-walled coronary sinus.[7] Additionally, the coronary sinus returns deoxygenated blood from the myocardium to the right atrium. The blood collects in the right atrium. When the right atrium contracts, the blood is pumped through the tricuspid valve into the right ventricle. As the right ventricle contracts, the tricuspid valve closes and the blood is pumped into the pulmonary trunk through the pulmonary valve. The pulmonary trunk divides into pulmonary arteries and progressively smaller arteries throughout the lungs, until it reaches capillaries. As these pass by alveoli carbon dioxide is exchanged for oxygen. This happens through the passive process of diffusion.
+
+In the left heart, oxygenated blood is returned to the left atrium via the pulmonary veins. It is then pumped into the left ventricle through the mitral valve and into the aorta through the aortic valve for systemic circulation. The aorta is a large artery that branches into many smaller arteries, arterioles, and ultimately capillaries. In the capillaries, oxygen and nutrients from blood are supplied to body cells for metabolism, and exchanged for carbon dioxide and waste products.[7] Capillary blood, now deoxygenated, travels into venules and veins that ultimately collect in the superior and inferior vena cavae, and into the right heart.
+
+The cardiac cycle refers to the sequence of events in which the heart contracts and relaxes with every heartbeat.[9] The period of time during which the ventricles contract, forcing blood out into the aorta and main pulmonary artery, is known as systole, while the period during which the ventricles relax and refill with blood is known as diastole. The atria and ventricles work in concert, so in systole when the ventricles are contracting, the atria are relaxed and collecting blood. When the ventricles are relaxed in diastole, the atria contract to pump blood to the ventricles. This coordination ensures blood is pumped efficiently to the body.[7]
+
+At the beginning of the cardiac cycle, the ventricles are relaxing. As they do so, they are filled by blood passing through the open mitral and tricuspid valves. After the ventricles have completed most of their filling, the atria contract, forcing further blood into the ventricles and priming the pump. Next, the ventricles start to contract. As the pressure rises within the cavities of the ventricles, the mitral and tricuspid valves are forced shut. As the pressure within the ventricles rises further, exceeding the pressure with the aorta and pulmonary arteries, the aortic and pulmonary valves open. Blood is ejected from the heart, causing the pressure within the ventricles to fall. Simultaneously, the atria refill as blood flows into the right atrium through the superior and inferior vena cavae, and into the left atrium through the pulmonary veins. Finally, when the pressure within the ventricles falls below the pressure within the aorta and pulmonary arteries, the aortic and pulmonary valves close. The ventricles start to relax, the mitral and tricuspid valves open, and the cycle begins again. [9]
+
+Cardiac output (CO) is a measurement of the amount of blood pumped by each ventricle (stroke volume) in one minute. This is calculated by multiplying the stroke volume (SV) by the beats per minute of the heart rate (HR). So that: CO = SV x HR.[7]
+The cardiac output is normalized to body size through body surface area and is called the cardiac index.
+
+The average cardiac output, using an average stroke volume of about 70mL, is 5.25 L/min, with a normal range of 4.0–8.0 L/min.[7] The stroke volume is normally measured using an echocardiogram and can be influenced by the size of the heart, physical and mental condition of the individual, sex, contractility, duration of contraction, preload and afterload.[7]
+
+Preload refers to the filling pressure of the atria at the end of diastole, when the ventricles are at their fullest. A main factor is how long it takes the ventricles to fill: if the ventricles contract more frequently, then there is less time to fill and the preload will be less.[7] Preload can also be affected by a person's blood volume. The force of each contraction of the heart muscle is proportional to the preload, described as the Frank-Starling mechanism. This states that the force of contraction is directly proportional to the initial length of muscle fiber, meaning a ventricle will contract more forcefully, the more it is stretched.[7][39]
+
+Afterload, or how much pressure the heart must generate to eject blood at systole, is influenced by vascular resistance. It can be influenced by narrowing of the heart valves (stenosis) or contraction or relaxation of the peripheral blood vessels.[7]
+
+The strength of heart muscle contractions controls the stroke volume. This can be influenced positively or negatively by agents termed inotropes.[40] These agents can be a result of changes within the body, or be given as drugs as part of treatment for a medical disorder, or as a form of life support, particularly in intensive care units. Inotropes that increase the force of contraction are "positive" inotropes, and include sympathetic agents such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and dopamine.[41] "Negative" inotropes decrease the force of contraction and include calcium channel blockers.[40]
+
+The normal rhythmical heart beat, called sinus rhythm, is established by the heart's own pacemaker, the sinoatrial node (also known as the sinus node or the SA node. Here an electrical signal is created that travels through the heart, causing the heart muscle to contract. The sinoatrial node is found in the upper part of the right atrium near to the junction with the superior vena cava.[42] The electrical signal generated by the sinoatrial node travels through the right atrium in a radial way that is not completely understood. It travels to the left atrium via Bachmann's bundle, such that the muscles of the left and right atria contract together.[43][44][45] The signal then travels to the atrioventricular node. This is found at the bottom of the right atrium in the atrioventricular septum—the boundary between the right atrium and the left ventricle. The septum is part of the cardiac skeleton, tissue within the heart that the electrical signal cannot pass through, which forces the signal to pass through the atrioventricular node only.[7] The signal then travels along the bundle of His to left and right bundle branches through to the ventricles of the heart. In the ventricles the signal is carried by specialized tissue called the Purkinje fibers which then transmit the electric charge to the heart muscle.[46]
+
+The normal resting heart rate is called the sinus rhythm, created and sustained by the sinoatrial node, a group of pacemaking cells found in the wall of the right atrium. Cells in the sinoatrial node do this by creating an action potential. The cardiac action potential is created by the movement of specific electrolytes into and out of the pacemaker cells. The action potential then spreads to nearby cells.[47]
+
+When the sinoatrial cells are resting, they have a negative charge on their membranes. However a rapid influx of sodium ions causes the membrane's charge to become positive. This is called depolarisation and occurs spontaneously.[7] Once the cell has a sufficiently high charge, the sodium channels close and calcium ions then begin to enter the cell, shortly after which potassium begins to leave it. All the ions travel through ion channels in the membrane of the sinoatrial cells. The potassium and calcium start to move out of and into the cell only once it has a sufficiently high charge, and so are called voltage-gated. Shortly after this, the calcium channels close and potassium channels open, allowing potassium to leave the cell. This causes the cell to have a negative resting charge and is called repolarization. When the membrane potential reaches approximately −60 mV, the potassium channels close and the process may begin again.[7]
+
+The ions move from areas where they are concentrated to where they are not. For this reason sodium moves into the cell from outside, and potassium moves from within the cell to outside the cell. Calcium also plays a critical role. Their influx through slow channels means that the sinoatrial cells have a prolonged "plateau" phase when they have a positive charge. A part of this is called the absolute refractory period. Calcium ions also combine with the regulatory protein troponin C in the troponin complex to enable contraction of the cardiac muscle, and separate from the protein to allow relaxation.[48]
+
+The adult resting heart rate ranges from 60 to 100 bpm. The resting heart rate of a newborn can be 129 beats per minute (bpm) and this gradually decreases until maturity.[49] An athlete's heart rate can be lower than 60 bpm. During exercise the rate can be 150 bpm with maximum rates reaching from 200 to 220 bpm.[7]
+
+The normal sinus rhythm of the heart, giving the resting heart rate, is influenced by a number of factors. The cardiovascular centres in the brainstem that control the sympathetic and parasympathetic influences to the heart through the vagus nerve and sympathetic trunk.[50] These cardiovascular centres receive input from a series of receptors including baroreceptors, sensing stretch the stretching of blood vessels and chemoreceptors, sensing the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood and its pH. Through a series of reflexes these help regulate and sustain blood flow.[7]
+
+Baroreceptors are stretch receptors located in the aortic sinus, carotid bodies, the venae cavae, and other locations, including pulmonary vessels and the right side of the heart itself. Baroreceptors fire at a rate determined by how much they are stretched,[51] which is influenced by blood pressure, level of physical activity, and the relative distribution of blood. With increased pressure and stretch, the rate of baroreceptor firing increases, and the cardiac centers decrease sympathetic stimulation and increase parasympathetic stimulation. As pressure and stretch decrease, the rate of baroreceptor firing decreases, and the cardiac centers increase sympathetic stimulation and decrease parasympathetic stimulation.[7] There is a similar reflex, called the atrial reflex or Bainbridge reflex, associated with varying rates of blood flow to the atria. Increased venous return stretches the walls of the atria where specialized baroreceptors are located. However, as the atrial baroreceptors increase their rate of firing and as they stretch due to the increased blood pressure, the cardiac center responds by increasing sympathetic stimulation and inhibiting parasympathetic stimulation to increase heart rate. The opposite is also true.[7] Chemoreceptors present in the carotid body or adjacent to the aorta in an aortic body respond to the blood's oxygen, carbon dioxide levels. Low oxygen or high carbon dioxide will stimulate firing of the receptors.[52]
+
+Exercise and fitness levels, age, body temperature, basal metabolic rate, and even a person's emotional state can all affect the heart rate. High levels of the hormones epinephrine, norepinephrine, and thyroid hormones can increase the heart rate. The levels of electrolytes including calcium, potassium, and sodium can also influence the speed and regularity of the heart rate; low blood oxygen, low blood pressure and dehydration may increase it.[7]
+
+Cardiovascular diseases, which include diseases of the heart, are the leading cause of death worldwide.[53] The majority of cardiovascular disease is noncommunicable and related to lifestyle and other factors, becoming more prevalent with ageing.[53] Heart disease is a major cause of death, accounting for an average of 30% of all deaths in 2008, globally.[11] This rate varies from a lower 28% to a high 40% in high-income countries.[12] Doctors that specialise in the heart are called cardiologists. Many other medical professionals are involved in treating diseases of the heart, including doctors such as general practitioners, cardiothoracic surgeons and intensivists, and allied health practitioners including physiotherapists and dieticians.[54]
+
+Coronary artery disease, also known as ischaemic heart disease, is caused by atherosclerosis—a build-up of fatty material along the inner walls of the arteries. These fatty deposits known as atherosclerotic plaques narrow the coronary arteries, and if severe may reduce blood flow to the heart.[55] If a narrowing (or stenosis) is relatively minor then the patient may not experience any symptoms. Severe narrowings may cause chest pain (angina) or breathlessness during exercise or even at rest. The thin covering of an atherosclerotic plaque can rupture, exposing the fatty centre to the circulating blood. In this case a clot or thrombus can form, blocking the artery, and restricting blood flow to an area of heart muscle causing a myocardial infarction (a heart attack) or unstable angina.[56] In the worst case this may cause cardiac arrest, a sudden and utter loss of output from the heart.[57] Obesity, high blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes, smoking and high cholesterol can all increase the risk of developing atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease.[53][55]
+
+Heart failure is defined as a condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet the demands of the body.[58] Patients with heart failure may experience breathlessness especially when lying flat, as well as ankle swelling, known as peripheral oedema. Heart failure is the end result of many diseases affecting the heart, but is most commonly associated with ischaemic heart disease, valvular heart disease, or high blood pressure. Less common causes include various cardiomyopathies. Heart failure is frequently associated with weakness of the heart muscle in the ventricles (systolic heart failure), but can also be seen in patients with heart muscle that is strong but stiff (diastolic heart failure). The condition may affect the left ventricle (causing predominantly breathlessness), the right ventricle (causing predominantly swelling of the legs and an elevated jugular venous pressure), or both ventricles. Patients with heart failure are at higher risk of developing dangerous heart rhythm disturbances or arrhythmias.[58]
+
+Cardiomyopathies are diseases affecting the muscle of the heart. Some cause abnormal thickening of the heart muscle (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), some cause the heart to abnormally expand and weaken (dilated cardiomyopathy), some cause the heart muscle to become stiff and unable to fully relax between contractions (restrictive cardiomyopathy) and some make the heart prone to abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy). These conditions are often genetic and can be inherited, but some such as dilated cardiomyopathy may be caused by damage from toxins such as alcohol. Some cardiomyopathies such as hypertrophic cardiomopathy are linked to a higher risk of sudden cardiac death, particularly in athletes.[7] Many cardiomyopathies can lead to heart failure in the later stages of the disease.[58]
+
+Healthy heart valves allow blood to flow easily in one direction, but prevent it from flowing in the other direction. Diseased heart valves may have a narrow opening and therefore restrict the flow of blood in the forward direction (referred to as a stenotic valve), or may allow blood to leak in the reverse direction (referred to as valvular regurgitation). Valvular heart disease may cause breathlessness, blackouts, or chest pain, but may be asymptomatic and only detected on a routine examination by hearing abnormal heart sounds or a heart murmur. In the developed world, valvular heart disease is most commonly caused by degeneration secondary to old age, but may also be caused by infection of the heart valves (endocarditis). In some parts of the world rheumatic heart disease is a major cause of valvular heart disease, typically leading to mitral or aortic stenosis and caused by the body's immune system reacting to a streptococcal throat infection.[59][60]
+
+While in the healthy heart, waves of electrical impulses originate in the sinus node before spreading to the rest of the atria, the atrioventricular node, and finally the ventricles (referred to as a normal sinus rhythm), this normal rhythm can be disrupted. Abnormal heart rhythms or arrhythmias may be asymptomatic or may cause palpitations, blackouts, or breathlessness. Some types of arrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation increase the long term risk of stroke.[61]
+
+Some arrhythmias cause the heart to beat abnormally slowly, referred to as a bradycardia or bradyarrhythmia. This may be caused by an abnormally slow sinus node or damage within the cardiac conduction system (heart block).[62] In other arrhythmias the heart may beat abnormally rapidly, referred to as a tachycardia or tachyarrhythmia. These arrhythmias can take many forms and can originate from different structures within the heart—some arise from the atria (e.g. atrial flutter), some from the atrioventricular node (e.g. AV nodal re-entrant tachycardia) whilst others arise from the ventricles (e.g. ventricular tachycardia). Some tachyarrhythmias are caused by scarring within the heart (e.g. some forms of ventricular tachycardia), others by an irritable focus (e.g. focal atrial tachycardia), while others are caused by additional abnormal conduction tissue that has been present since birth (e.g. Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome). The most dangerous form of heart racing is ventricular fibrillation, in which the ventricles quiver rather than contract, and which if untreated is rapidly fatal.[63]
+
+The sack which surrounds the heart, called the pericardium, can become inflamed in a condition known as pericarditis. This condition typically causes chest pain that may spread to the back, and is often caused by a viral infection (glandular fever, cytomegalovirus, or coxsackievirus). Fluid can build up within the pericardial sack, referred to as a pericardial effusion. Pericardial effusions often occur secondary to pericarditis, kidney failure, or tumours, and frequently do not cause any symptoms. However, large effusions or effusions which accumulate rapidly can compress the heart in a condition known as cardiac tamponade, causing breathlessness and potentially fatal low blood pressure. Fluid can be removed from the pericardial space for diagnosis or to relieve tamponade using a syringe in a procedure called pericardiocentesis.[64]
+
+Some people are born with hearts that are abnormal and these abnormalities are known as congenital heart defects. They may range from the relatively minor (e.g. patent foramen ovale, arguably a variant of normal) to serious life-threatening abnormalities (e.g. hypoplastic left heart syndrome). Common abnormalities include those that affect the heart muscle that separates the two side of the heart (a 'hole in the heart' e.g. ventricular septal defect). Other defects include those affecting the heart valves (e.g. congenital aortic stenosis), or the main blood vessels that lead from the heart (e.g. coarctation of the aorta). More complex syndromes are seen that affect more than one part of the heart (e.g. Tetralogy of Fallot).
+
+Some congenital heart defects allow blood that is low in oxygen that would normally be returned to the lungs to instead be pumped back to the rest of the body. These are known as cyanotic congenital heart defects and are often more serious. Major congenital heart defects are often picked up in childhood, shortly after birth, or even before a child is born (e.g. transposition of the great arteries), causing breathlessness and a lower rate of growth. More minor forms of congenital heart disease may remain undetected for many years and only reveal themselves in adult life (e.g. atrial septal defect).[65][66]
+
+Heart disease is diagnosed by the taking of a medical history, a cardiac examination, and further investigations, including blood tests, echocardiograms, ECGs and imaging. Other invasive procedures such as cardiac catheterisation can also play a role.[67]
+
+The cardiac examination includes inspection, feeling the chest with the hands (palpation) and listening with a stethoscope (auscultation).[68][69] It involves assessment of signs that may be visible on a person's hands (such as splinter haemorrhages), joints and other areas. A person's pulse is taken, usually at the radial artery near the wrist, in order to assess for the rhythm and strength of the pulse. The blood pressure is taken, using either a manual or automatic sphygmomanometer or using a more invasive measurement from within the artery. Any elevation of the jugular venous pulse is noted. A person's chest is felt for any transmitted vibrations from the heart, and then listened to with a stethoscope.
+
+Typically, healthy hearts have only two audible heart sounds, called S1 and S2. The first heart sound S1, is the sound created by the closing of the atrioventricular valves during ventricular contraction and is normally described as "lub". The second heart sound, S2, is the sound of the semilunar valves closing during ventricular diastole and is described as "dub".[7] Each sound consists of two components, reflecting the slight difference in time as the two valves close.[70] S2 may split into two distinct sounds, either as a result of inspiration or different valvular or cardiac problems.[70] Additional heart sounds may also be present and these give rise to gallop rhythms. A third heart sound, S3 usually indicates an increase in ventricular blood volume. A fourth heart sound S4 is referred to as an atrial gallop and is produced by the sound of blood being forced into a stiff ventricle. The combined presence of S3 and S4 give a quadruple gallop.[7]
+
+Heart murmurs are abnormal heart sounds which can be either related to disease or benign, and there are several kinds.[71] There are normally two heart sounds, and abnormal heart sounds can either be extra sounds, or "murmurs" related to the flow of blood between the sounds. Murmurs are graded by volume, from 1 (the quietest), to 6 (the loudest), and evaluated by their relationship to the heart sounds, position in the cardiac cycle, and additional features such as their radiation to other sites, changes with a person's position, the frequency of the sound as determined by the side of the stethoscope by which they are heard, and site at which they are heard loudest.[71] Murmurs may be caused by damaged heart valves, congenital heart disease such as ventricular septal defects, or may be heard in normal hearts. A different type of sound, a pericardial friction rub can be heard in cases of pericarditis where the inflamed membranes can rub together.
+
+Blood tests play an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of many cardiovascular conditions.
+
+Troponin is a sensitive biomarker for a heart with insufficient blood supply. It is released 4–6 hours after injury, and usually peaks at about 12–24 hours.[41] Two tests of troponin are often taken—one at the time of initial presentation, and another within 3–6 hours,[72] with either a high level or a significant rise being diagnostic. A test for brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) can be used to evaluate for the presence of heart failure, and rises when there is increased demand on the left ventricle. These tests are considered biomarkers because they are highly specific for cardiac disease.[73] Testing for the MB form of creatine kinase provides information about the heart's blood supply, but is used less frequently because it is less specific and sensitive.[74]
+
+Other blood tests are often taken to help understand a person's general health and risk factors that may contribute to heart disease. These often include a full blood count investigating for anaemia, and basic metabolic panel that may reveal any disturbances in electrolytes. A coagulation screen is often required to ensure that the right level of anticoagulation is given. Fasting lipids and fasting blood glucose (or an HbA1c level) are often ordered to evaluate a person's cholesterol and diabetes status, respectively.[75]
+
+Using surface electrodes on the body, it is possible to record the electrical activity of the heart. This tracing of the electrical signal is the electrocardiogram (ECG) or (EKG). An ECG is a bedside test and involves the placement of ten leads on the body. This produces a "12 lead" ECG (three extra leads are calculated mathematically, and one lead is a ground).[76]
+
+There are five prominent features on the ECG: the P wave (atrial depolarisation), the QRS complex (ventricular depolarisation[h]) and the T wave (ventricular repolarisation).[7] As the heart cells contract, they create a current that travels through the heart. A downward deflection on the ECG implies cells are becoming more positive in charge ("depolarising") in the direction of that lead, whereas an upward inflection implies cells are becoming more negative ("repolarising") in the direction of the lead. This depends on the position of the lead, so if a wave of depolarising moved from left to right, a lead on the left would show a negative deflection, and a lead on the right would show a positive deflection. The ECG is a useful tool in detecting rhythm disturbances and in detecting insufficient blood supply to the heart.[76] Sometimes abnormalities are suspected, but not immediately visible on the ECG. Testing when exercising can be used to provoke an abnormality, or an ECG can be worn for a longer period such as a 24-hour Holter monitor if a suspected rhythm abnormality is not present at the time of assessment.[76]
+
+Several imaging methods can be used to assess the anatomy and function of the heart, including ultrasound (echocardiography), angiography, CT scans, MRI and PET. An echocardiogram is an ultrasound of the heart used to measure the heart's function, assess for valve disease, and look for any abnormalities. Echocardiography can be conducted by a probe on the chest ("transthoracic") or by a probe in the esophagus ("transoesophageal"). A typical echocardiography report will include information about the width of the valves noting any stenosis, whether there is any backflow of blood (regurgitation) and information about the blood volumes at the end of systole and diastole, including an ejection fraction, which describes how much blood is ejected from the left and right ventricles after systole. Ejection fraction can then be obtained by dividing the volume ejected by the heart (stroke volume) by the volume of the filled heart (end-diastolic volume).[77] Echocardiograms can also be conducted under circumstances when the body is more stressed, in order to examine for signs of lack of blood supply. This cardiac stress test involves either direct exercise, or where this is not possible, injection of a drug such as dobutamine.[69]
+
+CT scans, chest X-rays and other forms of imaging can help evaluate the heart's size, evaluate for signs of pulmonary oedema, and indicate whether there is fluid around the heart. They are also useful for evaluating the aorta, the major blood vessel which leaves the heart.[69]
+
+Diseases affecting the heart can be treated by a variety of methods including lifestyle modification, drug treatment, and surgery.
+
+Narrowings of the coronary arteries (ischaemic heart disease) are treated to relieve symptoms of chest pain caused by a partially narrowed artery (angina pectoris), to minimise heart muscle damage when an artery is completely occluded (myocardial infarction), or to prevent a myocardial infarction from occurring. Medications to improve angina symptoms include nitroglycerin, beta blockers, and calcium channel blockers, while preventative treatments include antiplatelets such as aspirin and statins, lifestyle measures such as stopping smoking and weight loss, and treatment of risk factors such as high blood pressure and diabetes.[78]
+
+In addition to using medications, narrowed heart arteries can be treated by expanding the narrowings or redirecting the flow of blood to bypass an obstruction. This may be performed using a percutaneous coronary intervention, during which narrowings can be expanded by passing small balloon-tipped wires into the coronary arteries, inflating the balloon to expand the narrowing, and sometimes leaving behind a metal scaffold known as a stent to keep the artery open.[79]
+
+If the narrowings in coronary arteries are unsuitable for treatment with a percutaneous coronary intervention, open surgery may be required. A coronary artery bypass graft can be performed, whereby a blood vessel from another part of the body (the saphenous vein, radial artery, or internal mammary artery) is used to redirect blood from a point before the narrowing (typically the aorta) to a point beyond the obstruction.[79][80]
+
+Diseased heart valves that have become abnormally narrow or abnormally leaky may require surgery. This is traditionally performed as an open surgical procedure to replace the damaged heart valve with a tissue or metallic prosthetic valve. In some circumstances, the tricuspid or mitral valves can be repaired surgically, avoiding the need for a valve replacement. Heart valves can also be treated percutaneously, using techniques that share many similarities with percutaneous coronary intervention. Transcatheter aortic valve replacement is increasingly used for patients consider very high risk for open valve replacement.[59]
+
+Abnormal heart rhythms (arrhythmias) can be treated using antiarrhythmic drugs. These may work by manipulating the flow of electrolytes across the cell membrane (such as calcium channel blockers, sodium channel blockers, amiodarone, or digoxin), or modify the autonomic nervous system's effect on the heart (beta blockers and atropine). In some arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation which increase the risk of stroke, this risk can be reduced using anticoagulants such as warfarin or novel oral anticoagualants.[61]
+
+If medications fail to control an arrhythmia, another treatment option may be catheter ablation. In these procedures, wires are passed from a vein or artery in the leg to the heart to find the abnormal area of tissue that is causing the arrhythmia. The abnormal tissue can be intentionally damaged, or ablated, by heating or freezing to prevent further heart rhythm disturbances. Whilst the majority of arrhythmias can be treated using minimally invasive catheter techniques, some arrhythmias (particularly atrial fibrillation) can also be treated using open or thoracoscopic surgery, either at the time of other cardiac surgery or as a standalone procedure. A cardioversion, whereby an electric shock is used to stun the heart out of an abnormal rhythm, may also be used.
+
+Cardiac devices in the form of pacemakers or implantable defibrillators may also be required to treat arrhythmias. Pacemakers, comprising a small battery powered generator implanted under the skin and one or more leads that extend to the heart, are most commonly used to treat abnormally slow heart rhythms.[62] Implantable defibrillators are used to treat serious life-threatening rapid heart rhythms. These devices monitor the heart, and if dangerous heart racing is detected can automatically deliver a shock to restore the heart to a normal rhythm. Implantable defibrillators are most commonly used in patients with heart failure, cardiomyopathies, or inherited arrhythmia syndromes.
+
+As well as addressing the underlying cause for a patient's heart failure (most commonly ischaemic heart disease or hypertension), the mainstay of heart failure treatment is with medication. These include drugs to prevent fluid from accumulating in the lungs by increasing the amount of urine a patient produces (diuretics), and drugs that attempt to preserve the pumping function of the heart (beta blockers, ACE inhibitors and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists).[58]
+
+In some patients with heart failure, a specialised pacemaker known as cardiac resynchronisation therapy can be used to improve the heart's pumping efficiency.[62] These devices are frequently combined with a defibrillator. In very severe cases of heart failure, a small pump called a ventricular assist device may be implanted which supplements the heart's own pumping ability. In the most severe cases, a cardiac transplant may be considered.[58]
+
+Humans have known about the heart since ancient times, although its precise function and anatomy were not clearly understood.[81] From the primarily religious views of earlier societies towards the heart, ancient Greeks are considered to have been the primary seat of scientific understanding of the heart in the ancient world.[82][83][84] Aristotle considered the heart to be organ responsible for creating blood; Plato considered the heart as the source of circulating blood and Hippocrates noted blood circulating cyclically from the body through the heart to the lungs.[82][84] Erasistratos (304–250 BCE) noted the heart as a pump, causing dilation of blood vessels, and noted that arteries and veins both radiate from the heart, becoming progressively smaller with distance, although he believed they were filled with air and not blood. He also discovered the heart valves.[82]
+
+The Greek physician Galen (2nd century CE) knew blood vessels carried blood and identified venous (dark red) and arterial (brighter and thinner) blood, each with distinct and separate functions.[82] Galen, noting the heart as the hottest organ in the body, concluded that it provided heat to the body.[84] The heart did not pump blood around, the heart's motion sucked blood in during diastole and the blood moved by the pulsation of the arteries themselves.[84] Galen believed the arterial blood was created by venous blood passing from the left ventricle to the right through 'pores' between the ventricles.[81] Air from the lungs passed from the lungs via the pulmonary artery to the left side of the heart and created arterial blood.[84]
+
+These ideas went unchallenged for almost a thousand years.[81][84]
+
+The earliest descriptions of the coronary and pulmonary circulation systems can be found in the Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon, published in 1242 by Ibn al-Nafis.[85] In his manuscript, al-Nafis wrote that blood passes through the pulmonary circulation instead of moving from the right to the left ventricle as previously believed by Galen.[86] His work was later translated into Latin by Andrea Alpago.[87]
+
+In Europe, the teachings of Galen continued to dominate the academic community and his doctrines were adopted as the official canon of the Church. Andreas Vesalius questioned some of Galen's beliefs of the heart in De humani corporis fabrica (1543), but his magnum opus was interpreted as a challenge to the authorities and he was subjected to a number of attacks.[88] Michael Servetus wrote in Christianismi Restitutio (1553) that blood flows from one side of the heart to the other via the lungs.[88]
+
+A breakthrough in understanding the flow of blood through the heart and body came with the publication of De Motu Cordis (1628) by the English physician William Harvey. Harvey's book completely describes the systemic circulation and the mechanical force of the heart, leading to an overhaul of the Galenic doctrines.[84] Otto Frank (1865–1944) was a German physiologist; among his many published works are detailed studies of this important heart relationship. Ernest Starling (1866–1927) was an important English physiologist who also studied the heart. Although they worked largely independently, their combined efforts and similar conclusions have been recognized in the name "Frank–Starling mechanism".[7]
+
+Although Purkinje fibers and the bundle of His were discovered as early as the 19th century, their specific role in the electrical conduction system of the heart remained unknown until Sunao Tawara published his monograph, titled Das Reizleitungssystem des Säugetierherzens, in 1906. Tawara's discovery of the atrioventricular node prompted Arthur Keith and Martin Flack to look for similar structures in the heart, leading to their discovery of the sinoatrial node several months later. These structures form the anatomical basis of the electrocardiogram, whose inventor, Willem Einthoven, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1924.[89]
+
+The first successful heart transplantation was performed in 1967 by the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. This marked an important milestone in cardiac surgery, capturing the attention of both the medical profession and the world at large. However, long-term survival rates of patients were initially very low. Louis Washkansky, the first recipient of a donated heart, died 18 days after the operation while other patients did not survive for more than a few weeks.[90] The American surgeon Norman Shumway has been credited for his efforts to improve transplantation techniques, along with pioneers Richard Lower, Vladimir Demikhov and Adrian Kantrowitz. As of March 2000, more than 55,000 heart transplantations have been performed worldwide.[91]
+
+By the middle of the 20th century, heart disease had surpassed infectious disease as the leading cause of death in the United States, and it is currently the leading cause of deaths worldwide. Since 1948, the ongoing Framingham Heart Study has shed light on the effects of various influences on the heart, including diet, exercise, and common medications such as aspirin. Although the introduction of ACE inhibitors and beta blockers has improved the management of chronic heart failure, the disease continues to be an enormous medical and societal burden, with 30 to 40% of patients dying within a year of receiving the diagnosis.[92]
+
+As one of the vital organs, the heart was long identified as the center of the entire body, the seat of life, or emotion, or reason, will, intellect, purpose or the mind.[93] The heart is an emblematic symbol in many religions, signifying "truth, conscience or moral courage in many religions—the temple or throne of God in Islamic and Judeo-Christian thought; the divine centre, or atman, and the third eye of transcendent wisdom in Hinduism; the diamond of purity and essence of the Buddha; the Taoist centre of understanding."[93]
+
+In the Hebrew Bible, the word for heart, lev, is used in these meanings, as the seat of emotion, the mind, and referring to the anatomical organ. It is also connected in function and symbolism to the stomach.[94]
+
+An important part of the concept of the soul in Ancient Egyptian religion was thought to be the heart, or ib. The ib or metaphysical heart was believed to be formed from one drop of blood from the child's mother's heart, taken at conception.[95] To ancient Egyptians, the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will, and intention. This is evidenced by Egyptian expressions which incorporate the word ib, such as Awi-ib for "happy" (literally, "long of heart"), Xak-ib for "estranged" (literally, "truncated of heart").[96] In Egyptian religion, the heart was the key to the afterlife. It was conceived as surviving death in the nether world, where it gave evidence for, or against, its possessor. It was thought that the heart was examined by Anubis and a variety of deities during the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. If the heart weighed more than the feather of Maat, which symbolized the ideal standard of behavior. If the scales balanced, it meant the heart's possessor had lived a just life and could enter the afterlife; if the heart was heavier, it would be devoured by the monster Ammit.[97]
+
+The Chinese character for "heart", 心, derives from a comparatively realistic depiction of a heart (indicating the heart chambers) in seal script.[98] The Chinese word xīn also takes the metaphorical meanings of "mind", "intention", or "core".[99] In Chinese medicine, the heart is seen as the center of 神 shén "spirit, consciousness".[100] The heart is associated with the small intestine, tongue, governs the six organs and five viscera, and belongs to fire in the five elements.[101]
+
+The Sanskrit word for heart is hṛd or hṛdaya, found in the oldest surviving Sanskrit text, the Rigveda. In Sanskrit, it may mean both the anatomical object and "mind" or "soul", representing the seat of emotion. Hrd may be a cognate of the word for heart in Greek, Latin, and English.[102][103]
+
+Many classical philosophers and scientists, including Aristotle, considered the heart the seat of thought, reason, or emotion, often disregarding the brain as contributing to those functions.[104] The identification of the heart as the seat of emotions in particular is due to the Roman physician Galen, who also located the seat of the passions in the liver, and the seat of reason in the brain.[105]
+
+The heart also played a role in the Aztec system of belief. The most common form of human sacrifice practiced by the Aztecs was heart-extraction. The Aztec believed that the heart (tona) was both the seat of the individual and a fragment of the Sun's heat (istli). To this day, the Nahua consider the Sun to be a heart-soul (tona-tiuh): "round, hot, pulsating".[106]
+
+In Catholicism, there has been a long tradition of veneration of the heart, stemming from worship of the wounds of Jesus Christ which gained prominence from the mid sixteenth century.[107] This tradition influenced the development of the medieval Christian devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the parallel veneration of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, made popular by John Eudes.[108]
+
+The expression of a broken heart is a cross-cultural reference to grief for a lost one or to unfulfilled romantic love.
+
+The notion of "Cupid's arrows" is ancient, due to Ovid, but while Ovid describes Cupid as wounding his victims with his arrows, it is not made explicit that it is the heart that is wounded. The familiar iconography of Cupid shooting little heart symbols is a Renaissance theme that became tied to Valentine's day.[93]
+
+Animal hearts are widely consumed as food. As they are almost entirely muscle, they are high in protein. They are often included in dishes with other offal, for example in the pan-Ottoman kokoretsi.
+
+Chicken hearts are considered to be giblets, and are often grilled on skewers: Japanese hāto yakitori, Brazilian churrasco de coração, Indonesian chicken heart satay.[109] They can also be pan-fried, as in Jerusalem mixed grill. In Egyptian cuisine, they can be used, finely chopped, as part of stuffing for chicken.[110] Many recipes combined them with other giblets, such as the Mexican pollo en menudencias[111] and the Russian ragu iz kurinyikh potrokhov.[112]
+
+The hearts of beef, pork, and mutton can generally be interchanged in recipes. As heart is a hard-working muscle, it makes for "firm and rather dry" meat,[113] so is generally slow-cooked. Another way of dealing with toughness is to julienne the meat, as in Chinese stir-fried heart.[114]
+
+Beef heart may be grilled or braised.[115] In the Peruvian anticuchos de corazón, barbecued beef hearts are grilled after being tenderized through long marination in a spice and vinegar mixture. An Australian recipe for "mock goose" is actually braised stuffed beef heart.[116]
+
+Pig heart is stewed, poached, braised,[117] or made into sausage. The Balinese oret is a sort of blood sausage made with pig heart and blood. A French recipe for cœur de porc à l'orange is made of braised heart with an orange sauce.
+
+The size of the heart varies among the different animal groups, with hearts in vertebrates ranging from those of the smallest mice (12 mg) to the blue whale (600 kg).[118] In vertebrates, the heart lies in the middle of the ventral part of the body, surrounded by a pericardium.[119] which in some fish may be connected to the peritoneum.[120]
+
+The SA node is found in all amniotes but not in more primitive vertebrates. In these animals, the muscles of the heart are relatively continuous, and the sinus venosus coordinates the beat, which passes in a wave through the remaining chambers. Indeed, since the sinus venosus is incorporated into the right atrium in amniotes, it is likely homologous with the SA node. In teleosts, with their vestigial sinus venosus, the main centre of coordination is, instead, in the atrium. The rate of heartbeat varies enormously between different species, ranging from around 20 beats per minute in codfish to around 600 in hummingbirds[121] and up to 1200 bpm in the ruby-throated hummingbird.[122]
+
+Adult amphibians and most reptiles have a double circulatory system, meaning a circulatory system divided into arterial and venous parts. However, the heart itself is not completely separated into two sides. Instead, it is separated into three chambers—two atria and one ventricle. Blood returning from both the systemic circulation and the lungs is returned, and blood is pumped simultaneously into the systemic circulation and the lungs. The double system allows blood to circulate to and from the lungs which deliver oxygenated blood directly to the heart.[123]
+
+In reptiles, the heart is usually situated around the middle of the thorax, and in snakes, usually between the junction of the upper first and second third. There is a heart with three chambers: two atria and one ventricle. The form and function of these hearts are different than mammalian hearts due to the fact that snakes have an elongated body, and thus are affected by different environmental factors. In particular, the snake's heart relative to the position in their body has been influenced greatly by gravity. Therefore, snakes that are larger in size tend to have a higher blood pressure due to gravitational change. This results in the heart being located in different regions of the body that is relative to the snake's body length.[124] The ventricle is incompletely separated into two halves by a wall (septum), with a considerable gap near the pulmonary artery and aortic openings. In most reptilian species, there appears to be little, if any, mixing between the bloodstreams, so the aorta receives, essentially, only oxygenated blood.[121][123] The exception to this rule is crocodiles, which have a four-chambered heart.[125]
+
+In the heart of lungfish, the septum extends part-way into the ventricle. This allows for some degree of separation between the de-oxygenated bloodstream destined for the lungs and the oxygenated stream that is delivered to the rest of the body. The absence of such a division in living amphibian species may be partly due to the amount of respiration that occurs through the skin; thus, the blood returned to the heart through the venae cavae is already partially oxygenated. As a result, there may be less need for a finer division between the two bloodstreams than in lungfish or other tetrapods. Nonetheless, in at least some species of amphibian, the spongy nature of the ventricle does seem to maintain more of a separation between the bloodstreams. Also, the original valves of the conus arteriosus have been replaced by a spiral valve that divides it into two parallel parts, thereby helping to keep the two bloodstreams separate.[121]
+
+Archosaurs (crocodilians and birds) and mammals show complete separation of the heart into two pumps for a total of four heart chambers; it is thought that the four-chambered heart of archosaurs evolved independently from that of mammals. In crocodilians, there is a small opening, the foramen of Panizza, at the base of the arterial trunks and there is some degree of mixing between the blood in each side of the heart, during a dive underwater;[126][127] thus, only in birds and mammals are the two streams of blood—those to the pulmonary and systemic circulations—permanently kept entirely separate by a physical barrier.[121]
+
+Fish have what is often described as a two-chambered heart,[128] consisting of one atrium to receive blood and one ventricle to pump it.[129] However, the fish heart has entry and exit compartments that may be called chambers, so it is also sometimes described as three-chambered[129] or four-chambered,[130] depending on what is counted as a chamber. The atrium and ventricle are sometimes considered "true chambers", while the others are considered "accessory chambers".[131]
+
+Primitive fish have a four-chambered heart, but the chambers are arranged sequentially so that this primitive heart is quite unlike the four-chambered hearts of mammals and birds. The first chamber is the sinus venosus, which collects deoxygenated blood from the body through the hepatic and cardinal veins. From here, blood flows into the atrium and then to the powerful muscular ventricle where the main pumping action will take place. The fourth and final chamber is the conus arteriosus, which contains several valves and sends blood to the ventral aorta. The ventral aorta delivers blood to the gills where it is oxygenated and flows, through the dorsal aorta, into the rest of the body. (In tetrapods, the ventral aorta has divided in two; one half forms the ascending aorta, while the other forms the pulmonary artery).[121]
+
+In the adult fish, the four chambers are not arranged in a straight row but instead form an S-shape, with the latter two chambers lying above the former two. This relatively simple pattern is found in cartilaginous fish and in the ray-finned fish. In teleosts, the conus arteriosus is very small and can more accurately be described as part of the aorta rather than of the heart proper. The conus arteriosus is not present in any amniotes, presumably having been absorbed into the ventricles over the course of evolution. Similarly, while the sinus venosus is present as a vestigial structure in some reptiles and birds, it is otherwise absorbed into the right atrium and is no longer distinguishable.[121]
+
+Arthropods and most mollusks have an open circulatory system. In this system, deoxygenated blood collects around the heart in cavities (sinuses). This blood slowly permeates the heart through many small one-way channels. The heart then pumps the blood into the hemocoel, a cavity between the organs. The heart in arthropods is typically a muscular tube that runs the length of the body, under the back and from the base of the head. Instead of blood the circulatory fluid is haemolymph which carries the most commonly used respiratory pigment, copper-based haemocyanin as the oxygen transporter. Haemoglobin is only used by a few arthropods.[132]
+
+In some other invertebrates such as earthworms, the circulatory system is not used to transport oxygen and so is much reduced, having no veins or arteries and consisting of two connected tubes. Oxygen travels by diffusion and there are five small muscular vessels that connect these vessels that contract at the front of the animals that can be thought of as "hearts".[132]
+
+Squids and other cephalopods have two "gill hearts" also known as branchial hearts, and one "systemic heart". The branchial hearts have two atria and one ventricle each, and pump to the gills, whereas the systemic heart pumps to the body.[133][134]
+
+The human heart viewed from the front
+
+The human heart viewed from behind
+
+The coronary circulation
+
+The human heart viewed from the front and from behind
+
+Frontal section of the human heart
+
+An anatomical specimen of the heart
+
+Heart illustration with circulatory system
+
+This article incorporates text from the CC-BY book: OpenStax College,  Anatomy & Physiology. OpenStax CNX. 30 Jul 2014.

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+Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (French pronunciation: ​[aʁmɑ̃ ʒɑ̃ dy plɛsi]; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly referred to as Cardinal Richelieu (UK: /ˈrɪʃəljɜː, ˈriːʃ-/,[1][2][3] US: /ˈrɪʃəl(j)uː, ˈriːʃ-/;[3][4][5] French: Cardinal de Richelieu [kaʁdinal d(ə) ʁiʃ(ə)ljø] (listen)), was a French clergyman and statesman. He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607 and was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered.
+
+Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the king's "Chief Minister" or "First Minister". He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in an attempt to achieve his goals. While a powerful political figure, events like the Day of the Dupes (Jour des Dupes) show that in fact he very much depended on the king's confidence to keep this power.
+
+As alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the College of Sorbonne, he renovated and extended the institution. Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts; most notably, he founded the Académie française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet l'Éminence rouge ("the Red Eminence"), from the red shade of a cardinal's clerical dress and the style "eminence" as a cardinal. As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and of the retention of New France, he founded the Compagnie des Cent-Associés and saw the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye return Quebec City to French rule under Champlain, after the settlement had been taken by the Kirkes in 1629. The city would prove to be at the heart of Francophone culture in North America.
+
+Richelieu has been depicted in popular fiction frequently, most notably as the lead villain in Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel The Three Musketeers and its numerous film adaptations.
+
+Born in Paris, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children and the last of three sons: he was delicate from childhood, and suffered frequent bouts of ill-health throughout his life. His family was somewhat prominent, belonging to the lesser nobility of Poitou:[6] his father, François du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, was a soldier and courtier who served as the Grand Provost of France,[7] and his mother, Susanne de La Porte, was the daughter of a famous jurist.[8] When he was five years old, his father died fighting in the French Wars of Religion,[9] leaving the family in debt; with the aid of royal grants, however, the family was able to avoid financial difficulties. At the age of nine, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy.[10] Thereafter, he began to train for a military career.[11] His private life seems to have been typical of a young officer of the era: in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for pneumonia.[12]
+
+Henry III had rewarded Richelieu's father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the bishopric of Luçon.[13] The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use; they were, however, challenged by clergymen who desired the funds for ecclesiastical purposes. To protect the important source of revenue, Richelieu's mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon.[14] Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk.[15] Thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong academic interests and threw himself into studying for his new post.[citation needed]
+
+In 1606 Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon.[14] As Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from Pope Paul V. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607. Soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer.[16] He became the first bishop in France to implement the institutional reforms prescribed by the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563.[17]
+
+At about this time, Richelieu became a friend of François Leclerc du Tremblay (better known as "Père Joseph" or "Father Joseph"), a Capuchin friar, who would later become a close confidant. Because of his closeness to Richelieu, and the grey colour of his robes, Father Joseph was also nicknamed L'éminence grise ("the Grey Eminence"). Later, Richelieu often used him as an agent during diplomatic negotiations.[18]
+
+In 1614, the clergymen of Poitou asked Richelieu to be one of their representatives to the Estates-General.[19] There, he was a vigorous advocate of the Church, arguing that it should be exempt from taxes and that bishops should have more political power. He was the most prominent clergyman to support the adoption of the decrees of the Council of Trent throughout France;[20] the Third Estate (commoners) was his chief opponent in this endeavour. At the end of the assembly, the First Estate (the clergy) chose him to deliver the address enumerating its petitions and decisions.[21] Soon after the dissolution of the Estates-General, Richelieu entered the service of King Louis XIII's wife, Anne of Austria, as her almoner.[22]
+
+Richelieu advanced politically by faithfully serving the Queen-Mother's favourite, Concino Concini, the most powerful minister in the kingdom.[23] In 1616, Richelieu was made Secretary of State, and was given responsibility for foreign affairs.[21] Like Concini, the Bishop was one of the closest advisors of Louis XIII's mother, Marie de Médicis. The Queen had become Regent of France when the nine-year-old Louis ascended the throne; although her son reached the legal age of majority in 1614, she remained the effective ruler of the realm.[24] However, her policies, and those of Concini, proved unpopular with many in France. As a result, both Marie and Concini became the targets of intrigues at court; their most powerful enemy was Charles de Luynes.[25] In April 1617, in a plot arranged by Luynes, Louis XIII ordered that Concini be arrested, and killed should he resist; Concini was consequently assassinated, and Marie de Médicis overthrown.[26] His patron having died, Richelieu also lost power; he was dismissed as Secretary of State, and was removed from the court.[26] In 1618, the King, still suspicious of the Bishop of Luçon, banished him to Avignon. There, Richelieu spent most of his time writing; he composed a catechism entitled L'Instruction du chrétien.[27]
+
+In 1619, Marie de Médicis escaped from her confinement in the Château de Blois, becoming the titular leader of an aristocratic rebellion. The King and the duc de Luynes recalled Richelieu, believing that he would be able to reason with the Queen. Richelieu was successful in this endeavour, mediating between her and her son.[28] Complex negotiations bore fruit when the Treaty of Angoulême was ratified; Marie de Médicis was given complete freedom, but would remain at peace with the King. The Queen-Mother was also restored to the royal council.[citation needed]
+
+After the death of the King's favourite, the duc de Luynes, in 1621, Richelieu rose to power quickly. The year after, the King nominated Richelieu for a cardinalate, which Pope Gregory XV accordingly granted in September 1622.[29] Crises in France, including a rebellion of the Huguenots, rendered Richelieu a nearly indispensable advisor to the King. After he was appointed to the royal council of ministers on 29 April 1624,[30] he intrigued against the chief minister, Charles, duc de La Vieuville.[28] On 12 August of the same year, La Vieuville was arrested on charges of corruption, and Cardinal Richelieu took his place as the King's principal minister the following day, although the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld nominally remained president of the council (Richelieu was officially appointed president in November 1629).[31]
+
+Cardinal Richelieu's policy involved two primary goals: centralization of power in France[32] and opposition to the Habsburg dynasty (which ruled in both Austria and Spain).[33] Shortly after he became Louis' principal minister, he was faced with a crisis in Valtellina, a valley in Lombardy (northern Italy). To counter Spanish designs on the territory, Richelieu supported the Protestant Swiss canton of Grisons, which also claimed the strategically important valley. The Cardinal deployed troops to Valtellina, from which the Pope's garrisons were driven out.[34] Richelieu's early decision to support a Protestant canton against the Pope was a foretaste of the purely diplomatic power politics he would espouse in his foreign policy.
+
+To further consolidate power in France, Richelieu sought to suppress the influence of the feudal nobility. In 1626, he abolished the position of Constable of France and ordered all fortified castles razed, excepting only those needed to defend against invaders.[35] Thus he stripped the princes, dukes, and lesser aristocrats of important defences that could have been used against the King's armies during rebellions. As a result, Richelieu was hated by most of the nobility.
+
+Another obstacle to the centralization of power was religious division in France. The Huguenots, one of the largest political and religious factions in the country, controlled a significant military force, and were in rebellion.[36] Moreover, the King of England, Charles I, declared war on France in an attempt to aid the Huguenot faction. In 1627, Richelieu ordered the army to besiege the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle; the Cardinal personally commanded the besieging troops.[37] English troops under the Duke of Buckingham led an expedition to help the citizens of La Rochelle, but failed abysmally. The city, however, remained firm for over a year before capitulating in 1628.
+
+Although the Huguenots suffered a major defeat at La Rochelle, they continued to fight, led by Henri, duc de Rohan. Protestant forces, however, were defeated in 1629; Rohan submitted to the terms of the Peace of Alais.[38] As a result, religious toleration for Protestants, which had first been granted by the Edict of Nantes in 1598, was permitted to continue, but the Cardinal abolished their political rights and protections.[38] Rohan was not executed (as were leaders of rebellions later in Richelieu's tenure); in fact, he later became a commanding officer in the French army.
+
+Habsburg Spain exploited the French conflict with the Huguenots to extend its influence in northern Italy. It funded the Huguenot rebels to keep the French army occupied, meanwhile expanding its Italian dominions. Richelieu, however, responded aggressively; after La Rochelle capitulated, he personally led the French army to northern Italy to restrain Spain. On 26 November 1629, he was created duc de Richelieu and a Peer of France.
+In the next year, Richelieu's position was seriously threatened by his former patron, Marie de Médicis. Marie believed that the Cardinal had robbed her of her political influence; thus, she demanded that her son dismiss the chief minister.[39] Louis XIII was not, at first, averse to such a course of action, as he personally disliked Richelieu.[21] Despite this, the persuasive statesman was able to secure the king as an ally against his own mother. On 11 November 1630, Marie de Médicis and the King's brother, Gaston, duc d'Orléans, secured the King's agreement for the dismissal. Richelieu, however, was aware of the plan, and quickly convinced the King to repent.[40] This day, known as the Day of the Dupes, was the only one on which Louis XIII took a step toward dismissing his minister. Thereafter, the King was unwavering in his political support for him.
+
+Meanwhile, Marie de Médicis was exiled to Compiègne. Both Marie and the duc d'Orléans continued to conspire against Richelieu, but their schemes came to nothing. The nobility also remained powerless. The only important rising was that of Henri, duc de Montmorency in 1632; Richelieu, ruthless in suppressing opposition, ordered the duke's execution. In 1634, the Cardinal had one of his outspoken critics, Urbain Grandier, burned at the stake in the Loudun affair. These and other harsh measures were orchestrated by Richelieu to intimidate his enemies. He also ensured his political security by establishing a large network of spies in France as well as in other European countries.
+
+Henri Motte's depiction of Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle.
+
+Letter of Cardinal Richelieu to Claude de Razilly asking him to do everything in his power to relieve Ré Island in the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, July 1627.
+
+On the "Day of the Dupes" in 1630, it appeared that Marie de Médicis had secured Richelieu's dismissal. Richelieu, however, survived the scheme, and Marie was exiled as a result.
+
+Before Richelieu's ascent to power, most of Europe had become enmeshed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). France was not openly at war with the Habsburgs, who ruled Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, so subsidies and aid were provided secretly to their adversaries.[41] He considered the Dutch Republic as one of France's most important allies, for it bordered directly with the Spanish Netherlands and was right in the middle of the Eighty Years' War with Spain at that time. Luckily for him, Richelieu was a bon français, just like the king, who had already decided to subsidize the Dutch to fight against the Spanish via the Treaty of Compiègne in June 1624, prior to Richelieu's appointment to First Minister in August.[42] That same year, a military expedition, secretly financed by France and commanded by Marquis de Coeuvres, started an action with the intention of liberating the Valtelline from Spanish occupation. In 1625, Richelieu also sent money to Ernst von Mansfeld, a famous mercenary general operating in Germany in English service. However, in May 1626, when war costs had almost ruined France, king and cardinal made peace with Spain via the Treaty of Monçon.[43] This peace quickly broke down after tensions due to the War of the Mantuan Succession.[44]
+
+In 1629, Emperor Ferdinand II subjugated many of his Protestant opponents in Germany. Richelieu, alarmed by Ferdinand's growing influence, incited Sweden to intervene, providing money.[45] In the meantime, France and Spain remained hostile due to Spain's ambitions in northern Italy. At that time northern Italy was a major strategic region in Europe's balance of power, serving as a link between the Habsburgs in the Empire and in Spain. Had the imperial armies dominated this region, France would have been threatened by Habsburg encirclement. Spain was meanwhile seeking papal approval for a universal monarchy. When in 1630 French diplomats in Regensburg agreed to make peace with Spain, Richelieu refused to support them. The agreement would have prohibited French interference in Germany. Therefore, Richelieu advised Louis XIII to refuse to ratify the treaty. In 1631, he allied France to Sweden, who had just invaded the empire, in the Treaty of Bärwalde.[45]
+
+Military expenses placed a considerable strain on royal revenues. In response, Richelieu raised the gabelle (salt tax) and the taille (land tax).[46] The taille was enforced to provide funds to raise armies and wage war. The clergy, nobility, and high bourgeoisie were either exempt or could easily avoid payment, so the burden fell on the poorest segment of the nation. To collect taxes more efficiently, and to keep corruption to a minimum, Richelieu bypassed local tax officials, replacing them with intendants (officials in the direct service of the Crown).[47] Richelieu's financial scheme, however, caused unrest among the peasants; there were several uprisings in 1636 to 1639.[48] Richelieu crushed the revolts violently, and dealt with the rebels harshly.[49]
+
+Because he openly aligned France with Protestant powers, Richelieu was denounced by many as a traitor to the Roman Catholic Church. Military action, at first, was disastrous for the French, with many victories going to Spain and the Empire.[50] Neither side, however, could obtain a decisive advantage, and the conflict lingered on after Richelieu's death. Richelieu was instrumental in redirecting the Thirty Years' War from the conflict of Protestantism versus Catholicism to that of nationalism versus Habsburg hegemony.[51] In this conflict France effectively drained the already overstretched resources of the Habsburg empire and drove it inexorably towards bankruptcy.[52] The defeat of Habsburg forces at the Battle of Lens in 1648, coupled with their failure to prevent a French invasion of Catalonia, effectively spelled the end for Habsburg domination of the continent, and for the personal career of Spanish prime minister Olivares.[52] Indeed, in the subsequent years it would be France, under the leadership of Louis XIV, who would attempt to fill the vacuum left by the Habsburgs in the Spanish Netherlands and supplant Spain as the dominant European power.[citation needed]
+
+When Richelieu came to power, New France, where the French had a foothold since Jacques Cartier, had no more than 100 permanent European inhabitants.[53] Richelieu encouraged Louis XIII to colonize the Americas by the foundation of the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France in imitation of the Dutch West India Company. Unlike the other colonial powers, France encouraged a peaceful coexistence in New France between Natives and Colonists and sought the integration of Indians into colonial society.[54][55] Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France at the time of Richelieu, saw intermarriage between French and Indians as a solution to increase population in its colony.[56] Under the guidance of Richelieu, Louis XIII issued the Ordonnance of 1627 by which the Indians, converted to Catholicism, were considered as "natural Frenchmen":
+
+The descendants of the French who are accustomed to this country [New France], together with all the Indians who will be brought to the knowledge of the faith and will profess it, shall be deemed and renowned natural Frenchmen, and as such may come to live in France when they want, and acquire, donate, and succeed and accept donations and legacies, just as true French subjects, without being required to take letters of declaration of naturalization.[57]
+
+The 1666 census of New France, conducted some 20 years after the death of Cardinal Richelieu, showed a population of 3,215 habitants in New France, many more than there had been only a few decades earlier, but also a great difference in the number of men (2,034) and women (1,181).[58]
+
+Towards the end of his life, Richelieu alienated many people, including Pope Urban VIII. Richelieu was displeased by the Pope's refusal to name him the papal legate in France;[59] in turn, the Pope did not approve of the administration of the French church, or of French foreign policy. However, the conflict was largely healed when the Pope granted a cardinalate to Jules Mazarin, one of Richelieu's foremost political allies, in 1641. Despite troubled relations with the Roman Catholic Church, Richelieu did not support the complete repudiation of papal authority in France, as was advocated by the Gallicanists.[60]
+
+As he neared death, Richelieu faced a plot that threatened to remove him from power. The cardinal had introduced a young man named Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis de Cinq-Mars to Louis XIII's court.[61] The Cardinal had been a friend of Cinq-Mars' father.[61] More importantly, Richelieu hoped that Cinq-Mars would become Louis' favourite, so that he could indirectly exercise greater influence over the monarch's decisions. Cinq-Mars had become the royal favourite by 1639, but, contrary to Cardinal Richelieu's belief, he was not easy to control. The young marquis realized that Richelieu would not permit him to gain political power.[62] In 1641, he participated in the comte de Soissons' failed conspiracy against Richelieu, but was not discovered.[63] Then, the following year, he schemed with leading nobles (including the King's brother, the duc d'Orléans) to raise a rebellion; he also signed a secret agreement with the King of Spain, who promised to aid the rebels.[64] Richelieu's spy service, however, discovered the plot, and the Cardinal received a copy of the treaty.[65] Cinq-Mars was promptly arrested and executed; although Louis approved the use of capital punishment, he grew more distant from Richelieu as a result.[citation needed]
+
+However, Richelieu was now dying. For many years he had suffered from recurrent fevers (possibly malaria), strangury, intestinal tuberculosis with fistula, and migraine. Now his right arm was suppurating with tubercular osteitis, and he coughed blood (after his death, his lungs were found to have extensive cavities and caseous necrosis). His doctors continued to bleed him frequently, further weakening him.[66] As he felt his death approaching, he named Mazarin, one of his most faithful followers, to succeed him as chief minister to the King.[67]
+
+Richelieu died on 4 December 1642, aged 57. His body was embalmed and interred at the church of the Sorbonne. During the French Revolution, the corpse was removed from its tomb, and the mummified front of his head, having been removed and replaced during the original embalming process, was stolen. It ended up in the possession of Nicholas Armez of Brittany by 1796, and he occasionally exhibited the well-preserved face. His nephew, Louis-Philippe Armez, inherited it and also occasionally exhibited it and lent it out for study. In 1866, Napoleon III persuaded Armez to return the face to the government for re-interment with the rest of Richelieu's body. An investigation of subsidence of the church floor enabled the head to be photographed in 1895.[68][69]
+
+Richelieu was a famous patron of the arts. An author of various religious and political works (most notably his Political Testament), he sent his agents abroad[70] in search of books and manuscripts for his unrivaled library, which he specified in his will – leaving it to his great-nephew fully funded – should serve not merely his family but to be open at fixed hours to scholars. The manuscripts alone numbered some 900, bound as codices in red Morocco with the cardinal's arms. The library was transferred to the Sorbonne in 1660.[71] He funded the literary careers of many writers. He was a lover of the theatre, which was not considered a respectable art form during that era; a private theatre was a feature of the Palais-Cardinal. Among the individuals he patronized was the famous playwright Pierre Corneille.[72] Richelieu was also the founder and patron of the Académie française, the pre-eminent French literary society.[73] The institution had previously been in informal existence; in 1635, however, Cardinal Richelieu obtained official letters patent for the body. The Académie française includes forty members, promotes French literature, and remains the official authority on the French language. Richelieu served as the Académie's protector. Since 1672, that role has been fulfilled by the French head of state.[citation needed]
+
+In 1622, Richelieu was elected the proviseur or principal of the Sorbonne.[74] He presided over the renovation of the college's buildings and over the construction of its famous chapel, where he is now entombed. As he was Bishop of Luçon, his statue stands outside the Luçon cathedral.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu oversaw the construction of his own palace in Paris, the Palais-Cardinal.[75] The palace, renamed the Palais Royal after Richelieu's death, now houses the French Constitutional Council, the Ministry of Culture, and the Conseil d'État. The Galerie de l'avant-cour had ceiling paintings by the Cardinal's chief portraitist, Philippe de Champaigne, celebrating the major events of the Cardinal's career; the Galerie des hommes illustres had twenty-six historicizing portraits of great men, larger than life, from Abbot Suger to Louis XIII; some were by Simon Vouet, others were careful copies by Philippe de Champaigne from known portraits;[76] with them were busts of Roman emperors. Another series of portraits of authors complemented the library.  The architect of the Palais-Cardinal, Jacques Lemercier, also received a commission to build a château and a surrounding town in Indre-et-Loire; the project culminated in the construction of the Château Richelieu and the town of Richelieu. To the château, he added one of the largest art collections in Europe and the largest collection of ancient Roman sculpture in France. The heavily resurfaced and restored Richelieu Bacchus continued to be admired by neoclassical artists.[77] Among his 300 paintings by moderns, most notably, he owned Leonardo's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, The Family of the Virgin by Andrea del Sarto, the two famous Bacchanales of Nicolas Poussin, as well as paintings by Veronese and Titian, and Diana at the Bath by Rubens, for which he was so glad to pay the artist's heirs 3,000 écus, that he made a gift to Rubens' widow of a diamond-encrusted watch. His marble portrait bust by Bernini was not considered a good likeness and was banished to a passageway.[78]
+
+The fittings of his chapel in the Palais-Cardinal, for which Simon Vouet executed the paintings, were of solid gold – crucifix, chalice, paten, ciborium, candlesticks – set with 180 rubies and 9,000 diamonds.[79] His taste also ran to massive silver, small bronzes and works of vertu, enamels and rock crystal mounted in gold, Chinese porcelains, tapestries and Persian carpets, cabinets from Italy, and Antwerp and the heart-shaped diamond bought from Alphonse Lopez that he willed to the king.  When the Palais-Cardinal was complete, he donated it to the Crown, in 1636. With the Queen in residence, the paintings of the Grand Cabinet were transferred to Fontainebleau and replaced by copies, and the interiors were subjected to much rearrangement.[citation needed]
+
+Michelangelo's two Slaves were among the rich appointments of the château Richelieu, where there were the Nativity triptych by Dürer, and paintings by Mantegna, Lorenzo Costa and Perugino, lifted from the Gonzaga collection at Mantua by French military forces in 1630, as well as numerous antiquities.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu's tenure was a crucial period of reform for France. Earlier, the nation's political structure was largely feudal, with powerful nobles and a wide variety of laws in different regions.[81] Parts of the nobility periodically conspired against the King, raised private armies, and allied themselves with foreign powers. This system gave way to centralized power under Richelieu.[82] Local and even religious interests were subordinated to those of the whole nation, and of the embodiment of the nation – the King. Equally critical for France was Richelieu's foreign policy, which helped restrain Habsburg influence in Europe. Richelieu did not survive to the end of the Thirty Years' War. However, the conflict ended in 1648, with France emerging in a far better position than any other power, and the Holy Roman Empire entering a period of decline.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu's successes were extremely important to Louis XIII's successor, King Louis XIV. He continued Richelieu's work of creating an absolute monarchy; in the same vein as the Cardinal, he enacted policies that further suppressed the once-mighty aristocracy, and utterly destroyed all remnants of Huguenot political power with the Edict of Fontainebleau. Moreover, Louis took advantage of his nation's success during the Thirty Years' War to establish French hegemony in continental Europe. Thus, Richelieu's policies were the requisite prelude to Louis XIV becoming the most powerful monarch, and France the most powerful nation, in all of Europe during the late seventeenth century.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu is also notable for the authoritarian measures he employed to maintain power. He censored the press,[83] established a large network of internal spies, forbade the discussion of political matters in public assemblies such as the Parlement de Paris (a court of justice), and had those who dared to conspire against him prosecuted and executed. The Canadian historian and philosopher John Ralston Saul has referred to Richelieu as the "father of the modern nation-state, modern centralised power [and] the modern secret service."[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu's motives are the focus of much debate among historians: some see him as a patriotic supporter of the monarchy, while others view him as a power-hungry cynic. The latter image gained further currency due to Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which depicts Richelieu as a self-serving and ruthless de facto ruler of France.[citation needed]
+
+Despite such arguments, Richelieu remains an honoured personality in France. He has given his name to a battleship and a battleship class.
+
+His legacy is also important for the world at large; his ideas of a strong nation-state and aggressive foreign policy helped create the modern system of international politics. The notions of national sovereignty and international law can be traced, at least in part, to Richelieu's policies and theories, especially as enunciated in the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War.[citation needed]
+
+A less renowned aspect of his legacy is his involvement with Samuel de Champlain and the fledgling colony along the St. Lawrence River. The retention and promotion of Canada under Richelieu allowed it – and through the settlement's strategic location, the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes gateway into the North American interior – to develop into a French empire in North America, parts of which eventually became modern Canada and Louisiana.[citation needed]
+
+As of April 2013, the Internet Movie Database listed 94 films and television programs in which Cardinal Richelieu is a character. Richelieu is one of the clergymen most frequently portrayed in film, notably in the many versions of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. He is usually portrayed as a sinister character, but the 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac shows Richelieu (played by Edgar Barrier in a scene not from Rostand's original verse drama) as compassionate to Cyrano's financial plight, and playfully having enjoyed the duel at the theatre. Actors who have portrayed Cardinal Richelieu on film and television include Nigel De Brulier, George Arliss, Miles Mander, Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, Tcheky Karyo, Stephen Rea, Tim Curry, Christoph Waltz and Peter Capaldi.
+
+The 1839 play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, portrayed Richelieu uttering the now famous line, "The pen is mightier than the sword." The play was adapted into the 1935 film Cardinal Richelieu.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1969 episode "How to Recognise Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away" from Monty Python's Flying Circus there is the sketch "Court Scene with Cardinal Richelieu" in which Michael Palin in Richelieu's likeness is seen to be doing wildly absurd acts.[84]
+
+In the 1632/Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint, he is one of the primary antagonists to the nascent United States of Europe.
+
+Many sites and landmarks were named to honor Cardinal Richelieu. They include:[85]
+
+There is also an ornate style of lace, Richelieu lace, named in honor of the cardinal.[86]

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+Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (French pronunciation: ​[aʁmɑ̃ ʒɑ̃ dy plɛsi]; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642), commonly referred to as Cardinal Richelieu (UK: /ˈrɪʃəljɜː, ˈriːʃ-/,[1][2][3] US: /ˈrɪʃəl(j)uː, ˈriːʃ-/;[3][4][5] French: Cardinal de Richelieu [kaʁdinal d(ə) ʁiʃ(ə)ljø] (listen)), was a French clergyman and statesman. He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607 and was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered.
+
+Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the king's "Chief Minister" or "First Minister". He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in an attempt to achieve his goals. While a powerful political figure, events like the Day of the Dupes (Jour des Dupes) show that in fact he very much depended on the king's confidence to keep this power.
+
+As alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the College of Sorbonne, he renovated and extended the institution. Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts; most notably, he founded the Académie française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet l'Éminence rouge ("the Red Eminence"), from the red shade of a cardinal's clerical dress and the style "eminence" as a cardinal. As an advocate for Samuel de Champlain and of the retention of New France, he founded the Compagnie des Cent-Associés and saw the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye return Quebec City to French rule under Champlain, after the settlement had been taken by the Kirkes in 1629. The city would prove to be at the heart of Francophone culture in North America.
+
+Richelieu has been depicted in popular fiction frequently, most notably as the lead villain in Alexandre Dumas's 1844 novel The Three Musketeers and its numerous film adaptations.
+
+Born in Paris, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children and the last of three sons: he was delicate from childhood, and suffered frequent bouts of ill-health throughout his life. His family was somewhat prominent, belonging to the lesser nobility of Poitou:[6] his father, François du Plessis, seigneur de Richelieu, was a soldier and courtier who served as the Grand Provost of France,[7] and his mother, Susanne de La Porte, was the daughter of a famous jurist.[8] When he was five years old, his father died fighting in the French Wars of Religion,[9] leaving the family in debt; with the aid of royal grants, however, the family was able to avoid financial difficulties. At the age of nine, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy.[10] Thereafter, he began to train for a military career.[11] His private life seems to have been typical of a young officer of the era: in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for pneumonia.[12]
+
+Henry III had rewarded Richelieu's father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the bishopric of Luçon.[13] The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use; they were, however, challenged by clergymen who desired the funds for ecclesiastical purposes. To protect the important source of revenue, Richelieu's mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon.[14] Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk.[15] Thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong academic interests and threw himself into studying for his new post.[citation needed]
+
+In 1606 Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon.[14] As Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from Pope Paul V. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607. Soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer.[16] He became the first bishop in France to implement the institutional reforms prescribed by the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563.[17]
+
+At about this time, Richelieu became a friend of François Leclerc du Tremblay (better known as "Père Joseph" or "Father Joseph"), a Capuchin friar, who would later become a close confidant. Because of his closeness to Richelieu, and the grey colour of his robes, Father Joseph was also nicknamed L'éminence grise ("the Grey Eminence"). Later, Richelieu often used him as an agent during diplomatic negotiations.[18]
+
+In 1614, the clergymen of Poitou asked Richelieu to be one of their representatives to the Estates-General.[19] There, he was a vigorous advocate of the Church, arguing that it should be exempt from taxes and that bishops should have more political power. He was the most prominent clergyman to support the adoption of the decrees of the Council of Trent throughout France;[20] the Third Estate (commoners) was his chief opponent in this endeavour. At the end of the assembly, the First Estate (the clergy) chose him to deliver the address enumerating its petitions and decisions.[21] Soon after the dissolution of the Estates-General, Richelieu entered the service of King Louis XIII's wife, Anne of Austria, as her almoner.[22]
+
+Richelieu advanced politically by faithfully serving the Queen-Mother's favourite, Concino Concini, the most powerful minister in the kingdom.[23] In 1616, Richelieu was made Secretary of State, and was given responsibility for foreign affairs.[21] Like Concini, the Bishop was one of the closest advisors of Louis XIII's mother, Marie de Médicis. The Queen had become Regent of France when the nine-year-old Louis ascended the throne; although her son reached the legal age of majority in 1614, she remained the effective ruler of the realm.[24] However, her policies, and those of Concini, proved unpopular with many in France. As a result, both Marie and Concini became the targets of intrigues at court; their most powerful enemy was Charles de Luynes.[25] In April 1617, in a plot arranged by Luynes, Louis XIII ordered that Concini be arrested, and killed should he resist; Concini was consequently assassinated, and Marie de Médicis overthrown.[26] His patron having died, Richelieu also lost power; he was dismissed as Secretary of State, and was removed from the court.[26] In 1618, the King, still suspicious of the Bishop of Luçon, banished him to Avignon. There, Richelieu spent most of his time writing; he composed a catechism entitled L'Instruction du chrétien.[27]
+
+In 1619, Marie de Médicis escaped from her confinement in the Château de Blois, becoming the titular leader of an aristocratic rebellion. The King and the duc de Luynes recalled Richelieu, believing that he would be able to reason with the Queen. Richelieu was successful in this endeavour, mediating between her and her son.[28] Complex negotiations bore fruit when the Treaty of Angoulême was ratified; Marie de Médicis was given complete freedom, but would remain at peace with the King. The Queen-Mother was also restored to the royal council.[citation needed]
+
+After the death of the King's favourite, the duc de Luynes, in 1621, Richelieu rose to power quickly. The year after, the King nominated Richelieu for a cardinalate, which Pope Gregory XV accordingly granted in September 1622.[29] Crises in France, including a rebellion of the Huguenots, rendered Richelieu a nearly indispensable advisor to the King. After he was appointed to the royal council of ministers on 29 April 1624,[30] he intrigued against the chief minister, Charles, duc de La Vieuville.[28] On 12 August of the same year, La Vieuville was arrested on charges of corruption, and Cardinal Richelieu took his place as the King's principal minister the following day, although the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld nominally remained president of the council (Richelieu was officially appointed president in November 1629).[31]
+
+Cardinal Richelieu's policy involved two primary goals: centralization of power in France[32] and opposition to the Habsburg dynasty (which ruled in both Austria and Spain).[33] Shortly after he became Louis' principal minister, he was faced with a crisis in Valtellina, a valley in Lombardy (northern Italy). To counter Spanish designs on the territory, Richelieu supported the Protestant Swiss canton of Grisons, which also claimed the strategically important valley. The Cardinal deployed troops to Valtellina, from which the Pope's garrisons were driven out.[34] Richelieu's early decision to support a Protestant canton against the Pope was a foretaste of the purely diplomatic power politics he would espouse in his foreign policy.
+
+To further consolidate power in France, Richelieu sought to suppress the influence of the feudal nobility. In 1626, he abolished the position of Constable of France and ordered all fortified castles razed, excepting only those needed to defend against invaders.[35] Thus he stripped the princes, dukes, and lesser aristocrats of important defences that could have been used against the King's armies during rebellions. As a result, Richelieu was hated by most of the nobility.
+
+Another obstacle to the centralization of power was religious division in France. The Huguenots, one of the largest political and religious factions in the country, controlled a significant military force, and were in rebellion.[36] Moreover, the King of England, Charles I, declared war on France in an attempt to aid the Huguenot faction. In 1627, Richelieu ordered the army to besiege the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle; the Cardinal personally commanded the besieging troops.[37] English troops under the Duke of Buckingham led an expedition to help the citizens of La Rochelle, but failed abysmally. The city, however, remained firm for over a year before capitulating in 1628.
+
+Although the Huguenots suffered a major defeat at La Rochelle, they continued to fight, led by Henri, duc de Rohan. Protestant forces, however, were defeated in 1629; Rohan submitted to the terms of the Peace of Alais.[38] As a result, religious toleration for Protestants, which had first been granted by the Edict of Nantes in 1598, was permitted to continue, but the Cardinal abolished their political rights and protections.[38] Rohan was not executed (as were leaders of rebellions later in Richelieu's tenure); in fact, he later became a commanding officer in the French army.
+
+Habsburg Spain exploited the French conflict with the Huguenots to extend its influence in northern Italy. It funded the Huguenot rebels to keep the French army occupied, meanwhile expanding its Italian dominions. Richelieu, however, responded aggressively; after La Rochelle capitulated, he personally led the French army to northern Italy to restrain Spain. On 26 November 1629, he was created duc de Richelieu and a Peer of France.
+In the next year, Richelieu's position was seriously threatened by his former patron, Marie de Médicis. Marie believed that the Cardinal had robbed her of her political influence; thus, she demanded that her son dismiss the chief minister.[39] Louis XIII was not, at first, averse to such a course of action, as he personally disliked Richelieu.[21] Despite this, the persuasive statesman was able to secure the king as an ally against his own mother. On 11 November 1630, Marie de Médicis and the King's brother, Gaston, duc d'Orléans, secured the King's agreement for the dismissal. Richelieu, however, was aware of the plan, and quickly convinced the King to repent.[40] This day, known as the Day of the Dupes, was the only one on which Louis XIII took a step toward dismissing his minister. Thereafter, the King was unwavering in his political support for him.
+
+Meanwhile, Marie de Médicis was exiled to Compiègne. Both Marie and the duc d'Orléans continued to conspire against Richelieu, but their schemes came to nothing. The nobility also remained powerless. The only important rising was that of Henri, duc de Montmorency in 1632; Richelieu, ruthless in suppressing opposition, ordered the duke's execution. In 1634, the Cardinal had one of his outspoken critics, Urbain Grandier, burned at the stake in the Loudun affair. These and other harsh measures were orchestrated by Richelieu to intimidate his enemies. He also ensured his political security by establishing a large network of spies in France as well as in other European countries.
+
+Henri Motte's depiction of Cardinal Richelieu at the Siege of La Rochelle.
+
+Letter of Cardinal Richelieu to Claude de Razilly asking him to do everything in his power to relieve Ré Island in the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, July 1627.
+
+On the "Day of the Dupes" in 1630, it appeared that Marie de Médicis had secured Richelieu's dismissal. Richelieu, however, survived the scheme, and Marie was exiled as a result.
+
+Before Richelieu's ascent to power, most of Europe had become enmeshed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). France was not openly at war with the Habsburgs, who ruled Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, so subsidies and aid were provided secretly to their adversaries.[41] He considered the Dutch Republic as one of France's most important allies, for it bordered directly with the Spanish Netherlands and was right in the middle of the Eighty Years' War with Spain at that time. Luckily for him, Richelieu was a bon français, just like the king, who had already decided to subsidize the Dutch to fight against the Spanish via the Treaty of Compiègne in June 1624, prior to Richelieu's appointment to First Minister in August.[42] That same year, a military expedition, secretly financed by France and commanded by Marquis de Coeuvres, started an action with the intention of liberating the Valtelline from Spanish occupation. In 1625, Richelieu also sent money to Ernst von Mansfeld, a famous mercenary general operating in Germany in English service. However, in May 1626, when war costs had almost ruined France, king and cardinal made peace with Spain via the Treaty of Monçon.[43] This peace quickly broke down after tensions due to the War of the Mantuan Succession.[44]
+
+In 1629, Emperor Ferdinand II subjugated many of his Protestant opponents in Germany. Richelieu, alarmed by Ferdinand's growing influence, incited Sweden to intervene, providing money.[45] In the meantime, France and Spain remained hostile due to Spain's ambitions in northern Italy. At that time northern Italy was a major strategic region in Europe's balance of power, serving as a link between the Habsburgs in the Empire and in Spain. Had the imperial armies dominated this region, France would have been threatened by Habsburg encirclement. Spain was meanwhile seeking papal approval for a universal monarchy. When in 1630 French diplomats in Regensburg agreed to make peace with Spain, Richelieu refused to support them. The agreement would have prohibited French interference in Germany. Therefore, Richelieu advised Louis XIII to refuse to ratify the treaty. In 1631, he allied France to Sweden, who had just invaded the empire, in the Treaty of Bärwalde.[45]
+
+Military expenses placed a considerable strain on royal revenues. In response, Richelieu raised the gabelle (salt tax) and the taille (land tax).[46] The taille was enforced to provide funds to raise armies and wage war. The clergy, nobility, and high bourgeoisie were either exempt or could easily avoid payment, so the burden fell on the poorest segment of the nation. To collect taxes more efficiently, and to keep corruption to a minimum, Richelieu bypassed local tax officials, replacing them with intendants (officials in the direct service of the Crown).[47] Richelieu's financial scheme, however, caused unrest among the peasants; there were several uprisings in 1636 to 1639.[48] Richelieu crushed the revolts violently, and dealt with the rebels harshly.[49]
+
+Because he openly aligned France with Protestant powers, Richelieu was denounced by many as a traitor to the Roman Catholic Church. Military action, at first, was disastrous for the French, with many victories going to Spain and the Empire.[50] Neither side, however, could obtain a decisive advantage, and the conflict lingered on after Richelieu's death. Richelieu was instrumental in redirecting the Thirty Years' War from the conflict of Protestantism versus Catholicism to that of nationalism versus Habsburg hegemony.[51] In this conflict France effectively drained the already overstretched resources of the Habsburg empire and drove it inexorably towards bankruptcy.[52] The defeat of Habsburg forces at the Battle of Lens in 1648, coupled with their failure to prevent a French invasion of Catalonia, effectively spelled the end for Habsburg domination of the continent, and for the personal career of Spanish prime minister Olivares.[52] Indeed, in the subsequent years it would be France, under the leadership of Louis XIV, who would attempt to fill the vacuum left by the Habsburgs in the Spanish Netherlands and supplant Spain as the dominant European power.[citation needed]
+
+When Richelieu came to power, New France, where the French had a foothold since Jacques Cartier, had no more than 100 permanent European inhabitants.[53] Richelieu encouraged Louis XIII to colonize the Americas by the foundation of the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France in imitation of the Dutch West India Company. Unlike the other colonial powers, France encouraged a peaceful coexistence in New France between Natives and Colonists and sought the integration of Indians into colonial society.[54][55] Samuel de Champlain, governor of New France at the time of Richelieu, saw intermarriage between French and Indians as a solution to increase population in its colony.[56] Under the guidance of Richelieu, Louis XIII issued the Ordonnance of 1627 by which the Indians, converted to Catholicism, were considered as "natural Frenchmen":
+
+The descendants of the French who are accustomed to this country [New France], together with all the Indians who will be brought to the knowledge of the faith and will profess it, shall be deemed and renowned natural Frenchmen, and as such may come to live in France when they want, and acquire, donate, and succeed and accept donations and legacies, just as true French subjects, without being required to take letters of declaration of naturalization.[57]
+
+The 1666 census of New France, conducted some 20 years after the death of Cardinal Richelieu, showed a population of 3,215 habitants in New France, many more than there had been only a few decades earlier, but also a great difference in the number of men (2,034) and women (1,181).[58]
+
+Towards the end of his life, Richelieu alienated many people, including Pope Urban VIII. Richelieu was displeased by the Pope's refusal to name him the papal legate in France;[59] in turn, the Pope did not approve of the administration of the French church, or of French foreign policy. However, the conflict was largely healed when the Pope granted a cardinalate to Jules Mazarin, one of Richelieu's foremost political allies, in 1641. Despite troubled relations with the Roman Catholic Church, Richelieu did not support the complete repudiation of papal authority in France, as was advocated by the Gallicanists.[60]
+
+As he neared death, Richelieu faced a plot that threatened to remove him from power. The cardinal had introduced a young man named Henri Coiffier de Ruzé, marquis de Cinq-Mars to Louis XIII's court.[61] The Cardinal had been a friend of Cinq-Mars' father.[61] More importantly, Richelieu hoped that Cinq-Mars would become Louis' favourite, so that he could indirectly exercise greater influence over the monarch's decisions. Cinq-Mars had become the royal favourite by 1639, but, contrary to Cardinal Richelieu's belief, he was not easy to control. The young marquis realized that Richelieu would not permit him to gain political power.[62] In 1641, he participated in the comte de Soissons' failed conspiracy against Richelieu, but was not discovered.[63] Then, the following year, he schemed with leading nobles (including the King's brother, the duc d'Orléans) to raise a rebellion; he also signed a secret agreement with the King of Spain, who promised to aid the rebels.[64] Richelieu's spy service, however, discovered the plot, and the Cardinal received a copy of the treaty.[65] Cinq-Mars was promptly arrested and executed; although Louis approved the use of capital punishment, he grew more distant from Richelieu as a result.[citation needed]
+
+However, Richelieu was now dying. For many years he had suffered from recurrent fevers (possibly malaria), strangury, intestinal tuberculosis with fistula, and migraine. Now his right arm was suppurating with tubercular osteitis, and he coughed blood (after his death, his lungs were found to have extensive cavities and caseous necrosis). His doctors continued to bleed him frequently, further weakening him.[66] As he felt his death approaching, he named Mazarin, one of his most faithful followers, to succeed him as chief minister to the King.[67]
+
+Richelieu died on 4 December 1642, aged 57. His body was embalmed and interred at the church of the Sorbonne. During the French Revolution, the corpse was removed from its tomb, and the mummified front of his head, having been removed and replaced during the original embalming process, was stolen. It ended up in the possession of Nicholas Armez of Brittany by 1796, and he occasionally exhibited the well-preserved face. His nephew, Louis-Philippe Armez, inherited it and also occasionally exhibited it and lent it out for study. In 1866, Napoleon III persuaded Armez to return the face to the government for re-interment with the rest of Richelieu's body. An investigation of subsidence of the church floor enabled the head to be photographed in 1895.[68][69]
+
+Richelieu was a famous patron of the arts. An author of various religious and political works (most notably his Political Testament), he sent his agents abroad[70] in search of books and manuscripts for his unrivaled library, which he specified in his will – leaving it to his great-nephew fully funded – should serve not merely his family but to be open at fixed hours to scholars. The manuscripts alone numbered some 900, bound as codices in red Morocco with the cardinal's arms. The library was transferred to the Sorbonne in 1660.[71] He funded the literary careers of many writers. He was a lover of the theatre, which was not considered a respectable art form during that era; a private theatre was a feature of the Palais-Cardinal. Among the individuals he patronized was the famous playwright Pierre Corneille.[72] Richelieu was also the founder and patron of the Académie française, the pre-eminent French literary society.[73] The institution had previously been in informal existence; in 1635, however, Cardinal Richelieu obtained official letters patent for the body. The Académie française includes forty members, promotes French literature, and remains the official authority on the French language. Richelieu served as the Académie's protector. Since 1672, that role has been fulfilled by the French head of state.[citation needed]
+
+In 1622, Richelieu was elected the proviseur or principal of the Sorbonne.[74] He presided over the renovation of the college's buildings and over the construction of its famous chapel, where he is now entombed. As he was Bishop of Luçon, his statue stands outside the Luçon cathedral.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu oversaw the construction of his own palace in Paris, the Palais-Cardinal.[75] The palace, renamed the Palais Royal after Richelieu's death, now houses the French Constitutional Council, the Ministry of Culture, and the Conseil d'État. The Galerie de l'avant-cour had ceiling paintings by the Cardinal's chief portraitist, Philippe de Champaigne, celebrating the major events of the Cardinal's career; the Galerie des hommes illustres had twenty-six historicizing portraits of great men, larger than life, from Abbot Suger to Louis XIII; some were by Simon Vouet, others were careful copies by Philippe de Champaigne from known portraits;[76] with them were busts of Roman emperors. Another series of portraits of authors complemented the library.  The architect of the Palais-Cardinal, Jacques Lemercier, also received a commission to build a château and a surrounding town in Indre-et-Loire; the project culminated in the construction of the Château Richelieu and the town of Richelieu. To the château, he added one of the largest art collections in Europe and the largest collection of ancient Roman sculpture in France. The heavily resurfaced and restored Richelieu Bacchus continued to be admired by neoclassical artists.[77] Among his 300 paintings by moderns, most notably, he owned Leonardo's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, The Family of the Virgin by Andrea del Sarto, the two famous Bacchanales of Nicolas Poussin, as well as paintings by Veronese and Titian, and Diana at the Bath by Rubens, for which he was so glad to pay the artist's heirs 3,000 écus, that he made a gift to Rubens' widow of a diamond-encrusted watch. His marble portrait bust by Bernini was not considered a good likeness and was banished to a passageway.[78]
+
+The fittings of his chapel in the Palais-Cardinal, for which Simon Vouet executed the paintings, were of solid gold – crucifix, chalice, paten, ciborium, candlesticks – set with 180 rubies and 9,000 diamonds.[79] His taste also ran to massive silver, small bronzes and works of vertu, enamels and rock crystal mounted in gold, Chinese porcelains, tapestries and Persian carpets, cabinets from Italy, and Antwerp and the heart-shaped diamond bought from Alphonse Lopez that he willed to the king.  When the Palais-Cardinal was complete, he donated it to the Crown, in 1636. With the Queen in residence, the paintings of the Grand Cabinet were transferred to Fontainebleau and replaced by copies, and the interiors were subjected to much rearrangement.[citation needed]
+
+Michelangelo's two Slaves were among the rich appointments of the château Richelieu, where there were the Nativity triptych by Dürer, and paintings by Mantegna, Lorenzo Costa and Perugino, lifted from the Gonzaga collection at Mantua by French military forces in 1630, as well as numerous antiquities.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu's tenure was a crucial period of reform for France. Earlier, the nation's political structure was largely feudal, with powerful nobles and a wide variety of laws in different regions.[81] Parts of the nobility periodically conspired against the King, raised private armies, and allied themselves with foreign powers. This system gave way to centralized power under Richelieu.[82] Local and even religious interests were subordinated to those of the whole nation, and of the embodiment of the nation – the King. Equally critical for France was Richelieu's foreign policy, which helped restrain Habsburg influence in Europe. Richelieu did not survive to the end of the Thirty Years' War. However, the conflict ended in 1648, with France emerging in a far better position than any other power, and the Holy Roman Empire entering a period of decline.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu's successes were extremely important to Louis XIII's successor, King Louis XIV. He continued Richelieu's work of creating an absolute monarchy; in the same vein as the Cardinal, he enacted policies that further suppressed the once-mighty aristocracy, and utterly destroyed all remnants of Huguenot political power with the Edict of Fontainebleau. Moreover, Louis took advantage of his nation's success during the Thirty Years' War to establish French hegemony in continental Europe. Thus, Richelieu's policies were the requisite prelude to Louis XIV becoming the most powerful monarch, and France the most powerful nation, in all of Europe during the late seventeenth century.[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu is also notable for the authoritarian measures he employed to maintain power. He censored the press,[83] established a large network of internal spies, forbade the discussion of political matters in public assemblies such as the Parlement de Paris (a court of justice), and had those who dared to conspire against him prosecuted and executed. The Canadian historian and philosopher John Ralston Saul has referred to Richelieu as the "father of the modern nation-state, modern centralised power [and] the modern secret service."[citation needed]
+
+Richelieu's motives are the focus of much debate among historians: some see him as a patriotic supporter of the monarchy, while others view him as a power-hungry cynic. The latter image gained further currency due to Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, which depicts Richelieu as a self-serving and ruthless de facto ruler of France.[citation needed]
+
+Despite such arguments, Richelieu remains an honoured personality in France. He has given his name to a battleship and a battleship class.
+
+His legacy is also important for the world at large; his ideas of a strong nation-state and aggressive foreign policy helped create the modern system of international politics. The notions of national sovereignty and international law can be traced, at least in part, to Richelieu's policies and theories, especially as enunciated in the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War.[citation needed]
+
+A less renowned aspect of his legacy is his involvement with Samuel de Champlain and the fledgling colony along the St. Lawrence River. The retention and promotion of Canada under Richelieu allowed it – and through the settlement's strategic location, the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes gateway into the North American interior – to develop into a French empire in North America, parts of which eventually became modern Canada and Louisiana.[citation needed]
+
+As of April 2013, the Internet Movie Database listed 94 films and television programs in which Cardinal Richelieu is a character. Richelieu is one of the clergymen most frequently portrayed in film, notably in the many versions of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. He is usually portrayed as a sinister character, but the 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac shows Richelieu (played by Edgar Barrier in a scene not from Rostand's original verse drama) as compassionate to Cyrano's financial plight, and playfully having enjoyed the duel at the theatre. Actors who have portrayed Cardinal Richelieu on film and television include Nigel De Brulier, George Arliss, Miles Mander, Vincent Price, Charlton Heston, Tcheky Karyo, Stephen Rea, Tim Curry, Christoph Waltz and Peter Capaldi.
+
+The 1839 play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, portrayed Richelieu uttering the now famous line, "The pen is mightier than the sword." The play was adapted into the 1935 film Cardinal Richelieu.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1969 episode "How to Recognise Different Types of Trees from Quite a Long Way Away" from Monty Python's Flying Circus there is the sketch "Court Scene with Cardinal Richelieu" in which Michael Palin in Richelieu's likeness is seen to be doing wildly absurd acts.[84]
+
+In the 1632/Ring of Fire series by Eric Flint, he is one of the primary antagonists to the nascent United States of Europe.
+
+Many sites and landmarks were named to honor Cardinal Richelieu. They include:[85]
+
+There is also an ornate style of lace, Richelieu lace, named in honor of the cardinal.[86]

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@@ -0,0 +1,239 @@
+
+
+Cervus tarandus Linnaeus, 1758
+
+The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as the caribou in North America,[3] is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, sub-Arctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of northern Europe, Siberia, and North America.[2] This includes both sedentary and migratory populations. Rangifer herd size varies greatly in different geographic regions. The Taimyr herd of migrating Siberian tundra reindeer (R. t. sibiricus) in Russia is the largest wild reindeer herd in the world,[4][5] varying between 400,000 and 1,000,000. What was once the second largest herd is the migratory boreal woodland caribou (R. t. caribou) George River herd in Canada, with former variations between 28,000 and 385,000. As of January 2018, there are fewer than 9,000 animals estimated to be left in the George River herd, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.[6] The New York Times reported in April 2018 of the disappearance of the only herd of southern mountain caribou in the contiguous United States with an expert calling it "functionally extinct" after the herd's size dwindled to a mere three animals.[7]
+
+Rangifer varies in size and colour from the smallest, the Svalbard reindeer, to the largest, the boreal woodland caribou. The North American range of caribou extends from Alaska through Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut into the boreal forest and south through the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia and Selkirk Mountains.[8] The barren-ground caribou, Porcupine caribou, and Peary caribou live in the tundra, while the shy boreal woodland caribou prefer the boreal forest. The Porcupine caribou and the barren-ground caribou form large herds and undertake lengthy seasonal migrations from birthing grounds to summer and winter feeding grounds in the tundra and taiga. The migrations of Porcupine caribou herds are among the longest of any mammal.[8] Barren-ground caribou are also found in Kitaa in Greenland, but the larger herds are in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.[9]
+
+Some subspecies are rare and at least one has already become extinct: the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou of Canada.[10][11] Historically, the range of the sedentary boreal woodland caribou covered more than half of Canada[12] and into the northern States in the U.S. Woodland caribou have disappeared from most of their original southern range and were designated as threatened in 2002 by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC).[13] Environment Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34,000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada.(Environment Canada, 2011b).[14] Siberian tundra reindeer herds are in decline, and Rangifer tarandus is considered to be vulnerable by the IUCN.
+
+Arctic peoples have depended on caribou for food, clothing, and shelter, such as the Caribou Inuit, the inland-dwelling Inuit of the Kivalliq Region in northern Canada, the Caribou Clan in Yukon, the Inupiat, the Inuvialuit, the Hän, the Northern Tutchone, and the Gwich'in (who followed the Porcupine caribou for millennia). Hunting wild reindeer and herding of semi-domesticated reindeer are important to several Arctic and sub-Arctic peoples such as the Duhalar for meat, hides, antlers, milk, and transportation.[15] The Sami people (Sápmi) have also depended on reindeer herding and fishing for centuries.[16]:IV[17]:16[16]:IV In Sápmi, reindeer pull pulks.[18]
+
+Male and female reindeer can grow antlers annually, although the proportion of females that grow antlers varies greatly between population and season.[19] Antlers are typically larger on males. In traditional festive legend, Santa Claus's reindeer pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to good children on Christmas Eve.
+
+Carl Linnaeus chose the name Rangifer for the reindeer genus, which Albertus Magnus used in his De animalibus, fol. Liber 22, Cap. 268: "Dicitur Rangyfer quasi ramifer". This word may go back to the Saami word raingo.[20] Linnaeus chose the word tarandus as the specific epithet, making reference to Ulisse Aldrovandi's Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum historia fol. 859–863, Cap. 30: De Tarando (1621). However, Aldrovandi and Konrad Gesner[21] – thought that rangifer and tarandus were two separate animals.[22] In any case, the tarandos name goes back to Aristotle and Theophrastus.
+
+The use of the terms reindeer and caribou for essentially the same animal can cause confusion, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature clearly delineates the issue: "The world's Caribou and Reindeer are classified as a single species Rangifer tarandus. Reindeer is the European name for the species while in North America, the species is known as Caribou."[2] The word rein is of Norse origin. The word deer was originally broader in meaning but became more specific over time. In Middle English, der meant a wild animal of any kind, in contrast to cattle.[23] The word caribou comes through French, from the Mi'kmaq qalipu, meaning "snow shoveler" and referring to its habit of pawing through the snow for food.[24]
+
+Because of its importance to many cultures, Rangifer tarandus and some of its subspecies have names in many languages. Inuktitut is spoken in the eastern Arctic, and the caribou is known by the name tuktu.[25][26][27] The Gwich’in people have over two dozen distinct caribou-related words.[28]
+
+Names for reindeer in languages spoken throughout their (former) native range:
+
+The species' taxonomic name, Rangifer tarandus, was defined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. The woodland caribou subspecies' taxonomic name Rangifer tarandus caribou was defined by Gmelin in 1788.
+
+Based on Banfield's often-cited A Revision of the Reindeer and Caribou, Genus Rangifer (1961),[33] R. t. caboti (the Labrador caribou), R. t. osborni (Osborn's caribou—from British Columbia) and R. t. terraenovae (the Newfoundland caribou) were considered invalid and included in R. t. caribou.
+
+Some recent authorities have considered them all valid, even suggesting that they are quite distinct. In their book entitled Mammal Species of the World, American zoologist Don E. Wilson and DeeAnn Reeder agree with Valerius Geist, specialist on large North American mammals, that this range actually includes several subspecies.[34][35][36][Notes 1]
+
+Geist (2007) argued that the "true woodland caribou, the uniformly dark, small-maned type with the frontally emphasised, flat-beamed antlers", which is "scattered thinly along the southern rim of North American caribou distribution" has been incorrectly classified. He affirms that the "true woodland caribou is very rare, in very great difficulties and requires the most urgent of attention."[34]
+
+In 2005, an analysis of mtDNA found differences between the caribou from Newfoundland, Labrador, southwestern Canada and southeastern Canada, but maintained all in R. t. caribou.[37]
+
+Mallory and Hillis argued that, "Although the taxonomic designations reflect evolutionary events, they do not appear to reflect current ecological conditions. In numerous instances, populations of the same subspecies have evolved different demographic and behavioural adaptations, while populations from separate subspecies have evolved similar demographic and behavioural patterns... "[U]nderstanding ecotype in relation to existing ecological constraints and releases may be more important than the taxonomic relationships between populations."[38]
+
+Current classifications of Rangifer tarandus, either with prevailing taxonomy on subspecies, designations based on ecotypes, or natural population groupings, fail to capture "the variability of caribou across their range in Canada" needed for effective species conservation and management.[39] "Across the range of a species, individuals may display considerable morphological, genetic, and behavioural variability reflective of both plasticity and adaptation to local environments."[40] COSEWIC developed Designated Unit (DU) attribution to add to classifications already in use.[39]
+
+The canonical Mammal Species of the World (3rd ed.) recognises 14 subspecies, two of which are extinct.[9]
+
+The table above includes R. tarandus caboti (Labrador caribou), R. tarandus osborni (Osborn's caribou – from British Columbia) and R. tarandus terraenovae (Newfoundland caribou). Based on a review in 1961,[33] these were considered invalid and included in R. tarandus caribou, but some recent authorities have considered them all valid, even suggesting that they are quite distinct.[34][35] An analysis of mtDNA in 2005 found differences between the caribou from Newfoundland, Labrador, southwestern Canada and southeastern Canada, but maintained all in R. tarandus caribou.[37]
+
+There are seven subspecies of reindeer in Eurasia, of which only two are found in Fennoscandia: the mountain reindeer (R. t. tarandus) in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia and the Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus) in Finland and Russia.[18]
+
+Two subspecies are found only in North America: the Porcupine caribou (R. t. granti) and the Peary caribou (R. t. pearyi). The barren-ground caribou (R. t. groenlandicus) is found in western Greenland, but the larger herds are in Alaska, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.[9]
+
+According to Grubb, based on Banfield[33] and considerably modified by Geist,[44] these subspecies and divisions are considered valid:[9] the caribou or woodland caribou division, which includes R. t. buskensis, R. t. caribou, R. t. dawsoni, R. t. fennicus, R. t. phylarchus and R. t. valentinae (R. t. osborni is a transitional subspecies between the caribou and tarandus divisions), the tarandus or tundra reindeer division, which includes R. t. caboti, R. t. groenlandicus, R. t. pearsoni, R. t. sibiricus and R. t. terraenovae and the platyrhynchus or dwarf reindeer division, which includes R. t. pearyi and R. t. platyrhynchus.
+
+Some of the Rangifer tarandus subspecies may be further divided by ecotype depending on several behavioural factors – predominant habitat use (northern, tundra, mountain, forest, boreal forest, forest-dwelling, woodland, woodland (boreal), woodland (migratory) or woodland (mountain), spacing (dispersed or aggregated) and migration patterns (sedentary or migratory).[45][46][47]
+
+The "glacial-interglacial cycles of the upper Pleistocene had a major influence on the evolution" of Rangifer tarandus and other Arctic and sub-Arctic species. Isolation of Rangifer tarandus in refugia during the last glacial – the Wisconsin in North America and the Weichselian in Eurasia-shaped "intraspecific genetic variability" particularly between the North American and Eurasian parts of the Arctic.[3]
+
+In 1986 Kurtén reported that the oldest reindeer fossil was an "antler of tundra reindeer type from the sands of Süssenborn" in the Pleistocene (Günz) period (680,000 to 620,000 BP).[1] By the 4-Würm period (110,000–70,000 to 12,000–10,000 BP) its European range was very extensive. Reindeer occurred in
+
+... Spain, Italy and southern Russia. Reindeer [was] particularly abundant in the Magdalenian deposits from the late part of the 4-Wurm just before the end of the Ice Age: at that time and at the early Mesolithic it was the game animal for many tribes. The supply began to get low during the Mesolithic, when reindeer retired to the north.
+
+"In spite of the great variation, all the Pleistocene and living reindeer belong to the same species."[1]
+
+Humans started hunting reindeer in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods and humans are today the main predator in many areas. Norway and Greenland have unbroken traditions of hunting wild reindeer from the last glacial period until the present day. In the non-forested mountains of central Norway, such as Jotunheimen, it is still possible to find remains of stone-built trapping pits, guiding fences and bow rests, built especially for hunting reindeer. These can, with some certainty, be dated to the Migration Period, although it is not unlikely that they have been in use since the Stone Age.[citation needed]
+
+In most populations both sexes grow antlers; the reindeer is the only cervid species in which females grow them as well as males.[48] Androgens play essential role in cervids antler formation. The antlerogenic genes in reindeer have more sensitivity to androgens in comparison with other cervids.[49][50]
+
+There is considerable variation between subspecies in the size of the antlers (e.g. they are rather small and spindly in the northernmost subspecies),[51] but on average the bull reindeer's antlers are the second largest of any extant deer, after the moose. In the largest subspecies, the antlers of large males can range up to 100 cm (39 in) in width and 135 cm (53 in) in beam length. They have the largest antlers relative to body size among living deer species.[48] Antler size measured in number of points reflects the nutritional status of the reindeer and climate variation of its environment.[52][53] The number of points on male reindeer increases from birth to five years of age and remains relatively constant from then on.[54] "In male caribou, antler mass (but not the number of tines) varies in concert with body mass."[55][56] While antlers of bull woodland caribou are typically smaller than barren-ground caribou, they can be over one metre across. They are flattened, compact and relatively dense.[14] Geist describes them as frontally emphasised, flat-beamed antlers.[57] Woodland caribou antlers are thicker and broader than those of the barren-ground caribou and their legs and heads are longer.[14] Quebec-Labrador bull caribou antlers can be significantly larger and wider than other woodland caribou. Central barren-ground bull caribou are perhaps the most diverse in configuration and can grow to be very high and wide. Mountain caribou are typically the most massive with the largest circumference measurements.[citation needed]
+
+The antlers' main beams begin at the brow "extending posterior over the shoulders and bowing so that the tips point forward. The prominent, palmate brow tines extend forward, over the face."[58] The antlers typically have two separate groups of points, lower and upper.
+
+Antlers begin to grow on male reindeer in March or April and on female reindeer in May or June. This process is called antlerogenesis. Antlers grow very quickly every year on the males. As the antlers grow, they are covered in thick velvet, filled with blood vessels and spongy in texture. The antler velvet of the barren-ground caribou and boreal woodland caribou is dark chocolate brown.[59] The velvet that covers growing antlers is a highly vascularised skin. This velvet is dark brown on woodland or barren-ground caribou and slate-grey on Peary caribou and the Dolphin-Union caribou herd.[58][60][61] Velvet lumps in March can develop into a rack measuring more than a metre in length (3 ft) by August.[62]:88
+
+When the antler growth is fully grown and hardened, the velvet is shed or rubbed off. To the Inuit, for whom the caribou is a "culturally important keystone species", the months are named after landmarks in the caribou life cycle. For example, amiraijaut in the Igloolik region is "when velvet falls off caribou antlers."[63]
+
+Male reindeer use their antlers to compete with other males during the mating season. In describing woodland caribou, SARA wrote, "During the rut, males engage in frequent and furious sparring battles with their antlers. Large males with large antlers do most of the mating."[64] Reindeer continue to migrate until the bull reindeer have spent the back fat.[63][65][66]
+
+In late autumn or early winter after the rut, male reindeer lose their antlers, growing a new pair the next summer with a larger rack than the previous year. Female reindeer keep their antlers until they calve. In the Scandinavian populations, old males' antlers fall off in December, young males' fall off in the early spring and females' fall off in the summer.
+
+When bull reindeer shed their antlers in early to midwinter, the antlered female reindeer acquire the highest ranks in the feeding hierarchy, gaining access to the best forage areas. These cows are healthier than those without antlers.[67] Calves whose mothers do not have antlers are more prone to disease and have a significantly higher mortality.[67] Females in good nutritional condition, for example, during a mild winter with good winter range quality, may grow new antlers earlier as antler growth requires high intake.[67]
+
+According to a respected Igloolik elder, Noah Piugaattuk, who was one of the last outpost camp leaders,[68] caribou (tuktu) antlers[63]
+
+...get detached every year… Young males lose the velvet from the antlers much more quickly than female caribou even though they are not fully mature. They start to work with their antlers just as soon as the velvet starts to fall off. The young males engage in fights with their antlers towards autumn…soon after the velvet had fallen off they will be red, as they start to get bleached their colour changes… When the velvet starts to fall off the antler is red because the antler is made from blood. The antler is the blood that has hardened, in fact the core of the antler is still bloody when the velvet starts to fall off, at least close to the base.
+
+According to the Igloolik Oral History Project (IOHP), "Caribou antlers provided the Inuit with a myriad of implements, from snow knives and shovels to drying racks and seal-hunting tools. A complex set of terms describes each part of the antler and relates it to its various uses".[63] Currently, the larger racks of antlers are used by Inuit as materials for carving. Iqaluit-based Jackoposie Oopakak's 1989 carving, entitled Nunali, which means ""place where people live", and which is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada, includes a massive set of caribou antlers on which he has intricately carved the miniaturised world of the Inuit where "Arctic birds, caribou, polar bears, seals, and whales are interspersed with human activities of fishing, hunting, cleaning skins, stretching boots, and travelling by dog sled and kayak...from the base of the antlers to the tip of each branch".[69]
+
+The colour of the fur varies considerably, both between individuals and depending on season and subspecies. Northern populations, which usually are relatively small, are whiter, while southern populations, which typically are relatively large, are darker. This can be seen well in North America, where the northernmost subspecies, the Peary caribou, is the whitest and smallest subspecies of the continent, while the southernmost subspecies, the boreal woodland caribou, is the darkest and largest.[51]
+
+The coat has two layers of fur: a dense woolly undercoat and longer-haired overcoat consisting of hollow, air-filled hairs.[70][Notes 4] Fur is the primary insulation factor that allows reindeer to regulate their core body temperature in relation to their environment, the thermogradient, even if the temperature rises to 100 °F (38 °C).[71] In 1913 Dugmore noted how the woodland caribou swim so high out of the water, unlike any other mammal, because their hollow, "air-filled, quill-like hair" acts as a supporting "life jacket."[72]
+
+A darker belly color may be caused by two mutations of MC1R. They appear to be more common in domestic herds.[73]
+
+Blood moving into the legs is cooled by blood returning to the body in a countercurrent heat exchange (CCHE), a highly efficient means of minimising heat loss through the skin's surface. In the CCHE mechanism, in cold weather, blood vessels are closely knotted and intertwined with arteries to the skin and appendages that carry warm blood with veins returning to the body that carry cold blood causing the warm arterial blood to exchange heat with the cold venous blood. In this way, their legs for example are kept cool, maintaining the core body temperature nearly 30 °C (54 °F) higher with less heat lost to the environment. Heat is thus recycled instead of being dissipated. The "heart does not have to pump blood as rapidly in order to maintain a constant body core temperature and thus, metabolic rate." CCHE is present in animals like reindeer, fox and moose living in extreme conditions of cold or hot weather as a mechanism for retaining the heat in (or out of) the body. These are countercurrent exchange systems with the same fluid, usually blood, in a circuit, used for both directions of flow.[74]
+
+Reindeer have specialised counter-current vascular heat exchange in their nasal passages. Temperature gradient along the nasal mucosa is under physiological control. Incoming cold air is warmed by body heat before entering the lungs and water is condensed from the expired air and captured before the reindeer's breath is exhaled, then used to moisten dry incoming air and possibly be absorbed into the blood through the mucous membranes.[75] Like moose, caribou have specialised noses featuring nasal turbinate bones that dramatically increase the surface area within the nostrils.
+
+The reindeer has large feet with crescent-shaped, cloven hooves for walking in snow or swamps. According to the Species at Risk Public Registry (SARA), woodland[64]
+
+"Caribou have large feet with four toes. In addition to two small ones, called "dew claws," they have two large, crescent-shaped toes that support most of their weight and serve as shovels when digging for food under snow. These large concave hooves offer stable support on wet, soggy ground and on crusty snow. The pads of the hoof change from a thick, fleshy shape in the summer to become hard and thin in the winter months, reducing the animal’s exposure to the cold ground. Additional winter protection comes from the long hair between the "toes"; it covers the pads so the caribou walks only on the horny rim of the hooves."
+
+Reindeer hooves adapt to the season: in the summer, when the tundra is soft and wet, the footpads become sponge-like and provide extra traction. In the winter, the pads shrink and tighten, exposing the rim of the hoof, which cuts into the ice and crusted snow to keep it from slipping. This also enables them to dig down (an activity known as "cratering") through the snow to their favourite food, a lichen known as reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina).[76][77]
+
+The females usually measure 162–205 cm (64–81 in) in length and weigh 80–120 kg (180–260 lb).[78] The males (or "bulls" as they are often called) are typically larger (to an extent which varies between the different subspecies), measuring 180–214 cm (71–84 in) in length and usually weighing 159–182 kg (351–401 lb).[78] Exceptionally large males have weighed as much as 318 kg (701 lb).[78] Weight varies drastically between seasons, with males losing as much as 40% of their pre-rut weight.[79]
+
+Shoulder height Is usually 85 to 150 cm (33 to 59 in), and the tail is 14 to 20 cm (5.5 to 7.9 in) long.
+
+The reindeer from Svalbard are the smallest. They are also relatively short-legged and may have a shoulder height of as little as 80 cm (31 in),[80] Norwegian Polar Institute.</ref thereby following Allen's rule.
+
+The knees of many subspecies of reindeer are adapted to produce a clicking sound as they walk.[81] The sounds originate in the tendons of the knees and may be audible from ten meters away. The frequency of the knee-clicks is one of a range of signals that establish relative positions on a dominance scale among reindeer. "Specifically, loud knee-clicking is discovered to be an honest signal of body size, providing an exceptional example of the potential for non-vocal acoustic communication in mammals."[81] The clicking sound made by reindeer as they walk is caused by small tendons slipping over bone protuberances (sesamoid bones) in their feet.[82][83] The sound is made when a reindeer is walking or running, occurring when the full weight of the foot is on the ground or just after it is relieved of the weight.[72]
+
+A study by researchers from University College London in 2011 revealed that reindeer can see light with wavelengths as short as 320 nm (i.e. in the ultraviolet range), considerably below the human threshold of 400 nm. It is thought that this ability helps them to survive in the Arctic, because many objects that blend into the landscape in light visible to humans, such as urine and fur, produce sharp contrasts in ultraviolet.[84] The tapetum lucidum of Arctic reindeer eyes changes in colour from gold in summer to blue in winter to improve their vision during times of continuous darkness, and perhaps enable them to better spot predators.[85]
+
+Reindeer have developed adaptations for optimal metabolic efficiency during warm months as well as for during cold months.[86] The body composition of reindeer varies highly with the seasons. Of particular interest is the body composition and diet of breeding and non-breeding females between seasons. Breeding females have more body mass than non-breeding females between the months of March and September with a difference of around 10 kg more than non-breeding females. From November to December, non-breeding females have more body mass than breeding females, as non-breeding females are able to focus their energies towards storage during colder months rather than lactation and reproduction. Body masses of both breeding and non-breeding females peaks in September. During the months of March through April, breeding females have more fat mass than the non-breeding females with a difference of almost 3 kg. After this however, nonbreeding females on average have a higher fat mass than the breeding females.[87]
+
+The environmental variations play a large part in reindeer nutrition, as winter nutrition is crucial to adult and neonatal survival rates.[88] Lichens are a staple during the winter months as they are a readily available food source, which reduces the reliance on stored body reserves.[87] Lichens are a crucial part of the reindeer diet; however, they are less prevalent in the diet of pregnant reindeer compared to non-pregnant individuals. The amount of lichen in a diet is found more in non-pregnant adult diets than pregnant individuals due to the lack of nutritional value. Although lichens are high in carbohydrates, they are lacking in essential proteins that vascular plants provide. The amount of lichen in a diet decreases in latitude, which results in nutritional stress being higher in areas with low lichen abundance.[89]
+
+Reindeer mate in late September to early November and the gestation period is about 228–234 days.[90] During the mating season, males battle for access to females. Two males will lock each other's antlers together and try to push each other away. The most dominant males can collect as many as 15–20 females to mate with. A male will stop eating during this time and lose much of his body reserves.[91]
+
+To calve, "females travel to isolated, relatively predator-free areas such as islands in lakes, peatlands, lakeshores, or tundra."[64] As females select the habitat for the birth of their calves, they are more wary than males.[90] Dugmore noted that, in their seasonal migrations, the herd follows a doe for that reason.[72] Newborns weigh on average 6 kg (13 lb).[79] In May or June the calves are born.[90] After 45 days, the calves are able to graze and forage, but continue suckling until the following autumn when they become independent from their mothers.[91]
+
+Males live four years less than the females, whose maximum longevity is about 17 years. Females with a normal body size and who have had sufficient summer nutrition can begin breeding anytime between the ages of one to three years.[90] When a female has undergone nutritional stress, it is possible for her to not reproduce for the year.[92] Dominant males, those with larger body size and antler racks, inseminate more than one doe a season.
+
+Some populations of North American caribou, for example many herds in the barren-ground caribou subspecies and some woodland caribou in Ungava and Labrador, migrate the farthest of any terrestrial mammal, travelling up to 5,000 km (3,000 mi) a year, and covering 1,000,000 km2 (400,000 sq mi).[2][94] Other North American populations, the boreal woodland caribou for example, are largely sedentary.[95] The European populations are known to have shorter migrations. Island herds such as the subspecies R. t. pearsoni and R. t. platyrhynchus make local movements. Migrating reindeer can be negatively affected by parasite loads. Severely infected individuals are weak and probably have shortened lifespans, but parasite levels vary between populations. Infections create an effect known as culling: infected migrating animals are less likely to complete the migration.[96]
+
+Normally travelling about 19–55 km (12–34 mi) a day while migrating, the caribou can run at speeds of 60–80 km/h (37–50 mph).[2] Young caribou can already outrun an Olympic sprinter when only a day old.[97] During the spring migration smaller herds will group together to form larger herds of 50,000 to 500,000 animals, but during autumn migrations the groups become smaller and the reindeer begin to mate. During winter, reindeer travel to forested areas to forage under the snow. By spring, groups leave their winter grounds to go to the calving grounds. A reindeer can swim easily and quickly, normally at about 6.5 km/h (4 mph) but, if necessary, at 10 km/h (6 mph) and migrating herds will not hesitate to swim across a large lake or broad river.[2]
+
+As an adaptation to their Arctic environment, they have lost their circadian rhythm.[98]
+
+Originally, the reindeer was found in Scandinavia, eastern Europe, Greenland, Russia, Mongolia and northern China north of the 50th latitude. In North America, it was found in Canada, Alaska, and the northern conterminous USA from Washington to Maine. In the 19th century, it was apparently still present in southern Idaho.[2] Even in historical times, it probably occurred naturally in Ireland. During the late Pleistocene era, reindeer occurred as far south as Nevada and Tennessee in North America and as far south as Spain in Europe.[93][99] Today, wild reindeer have disappeared from these areas, especially from the southern parts, where it vanished almost everywhere. Large populations of wild reindeer are still found in Norway, Finland, Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada.
+
+According to the Grubb (2005), Rangifer tarandus is "circumboreal in the tundra and taiga" from "Svalbard, Norway, Finland, Russia, Alaska (USA) and Canada including most Arctic islands, and Greenland, south to northern Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia; now only domesticated or feral?), Sakhalin Island, and USA (Northern Idaho and the Great Lakes region). Reindeer were introduced to, and feral in, Iceland, Kerguelen Islands, South Georgia Island, Pribilof Islands, St. Matthew Island."[9]
+
+There is strong regional variation in Rangifer herd size. There are large population differences among individual herds and the size of individual herds has varied greatly since 1970. The largest of all herds (in Taimyr, Russia) has varied between 400,000 and 1,000,000; the second largest herd (at the George River in Canada) has varied between 28,000 and 385,000.
+
+While Rangifer is a widespread and numerous genus in the northern Holarctic, being present in both tundra and taiga (boreal forest),[93] by 2013, many herds had "unusually low numbers" and their winter ranges in particular were smaller than they used to be.[4] Caribou and reindeer numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across their range.[100] This global decline is linked to climate change for northern migratory herds and industrial disturbance of habitat for non-migratory herds.[101] Barren-ground caribou are susceptible to the effects of climate change due to a mismatch in the phenological process, between the availability of food during the calving period.[102][103][104]
+
+In November 2016, it was reported that more than 81,000 reindeer in Russia had died as a result of climate change. Longer autumns leading to increased amounts of freezing rain created a few inches of ice over lichen, starving many reindeer.[105]
+
+Reindeer are ruminants, having a four-chambered stomach. They mainly eat lichens in winter, especially reindeer lichen – a unique adaptation among mammals – they are the only large mammal able to metabolise lichen owing to specialised bacteria and protozoa in their gut.[106] They are the only animals (except for some gastropods) in which the enzyme lichenase, which breaks down lichenin to glucose, has been found.[107] However, they also eat the leaves of willows and birches, as well as sedges and grasses.
+
+They have been known to eat their own fallen antlers, probably for calcium.[citation needed] There is also some evidence to suggest that on occasion, especially in the spring when they are nutritionally stressed,[108] they will feed on small rodents (such as lemmings),[109] fish (such as Arctic char), and bird eggs.[110] Reindeer herded by the Chukchis have been known to devour mushrooms enthusiastically in late summer.[111]
+
+During the Arctic summer, when there is continuous daylight, reindeer change their sleeping pattern from one synchronised with the sun to an ultradian pattern in which they sleep when they need to digest food.[112]
+
+A variety of predators prey heavily on reindeer, including overhunting by people in some areas, which contributes to the decline of populations.[64]
+
+Golden eagles prey on calves and are the most prolific hunter on the calving grounds.[113] Wolverines will take newborn calves or birthing cows, as well as (less commonly) infirm adults.
+
+Brown bears and polar bears prey on reindeer of all ages, but like the wolverines they are most likely to attack weaker animals, such as calves and sick reindeer, since healthy adult reindeer can usually outpace a bear. The grey wolf is the most effective natural predator of adult reindeer and sometimes takes large numbers, especially during the winter. Some wolf packs as well as individual grizzly bears in Canada may follow and live off of a particular reindeer herd year round.[114][115]
+
+Additionally, as carrion, reindeer may be scavenged opportunistically by foxes, hawks and ravens.
+
+Bloodsucking insects, such as mosquitoes (Culicidae), black flies (Simuliidae), and botflies and deer botflies (Oestridae, specifically, the reindeer warble fly (Hypoderma tarandi) and the reindeer nose botfly (Cephenemyia trompe)), are a plague to reindeer during the summer and can cause enough stress to inhibit feeding and calving behaviours.[116] An adult reindeer will lose perhaps about 1 liter (about 2 US pints) of blood to biting insects for every week it spends in the tundra.[97] The population numbers of some of these predators is influenced by the migration of reindeer.[citation needed] Tormenting insects keep caribou on the move searching for windy areas like hilltops and mountain ridges, rock reefs, lakeshore and forest openings, or snow patches that offer respite from the buzzing horde. Gathering in large herds is another strategy that caribou use to block insects.[117]
+
+In one case, the entire body of a reindeer was found in the stomach of a Greenland shark, a species found in the far northern Atlantic, although this was possibly a case of scavenging, considering the dissimilarity of habitats between the ungulate and the large, slow-moving fish.[118]
+
+White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) commonly carry meningeal worm or brainworm, a nematode parasite that causes reindeer, moose (Alces alces), elk (Cervus canadensis), and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) to develop fatal neurological symptoms[119][120][121] which include a loss of fear of humans. White-tailed deer that carry this worm are partly immune to it.[79]
+
+Changes in climate and habitat beginning in the twentieth century have expanded range overlap between white-tailed deer and caribou, increasing the frequency of infection within the reindeer population. This increase in infection is a concern for wildlife managers. Human activities, such as "clear-cutting forestry practices, forest fires, and the clearing for agriculture, roadways, railways, and power lines," favour the conversion of habitats into the preferred habitat of the white-tailed deer-"open forest interspersed with meadows, clearings, grasslands, and riparian flatlands."[79]
+
+While overall widespread and numerous, some subspecies are rare and at least one has already gone extinct.[10][11] As of 2015, the IUCN has classified the reindeer as Vulnerable due to an observed population decline of 40% over the last ≈25 years.[2] According to IUCN, Rangifer tarandus as a species is not endangered because of its overall large population and its widespread range.[2]
+
+In North America, R. t. dawsoni is extinct,[122][11][10] R. t. pearyi is endangered, R. t. caribou is designated as threatened and some individual populations are endangered. While the subspecies R. t. granti and R. t. groenlandicus are not designated as threatened, many individual herds—including some of the largest—are declining and there is much concern at the local level.[123]
+
+Rangifer tarandus is "endangered in Canada in regions such as south-east British Columbia at the Canadian-USA border, along the Columbia, Kootenay and Kootenai rivers and around Kootenay Lake. Rangifer tarandus is endangered in the United States in Idaho and Washington.
+
+There is strong regional variation in Rangifer herd size, By 2013 many caribou herds in North America had "unusually low numbers" and their winter ranges in particular were smaller than they used to be.[123] Caribou numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across their range.[124] There are many factors contributing to the decline in numbers.[125]
+
+Ongoing human development of their habitat has caused populations of woodland caribou to disappear from their original southern range. In particular, caribou were extirpated in many areas of eastern North America in the beginning of the 20th century. Woodland caribou were designated as threatened in 2002.[13] Environment Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34,000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada (Environment Canada, 2011b).[14] Professor Marco Musiani of the University of Calgary said in a statement that "The woodland caribou is already an endangered species in southern Canada and the United States....[The] warming of the planet means the disappearance of their critical habitat in these regions. Caribou need undisturbed lichen-rich environments and these types of habitats are disappearing."[126]
+
+Woodland caribou have disappeared from most of their original southern range and were designated as threatened in 2002 by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, (COSEWIC).[13] Environment Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34 000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada.(Environment Canada, 2011b).[14] "According to Geist, the "woodland caribou is highly endangered throughout its distribution right into Ontario."[9]
+
+In 2002 the Atlantic-Gaspésie population of the woodland caribou was designated as endangered by COSEWIC. The small isolated population of 200 animals was at risk from predation and habitat loss.
+
+In 1991 COSEWIC assigned "endangered status" to the Banks Island and High Arctic populations of Peary caribou. The Low Arctic population of Peary caribou was designated as threatened. By 2004 all three were designated as "endangered."[122]
+
+Numbers have declined by about 72% over the last three generations, mostly because of catastrophic die-off likely related to severe icing episodes. The ice covers the vegetation and caribou starve. Voluntary restrictions on hunting by local people are in place, but have not stopped population declines. Because of the continuing decline and expected changes in long-term weather patterns, this subspecies is at imminent risk of extinction.
+
+The reindeer has an important economic role for all circumpolar peoples, including the Saami, the Nenets, the Khants, the Evenks, the Yukaghirs, the Chukchi and the Koryaks in Eurasia. It is believed that domestication started between the Bronze and Iron Ages. Siberian reindeer owners also use the reindeer to ride on (Siberian reindeer are larger than their Scandinavian relatives). For breeders, a single owner may own hundreds or even thousands of animals. The numbers of Russian reindeer herders have been drastically reduced since the fall of the Soviet Union. The sale of fur and meat is an important source of income. Reindeer were introduced into Alaska near the end of the 19th century; they interbred with the native caribou subspecies there. Reindeer herders on the Seward Peninsula have experienced significant losses to their herds from animals (such as wolves) following the wild caribou during their migrations.[citation needed]
+
+Reindeer meat is popular in the Scandinavian countries. Reindeer meatballs are sold canned. Sautéed reindeer is the best-known dish in Sápmi. In Alaska and Finland, reindeer sausage is sold in supermarkets and grocery stores. Reindeer meat is very tender and lean. It can be prepared fresh, but also dried, salted and hot- and cold-smoked. In addition to meat, almost all of the internal organs of reindeer can be eaten, some being traditional dishes.[127] Furthermore, Lapin Poron liha, fresh reindeer meat completely produced and packed in Finnish Sápmi, is protected in Europe with PDO classification.[128][129]
+
+Reindeer antlers are powdered and sold as an aphrodisiac, or as an nutritional or medicinal supplement, to Asian markets.
+
+The blood of the caribou was supposedly mixed with alcohol as drink by hunters and loggers in colonial Quebec to counter the cold. This drink is now enjoyed without the blood as a wine and whiskey drink known as Caribou.[130][131]
+
+Wild reindeer are still hunted in Greenland and in North America. In the traditional lifestyle of the Inuit people, the Northern First Nations people, the Alaska Natives, and the Kalaallit of Greenland, reindeer is an important source of food, clothing, shelter and tools.
+
+The Caribou Inuit are inland-dwelling Inuit in present-day Nunavut's Keewatin Region, Canada, now known as the Kivalliq Region. They subsisted on caribou year-round, eating dried caribou meat in the winter. The Ihalmiut are caribou Inuit that followed the Qamanirjuaq barren-ground caribou herd.[132]
+
+There is an Inuit saying in the Kivalliq Region:[106]
+
+The caribou feeds the wolf, but it is the wolf who keeps the caribou strong.
+
+Elder Chief of Koyukuk and chair for the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group Benedict Jones, or K’ughto’oodenool’o’, represents the Middle Yukon River, Alaska. His grandmother was a member of the Caribou Clan, who travelled with the caribou as a means to survive. In 1939, they were living the traditional life style at one of their hunting camps in Koyukuk near the location of what is now the Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge. His grandmother made a pair of new mukluks in one day. K’ughto’oodenool’o’ recounted a story told by an elder, who "worked on the steamboats during the gold rush days out on the Yukon." In late August the caribou migrated from the Alaska Range up north to Huslia, Koyukuk and the Tanana area. One year when the steamboat was unable to continue they ran into a caribou herd numbering estimated at a million animals, migrating across Yukon. "They tied up for seven days waiting for the caribou to cross. They ran out of wood for the steamboats, and had to go back down 40 miles to the wood pile to pick up some more wood. On the tenth day, they came back and they said there was still caribou going across the river night and day."[29]
+
+The Gwich'in, the indigenous people of northwestern Canada and northeastern Alaska, have been dependent on the international migratory Porcupine caribou herd for millennia.[133]:142 To them caribou—vadzaih—is the cultural symbol and a keystone subsistence species of the Gwich'in, just as the buffalo is to the Plains Indians.[134] Innovative language revitalisation projects are underway to document the language and to enhance the writing and translation skills of younger Gwich'in speakers. In one project lead research associate and fluent speaker Gwich’in elder Kenneth Frank works with linguists which include young Gwich'in speakers affiliated with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks to document traditional knowledge of caribou anatomy. The main goal of the research, was to "elicit not only what the Gwich'in know about caribou anatomy, but how they see caribou and what they say and believe about caribou that defines themselves, their dietary and nutritional needs, and their subsistence way of life."[134] Elders have identified at least 150 descriptive Gwich'in names for all of the bones, organs and tissues. Associated with the caribou's anatomy are not just descriptive Gwich'in names for all of the body parts including bones, organs, and tissues, but also "an encyclopedia of stories, songs, games, toys, ceremonies, traditional tools, skin clothing, personal names and surnames, and a highly developed ethnic cuisine."[134]
+
+In the 1980s, Gwich'in Traditional Management Practices were established to protect the Porcupine caribou, upon which the Gwich'in people depend. They "codified traditional principles of caribou management into tribal law" which include "limits on the harvest of caribou and procedures to be followed in processing and transporting caribou meat" and limits on the number of caribou to be taken per hunting trip.[135]
+
+The reindeer is the only domesticated deer in the world, though it may be more accurate to consider reindeer as semi-domesticated. Reindeer in northern Fennoscandia (northern Norway, Sweden and Finland) as well in the Kola Peninsula and Yakutia in Russia, are all[dubious  – discuss] semi-wild domestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus f. domesticus), ear-marked by their owners. Some reindeer in the area are truly domesticated, mostly used as draught animals (nowadays commonly for tourist entertainment and races, traditionally important for the nomadic Sámi). Domesticated reindeer have also been used for milk, e.g. in Norway.
+
+There are only two genetically pure populations of wild reindeer in Northern Europe: wild mountain reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) that live in central Norway, with a population in 2007 of between 6,000 and 8,400 animals;[136] and wild Finnish forest reindeer (Rangifer tarandus fennicus) that live in central and eastern Finland and in Russian Karelia, with a population of about 4,350, plus 1,500 in Arkhangelsk and 2,500 in Komi.[137]
+
+DNA analysis indicates that reindeer were independently domesticated in Fennoscandia and Western Russia (and possibly Eastern Russia).[138] Reindeer have been herded for centuries by several Arctic and sub-Arctic peoples, including the Sami, the Nenets and the Yakuts. They are raised for their meat, hides and antlers and, to a lesser extent, for milk and transportation. Reindeer are not considered fully domesticated, as they generally roam free on pasture grounds. In traditional nomadic herding, reindeer herders migrate with their herds between coastal and inland areas according to an annual migration route and herds are keenly tended. However, reindeer were not bred in captivity, though they were tamed for milking as well as for use as draught animals or beasts of burden.[citation needed] Domesticated reindeer are shorter-legged and heavier than their wild counterparts.[citation needed]
+
+The use of reindeer for transportation is common among the nomadic peoples of northern Russia (but not anymore in Scandinavia). Although a sled drawn by 20 reindeer will cover no more than 20–25 km a day (compared to 7–10 km on foot, 70–80 km by a dog sled loaded with cargo and 150–180 km by a dog sled without cargo), it has the advantage that the reindeer will discover their own food, while a pack of 5–7 sled dogs requires 10–14 kg of fresh fish a day.[139]
+
+The use of reindeer as semi-domesticated livestock in Alaska was introduced in the late 19th century by the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, with assistance from Sheldon Jackson, as a means of providing a livelihood for Native peoples there.[140] Reindeer were imported first from Siberia and later also from Norway. A regular mail run in Wales, Alaska, used a sleigh drawn by reindeer.[141] In Alaska, reindeer herders use satellite telemetry to track their herds, using online maps and databases to chart the herd's progress.[citation needed]
+
+Domesticated reindeer are mostly found in northern Fennoscandia and Russia, with a herd of approximately 150–170 reindeer living around the Cairngorms region in Scotland. The last remaining wild tundra reindeer in Europe are found in portions of southern Norway.[142] The International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry (ICR), a circumpolar organisation, was established in 2005 by the Norwegian government. ICR represents over 20 indigenous reindeer peoples and about 100,000 reindeer herders in 9 different national states.[143] In Finland, there are about 6,000 reindeer herders, most of whom keep small herds of less than 50 reindeer to raise additional income. With 185,000 reindeer (2001), the industry produces 2,000 tons of reindeer meat and generates 35 million euros annually. 70% of the meat is sold to slaughterhouses. Reindeer herders are eligible for national and EU agricultural subsidies, which constituted 15% of their income. Reindeer herding is of central importance for the local economies of small communities in sparsely populated rural Sápmi.[144]
+
+Currently, many reindeer herders are heavily dependent on diesel fuel to provide for electric generators and snowmobile transportation, although solar photovoltaic systems can be used to reduce diesel dependency.[145]
+
+Reindeer hunting by humans has a very long history and wild reindeer "may well be the species of single greatest importance in the entire anthropological literature on hunting."[15]
+
+Both Aristotle and Theophrastus have short accounts – probably based on the same source – of an ox-sized deer species, named tarandos, living in the land of the Bodines in Scythia, which was able to change the colour of its fur to obtain camouflage. The latter is probably a misunderstanding of the seasonal change in reindeer fur colour. The descriptions have been interpreted as being of reindeer living in the southern Ural Mountains in c. 350 BC[20]
+
+A deer-like animal described by Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico (chapter 6.26) from the Hercynian Forest in the year 53 BC is most certainly to be interpreted as reindeer:[20][146]
+
+There is an ox shaped like a stag. In the middle of its forehead a single horn grows between its ears, taller and straighter than the animal horns with which we are familiar. At the top this horn spreads out like the palm of a hand or the branches of a tree. The females are of the same form as the males, and their horns are the same shape and size.
+
+According to Olaus Magnus's Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus – printed in Rome in 1555 – Gustav I of Sweden sent 10 reindeer to Albert I, Duke of Prussia, in the year 1533. It may be these animals that Conrad Gessner had seen or heard of.
+
+During World War II, the Soviet Army used reindeer as pack animals to transport food, ammunition and post from Murmansk to the Karelian front and bring wounded soldiers, pilots and equipment back to the base. About 6,000 reindeer and more than 1,000 reindeer herders were part of the operation. Most herders were Nenets, who were mobilised from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, but reindeer herders from Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Komi also participated.[147][148]
+
+Around the world, public interest in reindeer peaks in the Christmas period.[149] According to folklore, Santa Claus's sleigh is pulled by flying reindeer. These were first named in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", where they are called Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder, and Blixem.[150] Dunder was later changed to Donder and—in other works—Donner (in German, "thunder") and Blixem was later changed to Bliksem, then Blitzen (blitz being German for "lightning"). Some consider Rudolph as part of the group as well, though he was not part of the original named work referenced previously. Rudolph was added by Robert L. May in 1939 in his book Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.[151]
+
+Among the Inuit, there is a story of the origin of the caribou,[152]
+
+Once upon a time there were no caribou on the earth. But there was a man who wished for caribou, and he cut a hole deep in the ground, and up this hole came caribou, many caribou. The caribou came pouring out, until the earth was almost covered with them. And when the man thought there were caribou enough for mankind, he closed up the hole again. Thus the caribou came up on earth.
+
+Inuit artists from the barren lands, incorporate depictions of caribou—and items made from caribou antlers and skin—in carvings, drawings, prints and sculpture.
+
+Contemporary Canadian artist Brian Jungen's, of Dunne-za First Nations ancestry, commissioned an installation entitled "The ghosts on top of my head" (2010–11) in Banff, Alberta, which depicts the antlers of caribou, elk and moose.[153]
+
+I remember a story my Uncle Jack told me – a Dunne-Za creation story about how animals once ruled the earth and were ten times their size and that got me thinking about scale and using the idea of the antler, which is a thing that everyone is scared of, and making it into something more approachable and abstract.
+
+Tomson Highway, CM[154] is a Canadian and Cree playwright, novelist, and children's author, who was born in a remote area north of Brochet, Manitoba.[154] His father, Joe Highway, was a caribou hunter. His 2001 children's book entitled Caribou Song/atíhko níkamon was selected as one of the "Top 10 Children’s Books" by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. The young protagonists of Caribou Song, like Tomson himself, followed the caribou herd with their families.
+
+Several Norwegian municipalities have one or more reindeer depicted in their coats-of-arms: Eidfjord, Porsanger, Rendalen, Tromsø, Vadsø and Vågå. The historic province of Västerbotten in Sweden has a reindeer in its coat of arms. The present Västerbotten County has very different borders and uses the reindeer combined with other symbols in its coat-of-arms. The city of Piteå also has a reindeer. The logo for Umeå University features three reindeer.[155]
+
+The Canadian 25-cent coin, or "quarter" features a depiction of a caribou on one face. The caribou is the official provincial animal of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and appears on the coat of arms of Nunavut. A caribou statue was erected at the centre of the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, marking the spot in France where hundreds of soldiers from Newfoundland were killed and wounded in World War I and there is a replica in Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland's capital city.[citation needed]
+
+Two municipalities in Finland have reindeer motifs in their coats-of-arms: Kuusamo[156] has a running reindeer and Inari[157] has a fish with reindeer antlers.

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+Carl Linnaeus (/lɪˈniːəs, lɪˈneɪəs/;[1][2] 23 May[note 1] 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné[3] (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈkɑːɭ fɔn lɪˈneː] (listen)), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy".[4] Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus (after 1761 Carolus a Linné).
+
+Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland in southern Sweden. He received most of his higher education at Uppsala University and began giving lectures in botany there in 1730. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published the first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands. He then returned to Sweden where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on several journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants and animals. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, while publishing several volumes. He was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe at the time of his death.
+
+Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message: "Tell him I know no greater man on earth."[5] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly."[5] Swedish author August Strindberg wrote: "Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist."[6] Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum (Prince of Botanists) and "The Pliny of the North".[7] He is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology.[8]
+
+In botany and zoology, the abbreviation L. is used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for a species' name.[9] In older publications, the abbreviation "Linn." is found. Linnaeus's remains comprise the type specimen for the species Homo sapiens following the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, since the sole specimen that he is known to have examined was himself.[note 2]
+
+Linnaeus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus (Nils) Ingemarsson (who later adopted the family name Linnaeus) and Christina Brodersonia. His siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus (who would eventually succeed their father as rector of Stenbrohult and write a manual on beekeeping),[10][11][12] and Emerentia Linnæa.[13] His father taught him Latin as a small child.[14]
+
+One of a long line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister, and the curate of the small village of Stenbrohult in Småland. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius.[15]:376
+
+A year after Linnaeus's birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curate's house.[16][17]
+
+Even in his early years, Linnaeus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which immediately calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus and told him their names. Soon Linnaeus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants.[18]
+
+Carl's father was the first in his ancestry to adopt a permanent surname. Before that, ancestors had used the patronymic naming system of Scandinavian countries: his father was named Ingemarsson after his father Ingemar Bengtsson. When Nils was admitted to the University of Lund, he had to take on a family name. He adopted the Latinate name Linnæus after a giant linden tree (or lime tree), lind in Swedish, that grew on the family homestead.[10] This name was spelled with the æ ligature. When Carl was born, he was named Carl Linnæus, with his father's family name. The son also always spelled it with the æ ligature, both in handwritten documents and in publications.[16] Carl's patronymic would have been Nilsson, as in Carl Nilsson Linnæus.[19]
+
+Linnaeus's father began teaching him basic Latin, religion, and geography at an early age.[20] When Linnaeus was seven, Nils decided to hire a tutor for him. The parents picked Johan Telander, a son of a local yeoman. Linnaeus did not like him, writing in his autobiography that Telander "was better calculated to extinguish a child's talents than develop them".[21]
+
+Two years after his tutoring had begun, he was sent to the Lower Grammar School at Växjö in 1717.[22] Linnaeus rarely studied, often going to the countryside to look for plants. He reached the last year of the Lower School when he was fifteen, which was taught by the headmaster, Daniel Lannerus, who was interested in botany. Lannerus noticed Linnaeus's interest in botany and gave him the run of his garden.
+
+He also introduced him to Johan Rothman, the state doctor of Småland and a teacher at Katedralskolan (a gymnasium) in Växjö. Also a botanist, Rothman broadened Linnaeus's interest in botany and helped him develop an interest in medicine.[23][24] By the age of 17, Linnaeus had become well acquainted with the existing botanical literature. He remarks in his journal that he "read day and night, knowing like the back of my hand, Arvidh Månsson's Rydaholm Book of Herbs, Tillandz's Flora Åboensis, Palmberg's Serta Florea Suecana,  Bromelii Chloros Gothica and Rudbeckii Hortus Upsaliensis".[25]
+
+Linnaeus entered the Växjö Katedralskola in 1724, where he studied mainly Greek, Hebrew, theology and mathematics, a curriculum designed for boys preparing for the priesthood.[26][27] In the last year at the gymnasium, Linnaeus's father visited to ask the professors how his son's studies were progressing; to his dismay, most said that the boy would never become a scholar. Rothman believed otherwise, suggesting Linnaeus could have a future in medicine. The doctor offered to have Linnaeus live with his family in Växjö and to teach him physiology and botany. Nils accepted this offer.[28][29]
+
+Rothman showed Linnaeus that botany was a serious subject. He taught Linnaeus to classify plants according to Tournefort's system. Linnaeus was also taught about the sexual reproduction of plants, according to Sébastien Vaillant.[28] In 1727, Linnaeus, age 21, enrolled in Lund University in Skåne.[30][31] He was registered as Carolus Linnæus, the Latin form of his full name, which he also used later for his Latin publications.[3]
+
+Professor Kilian Stobæus, natural scientist, physician and historian, offered Linnaeus tutoring and lodging, as well as the use of his library, which included many books about botany. He also gave the student free admission to his lectures.[32][33] In his spare time, Linnaeus explored the flora of Skåne, together with students sharing the same interests.[34]
+
+In August 1728, Linnaeus decided to attend Uppsala University on the advice of Rothman, who believed it would be a better choice if Linnaeus wanted to study both medicine and botany. Rothman based this recommendation on the two professors who taught at the medical faculty at Uppsala: Olof Rudbeck the Younger and Lars Roberg. Although Rudbeck and Roberg had undoubtedly been good professors, by then they were older and not so interested in teaching. Rudbeck no longer gave public lectures, and had others stand in for him. The botany, zoology, pharmacology and anatomy lectures were not in their best state.[35] In Uppsala, Linnaeus met a new benefactor, Olof Celsius, who was a professor of theology and an amateur botanist.[36] He received Linnaeus into his home and allowed him use of his library, which was one of the richest botanical libraries in Sweden.[37]
+
+In 1729, Linnaeus wrote a thesis, Praeludia Sponsaliorum Plantarum on plant sexual reproduction. This attracted the attention of Rudbeck; in May 1730, he selected Linnaeus to give lectures at the University although the young man was only a second-year student. His lectures were popular, and Linnaeus often addressed an audience of 300 people.[38] In June, Linnaeus moved from Celsius's house to Rudbeck's to become the tutor of the three youngest of his 24 children. His friendship with Celsius did not wane and they continued their botanical expeditions.[39] Over that winter, Linnaeus began to doubt Tournefort's system of classification and decided to create one of his own. His plan was to divide the plants by the number of stamens and pistils. He began writing several books, which would later result in, for example, Genera Plantarum and Critica Botanica. He also produced a book on the plants grown in the Uppsala Botanical Garden, Adonis Uplandicus.[40]
+
+Rudbeck's former assistant, Nils Rosén, returned to the University in March 1731 with a degree in medicine. Rosén started giving anatomy lectures and tried to take over Linnaeus's botany lectures, but Rudbeck prevented that. Until December, Rosén gave Linnaeus private tutoring in medicine. In December, Linnaeus had a "disagreement" with Rudbeck's wife and had to move out of his mentor's house; his relationship with Rudbeck did not appear to suffer. That Christmas, Linnaeus returned home to Stenbrohult to visit his parents for the first time in about three years. His mother had disapproved of his failing to become a priest, but she was pleased to learn he was teaching at the University.[40][41]
+
+During a visit with his parents, Linnaeus told them about his plan to travel to Lapland; Rudbeck had made the journey in 1695, but the detailed results of his exploration were lost in a fire seven years afterwards. Linnaeus's hope was to find new plants, animals and possibly valuable minerals. He was also curious about the customs of the native Sami people, reindeer-herding nomads who wandered Scandinavia's vast tundras. In April 1732, Linnaeus was awarded a grant from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala for his journey.[42][43]
+
+Linnaeus began his expedition from Uppsala on 12 May 1732, just before he turned 25.[44] He travelled on foot and horse, bringing with him his journal, botanical and ornithological manuscripts and sheets of paper for pressing plants. Near Gävle he found great quantities of Campanula serpyllifolia, later known as Linnaea borealis, the twinflower that would become his favourite.[45] He sometimes dismounted on the way to examine a flower or rock[46] and was particularly interested in mosses and lichens, the latter a main part of the diet of the reindeer, a common and economically important animal in Lapland.[47]
+
+Linnaeus travelled clockwise around the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, making major inland incursions from Umeå, Luleå and Tornio. He returned from his six-month-long, over 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) expedition in October, having gathered and observed many plants, birds and rocks.[48][49][50] Although Lapland was a region with limited biodiversity, Linnaeus described about 100 previously unidentified plants. These became the basis of his book Flora Lapponica.[51][52] However, on the expedition to Lapland, Linnaeus used Latin names to describe organisms because he had not yet developed the binomial system.[44]
+
+In Flora Lapponica Linnaeus's ideas about nomenclature and classification were first used in a practical way, making this the first proto-modern Flora.[53] The account covered 534 species, used the Linnaean classification system and included, for the described species, geographical distribution and taxonomic notes. It was Augustin Pyramus de Candolle who attributed Linnaeus with Flora Lapponica as the first example in the botanical genre of Flora writing. Botanical historian E. L. Greene described Flora Lapponica as "the most classic and delightful" of Linnaeus's works.[53]
+
+It was also during this expedition that Linnaeus had a flash of insight regarding the classification of mammals. Upon observing the lower jawbone of a horse at the side of a road he was travelling, Linnaeus remarked: "If I only knew how many teeth and of what kind every animal had, how many teats and where they were placed, I should perhaps be able to work out a perfectly natural system for the arrangement of all quadrupeds."[54]
+
+In 1734, Linnaeus led a small group of students to Dalarna. Funded by the Governor of Dalarna, the expedition was to catalogue known natural resources and discover new ones, but also to gather intelligence on Norwegian mining activities at Røros.[50]
+
+His relations with Nils Rosén having worsened, Linnaeus accepted an invitation from Claes Sohlberg, son of a mining inspector, to spend the Christmas holiday in Falun, where Linnaeus was permitted to visit the mines.[55]
+
+In April 1735, at the suggestion of Sohlberg's father, Linnaeus and Sohlberg set out for the Dutch Republic, where Linnaeus intended to study medicine at the University of Harderwijk[56] while tutoring Sohlberg in exchange for an annual salary. At the time, it was common for Swedes to pursue doctoral degrees in the Netherlands, then a highly revered place to study natural history.[57]
+
+On the way, the pair stopped in Hamburg, where they met the mayor, who proudly showed them a supposed wonder of nature in his possession: the taxidermied remains of a seven-headed hydra. Linnaeus quickly discovered the specimen was a fake cobbled together from the jaws and paws of weasels and the skins of snakes. The provenance of the hydra suggested to Linnaeus that it had been manufactured by monks to represent the Beast of Revelation. Even at the risk of incurring the mayor's wrath, Linnaeus made his observations public, dashing the mayor's dreams of selling the hydra for an enormous sum. Linnaeus and Sohlberg were forced to flee from Hamburg.[58][59]
+
+Linnaeus began working towards his degree as soon as he reached Harderwijk, a university known for awarding degrees in as little as a week.[60] He submitted a dissertation, written back in Sweden, entitled Dissertatio medica inauguralis in qua exhibetur hypothesis nova de febrium intermittentium causa,[note 3] in which he laid out his hypothesis that malaria arose only in areas with clay-rich soils.[61] Although he failed to identify the true source of disease transmission, (i.e., the Anopheles mosquito),[62] he did correctly predict that Artemisia annua (wormwood) would become a source of antimalarial medications.[61]
+
+Within two weeks he had completed his oral and practical examinations and was awarded a doctoral degree.[58][60]
+
+That summer Linnaeus reunited with Peter Artedi, a friend from Uppsala with whom he had once made a pact that should either of the two predecease the other, the survivor would finish the decedent's work. Ten weeks later, Artedi drowned in the canals of Amsterdam, leaving behind an unfinished manuscript on the classification of fish.[63][64]
+
+One of the first scientists Linnaeus met in the Netherlands was Johan Frederik Gronovius to whom Linnaeus showed one of the several manuscripts he had brought with him from Sweden. The manuscript described a new system for classifying plants. When Gronovius saw it, he was very impressed, and offered to help pay for the printing. With an additional monetary contribution by the Scottish doctor Isaac Lawson, the manuscript was published as Systema Naturae (1735).[65][66]
+
+Linnaeus became acquainted with one of the most respected physicians and botanists in the Netherlands, Herman Boerhaave, who tried to convince Linnaeus to make a career there. Boerhaave offered him a journey to South Africa and America, but Linnaeus declined, stating he would not stand the heat. Instead, Boerhaave convinced Linnaeus that he should visit the botanist Johannes Burman. After his visit, Burman, impressed with his guest's knowledge, decided Linnaeus should stay with him during the winter. During his stay, Linnaeus helped Burman with his Thesaurus Zeylanicus. Burman also helped Linnaeus with the books on which he was working: Fundamenta Botanica and Bibliotheca Botanica.[67]
+
+In August 1735, during Linnaeus's stay with Burman, he met George Clifford III, a director of the Dutch East India Company and the owner of a rich botanical garden at the estate of Hartekamp in Heemstede. Clifford was very impressed with Linnaeus's ability to classify plants, and invited him to become his physician and superintendent of his garden. Linnaeus had already agreed to stay with Burman over the winter, and could thus not accept immediately. However, Clifford offered to compensate Burman by offering him a copy of Sir Hans Sloane's Natural History of Jamaica, a rare book, if he let Linnaeus stay with him, and Burman accepted.[68][69] On 24 September 1735, Linnaeus moved to Hartekamp to become personal physician to Clifford, and curator of Clifford's herbarium. He was paid 1,000 florins a year, with free board and lodging. Though the agreement was only for a winter of that year, Linnaeus practically stayed there until 1738.[70] It was here that he wrote a book Hortus Cliffortianus, in the preface of which he described his experience as "the happiest time of my life". (A portion of Hartekamp was declared as public garden in April 1956 by the Heemstede local authority, and was named "Linnaeushof".[71] It eventually became, as it is claimed, the biggest playground in Europe.[72])
+
+In July 1736, Linnaeus travelled to England, at Clifford's expense.[73] He went to London to visit Sir Hans Sloane, a collector of natural history, and to see his cabinet,[74] as well as to visit the Chelsea Physic Garden and its keeper, Philip Miller. He taught Miller about his new system of subdividing plants, as described in Systema Naturae. Miller was in fact reluctant to use the new binomial nomenclature, preferring the classifications of Joseph Pitton de Tournefort and John Ray at first. Linnaeus, nevertheless, applauded Miller's Gardeners Dictionary,[75] The conservative Scot actually retained in his dictionary a number of pre-Linnaean binomial signifiers discarded by Linnaeus but which have been retained by modern botanists. He only fully changed to the Linnaean system in the edition of The Gardeners Dictionary of 1768.  Miller ultimately was impressed, and from then on started to arrange the garden according to Linnaeus's system.[76]
+
+Linnaeus also travelled to Oxford University to visit the botanist Johann Jacob Dillenius. He failed to make Dillenius publicly fully accept his new classification system, though the two men remained in correspondence for many years afterwards. Linnaeus dedicated his Critica botanica to him, as "opus botanicum quo absolutius mundus non vidit". Linnaeus would later name a genus of tropical tree Dillenia in his honour. He then returned to Hartekamp, bringing with him many specimens of rare plants.[77] The next year, he published Genera Plantarum, in which he described 935 genera of plants, and shortly thereafter he supplemented it with Corollarium Generum Plantarum, with another sixty (sexaginta) genera.[78]
+
+His work at Hartekamp led to another book, Hortus Cliffortianus, a catalogue of the botanical holdings in the herbarium and botanical garden of Hartekamp. He wrote it in nine months (completed in July 1737), but it was not published until 1738.[67] It contains the first use of the name Nepenthes, which Linnaeus used to describe a genus of pitcher plants.[79][note 4]
+
+Linnaeus stayed with Clifford at Hartekamp until 18 October 1737 (new style), when he left the house to return to Sweden. Illness and the kindness of Dutch friends obliged him to stay some months longer in Holland. In May 1738, he set out for Sweden again. On the way home, he stayed in Paris for about a month, visiting botanists such as Antoine de Jussieu. After his return, Linnaeus never left Sweden again.[80][81]
+
+When Linnaeus returned to Sweden on 28 June 1738, he went to Falun, where he entered into an engagement to Sara Elisabeth Moræa. Three months later, he moved to Stockholm to find employment as a physician, and thus to make it possible to support a family.[82][83] Once again, Linnaeus found a patron; he became acquainted with Count Carl Gustav Tessin, who helped him get work as a physician at the Admiralty.[84][85] During this time in Stockholm, Linnaeus helped found the Royal Swedish Academy of Science; he became the first Praeses of the academy by drawing of lots.[86]
+
+Because his finances had improved and were now sufficient to support a family, he received permission to marry his fiancée, Sara Elisabeth Moræa. Their wedding was held 26 June 1739. Seventeen months later, Sara gave birth to their first son, Carl. Two years later, a daughter, Elisabeth Christina, was born, and the subsequent year Sara gave birth to Sara Magdalena, who died when 15 days old. Sara and Linnaeus would later have four other children: Lovisa, Sara Christina, Johannes and Sophia.[82][87]
+
+In May 1741, Linnaeus was appointed Professor of Medicine at Uppsala University, first with responsibility for medicine-related matters. Soon, he changed place with the other Professor of Medicine, Nils Rosén, and thus was responsible for the Botanical Garden (which he would thoroughly reconstruct and expand), botany and natural history, instead. In October that same year, his wife and nine-month-old son followed him to live in Uppsala.[88]:49–50
+
+Ten days after he was appointed Professor, he undertook an expedition to the island provinces of Öland and Gotland with six students from the university, to look for plants useful in medicine. First, they travelled to Öland and stayed there until 21 June, when they sailed to Visby in Gotland. Linnaeus and the students stayed on Gotland for about a month, and then returned to Uppsala. During this expedition, they found 100 previously unrecorded plants. The observations from the expedition were later published in Öländska och Gothländska Resa, written in Swedish. Like Flora Lapponica, it contained both zoological and botanical observations, as well as observations concerning the culture in Öland and Gotland.[89][90]
+
+During the summer of 1745, Linnaeus published two more books: Flora Suecica and Fauna Suecica. Flora Suecica was a strictly botanical book, while Fauna Suecica was zoological.[82][91] Anders Celsius had created the temperature scale named after him in 1742. Celsius's scale was inverted compared to today, the boiling point at 0 °C and freezing point at 100 °C. In 1745, Linnaeus inverted the scale to its present standard.[92]
+
+In the summer of 1746, Linnaeus was once again commissioned by the Government to carry out an expedition, this time to the Swedish province of Västergötland. He set out from Uppsala on 12 June and returned on 11 August. On the expedition his primary companion was Erik Gustaf Lidbeck, a student who had accompanied him on his previous journey. Linnaeus described his findings from the expedition in the book Wästgöta-Resa, published the next year.[89][93] After returning from the journey the Government decided Linnaeus should take on another expedition to the southernmost province Scania. This journey was postponed, as Linnaeus felt too busy.[82]
+
+In 1747, Linnaeus was given the title archiater, or chief physician, by the Swedish king Adolf Frederick—a mark of great respect.[94] The same year he was elected member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin.[95]
+
+In the spring of 1749, Linnaeus could finally journey to Scania, again commissioned by the Government. With him he brought his student, Olof Söderberg. On the way to Scania, he made his last visit to his brothers and sisters in Stenbrohult since his father had died the previous year. The expedition was similar to the previous journeys in most aspects, but this time he was also ordered to find the best place to grow walnut and Swedish whitebeam trees; these trees were used by the military to make rifles. The journey was successful, and Linnaeus's observations were published the next year in Skånska Resa.[96][97]
+
+In 1750, Linnaeus became rector of Uppsala University, starting a period where natural sciences were esteemed.[82] Perhaps the most important contribution he made during his time at Uppsala was to teach; many of his students travelled to various places in the world to collect botanical samples. Linnaeus called the best of these students his "apostles".[88]:56–57 His lectures were normally very popular and were often held in the Botanical Garden. He tried to teach the students to think for themselves and not trust anybody, not even him. Even more popular than the lectures were the botanical excursions made every Saturday during summer, where Linnaeus and his students explored the flora and fauna in the vicinity of Uppsala.[98]
+
+Linnaeus published Philosophia Botanica in 1751.[99] The book contained a complete survey of the taxonomy system he had been using in his earlier works. It also contained information of how to keep a journal on travels and how to maintain a botanical garden.[100]
+
+During Linnaeus's time it was normal for upper class women to have wet nurses for their babies. Linnaeus joined an ongoing campaign to end this practice in Sweden and promote breast-feeding by mothers. In 1752 Linnaeus published a thesis along with Frederick Lindberg, a physician student,[101] based on their experiences.[102] In the tradition of the period, this dissertation was essentially an idea of the presiding reviewer (prases) expounded upon by the student. Linnaeus's dissertation was translated into French by J.E. Gilibert in 1770 as La Nourrice marâtre, ou Dissertation sur les suites funestes du nourrisage mercénaire. Linnaeus suggested that children might absorb the personality of their wet nurse through the milk. He admired the child care practices of the Lapps[103] and pointed out how healthy their babies were compared to those of Europeans who employed wet nurses. He compared the behaviour of wild animals and pointed out how none of them denied their newborns their breastmilk.[103] It is thought that his activism played a role in his choice of the term Mammalia for the class of organisms.[104]
+
+Linnaeus published Species Plantarum, the work which is now internationally accepted as the starting point of modern botanical nomenclature, in 1753.[105] The first volume was issued on 24 May, the second volume followed on 16 August of the same year.[note 5][107] The book contained 1,200 pages and was published in two volumes; it described over 7,300 species.[88]:47[108] The same year the king dubbed him knight of the Order of the Polar Star, the first civilian in Sweden to become a knight in this order. He was then seldom seen not wearing the order's insignia.[109]
+
+Linnaeus felt Uppsala was too noisy and unhealthy, so he bought two farms in 1758: Hammarby and Sävja. The next year, he bought a neighbouring farm, Edeby. He spent the summers with his family at Hammarby; initially it only had a small one-storey house, but in 1762 a new, larger main building was added.[97][110] In Hammarby, Linnaeus made a garden where he could grow plants that could not be grown in the Botanical Garden in Uppsala. He began constructing a museum on a hill behind Hammarby in 1766, where he moved his library and collection of plants. A fire that destroyed about one third of Uppsala and had threatened his residence there necessitated the move.[111]
+
+Since the initial release of Systema Naturae in 1735, the book had been expanded and reprinted several times; the tenth edition was released in 1758. This edition established itself as the starting point for zoological nomenclature, the equivalent of Species Plantarum.[88]:47[112]
+
+The Swedish King Adolf Frederick granted Linnaeus nobility in 1757, but he was not ennobled until 1761. With his ennoblement, he took the name Carl von Linné (Latinised as Carolus a Linné), 'Linné' being a shortened and gallicised version of 'Linnæus', and the German nobiliary particle 'von' signifying his ennoblement.[3] The noble family's coat of arms prominently features a twinflower, one of Linnaeus's favourite plants; it was given the scientific name Linnaea borealis in his honour by Gronovius. The shield in the coat of arms is divided into thirds: red, black and green for the three kingdoms of nature (animal, mineral and vegetable) in Linnaean classification; in the centre is an egg "to denote Nature, which is continued and perpetuated in ovo." At the bottom is a phrase in Latin, borrowed from the Aeneid, which reads "Famam extendere factis": we extend our fame by our deeds.[88]:62[113][114] Linnaeus inscribed this personal motto in books that were gifted to him by friends.[115]
+
+After his ennoblement, Linnaeus continued teaching and writing. His reputation had spread over the world, and he corresponded with many different people. For example, Catherine II of Russia sent him seeds from her country.[116] He also corresponded with Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, "the Linnaeus of the Austrian Empire", who was a doctor and a botanist in Idrija, Duchy of Carniola (nowadays Slovenia).[117] Scopoli communicated all of his research, findings, and descriptions (for example of the olm and the dormouse, two little animals hitherto unknown to Linnaeus). Linnaeus greatly respected Scopoli and showed great interest in his work. He named a solanaceous genus, Scopolia, the source of scopolamine, after him, but because of the great distance between them, they never met.[118][119]
+
+Linnaeus was relieved of his duties in the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in 1763, but continued his work there as usual for more than ten years after.[82] He stepped down as rector at Uppsala University in December 1772, mostly due to his declining health.[81][120]
+
+Linnaeus's last years were troubled by illness. He had suffered from a disease called the Uppsala fever in 1764, but survived thanks to the care of Rosén. He developed sciatica in 1773, and the next year, he had a stroke which partially paralysed him.[121] He suffered a second stroke in 1776, losing the use of his right side and leaving him bereft of his memory; while still able to admire his own writings, he could not recognise himself as their author.[122][123]
+
+In December 1777, he had another stroke which greatly weakened him, and eventually led to his death on 10 January 1778 in Hammarby.[88]:63[120] Despite his desire to be buried in Hammarby, he was buried in Uppsala Cathedral on 22 January.[124][125]
+
+His library and collections were left to his widow Sara and their children. Joseph Banks, an eminent botanist, wished to purchase the collection, but his son Carl refused the offer and instead moved the collection to Uppsala. In 1783 Carl died and Sara inherited the collection, having outlived both her husband and son. She tried to sell it to Banks, but he was no longer interested; instead an acquaintance of his agreed to buy the collection. The acquaintance was a 24-year-old medical student, James Edward Smith, who bought the whole collection: 14,000 plants, 3,198 insects, 1,564 shells, about 3,000 letters and 1,600 books. Smith founded the Linnean Society of London five years later.[125][126]
+
+The von Linné name ended with his son Carl, who never married.[6] His other son, Johannes, had died aged 3.[127] There are over two hundred descendants of Linnaeus through two of his daughters.[6]
+
+During Linnaeus's time as Professor and Rector of Uppsala University, he taught many devoted students, 17 of whom he called "apostles". They were the most promising, most committed students, and all of them made botanical expeditions to various places in the world, often with his help. The amount of this help varied; sometimes he used his influence as Rector to grant his apostles a scholarship or a place on an expedition.[128] To most of the apostles he gave instructions of what to look for on their journeys. Abroad, the apostles collected and organised new plants, animals and minerals according to Linnaeus's system. Most of them also gave some of their collection to Linnaeus when their journey was finished.[129] Thanks to these students, the Linnaean system of taxonomy spread through the world without Linnaeus ever having to travel outside Sweden after his return from Holland.[130] The British botanist William T. Stearn notes without Linnaeus's new system, it would not have been possible for the apostles to collect and organise so many new specimens.[131] Many of the apostles died during their expeditions.
+
+Christopher Tärnström, the first apostle and a 43-year-old pastor with a wife and children, made his journey in 1746. He boarded a Swedish East India Company ship headed for China. Tärnström never reached his destination, dying of a tropical fever on Côn Sơn Island the same year. Tärnström's widow blamed Linnaeus for making her children fatherless, causing Linnaeus to prefer sending out younger, unmarried students after Tärnström.[132] Six other apostles later died on their expeditions, including Pehr Forsskål and Pehr Löfling.[131]
+
+Two years after Tärnström's expedition, Finnish-born Pehr Kalm set out as the second apostle to North America. There he spent two-and-a-half years studying the flora and fauna of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Canada. Linnaeus was overjoyed when Kalm returned, bringing back with him many pressed flowers and seeds. At least 90 of the 700 North American species described in Species Plantarum had been brought back by Kalm.[133]
+
+Daniel Solander was living in Linnaeus's house during his time as a student in Uppsala. Linnaeus was very fond of him, promising Solander his eldest daughter's hand in marriage. On Linnaeus's recommendation, Solander travelled to England in 1760, where he met the English botanist Joseph Banks. With Banks, Solander joined James Cook on his expedition to Oceania on the Endeavour in 1768–71.[134][135] Solander was not the only apostle to journey with James Cook; Anders Sparrman followed on the Resolution in 1772–75 bound for, among other places, Oceania and South America. Sparrman made many other expeditions, one of them to South Africa.[136]
+
+Perhaps the most famous and successful apostle was Carl Peter Thunberg, who embarked on a nine-year expedition in 1770. He stayed in South Africa for three years, then travelled to Japan. All foreigners in Japan were forced to stay on the island of Dejima outside Nagasaki, so it was thus hard for Thunberg to study the flora. He did, however, manage to persuade some of the translators to bring him different plants, and he also found plants in the gardens of Dejima. He returned to Sweden in 1779, one year after Linnaeus's death.[137]
+
+The first edition of Systema Naturae was printed in the Netherlands in 1735. It was a twelve-page work.[138] By the time it reached its 10th edition in 1758, it classified 4,400 species of animals and 7,700 species of plants. People from all over the world sent their specimens to Linnaeus to be included. By the time he started work on the 12th edition, Linnaeus needed a new invention—the index card—to track classifications.[139]
+
+In Systema Naturae, the unwieldy names mostly used at the time, such as "Physalis annua ramosissima, ramis angulosis glabris, foliis dentato-serratis", were supplemented with concise and now familiar "binomials", composed of the generic name, followed by a specific epithet—in the case given, Physalis angulata. These binomials could serve as a label to refer to the species. Higher taxa were constructed and arranged in a simple and orderly manner. Although the system, now known as binomial nomenclature, was partially developed by the Bauhin brothers (see Gaspard Bauhin and Johann Bauhin) almost 200 years earlier,[140] Linnaeus was the first to use it consistently throughout the work, including in monospecific genera, and may be said to have popularised it within the scientific community.
+
+After the decline in Linnaeus's health in the early 1770s, publication of editions of Systema Naturae went in two different directions. Another Swedish scientist, Johan Andreas Murray issued the Regnum Vegetabile section separately in 1774 as the Systema Vegetabilium, rather confusingly labelled the 13th edition.[141] Meanwhile a 13th edition of the entire Systema appeared in parts between 1788 and 1793. It was through the Systema Vegetabilium that Linnaeus's work became widely known in England, following its translation from the Latin by the Lichfield Botanical Society as A System of Vegetables (1783–1785).[142]
+
+('Opinion of the learned world on the writings of Carl Linnaeus, Doctor')                                  Published in 1740, this small octavo-sized pamphlet was presented to the State Library of New South Wales by the Linnean Society of NSW in 2018. This is considered among the rarest of all the writings of Linnaeus, and crucial to his career, securing him his appointment to a professorship of medicine at Uppsala University.  From this position he laid the groundwork for his radical new theory of classifying and naming organisms for which he was considered the founder of modern taxonomy.
+
+Species Plantarum (or, more fully, Species Plantarum, exhibentes plantas rite cognitas, ad genera relatas, cum differentiis specificis, nominibus trivialibus, synonymis selectis, locis natalibus, secundum systema sexuale digestas) was first published in 1753, as a two-volume work. Its prime importance is perhaps that it is the primary starting point of plant nomenclature as it exists today.[105]
+
+Genera plantarum: eorumque characteres naturales secundum numerum, figuram, situm, et proportionem omnium fructificationis partium was first published in 1737, delineating plant genera. Around 10 editions were published, not all of them by Linnaeus himself; the most important is the 1754 fifth edition.[143] In it Linnaeus divided the plant Kingdom into 24 classes. One, Cryptogamia, included all the plants with concealed reproductive parts (algae, fungi, mosses and liverworts and ferns).[144]
+
+Philosophia Botanica (1751)[99] was a summary of Linnaeus's thinking on plant classification and nomenclature, and an elaboration of the work he had previously published in Fundamenta Botanica (1736) and Critica Botanica (1737). Other publications forming part of his plan to reform the foundations of botany include his Classes Plantarum and Bibliotheca Botanica: all were printed in Holland (as were Genera Plantarum (1737) and Systema Naturae (1735)), the Philosophia being simultaneously released in Stockholm.[145]
+
+At the end of his lifetime the Linnean collection in Uppsala was considered one of the finest collections of natural history objects in Sweden. Next to his own collection he had also built up a museum for the university of Uppsala, which was supplied by material donated by Carl Gyllenborg (in 1744–1745), crown-prince Adolf Fredrik (in 1745), Erik Petreus (in 1746), Claes Grill (in 1746), Magnus Lagerström (in 1748 and 1750) and Jonas Alströmer (in 1749). The relation between the museum and the private collection was not formalised and the steady flow of material from Linnean pupils were incorporated to the private collection rather than to the museum.[146] Linnaeus felt his work was reflecting the harmony of nature and he said in 1754 "the earth is then nothing else but a museum of the all-wise creator's masterpieces, divided into three chambers". He had turned his own estate into a microcosm of that 'world museum'.[147]
+
+In April 1766 parts of the town were destroyed by a fire and the Linnean private collection was subsequently moved to a barn outside the town, and shortly afterwards to a single-room stone building close to his country house at Hammarby near Uppsala. This resulted in a physical separation between the two collections; the museum collection remained in the botanical garden of the university. Some material which needed special care (alcohol specimens) or ample storage space was moved from the private collection to the museum.
+
+In Hammarby the Linnean private collections suffered seriously from damp and the depredations by mice and insects. Carl von Linné's son (Carl Linnaeus) inherited the collections in 1778 and retained them until his own death in 1783. Shortly after Carl von Linné's death his son confirmed that mice had caused "horrible damage" to the plants and that also moths and mould had caused considerable damage.[148] He tried to rescue them from the neglect they had suffered during his father's later years, and also added further specimens. This last activity however reduced rather than augmented the scientific value of the original material.
+
+In 1784 the young medical student James Edward Smith purchased the entire specimen collection, library, manuscripts, and correspondence of Carl Linnaeus from his widow and daughter and transferred the collections to London.[149][15]:342–357 Not all material in Linné's private collection was transported to England. Thirty-three fish specimens preserved in alcohol were not sent and were later lost.[150]
+
+In London Smith tended to neglect the zoological parts of the collection; he added some specimens and also gave some specimens away.[151] Over the following centuries the Linnean collection in London suffered enormously at the hands of scientists who studied the collection, and in the process disturbed the original arrangement and labels, added specimens that did not belong to the original series and withdrew precious original type material.[148]
+
+Much material which had been intensively studied by Linné in his scientific career belonged to the collection of Queen Lovisa Ulrika (1720–1782) (in the Linnean publications referred to as "Museum Ludovicae Ulricae" or "M. L. U."). This collection was donated by his grandson King Gustav IV Adolf (1778–1837) to the museum in Uppsala in 1804. Another important collection in this respect was that of her husband King Adolf Fredrik (1710–1771) (in the Linnean sources known as "Museum Adolphi Friderici" or "Mus. Ad. Fr."), the wet parts (alcohol collection) of which were later donated to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and is today housed in the Swedish Museum of Natural History at Stockholm. The dry material was transferred to Uppsala.[146]
+
+The establishment of universally accepted conventions for the naming of organisms was Linnaeus's main contribution to taxonomy—his work marks the starting point of consistent use of binomial nomenclature.[152] During the 18th century expansion of natural history knowledge, Linnaeus also developed what became known as the Linnaean taxonomy; the system of scientific classification now widely used in the biological sciences. A previous zoologist Rumphius (1627–1702) had more or less approximated the Linnaean system and his material contributed to the later development of the binomial scientific classification by Linnaeus.[153]
+
+The Linnaean system classified nature within a nested hierarchy, starting with three kingdoms. Kingdoms were divided into classes and they, in turn, into orders, and thence into genera (singular: genus), which were divided into species (singular: species).[154] Below the rank of species he sometimes recognised taxa of a lower (unnamed) rank; these have since acquired standardised names such as variety in botany and subspecies in zoology. Modern taxonomy includes a rank of family between order and genus and a rank of phylum between kingdom and class that were not present in Linnaeus's original system.[155]
+
+Linnaeus's groupings were based upon shared physical characteristics, and not simply upon differences.[155] Of his higher groupings, only those for animals are still in use, and the groupings themselves have been significantly changed since their conception, as have the principles behind them. Nevertheless, Linnaeus is credited with establishing the idea of a hierarchical structure of classification which is based upon observable characteristics and intended to reflect natural relationships.[152][156] While the underlying details concerning what are considered to be scientifically valid "observable characteristics" have changed with expanding knowledge (for example, DNA sequencing, unavailable in Linnaeus's time, has proven to be a tool of considerable utility for classifying living organisms and establishing their evolutionary relationships), the fundamental principle remains sound.
+
+Linnaeus's system of taxonomy was especially noted as the first to include humans (Homo) taxonomically grouped with apes (Simia), under the header of Anthropomorpha.
+German biologist Ernst Haeckel speaking in 1907 noted this as the "most important sign of Linnaeus's genius".[157]
+
+Linnaeus classified humans among the primates beginning with the first edition of Systema Naturae.[158] During his time at Hartekamp, he had the opportunity to examine several monkeys and noted similarities between them and man.[88]:173–174 He pointed out both species basically have the same anatomy; except for speech, he found no other differences.[159][note 6] Thus he placed man and monkeys under the same category, Anthropomorpha, meaning "manlike."[160] This classification received criticism from other biologists such as Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Jacob Theodor Klein and Johann Georg Gmelin on the ground that it is illogical to describe man as human-like.[161] In a letter to Gmelin from 1747, Linnaeus replied:[162][note 7]
+
+It does not please [you] that I've placed Man among the Anthropomorpha, perhaps because of the term 'with human form',[note 8] but man learns to know himself. Let's not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name we apply. But I seek from you and from the whole world a generic difference between man and simian that [follows] from the principles of Natural History.[note 9] I absolutely know of none. If only someone might tell me a single one! If I would have called man a simian or vice versa, I would have brought together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to have by virtue of the law of the discipline.
+
+The theological concerns were twofold: first, putting man at the same level as monkeys or apes would lower the spiritually higher position that man was assumed to have in the great chain of being, and second, because the Bible says man was created in the image of God[163] (theomorphism), if monkeys/apes and humans were not distinctly and separately designed, that would mean monkeys and apes were created in the image of God as well. This was something many could not accept.[164] The conflict between world views that was caused by asserting man was a type of animal would simmer for a century until the much greater, and still ongoing, creation–evolution controversy began in earnest with the publication of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859.
+
+After such criticism, Linnaeus felt he needed to explain himself more clearly. The 10th edition of Systema Naturae introduced new terms, including Mammalia and Primates, the latter of which would replace Anthropomorpha[165] as well as giving humans the full binomial Homo sapiens.[166] The new classification received less criticism, but many natural historians still believed he had demoted humans from their former place of ruling over nature and not being a part of it. Linnaeus believed that man biologically belongs to the animal kingdom and had to be included in it.[167] In his book Dieta Naturalis, he said, "One should not vent one's wrath on animals, Theology decree that man has a soul and that the animals are mere 'aoutomata mechanica,' but I believe they would be better advised that animals have a soul and that the difference is of nobility."[168]
+
+
+
+Linnaeus added a second species to the genus Homo in Systema Naturae based on a figure and description by Jacobus Bontius from a 1658 publication: Homo troglodytes ("caveman")[170][171] and published a third in 1771: Homo lar.[172] Swedish historian Gunnar Broberg states that the new human species Linnaeus described were actually simians or native people clad in skins to frighten colonial settlers, whose appearance had been exaggerated in accounts to Linnaeus.[173]
+
+In early editions of Systema Naturae, many well-known legendary creatures were included such as the phoenix, dragon, manticore, and satyrus,[174][note 10] which Linnaeus collected into the catch-all category Paradoxa. Broberg thought Linnaeus was trying to offer a natural explanation and demystify the world of superstition.[175] Linnaeus tried to debunk some of these creatures, as he had with the hydra; regarding the purported remains of dragons, Linnaeus wrote that they were either derived from lizards or rays.[176] For Homo troglodytes he asked the Swedish East India Company to search for one, but they did not find any signs of its existence.[177] Homo lar has since been reclassified as Hylobates lar, the lar gibbon.[178]
+
+
+
+In the first edition of Systema Naturae, Linnaeus subdivided the human species into four varieties based on continent and[dubious  – discuss] skin colour: "Europæus albesc[ens]" (whitish European), "Americanus rubesc[ens]" (redish American), "Asiaticus fuscus" (tawny Asian) and "Africanus nigr[iculus]" (blackish African).[179][180]
+In the tenth edition of Systema Naturae he further detailed phenotypical characteristics for each variety, based on the concept of the four temperaments from classical antiquity,[181][dubious  – discuss] and changed the description of Asians' skin tone to "luridus" (yellow).[182] Additionally, Linnaeus created a wastebasket taxon "monstrosus" for "wild and monstrous humans, unknown groups, and more or less abnormal people".[183]
+
+In 1959, W. T. Stearn designated Linnaeus to be the lectotype of H. sapiens.[184][185][186]
+
+Linnaeus's applied science was inspired not only by the instrumental utilitarianism general to the early Enlightenment, but also by his adherence to the older economic doctrine of Cameralism.[187] Additionally, Linnaeus was a state interventionist.  He supported tariffs, levies, export bounties, quotas, embargoes, navigation acts, subsidised investment capital, ceilings on wages, cash grants, state-licensed producer monopolies, and cartels.[188]
+
+Anniversaries of Linnaeus's birth, especially in centennial years, have been marked by major celebrations.[189] Linnaeus has appeared on numerous Swedish postage stamps and banknotes.[189] There are numerous statues of Linnaeus in countries around the world. The Linnean Society of London has awarded the Linnean Medal for excellence in botany or zoology since 1888. Following approval by the Riksdag of Sweden, Växjö University and Kalmar College merged on 1 January 2010 to become Linnaeus University.[190] Other things named after Linnaeus include the twinflower genus Linnaea, the crater Linné on the Earth's moon, a street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the cobalt sulfide mineral Linnaeite.
+
+Andrew Dickson White wrote in A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896):
+
+Linnaeus ... was the most eminent naturalist of his time, a wide observer, a close thinker; but the atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his being was saturated with biblical theology, and this permeated all his thinking. ... Toward the end of his life he timidly advanced the hypothesis that all the species of one genus constituted at the creation one species; and from the last edition of his Systema Naturæ he quietly left out the strongly orthodox statement of the fixity of each species, which he had insisted upon in his earlier works. ... warnings came speedily both from the Catholic and Protestant sides.[191]
+
+The mathematical PageRank algorithm, applied to 24 multilingual Wikipedia editions in 2014, published in PLOS ONE in 2015, placed Carl Linnaeus at the top historical figure, above Jesus, Aristotle, Napoleon, and Adolf Hitler (in that order).[192][193]
+
+The greater number of naturalists who have taken into consideration the whole structure of man, including his mental faculties, have followed Blumenbach and Cuvier, and have placed man in a separate Order, under the title of the Bimana, and therefore on an equality with the orders of the Quadrumana, Carnivora, etc. Recently many of our best naturalists have recurred to the view first propounded by Linnaeus, so remarkable for his sagacity, and have placed man in the same Order with the Quadrumana, under the title of the Primates. The justice of this conclusion will be admitted: for in the first place, we must bear in mind the comparative insignificance for classification of the great development of the brain in man, and that the strongly marked differences between the skulls of man and the Quadrumana (lately insisted upon by Bischoff, Aeby, and others) apparently follow from their differently developed brains. In the second place, we must remember that nearly all the other and more important differences between man and the Quadrumana are manifestly adaptive in their nature, and relate chiefly to the erect position of man; such as the structure of his hand, foot, and pelvis, the curvature of his spine, and the position of his head.
+
+Biographies
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+Resources
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+Other

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+Carnival is a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent.[2] The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity.[3] Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol,[4] meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent. Traditionally, butter, milk, and other animal products were not consumed "excessively", rather, their stock was fully consumed as to reduce waste. Pancakes, donuts, and other desserts were prepared and eaten for a final time. During Lent, animal products are eaten less, and individuals have the ability to make a Lenten sacrifice, thus giving up a certain object or activity of desire.
+
+Other common features of Carnival include mock battles such as food fights; expressions of social satire; mockery of authorities; costumes of the grotesque body that display exaggerated features such as large noses, bellies, mouths, phalli, or elements of animal bodies; abusive language and degrading acts; depictions of disease and gleeful death; and a general reversal of everyday rules and norms.[3][5] The Italian tradition of wearing masks dates back to the Venice Carnival in the 1400s, and has been an inspiration in Greek theater and Commedia Dell'arte for centuries.[6][7]
+
+The term Carnival is traditionally used in areas with a large Catholic presence, as well as in Greece. In historically Evangelical Lutheran countries, the celebration is known as Fastelavn,[8][9] and in areas with a high concentration of Anglicans (Church of England/US Episcopal Church), Methodists, and other Protestants, pre-Lenten celebrations, along with penitential observances, occur on Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.[10] In Slavic Eastern Orthodox nations, Maslenitsa is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent. In German-speaking Europe and the Netherlands, the Carnival season traditionally opens on 11/11 (often at 11:11 am). This dates back to celebrations before the Advent season or with harvest celebrations of St. Martin's Day.
+
+The Latin-derived name of the holiday is sometimes also spelled Carnaval, typically in areas where Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese are spoken, or Carnevale in Italian-speaking contexts. Alternative names are used for regional and local celebrations.[11]
+
+The word is said to come from the Late Latin expression carne levare, which means "remove meat"; a folk etymology derives it from carne vale, "farewell to meat". In either case, this signifies the approaching fast.[12] The word carne may also be translated as flesh, producing "a farewell to the flesh", a phrase embraced by certain carnival celebrants to embolden the festival's carefree spirit.[12] The etymology of the word Carnival thus points to a Christian origin of the celebratory period.[13]
+
+Other scholars argue that the origin of the word is a common meat-based country feast (in Latin  carnualia)[14] 
+or the festival of the Navigium Isidis ("ship of Isis"), where the image of Isis was carried to the seashore to bless the start of sailing season.[15] The festival consisted of a parade of masks following an adorned wooden boat, called in Latin carrus navalis,[14] possibly the source of both the name and the parade floats.
+
+The word Carnival is of Christian origin,[13] and in the Middle Ages, it referred to a period following Epiphany season that reached its climax before midnight on Shrove Tuesday.[16] British historian John Bossy, in writing on the origin of the practices during Carnival, states that "These were, despite some appearances, Christian in character, and they were medieval in origin: although it has been widely supposed that they continued some kind of pre-Christian cult, there is in fact no evidence that they existed much before 1200."[17] Because Lent was a period of fasting, "Carnival therefore represented a last period of feasting and celebration before the spiritual rigors of Lent."[16] Meat was plentiful during this part of the Christian calendar and it was consumed during Carnival as people abstained from meat consumption during the following liturgical season, Lent.[16] In the last few days of Carnival, known as Shrovetide, people confessed (shrived) their sins in preparation for Lent as well. In 1605, a Shrovetide play spoke of Christians who painted their faces to celebrate the season:[18]
+
+What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
+Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum
+And the vile squealing of the wry-nck'd fife,
+Clamber not you up o the casements then,
+Nor thrust your head into the public street
+To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces.[18]
+
+From an anthropological point of view, carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.[19][20]
+
+Winter was thought of as the reign of the winter spirits; these needed to be driven out in order for the summer to return. Carnival can thus be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year.[21]
+
+Traditionally, a Carnival feast was the last opportunity for common people to eat well, as there was typically a food shortage at the end of the winter as stores ran out. Until spring produce was available, people were limited to the minimum necessary meals during this period. On what nowadays is called vastenavond (the days before fasting), all the remaining winter stores of lard, butter, and meat which were left would be eaten, for these would otherwise soon start to rot and decay. The selected livestock had already been slaughtered in November and the meat would no longer be preservable. All the food that had survived the winter had to be eaten to assure that everyone was fed enough to survive until the coming spring would provide new food sources.[22]
+
+Several Germanic tribes celebrated the returning of the daylight. The winter would be driven out, to make sure that fertility could return in spring.[19] A central figure of this ritual was possibly the fertility goddess Nerthus. Also, there are some indications that the effigy of Nerthus[23] or Freyr was placed on a ship with wheels and accompanied by a procession of people in animal disguise and men in women's clothes.[22][24][25] Aboard the ship a marriage would be consummated as a fertility ritual.[26][27]
+
+Tacitus wrote in his Germania: Germania 9.6: Ceterum nec cohibere parietibus deos neque in ullam humani oris speciem adsimulare ex magnitudine caelestium arbitrator – "The Germans, however, do not consider it consistent with the grandeur of celestial beings to confine the gods within walls, or to liken them to the form of any human countenance." Germania 40: mox vehiculum et vestis et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur – "Afterwards the car, the vestments, and, if you like to believe it, the divinity herself, are purified in a secret lake."[28]
+
+Traditionally, the feast also was a time to indulge in sexual desires, which were supposed to be suppressed during the following period fasting.[22][29] Before Lent began, all rich food and drink were consumed in what became a giant celebration that involved the whole community, and is thought to be the origin of Carnival.[30]
+
+In many Christian sermons and texts, the example of a vessel is used to explain Christian doctrine: "the nave of the church of baptism", "the ship of Mary", etc. The writings show that processions with ship-like carts were held and lavish feasts were celebrated on the eve of Lent or the greeting of spring in the early Middle Ages.[22][26]
+
+The Lenten period of the liturgical calendar, the six weeks directly before Easter, was historically marked by fasting, study, and other pious or penitential practices. During Lent, no parties or celebrations were held, and people refrained from eating rich foods, such as meat, dairy, fat, and sugar. The first three classes were often totally unavailable during this period because of late winter shortages.[31]
+
+While Christian festivals such as Corpus Christi were Church-sanctioned celebrations, Carnival was also a manifestation of European folk culture. In the Christian tradition,  fasting is to commemorate the 40 days that Jesus fasted in the desert, according to the New Testament, and also to reflect on Christian values. It was a time for catechumens (those converting to Christianity) to prepare for baptism at Easter.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival in the Middle Ages took not just a few days, but almost the entire period between Christmas and the beginning of Lent. In those two months, Christian populations used their several holidays as an outlet for their daily frustrations.[32]
+
+Many synods and councils attempted to set things "right". Caesarius of Arles (470–542) protested around 500 CE in his sermons against the pagan practices. Centuries later, his statements were adapted as the building blocks of the Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum ("small index of superstitious and pagan practices"), which was drafted by the Synod of Leptines in 742. It condemned the Spurcalibus en februario.[22][26]
+
+Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) decided that fasting would start on Ash Wednesday. The whole Carnival event was set before the fasting, to set a clear division between celebrations and penitence.[33] He also dispatched missionaries to sanctify any excesses in popular Carnival customs.[34] It was also the custom during Carnival that the ruling class would be playfully mocked using masks and disguises.[22][26]
+
+In the year 743, the synod in Leptines (located near Binche in Belgium) spoke out furiously against the excesses in the month of February.[26] Also from the same period dates the phrase: "Whoever in February by a variety of less honorable acts tries to drive out winter is not a Christian, but a pagan." Confession books from around 800 contain more information about how people would dress as an animal or old woman during the festivities in January and February, even though this was a sin with no small penance.[22][26][35] Also in Spain in the seventh century, San Isidoro de Sevilla complained in his writings about people coming out into the streets disguised, in many cases, as the opposite gender.[36]
+
+In the Middle Ages, "Carnival and Lent were both necessary, inevitable episodes in the eternal cycle of the Church year."[37]
+
+While forming an integral part of the Christian calendar, particularly in Catholic regions, many Carnival traditions resemble those antedating Christianity.[38]
+
+While medieval pageants and festivals such as Corpus Christi were church-sanctioned, Carnival was also a manifestation of medieval folk culture. Many local Carnival customs are claimed to derive from local pre-Christian rituals, such as elaborate rites involving masked figures in the Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht. However, evidence is insufficient to establish a direct origin from Saturnalia or other ancient festivals. No complete accounts of Saturnalia survive, and the shared features of feasting, role reversals, temporary social equality, masks, and permitted rule-breaking do not necessarily constitute a coherent festival or link these festivals.[citation needed] These similarities may represent a reservoir of cultural resources that can embody multiple meanings and functions. For example, Easter begins with the resurrection of Jesus, followed by a liminal period, and ends with rebirth. Carnival reverses this as King Carnival comes to life, and a liminal period follows before his death. Both feasts are calculated by the lunar calendar. Both Jesus and King Carnival may be seen as expiatory figures who make a gift to the people with their deaths. In the case of Jesus, the gift is eternal life in heaven, and in the case of King Carnival, the acknowledgement that death is a necessary part of the cycle of life.[39] Besides Christian anti-Judaism, the commonalities between church and Carnival rituals and imagery suggest a common root. Christ's passion is itself grotesque: since early Christianity, Christ is figured as the victim of summary judgment, and is tortured and executed by Romans before a Jewish mob ("His blood is on us and on our children!" Matthew 27:24–25). Holy Week processions in Spain include crowds who vociferously insult the figure of Jesus. Irreverence, parody, degradation, and laughter at a tragicomic effigy of God can be seen as intensifications of the sacred order.[40] In 1466, the Catholic Church under Pope Paul II revived customs of the Saturnalia carnival: Jews were forced to race naked through the streets of the city of Rome. "Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran ... amid Rome's taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily", an eyewitness reports.[41]:74
+
+Some of the best-known traditions, including carnal parades and masquerade balls, were first recorded in medieval Italy. The Carnival of Venice was, for a long time, the most famous carnival (although Napoleon abolished it in 1797 and only in 1979 was the tradition restored). From Italy, Carnival traditions spread to Spain, Portugal, and France, and from France to New France in North America. From Spain and Portugal, it spread with colonization to the Caribbean and Latin America. In the early 19th century in the German Rhineland and Southern Netherlands, the weakened medieval tradition also revived. Continuously in the 18th and 19th centuries CE, as part of the annual Saturnalia abuse of the carnival in Rome, rabbis of the ghetto were forced to march through the city streets wearing foolish guise, jeered upon and pelted by a variety of missiles from the crowd. A petition of the Jewish community of Rome sent in 1836 to Pope Gregory XVI to stop the annual anti-semitic Saturnalia abuse got a negation: "It is not opportune to make any innovation."[41]:33,74–75
+
+In the Rhineland in 1823, the first modern Carnival parade took place in Cologne.[42]  Carnaval (Fasching or Fastnacht in Germany) mixed pagan traditions with Christian traditions. Pre-Lenten celebrations featured parades, costumes and masks to endure Lent's withdrawal from worldly pleasures.[citation needed]
+
+Other areas developed their own traditions. In the United Kingdom, West Indian immigrants brought with them the traditions of Caribbean Carnival; however, the Carnivals now celebrated at Notting Hill, Leeds, Yorkshire, and other places became divorced from their religious origin and became secular events that take place in the summer months.[citation needed]
+
+Mircea Eliade, historian of religions, gives us a clear explanation about Carnival and its meaning. He writes: "Any new year is a revival of time at its beginning, a repetition of the cosmogony. Ritual fights between two groups of extras, the presence of the dead, Saturnalia and orgies, are all elements which indicate that at the end of the year and in the expectation of the new year the mythical moments of the passage of chaos to the cosmogony are repeated".[43] Eliade also writes: "Then the dead will come back, because all barriers between the dead and the living are broken (is the primordial chaos not revived?), and will come back since – at this paradoxical moment – time will be interrupted, so that the dead may be again contemporaries of the living." Eliade stresses that people have "a deep need to regenerate themselves periodically by abolishing the elapsed time and making topical the cosmogony".
+
+As regards masks (monsters, animals, demons), they have an apotropaic meaning.
+
+Interpretations of Carnival present it as a social institution that degrades or "uncrowns" the higher functions of thought, speech, and the soul by translating them into the grotesque body, which serves to renew society and the world,[3] as a release for impulses that threaten the social order that ultimately reinforces social norms,[44] as a social transformation,[45] or as a tool for different groups to focus attention on conflicts and incongruities by embodying them in "senseless" acts.[46]
+
+Furthermore, some cultures use Carnival as a method of empowering themselves in spite of social conflicts. For example, when the Caribbean Carnival was established as a result of French settlers, even the slaves had their version of the masquerade, where they would reverse roles to mock those of higher social status.[47] Along with empowering individuals for a period of time, despite their typical status, Carnival brings communities together. In a day where all are meant to perform a "mask" that differs from their typical identity, all members of a society are able to connect through their theatricality and satire.[48]
+
+Carnival was introduced by Portuguese settlers. It is celebrated on each of the archipelago's nine inhabited islands. In Mindelo, São Vicente, groups challenge each other for a yearly prize. It has imported various Brazilian Carnival traditions. The celebration in São Nicolau is more traditional, where established groups parade through the Ribeira Brava, gathering in the town square, although it has adopted drums, floats and costumes from Brazil. In São Nicolau, three groups, Copa Cabana, Estrela Azul, and Brilho Da Zona, construct a painted float using fire, newspaper for the mold, and iron and steel for structure. Carnival São Nicolau is celebrated over three days: dawn Saturday, Sunday afternoon, and Tuesday.[49] The celebrations are captured in the award-winning feature documentary Tchindas, nominated at the 12th Africa Movie Academy Awards.
+
+Carnival was introduced by German settlers. The celebration is based on the "Rheinische" Carnival tradition.
+
+The Seychelles carnival began in 2011. It is held in the capital city of Victoria and takes place over three days. On Day 1, the grand opening is held in the city center near the clock tower. The second day is parade day. On Day 3, the closing ceremony is held, and a lottery winner is announced.[50][51]
+
+The Harare Carnival is held late in May. Events include fashion and music shows. The climax is a street party featuring costumes and music.[52]
+
+The Antiguan Carnival is held from the end of July to the first Tuesday in August. The most important day is that of the j'ouvert (or juvé), in which brass and steel drum bands perform. Barbuda's Carnival, held in June, is known as "Caribana". The Antiguan and Barbudan Carnivals replaced the Old Time Christmas Festival in 1957, with hopes of inspiring tourism.[53]
+
+In Argentina, the most representative Carnival performed is the so-called Murga, although other famous Carnivals, more like Brazil's, are held in Argentine Mesopotamia and the North-East. Gualeguaychú in the east of Entre Ríos Province is the most important Carnival city and has one of the largest parades. It adopts a musical background similar to Brazilian or Uruguayan Carnival. Corrientes is another city with a Carnival tradition. Chamamé is a popular musical style. In all major cities and many towns throughout the country, Carnival is celebrated.[citation needed]
+
+As Carnival coincides with summer in the Southern Hemisphere, in many parts of Argentina children play with water. The 19th century tradition of filling empty egg shells with water has evolved into water games that include the throwing of water balloons.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival in Aruba means weeks of events that bring colourfully decorated floats, contagiously throbbing music, luxuriously costumed groups of celebrants of all ages, King and Queen elections, electrifying jump-ups and torchlight parades, the Jouvert morning: the Children's Parades, and finally the Grand Parade. Aruba's biggest celebration is a month-long affair consisting of festive "jump-ups" (street parades), spectacular parades, and creative contests. Music and flamboyant costumes play a central role, from the Queen elections to the Grand Parade. Street parades continue in various districts throughout the month, with brass band, steel drum and roadmarch tunes. On the evening before Lent, Carnival ends with the symbolic burning of King Momo.[54]
+
+Junkanoo is the principal street parade in the Bahamas, it has been practiced in the Bahamas before and after the 1834 emancipation of slavery in the British Empire.
+
+In an effort to capitalize on Carnival's popularity, the Bahamas announced the first Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival to commence in May 2015.[55]
+
+"Crop Over" (formerly called "Harvest Home") is a traditional harvest festival celebrated in Barbados. Its early beginnings were on the sugar cane plantations during the colonial period. Crop Over began in 1688, and featured singing, dancing, and accompaniment by shak-shak, banjo, triangle, fiddle, guitar, bottles filled with water, and bones. Other traditions included climbing a greased pole, feasting, and drinking competitions. Originally signaling the end of the yearly cane harvest, it evolved into a national festival. In the late 20th century, Crop Over began to closely mirror the Trinidad Carnival. Beginning in June, Crop Over runs until the first Monday in August when it culminates in the finale, the Grand Kadooment.[citation needed]
+
+Crop Over time for many islanders is one big party. Craft markets, food tents/stalls, street parties, and cavalcades fill every week.[citation needed]
+
+A major feature is the calypso competition. Calypso music, originating in Trinidad, uses syncopated rhythm and topical lyrics. It offers a medium in which to satirise local politics, amidst the general bacchanal. Calypso tents, also originating in Trinidad, feature cadres of musicians who perform biting social commentaries, political exposés or rousing exhortations to "wuk dah waistline" and "roll dat bumper". The groups compete for the Calypso Monarch Award, while the air is redolent with the smells of Bajan cooking during the Bridgetown Market Street Fair. The Cohobblopot Festival blends dance, drama, and music with the crowning of the King and Queen of costume bands. Every evening the "Pic-o-de-Crop" Show is performed after the King of Calypso is finally crowned. The climax of the festival is Kadooment Day, celebrated with a national holiday, when costume bands fill the streets with pulsating Barbadian rhythms and fireworks.[citation needed]
+
+San Pedro is one of Belize's few cities to observe Carnaval before Lent. Elsewhere, Carnaval (sometimes referred to as Carnival) often occurs in September. The Fiesta de Carnaval is often the most popular celebration, usually held over three days prior to Ash Wednesday, but the festivities often extend to the full week.[56] This festival "always includes music, dancing, costumes and parades".[57]
+
+Comparsas are held throughout the week, consisting of large groups "of dancers dancing and traveling on the streets, followed by a Carrosa (carriage) where the musicians play. The Comparsa is a development of African processions where groups of devotees follow a given saint or deity during a particular religious celebration."[58] One of the most popular comparsas of Fiesta de Carnaval is the male group comparsa, usually composed of notable men from the community who dress up in outlandish costumes or cross-dress and dance to compete for money and prizes.[59] Other popular activities include body painting and flour fighting.[60][61] "On the last day of Carnival painters flood the street to paint each other. This simply means that a mixture of water paint and water or raw eggs is used to paint people on the streets, the goal being to paint as many people as you can."[59]
+
+Street fights often occur during the festivities – some locals treat this festival as an opportunity to exact revenge on their enemies. Vandalism is common and "businesses constantly have to prepare in covering or repainting their advertisements during Carnival season because of the mischief performed."[62] The tradition continues despite critics who advocate the termination of these festivities.[61]
+
+La Diablada Carnival takes place in Oruro in central Bolivia. It is celebrated in honor of the miners' patron saint, Vírgen de Socavon (the Virgin of the Tunnels).[citation needed] Over 50 parade groups dance, sing, and play music over a five kilometre-long course. Participants dress up as demons, devils, angels, Incas, and Spanish conquistadors. Dances include caporales and tinkus. The parade runs from morning until late at night, 18 hours a day, for three days before Ash Wednesday. It was declared the 2001 "Masterpieces of Oral Heritage and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" by UNESCO.[63] Throughout the country, celebrations are held involving traditional rhythms and water parties. In Santa Cruz de la Sierra, on the east side of the country, tropical weather allows a Brazilian-type Carnival, with Comparsas dancing traditional songs in matching uniforms.[citation needed]
+
+The Carnival in Brazil is a major part of Brazilian culture. It is sometimes referred to by Brazilians as the "Greatest Show on Earth". The first true Carnival expression of this Brazilian festivity, officially recognized by Brazilian historians, took place in Rio de Janeiro, with the préstitos, very similar to a musical processions, in 1641, when John IV of Portugal was crowned King and parties were celebrated in public streets.[citation needed]
+
+The street carnival of Rio de Janeiro is designated by Guinness World Records as the largest carnival in the world, with approximately two million people each day.[64]
+
+Samba schools are large, social entities with thousands of members and a theme for their song and parade each year. In Rio Carnival, samba schools parade in the Sambadrome (sambódromo in Portuguese). Some of the most famous include GRES Estação Primeira de Mangueira, GRES Portela, GRES Acadêmicos do Salgueiro, GRES Imperatriz Leopoldinense, GRES Beija-Flor de Nilópolis, GRES Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel, and recently, Unidos da Tijuca and GRES União da Ilha do Governador. Local tourists pay $500–950, depending on the costume, to buy a samba costume and dance in the parade. Blocos are small informal groups with a definite theme in their samba, usually satirizing the political situation. About 30 schools in Rio gather hundreds of thousands of participants. More than 440 blocos operate in Rio. Bandas are samba musical bands, also called "street carnival bands", usually formed within a single neighborhood or musical background. The Carnival industry chain amassed in 2012 almost US$1 billion in revenues.[65]
+
+Recife is marked by the parade of the largest carnival block in the world, the Galo da Madrugada. This parade happens on the first Saturday of Carnival (Saturday of Zé Pereira), passes through the center of the city of Recife and has, as symbol, a giant rooster that is positioned in the Duarte Coelho Bridge. In this block, there is a great variety of musical rhythms, but the most present is Frevo (characteristic rhythm of both Recife and Olinda that was declared Intangible Heritage of Humanity by Unesco).[citation needed]
+
+Salvador has large Carnival celebrations, including the Axé, a typical Bahia music. A truck with giant speakers and a platform, where musicians play songs of local genres such as Axé, samba-reggae, and Arrocha, drives through town with a crowd following while dancing and singing. It was originally staged by two Salvador musicians, Dodo & Osmar, in the 1950s. After the Salvador Carnival, Porto Seguro continues the celebration.[citation needed]
+
+Three circuits make up the festival. Campo Grande is the longest and most traditional. Barra-Ondina is the most famous, on the seaside of Barra Beach and Ondina Beach and Pelourinho.[66]
+
+International singers like David Guetta, will.i.am, Psy, and Bob Sinclar have performed in Salvador.[67] Ivete Sangalo, Claudia Leitte, Daniela Mercury, Margareth Menezes, Chiclete com Banana, and Banda Eva are some traditional attractions. The party officially takes six days, but can continue for more than that.[68]
+
+Toronto Caribbean Carnival,[69] held in Toronto on the first weekend of August to take advantage of more comfortable weather, has its origins in Caribbean Carnival traditions. Attendance at the parade typically exceeds one million.[citation needed]
+
+The Quebec Winter Carnival is one of the biggest winter-themed Carnivals in the world.[70] It depends on snowfall and very cold weather, to keep snowy ski trails in good condition and ice sculptures frozen. The carnival is held during the last days of January and first days of February.[citation needed]
+
+In the Ottawa-Gatineau region, Winterlude takes place during February.[71]
+
+Most Caribbean islands celebrate Carnival. The largest and most well-known is in Trinidad and Tobago. Antigua, Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saba, Sint Eustatius (Statia), Sint Maarten, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts, Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines hold lengthy carnival seasons and large celebrations.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival is an important cultural event in the Dutch Caribbean. Festivities include "jump-up" parades with beautifully colored costumes, floats, and live bands, as well as beauty contests and other competitions. Celebrations include a middle-of-the-night j'ouvert (juvé) parade that ends at sunrise with the burning of a straw King Momo, cleansing sins and bad luck. On Statia, he is called Prince Stupid.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival has been celebrated in Cuba since the 18th century. Participants don costumes from the island's cultural and ethnic variety. After Fidel Castro's Communist Revolution, Carnival's religious overtones were suppressed.[citation needed] The events remained, albeit frowned upon by the state.[citation needed] Carnival celebrations have been in decline throughout Cuba since then.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival was introduced by the Spaniards and incorporated elements from European cultures. It has managed to reinterpret traditions that belonged to Colombia's African and Amerindian cultures. Documentary evidence shows that Carnival existed in Colombia in the 18th century and had already been a cause for concern for colonial authorities, who censored the celebrations, especially in the main political centres such as Cartagena, Bogotá, and Popayán.[citation needed]
+
+The Carnival continued its evolution in small/unimportant towns out of view of the rulers. The result was the uninterrupted celebration of Carnival festivals in Barranquilla (see Barranquilla's Carnival), now recognized as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The Barranquilla Carnival includes several parades on Friday and Saturday nights beginning on 11 January and ending with a six-day non-stop festival, beginning the Wednesday prior to Ash Wednesday and ending Tuesday midnight. Other celebrations occur in villages along the lower Magdalena River in northern Colombia, and in Pasto and Nariño (see Blacks and Whites' Carnival) in the south of the country. In the early 20th century, attempts to introduce Carnival in Bogotá were rejected by the government. The Bogotá Carnival was renewed in the 21st century.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival in Dominica is held in the capital city of Roseau, and takes elements of Carnival that can be seen in the neighbouring French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, as well as Trinidad. Notable events leading up to Carnival include the Opening of Carnival celebrations, the Calypso Monarch music competition, the Queen of Carnival Beauty Pageant, and bouyon music bands. Celebrations last for the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.[citation needed]
+
+Dominican Carnival is celebrated in most cities and towns in the main streets during February. Among its main characteristics are its flashy costumes and loud music. The one held in La Vega, which is one of the biggest in the country, and the national parade in Santo Domingo were where the first Carnival of the Americas was held.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival masks are elaborate and colorful. The costumes used on the parades are satires of the Devil and are called "Diablos Cojuelos". They dance, and run to the rhythm of merengue music mixed with techno, hip-hop, and reggaeton. Additional allegorical characters represent Dominican traditions such as "Roba la Gallina" and "Califé".[citation needed]
+
+One of the most international parades is in San Pedro de Macorís. It exhibits the "Guloyas" parade of costumed groups dancing in the streets. Revelers flee from the "Diablos Cojuelos" who try to hit them with "Vejigas".[citation needed]
+
+The timing of the festivals has grown apart from its original religious synchronization with the period of Lent. With National Independence Day on 27 February and the birthday of Juan Pablo Duarte, its founding father, on 26 January, the Carnival celebrations fill February regardless of the Lenten calendar.[citation needed]
+
+In Ecuador, the celebrations began before the arrival of Catholicism. The Huarangas Indians (from the Chimbos nation) used to celebrate the second moon of the year with a festival at which they threw flour, flowers, and perfumed water. This indigenous tradition merged with the Catholic celebration of Carnival.[citation needed]
+
+A common feature of Ecuadorian Carnival is the diablitos (little devils) who play with water. As with snowball fights, the practice of throwing or dumping water on unsuspecting victims is revered by children and teenagers although feared by some adults. Throwing water balloons, sometimes even eggs and flour both to friends and strangers is fun, but can also upset the uninformed.[citation needed]
+
+Although the government as well as school authorities forbid such games, they are widely practiced. Historians tell of a bishop in 1867 who threatened excommunication for the sin of playing Carnival games.[citation needed]
+
+Festivals differ across the country. Locals wear disguises with colorful masks and dance. Usually, the celebrations begin with the election of Taita Carnival (Father Carnival) who heads the festivities and leads the parades in each city.[citation needed]
+
+The most famed Carnival festivities are in Guaranda (Bolivar province) and Ambato (Tungurahua province). In Ambato, the festivities are called Fiesta de las Flores y las Frutas (Festival of the Flowers and Fruits). Other cities have revived Carnival traditions with colorful parades, such as in Azogues (Cañar Province). In Azogues and the Southern Andes in general, Taita Carnival is always an indigenous Cañari. Recently, a celebration has gained prominence in the northern part of the Andes in the Chota Valley in Imbabura which is a zone of a strong Afro-Ecuadorian population and so the Carnival is celebrated with bomba del chota music.[citation needed]
+
+Latacunga celebrates Carnival in three manners:[72] Carnival with water where people play with water, religious Carnival where people make religious festivity, and Carnival parade in the city in which people march on the Latacunga streets wearing masks while they dance with music bands.[citation needed]
+
+The Carnival of French Guiana has roots in Creole culture. Everyone participates – mainland French, Brazilians (Guiana has a frontier with Brazil), and Chinese as well as Creoles.[citation needed]
+
+Its duration is variable, determined by movable religious festivals: Carnival begins at Epiphany and ends on Ash Wednesday, and so typically lasts through most of January and February. During this period, from Friday evening until Monday morning the entire country throbs to the rhythm of masked balls and street parades.[citation needed]
+
+Friday afternoons are for eating galette des rois (the cake of kings) and drinking champagne. The cake may be flavoured with frangipani, guava, or coconut.[citation needed]
+
+On Sunday afternoons, major parades fill the streets of Cayenne, Kourou, and Saint-Laurent du Maroni. Competing groups prepare for months. Dressed to follow the year's agreed theme, they march with Carnival floats, drums, and brass bands.[citation needed]
+
+Brazilian groups are appreciated for their elaborate feathered and sequined costumes. However, they are not eligible for competition since the costumes do not change over time.[citation needed]
+
+Mythical characters appear regularly in the parades:[citation needed]
+
+A uniquely Creole tradition are the touloulous. These women wear decorative gowns, gloves, masks, and headdresses that cover them completely, making them unrecognisable, even to the colour of their skin. On Friday and Saturday nights of Carnival, touloulou balls are held in so-called "universities", large dance halls that open only at Carnival time. Touloulous get in free, and are even given condoms in the interest of the sexual health of the community. Men attend the balls, but they pay admittance and are not disguised. The touloulous pick their dance partners, who may not refuse. The setup is designed to make it easy for a woman to create a temporary liaison with a man in total anonymity. Undisguised women are not welcomed. By tradition, if such a woman gets up to dance, the orchestra stops playing. Alcohol is served at bars – the disguised women whisper to the men "touloulou thirsty", at which a round of drinks is expected, to be drunk through a straw protect their anonymity.[citation needed]
+
+In more modern times, Guyanais men have attempted to turn the tables by staging soirées tololo, in which it is the men who, in disguise, seek partners from undisguised women bystanders.[citation needed]
+
+The final four days of Carnival follow a rigid schedule, and no work is done:[citation needed]
+
+The most famous Carnival celebration in Guatemala is in Mazatenango. During February, Mazatenango is famous for its eight-day Carnival Feast. Days of food, music, parades, and games fill the streets of the Suchitepéquez Department. As one Guatemalan website states, "To mention the Carnival of Mazatenango is to bring to mind moments of a happy and cordial party. In the eight days of this celebration's duration, the local residents have kept alive the traditions of the Department."[citation needed]
+
+Carnival in Haiti started in 1804 in the capital Port-au-Prince after the declaration of independence. The Port-au-Prince Carnival is one of the largest in North America. It is known as Kanaval in the Creole language. It starts in January, known as "Pre-Kanaval", while the main carnival activities begin in February. In July 2012, Haiti had another carnival called Kanaval de Fleur. Beautiful costumes, floats, Rara parades,[73] masks, foods, and popular rasin music (such as Boukman Eksperyans, Foula Vodoule, Tokay, Boukan Ginen, and Eritaj) and kompa bands (such as T-Vice, Djakout No. 1, Sweet Micky, Kreyòl La, D.P. Express, Mizik Mizik, Ram, T-Micky, Carimi, Djakout Mizik, and Scorpio Fever) play for dancers in the streets of the plaza of Champ-de-Mars. An annual song competition takes place.[citation needed]
+
+Other places in Haiti celebrate carnival, including Jacmel and Aux Cayes. In 2013, Kanaval was celebrated in Okap (Cap-Haïtien).[citation needed]
+
+Carnival finishes on Ash Wednesday, followed by rara, another parading musical tradition known mainly in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic. This festival emphasises religion. Songs are composed each year, and bands play bamboo tubes (vaksin) and homemade horns (konèt). Rara is also performed in Prospect and Central Park in summertime New York.[74]
+
+In La Ceiba in Honduras, Carnival is held on the third or fourth Saturday of every May to commemorate San Isidro.[75][76] It is the largest Carnival celebration in Central America.[77][78]
+
+In Mexico, Carnaval is celebrated in about 225 cities and towns. The largest are in Mazatlán and the city of Veracruz, with others in Baja California and Yucatán. The larger city Carnavals employ costumes, elected queens, and parades with floats, but Carnaval celebrations in smaller and rural areas vary widely depending on the level of European influence during Mexico's colonial period. The largest of these is in Huejotzingo, Puebla, where most townspeople take part in mock combat with rifles shooting blanks, roughly based on the Battle of Puebla. Other important states with local traditions include Morelos, Oaxaca, Tlaxcala, and Chiapas.[79] Carnaval of Campeche goes back 400 years, to 1582.[80]
+
+On the Caribbean coast of Bluefields, Nicaragua, Carnival is better known as "Palo de Mayo" (or Mayo Ya!) and is celebrated every day of May.[81]
+
+In Managua, it is celebrated for two days. There it is named Alegria por la vida ("Joy for Life") and features a different theme each year. Another festival in Managua celebrates patron saint Domingo de Guzman and lasts ten days.[82]
+
+Traditionally beginning on Friday and ending on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, "los Carnavales", as Panamanians refer to the days of Carnival, are celebrated across the country. Carnival Week is especially popular because of the opulent Las Tablas Carnival as well as the Carnival celebrations in Panama City and almost all of the Azuero Peninsula. The Panamanian Carnival is also popular because of the concerts featuring popular artists in the most visited areas.
+
+Concerts are often carried out during the night, and continue until the next morning. Carnival Week is a national holiday in Panama, with most businesses and government offices remaining closed during its duration, and with most Panamanians opting to go to the country's rural areas to participate on the Carnivals and visit their relatives. Carnivals in Panama also feature large repurposed fuel trucks that are used for soaking attendees through the use of firehoses that are controlled and directed by one or more people that stand in a platform that is mounted on top of the truck. This is known as "culecos" or "los culecos". Trucks get their water from nearby, government-approved rivers, and the water is tested for cleanliness before use. Culecos are often performed from 10 AM to 3 PM, when the sun is at its brightest. Children and pregnant women are banned from participating in the culecos, and the trucks are always sponsored by a well-known Panamanian company or brand. The culecos are also often accompanied by reggaeton concerts.[83][84][85][86]
+
+The open consumption of large amounts of cold, low-alcohol beer or Smirnoff, stored in ice-filled coolers, is common among attendees. Just like in Rio de Janeiro, some carnivals also feature floats, but they may have young women with elaborate costumes that stand as the "Queens" of "Calle Arriba" and "Calle Abajo", representing rich and working-class people, respectively. The queens are chosen through a contest and announced on October of the previous year, and are replaced every year. The queens are introduced on the first carnival day, and are always accompanied by a music band, who are present whenever the queens are present. Fireworks are launched on the last carnival night, to signal the end of the carnival.[87]
+
+The town of Cajamarca is considered the capital of Carnival in Peru. Local residents of all ages dance around the unsha, or yunsa, a tree adorned with ribbons, balloons, toys, fruits, bottles of liquor, and other prizes.[citation needed]
+
+At a certain point, the Mayordomo (governor of the feast) walks into the circle. The governor chooses a partner to go to the unsha, which they attempt to cut down by striking it three times with a machete. The machete is passed from couple to couple as each strikes the tree three times. When the unsha finally falls, the crowd rushes to grab the prizes.[citation needed]
+
+The person who successfully brings down the unsha becomes the following year's governor.[citation needed]
+
+While generally peaceful, there have been issues with people using Carnival as a pretext for crime, particularly robbery or vandalism, especially in certain areas of Lima.[88]
+
+Puerto Rico's most popular festivals are the Carnaval de Loiza and Carnaval de Ponce. The Carnaval de Ponce (officially "Carnaval Ponceño") is celebrated annually in Ponce. The celebration lasts one week and ends on the day before Ash Wednesday. It is one of the oldest carnivals of the Western Hemisphere, dating to 1858.[89] Some authorities trace the Ponce Carnaval to the eighteenth century.[90][91]
+
+In Trinidad and Tobago, Carnival lasts months and culminates in large celebrations on the three days before Ash Wednesday with Dimanche Gras, J'ouvert, and Mas (masquerade). Tobago's celebration culminates on Monday and Tuesday on a much smaller scale. Carnival combines costumes, dance, music, competitions, rum, and partying (fete-ing). Music styles include soca, calypso, rapso, and more recently chutney and chutney soca.[citation needed]
+
+The annual Carnival steel pan competition known as the National Panorama competition holds the finals on the Saturday before the main event. Pan players compete in categories such as "Conventional Steel Band" or "Single Pan Band" by performing renditions of the year's calypsos.[citation needed]
+
+"Dimanche Gras" takes place on the Sunday night before Ash Wednesday. Here the Calypso Monarch is chosen (after competition) and prize money and a vehicle awarded. The King and Queen of the bands are crowned, where each band parades costumes for two days and submits a king and queen, from which an overall winner is chosen. These usually involve huge, complex, beautiful well-crafted costumes, that includes 'wire-bending'.[citation needed]
+
+J'ouvert, or "Dirty Mas", takes place before dawn on the Monday (known as Carnival Monday) before Ash Wednesday. It means "opening of the day". Revelers dress in costumes embodying puns on current affairs, especially political and social events. "Clean Mud" (clay mud), oil paint and body paint are familiar during J'ouvert. A common character is "Jab-jabs" (devils, blue, black, or red) complete with pitchfork, pointed horns and tails. A King and Queen of J'ouvert are chosen, based on their witty political/social messages.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival Monday involves the parade of the mas bands. Revelers wear only parts of their costumes, more for fun than display or competition. Monday Night Mas is popular in most towns and especially the capital, where smaller bands compete. There is also the "Bomb Competition", a smaller-scaled judging of steel bands.[92][citation needed]
+
+Carnival Tuesday hosts the main events. Full costume is worn, complete with make-up and body paint/adornment. Usually "Mas Boots" that complement the costumes are worn. Each band has their costume presentation based on a particular theme, and contains various sections (some consisting of thousands of revelers) that reflect these themes. The street parade and band costume competition take place. The mas bands eventually converge on the Queen's Park Savannah to pass on "The Stage" for judging. The singer of the most played song is crowned Road March King or Queen, earning prize money and usually a vehicle.[citation needed]
+
+This parading and revelry goes on until Tuesday midnight. Ash Wednesday itself, while not an official holiday, sends flocks to local beaches. The most popular are Maracas Beach and Manzanilla Beach, where huge beach parties take place on Ash Wednesday.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival celebrations, usually referred to as Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday" in French), were first celebrated in the Gulf Coast area, but now occur in many states.[93] Customs originated in the onetime French colonial capitals of Mobile (now in Alabama), New Orleans (Louisiana), and Biloxi (Mississippi), all of which have celebrated for many years with street parades and masked balls. Other major American cities with celebrations include Washington, D.C.;[94] St. Louis, Missouri;[95] San Francisco[96] and San Diego,[97] California; Galveston, Texas;[98] and Pensacola,[99] Tampa,[100] and Orlando[101] in Florida.
+
+The most widely known, elaborate, and popular US events are in New Orleans where Carnival season is referred to as Mardi Gras. Krewes organize parades, balls, and other activities starting with Phunny Phorty Phellows streetcar parade on Twelfth Night and ending with the closing of Bourbon Street at midnight on Fat Tuesday.[102] It is often called "the greatest free party on earth".[103] Many other Louisiana cities such as Lake Charles, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette, Mamou, Houma, and Thibodaux, most of which were under French control at one time or another, also hold Carnival celebrations.[104] On the prairie country northwest of Lafayette, Louisiana, the Cajuns celebrate the traditional Courir de Mardi Gras, which has its roots in celebrations from rural Medieval France.[105]
+
+Carnival is celebrated in New York City in Brooklyn. As in the UK, the timing of Carnival split from the Christian calendar and is celebrated on Labor Day Monday, in September. It is called the Labor Day Carnival, West Indian Day Parade, or West Indian Day Carnival, and was founded by immigrants from Trinidad. That country has one of the largest Caribbean Carnivals. In the mid twentieth century, West Indians moved the event from the beginning of Lent to the Labor Day weekend. Carnival is one of the largest parades and street festivals in New York, with over one million attending. The parade, which consists of steel bands, floats, elaborate Carnival costumes, and sound trucks, proceeds along Brooklyn's Eastern Parkway in the Crown Heights neighborhood.[106]
+
+Starting in 2013, the Slovenian-American community located in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood of Cleveland began hosting a local version of Kurentovanje, the Carnival event held in the city of Ptuj, Slovenia.[107] The event is conducted on the Saturday prior to Ash Wednesday.[107]
+
+The Carnival in Uruguay lasts more than 40 days, generally beginning towards the end of January and running through mid March. Celebrations in Montevideo are the largest. The festival is performed in the European parade style with elements from Bantu and Angolan Benguela cultures imported with slaves in colonial times. The main attractions of Uruguayan Carnival include two colorful parades called Desfile de Carnaval (Carnival Parade) and Desfile de Llamadas (Calls Parade, a candombe-summoning parade).[108]
+
+During the celebration, theaters called tablados are built in many places throughout the cities, especially in Montevideo.[109] Traditionally formed by men and now starting to be open to women, the different Carnival groups (Murgas, Lubolos, or Parodistas) perform a kind of popular opera at the tablados, singing and dancing songs that generally relate to the social and political situation. The 'Calls' groups, basically formed by drummers playing the tamboril, perform candombe rhythmic figures. The carnival in Uruguay have escolas de samba too, and the biggest samba parades are in Artigas and in Montevideo. Revelers wear their festival clothing. Each group has its own theme. Women wearing elegant, bright dresses are called vedettes and provide a sensual touch to parades.[citation needed]
+
+European archetypes (Pierrot, Harlequin, and Columbina) merge with African ancestral elements (the Old Mother or Mama Vieja, the Medicine Man or Gramillero and the Magician or Escobero) in the festival.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival in Venezuela covers two days, 40 days before Easter. It is a time when youth in many rural towns have water fights (including the use of water balloons and water guns). Any pedestrian risks getting soaked. Coastal towns and provinces celebrate Carnival more fervently than elsewhere in the country. Venezuelans regard Carnival about the same way they regard Christmas and Semana Santa (Holy Week; the week before Easter Sunday) when they take the opportunity to visit their families.[110]
+
+In India, Carnival is celebrated only in the state of Goa and is a Roman Catholic tradition known as Intruz which means "swindler" while Entrudo is the appropriate word in Portuguese for "Carnival". The largest celebration takes place in the city of Panjim, which was part of Velha Conquista in Goa, but now is celebrated throughout the state. The tradition was introduced by the Portuguese who ruled Goa for over four centuries. On Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, the European tradition of Fat Tuesday is celebrated with the eating of crepes, also called "AleBelle". The crepes are filled with freshly grated coconut and heated condensed coconut sap that sequentially converts it into a brown sweet molasses; additional heat concentration solidifies it to jaggery. The celebrations of Carnival peak for three days and nights and precede Ash Wednesday, when the legendary King Momo takes over the state. All-night parades occur throughout the state with bands, dances, and floats. Grand balls are held in the evenings.[111]
+
+Although Portugal introduced the customs related to Roman Catholic practice in India and Brazil, the celebrations in Goa like Portugal have begun to adopt some aspects of Brazilian-style Carnival celebrations, in particular those of Rio de Janeiro with sumptuous parades, samba and other musical elements.[citation needed]
+
+In Indonesia, the word "carnival" or karnaval is not related to pre-Lent festivities, but more to festivals in general, especially those with processions and extravagant costumes. One of the largest carnivals in Indonesia is the Solo Batik Carnival, held in Solo, Central Java. The Jember Fashion Carnaval is held in Jember, East Java.[112]
+
+The Roman Catholic community of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, held an Easter procession in form of an Easter Carnival called Pawai Paskah Kupang.[113]
+
+For almost five centuries, local Greek communities throughout Istanbul celebrated Carnival with weeks of bawdy parades, lavish balls, and street parties. This continued for weeks before Lent. Baklahorani took place on Shrove Monday, the last day of the carnival season. The event was led by the Greek Orthodox community, but the celebrations were public and inter-communal. The final celebration was sited in the Kurtuluş district.[114] In 2010, the festival was revived.[115]
+
+Carnivals have begun to be celebrated in Korça before '40, a period in which cultural life in this city has been varied. Although a pagan holiday, the Carnival was later celebrated on Feast Day in February. In addition to the many carnival-wearing individuals, there were bands with guitars, bows, and butaphoric masks such as animal heads and humans. The Korça Carnival took a big hit after the creation of cultural societies such as the "Korça Youth". During this period carnivals were accompanied by mandolins, guitars and humorous songs. Carnival celebrations were discontinued after 60, to resume in other social conditions after 90. Korça is one of the first cities to revive the Carnival tradition by establishing the Carnival Association in 1992 as part of the National Carnival Association of Albania. On April 10, 1994, the first International Carnival Festival in Albania was organized in Korça. The following year, the second International Carnival Festival is even larger. Since this year and until 2008, the Korca Carnival group has been represented at a number of international festivals organized in various European countries.                         -Briana B.
+
+Many parts of Belgium celebrate Carnival, typically with costume parades, partying and fireworks. These areas include the province of Limburg with its cities Maasmechelen, Maaseik and Lanaken along the river Meuse, the cities of Aalst, Binche, Eupen, Halle, Heist, Kelmis, Malmedy, and Stavelot.[citation needed]
+
+The Carnival of Binche dates at least to the 14th century. Parades are held over the three days before Lent; the most important participants are the Gilles, who wear traditional costumes on Shrove Tuesday and throw blood oranges to the crowd.[116] In 2003, the Carnival of Binche was recognised as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.[117] The Carnival of Aalst, celebrated during the three days preceding Ash Wednesday, received the same recognition in 2010.[118]
+
+The Carnival of Malmedy is locally called Cwarmê. Even if Malmedy is located in the east Belgium, near the German-speaking area, the Cwarmê is a pure Walloon and Latin carnival. The celebration takes place during the four days before Shrove Tuesday. The Cwarmê Sunday is the most important and insteresting to see. All the old traditional costumes parade in the street. The Cwarmê is a "street carnival" and is not only a parade. People who are disguised pass through the crowd and perform a part of the traditional costume they wear. The famous traditional costumes at the Cwarmê of Malmedy are the Haguète, the Longuès-Brèsses, and the Long-Né[119].
+
+Some Belgian cities hold Carnivals during Lent. One of the best-known is Stavelot, where the Carnival de la Laetare takes place on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. The participants include the Blancs-Moussis, who dress in white, carry long red noses and parade through town attacking bystanders with confetti and dried pig bladders. The town of Halle also celebrates on Laetare Sunday. Belgium's oldest parade is the Carnival Parade of Maaseik, also held on Laetare Sunday, which originated in 1865.[120][citation needed]
+
+In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croat-majority city of Ljubuški holds a traditional Carnival (Bosnian: Karneval). Ljubuški is a member of the Federation of European Carnival Cities (FECC).[citation needed]
+
+The most famous Croatian Carnival (Croatian: karneval, also called maškare or fašnik) is the Rijeka Carnival, during which the mayor of Rijeka hands over the keys to the city to the Carnival master (meštar od karnevala). The festival includes several events, culminating on the final Sunday in a masked procession. (A similar procession for children takes place on the previous weekend.)[citation needed]
+
+Many towns in Croatia's Kvarner region (and in other parts of the country, eg. in Međimurje County in Northern Croatia) observe the Carnival period, incorporating local traditions and celebrating local culture. Some of the towns and places are Grobnik, Permani, Kastav and many others places near Rijeka, then Čakovec, Samobor etc. Just before the end of Carnival, every Kvarner town burns a man-like doll called a "Pust", who is blamed for all the strife of the previous year. The Zvončari, or bell-ringers push away winter and all the bad things in the past year and calling spring, they wear bells and large head regalia representing their areas of origin (for example, those from Halubje wear regalia in the shape of animal heads). The traditional Carnival food is fritule, a pastry. This festival can also be called Poklade.[citation needed]
+
+Masks are worn to many of the festivities, including concerts and parties. Children and teachers are commonly allowed to wear masks to school for a day, and also wear masks at school dances or while trick-or-treating. Carnivals also take place in summer. One of the most famous is the Senj Summer Carnival – first celebrated in 1968. The towns of Cres, Pag, Novi Vinodolski, and Fužine also organise Summer Carnivals.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival has been celebrated in Cyprus for centuries. The tradition was likely established under Venetian rule around the 16th century. It may have been influenced by Greek traditions, such as festivities for deities such as Dionysus. The celebration originally involved dressing in costumes and holding masked balls or visiting friends. In the twentieth century, it became an organized event held during the 10 days preceding Lent (according to the Greek Orthodox calendar). The festival is celebrated almost exclusively in the city of Limassol.[citation needed]
+
+Three main parades take place during Carnival. The first is held on the first day, during which the "Carnival King" (either a person in costume or an effigy) rides through the city on his carriage. The second is held on the first Sunday of the festival, and the participants are mainly children. The third and largest takes place on the last day of Carnival and involves hundreds of people walking in costume along the town's longest avenue. The latter two parades are open to anyone who wishes to participate.[citation needed]
+
+In the Czech Republic, the Masopust Festival takes place from Epiphany (Den tří králů) through Ash Wednesday (Popeleční středa). The word masopust translates literally from old Czech to mean "meat fast", and the festival often includes a pork feast. The tradition is most common in Moravia but also occurs in Bohemia. While practices vary, masks and costumes are present everywhere.[121]
+
+Carnival in Denmark is called Fastelavn, and is held on the Sunday or Monday before Ash Wednesday. The holiday is sometimes described as a Nordic Halloween, with children dressing in costume and gathering treats for the Fastelavn feast. One popular custom is the fastelavnsris, a switch that children use to flog their parents to wake them up on Fastelavns Sunday.[citation needed]
+
+In Norway, students having seen celebrations in Paris introduced Carnival processions, masked balls, and Carnival balls to Christiana in the 1840s and 1850s. From 1863, the artist federation Kunstnerforeningen held annual Carnival balls in the old Freemasons lodge, which inspired Johan Svendsen's compositions Norsk Kunstnerkarneval and Karneval in Paris. The following year, Svendsen's Festpolonaise was written for the opening procession. Edvard Grieg attended and wrote "Aus dem Karneval" (Folkelivsbilleder Op. 19). Since 1988, the student organization Tårnseilerne [no] has produced annual masquerade balls in Oslo, with masks, costumes, and processions after attending an opera performance. The Carnival season also includes Fastelavens søndag (with cream buns) and fastelavensris with decorated branches.[citation needed]
+
+In England, the season immediately before Lent was called Shrovetide. A time for confessing sins ("shriving"), it had fewer festivities than the Continental Carnivals. Today, Shrove Tuesday is celebrated as Pancake Day, but little else of the Lent-related Shrovetide survived the 16th-century English Reformation. The Shrovetide Carnival in the United Kingdom is celebrated in Cowes and East Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Since 2012, Hastings in East Sussex has celebrated with its own Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday.
+Five days of music and street events culminating with a Grand Ball on Fat Tuesday itself. Loosely based on the New Orleans style of carnival, Hastings has taken its own course.[122]
+
+Some major Carnivals of mainland France are the Nice Carnival, the Dunkirk Carnival and the Limoux Carnival. The Nice Carnival was held as far back as 1294, and annually attracts over a million visitors during the two weeks preceding Lent.[citation needed]
+
+Since 1604, a characteristic masked Carnival is celebrated in Limoux.[123]
+
+The Dunkirk Carnival is among the greatest and most exuberant carnivals celebrated in Europe. Its traditions date back to the 17th century and are based on the vischerbende as fishermen went from one café to another accompanied by their relatives and friends just before departing to Icelandic fishing grounds.[citation needed]
+
+In the French West Indies, it occurs between the Sunday of Epiphany and Ash Wednesday;[124] this dates back to the arrival of French colonists in the islands.[citation needed]
+
+The earliest written record of Carnival in Germany was in 1296 in Speyer.[125] The first worldwide Carnival parade took place in Cologne in 1823.[citation needed]
+The most active Carnival week begins on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, with parades during the weekend, and finishes the night before Ash Wednesday, with the main festivities occurring around Rosenmontag (Rose Monday). This time is also called the "Fifth Season". Shrove Tuesday, called Fastnacht or Veilchendienstag, is celebrated in some cities.
+
+Parties feature self-made and more fanciful costumes and occasional masks. The parties become more exuberant as the weeks progress and peak after New Year, in January and February. The final Tuesday features all-night parties, dancing, hugging, and smooching. Some parties are for all, some for women only and some for children. Fasnachtsküchle (similar to Kreppel or donuts) are the traditional Fasching food and are baked or fried.[citation needed]
+
+In Germany, Rheinischer Karnival and Schwäbische Fastnacht are distinct; first is less formal and more political, second is much more traditional.[citation needed]
+
+The "Rheinische" Carnival is held in the west of Germany, mainly in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, but also in Hesse (including Upper Hesse). Similar forms of the festival occur in Bavaria, and other states. Some cities are more famous for celebrations such as parades and costume balls. The Cologne Carnival, as well as those in Mainz, Eschweiler and Düsseldorf, are the largest and most famous. Other cities have their own, often less well-known celebrations, parades, and parties, such as Bonn, Worms am Rhein, Speyer, Kaiserslautern, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Duisburg, Dortmund, Essen, Mannheim, Münster, Krefeld, Ludwigshafen, Mönchengladbach, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Munich, and Nuremberg. The biggest German carnival club is located in a little town Dieburg in South Hesse. On Carnival Thursday (called "Old Women Day" or "The Women's Day" in commemoration of an 1824 revolt by washer-women), women storm city halls, cut men's ties, and are allowed to kiss any passing man. Special acrobatic show dances in mock uniforms are a traditional contribution to most festive balls. They may or may not have been a source of inspiration to American cheerleading. The Fasching parades and floats make fun of individual politicians and other public figures. Many speeches do the same.[citation needed]Cologne Carnival traditions explained in English.
+Traditions often also include the "Faschingssitzung" – a sit-only party with dancing and singing presentations, and often many speeches given that humorously criticize politics.
+
+The Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht, known as Schwäbische Fastnacht, takes place in Baden, Swabia, the Allgäu, Alsace, and Vorarlberg (western Austria). During the pagan era, it represented the time of year when the reign of the grim winter spirits is over, and these spirits are hunted and expelled. It then adapted to Catholicism. The first official record of Karneval, Fasching or Fastnacht in Germany dates to 1296.[citation needed] Often the costumes and masks on parades strictly follow traditional designs and represent specific historical characters, public figures – or specific daemons.
+
+In Switzerland, Fasnacht takes place in the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, e.g. in Lucerne (Lozärner Fasnacht), but also in Protestant Basel. However, the Basler Fasnacht begins on the Monday after Ash Wednesday. Both began in the Late Middle Ages. Smaller Fasnacht festivities take place across German Switzerland, e.g. in Bern and Olten, or in the eastern part (Zurich, St. Gallen, Appenzell).[citation needed]
+
+In Greece, Carnival is known as Apókries (Απόκριες, lit. '[goodbye] to meat'), and officially begins with the "Opening of the Triodion", the liturgical book used by the Orthodox Church from then until Holy Week.[126] Apokries is made up of three themed weeks of celebration known as Prophoní (Προφωνή, 'preannouncement week'), Kreatiní (Κρεατινή, 'meat week'), and Tiriní (Τυρινή, 'cheese week'). One of the season's high points during Kreatini is Tsiknopémpti (lit. 'Smoky-Thursday'), when celebrants throw large outdoor parties and roast huge amounts of meat; the ritual is repeated the following Sunday, after which point meat is forbidden until Easter. The following week, Tirini, is marked by similar festivities revolving around the consumption of cheese, eggs, and dairy and culminates with a "Cheese Sunday." Great Lent, and its restrictive fasting rules, begins in earnest the next day on Clean Monday. Throughout the Carnival season, festivals, parades, and balls are held all over the country. Many people disguise themselves as maskarádes ("masqueraders") and engage in pranks and revelry throughout the season.[127]
+
+Patras holds the largest annual Carnival in Greece, and one of the largest in the world. The famous Patras Carnival is a three-day spectacle replete with concerts, theatre performances, parading troupes, a elaborate treasure hunt game, three major parades, parallel celebrations specifically for children, and many masquerade balls including the famous Bourboúlia (Μπουρμπούλια) ball in which women wear special robe like costumes called a dómino to hide their identy.[128] The festivities come to a crescendo on "Cheese Sunday" when The Grand Parade of troops and floats leads celebrators to the harbor for the ceremonial burning of the effigy of King Carnival.[129]
+
+The second biggest Carnival takes place in Xanthi (Eastern Macedonia and Thrace) since 1966 and it is the major event of its kind in Northern Greece. The Xanthi Carnival manages to attract visitors from the nearby countries such as Bulgaria, Turkey, and Romania.[130] Other regions host festivities of smaller extent, focused on the reenactment of traditional carnevalic customs, such as Tyrnavos (Thessaly), Kozani (Western Macedonia), Rethymno (Crete). Tyrnavos holds an annual Phallus festival, a traditional "phallkloric" event[131] in which giant, gaudily painted effigies of phalluses made of papier-mâché are paraded, and which women are asked to touch or kiss. Their reward for so doing is a shot of the famous local tsipouro alcohol spirit.[citation needed]
+
+Every year, from 1–8 January, mostly in regions of Western Macedonia, traditional Carnival festivals erupt. Best known of these is the Ragoutsária (Ραγκουτσάρια)[132] festival in the town of Kastoria whose celebration may date back to antiquity and whose name derives from the latin word rogatores 'beggars', in reference to the beggars who could mingle with the rich in their masks.[133] It takes place from 6–8 January with mass participation and is noted for its brass bands, flutes, and Macedonian daouli drums. It is an ancient celebration of nature's rebirth akin to ancient festivals for Dionysus (Dionysia) and Kronos (Saturnalia).[133]
+
+In Mohács, Hungary, the Busójárás is a celebration held at the end of the Carnival season. It involves locals dressing in woolly costumes, with scary masks and noise-makers. According to legend, the festival celebrates both the conclusion of the winter season and a victory by the local people over invading Ottomans in 1526.[134]
+
+The most famous Carnivals of Italy are held in Venice, Viareggio, and Ivrea.
+
+The Carnival in Venice was first recorded in 1268. Its subversive nature is reflected in Italy's many laws over the centuries attempting to restrict celebrations and the wearing of masks. Carnival celebrations in Venice were halted after the city fell under Austrian control in 1798, but were revived in the late 20th century.[citation needed]
+
+The month-long Carnival of Viareggio is characterized mainly by its parade of floats and masks caricaturing popular figures. In 2001, the town built a new "Carnival citadel" dedicated to Carnival preparations and entertainment.[citation needed]
+
+The Carnival of Ivrea is famous for its "Battle of the Oranges" fought with fruit between the people on foot and the troops of the tyrant on carts, to remember the wars of the Middle Ages.[135]
+
+In the most part of the Archdiocese of Milan, the Carnival lasts four more days, ending on the Saturday after Ash Wednesday, because of the Ambrosian Rite.[citation needed]
+
+In Sardinia, the Carnival (in Sardinian language Carrasecare or Carrasegare[136]) varies greatly from the one in the mainland of Italy: due to its close relation to the Dionysian Rites[citation needed], the majority of the Sardinian celebrations features not only feasts and parades but also crude fertility rites such as bloodsheds to fertilize the land,[137] the death and the resurrection of the Carnival characters[138] and representations of violence and torture.[137] The typical characters of the Sardinian Carnival are zoomorphic and/or androgynous, such as the Mamuthones and Issohadores[139] from Mamoiada, the Boes and Merdules[140] from Ottana and many more.[141] The Carnival is celebrated with street performances[142] that are typically accompanied by Sardinian dirges called attittidus,[143] meaning literally "cry of a baby when the mother doesn't want nursed him/her anymore" (from the word titta meaning breasts[144]). Other particular and important Carnival instances in Sardinia are the Sartiglia in Oristano and the Tempio Pausania Carnival.[145]
+
+Užgavėnės is a Lithuanian festival that takes place on Shrove Tuesday. Its name in English means "the time before Lent". The celebration corresponds to Carnival holiday traditions.[citation needed]
+
+Užgavėnės begins on the night before Ash Wednesday, when an effigy of winter (usually named Morė) is burnt. A major element symbolizes the defeat of winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a staged battle between Lašininis ("porky") personifying winter and Kanapinis ("hempen man") personifying spring. Devils, witches, goats, the grim reaper, and other joyful and frightening characters appear in costumes during the celebrations.[citation needed]
+
+Eating pancakes is an important part of the celebration.[further explanation needed][citation needed]
+
+In Luxembourg, the pre-Lenten holiday season is known as Fuesend. Throughout the Grand-Duchy, parades and parties are held.[citation needed]
+
+Pétange is the home of the Grand-Duchy's largest pre-Lenten Karneval celebration. Annually hosting a cavalcade with roughly 1,200 participants and thousand of celebrants, the official name is Karneval Gemeng Péiteng or "Kagepe" (the initials in Luxembourgish are pronounced "Ka", "Ge" and "Pe").[citation needed]
+
+The town of Remich holds a three-day-long celebration, notable for two special events in addition to its parades. The first is the Stréimännchen, which is the burning of a male effigy from the Remich Bridge that crosses the Moselle River separating the Grand Duchy from Germany. The Stréimännchen symbolizes the burning away of winter. The other special event at the Remich Fuesend celebrations is the Buergbrennen or bonfire that closes the celebration.[citation needed]
+
+Like Remich, the town of Esch-sur-Alzette holds a three-day celebration. Other major Fuesend parades in Luxembourg are held in the towns of Diekirch and Schifflange.[146]
+
+Carnival in Malta (Maltese: il-Karnival ta' Malta) was introduced to the islands by Grand Master Piero de Ponte in 1535. It is held during the week leading up to Ash Wednesday, and typically includes masked balls, fancy dresses, and grotesque mask competitions, lavish late-night parties, a colourful, ticker-tape parade of allegorical floats presided over by King Carnival (Maltese: ir-Re tal-Karnival), marching bands, and costumed revellers.[citation needed]
+
+The largest celebration takes place in and around the capital city of Valletta and Floriana; several more "spontaneous" Carnivals take place in more remote areas. The Nadur Carnival is notable for its darker themes. In 2005, the Nadur Carnival hosted the largest-ever gathering of international Carnival organizers for the FECC's global summit.[citation needed]
+
+Traditional dances include the parata, a lighthearted re-enactment of the 1565 victory of the Knights Hospitaller over the Turks, and an 18th-century court dance known as il-Maltija. Carnival food includes perlini (multi-coloured, sugar-coated almonds) and the prinjolata, which is a towering assembly of sponge cake, biscuits, almonds, and citrus fruits, topped with cream and pine nuts.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival in the Netherlands is called Carnaval, Vastenavond ("Eve of Lent") or, in Limburgish, Vastelaovend(j), and is mostly celebrated in traditionally Catholic regions, particularly in the southern provinces of North Brabant, Limburg and Zeeland, but also in Overijssel, especially in Twente. While Dutch Carnaval is officially celebrated on the Sunday through Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, since the 1970s the feast has gradually started earlier and generally includes now the preceding weekend. Although traditions vary from town to town, Dutch carnaval usually includes a parade, a "Prince Carnival" plus cortège ("Council of 11", sometimes with a Jester or Adjutant), sometimes also the handing over by the mayor of the symbolic keys of the town to Prince Carnival, the burning or burial of a symbolic figure, a peasant wedding (boerenbruiloft), and eating herring (haring happen) on Ash Wednesday.[citation needed]
+
+Two main variants can be distinguished: the Rhineland carnaval, found in the province of Limburg, and the Bourgondische carnaval, found mainly in North Brabant. Maastricht, Limburg's capital, holds a street carnaval that features elaborate costumes.[147]
+
+The first known documentation dates from the late 8th century (Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum), but Carnaval was already mentioned during the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and by Caesarius of Arles (470-542) around 500 CE. In the Netherlands itself, the first documentation is found in 1383 in 's-Hertogenbosch. The oldest-known images of Dutch Carnaval festivities date from 1485, also in 's-Hertogenbosch.[citation needed]
+
+Normal daily life comes to a stop for about a week in the southern part of the Netherlands during the carnival, with roads temporary blocked and many local businesses closed for the week as a result of employees who are en masse taking the days off during and the day after the carnival.[148][149]
+
+The most popular Carnivals in North Macedonia are in Vevčani and Strumica.[citation needed]
+
+The Vevčani Carnival (Macedonian: Вевчански Kарневал, translated Vevchanski Karneval) has been held for over 1,400 years, and takes place on 13 and 14 January (New Year's Eve and New Year's Day by the old calendar). The village becomes a live theatre where costumed actors improvise on the streets in roles such as the traditional "August the Stupid".[150]
+
+The Strumica Carnival (Macedonian: Струмички Карневал, translated Strumichki Karneval) has been held since at least 1670, when the Turkish author Evlija Chelebija wrote while staying there, "I came into a town located in the foothills of a high hillock and what I saw that night was masked people running house–to–house, with laughter, scream and song." The Carnival took an organized form in 1991; in 1994, Strumica became a member of FECC and in 1998 hosted the XVIII International Congress of Carnival Cities. The Strumica Carnival opens on a Saturday night at a masked ball where the Prince and Princess are chosen; the main Carnival night is on Tuesday, when masked participants (including groups from abroad) compete in various subjects. As of 2000, the Festival of Caricatures and Aphorisms has been held as part of Strumica's Carnival celebrations.[citation needed]
+
+The Polish Carnival season includes Fat Thursday (Polish: Tłusty Czwartek), when pączki (doughnuts) are eaten, and Śledzik (Shrove Tuesday) or Herring Day. The Tuesday before the start of Lent is also often called Ostatki (literally "leftovers"), meaning the last day to party before the Lenten season.[citation needed]
+
+The traditional way to celebrate Carnival is the kulig, a horse-drawn sleigh ride through the snow-covered countryside. In modern times, Carnival is increasingly seen as an excuse for intensive partying and has become more commercialized, with stores offering Carnival-season sales.[citation needed]
+
+Carnival is Carnaval in Portugal, celebrated throughout the country, most famously in Ovar, Sesimbra, Madeira, Loulé, Nazaré, and Torres Vedras. Carnaval in Podence and Lazarim incorporates pagan traditions such as the careto, while the Torres Vedras celebration is probably the most typical.[citation needed]
+
+On the islands of the Azores, local clubs and Carnival groups create colorful and creative costumes that jab at politics or culture.[151]
+
+On São Miguel Island, Carnival features street vendors selling fried dough, called a malassada. The festival on the biggest island starts off with a black tie grand ball, followed by Latin music at Coliseu Micaelense. A children's parade fills the streets of Ponta Delgada with children from each school district in costume. A massive parade continues past midnight, ending in fireworks.[151]
+
+The event includes theatre performances and dances. In the "Danças de Entrudo", hundreds of people follow the dancers around the island. Throughout the show the dancers act out scenes from daily life. The "Dances de Carnival" are allegorical and comedic tales acted out in the streets. The largest is in Angra do Heroísmo, with more than 30 groups performing. More Portuguese-language theatrical performances occur there than anywhere else.[151]
+
+Festivities end on Ash Wednesday, when locals sit down for the "Batatada" or potato feast, in which the main dish is salted cod with potatoes, eggs, mint, bread and wine. Residents then return to the streets for the burning of the "Carnival clown", ending the season.[151]
+
+On the island of Madeira, the island's capital, Funchal, wakes up on the Friday before Ash Wednesday to the sound of brass bands and Carnival parades throughout downtown. Festivities continue with concerts and shows in the Praça do Município for five consecutive days. The main Carnival street parade takes place on Saturday evening, with thousands of samba dancers filling the streets. The traditional street event takes place on Tuesday, featuring daring caricatures.[152]
+
+Arguably, Brazil's Carnival could be traced to the period of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries when their caravels passed regularly through Madeira, a territory that emphatically celebrated Carnival.[153][154]
+
+Carnival in the town of Ovar, in the Aveiro Region, began in 1952 and is the region's largest festivity, representing a large investment and the most important touristic event to the city. It is known for its creative designs, displayed in the Carnival Parade, which features troupes with themed costumes and music, ranging from the traditional to pop culture. Along with the Carnival Parade, there are five nights of partying, finishing with the famous 'Magical night' where people come from all over the country, mostly with their handmade costumes, only to have fun with the locals.[155]
+
+In Estarreja, in the Central region of Portugal, the town's first references to Carnival were in the 14th century, with "Flower Battles", richly decorated floats that paraded through the streets. At the beginning of the twentieth century, these festivities ended with the deaths of its main promoters, only to reappear again in the 1960s to become one of many important Carnival festivals in Portugal.[citation needed]
+
+In the Northern region of Podence, children appear from Sunday to Tuesday with tin masks and colorful multilayered costumes made from red, green and yellow wool. In the Central Portugal towns of Nelas and Canas de Senhorim, Carnival is an important tourist event. Nelas and Canas de Senhorim host four festive parades that offer colorful and creative costumes: Bairro da Igreja and Cimo do Povo in Nelas and do Paço and do Rossio in Canas de Senhorim.[citation needed]
+
+In Lisbon, Carnival offers parades, dances and festivities featuring stars from Portugal and Brazil. The Loures Carnival celebrates the country's folk traditions, including the enterro do bacalhau or burial of the cod, which marks the end of Carnival and the festivities.[citation needed]
+
+North of Lisbon is the famous Torres Vedras Carnival, described as the "most Portuguese in Portugal". The celebration highlight is a parade of creatively decorated streetcars that satirize society and politics.[citation needed]
+
+Other Central Portugal towns, such as Fátima and Leiria, offer colorful, family-friendly celebrations. In these towns, everyone dresses up as if it were Halloween. Children and adults wear masks.[citation needed]
+
+In the Algarve region, several resort towns offer Carnival parades. Besides the themed floats and cars, the festivities include "samba" groups, bands, dances, and music.[156]
+
+In Lazarim, a civil parish in the municipality of Lamego, celebrations follow the pagan tradition of Roman Saturnalias. It celebrates by burning colorful effigies and dressing in home-made costumes. Locally-made wooden masks are worn. The masks are effigies of men and women with horns, but both roles are performed by men. They are distinguished by their clothes, with caricature attributes of both men and women.[citation needed]
+
+The Lazarim Carnaval cycle encompasses two periods, the first starting on the fifth Sunday before Quinquagesima Sunday. Masked figures and people wearing large sculpted heads walk through the town. The locals feast on meats, above all pork. The second cycle, held on Sundays preceding Ash Wednesday, incorporates the tradition of the Compadres and Comadres, with men and women displaying light-hearted authority over the other.[citation needed]
+
+Over the five weeks, men prepare large masked heads and women raise funds to pay for two mannequins that will be sacrificed in a public bonfire. This is a key event and is unique to Portugal. During the bonfire, a girl reads the Compadre's will and a boy reads the Comadre's will. The executors of the will are named, a donkey is symbolically distributed to both female and male "heirs", and then there is the final reckoning in which the Entrudo, or Carnival doll, is burned.[citation needed]
+
+Maslenitsa (Масленица, also called "Pancake Week" or "Cheese Week") is a Russian folk holiday that incorporates some pagan traditions. It is celebrated during the last week before Lent. The essential element is bliny, Russian pancakes, popularly taken to symbolize the sun. Round and golden, they are made from the rich foods allowed that week by the Orthodox traditions: butter, eggs, and milk. (In the tradition of Orthodox Lent, the consumption of meat ceases one week before that of milk and eggs.)[citation needed]
+
+Maslenitsa also includes masquerades, snowball fights, sledding, swinging on swings, and sleigh rides. The mascot is a brightly dressed straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa, formerly known as Kostroma. The celebration culminates on Sunday evening, when Lady Maslenitsa is stripped of her finery and put to the flames of a bonfire.[157][citation needed]
+
+In Slovakia, the Fašiangy (fašiang, fašangy) takes place from Three Kings Day (Traja králi) until the midnight before Ash Wednesday (Škaredá streda or Popolcová streda). At the midnight marking the end of fašiangy, a symbolic burial ceremony for the contrabass is performed, because music ceases for Lent.[citation needed]
+
+The Slovenian name for carnival is pust. The Slovenian countryside displays a variety of disguised groups and individual characters, among which the most popular and characteristic is the Kurent (plural: Kurenti), a monstrous and demon-like, but fluffy figure. The most significant festival is held in Ptuj (see: Kurentovanje). Its special feature are the Kurents themselves, magical creatures from another world, who visit major events throughout the country, trying to banish the winter and announce spring's arrival, fertility, and new life with noise and dancing. The origin of the Kurent is a mystery, and not much is known of the times, beliefs, or purposes connected with its first appearance. The origin of the name itself is obscure.[citation needed]
+
+The Cerknica Carnival is heralded by a figure called "Poganjič" carrying a whip. In the procession, organised by the "Pust society", a monstrous witch named Uršula is driven from the mountain Slivnica, to be burned at the stake on Ash Wednesday. Unique to this region is a group of dormice, driven by the Devil and a huge fire-breathing dragon. Cerkno and its surrounding area are known for the Laufarji, Carnival figures with artistically carved wooden masks.[citation needed]
+
+The Maškare from Dobrepolje used to represent a triple character: the beautiful, the ugly (among which the most important represented by an old man, an old woman, a hunchback, and a Kurent), and the noble (imitating the urban elite).[citation needed]
+
+The major part of the population, especially the young and children, dress up in ordinary non-ethnic costumes, going to school, work, and organized events, where prizes are given for the best and most original costumes. Costumed children sometimes go from house to house asking for treats.[citation needed]
+
+Arguably the most famous Carnivals in Spain are Santa Cruz, Las Palmas, Sitges, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Tarragona, Águilas, Solsona, Cádiz, Badajoz, Bielsa (an ancestral Carnival celebration), Plan, San Juan de Plan, Laza, Verín, Viana, and Xinzo de Limia.[citation needed]
+
+One of the oldest pre-Indo-European carnival in Europe takes place in Ituren and Zubieta in Navarre in late January/early February. The carnival symbolises the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, winter and spring.
+
+In Cádiz, the costumes worn are often related to recent news, such as the bird flu epidemic in 2006, during which many people were disguised as chickens. The feeling of this Carnival is the sharp criticism, the funny play on words and the imagination in the costumes, more than the glamorous dressings. It is traditional to paint the face with lipstick as a humble substitute of a mask.[158]
+
+The most famous groups are the chirigotas, choirs, and comparsas. The chirigotas are well known witty, satiric popular groups who sing about politics, new times, and household topics, wearing the same costume, which they prepare for the whole year. The Choirs (coros) are wider groups that go on open carts through the streets singing with an orchestra of guitars and lutes. Their signature piece is the "Carnival Tango", alternating comical and serious repertory. The comparsas are the serious counterpart of the chirigota in Cádiz, and the poetic lyrics and the criticism are their main ingredients. They have a more elaborated polyphony that is easily recognizable by the typical countertenor voice.[citation needed]
+
+The Santa Cruz Carnival is, with the Carnival of Cadiz, the most important festival for Spanish tourism and Spain's largest Carnival.[159][160][161][162] In 1980, it was declared a Festival Tourist International Interest. Every February, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the largest of the Canary Islands, hosts the event, attracting around a million people.[163]
+
+In 1980, it was declared a Festival Tourist International Interest.[163] In 1987, Cuban singer Celia Cruz with orchestra Billo's Caracas Boys performed at the "Carnival Chicharrero", attended by 250,000 people. This was registered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest gathering of people in an outdoor plaza to attend a concert, a record she holds today.[citation needed]
+
+The Carnival of Las Palmas (Gran Canaria) has a drag queen's gala where a jury chooses a winner.[164]
+
+In Catalonia, people dress in masks and costume (often in themed groups) and organize a week-long series of parties, pranks, outlandish activities such as bed races, street dramas satirizing public figures, and raucous processions to welcome the arrival of Sa Majestat el Rei Carnestoltes ("His Majesty King Carnival"), known by various titles, including el Rei dels poca-soltes ("King of the Crackpots"), Princep etern de Cornudella ("Eternal Prince of Cuckoldry"), Duc de ximples i corrumputs ("Duke of Fools and the Corrupt"), Marquès de la bona mamella ("Marquis of the lovely breast"), Comte de tots els barruts ("Count of the Insolent"), Baró de les Calaverades ("Baron of Nocturnal Debaucheries"), and Senyor de l'alt Plàtan florit, dels barraquers i gamberrades i artista d'honor dalt del llit ("Lord of the Tall Banana in Bloom, of the Voyeurs and Punks and the Artist of Honor upon the Bed").[165]
+
+The King presides over a period of misrule in which conventional social rules may be broken and reckless behavior is encouraged. Festivities are held in the open air, beginning with a cercavila, a ritual procession throughout the town to call everyone to attend. Rues of masked revelers dance alongside. On Thursday, Dijous Gras (Fat Thursday) is celebrated, also called 'omelette day' (el dia de la truita), on which coques (de llardons, butifarra d'ou, butifarra), and omelettes are eaten. The festivities end on Ash Wednesday with elaborate funeral rituals marking the death of King Carnival, who is typically burned on a pyre in what is called the "burial of the sardine" (enterrament de la sardina), or, in Vilanova, as l'enterro.[166]
+
+The Carnival of Vilanova i la Geltrú has a documented history from 1790[167] and is one of the richest in the variety of its acts and rituals. It adopts an ancient style in which satire, the grotesque body[3] (particularly cross-dressing and displays of exaggerated bellies, noses, and phalli) and above all, active participation are valued over glamorous, media-friendly spectacles that Vilanovins mock as "thighs and feathers".[168] It is best known for Les Comparses (held on Sunday), a tumultuous dance in which thousands of dancers in traditional dresses and Mantons de Manila (Manila shawls), organized into groups of couples march in the street forming lines while throwing tons of hard candies at one another. Vilanovinians organize several rituals during the week. On Dijous Gras, Vilanovin children are excused from school to participate in the Merengada, a day-long scene of eating and fighting with sticky, sweet meringue while adults have a meringue battle at midnight at the historic Plaça de les Cols.
+
+On Friday citizens are called to a parade for the arrival of King Carnival called l'Arrivo that changes every year. It includes a raucous procession of floats and dancers lampooning current events or public figures and a bitingly satiric sermon (el sermo) delivered by the King himself. On Saturday, the King's procession and his concubines scandalize the town with their sexual behavior, the mysterious Moixo Foguer (Little-Bird-Bonfire) is shown accompanied by the Xerraire (jabberer) who try to convince the crowd about the wonders of this mighty bird he carries in a box (who is in fact a naked person covered in feathers).[169] and other items such as sport acts and barbecues in the streets, the talking-dance of the Mismatched Couples (Ball de Malcasats), the children's King Caramel whose massive belly, long nose and sausage-like hair hint at his insatiable appetites, or the debauched Nit dels Mascarots dance.
+
+After Sunday, vilanovinians continue its Carnival with the children's partyVidalet, the satirical chorus of Carnestoltes songs and the last night of revelry, the Vidalot. For the King's funeral, people dress in elaborate mourning costume, many of them cross-dressing men who carry bouquets of phallic vegetables. In the funeral house, the body of the King is surrounded by weeping concubines, crying over the loss of sexual pleasure brought about by his death. The King's body is carried to the Plaça de la Vila where a satiric eulogy is delivered while the townspeople eat salty grilled sardines with bread and wine, suggesting the symbolic cannibalism of the communion ritual. Finally, amid rockets and explosions, the King's body is burned in a massive pyre.[166][167]
+
+Carnaval de Solsona takes place in Solsona, Lleida. It is one of the longest; free events in the streets and nightly concerts run for more than a week. The Carnival is known for a legend that explains how a donkey was hung at the tower bell − because the animal wanted to eat grass that grew on the top of the tower. To celebrate this legend, locals hang a stuffed donkey at the tower that "pisses" above the excited crowd using a water pump. This event is the most important and takes place on Saturday night. For this reason, the inhabitants are called matarrucs ("donkey killers").[170]
+
+"Comparses" groups organize free activities. These groups of friends create and personalize a uniformed suit to wear during the festivities.[citation needed]
+
+In Sitges, special feasts include xatonades (xató is a traditional local salad of the Penedès coast) served with omelettes. Two important moments are the Rua de la Disbauxa (Debauchery Parade) on Sunday night and the Rua de l'Extermini (Extermination Parade) on Tuesday night. Around 40 floats draw more than 2,500 participants.[citation needed]
+
+Tarragona has one of the region's most complete ritual sequences. The events start with the building of a huge barrel and ends with its burning with the effigies of the King and Queen. On Saturday, the main parade takes place with masked groups, zoomorphic figures, music, and percussion bands, and groups with fireworks (the devils, the dragon, the ox, the female dragon). Carnival groups stand out for their clothes full of elegance, showing brilliant examples of fabric crafts, at the Saturday and Sunday parades. About 5,000 people are members of the parade groups.[citation needed]
+
+One of the most important Spanish Carnival Festivals is celebrated in Vinaròs, a small town situated in the northern part of the province of Castellón, Valencian Community.
+
+The Carnival Festival in Vinaròs has been declared of Regional Touristic Interest and in 2017, this outstanding and ancient show celebrates 35 years of History. The Carnival Festival in Vinaròs became a forbidden celebration during the Spanish Civil War but after the dictatorship, the party regained importance with the democracy's arrival.
+
+Every year in February, forty days before the Spanish Cuaresma, thirty-three "comparsas" go singing, dancing and walking down the streets in a great costumes’ parade in Vinaròs. In addition, other many festive, cultural and musical activities of all ages take place, such as an epic battle of confetti and flour, funny karaoke contests or the so-called "Entierro de la Sardina" (Burial of the Sardine).
+
+Nevertheless, the most important event is the gala performance of the Carnival's Queen. In this breathtaking show, it is elected the Queen of the Carnival, the major representative of the Carnival in Vinaròs all year round.[171]

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+
+
+Carnivora is an order of placental mammals that have specialized in primarily eating flesh. Its members are formally referred to as carnivorans, though some species are omnivorous, like raccoons and bears, and quite a few species like pandas are specialized herbivores. The word 'carnivore' is derived from Latin carō (stem carn-) "flesh" and vorāre "to devour", it refers to any meat-eating organism. The order Carnivora is the fifth largest order of mammals and one of the more successful members of the group; it comprises at least 279 species living on every major landmass and in a variety of habitats, ranging the cold polar regions to the hyper-arid region of the Sahara Desert to the open seas. They come in a huge array of different body plans in contrasting shapes and sizes. The smallest carnivoran is the least weasel (Mustela nivalis) with a body length of about 11 cm (4.3 in) and a weight of about 25 g (0.88 oz). The largest is the southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina), with adult males weighing up to 5,000 kg (11,000 lb) and measuring up to 6.7 m (22 ft). All species of carnivorans are descended from a group of mammals which were related to today's pangolins, having appeared in North America 6 million years after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.[3][4] These early ancestors of carnivorans would have resembled small weasel or genet-like mammals, occupying a nocturnal shift on the forest floor or in the trees, as other groups of mammals like the mesonychians and creodonts were occupying the top faunivorous niche. However, by the time Miocene epoch appeared, most if not all of the major lineages and families of carnivorans had diversified and took over this niche.
+
+Carnivora can be divided into two subclades: the cat-like Feliformia and the dog-like Caniformia which are differentiated based on the structure of their ear bones and cranial features. The feliforms include families such as the cats, the hyenas, the mongooses and the viverrids. The majority of feliform species are found in the Old World, though the cats and one extinct genus of hyena have successfully diversified into the Americas. The caniforms include the dogs, bears, raccoons, weasels, and pinnipeds. Members of this group are found worldwide and with incredible diversity in their diet, behavior, and morphology. Despite this the two groups of carnivorans share several unique traits, one being the presence of the carnassial teeth. In carnivorans the carnassial pair is made up by the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar teeth. There is variation among the carnassial pair depending on the family. Some species are cursorial and the foot posture in terrestrial species is either digitigrade or plantigrade. In pinnipeds the feet have become flippers where the locomotion is unique in each of the pinniped families.
+
+After primates, carnivorans are arguably the group of mammals of most interest to humans. The dog is noteworthy for not only being the first species of carnivoran to be domesticated, but also the first species of any organism. In the last 10 to 12,000 years humans have selectively bred dogs for a variety of different tasks and today there are well over 400 breeds. The cat is another domesticated carnivoran and it is today considered one of the most successful species on the planet, due to their close proximity to humans and the popularity of cats as pets. Many other species are popular, and they are often charismatic megafauna. Many civilizations have incorporated a species of carnivoran into their culture such as the lion, viewed as royalty. Yet many species such as wolves and the big cats have been broadly hunted, resulting in extirpation in some areas. Habitat loss and human encroachment as well as climate change have been the primary cause of many species going into decline. Four species of carnivorans have gone extinct since the 1600s: Falkland Island Wolf (Dusicyon australis) in 1876; the Sea Mink (Neovison macrodon) in 1894; the Japanese Sea Lion (Zalophus japonicus) in 1951 and the Caribbean Monk Seal (Neomonachus tropicalis) in 1952.[3] Some species such as the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and stoat (Mustela erminea) have been introduced to Australasia that have caused many native species to become endangered or even extinct.[5]
+
+The order Carnivora belongs to a group of mammals known as Laurasiatheria, which also includes other groups such as bats and ungulates.[6][7] Within this group the carnivorans are placed in the clade Ferae.  Ferae includes the closest extant relative of carnivorans, the pangolins, as well as several extinct groups of mostly Paleogene carnivorous placentals such as the creodonts, the arctocyonians, and mesonychians.[8] The creodonts were originally thought of as the sister taxon to the carnivorans, perhaps even ancestral to, based on the presence of the carnassial teeth.[9] but the nature of the carnassial teeth is different between the two groups. In carnivorans the carnassials are positioned near the front of the molar row, while in the creodonts they are positioned near the back of the molar row.[10] and this suggests a separate evolutionary history and an order-level distinction.[11]  In addition recent phylogenetic analysis suggests that creodonts are more closely related to pangolins while mesonychians might be the sister group to carnivorans and their stem-relatives.[8]
+
+The closest stem-carnivorans are the miacoids. The miacoids include the families Viverravidae and Miacidae, and together the Carnivora and Miacoidea form the stem-clade Carnivoramorpha.  The miacoids were small, gennet-like carnivoramorphs that occupy a variety of niches such as terrestrial and arboreal habitats. Recent studies have shown a supporting amount of evidence that Miacoidea is an evolutionary grade of canivoramorphs that, while viverravids are monophyletic basal group, the miacids are paraphyletic in respect to Carnivora (as shown in the phylogeny below).[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]
+
+Pholidotamorpha
+
+†Oxyaenodonta
+
+†Hyaenodonta (sensu stricto)
+
+†Altacreodus
+
+†Tinerhodon
+
+†Viverravidae
+
+†carnivoramorph sp. (UALVP 50993 & UALVP 50994)
+
+†Ravenictis
+
+†carnivoramorph sp. (UALVP 31176)
+
+†carnivoramorph sp. (WW-84: USNM 538395)
+
+†Neovulpavus
+
+†carnivoraform undet. Genus A (UCMP 110072)
+
+†"Miacis" medius
+
+†carnivoraform undet. Genus B (SDSNH 56335)
+
+†Dormaalocyon
+
+†"Miacis" exiguus
+
+†Vassacyon
+
+†Vulpavus
+
+†"Miacis" deutschi
+
+†Miocyon
+
+†Simamphicyon
+
+†Zodiocyon
+
+†Uintacyon
+
+†"Miacis" lushiensis
+
+†"Miacis" thailandicus
+
+†"Miacis" invictus
+
+†Miacis
+
+†carnivoraform sp. (PM 3868)
+
+†Dawsonicyon
+
+†"Miacis" petilus
+
+†"Miacis" latidens
+
+†"Miacis" boqinghensis
+
+†"Miacis" hookwayi
+
+†"Miacis" vulpinus
+
+†Paroodectes
+
+†Paramiacis
+
+†Eogale
+
+†Gracilocyon
+
+†Oodectes
+
+†Ceruttia
+
+†Prodaphaenus
+
+†Walshius
+
+Feliformia
+
+Caniformia
+
+Carnivoramorpha as a whole first appeared in the Paleocene of North America about 60 million years ago.[4] Crowned carnivorans first appeared around 42 million years ago in the Middle Eocene.[1] Their molecular phylogeny shows the extant Carnivora are a monophyletic group, the crown group of the Carnivoramorpha.[20] From there carnivorans have split into two clades based on the composition of the bony structures that surround the middle ear of the skull, the cat-like feliforms and the dog-like caniforms.[21] In feliforms, the auditory bullae are double-chambered, composed of two bones joined by a septum. Caniforms have single-chambered or partially divided auditory bullae, composed of a single bone.[22] Initially the early representatives of carnivorans were small as the creodonts dominated the niches as top apex predators, but by the Miocene most of the extant carnivoran families have diversified and successfully out-competed the creodonts.
+
+The phylogenetic relationships of the carnivorans are shown in the following cladogram:[23][24][25][26][27]
+
+†Miacidae (paraphyletic family)
+
+†Ceruttia
+
+†Walshius
+
+†Percrocutidae
+
+Hyaenidae (hyaenas)
+
+†Lophocyonidae
+
+Herpestidae (mongoose)
+
+Eupleridae (Malagasy mongooses)
+
+Viverridae (viverrids)
+
+†Shandgolictis
+
+†Asiavorator
+
+†Alagtsavbaatar
+
+†Anictis
+
+Prionodontidae (Asiatic linsangs)
+
+†Palaeoprionodon
+
+†Haplogale
+
+†Stenoplesictis
+
+†Pseudictis
+
+†Barbourofelidae
+
+†Viretictis
+
+†Stenogale
+
+Felidae (cats)
+
+Nandiniidae (African palm civet)
+
+†Nimravidae (false saber-toothed cats)
+
+†Palaeogalidae
+
+†Amphicyonidae ("bear-dogs")
+
+†Lycophocyon
+
+Canidae (canids)
+
+Ursidae (bears)
+
+†Adracon
+
+Procyonidae (raccoons)
+
+Mustelidae (mustelids)
+
+Ailuridae
+
+†Peignictis
+
+Mephitidae (skunks)
+
+†Plesiogale
+
+†Semantoridae
+
+†Enaliarctidae
+
+†Pinnarctidion
+
+†Pacificotaria
+
+†Pteronarctos
+
+Otariidae(eared seals)
+
+
+
+Odobenidae(walruses)
+
+
+
+†Desmatophocidae
+
+Phocidae(earless seals)
+
+
+
+In 1758 the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus placed all carnivorans known at the time into the group Ferae (not to be confused with the modern concept of Ferae which also includes pangolins) in the tenth edition of his book Systema Naturae. He recognized six genera: Canis (canids and hyaenids), Phoca (pinnipeds), Felis (felids), Viverra (viverrids, herpestids, and mephitids), Mustela (non-badger mustelids), Ursus (ursids, large species of mustelids, and procyonids).[28] It wasn't until 1821 that the English writer and traveler Thomas Edward Bowdich gave the group its modern and accepted name.[2]
+
+Initially the modern concept of Carnivora was divided into two suborders: the terrestrial Fissipedia and the marine Pinnipedia.[29] Below is the classification of how the extant families were related to each other after American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson in 1945:[29]
+
+Since then, however, the methods in which mammalogists use to assess the phylogenetic relationships among the carnivoran families has been improved with using more complicated and intensive incorporation of genetics, morphology and the fossil record. Research into Carnivora phylogeny since 1945 has found Fisspedia to be paraphlyetic in respect to Pinnipedia,[30] with pinnipeds being either more closely related to bears or to weasels.[31][32][33][34][35] The small carnivoran families Viverridae,[36] Procyonidae, and Mustelidae have found to be polyphyletic:
+
+Below is a table chart of the extant carnivoran families and number of extant species recognized by various authors of the first and fourth volumes of Handbook of the Mammals of the World published in 2009[47] and 2014[48] respectively:
+
+The canine teeth are usually large and conical. The canines are thick and incredibly stress resistant. All of the terrestrial species of carnivorans have three incisors on the top and bottom row of the dentition (the exception being is the sea otter (Enhydra lutris) which only has two lower incisor teeth).[49][50] The third molar has been lost. The carnassial pair is made up by the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar teeth. Like most mammals the dentition is heterodont in nature, though in some species like the aardwolf (Proteles cristata) the teeth have been greatly reduced and the cheek teeth are specialised for eating insects. In pinnipeds the teeth are homodont as they have evolved to grasp or to catch fish, and the cheek teeth are often lost.[50] In bears and raccoons the carnassial pair is secondarily reduced.[50] The skulls are heavily built with a strong zygomatic arch.[50] Often a sagittal crest is present, sometimes more evident in sexual dimorphic species like sea lions and fur seals, though it has also been greatly reduced seen in some small carnivorans.[50] The braincase is enlarged and the frontoparietal is position at the front of it. In most species the eyes are position at the front of the face. In caniforms the rostrum is usually longer with many teeth, where in comparison with felifoms the rostrum is shorter and have fewer teeth. The carnassial teeth in feliforms, however is more sectional.[50] The turbinates are large and complex in comparison to other mammals, providing a large surface area for olfactory receptors.[50]
+
+Aside from an accumulation of characteristics in the dental and cranial features, not much of their overall anatomy unites them as a group.[49]  All species of carnivorans have quadrupedal limbs with usually five digits at the front feet and four digits at the back feet. In terrestrial carnivorans the feet have soft pads. The feet can either be digitigrade seen in cats, hyenas and dogs or plantigrade seen in bears, skunks, raccoons, weasels, civets and mongooses. In pinnipeds the limbs have been modified into flippers. Unlike other marine mammals, such as cetaceans and sirenians which have fully functional tails to help them swim, pinnipeds use their limbs underwater for locomotion. In earless seals they use their back flippers; sea lions and fur seals use their front flippers, and the walrus use all of their limbs. This resulted in pinnipeds having significantly shorter tails. Aside from the pinnipeds, dogs, bears, hyenas, and cats have distinct and recognizable appearances. Dogs are usually cursorial mammals and are gracile in appearance, often relying on their teeth to hold to prey; bears are much larger and rely on their physical strength to forage for food. Cats in comparison to dogs and bears have much longer and stronger frontlimbs armed with retractable claws to hold on to prey. Hyenas are dog-like feliforms that have sloping backs due to their front legs being longer than their hindlegs. The raccoon family as well as the red panda are small, bear-like carnivorans with long tails. The other small carnivoran families Nandiniidae, Prionodontidae, Viverridae, Herpestidae, Eupleridae, Mephitidae and Mustelidae have through convergent evolution maintained the small, ancestral appearance of the miacoids, though there is some variation seen such as the robust and stout physicality of badgers and the wolverine (Gulo gulo).[49] Male carnivorans usually have bacula, though they are absent in hyenas and binturongs.[51]
+
+Depending on the environment the species is, the length and density of their fur varies. In warm climate species the fur is often short in length and lighter. In comparison to cold climate species the fur is either dense or long, often with an oily substance to keep them warm. The pelage coloration comes in many colors, often including black, white, orange, yellow, red, and many shades of gray and brown. There can be colored patterns too, such striped, spotted, blotched, banded, or otherwise boldly patterned. There seems to be a correlation between habitat and color pattern as for example spotted or banded species tend to be found in heavily forested environments.[49] Some species like the grey wolf is a polymorphic species with different individual variation in colors. The arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) and the stoat (Mustela erminea) the fur goes from white and dense in the winter to brown and sparse in the summer. In pinnipeds, polar bears, and sea otters have a thick insulating layer of blubber to help maintain their body temperature.

en/859.html.txt

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+
+
+Coordinates: 35°30′N 80°00′W / 35.5°N 80°W / 35.5; -80
+
+North Carolina (/ˌkærəˈlaɪnə/ (listen)) is a state in the southeastern region of the United States. North Carolina is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the 50 United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with an estimated population of 2,569,213 in 2018, is the most-populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 23rd-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City.[8] The Raleigh metropolitan area is the second-largest metropolitan area in the state, with an estimated population of 1,362,540 in 2018, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park.
+
+North Carolina was established as a royal colony in 1729 and is one of the original Thirteen Colonies. North Carolina is named in honor of King Charles I of England who first formed the English colony, with Carolus being Latin for "Charles". On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the United States Constitution. In the run-up to the American Civil War, North Carolina declared its secession from the Union on May 20, 1861, becoming the last of eleven states to join the Confederate States. Following the Civil War, the state was restored to the Union on June 25, 1868.[9] On December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully piloted the world's first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina's Outer Banks. North Carolina uses the slogan "First in Flight" on state license plates to commemorate this achievement, alongside a newer alternative design bearing the slogan "First in Freedom" in reference to the Mecklenburg Declaration.
+
+North Carolina is defined by a wide range of elevations and landscapes. From west to east, North Carolina's elevation descends from the Appalachian Mountains to the Piedmont and Atlantic coastal plain. North Carolina's Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet (2,037 m) is the highest-point in North America east of the Mississippi River.[10] Most of the state falls in the humid subtropical climate zone; however, the western, mountainous part of the state has a subtropical highland climate.
+
+Woodland-culture Native Americans were in the area around 1000 BCE; starting around 750 CE, Mississippian-culture Indians created larger political units with stronger leadership and more stable, longer-term settlements. During this time, important buildings were constructed as pyramidal, flat-topped buildings. By 1550, many groups of American Indians lived in present-day North Carolina, including Chowanoke, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, Coree, Cape Fear Indians, Waxhaw, Waccamaw, and Catawba.[11]
+
+Juan Pardo explored the area in 1566–1567, establishing Fort San Juan in 1567 at the site of the Native American community of Joara, a Mississippian culture regional chiefdom in the western interior, near the present-day city of Morganton. The fort lasted only 18 months; the local inhabitants killed all but one of the 120 men Pardo had stationed at a total of six forts in the area.[12] A later expedition by Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe followed in 1584, at the direction of Sir Walter Raleigh.[11]
+
+In June 1718, the pirate Blackbeard ran his flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, aground at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in present-day Carteret County. After the grounding her crew and supplies were transferred to smaller ships. In November, after appealing to the governor of North Carolina, who promised safe-haven and a pardon, Blackbeard was killed in an ambush by troops from Virginia.[13] In 1996 Intersal, Inc., a private firm, discovered the remains of a vessel likely to be the Queen Anne's Revenge, which was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[14]
+
+North Carolina became one of the English Thirteen Colonies and with the territory of South Carolina was originally known as the Province of North-Carolina. The northern and southern parts of the original province separated in 1729. Originally settled by small farmers, sometimes having a few slaves, who were oriented toward subsistence agriculture, the colony lacked cities or towns. Pirates menaced the coastal settlements, but by 1718 the pirates had been captured and killed. Growth was strong in the middle of the 18th century, as the economy attracted Scots-Irish, Quaker, English and German immigrants. A majority of the colonists generally supported the American Revolution, and a smaller number of Loyalists than in some other colonies such as Georgia, South Carolina, Delaware, New York.
+
+During colonial times, Edenton served as the state capital beginning in 1722, and New Bern was selected as the capital in 1766. Construction of Tryon Palace, which served as the residence and offices of the provincial governor William Tryon, began in 1767 and was completed in 1771. In 1788 Raleigh was chosen as the site of the new capital, as its central location protected it from coastal attacks. Officially established in 1792 as both county seat and state capital, the city was named after Sir Walter Raleigh, sponsor of Roanoke, the "lost colony" on Roanoke Island.[15] The population of the colony more than quadrupled from 52,000 in 1740 to 270,000 in 1780 from high immigration from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania plus immigrants from abroad.[16]
+
+North Carolina made the smallest per-capita contribution to the Revolutionary War of any state, as only 7,800 men joined the Continental Army under General George Washington; an additional 10,000 served in local militia units under such leaders as General Nathanael Greene.[17] There was some military action, especially in 1780–81. Many Carolinian frontiersmen had moved west over the mountains, into the Washington District (later known as Tennessee), but in 1789, following the Revolution, the state was persuaded to relinquish its claim to the western lands. It ceded them to the national government so the Northwest Territory could be organized and managed nationally.
+
+After 1800, cotton and tobacco became important export crops. The eastern half of the state, especially the Tidewater region, developed a slave society based on a plantation system and slave labor. Many free people of color migrated to the frontier along with their European-American neighbors, where the social system was looser. By 1810, nearly three percent of the free population consisted of free people of color, who numbered slightly more than ten thousand. The western areas were dominated by white families, especially Scots-Irish, who operated small subsistence farms. In the early national period, the state became a center of Jeffersonian and Jacksonian democracy, with a strong Whig presence, especially in the West. After Nat Turner's slave uprising in 1831, North Carolina and other southern states reduced the rights of free blacks. In 1835 the legislature withdrew their right to vote.
+
+On May 20, 1861, North Carolina was the last of the Confederate states to declare secession from the Union, 13 days after the Tennessee legislature voted for secession. Some 125,000 North Carolinians served in the military; 20,000 were killed in battle, the most of any state in the Confederacy, and 21,000 died of disease. The state government was reluctant to support the demands of the national government in Richmond, and the state was the scene of only small battles.
+
+With the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, the Reconstruction Era began. The United States abolished slavery without compensation to slaveholders or reparations to freedmen. A Republican Party coalition of black freedmen, northern carpetbaggers and local scalawags controlled state government for three years. The white conservative Democrats regained control of the state legislature in 1870, in part by Ku Klux Klan violence and terrorism at the polls, to suppress black voting. Republicans were elected to the governorship until 1876, when the Red Shirts, a paramilitary organization that arose in 1874 and was allied with the Democratic Party, helped suppress black voting. More than 150 black Americans were murdered in electoral violence in 1876.
+
+Post civil war-debt cycles pushed people to switch from subsistence agriculture to commodity agriculture. Among this time the notorious Crop-Lien system developed and was financially difficult on landless whites and blacks, due to high amounts of usury. Also due to the push for commodity agriculture, the free range was ended. Prior to this time people fenced in their crops and had their livestock feeding on the free range areas. After the ending of the free range people now fenced their animals and had their crops in the open.[citation needed]
+
+Democrats were elected to the legislature and governor's office, but the Populists attracted voters displeased with them. In 1896 a biracial, Populist-Republican Fusionist coalition gained the governor's office and passed laws that would extend the voting franchise to blacks and poor whites. The Democrats regained control of the legislature in 1896 and passed laws to impose Jim Crow and racial segregation of public facilities. Voters of North Carolina's 2nd congressional district elected a total of four African-American congressmen through these years of the late 19th century.
+
+Political tensions ran so high that a small group of white Democrats in 1898 planned to take over the Wilmington government if their candidates were not elected. In the Wilmington Insurrection of 1898, more than 1,500 white men attacked the black newspaper and neighborhood, killed numerous men, and ran off the white Republican mayor and aldermen. They installed their own people and elected Alfred M. Waddell as mayor, in the only coup d'état in United States history.[18]
+
+In 1899 the state legislature passed a new constitution, with requirements for poll taxes and literacy tests for voter registration which disenfranchised most black Americans in the state.[19] Exclusion from voting had wide effects: it meant black Americans could not serve on juries or in any local office. After a decade of white supremacy, many people forgot that North Carolina had ever had thriving middle-class black Americans.[20] Black citizens had no political voice in the state until after the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed to enforce their constitutional rights. It was not until 1992 that another African American was elected as a U.S. Representative from North Carolina.
+
+As in the rest of the former Confederacy, North Carolina had become a one-party state, dominated by the Democratic Party. Impoverished by the Civil War and vicious debt cycles, the state continued with an economy based on tobacco, cotton textiles and commodity agriculture. Towns and cities remained few in the east. A major industrial base emerged in the late 19th century in the counties of the Piedmont Triad, based on cotton mills established at the fall line. Railroads were built to connect the new industrializing cities. The state was the site of the first successful controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air flight, by the Wright brothers, near Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903. In the first half of the 20th century, many African Americans left the state to go North for better opportunities, in the Great Migration. Their departure changed the demographic characteristics of many areas.
+
+North Carolina was hard hit by the Great Depression, but the New Deal programs of Franklin D. Roosevelt for cotton and tobacco significantly helped the farmers. After World War II, the state's economy grew rapidly, highlighted by the growth of such cities as Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham in the Piedmont. Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill form the Research Triangle, a major area of universities and advanced scientific and technical research. In the 1990s, Charlotte became a major regional and national banking center. Tourism has also been a boon for the North Carolina economy as people flock to the Outer Banks coastal area and the Appalachian Mountains anchored by Asheville.
+
+By the 1970s, spurred in part by the increasingly leftward tilt of national Democrats, conservative whites began to vote for Republican national candidates and gradually for more Republicans locally. The Greensboro Sit-ins played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement to bring full equality to American blacks.
+
+North Carolina was inhabited for at least ten thousand years by succeeding prehistoric indigenous cultures. The Hardaway Site saw major periods of occupation as far back as 10,000 years. Before 200 AD, they were building earthwork mounds, which were used for ceremonial and religious purposes. Succeeding peoples, including those of the ancient Mississippian culture established by 1000 AD in the Piedmont, continued to build or add on to such mounds. In the 500–700 years preceding European contact, the Mississippian culture built large, complex cities and maintained far-flung regional trading networks. Its largest city was Cahokia, located in present-day Illinois near the Mississippi River.
+
+Historically documented tribes in the North Carolina region include the Carolina Algonquian-speaking tribes of the coastal areas, such as the Chowanoke, Roanoke, Pamlico, Machapunga, Coree, and Cape Fear Indians, who were the first encountered by the English; the Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin, Cherokee, and Tuscarora of the interior; and Southeastern Siouan tribes, such as the Cheraw, Waxhaw, Saponi, Waccamaw, and Catawba.
+
+Spanish explorers traveling inland in the 16th century met Mississippian culture people at Joara, a regional chiefdom near present-day Morganton. Records of Hernando de Soto attested to his meeting with them in 1540. In 1567 Captain Juan Pardo led an expedition to claim the area for the Spanish colony and to establish another route to protect silver mines in Mexico. Pardo made a winter base at Joara, which he renamed Cuenca. His expedition built Fort San Juan and left a contingent of 30 men there, while Pardo traveled further, and built and garrisoned five other forts. He returned by a different route to Santa Elena on Parris Island, South Carolina, then a center of Spanish Florida. In the spring of 1568, natives killed all but one of the soldiers and burned the six forts in the interior, including the one at Fort San Juan. Although the Spanish never returned to the interior, this effort marked the first European attempt at colonization of the interior of what became the United States. A 16th-century journal by Pardo's scribe Bandera and archaeological findings since 1986 at Joara have confirmed the settlement.[12][21]
+
+In 1584, Elizabeth I granted a charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, for whom the state capital is named, for land in present-day North Carolina (then part of the territory of Virginia).[22] It was the second American territory which the English attempted to colonize. Raleigh established two colonies on the coast in the late 1580s, but both failed. The fate of the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke Island remains one of the most widely debated mysteries of American history. Virginia Dare, the first English child to be born in North America, was born on Roanoke Island on August 18, 1587; Dare County is named for her.
+
+As early as 1650, settlers from the Virginia colony moved into the area of Albemarle Sound. By 1663, King Charles II of England granted a charter to start a new colony on the North American continent; it generally established North Carolina's borders. He named it Carolina in honor of his father Charles I.[23] By 1665, a second charter was issued to attempt to resolve territorial questions. In 1710, owing to disputes over governance, the Carolina colony began to split into North Carolina and South Carolina. The latter became a crown colony in 1729.
+
+In the 1700s, a series of smallpox epidemics swept the South, causing high fatalities among the Native Americans, who had no immunity to the new disease (it had become endemic in Europe).[24] According to the historian Russell Thornton, "The 1738 epidemic was said to have killed one-half of the Cherokee, with other tribes of the area suffering equally."[25]
+
+After the Spanish in the 16th century, the first permanent European settlers of North Carolina were English colonists who migrated south from Virginia. The latter had grown rapidly and land was less available. Nathaniel Batts was documented as one of the first of these Virginian migrants. He settled south of the Chowan River and east of the Great Dismal Swamp in 1655.[26] By 1663, this northeastern area of the Province of Carolina, known as the Albemarle Settlements, was undergoing full-scale English settlement.[27] During the same period, the English monarch Charles II gave the province to the Lords Proprietors, a group of noblemen who had helped restore Charles to the throne in 1660. The new province of "Carolina" was named in honor and memory of King Charles I (Latin: Carolus). In 1712, North Carolina became a separate colony. Except for the Earl Granville holdings, it became a royal colony seventeen years later.[28] A large revolt happened in the state in 1711 known as Cary's Rebellion.
+
+Differences in the settlement patterns of eastern and western North Carolina, or the Low Country and uplands, affected the political, economic, and social life of the state from the 18th until the 20th century. The Tidewater in eastern North Carolina was settled chiefly by immigrants from rural England and the Scottish Highlands. The upcountry of western North Carolina was settled chiefly by Scots-Irish, English, and German Protestants, the so-called "cohee". Arriving during the mid- to late 18th century, the Scots-Irish from what is today Northern Ireland were the largest non-English immigrant group before the Revolution; English indentured servants were overwhelmingly the largest immigrant group before the Revolution.[29][30][31][30][31][32] During the American Revolutionary War, the English and Highland Scots of eastern North Carolina tended to remain loyal to the British Crown, because of longstanding business and personal connections with Great Britain. The English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German settlers of western North Carolina tended to favor American independence from Britain.
+
+Most of the English colonists had arrived as indentured servants, hiring themselves out as laborers for a fixed period to pay for their passage. In the early years the line between indentured servants and African slaves or laborers was fluid. Some Africans were allowed to earn their freedom before slavery became a lifelong status. Most of the free colored families formed in North Carolina before the Revolution were descended from unions or marriages between free white women and enslaved or free African or African-American men. Because the mothers were free, their children were born free. Many had migrated or were descendants of migrants from colonial Virginia.[33] As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in Great Britain, planters imported more slaves, and the state's legal delineations between free and slave status tightened, effectively hardening the latter into a racial caste. The economy's growth and prosperity was based on slave labor, devoted primarily to the production of tobacco.
+
+On April 12, 1776, the colony became the first to instruct its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote for independence from the British Crown, through the Halifax Resolves passed by the North Carolina Provincial Congress. The date of this event is memorialized on the state flag and state seal. Throughout the Revolutionary War, fierce guerrilla warfare erupted between bands of pro-independence and pro-British colonists. In some cases the war was also an excuse to settle private grudges and rivalries. A major American victory in the war took place at King's Mountain along the North Carolina–South Carolina border; on October 7, 1780, a force of 1000 mountain men from western North Carolina (including what is today the state of Tennessee) and southwest Virginia overwhelmed a force of some 1000 British troops led by Major Patrick Ferguson. Most of the soldiers fighting for the British side in this battle were Carolinians who had remained loyal to the Crown (they were called "Tories" or Loyalists). The American victory at Kings Mountain gave the advantage to colonists who favored American independence, and it prevented the British Army from recruiting new soldiers from the Tories.
+
+The road to Yorktown and America's independence from Great Britain led through North Carolina. As the British Army moved north from victories in Charleston and Camden, South Carolina, the Southern Division of the Continental Army and local militia prepared to meet them. Following General Daniel Morgan's victory over the British Cavalry Commander Banastre Tarleton at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, southern commander Nathanael Greene led British Lord Charles Cornwallis across the heartland of North Carolina, and away from the latter's base of supply in Charleston, South Carolina. This campaign is known as "The Race to the Dan" or "The Race for the River".[28]
+
+In the Battle of Cowan's Ford, Cornwallis met resistance along the banks of the Catawba River at Cowan's Ford on February 1, 1781, in an attempt to engage General Morgan's forces during a tactical withdrawal.[34] Morgan had moved to the northern part of the state to combine with General Greene's newly recruited forces. Generals Greene and Cornwallis finally met at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse in present-day Greensboro on March 15, 1781. Although the British troops held the field at the end of the battle, their casualties at the hands of the numerically superior Continental Army were crippling. Following this "Pyrrhic victory", Cornwallis chose to move to the Virginia coastline to get reinforcements, and to allow the Royal Navy to protect his battered army. This decision would result in Cornwallis' eventual defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, later in 1781. The Patriots' victory there guaranteed American independence.
+
+On November 21, 1789, North Carolina became the twelfth state to ratify the Constitution. In 1840, it completed the state capitol building in Raleigh, still standing today. Most of North Carolina's slave owners and large plantations were located in the eastern portion of the state. Although North Carolina's plantation system was smaller and less cohesive than that of Virginia, Georgia, or South Carolina, significant numbers of planters were concentrated in the counties around the port cities of Wilmington and Edenton, as well as suburban planters around the cities of Raleigh, Charlotte, and Durham in the Piedmont. Planters owning large estates wielded significant political and socio-economic power in antebellum North Carolina, which was a slave society. They placed their interests above those of the generally non-slave-holding "yeoman" farmers of western North Carolina. In mid-century, the state's rural and commercial areas were connected by the construction of a 129 mi (208 km) wooden plank road, known as a "farmer's railroad", from Fayetteville in the east to Bethania (northwest of Winston-Salem).[28]
+
+Besides slaves, there were a number of free people of color in the state. Most were descended from free African Americans who had migrated along with neighbors from Virginia during the 18th century. The majority were the descendants of unions in the working classes between white women, indentured servants or free, and African men, indentured, slave or free.[35] After the Revolution, Quakers and Mennonites worked to persuade slaveholders to free their slaves. Some were inspired by their efforts and the language of the Revolution to arrange for manumission of their slaves. The number of free people of color rose markedly in the first couple of decades after the Revolution.[36]
+
+On October 25, 1836, construction began on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad[37] to connect the port city of Wilmington with the state capital of Raleigh. In 1849 the North Carolina Railroad was created by act of the legislature to extend that railroad west to Greensboro, High Point, and Charlotte. During the Civil War, the Wilmington-to-Raleigh stretch of the railroad would be vital to the Confederate war effort; supplies shipped into Wilmington would be moved by rail through Raleigh to the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.
+
+During the antebellum period, North Carolina was an overwhelmingly rural state, even by Southern standards. In 1860 only one North Carolina town, the port city of Wilmington, had a population of more than 10,000. Raleigh, the state capital, had barely more than 5,000 residents.
+
+While slaveholding was slightly less concentrated than in some Southern states, according to the 1860 census, more than 330,000 people, or 33% of the population of 992,622, were enslaved African Americans.[38] They lived and worked chiefly on plantations in the eastern Tidewater. In addition, 30,463 free people of color lived in the state.[38] They were also concentrated in the eastern coastal plain, especially at port cities such as Wilmington and New Bern, where a variety of jobs were available. Free African Americans were allowed to vote until 1835, when the state revoked their suffrage in restrictions following the slave rebellion of 1831 led by Nat Turner. Southern slave codes criminalized willful killing of a slave in most cases.[39]
+
+North Carolina was known as a 'Slave State' by 1860, in which one-third of the population was enslaved. This was a smaller proportion than in many other Southern states. The state did not vote to join the Confederacy until President Abraham Lincoln called on it to invade its sister state, South Carolina, becoming the last or penultimate state to officially join the Confederacy. The title of "last to join the Confederacy" has been disputed; although Tennessee's informal secession on May 7, 1861, preceded North Carolina's official secession on May 20,[40][41] the Tennessee legislature did not formally vote to secede until June 8, 1861.[42]
+
+Despite the State supplying the Confederacy with at least 125,000 troops, and Union with approx. 15,000 troops of all ranks it saw little action on its territory. The supply of Confederate troops was by far the greatest number of any of the Confederate States, of which approximately 40,000 of those died: more than half from disease, the remainder from battlefield wounds and starvation.[43] Elected in 1862, Governor Zebulon Baird Vance tried to maintain state autonomy against Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond.
+
+After secession, some North Carolinians refused to support the Confederacy. Some of the yeoman farmers in the state's mountains and western Piedmont region remained neutral during the Civil War, while some covertly supported the Union cause during the conflict. Approximately 2,000 North Carolinians from western North Carolina enlisted in the Union Army and fought for the North in the war. Two additional Union Army regiments were raised in the coastal areas of the state, which were occupied by Union forces in 1862 and 1863. Numerous slaves escaped to Union lines, where they became essentially free.
+
+Confederate troops from all parts of North Carolina served in virtually all the major battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederacy's most famous army. The largest battle fought in North Carolina was at Bentonville, which was a futile attempt by Confederate General Joseph Johnston to slow Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's advance through the Carolinas in the spring of 1865.[28] In April 1865, after losing the Battle of Morrisville, Johnston surrendered to Sherman at Bennett Place, in what is today Durham. North Carolina's port city of Wilmington was the last Confederate port to fall to the Union, in February 1865, after the Union won the nearby Second Battle of Fort Fisher, its major defense downriver.
+
+The first Confederate soldier to be killed in the Civil War was Private Henry Wyatt from North Carolina, in the Battle of Big Bethel in June 1861. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the 26th North Carolina Regiment participated in Pickett/Pettigrew's Charge and advanced the farthest into the Northern lines of any Confederate regiment. During the Battle of Chickamauga, the 58th North Carolina Regiment advanced farther than any other regiment on Snodgrass Hill to push back the remaining Union forces from the battlefield. At Appomattox Court House in Virginia in April 1865, the 75th North Carolina Regiment, a cavalry unit, fired the last shots of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the Civil War. For many years, North Carolinians proudly boasted that they had been "First at Bethel, Farthest at Gettysburg and Chickamauga, and Last at Appomattox".
+
+Following the collapse of the Confederacy in 1865, North Carolina, along with the rest of the former Confederate States, was put under direct control by the U.S. military and was relieved of its constitutional government and representation within the United States Congress in what is now referred to as the Reconstruction era. In order to earn back its rights, the state had to make concessions to Washington, one of which was the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment that was followed through by the North Carolina Supreme Court on December 4, 1865. Congressional Republicans during the Reconstruction, commonly referred to as "radical Republicans", constantly pushed for new constitutions for each of the Southern states that emphasized on equal rights for African-Americans. In 1868, a constitutional convention restored the state government of North Carolina. Though the Fifteenth Amendment was also adopted that same year, it remained in most cases ineffective for almost a century—not to mention paramilitary groups and their lynching with impunity.
+
+The elections in April 1868 following the constitutional convention led to a narrow victory for a Republican-dominated government, with 19 African-Americans holding positions in the North Carolina State Legislature. In attempt to put the reforms into effect, the new Republican Governor William W. Holden declared martial law on any county allegedly not complying with law and order using the passage of the Shoffner Act.
+
+North Carolina is bordered by South Carolina on the south, Georgia on the southwest, Tennessee on the west, Virginia on the north, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The United States Census Bureau places North Carolina in the South Atlantic division of the southern region.[44]
+
+North Carolina consists of three main geographic regions: the Atlantic coastal plain, occupying the eastern portion of the state; the central Piedmont region, and the Mountain region in the west, which is part of the Appalachian Mountains. The coastal plain consists of more specifically-defined areas known as the Outer Banks, a string of sandy, narrow barrier islands separated from the mainland by sounds or inlets, including Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound, the tidewater region, the native home of the venus flytrap, and the inner coastal plain, where longleaf pine trees are native.
+
+So many ships have been lost off Cape Hatteras that the area is known as the "Graveyard of the Atlantic"; more than a thousand ships have sunk in these waters since records began in 1526. The most famous of these is the Queen Anne's Revenge (flagship of the pirate Blackbeard), which went aground in Beaufort Inlet in 1718.[45]
+
+The coastal plain transitions to the Piedmont region along the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, the elevation at which waterfalls first appear on streams and rivers. The Piedmont region of central North Carolina is the state's most populous region, containing the six largest cities in the state by population.[46] It consists of gently rolling countryside frequently broken by hills or low mountain ridges. Small, isolated, and deeply eroded mountain ranges and peaks are located in the Piedmont, including the Sauratown Mountains, Pilot Mountain, the Uwharrie Mountains, Crowder's Mountain, King's Pinnacle, the Brushy Mountains, and the South Mountains. The Piedmont ranges from about 300 feet (91 m) in elevation in the east to about 1,500 feet (460 m) in the west.
+
+The western section of the state is part of the Appalachian Mountain range. Among the subranges of the Appalachian Mountains located in the state are the Great Smoky Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains, and Black Mountains.[47][48] The Black Mountains are the highest in the eastern United States, and culminate in Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet (2,037 m), the highest point east of the Mississippi River.[48][49]
+
+North Carolina has 17 major river basins. The five basins west of the Blue Ridge Mountains flow to the Gulf of Mexico, while the remainder flow to the Atlantic Ocean.[50] Of the 17 basins, 11 originate within the state of North Carolina, but only four are contained entirely within the state's border—the Cape Fear, the Neuse, the White Oak, and the Tar–Pamlico basin.[51]
+
+Elevation above sea level is most responsible for temperature change across the state, with the mountain area being coolest year-round. The climate is also influenced by the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf Stream, especially in the coastal plain. These influences tend to cause warmer winter temperatures along the coast, where temperatures only occasionally drop below the freezing point at night. The coastal plain averages around 1 inch (2.5 cm) of snow or ice annually, and in many years, there may be no snow or ice at all.[52]
+
+The Atlantic Ocean exerts less influence on the climate of the Piedmont region, which has hotter summers and colder winters than along the coast, though the average daily maximum is still below 90 °F (32 °C) in most locations.[52]
+
+North Carolina experiences severe weather both in summer and in winter, with summer bringing threat of hurricanes, tropical storms, heavy rain, and flooding.[53] Destructive hurricanes that have hit North Carolina include Hurricane Fran, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Floyd, Hurricane Hugo, and Hurricane Hazel, the latter being the strongest storm ever to make landfall in the state, as a Category 4 in 1954. Hurricane Isabel ranks as the most destructive of the 21st century.[54][55]
+
+North Carolina averages fewer than 20 tornadoes per year, many of them produced by hurricanes or tropical storms along the coastal plain. Tornadoes from thunderstorms are a risk, especially in the eastern part of the state. Western Piedmont is often protected by the mountains, which tend to break up storms as they try to cross over; the storms will often re-form farther east. A phenomenon known as "cold-air damming" often occurs in the northwestern part of the state, which can weaken storms but can also lead to major ice events in winter.[56]
+
+In April 2011, the worst tornado outbreak in North Carolina's history occurred. Thirty confirmed tornadoes touched down, mainly in the Eastern Piedmont and Sandhills, killing at least 24 people.[57][58] In September 2019 Hurricane Dorian hit the area.
+
+The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of North Carolina was 10,488,084 on July 1, 2019, an 9.99% increase since the 2010 Census.[65] Of the people residing in North Carolina 58.5% were born there; 33.1% were born in another state; 1.0% were born in Puerto Rico, U.S. Island areas, or born abroad to American parent(s); and 7.4% were foreign-born.[66]
+
+Demographics of North Carolina covers the variety of ethnic groups who reside in North Carolina, along with the relevant trends.
+
+The state's racial composition in the 2010 Census:[67]
+
+As of 2010, 89.66% (7,750,904) of North Carolina residents age five and older spoke English at home as a primary language, while 6.93% (598,756) spoke Spanish, 0.32% (27,310) French, 0.27% (23,204) German, and Chinese (which includes Mandarin) was spoken as a main language by 0.27% (23,072) of the population five and older. In total, 10.34% (893,735) of North Carolina's population age five and older spoke a mother language other than English.[71] North Carolina is also home to a spectrum of different dialects of Southern American English and Appalachian English.
+
+North Carolina residents, like those of other Southern states, since the colonial era have historically been overwhelmingly Protestant, first Anglican, then Baptist and Methodist. Before the Civil War, the Baptists split into regional associations of the North and South, over the issue of slavery.
+
+By the late 19th century, the largest Protestant denomination in North Carolina was the Baptist, when both whites and blacks were considered, but the latter people had set up their own organizations. After emancipation, black Baptists quickly set up their own independent congregations in North Carolina and other states of the South, as they wanted to be free of white supervision.[74][75][76] Black Baptists developed their own state and national associations, such as the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc..[75]
+
+While the Baptists in total (counting both blacks and whites) have maintained the majority in this part of the country (known as the Bible Belt), a wide variety of faiths are practiced by other residents in the state, including Judaism, Islam, Baha'i, Buddhism, and Hinduism. As of 2010 the Southern Baptist Convention was the biggest denomination, with 4,241 churches and 1,513,000 members; the second largest was the United Methodist Church, with 660,000 members and 1,923 churches. The third was the Roman Catholic Church, with 428,000 members in 190 congregations. The fourth greatest was the Presbyterian Church (USA), with 186,000 members and 710 congregations; this denomination was brought by Scots-Irish immigrants who settled the backcountry in the colonial era.[77]
+
+The state also has a special history with the Moravian Church, as settlers of this faith (largely of German origin) settled in the Winston-Salem area in the 18th and 19th centuries. Presbyterians, historically Scots-Irish, have had a strong presence in Charlotte and in Scotland County.
+
+Currently, the rapid influx of northerners and immigrants from Latin America is steadily increasing ethnic and religious diversity: the number of Roman Catholics and Jews in the state has increased, as well as general religious diversity. The second-largest Protestant denomination in North Carolina after Baptist traditions is Methodism, which is strong in the northern Piedmont, especially in populous Guilford County. There are also a substantial number of Quakers in Guilford County and northeastern North Carolina. Many universities and colleges in the state have been founded on religious traditions, and some currently maintain that affiliation, including:[78]
+
+The state also has several major seminaries, including the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, and the Hood Theological Seminary (AME Zion) in Salisbury.
+
+In 2016, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2015 population estimate counts for North Carolina's counties. Mecklenburg County has the largest population, while Wake County has the second largest population in North Carolina.[79]
+
+In 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2018 population estimate counts for North Carolina's cities with populations above 70,000. Charlotte has the largest population, while Raleigh has the highest population density of North Carolina's largest cities.[80]
+
+North Carolina has three major Combined Statistical Areas with populations of more than 1.6 million (U.S. Census Bureau 2018 estimates):[82]
+
+North Carolina's 2018 total gross state product was $496 billion.[83] Based on American Community Survey 2010–2014 data, North Carolina's median household income was $46,693. It ranked forty-first out of fifty states plus the District of Columbia for median household income. North Carolina had the fourteenth highest poverty rate in the nation at 17.6%. 13% of families were below the poverty line.
+[84]
+
+The state has a very diverse economy because of its great availability of hydroelectric power,[citation needed] its pleasant climate, and its wide variety of soils. The state ranks third among the South Atlantic states in population, but leads the region in industry[citation needed] and agriculture.[citation needed] North Carolina leads the nation in the production of tobacco,[85] textiles, and furniture.[citation needed] Charlotte, the state's largest city, is a major textile and trade center. According to a Forbes article written in 2013 Employment in the "Old North State" has gained many different industry sectors. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) industries in the area surrounding North Carolina's capital have grown 17.9 percent since 2001, placing Raleigh-Cary at No. 5 among the 51 largest metro areas in the country where technology is booming.[citation needed] In 2010, North Carolina's total gross state product was $424.9 billion,[86] while the state debt in November 2012, according to one source, totalled $2.4 billion,[87] while according to another, was in 2012 $57.8 billion.[88] In 2011, the civilian labor force was at around 4.5million with employment near 4.1 million.
+
+North Carolina is the leading U.S. state in production of flue-cured tobacco and sweet potatoes, and comes second in the farming of pigs and hogs, trout, and turkeys.[89][90] In the three most recent USDA surveys (2002, 2007, 2012), North Carolina also ranked second in the production of Christmas trees.[89][91][92]
+
+North Carolina has 15 metropolitan areas,[93] and in 2010 was chosen as the third-best state for business by Forbes Magazine, and the second-best state by Chief Executive Officer Magazine.[94] Since 2000, there has been a clear division in the economic growth of North Carolina's urban and rural areas. While North Carolina's urban areas have enjoyed a prosperous economy with steady job growth, low unemployment, and rising wages, many of the state's rural counties have suffered from job loss, rising levels of poverty, and population loss as their manufacturing base has declined. According to one estimate, one-half of North Carolina's 100 counties have lost population since 2010, primarily due to the poor economy in many of North Carolina's rural areas. However, the population of the state's urban areas is steadily increasing.[95]
+
+Transportation systems in North Carolina consist of air, water, road, rail, and public transportation including intercity rail via Amtrak and light rail in Charlotte. North Carolina has the second-largest state highway system in the country as well as the largest ferry system on the east coast.[96]
+
+North Carolina's airports serve destinations throughout the United States and international destinations in Canada, Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean. In 2013 Charlotte Douglas International Airport, which serves as the second busiest hub for American Airlines, ranked as the 23rd busiest airport in the world.[97]
+
+North Carolina has a growing passenger rail system with Amtrak serving most major cities. Charlotte is also home to North Carolina's only light rail system known as the Lynx.
+
+The government of North Carolina is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. These consist of the Council of State (led by the Governor), the bicameral legislature (called the General Assembly), and the state court system (headed by the North Carolina Supreme Court). The state constitution delineates the structure and function of the state government. North Carolina has 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and two seats in the U.S. Senate.
+
+North Carolina's party loyalties have undergone a series of important shifts in the last few years: While the 2010 midterms saw Tar Heel voters elect a bicameral Republican majority legislature for the first time in more than a century, North Carolina has also become a Southern swing state in presidential races. Since Southern Democrat Jimmy Carter's comfortable victory in the state in 1976, the state had consistently leaned Republican in presidential elections until Democrat Barack Obama narrowly won the state in 2008. In the 1990s, Democrat Bill Clinton came within a point of winning the state in 1992 and also only narrowly lost the state in 1996. In the early 2000s, Republican George W. Bush easily won the state by more than 12 points.
+
+By 2008, demographic shifts, population growth, and increased liberalization in densely populated areas such as the Research Triangle, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, and Asheville, propelled Barack Obama to victory in North Carolina, the first Democrat to win the state since 1976. In 2012, North Carolina was again considered a competitive swing state, with the Democrats even holding their 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte. However, Republican Mitt Romney ultimately eked out a two-point win in North Carolina, the only 2012 swing state that Obama lost, and one of only two states (along with Indiana) to flip from Obama in 2008 to the GOP in 2012.
+
+In 2012, the state elected a Republican Governor (Pat McCrory) and Lieutenant Governor (Dan Forest) for the first time in more than two decades, while also giving the Republicans veto-proof majorities in both the State House of Representatives and the State Senate.
+
+Because of gerrymandering in redistricting after the 2010 census, Democrats have been underrepresented in the state and Congressional delegations since 2012, although they have sometimes represented more than half the state's population.[100]
+
+Several U.S. House of Representatives seats flipped control in 2012, with the Republicans holding nine seats to the Democrats' four. In the 2014 mid-term elections, Republican David Rouzer won the state's seventh congressional district seat, increasing the congressional delegation party split to 10–3 in favor of the GOP.
+
+The state was sued for racially gerrymandering the districts, which resulted in minority voting power being diluted in some areas, resulting in skewed representation. The federal court ordered redistricting in 2015.[100]
+
+"I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats," David Lewis, a Republican state representative who led the redistricting effort, said at the time.[100]
+
+"North Carolina Republicans won 10 of the 13 seats in 2016, when Democrats got 47 percent of the statewide vote. In 2018 Republicans took nine, with one seat undecided, even though Democrats got 48 percent of the overall vote. (Excluding one district where a Republican ran unopposed, Democrats' share in 2018 was 51 percent.)"[100]
+
+(The undecided election in North Carolina's 9th congressional district is because the bipartisan State Election Board refused in February 2019 to certify the results, after an investigation found evidence of widespread ballot fraud committed by Republican operatives.)[101]
+
+Two suits challenging the state congressional district map were led by "two dozen voters, the state Democratic Party, the state chapter of the League of Women Voters, and the interest group Common Cause".[100] They contend that the redistricting resulted in deliberate under-representation of a substantial portion of voters. This case reached the United States Supreme Court in March 2019, which also heard a related partisan gerrymandering case from Maryland.[100]
+
+Elementary and secondary public schools are overseen by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction is the secretary of the North Carolina State Board of Education, but the board, rather than the superintendent, holds most of the legal authority for making public education policy. In 2009, the board's chairman also became the "chief executive officer" for the state's school system.[102] North Carolina has 115 public school systems, each of which is overseen by a local school board.[103][104] A county may have one or more systems within it. The largest school systems in North Carolina are the Wake County Public School System, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, Guilford County Schools, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, and Cumberland County Schools.[105] In total there are 2,425 public schools in the state, including over 200 charter schools.[106] North Carolina Schools were segregated until the Brown v. Board of Education trial and the release of the Pearsall Plan.
+
+In 1795, North Carolina opened the first public university in the United States—the University of North Carolina (now named the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).[107] More than 200 years later, the University of North Carolina system encompasses 17 public universities including North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, East Carolina University, Western Carolina University, Winston-Salem State University, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, UNC Wilmington, Elizabeth City State University, Appalachian State University, Fayetteville State University, and UNC School of the Arts, and .[108] Along with its public universities, North Carolina has 58 public community colleges in its community college system. The largest university in North Carolina is currently North Carolina State University, with more than 34,000 students.[109]
+
+North Carolina is also home to many well-known private colleges and universities, including Duke University,[110] Wake Forest University,[111] Pfeiffer University, Lees-McRae College, Davidson College, Barton College, North Carolina Wesleyan College, Elon University, Guilford College, Livingstone College, Salem College, Shaw University (the first historically black college or university in the South), Laurel University, Meredith College, Methodist University, Belmont Abbey College (the only Catholic college in the Carolinas), Campbell University, University of Mount Olive, Montreat College, High Point University, Lenoir-Rhyne University (the only Lutheran university in North Carolina) and Wingate University.
+
+Early newspapers were established in the eastern part of North Carolina in the mid-18th century. The Fayetteville Observer, established in 1816, is the oldest newspaper still in publication in North Carolina. The Wilmington Star-News, established 1867, is the oldest continuously running newspaper. As of January 1, 2020, there were approximately 240 North Carolina newspapers in publication in the state of North Carolina.[112]
+
+North Carolina is home to four major league sports franchises: the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association, and Charlotte FC of Major League Soccer are based in Charlotte, while the Raleigh-based Carolina Hurricanes play in the National Hockey League. The Panthers and Hurricanes are the only two major professional sports teams that have the same geographical designation while playing in different metropolitan areas. The Hurricanes are the only major professional team from North Carolina to have won a league championship, having captured the Stanley Cup in 2006. North Carolina is also home to two other top-level professional teams in less prominent sports—the Charlotte Hounds of Major League Lacrosse and the North Carolina Courage of the National Women's Soccer League.
+
+While North Carolina has no Major League Baseball team, it does have numerous minor league baseball teams, with the highest level of play coming from the AAA-affiliated Charlotte Knights and Durham Bulls. Additionally, North Carolina has minor league teams in other team sports including soccer and ice hockey, most notably North Carolina FC and the Charlotte Checkers, both of which play in the second tier of their respective sports.
+
+In addition to professional team sports, North Carolina has a strong affiliation with NASCAR and stock-car racing, with Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord hosting two Cup Series races every year. Charlotte also hosts the NASCAR Hall of Fame, while Concord is the home of several top-flight racing teams, including Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Stewart-Haas Racing, and Chip Ganassi Racing. Numerous other tracks around North Carolina host races from low-tier NASCAR circuits as well.
+
+Golf is a popular summertime leisure activity, and North Carolina has hosted several important professional golf tournaments. Pinehurst Resort in Pinehurst has hosted a PGA Championship, Ryder Cup, two U.S. Opens, and one U.S. Women's Open. The Wells Fargo Championship is a regular stop on the PGA Tour and is held at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, and Quail Hollow has also played host to the PGA Championship. The Wyndham Championship is played annually in Greensboro at Sedgefield Country Club.
+
+College sports are also popular in North Carolina, with 18 schools competing at the Division I level. The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is headquartered in Greensboro, and both the ACC Football Championship Game (Charlotte) and the ACC Men's Basketball Tournament (Greensboro) were most recently held in North Carolina. Additionally, the city of Charlotte is home to the National Junior College Athletics Association's (NJCAA) headquarters.[113] College basketball is very popular in North Carolina, buoyed by the Tobacco Road rivalries between ACC members North Carolina, Duke, North Carolina State, and Wake Forest. The ACC Championship Game and the Duke's Mayo Bowl are held annually in Charlotte's Bank of America Stadium, featuring teams from the ACC and the Southeastern Conference. Additionally, the state has hosted the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four on two occasions, in Greensboro in 1974 and in Charlotte in 1994.
+
+Charlotte is the most-visited city in the state, attracting 28.3 million visitors in 2018.[114] Area attractions include Carolina Panthers NFL football team and Charlotte Hornets basketball team, Carowinds amusement park, Charlotte Motor Speedway, U.S. National Whitewater Center, Discovery Place, Great Wolf Lodge, Sea Life Aquarium, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Billy Graham Library, Carolinas Aviation Museum, Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Levine Museum of the New South, McColl Center for Art + Innovation, Mint Museum, and the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
+
+Every year the Appalachian Mountains attract several million tourists to the western part of the state, including the historic Biltmore Estate. The scenic Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park are the two most visited national park and unit in the United States with more than 25 million visitors in 2013.[115] The City of Asheville is consistently voted as one of the top places to visit and live in the United States, known for its rich art deco architecture, mountain scenery and outdoor activities.[116][117]
+
+In Raleigh, many tourists visit the Capital, African American Cultural Complex, Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh, Gregg Museum of Art & Design at NCSU, Haywood Hall House & Gardens, Marbles Kids Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina Museum of History, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, Raleigh City Museum, J. C. Raulston Arboretum, Joel Lane House, Mordecai House, Montfort Hall, and the Pope House Museum. The Carolina Hurricanes NHL hockey team is also located in the city.
+
+In the Conover–Hickory area, Hickory Motor Speedway, RockBarn Golf and Spa, home of the Greater Hickory Classic at Rock Barn; Catawba County Firefighters Museum, and SALT Block attract many tourists to Conover. Hickory which has Valley Hills Mall.
+
+The Piedmont Triad, or center of the state, is home to Krispy Kreme, Mayberry, Texas Pete, the Lexington Barbecue Festival, and Moravian cookies. The internationally acclaimed North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro attracts visitors to its animals, plants, and a 57-piece art collection along five miles of shaded pathways in the world's largest-land-area natural-habitat park. Seagrove, in the central portion of the state, attracts many tourists along Pottery Highway (NC Hwy 705). MerleFest in Wilkesboro attracts more than 80,000 people to its four-day music festival; and Wet 'n Wild Emerald Pointe water park in Greensboro is another attraction.
+
+The Outer Banks and surrounding beaches attract millions of people to the Atlantic beaches every year.
+
+The mainland northeastern part of the state, having recently adopted the name the Inner Banks, is also known as the Albemarle Region, for the Albemarle Settlements, some of the first settlements on North Carolina's portion of the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The regions historic sites are connected by the Historic Albemarle Tour.
+
+North Carolina provides a large range of recreational activities, from swimming at the beach to skiing in the mountains. North Carolina offers fall colors, freshwater and saltwater fishing, hunting, birdwatching, agritourism, ATV trails, ballooning, rock climbing, biking, hiking, skiing, boating and sailing, camping, canoeing, caving (spelunking), gardens, and arboretums. North Carolina has theme parks, aquariums, museums, historic sites, lighthouses, elegant theaters, concert halls, and fine dining.[118][119]
+
+North Carolinians enjoy outdoor recreation utilizing numerous local bike paths, 34 state parks, and 14 national parks. National Park Service units include the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site at Flat Rock, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site at Manteo, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro, Moores Creek National Battlefield near Currie in Pender County, the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, Old Salem National Historic Site in Winston-Salem, the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, and Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. National Forests include Uwharrie National Forest in central North Carolina, Croatan National Forest in Eastern North Carolina, Pisgah National Forest in the western mountains, and Nantahala National Forest in the southwestern part of the state.
+
+North Carolina has traditions in art, music, and cuisine. The nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $1.2 billion in direct economic activity in North Carolina, supporting more than 43,600 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $119 million in revenue for local governments and the state of North Carolina.[120] North Carolina established the North Carolina Museum of Art as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding[121] and continues to bring millions into the NC economy.[122] Also see this list of museums in North Carolina.
+
+One of the more famous arts communities in the state is Seagrove, the handmade-pottery capital of the U.S., where artisans create handcrafted pottery inspired by the same traditions that began in this community more than 200 years ago..
+
+North Carolina boasts a large number of noteworthy jazz musicians, some among the most important in the history of the genre. These include: John Coltrane, (Hamlet, High Point); Thelonious Monk (Rocky Mount); Billy Taylor (Greenville); Woody Shaw (Laurinburg); Lou Donaldson (Durham); Max Roach (Newland); Tal Farlow (Greensboro); Albert, Jimmy and Percy Heath (Wilmington); Nina Simone (Tryon); and Billy Strayhorn (Hillsborough).
+
+North Carolina is also famous for its tradition of old-time music, and many recordings were made in the early 20th century by folk-song collector Bascom Lamar Lunsford. Musicians such as the North Carolina Ramblers helped solidify the sound of country music in the late 1920s, while the influential bluegrass musician Doc Watson also hailed from North Carolina. Both North and South Carolina are hotbeds for traditional rural blues, especially the style known as the Piedmont blues.
+
+Ben Folds Five originated in Winston-Salem, and Ben Folds still records and resides in Chapel Hill.
+
+The British band Pink Floyd is named, in part, after Chapel Hill bluesman Floyd Council.
+
+The Research Triangle area has long been a well-known center for folk, rock, metal, jazz and punk.[123] James Taylor grew up around Chapel Hill, and his 1968 song "Carolina in My Mind" has been called an unofficial anthem for the state.[124][125][126] Other famous musicians from North Carolina include J. Cole, Shirley Caesar, Roberta Flack, Clyde McPhatter, Nnenna Freelon, Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, Michael Houser, Eric Church, Future Islands, Randy Travis, Ryan Adams, Ronnie Milsap, Anthony Hamilton, The Avett Brothers and Luke Combs.
+
+Metal and punk acts such as Corrosion of Conformity, Between the Buried and Me, and Nightmare Sonata are native to North Carolina.
+
+EDM producer Porter Robinson hails from Chapel Hill.
+
+North Carolina is the home of more American Idol finalists than any other state: Clay Aiken (season two), Fantasia Barrino (season three), Chris Daugherty (season five), Kellie Pickler (season five), Bucky Covington (season five), Anoop Desai (season eight), Scotty McCreery (season ten), and Caleb Johnson (season thirteen). North Carolina also has the most American Idol winners with Barrino, McCreery, and Johnson.
+
+In the mountains, the Brevard Music Center hosts choral, operatic, orchestral, and solo performances during its annual summer schedule.
+
+North Carolina has five professional opera companies: Opera Carolina in Charlotte, NC Opera in Raleigh, Greensboro Opera in Greensboro, Piedmont Opera in Winston-Salem, and Asheville Lyric Opera in Asheville. Academic conservatories and universities also produce fully staged operas, such as the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, the Department of Music of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and UNC Greensboro.
+
+Among others, there are three high-level symphonic orchestras: NC Symphony in Raleigh, Charlotte Symphony, and Winston-Salem Symphony. The NC Symphony holds the North Carolina Master Chorale. The Carolina Ballet is headquartered in Raleigh, and there is also the Charlotte Ballet.
+
+The state boasts three performing arts centers: DPAC in Durham, Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, and the Blumenthal Performing Art Centers in Charlotte. They feature concerts, operas, recitals, and traveling Broadway musicals.
+
+Hip-hop artists DaBaby and J. Cole hail from North Carolina.
+
+Also, see the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.
+
+North Carolina has a variety of shopping choices. SouthPark Mall in Charlotte is currently the largest in the Carolinas, with almost 2.0 million square feet. Other major malls in Charlotte include Northlake Mall and Carolina Place Mall in nearby suburb Pineville. Other major malls throughout the state include Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, The Thruway Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Crabtree Valley Mall, North Hills Mall, and Triangle Town Center in Raleigh; Friendly Center and Four Seasons Town Centre in Greensboro; Oak Hollow Mall in High Point; Concord Mills in Concord; Valley Hills Mall in Hickory; Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville; and The Streets at Southpoint and Northgate Mall in Durham and Independence Mall in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Tanger Outlets in Charlotte, Nags Head, Blowing Rock, and Mebane, North Carolina.
+
+A culinary staple of North Carolina is pork barbecue. There are strong regional differences and rivalries over the sauces and methods used in making the barbecue. The common trend across Western North Carolina is the use of premium grade Boston butt. Western North Carolina pork barbecue uses a tomato-based sauce, and only the pork shoulder (dark meat) is used. Western North Carolina barbecue is commonly referred to as Lexington barbecue after the Piedmont Triad town of Lexington, home of the Lexington Barbecue Festival, which attracts more than 100,000 visitors each October.[127][128] Eastern North Carolina pork barbecue uses a vinegar-and-red-pepper-based sauce and the "whole hog" is cooked, thus integrating both white and dark meat.
+
+Krispy Kreme, an international chain of doughnut stores, was started in North Carolina; the company's headquarters are in Winston-Salem. Pepsi-Cola was first produced in 1898 in New Bern. A regional soft drink, Cheerwine, was created and is still based in the city of Salisbury. Despite its name, the hot sauce Texas Pete was created in North Carolina; its headquarters are also in Winston-Salem. The Hardee's fast-food chain was started in Rocky Mount. Another fast-food chain, Bojangles', was started in Charlotte, and has its corporate headquarters there. A popular North Carolina restaurant chain is Golden Corral. Started in 1973, the chain was founded in Fayetteville, with headquarters located in Raleigh. Popular pickle brand Mount Olive Pickle Company was founded in Mount Olive in 1926. Fast casual burger chain Hwy 55 Burgers, Shakes & Fries also makes its home in Mount Olive. Cook Out, a popular fast-food chain featuring burgers, hot dogs, and milkshakes in a wide variety of flavors, was founded in Greensboro in 1989 and has begun expanding outside of North Carolina. In 2013, Southern Living named Durham–Chapel Hill the South's "Tastiest City".
+
+Over the last decade, North Carolina has become a cultural epicenter and haven for internationally prize-winning wine (Noni Bacca Winery), internationally prized cheeses (Ashe County), "L'institut International aux Arts Gastronomiques: Conquerront Les Yanks les Truffes, January 15, 2010" international hub for truffles (Garland Truffles), and beer making, as tobacco land has been converted to grape orchards while state laws regulating alcohol content in beer allowed a jump in ABV from 6% to 15%. The Yadkin Valley in particular has become a strengthening market for grape production, while Asheville recently won the recognition of being named 'Beer City USA'. Asheville boasts the largest number of breweries per capita of any city in the United States. Recognized and marketed brands of beer in North Carolina include Highland Brewing, Duck Rabbit Brewery, Mother Earth Brewery, Weeping Radish Brewery, Big Boss Brewing, Foothills Brewing, Carolina Brewing Company, Lonerider Brewing, and White Rabbit Brewing Company.
+
+North Carolina has large grazing areas for beef and dairy cattle. Truck farms can be found in North Carolina. A truck farm is a small farm where fruits and vegetables are grown to be sold at local markets. The state's shipping, commercial fishing, and lumber industries are important to its economy. Service industries, including education, health care, private research, and retail trade, are also important. Research Triangle Park, a large industrial complex located in the Raleigh-Durham area, is one of the major centers in the country for electronics and medical research.[citation needed]
+
+Tobacco was one of the first major industries to develop after the Civil War. Many farmers grew some tobacco, and the invention of the cigarette made the product especially popular. Winston-Salem is the birthplace of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR), founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1874 as one of 16 tobacco companies in the town. By 1914 it was selling 425 million packs of Camels a year. Today it is the second-largest tobacco company in the U.S. (behind Altria Group). RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., which in turn is 42% owned by British American Tobacco.[129]
+
+Several ships have been named after the state. Most famous is the USS North Carolina, a World War II battleship. The ship served in several battles against the forces of Imperial Japan in the Pacific theater during the war. Now decommissioned, it is part of the USS North Carolina Battleship Memorial in Wilmington. Another USS North Carolina, a nuclear attack submarine, was commissioned in Wilmington, North Carolina, on May 3, 2008.[130]
+
+The state maintains a group of protected areas known as the North Carolina State Park System, which is managed by the North Carolina Division of Parks & Recreation (NCDPR), an agency of the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR).
+
+Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville and Southern Pines, is a large and comprehensive military base and is the headquarters of the XVIII Airborne Corps, 82nd Airborne Division, and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. Serving as the air wing for Fort Bragg is Pope Field, also located near Fayetteville.
+
+Located in Jacksonville, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, combined with nearby bases Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point, MCAS New River, Camp Geiger, Camp Johnson, Stone Bay and Courthouse Bay, makes up the largest concentration of Marines and sailors in the world. MCAS Cherry Point is home of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing. Located in Goldsboro, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base is home of the 4th Fighter Wing and 916th Air Refueling Wing. One of the busiest air stations in the United States Coast Guard is located at the Coast Guard Air Station in Elizabeth City. Also stationed in North Carolina is the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point in Southport.
+
+On January 24, 1961, a B-52G broke up in midair and crashed after suffering a severe fuel loss, near Goldsboro, dropping two nuclear bombs in the process without detonation.[134] In 2013, it was revealed that three safety mechanisms on one bomb had failed, leaving just one low-voltage switch preventing detonation.[135]

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+
+
+Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎, romanized: ʿīd al-ʾaḍḥā, lit. 'Feast of the Sacrifice', IPA: [ʕiːd alˈʔadˤħaː]) , also called the "Festival of the Sacrifice", is the second of two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year (the other being Eid al-Fitr), and considered the holier of the two. It honors the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ismael as an act of obedience to God's command. But, before Ibrahim could sacrifice his son, God provided a lamb to sacrifice instead. In commemoration of this intervention, an animal, usually a sheep, is sacrificed ritually and divided into three parts. One share is given to the poor and needy, another is kept for home, and the third is given to relatives.
+
+In the Islamic lunar calendar, Eid al-Adha falls on the 10th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, and lasts for four days. In the international (Gregorian) calendar, the dates vary from year to year shifting approximately 11 days earlier each year.
+
+In languages other than Arabic, the name is often simply translated into the local language, such as  Eid Qurban  (Persian: عيد قربان‎), Qurban Bayrami (Azerbaijani: Qurban Bayramı), Tafaska tameqrant (Berber languages: Amazigh), English Feast of the Sacrifice, German Opferfest, Dutch Offerfeest, Romanian Sărbătoarea Sacrificiului, and Hungarian Áldozati ünnep. In Spanish it is known as Fiesta del Cordero[5] or Fiesta del Borrego (both meaning "festival of the lamb"). In Kurdish it is known as (Cejna Qurbanê / جەژنی قوربان). It is also known as Eid Qurban (عید قربان) in Persian speaking countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, Kurban Bayramı[6][7] in Turkey, Qurban Bayramı in Azerbaijan, 
+কোরবানীর ঈদ in Bangladesh, as عید الكبير the big Feast in the Maghreb, as Iduladha, Hari Raya Aidiladha, Hari Raya Haji or Hari Raya Korban in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, as بکرا عید  "Goat Eid" or بڑی عید "Greater Eid" in India and Pakistan, Bakara Eid in Trinidad and Tobago, as 𞤔𞤓𞥅𞤂𞤁𞤉 𞤁𞤌𞤐𞤑𞤋𞤐 or Juulde Donkin in the Fulfulde language, as Tabaski or Tobaski in The Gambia, Guinea, and Senegal (most probably borrowed from the Serer language – and an ancient Serer religious festival[8][9][10][11]), and as Odún Iléyá by the Yorúbà people of Nigeria[12][13][14][15]
+
+The following names are used as other names of Eid al-Adha:
+
+The word عيد (ʿīd) means 'festival', 'celebration', 'feast day', or 'holiday'. It itself is a triliteral root ‏عيد‎ with associated root meanings of "to go back, to rescind, to accrue, to be accustomed, habits, to repeat, to be experienced; appointed time or place, anniversary, feast day."[19][20] Arthur Jeffery contests this etymology, and believes the term to have been borrowed into Arabic from Syriac, or less likely Targumic Aramaic.[21]
+
+The words أضحى (aḍḥā) and قربان (qurbān) are synonymous in meaning 'sacrifice' (animal sacrifice), 'offering' or 'oblation'. The first word comes from the triliteral root ضحى (ḍaḥḥā) with associated meanings of "immolate ; offer up ; sacrifice ; victimize."[22] No occurrence of this root with a meaning related to sacrifice occurs in the Qur'an[19] but in the Hadith literature. Arab Christians use the term to mean the Eucharistic host. The second word derives from the triliteral root ‏‏قرب‎‎ (qaraba) with associated meanings of "closeness, proximity... to moderate; kinship...; to hurry; ...to seek, to seek water sources...; scabbard, sheath; small boat; sacrifice."[20] Arthur Jeffery recognizes the same Semitic root, but believes the sense of the term to have entered Arabic through Aramaic.[21] Compare Hebrew korban קָרבן (qorbān).
+
+One of the main trials of Ibrahim's life was to face the command of God by sacrificing his beloved son.[23] In Islam, Ibrahim kept having dreams that he was sacrificing his son Ismael. Ibrahim knew that this was a command from God and he told his son, as stated in the Quran "O'son, I keep dreaming that I am slaughtering you", Ismael replied " Father, do what you are ordered to do." Ibraham prepared to submit to the will of God and prepared to slaughter his son as an act of faith and obedience to God.[24] During this preparation, Shaytaan (the Devil) tempted Ibraham and his family by trying to dissuade them from carrying out God's commandment, and Ibraham drove Satan away by throwing pebbles at him. In commemoration of their rejection of Satan, stones are thrown at symbolic pillars Stoning of the Devil during Hajj rites.[25]
+
+Acknowledging that Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice what is dear to him, God the almighty honoured both Ibrahim and Ismael. Jibreel (Gabriel) called Ibrahim "O' Ibrahim, you have fulfilled the revelations." and a Ram from heaven was offered by Jibreel to prophet Ibrahim to slaughter instead of Ismael. Muslims worldwide celebrate Eid al Adha to commemorate both the devotion of Ibrahim and the survival of Ismael.[26][27][28]
+
+This story is known as the Akedah in Judaism (Binding of Isaac) and originates in the Torah,[29] the first book of Moses (Genesis, Ch. 22). The Quran refers to the Akedah as follows:[30]
+
+100 "O my Lord! Grant me a righteous (son)!"
+101 So We gave him the good news of a boy ready to suffer and forbear.
+102 Then, when (the son) reached (the age of) (serious) work with him, he said: "O my son! I see in vision that I offer thee in sacrifice: Now see what is thy view!" (The son) said: "O my father! Do as thou art commanded: thou will find me if Allah so wills one practicing Patience and Constancy!"
+103 So when they had both submitted their wills (to Allah), and he had laid him prostrate on his forehead (for sacrifice),
+104 We called out to him "O Ibraham!
+105 "Thou hast already fulfilled the vision!" –  thus indeed do We reward those who do right.
+106 For this was obviously a trial–
+107 And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice:
+108 And We left (this blessing) for him among generations (to come) in later times:
+109 "Peace and salutation to Abraham!"
+110 Thus indeed do We reward those who do right.
+111 For he was one of our believing Servants.
+112 And We gave him the good news of Isaac –  a prophet –  one of the Righteous.
+
+The word "Eid" appears once in Al-Ma'ida, the fifth sura of the Quran, with the meaning "solemn festival".[32]
+
+The purpose of  Sacrifice in Eid al-Adha is not about shedding of blood just to satisfy Allah. It is about sacrificing something devotees love the most to show their devotion to Allah. It is also obligatory to share the meat of the sacrificed animal in three equivalent parts - for family, for relatives and friends, and for poor people. The celebration has a clear message of devotion, kindness and equality. It is said that the meat will not reach to Allah, nor will the blood, but what reaches him is the devotion of devotees.[33]
+
+Devotees offer the Eid al-Adha prayers at the mosque. The Eid al-Adha prayer is performed any time after the sun completely rises up to just before the entering of Zuhr time, on the 10th of Dhu al-Hijjah. In the event of a force majeure (e.g. natural disaster), the prayer may be delayed to the 11th of Dhu al-Hijjah and then to the 12th of Dhu al-Hijjah.[34]
+
+Eid prayers must be offered in congregation. Participation of women in the prayer congregation varies from community to community.[35] It consists of two rakats (units) with seven takbirs in the first Raka'ah and five Takbirs in the second Raka'ah. For Shia Muslims, Salat al-Eid differs from the five daily canonical prayers in that no adhan (call to prayer) or iqama (call) is pronounced for the two Eid prayers.[36][37] The salat (prayer) is then followed by the khutbah, or sermon, by the Imam.
+
+At the conclusion of the prayers and sermon, Muslims embrace and exchange greetings with one another (Eid Mubarak), give gifts and visit one another. Many Muslims also take this opportunity to invite their friends, neighbours, co-workers and classmates to their Eid festivities to better acquaint them about Islam and Muslim culture.[38]
+
+During Eid al-Adha, distributing meat amongst the people, chanting the takbir out loud before the Eid prayers on the first day and after prayers throughout the three days of Eid, are considered essential parts of this important Islamic festival.[39]
+
+The takbir consists of:[40]
+
+الله أكبر الله أكبر
+لا إله إلا الله
+الله أكبر الله أكبر
+ولله الحمد
+
+Allāhu akbar, allāhu akbar
+lā ilāha illā-llāh
+allāhu akbar, allāhu akbar
+walillāhi l-ḥamd[a]
+
+Men, women, and children are expected to dress in their finest clothing to perform Eid prayer in a large congregation in an open waqf ("stopping") field called Eidgah or mosque. Affluent Muslims who can afford it sacrifice their best halal domestic animals (usually a cow, but can also be a camel, goat, sheep, or ram depending on the region) as a symbol of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son.[41] The sacrificed animals, called aḍḥiya (Arabic: أضحية‎), known also by the Perso-Arabic term qurbāni, have to meet certain age and quality standards or else the animal is considered an unacceptable sacrifice.[42] In Pakistan alone nearly ten million animals are slaughtered on Eid days costing over US$2.0 billion.[43]
+
+The meat from the sacrificed animal is preferred to be divided into three parts. The family retains one-third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends, and neighbors; and the remaining third is given to the poor and needy.[41]
+
+Muslims wear their new or best clothes. Women cook special sweets, including ma'amoul (filled shortbread cookies). They gather with family and friends.[34]
+
+While Eid al-Adha is always on the same day of the Islamic calendar, the date on the Gregorian calendar varies from year to year since the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. The lunar calendar is approximately eleven days shorter than the solar calendar.[44] Each year, Eid al-Adha (like other Islamic holidays) falls on one of about two to four different Gregorian dates in different parts of the world, because the boundary of crescent visibility is different from the International Date Line.
+
+The following list shows the official dates of Eid al-Adha for Saudi Arabia as announced by the Supreme Judicial Council. Future dates are estimated according to the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia.[45] The Umm al-Qura is just a guide for planning purposes and not the absolute determinant or fixer of dates. Confirmations of actual dates by moon sighting are applied on the 29th day of the lunar month prior to Dhu al-Hijjah[46] to announce the specific dates for both Hajj rituals and the subsequent Eid festival. The three days after the listed date are also part of the festival. The time before the listed date the pilgrims visit the Mount Arafat and descend from it after sunrise of the listed day.
+
+In many countries, the start of any lunar Hijri month varies based on the observation of new moon by local religious authorities, so the exact day of celebration varies by locality.
+
+Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest,
+There is no god but Allah
+Allah is greatest, Allah is greatest
+and to Allah goes all praise.[34]
+
+(federal) = federal holidays, (abbreviation) = state/territorial holidays, (religious) = religious holidays, (cultural) = holiday related to a specific racial/ethnic group or sexual minority, (week) = week-long holidays, (month) = month-long holidays, (36) = Title 36 Observances and Ceremonies
+Bold indicates major holidays commonly celebrated in the United States, which often represent the major celebrations of the month.

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+Coordinates: 34°N 81°W / 34°N 81°W / 34; -81
+
+South Carolina (/ˌkærəˈlaɪnə/ (listen)) is a state in the Southeastern United States and the easternmost of the Deep South. It is bordered to the north by North Carolina, to the southeast by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the southwest by Georgia across the Savannah River.
+
+South Carolina became the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on May 23, 1788. It also became the first state to vote in favor of secession from the Union on December 20, 1860. After the American Civil War, it was readmitted into the United States on June 25, 1868.
+
+South Carolina is the 40th most extensive and 23rd most populous U.S. state. In 2019 its GDP was $249.9 billion. South Carolina is composed of 46 counties. The capital is Columbia with a population of 133,451 in 2018;[6] while its largest city is Charleston with a 2018 population of 136,208.[7] The Greenville–Anderson–Mauldin metropolitan area is the largest in the state, with a 2018 population estimate of 906,626.[8]
+
+South Carolina is named in honor of King Charles I of England, who first formed the English colony, with Carolus being Latin for "Charles".[9]
+
+The state can be divided into three natural geographic areas which then can then be subdivided into five distinct cultural regions. The natural environment is divided from east to west by the Atlantic coastal plain, the Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Culturally, the coastal plain is split into the Lowcountry and the Pee Dee region. While, the upper Piedmont region is referred to as the Piedmont and the lower Piedmont region is referred to as the Midlands. The area surrounding the Blue Ridge Mountains is known as the Upstate.[10] The Atlantic Coastal Plain makes up two-thirds of the state. Its eastern border is the Sea Islands, a chain of tidal and barrier islands. The border between the lowcountry and the upcountry is defined by the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, which marks the limit of navigable rivers.
+
+The Atlantic Coastal Plain consists of sediments and sedimentary rocks that range in age from Cretaceous to Present. The terrain is relatively flat and the soil is composed predominantly of sand, silt, and clay. Areas with better drainage make excellent farmland, though some land is swampy. An unusual feature of the coastal plain is a large number of low-relief topographic depressions named Carolina bays. The bays tend to be oval, lining up in a northwest to southeast orientation. The eastern portion of the coastal plain contains many salt marshes and estuaries, as well as natural ports such as Georgetown and Charleston. The natural areas of the coastal plain are part of the Middle Atlantic coastal forests ecoregion.[11]
+
+The Sandhills or Carolina Sandhills is a 10–35 mi (16–56 km) wide region within the Atlantic Coastal Plain province, along the inland margin of this province. The Carolina Sandhills are interpreted as eolian (wind-blown) sand sheets and dunes that were mobilized episodically from approximately 75,000 to 6,000 years ago. Most of the published luminescence ages from the sand are coincident with the last glaciation, a time when the southeastern United States was characterized by colder air temperatures and stronger winds.[12]
+
+Much of Piedmont consists of Paleozoic metamorphic and igneous rocks, and the landscape has relatively low relief. Due to the changing economics of farming, much of the land is now reforested in loblolly pine for the lumber industry. These forests are part of the Southeastern mixed forests ecoregion.[11] At the southeastern edge of Piedmont is the fall line, where rivers drop to the coastal plain. The fall line was an important early source of water power. Mills built to harness this resource encouraged the growth of several cities, including the capital, Columbia. The larger rivers are navigable up to the fall line, providing a trade route for mill towns.
+
+The northwestern part of Piedmont is also known as the Foothills. The Cherokee Parkway is a scenic driving route through this area. This is where Table Rock State Park is located.
+
+The Blue Ridge consists primarily of Precambrian metamorphic rocks, and the landscape has relatively high relief. The Blue Ridge Region contains an escarpment of the Blue Ridge Mountains that continues into North Carolina and Georgia as part of the southern Appalachian Mountains. Sassafras Mountain, South Carolina's highest point at 3,560 feet (1,090 m), is in this area.[13] Also in this area is Caesars Head State Park. The environment here is that of the Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests ecoregion.[11] The Chattooga River, on the border between South Carolina and Georgia, is a favorite whitewater rafting destination.
+
+South Carolina has several major lakes covering over 683 square miles (1,770 km2). All major lakes in South Carolina are man-made. The following are the lakes listed by size.[14][15]
+
+The Charleston area, along the central coastline of the state, demonstrates the greatest frequency of earthquakes in South Carolina. South Carolina averages 10–15 earthquakes a year below magnitude 3 (FEMA). The Charleston earthquake of 1886 was the largest quake ever to hit the eastern United States. The 7.0–7.3 magnitude earthquake killed 60 people and destroyed much of the city.[16] Faults in this region are difficult to study at the surface due to thick sedimentation on top of them. Many of the ancient faults are within plates rather than along plate boundaries.
+
+South Carolina has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa), although high-elevation areas in the Upstate area have fewer subtropical characteristics than areas on the Atlantic coastline. In the summer, South Carolina is hot and humid, with daytime temperatures averaging between 86–93 °F (30–34 °C) in most of the state and overnight lows averaging 70–75 °F (21–24 °C) on the coast and from 66–73 °F (19–23 °C) inland. Winter temperatures are much less uniform in South Carolina.
+
+Coastal areas of the state have very mild winters, with high temperatures approaching an average of 60 °F (16 °C) and overnight lows around 40 °F (5–8 °C). Inland, the average January overnight low is around 32 °F (0 °C) in Columbia and temperatures well below freezing in the Upstate. While precipitation is abundant the entire year in almost the entire state, the coast tends to have a slightly wetter summer, while inland, the spring and autumn transitions tend to be the wettest periods and winter the driest season, with November being the driest month. The highest recorded temperature is 113 °F (45 °C) in Johnston and Columbia on June 29, 2012, and the lowest recorded temperature is −19 °F (−28 °C) at Caesars Head on January 21, 1985.
+
+Snowfall in South Carolina is somewhat uncommon in most of the state, while coastal areas receive less than an inch (2.5 cm) annually on average. It is not uncommon for the state (especially the southern coast) to receive no recordable snowfall in a given year. The interior receives a little more snow, although nowhere in the state averages more than 12 inches (30 cm) of snow annually. The mountains of extreme northwestern South Carolina tend to have the most substantial snow accumulation. Freezing rain and ice tend to be more common than snow in many areas of the state.
+
+South Carolina is also prone to tropical cyclones and tornadoes. Two of the strongest hurricanes to strike South Carolina in recent history were Hurricane Hazel (1954) and Hurricane Hugo (1989).
+
+The state is occasionally affected by tropical cyclones. This is an annual concern during hurricane season, which lasts from June 1 to November 30. The peak time of vulnerability for the southeast Atlantic coast is from early August to early October, during the Cape Verde hurricane season. Memorable hurricanes to hit South Carolina include Hazel (1954), Florence (2018), and Hugo (1989), all Category 4 hurricanes.[17]
+
+South Carolina averages around 50 days of thunderstorm activity a year. This is less than some of the states further south, and it is slightly less vulnerable to tornadoes than the states which border on the Gulf of Mexico. Some notable tornadoes have struck South Carolina, and the state averages around 14 tornadoes annually. Hail is common with many of the thunderstorms in the state, as there is often a marked contrast in temperature of warmer ground conditions compared to the cold air aloft.[17]
+
+The United States Census Bureau estimates the population of South Carolina was 5,148,714 on July 1, 2019, an 11.31 percentage increase since the 2010 census.[19]
+
+As of the 2017 census estimate, the racial make up of the state is 68.5% White (63.8% non-Hispanic white), 27.3% Black or African American, 0.5% American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.7% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander, 1.9% from two or more races. 5.7% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin of any race.[24]
+
+According to the United States Census Bureau, as of 2019, South Carolina had an estimated population of 5,148,714, which is an increase of 64,587 from the prior year and an increase of 523,350, or 11.31%, since the year 2010. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 36,401 people, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 115,084 people. According to the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health, Consortium for Latino Immigration Studies, South Carolina's foreign-born population grew faster than any other state between 2000 and 2005.[25][26] South Carolina has banned sanctuary cities.[27]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Historical South Carolina Racial Breakdown of Population[28]
+
+Some Primary Statistical Areas of South Carolina overlap with neighbouring states of North Carolina and Georgia
+
+The following table shows the major metropolitan areas of South Carolina.[29]
+
+In 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2018 population estimates for South Carolina's most populous cities.[30]
+
+South Carolina's state government consists of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches. Also relevant are the state constitution, law enforcement agencies, federal representation, state finances, and state taxes.
+
+South Carolina has historically had a weak executive branch and a strong legislature. Before 1865, governors in South Carolina were appointed by the General Assembly, and held the title "President of State". The 1865 Constitution changed this process, requiring a popular election. Local governments were also weak. But, the 1867 Constitution, passed during the Reconstruction era, extended democratization by establishing home rule for counties, which were established from the formerly designated districts of the state.
+
+The 1895 state constitution overturned this, reducing the role of counties and strengthening the relative role of the state legislature; essentially the counties were agents of the state and ruled by the General Assembly through the legislative delegation for each county.[33] They are geographically comprehensive; all areas of the state are included in counties. As each county had one state senator, that position was particularly powerful. This status continued until 1973, when the state constitution was amended to provide for home rule for the counties. During this time the state had changed, with increasing urbanization, but rural counties retained proportionally more power as the legislature was based in representatives elected from counties rather than population districts.[34]
+
+The federal court case, Reynolds v. Sims (1964), "established the one-man, one-vote
+concept for electoral representation at the state level. Legislators were now supposed to represent
+more or less equal numbers of people."[34] Residents of urban areas had been found to be markedly underrepresented in the legislature under the county-based system. Reapportionment made obvious the need for other changes to county structure, leading to the legislature passing the constitutional amendment. The Home Rule Act of 1975 implemented the amendment giving more power to the counties. With urbanization, their governments have become increasingly important in the state.[34]
+
+Several changes to the state constitution have affected the office of the governor and the cabinet. In 1926 the governor's term was extended from two to four years; in 1982 the governor was allowed to run for a second succeeding term. In 1993, the state passed an amendment requiring a limited cabinet (all of whom must be popularly elected).
+
+As of January 2, 2016, there were 2,948,772 registered voters.[35][36]
+
+There is evidence of human activity in the area about 40,000 years ago. At the time Europeans arrived, marking the end of the Pre-Columbian era around 1600, there were many separate Native American tribes, the largest being the Cherokee, and the Catawba, and the total population being up to 20,000.[37]
+
+Up the rivers of the eastern coastal plain lived about a dozen tribes of Siouan background. Along the Savannah River were the Apalachee, Yuchi, and the Yamasee. Further west were the Cherokee, and along the Catawba River, the Catawba. These tribes were village-dwellers, relying on agriculture as their primary food source.[37] The Cherokee lived in wattle and daub houses made with wood and clay, roofed with wood or thatched grass.[38]
+
+About a dozen separate small tribes summered on the coast harvesting oysters and fish, and cultivating corn, peas and beans. Travelling inland as much as 50 miles (80 km) mostly by canoe, they wintered on the coastal plain, hunting deer and gathering nuts and fruit. The names of these tribes survive in place names like Edisto Island, Kiawah Island, and the Ashepoo River.[37]
+
+The Spanish were the first Europeans in the area. From June 24 to July 14, 1521, they explored the land around Winyah Bay. On October 8, 1526, they founded San Miguel de Gualdape, near present-day Georgetown, South Carolina. It was the first European settlement in what is now mainland USA. Established with five hundred settlers, it was abandoned eight months later by one hundred and fifty survivors. In 1540, Hernando de Soto explored the region and the main town of Cofitachequi, where he captured the queen of the Maskoki (Muscogee) and the Chelaque (Cherokee) who had welcomed him.
+
+In 1562 French Huguenots established a settlement at what is now the Charlesfort-Santa Elena archaeological site on Parris Island. Many of these settlers preferred a natural life far from civilization and the atrocities of the Wars of Religion. The garrison lacked supplies, however, and the soldiers (as in the France Antarctique) soon ran away. The French returned two years later but settled in present-day Florida rather than South Carolina.[37]
+
+Sixty years later, in 1629, King of England Charles I established the Province of Carolina, an area covering what is now South and North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. In 1663, Charles II granted the land to eight Lords Proprietors in return for their financial and political assistance in restoring him to the throne in 1660.[39] Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the Lord Proprietors, planned the Grand Model for the Province of Carolina and wrote the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, which laid the basis for the future colony.[40] His utopia was inspired by John Locke, an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism".
+
+In the 1670s, English planters from Barbados established themselves near what is now Charleston. Settlers from all over Europe built rice plantations in the South Carolina Lowcountry, east of the Atlantic Seaboard fall line. Plantation labor was done by African slaves who formed the majority of the population by 1720.[41] Another cash crop was the indigo plant, a plant source of blue dye, developed by Eliza Lucas.
+
+Meanwhile, Upstate South Carolina, west of the Fall Line, was settled by small farmers and traders, who displaced Native American tribes westward. Colonists overthrew the proprietors' rule, seeking more direct representation. In 1719, the colony was officially made a crown colony. In 1729, North Carolina was split off into a separate colony.
+
+South Carolina prospered from the fertility of the  lowcountry and the harbors, such as at Charleston. It allowed religious toleration, encouraging Settlements spread, and trade in deerskin, lumber, and beef thrived. Rice cultivation was developed on a large scale.
+
+By the second half of the 1700s, South Carolina was one of the richest of the Thirteen Colonies.[41]
+
+On March 26, 1776, the colony adopted the Constitution of South Carolina,[42] electing John Rutledge as the state's first president. In February, 1778, South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation,[43] the initial governing document of the United States, and in May 1788, South Carolina ratified the United States Constitution, becoming the eighth state to enter the union.
+
+During the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), about a third of combat action took place in South Carolina,[44] more than in any other state.[41] Inhabitants of the state endured being invaded by English forces and an ongoing civil war between loyalists and partisans that devastated the backcountry.[44] It is estimated 25,000 slaves (30% of those in South Carolina) fled, migrated or died during the war.[45]
+
+America's first census in 1790 put the state's population at nearly 250,000. By the 1800 census the population had increased 38 per cent to nearly 340,000 of which 146,000 were slaves. At that time South Carolina had the largest population of Jews in the 16 United States, mostly based in Savannah and Charleston,[46] the latter being the country's fifth largest city.[47]
+
+In the Antebellum period (before the Civil War) the state's economy and population grew. Cotton became an important crop after the invention of the cotton gin. While nominally democratic, from 1790 until 1865, wealthy landowners were in control of South Carolina. For example, a man was not eligible to sit in the State House of Representatives unless he possessed an estate of 500 acres of land and 10 Negroes, or at least 150 pounds sterling, diminishing the electorate. Further, the state maintained indirect election of electors by the state legislature until 1868, the last state to do so. Voters thus did not participate in presidential elections, other than through state-wide elections.[48]
+
+Columbia, the new state capital was founded in the center of the state, and the State Legislature first met there in 1790. The town grew after it was connected to Charleston by the Santee Canal in 1800, one of the first canals in the United States.
+
+As dissatisfaction with the federal government grew, in the 1820s John C. Calhoun became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government, nullification of the U.S. Constitution, and free trade. In 1832, the Ordinance of Nullification declared federal tariff laws unconstitutional and not to be enforced in the state, leading to the Nullification Crisis. The federal Force Bill was enacted to use whatever military force necessary to enforce federal law in the state, bringing South Carolina back into line.
+
+In the United States presidential election of 1860 voting was sharply divided, with the south voting for the Southern Democrats and the north for Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. Lincoln was anti-slavery, did not acknowledge the right to secession, and would not yield federal property in Southern states. Southern secessionists believed Lincoln's election meant long-term doom for their slavery-based agrarian economy and social system.[49]
+
+Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860. The state House of Representatives three days later passed the "Resolution to Call the Election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. President a Hostile Act",[50] and within weeks South Carolina became the first state to secede.[41]
+
+On April 12, 1861, Confederate (southern) batteries began shelling the Union (northern) Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and the American Civil War began. In November of that year the Union attacked Port Royal Sound and soon occupied Beaufort County and the neighboring Sea Islands. For the rest of the war this area served as a Union base and staging point for other operations. Whites abandoned their plantations,[51] leaving behind about ten thousand slaves. Several Northern charities partnered with the federal government to help these people run the cotton farms themselves under the Port Royal Experiment. Workers were paid by the pound harvested and thus became the first former slaves freed by the Union forces to earn wages.[52]
+
+Although the state was not a major battleground, the war ruined the economy. Under conscription, all men aged 18–35 (later 45) were drafted for Confederate service. More than 60,000 served,[51] and the state lost nearly one-third of the white male population of fighting age.[53]
+
+At the end of the war in early 1865, the troops of General William Tecumseh Sherman marched across the state devastating plantations and most of Columbia.
+
+After the war, South Carolina was restored to the United States during Reconstruction. Under presidential Reconstruction (1865–66), freedmen (former slaves) were given limited rights. Under Radical reconstruction (1867–1877), a Republican coalition of freedmen, carpetbaggers and scalawags was in control, supported by Union Army forces. They established public education, welfare institutions, and home rule for counties, expanding democracy.[citation needed]
+
+In Texas vs. White (1869), the Supreme Court ruled the ordinances of secession (including that of South Carolina) were invalid, and thus those states had never left the Union. However, South Carolina did not regain representation in Congress until that date.
+
+Until the 1868 presidential election, South Carolina's legislature, not the voters, chose the state's electors for the presidential election. South Carolina was the last state to choose its electors in this manner. On October 19, 1871 President Ulysses S. Grant suspended habeas corpus in nine South Carolina counties under the authority of the Ku Klux Klan Act.[54] Led by Grant's Attorney General Amos T. Akerman, hundreds of Klansmen were arrested while 2000 Klansmen fled the state.[54] This was done to suppress Klan violence against African-American and white voters in the South.[54] In the mid to late 1870s, white Democrats used paramilitary groups such as the Red Shirts to intimidate and terrorize black voters. They regained political control of the state under conservative white "Redeemers" and pro-business Bourbon Democrats. In 1877, the federal government withdrew its troops as part of the Compromise of 1877 that ended Reconstruction.
+
+The state became a hotbed of racial and economic tensions during the Populist and Agrarian movements of the 1890s. A Republican-Populist biracial coalition took power away from White Democrats temporarily. To prevent that from happening again, Democrats gained passage of a new constitution in 1895 which effectively disenfranchised almost all blacks and many poor whites by new requirements for poll taxes, residency, and literacy tests that dramatically reduced the voter rolls. By 1896, only 5,500 black voters remained on the voter registration rolls, although they constituted a majority of the state's population.[55] The 1900 census demonstrated the extent of disenfranchisement: the 782,509 African American citizens comprised more than 58% of the state's population, but they were essentially without any political representation in the Jim Crow society.[56]
+
+The 1895 constitution overturned local representative government, reducing the role of the counties to agents of state government, effectively ruled by the General Assembly, through the legislative delegations for each county. As each county had one state senator, that person had considerable power. The counties lacked representative government until home rule was passed in 1975.[33]
+
+Governor "Pitchfork Ben Tillman", a Populist, led the effort to disenfranchise the blacks and poor whites, although he controlled Democratic state politics from the 1890s to 1910 with a base among poor white farmers. During the constitutional convention in 1895, he supported another man's proposal that the state adopt a one-drop rule, as well as prohibit marriage between whites and anyone with any known African ancestry.
+
+Some members of the convention realized prominent white families with some African ancestry could be affected by such legislation. In terms similar to a debate in Virginia in 1853 on a similar proposal (which was dropped), George Dionysius Tillman said in opposition:
+
+If the law is made as it now stands respectable families in Aiken, Barnwell, Colleton, and Orangeburg will be denied the right to intermarry among people with whom they are now associated and identified. At least one hundred families would be affected to my knowledge. They have sent good soldiers to the Confederate Army, and are now landowners and taxpayers. Those men served creditably, and it would be unjust and disgraceful to embarrass them in this way. It is a scientific fact that there is not one full-blooded Caucasian on the floor of this convention. Every member has in him a certain mixture of ... colored blood. The pure-blooded white has needed and received a certain infusion of darker blood to give him readiness and purpose. It would be a cruel injustice and the source of endless litigation, of scandal, horror, feud, and bloodshed to undertake to annul or forbid marriage for a remote, perhaps obsolete trace of Negro blood. The doors would be open to scandal, malice and greed; to statements on the witness stand that the father or grandfather or grandmother had said that A or B had Negro blood in their veins. Any man who is half a man would be ready to blow up half the world with dynamite to prevent or avenge attacks upon the honor of his mother in the legitimacy or purity of the blood of his father.[57][58][59][60]
+
+The state postponed such a one-drop law for years. Virginian legislators adopted a one-drop law in 1924, forgetting that their state had many people of mixed ancestry among those who identified as white.
+
+Early in the 20th century, South Carolina developed a thriving textile industry. The state also converted its agricultural base from cotton to more profitable crops; attracted large military bases through its powerful Democratic congressional delegation, part of the one-party South following disfranchisement of blacks at the turn of the century; and created tourism industries. During the early part of the 20th century, millions of African Americans left South Carolina and other southern states for jobs, opportunities and relative freedom in U.S. cities outside the former Confederate states. In total from 1910 to 1970, 6.5 million blacks left the South in the Great Migration. By 1930 South Carolina had a white majority[61] for the first time since 1708.
+
+South Carolina was one of several states that initially rejected the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) giving women the right to vote. The South Carolina legislature later ratified the amendment on July 1, 1969.
+
+The struggle of the civil rights movement took place in South Carolina as they did in other Southern states. However, South Carolina experienced a much less violent movement than other Southern states.[62] This tranquil transition from a Jim Crow society occurred because the state's white and black leaders were willing to accept slow change rather than being utterly unwilling to accept change at all.[63] Other South Carolinians, like Sen. Strom Thurmond, on the other hand, were among the nation's most radical and effective opponents of social equality and integration.
+
+As of 2015, South Carolina had one of the lowest percentages among all states of women in state legislature, at 13.5% (only Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Wyoming had a lower percentage; the national average is 24.3%; with the highest percentage being in Colorado at 41%).[64] In 2011, South Carolina ranked first in the country in the rate of women killed by men.[65]
+
+As the 21st century progresses, South Carolina attracts new business by having a 5% corporate income tax rate, no state property tax, no local income tax, no inventory tax, no sales tax on manufacturing equipment, industrial power or materials for finished products; no wholesale tax, no unitary tax on worldwide profits.[66]
+
+South Carolina was one of the first states to stop paying for 'early elective' deliveries of babies, under either Medicaid and private insurance. The term early elective is defined as a labor induction or Cesarean section between 37–39 weeks that is not medically based. This change is intended to result in healthier babies and fewer unnecessary costs for South Carolina.[67]
+
+On November 20, 2014, South Carolina became the 35th state to legalize same-sex marriages, when a federal court ordered the change.[68]
+
+South Carolina has many venues for visual and performing arts. The Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, the Greenville County Museum of Art, the Columbia Museum of Art, Spartanburg Art Museum, and the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia among others provide access to visual arts to the state. There are also numerous historic sites and museums scattered throughout the state paying homage to many events and periods in the state's history from Native American inhabitation to the present day.
+
+South Carolina also has performing art venues including the Peace Center in Greenville, the Koger Center for the Arts in Columbia, and the Newberry Opera House, among others to bring local, national, and international talent to the stages of South Carolina. Several large venues can house major events, including Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, and North Charleston Coliseum.
+
+One of the nation's major performing arts festivals, Spoleto Festival USA, is held annually in Charleston. There are also countless local festivals throughout the state highlighting many cultural traditions, historical events, and folklore.
+
+According to the South Carolina Arts Commission, creative industries generate $9.2 billion annually and support over 78,000 jobs in the state.[69] A 2009 statewide poll by the University of South Carolina Institute for Public Service and Policy Research found that 67% of residents had participated in the arts in some form during the past year and on average citizens had participated in the arts 14 times in the previous year.
+
+Religion in South Carolina[70]
+
+According to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA), in 2010 the largest denominations were the Southern Baptist Convention with 913,763 adherents, the United Methodist Church with 274,111 adherents, and the Roman Catholic Church with 181,743 adherents. Fourth largest is the African Methodist Episcopal Church with 564 congregations and 121,000 members and fifth largest is the Presbyterian Church (USA) with 320 congregations and almost 100,000 members.[71]
+
+As of 2010, South Carolina is the American state with the highest per capita proportion of Baha'is with 17,559 adherents,[72] making the Baha'i Faith the second largest religion in the state.[73]
+
+Although no major league professional sports teams are based in South Carolina, the Carolina Panthers do have training facilities in the state and played their inaugural season's home games at Clemson's Memorial Stadium, however, they currently play in North Carolina. The Panthers consider themselves "The Carolinas' Team" and refrained from naming themselves after Charlotte or either of the Carolinas. The state is also home to numerous minor league professional teams. College teams represent their particular South Carolina institutions, and are the primary options for football, basketball and baseball attendance in the state. South Carolina is also a top destination for golf and water sports.
+
+South Carolina is also home to one of NASCAR's first tracks and its first paved speedway, Darlington Raceway northwest of Florence.
+
+In 2019, South Carolina's GDP was $249.9 billion, making the state the 26th largest by GDP in the United States.[75] According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, South Carolina's gross state product (GSP) in was $97 billion in 1997 and $153 billion in 2007. Its per-capita real gross domestic product (GDP) in chained 2000 dollars was $26,772 in 1997 and $28,894 in 2007; which represented 85% of the $31,619 per-capita real GDP for the United States overall in 1997, and 76% of the $38,020 for the U.S. in 2007. The state debt in 2012 was calculated by one source to be $22.9bn, or $7,800 per taxpayer.[76]
+
+Industrial outputs include textile goods, chemical products, paper products, machinery, automobiles, automotive products and tourism. Major agricultural outputs of the state are tobacco, poultry, cotton, cattle, dairy products, soybeans, hay, rice, and swine.[77][78] According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of March 2012, South Carolina had 1,852,700 nonfarm jobs of which 12% are in manufacturing, 11.5% are in leisure and hospitality, 19% are in trade, transportation, and utilities, and 11.8% are in education and health services. The service sector accounts for 83.7% of the South Carolina economy.[79]
+
+Many large corporations have moved their locations to South Carolina. Boeing opened an aircraft manufacturing facility in Charleston in 2011, which serves as one of two final assembly sites for the 787 Dreamliner. South Carolina is a right-to-work state[80] and many businesses utilize staffing agencies to temporarily fill positions. Domtar, in Rock Hill, is the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in South Carolina.[81] The Fortune 1000 list includes SCANA, Sonoco Products and ScanSource.
+
+South Carolina also benefits from foreign investment. There are 1,950 foreign-owned firms operating in South Carolina employing almost 135,000 people.[82] Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) brought 1.06 billion dollars to the state economy in 2010.[83] Since 1994, BMW has had a production facility in Spartanburg County near Greer and since 1996 the Zapp Group operates in Summerville near Charleston.
+
+There are 36 TV stations (including PBS affiliates) serving South Carolina with terrestrial, and some online streaming access. Markets in which the stations are located include Columbia, Florence, Allendale, Myrtle Beach, Greenville, Charleston, Conway, Beaufort, Hardeeville, Spartanburg, Greenwood, Anderson and Sumter.
+
+The state has the fourth largest state-maintained system in the country, consisting of 11 Interstates, numbered highways, state highways, and secondary roads, totalling approximately 41,500 miles.[84]
+
+On secondary roads, South Carolina uses a numbering system to keep track of all non-interstate and primary highways that the South Carolina Department of Transportation maintains. Secondary roads are numbered by the number of the county followed by a unique number for the particular road.
+
+Passenger rail
+Amtrak operates four passenger routes in South Carolina: the Crescent, the Palmetto, the Silver Meteor, and the Silver Star. The Crescent route serves the Upstate cities, the Silver Star serves the Midlands cities, and the Palmetto and Silver Meteor routes serve the  lowcountry cities.
+
+Station stops
+
+Freight
+CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern are the only Class I railroad companies in South Carolina, as other freight companies in the state are short lines.
+
+There are seven significant airports in South Carolina, all of which act as regional airport hubs. The busiest by passenger volume is Charleston International Airport.[85] Just across the border in North Carolina is Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, the 30th busiest airport in the world, in terms of passengers.[86]
+
+As of 2010, South Carolina is one of three states that have not agreed to use competitive international math and language standards.[87]
+
+In 2014, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled the state had failed to provide a "minimally adequate" education to children in all parts of the state as required by the state's constitution.[88]
+
+South Carolina has 1,144 K–12 schools in 85 school districts with an enrollment of 712,244 as of fall 2009.[89][90] As of the 2008–2009 school year, South Carolina spent $9,450 per student which places it 31st in the country for per student spending.[91]
+
+In 2015, the national average SAT score was 1490 and the South Carolina average was 1442, 48 points lower than the national average.[92]
+
+South Carolina is the only state which owns and operates a statewide school bus system. As of December 2016, the state maintains a 5,582-bus fleet with the average vehicle in service being fifteen years old (the national average is six) having logged 236,000 miles.[93] Half of the state's school buses are more than 15 years old and some are reportedly up to 30 years old. In 2017 in the budget proposal, Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman requested the state lease to purchase 1,000 buses to replace the most decrepit vehicles. An additional 175 buses could be purchased immediately through the State Treasurer's master lease program.[94] On January 5, 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded South Carolina more than $1.1 million to replace 57 school buses with new cleaner models through its Diesel Emissions Reduction Act program.[95]
+
+South Carolina has diverse institutions from large state-funded research universities to small colleges that cultivate a liberal arts, religious or military tradition.
+
+[99]
+
+For overall health care, South Carolina is ranked 33rd out of the 50 states, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a private health foundation working to improve the health care system.[100] The state's teen birth rate was 53 births per 1,000 teens, compared to the national average of 41.9 births, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.[101] The state's infant mortality rate was 9.4 deaths per 1,000 births compared to the national average of 6.9 deaths.[102]
+
+There were 2.6 physicians per 1,000 people compared to the national average of 3.2 physicians.[103] There was $5,114 spent on health expenses per capita in the state, compared to the national average of $5,283.[104] There were 26 percent of children and 13 percent of elderly living in poverty in the state, compared to 23 percent and 13 percent, respectively, doing so in the U.S.[105] And, 34 percent of children were overweight or obese, compared to the national average of 32 percent.[106]
+
+The historical coat of arms of South Carolina in 1876
+
+A cotton farmer and his children pose before taking their crop to a cotton gin circa 1870
+
+Arcadia Plantation, circa 1893, Georgetown County
+
+Beachcombers at Myrtle Beach photographed from the ninth floor of a resort hotel
+
+Midlands Mountain trail during winter, in Harbison State Forest
+
+Access to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, where the American Civil War began in 1861, requires a half-hour ferry ride each way.
+
+A historic home on "The Battery", a neighborhood/park area in the Downtown historic district of the peninsula of Charleston, South Carolina
+
+Coastal towns and cities often have hurricane-resistant live oaks overarching the streets in historic neighborhoods, such as these on East Bay Street, Georgetown.
+
+The Pink House, the oldest stone building in Charleston
+
+Table Rock Mountain
+
+Francis Marion National Forest
+
+Lake Marion
+
+Category 4 Hurricane Hugo in 1989
+
+List of TV stations in South Carolina: Television Stations - Station Index

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+
+
+
+
+The carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist.[2] They are a domesticated form of the wild carrot, Daucus carota, native to Europe and Southwestern Asia. The plant probably originated in Persia and was originally cultivated for its leaves and seeds. The most commonly eaten part of the plant is the taproot, although the stems and leaves are eaten as well. The domestic carrot has been selectively bred for its greatly enlarged, more palatable, less woody-textured taproot.
+
+The carrot is a biennial plant in the umbellifer family Apiaceae. At first, it grows a rosette of leaves while building up the enlarged taproot. Fast-growing cultivars mature within three months (90 days) of sowing the seed, while slower-maturing cultivars need a month longer (120 days). The roots contain high quantities of alpha- and beta-carotene, and are a good source of vitamin K and vitamin B6, but the belief that eating carrots improves night vision is a myth put forward by the British in World War II to mislead the enemy about their military capabilities.[3]
+
+The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that world production of carrots and turnips (these plants are combined by the FAO) for the calendar year 2013 was 37.2 million tonnes; almost half (~45%) were grown in China. Carrots are widely used in many cuisines, especially in the preparation of salads, and carrot salads are a tradition in many regional cuisines.
+
+The word is first recorded in English circa 1530 and was borrowed from Middle French carotte,[4] itself from Late Latin carōta, from Greek καρωτόν or karōtón, originally from the Indo-European root *ker- (horn), due to its horn-like shape. In Old English, carrots (typically white at the time) were not clearly distinguished from parsnips: the two were collectively called moru or more (from Proto-Indo-European *mork- "edible root", cf. German Möhre or Russian морковь/morkov).
+
+Various languages still use the same word for "carrot" as they do for "root"; e.g. Dutch wortel.[5]
+
+Both written history and molecular genetic studies indicate that the domestic carrot has a single origin in Central Asia.[6] Its wild ancestors probably originated in Persia (regions of which are now Iran and Afghanistan), which remains the centre of diversity for the wild carrot Daucus carota. A naturally occurring subspecies of the wild carrot was presumably bred selectively over the centuries to reduce bitterness, increase sweetness and minimise the woody core; this process produced the familiar garden vegetable.[7][8]
+
+When they were first cultivated, carrots were grown for their aromatic leaves and seeds rather than their roots. Carrot seeds have been found in Switzerland and Southern Germany dating back to 2000–3000 BC.[10] Some close relatives of the carrot are still grown for their leaves and seeds, such as parsley, cilantro, coriander, fennel, anise, dill and cumin. The first mention of the root in classical sources is from the 1st century AD;[11] the Romans ate a root vegetable called pastinaca,[12] which may have been either the carrot or the closely related parsnip.[13][14]
+
+The plant is depicted and described in the Eastern Roman Juliana Anicia Codex, a 6th-century AD Constantinopolitan copy of the Greek physician Dioscorides' 1st-century pharmacopoeia of herbs and medicines, De Materia Medica. Three different types of carrots are depicted, and the text states that "the root can be cooked and eaten".[15]
+
+The plant was introduced into Spain by the Moors in the 8th century.[16] In the 10th century, roots from West Asia, India and Europe were purple.[17] The modern carrot originated in Afghanistan at about this time.[11] The 11th-century Jewish scholar Simeon Seth describes both red and yellow carrots,[18] as does the 12th-century Arab-Andalusian agriculturist, Ibn al-'Awwam.[19] Cultivated carrots appeared in China in the 14th century, and in Japan in the 18th century.[11]
+
+There are many claims that Dutch growers created orange carrots in the 17th century to honor the Dutch flag at the time and William of Orange.[17][20] Other authorities argue these claims lack convincing evidence.[21] Modern carrots were described at about this time by the English antiquary John Aubrey (1626–1697): "Carrots were first sown at Beckington in Somersetshire. Some very old Man there [in 1668] did remember their first bringing hither."[22] European settlers introduced the carrot to colonial America in the 17th century.[23]
+
+Outwardly purple carrots, still orange on the inside, were sold in British stores beginning in 2002.[17]
+
+Daucus carota is a biennial plant. In the first year, its rosette of leaves produces large amounts of sugars, which are stored in the taproot to provide energy for the plant to flower in the second year.
+
+Soon after germination, carrot seedlings show a distinct demarcation between taproot and stem: the stem is thicker and lacks lateral roots. At the upper end of the stem is the seed leaf. The first true leaf appears about 10–15 days after germination. Subsequent leaves are alternate (with a single leaf attached to a node), spirally arranged, and pinnately compound, with leaf bases sheathing the stem. As the plant grows, the bases of the seed leaves, near the taproot, are pushed apart. The stem, located just above the ground, is compressed and the internodes are not distinct. When the seed stalk elongates for flowering, the tip of the stem narrows and becomes pointed, and the stem extends upward to become a highly branched inflorescence up to 60–200 cm (20–80 in) tall.[24]
+
+Most of the taproot consists of a pulpy outer cortex (phloem) and an inner core (xylem). High-quality carrots have a large proportion of cortex compared to core. Although a completely xylem-free carrot is not possible, some cultivars have small and deeply pigmented cores; the taproot can appear to lack a core when the colour of the cortex and core are similar in intensity. Taproots are typically long and conical, although cylindrical and nearly-spherical cultivars are available. The root diameter can range from 1 cm (0.4 in) to as much as 10 cm (4 in) at the widest part. The root length ranges from 5 to 50 cm (2 to 20 in), although most are between 10 and 25 cm (4 and 10 in).[24]
+
+Flower development begins when the flat meristem changes from producing leaves to an uplifted, conical meristem capable of producing stem elongation and a cluster of flowers. The cluster is a compound umbel, and each umbel contains several smaller umbels (umbellets). The first (primary) umbel occurs at the end of the main floral stem; smaller secondary umbels grow from the main branch, and these further branch into third, fourth, and even later-flowering umbels.[24]
+
+A large, primary umbel can contain up to 50 umbellets, each of which may have as many as 50 flowers; subsequent umbels have fewer flowers. Individual flowers are small and white, sometimes with a light green or yellow tint. They consist of five petals, five stamens, and an entire calyx. The stamens usually split and fall off before the stigma becomes receptive to receive pollen. The stamens of the brown, male, sterile flowers degenerate and shrivel before the flower fully opens. In the other type of male sterile flower, the stamens are replaced by petals, and these petals do not fall off. A nectar-containing disc is present on the upper surface of the carpels.[24]
+
+Flowers change sex in their development, so the stamens release their pollen before the stigma of the same flower is receptive. The arrangement is centripetal, meaning the oldest flowers are near the edge and the youngest flowers are in the center. Flowers usually first open at the outer edge of the primary umbel, followed about a week later on the secondary umbels, and then in subsequent weeks in higher-order umbels.[24]
+
+The usual flowering period of individual umbels is 7 to 10 days, so a plant can be in the process of flowering for 30–50 days. The distinctive umbels and floral nectaries attract pollinating insects. After fertilization and as seeds develop, the outer umbellets of an umbel bend inward causing the umbel shape to change from slightly convex or fairly flat to concave, and when cupped it resembles a bird's nest.[24]
+
+The fruit that develops is a schizocarp consisting of two mericarps; each mericarp is a true seed. The paired mericarps are easily separated when they are dry. Premature separation (shattering) before harvest is undesirable because it can result in seed loss. Mature seeds are flattened on the commissural side that faced the septum of the ovary. The flattened side has five longitudinal ribs. The bristly hairs that protrude from some ribs are usually removed by abrasion during milling and cleaning. Seeds also contain oil ducts and canals. Seeds vary somewhat in size, ranging from less than 500 to more than 1000 seeds per gram.[24]
+
+The carrot is a diploid species, and has nine relatively short, uniform-length chromosomes (2n=18).[6] The genome size is estimated to be 473 mega base pairs, which is four times larger than Arabidopsis thaliana, one-fifth the size of the maize genome, and about the same size as the rice genome.[25]
+
+Polyacetylenes can be found in Apiaceae vegetables like carrots where they show cytotoxic activities.[26][27] Falcarinol and falcarindiol (cis-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diyne-3,8-diol)[28] are such compounds. This latter compound shows antifungal activity towards Mycocentrospora acerina and Cladosporium cladosporioides.[28] Falcarindiol is the main compound responsible for bitterness in carrots.[29]
+
+Other compounds such as pyrrolidine (present in the leaves),[30] 6-hydroxymellein,[31] 6-methoxymellein, eugenin, 2,4,5-trimethoxybenzaldehyde (gazarin) or (Z)-3-acetoxy-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diin-8-ol (falcarindiol 3-acetate) can also be found in carrot.
+
+Carrots are grown from seed and can take up to four months (120 days) to mature, but most cultivars mature within 70 to 80 days under the right conditions.[32] They grow best in full sun but tolerate some shade.[33] The optimum temperature is 16 to 21 °C (61 to 70 °F).[34] The ideal soil is deep, loose and well-drained, sandy or loamy, with a pH of 6.3 to 6.8.[35]
+
+Fertilizer should be applied according to soil type because the crop requires low levels of nitrogen, moderate phosphate and high potash. Rich or rocky soils should be avoided, as these will cause the roots to become hairy and/or misshapen.[36] Irrigation is applied when needed to keep the soil moist. After sprouting, the crop is eventually thinned to a spacing of 8 to 10 cm (3 to 4 in) and weeded to prevent competition beneath the soil.[32][37]
+
+There are several diseases that can reduce the yield and market value of carrots. The most devastating carrot disease is Alternaria leaf blight, which has been known to eradicate entire crops. A bacterial leaf blight caused by Xanthomonas campestris can also be destructive in warm, humid areas. Root knot nematodes (Meloidogyne species) can cause stubby or forked roots, or galls.[38] Cavity spot, caused by the oomycetes Pythium violae and Pythium sulcatum, results in irregularly shaped, depressed lesions on the taproots.[39]
+
+Physical damage can also reduce the value of carrot crops. The two main forms of damage are splitting, whereby a longitudinal crack develops during growth that can be a few centimetres to the entire length of the root, and breaking, which occurs postharvest. These disorders can affect over 30% of commercial crops. Factors associated with high levels of splitting include wide plant spacing, early sowing, lengthy growth durations, and genotype.[40]
+
+Carrots benefit from strongly scented companion plants. The pungent odour of onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly,[35] and other vegetables that team well with carrots include lettuce, tomatoes and radishes, as well as the herbs rosemary and sage.[41] Carrots thrive in the presence of caraway, coriander, chamomile, marigold and Swan River daisy.[35] They can also be good companions for other plants; if left to flower, the carrot, like any umbellifer, attracts predatory wasps that kill many garden pests.[42]
+
+Carrot cultivars can be grouped into two broad classes, eastern carrots and western carrots.[43] A number of novelty cultivars have been bred for particular characteristics.
+
+"Eastern" (a European and American continent reference) carrots were domesticated in Persia (probably in the lands of modern-day Iran and Afghanistan within West Asia) during the 10th century, or possibly earlier. Specimens of the "eastern" carrot that survive to the present day are commonly purple or yellow, and often have branched roots. The purple colour common in these carrots comes from anthocyanin pigments.[44]
+
+The western carrot emerged in the Netherlands in the 17th century.[45] There is a popular belief that its orange colour making it popular in those countries as an emblem of the House of Orange and the struggle for Dutch independence, although there is little evidence for this.[21][20] The orange colour results from abundant carotenes in these cultivars.
+
+Western carrot cultivars are commonly classified by their root shape. The four general types are:
+
+One particular cultivar lacks the usual orange pigment due to carotene, owing its white colour to a recessive gene for tocopherol (vitamin E), but this cultivar and wild carrots do not provide nutritionally significant amounts of vitamin E.[47]
+
+In 2016, world production of carrots (combined with turnips) was 42.7 million tonnes, with China producing 48% of the world total (20.5 million tonnes, table).[48] Other major producers were the European Union, Uzbekistan, Russia, the United States, and Ukraine.[48]
+
+Carrots can be stored for several months in the refrigerator or over winter in a moist, cool place. For long term storage, unwashed carrots can be placed in a bucket between layers of sand, a 50/50 mix of sand and wood shavings, or in soil. A temperature range of 32 to 40 °F (0 to 5 °C) is best.[49][50]
+
+Carrots can be eaten in a variety of ways. Only 3 percent of the β-carotene in raw carrots is released during digestion: this can be improved to 39% by pulping, cooking and adding cooking oil.[51] Alternatively they may be chopped and boiled, fried or steamed, and cooked in soups and stews, as well as baby and pet foods. A well-known dish is carrots julienne.[52] Together with onion and celery, carrots are one of the primary vegetables used in a mirepoix to make various broths.[53]
+
+The greens are edible as a leaf vegetable, but are rarely eaten by humans;[54] some sources suggest that the greens contain toxic alkaloids.[55][56] When used for this purpose, they are harvested young in high-density plantings, before significant root development, and typically used stir-fried, or in salads.[54] Some people are allergic to carrots. In a 2010 study on the prevalence of food allergies in Europe, 3.6 percent of young adults showed some degree of sensitivity to carrots.[57] Because the major carrot allergen, the protein Dauc c 1.0104, is cross-reactive with homologues in birch pollen (Bet v 1) and mugwort pollen (Art v 1), most carrot allergy sufferers are also allergic to pollen from these plants.[58]
+
+In India carrots are used in a variety of ways, as salads or as vegetables added to spicy rice or dal dishes. A popular variation in north India is the Gajar Ka Halwa carrot dessert, which has carrots grated and cooked in milk until the whole mixture is solid, after which nuts and butter are added.[59] Carrot salads are usually made with grated carrots with a seasoning of mustard seeds and green chillies popped in hot oil. Carrots can also be cut in thin strips and added to rice, can form part of a dish of mixed roast vegetables or can be blended with tamarind to make chutney.[60]
+
+Since the late 1980s, baby carrots or mini-carrots (carrots that have been peeled and cut into uniform cylinders) have been a popular ready-to-eat snack food available in many supermarkets.[61] Carrots are puréed and used as baby food, dehydrated to make chips, flakes, and powder, and thinly sliced and deep-fried, like potato chips.[62]
+
+The sweetness of carrots allows the vegetable to be used in some fruit-like roles. Grated carrots are used in carrot cakes, as well as carrot puddings, an English dish thought to have originated in the early 19th century.[63] Carrots can also be used alone or blended with fruits in jams and preserves. Carrot juice is also widely marketed, especially as a health drink, either stand-alone or blended with juices extracted from fruits and other vegetables.[64]
+
+Highly excessive consumption over a period of time results in a condition of carotenemia which is a yellowing of the skin caused by a build up of carotenoids.
+
+Raw carrots are 88% water, 9% carbohydrates, 0.9% protein, 2.8% dietary fiber, 1% ash and 0.2% fat.[65] Carrot dietary fiber comprises mostly cellulose, with smaller proportions of hemicellulose, lignin and starch.[62] Free sugars in carrot include sucrose, glucose, and fructose.[65]
+
+The carrot gets its characteristic, bright orange colour from β-carotene, and lesser amounts of α-carotene, γ-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin.[66] α- and β-carotenes are partly metabolized into vitamin A,[67][68] providing more than 100% of the Daily Value (DV) per 100 g serving of carrots (right table). Carrots are also a good source of vitamin K (13% DV) and vitamin B6 (11% DV), but otherwise have modest content of other essential nutrients (table).[65]
+
+The provitamin A beta-carotene from carrots does not actually help people to see in the dark unless they suffer from vitamin A deficiency.[69] This myth was propaganda used by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War to explain why their pilots had improved success during night air battles, but was actually used to disguise advances in radar technology and the use of red lights on instrument panels.[70] Nevertheless, the consumption of carrots was advocated in Britain at the time as part of a Dig for Victory campaign. A radio programme called The Kitchen Front encouraged people to grow, store and use carrots in various novel ways, including making carrot jam and Woolton pie, named after the Lord Woolton, the Minister for Food.[71] The British public during WWII generally believed that eating carrots would help them see better at night and in 1942 there was a 100,000-ton surplus of carrots from the extra production.[3]

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+
+
+
+
+The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians (/kɑːrˈpeɪθiənz/) are a range of mountains forming an arc throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and the Scandinavian Mountains at 1,700 km (1,056 mi). The range stretches from the far eastern Czech Republic (3%) in the northwest through Slovakia (17%), Poland (10%), Hungary (4%) and Ukraine (10%) Serbia (5%) and Romania (50%) in the southeast.[1][2][3][4] The highest range within the Carpathians is known as the Tatra mountains in Slovakia and Poland, where the highest peaks exceed 2,600 m (8,530 ft). The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks range between 2,500 m (8,202 ft) and 2,550 m (8,366 ft).
+
+The divisions of the Carpathians are usually in three major sections:[5]
+
+The term Outer Carpathians is frequently used to describe the northern rim of the Western and Eastern Carpathians.
+
+The Carpathians provide habitat for the largest European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois, and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania,[6][7][8] as well as over one third of all European plant species.[9] The mountains and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, with Romania having one-third of the European total.[10][11] Romania is likewise home to the second-largest surface of virgin forests in Europe after Russia, totaling 250,000 hectares (65%), most of them in the Carpathians,[12] with the Southern Carpathians constituting Europe's largest unfragmented forest area.[13] Deforestation rates due to illegal logging in the Carpathians are high.[14]
+
+The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are: Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia, Kraków in Poland, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu, and Brașov in Romania, and Uzhhorod in Ukraine.
+
+In modern times, the range is called Karpaty in Czech, Polish and Slovak and Карпати (Karpaty) in Ukrainian, Карпати / Karpati in Serbian, Carpați [karˈpat͡sʲ] (listen) in Romanian, Карпаты in Rusyn, Karpaten in German and Kárpátok in Hungarian.[15][16] Although the toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the second century of the Christian era, [17] the modern form of the name is a neologism in most languages.[15] For instance, Havasok ("Snowy Mountains") was its medieval Hungarian name; Russian chronicles referred to it as "Hungarian Mountains". [16][15] Later sources, such as Dimitrie Cantemir and the Italian chronicler Giovanandrea Gromo, referred to the range as "Transylvania's Mountains", while the 17th-century historian Constantin Cantacuzino translated the name of the mountains in an Italian-Romanian glossary to "Rumanian Mountains". [15]
+
+The name "Carpates" is highly associated with the old Dacian tribes called "Carpes" or "Carpi" who lived in a large area from the east, north-east of the Black Sea to Transylvanian plains on the present day Romania and Moldova.
+The name Carpates may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root *sker-/*ker-, from which comes the Albanian word karpë (rock), and the Slavic word skála (rock, cliff), perhaps via a Dacian cognate[which?] which meant mountain, rock, or rugged (cf. Germanic root *skerp-, Old Norse harfr "harrow", Gothic skarpo, Middle Low German scharf "potsherd", and Modern High German Scherbe "shard", Old English scearp and English sharp, Lithuanian kar~pas "cut, hack, notch", Latvian cìrpt "to shear, clip"). The archaic Polish word karpa meant "rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots, or trunks". The more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. The name may instead come from Indo-European *kwerp "to turn", akin to Old English hweorfan "to turn, change" (English warp) and Greek καρπός karpós "wrist", perhaps referring to the way the mountain range bends or veers in an L-shape.[18]
+
+In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici (meaning Sarmatian Mountains).[19] The Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemy's Geographia (second century AD).[citation needed]
+
+In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which relates ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name Karpates appears in the predictable Germanic form as Harvaða fjöllum (see Grimm's law).
+
+"Inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia" ("Between the Hunic Alps and the ocean lies Poland") by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") in 1211.[20] Thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Hungarian documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal, or less frequently Montes Nivium ("Snowy Mountains").[20]
+
+The northwestern Carpathians begin in Slovakia and southern Poland. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a large semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast, and end on the Danube near Orşova in Romania. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km (932 mi) and the mountain chain's width varies between 12 and 500 km (7 and 311 mi). The highest altitudes of the Carpathians occur where they are widest. The system attains its greatest breadth in the Transylvanian plateau and in the southern Tatra Mountains group – the highest range, in which Gerlachovský štít in Slovakia is the highest peak at 2,655 m (8,711 ft) above sea level. The Carpathians cover an area of 190,000 km2 (73,359 sq mi), and after the Alps, form the next-most extensive mountain system in Europe.
+
+Although commonly referred to as a mountain chain, the Carpathians do not actually form an uninterrupted chain of mountains. Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, presenting as great a structural variety as the Alps. The Carpathians, which attain an altitude over 2,500 m (8,202 ft) in only a few places, lack the bold peaks, extensive snowfields, large glaciers, high waterfalls, and numerous large lakes that are common in the Alps. It was believed that no area of the Carpathian range was covered in snow all year round and there were no glaciers, but recent research by Polish scientists discovered one permafrost and glacial area in the Tatra Mountains.[21] The Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora.
+The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube. The two ranges meet at only one point: the Leitha Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Balkan Mountains at Orşova in Romania. The valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe. Unlike the other wings of the system, the Carpathians, which form the watershed between the northern seas and the Black Sea, are surrounded on all sides by plains, namely the Pannonian plain to the southwest, the Lower Danubian Plain to the south, with the southern part being in Bulgaria, and the northern - in (Romania), and the Galician plain to the northeast.
+
+Important cities and towns in or near the Carpathians are, in approximate descending order of population:
+
+This is an (incomplete) list of the peaks of the Carpathians having summits over 2,500 metres (8,200 ft), with their heights, geologic divisions, and locations.
+
+This is a list of the highest national peaks of the Carpathians, their heights, geologic divisions, and locations. Excluding mountains located in two countries (on the border).
+
+In the Romanian part of the main chain of the Carpathians, mountain passes include Prislop Pass, Tihuța Pass, Bicaz Canyon, Ghimeș Pass, Buzău Pass, Predeal Pass (crossed by the railway from Braşov to Bucharest), Turnu Roșu Pass (1,115 ft., running through the narrow gorge of the Olt River and crossed by the railway from Sibiu to Bucharest), Vulcan Pass, and the Iron Gate (both crossed by the railway from Timișoara to Craiova).
+
+The area now occupied by the Carpathians was once occupied by smaller ocean basins. The Carpathian mountains were formed during the Alpine orogeny in the Mesozoic[22] and Tertiary by moving the ALCAPA, Tisza and Dacia plates over subducting oceanic crust.[23]
+The mountains take the form of a fold and thrust belt with generally north vergence in the western segment, northeast to east vergence in the eastern portion and southeast vergence in the southern portion.
+
+The external, generally northern, portion of the orogenic belt is a Tertiary accretionary wedge of a so-called Flysch belt (the Carpathian Flysch Belt) created by rocks scraped off the sea bottom and thrust over the North-European plate. The Carpathian accretionary wedge is made of several thin skinned nappes composed of Cretaceous to Paleogene turbidites. Thrusting of the Flysch nappes over the Carpathian foreland caused the formation of the Carpathian foreland basin.[24] The boundary between the Flysch belt and internal zones of the orogenic belt in the western segment of the mountain range is marked by the Pieniny Klippen Belt, a narrow complicated zone of polyphase compressional deformation, later involved in a supposed strike-slip zone.[25] Internal zones in western and eastern segments contain older Variscan igneous massifs reworked in Mesozoic thick and thin-skinned nappes. During the Middle Miocene this zone was affected by intensive calc-alkaline[26] arc volcanism that developed over the subduction zone of the flysch basins. At the same time, the internal zones of the orogenic belt were affected by large extensional structure[27] of the back-arc Pannonian Basin.[28] The last volcanic activity occurred at Ciomadul about 30,000 years ago.[26]
+
+Iron, gold and silver were found in great quantities in the Western Carpathians. After the Roman emperor Trajan's conquest of Dacia, he brought back to Rome over 165 tons of gold and 330 tons of silver.[29]
+
+The largest range is the Tatras in Slovakia and Poland. A major part of the western and northeastern Outer Eastern Carpathians in Poland, Ukraine, and Slovakia is traditionally called the Eastern Beskids.
+
+The geological border between the Western and Eastern Carpathians runs approximately along the line (south to north) between the towns of Michalovce, Bardejov, Nowy Sącz and Tarnów. In older systems the border runs more in the east, along the line (north to south) along the rivers San and Osława (Poland), the town of Snina (Slovakia) and river Tur'ia (Ukraine). Biologists, however, shift the border even further to the east.
+
+The border between the eastern and southern Carpathians is formed by the Predeal Pass, south of Braşov and the Prahova Valley.
+
+In geopolitical terms, Carpathian Mountains are often grouped and labeled according to national or regional borders, but such division has turned out to be relative, since it was, and still is dependent on frequent historical, political and administrative changes of national or regional borders. According to modern geopolitical division, Carpathians can be grouped as: Serbian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Austrian, and Hungarian. Within each nation, specific classifications of the Carpathians have been developing, often reflecting local traditions, and thus creating terminological diversity, that produces various challenges in the fields of comparative classification and international systematization.
+
+Section of the Carpathians within borders of Romania is commonly known as the Romanian Carpathians. In local use, Romanians sometimes denote as "Eastern Carpathians" only the Romanian part of the Eastern Carpathians, which lies on their territory (i.e., from the Ukrainian border or from the Prislop Pass to the south), which they subdivide into three simplified geographical groups (northern, central, southern), instead of Outer and Inner Eastern Carpathians. These groups are:
+
+Section of the Carpathians within borders of Ukraine is commonly known as the Ukrainian Carpathians. Classification of eastern sections of the Carpathians is particularly complex, since it was influenced by several overlapping traditions. Terms like 
+Wooded Carpathians, Poloniny Mountains or Eastern Beskids are often used in varying scopes by authors belonging to different traditions.

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+
+
+
+
+The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians (/kɑːrˈpeɪθiənz/) are a range of mountains forming an arc throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and the Scandinavian Mountains at 1,700 km (1,056 mi). The range stretches from the far eastern Czech Republic (3%) in the northwest through Slovakia (17%), Poland (10%), Hungary (4%) and Ukraine (10%) Serbia (5%) and Romania (50%) in the southeast.[1][2][3][4] The highest range within the Carpathians is known as the Tatra mountains in Slovakia and Poland, where the highest peaks exceed 2,600 m (8,530 ft). The second-highest range is the Southern Carpathians in Romania, where the highest peaks range between 2,500 m (8,202 ft) and 2,550 m (8,366 ft).
+
+The divisions of the Carpathians are usually in three major sections:[5]
+
+The term Outer Carpathians is frequently used to describe the northern rim of the Western and Eastern Carpathians.
+
+The Carpathians provide habitat for the largest European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois, and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania,[6][7][8] as well as over one third of all European plant species.[9] The mountains and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, with Romania having one-third of the European total.[10][11] Romania is likewise home to the second-largest surface of virgin forests in Europe after Russia, totaling 250,000 hectares (65%), most of them in the Carpathians,[12] with the Southern Carpathians constituting Europe's largest unfragmented forest area.[13] Deforestation rates due to illegal logging in the Carpathians are high.[14]
+
+The most important cities in or near the Carpathians are: Bratislava and Košice in Slovakia, Kraków in Poland, Cluj-Napoca, Sibiu, and Brașov in Romania, and Uzhhorod in Ukraine.
+
+In modern times, the range is called Karpaty in Czech, Polish and Slovak and Карпати (Karpaty) in Ukrainian, Карпати / Karpati in Serbian, Carpați [karˈpat͡sʲ] (listen) in Romanian, Карпаты in Rusyn, Karpaten in German and Kárpátok in Hungarian.[15][16] Although the toponym was recorded already by Ptolemy in the second century of the Christian era, [17] the modern form of the name is a neologism in most languages.[15] For instance, Havasok ("Snowy Mountains") was its medieval Hungarian name; Russian chronicles referred to it as "Hungarian Mountains". [16][15] Later sources, such as Dimitrie Cantemir and the Italian chronicler Giovanandrea Gromo, referred to the range as "Transylvania's Mountains", while the 17th-century historian Constantin Cantacuzino translated the name of the mountains in an Italian-Romanian glossary to "Rumanian Mountains". [15]
+
+The name "Carpates" is highly associated with the old Dacian tribes called "Carpes" or "Carpi" who lived in a large area from the east, north-east of the Black Sea to Transylvanian plains on the present day Romania and Moldova.
+The name Carpates may ultimately be from the Proto Indo-European root *sker-/*ker-, from which comes the Albanian word karpë (rock), and the Slavic word skála (rock, cliff), perhaps via a Dacian cognate[which?] which meant mountain, rock, or rugged (cf. Germanic root *skerp-, Old Norse harfr "harrow", Gothic skarpo, Middle Low German scharf "potsherd", and Modern High German Scherbe "shard", Old English scearp and English sharp, Lithuanian kar~pas "cut, hack, notch", Latvian cìrpt "to shear, clip"). The archaic Polish word karpa meant "rugged irregularities, underwater obstacles/rocks, rugged roots, or trunks". The more common word skarpa means a sharp cliff or other vertical terrain. The name may instead come from Indo-European *kwerp "to turn", akin to Old English hweorfan "to turn, change" (English warp) and Greek καρπός karpós "wrist", perhaps referring to the way the mountain range bends or veers in an L-shape.[18]
+
+In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici (meaning Sarmatian Mountains).[19] The Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemy's Geographia (second century AD).[citation needed]
+
+In the Scandinavian Hervarar saga, which relates ancient Germanic legends about battles between Goths and Huns, the name Karpates appears in the predictable Germanic form as Harvaða fjöllum (see Grimm's law).
+
+"Inter Alpes Huniae et Oceanum est Polonia" ("Between the Hunic Alps and the ocean lies Poland") by Gervase of Tilbury, has described in his Otia Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") in 1211.[20] Thirteenth- to fifteenth-century Hungarian documents named the mountains Thorchal, Tarczal, or less frequently Montes Nivium ("Snowy Mountains").[20]
+
+The northwestern Carpathians begin in Slovakia and southern Poland. They surround Transcarpathia and Transylvania in a large semicircle, sweeping towards the southeast, and end on the Danube near Orşova in Romania. The total length of the Carpathians is over 1,500 km (932 mi) and the mountain chain's width varies between 12 and 500 km (7 and 311 mi). The highest altitudes of the Carpathians occur where they are widest. The system attains its greatest breadth in the Transylvanian plateau and in the southern Tatra Mountains group – the highest range, in which Gerlachovský štít in Slovakia is the highest peak at 2,655 m (8,711 ft) above sea level. The Carpathians cover an area of 190,000 km2 (73,359 sq mi), and after the Alps, form the next-most extensive mountain system in Europe.
+
+Although commonly referred to as a mountain chain, the Carpathians do not actually form an uninterrupted chain of mountains. Rather, they consist of several orographically and geologically distinctive groups, presenting as great a structural variety as the Alps. The Carpathians, which attain an altitude over 2,500 m (8,202 ft) in only a few places, lack the bold peaks, extensive snowfields, large glaciers, high waterfalls, and numerous large lakes that are common in the Alps. It was believed that no area of the Carpathian range was covered in snow all year round and there were no glaciers, but recent research by Polish scientists discovered one permafrost and glacial area in the Tatra Mountains.[21] The Carpathians at their highest altitude are only as high as the middle region of the Alps, with which they share a common appearance, climate, and flora.
+The Carpathians are separated from the Alps by the Danube. The two ranges meet at only one point: the Leitha Mountains at Bratislava. The river also separates them from the Balkan Mountains at Orşova in Romania. The valley of the March and Oder separates the Carpathians from the Silesian and Moravian chains, which belong to the middle wing of the great Central Mountain System of Europe. Unlike the other wings of the system, the Carpathians, which form the watershed between the northern seas and the Black Sea, are surrounded on all sides by plains, namely the Pannonian plain to the southwest, the Lower Danubian Plain to the south, with the southern part being in Bulgaria, and the northern - in (Romania), and the Galician plain to the northeast.
+
+Important cities and towns in or near the Carpathians are, in approximate descending order of population:
+
+This is an (incomplete) list of the peaks of the Carpathians having summits over 2,500 metres (8,200 ft), with their heights, geologic divisions, and locations.
+
+This is a list of the highest national peaks of the Carpathians, their heights, geologic divisions, and locations. Excluding mountains located in two countries (on the border).
+
+In the Romanian part of the main chain of the Carpathians, mountain passes include Prislop Pass, Tihuța Pass, Bicaz Canyon, Ghimeș Pass, Buzău Pass, Predeal Pass (crossed by the railway from Braşov to Bucharest), Turnu Roșu Pass (1,115 ft., running through the narrow gorge of the Olt River and crossed by the railway from Sibiu to Bucharest), Vulcan Pass, and the Iron Gate (both crossed by the railway from Timișoara to Craiova).
+
+The area now occupied by the Carpathians was once occupied by smaller ocean basins. The Carpathian mountains were formed during the Alpine orogeny in the Mesozoic[22] and Tertiary by moving the ALCAPA, Tisza and Dacia plates over subducting oceanic crust.[23]
+The mountains take the form of a fold and thrust belt with generally north vergence in the western segment, northeast to east vergence in the eastern portion and southeast vergence in the southern portion.
+
+The external, generally northern, portion of the orogenic belt is a Tertiary accretionary wedge of a so-called Flysch belt (the Carpathian Flysch Belt) created by rocks scraped off the sea bottom and thrust over the North-European plate. The Carpathian accretionary wedge is made of several thin skinned nappes composed of Cretaceous to Paleogene turbidites. Thrusting of the Flysch nappes over the Carpathian foreland caused the formation of the Carpathian foreland basin.[24] The boundary between the Flysch belt and internal zones of the orogenic belt in the western segment of the mountain range is marked by the Pieniny Klippen Belt, a narrow complicated zone of polyphase compressional deformation, later involved in a supposed strike-slip zone.[25] Internal zones in western and eastern segments contain older Variscan igneous massifs reworked in Mesozoic thick and thin-skinned nappes. During the Middle Miocene this zone was affected by intensive calc-alkaline[26] arc volcanism that developed over the subduction zone of the flysch basins. At the same time, the internal zones of the orogenic belt were affected by large extensional structure[27] of the back-arc Pannonian Basin.[28] The last volcanic activity occurred at Ciomadul about 30,000 years ago.[26]
+
+Iron, gold and silver were found in great quantities in the Western Carpathians. After the Roman emperor Trajan's conquest of Dacia, he brought back to Rome over 165 tons of gold and 330 tons of silver.[29]
+
+The largest range is the Tatras in Slovakia and Poland. A major part of the western and northeastern Outer Eastern Carpathians in Poland, Ukraine, and Slovakia is traditionally called the Eastern Beskids.
+
+The geological border between the Western and Eastern Carpathians runs approximately along the line (south to north) between the towns of Michalovce, Bardejov, Nowy Sącz and Tarnów. In older systems the border runs more in the east, along the line (north to south) along the rivers San and Osława (Poland), the town of Snina (Slovakia) and river Tur'ia (Ukraine). Biologists, however, shift the border even further to the east.
+
+The border between the eastern and southern Carpathians is formed by the Predeal Pass, south of Braşov and the Prahova Valley.
+
+In geopolitical terms, Carpathian Mountains are often grouped and labeled according to national or regional borders, but such division has turned out to be relative, since it was, and still is dependent on frequent historical, political and administrative changes of national or regional borders. According to modern geopolitical division, Carpathians can be grouped as: Serbian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Polish, Slovakian, Czech, Austrian, and Hungarian. Within each nation, specific classifications of the Carpathians have been developing, often reflecting local traditions, and thus creating terminological diversity, that produces various challenges in the fields of comparative classification and international systematization.
+
+Section of the Carpathians within borders of Romania is commonly known as the Romanian Carpathians. In local use, Romanians sometimes denote as "Eastern Carpathians" only the Romanian part of the Eastern Carpathians, which lies on their territory (i.e., from the Ukrainian border or from the Prislop Pass to the south), which they subdivide into three simplified geographical groups (northern, central, southern), instead of Outer and Inner Eastern Carpathians. These groups are:
+
+Section of the Carpathians within borders of Ukraine is commonly known as the Ukrainian Carpathians. Classification of eastern sections of the Carpathians is particularly complex, since it was influenced by several overlapping traditions. Terms like 
+Wooded Carpathians, Poloniny Mountains or Eastern Beskids are often used in varying scopes by authors belonging to different traditions.

en/864.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,121 @@
+
+
+In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, or (100-gradian angles or right angles).[1] It can also be defined as a rectangle in which two adjacent sides have equal length. A square with vertices ABCD would be denoted 
+
+
+
+◻
+
+
+{\displaystyle \square }
+
+ ABCD.
+
+A convex quadrilateral is a square if and only if it is any one of the following:[2][3]
+
+A square is a special case of a rhombus (equal sides, opposite equal angles), a kite (two pairs of adjacent equal sides), a trapezoid (one pair of opposite sides parallel), a parallelogram (all opposite sides parallel), a quadrilateral or tetragon (four-sided polygon), and a rectangle (opposite sides equal, right-angles) and therefore has all the properties of all these shapes, namely:[5]
+
+The perimeter of a square whose four sides have length 
+
+
+
+ℓ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \ell }
+
+ is
+
+and the area A is
+
+In classical times, the second power was described in terms of the area of a square, as in the above formula. This led to the use of the term square to mean raising to the second power.
+
+The area can also be calculated using the diagonal d according to
+
+In terms of the circumradius R, the area of a square is
+
+since the area of the circle is 
+
+
+
+π
+
+R
+
+2
+
+
+,
+
+
+{\displaystyle \pi R^{2},}
+
+ the square fills approximately 0.6366 of its circumscribed circle.
+
+In terms of the inradius r, the area of the square is
+
+Because it is a regular polygon, a square is the quadrilateral of least perimeter enclosing a given area. Dually, a square is the quadrilateral containing the largest area within a given perimeter.[6]  Indeed, if A and P are the area and perimeter enclosed by a quadrilateral, then the following isoperimetric inequality holds:
+
+with equality if and only if the quadrilateral is a square.
+
+The coordinates for the vertices of a square with vertical and horizontal sides, centered at the origin and with side length 2 are (±1, ±1), while the interior of this square consists of all points (xi, yi) with −1 < xi < 1 and −1 < yi < 1. The equation
+
+specifies the boundary of this square. This equation means "x2 or y2, whichever is larger, equals 1." The circumradius of this square (the radius of a circle drawn through the square's vertices) is half the square's diagonal, and equals 
+
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+.
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}.}
+
+ Then the circumcircle has the equation
+
+Alternatively the equation
+
+can also be used to describe the boundary of a square with center coordinates  (a, b) and a horizontal or vertical radius of r.
+
+The following animations show how to construct a square using a compass and straightedge. This is possible as 4 = 22, a power of two.
+
+The square has Dih4 symmetry, order 8. There are 2 dihedral subgroups: Dih2, Dih1, and 3 cyclic subgroups: Z4, Z2, and Z1.
+
+A square is a special case of many lower symmetry quadrilaterals:
+
+These 6 symmetries express 8 distinct symmetries on a square. John Conway labels these by a letter and group order.[10]
+
+Each subgroup symmetry allows one or more degrees of freedom for irregular quadrilaterals. r8 is full symmetry of the square, and a1 is no symmetry. d4, is the symmetry of a rectangle and p4, is the symmetry of a rhombus. These two forms are duals of each other and have half the symmetry order of the square. d2 is the symmetry of an isosceles trapezoid, and p2 is the symmetry of a kite. g2 defines the geometry of a parallelogram.
+
+Only the g4 subgroup has no degrees of freedom but can seen as a square with directed edges.
+
+Every acute triangle has three inscribed squares (squares in its interior such that all four of a square's vertices lie on a side of the triangle, so two of them lie on the same side and hence one side of the square coincides with part of a side of the triangle). In a right triangle two of the squares coincide and have a vertex at the triangle's right angle, so a right triangle has only two distinct inscribed squares. An obtuse triangle has only one inscribed square, with a side coinciding with part of the triangle's longest side.
+
+The fraction of the triangle's area that is filled by the square is no more than 1/2.
+
+Squaring the circle is the problem, proposed by ancient geometers, of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge.
+
+In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (π) is a transcendental number, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients.
+
+In non-Euclidean geometry, squares are more generally polygons with 4 equal sides and equal angles.
+
+In spherical geometry, a square is a polygon whose edges are great circle arcs of equal distance, which meet at equal angles. Unlike the square of plane geometry, the angles of such a square are larger than a right angle. Larger spherical squares have larger angles.
+
+In hyperbolic geometry, squares with right angles do not exist. Rather, squares in hyperbolic geometry have angles of less than right angles. Larger hyperbolic squares have smaller angles.
+
+Examples:
+
+A crossed square is a faceting of the square, a self-intersecting polygon created by removing two opposite edges of a square and reconnecting by its two diagonals. It has half the symmetry of the square, Dih2, order 4. It has the same vertex arrangement as the square, and is vertex-transitive. It appears as two 45-45-90 triangle with a common vertex, but the geometric intersection is not considered a vertex.
+
+A crossed square is sometimes likened to a bow tie or butterfly. the crossed rectangle is related, as a faceting of the rectangle, both special cases of crossed quadrilaterals.[11]
+
+The interior of a crossed square can have a polygon density of ±1 in each triangle, dependent upon the winding orientation as clockwise or counterclockwise.
+
+A square and a crossed square have the following properties in common:
+
+It exists in the vertex figure of a uniform star polyhedra, the tetrahemihexahedron.
+
+The K4 complete graph is often drawn as a square with all 6 possible edges connected, hence appearing as a square with both diagonals drawn. This graph also represents an orthographic projection of the 4 vertices and 6 edges of the regular 3-simplex (tetrahedron).

en/865.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,121 @@
+
+
+In geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, or (100-gradian angles or right angles).[1] It can also be defined as a rectangle in which two adjacent sides have equal length. A square with vertices ABCD would be denoted 
+
+
+
+◻
+
+
+{\displaystyle \square }
+
+ ABCD.
+
+A convex quadrilateral is a square if and only if it is any one of the following:[2][3]
+
+A square is a special case of a rhombus (equal sides, opposite equal angles), a kite (two pairs of adjacent equal sides), a trapezoid (one pair of opposite sides parallel), a parallelogram (all opposite sides parallel), a quadrilateral or tetragon (four-sided polygon), and a rectangle (opposite sides equal, right-angles) and therefore has all the properties of all these shapes, namely:[5]
+
+The perimeter of a square whose four sides have length 
+
+
+
+ℓ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \ell }
+
+ is
+
+and the area A is
+
+In classical times, the second power was described in terms of the area of a square, as in the above formula. This led to the use of the term square to mean raising to the second power.
+
+The area can also be calculated using the diagonal d according to
+
+In terms of the circumradius R, the area of a square is
+
+since the area of the circle is 
+
+
+
+π
+
+R
+
+2
+
+
+,
+
+
+{\displaystyle \pi R^{2},}
+
+ the square fills approximately 0.6366 of its circumscribed circle.
+
+In terms of the inradius r, the area of the square is
+
+Because it is a regular polygon, a square is the quadrilateral of least perimeter enclosing a given area. Dually, a square is the quadrilateral containing the largest area within a given perimeter.[6]  Indeed, if A and P are the area and perimeter enclosed by a quadrilateral, then the following isoperimetric inequality holds:
+
+with equality if and only if the quadrilateral is a square.
+
+The coordinates for the vertices of a square with vertical and horizontal sides, centered at the origin and with side length 2 are (±1, ±1), while the interior of this square consists of all points (xi, yi) with −1 < xi < 1 and −1 < yi < 1. The equation
+
+specifies the boundary of this square. This equation means "x2 or y2, whichever is larger, equals 1." The circumradius of this square (the radius of a circle drawn through the square's vertices) is half the square's diagonal, and equals 
+
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+.
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}.}
+
+ Then the circumcircle has the equation
+
+Alternatively the equation
+
+can also be used to describe the boundary of a square with center coordinates  (a, b) and a horizontal or vertical radius of r.
+
+The following animations show how to construct a square using a compass and straightedge. This is possible as 4 = 22, a power of two.
+
+The square has Dih4 symmetry, order 8. There are 2 dihedral subgroups: Dih2, Dih1, and 3 cyclic subgroups: Z4, Z2, and Z1.
+
+A square is a special case of many lower symmetry quadrilaterals:
+
+These 6 symmetries express 8 distinct symmetries on a square. John Conway labels these by a letter and group order.[10]
+
+Each subgroup symmetry allows one or more degrees of freedom for irregular quadrilaterals. r8 is full symmetry of the square, and a1 is no symmetry. d4, is the symmetry of a rectangle and p4, is the symmetry of a rhombus. These two forms are duals of each other and have half the symmetry order of the square. d2 is the symmetry of an isosceles trapezoid, and p2 is the symmetry of a kite. g2 defines the geometry of a parallelogram.
+
+Only the g4 subgroup has no degrees of freedom but can seen as a square with directed edges.
+
+Every acute triangle has three inscribed squares (squares in its interior such that all four of a square's vertices lie on a side of the triangle, so two of them lie on the same side and hence one side of the square coincides with part of a side of the triangle). In a right triangle two of the squares coincide and have a vertex at the triangle's right angle, so a right triangle has only two distinct inscribed squares. An obtuse triangle has only one inscribed square, with a side coinciding with part of the triangle's longest side.
+
+The fraction of the triangle's area that is filled by the square is no more than 1/2.
+
+Squaring the circle is the problem, proposed by ancient geometers, of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge.
+
+In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (π) is a transcendental number, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients.
+
+In non-Euclidean geometry, squares are more generally polygons with 4 equal sides and equal angles.
+
+In spherical geometry, a square is a polygon whose edges are great circle arcs of equal distance, which meet at equal angles. Unlike the square of plane geometry, the angles of such a square are larger than a right angle. Larger spherical squares have larger angles.
+
+In hyperbolic geometry, squares with right angles do not exist. Rather, squares in hyperbolic geometry have angles of less than right angles. Larger hyperbolic squares have smaller angles.
+
+Examples:
+
+A crossed square is a faceting of the square, a self-intersecting polygon created by removing two opposite edges of a square and reconnecting by its two diagonals. It has half the symmetry of the square, Dih2, order 4. It has the same vertex arrangement as the square, and is vertex-transitive. It appears as two 45-45-90 triangle with a common vertex, but the geometric intersection is not considered a vertex.
+
+A crossed square is sometimes likened to a bow tie or butterfly. the crossed rectangle is related, as a faceting of the rectangle, both special cases of crossed quadrilaterals.[11]
+
+The interior of a crossed square can have a polygon density of ±1 in each triangle, dependent upon the winding orientation as clockwise or counterclockwise.
+
+A square and a crossed square have the following properties in common:
+
+It exists in the vertex figure of a uniform star polyhedra, the tetrahemihexahedron.
+
+The K4 complete graph is often drawn as a square with all 6 possible edges connected, hence appearing as a square with both diagonals drawn. This graph also represents an orthographic projection of the 4 vertices and 6 edges of the regular 3-simplex (tetrahedron).

en/866.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,89 @@
+
+
+
+
+The carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist.[2] They are a domesticated form of the wild carrot, Daucus carota, native to Europe and Southwestern Asia. The plant probably originated in Persia and was originally cultivated for its leaves and seeds. The most commonly eaten part of the plant is the taproot, although the stems and leaves are eaten as well. The domestic carrot has been selectively bred for its greatly enlarged, more palatable, less woody-textured taproot.
+
+The carrot is a biennial plant in the umbellifer family Apiaceae. At first, it grows a rosette of leaves while building up the enlarged taproot. Fast-growing cultivars mature within three months (90 days) of sowing the seed, while slower-maturing cultivars need a month longer (120 days). The roots contain high quantities of alpha- and beta-carotene, and are a good source of vitamin K and vitamin B6, but the belief that eating carrots improves night vision is a myth put forward by the British in World War II to mislead the enemy about their military capabilities.[3]
+
+The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that world production of carrots and turnips (these plants are combined by the FAO) for the calendar year 2013 was 37.2 million tonnes; almost half (~45%) were grown in China. Carrots are widely used in many cuisines, especially in the preparation of salads, and carrot salads are a tradition in many regional cuisines.
+
+The word is first recorded in English circa 1530 and was borrowed from Middle French carotte,[4] itself from Late Latin carōta, from Greek καρωτόν or karōtón, originally from the Indo-European root *ker- (horn), due to its horn-like shape. In Old English, carrots (typically white at the time) were not clearly distinguished from parsnips: the two were collectively called moru or more (from Proto-Indo-European *mork- "edible root", cf. German Möhre or Russian морковь/morkov).
+
+Various languages still use the same word for "carrot" as they do for "root"; e.g. Dutch wortel.[5]
+
+Both written history and molecular genetic studies indicate that the domestic carrot has a single origin in Central Asia.[6] Its wild ancestors probably originated in Persia (regions of which are now Iran and Afghanistan), which remains the centre of diversity for the wild carrot Daucus carota. A naturally occurring subspecies of the wild carrot was presumably bred selectively over the centuries to reduce bitterness, increase sweetness and minimise the woody core; this process produced the familiar garden vegetable.[7][8]
+
+When they were first cultivated, carrots were grown for their aromatic leaves and seeds rather than their roots. Carrot seeds have been found in Switzerland and Southern Germany dating back to 2000–3000 BC.[10] Some close relatives of the carrot are still grown for their leaves and seeds, such as parsley, cilantro, coriander, fennel, anise, dill and cumin. The first mention of the root in classical sources is from the 1st century AD;[11] the Romans ate a root vegetable called pastinaca,[12] which may have been either the carrot or the closely related parsnip.[13][14]
+
+The plant is depicted and described in the Eastern Roman Juliana Anicia Codex, a 6th-century AD Constantinopolitan copy of the Greek physician Dioscorides' 1st-century pharmacopoeia of herbs and medicines, De Materia Medica. Three different types of carrots are depicted, and the text states that "the root can be cooked and eaten".[15]
+
+The plant was introduced into Spain by the Moors in the 8th century.[16] In the 10th century, roots from West Asia, India and Europe were purple.[17] The modern carrot originated in Afghanistan at about this time.[11] The 11th-century Jewish scholar Simeon Seth describes both red and yellow carrots,[18] as does the 12th-century Arab-Andalusian agriculturist, Ibn al-'Awwam.[19] Cultivated carrots appeared in China in the 14th century, and in Japan in the 18th century.[11]
+
+There are many claims that Dutch growers created orange carrots in the 17th century to honor the Dutch flag at the time and William of Orange.[17][20] Other authorities argue these claims lack convincing evidence.[21] Modern carrots were described at about this time by the English antiquary John Aubrey (1626–1697): "Carrots were first sown at Beckington in Somersetshire. Some very old Man there [in 1668] did remember their first bringing hither."[22] European settlers introduced the carrot to colonial America in the 17th century.[23]
+
+Outwardly purple carrots, still orange on the inside, were sold in British stores beginning in 2002.[17]
+
+Daucus carota is a biennial plant. In the first year, its rosette of leaves produces large amounts of sugars, which are stored in the taproot to provide energy for the plant to flower in the second year.
+
+Soon after germination, carrot seedlings show a distinct demarcation between taproot and stem: the stem is thicker and lacks lateral roots. At the upper end of the stem is the seed leaf. The first true leaf appears about 10–15 days after germination. Subsequent leaves are alternate (with a single leaf attached to a node), spirally arranged, and pinnately compound, with leaf bases sheathing the stem. As the plant grows, the bases of the seed leaves, near the taproot, are pushed apart. The stem, located just above the ground, is compressed and the internodes are not distinct. When the seed stalk elongates for flowering, the tip of the stem narrows and becomes pointed, and the stem extends upward to become a highly branched inflorescence up to 60–200 cm (20–80 in) tall.[24]
+
+Most of the taproot consists of a pulpy outer cortex (phloem) and an inner core (xylem). High-quality carrots have a large proportion of cortex compared to core. Although a completely xylem-free carrot is not possible, some cultivars have small and deeply pigmented cores; the taproot can appear to lack a core when the colour of the cortex and core are similar in intensity. Taproots are typically long and conical, although cylindrical and nearly-spherical cultivars are available. The root diameter can range from 1 cm (0.4 in) to as much as 10 cm (4 in) at the widest part. The root length ranges from 5 to 50 cm (2 to 20 in), although most are between 10 and 25 cm (4 and 10 in).[24]
+
+Flower development begins when the flat meristem changes from producing leaves to an uplifted, conical meristem capable of producing stem elongation and a cluster of flowers. The cluster is a compound umbel, and each umbel contains several smaller umbels (umbellets). The first (primary) umbel occurs at the end of the main floral stem; smaller secondary umbels grow from the main branch, and these further branch into third, fourth, and even later-flowering umbels.[24]
+
+A large, primary umbel can contain up to 50 umbellets, each of which may have as many as 50 flowers; subsequent umbels have fewer flowers. Individual flowers are small and white, sometimes with a light green or yellow tint. They consist of five petals, five stamens, and an entire calyx. The stamens usually split and fall off before the stigma becomes receptive to receive pollen. The stamens of the brown, male, sterile flowers degenerate and shrivel before the flower fully opens. In the other type of male sterile flower, the stamens are replaced by petals, and these petals do not fall off. A nectar-containing disc is present on the upper surface of the carpels.[24]
+
+Flowers change sex in their development, so the stamens release their pollen before the stigma of the same flower is receptive. The arrangement is centripetal, meaning the oldest flowers are near the edge and the youngest flowers are in the center. Flowers usually first open at the outer edge of the primary umbel, followed about a week later on the secondary umbels, and then in subsequent weeks in higher-order umbels.[24]
+
+The usual flowering period of individual umbels is 7 to 10 days, so a plant can be in the process of flowering for 30–50 days. The distinctive umbels and floral nectaries attract pollinating insects. After fertilization and as seeds develop, the outer umbellets of an umbel bend inward causing the umbel shape to change from slightly convex or fairly flat to concave, and when cupped it resembles a bird's nest.[24]
+
+The fruit that develops is a schizocarp consisting of two mericarps; each mericarp is a true seed. The paired mericarps are easily separated when they are dry. Premature separation (shattering) before harvest is undesirable because it can result in seed loss. Mature seeds are flattened on the commissural side that faced the septum of the ovary. The flattened side has five longitudinal ribs. The bristly hairs that protrude from some ribs are usually removed by abrasion during milling and cleaning. Seeds also contain oil ducts and canals. Seeds vary somewhat in size, ranging from less than 500 to more than 1000 seeds per gram.[24]
+
+The carrot is a diploid species, and has nine relatively short, uniform-length chromosomes (2n=18).[6] The genome size is estimated to be 473 mega base pairs, which is four times larger than Arabidopsis thaliana, one-fifth the size of the maize genome, and about the same size as the rice genome.[25]
+
+Polyacetylenes can be found in Apiaceae vegetables like carrots where they show cytotoxic activities.[26][27] Falcarinol and falcarindiol (cis-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diyne-3,8-diol)[28] are such compounds. This latter compound shows antifungal activity towards Mycocentrospora acerina and Cladosporium cladosporioides.[28] Falcarindiol is the main compound responsible for bitterness in carrots.[29]
+
+Other compounds such as pyrrolidine (present in the leaves),[30] 6-hydroxymellein,[31] 6-methoxymellein, eugenin, 2,4,5-trimethoxybenzaldehyde (gazarin) or (Z)-3-acetoxy-heptadeca-1,9-diene-4,6-diin-8-ol (falcarindiol 3-acetate) can also be found in carrot.
+
+Carrots are grown from seed and can take up to four months (120 days) to mature, but most cultivars mature within 70 to 80 days under the right conditions.[32] They grow best in full sun but tolerate some shade.[33] The optimum temperature is 16 to 21 °C (61 to 70 °F).[34] The ideal soil is deep, loose and well-drained, sandy or loamy, with a pH of 6.3 to 6.8.[35]
+
+Fertilizer should be applied according to soil type because the crop requires low levels of nitrogen, moderate phosphate and high potash. Rich or rocky soils should be avoided, as these will cause the roots to become hairy and/or misshapen.[36] Irrigation is applied when needed to keep the soil moist. After sprouting, the crop is eventually thinned to a spacing of 8 to 10 cm (3 to 4 in) and weeded to prevent competition beneath the soil.[32][37]
+
+There are several diseases that can reduce the yield and market value of carrots. The most devastating carrot disease is Alternaria leaf blight, which has been known to eradicate entire crops. A bacterial leaf blight caused by Xanthomonas campestris can also be destructive in warm, humid areas. Root knot nematodes (Meloidogyne species) can cause stubby or forked roots, or galls.[38] Cavity spot, caused by the oomycetes Pythium violae and Pythium sulcatum, results in irregularly shaped, depressed lesions on the taproots.[39]
+
+Physical damage can also reduce the value of carrot crops. The two main forms of damage are splitting, whereby a longitudinal crack develops during growth that can be a few centimetres to the entire length of the root, and breaking, which occurs postharvest. These disorders can affect over 30% of commercial crops. Factors associated with high levels of splitting include wide plant spacing, early sowing, lengthy growth durations, and genotype.[40]
+
+Carrots benefit from strongly scented companion plants. The pungent odour of onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly,[35] and other vegetables that team well with carrots include lettuce, tomatoes and radishes, as well as the herbs rosemary and sage.[41] Carrots thrive in the presence of caraway, coriander, chamomile, marigold and Swan River daisy.[35] They can also be good companions for other plants; if left to flower, the carrot, like any umbellifer, attracts predatory wasps that kill many garden pests.[42]
+
+Carrot cultivars can be grouped into two broad classes, eastern carrots and western carrots.[43] A number of novelty cultivars have been bred for particular characteristics.
+
+"Eastern" (a European and American continent reference) carrots were domesticated in Persia (probably in the lands of modern-day Iran and Afghanistan within West Asia) during the 10th century, or possibly earlier. Specimens of the "eastern" carrot that survive to the present day are commonly purple or yellow, and often have branched roots. The purple colour common in these carrots comes from anthocyanin pigments.[44]
+
+The western carrot emerged in the Netherlands in the 17th century.[45] There is a popular belief that its orange colour making it popular in those countries as an emblem of the House of Orange and the struggle for Dutch independence, although there is little evidence for this.[21][20] The orange colour results from abundant carotenes in these cultivars.
+
+Western carrot cultivars are commonly classified by their root shape. The four general types are:
+
+One particular cultivar lacks the usual orange pigment due to carotene, owing its white colour to a recessive gene for tocopherol (vitamin E), but this cultivar and wild carrots do not provide nutritionally significant amounts of vitamin E.[47]
+
+In 2016, world production of carrots (combined with turnips) was 42.7 million tonnes, with China producing 48% of the world total (20.5 million tonnes, table).[48] Other major producers were the European Union, Uzbekistan, Russia, the United States, and Ukraine.[48]
+
+Carrots can be stored for several months in the refrigerator or over winter in a moist, cool place. For long term storage, unwashed carrots can be placed in a bucket between layers of sand, a 50/50 mix of sand and wood shavings, or in soil. A temperature range of 32 to 40 °F (0 to 5 °C) is best.[49][50]
+
+Carrots can be eaten in a variety of ways. Only 3 percent of the β-carotene in raw carrots is released during digestion: this can be improved to 39% by pulping, cooking and adding cooking oil.[51] Alternatively they may be chopped and boiled, fried or steamed, and cooked in soups and stews, as well as baby and pet foods. A well-known dish is carrots julienne.[52] Together with onion and celery, carrots are one of the primary vegetables used in a mirepoix to make various broths.[53]
+
+The greens are edible as a leaf vegetable, but are rarely eaten by humans;[54] some sources suggest that the greens contain toxic alkaloids.[55][56] When used for this purpose, they are harvested young in high-density plantings, before significant root development, and typically used stir-fried, or in salads.[54] Some people are allergic to carrots. In a 2010 study on the prevalence of food allergies in Europe, 3.6 percent of young adults showed some degree of sensitivity to carrots.[57] Because the major carrot allergen, the protein Dauc c 1.0104, is cross-reactive with homologues in birch pollen (Bet v 1) and mugwort pollen (Art v 1), most carrot allergy sufferers are also allergic to pollen from these plants.[58]
+
+In India carrots are used in a variety of ways, as salads or as vegetables added to spicy rice or dal dishes. A popular variation in north India is the Gajar Ka Halwa carrot dessert, which has carrots grated and cooked in milk until the whole mixture is solid, after which nuts and butter are added.[59] Carrot salads are usually made with grated carrots with a seasoning of mustard seeds and green chillies popped in hot oil. Carrots can also be cut in thin strips and added to rice, can form part of a dish of mixed roast vegetables or can be blended with tamarind to make chutney.[60]
+
+Since the late 1980s, baby carrots or mini-carrots (carrots that have been peeled and cut into uniform cylinders) have been a popular ready-to-eat snack food available in many supermarkets.[61] Carrots are puréed and used as baby food, dehydrated to make chips, flakes, and powder, and thinly sliced and deep-fried, like potato chips.[62]
+
+The sweetness of carrots allows the vegetable to be used in some fruit-like roles. Grated carrots are used in carrot cakes, as well as carrot puddings, an English dish thought to have originated in the early 19th century.[63] Carrots can also be used alone or blended with fruits in jams and preserves. Carrot juice is also widely marketed, especially as a health drink, either stand-alone or blended with juices extracted from fruits and other vegetables.[64]
+
+Highly excessive consumption over a period of time results in a condition of carotenemia which is a yellowing of the skin caused by a build up of carotenoids.
+
+Raw carrots are 88% water, 9% carbohydrates, 0.9% protein, 2.8% dietary fiber, 1% ash and 0.2% fat.[65] Carrot dietary fiber comprises mostly cellulose, with smaller proportions of hemicellulose, lignin and starch.[62] Free sugars in carrot include sucrose, glucose, and fructose.[65]
+
+The carrot gets its characteristic, bright orange colour from β-carotene, and lesser amounts of α-carotene, γ-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin.[66] α- and β-carotenes are partly metabolized into vitamin A,[67][68] providing more than 100% of the Daily Value (DV) per 100 g serving of carrots (right table). Carrots are also a good source of vitamin K (13% DV) and vitamin B6 (11% DV), but otherwise have modest content of other essential nutrients (table).[65]
+
+The provitamin A beta-carotene from carrots does not actually help people to see in the dark unless they suffer from vitamin A deficiency.[69] This myth was propaganda used by the Royal Air Force during the Second World War to explain why their pilots had improved success during night air battles, but was actually used to disguise advances in radar technology and the use of red lights on instrument panels.[70] Nevertheless, the consumption of carrots was advocated in Britain at the time as part of a Dig for Victory campaign. A radio programme called The Kitchen Front encouraged people to grow, store and use carrots in various novel ways, including making carrot jam and Woolton pie, named after the Lord Woolton, the Minister for Food.[71] The British public during WWII generally believed that eating carrots would help them see better at night and in 1942 there was a 100,000-ton surplus of carrots from the extra production.[3]

en/867.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,218 @@
+Coordinates: 60°N 110°W / 60°N 110°W / 60; -110
+
+Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
+
+Various indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.
+
+Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government. The country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and officially bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture.
+
+A developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
+
+While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of Canada, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".[11] In 1535, Indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona.[12] Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona);[12] by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this small region along the Saint Lawrence River as Canada.[12]
+
+From the 16th to the early 18th century "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River.[13] In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named the Canadas; until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841.[14] Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference, and the word Dominion was conferred as the country's title.[15] By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "Realm of the Commonwealth".[16] The government of Louis St. Laurent ended the practice of using Dominion in the statutes of Canada in 1951.[17][18]
+
+In 1982, the passage of the Canada Act, bringing the Constitution of Canada fully under Canadian control, referred only to Canada, while later that year the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.[19] The term Dominion was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term federal had replaced dominion.[20]
+
+Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis,[21] the last being a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations and Inuit people married European settlers.[21] The term "Aboriginal" as a collective noun is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act 1982.[22]
+
+The first inhabitants of North America are generally hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago.[23][24] The Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada.[25] The characteristics of Indigenous societies included permanent settlements, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies, and trading networks.[26][27] Some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.[28]
+
+The Indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000[29] and two million,[30] with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.[31] As a consequence of European colonization, the Indigenous population declined by forty to eighty percent, and several First Nations, such as the Beothuk, disappeared.[32] The decline is attributed to several causes, including the transfer of European diseases, such as influenza, measles, and smallpox to which they had no natural immunity,[29][33] conflicts over the fur trade, conflicts with the colonial authorities and settlers, and the loss of Indigenous lands to settlers and the subsequent collapse of several nations' self-sufficiency.[34][35]
+
+Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful.[36] First Nations and Métis peoples played a critical part in the development of European colonies in Canada, particularly for their role in assisting European coureur des bois and voyageurs in the exploration of the continent during the North American fur trade.[37] The Crown and Indigenous peoples began interactions during the European colonization period, though the Inuit, in general, had more limited interaction with European settlers.[38] However, from the late 18th century, European Canadians encouraged Indigenous peoples to assimilate into their own culture.[39] These attempts reached a climax in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with forced integration and relocations.[40] A period of redress is underway, which started with the appointment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by the Government of Canada in 2008.[41]
+
+It is believed that the first European to explore the east coast of Canada was Norse explorer Leif Erikson (c.970–1020 AD).[43][44] The earliest European mention of Canada may occur in Norse sagas, which refer to new lands west of Greenland as Vinland.[45] In approximately 1000 AD, the Norse built a small encampment that only lasted a few years at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland.[46] No further European exploration occurred until 1497, when Italian seafarer John Cabot explored and claimed Canada's Atlantic coast in the name of King Henry VII of England.[47] In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence where, on July 24, he planted a 10-metre (33 ft) cross bearing the words "Long Live the King of France" and took possession of the territory New France in the name of King Francis I.[48] The early 16th century saw European mariners with navigational techniques pioneered by the Basque and Portuguese establish seasonal whaling and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast.[49] In general, early settlements during the Age of Discovery appear to have been short-lived due to a combination of the harsh climate, problems with navigating trade routes and competing outputs in Scandinavia.[50][51]
+
+In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St. John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English colony.[52] French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608).[53] Among the colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana.[54] The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade.[55]
+
+The English established additional settlements in Newfoundland, beginning in 1610 and the Thirteen Colonies to the south were founded soon after.[56][57] A series of four wars erupted in colonial North America between 1689 and 1763; the later wars of the period constituted the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.[58] Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, and Canada and most of New France came under British rule in 1763 after the Seven Years' War.[59]
+
+The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established First Nation treaty rights, created the Province of Quebec out of New France, and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia.[19] St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony in 1769.[60] To avert conflict in Quebec, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act of 1774, expanding Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.[61] More importantly, the Quebec Act afforded Quebec special autonomy and rights of self-administration at a time when the Thirteen Colonies were increasingly agitating against British rule.[62] It re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law there, staving off the growth of an independence movement in contrast to the Thirteen Colonies.[63] The Proclamation and the Quebec Act in turn angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, further fuelling anti-British sentiment in the years prior to the American Revolution.[19]
+
+After the successful American War of Independence, the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the newly formed United States and set the terms of peace, ceding British North American territories south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River to the new country.[64] The American war of independence also caused a large out-migration of Loyalists, the settlers who had fought against American independence. Many moved to Canada, particularly Atlantic Canada, where their arrival changed the demographic distribution of the existing territories. New Brunswick was in turn split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes which led to the incorporation of Saint John, New Brunswick to become Canada's first city.[65] To accommodate the influx of English-speaking Loyalists in Central Canada, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province of Canada into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.[66]
+
+The Canadas were the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. Peace came in 1815; no boundaries were changed. Immigration resumed at a higher level, with over 960,000 arrivals from Britain between 1815 and 1850.[67] New arrivals included refugees escaping the Great Irish Famine as well as Gaelic-speaking Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances.[68] Infectious diseases killed between 25 and 33 percent of Europeans who immigrated to Canada before 1891.[29]
+
+The desire for responsible government resulted in the abortive Rebellions of 1837.[69] The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into English culture.[19] The Act of Union merged the Canadas into a united Province of Canada and responsible government was established for all provinces of British North America by 1849.[70] The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel. This paved the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858).[71] The Alaska Purchase of 1867 by the United States established the border along the Pacific coast, although there would continue to be some disputes about the exact demarcation of the Alaska-Yukon and Alaska-BC border for years to come.[72]
+
+Following several constitutional conferences, the Constitution Act officially proclaimed Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, initially with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.[73][74] Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where the Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870.[75] British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had been united in 1866) joined the confederation in 1871, while Prince Edward Island joined in 1873.[76] Between 1871 and 1896, almost one quarter of the Canadian population emigrated southwards, to the U.S.[77]
+
+To open the West to European immigration, parliament also approved sponsoring the construction of three transcontinental railways (including the Canadian Pacific Railway), opening the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and establishing the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory.[78][79] In 1898, during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, parliament created the Yukon Territory. Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.[76]
+
+Because Britain still maintained control of Canada's foreign affairs under the Constitution Act, 1867, its declaration of war in 1914 automatically brought Canada into World War I.[80] Volunteers sent to the Western Front later became part of the Canadian Corps, which played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major engagements of the war.[81] Out of approximately 625,000 Canadians who served in World War I, some 60,000 were killed and another 172,000 were wounded.[82] The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when the Unionist Cabinet's proposal to augment the military's dwindling number of active members with conscription was met with vehement objections from French-speaking Quebecers.[83] The Military Service Act brought in compulsory military service, though it, coupled with disputes over French language schools outside Quebec, deeply alienated Francophone Canadians and temporarily split the Liberal Party.[83] In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain,[81] and the 1931 Statute of Westminster affirmed Canada's independence.[84]
+
+The Great Depression in Canada during the early 1930s saw an economic downturn, leading to hardship across the country.[85] In response to the downturn, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Saskatchewan introduced many elements of a welfare state (as pioneered by Tommy Douglas) in the 1940s and 1950s.[86] On the advice of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, war with Germany was declared effective September 10, 1939, by King George VI, seven days after the United Kingdom. The delay underscored Canada's independence.[81]
+
+The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939. In all, over a million Canadians served in the armed forces during World War II and approximately 42,000 were killed and another 55,000 were wounded.[87] Canadian troops played important roles in many key battles of the war, including the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid, the Allied invasion of Italy, the Normandy landings, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944.[81] Canada provided asylum for the Dutch monarchy while that country was occupied and is credited by the Netherlands for major contributions to its liberation from Nazi Germany.[88]
+
+The Canadian economy boomed during the war as its industries manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union.[81] Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec in 1944, Canada finished the war with a large army and strong economy.[89]
+
+The financial crisis of the Great Depression had led the Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish responsible government in 1934 and become a crown colony ruled by a British governor.[90] After two bitter referendums, Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada in 1949 as a province.[91]
+
+Canada's post-war economic growth, combined with the policies of successive Liberal governments, led to the emergence of a new Canadian identity, marked by the adoption of the Maple Leaf Flag in 1965,[92] the implementation of official bilingualism (English and French) in 1969,[93] and the institution of official multiculturalism in 1971.[94] Socially democratic programs were also instituted, such as Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans, though provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions.[95]
+
+Finally, another series of constitutional conferences resulted in the Canada Act, the patriation of Canada's constitution from the United Kingdom, concurrent with the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[96][97][98] Canada had established complete sovereignty as an independent country, although the Queen retained her role as monarch of Canada.[99][100] In 1999, Nunavut became Canada's third territory after a series of negotiations with the federal government.[101]
+
+At the same time, Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes through the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, giving birth to a secular nationalist movement.[102] The radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis with a series of bombings and kidnappings in 1970[103] and the sovereignist Parti Québécois was elected in 1976, organizing an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Attempts to accommodate Quebec nationalism constitutionally through the Meech Lake Accord failed in 1990.[104] This led to the formation of the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the invigoration of the Reform Party of Canada in the West.[105][106] A second referendum followed in 1995, in which sovereignty was rejected by a slimmer margin of 50.6 to 49.4 percent.[107] In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession by a province would be unconstitutional and the Clarity Act was passed by parliament, outlining the terms of a negotiated departure from Confederation.[104]
+
+In addition to the issues of Quebec sovereignty, a number of crises shook Canadian society in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These included the explosion of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, the largest mass murder in Canadian history;[108] the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, a university shooting targeting female students;[109] and the Oka Crisis of 1990,[110] the first of a number of violent confrontations between the government and Indigenous groups.[111] Canada also joined the Gulf War in 1990 as part of a U.S.-led coalition force and was active in several peacekeeping missions in the 1990s, including the UNPROFOR mission in the former Yugoslavia.[112]
+
+Canada sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, but declined to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.[113] In 2011, Canadian forces participated in the NATO-led intervention into the Libyan Civil War,[114] and also became involved in battling the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq in the mid-2010s.[115]
+
+By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land area alone, however, Canada ranks fourth, due to having the world's largest proportion of fresh water lakes.[116] Of Canada's thirteen provinces and territories, eight share a border with the United States, and only two are landlocked (Alberta and Saskatchewan), with the remaining eight provinces and three territories directly bordering one of three oceans. Ontario and Quebec also send most of their shipping traffic through the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east, along the Arctic Ocean to the north, and to the Pacific Ocean in the west,[117] Canada has the longest coastline in the world, with a total length of 243,042 kilometres (151,019 mi), and occupies much of the continent of North America.[118] Moreover, Canada's border with the contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest forms the longest international land border in the world, stretching 8,891 km (5,525 mi).[119][120] In addition to the U.S., Canada shares a maritime boundary with Greenland to the northeast and with the France's overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon to the southeast.[121]
+
+Canada is home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—which lies 817 kilometres (508 mi) from the North Pole.[122] Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost.[123] Three of Canada's arctic islands – Baffin Island, Victoria Island and Ellesmere Island – are among the ten largest in the world.[124]
+
+Since the end of the last glacial period, Canada has consisted of eight distinct forest regions, including extensive boreal forest on the Canadian Shield;[125] 42 percent of the land acreage is covered by forests (approximately 8 percent of the world's forested land), made up mostly of spruce, poplar, and pine.[126] Canada has over 2,000,000 lakes—563 of which are greater than 100 km2 (39 sq mi)—which is more than any other country, containing much of the world's fresh water.[127][128] There are also fresh-water glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, the Coast Mountains and the Arctic Cordillera.[129]
+
+Canada is geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager massif, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley massif, and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.[130] The volcanic eruption of the Tseax Cone in 1775 was among Canada's worst natural disasters, killing an estimated 2,000 Nisga'a people and destroying their village in the Nass River valley of northern British Columbia.[131] The eruption produced a 22.5-kilometre (14.0 mi) lava flow, and, according to Nisga'a legend, blocked the flow of the Nass River.[132]
+
+Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary from region to region. Winters can be harsh in many parts of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near −15 °C (5 °F), but can drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) with severe wind chills.[133] In non-coastal regions, snow can cover the ground for almost six months of the year, while in parts of the north snow can persist year-round. Coastal British Columbia has a temperate climate, with a mild and rainy winter. On the east and west coasts, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts, the average summer high temperature ranges from 25 to 30 °C (77 to 86 °F), with temperatures in some interior locations occasionally exceeding 40 °C (104 °F).[134]
+
+Canada is described as a "full democracy",[135] with a tradition of liberalism,[136] and an egalitarian,[137] moderate political ideology.[138] An emphasis on social justice has been a distinguishing element of Canada's political culture.[139] Peace, order, and good government, alongside an implied bill of rights are founding principles of the Canadian government.[140][141]
+
+At the federal level, Canada has been dominated by two relatively centrist parties practicing "brokerage politics",[a][144][145][146] the centre-left Liberal Party of Canada and the centre-right Conservative Party of Canada (or its predecessors).[147] The historically predominant Liberal Party position themselves at the centre of the Canadian political spectrum,[148] with the Conservative Party positioned on the right and the New Democratic Party occupying the left.[149][150] Far-right and far-left politics have never been a prominent force in Canadian society.[151][152] Five parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2019 election—the Liberal Party, who currently form the government; the Conservative Party, who are the official opposition; the New Democratic Party; the Bloc Québécois; and the Green Party of Canada.[153]
+
+Canada has a parliamentary system within the context of a constitutional monarchy—the monarchy of Canada being the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.[154][155][156] The reigning monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who is also monarch of 15 other Commonwealth countries and each of Canada's 10 provinces. The person who is the Canadian monarch is the same as the British monarch, although the two institutions are separate.[157] The Queen appoints a representative, the governor general (at present Julie Payette), to carry out most of her federal royal duties in Canada.[158][159]
+
+The direct participation of the monarch and the governor general in areas of governance is limited.[156][160][161] In practice, their use of the executive powers is directed by the Cabinet, a committee of ministers of the Crown responsible to the elected House of Commons of Canada and chosen and headed by the prime minister (at present Justin Trudeau),[162] the head of government. The governor general or monarch may, though, in certain crisis situations exercise their power without ministerial advice.[160] To ensure the stability of government, the governor general will usually appoint as prime minister the individual who is the current leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a plurality in the House of Commons.[163] The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is thus one of the most powerful institutions in government, initiating most legislation for parliamentary approval and selecting for appointment by the Crown, besides the aforementioned, the governor general, lieutenant governors, senators, federal court judges, and heads of Crown corporations and government agencies.[160] The leader of the party with the second-most seats usually becomes the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system intended to keep the government in check.[164]
+
+Each of the 338 members of parliament in the House of Commons is elected by simple plurality in an electoral district or riding. General elections must be called by the governor general, either on the advice of the prime minister or if the government loses a confidence vote in the House.[165][166] Constitutionally, an election may be held no more than five years after the preceding election, although the Canada Elections Act limits this to four years with a fixed election date in October. The 105 members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, serve until age 75.[167]
+
+Canada's federal structure divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the ten provinces. Provincial legislatures are unicameral and operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the House of Commons.[161] Canada's three territories also have legislatures, but these are not sovereign and have fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces.[168] The territorial legislatures also differ structurally from their provincial counterparts.[169]
+
+The Bank of Canada is the central bank of the country. In addition, the minister of finance and minister of industry utilize the Statistics Canada agency for financial planning and economic policy development.[170] The Bank of Canada is the sole authority authorized to issue currency in the form of Canadian bank notes.[171] The bank does not issue Canadian coins; they are issued by the Royal Canadian Mint.[172]
+
+The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of the country, and consists of written text and unwritten conventions.[173] The Constitution Act, 1867 (known as the British North America Act prior to 1982), affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent and divided powers between the federal and provincial governments.[174] The Statute of Westminster 1931 granted full autonomy and the Constitution Act, 1982, ended all legislative ties to Britain, as well as adding a constitutional amending formula and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[175] The Charter guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually cannot be over-ridden by any government—though a notwithstanding clause allows the federal parliament and provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five years.[176]
+
+Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down Acts of Parliament that violate the constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and has been led since December 18, 2017 by Chief Justice Richard Wagner.[177] Its nine members are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the prime minister and minister of justice. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are appointed after consultation with non-governmental legal bodies. The federal Cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts in the provincial and territorial jurisdictions.[178]
+
+Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada.[179] Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is officially a provincial responsibility, conducted by provincial and municipal police forces.[180] However, in most rural areas and some urban areas, policing responsibilities are contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.[181]
+
+The Indian Act, various treaties and case laws were established to mediate relations between Europeans and native peoples.[182] Most notably, a series of eleven treaties known as the Numbered Treaties were signed between the Indigenous peoples and the reigning monarch of Canada between 1871 and 1921.[183] These treaties are agreements with the Canadian Crown-in-Council, administered by Canadian Aboriginal law, and overseen by the minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations. The role of the treaties and the rights they support were reaffirmed by Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, 1982.[182] These rights may include provision of services, such as health care, and exemption from taxation.[184]
+
+Canada is recognized as a middle power for its role in international affairs with a tendency to pursue multilateral solutions.[185] Canada's foreign policy based on international peacekeeping and security is carried out through coalitions and international organizations, and through the work of numerous federal institutions.[186] Canada's peacekeeping role during the 20th century has played a major role in its global image.[187] The strategy of the Canadian government's foreign aid policy reflects an emphasis to meet the Millennium Development Goals, while also providing assistance in response to foreign humanitarian crises.[188]
+
+Canada was a founding member of the United Nations and has membership in the World Trade Organization, the G20 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[185] Canada is also a member of various other international and regional organizations and forums for economic and cultural affairs.[189] Canada acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1976.[190] Canada joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990 and hosted the OAS General Assembly in 2000 and the 3rd Summit of the Americas in 2001.[191] Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).[192]
+
+Canada and the United States share the world's longest undefended border, co-operate on military campaigns and exercises, and are each other's largest trading partner.[193][194] Canada nevertheless has an independent foreign policy, most notably maintaining full relations with Cuba, and declining to officially participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[195] Canada also maintains historic ties to the United Kingdom and France and to other former British and French colonies through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and the Francophonie.[196] Canada is noted for having a positive relationship with the Netherlands, owing, in part, to its contribution to the Dutch liberation during World War II.[88]
+
+Canada's strong attachment to the British Empire and Commonwealth led to major participation in British military efforts in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II.[197] Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations.[198][199] During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend against potential aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.[200]
+
+During the Suez Crisis of 1956, future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, for which he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.[201] As this was the first UN peacekeeping mission, Pearson is often credited as the inventor of the concept.[202] Canada has since served in over 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989,[81] and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere; Canada has sometimes faced controversy over its involvement in foreign countries, notably in the 1993 Somalia Affair.[203]
+
+In 2001, Canada deployed troops to Afghanistan as part of the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.[204] In February 2007, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Russia announced their joint commitment to a $1.5-billion project to help develop vaccines for developing nations, and called on other countries to join them.[205] In August 2007, Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic were challenged after a Russian underwater expedition to the North Pole; Canada has considered that area to be sovereign territory since 1925.[206]
+
+The nation employs a professional, volunteer military force of approximately 79,000 active personnel and 32,250 reserve personnel.[207] The unified Canadian Forces (CF) comprise the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force. In 2013, Canada's military expenditure totalled approximately C$19 billion, or around one percent of the country's GDP.[208][209] Following the 2016 Defence Policy Review, the Canadian government announced a 70 percent increase to the country's defence budget over the next decade. The Canadian Forces will acquire 88 fighter planes and 15 naval surface combatants, the latter as part of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. Canada's total military expenditure is expected to reach C$32.7 billion by 2027.[210]
+
+Canada is a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories. In turn, these may be grouped into four main regions: Western Canada, Central Canada, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Canada (Eastern Canada refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together).[211] Provinces have more autonomy than territories, having responsibility for social programs such as health care, education, and welfare.[212] Together, the provinces collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these, but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.[213] The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that provinces receive their power and authority from the Constitution Act, 1867, whereas territorial governments have powers delegated to them by the Parliament of Canada.[214] The powers flowing from the Constitution Act are divided between the Government of Canada (the federal government) and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively.[215] A change to the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces requires a constitutional amendment, whereas a similar change affecting the territories can be performed unilaterally by the Parliament of Canada or government.[216]
+
+Canadian exports 2017 [217]
+
+Canada is the world's tenth-largest economy as of 2018[update], with a nominal GDP of approximately US$1.73 trillion.[218] It is one of the least corrupt countries in the world,[219] and is one of the world's top ten trading nations, with a highly globalized economy.[220][221] Canada has a  mixed economy ranking above the U.S. and most western European nations on The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom,[222] and experiencing a relatively low level of income disparity.[223] The country's average household disposable income per capita is "well above" the OECD average.[224] The Toronto Stock Exchange is the ninth-largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, listing over 1,500 companies with a combined market capitalization of over US$2 trillion.[225]
+
+In 2018, Canadian trade in goods and services reached CA$1.5 trillion.[226] Canada's exports totalled over CA$585 billion, while its imported goods were worth over CA$607 billion, of which approximately CA$391 billion originated from the United States, CA$216 billion from non-U.S. sources.[226] In 2018, Canada had a trade deficit in goods of CA$22 billion and a trade deficit in services of CA$25 billion.[226]
+
+Since the early 20th century, the growth of Canada's manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy to an urbanized, industrial one.[227] Like many other developed countries, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of the country's workforce.[228] However, Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of its primary sector, in which the forestry and petroleum industries are two of the most prominent components.[229]
+
+Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy.[229][230] Atlantic Canada possesses vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and Alberta also hosts large oil and gas resources. The vastness of the Athabasca oil sands and other assets results in Canada having a 13 percent share of global oil reserves, comprising the world's third-largest share after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.[231] Canada is additionally one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies are one of the most important global producers of wheat, canola, and other grains.[232] Canada's Department of Natural Resources provides statistics regarding its major exports; the country is a leading exporter of zinc, uranium, gold, nickel, platinoids, aluminum, steel, iron ore, coking coal, lead, copper, molybdenum, cobalt, and cadmium.[233] Many towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, are sustainable because of nearby mines or sources of timber. Canada also has a sizeable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries.[234]
+
+Canada's economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II.[235] The Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 opened Canada's borders to trade in the automobile manufacturing industry.[236] In the 1970s, concerns over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to enact the National Energy Program (NEP) and the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA).[237] In the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to Investment Canada, to encourage foreign investment.[238] The Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free-trade zone to include Mexico in 1994.[239] Canada has a strong cooperative banking sector, with the world's highest per-capita membership in credit unions.[240]
+
+In 2018, Canada spent approximately C$34.5 billion on domestic research and development, of which around $7 billion was provided by the federal and provincial governments.[241] As of 2018[update], the country has produced fourteen  Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine,[242] and was ranked fourth worldwide for scientific research quality in a major 2012 survey of international scientists.[243] It is furthermore home to the headquarters of a number of global technology firms.[244] Canada has one of the highest levels of Internet access in the world, with over 33 million users, equivalent to around 94 percent of its total 2014 population.[245]
+
+Some of the most notable scientific developments in Canada include the creation of the modern alkaline battery[246] and the polio vaccine[247] and discoveries about the interior structure of the atomic nucleus.[248] Other major Canadian scientific contributions include the artificial cardiac pacemaker, mapping the visual cortex,[249][250] the development of the electron microscope,[251][252] plate tectonics, deep learning, multi-touch technology and the identification of the first black hole, Cygnus X-1.[253]  Canada has a long history of discovery in genetics, which include stem cells, site-directed mutagenesis, T-cell receptor and the identification of the genes that cause Fanconi anemia, cystic fibrosis and early-onset Alzheimer's disease, among numerous other diseases.[250][254]
+
+The Canadian Space Agency operates a highly active space program, conducting deep-space, planetary, and aviation research, and developing rockets and satellites.[255] Canada was the third country to design and construct a satellite after the Soviet Union and the United States, with the 1962 Alouette 1 launch.[256] Canada is a participant in the International Space Station (ISS), and is a pioneer in space robotics, having constructed the Canadarm, Canadarm2 and Dextre robotic manipulators for the ISS and NASA's Space Shuttle.[257] Since the 1960s, Canada's aerospace industry has designed and built numerous marques of satellite, including Radarsat-1 and 2, ISIS and MOST.[258] Canada has also produced one of the world's most successful and widely used sounding rockets, the Black Brant; over 1,000 Black Brants have been launched since the rocket's introduction in 1961.[259]
+
+The 2016 Canadian Census enumerated a total population of 35,151,728, an increase of around 5.0 percent over the 2011 figure.[261][262] Between 2011 and May 2016, Canada's population grew by 1.7 million people, with immigrants accounting for two-thirds of the increase.[263] Between 1990 and 2008, the population increased by 5.6 million, equivalent to 20.4 percent overall growth.[264] The main drivers of population growth are immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth.[265]
+
+Canada has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world,[266] driven mainly by economic policy and, to a lesser extent, family reunification.[267][268] The Canadian public, as well as the major political parties, support the current level of immigration.[267][269] In 2019, a total of 341,180 immigrants were admitted to Canada, mainly from Asia.[270] India, Philippines and China are the top three countries of origin for immigrants moving to Canada.[271] New immigrants settle mostly in major urban areas such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.[272] Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees,[273] accounting for over 10 percent of annual global refugee resettlements.[274][275]
+
+Canada's population density, at 3.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.6/sq mi), is among the lowest in the world.[276] Canada spans latitudinally from the 83rd parallel north to the 41st parallel north, and approximately 95 percent of the population is found south of the 55th parallel north.[277] About four-fifths of the population lives within 150 kilometres (93 mi) of the border with the contiguous United States.[278] The most densely populated part of the country, accounting for nearly 50 percent, is the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor in Southern Quebec and Southern Ontario along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.[260][277] An additional 30 percent live along the British Columbia Lower Mainland and the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor in Alberta.[279]
+
+The majority of Canadians (69.9 percent) live in family households, 26.8 percent report living alone, and those living with unrelated persons reported at 3.7 percent.[280] The average size of a household in 2006 was 2.5 people.[280]
+
+Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare.[282][283] It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984,[284] and is universal.[285] Universal access to publicly funded health services "is often considered by Canadians as a fundamental value that ensures national health care insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country."[286] However, 30 percent of Canadians' healthcare is paid for through the private sector.[287] This mostly goes towards services not covered or partially covered by Medicare, such as prescription drugs, dentistry and optometry.[287] Approximately 65 to 75 percent of Canadians have some form of supplementary health insurance related to the aforementioned reasons; many receive it through their employers or utilizes secondary social service programs related to extended coverage for families receiving social assistance or vulnerable demographics, such as seniors, minors, and those with disabilities.[288][287]
+
+In common with many other developed countries, Canada is experiencing a cost increase due to a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2006, the average age was 39.5 years;[289] within twelve years it had risen to 42.4 years,[290] with a life expectancy of 81.1 years.[291] A 2016 report by the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada found that 88 percent of Canadians; one of the highest proportions of the population among G7 countries, indicated that they "had good or very good health".[292] 80 percent of Canadian adults self-report having at least one major risk factor for chronic disease; smoking, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating or excessive alcohol use.[293] Canada has one of the highest rates of adult obesity among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries attributing to approximately 2.7 million cases of diabetes (types 1 and 2 combined).[293] Four chronic diseases; cancer (leading cause of death), cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes account for 65 percent of deaths in Canada.[294][295]
+
+In 2017, the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported that healthcare spending reached $242 billion, or 11.5 percent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) for that year.[296] Canada's per-capita spending ranks as seventh on the list of countries by total health expenditure per capita in the OECD and above the average of 8.8 percent of GDP.[297] Canada has performed close to, or above the average on the majority of OECD health indicators since the early 2000s.[298] In 2017 Canada ranked above the average on OECD indicators for wait-times and access to care, with average scores for quality of care and use of resources.[299] A comprehensive study from 2017 of the top 11 countries ranked Canada's health care system third-to-last.[300] Identified weaknesses of Canada's system were comparatively higher infant mortality rate, the prevalence of chronic conditions, long wait times, poor availability of after-hours care, and a lack of prescription drugs and dental coverage.[300]
+
+Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments.[301] Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province.[302] Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by secondary education and post-secondary. Education in both English and French is available in most places across Canada.[303] Canadian provinces and territories are responsible for education provision.[304] Canada has a large number of Universities, almost all of which are publicly funded.[305] Established in 1663, Université Laval is the oldest post-secondary institution in Canada.[306] The largest University is the University of Toronto with over 85,000 students.[307] Four Universities are regularly ranked among the top 100 world-wide, namely University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill University and McMaster University , with a total of 18 Universities ranked in the top 500 worldwide.[308]
+
+According to a 2019 report by the OECD, Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world;[309] the country ranks first worldwide in the number of adults having tertiary education, with over 56 percent of Canadian adults having attained at least an undergraduate college or university degree.[309] Canada spends about 5.3 percent of its GDP on education.[310] The country invests heavily in tertiary education (more than US$20,000 per student).[311] As of 2014[update], 89 percent of adults aged 25 to 64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, compared to an OECD average of 75 percent.[312]
+
+The mandatory school age ranges between 5–7 to 16–18 years,[313] contributing to an adult literacy rate of 99 percent.[117] In 2002, 43 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 64 possessed a post-secondary education; for those aged 25 to 34, the rate of post-secondary education reached 51 percent.[314] The Programme for International Student Assessment indicates Canadian students perform well above the OECD average, particularly in mathematics, science, and reading,[315][316] ranking the overall knowledge and skills of Canadian 15-year-olds as the sixth-best in the world. Canada is a well-performing OECD country in reading literacy, mathematics, and science with the average student scoring 523.7, compared with the OECD average of 493 in 2015.[317][318]
+
+According to the 2016 Canadian Census, the country's largest self-reported ethnic origin is Canadian (accounting for 32 percent of the population),[b] followed by English (18.3 percent), Scottish (13.9 percent), French (13.6 percent), Irish (13.4 percent), German (9.6 percent), Chinese (5.1 percent), Italian (4.6 percent), First Nations (4.4 percent), Indian (4.0 percent), and Ukrainian (3.9 percent).[321] There are 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands, encompassing a total of 1,525,565 people.[322] Canada's Indigenous population is growing at almost twice the national rate, and four percent of Canada's population claimed an Indigenous identity in 2006. Another 22.3 percent of the population belonged to a non-Indigenous visible minority.[323] In 2016, the largest visible minority groups were South Asian (5.6 percent), Chinese (5.1 percent) and Black (3.5 percent).[323] Between 2011 and 2016, the visible minority population rose by 18.4 percent.[323] In 1961, less than two percent of Canada's population (about 300,000 people) were members of visible minority groups.[324] Indigenous peoples are not considered a visible minority under the Employment Equity Act,[325] and this is the definition that Statistics Canada also uses.
+
+A multitude of languages are used by Canadians, with English and French (the official languages) being the mother tongues of approximately 56 percent and 21 percent of Canadians, respectively.[327] As of the 2016 Census, just over 7.3 million Canadians listed a non-official language as their mother tongue. Some of the most common non-official first languages include Chinese (1,227,680 first-language speakers), Punjabi (501,680), Spanish (458,850), Tagalog (431,385), Arabic (419,895), German (384,040), and Italian (375,645).[327] Canada's federal government practices official bilingualism, which is applied by the Commissioner of Official Languages in consonance with Section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Federal Official Languages Act English and French have equal status in federal courts, parliament, and in all federal institutions. Citizens have the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French and official-language minorities are guaranteed their own schools in all provinces and territories.[328]
+
+The 1977 Charter of the French Language established French as the official language of Quebec.[329] Although more than 85 percent of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, there are substantial Francophone populations in New Brunswick, Alberta, and Manitoba; Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec.[330] New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province, has a French-speaking Acadian minority constituting 33 percent of the population.[331] There are also clusters of Acadians in southwestern Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island, and through central and western Prince Edward Island.[332]
+
+Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and for other government services, in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status, but is not fully co-official.[333] There are 11 Indigenous language groups, composed of more than 65 distinct languages and dialects.[334] Several Indigenous languages have official status in the Northwest Territories.[335] Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut, and is one of three official languages in the territory.[336]
+
+Additionally, Canada is home to many sign languages, some of which are Indigenous.[337] American Sign Language (ASL) is spoken across the country due to the prevalence of ASL in primary and secondary schools.[338] Due to its historical relation to the francophone culture, Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) is spoken primarily in Quebec, although there are sizeable Francophone communities in New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba.[339]
+
+Canada is religiously diverse, encompassing a wide range of beliefs and customs. Canada has no official church, and the government is officially committed to religious pluralism.[340] Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing individuals to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.[341] The practice of religion is now generally considered a private matter throughout society and the state.[342] With Christianity in decline after having once been central and integral to Canadian culture and daily life,[343] Canada has become a post-Christian, secular state.[344][345][346][347] The majority of Canadians consider religion to be unimportant in their daily lives,[348] but still believe in God.[349]
+
+According to the 2011 National Household Survey, 67.3 percent of Canadians identify as Christian; of these, Roman Catholics make up the largest group, accounting for 38.7 percent of the population. Much of the remainder is made up of Protestants, who accounted for approximately 27 percent in a 2011 survey.[350][351] The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada (accounting for 6.1 percent of Canadians), followed by the Anglican Church of Canada (5.0 percent), and various Baptist sects (1.9 percent).[3] Secularization has been growing since the 1960s.[352][353] In 2011, 23.9 percent declared no religious affiliation, compared to 16.5 percent in 2001.[354] Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Canada, constituting 3.2 percent of its population. It is also the fastest growing religion in Canada.[355] 1.5 percent of the Canadian population is Hindu and 1.4 percent is Sikh.[3]
+
+Canada's culture draws influences from its broad range of constituent nationalities, and policies that promote a "just society" are constitutionally protected.[356][357][358] Canada has placed emphasis on equality and inclusiveness for all its people.[359] Multiculturalism is often cited as one of Canada's significant accomplishments,[360] and a key distinguishing element of Canadian identity.[361][362] In Quebec, cultural identity is strong, and there is a French Canadian culture that is distinct from English Canadian culture.[363] However, as a whole, Canada is, in theory, a cultural mosaic—a collection of regional ethnic subcultures.[364]
+
+Canada's approach to governance emphasizing multiculturalism, which is based on selective immigration, social integration, and suppression of far-right politics, has wide public support.[365] Government policies such as publicly-funded health care, higher taxation to redistribute wealth, the outlawing of capital punishment, strong efforts to eliminate poverty, strict gun control; alongside legislation with a social liberal attitude toward women's rights (like pregnancy termination), LGBTQ rights, assisted euthanasia and cannabis use are indicators of Canada's political and  cultural values.[366][367][368] Canadians also identify with the country's foreign aid policies, peacekeeping roles, the National park system and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[369][370]
+
+Historically, Canada has been influenced by British, French, and Indigenous cultures and traditions. Through their language, art and music, Indigenous peoples continue to influence the Canadian identity.[371] During the 20th century, Canadians with African, Caribbean and Asian nationalities have added to the Canadian identity and its culture.[372] Canadian humour is an integral part of the Canadian identity and is reflected in its folklore, literature, music, art, and media. The primary characteristics of Canadian humour are irony, parody, and satire.[373] Many Canadian comedians have achieved international success in the American TV and film industries and are amongst the most recognized in the world.[374]
+
+Canada has a well-developed media sector, but its cultural output; particularly in English films, television shows, and magazines, is often overshadowed by imports from the United States.[375] As a result, the preservation of a distinctly Canadian culture is supported by federal government programs, laws, and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).[376]
+
+Canada's national symbols are influenced by natural, historical, and Indigenous sources. The use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates to the early 18th century. The maple leaf is depicted on Canada's current and previous flags, and on the Arms of Canada.[378] The Arms of Canada are closely modelled after the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom with French and distinctive Canadian elements replacing or added to those derived from the British version.[379] Other prominent symbols include the national motto "A Mari Usque Ad Mare" ("From Sea to Sea"),[380] the sports of ice hockey and lacrosse, the beaver, Canada goose, common loon, Canadian horse, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Rockies,[378] and more recently the totem pole and Inuksuk.[381] Material items such as Canadian beer, maple syrup, tuques, canoes, nanaimo bars, butter tarts and the Quebec dish of poutine are defined as uniquely Canadian.[381][382] Canadian coins feature many of these symbols: the loon on the $1 coin, the Arms of Canada on the 50¢ piece, the beaver on the nickel.[383] The penny, removed from circulation in 2013, featured the maple leaf.[384] The Queen's image appears on $20 bank notes, and on the obverse of all current Canadian coins.[383]
+
+Canadian literature is often divided into French- and English-language literatures, which are rooted in the literary traditions of France and Britain, respectively.[385] There are four major themes that can be found within historical Canadian literature; nature, frontier life, Canada's position within the world, all three of which tie into the garrison mentality.[386] By the 1990s, Canadian literature was viewed as some of the world's best.[387] Canada's ethnic and cultural diversity are reflected in its literature, with many of its most prominent modern writers focusing on ethnic life.[388] Arguably, the best-known living Canadian writer internationally (especially since the deaths of Robertson Davies and Mordecai Richler) is Margaret Atwood, a prolific novelist, poet, and literary critic.[389] Numerous other Canadian authors have accumulated international literary awards;[390] including Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, who has been called the best living writer of short stories in English;[391] and Booker Prize recipient Michael Ondaatje, who is perhaps best known for the novel The English Patient, which was adapted as a film of the same name that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.[392]
+
+Canadian visual art has been dominated by figures such as Tom Thomson – the country's most famous painter – and by the Group of Seven.[393] Thomson's career painting Canadian landscapes spanned a decade up to his death in 1917 at age 39.[394] The Group of Seven were painters with a nationalistic and idealistic focus, who first exhibited their distinctive works in May 1920. Though referred to as having seven members, five artists—Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley—were responsible for articulating the Group's ideas. They were joined briefly by Frank Johnston, and by commercial artist Franklin Carmichael. A. J. Casson became part of the Group in 1926.[395] Associated with the Group was another prominent Canadian artist, Emily Carr, known for her landscapes and portrayals of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.[396] Since the 1950s, works of Inuit art have been given as gifts to foreign dignitaries by the Canadian government.[397]
+
+The Canadian music industry is the sixth-largest in the world producing internationally renowned composers, musicians and ensembles.[398] Music broadcasting in the country is regulated by the CRTC.[399] The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presents Canada's music industry awards, the Juno Awards, which were first awarded in 1970.[400] The Canadian Music Hall of Fame established in 1976 honours Canadian musicians for their lifetime achievements.[401] Patriotic music in Canada dates back over 200 years as a distinct category from British patriotism, preceding the Canadian Confederation by over 50 years. The earliest, The Bold Canadian, was written in 1812.[402] The national anthem of Canada, "O Canada", was originally commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Honourable Théodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony, and was officially adopted in 1980.[403] Calixa Lavallée wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French before it was adapted into English in 1906.[404]
+
+The roots of organized sports in Canada date back to the 1770s,[405] culminating in the development and popularization of the major professional games of ice hockey, lacrosse, basketball, baseball and football.[406]  Canada's official national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse.[407] Golf, soccer, baseball, tennis, skiing, badminton, volleyball, cycling, swimming, bowling, rugby union, canoeing, equestrian, squash and the study of martial arts are widely enjoyed at the youth and amateur levels.[408]
+
+Canada shares several major professional sports leagues with the United States.[409] Canadian teams in these leagues include seven franchises in the National Hockey League, as well as three Major League Soccer teams and one team in each of Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. Other popular professional sports in Canada include Canadian football, which is played in the Canadian Football League, National Lacrosse League lacrosse, and curling.[410]
+
+Canada has participated in almost every Olympic Games since its Olympic debut in 1900,[411] and has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, including the 1976 Summer Olympics,[412] the 1988 Winter Olympics,[413] the 1994 Basketball World Championship,[414] the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup,[415] the 2010 Winter Olympics[416][417] and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.[418] Most recently, Canada staged the 2015 Pan American Games and 2015 Parapan American Games, the former being the largest sporting event hosted by the country.[419]
+
+Canada portal
+
+North America portal
+
+Overview
+
+History
+
+Geography and climate
+
+Government and law
+
+Social welfare
+
+Foreign relations and military
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+Economy
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+Asia (/ˈeɪʒə, ˈeɪʃə/ (listen)) is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe and the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres (17,212,000 sq mi), about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population,[5] was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but also dense and large settlements, as well as vast barely populated regions. Its 4.5 billion people (as of June 2019[update]) constitute roughly 60% of the world's population.[6]
+
+In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. The border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. It is somewhat arbitrary and has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity. The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural, linguistic, and ethnic differences, some of which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa; and to the east of the Turkish Straits, the Ural Mountains and Ural River, and to the south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas, separating it from Europe.[7]
+
+China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power and attracted many to the east,[8][9][10] and for many the legendary wealth and prosperity of the ancient culture of India personified Asia,[11] attracting European commerce, exploration and colonialism. The accidental discovery of a trans-Atlantic route from Europe to America by Columbus while in search for a route to India demonstrates this deep fascination. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism (particularly East Asia) as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen.[12] Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, as well as many other religions.
+
+Given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography.[citation needed] Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties and government systems. It also has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot desert in the Middle East, temperate areas in the east and the  continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in Siberia.
+
+The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal.[13] This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa.
+
+The threefold division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BC, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus.[citation needed] Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni river) in Georgia of Caucasus (from its mouth by Poti on the Black Sea coast, through the Surami Pass and along the Kura River to the Caspian Sea), a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC.[14] During the Hellenistic period,[15] this convention was revised, and the boundary between Europe and Asia was now considered to be the Tanais (the modern Don River). This is the convention used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius,[16] Strabo[17] and Ptolemy.[18]
+The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics.[19] The Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721. The major geographical theorist of the empire was a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, and was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book.[citation needed]
+
+In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Ural Mountains as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg. The latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century. The border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects.[20] The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north.[19]
+
+The border between Asia and the region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The Maluku Islands in Indonesia are often considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with New Guinea, to the east of the islands, being wholly part of Oceania. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there (not all European). Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of 'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process."[21]
+
+Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not exactly correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents.[22]
+
+From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system (Europe, Africa, Asia) on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between them.[23] For example, Sir Barry Cunliffe, the emeritus professor of European archeology at Oxford, argues that Europe has been geographically and culturally merely "the western excrescence of the continent of Asia".[24]
+
+Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass. Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass—Afro-Eurasia (except for the Suez Canal)—and share a common continental shelf. Almost all of Europe and the better part of Asia sit atop the Eurasian Plate, adjoined on the south by the Arabian and Indian Plate and with the easternmost part of Siberia (east of the Chersky Range) on the North American Plate.
+
+The idea of a place called "Asia" was originally a concept of Greek civilization,[25] though this might not correspond to the entire continent currently known by that name. The English word comes from Latin literature, where it has the same form, "Asia". Whether "Asia" in other languages comes from Latin of the Roman Empire is much less certain, and the ultimate source of the Latin word is uncertain, though several theories have been published. One of the first classical writers to use Asia as a name of the whole continent was Pliny.[26] This metonymical change in meaning is common and can be observed in some other geographical names, such as Scandinavia (from Scania).
+
+Before Greek poetry, the Aegean Sea area was in a Greek Dark Age, at the beginning of which syllabic writing was lost and alphabetic writing had not begun. Prior to then in the Bronze Age the records of the Assyrian Empire, the Hittite Empire and the various Mycenaean states of Greece mention a region undoubtedly Asia, certainly in Anatolia, including if not identical to Lydia. These records are administrative and do not include poetry.
+
+The Mycenaean states were destroyed about 1200 BCE by unknown agents although one school of thought assigns the Dorian invasion to this time. The burning of the palaces baked clay diurnal administrative records written in a Greek syllabic script called Linear B, deciphered by a number of interested parties, most notably by a young World War II cryptographer, Michael Ventris, subsequently assisted by the scholar, John Chadwick. A major cache discovered by Carl Blegen at the site of ancient Pylos included hundreds of male and female names formed by different methods.
+
+Some of these are of women held in servitude (as study of the society implied by the content reveals). They were used in trades, such as cloth-making, and usually came with children. The epithet lawiaiai, "captives", associated with some of them identifies their origin. Some are ethnic names. One in particular, aswiai, identifies "women of Asia".[27] Perhaps they were captured in Asia, but some others, Milatiai, appear to have been of Miletus, a Greek colony, which would not have been raided for slaves by Greeks. Chadwick suggests that the names record the locations where these foreign women were purchased.[28] The name is also in the singular, Aswia, which refers both to the name of a country and to a female from there. There is a masculine form, aswios. This Aswia appears to have been a remnant of a region known to the Hittites as Assuwa, centered on Lydia, or "Roman Asia". This name, Assuwa, has been suggested as the origin for the name of the continent "Asia".[29] The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia, defeated by the Hittites under Tudhaliya I around 1400 BCE.
+
+Alternatively, the etymology of the term may be from the Akkadian word (w)aṣû(m), which means 'to go outside' or 'to ascend', referring to the direction of the sun at sunrise in the Middle East and also likely connected with the Phoenician word asa meaning 'east'. This may be contrasted to a similar etymology proposed for Europe, as being from Akkadian erēbu(m) 'to enter' or 'set' (of the sun).
+
+T.R. Reid supports this alternative etymology, noting that the ancient Greek name must have derived from asu, meaning 'east' in Assyrian (ereb for Europe meaning 'west').[25] The ideas of Occidental (form Latin occidens 'setting') and Oriental (from Latin oriens for 'rising') are also European invention, synonymous with Western and Eastern.[25] Reid further emphasizes that it explains the Western point of view of placing all the peoples and cultures of Asia into a single classification, almost as if there were a need for setting the distinction between Western and Eastern civilizations on the Eurasian continent.[25] Kazuo Ogura and Tenshin Okakura are two outspoken Japanese figures on the subject.[25]
+
+Latin Asia and Greek Ἀσία appear to be the same word. Roman authors translated Ἀσία as Asia. The Romans named a province Asia, located in western Anatolia (in modern-day Turkey). There was an Asia Minor and an Asia Major located in modern-day Iraq. As the earliest evidence of the name is Greek, it is likely circumstantially that Asia came from Ἀσία, but ancient transitions, due to the lack of literary contexts, are difficult to catch in the act. The most likely vehicles were the ancient geographers and historians, such as Herodotus, who were all Greek. Ancient Greek certainly evidences early and rich uses of the name.[30]
+
+The first continental use of Asia is attributed to Herodotus (about 440 BCE), not because he innovated it, but because his Histories are the earliest surviving prose to describe it in any detail. He defines it carefully,[31] mentioning the previous geographers whom he had read, but whose works are now missing. By it he means Anatolia and the Persian Empire, in contrast to Greece and Egypt.
+
+Herodotus comments that he is puzzled as to why three women's names were "given to a tract which is in reality one" (Europa, Asia, and Libya, referring to Africa), stating that most Greeks assumed that Asia was named after the wife of Prometheus (i.e. Hesione), but that the Lydians say it was named after Asies, son of Cotys, who passed the name on to a tribe at Sardis.[32] In Greek mythology, "Asia" (Ἀσία) or "Asie" (Ἀσίη) was the name of a "Nymph or Titan goddess of Lydia".[33]
+
+In ancient Greek religion, places were under the care of female divinities, parallel to guardian angels. The poets detailed their doings and generations in allegoric language salted with entertaining stories, which subsequently playwrights transformed into classical Greek drama and became "Greek mythology". For example, Hesiod mentions the daughters of Tethys and Ocean, among whom are a "holy company", "who with the Lord Apollo and the Rivers have youths in their keeping".[34] Many of these are geographic: Doris, Rhodea, Europa, Asia. Hesiod explains:[35]
+
+For there are three-thousand neat-ankled daughters of Ocean who are dispersed far and wide, and in every place alike serve the earth and the deep waters.
+
+The Iliad (attributed by the ancient Greeks to Homer) mentions two Phrygians (the tribe that replaced the Luvians in Lydia) in the Trojan War named Asios (an adjective meaning "Asian");[36] and also a marsh or lowland containing a marsh in Lydia as ασιος.[37] According to many Muslims, the term came from Ancient Egypt's Queen Asiya, the adoptive mother of Moses.[38]
+
+The history of Asia can be seen as the distinct histories of several peripheral coastal regions: East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, linked by the interior mass of the Central Asian steppes.
+
+The coastal periphery was home to some of the world's earliest known civilizations, each of them developing around fertile river valleys. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley and the Yellow River shared many similarities. These civilizations may well have exchanged technologies and ideas such as mathematics and the wheel. Other innovations, such as writing, seem to have been developed individually in each area. Cities, states and empires developed in these lowlands.
+
+The central steppe region had long been inhabited by horse-mounted nomads who could reach all areas of Asia from the steppes. The earliest postulated expansion out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who spread their languages into the Middle East, South Asia, and the borders of China, where the Tocharians resided. The northernmost part of Asia, including much of Siberia, was largely inaccessible to the steppe nomads, owing to the dense forests, climate and tundra. These areas remained very sparsely populated.
+
+The center and the peripheries were mostly kept separated by mountains and deserts. The Caucasus and Himalaya mountains and the Karakum and Gobi deserts formed barriers that the steppe horsemen could cross only with difficulty. While the urban city dwellers were more advanced technologically and socially, in many cases they could do little in a military aspect to defend against the mounted hordes of the steppe. However, the lowlands did not have enough open grasslands to support a large horsebound force; for this and other reasons, the nomads who conquered states in China, India, and the Middle East often found themselves adapting to the local, more affluent societies.
+
+The Islamic Caliphate's defeats of the Byzantine and Persian empires led to West Asia and southern parts of Central Asia and western parts of South Asia under its control during its conquests of the 7th century. The Mongol Empire conquered a large part of Asia in the 13th century, an area extending from China to Europe. Before the Mongol invasion, Song dynasty reportedly had approximately 120 million citizens; the 1300 census which followed the invasion reported roughly 60 million people.[40]
+
+The Black Death, one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, is thought to have originated in the arid plains of central Asia, where it then travelled along the Silk Road.[41]
+
+The Russian Empire began to expand into Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.[42] The Empire of Japan controlled most of East Asia and much of Southeast Asia, New Guinea and the Pacific islands until the end of World War II.
+
+The threefold division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa has been in use since the 6th century BC, due to Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus.
+
+Map of western, southern, and central Asia in 1885[43]
+
+The map of Asia in 1796, which also included the continent of Australia (then known as New Holland).
+
+1890 map of Asia
+
+Asia is the largest continent on Earth. It covers 9% of the Earth's total surface area (or 30% of its land area), and has the longest coastline, at 62,800 kilometres (39,022 mi). Asia is generally defined as comprising the eastern four-fifths of Eurasia. It is located to the east of the Suez Canal and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains (or the Kuma–Manych Depression) and the Caspian and Black Seas.[7][44] It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Asia is subdivided into 49 countries, Five of them (Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey) are transcontinental countries and having part of their land in Europe.
+
+Asia has extremely diverse climates and geographic features. Climates range from arctic and subarctic in Siberia to tropical in southern India and Southeast Asia. It is moist across southeast sections, and dry across much of the interior. Some of the largest daily temperature ranges on Earth occur in western sections of Asia. The monsoon circulation dominates across southern and eastern sections, due to the presence of the Himalayas forcing the formation of a thermal low which draws in moisture during the summer. Southwestern sections of the continent are hot. Siberia is one of the coldest places in the Northern Hemisphere, and can act as a source of arctic air masses for North America. The most active place on Earth for tropical cyclone activity lies northeast of the Philippines and south of Japan. The Gobi Desert is in Mongolia and the Arabian Desert stretches across much of the Middle East. The Yangtze River in China is the longest river in the continent. The Himalayas between Nepal and China is the tallest mountain range in the world. Tropical rainforests stretch across much of southern Asia and coniferous and deciduous forests lie farther north.
+
+Kerala backwaters
+
+Mongolian steppe
+
+South China Karst
+
+Altai Mountains
+
+Hunza Valley
+
+Atolls of the Maldives
+
+There are various approaches to the regional division of Asia. The following subdivision into regions is used, among others, by the UN statistics agency UNSD. This division of Asia into regions by the United Nations is done solely for statistical reasons and does not imply any assumption about political or other affiliations of countries and territories.[45]
+
+A survey carried out in 2010 by global risk analysis farm Maplecroft identified 16 countries that are extremely vulnerable to climate change. Each nation's vulnerability was calculated using 42 socio, economic and environmental indicators, which identified the likely climate change impacts during the next 30 years. The Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were among the 16 countries facing extreme risk from climate change. Some shifts are already occurring. For example, in tropical parts of India with a semi-arid climate, the temperature increased by 0.4 °C between 1901 and 2003.
+A 2013 study by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) aimed to find science-based, pro-poor approaches and techniques that would enable Asia's agricultural systems to cope with climate change, while benefitting poor and vulnerable farmers. The study's recommendations ranged from improving the use of climate information in local planning and strengthening weather-based agro-advisory services, to stimulating diversification of rural household incomes and providing incentives to farmers to adopt natural resource conservation measures to enhance forest cover, replenish groundwater and use renewable energy.[46]
+
+Asia has the largest continental economy by both GDP Nominal and PPP in the world, and is the fastest growing economic region.[47] As of 2018[update], the largest economies in Asia are China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia and Turkey based on GDP in both nominal and PPP.[48] Based on Global Office Locations 2011, Asia dominated the office locations with 4 of the top 5 being in Asia: Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul. Around 68 percent of international firms have office in Hong Kong.[49]
+
+In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the economies of China[50] and India have been growing rapidly, both with an average annual growth rate of more than 8%. Other recent very-high-growth nations in Asia include Israel, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and mineral-rich nations such as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Brunei, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.
+
+According to economic historian Angus Maddison in his book The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective, India had the world's largest economy during 0 BCE and 1000 BCE.[51][52] China was the largest and most advanced economy on earth for much of recorded history.[53][54][55] For several decades in the late twentieth century Japan was the largest economy in Asia and second-largest of any single nation in the world, after surpassing the Soviet Union (measured in net material product) in 1990 and Germany in 1968. (NB: A number of supernational economies are larger, such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or APEC). This ended in 2010 when China overtook Japan to become the world's second largest economy.
+
+In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Japan's GDP was almost as large (current exchange rate method) as that of the rest of Asia combined.[56] In 1995, Japan's economy nearly equaled that of the US as the largest economy in the world for a day, after the Japanese currency reached a record high of 79 yen/US$. Economic growth in Asia since World War II to the 1990s had been concentrated in Japan as well as the four regions of South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore located in the Pacific Rim, known as the Asian tigers, which have now all received developed country status, having the highest GDP per capita in Asia.[57]
+
+It is forecasted that India will overtake Japan in terms of nominal GDP by 2025.[58] By 2027, according to Goldman Sachs, China will have the largest economy in the world. Several trade blocs exist, with the most developed being the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
+
+Asia is the largest continent in the world by a considerable margin, and it is rich in natural resources, such as petroleum, forests, fish, water, rice, copper and silver. Manufacturing in Asia has traditionally been strongest in East and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, India, the Philippines, and Singapore. Japan and South Korea continue to dominate in the area of multinational corporations, but increasingly the PRC and India are making significant inroads. Many companies from Europe, North America, South Korea and Japan have operations in Asia's developing countries to take advantage of its abundant supply of cheap labour and relatively developed infrastructure.
+
+According to Citigroup 9 of 11 Global Growth Generators countries came from Asia driven by population and income growth. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Mongolia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam.[59] Asia has three main financial centers: Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore. Call centers and business process outsourcing (BPOs) are becoming major employers in India and the Philippines due to the availability of a large pool of highly skilled, English-speaking workers. The increased use of outsourcing has assisted the rise of India and the China as financial centers. Due to its large and extremely competitive information technology industry, India has become a major hub for outsourcing.
+
+In 2010, Asia had 3.3 million millionaires (people with net worth over US$1 million excluding their homes), slightly below North America with 3.4 million millionaires. Last year Asia had toppled Europe.[60]
+Citigroup in The Wealth Report 2012 stated that Asian centa-millionaire overtook North America's wealth for the first time as the world's "economic center of gravity" continued moving east. At the end of 2011, there were 18,000 Asian people mainly in Southeast Asia, China and Japan who have at least $100 million in disposable assets, while North America with 17,000 people and Western Europe with 14,000 people.[61]
+
+With growing Regional Tourism with domination of Chinese visitors, MasterCard has released Global Destination Cities Index 2013 with 10 of 20 are dominated by Asia and Pacific Region Cities and also for the first time a city of a country from Asia (Bangkok) set in the top-ranked with 15.98 international visitors.[62]
+
+East Asia had by far the strongest overall Human Development Index (HDI) improvement of any region in the world, nearly doubling average HDI attainment over the past 40 years, according to the report's analysis of health, education and income data. China, the second highest achiever in the world in terms of HDI improvement since
+1970, is the only country on the "Top 10 Movers" list due to income rather than health or education achievements. Its per capita income increased a stunning 21-fold over the last four decades, also lifting hundreds of millions out of income poverty. Yet it was not among the region's top performers in improving school enrollment and life expectancy.[63]
+Nepal, a South Asian country, emerges as one of the world's fastest movers since 1970 mainly due to health and education achievements. Its present life expectancy is 25 years longer than in the 1970s. More than four of every five children of school age in Nepal now attend primary school, compared to just one in five 40 years ago.[63]
+ Hong Kong ranked highest among the countries grouped on the HDI (number 7 in the world, which is in the "very high human development" category), followed by Singapore (9), Japan (19) and South Korea (22). Afghanistan (155) ranked lowest amongst Asian countries out of the 169 countries assessed.[63]
+
+Asia is home to several language families and many language isolates. Most Asian countries have more than one language that is natively spoken. For instance, according to Ethnologue, more than 600 languages are spoken in Indonesia, more than 800 languages spoken in India, and more than 100 are spoken in the Philippines. China has many languages and dialects in different provinces.
+
+Many of the world's major religions have their origins in Asia, including the five most practiced in the world (excluding irreligion), which are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Chinese folk religion (classified as Confucianism and Taoism), and Buddhism respectively. Asian mythology is complex and diverse. The story of the Great Flood for example, as presented to Jews in the Hebrew Bible in the narrative of Noah—and later to Christians in the Old Testament, and to Muslims in the Quran—is earliest found in Mesopotamian mythology, in the Enûma Eliš and Epic of Gilgamesh. Hindu mythology similarly tells about an avatar of Vishnu in the form of a fish who warned Manu of a terrible flood. Ancient Chinese mythology also tells of a Great Flood spanning generations, one that required the combined efforts of emperors and divinities to control.
+
+The Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Bahá'í Faith originated in West Asia.
+
+Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic faiths, is practiced primarily in Israel, the indigenous homeland and historical birthplace of the Hebrew nation: which today consists both of those Jews who remained in the Middle East and those who returned from diaspora in Europe, North America, and other regions;[64] though various diaspora communities persist worldwide. Jews are the predominant ethnic group in Israel (75.6%) numbering at about 6.1 million,[65] although the levels of adherence to Jewish religion vary. Outside of Israel there are small ancient Jewish communities in Turkey (17,400),[66] Azerbaijan (9,100),[67] Iran (8,756),[68] India (5,000) and Uzbekistan (4,000),[69] among many other places. In total, there are 14.4–17.5 million (2016, est.)[70] Jews alive in the world today, making them one of the smallest Asian minorities, at roughly 0.3 to 0.4 percent of the total population of the continent.
+
+Christianity is a widespread religion in Asia with more than 286 million adherents according to Pew Research Center in 2010,[71] and nearly 364 million according to Britannica Book of the Year 2014.[72] Constituting around 12.6% of the total population of Asia. In the Philippines and East Timor, Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion; it was introduced by the Spaniards and the Portuguese, respectively. In Armenia, Georgia and Asian Russia, Eastern Orthodoxy is the predominant religion. In the Middle East, such as in the Levant, Syriac Christianity (Church of the East) and Oriental Orthodoxy are prevalent minority denominations, which are both Eastern Christian sects mainly adhered to Assyrian people or Syriac Christians. Saint Thomas Christians in India trace their origins to the evangelistic activity of Thomas the Apostle in the 1st century.[73]
+
+Islam, which originated in the Hejaz located in modern-day Saudi Arabia, is the second largest and most widely-spread religion in Asia with at least 1 billion Muslims constituting around 23.8% of the total population of Asia.[74] With 12.7% of the world Muslim population, the country currently with the largest Muslim population in the world is Indonesia, followed by Pakistan (11.5%), India (10%), Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are the three holiest cities for Islam in all the world. The Hajj and Umrah attract large numbers of Muslim devotees from all over the world to Mecca and Medina. Iran is the largest Shi'a country.
+
+The Bahá'í Faith originated in Asia, in Iran (Persia), and spread from there to the Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, India, and Burma during the lifetime of Bahá'u'lláh. Since the middle of the 20th century, growth has particularly occurred in other Asian countries, because Bahá'í activities in many Muslim countries has been severely suppressed by authorities. Lotus Temple is a big Baha'i Temple in India.
+
+Almost all Asian religions have philosophical character and Asian philosophical traditions cover a large spectrum of philosophical thoughts and writings. Indian philosophy includes Hindu philosophy and Buddhist philosophy. They include elements of nonmaterial pursuits, whereas another school of thought from India, Cārvāka, preached the enjoyment of the material world. The religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, South Asia. In East Asia, particularly in China and Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism took shape.
+
+As of 2012[update], Hinduism has around 1.1 billion adherents. The faith represents around 25% of Asia's population and is the largest religion in Asia. However, it is mostly concentrated in South Asia. Over 80% of the populations of both India and Nepal adhere to Hinduism, alongside significant communities in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Bali, Indonesia. Many overseas Indians in countries such as Burma, Singapore and Malaysia also adhere to Hinduism.
+
+Buddhism has a great following in mainland Southeast Asia and East Asia. Buddhism is the religion of the majority of the populations of Cambodia (96%),[76] Thailand (95%),[77] Burma (80–89%),[78] Japan (36–96%),[79] Bhutan (75–84%),[80] Sri Lanka (70%),[81] Laos (60–67%)[82] and Mongolia (53–93%).[83] Large Buddhist populations also exist in Singapore (33–51%),[84] Taiwan (35–93%),[85][86][87][88] South Korea (23–50%),[89] Malaysia (19–21%),[90] Nepal (9–11%),[91] Vietnam (10–75%),[92] China (20–50%),[93] North Korea (2–14%),[94][95][96] and small communities in India and Bangladesh. In many Chinese communities, Mahayana Buddhism is easily syncretized with Taoism, thus exact religious statistics is difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated. The Communist-governed countries of China, Vietnam and North Korea are officially atheist, thus the number of Buddhists and other religious adherents may be under-reported.
+
+Jainism is found mainly in India and in oversea Indian communities such as the United States and Malaysia. Sikhism is found in Northern India and amongst overseas Indian communities in other parts of Asia, especially Southeast Asia. Confucianism is found predominantly in Mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and in overseas Chinese populations. Taoism is found mainly in Mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Taoism is easily syncretized with Mahayana Buddhism for many Chinese, thus exact religious statistics is difficult to obtain and may be understated or overstated.
+
+Japanese wedding at the Meiji Shrine
+
+Hindu festival celebrated by Singapore's Tamil community
+
+Orthodox cross procession in Novosibirsk
+
+Catholic procession of the Black Nazarene in Manila
+
+Muslim men praying in Turkey
+
+Buddhist Monks performing traditional Sand mandala made from coloured sand
+
+Some of the events pivotal in the Asia territory related to the relationship with the outside world in the post-Second World War were:
+
+The polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet, dramatist, and writer from Santiniketan, now in West Bengal, India, became in 1913 the first Asian Nobel laureate. He won his Nobel Prize in Literature for notable impact his prose works and poetic thought had on English, French, and other national literatures of Europe and the Americas. He is also the writer of the national anthems of Bangladesh and India.
+
+Other Asian writers who won Nobel Prize for literature include Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968), Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan, 1994), Gao Xingjian (China, 2000), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 2006), and Mo Yan (China, 2012). Some may consider the American writer, Pearl S. Buck, an honorary Asian Nobel laureate, having spent considerable time in China as the daughter of missionaries, and based many of her novels, namely The Good Earth (1931) and The Mother (1933), as well as the biographies of her parents of their time in China, The Exile and Fighting Angel, all of which earned her the Literature prize in 1938.
+
+Also, Mother Teresa of India and Shirin Ebadi of Iran were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and human rights, especially for the rights of women and children. Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to receive the prize. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner is Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship in Burma. She is a nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a noted prisoner of conscience. She is a Buddhist and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China" on 8 October 2010. He is the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. In 2014, Kailash Satyarthi from India and Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education".
+
+Sir C.V. Raman is the first Asian to get a Nobel prize in Sciences. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".
+
+Japan has won the most Nobel Prizes of any Asian nation with 24 followed by India which has won 13.
+
+Amartya Sen, (born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory, and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members.
+
+Other Asian Nobel Prize winners include Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Abdus Salam, Malala Yousafzai, Robert Aumann, Menachem Begin, Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Daniel Kahneman, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ada Yonath, Yasser Arafat, José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of Timor Leste, Kim Dae-jung, and 13 Japanese scientists. Most of the said awardees are from Japan and Israel except for Chandrasekhar and Raman (India), Abdus Salam and Malala yousafzai, (Pakistan), Arafat (Palestinian Territories), Kim (South Korea), and Horta and Belo (Timor Leste).
+
+In 2006, Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the establishment of Grameen Bank, a community development bank that lends money to poor people, especially women in Bangladesh. Dr. Yunus received his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, United States. He is internationally known for the concept of micro credit which allows poor and destitute people with little or no collateral to borrow money. The borrowers typically pay back money within the specified period and the incidence of default is very low.
+
+The Dalai Lama has received approximately eighty-four awards over his spiritual and political career.[97] On 22 June 2006, he became one of only four people ever to be recognized with Honorary Citizenship by the Governor General of Canada. On 28 May 2005, he received the Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom. Most notable was the Nobel Peace Prize, presented in Oslo, Norway on 10 December 1989.
+
+Within the above-mentioned states are several partially recognized countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:
+
+References to articles:
+
+Special topics:
+
+Lists:
+
+Projects
+
+Africa
+
+Antarctica
+
+Asia
+
+Australia
+
+Europe
+
+North America
+
+South America
+
+Afro-Eurasia
+
+America
+
+Eurasia
+
+Oceania

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+Coordinates: 60°N 110°W / 60°N 110°W / 60; -110
+
+Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
+
+Various indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.
+
+Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government. The country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and officially bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture.
+
+A developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
+
+While a variety of theories have been postulated for the etymological origins of Canada, the name is now accepted as coming from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".[11] In 1535, Indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona.[12] Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village but to the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona);[12] by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this small region along the Saint Lawrence River as Canada.[12]
+
+From the 16th to the early 18th century "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the Saint Lawrence River.[13] In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named the Canadas; until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841.[14] Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country at the London Conference, and the word Dominion was conferred as the country's title.[15] By the 1950s, the term Dominion of Canada was no longer used by the United Kingdom, which considered Canada a "Realm of the Commonwealth".[16] The government of Louis St. Laurent ended the practice of using Dominion in the statutes of Canada in 1951.[17][18]
+
+In 1982, the passage of the Canada Act, bringing the Constitution of Canada fully under Canadian control, referred only to Canada, while later that year the name of the national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day.[19] The term Dominion was used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces, though after the Second World War the term federal had replaced dominion.[20]
+
+Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis,[21] the last being a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations and Inuit people married European settlers.[21] The term "Aboriginal" as a collective noun is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act 1982.[22]
+
+The first inhabitants of North America are generally hypothesized to have migrated from Siberia by way of the Bering land bridge and arrived at least 14,000 years ago.[23][24] The Paleo-Indian archeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada.[25] The characteristics of Indigenous societies included permanent settlements, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies, and trading networks.[26][27] Some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries and have only been discovered through archeological investigations.[28]
+
+The Indigenous population at the time of the first European settlements is estimated to have been between 200,000[29] and two million,[30] with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.[31] As a consequence of European colonization, the Indigenous population declined by forty to eighty percent, and several First Nations, such as the Beothuk, disappeared.[32] The decline is attributed to several causes, including the transfer of European diseases, such as influenza, measles, and smallpox to which they had no natural immunity,[29][33] conflicts over the fur trade, conflicts with the colonial authorities and settlers, and the loss of Indigenous lands to settlers and the subsequent collapse of several nations' self-sufficiency.[34][35]
+
+Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful.[36] First Nations and Métis peoples played a critical part in the development of European colonies in Canada, particularly for their role in assisting European coureur des bois and voyageurs in the exploration of the continent during the North American fur trade.[37] The Crown and Indigenous peoples began interactions during the European colonization period, though the Inuit, in general, had more limited interaction with European settlers.[38] However, from the late 18th century, European Canadians encouraged Indigenous peoples to assimilate into their own culture.[39] These attempts reached a climax in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with forced integration and relocations.[40] A period of redress is underway, which started with the appointment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada by the Government of Canada in 2008.[41]
+
+It is believed that the first European to explore the east coast of Canada was Norse explorer Leif Erikson (c.970–1020 AD).[43][44] The earliest European mention of Canada may occur in Norse sagas, which refer to new lands west of Greenland as Vinland.[45] In approximately 1000 AD, the Norse built a small encampment that only lasted a few years at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland.[46] No further European exploration occurred until 1497, when Italian seafarer John Cabot explored and claimed Canada's Atlantic coast in the name of King Henry VII of England.[47] In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence where, on July 24, he planted a 10-metre (33 ft) cross bearing the words "Long Live the King of France" and took possession of the territory New France in the name of King Francis I.[48] The early 16th century saw European mariners with navigational techniques pioneered by the Basque and Portuguese establish seasonal whaling and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast.[49] In general, early settlements during the Age of Discovery appear to have been short-lived due to a combination of the harsh climate, problems with navigating trade routes and competing outputs in Scandinavia.[50][51]
+
+In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I, founded St. John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English colony.[52] French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603 and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal (in 1605) and Quebec City (in 1608).[53] Among the colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the Saint Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana.[54] The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade.[55]
+
+The English established additional settlements in Newfoundland, beginning in 1610 and the Thirteen Colonies to the south were founded soon after.[56][57] A series of four wars erupted in colonial North America between 1689 and 1763; the later wars of the period constituted the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War.[58] Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, and Canada and most of New France came under British rule in 1763 after the Seven Years' War.[59]
+
+The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established First Nation treaty rights, created the Province of Quebec out of New France, and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia.[19] St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony in 1769.[60] To avert conflict in Quebec, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act of 1774, expanding Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.[61] More importantly, the Quebec Act afforded Quebec special autonomy and rights of self-administration at a time when the Thirteen Colonies were increasingly agitating against British rule.[62] It re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law there, staving off the growth of an independence movement in contrast to the Thirteen Colonies.[63] The Proclamation and the Quebec Act in turn angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, further fuelling anti-British sentiment in the years prior to the American Revolution.[19]
+
+After the successful American War of Independence, the 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized the independence of the newly formed United States and set the terms of peace, ceding British North American territories south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River to the new country.[64] The American war of independence also caused a large out-migration of Loyalists, the settlers who had fought against American independence. Many moved to Canada, particularly Atlantic Canada, where their arrival changed the demographic distribution of the existing territories. New Brunswick was in turn split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes which led to the incorporation of Saint John, New Brunswick to become Canada's first city.[65] To accommodate the influx of English-speaking Loyalists in Central Canada, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province of Canada into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.[66]
+
+The Canadas were the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. Peace came in 1815; no boundaries were changed. Immigration resumed at a higher level, with over 960,000 arrivals from Britain between 1815 and 1850.[67] New arrivals included refugees escaping the Great Irish Famine as well as Gaelic-speaking Scots displaced by the Highland Clearances.[68] Infectious diseases killed between 25 and 33 percent of Europeans who immigrated to Canada before 1891.[29]
+
+The desire for responsible government resulted in the abortive Rebellions of 1837.[69] The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into English culture.[19] The Act of Union merged the Canadas into a united Province of Canada and responsible government was established for all provinces of British North America by 1849.[70] The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel. This paved the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858).[71] The Alaska Purchase of 1867 by the United States established the border along the Pacific coast, although there would continue to be some disputes about the exact demarcation of the Alaska-Yukon and Alaska-BC border for years to come.[72]
+
+Following several constitutional conferences, the Constitution Act officially proclaimed Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, initially with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.[73][74] Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where the Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870.[75] British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had been united in 1866) joined the confederation in 1871, while Prince Edward Island joined in 1873.[76] Between 1871 and 1896, almost one quarter of the Canadian population emigrated southwards, to the U.S.[77]
+
+To open the West to European immigration, parliament also approved sponsoring the construction of three transcontinental railways (including the Canadian Pacific Railway), opening the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and establishing the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory.[78][79] In 1898, during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, parliament created the Yukon Territory. Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.[76]
+
+Because Britain still maintained control of Canada's foreign affairs under the Constitution Act, 1867, its declaration of war in 1914 automatically brought Canada into World War I.[80] Volunteers sent to the Western Front later became part of the Canadian Corps, which played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major engagements of the war.[81] Out of approximately 625,000 Canadians who served in World War I, some 60,000 were killed and another 172,000 were wounded.[82] The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when the Unionist Cabinet's proposal to augment the military's dwindling number of active members with conscription was met with vehement objections from French-speaking Quebecers.[83] The Military Service Act brought in compulsory military service, though it, coupled with disputes over French language schools outside Quebec, deeply alienated Francophone Canadians and temporarily split the Liberal Party.[83] In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain,[81] and the 1931 Statute of Westminster affirmed Canada's independence.[84]
+
+The Great Depression in Canada during the early 1930s saw an economic downturn, leading to hardship across the country.[85] In response to the downturn, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Saskatchewan introduced many elements of a welfare state (as pioneered by Tommy Douglas) in the 1940s and 1950s.[86] On the advice of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, war with Germany was declared effective September 10, 1939, by King George VI, seven days after the United Kingdom. The delay underscored Canada's independence.[81]
+
+The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939. In all, over a million Canadians served in the armed forces during World War II and approximately 42,000 were killed and another 55,000 were wounded.[87] Canadian troops played important roles in many key battles of the war, including the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid, the Allied invasion of Italy, the Normandy landings, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944.[81] Canada provided asylum for the Dutch monarchy while that country was occupied and is credited by the Netherlands for major contributions to its liberation from Nazi Germany.[88]
+
+The Canadian economy boomed during the war as its industries manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union.[81] Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec in 1944, Canada finished the war with a large army and strong economy.[89]
+
+The financial crisis of the Great Depression had led the Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish responsible government in 1934 and become a crown colony ruled by a British governor.[90] After two bitter referendums, Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada in 1949 as a province.[91]
+
+Canada's post-war economic growth, combined with the policies of successive Liberal governments, led to the emergence of a new Canadian identity, marked by the adoption of the Maple Leaf Flag in 1965,[92] the implementation of official bilingualism (English and French) in 1969,[93] and the institution of official multiculturalism in 1971.[94] Socially democratic programs were also instituted, such as Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans, though provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions.[95]
+
+Finally, another series of constitutional conferences resulted in the Canada Act, the patriation of Canada's constitution from the United Kingdom, concurrent with the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[96][97][98] Canada had established complete sovereignty as an independent country, although the Queen retained her role as monarch of Canada.[99][100] In 1999, Nunavut became Canada's third territory after a series of negotiations with the federal government.[101]
+
+At the same time, Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes through the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, giving birth to a secular nationalist movement.[102] The radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis with a series of bombings and kidnappings in 1970[103] and the sovereignist Parti Québécois was elected in 1976, organizing an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Attempts to accommodate Quebec nationalism constitutionally through the Meech Lake Accord failed in 1990.[104] This led to the formation of the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the invigoration of the Reform Party of Canada in the West.[105][106] A second referendum followed in 1995, in which sovereignty was rejected by a slimmer margin of 50.6 to 49.4 percent.[107] In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unilateral secession by a province would be unconstitutional and the Clarity Act was passed by parliament, outlining the terms of a negotiated departure from Confederation.[104]
+
+In addition to the issues of Quebec sovereignty, a number of crises shook Canadian society in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These included the explosion of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, the largest mass murder in Canadian history;[108] the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, a university shooting targeting female students;[109] and the Oka Crisis of 1990,[110] the first of a number of violent confrontations between the government and Indigenous groups.[111] Canada also joined the Gulf War in 1990 as part of a U.S.-led coalition force and was active in several peacekeeping missions in the 1990s, including the UNPROFOR mission in the former Yugoslavia.[112]
+
+Canada sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, but declined to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.[113] In 2011, Canadian forces participated in the NATO-led intervention into the Libyan Civil War,[114] and also became involved in battling the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq in the mid-2010s.[115]
+
+By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land area alone, however, Canada ranks fourth, due to having the world's largest proportion of fresh water lakes.[116] Of Canada's thirteen provinces and territories, eight share a border with the United States, and only two are landlocked (Alberta and Saskatchewan), with the remaining eight provinces and three territories directly bordering one of three oceans. Ontario and Quebec also send most of their shipping traffic through the St. Lawrence Seaway, which connects the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east, along the Arctic Ocean to the north, and to the Pacific Ocean in the west,[117] Canada has the longest coastline in the world, with a total length of 243,042 kilometres (151,019 mi), and occupies much of the continent of North America.[118] Moreover, Canada's border with the contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest forms the longest international land border in the world, stretching 8,891 km (5,525 mi).[119][120] In addition to the U.S., Canada shares a maritime boundary with Greenland to the northeast and with the France's overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon to the southeast.[121]
+
+Canada is home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—which lies 817 kilometres (508 mi) from the North Pole.[122] Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost.[123] Three of Canada's arctic islands – Baffin Island, Victoria Island and Ellesmere Island – are among the ten largest in the world.[124]
+
+Since the end of the last glacial period, Canada has consisted of eight distinct forest regions, including extensive boreal forest on the Canadian Shield;[125] 42 percent of the land acreage is covered by forests (approximately 8 percent of the world's forested land), made up mostly of spruce, poplar, and pine.[126] Canada has over 2,000,000 lakes—563 of which are greater than 100 km2 (39 sq mi)—which is more than any other country, containing much of the world's fresh water.[127][128] There are also fresh-water glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, the Coast Mountains and the Arctic Cordillera.[129]
+
+Canada is geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager massif, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley massif, and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.[130] The volcanic eruption of the Tseax Cone in 1775 was among Canada's worst natural disasters, killing an estimated 2,000 Nisga'a people and destroying their village in the Nass River valley of northern British Columbia.[131] The eruption produced a 22.5-kilometre (14.0 mi) lava flow, and, according to Nisga'a legend, blocked the flow of the Nass River.[132]
+
+Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary from region to region. Winters can be harsh in many parts of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near −15 °C (5 °F), but can drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) with severe wind chills.[133] In non-coastal regions, snow can cover the ground for almost six months of the year, while in parts of the north snow can persist year-round. Coastal British Columbia has a temperate climate, with a mild and rainy winter. On the east and west coasts, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts, the average summer high temperature ranges from 25 to 30 °C (77 to 86 °F), with temperatures in some interior locations occasionally exceeding 40 °C (104 °F).[134]
+
+Canada is described as a "full democracy",[135] with a tradition of liberalism,[136] and an egalitarian,[137] moderate political ideology.[138] An emphasis on social justice has been a distinguishing element of Canada's political culture.[139] Peace, order, and good government, alongside an implied bill of rights are founding principles of the Canadian government.[140][141]
+
+At the federal level, Canada has been dominated by two relatively centrist parties practicing "brokerage politics",[a][144][145][146] the centre-left Liberal Party of Canada and the centre-right Conservative Party of Canada (or its predecessors).[147] The historically predominant Liberal Party position themselves at the centre of the Canadian political spectrum,[148] with the Conservative Party positioned on the right and the New Democratic Party occupying the left.[149][150] Far-right and far-left politics have never been a prominent force in Canadian society.[151][152] Five parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2019 election—the Liberal Party, who currently form the government; the Conservative Party, who are the official opposition; the New Democratic Party; the Bloc Québécois; and the Green Party of Canada.[153]
+
+Canada has a parliamentary system within the context of a constitutional monarchy—the monarchy of Canada being the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.[154][155][156] The reigning monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who is also monarch of 15 other Commonwealth countries and each of Canada's 10 provinces. The person who is the Canadian monarch is the same as the British monarch, although the two institutions are separate.[157] The Queen appoints a representative, the governor general (at present Julie Payette), to carry out most of her federal royal duties in Canada.[158][159]
+
+The direct participation of the monarch and the governor general in areas of governance is limited.[156][160][161] In practice, their use of the executive powers is directed by the Cabinet, a committee of ministers of the Crown responsible to the elected House of Commons of Canada and chosen and headed by the prime minister (at present Justin Trudeau),[162] the head of government. The governor general or monarch may, though, in certain crisis situations exercise their power without ministerial advice.[160] To ensure the stability of government, the governor general will usually appoint as prime minister the individual who is the current leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a plurality in the House of Commons.[163] The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is thus one of the most powerful institutions in government, initiating most legislation for parliamentary approval and selecting for appointment by the Crown, besides the aforementioned, the governor general, lieutenant governors, senators, federal court judges, and heads of Crown corporations and government agencies.[160] The leader of the party with the second-most seats usually becomes the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system intended to keep the government in check.[164]
+
+Each of the 338 members of parliament in the House of Commons is elected by simple plurality in an electoral district or riding. General elections must be called by the governor general, either on the advice of the prime minister or if the government loses a confidence vote in the House.[165][166] Constitutionally, an election may be held no more than five years after the preceding election, although the Canada Elections Act limits this to four years with a fixed election date in October. The 105 members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, serve until age 75.[167]
+
+Canada's federal structure divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the ten provinces. Provincial legislatures are unicameral and operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the House of Commons.[161] Canada's three territories also have legislatures, but these are not sovereign and have fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces.[168] The territorial legislatures also differ structurally from their provincial counterparts.[169]
+
+The Bank of Canada is the central bank of the country. In addition, the minister of finance and minister of industry utilize the Statistics Canada agency for financial planning and economic policy development.[170] The Bank of Canada is the sole authority authorized to issue currency in the form of Canadian bank notes.[171] The bank does not issue Canadian coins; they are issued by the Royal Canadian Mint.[172]
+
+The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of the country, and consists of written text and unwritten conventions.[173] The Constitution Act, 1867 (known as the British North America Act prior to 1982), affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent and divided powers between the federal and provincial governments.[174] The Statute of Westminster 1931 granted full autonomy and the Constitution Act, 1982, ended all legislative ties to Britain, as well as adding a constitutional amending formula and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[175] The Charter guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually cannot be over-ridden by any government—though a notwithstanding clause allows the federal parliament and provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five years.[176]
+
+Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down Acts of Parliament that violate the constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and has been led since December 18, 2017 by Chief Justice Richard Wagner.[177] Its nine members are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the prime minister and minister of justice. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are appointed after consultation with non-governmental legal bodies. The federal Cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts in the provincial and territorial jurisdictions.[178]
+
+Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada.[179] Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is officially a provincial responsibility, conducted by provincial and municipal police forces.[180] However, in most rural areas and some urban areas, policing responsibilities are contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.[181]
+
+The Indian Act, various treaties and case laws were established to mediate relations between Europeans and native peoples.[182] Most notably, a series of eleven treaties known as the Numbered Treaties were signed between the Indigenous peoples and the reigning monarch of Canada between 1871 and 1921.[183] These treaties are agreements with the Canadian Crown-in-Council, administered by Canadian Aboriginal law, and overseen by the minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations. The role of the treaties and the rights they support were reaffirmed by Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, 1982.[182] These rights may include provision of services, such as health care, and exemption from taxation.[184]
+
+Canada is recognized as a middle power for its role in international affairs with a tendency to pursue multilateral solutions.[185] Canada's foreign policy based on international peacekeeping and security is carried out through coalitions and international organizations, and through the work of numerous federal institutions.[186] Canada's peacekeeping role during the 20th century has played a major role in its global image.[187] The strategy of the Canadian government's foreign aid policy reflects an emphasis to meet the Millennium Development Goals, while also providing assistance in response to foreign humanitarian crises.[188]
+
+Canada was a founding member of the United Nations and has membership in the World Trade Organization, the G20 and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).[185] Canada is also a member of various other international and regional organizations and forums for economic and cultural affairs.[189] Canada acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1976.[190] Canada joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990 and hosted the OAS General Assembly in 2000 and the 3rd Summit of the Americas in 2001.[191] Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).[192]
+
+Canada and the United States share the world's longest undefended border, co-operate on military campaigns and exercises, and are each other's largest trading partner.[193][194] Canada nevertheless has an independent foreign policy, most notably maintaining full relations with Cuba, and declining to officially participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[195] Canada also maintains historic ties to the United Kingdom and France and to other former British and French colonies through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and the Francophonie.[196] Canada is noted for having a positive relationship with the Netherlands, owing, in part, to its contribution to the Dutch liberation during World War II.[88]
+
+Canada's strong attachment to the British Empire and Commonwealth led to major participation in British military efforts in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II.[197] Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations.[198][199] During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend against potential aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.[200]
+
+During the Suez Crisis of 1956, future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, for which he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.[201] As this was the first UN peacekeeping mission, Pearson is often credited as the inventor of the concept.[202] Canada has since served in over 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989,[81] and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere; Canada has sometimes faced controversy over its involvement in foreign countries, notably in the 1993 Somalia Affair.[203]
+
+In 2001, Canada deployed troops to Afghanistan as part of the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.[204] In February 2007, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Russia announced their joint commitment to a $1.5-billion project to help develop vaccines for developing nations, and called on other countries to join them.[205] In August 2007, Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic were challenged after a Russian underwater expedition to the North Pole; Canada has considered that area to be sovereign territory since 1925.[206]
+
+The nation employs a professional, volunteer military force of approximately 79,000 active personnel and 32,250 reserve personnel.[207] The unified Canadian Forces (CF) comprise the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force. In 2013, Canada's military expenditure totalled approximately C$19 billion, or around one percent of the country's GDP.[208][209] Following the 2016 Defence Policy Review, the Canadian government announced a 70 percent increase to the country's defence budget over the next decade. The Canadian Forces will acquire 88 fighter planes and 15 naval surface combatants, the latter as part of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. Canada's total military expenditure is expected to reach C$32.7 billion by 2027.[210]
+
+Canada is a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories. In turn, these may be grouped into four main regions: Western Canada, Central Canada, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Canada (Eastern Canada refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together).[211] Provinces have more autonomy than territories, having responsibility for social programs such as health care, education, and welfare.[212] Together, the provinces collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these, but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.[213] The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that provinces receive their power and authority from the Constitution Act, 1867, whereas territorial governments have powers delegated to them by the Parliament of Canada.[214] The powers flowing from the Constitution Act are divided between the Government of Canada (the federal government) and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively.[215] A change to the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces requires a constitutional amendment, whereas a similar change affecting the territories can be performed unilaterally by the Parliament of Canada or government.[216]
+
+Canadian exports 2017 [217]
+
+Canada is the world's tenth-largest economy as of 2018[update], with a nominal GDP of approximately US$1.73 trillion.[218] It is one of the least corrupt countries in the world,[219] and is one of the world's top ten trading nations, with a highly globalized economy.[220][221] Canada has a  mixed economy ranking above the U.S. and most western European nations on The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom,[222] and experiencing a relatively low level of income disparity.[223] The country's average household disposable income per capita is "well above" the OECD average.[224] The Toronto Stock Exchange is the ninth-largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, listing over 1,500 companies with a combined market capitalization of over US$2 trillion.[225]
+
+In 2018, Canadian trade in goods and services reached CA$1.5 trillion.[226] Canada's exports totalled over CA$585 billion, while its imported goods were worth over CA$607 billion, of which approximately CA$391 billion originated from the United States, CA$216 billion from non-U.S. sources.[226] In 2018, Canada had a trade deficit in goods of CA$22 billion and a trade deficit in services of CA$25 billion.[226]
+
+Since the early 20th century, the growth of Canada's manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy to an urbanized, industrial one.[227] Like many other developed countries, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of the country's workforce.[228] However, Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of its primary sector, in which the forestry and petroleum industries are two of the most prominent components.[229]
+
+Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy.[229][230] Atlantic Canada possesses vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and Alberta also hosts large oil and gas resources. The vastness of the Athabasca oil sands and other assets results in Canada having a 13 percent share of global oil reserves, comprising the world's third-largest share after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.[231] Canada is additionally one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies are one of the most important global producers of wheat, canola, and other grains.[232] Canada's Department of Natural Resources provides statistics regarding its major exports; the country is a leading exporter of zinc, uranium, gold, nickel, platinoids, aluminum, steel, iron ore, coking coal, lead, copper, molybdenum, cobalt, and cadmium.[233] Many towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, are sustainable because of nearby mines or sources of timber. Canada also has a sizeable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries.[234]
+
+Canada's economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II.[235] The Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 opened Canada's borders to trade in the automobile manufacturing industry.[236] In the 1970s, concerns over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to enact the National Energy Program (NEP) and the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA).[237] In the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to Investment Canada, to encourage foreign investment.[238] The Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free-trade zone to include Mexico in 1994.[239] Canada has a strong cooperative banking sector, with the world's highest per-capita membership in credit unions.[240]
+
+In 2018, Canada spent approximately C$34.5 billion on domestic research and development, of which around $7 billion was provided by the federal and provincial governments.[241] As of 2018[update], the country has produced fourteen  Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, and medicine,[242] and was ranked fourth worldwide for scientific research quality in a major 2012 survey of international scientists.[243] It is furthermore home to the headquarters of a number of global technology firms.[244] Canada has one of the highest levels of Internet access in the world, with over 33 million users, equivalent to around 94 percent of its total 2014 population.[245]
+
+Some of the most notable scientific developments in Canada include the creation of the modern alkaline battery[246] and the polio vaccine[247] and discoveries about the interior structure of the atomic nucleus.[248] Other major Canadian scientific contributions include the artificial cardiac pacemaker, mapping the visual cortex,[249][250] the development of the electron microscope,[251][252] plate tectonics, deep learning, multi-touch technology and the identification of the first black hole, Cygnus X-1.[253]  Canada has a long history of discovery in genetics, which include stem cells, site-directed mutagenesis, T-cell receptor and the identification of the genes that cause Fanconi anemia, cystic fibrosis and early-onset Alzheimer's disease, among numerous other diseases.[250][254]
+
+The Canadian Space Agency operates a highly active space program, conducting deep-space, planetary, and aviation research, and developing rockets and satellites.[255] Canada was the third country to design and construct a satellite after the Soviet Union and the United States, with the 1962 Alouette 1 launch.[256] Canada is a participant in the International Space Station (ISS), and is a pioneer in space robotics, having constructed the Canadarm, Canadarm2 and Dextre robotic manipulators for the ISS and NASA's Space Shuttle.[257] Since the 1960s, Canada's aerospace industry has designed and built numerous marques of satellite, including Radarsat-1 and 2, ISIS and MOST.[258] Canada has also produced one of the world's most successful and widely used sounding rockets, the Black Brant; over 1,000 Black Brants have been launched since the rocket's introduction in 1961.[259]
+
+The 2016 Canadian Census enumerated a total population of 35,151,728, an increase of around 5.0 percent over the 2011 figure.[261][262] Between 2011 and May 2016, Canada's population grew by 1.7 million people, with immigrants accounting for two-thirds of the increase.[263] Between 1990 and 2008, the population increased by 5.6 million, equivalent to 20.4 percent overall growth.[264] The main drivers of population growth are immigration and, to a lesser extent, natural growth.[265]
+
+Canada has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world,[266] driven mainly by economic policy and, to a lesser extent, family reunification.[267][268] The Canadian public, as well as the major political parties, support the current level of immigration.[267][269] In 2019, a total of 341,180 immigrants were admitted to Canada, mainly from Asia.[270] India, Philippines and China are the top three countries of origin for immigrants moving to Canada.[271] New immigrants settle mostly in major urban areas such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.[272] Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees,[273] accounting for over 10 percent of annual global refugee resettlements.[274][275]
+
+Canada's population density, at 3.7 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.6/sq mi), is among the lowest in the world.[276] Canada spans latitudinally from the 83rd parallel north to the 41st parallel north, and approximately 95 percent of the population is found south of the 55th parallel north.[277] About four-fifths of the population lives within 150 kilometres (93 mi) of the border with the contiguous United States.[278] The most densely populated part of the country, accounting for nearly 50 percent, is the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor in Southern Quebec and Southern Ontario along the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.[260][277] An additional 30 percent live along the British Columbia Lower Mainland and the Calgary–Edmonton Corridor in Alberta.[279]
+
+The majority of Canadians (69.9 percent) live in family households, 26.8 percent report living alone, and those living with unrelated persons reported at 3.7 percent.[280] The average size of a household in 2006 was 2.5 people.[280]
+
+Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare.[282][283] It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984,[284] and is universal.[285] Universal access to publicly funded health services "is often considered by Canadians as a fundamental value that ensures national health care insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country."[286] However, 30 percent of Canadians' healthcare is paid for through the private sector.[287] This mostly goes towards services not covered or partially covered by Medicare, such as prescription drugs, dentistry and optometry.[287] Approximately 65 to 75 percent of Canadians have some form of supplementary health insurance related to the aforementioned reasons; many receive it through their employers or utilizes secondary social service programs related to extended coverage for families receiving social assistance or vulnerable demographics, such as seniors, minors, and those with disabilities.[288][287]
+
+In common with many other developed countries, Canada is experiencing a cost increase due to a demographic shift towards an older population, with more retirees and fewer people of working age. In 2006, the average age was 39.5 years;[289] within twelve years it had risen to 42.4 years,[290] with a life expectancy of 81.1 years.[291] A 2016 report by the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada found that 88 percent of Canadians; one of the highest proportions of the population among G7 countries, indicated that they "had good or very good health".[292] 80 percent of Canadian adults self-report having at least one major risk factor for chronic disease; smoking, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating or excessive alcohol use.[293] Canada has one of the highest rates of adult obesity among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries attributing to approximately 2.7 million cases of diabetes (types 1 and 2 combined).[293] Four chronic diseases; cancer (leading cause of death), cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases and diabetes account for 65 percent of deaths in Canada.[294][295]
+
+In 2017, the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported that healthcare spending reached $242 billion, or 11.5 percent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) for that year.[296] Canada's per-capita spending ranks as seventh on the list of countries by total health expenditure per capita in the OECD and above the average of 8.8 percent of GDP.[297] Canada has performed close to, or above the average on the majority of OECD health indicators since the early 2000s.[298] In 2017 Canada ranked above the average on OECD indicators for wait-times and access to care, with average scores for quality of care and use of resources.[299] A comprehensive study from 2017 of the top 11 countries ranked Canada's health care system third-to-last.[300] Identified weaknesses of Canada's system were comparatively higher infant mortality rate, the prevalence of chronic conditions, long wait times, poor availability of after-hours care, and a lack of prescription drugs and dental coverage.[300]
+
+Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments.[301] Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province.[302] Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by secondary education and post-secondary. Education in both English and French is available in most places across Canada.[303] Canadian provinces and territories are responsible for education provision.[304] Canada has a large number of Universities, almost all of which are publicly funded.[305] Established in 1663, Université Laval is the oldest post-secondary institution in Canada.[306] The largest University is the University of Toronto with over 85,000 students.[307] Four Universities are regularly ranked among the top 100 world-wide, namely University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill University and McMaster University , with a total of 18 Universities ranked in the top 500 worldwide.[308]
+
+According to a 2019 report by the OECD, Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world;[309] the country ranks first worldwide in the number of adults having tertiary education, with over 56 percent of Canadian adults having attained at least an undergraduate college or university degree.[309] Canada spends about 5.3 percent of its GDP on education.[310] The country invests heavily in tertiary education (more than US$20,000 per student).[311] As of 2014[update], 89 percent of adults aged 25 to 64 have earned the equivalent of a high-school degree, compared to an OECD average of 75 percent.[312]
+
+The mandatory school age ranges between 5–7 to 16–18 years,[313] contributing to an adult literacy rate of 99 percent.[117] In 2002, 43 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 64 possessed a post-secondary education; for those aged 25 to 34, the rate of post-secondary education reached 51 percent.[314] The Programme for International Student Assessment indicates Canadian students perform well above the OECD average, particularly in mathematics, science, and reading,[315][316] ranking the overall knowledge and skills of Canadian 15-year-olds as the sixth-best in the world. Canada is a well-performing OECD country in reading literacy, mathematics, and science with the average student scoring 523.7, compared with the OECD average of 493 in 2015.[317][318]
+
+According to the 2016 Canadian Census, the country's largest self-reported ethnic origin is Canadian (accounting for 32 percent of the population),[b] followed by English (18.3 percent), Scottish (13.9 percent), French (13.6 percent), Irish (13.4 percent), German (9.6 percent), Chinese (5.1 percent), Italian (4.6 percent), First Nations (4.4 percent), Indian (4.0 percent), and Ukrainian (3.9 percent).[321] There are 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands, encompassing a total of 1,525,565 people.[322] Canada's Indigenous population is growing at almost twice the national rate, and four percent of Canada's population claimed an Indigenous identity in 2006. Another 22.3 percent of the population belonged to a non-Indigenous visible minority.[323] In 2016, the largest visible minority groups were South Asian (5.6 percent), Chinese (5.1 percent) and Black (3.5 percent).[323] Between 2011 and 2016, the visible minority population rose by 18.4 percent.[323] In 1961, less than two percent of Canada's population (about 300,000 people) were members of visible minority groups.[324] Indigenous peoples are not considered a visible minority under the Employment Equity Act,[325] and this is the definition that Statistics Canada also uses.
+
+A multitude of languages are used by Canadians, with English and French (the official languages) being the mother tongues of approximately 56 percent and 21 percent of Canadians, respectively.[327] As of the 2016 Census, just over 7.3 million Canadians listed a non-official language as their mother tongue. Some of the most common non-official first languages include Chinese (1,227,680 first-language speakers), Punjabi (501,680), Spanish (458,850), Tagalog (431,385), Arabic (419,895), German (384,040), and Italian (375,645).[327] Canada's federal government practices official bilingualism, which is applied by the Commissioner of Official Languages in consonance with Section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Federal Official Languages Act English and French have equal status in federal courts, parliament, and in all federal institutions. Citizens have the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French and official-language minorities are guaranteed their own schools in all provinces and territories.[328]
+
+The 1977 Charter of the French Language established French as the official language of Quebec.[329] Although more than 85 percent of French-speaking Canadians live in Quebec, there are substantial Francophone populations in New Brunswick, Alberta, and Manitoba; Ontario has the largest French-speaking population outside Quebec.[330] New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province, has a French-speaking Acadian minority constituting 33 percent of the population.[331] There are also clusters of Acadians in southwestern Nova Scotia, on Cape Breton Island, and through central and western Prince Edward Island.[332]
+
+Other provinces have no official languages as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and for other government services, in addition to English. Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both languages. In Ontario, French has some legal status, but is not fully co-official.[333] There are 11 Indigenous language groups, composed of more than 65 distinct languages and dialects.[334] Several Indigenous languages have official status in the Northwest Territories.[335] Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut, and is one of three official languages in the territory.[336]
+
+Additionally, Canada is home to many sign languages, some of which are Indigenous.[337] American Sign Language (ASL) is spoken across the country due to the prevalence of ASL in primary and secondary schools.[338] Due to its historical relation to the francophone culture, Quebec Sign Language (LSQ) is spoken primarily in Quebec, although there are sizeable Francophone communities in New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba.[339]
+
+Canada is religiously diverse, encompassing a wide range of beliefs and customs. Canada has no official church, and the government is officially committed to religious pluralism.[340] Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing individuals to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.[341] The practice of religion is now generally considered a private matter throughout society and the state.[342] With Christianity in decline after having once been central and integral to Canadian culture and daily life,[343] Canada has become a post-Christian, secular state.[344][345][346][347] The majority of Canadians consider religion to be unimportant in their daily lives,[348] but still believe in God.[349]
+
+According to the 2011 National Household Survey, 67.3 percent of Canadians identify as Christian; of these, Roman Catholics make up the largest group, accounting for 38.7 percent of the population. Much of the remainder is made up of Protestants, who accounted for approximately 27 percent in a 2011 survey.[350][351] The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada (accounting for 6.1 percent of Canadians), followed by the Anglican Church of Canada (5.0 percent), and various Baptist sects (1.9 percent).[3] Secularization has been growing since the 1960s.[352][353] In 2011, 23.9 percent declared no religious affiliation, compared to 16.5 percent in 2001.[354] Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in Canada, constituting 3.2 percent of its population. It is also the fastest growing religion in Canada.[355] 1.5 percent of the Canadian population is Hindu and 1.4 percent is Sikh.[3]
+
+Canada's culture draws influences from its broad range of constituent nationalities, and policies that promote a "just society" are constitutionally protected.[356][357][358] Canada has placed emphasis on equality and inclusiveness for all its people.[359] Multiculturalism is often cited as one of Canada's significant accomplishments,[360] and a key distinguishing element of Canadian identity.[361][362] In Quebec, cultural identity is strong, and there is a French Canadian culture that is distinct from English Canadian culture.[363] However, as a whole, Canada is, in theory, a cultural mosaic—a collection of regional ethnic subcultures.[364]
+
+Canada's approach to governance emphasizing multiculturalism, which is based on selective immigration, social integration, and suppression of far-right politics, has wide public support.[365] Government policies such as publicly-funded health care, higher taxation to redistribute wealth, the outlawing of capital punishment, strong efforts to eliminate poverty, strict gun control; alongside legislation with a social liberal attitude toward women's rights (like pregnancy termination), LGBTQ rights, assisted euthanasia and cannabis use are indicators of Canada's political and  cultural values.[366][367][368] Canadians also identify with the country's foreign aid policies, peacekeeping roles, the National park system and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.[369][370]
+
+Historically, Canada has been influenced by British, French, and Indigenous cultures and traditions. Through their language, art and music, Indigenous peoples continue to influence the Canadian identity.[371] During the 20th century, Canadians with African, Caribbean and Asian nationalities have added to the Canadian identity and its culture.[372] Canadian humour is an integral part of the Canadian identity and is reflected in its folklore, literature, music, art, and media. The primary characteristics of Canadian humour are irony, parody, and satire.[373] Many Canadian comedians have achieved international success in the American TV and film industries and are amongst the most recognized in the world.[374]
+
+Canada has a well-developed media sector, but its cultural output; particularly in English films, television shows, and magazines, is often overshadowed by imports from the United States.[375] As a result, the preservation of a distinctly Canadian culture is supported by federal government programs, laws, and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).[376]
+
+Canada's national symbols are influenced by natural, historical, and Indigenous sources. The use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates to the early 18th century. The maple leaf is depicted on Canada's current and previous flags, and on the Arms of Canada.[378] The Arms of Canada are closely modelled after the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom with French and distinctive Canadian elements replacing or added to those derived from the British version.[379] Other prominent symbols include the national motto "A Mari Usque Ad Mare" ("From Sea to Sea"),[380] the sports of ice hockey and lacrosse, the beaver, Canada goose, common loon, Canadian horse, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Rockies,[378] and more recently the totem pole and Inuksuk.[381] Material items such as Canadian beer, maple syrup, tuques, canoes, nanaimo bars, butter tarts and the Quebec dish of poutine are defined as uniquely Canadian.[381][382] Canadian coins feature many of these symbols: the loon on the $1 coin, the Arms of Canada on the 50¢ piece, the beaver on the nickel.[383] The penny, removed from circulation in 2013, featured the maple leaf.[384] The Queen's image appears on $20 bank notes, and on the obverse of all current Canadian coins.[383]
+
+Canadian literature is often divided into French- and English-language literatures, which are rooted in the literary traditions of France and Britain, respectively.[385] There are four major themes that can be found within historical Canadian literature; nature, frontier life, Canada's position within the world, all three of which tie into the garrison mentality.[386] By the 1990s, Canadian literature was viewed as some of the world's best.[387] Canada's ethnic and cultural diversity are reflected in its literature, with many of its most prominent modern writers focusing on ethnic life.[388] Arguably, the best-known living Canadian writer internationally (especially since the deaths of Robertson Davies and Mordecai Richler) is Margaret Atwood, a prolific novelist, poet, and literary critic.[389] Numerous other Canadian authors have accumulated international literary awards;[390] including Nobel Laureate Alice Munro, who has been called the best living writer of short stories in English;[391] and Booker Prize recipient Michael Ondaatje, who is perhaps best known for the novel The English Patient, which was adapted as a film of the same name that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.[392]
+
+Canadian visual art has been dominated by figures such as Tom Thomson – the country's most famous painter – and by the Group of Seven.[393] Thomson's career painting Canadian landscapes spanned a decade up to his death in 1917 at age 39.[394] The Group of Seven were painters with a nationalistic and idealistic focus, who first exhibited their distinctive works in May 1920. Though referred to as having seven members, five artists—Lawren Harris, A. Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, J. E. H. MacDonald, and Frederick Varley—were responsible for articulating the Group's ideas. They were joined briefly by Frank Johnston, and by commercial artist Franklin Carmichael. A. J. Casson became part of the Group in 1926.[395] Associated with the Group was another prominent Canadian artist, Emily Carr, known for her landscapes and portrayals of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.[396] Since the 1950s, works of Inuit art have been given as gifts to foreign dignitaries by the Canadian government.[397]
+
+The Canadian music industry is the sixth-largest in the world producing internationally renowned composers, musicians and ensembles.[398] Music broadcasting in the country is regulated by the CRTC.[399] The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presents Canada's music industry awards, the Juno Awards, which were first awarded in 1970.[400] The Canadian Music Hall of Fame established in 1976 honours Canadian musicians for their lifetime achievements.[401] Patriotic music in Canada dates back over 200 years as a distinct category from British patriotism, preceding the Canadian Confederation by over 50 years. The earliest, The Bold Canadian, was written in 1812.[402] The national anthem of Canada, "O Canada", was originally commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Honourable Théodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony, and was officially adopted in 1980.[403] Calixa Lavallée wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French before it was adapted into English in 1906.[404]
+
+The roots of organized sports in Canada date back to the 1770s,[405] culminating in the development and popularization of the major professional games of ice hockey, lacrosse, basketball, baseball and football.[406]  Canada's official national sports are ice hockey and lacrosse.[407] Golf, soccer, baseball, tennis, skiing, badminton, volleyball, cycling, swimming, bowling, rugby union, canoeing, equestrian, squash and the study of martial arts are widely enjoyed at the youth and amateur levels.[408]
+
+Canada shares several major professional sports leagues with the United States.[409] Canadian teams in these leagues include seven franchises in the National Hockey League, as well as three Major League Soccer teams and one team in each of Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. Other popular professional sports in Canada include Canadian football, which is played in the Canadian Football League, National Lacrosse League lacrosse, and curling.[410]
+
+Canada has participated in almost every Olympic Games since its Olympic debut in 1900,[411] and has hosted several high-profile international sporting events, including the 1976 Summer Olympics,[412] the 1988 Winter Olympics,[413] the 1994 Basketball World Championship,[414] the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup,[415] the 2010 Winter Olympics[416][417] and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.[418] Most recently, Canada staged the 2015 Pan American Games and 2015 Parapan American Games, the former being the largest sporting event hosted by the country.[419]
+
+Canada portal
+
+North America portal
+
+Overview
+
+History
+
+Geography and climate
+
+Government and law
+
+Social welfare
+
+Foreign relations and military
+
+Economy
+
+Demography and statistics
+
+Culture
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+Eid al-Fitr (/iːd əl ˈfɪtər/ eed əl FIT-ər; Arabic: عيد الفطر‎ ʻĪd al-Fiṭr, IPA: [ʕiːd al fitˤr]),[4] (sometimes known as Eid ul-Fitr), also called the "Festival of Breaking the Fast", is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of the month-long dawn-to-sunset fasting of Ramadan.[5] This religious Eid is the only day in the month of Shawwal during which Muslims are not permitted to fast. The date for the start of any lunar Hijri month varies based on when the new moon is sighted by local religious authorities, so the day of celebration varies by locality.
+
+Eid al-Fitr has a particular salat (Islamic prayer) that consists of two rakats (units) generally performed in an open field or large hall. It may only be performed in congregation (jamāʿat) and features six additional Takbirs (raising of the hands to the ears while saying "Allāhu ʾAkbar", meaning "God is the greatest") in the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam: three at the start of the first rakat and three just before rukūʿ in the second rakat.[6] Other Sunni schools usually have twelve Takbirs, similarly split in groups of seven and five. In Shia Islam, the salat has six Takbirs in the first rakat at the end of qira'a, before rukūʿ, and five in the second.[7] Depending on the juristic opinion of the locality, this salat is either farḍ فرض (obligatory), mustaḥabb مستحب (strongly recommended) or mandūb مندوب (preferable).
+
+Eid al-Fitr was originated by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to certain traditions, these festivals were initiated in Medina after the migration of Muhammad from Mecca. Anas, a well-known companion of the Prophet, narrated that, when the Prophet arrived in Medina, he found people celebrating two specific days in which they entertained themselves with recreation and merriment. At this, the Prophet remarked that Almighty has fixed two days of festivity instead of these for you which are better than these: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.[8]
+
+Traditionally, Eid al-Fitr begins at sunset on the night of the first sighting of the crescent moon. If the moon is not observed immediately after the 29th day of the previous lunar month (either because clouds block its view or because the western sky is still too bright when the moon sets), then the holiday is celebrated the following day.[9] Eid al-Fitr is celebrated for one to three days, depending on the country.[10] It is forbidden to fast on the Day of Eid, and a specific prayer is nominated for this day.[11] As an obligatory act of charity, money is paid to the poor and the needy (Arabic: Zakat-ul-fitr) before performing the ‘Eid prayer.[12][better source needed]
+
+The Eid prayer is performed in congregation in open areas like fields, community centers, or mosques.[10] No call to prayer is given for this Eid prayer, and it consists of only two units of prayer with a variable amount of Takbirs and other prayer elements depending on the branch of Islam observed.The Eid prayer is followed by the sermon and then a supplication asking for Allah's forgiveness, mercy, peace and blessings for all living beings across the world. The sermon also instructs Muslims as to the performance of rituals of Eid, such as the zakat.[13] The sermon of Eid takes place after the Eid prayer, unlike Friday prayer which comes first before prayer. Some imams believe that listening to the sermon at Eid is optional.[14] After the prayers, Muslims visit their relatives, friends, and acquaintances or hold large communal celebrations in homes, community centers, or rented halls.[10]
+
+As ritual dictates, Sunnis praise Allah in a loud voice while going to the Eid prayer: Allāhu Akbar, Allāhu Akbar, Allāhu Akbar. Lā ilāha illà l-Lāh wal-Lāhu akbar, Allahu akbar walil-Lāhi l-ḥamd. Recitation ceases when they get to the place of Eid or once the Imam commences activities.[15]
+
+The prayer starts by doing "Niyyat" for the prayer and then Takbir is said by the Imam and his followers. Next, "Takbeer-e-Tehreema" is recited, followed by Allahu Akbar three times, raising hands to the ears and dropping them each time, except for the last when the hands are folded. Then the Imam reads the Surah-e-Fatiha and other Surah. Then the congregation performs Ruku and Sujud as in other prayers. This completes the first rakat. The congregation rises up and folds their hands for the second rakat., during which the Imam recites Surah Fatiha and another Surah. After this, three Takbirs are called out just before the Ruku, each time raising hands to the ears and dropping them. For the fourth time, the congregation says Allah o Akbar and subsequently goes into the Ruku. The rest of the prayer is completed in the regular manner. This completes the Eid prayer. After the prayer there is a khutbah.[16]
+
+Prayer starts with the Niyyat followed by five Takbirs. During every Takbir of the first rakat, a special Dua is recited. Then, the Imam recites Sūrat al-Fātiḥah and Surat Al-'A`lá and the congregation performs Ruku and Sujud as in other prayers. In the second Rakat, the same above steps (five Takbeers, Sūrat al-Fātiḥah and Surat Al-'A`lá, Ruku and Sujud) are repeated. After the prayer, Khutbah starts.[17]
+
+Jordanians decorate their homes and prepare sumptuous meals for family and friends. They prepare new clothes and shoes for the festival. Eid festivities in Jordan may vary culturally depending on the region, but one common thread in all celebrations is generosity and hospitality. It is a common Jordanian tradition for families to gather at the patriarchal home after the Eid prayers. Before the special Eid meal is served, young children will line up in front of each adult family member, who dispense money as gifts to the children.
+
+Saudis decorate their homes and prepare sumptuous meals for family and friends. They prepare new clothes and shoes for the festival. Eid festivities in Saudi Arabia may vary culturally depending on the region, but one common thread in all celebrations is generosity and hospitality. It is a common Saudi tradition for families to gather at the patriarchal home after the Eid prayers. Before the special Eid meal is served, young children will line up in front of each adult family member, who dispense money as gifts to the children.[18]
+
+In Iran, at the last days of the month of Ramadan, several groups of experts representing the office of Ayatollah Khamenei go to the different zones of the country to determine the date of Eid al-Fitr.[19] Iranian Muslims take part in the Eid al-Fitr prayer and pay the Zakat al-Fitr.[20] The Eid al-Fitr prayer, and the following sermon, has been led by Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, at Tehran's Imam Khomeini Grand Prayer Grounds (Mossalla).[21][22] The celebration is typically marked by a one- or two-day national holiday.[23]
+
+In Turkey, nationwide celebrated holidays are referred to as bayram, and Eid al-Fitr is referred to as both Şeker Bayramı ("Bayram of Sweets") and Ramazan Bayramı ("Ramadan Bayram"). It is a time for people to attend prayer services, put on their best clothes (referred to as bayramlık, often purchased just for the occasion), visit all their loved ones (such as relatives, neighbors, and friends), and pay their respects to the deceased with organised visits to cemeteries. It is also customary for young children to go around their neighborhood, door to door, and wish everyone a "Happy Bayram", for which they are awarded candy, chocolates, traditional sweets such as baklava and Turkish Delight, or a small amount of money at every door.[24]
+
+In the predominantly Sunni Muslim culture of Afghanistan, Eid al-Fitr holds significant importance and is celebrated widely for three days. The most common greeting is Kochnai Akhtar (Blessed Eid) in the Pashto-speaking community. Afghans start preparing for the Eid al-Fitr festival up to ten days prior by cleaning their homes (called Khana Takani in Dari). Afghans visit their local bazaars to buy new clothes, sweets, and snacks including Jelabi (Jalebi), Shor-Nakhod (made with chickpeas), and Cake wa Kolcha (a simple cake, similar to pound cake). On the day of Eid al-Fitr, Afghans will first offer their Eid prayers and then gather in their homes with their families, greeting one another by saying "Eid Mubarak" and usually adding "Eidet Mobarak Roza wa Namazet Qabool Dakhel Hajiha wa Ghaziha," which means "Happy Eid to you; may your fasting and prayers be accepted by Allah, and may you be counted among those who will go to the Hajj-pilgrimage." Family elders will give money and gifts to children. It is also common practice to visit families and friends, which may be difficult to do at other times of the year. Children walk from home to home saying "Khala Eidet Mubarak" ("aunt happy Eid"), and they receive cookies or Pala. At night, multiple campfires are set around houses, sometimes to the point that entire valleys may initially appear to be engulfed in flame. Celebratory fire with automatic rifles, particularly tracer rounds, can also be expected in high density.[25]
+
+Egyptians spend the first day of Eid al-Fitr to gather all family members and celebrate the Eid at public gardens. It is customary for children to also receive an Eidi, a small sum of money to be spent on activities throughout the Eid.[26] Egyptians like to celebrate with others, so the streets are always crowded during the days and nights of Eid.[27]
+
+There were several accounts of a heightened number of sexual assaults and rapes during the 2006 Egyptian Eid.[28][29][30][31] Subsequent reports indicated that the phenomenon continued to grow in following years.[32][33][34][35] One Egyptian journalist wrote "The Eid al-Fitr holiday following this year's Ramadan brought its usual share of sexual harassment".[36] Operation Anti Sexual Harassment, an Egyptian organisation founded to protect against sexual assaults, described Eid al-Fitr as a "season for harassment",[37] and the prevalence of such attacks "a trend that has become associated with Eid al-Fitr celebrations in recent years".[34] Despite this rise, sexual assault and "intrigue" with women during Eid al-Fitr dates back to the early 19th century, as Edward Lane alludes to.[38] In 2013, allegations, the discussion of which was considered taboo,[39] surfaced in Cairo and Tanta.[40][41][42] 2014 saw lower rates of attempted harassment, and activists reported more confidence since the amendment of the penal code.[43] 141 police reports for harassment were filed in Cairo in 2015, though this number may underestimate the issue as many reports were reportedly withdrawn.[44] Despite a reduction to 120 complaints and 35 arrests for harassment in 2016,[45] many women still find it necessary to take significant precautions during Eid.[46] 2018 showed continued evidence of reduction.[47]
+
+Since 2012, Tunisia celebrates Eid for three days (with preparations starting several days earlier), two of which are national holidays. Special biscuits, including Baklawa and several kinds of "ka'ak", are made to give to friends and relatives on the day.[48]
+
+In Somalia and other Islamic parts of the Horn region, Eid al-Fitr is observed by the Muslim communities. Celebrations marking the event are typically accompanied by elaborate banquets, where special dishes such as xalwo (halwo) and buskut (buskuit) are served.[49]
+
+In Cape Town, hundreds of Muslims—each with something to share with others at the time of the breaking of the fast—gather at Green Point in the evening of the last day of Ramadan for the sighting of the moon. The Maghrib (sunset) prayer is then performed in congregation and the formal moon-sighting results are announced thereafter.[50]
+
+In Sudan, where 97% of the population is Muslim,[51] preparations for Eid begin the last few days of Ramadan. For days, ka'ak (sugar powdered cookies), bettifour (dry baked goods including dainty biscuits, baked meringues and macaroons—whose name are derived from the French petit four), and popcorn are baked in large batches to serve to guests and to give to family and friends; dressy Eid clothes are either shopped for or sewn; girls and women decorate their hands and feet with henna; and parts of the house may even be painted. The night before Eid, the whole household partakes in cleaning the house and yard and setting out the finest bedsheets, table cloths, and decorations. On the day of Eid, men and boys (and occasionally women and girls) will attend the Eid prayer. For the next 3 days, families will then visit each other, extended family, neighbors, and close friends. In these short visits, the baked goods, chocolates, and sweets are served, and often large lunches are prepared for the visiting well-wishers. Children are given gifts, either in the form of toys or money.[52]
+
+Special celebratory dishes in India include Lachcha or sivayyan, a dish of fine, toasted sweet vermicelli noodles with milk and dried fruit (see Sheer khurma).[53]
+
+In Pakistan, Eid al-Fitr is also referred to as both میٹھی عید‎, mīṭhī īd, 'Sweet Eid' and چھوٹی عید‎, chhotī īd, 'the Lesser Eid'.[54] People are supposed to give obligatory charity on behalf of each of their family members to the needy or poor before Eid day or, minimally, Eid prayer, allowing for all to share in the joy of Eid. At home, family members enjoy special Eid breakfast with various types of sweets and desserts, including Kheer and the traditional dessert Sheer Khurma, which is made of vermicelli, milk, butter, dry fruits, and dates. Eid is mainly enjoyed by the kids, as they mostly receive money in cash called "Eidi" as gift from their relatives and elders.[55] People tend to get fresh and crisp banknotes to gift children with. State Bank of Pakistan issues fresh currency notes every year for this purpose.[56]
+
+The preparation for Eid in Bangladesh starts from the last quarter of the holy month of Ramadan. The markets and shopping malls become overwhelmed with people. Those who live away from their families for their job or livelihood, they return to their home towns and villages to celebrate the festival with family members and relatives. In the Chaand Raat children gather at the open field to see the Hilal (crescent moon) of the month of Shawwal. Girls decorate their hands with Mehndi. Like other South Asian countries, Lachcha (Vermicelli) are served with Roti as breakfast in Bangladesh. Then people attend the Eid prayer in Eidgah. Children do salam by touching the legs of the elderly members of the family. And elders give them a small amount of money which is known as "Salami" or "Eidi (gift)", which is a major part of Eid happiness for children. Delicious dishes like Biryani, Polao, Korma etc are served in the dining table. Wealthy Muslims in Bangladesh also distribute Zakat alms to the poor people. People visit the house of relatives and greet each other saying "Eid Mubarak" (Happy Eid).[57]
+
+Eid is known in Indonesia as Hari Raya Idul Fitri, or more popularly as Lebaran, and is a national holiday.[58] People return to their home town or city (an exodus known as mudik) to celebrate with their families and to ask forgiveness from parents, in-laws, and other elders.[59] Festivities start the night before with chanting the Takbir and lighting lamps. On the day itself, after Eid prayer in the morning, zakat alms for the poor are distributed in the mosques. People gather with family and neighbors in traditional clothing and have a special Lebaran meal. Children are given money in colourful envelopes.[60] Later, it is common for Muslims in Indonesia to visit the graves of relatives to ritually clean the grave. Muslims also visit the living in a special ritual called Halal bi-Halal sometime during or several days after Idul Fitri.[61]
+
+In Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Thailand, children are given token sums of money, known as "duit raya" also known as green envelope, from their parents or elders.[62][63]
+
+During Ramadan, in small towns and big villages with significant Muslim populations, Burmese Muslim youth organize singing teams called Jago (meaning "wake up). Jago teams usually do not use musical instruments apart from the occasional use of harmonica mouth organs.[64] The roving groups of singers will take the tunes of popular Hindi movie songs, replaced with Burmese lyrics and invocations about fasting, the principles of Islam, and the benefits of Salat.[65]
+
+Among Muslim Filipinos in the Philippines, Eid al-Fitr is commonly known as Hariraya, Buka, Hariraya Buka, or Hariraya Buka Puasa.[66][67][68] It is also known as Wakas ng Ramadan (literally "End of Ramadan"), Araw ng Raya ("Feast Day"), or Pagtatapos ng Pag-aayuno ("End of the Fast") in Filipino. It was proclaimed a legal holiday for Muslim Filipinos in 1977 by Presidential Decree 1083. In 2002, this was upgraded to a public national holiday by Republic Act 9177. It is also sometimes known by its Malay name "Hari Raya Puasa"; and by its Indonesian name "Lebaran".[69][70][71]
+
+Its beginning is decided by the sighting of the crescent moon (hilal), followed by morning prayers in mosques or public plazas.[72] When this occurs can sometimes differ depending on the regional government. In some places it is based on the physical sighting of the hilal; while in others it is determined by the Regional Darul Ifta’ of Bangsamoro (RDI-BARMM) or the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos (NCMF), especially during cloudy days.[66][73][74]
+
+The sighting of the hilal is traditionally marked by the beating of drums in some regions. In modern times, this has evolved into a noise barrage known as "Mobile Takbir", where celebrants, especially youths, rev their motorcycles or honk their horns while driving through the streets. Guns are also sometimes fired. These practices have been discouraged by the Grand Mufti of Bangsamoro and local government officials as not being in accordance with Islamic teachings as well as being dangerous and causing accidents in the past.[74][75][76]
+
+Hariraya is characterized by the giving of gifts (known as Eidi), food sharing (salu-salo), and visiting the elderly and the sick.[76][77] Food, alms, and basic necessities are also donated to the poor, a practice known as Fitrana or Zakat al-Fitr. This is usually done a day before Eid al-Fitr.[69][78] Various traditional sweet delicacies of the different Muslim Filipino ethnic groups are served for breakfast, including daral, dodol, browas, tinagtag, panyalam, jampok, and so on.[79] Various activities also mark the celebrations, including dancing, boat races, horse races, and carabao fighting in cities and towns with significant Muslim populations. In Metro Manila, the celebrations are usually held at the Manila Golden Mosque and the Quirino Grandstand.[72] The celebration lasts for three days.[73]
+
+In the People's Republic of China, out of 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, Eid al-Fitr is celebrated by at least 10 ethnic groups that are predominantly Muslim. These groups are said to total 18 million according to official statistics, but some observers say the actual number may be much higher. It is also a public holiday in China in certain regions, including two Province Prefecture Level regions, Ningxia and Xinjiang. All residents in these areas, regardless of religion, are entitled to either a one-day or three-day official holiday. Outside the Muslim-majority regions, only Muslims are entitled to a one-day holiday. In Xinjiang province, Eid al-Fitr is even celebrated by the Han Chinese population. During the holiday, supplies of mutton, lamb and beef are distributed to households as part of a welfare program funded by government agencies, public and private institutions, and businesses. In Yunnan, Muslim populations are spread throughout the region. On Eid al-Fitr, however, some devotees may travel to Sayyid 'Ajjal's grave after their communal prayers. There, they will conduct readings from the Quran and clean the tomb, reminiscent of the historic annual Chinese Qingming festival, in which people go to their ancestors' graves, sweep and clean the area, and make food offerings.[citation needed] Finally the accomplishments of the Sayyid 'Ajall will be related in story form, concluded by a special prayer service to honour the hundreds of thousands of Muslims killed during the Panthay Rebellion, and the hundreds killed during the Cultural Revolution.[80]
+
+Eid al-Fitr (i.e. Seker Bayram, Sugar Feast) is celebrated in Greece mainly in the Western Thrace region from the local Muslim minority (Turks, Pomaks and Roma), along with the other two major celebrations, Kurban Bayram (Sacrifice Feast) and Hıdırellez. On the day of the Bayram, family gathers together, wear their best clothes, and celebrate with a common meal, after attending the morning prayer. The women prepare and offer sweets to family and visitors, while small children go around and pay their respects to the elderly by kissing their hands. The elder in turn reward them with candies, sweets, and small amounts of money.[81][82] Local Muslim shopkeepers close their shops this day, while Muslim minority schools have a 5-day holiday for the feast.[82] Some entertainment venues and clubs hold special events for the night of the Bayram.[83]
+
+Although Eid al-Fitr is not a recognized public holiday in the United Kingdom,[84] many schools, businesses, and organisations allow for at least a day's leave to be taken for religious celebrations.[85][86]
+
+In New York City, alternate side parking (street cleaning) regulations are suspended on Eid. Beginning in 2016, New York City Public Schools also remain closed on Eid.[87] In Houston, Texas, the annual prayers are offered at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, organised by the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH). In other states, with smaller Muslim populations, it is common that schools will remain open on Eid al-Fitr.
+
+The United States Postal Service (USPS) has issued several Eid postage stamps, across several years—starting in 2001—honoring "two of the most important festivals in the Islamic calendar: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha." Eid stamps were released in 2001 – 2002, 2006 – 2009, 2011.[88][89][90][91]
+
+Although the date of Eid al-Fitr is always the same in the Islamic calendar, the date in the Gregorian calendar falls approximately 11 days earlier each successive year, since the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Gregorian calendar is solar. Hence if the Eid falls in the first ten days of a Gregorian calendar year, there will be a second Eid in the last ten days of the same Gregorian calendar year, as happened in 2000 CE. The Gregorian date may vary between countries depending on the local visibility of the new moon. Some expatriate Muslim communities follow the dates as determined for their home country, while others follow the local dates of their country of residence.
+
+The following table shows predicted dates and announced dates based on new moon sightings for Saudi Arabia.[1][92]
+
+The first Mughal Emperor Babur greets courtiers during the Eid al-Fitr festival
+
+Eid al-Fitr mass prayer at Delhi's Jama Masjid
+
+Muslims in Britain performing the Eid prayers during the celebration, 1941
+
+An ethnic Hui family celebrating Eid al-Fitr in Ningxia
+
+Muslims in Singapore celebrating Eid al-Fitr
+
+An Indonesian family celebrating lebaran with various culinary dishes specific to this holiday
+
+(federal) = federal holidays, (abbreviation) = state/territorial holidays, (religious) = religious holidays, (cultural) = holiday related to a specific racial/ethnic group or sexual minority, (week) = week-long holidays, (month) = month-long holidays, (36) = Title 36 Observances and Ceremonies
+Bold indicates major holidays commonly celebrated in the United States, which often represent the major celebrations of the month.

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+
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+History of the world · Ancient maritime history Protohistory · Axial Age · Iron Age Historiography · Ancient literature Ancient warfare · Cradle of civilization
+
+Ancient Greece (Greek: Ἑλλάς, romanized: Hellás) was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. AD 600). Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine time.[1] Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedon, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. The Hellenistic period came to an end with the conquests and annexations of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, which established the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire.
+
+Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean Basin and Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization.[2][3][4]
+
+Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC[5] (around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer) and ended in the 6th century AD.
+
+Classical antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200 – c. 800 BC), archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following the Dark Ages was the Archaic Period, beginning around the 8th century BC. The Archaic Period saw early developments in Greek culture and society which formed the basis for the Classical Period.[6] After the Archaic Period, the Classical Period in Greece is conventionally considered to have lasted from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 until the death of Alexander the Great in 323.[7] The period is characterized by a style which was considered by later observers to be exemplary, i.e., "classical", as shown in the Parthenon, for instance. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and finally to the League of Corinth led by Macedon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon.
+
+Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period (323–146 BC), during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest. Roman Greece is usually considered to be the period between Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC and the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in AD 330. Finally, Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization during the later 4th to early 6th centuries AD, sometimes taken to be complete with the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I in 529.[8]
+
+The historical period of ancient Greece is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in proper historiography, while earlier ancient history or proto-history is known by much more circumstantial evidence, such as annals or king lists, and pragmatic epigraphy.
+
+Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about a century into the past, discussing 6th century historical figures such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II and Psamtik III, and alluding to some 8th century ones such as Candaules.
+
+Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato and Aristotle. Most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities.
+Their scope is further limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history.[9]
+
+In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. Objects with Phoenician writing on them may have been available in Greece from the 9th century BC, but the earliest evidence of Greek writing comes from graffiti on Greek pottery from the mid-8th century.[10] Greece was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern largely dictated by Greek geography: every island, valley and plain is cut off from its neighbors by the sea or mountain ranges.[11]
+
+The Lelantine War (c. 710 – c. 650 BC) is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period. It was fought between the important poleis (city-states) of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, though Chalcis was the nominal victor.
+
+A mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC.[12] This seems to have introduced tension to many city-states. The aristocratic regimes which generally governed the poleis were threatened by the new-found wealth of merchants, who in turn desired political power. From 650 BC onwards, the aristocracies had to fight not to be overthrown and replaced by populist tyrants.[a]
+
+A growing population and a shortage of land also seem to have created internal strife between the poor and the rich in many city-states. In Sparta, the Messenian Wars resulted in the conquest of Messenia and enserfment of the Messenians, beginning in the latter half of the 8th century BC, an act without precedent in ancient Greece. This practice allowed a social revolution to occur.[15] The subjugated population, thenceforth known as helots, farmed and labored for Sparta, whilst every Spartan male citizen became a soldier of the Spartan Army in a permanently militarized state. Even the elite were obliged to live and train as soldiers; this commonality between rich and poor citizens served to defuse the social conflict. These reforms, attributed to Lycurgus of Sparta, were probably complete by 650 BC.
+
+Athens suffered a land and agrarian crisis in the late 7th century BC, again resulting in civil strife. The Archon (chief magistrate) Draco made severe reforms to the law code in 621 BC (hence "draconian"), but these failed to quell the conflict. Eventually the moderate reforms of Solon (594 BC), improving the lot of the poor but firmly entrenching the aristocracy in power, gave Athens some stability.
+
+By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. Each of them had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and mercantile powers as well.
+
+Rapidly increasing population in the 8th and 7th centuries BC had resulted in emigration of many Greeks to form colonies in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily), Asia Minor and further afield. The emigration effectively ceased in the 6th century BC by which time the Greek world had, culturally and linguistically, become much larger than the area of present-day Greece. Greek colonies were not politically controlled by their founding cities, although they often retained religious and commercial links with them.
+
+The emigration process also determined a long series of conflicts between the Greek cities of Sicily, especially Syracuse, and the Carthaginians. These conflicts lasted from 600 BC to 265 BC when the Roman Republic entered into an alliance with the Mamertines to fend off the hostilities by the new tyrant of Syracuse, Hiero II and then the Carthaginians. This way Rome became the new dominant power against the fading strength of the Sicilian Greek cities and the Carthaginian supremacy in the region. One year later the First Punic War erupted.
+
+In this period, there was huge economic development in Greece, and also in its overseas colonies which experienced a growth in commerce and manufacturing. There was a great improvement in the living standards of the population. Some studies estimate that the average size of the Greek household, in the period from 800 BC to 300 BC, increased five times, which indicates[citation needed] a large increase in the average income of the population.
+
+In the second half of the 6th century BC, Athens fell under the tyranny of Peisistratos and then of his sons Hippias and Hipparchos. However, in 510 BC, at the instigation of the Athenian aristocrat Cleisthenes, the Spartan king Cleomenes I helped the Athenians overthrow the tyranny. Afterwards, Sparta and Athens promptly turned on each other, at which point Cleomenes I installed Isagoras as a pro-Spartan archon. Eager to prevent Athens from becoming a Spartan puppet, Cleisthenes responded by proposing to his fellow citizens that Athens undergo a revolution: that all citizens share in political power, regardless of status: that Athens become a "democracy". So enthusiastically did the Athenians take to this idea that, having overthrown Isagoras and implemented Cleisthenes's reforms, they were easily able to repel a Spartan-led three-pronged invasion aimed at restoring Isagoras.[16] The advent of the democracy cured many of the ills of Athens and led to a 'golden age' for the Athenians.
+
+In 499 BC, the Ionian city states under Persian rule rebelled against the Persian-supported tyrants that ruled them.[17] Supported by troops sent from Athens and Eretria, they advanced as far as Sardis and burnt the city down, before being driven back by a Persian counterattack.[18] The revolt continued until 494, when the rebelling Ionians were defeated.[19] Darius did not forget that the Athenians had assisted the Ionian revolt, however, and in 490 he assembled an armada to conquer Athens.[20] Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Athenians—supported by their Plataean allies—defeated the Persian forces at the Battle of Marathon, and the Persian fleet withdrew.[21]
+
+Ten years later, a second invasion was launched by Darius' son Xerxes.[22] The city-states of northern and central Greece submitted to the Persian forces without resistance, but a coalition of 31 Greek city states, including Athens and Sparta, determined to resist the Persian invaders.[23] At the same time, Greek Sicily was invaded by a Carthaginian force.[24] In 480 BC, the first major battle of the invasion was fought at Thermopylae, where a small force of Greeks, led by three hundred Spartans, held a crucial pass into the heart of Greece for several days; at the same time Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, defeated the Carthaginian invasion at the Battle of Himera.[25]
+
+The Persians were defeated by a primarily Athenian naval force at the Battle of Salamis, and in 479 defeated on land at the Battle of Plataea.[26] The alliance against Persia continued, initially led by the Spartan Pausanias but from 477 by Athens,[27] and by 460 Persia had been driven out of the Aegean.[28] During this period of campaigning, the Delian league gradually transformed from a defensive alliance of Greek states into an Athenian empire, as Athens' growing naval power enabled it to compel other league states to comply with its policies.[29] Athens ended its campaigns against Persia in 450 BC, after a disastrous defeat in Egypt in 454 BC, and the death of Cimon in action against the Persians on Cyprus in 450.[30]
+
+While Athenian activity against the Persian empire was ending, however, conflict between Sparta and Athens was increasing. Sparta was suspicious of the increasing Athenian power funded by the Delian League, and tensions rose when Sparta offered aid to reluctant members of the League to rebel against Athenian domination. These tensions were exacerbated in 462, when Athens sent a force to aid Sparta in overcoming a helot revolt, but their aid was rejected by the Spartans.[31] In the 450s, Athens took control of Boeotia, and won victories over Aegina and Corinth.[32] However, Athens failed to win a decisive victory, and in 447 lost Boeotia again.[33] Athens and Sparta signed the Thirty Years' Peace in the winter of 446/5, ending the conflict.[34]
+
+Despite the peace of 446/5, Athenian relations with Sparta declined again in the 430s, and in 431 war broke out once again.[35] The first phase of the war is traditionally seen as a series of annual invasions of Attica by Sparta, which made little progress, while Athens were successful against the Corinthian empire in the north-west of Greece, and in defending their own empire, despite suffering from plague and Spartan invasion.[36] The turning point of this phase of the war usually seen as the Athenian victories at Pylos and Sphakteria.[37] Sparta sued for peace, but the Athenians rejected the proposal.[38] The Athenian failure to regain control at Boeotia at Delium and Brasidas' successes in the north of Greece in 424, improved Sparta's position after Sphakteria.[39] After the deaths of Cleon and Brasidas, the strongest objectors to peace on the Athenian and Spartan sides respectively, a peace treaty was agreed in 421.[40]
+
+The peace did not last, however. In 418 an alliance between Athens and Argos was defeated by Sparta at Mantinea.[41] In 415 Athens launched a naval expedition against Sicily;[42] the expedition ended in disaster with almost the entire army killed.[43] Soon after the Athenian defeat in Syracuse, Athens' Ionian allies began to rebel against the Delian league, while at the same time Persia began to once again involve itself in Greek affairs on the Spartan side.[44] Initially the Athenian position continued to be relatively strong, winning important battles such as those at Cyzicus in 410 and Arginusae in 406.[45] However, in 405 the Spartans defeated Athens in the Battle of Aegospotami, and began to blockade Athens' harbour;[46] with no grain supply and in danger of starvation, Athens sued for peace, agreeing to surrender their fleet and join the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League.[47]
+
+Greece thus entered the 4th century BC under a Spartan hegemony, but it was clear from the start that this was weak. A demographic crisis meant Sparta was overstretched, and by 395 BC Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth felt able to challenge Spartan dominance, resulting in the Corinthian War (395–387 BC). Another war of stalemates, it ended with the status quo restored, after the threat of Persian intervention on behalf of the Spartans.
+
+The Spartan hegemony lasted another 16 years, until, when attempting to impose their will on the Thebans, the Spartans were defeated at Leuctra in 371 BC. The Theban general Epaminondas then led Theban troops into the Peloponnese, whereupon other city-states defected from the Spartan cause. The Thebans were thus able to march into Messenia and free the population.
+
+Deprived of land and its serfs, Sparta declined to a second-rank power. The Theban hegemony thus established was short-lived; at the Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC, Thebes lost its key leader, Epaminondas, and much of its manpower, even though they were victorious in battle. In fact such were the losses to all the great city-states at Mantinea that none could establish dominance in the aftermath.
+
+The weakened state of the heartland of Greece coincided with the Rise of Macedon, led by Philip II. In twenty years, Philip had unified his kingdom, expanded it north and west at the expense of Illyrian tribes, and then conquered Thessaly and Thrace. His success stemmed from his innovative reforms to the Macedonian army. Phillip intervened repeatedly in the affairs of the southern city-states, culminating in his invasion of 338 BC.
+
+Decisively defeating an allied army of Thebes and Athens at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), he became de facto hegemon of all of Greece, except Sparta. He compelled the majority of the city-states to join the League of Corinth, allying them to him, and preventing them from warring with each other. Philip then entered into war against the Achaemenid Empire but was assassinated by Pausanias of Orestis early on in the conflict.
+
+Alexander the Great, son and successor of Philip, continued the war. Alexander defeated Darius III of Persia and completely destroyed the Achaemenid Empire, annexing it to Macedon and earning himself the epithet 'the Great'. When Alexander died in 323 BC, Greek power and influence was at its zenith. However, there had been a fundamental shift away from the fierce independence and classical culture of the poleis—and instead towards the developing Hellenistic culture.
+
+The Hellenistic period lasted from 323 BC, which marked the end of the wars of Alexander the Great, to the annexation of Greece by the Roman Republic in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.
+
+After the death of Alexander, his empire was, after quite some conflict, divided among his generals, resulting in the Ptolemaic Kingdom (Egypt and adjoining North Africa), the Seleucid Empire (the Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia) and the Antigonid dynasty (Macedonia). In the intervening period, the poleis of Greece were able to wrest back some of their freedom, although still nominally subject to the Macedonian Kingdom.
+
+During the Hellenistic period, the importance of "Greece proper" (that is, the territory of modern Greece) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centers of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire, respectively.
+
+The conquests of Alexander had numerous consequences for the Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks and led to a steady emigration, particularly of the young and ambitious, to the new Greek empires in the east.[48] Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until the end of the first century BC.
+
+The city-states within Greece formed themselves into two leagues; the Achaean League (including Thebes, Corinth and Argos) and the Aetolian League (including Sparta and Athens). For much of the period until the Roman conquest, these leagues were usually at war with each other, and/or allied to different sides in the conflicts between the Diadochi (the successor states to Alexander's empire).
+
+The Antigonid Kingdom became involved in a war with the Roman Republic in the late 3rd century. Although the First Macedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion, continued to make war on Macedon until it was completely absorbed into the Roman Republic (by 149 BC). In the east the unwieldy Seleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump survived until 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt until 30 BC, when it too was conquered by the Romans. The Aetolian league grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided with the Seleucids in the Roman–Seleucid War; when the Romans were victorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic. Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian league and Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romans in 146 BC, bringing an end to the independence of all of Greece.
+
+The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule during the 146 BC conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. Macedonia became a Roman province while southern Greece came under the surveillance of Macedonia's prefect; however, some Greek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoid taxation. The Aegean islands were added to this territory in 133 BC. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was crushed by the Roman general Sulla. The Roman civil wars devastated the land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as the province of Achaea in 27 BC.
+
+Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman. The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy, and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome.
+
+The territory of Greece is mountainous, and as a result, ancient Greece consisted of many smaller regions each with its own dialect, cultural peculiarities, and identity. Regionalism and regional conflicts were a prominent feature of ancient Greece. Cities tended to be located in valleys between mountains, or on coastal plains, and dominated a certain area around them.
+
+In the south lay the Peloponnese, itself consisting of the regions of Laconia (southeast), Messenia (southwest), Elis (west), Achaia (north), Korinthia (northeast), Argolis (east), and Arcadia (center). These names survive to the present day as regional units of modern Greece, though with somewhat different boundaries. Mainland Greece to the north, nowadays known as Central Greece, consisted of Aetolia and Acarnania in the west, Locris, Doris, and Phocis in the center, while in the east lay Boeotia, Attica, and Megaris. Northeast lay Thessaly, while Epirus lay to the northwest. Epirus stretched from the Ambracian Gulf in the south to the Ceraunian mountains and the Aoos river in the north, and consisted of Chaonia (north), Molossia (center), and Thesprotia (south). In the northeast corner was Macedonia,[49] originally consisting Lower Macedonia and its regions, such as Elimeia, Pieria, and Orestis. Around the time of Alexander I of Macedon, the Argead kings of Macedon started to expand into Upper Macedonia, lands inhabited by independent Macedonian tribes like the Lyncestae and the Elmiotae and to the West, beyond the Axius river, into Eordaia, Bottiaea, Mygdonia, and Almopia, regions settled by Thracian tribes.[50] To the north of Macedonia lay various non-Greek peoples such as the Paeonians due north, the Thracians to the northeast, and the Illyrians, with whom the Macedonians were frequently in conflict, to the northwest. Chalcidice was settled early on by southern Greek colonists and was considered part of the Greek world, while from the late 2nd millennium BC substantial Greek settlement also occurred on the eastern shores of the Aegean, in Anatolia.
+
+During the Archaic period, the population of Greece grew beyond the capacity of its limited arable land (according to one estimate, the population of ancient Greece increased by a factor larger than ten during the period from 800 BC to 400 BC, increasing from a population of 800,000 to a total estimated population of 10 to 13 million).[51]
+
+From about 750 BC the Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling colonies in all directions. To the east, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was colonized first, followed by Cyprus and the coasts of Thrace, the Sea of Marmara and south coast of the Black Sea.
+
+Eventually Greek colonization reached as far northeast as present day Ukraine and Russia (Taganrog). To the west the coasts of Illyria, Sicily and Southern Italy were settled, followed by Southern France, Corsica, and even northeastern Spain. Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya.
+
+Modern Syracuse, Naples, Marseille and Istanbul had their beginnings as the Greek colonies Syracusae (Συράκουσαι), Neapolis (Νεάπολις), Massalia (Μασσαλία) and Byzantion (Βυζάντιον). These colonies played an important role in the spread of Greek influence throughout Europe and also aided in the establishment of long-distance trading networks between the Greek city-states, boosting the economy of ancient Greece.
+
+Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred relatively independent city-states (poleis). This was a situation unlike that in most other contemporary societies, which were either tribal or kingdoms ruling over relatively large territories. Undoubtedly the geography of Greece—divided and sub-divided by hills, mountains, and rivers—contributed to the fragmentary nature of ancient Greece. On the one hand, the ancient Greeks had no doubt that they were "one people"; they had the same religion, same basic culture, and same language. Furthermore, the Greeks were very aware of their tribal origins; Herodotus was able to extensively categorise the city-states by tribe. Yet, although these higher-level relationships existed, they seem to have rarely had a major role in Greek politics. The independence of the poleis was fiercely defended; unification was something rarely contemplated by the ancient Greeks. Even when, during the second Persian invasion of Greece, a group of city-states allied themselves to defend Greece, the vast majority of poleis remained neutral, and after the Persian defeat, the allies quickly returned to infighting.[53]
+
+Thus, the major peculiarities of the ancient Greek political system were its fragmentary nature (and that this does not particularly seem to have tribal origin), and the particular focus on urban centers within otherwise tiny states. The peculiarities of the Greek system are further evidenced by the colonies that they set up throughout the Mediterranean Sea, which, though they might count a certain Greek polis as their 'mother' (and remain sympathetic to her), were completely independent of the founding city.
+
+Inevitably smaller poleis might be dominated by larger neighbors, but conquest or direct rule by another city-state appears to have been quite rare. Instead the poleis grouped themselves into leagues, membership of which was in a constant state of flux. Later in the Classical period, the leagues would become fewer and larger, be dominated by one city (particularly Athens, Sparta and Thebes); and often poleis would be compelled to join under threat of war (or as part of a peace treaty). Even after Philip II of Macedon "conquered" the heartlands of ancient Greece, he did not attempt to annex the territory, or unify it into a new province, but simply compelled most of the poleis to join his own Corinthian League.
+
+Initially many Greek city-states seem to have been petty kingdoms; there was often a city official carrying some residual, ceremonial functions of the king (basileus), e.g., the archon basileus in Athens.[54] However, by the Archaic period and the first historical consciousness, most had already become aristocratic oligarchies. It is unclear exactly how this change occurred. For instance, in Athens, the kingship had been reduced to a hereditary, lifelong chief magistracy (archon) by c. 1050 BC; by 753 BC this had become a decennial, elected archonship; and finally by 683 BC an annually elected archonship. Through each stage more power would have been transferred to the aristocracy as a whole, and away from a single individual.
+
+Inevitably, the domination of politics and concomitant aggregation of wealth by small groups of families was apt to cause social unrest in many poleis. In many cities a tyrant (not in the modern sense of repressive autocracies), would at some point seize control and govern according to their own will; often a populist agenda would help sustain them in power. In a system wracked with class conflict, government by a 'strongman' was often the best solution.
+
+Athens fell under a tyranny in the second half of the 6th century. When this tyranny was ended, the Athenians founded the world's first democracy as a radical solution to prevent the aristocracy regaining power. A citizens' assembly (the Ecclesia), for the discussion of city policy, had existed since the reforms of Draco in 621 BC; all citizens were permitted to attend after the reforms of Solon (early 6th century), but the poorest citizens could not address the assembly or run for office. With the establishment of the democracy, the assembly became the de jure mechanism of government; all citizens had equal privileges in the assembly. However, non-citizens, such as metics (foreigners living in Athens) or slaves, had no political rights at all.
+
+After the rise of the democracy in Athens, other city-states founded democracies. However, many retained more traditional forms of government. As so often in other matters, Sparta was a notable exception to the rest of Greece, ruled through the whole period by not one, but two hereditary monarchs. This was a form of diarchy. The Kings of Sparta belonged to the Agiads and the Eurypontids, descendants respectively of Eurysthenes and Procles. Both dynasties' founders were believed to be twin sons of Aristodemus, a Heraclid ruler. However, the powers of these kings were held in check by both a council of elders (the Gerousia) and magistrates specifically appointed to watch over the kings (the Ephors).
+
+Only free, land owning, native-born men could be citizens entitled to the full protection of the law in a city-state. In most city-states, unlike the situation in Rome, social prominence did not allow special rights. Sometimes families controlled public religious functions, but this ordinarily did not give any extra power in the government. In Athens, the population was divided into four social classes based on wealth. People could change classes if they made more money. In Sparta, all male citizens were called homoioi, meaning "peers". However, Spartan kings, who served as the city-state's dual military and religious leaders, came from two families.[citation needed]
+
+Slaves had no power or status. They had the right to have a family and own property, subject to their master's goodwill and permission, but they had no political rights. By 600 BC chattel slavery had spread in Greece. By the 5th century BC slaves made up one-third of the total population in some city-states. Between forty and eighty per cent of the population of Classical Athens were slaves.[55] Slaves outside of Sparta almost never revolted because they were made up of too many nationalities and were too scattered to organize. However, unlike later Western culture, the Ancient Greeks did not think in terms of race.[56]
+
+Most families owned slaves as household servants and laborers, and even poor families might have owned a few slaves. Owners were not allowed to beat or kill their slaves. Owners often promised to free slaves in the future to encourage slaves to work hard. Unlike in Rome, freedmen did not become citizens. Instead, they were mixed into the population of metics, which included people from foreign countries or other city-states who were officially allowed to live in the state.
+
+City-states legally owned slaves. These public slaves had a larger measure of independence than slaves owned by families, living on their own and performing specialized tasks. In Athens, public slaves were trained to look out for counterfeit coinage, while temple slaves acted as servants of the temple's deity and Scythian slaves were employed in Athens as a police force corralling citizens to political functions.
+
+Sparta had a special type of slaves called helots. Helots were Messenians enslaved during the Messenian Wars by the state and assigned to families where they were forced to stay. Helots raised food and did household chores so that women could concentrate on raising strong children while men could devote their time to training as hoplites. Their masters treated them harshly, and helots revolted against their masters several times before in 370/69 they won their freedom.[57]
+
+For most of Greek history, education was private, except in Sparta. During the Hellenistic period, some city-states established public schools. Only wealthy families could afford a teacher. Boys learned how to read, write and quote literature. They also learned to sing and play one musical instrument and were trained as athletes for military service. They studied not for a job but to become an effective citizen. Girls also learned to read, write and do simple arithmetic so they could manage the household. They almost never received education after childhood.[citation needed]
+
+Boys went to school at the age of seven, or went to the barracks, if they lived in Sparta. The three types of teachings were: grammatistes for arithmetic, kitharistes for music and dancing, and Paedotribae for sports.
+
+Boys from wealthy families attending the private school lessons were taken care of by a paidagogos, a household slave selected for this task who accompanied the boy during the day. Classes were held in teachers' private houses and included reading, writing, mathematics, singing, and playing the lyre and flute. When the boy became 12 years old the schooling started to include sports such as wrestling, running, and throwing discus and javelin. In Athens some older youths attended academy for the finer disciplines such as culture, sciences, music, and the arts. The schooling ended at age 18, followed by military training in the army usually for one or two years.[58]
+
+Only a small number of boys continued their education after childhood, as in the Spartan agoge. A crucial part of a wealthy teenager's education was a mentorship with an elder, which in a few places and times may have included pederasty.[citation needed] The teenager learned by watching his mentor talking about politics in the agora, helping him perform his public duties, exercising with him in the gymnasium and attending symposia with him. The richest students continued their education by studying with famous teachers. Some of Athens' greatest such schools included the Lyceum (the so-called Peripatetic school founded by Aristotle of Stageira) and the Platonic Academy (founded by Plato of Athens). The education system of the wealthy ancient Greeks is also called Paideia.[citation needed]
+
+At its economic height, in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, ancient Greece was the most advanced economy in the world. According to some economic historians, it was one of the most advanced pre-industrial economies. This is demonstrated by the average daily wage of the Greek worker which was, in terms of wheat, about 12 kg. This was more than 3 times the average daily wage of an Egyptian worker during the Roman period, about 3.75 kg.[59]
+
+At least in the Archaic Period, the fragmentary nature of ancient Greece, with many competing city-states, increased the frequency of conflict but conversely limited the scale of warfare. Unable to maintain professional armies, the city-states relied on their own citizens to fight. This inevitably reduced the potential duration of campaigns, as citizens would need to return to their own professions (especially in the case of, for example, farmers). Campaigns would therefore often be restricted to summer. When battles occurred, they were usually set piece and intended to be decisive. Casualties were slight compared to later battles, rarely amounting to more than 5% of the losing side, but the slain often included the most prominent citizens and generals who led from the front.
+
+The scale and scope of warfare in ancient Greece changed dramatically as a result of the Greco-Persian Wars. To fight the enormous armies of the Achaemenid Empire was effectively beyond the capabilities of a single city-state. The eventual triumph of the Greeks was achieved by alliances of city-states (the exact composition changing over time), allowing the pooling of resources and division of labor. Although alliances between city-states occurred before this time, nothing on this scale had been seen before. The rise of Athens and Sparta as pre-eminent powers during this conflict led directly to the Peloponnesian War, which saw further development of the nature of warfare, strategy and tactics. Fought between leagues of cities dominated by Athens and Sparta, the increased manpower and financial resources increased the scale, and allowed the diversification of warfare. Set-piece battles during the Peloponnesian war proved indecisive and instead there was increased reliance on attritionary strategies, naval battle and blockades and sieges. These changes greatly increased the number of casualties and the disruption of Greek society.
+Athens owned one of the largest war fleets in ancient Greece. It had over 200 triremes each powered by 170 oarsmen who were seated in 3 rows on each side of the ship. The city could afford such a large fleet—it had over 34,000 oars men—because it owned a lot of silver mines that were worked by slaves.
+
+According to Josiah Ober, Greek city-states faced approximately a one-in-three chance of destruction during the archaic and classical period.[60]
+
+Ancient Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. In many ways, it had an important influence on modern philosophy, as well as modern science. Clear unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers, to medieval Muslim philosophers and Islamic scientists, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the secular sciences of the modern day.
+
+Neither reason nor inquiry began with the Greeks. Defining the difference between the Greek quest for knowledge and the quests of the elder civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, has long been a topic of study by theorists of civilization.
+
+Some of the well-known philosophers of ancient Greece were Plato and Socrates, among others. They have aided in information about ancient Greek society through writings such as The Republic, by Plato.
+
+The earliest Greek literature was poetry, and was composed for performance rather than private consumption.[61] The earliest Greek poet known is Homer, although he was certainly part of an existing tradition of oral poetry.[62] Homer's poetry, though it was developed around the same time that the Greeks developed writing, would have been composed orally; the first poet to certainly compose their work in writing was Archilochus, a lyric poet from the mid-seventh century BC.[63] tragedy developed, around the end of the archaic period, taking elements from across the pre-existing genres of late archaic poetry.[64] Towards the beginning of the classical period, comedy began to develop—the earliest date associated with the genre is 486 BC, when a competition for comedy became an official event at the City Dionysia in Athens, though the first preserved ancient comedy is Aristophanes' Acharnians, produced in 425.[65]
+
+Like poetry, Greek prose had its origins in the archaic period, and the earliest writers of Greek philosophy, history, and medical literature all date to the sixth century BC.[66] Prose first emerged as the writing style adopted by the presocratic philosophers Anaximander and Anaximenes—though Thales of Miletus, considered the first Greek philosopher, apparently wrote nothing.[67] Prose as a genre reached maturity in the classical era,[68] and the major Greek prose genres—philosophy, history, rhetoric, and dialogue—developed in this period.[69]
+
+The Hellenistic period saw the literary centre of the Greek world move from Athens, where it had been in the classical period, to Alexandria. At the same time, other Hellenistic kings such as the Antigonids and the Attalids were patrons of scholarship and literature, turning Pella and Pergamon respectively into cultural centres.[70] It was thanks to this cultural patronage by Hellenistic kings, and especially the Museum at Alexandria, which ensured that so much ancient Greek literature has survived.[71] The Library of Alexandria, part of the Museum, had the previously-unenvisaged aim of collecting together copies of all known authors in Greek. Almost all of the surviving non-technical Hellenistic literature is poetry,[72] and Hellenistic poetry tended to be highly intellectual,[73] blending different genres and traditions, and avoiding linear narratives.[74] The Hellenistic period also saw a shift in the ways literature was consumed—while in the archaic and classical periods literature had typically been experienced in public performance, in the Hellenistic period it was more commonly read privately.[75] At the same time, Hellenistic poets began to write for private, rather than public, consumption.[76]
+
+With Octavian's victory at Actium in 31 BC, Rome began to become a major centre of Greek literature, as important Greek authors such as Strabo and Dionysius of Halicarnassus came to Rome.[77] The period of greatest innovation in Greek literature under Rome was the "long second century" from approximately AD 80 to around AD 230.[78] This innovation was especially marked in prose, with the development of the novel and a revival of prominence for display oratory both dating to this period.[79]
+
+Music was present almost universally in Greek society, from marriages and funerals to religious ceremonies, theatre, folk music and the ballad-like reciting of epic poetry. There are significant fragments of actual Greek musical notation as well as many literary references to ancient Greek music. Greek art depicts musical instruments and dance. The word music derives from the name of the Muses, the daughters of Zeus who were patron goddesses of the arts.
+
+Ancient Greek mathematics contributed many important developments to the field of mathematics, including the basic rules of geometry, the idea of formal mathematical proof, and discoveries in number theory, mathematical analysis, applied mathematics, and approached close to establishing integral calculus. The discoveries of several Greek mathematicians, including Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes, are still used in mathematical teaching today.
+
+The Greeks developed astronomy, which they treated as a branch of mathematics, to a highly sophisticated level. The first geometrical, three-dimensional models to explain the apparent motion of the planets were developed in the 4th century BC by Eudoxus of Cnidus and Callippus of Cyzicus. Their younger contemporary Heraclides Ponticus proposed that the Earth rotates around its axis. In the 3rd century BC Aristarchus of Samos was the first to suggest a heliocentric system. Archimedes in his treatise The Sand Reckoner revives Aristarchus' hypothesis that "the fixed stars and the Sun remain unmoved, while the Earth revolves about the Sun on the circumference of a circle". Otherwise, only fragmentary descriptions of Aristarchus' idea survive.[80] Eratosthenes, using the angles of shadows created at widely separated regions, estimated the circumference of the Earth with great accuracy.[81] In the 2nd century BC Hipparchus of Nicea made a number of contributions, including the first measurement of precession and the compilation of the first star catalog in which he proposed the modern system of apparent magnitudes.
+
+The Antikythera mechanism, a device for calculating the movements of planets, dates from about 80 BC, and was the first ancestor of the astronomical computer. It was discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete. The device became famous for its use of a differential gear, previously believed to have been invented in the 16th century, and the miniaturization and complexity of its parts, comparable to a clock made in the 18th century. The original mechanism is displayed in the Bronze collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, accompanied by a replica.
+
+The ancient Greeks also made important discoveries in the medical field. Hippocrates was a physician of the Classical period, and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the "father of medicine"[82][83] in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic school of medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus making medicine a profession.[84][85]
+
+The art of ancient Greece has exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries from ancient times to the present day, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture. In the West, the art of the Roman Empire was largely derived from Greek models. In the East, Alexander the Great's conquests initiated several centuries of exchange between Greek, Central Asian and Indian cultures, resulting in Greco-Buddhist art, with ramifications as far as Japan. Following the Renaissance in Europe, the humanist aesthetic and the high technical standards of Greek art inspired generations of European artists. Well into the 19th century, the classical tradition derived from Greece dominated the art of the western world.
+
+Religion was a central part of ancient Greek life.[86]  Though the Greeks of different cities and tribes worshipped similar gods, religious practices were not uniform and the gods were thought of differently in different places.[87]  The Greeks were polytheistic, worshipping many gods, but as early as the sixth century BC a pantheon of twelve Olympians began to develop.[87]  Greek religion was influenced by the practices of the Greeks' near eastern neighbours at least as early as the archaic period, and by the Hellenistic period this influence was seen in both directions.[88]
+
+The most important religious act in ancient Greece was animal sacrifice, most commonly of sheep and goats.[89]  Sacrifice was accompanied by public prayer,[90] and prayer and hymns were themselves a major part of ancient Greek religious life.[91]
+
+The civilization of ancient Greece has been immensely influential on language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, and the arts. It became the Leitkultur of the Roman Empire to the point of marginalizing native Italic traditions. As Horace put it,
+
+Via the Roman Empire, Greek culture came to be foundational to Western culture in general.
+The Byzantine Empire inherited Classical Greek culture directly, without Latin intermediation, and the preservation of classical Greek learning in medieval Byzantine tradition further exerted strong influence on the Slavs and later on the Islamic Golden Age and the Western European Renaissance. A modern revival of Classical Greek learning took place in the Neoclassicism movement in 18th- and 19th-century Europe and the Americas.

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+Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.  It comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia and is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the waterways of the Turkish Straits.[9] Although much of this border is over land, Europe is generally accorded the status of a full continent because of its great physical size and the weight of history and tradition.
+
+Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi), or 2% of the Earth's surface (6.8% of land area), making it the sixth largest continent. Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states, of which Russia is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of about 741 million (about 11% of the world population) as of 2018[update].[2][3] The European climate is largely affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent, even at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast.
+
+Europe, in particular ancient Greece and ancient Rome, was the birthplace of Western civilisation.[10][11][12] The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the subsequent Migration Period marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art and science led to the modern era. Since the Age of Discovery, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers colonized at various times the Americas, almost all of Africa and Oceania and the majority of Asia.
+
+The Age of Enlightenment, the subsequent French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally, politically and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural and social change in Western Europe and eventually the wider world. Both world wars took place for the most part in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence.[13] During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall.
+
+In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union (EU), a separate political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation.[14] The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the euro, is the most commonly used among Europeans; and the EU's Schengen Area abolishes border and immigration controls between most of its member states.
+
+
+
+In classical Greek mythology, Europa (Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē) was a Phoenician princess. One view is that her name derives from the ancient Greek elements εὐρύς (eurús), "wide, broad" and ὤψ (ōps, gen. ὠπός, ōpós) "eye, face, countenance", hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean "wide-gazing" or "broad of aspect".[15][16][17] Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it.[15] An alternative view is that of R.S.P. Beekes who has argued in favor of a Pre-Indo-European origin for the name, explains that a derivation from ancient Greek eurus would yield a different toponym than Europa. Beekes has located toponyms related to that of Europa in the territory of ancient Greece and localities like that of Europos in ancient Macedonia.[18]
+
+There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for "west", this being either Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (said of the sun) or Phoenician  'ereb "evening, west",[19] which is at the origin of Arabic Maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Michael A. Barry finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night, [the country of] sunset", in opposition to Asu "[the country of] sunrise", i.e. Asia. The same naming motive according to "cartographic convention" appears in Greek Ἀνατολή (Anatolḗ "[sun] rise", "east", hence Anatolia).[20] Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor",[21] while Beekes considers a connection to Semitic languages improbable.[18] Next to these hypotheses there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning "darkness", which also produced Greek Erebus.[citation needed]
+
+Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲/欧洲), which is an abbreviation of the transliterated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲) (zhōu means "continent"); a similar Chinese-derived term Ōshū (欧州) is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, Ōshū Rengō (欧州連合), despite the katakana Yōroppa (ヨーロッパ) being more commonly used. In some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan ("land of the Franks") is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa.[22]
+
+Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries[23] Key: blue: states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia;
+green: countries not geographically in Europe, but closely associated with the continent
+
+The prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century.
+Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe's limits to the east and northeast are usually taken to be the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.[24]
+
+Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America, although politically belonging to Denmark. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus is closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is considered part of Europe politically and it is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of Northwest Africa for centuries, but now it is considered to be part of Europe as well.[25]
+"Europe" as used specifically in British English may also refer to Continental Europe exclusively.[26]
+
+The term "continent" usually implies the physical geography of a large land mass completely or almost completely surrounded by water at its borders. However the Europe-Asia part of the border is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent with this definition because of its partial adherence to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains rather than a series of partly joined waterways suggested by cartographer Herman Moll in 1715. These water divides extend with a few relatively small interruptions (compared to the aforementioned mountain ranges) from the Turkish straits running into the Mediterranean Sea to the upper part of the Ob River that drains into the Arctic Ocean. Prior to the adoption of the current convention that includes mountain divides, the border between Europe and Asia had been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity, but always as a series of rivers, seas, and straits that were believed to extend an unknown distance east and north from the Mediterranean Sea without the inclusion of any mountain ranges.
+
+The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border between Europe and Asia does not follow any state boundaries and now only follows a few bodies of water. Turkey is generally considered a transcontinental country divided entirely by water, while Russia and Kazakhstan are only partly divided by waterways. France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom are also transcontinental (or more properly, intercontinental, when oceans or large seas are involved) in that their main land areas are in Europe while pockets of their territories are located on other continents separated from Europe by large bodies of water.  Spain, for example, has territories south of the Mediterranean Sea namely Ceuta and Melilla which are parts of Africa and share a border with Morocco.  According to the current convention, Georgia and Azerbaijan are transcontinental countries where waterways have been completely replaced by mountains as the divide between continents.
+
+The first recorded usage of Eurṓpē as a geographic term is in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the Aegean Sea. As a name for a part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni River on the territory of Georgia) in the Caucasus, a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC.[27] Herodotus mentioned that the world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile and the Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia.[28] Europe's eastern frontier was defined in the 1st century by geographer Strabo at the River Don.[29] The Book of Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from Northwest Africa, to the Don, separating it from Asia.[30]
+
+The convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of the Roman era used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius,[31] Strabo[32] and Ptolemy,[33]
+who took the Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary.
+
+The term "Europe" is first used for a cultural sphere in the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox churches and to the Islamic world.
+
+A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianised western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy.[34] The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: Europa often[dubious  – discuss] figures in the letters of Charlemagne's court scholar, Alcuin.[35]
+
+The question of defining a precise eastern boundary of Europe arises in the Early Modern period, as the eastern extension of Muscovy began to include North Asia. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, the traditional division of the landmass of Eurasia into two continents, Europe and Asia, followed Ptolemy, with the boundary following the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea, the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and the Don (ancient Tanais). But maps produced during the 16th to 18th centuries tended to differ in how to continue the boundary beyond the Don bend at Kalach-na-Donu (where it is closest to the Volga, now joined with it by the Volga–Don Canal), into territory not described in any detail by the ancient geographers.  Around 1715, Herman Moll produced a map showing the northern part of the Ob River and the Irtysh River, a major tributary of the former, as components of a series of partly-joined waterways taking the boundary between Europe and Asia from the Turkish Straits and the Don River all the way to the Arctic Ocean.  In 1721, he produced a more up to date map that was easier to read.  However, his idea to use major rivers almost exclusively as the line of demarcation was never taken up by the Russian Empire.
+
+Four years later, in 1725, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg was the first to depart from the classical Don boundary by proposing that mountain ranges could be included as boundaries between continents whenever there were deemed to be no suitable waterways, the Ob and Irtysh Rivers notwithstanding.  He drew a new line along the Volga, following the Volga north until the Samara Bend, along Obshchy Syrt (the drainage divide between Volga and Ural) and then north along Ural Mountains.[36] This was adopted by the Russian Empire, and introduced the convention that would eventually become commonly accepted, but not without criticism by many modern analytical geographers like Halford Mackinder who saw little validity in the Ural Mountains as a boundary between continents.[37]
+
+The mapmakers continued to differ on the boundary between the lower Don and Samara well into the 19th century. The 1745 atlas published by the Russian Academy of Sciences has the boundary follow the Don beyond Kalach as far as Serafimovich before cutting north towards Arkhangelsk, while other 18th- to 19th-century mapmakers such as John Cary followed Strahlenberg's prescription. To the south, the Kuma–Manych Depression was identified circa 1773 by a German naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas, as a valley that once connected the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea,[38][39] and subsequently was proposed as a natural boundary between continents.
+
+By the mid-19th century, there were three main conventions, one following the Don, the Volga–Don Canal and the Volga, the other following the Kuma–Manych Depression to the Caspian and then the Ural River, and the third abandoning the Don altogether, following the Greater Caucasus watershed to the Caspian. The question was still treated as a "controversy" in geographical literature of the 1860s, with Douglas Freshfield advocating the Caucasus crest boundary as the "best possible", citing support from various "modern geographers".[40]
+
+In Russia and the Soviet Union, the boundary along the Kuma–Manych Depression was the most commonly used as early as 1906.[41] In 1958, the Soviet Geographical Society formally recommended that the boundary between the Europe and Asia be drawn in textbooks from Baydaratskaya Bay, on the Kara Sea, along the eastern foot of Ural Mountains, then following the Ural River until the Mugodzhar Hills, and then the Emba River; and Kuma–Manych Depression,[42] thus placing the Caucasus entirely in Asia and the Urals entirely in Europe.[43] However, most geographers in the Soviet Union favoured the boundary along the Caucasus crest[44] and this became the common convention in the later 20th century, although the Kuma–Manych boundary remained in use in some 20th-century maps.
+
+Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe.[45] Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain.[46] Neanderthal man (named after the Neandertal valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago (115,000 years ago it is found already in Poland[47]) and disappeared from the fossil record about 28,000 years ago, with their final refuge being present-day Portugal. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared in Europe around 43,000 to 40,000 years ago.[48] The earliest sites in Europe dated 48,000 years ago are
+Riparo Mochi (Italy), Geissenklösterle (Germany), and Isturitz (France)[49][50]
+
+The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock, increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began around 7000 BC in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and the Near East.[51] It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean coast (Cardial culture). Between 4500 and 3000 BC, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artifacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs.[52] The Corded Ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this period giant megalithic monuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge, were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe.[53][54]
+
+The European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BC in Greece with the Minoan civilisation on Crete, the first advanced civilisation in Europe.[55] The Minoans were followed by the Myceneans, who collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC, ushering the European Iron Age.[56] Iron Age colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity, whose beginning is sometimes dated to 776 BC, the year the first Olympic Games.[57]
+
+Ancient Greece was the founding culture of Western civilisation. Western democratic and rationalist culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece.[58] The Greek city-state, the polis, was the fundamental political unit of classical Greece.[58] In 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the world's first democratic system of government in Athens.[59] The Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer;[60] in drama with Sophocles and Euripides, in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes.[61][62][63] In the course of the 5th century BC, several of the Greek city states would ultimately check the Achaemenid Persian advance in Europe through the Greco-Persian Wars, considered a pivotal moment in world history,[64] as the 50 years of peace that followed are known as Golden Age of Athens, the seminal period of ancient Greece that laid many of the foundations of Western civilisation. The conquests of Alexander the Great brought the Middle East into the Greek cultural sphere.
+
+Greece was followed by Rome, which left its mark on law, politics, language, engineering, architecture, government and many more key aspects in western civilisation.[58] Rome began as a small city-state, founded, according to tradition, in 753 BC as an elective kingdom. Tradition has it that there were seven kings of Rome with Romulus, the founder, being the first and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus falling to a republican uprising led by Lucius Junius Brutus, but modern scholars doubt many of those stories and even the Romans themselves acknowledged that the sack of Rome by the Gauls in 387 BC destroyed many sources on their early history.
+
+By 200 BC, Rome had conquered Italy, and over the following two centuries it conquered Greece and Hispania (Spain and Portugal), the North African coast, much of the Middle East, Gaul (France and Belgium), and Britannia (England and Wales). The forty-year conquest of Britannia left 250,000 Britons dead, and emperor Antoninus Pius built the Antonine Wall across Scotland's Central Belt to defend the province from the Caledonians; it marked the northernmost border of the Roman Empire.
+
+The Roman Republic ended in 27 BC, when Augustus proclaimed the Roman Empire. The two centuries that followed are known as the pax romana, a period of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and political stability in most of Europe.[65] The empire continued to expand under emperors such as Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, who spent time on the Empire's northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes.[66][67] Christianity was legalised by Constantine I in 313 AD after three centuries of imperial persecution. Constantine also permanently moved the capital of the empire from Rome to the city of Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour (modern-day Istanbul) in 330 AD. Christianity became the sole official religion of the empire in 380 AD, and in 391–392 AD, the emperor Theodosius outlawed pagan religions.[68] This is sometimes considered to mark the end of antiquity; alternatively antiquity is considered to end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD; the closure of the pagan Platonic Academy of Athens in 529 AD;[69] or the rise of Islam in the early 7th century AD.
+
+During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and, later on, the Vikings, Pechenegs, Cumans and Magyars.[65] Germanic tribes settled in the former Roman provinces of England and Spain, while other groups pressed into northern France and Italy.[70] Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages".[71] Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Western Europe though they were preserved in the east, in the Byzantine Empire.[72]
+
+While the Roman empire in the west continued to decline, Roman traditions and the Roman state remained strong in the predominantly Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople's first golden age: he established a legal code that forms the basis of many modern legal systems, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia, and brought the Christian church under state control.[73] He reconquered North Africa, southern Spain, and Italy.[74] The Ostrogothic Kingdom, which sought to preserve Roman culture and adopt its values, later changed course and became anti-Constantinople, so Justinian waged war against the Ostrogoths for 30 years and destroyed much of urban life in Italy, and reduced agriculture to subsistence farming.[75]
+
+From the 7th century onwards, as the Byzantines and neighbouring Sasanid Persians were severely weakened due the protracted, centuries-lasting and frequent Byzantine–Sasanian wars, the Muslim Arabs began to make inroads into historically Roman territory, taking the Levant and North Africa and making inroads into Asia Minor. In the mid 7th century AD, following the Muslim conquest of Persia, Islam penetrated into the Caucasus region.[76] Over the next centuries Muslim forces took Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily and parts of southern Italy.[77] Between 711 and 726, the Umayyad Caliphate conquered the Visigothic Kingdom, which occupied the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania (southwestern France). The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. The Umayyads were then defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, which ended their northward advance. In the remote regions of north-western Iberia and the middle Pyrenees the power of the Muslims in the south was scarcely felt. It was here that the foundations of the Christian kingdoms of Asturias, Leon and Galicia were laid and from where the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula would start. However, no coordinated attempt would be made to drive the Moors out. The Christian kingdoms were mainly focussed on their own internal power struggles. As a result, the Reconquista took the greater part of eight hundred years, in which period a long list of Alfonsos, Sanchos, Ordoños, Ramiros, Fernandos and Bermudos would be fighting their Christian rivals as much as the Muslim invaders.
+
+One of the biggest threats during the Dark Ages were the Vikings, Norse seafarers who raided, raped, and pillaged across the Western world. Many Vikings died in battles in continental Europe, and in 844 they lost many men and ships to King Ramiro in northern Spain.[78] A few months later, another fleet took Seville, only to be driven off with further heavy losses.[79] In 911, the Vikings attacked Paris, and the Franks decided to give the Viking king Rollo land along the English Channel coast in exchange for peace. This land was named "Normandy" for the Norse "Northmen", and the Norse settlers became known as "Normans", adopting the French culture and language and becoming French vassals. In 1066, the Normans went on to conquer England in the first successful cross-Channel invasion since Roman times.[80]
+
+During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe respectively.[81] Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I.[82] In 507, Clovis defeated the Visigoths at the Battle of Vouillé, slaying King Alaric II and conquering southern Gaul for the Franks. His conquests laid the foundation for the Frankish kingdom. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.[83]
+
+East Central Europe saw the creation of the first Slavic states and the adoption of Christianity (circa 1000 AD). The powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its territory all the way south to the Balkans, reaching its largest territorial extent under Svatopluk I and causing a series of armed conflicts with East Francia. Further south, the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century and adopted Christianity: the First Bulgarian Empire, the Serbian Principality (later Kingdom and Empire), and the Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of Croatia). To the East, the Kievan Rus expanded from its capital in Kiev to become the largest state in Europe by the 10th century. In 988, Vladimir the Great adopted Orthodox Christianity as the religion of state.[84][85] Further East, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in the 10th century, but was eventually absorbed into Russia several centuries later.[86]
+
+The period between the year 1000 and 1300 is known as the High Middle Ages, during which the population of Europe experienced significant growth, culminating in the Renaissance of the 12th century. Economic growth, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes along the coast of the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas. The growing wealth and independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in the European scene. Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe from the 9th to the 12th centuries, with a population of approximately 400,000.[91]
+
+The Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe.[92] A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament.[93] The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.[92]
+
+The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095, Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land.[94] In Europe itself, the Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. Popes also encouraged crusading in the Iberian Peninsula.[95] In the east, a resurgent Byzantine Empire recaptured Crete and Cyprus from the Muslims and reconquered the Balkans. However, it faced a new enemy in the form of seaborne attacks by the Normans, who conquered Southern Italy and Sicily. Even more dangerous than the Franco-Norsemen was a new enemy from the steppe: the Seljuk Turks. The Empire was weakened following the defeat at the Battle of Manzikert and was weakened considerably by the Frankish-Venetian sack of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade.[96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104] Although it would recover Constantinople in 1261, Byzantium fell in 1453 when Constantinople was taken by the Ottoman Empire.[105][106][107]
+
+In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus' state to the south and east.[108] Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols.[109] The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries.[110][111] After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: Moldova and Walachia. Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans.[112] From the 12th to the 15th centuries, the Grand Duchy of Moscow grew from a small principality under Mongol rule to the largest state in Europe, overthrowing the Mongols in 1480 and eventually becoming the Tsardom of Russia. The state was consolidated under Ivan III the Great and Ivan the Terrible, steadily expanding to the east and south over the next centuries.
+
+The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages.[113] The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by half.[114][115] Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines,[116] and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period.[117] Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European population at the time.[118]
+
+The plague had a devastating effect on Europe's social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, beggars, and lepers.[119] The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 18th century.[120] During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.[121]
+
+The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often translated from Arabic into Latin.[122][123][124] The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging merchant class.[125][126][127] Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.[128][129]
+
+Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy's spiritual authority had suffered greatly.[132] In the 15th century, Europe started to extend itself beyond its geographic frontiers. Spain and Portugal, the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world.[133][134] Exploration reached the Southern Hemisphere in the Atlantic and the Southern tip of Africa. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492, and Vasco da Gama opened the ocean route to the East linking the Atlantic and Indian Oceans in 1498. Ferdinand Magellan reached Asia westward across the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans in the Spanish expedition of Magellan-Elcano, resulting in the first circumnavigation of the globe, completed by Juan Sebastián Elcano (1519–22). Soon after, the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing large global empires in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania.[135] France, the Dutch Republic and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. The Italian Wars (1494–1559) led to the development of the first modern professional army in Europe, the Tercios. Their superiority became evident at the Battle of Bicocca (1522) against French-Swiss-Italian forces, which marked the end of massive pike assaults after thousands of Swiss pikemen fell to the Spanish arquebusiers without the latter suffering a single casualty.[136] Over the course of the 16th century, Spanish and Italian troops marched north to fight on Dutch and German battlefields, dying there in large numbers.[137][138]
+
+The Church's power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation in 1517 when German theologian Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses criticising the selling of indulgences to the church door. He was subsequently excommunicated in the papal bull Exsurge Domine in 1520, and his followers were condemned in the 1521 Diet of Worms, which divided German princes between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths.[139] Religious fighting and warfare spread with Protestantism. War broke out first in Germany, where Imperial troops defeated the Protestant army of the Schmalkaldic League at the Battle of Mühlberg, putting an end to the Schmalkaldic War (1546–47).[140] Between 2 and 3 million people were killed in the French Wars of Religion (1562–98).[141] The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) between Catholic Habsburgs and Dutch Calvinists resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands of people.[141] In the Cologne War (1583–88), Catholic forces faced off against German Calvinist and Dutch troops. The Thirty Years War (1618–48) crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population.[142] During the Thirty Years' War, in which various Protestant forces battled Imperial armies, France provided subsidies to Habsburg enemies, especially Sweden. The destruction of the Swedish army by an Austro-Spanish force at the Battle of Nördlingen (1634) forced France to intervene militarily in the Thirty Years' War. In 1638, France and Oxenstierna agreed to a treaty at Hamburg, extending the annual French subsidy of 400,000 riksdalers for three years, but Sweden would not fight against Spain. In 1643, the French defeated one of Spain's best armies at the Battle of Rocroi. In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia (1648), France rose to predominance within Western Europe.[143] France fought a series of wars over domination of Western Europe, including the Franco-Spanish War, the Franco-Dutch War, the Nine Years' War, and the War of the Spanish Succession; these wars cost France over 1,000,000 battle casualties.[144][145]
+
+The 17th century in central and eastern Europe was a period of general decline.[146] Central and Eastern Europe experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between 1501 and 1700.[147] From the Union of Krewo (1385) central and eastern Europe was dominated by Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Between 1648 and 1655 in the central and eastern Europe ended hegemony of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of the Golden Horde were conquered by Russia, Tatars from the Crimean Khanate frequently raided Eastern Slavic lands to capture slaves.[148] Further east, the Nogai Horde and Kazakh Khanate frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of Russia, Ukraine and Poland for hundreds of years, until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia).
+
+The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention, and scientific development.[149] Among the great figures of the Western scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton.[150] According to Peter Barrett, "It is widely accepted that 'modern science' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world."[122]
+
+The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts.[151][152][153] Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy's monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror.[154] Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of western and central Europe before collapsing in 1814 with the Battle of Paris between the Sixth Coalition—consisting of Russia, Austria, and Prussia—and the French Empire.[155][156] Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of the nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French models of administration, law, and education.[157][158][159] The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon's downfall, established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers": the UK, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.[160] This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted.[161] The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation-state, from smaller principalities. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.[162]
+
+In parallel, the Eastern Question grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent, the Great Powers struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. The Russian Empire stood to benefit from the decline, whereas the Habsburg Empire and Britain perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be in their best interests. Meanwhile, the Serbian revolution (1804) and Greek War of Independence (1821) marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the Balkans, which ended with the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913.[163] Formal recognition of the de facto independent principalities of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania ensued at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Many Ottoman Muslims faced either extermination at the hands of the newly independent states, or were expelled to the shrinking Ottoman possessions in Europe or to Anatolia; between 1821 and 1922 alone, more than 5 million Ottoman Muslims were driven away from their homes, while another 5.5 million died in wars or due to starvation and disease.[164]
+
+The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class.[165] Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions,[166] and the abolition of slavery.[167] In Britain, the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities.[168] Europe's population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900.[169] The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the Irish Potato Famine, caused death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people.[170] In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States.[171] Demographic growth meant that, by 1900, Europe's share of the world's population was 25%.[172]
+
+Two world wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Yugoslav nationalist[178] Gavrilo Princip.[179] Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire).
+
+On 4 August 1914, Germany invaded and occupied Belgium. On 17 August 1914, the Russian army launched an assault on the eastern German province of East Prussia, but they would be dealt a fatal blow at the Battle of Tannenberg on 26-30 August 1914. As 1914 came to a close, the Germans were facing off against the French and British in northern France and in the Alsace and Lorraine regions of eastern France, and the opposing armies dug trenches and set up defensive positions. From 1915 to 1917, the two armies often engaged in trench warfare and massive offensives. The Battle of the Somme was the largest battle on the Western Front; the British suffered 420,000 casualties, the French 200,000 and the Germans 500,000. The Battle of Verdun saw around 377,231 French and 337,000 Germans become casualties. At the Battle of Passchendaele, mustard gas was used by both sides as chemical weapons, and several troops on both sides died in battle. In 1915, the tide of the war was changed when the Kingdom of Italy decided to enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente, seeking to acquire Austrian Tyrol and some possessions along the Adriatic Sea. This violated the "Triple Alliance" proposed in the 19th century, and Austria-Hungary was ill-prepared for yet another front to fight on. The Royal Italian Army launched several offensives along the Isonzo River, with eleven battles of the Isonzo being fought during the war. Over the course of the war, 462,391 Italian soldiers died; 420,000 of the dead were lost on the Alpine front with Austria-Hungary, the rest fell in France, Albania, or Macedonia.[180]
+
+In 1917, German troops began to arrive in Italy to assist the crumbling Austro-Hungarian forces, and the Germans destroyed an Italian army at the Battle of Caporetto. This led to British and French (and later American) troops arriving in Italy to assist the Italian military against the Central forces, and the Allied troops succeeded in taking parts of northern Italy and on the Adriatic sea. In the Balkans, the Serbians resisted the Austrians until Bulgaria and the German Empire sent troops to assist in the conquest of Serbia in December 1915. The Austro-Hungarian Army on the Eastern Front, which had performed poorly, was soon subordinated to the Imperial German Army's high command, and the Germans destroyed a Russian army at the Gorlice-Tarnow Offensive in 1916. The Russians launched a massive counterattack against the Central Powers in Poland, and this "Brusilov Offensive" inflicted very high losses on the Austro-Hungarians; 1,325,000 Central Powers troops and 500,000 Russian troops were lost. However, the political situation in Russia deteriorated as people became more aware of the corruption in Czar Nicholas II of Russia's government, and the Germans made rapid progress in 1917 after the Russian Revolution toppled the czar. The Germans secured Riga in Latvia in September 1917, and they benefited from the fall of Aleksandr Kerensky's provisional government to the Bolsheviks in October 1917. In February-March 1918, the Germans launched a massive offensive after the Russian SFSR came to power, taking advantage of the Russian Civil War to seize large amounts of territory. In March 1918, the Soviets signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending the war on the Eastern Front, and Germany set up various puppet nations in Eastern Europe.
+
+Germany's huge successes during the war with the Russians were morale boosts for the Central Powers, but the Germans faced a new problem when they began to use "unrestricted submarine warfare" to attack enemy ships at sea. These tactics led to the sinking of several civilian ships, angering the United States, which lost several civilians aboard these ships. Germany agreed to the "Sussex Pledge", stating that it would halt this strategy. However, the Germans sunk RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, and the British intercepted an offer from the German government made to Mexico that proposed an anti-American alliance. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson declared war on Germany, and the USA joined the Allies. In 1918, the American troops took part in the Battle of Belleau Wood and in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, major offensives that saw several American troops die on European soil for the first time. The Germans began to suffer as more and more Allied troops arrived, and they launched the desperate "Spring Offensive" of 1918. This offensive was repelled, and the Allies barreled towards Belgium in the Hundred Days Offensive during the autumn of 1918. On 11 November 1918, the Germans agreed to an armistice with the Allies, ending the war. The war left more than 16 million civilians and military dead.[181] Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to 1918.[182]
+
+Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union.[183] Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.[184] Excess deaths in Russia over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million.[185] In 1932–1933, under Stalin's leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed to the second Soviet famine which caused millions of deaths;[186] surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Stalin was also responsible for the Great Purge of 1937–38 in which the NKVD executed 681,692 people;[187] millions of people were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[188]
+
+The social revolutions sweeping through Russia also affected other European nations following The Great War: in 1919, with the Weimar Republic in Germany, and the First Austrian Republic; in 1922, with Mussolini's one party fascist government in the Kingdom of Italy, and in Atatürk's Turkish Republic, adopting the Western alphabet, and state secularism.
+Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and 'loans' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler in power of what became Nazi Germany.[198][199] In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans, and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic. At the time, Britain and France preferred a policy of appeasement.
+
+With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which allowed the Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War II.[194][200][201] The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark; 1,400 Nazi soldiers conquered Denmark in one day.[202] The Phoney War continued. In May 1940, Germany conquered the Netherlands and Belgium. That same month, Italy allied with Germany and the two countries conquered France. By August, Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up.[203] Some 43,000 British civilians were killed and 139,000 wounded in the Blitz; much of London was destroyed, with 1,400,245 buildings destroyed or damaged.[204] In April 1941, Germany invaded Yugoslavia. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.[205] The Soviets and Germans fought an extremely brutal war in the east that cost millions of civilian and soldier lives. The Jews of Russia were wiped out by the German Nazis, who wanted to purge the world of Jews and other "subhumans". On 7 December 1941 Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.[206][207] In 1943, the Allies knocked Italy out of the war. The Italian campaign had the highest casualty rates of the whole war for the western allies.[208]
+
+After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank battle in history, was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. In 1944, the Soviets and Allies both launched offensives against the Axis in Europe, with the Western Allies liberating France and much of Western Europe as the Soviets liberated much of Eastern Europe before halting in central Poland. The final year of the war saw the Soviets and Western Allies divide Germany in two after meeting along the Elbe River, while the Soviets and allied partisans liberated the Balkans. The Soviets conquered the German capital of Berlin on 2 May 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Hitler killed himself; Mussolini was killed by partisans in Italy. The Soviet-German struggle made World War II the bloodiest and costliest conflict in history.[209][210] More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of World War II (70 percent on the eastern front),[211][212] including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust (the genocide against Jews and the massacre of intellectuals, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped people, Slavs, and Red Army prisoners-of-war).[213] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.[214] By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees.[215] Several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people,[216] in particular, German-speakers from all over Eastern Europe. In the aftermath of World War II, American troops were stationed in Western Europe, while Soviet troops occupied several Central and Eastern European states.
+
+World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an "Iron Curtain". Germany was divided between the capitalist West Germany and the communist East Germany. The United States and Western Europe
+established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Central Europe established the Warsaw Pact.[217]
+
+The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year-long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa.[13] During the Cold War, extra-continental military interventions were the preserve of the two superpowers, a few West European countries, and Cuba.[218] Using the small Caribbean nation of Cuba as a surrogate, the Soviets projected power to distant points of the globe, exploiting world trouble spots without directly involving their own troops.[219]
+
+In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once more.[198] European integration also grew after World War II. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded, following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill, with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals. It includes all European states except for Belarus and Vatican City. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market.[221] In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency.[222] Between 2004 and 2013, more Central and Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to 28 European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.[223] However, the United Kingdom withdrew from the EU on 31 January 2020, as a result of a June 2016 referendum on EU membership.[224]
+
+Europe makes up the western fifth of the Eurasian landmass.[24] It has a higher ratio of coast to landmass than any other continent or subcontinent.[225] Its maritime borders consist of the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south.[226]
+Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway.
+
+This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-regions like Iceland, Britain, and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.
+
+Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies. The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream.[228] The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe's central heating", because it makes Europe's climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf Stream not only carries warm water to Europe's coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean.
+
+Therefore, the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (61 °F), while it is only 12 °C (54 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (14 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.[228] Similarly, northern parts of Scotland have a temperate marine climate. The yearly average temperature in city of Inverness is 9.05 °C (48.29 °F). However, Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, is on roughly the same latitude and has an average temperature of −6.5 °C (20.3 °F), giving it a nearly subarctic climate.
+
+In general, Europe is not just colder towards the north compared to the south, but it also gets colder from the west towards the east. The climate is more oceanic in the west, and less so in the east. This can be illustrated by the following table of average temperatures at locations roughly following the 60th, 55th, 50th, 45th and 40th latitudes. None of them is located at high altitude; most of them are close to the sea. (location, approximate latitude and longitude, coldest month average, hottest month average and annual average temperatures in degrees C)
+
+[229]
+It is notable how the average temperatures for the coldest month, as well as the annual average temperatures, drop from the west to the east. For instance, Edinburgh is warmer than Belgrade during the coldest month of the year, although Belgrade is around 10° of latitude farther south.
+
+The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion years ago, followed by the Volgo–Uralia shield, the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1.1 billion years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around 190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around 50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe, and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe's present shape dates to the late Tertiary period about five million years ago.[232]
+
+The geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary.[234] Europe's most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea complex and Barents Sea.
+
+The northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded geologically as the "main continent", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older geology of western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.
+
+Having lived side by side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe's animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks.
+
+The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east–west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south–north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards the sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.
+
+Probably 80 to 90 percent of Europe was once covered by forest.[235] It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Although over half of Europe's original forests disappeared through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the broadleaf and mixed forests, taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area is Iceland (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%).[236]
+
+In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east–west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.
+
+Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Spain, etc.).
+
+European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey).
+
+Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others. A number of insects, such as the small tortoiseshell butterfly, add to the biodiversity.[239]
+
+The extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on the islands of the Mediterranean.[240]
+
+Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.
+
+Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe's Bern Convention, which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states.
+
+
+
+The political map of Europe is substantially derived from the re-organisation of Europe following the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The prevalent form of government in Europe is parliamentary democracy, in most cases in the form of Republic; in 1815, the prevalent form of government was still the Monarchy. Europe's remaining eleven monarchies[241] are constitutional.
+
+European integration is the process of political, legal, economic (and in some cases social and cultural) integration of European states as it has been pursued by the powers sponsoring the Council of Europe since the end of World War II
+The European Union has been the focus of economic integration on the continent since its foundation in 1993. More recently, the Eurasian Economic Union has been established as a counterpart comprising former Soviet states.
+
+27 European states are members of the politico-economic European Union, 26 of the border-free Schengen Area and 19 of the monetary union Eurozone. Among the smaller European organisations are the Nordic Council, the Benelux, the Baltic Assembly and the Visegrád Group.
+
+The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographically or politically.
+
+Within the above-mentioned states are several de facto independent countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:
+
+Several dependencies and similar territories with broad autonomy are also found within or in close proximity to Europe. This includes Åland (a region of Finland), two constituent countries of the Kingdom of Denmark (other than Denmark itself), three Crown dependencies, and two British Overseas Territories. Svalbard is also included due to its unique status within Norway, although it is not autonomous. Not included are the three countries of the United Kingdom with devolved powers and the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, which despite having a unique degree of autonomy, are not largely self-governing in matters other than international affairs. Areas with little more than a unique tax status, such as Heligoland and the Canary Islands, are also not included for this reason.
+
+As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth and it is the richest region as measured by assets under management with over $32.7 trillion compared to North America's $27.1 trillion in 2008.[243] In 2009 Europe remained the wealthiest region. Its $37.1 trillion in assets under management represented one-third of the world's wealth. It was one of several regions where wealth surpassed its precrisis year-end peak.[244] As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its countries. The richer states tend to be in the West; some of the Central and Eastern European economies are still emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and the breakup of Yugoslavia.
+
+The European Union, a political entity composed of 28 European states, comprises the largest single economic area in the world. 19 EU countries share the euro as a common currency.
+Five European countries rank in the top ten of the world's largest national economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (6), Russia (7), the United Kingdom (10), France (11), and Italy (13).[245]
+
+There is huge disparity between many European countries in terms of their income. The richest in terms of GDP per capita is Monaco with its US$172,676 per capita (2009) and the poorest is Moldova with its GDP per capita of US$1,631 (2010).[246] Monaco is the richest country in terms of GDP per capita in the world according to the World Bank report.
+
+As a whole, Europe's GDP per capita is US$21,767 according to a 2016 International Monetary Fund assessment.[247]
+
+Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism.[248] From Britain, it gradually spread throughout Europe.[249] The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom in the late 18th century,[250] and the 19th century saw Western Europe industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe's industries.
+
+After World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin,[251] and continued to suffer relative economic decline in the following decades.[252] Italy was also in a poor economic condition but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quickly and had doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s.[253] France also staged a remarkable comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle.[254] The majority of Central and Eastern European states came under the control of the Soviet Union and thus were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).[255]
+
+The states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United States under the Marshall Plan.[256] The western states moved to link their economies together, providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it overtaking the UK as Europe's largest economy.
+
+With the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1991, the post-socialist states began free market reforms.
+
+After East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany.
+
+By the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1999, 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden. The European Union is now the largest economy in the world.[257]
+
+Figures released by Eurostat in 2009 confirmed that the Eurozone had gone into recession in 2008.[258] It impacted much of the region.[259] In 2010, fears of a sovereign debt crisis[260] developed concerning some countries in Europe, especially Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal.[261] As a result, measures were taken, especially for Greece, by the leading countries of the Eurozone.[262] The EU-27 unemployment rate was 10.3% in 2012.[263] For those aged 15–24 it was 22.4%.[263]
+
+In 2017, the population of Europe was estimated to be 742 million according to the 2019 revision of the World Population Prospects[2][3], which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world's population. This number includes Siberia, (about 38 million people) but excludes European Turkey (about 12 million).
+
+A century ago, Europe had nearly a quarter of the world's population.[265] The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly.[266] Among the continents, Europe has a relatively high population density, second only to Asia. Most of Europe is in a mode of Sub-replacement fertility, which means that each new(-born) generation is being less populous than the older.
+The most densely populated country in Europe (and in the world) is the microstate of Monaco.
+
+Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities.[267]
+
+According to UN population projection, Europe's population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high variants, respectively).[266] Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child-bearing age is 1.52.[268] According to some sources,[269] this rate is higher among Muslims in Europe. The UN predicts a steady population decline in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of emigration and low birth rates.[270]
+
+Europe is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people, the IOM's report said.[271] In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe's total population growth.[272] In 2008, 696,000 persons were given citizenship of an EU27 member state, a decrease from 707,000 the previous year.[273] In 2017, approximately 825,000 persons acquired citizenship of an EU28 member state.[274] 2.4 million immigrants from non-EU countries entered the EU in 2017.[275]
+
+Early modern emigration from Europe began with Spanish and Portuguese settlers in the 16th century,[276][277] and French and English settlers in the 17th century.[278] But numbers remained relatively small until waves of mass emigration in the 19th century, when millions of poor families left Europe.[279]
+
+Today, large populations of European descent are found on every continent. European ancestry predominates in North America, and to a lesser degree in South America (particularly in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, while most of the other Latin American countries also have a considerable population of European origins). Australia and New Zealand have large European derived populations. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities (or with the exception of Cape Verde and probably São Tomé and Príncipe, depending on context), but there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans in South Africa. In Asia, European-derived populations, (specifically Russians), predominate in North Asia and some parts of Northern Kazakhstan.[280]
+
+Europe has about 225 indigenous languages,[281] mostly falling within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.[232] Slavic languages are mostly spoken in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Romance languages are spoken primarily in Western and Southern Europe as well as in Switzerland in Central Europe and Romania and Moldova in Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken in Western, Northern and Central Europe as well as in Gibraltar and Malta in Southern Europe.[232] Languages in adjacent areas show significant overlaps (such as in English, for example).  Other Indo-European languages outside the three main groups include the Baltic group (Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton[232]), Greek, Armenian, and Albanian.
+
+A distinct non-Indo-European family of Uralic languages (Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Erzya, Komi, Mari, Moksha, and Udmurt) is spoken mainly in Estonia, Finland, Hungary, and parts of Russia. Turkic languages include Azerbaijani, Kazakh and Turkish, in addition to smaller languages in Eastern and Southeast Europe (Balkan Gagauz Turkish, Bashkir, Chuvash, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Nogai, and Tatar). Kartvelian languages (Georgian, Mingrelian, and Svan) are spoken primarily in Georgia. Two other language families reside in the North Caucasus (termed Northeast Caucasian, most notably including Chechen, Avar, and Lezgin; and Northwest Caucasian, most notably including Adyghe). Maltese is the only Semitic language that is official within the EU, while Basque is the only European language isolate.
+
+Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe's European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.
+
+The four largest cities of Europe are Istanbul, Moscow, Paris and London, each have over 10 million residents,[8] and as such have been described as megacities.[282] While Istanbul has the highest total population, one third lies on the Asian side of the Bosporus, making Moscow the most populous city entirely in Europe.
+The next largest cities in order of population are Saint Petersburg, Madrid, Berlin and Rome, each having over 3 million residents.[8]
+
+When considering the commuter belts or metropolitan areas, within the EU (for which comparable data is available) London covers the largest population, followed in order by Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, the Ruhr area, Rome, Milan, Athens and Warsaw.[283]
+
+"Europe" as a cultural concept is substantially derived from the shared heritage of the Roman Empire and its culture.
+
+The boundaries of Europe were historically understood as those of Christendom (or more specifically Latin Christendom), as established or defended throughout the medieval and early modern history of Europe, especially against Islam, as in the Reconquista and the Ottoman wars in Europe.[284]
+
+This shared cultural heritage is combined by overlapping indigenous national cultures and folklores, roughly divided into Slavic, Latin (Romance) and Germanic, but with several components not part of either of these group (notably Greek and Celtic).
+
+Cultural contact and mixtures characterise much of European regional cultures; Kaplan (2014) describes Europe as "embracing maximum cultural diversity at minimal geographical distances".[clarification needed][285]
+
+Different cultural events are organised in Europe, with the aim of bringing different cultures closer together and raising awareness of their importance, such as the European Capital of Culture, the European Region of Gastronomy, the European Youth Capital and the European Capital of Sport.
+
+Historically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. There are six patron saints of Europe venerated in Roman Catholicism, five of them so declared by Pope John Paul II between 1980–1999: Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein). The exception is Benedict of Nursia, who had already been declared "Patron Saint of all Europe" by Pope Paul VI in 1964.[286][circular reference]
+
+Religion in Europe according to the Global Religious Landscape survey by the Pew Forum, 2012[287]
+
+The largest religion in Europe is Christianity, with 76.2% of Europeans considering themselves Christians,[288] including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and various Protestant denominations. Among Protestants, the most popular are historically state-supported European denominations such as Lutheranism, Anglicanism and the Reformed faith. Other Protestant denominations such as historically significant ones like Anabaptists were never supported by any state and thus are not so widespread, as well as these newly arriving from the United States such as Pentecostalism, Adventism, Methodism, Baptists and various Evangelical Protestants; although Methodism and Baptists both have European origins. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity for being the link that created a unified European identity.[289]
+
+Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church,[290][291] has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilisation since at least the 4th century,[292][293][294][295] and for at least a millennium and a half, Europe has been nearly equivalent to Christian culture, even though the religion was inherited from the Middle East. Christian culture was the predominant force in western civilisation, guiding the course of philosophy, art, and science.[296][297]
+
+The second most popular religion is Islam (6%)[298] concentrated mainly in the Balkans and Eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, North Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural region). Other religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are minority religions (though Tibetan Buddhism is the majority religion of Russia's Republic of Kalmykia). The 20th century saw the revival of Neopaganism through movements such as Wicca and Druidry.
+
+Europe has become a relatively secular continent, with an increasing number and proportion of irreligious, atheist and agnostic people, who make up about 18.2% of Europe's population,[299] currently the largest secular population in the Western world. There are a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, former East Germany, and France.[300]
+
+Sport in Europe tends to be highly organized with many sports having professional leagues.
+
+Historical Maps
+
+Africa
+
+Antarctica
+
+Asia
+
+Australia
+
+Europe
+
+North America
+
+South America
+
+Afro-Eurasia
+
+America
+
+Eurasia
+
+Oceania

en/873.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+
+
+A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
+
+Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables.
+
+Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant napkin or cloth and mundi the world. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world.
+
+Cartography or map-making is the study and practice of crafting representations of the Earth upon a flat surface (see History of cartography), and one who makes maps is called a cartographer.
+
+Road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form a subset of navigational maps, which also include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and bicycling maps. In terms of quantity, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably made up by local surveys, carried out by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers, and other local agencies.  Many national surveying projects have been carried out by the military, such as the British Ordnance Survey: a civilian government agency, internationally renowned for its comprehensively detailed work.
+
+In addition to location information, maps may also be used to portray contour lines indicating constant values of elevation, temperature, rainfall, etc.
+
+The orientation of a map is the relationship between the directions on the map and the corresponding compass directions in reality. The word "orient" is derived from Latin oriens, meaning east. In the Middle Ages many maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with east at the top (meaning that the direction "up" on the map corresponds to East on the compass). The most common cartographic convention, is that north is at the top of a map.
+
+Maps not oriented with north at the top:
+
+Many maps are drawn to a scale expressed as a ratio, such as 1:10,000, which means that 1 unit of measurement on the map corresponds to 10,000 of that same unit on the ground. The scale statement can be accurate when the region mapped is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, such as a city map. Mapping larger regions, where curvature cannot be ignored, requires projections to map from the curved surface of the Earth to the plane. The impossibility of flattening the sphere to the plane without distortion means that the map cannot have constant scale. Rather, on most projections the best that can be attained is accurate scale along one or two paths on the projection. Because scale differs everywhere, it can only be measured meaningfully as point scale per location. Most maps strive to keep point scale variation within narrow bounds. Although the scale statement is nominal it is usually accurate enough for most purposes unless the map covers a large fraction of the earth. At the scope of a world map, scale as a single number is practically meaningless throughout most of the map. Instead, it usually refers to the scale along the equator.
+
+Some maps, called cartograms, have the scale deliberately distorted to reflect information other than land area or distance. For example, this map (at the right) of Europe has been distorted to show population distribution, while the rough shape of the continent is still discernible.
+
+Another example of distorted scale is the famous London Underground map. The basic geographical structure is respected but the tube lines (and the River Thames) are smoothed to clarify the relationships between stations. Near the center of the map stations are spaced out more than near the edges of map.
+
+Further inaccuracies may be deliberate. For example, cartographers may simply omit military installations or remove features solely in order to enhance the clarity of the map. For example, a road map may not show railroads, smaller waterways or other prominent non-road objects, and even if it does, it may show them less clearly (e.g. dashed or dotted lines/outlines) than the main roads. Known as decluttering, the practice makes the subject matter that the user is interested in easier to read, usually without sacrificing overall accuracy. Software-based maps often allow the user to toggle decluttering between ON, OFF and AUTO as needed. In AUTO the degree of decluttering is adjusted as the user changes the scale being displayed.
+
+Geographic maps use a projection to translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Projection always distorts the surface. There are many ways to apportion the distortion, and so there are many map projections. Which projection to use depends on the purpose of the map.
+
+The various features shown on a map are represented by conventional signs or symbols.  For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads.  Those signs are usually explained in the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet.[2]
+
+Some cartographers prefer to make the map cover practically the entire screen or sheet of paper, leaving no room "outside" the map for information about the map as a whole.
+These cartographers typically place such information in an otherwise "blank" region "inside" the map—cartouche, map legend, title, compass rose, bar scale, etc.
+In particular, some maps contain smaller "sub-maps" in otherwise blank regions—often one at a much smaller scale showing the whole globe and where the whole map fits on that globe, and a few showing "regions of interest" at a larger scale in order to show details that wouldn't otherwise fit.
+Occasionally sub-maps use the same scale as the large map—a few maps of the contiguous United States include a sub-map to the same scale for each of the two non-contiguous states.
+
+To communicate spatial information effectively, features such as rivers, lakes, and cities need to be labeled. Over centuries cartographers have developed the art of placing names on even the densest of maps. Text placement or name placement can get mathematically very complex as the number of labels and map density increases. Therefore, text placement is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so cartographers and GIS users have developed automatic label placement to ease this process.[3][4]
+
+Maps of the world or large areas are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use including infrastructure such as roads, railroads and buildings. Topographic maps show elevations and relief with contour lines or shading. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.
+
+From the last quarter of the 20th century, the indispensable tool of the cartographer has been the computer. Much of cartography, especially at the data-gathering survey level, has been subsumed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The functionality of maps has been greatly advanced by technology simplifying the superimposition of spatially located variables onto existing geographical maps. Having local information such as rainfall level, distribution of wildlife, or demographic data integrated within the map allows more efficient analysis and better decision making. In the pre-electronic age such superimposition of data led Dr. John Snow to identify the location of an outbreak of cholera. Today, it is used by agencies of the human kind, as diverse as wildlife conservationists and militaries around the world.
+
+Even when GIS is not involved, most cartographers now use a variety of computer graphics programs to generate new maps.
+
+Interactive, computerised maps are commercially available, allowing users to zoom in or zoom out (respectively meaning to increase or decrease the scale), sometimes by replacing one map with another of different scale, centered where possible on the same point.  In-car global navigation satellite systems are computerised maps with route-planning and advice facilities which monitor the user's position with the help of satellites. From the computer scientist's point of view, zooming in entails one or a combination of:
+
+For example:
+
+See also: Webpage (Graphics), PDF (Layers), MapQuest, Google Maps, Google Earth, OpenStreetMap or Yahoo! Maps.
+
+The maps that reflect the territorial distribution of climatic conditions based on the results of long-term observations are called climatic maps. These maps can be compiled both for individual climatic features (temperature, precipitation, humidity) and for combinations of them at the earth's surface and in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Climatic maps show climatic features across a large region and permit values of climatic features to be compared in different parts of the region. When generating the map, interpolation can be used to synthesize values where there are no measurements, under the assumption that conditions change smoothly.
+
+Climatic maps generally apply to individual months and to the year as a whole, sometimes to the four seasons, to the growing period, and so forth. On maps compiled from the observations of ground meteorological stations, atmospheric pressure is converted to sea level. Air temperature maps are compiled both from the actual values observed on the surface of the earth and from values converted to sea level. The pressure field in free atmosphere is represented either by maps of the distribution of pressure at different standard altitudes—for example, at every kilometer above sea level—or by maps of baric topography on which altitudes (more precisely geopotentials) of the main isobaric surfaces (for example, 900, 800, and 700 millibars) counted off from sea level are plotted. The temperature, humidity, and wind on aeroclimatic maps may apply either to standard altitudes or to the main isobaric surfaces.
+
+Isolines are drawn on maps of such climatic features as the long-term mean values (of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, total precipitation, and so forth) to connect points with equal values of the feature in question—for example, isobars for pressure, isotherms for temperature, and isohyets for precipitation. Isoamplitudes are drawn on maps of amplitudes (for example, annual amplitudes of air temperature—that is, the differences between the mean temperatures of the warmest and coldest month). Isanomals are drawn on maps of anomalies (for example, deviations of the mean temperature of each place from the mean temperature of the entire latitudinal zone). Isolines of frequency are drawn on maps showing the frequency of a particular phenomenon (for example, annual number of days with a thunderstorm or snow cover). Isochrones are drawn on maps showing the dates of onset of a given phenomenon (for example, the first frost and appearance or disappearance of the snow cover) or the date of a particular value of a meteorological element in the course of a year (for example, passing of the mean daily air temperature through zero). Isolines of the mean numerical value of wind velocity or isotachs are drawn on wind maps (charts); the wind resultants and directions of prevailing winds are indicated by arrows of different length or arrows with different plumes; lines of flow are often drawn. Maps of the zonal and meridional components of wind are frequently compiled for the free atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure and wind are usually combined on climatic maps. Wind roses, curves showing the distribution of other meteorological elements, diagrams of the annual course of elements at individual stations, and the like are also plotted on climatic maps.
+
+Maps of climatic regionalization, that is, division of the earth's surface into climatic zones and regions according to some classification of climates, are a special kind of climatic map.
+
+Climatic maps are often incorporated into climatic atlases of varying geographic range (globe, hemispheres, continents, countries, oceans) or included in comprehensive atlases. Besides general climatic maps, applied climatic maps and atlases have great practical value. Aeroclimatic maps, aeroclimatic atlases, and agroclimatic maps are the most numerous.
+
+Maps exist of the Solar System, and other cosmological features such as star maps. In addition maps of other bodies such as the Moon and other planets are technically not geographical maps.
+
+Diagrams such as schematic diagrams and Gantt charts and treemaps display logical relationships between items, rather than geographical relationships. Topological in nature, only the connectivity is significant. The London Underground map and similar subway maps around the world are a common example of these maps.
+
+General-purpose maps provide many types of information on one map. Most atlas maps, wall maps, and road maps fall into this category. The following are some features that might be shown on general-purpose maps: bodies of water, roads, railway lines, parks, elevations, towns and cities, political boundaries, latitude and longitude, national and provincial parks. These maps give a broad understanding of location and features of an area.  The reader may gain an understanding of the type of landscape, the location of urban places, and the location of major transportation routes all at once.
+
+Some countries required that all published maps represent their national claims regarding border disputes.  For example:
+
+In 2010, the People's Republic of China began requiring that all online maps served from within China be hosted there, making them subject to Chinese laws.[7]

en/874.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+
+
+A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
+
+Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables.
+
+Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant napkin or cloth and mundi the world. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world.
+
+Cartography or map-making is the study and practice of crafting representations of the Earth upon a flat surface (see History of cartography), and one who makes maps is called a cartographer.
+
+Road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form a subset of navigational maps, which also include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and bicycling maps. In terms of quantity, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably made up by local surveys, carried out by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers, and other local agencies.  Many national surveying projects have been carried out by the military, such as the British Ordnance Survey: a civilian government agency, internationally renowned for its comprehensively detailed work.
+
+In addition to location information, maps may also be used to portray contour lines indicating constant values of elevation, temperature, rainfall, etc.
+
+The orientation of a map is the relationship between the directions on the map and the corresponding compass directions in reality. The word "orient" is derived from Latin oriens, meaning east. In the Middle Ages many maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with east at the top (meaning that the direction "up" on the map corresponds to East on the compass). The most common cartographic convention, is that north is at the top of a map.
+
+Maps not oriented with north at the top:
+
+Many maps are drawn to a scale expressed as a ratio, such as 1:10,000, which means that 1 unit of measurement on the map corresponds to 10,000 of that same unit on the ground. The scale statement can be accurate when the region mapped is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, such as a city map. Mapping larger regions, where curvature cannot be ignored, requires projections to map from the curved surface of the Earth to the plane. The impossibility of flattening the sphere to the plane without distortion means that the map cannot have constant scale. Rather, on most projections the best that can be attained is accurate scale along one or two paths on the projection. Because scale differs everywhere, it can only be measured meaningfully as point scale per location. Most maps strive to keep point scale variation within narrow bounds. Although the scale statement is nominal it is usually accurate enough for most purposes unless the map covers a large fraction of the earth. At the scope of a world map, scale as a single number is practically meaningless throughout most of the map. Instead, it usually refers to the scale along the equator.
+
+Some maps, called cartograms, have the scale deliberately distorted to reflect information other than land area or distance. For example, this map (at the right) of Europe has been distorted to show population distribution, while the rough shape of the continent is still discernible.
+
+Another example of distorted scale is the famous London Underground map. The basic geographical structure is respected but the tube lines (and the River Thames) are smoothed to clarify the relationships between stations. Near the center of the map stations are spaced out more than near the edges of map.
+
+Further inaccuracies may be deliberate. For example, cartographers may simply omit military installations or remove features solely in order to enhance the clarity of the map. For example, a road map may not show railroads, smaller waterways or other prominent non-road objects, and even if it does, it may show them less clearly (e.g. dashed or dotted lines/outlines) than the main roads. Known as decluttering, the practice makes the subject matter that the user is interested in easier to read, usually without sacrificing overall accuracy. Software-based maps often allow the user to toggle decluttering between ON, OFF and AUTO as needed. In AUTO the degree of decluttering is adjusted as the user changes the scale being displayed.
+
+Geographic maps use a projection to translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Projection always distorts the surface. There are many ways to apportion the distortion, and so there are many map projections. Which projection to use depends on the purpose of the map.
+
+The various features shown on a map are represented by conventional signs or symbols.  For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads.  Those signs are usually explained in the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet.[2]
+
+Some cartographers prefer to make the map cover practically the entire screen or sheet of paper, leaving no room "outside" the map for information about the map as a whole.
+These cartographers typically place such information in an otherwise "blank" region "inside" the map—cartouche, map legend, title, compass rose, bar scale, etc.
+In particular, some maps contain smaller "sub-maps" in otherwise blank regions—often one at a much smaller scale showing the whole globe and where the whole map fits on that globe, and a few showing "regions of interest" at a larger scale in order to show details that wouldn't otherwise fit.
+Occasionally sub-maps use the same scale as the large map—a few maps of the contiguous United States include a sub-map to the same scale for each of the two non-contiguous states.
+
+To communicate spatial information effectively, features such as rivers, lakes, and cities need to be labeled. Over centuries cartographers have developed the art of placing names on even the densest of maps. Text placement or name placement can get mathematically very complex as the number of labels and map density increases. Therefore, text placement is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so cartographers and GIS users have developed automatic label placement to ease this process.[3][4]
+
+Maps of the world or large areas are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use including infrastructure such as roads, railroads and buildings. Topographic maps show elevations and relief with contour lines or shading. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.
+
+From the last quarter of the 20th century, the indispensable tool of the cartographer has been the computer. Much of cartography, especially at the data-gathering survey level, has been subsumed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The functionality of maps has been greatly advanced by technology simplifying the superimposition of spatially located variables onto existing geographical maps. Having local information such as rainfall level, distribution of wildlife, or demographic data integrated within the map allows more efficient analysis and better decision making. In the pre-electronic age such superimposition of data led Dr. John Snow to identify the location of an outbreak of cholera. Today, it is used by agencies of the human kind, as diverse as wildlife conservationists and militaries around the world.
+
+Even when GIS is not involved, most cartographers now use a variety of computer graphics programs to generate new maps.
+
+Interactive, computerised maps are commercially available, allowing users to zoom in or zoom out (respectively meaning to increase or decrease the scale), sometimes by replacing one map with another of different scale, centered where possible on the same point.  In-car global navigation satellite systems are computerised maps with route-planning and advice facilities which monitor the user's position with the help of satellites. From the computer scientist's point of view, zooming in entails one or a combination of:
+
+For example:
+
+See also: Webpage (Graphics), PDF (Layers), MapQuest, Google Maps, Google Earth, OpenStreetMap or Yahoo! Maps.
+
+The maps that reflect the territorial distribution of climatic conditions based on the results of long-term observations are called climatic maps. These maps can be compiled both for individual climatic features (temperature, precipitation, humidity) and for combinations of them at the earth's surface and in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Climatic maps show climatic features across a large region and permit values of climatic features to be compared in different parts of the region. When generating the map, interpolation can be used to synthesize values where there are no measurements, under the assumption that conditions change smoothly.
+
+Climatic maps generally apply to individual months and to the year as a whole, sometimes to the four seasons, to the growing period, and so forth. On maps compiled from the observations of ground meteorological stations, atmospheric pressure is converted to sea level. Air temperature maps are compiled both from the actual values observed on the surface of the earth and from values converted to sea level. The pressure field in free atmosphere is represented either by maps of the distribution of pressure at different standard altitudes—for example, at every kilometer above sea level—or by maps of baric topography on which altitudes (more precisely geopotentials) of the main isobaric surfaces (for example, 900, 800, and 700 millibars) counted off from sea level are plotted. The temperature, humidity, and wind on aeroclimatic maps may apply either to standard altitudes or to the main isobaric surfaces.
+
+Isolines are drawn on maps of such climatic features as the long-term mean values (of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, total precipitation, and so forth) to connect points with equal values of the feature in question—for example, isobars for pressure, isotherms for temperature, and isohyets for precipitation. Isoamplitudes are drawn on maps of amplitudes (for example, annual amplitudes of air temperature—that is, the differences between the mean temperatures of the warmest and coldest month). Isanomals are drawn on maps of anomalies (for example, deviations of the mean temperature of each place from the mean temperature of the entire latitudinal zone). Isolines of frequency are drawn on maps showing the frequency of a particular phenomenon (for example, annual number of days with a thunderstorm or snow cover). Isochrones are drawn on maps showing the dates of onset of a given phenomenon (for example, the first frost and appearance or disappearance of the snow cover) or the date of a particular value of a meteorological element in the course of a year (for example, passing of the mean daily air temperature through zero). Isolines of the mean numerical value of wind velocity or isotachs are drawn on wind maps (charts); the wind resultants and directions of prevailing winds are indicated by arrows of different length or arrows with different plumes; lines of flow are often drawn. Maps of the zonal and meridional components of wind are frequently compiled for the free atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure and wind are usually combined on climatic maps. Wind roses, curves showing the distribution of other meteorological elements, diagrams of the annual course of elements at individual stations, and the like are also plotted on climatic maps.
+
+Maps of climatic regionalization, that is, division of the earth's surface into climatic zones and regions according to some classification of climates, are a special kind of climatic map.
+
+Climatic maps are often incorporated into climatic atlases of varying geographic range (globe, hemispheres, continents, countries, oceans) or included in comprehensive atlases. Besides general climatic maps, applied climatic maps and atlases have great practical value. Aeroclimatic maps, aeroclimatic atlases, and agroclimatic maps are the most numerous.
+
+Maps exist of the Solar System, and other cosmological features such as star maps. In addition maps of other bodies such as the Moon and other planets are technically not geographical maps.
+
+Diagrams such as schematic diagrams and Gantt charts and treemaps display logical relationships between items, rather than geographical relationships. Topological in nature, only the connectivity is significant. The London Underground map and similar subway maps around the world are a common example of these maps.
+
+General-purpose maps provide many types of information on one map. Most atlas maps, wall maps, and road maps fall into this category. The following are some features that might be shown on general-purpose maps: bodies of water, roads, railway lines, parks, elevations, towns and cities, political boundaries, latitude and longitude, national and provincial parks. These maps give a broad understanding of location and features of an area.  The reader may gain an understanding of the type of landscape, the location of urban places, and the location of major transportation routes all at once.
+
+Some countries required that all published maps represent their national claims regarding border disputes.  For example:
+
+In 2010, the People's Republic of China began requiring that all online maps served from within China be hosted there, making them subject to Chinese laws.[7]

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+A graphics card (also called a display card, video card, display adapter, or graphics adapter) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device (such as a computer monitor). Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, emphasizing the distinction between these and integrated graphics. At the core of both is the graphics processing unit (GPU), which is the main part that does the actual computations, but should not be confused with the video card as a whole, although "GPU" is often used to refer to video cards.
+
+Most video cards are not limited to simple display output. Their integrated graphics processor can perform additional processing, removing this task from the central processor of the computer.[1] For example, Nvidia and AMD (previously ATI) produced cards render the graphics pipeline OpenGL and DirectX on the hardware level.[2] In the later 2010s, there has also been a tendency to use the computing capabilities of the graphics processor to solve non-graphic tasks, which can be done through the use of OpenCL and CUDA. Video cards can also be used for AI training.[3][2]
+
+Usually, the graphics card is made in the form of a printed circuit board (expansion board) and inserted into an expansion slot, universal or specialized (AGP, PCI Express).[4] Some have been made using dedicated enclosures, which are connected to the computer via a docking station or a cable. These are known as eGPUs.
+
+Display via one of:
+
+Standards such as MDA, CGA, HGC, Tandy, PGC, EGA, VGA, MCGA, 8514 or XGA were introduced from 1982 to 1990 and supported by a variety of hardware manufacturers.
+
+3dfx Interactive was one of the first companies to develop a GPU with 3D acceleration (with the Voodoo series) and the first to develop a graphical chipset dedicated to 3D, but without 2D support (which therefore required the presence of a 2D card to work). Now the majority of modern video cards are built with either AMD-sourced or Nvidia-sourced graphics chips.[5] Until 2000, 3dfx Interactive was also an important, and often groundbreaking, manufacturer. Most video cards offer various functions such as the accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors (multi-monitor). Video cards also have sound card capabilities to output sound –  along with the video for connected TVs or monitors with integrated speakers.
+
+Within the industry, video cards are sometimes called graphics add-in-boards, abbreviated as AIBs,[5] with the word "graphics" usually omitted.
+
+As an alternative to the use of a video card, video hardware can be integrated into the motherboard, CPU, or a system-on-chip. Both approaches can be called integrated graphics. Motherboard-based implementations are sometimes called "on-board video". Almost all desktop computer motherboards with integrated graphics allow the disabling of the integrated graphics chip in BIOS, and have a PCI, or PCI Express (PCI-E) slot for adding a higher-performance graphics card in place of the integrated graphics. The ability to disable the integrated graphics sometimes also allows the continued use of a motherboard on which the on-board video has failed. Sometimes both the integrated graphics and a dedicated graphics card can be used simultaneously to feed separate displays. The main advantages of integrated graphics include cost, compactness, simplicity and low energy consumption. The performance disadvantage of integrated graphics arises because the graphics processor shares system resources with the CPU. A dedicated graphics card has its own random access memory (RAM), its own cooling system, and dedicated power regulators, with all components designed specifically for processing video images. Upgrading to a dedicated graphics card offloads work from the CPU and system RAM, so not only will graphics processing be faster, but the computer's overall performance will significantly improve. This is often necessary for playing videogames, working with 3D animation or editing video.
+
+Both AMD and Intel have introduced CPUs and motherboard chipsets which support the integration of a GPU into the same die as the CPU. AMD markets CPUs with integrated graphics under the trademark Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), while Intel markets similar technology under the "Intel HD Graphics and Iris" brands. With the 8th Generation Processors, Intel announced the Intel UHD series of Integrated Graphics for better support of 4K Displays.[6] Although they are still not equivalent to the performance of discrete solutions, Intel's HD Graphics platform provides performance approaching discrete mid-range graphics, and AMD APU technology has been adopted by both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game consoles.[7][8][9]
+
+As the processing power of video cards has increased, so has their demand for electrical power. Current high-performance video cards tend to consume large amounts of power. For example, the thermal design power (TDP) for the GeForce Titan RTX is 280 watts.[10] When tested while gaming, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founder's Edition averaged 300 watts of power consumption.[11] While CPU and power supply makers have recently moved toward higher efficiency, power demands of GPUs have continued to rise, so video cards may have the largest power consumption of any individual part in a computer.[12][13] Although power supplies are increasing their power too, the bottleneck is due to the PCI-Express connection, which is limited to supplying 75 watts.[14]
+Modern video cards with a power consumption of over 75 watts usually include a combination of six-pin (75 W) or eight-pin (150 W) sockets that connect directly to the power supply. Providing adequate cooling becomes a challenge in such computers. Computers with multiple video cards may require power supplies over 750 watts. Heat extraction becomes a major design consideration for computers with two or more high-end video cards.
+
+Video cards for desktop computers come in one of two size profiles, which can allow a graphics card to be added even to small-sized PCs. Some video cards are not of the usual size, and are thus categorized as being low profile.[15][16] Video card profiles are based on height only, with low-profile cards taking up less than the height of a PCIe slot, some can be as low as "half-height".[citation needed] Length and thickness can vary greatly, with high-end cards usually occupying two or three expansion slots, and with dual-GPU cards -such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 690- generally exceeding 250 mm (10 in) in length.[17] Generally, most users will prefer a lower profile card if the intention is to fit multiple cards or they run into clearance issues with other motherboard components like the DIMM or PCIE slots. This can be fixed with a larger case that comes in sizes like a mid-tower and full tower. Full towers can usually fit larger motherboards in sizes like ATX and micro ATX. The larger the case, the larger the motherboard, the larger the graphics card or multiple other components that will acquire case real-estate.
+
+Some graphics cards can be linked together to allow scaling of the graphics processing across multiple cards. This is done using either the PCIe bus on the motherboard or, more commonly, a data bridge. Generally, the cards must be of the same model to be linked, and most low power cards are not able to be linked in this way.[18] AMD and Nvidia both have proprietary methods of scaling, CrossFireX for AMD, and SLI (since the Turing generation, renamed to NVLink) for Nvidia. Cards from different chipset manufacturers or architectures cannot be used together for multi-card scaling. If a graphics card has different sizes of memory, the lowest value will be used, with the higher values being disregarded. Currently, scaling on consumer-grade cards can be done using up to four cards.[19][20][21] The use of four cards requires a large motherboard with a proper configuration. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 590 video card can be configured in this four-card configuration.[22] As stated above, users will want to stick to the same performance card for optimal use.  Motherboards like ASUS Maximus 3 Extreme and Gigabyte GA EX58 Extreme are certified to work with this configuration.[23] A certificated large power supply is necessary to run the cards in SLI or CrossFireX. Power demands must be known before a proper supply is installed. For the four card configuration, a 1000+ watt supply is needed. AcBel PC8055-000G and Corsair AX1200 supplies are examples.[23] With any relatively powerful video card, thermal management can not be overlooked. Video cards require a well-vented chassis and thermal solution. Air or water cooling are usually required, though low power GPUs can use passive cooling, larger configurations use water solutions or immersion cooling to achieve proper performance without thermal throttling.[24]
+
+SLI and Crossfire, are increasingly uncommon, as most games do not fully utilize multiple GPUs, as most users cannot afford them.[25][26][27] Multiple GPUs are still used on supercomputers (like in Summit), on workstations to accelerate video[28][29][30] and 3D rendering,[31][32][33][34][35] for VFX[36][37] and for simulations,[38] and in AI to expedite training, as is the case with Nvidia's lineup of DGX workstations and servers.
+
+A graphics driver usually supports one or multiple cards by the same vendor and has to be specifically written for an operating system. Additionally, the operating system or an extra software package may provide certain programming APIs for applications to perform 3D rendering.
+
+Some GPUs are designed with specific usage in mind:
+
+As of 2016, the primary suppliers of the GPUs (video chips or chipsets) used in video cards are AMD and Nvidia. In the third quarter of 2013, AMD had a 35.5% market share while Nvidia had a 64.5% market share,[39] according to Jon Peddie Research. In economics, this industry structure is termed a duopoly. AMD and Nvidia also build and sell video cards, which are termed graphics add-in-board (AIBs) in the industry. (See Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units and Comparison of AMD graphics processing units.) In addition to marketing their own video cards, AMD and Nvidia sell their GPUs to authorized AIB suppliers, which AMD and Nvidia refer to as "partners".[5] The fact that Nvidia and AMD compete directly with their customer/partners complicates relationships in the industry. The fact that AMD and Intel are direct competitors in the CPU industry is also noteworthy, since AMD-based video cards may be used in computers with Intel CPUs. Intel's move to APUs may weaken AMD, which until now has derived a significant portion of its revenue from graphics components. As of the second quarter of 2013, there were 52 AIB suppliers.[5] These AIB suppliers may market video cards under their own brands, or produce video cards for private label brands or produce video cards for computer manufacturers. Some AIB suppliers such as MSI build both AMD-based and Nvidia-based video cards. Others, such as EVGA, build only Nvidia-based video cards, while XFX, now builds only AMD-based video cards. Several AIB suppliers are also motherboard suppliers. The largest AIB suppliers, based on global retail market share for graphics cards, include Taiwan-based Palit Microsystems, Hong Kong-based PC Partner (which markets AMD-based video cards under its Sapphire brand and Nvidia-based video cards under its Zotac brand), Taiwan-based computer-maker Asustek Computer (Asus), Taiwan-based Micro-Star International (MSI), Taiwan-based Gigabyte Technology,[40] Brea, California, USA-based EVGA (which also sells computer components such as power supplies) and Ontario, California USA-based XFX.  (The parent corporation of XFX is based in Hong Kong.)
+
+Video card shipments peaked at a total of 114 million in 1999. By contrast, they totaled 14.5 million units in the third quarter of 2013, a 17% fall from Q3 2012 levels,[39] and 44 million total in 2015. The sales of video cards have trended downward due to improvements in integrated graphics technologies; high-end, CPU-integrated graphics can provide performance competitive with low-end video cards. At the same time, video card sales have grown within the high-end segment, as manufacturers have shifted their focus to prioritize the gaming and enthusiast market.[40][41]
+
+Beyond the gaming and multimedia segments, video cards have been increasingly used for general-purpose computing, such as big data processing.[42] The growth of cryptocurrency has placed a severely high demand on high-end video cards, especially in large quantities, due to their advantages in the process of mining. In January 2018, mid-to-high-end video cards experienced a major surge in price, with many retailers having stock shortages due to the significant demand among this market.[43][41][44] Video card companies released mining-specific cards designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and without video output ports.[45]
+
+A modern video card consists of a printed circuit board on which the components are mounted. These include:
+
+A graphics processing unit (GPU), also occasionally called visual processing unit (VPU), is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. Because of the large degree of programmable computational complexity for such a task, a modern video card is also a computer unto itself.
+
+A heat sink is mounted on most modern graphics cards.  A heat sink spreads out the heat produced by the graphics processing unit evenly throughout the heat sink and unit itself.  The heat sink commonly has a fan mounted as well to cool the heat sink and the graphics processing unit. Not all cards have heat sinks, for example, some cards are liquid-cooled and instead have a water block; additionally, cards from the 1980s and early 1990s did not produce much heat, and did not require heatsinks. Most modern graphics cards need a proper thermal solution. This can be the liquid solution or heatsinks with an additional connected heat pipe usually made of copper for the best thermal transfer. The correct case; either Mid-tower or Full-tower or some other derivative, has to be properly configured for thermal management. This can be ample space with a proper push-pull or opposite configuration as well as liquid with a radiator either in lieu or with a fan setup.
+
+The video BIOS or firmware contains a minimal program for the initial set up and control of the video card. It may contain information on the memory timing, operating speeds and voltages of the graphics processor, RAM, and other details which can sometimes be changed.
+
+The modern Video BIOS does not support all the functions of the video card, being only sufficient to identify and initialize the card to display one of a few frame buffer or text display modes. It does not support YUV to RGB translation, video scaling, pixel copying, compositing or any of the multitude of other 2D and 3D features of the video card.
+
+The memory capacity of most modern video cards ranges from 2 GB to 24��GB.[46] But with up to 32 GB as of the last 2010s, the applications for graphics use is becoming more powerful and widespread. Since video memory needs to be accessed by the GPU and the display circuitry, it often uses special high-speed or multi-port memory, such as VRAM, WRAM, SGRAM, etc.  Around 2003, the video memory was typically based on DDR technology. During and after that year, manufacturers moved towards DDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, GDDR5, GDDR5X, and GDDR6. The effective memory clock rate in modern cards is generally between 2 GHz to 15 GHz.
+
+Video memory may be used for storing other data as well as the screen image, such as the Z-buffer, which manages the depth coordinates in 3D graphics, textures, vertex buffers, and compiled shader programs.
+
+The RAMDAC, or random-access-memory digital-to-analog converter, converts digital signals to analog signals for use by a computer display that uses analog inputs such as cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. The RAMDAC is a kind of RAM chip that regulates the functioning of the graphics card. Depending on the number of bits used and the RAMDAC-data-transfer rate, the converter will be able to support different computer-display refresh rates. With CRT displays, it is best to work over 75 Hz and never under 60 Hz, to minimize flicker.[47] (With LCD displays, flicker is not a problem.[citation needed]) Due to the growing popularity of digital computer displays and the integration of the RAMDAC onto the GPU die, it has mostly disappeared as a discrete component. All current LCD/plasma monitors and TVs and projectors with only digital connections, work in the digital domain and do not require a RAMDAC for those connections. There are displays that feature analog inputs (VGA, component, SCART, etc.) only. These require a RAMDAC, but they reconvert the analog signal back to digital before they can display it, with the unavoidable loss of quality stemming from this digital-to-analog-to-digital conversion.[citation needed] With VGA standard being phased out in favor of digital, RAMDACs are beginning to disappear from video cards.[citation needed]
+
+The most common connection systems between the video card and the computer display are:
+
+Also known as D-sub, VGA is an analog-based standard adopted in the late 1980s designed for CRT displays, also called VGA connector. Some problems of this standard are electrical noise, image distortion and sampling error in evaluating pixels.
+
+Today, the VGA analog interface is used for high definition video including 1080p and higher. While the VGA transmission bandwidth is high enough to support even higher resolution playback, the picture quality can degrade depending on cable quality and length. How discernible this quality difference is depends on the individual's eyesight and the display; when using a DVI or HDMI connection, especially on larger sized LCD/LED monitors or TVs, quality degradation, if present, is prominently visible. Blu-ray playback at 1080p is possible via the VGA analog interface, if Image Constraint Token (ICT) is not enabled on the Blu-ray disc.
+
+Digital-based standard designed for displays such as flat-panel displays (LCDs, plasma screens, wide high-definition television displays) and video projectors. In some rare cases, high-end CRT monitors also use DVI. It avoids image distortion and electrical noise, corresponding each pixel from the computer to a display pixel, using its native resolution. It is worth noting that most manufacturers include a DVI-I connector, allowing (via simple adapter) standard RGB signal output to an old CRT or LCD monitor with VGA input.
+
+Included to allow connection with televisions, DVD players, video recorders and video game consoles. They often come in two 10-pin mini-DIN connector variations, and the VIVO splitter cable generally comes with either 4 connectors (S-Video in and out + composite video in and out), or 6 connectors (S-Video in and out + component PB out + component PR out + component Y out [also composite out] + composite in).
+
+HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transferring uncompressed video data and compressed/uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant device ("the source device") to a compatible digital audio device, computer monitor, video projector, or digital television.[48] HDMI is a digital replacement for existing analog video standards. HDMI supports copy protection through HDCP.
+
+DisplayPort is a digital display interface developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor, though it can also be used to transmit audio, USB, and other forms of data.[49]
+The VESA specification is royalty-free. VESA designed it to replace VGA, DVI, and LVDS. Backward compatibility to VGA and DVI by using adapter dongles enables consumers to use DisplayPort fitted video sources without replacing existing display devices. Although DisplayPort has a greater throughput of the same functionality as HDMI, it is expected to complement the interface, not replace it.[50][51]
+
+Chronologically, connection systems between video card and motherboard were, mainly:
+
+The following table is a comparison between a selection of the features of some of those interfaces.

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+A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, system board, baseboard, planar board, logic board,[1] and mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It holds, and allows communication between, many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems, such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general use.
+
+Motherboard means specifically a PCB with expansion capabilities. As the name suggests, this board is often referred to as the "mother" of all components attached to it, which often include peripherals, interface cards, and daughtercards: sound cards, video cards, network cards, hard drives, and other forms of persistent storage; TV tuner cards, cards providing extra USB or FireWire slots; and a variety of other custom components.
+
+Similarly, the term mainboard describes a device with a single board and no additional expansions or capability, such as controlling boards in laser printers, television sets, washing machines, mobile phones, and other embedded systems with limited expansion abilities.
+
+The term Logic board is brand specific, coined by Apple in the early 1980s for the motherboards in Macintosh computers.[2]
+
+Prior to the invention of the microprocessor, the digital computer consisted of multiple printed circuit boards in a card-cage case with components connected by a backplane, a set of interconnected sockets. In very old designs, copper wires were the discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice. The central processing unit (CPU), memory,  and peripherals were housed on individual printed circuit boards, which were plugged into the backplane. The ubiquitous S-100 bus of the 1970s is an example of this type of backplane system.
+
+The most popular computers of the 1990s such as the Apple II and IBM PC had published schematic diagrams and other documentation which permitted rapid reverse-engineering and third-party replacement motherboards. Usually intended for building new computers compatible with the exemplars, many motherboards offered additional performance or other features and were used to upgrade the manufacturer's original equipment.
+
+During the late 1980s and early 1990s, it became economical to move an increasing number of peripheral functions onto the motherboard. In the late 1980s, personal computer motherboards began to include single ICs (also called Super I/O chips) capable of supporting a set of low-speed peripherals: keyboard, mouse, floppy disk drive, serial ports, and parallel ports. By the late 1970s, many personal computer motherboards included consumer-grade embedded audio, video, storage, and networking functions without the need for any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for 4D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component. Business PCs, workstations, and servers were more likely to need expansion cards, either for more robust functions, or for higher speeds; those systems often had fewer embedded components.
+
+Laptop and notebook computers that were developed in the 1990s integrated the most common peripherals. This even included motherboards with no upgradeable components, a trend that would continue as smaller systems were introduced after the turn of the century (like the tablet computer and the netbook). Memory, processors, network controllers, power source, and storage would be integrated into some systems.
+
+A motherboard provides the electrical connections by which the other components of the system communicate. Unlike a backplane, it also contains the central processing unit and hosts other subsystems and devices.
+
+A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main memory, and other essential components connected to the motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices may be attached to the motherboard as plug-in cards or via cables; in modern microcomputers it is increasingly common to integrate some of these peripherals into the motherboard itself.
+
+An important component of a motherboard is the microprocessor's supporting chipset, which provides the supporting interfaces between the CPU and the various buses and external components. This chipset determines, to an extent, the features and capabilities of the motherboard.
+
+Modern motherboards include:
+
+Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly used input devices, such as USB for mouse devices and keyboards. Early personal computers such as the Apple II or IBM PC included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard. Occasionally video interface hardware was also integrated into the motherboard; for example, on the Apple II and rarely on IBM-compatible computers such as the IBM PC Jr. Additional peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as expansion cards.
+
+Given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern motherboards nearly always include heat sinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess heat.
+
+Motherboards are produced in a variety of sizes and shape called computer form factor, some of which are specific to individual computer manufacturers. However, the motherboards used in IBM-compatible systems are designed to fit various case sizes. As of 2005[update], most desktop computer motherboards use the ATX standard form factor — even those found in Macintosh and Sun computers, which have not been built from commodity components. A case's motherboard and power supply unit (PSU) form factor must all match, though some smaller form factor motherboards of the same family will fit larger cases. For example, an ATX case will usually accommodate a microATX motherboard. Computers generally use highly integrated, miniaturized and customized motherboards. This is one of the reasons that laptop computers are difficult to upgrade and expensive to repair. Often the failure of one laptop component requires the replacement of the entire motherboard, which is usually more expensive than a desktop motherboard
+
+A   CPU socket (central processing unit) or slot is an electrical component that attaches to a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and is designed to house a CPU (also called a microprocessor). It is a special type of integrated circuit socket designed for very high pin counts. A CPU socket provides many functions, including a physical structure to support the CPU, support for a heat sink, facilitating replacement (as well as reducing cost), and most importantly, forming an electrical interface both with the CPU and the PCB. CPU sockets on the motherboard can most often be found in most desktop and server computers (laptops typically use surface mount CPUs), particularly those based on the Intel x86 architecture. A CPU socket type and motherboard chipset must support the CPU series and speed.
+
+With the steadily declining costs and size of integrated circuits, it is now possible to include support for many peripherals on the motherboard. By combining many functions on one PCB, the physical size and total cost of the system may be reduced; highly integrated motherboards are thus especially popular in small form factor and budget computers.
+
+A typical motherboard will have a different number of connections depending on its standard and form factor.
+
+A standard, modern ATX motherboard will typically have two or three PCI-Express 16x connection for a graphics card, one or two legacy PCI slots for various expansion cards, and one or two PCI-E 1x (which has superseded PCI). A standard EATX motherboard will have two to four PCI-E 16x connection for graphics cards, and a varying number of PCI and PCI-E 1x slots. It can sometimes also have a PCI-E 4x slot (will vary between brands and models).
+
+Some motherboards have two or more PCI-E 16x slots, to allow more than 2 monitors without special hardware, or use a special graphics technology called SLI (for Nvidia) and Crossfire (for AMD). These allow 2 to 4 graphics cards to be linked together, to allow better performance in intensive graphical computing tasks, such as gaming, video editing, etc.
+
+Motherboards are generally air cooled with heat sinks often mounted on larger chips in modern motherboards.[6] Insufficient or improper cooling can cause damage to the internal components of the computer, or cause it to crash. Passive cooling, or a single fan mounted on the power supply, was sufficient for many desktop computer CPU's until the late 1990s; since then, most have required CPU fans mounted on their heat sinks, due to rising clock speeds and power consumption. Most motherboards have connectors for additional computer fans and integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures and controllable fan connectors which the BIOS or operating system can use to regulate fan speed.[7] Alternatively computers can use a water cooling system instead of many fans.
+
+Some small form factor computers and home theater PCs designed for quiet and energy-efficient operation boast fan-less designs. This typically requires the use of a low-power CPU, as well as a careful layout of the motherboard and other components to allow for heat sink placement.
+
+A 2003 study found that some spurious computer crashes and general reliability issues, ranging from screen image distortions to I/O read/write errors, can be attributed not to software or peripheral hardware but to aging capacitors on PC motherboards.[8] Ultimately this was shown to be the result of a faulty electrolyte formulation,[9] an issue termed capacitor plague.
+
+Standard motherboards use electrolytic capacitors to filter the DC power distributed around the board. These capacitors age at a temperature-dependent rate, as their water based electrolytes slowly evaporate. This can lead to loss of capacitance and subsequent motherboard malfunctions due to voltage instabilities. While most capacitors are rated for 2000 hours of operation at 105 °C (221 °F),[10] their expected design life roughly doubles for every 10 °C (18 °F) below this. At 65 °C (149 °F) a lifetime of 3 to 4 years can be expected. However, many manufacturers deliver substandard capacitors,[11] which significantly reduce life expectancy. Inadequate case cooling and elevated temperatures around the CPU socket exacerbate this problem. With top blowers, the motherboard components can be kept under 95 °C (203 °F), effectively doubling the motherboard lifetime.
+
+Mid-range and high-end motherboards, on the other hand, use solid capacitors exclusively. For every 10 °C less, their average lifespan is multiplied approximately by three, resulting in a 6-times higher lifetime expectancy at 65 °C (149 °F).[12] These capacitors may be rated for 5000, 10000 or 12000 hours of operation at 105 °C (221 °F), extending the projected lifetime in comparison with standard solid capacitors.
+
+Motherboards contain some non-volatile memory to initialize the system and load some startup software, usually an operating system, from some external peripheral device. Microcomputers such as the Apple II and IBM PC used ROM chips mounted in sockets on the motherboard.  At power-up, the central processor would load its program counter with the address of the boot ROM and start executing instructions from the ROM.  These instructions initialized and tested the system hardware displayed system information on the screen, performed RAM checks, and then loaded an initial program from a peripheral device. If none was available, then the computer would perform tasks from other memory stores or display an error message, depending on the model and design of the computer and the ROM version. For example, both the Apple II and the original IBM PC had Microsoft Cassette BASIC in ROM and would start that if no program could be loaded from disk.
+
+Most modern motherboard designs use a BIOS, stored in an EEPROM chip soldered to or socketed on the motherboard, to boot an operating system. Non-operating system boot programs are still supported on modern IBM PC-descended machines, but nowadays it is assumed that the boot program will be a complex operating system such as Microsoft Windows or Linux. When power is first supplied to the motherboard, the BIOS firmware tests and configures memory, circuitry, and peripherals. This Power-On Self Test (POST) may include testing some of the following things:
+
+On recent motherboards, the BIOS may also patch the central processor microcode if the BIOS detects that the installed CPU is one for which errata have been published.
+
+Many motherboards now use a sucessor to BIOS called UEFI. It became popular after Microsoft began requiring it for a system to be certified to run Windows 8. [13][14]

en/877.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, system board, baseboard, planar board, logic board,[1] and mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expandable systems. It holds, and allows communication between, many of the crucial electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit (CPU) and memory, and provides connectors for other peripherals. Unlike a backplane, a motherboard usually contains significant sub-systems, such as the central processor, the chipset's input/output and memory controllers, interface connectors, and other components integrated for general use.
+
+Motherboard means specifically a PCB with expansion capabilities. As the name suggests, this board is often referred to as the "mother" of all components attached to it, which often include peripherals, interface cards, and daughtercards: sound cards, video cards, network cards, hard drives, and other forms of persistent storage; TV tuner cards, cards providing extra USB or FireWire slots; and a variety of other custom components.
+
+Similarly, the term mainboard describes a device with a single board and no additional expansions or capability, such as controlling boards in laser printers, television sets, washing machines, mobile phones, and other embedded systems with limited expansion abilities.
+
+The term Logic board is brand specific, coined by Apple in the early 1980s for the motherboards in Macintosh computers.[2]
+
+Prior to the invention of the microprocessor, the digital computer consisted of multiple printed circuit boards in a card-cage case with components connected by a backplane, a set of interconnected sockets. In very old designs, copper wires were the discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice. The central processing unit (CPU), memory,  and peripherals were housed on individual printed circuit boards, which were plugged into the backplane. The ubiquitous S-100 bus of the 1970s is an example of this type of backplane system.
+
+The most popular computers of the 1990s such as the Apple II and IBM PC had published schematic diagrams and other documentation which permitted rapid reverse-engineering and third-party replacement motherboards. Usually intended for building new computers compatible with the exemplars, many motherboards offered additional performance or other features and were used to upgrade the manufacturer's original equipment.
+
+During the late 1980s and early 1990s, it became economical to move an increasing number of peripheral functions onto the motherboard. In the late 1980s, personal computer motherboards began to include single ICs (also called Super I/O chips) capable of supporting a set of low-speed peripherals: keyboard, mouse, floppy disk drive, serial ports, and parallel ports. By the late 1970s, many personal computer motherboards included consumer-grade embedded audio, video, storage, and networking functions without the need for any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for 4D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component. Business PCs, workstations, and servers were more likely to need expansion cards, either for more robust functions, or for higher speeds; those systems often had fewer embedded components.
+
+Laptop and notebook computers that were developed in the 1990s integrated the most common peripherals. This even included motherboards with no upgradeable components, a trend that would continue as smaller systems were introduced after the turn of the century (like the tablet computer and the netbook). Memory, processors, network controllers, power source, and storage would be integrated into some systems.
+
+A motherboard provides the electrical connections by which the other components of the system communicate. Unlike a backplane, it also contains the central processing unit and hosts other subsystems and devices.
+
+A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main memory, and other essential components connected to the motherboard. Other components such as external storage, controllers for video display and sound, and peripheral devices may be attached to the motherboard as plug-in cards or via cables; in modern microcomputers it is increasingly common to integrate some of these peripherals into the motherboard itself.
+
+An important component of a motherboard is the microprocessor's supporting chipset, which provides the supporting interfaces between the CPU and the various buses and external components. This chipset determines, to an extent, the features and capabilities of the motherboard.
+
+Modern motherboards include:
+
+Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly used input devices, such as USB for mouse devices and keyboards. Early personal computers such as the Apple II or IBM PC included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard. Occasionally video interface hardware was also integrated into the motherboard; for example, on the Apple II and rarely on IBM-compatible computers such as the IBM PC Jr. Additional peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as expansion cards.
+
+Given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern motherboards nearly always include heat sinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess heat.
+
+Motherboards are produced in a variety of sizes and shape called computer form factor, some of which are specific to individual computer manufacturers. However, the motherboards used in IBM-compatible systems are designed to fit various case sizes. As of 2005[update], most desktop computer motherboards use the ATX standard form factor — even those found in Macintosh and Sun computers, which have not been built from commodity components. A case's motherboard and power supply unit (PSU) form factor must all match, though some smaller form factor motherboards of the same family will fit larger cases. For example, an ATX case will usually accommodate a microATX motherboard. Computers generally use highly integrated, miniaturized and customized motherboards. This is one of the reasons that laptop computers are difficult to upgrade and expensive to repair. Often the failure of one laptop component requires the replacement of the entire motherboard, which is usually more expensive than a desktop motherboard
+
+A   CPU socket (central processing unit) or slot is an electrical component that attaches to a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) and is designed to house a CPU (also called a microprocessor). It is a special type of integrated circuit socket designed for very high pin counts. A CPU socket provides many functions, including a physical structure to support the CPU, support for a heat sink, facilitating replacement (as well as reducing cost), and most importantly, forming an electrical interface both with the CPU and the PCB. CPU sockets on the motherboard can most often be found in most desktop and server computers (laptops typically use surface mount CPUs), particularly those based on the Intel x86 architecture. A CPU socket type and motherboard chipset must support the CPU series and speed.
+
+With the steadily declining costs and size of integrated circuits, it is now possible to include support for many peripherals on the motherboard. By combining many functions on one PCB, the physical size and total cost of the system may be reduced; highly integrated motherboards are thus especially popular in small form factor and budget computers.
+
+A typical motherboard will have a different number of connections depending on its standard and form factor.
+
+A standard, modern ATX motherboard will typically have two or three PCI-Express 16x connection for a graphics card, one or two legacy PCI slots for various expansion cards, and one or two PCI-E 1x (which has superseded PCI). A standard EATX motherboard will have two to four PCI-E 16x connection for graphics cards, and a varying number of PCI and PCI-E 1x slots. It can sometimes also have a PCI-E 4x slot (will vary between brands and models).
+
+Some motherboards have two or more PCI-E 16x slots, to allow more than 2 monitors without special hardware, or use a special graphics technology called SLI (for Nvidia) and Crossfire (for AMD). These allow 2 to 4 graphics cards to be linked together, to allow better performance in intensive graphical computing tasks, such as gaming, video editing, etc.
+
+Motherboards are generally air cooled with heat sinks often mounted on larger chips in modern motherboards.[6] Insufficient or improper cooling can cause damage to the internal components of the computer, or cause it to crash. Passive cooling, or a single fan mounted on the power supply, was sufficient for many desktop computer CPU's until the late 1990s; since then, most have required CPU fans mounted on their heat sinks, due to rising clock speeds and power consumption. Most motherboards have connectors for additional computer fans and integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures and controllable fan connectors which the BIOS or operating system can use to regulate fan speed.[7] Alternatively computers can use a water cooling system instead of many fans.
+
+Some small form factor computers and home theater PCs designed for quiet and energy-efficient operation boast fan-less designs. This typically requires the use of a low-power CPU, as well as a careful layout of the motherboard and other components to allow for heat sink placement.
+
+A 2003 study found that some spurious computer crashes and general reliability issues, ranging from screen image distortions to I/O read/write errors, can be attributed not to software or peripheral hardware but to aging capacitors on PC motherboards.[8] Ultimately this was shown to be the result of a faulty electrolyte formulation,[9] an issue termed capacitor plague.
+
+Standard motherboards use electrolytic capacitors to filter the DC power distributed around the board. These capacitors age at a temperature-dependent rate, as their water based electrolytes slowly evaporate. This can lead to loss of capacitance and subsequent motherboard malfunctions due to voltage instabilities. While most capacitors are rated for 2000 hours of operation at 105 °C (221 °F),[10] their expected design life roughly doubles for every 10 °C (18 °F) below this. At 65 °C (149 °F) a lifetime of 3 to 4 years can be expected. However, many manufacturers deliver substandard capacitors,[11] which significantly reduce life expectancy. Inadequate case cooling and elevated temperatures around the CPU socket exacerbate this problem. With top blowers, the motherboard components can be kept under 95 °C (203 °F), effectively doubling the motherboard lifetime.
+
+Mid-range and high-end motherboards, on the other hand, use solid capacitors exclusively. For every 10 °C less, their average lifespan is multiplied approximately by three, resulting in a 6-times higher lifetime expectancy at 65 °C (149 °F).[12] These capacitors may be rated for 5000, 10000 or 12000 hours of operation at 105 °C (221 °F), extending the projected lifetime in comparison with standard solid capacitors.
+
+Motherboards contain some non-volatile memory to initialize the system and load some startup software, usually an operating system, from some external peripheral device. Microcomputers such as the Apple II and IBM PC used ROM chips mounted in sockets on the motherboard.  At power-up, the central processor would load its program counter with the address of the boot ROM and start executing instructions from the ROM.  These instructions initialized and tested the system hardware displayed system information on the screen, performed RAM checks, and then loaded an initial program from a peripheral device. If none was available, then the computer would perform tasks from other memory stores or display an error message, depending on the model and design of the computer and the ROM version. For example, both the Apple II and the original IBM PC had Microsoft Cassette BASIC in ROM and would start that if no program could be loaded from disk.
+
+Most modern motherboard designs use a BIOS, stored in an EEPROM chip soldered to or socketed on the motherboard, to boot an operating system. Non-operating system boot programs are still supported on modern IBM PC-descended machines, but nowadays it is assumed that the boot program will be a complex operating system such as Microsoft Windows or Linux. When power is first supplied to the motherboard, the BIOS firmware tests and configures memory, circuitry, and peripherals. This Power-On Self Test (POST) may include testing some of the following things:
+
+On recent motherboards, the BIOS may also patch the central processor microcode if the BIOS detects that the installed CPU is one for which errata have been published.
+
+Many motherboards now use a sucessor to BIOS called UEFI. It became popular after Microsoft began requiring it for a system to be certified to run Windows 8. [13][14]

en/878.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+A graphics card (also called a display card, video card, display adapter, or graphics adapter) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device (such as a computer monitor). Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, emphasizing the distinction between these and integrated graphics. At the core of both is the graphics processing unit (GPU), which is the main part that does the actual computations, but should not be confused with the video card as a whole, although "GPU" is often used to refer to video cards.
+
+Most video cards are not limited to simple display output. Their integrated graphics processor can perform additional processing, removing this task from the central processor of the computer.[1] For example, Nvidia and AMD (previously ATI) produced cards render the graphics pipeline OpenGL and DirectX on the hardware level.[2] In the later 2010s, there has also been a tendency to use the computing capabilities of the graphics processor to solve non-graphic tasks, which can be done through the use of OpenCL and CUDA. Video cards can also be used for AI training.[3][2]
+
+Usually, the graphics card is made in the form of a printed circuit board (expansion board) and inserted into an expansion slot, universal or specialized (AGP, PCI Express).[4] Some have been made using dedicated enclosures, which are connected to the computer via a docking station or a cable. These are known as eGPUs.
+
+Display via one of:
+
+Standards such as MDA, CGA, HGC, Tandy, PGC, EGA, VGA, MCGA, 8514 or XGA were introduced from 1982 to 1990 and supported by a variety of hardware manufacturers.
+
+3dfx Interactive was one of the first companies to develop a GPU with 3D acceleration (with the Voodoo series) and the first to develop a graphical chipset dedicated to 3D, but without 2D support (which therefore required the presence of a 2D card to work). Now the majority of modern video cards are built with either AMD-sourced or Nvidia-sourced graphics chips.[5] Until 2000, 3dfx Interactive was also an important, and often groundbreaking, manufacturer. Most video cards offer various functions such as the accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors (multi-monitor). Video cards also have sound card capabilities to output sound –  along with the video for connected TVs or monitors with integrated speakers.
+
+Within the industry, video cards are sometimes called graphics add-in-boards, abbreviated as AIBs,[5] with the word "graphics" usually omitted.
+
+As an alternative to the use of a video card, video hardware can be integrated into the motherboard, CPU, or a system-on-chip. Both approaches can be called integrated graphics. Motherboard-based implementations are sometimes called "on-board video". Almost all desktop computer motherboards with integrated graphics allow the disabling of the integrated graphics chip in BIOS, and have a PCI, or PCI Express (PCI-E) slot for adding a higher-performance graphics card in place of the integrated graphics. The ability to disable the integrated graphics sometimes also allows the continued use of a motherboard on which the on-board video has failed. Sometimes both the integrated graphics and a dedicated graphics card can be used simultaneously to feed separate displays. The main advantages of integrated graphics include cost, compactness, simplicity and low energy consumption. The performance disadvantage of integrated graphics arises because the graphics processor shares system resources with the CPU. A dedicated graphics card has its own random access memory (RAM), its own cooling system, and dedicated power regulators, with all components designed specifically for processing video images. Upgrading to a dedicated graphics card offloads work from the CPU and system RAM, so not only will graphics processing be faster, but the computer's overall performance will significantly improve. This is often necessary for playing videogames, working with 3D animation or editing video.
+
+Both AMD and Intel have introduced CPUs and motherboard chipsets which support the integration of a GPU into the same die as the CPU. AMD markets CPUs with integrated graphics under the trademark Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), while Intel markets similar technology under the "Intel HD Graphics and Iris" brands. With the 8th Generation Processors, Intel announced the Intel UHD series of Integrated Graphics for better support of 4K Displays.[6] Although they are still not equivalent to the performance of discrete solutions, Intel's HD Graphics platform provides performance approaching discrete mid-range graphics, and AMD APU technology has been adopted by both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game consoles.[7][8][9]
+
+As the processing power of video cards has increased, so has their demand for electrical power. Current high-performance video cards tend to consume large amounts of power. For example, the thermal design power (TDP) for the GeForce Titan RTX is 280 watts.[10] When tested while gaming, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founder's Edition averaged 300 watts of power consumption.[11] While CPU and power supply makers have recently moved toward higher efficiency, power demands of GPUs have continued to rise, so video cards may have the largest power consumption of any individual part in a computer.[12][13] Although power supplies are increasing their power too, the bottleneck is due to the PCI-Express connection, which is limited to supplying 75 watts.[14]
+Modern video cards with a power consumption of over 75 watts usually include a combination of six-pin (75 W) or eight-pin (150 W) sockets that connect directly to the power supply. Providing adequate cooling becomes a challenge in such computers. Computers with multiple video cards may require power supplies over 750 watts. Heat extraction becomes a major design consideration for computers with two or more high-end video cards.
+
+Video cards for desktop computers come in one of two size profiles, which can allow a graphics card to be added even to small-sized PCs. Some video cards are not of the usual size, and are thus categorized as being low profile.[15][16] Video card profiles are based on height only, with low-profile cards taking up less than the height of a PCIe slot, some can be as low as "half-height".[citation needed] Length and thickness can vary greatly, with high-end cards usually occupying two or three expansion slots, and with dual-GPU cards -such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 690- generally exceeding 250 mm (10 in) in length.[17] Generally, most users will prefer a lower profile card if the intention is to fit multiple cards or they run into clearance issues with other motherboard components like the DIMM or PCIE slots. This can be fixed with a larger case that comes in sizes like a mid-tower and full tower. Full towers can usually fit larger motherboards in sizes like ATX and micro ATX. The larger the case, the larger the motherboard, the larger the graphics card or multiple other components that will acquire case real-estate.
+
+Some graphics cards can be linked together to allow scaling of the graphics processing across multiple cards. This is done using either the PCIe bus on the motherboard or, more commonly, a data bridge. Generally, the cards must be of the same model to be linked, and most low power cards are not able to be linked in this way.[18] AMD and Nvidia both have proprietary methods of scaling, CrossFireX for AMD, and SLI (since the Turing generation, renamed to NVLink) for Nvidia. Cards from different chipset manufacturers or architectures cannot be used together for multi-card scaling. If a graphics card has different sizes of memory, the lowest value will be used, with the higher values being disregarded. Currently, scaling on consumer-grade cards can be done using up to four cards.[19][20][21] The use of four cards requires a large motherboard with a proper configuration. Nvidia's GeForce GTX 590 video card can be configured in this four-card configuration.[22] As stated above, users will want to stick to the same performance card for optimal use.  Motherboards like ASUS Maximus 3 Extreme and Gigabyte GA EX58 Extreme are certified to work with this configuration.[23] A certificated large power supply is necessary to run the cards in SLI or CrossFireX. Power demands must be known before a proper supply is installed. For the four card configuration, a 1000+ watt supply is needed. AcBel PC8055-000G and Corsair AX1200 supplies are examples.[23] With any relatively powerful video card, thermal management can not be overlooked. Video cards require a well-vented chassis and thermal solution. Air or water cooling are usually required, though low power GPUs can use passive cooling, larger configurations use water solutions or immersion cooling to achieve proper performance without thermal throttling.[24]
+
+SLI and Crossfire, are increasingly uncommon, as most games do not fully utilize multiple GPUs, as most users cannot afford them.[25][26][27] Multiple GPUs are still used on supercomputers (like in Summit), on workstations to accelerate video[28][29][30] and 3D rendering,[31][32][33][34][35] for VFX[36][37] and for simulations,[38] and in AI to expedite training, as is the case with Nvidia's lineup of DGX workstations and servers.
+
+A graphics driver usually supports one or multiple cards by the same vendor and has to be specifically written for an operating system. Additionally, the operating system or an extra software package may provide certain programming APIs for applications to perform 3D rendering.
+
+Some GPUs are designed with specific usage in mind:
+
+As of 2016, the primary suppliers of the GPUs (video chips or chipsets) used in video cards are AMD and Nvidia. In the third quarter of 2013, AMD had a 35.5% market share while Nvidia had a 64.5% market share,[39] according to Jon Peddie Research. In economics, this industry structure is termed a duopoly. AMD and Nvidia also build and sell video cards, which are termed graphics add-in-board (AIBs) in the industry. (See Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units and Comparison of AMD graphics processing units.) In addition to marketing their own video cards, AMD and Nvidia sell their GPUs to authorized AIB suppliers, which AMD and Nvidia refer to as "partners".[5] The fact that Nvidia and AMD compete directly with their customer/partners complicates relationships in the industry. The fact that AMD and Intel are direct competitors in the CPU industry is also noteworthy, since AMD-based video cards may be used in computers with Intel CPUs. Intel's move to APUs may weaken AMD, which until now has derived a significant portion of its revenue from graphics components. As of the second quarter of 2013, there were 52 AIB suppliers.[5] These AIB suppliers may market video cards under their own brands, or produce video cards for private label brands or produce video cards for computer manufacturers. Some AIB suppliers such as MSI build both AMD-based and Nvidia-based video cards. Others, such as EVGA, build only Nvidia-based video cards, while XFX, now builds only AMD-based video cards. Several AIB suppliers are also motherboard suppliers. The largest AIB suppliers, based on global retail market share for graphics cards, include Taiwan-based Palit Microsystems, Hong Kong-based PC Partner (which markets AMD-based video cards under its Sapphire brand and Nvidia-based video cards under its Zotac brand), Taiwan-based computer-maker Asustek Computer (Asus), Taiwan-based Micro-Star International (MSI), Taiwan-based Gigabyte Technology,[40] Brea, California, USA-based EVGA (which also sells computer components such as power supplies) and Ontario, California USA-based XFX.  (The parent corporation of XFX is based in Hong Kong.)
+
+Video card shipments peaked at a total of 114 million in 1999. By contrast, they totaled 14.5 million units in the third quarter of 2013, a 17% fall from Q3 2012 levels,[39] and 44 million total in 2015. The sales of video cards have trended downward due to improvements in integrated graphics technologies; high-end, CPU-integrated graphics can provide performance competitive with low-end video cards. At the same time, video card sales have grown within the high-end segment, as manufacturers have shifted their focus to prioritize the gaming and enthusiast market.[40][41]
+
+Beyond the gaming and multimedia segments, video cards have been increasingly used for general-purpose computing, such as big data processing.[42] The growth of cryptocurrency has placed a severely high demand on high-end video cards, especially in large quantities, due to their advantages in the process of mining. In January 2018, mid-to-high-end video cards experienced a major surge in price, with many retailers having stock shortages due to the significant demand among this market.[43][41][44] Video card companies released mining-specific cards designed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and without video output ports.[45]
+
+A modern video card consists of a printed circuit board on which the components are mounted. These include:
+
+A graphics processing unit (GPU), also occasionally called visual processing unit (VPU), is a specialized electronic circuit designed to rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the building of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display. Because of the large degree of programmable computational complexity for such a task, a modern video card is also a computer unto itself.
+
+A heat sink is mounted on most modern graphics cards.  A heat sink spreads out the heat produced by the graphics processing unit evenly throughout the heat sink and unit itself.  The heat sink commonly has a fan mounted as well to cool the heat sink and the graphics processing unit. Not all cards have heat sinks, for example, some cards are liquid-cooled and instead have a water block; additionally, cards from the 1980s and early 1990s did not produce much heat, and did not require heatsinks. Most modern graphics cards need a proper thermal solution. This can be the liquid solution or heatsinks with an additional connected heat pipe usually made of copper for the best thermal transfer. The correct case; either Mid-tower or Full-tower or some other derivative, has to be properly configured for thermal management. This can be ample space with a proper push-pull or opposite configuration as well as liquid with a radiator either in lieu or with a fan setup.
+
+The video BIOS or firmware contains a minimal program for the initial set up and control of the video card. It may contain information on the memory timing, operating speeds and voltages of the graphics processor, RAM, and other details which can sometimes be changed.
+
+The modern Video BIOS does not support all the functions of the video card, being only sufficient to identify and initialize the card to display one of a few frame buffer or text display modes. It does not support YUV to RGB translation, video scaling, pixel copying, compositing or any of the multitude of other 2D and 3D features of the video card.
+
+The memory capacity of most modern video cards ranges from 2 GB to 24��GB.[46] But with up to 32 GB as of the last 2010s, the applications for graphics use is becoming more powerful and widespread. Since video memory needs to be accessed by the GPU and the display circuitry, it often uses special high-speed or multi-port memory, such as VRAM, WRAM, SGRAM, etc.  Around 2003, the video memory was typically based on DDR technology. During and after that year, manufacturers moved towards DDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, GDDR5, GDDR5X, and GDDR6. The effective memory clock rate in modern cards is generally between 2 GHz to 15 GHz.
+
+Video memory may be used for storing other data as well as the screen image, such as the Z-buffer, which manages the depth coordinates in 3D graphics, textures, vertex buffers, and compiled shader programs.
+
+The RAMDAC, or random-access-memory digital-to-analog converter, converts digital signals to analog signals for use by a computer display that uses analog inputs such as cathode ray tube (CRT) displays. The RAMDAC is a kind of RAM chip that regulates the functioning of the graphics card. Depending on the number of bits used and the RAMDAC-data-transfer rate, the converter will be able to support different computer-display refresh rates. With CRT displays, it is best to work over 75 Hz and never under 60 Hz, to minimize flicker.[47] (With LCD displays, flicker is not a problem.[citation needed]) Due to the growing popularity of digital computer displays and the integration of the RAMDAC onto the GPU die, it has mostly disappeared as a discrete component. All current LCD/plasma monitors and TVs and projectors with only digital connections, work in the digital domain and do not require a RAMDAC for those connections. There are displays that feature analog inputs (VGA, component, SCART, etc.) only. These require a RAMDAC, but they reconvert the analog signal back to digital before they can display it, with the unavoidable loss of quality stemming from this digital-to-analog-to-digital conversion.[citation needed] With VGA standard being phased out in favor of digital, RAMDACs are beginning to disappear from video cards.[citation needed]
+
+The most common connection systems between the video card and the computer display are:
+
+Also known as D-sub, VGA is an analog-based standard adopted in the late 1980s designed for CRT displays, also called VGA connector. Some problems of this standard are electrical noise, image distortion and sampling error in evaluating pixels.
+
+Today, the VGA analog interface is used for high definition video including 1080p and higher. While the VGA transmission bandwidth is high enough to support even higher resolution playback, the picture quality can degrade depending on cable quality and length. How discernible this quality difference is depends on the individual's eyesight and the display; when using a DVI or HDMI connection, especially on larger sized LCD/LED monitors or TVs, quality degradation, if present, is prominently visible. Blu-ray playback at 1080p is possible via the VGA analog interface, if Image Constraint Token (ICT) is not enabled on the Blu-ray disc.
+
+Digital-based standard designed for displays such as flat-panel displays (LCDs, plasma screens, wide high-definition television displays) and video projectors. In some rare cases, high-end CRT monitors also use DVI. It avoids image distortion and electrical noise, corresponding each pixel from the computer to a display pixel, using its native resolution. It is worth noting that most manufacturers include a DVI-I connector, allowing (via simple adapter) standard RGB signal output to an old CRT or LCD monitor with VGA input.
+
+Included to allow connection with televisions, DVD players, video recorders and video game consoles. They often come in two 10-pin mini-DIN connector variations, and the VIVO splitter cable generally comes with either 4 connectors (S-Video in and out + composite video in and out), or 6 connectors (S-Video in and out + component PB out + component PR out + component Y out [also composite out] + composite in).
+
+HDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transferring uncompressed video data and compressed/uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant device ("the source device") to a compatible digital audio device, computer monitor, video projector, or digital television.[48] HDMI is a digital replacement for existing analog video standards. HDMI supports copy protection through HDCP.
+
+DisplayPort is a digital display interface developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor, though it can also be used to transmit audio, USB, and other forms of data.[49]
+The VESA specification is royalty-free. VESA designed it to replace VGA, DVI, and LVDS. Backward compatibility to VGA and DVI by using adapter dongles enables consumers to use DisplayPort fitted video sources without replacing existing display devices. Although DisplayPort has a greater throughput of the same functionality as HDMI, it is expected to complement the interface, not replace it.[50][51]
+
+Chronologically, connection systems between video card and motherboard were, mainly:
+
+The following table is a comparison between a selection of the features of some of those interfaces.

en/879.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,193 @@
+Carthage was the center or capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis  in what is now the Tunis Governorate in Tunisia. Carthage was widely considered the most important trading hub of the Ancient Mediterranean and was arguably one of the most affluent cities of the classical world.
+
+The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC.[1] The legendary Queen Alyssa or Dido is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. According to accounts by Timaeus of Tauromenium, she purchased from a local tribe the amount of land that could be covered by an oxhide. Cutting the skin into strips, she laid out her claim and founded an empire that would become, through the Punic Wars, the only existential threat to Rome until the coming of the Vandals several centuries later.[2]
+
+The ancient city was destroyed by the Roman Republic in the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then re-developed as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire.[3] It remained occupied during the Muslim period[4] and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again.[5] It also continued to function as an episcopal see.
+
+The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage.[6][7] The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984.
+
+
+
+The name Carthage /ˈkɑːrθɪdʒ/ is the Early Modern anglicisation of Middle French Carthage /kar.taʒ/,[8] from Latin Carthāgō and Karthāgō (cf. Greek Karkhēdōn (Καρχηδών) and Etruscan *Carθaza) from the Punic qrt-ḥdšt (𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕‎) "new city",[9] implying it was a "new Tyre".[10] The Latin adjective pūnicus, meaning "Phoenician", is reflected in English in some borrowings from Latin—notably the Punic Wars and the Punic language.
+
+The Modern Standard Arabic form قرطاج (Qarṭāj) is an adoption of French Carthage, replacing an older local toponym reported as Cartagenna that directly continued the Latin name.[11]
+
+Carthage was built on a promontory with sea inlets to the north and the south. The city's location made it master of the Mediterranean's maritime trade. All ships crossing the sea had to pass between Sicily and the coast of Tunisia, where Carthage was built, affording it great power and influence. Two large, artificial harbors were built within the city, one for harboring the city's massive navy of 220 warships and the other for mercantile trade. A walled tower overlooked both harbors. The city had massive walls, 37 km (23 mi) in length, longer than the walls of comparable cities. Most of the walls were located on the shore, thus could be less impressive, as Carthaginian control of the sea made attack from that direction difficult. The 4.0 to 4.8 km (2.5 to 3 mi) of wall on the isthmus to the west were truly massive and were never penetrated.
+
+Carthage was one of the largest cities of the Hellenistic period and was among the largest cities in preindustrial history. Whereas by AD 14, Rome had at least 750,000 inhabitants and in the following century may have reached 1 million, the cities of Alexandria and Antioch numbered only a few hundred thousand or less.[12] According to the not-always-reliable history of Herodian, Carthage rivaled Alexandria for second place in the Roman empire.[13]
+
+The Punic Carthage was divided into four equally sized residential areas with the same layout, had religious areas, market places, council house, towers, a theater, and a huge necropolis; roughly in the middle of the city stood a high citadel called the Byrsa. Surrounding Carthage were walls "of great strength" said in places to rise above 13 m, being nearly 10 m thick, according to ancient authors. To the west, three parallel walls were built. The walls altogether ran for about 33 kilometres (21 miles) to encircle the city.[14][15] The heights of the Byrsa were additionally fortified; this area being the last to succumb to the Romans in 146 BC. Originally the Romans had landed their army on the strip of land extending southward from the city.[16][17]
+
+Outside the city walls of Carthage is the Chora or farm lands of Carthage. Chora encompassed a limited area: the north coastal tell, the lower Bagradas river valley (inland from Utica), Cape Bon, and the adjacent sahel on the east coast. Punic culture here achieved the introduction of agricultural sciences first developed for lands of the eastern Mediterranean, and their adaptation to local African conditions.[18]
+
+The urban landscape of Carthage is known in part from ancient authors,[19] augmented by modern digs and surveys conducted by archeologists. The "first urban nucleus" dating to the seventh century, in area about 10 hectares (25 acres), was apparently located on low-lying lands along the coast (north of the later harbors). As confirmed by archaeological excavations, Carthage was a "creation ex nihilo", built on 'virgin' land, and situated at what was then the end of a peninsula. Here among "mud brick walls and beaten clay floors" (recently uncovered) were also found extensive cemeteries, which yielded evocative grave goods like clay masks. "Thanks to this burial archaeology we know more about archaic Carthage than about any other contemporary city in the western Mediterranean." Already in the eighth century, fabric dyeing operations had been established, evident from crushed shells of murex (from which the 'Phoenician purple' was derived). Nonetheless, only a "meager picture" of the cultural life of the earliest pioneers in the city can be conjectured, and not much about housing, monuments or defenses.[20][21] The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) imagined early Carthage, when his legendary character Aeneas had arrived there:
+
+"Aeneas found, where lately huts had been,
+marvelous buildings, gateways, cobbled ways,
+and din of wagons. There the Tyrians
+were hard at work: laying courses for walls,
+rolling up stones to build the citadel,
+while others picked out building sites and plowed
+a boundary furrow. Laws were being enacted,
+magistrates and a sacred senate chosen.
+Here men were dredging harbors, there they laid
+the deep foundations of a theatre,
+and quarried massive pillars... ."[22][23]
+
+The two inner harbours, named cothon in Punic, were located in the southeast; one being commercial, and the other for war. Their definite functions are not entirely known, probably for the construction, outfitting, or repair of ships, perhaps also loading and unloading cargo.[24][25][26] Larger anchorages existed to the north and south of the city.[27] North and west of the cothon were located several industrial areas, e.g., metalworking and pottery (e.g., for amphora), which could serve both inner harbours, and ships anchored to the south of the city.[28]
+
+About the Byrsa, the citadel area to the north,[29] considering its importance our knowledge of it is patchy. Its prominent heights were the scene of fierce combat during the fiery destruction of the city in 146 BC. The Byrsa was the reported site of the Temple of Eshmun (the healing god), at the top of a stairway of sixty steps.[30][31] A temple of Tanit (the city's queen goddess) was likely situated on the slope of the 'lesser Byrsa' immediately to the east, which runs down toward the sea.[32] Also situated on the Byrsa were luxury homes.[33]
+
+South of the citadel, near the cothon was the tophet, a special and very old cemetery, which when begun lay outside the city's boundaries. Here the Salammbô was located, the Sanctuary of Tanit, not a temple but an enclosure for placing stone stelae. These were mostly short and upright, carved for funeral purposes. The presence of infant skeletons from here may indicate the occurrence of child sacrifice, as claimed in the Bible, although there has been considerable doubt among archeologists as to this interpretation and many consider it simply a cemetery devoted to infants.[34] Probably the tophet burial fields were "dedicated at an early date, perhaps by the first settlers."[35][36] Recent studies, on the other hand, indicate that child sacrifice was practiced by the Carthaginians.[37][38]
+
+Between the sea-filled cothon for shipping and the Byrsa heights lay the agora [Greek: "market"], the city-state's central marketplace for business and commerce. The agora was also an area of public squares and plazas, where the people might formally assemble, or gather for festivals. It was the site of religious shrines, and the location of whatever were the major municipal buildings of Carthage. Here beat the heart of civic life. In this district of Carthage, more probably, the ruling suffets presided, the council of elders convened, the tribunal of the 104 met, and justice was dispensed at trials in the open air.[39][40]
+
+Early residential districts wrapped around the Byrsa from the south to the north east. Houses usually were whitewashed and blank to the street, but within were courtyards open to the sky.[41] In these neighborhoods multistory construction later became common, some up to six stories tall according to an ancient Greek author.[42][43] Several architectural floorplans of homes have been revealed by recent excavations, as well as the general layout of several city blocks. Stone stairs were set in the streets, and drainage was planned, e.g., in the form of soakways leaching into the sandy soil.[44] Along the Byrsa's southern slope were located not only fine old homes, but also many of the earliest grave-sites, juxtaposed in small areas, interspersed with daily life.[45]
+
+Artisan workshops were located in the city at sites north and west of the harbours. The location of three metal workshops (implied from iron slag and other vestiges of such activity) were found adjacent to the naval and commercial harbours, and another two were further up the hill toward the Byrsa citadel. Sites of pottery kilns have been identified, between the agora and the harbours, and further north. Earthenware often used Greek models. A fuller's shop for preparing woolen cloth (shrink and thicken) was evidently situated further to the west and south, then by the edge of the city.[46] Carthage also produced objects of rare refinement. During the 4th and 3rd centuries, the sculptures of the sarcophagi became works of art. "Bronze engraving and stone-carving reached their zenith."[47]
+
+The elevation of the land at the promontory on the seashore to the north-east (now called Sidi Bou Saïd), was twice as high above sea level as that at the Byrsa (100 m and 50 m). In between runs a ridge, several times reaching 50 m; it continues northwestward along the seashore, and forms the edge of a plateau-like area between the Byrsa and the sea.[48] Newer urban developments lay here in these northern districts.[49]
+
+Due to the Roman's leveling of the city, the original Punic urban landscape of Carthage was largely lost. Since 1982, French archaeologist Serge Lancel excavated a residential area of the Punic Carthage on top of Byrsa hill near the Forum of the Roman Carthage. The neighborhood can be dated back to early second century BC, and with its houses, shops, and private spaces, is significant for what it reveals about daily life of the Punic Carthage.[50]
+
+The remains have been preserved under embankments, the substructures of the later Roman forum, whose foundation piles dot the district. The housing blocks are separated by a grid of straight streets about 6 m (20 ft) wide, with a roadway consisting of clay; in situ stairs compensate for the slope of the hill. Construction of this type presupposes organization and political will, and has inspired the name of the neighborhood, "Hannibal district", referring to the legendary Punic general or sufet (consul) at the beginning of the second century BC. The habitat is typical, even stereotypical. The street was often used as a storefront/shopfront; cisterns were installed in basements to collect water for domestic use, and a long corridor on the right side of each residence led to a courtyard containing a sump, around which various other elements may be found. In some places, the ground is covered with mosaics called punica pavement, sometimes using a characteristic red mortar.
+
+Punic culture and agricultural sciences, when arrived at Carthage from eastern Mediterranean, gradually adapted to the local African conditions. The merchant harbor at Carthage was developed after settlement of the nearby Punic town of Utica, and eventually the surrounding African countryside was brought into the orbit of the Punic urban centers, first commercially, then politically. Direct management over cultivation of neighbouring lands by Punic owners followed.[51] A 28-volume work on agriculture written in Punic by Mago, a retired army general (c. 300), was translated into Latin and later into Greek. The original and both translations have been lost; however, some of Mago's text has survived in other Latin works.[52] Olive trees (e.g., grafting), fruit trees (pomegranate, almond, fig, date palm), viniculture, bees, cattle, sheep, poultry, implements, and farm management were among the ancient topics which Mago discussed. As well, Mago addresses the wine-maker's art (here a type of sherry).[53][54][55]
+
+In Punic farming society, according to Mago, the small estate owners were the chief producers. They were, two modern historians write, not absent landlords. Rather, the likely reader of Mago was "the master of a relatively modest estate, from which, by great personal exertion, he extracted the maximum yield." Mago counselled the rural landowner, for the sake of their own 'utilitarian' interests, to treat carefully and well their managers and farm workers, or their overseers and slaves.[56] Yet elsewhere these writers suggest that rural land ownership provided also a new power base among the city's nobility, for those resident in their country villas.[57][58] By many, farming was viewed as an alternative endeavour to an urban business. Another modern historian opines that more often it was the urban merchant of Carthage who owned rural farming land to some profit, and also to retire there during the heat of summer.[59] It may seem that Mago anticipated such an opinion, and instead issued this contrary advice (as quoted by the Roman writer Columella):
+
+The man who acquires an estate must sell his house, lest he prefer to live in the town rather than in the country. Anyone who prefers to live in a town has no need of an estate in the country."[60] "One who has bought land should sell his town house, so that he will have no desire to worship the household gods of the city rather than those of the country; the man who takes greater delight in his city residence will have no need of a country estate.[61]
+
+The issues involved in rural land management also reveal underlying features of Punic society, its structure and stratification. The hired workers might be considered 'rural proletariat', drawn from the local Berbers. Whether there remained Berber landowners next to Punic-run farms is unclear. Some Berbers became sharecroppers. Slaves acquired for farm work were often prisoners of war. In lands outside Punic political control, independent Berbers cultivated grain and raised horses on their lands. Yet within the Punic domain that surrounded the city-state of Carthage, there were ethnic divisions in addition to the usual quasi feudal distinctions between lord and peasant, or master and serf. This inherent instability in the countryside drew the unwanted attention of potential invaders.[62] Yet for long periods Carthage was able to manage these social difficulties.[63]
+
+The many amphorae with Punic markings subsequently found about ancient Mediterranean coastal settlements testify to Carthaginian trade in locally made olive oil and wine.[64] Carthage's agricultural production was held in high regard by the ancients, and rivaled that of Rome—they were once competitors, e.g., over their olive harvests. Under Roman rule, however, grain production ([wheat] and barley) for export increased dramatically in 'Africa'; yet these later fell with the rise in Roman Egypt's grain exports. Thereafter olive groves and vineyards were re-established around Carthage. Visitors to the several growing regions that surrounded the city wrote admiringly of the lush green gardens, orchards, fields, irrigation channels, hedgerows (as boundaries), as well as the many prosperous farming towns located across the rural landscape.[65][66]
+
+Accordingly, the Greek author and compiler Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), who enjoyed access to ancient writings later lost, and on which he based most of his writings, described agricultural land near the city of Carthage circa 310 BC:
+
+It was divided into market gardens and orchards of all sorts of fruit trees, with many streams of water flowing in channels irrigating every part. There were country homes everywhere, lavishly built and covered with stucco. ... Part of the land was planted with vines, part with olives and other productive trees. Beyond these, cattle and sheep were pastured on the plains, and there were meadows with grazing horses.[67][68]
+
+Greek cities contested with Carthage for the Western Mediterranean culminating in the Sicilian Wars and the Pyrrhic War over Sicily, while the Romans fought three wars against Carthage, known as the Punic Wars,[69][70] "Punic" meaning "Phoenician" in Latin, as Carthage was a Phoenician colony grown into a kingdom.
+
+The Carthaginian republic was one of the longest-lived and largest states in the ancient Mediterranean. Reports relay several wars with Syracuse and finally, Rome, which eventually resulted in the defeat and destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians were Phoenician settlers originating in the Mediterranean coast of the Near East. They spoke Canaanite, a Semitic language, and followed a local variety of the ancient Canaanite religion.
+
+The fall of Carthage came at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC at the Battle of Carthage.[71] Despite initial devastating Roman naval losses and Rome's recovery from the brink of defeat after the terror of a 15-year occupation of much of Italy by Hannibal, the end of the series of wars resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus. The Romans pulled the Phoenician warships out into the harbor and burned them before the city, and went from house to house, capturing and enslaving the people. About 50,000 Carthaginians were sold into slavery.[72] The city was set ablaze and razed to the ground, leaving only ruins and rubble. After the fall of Carthage, Rome annexed the majority of the Carthaginian colonies, including other North African locations such as Volubilis, Lixus, Chellah.[73]
+
+The legend that the city was sown with salt remains widely accepted despite a lack of evidence among ancient historical accounts;[74] According to R.T. Ridley, the earliest such claim is attributable to B.L. Hallward's chapter in Cambridge Ancient History, published in 1930. Ridley contended that Hallward's claim may have gained traction due to historical evidence of other salted-earth instances such as Abimelech's salting of Shechem in Judges 9:45.[75][76] B.H. Warmington admitted he had repeated Hallward's error, but posited that the legend precedes 1930 and inspired repetitions of the practice. He also suggested that it is useful to understand how subsequent historical narratives have been framed and that the symbolic value of the legend is so great and enduring that it mitigates a deficiency of concrete evidence.[74]
+
+For many years but especially beginning in the 19th century,[77] various texts claim that after defeating the city of Carthage in the Third Punic War (146 BC), the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ordered the city be sacked, forced its surviving inhabitants into slavery, plowed it over and sowed it with salt. However, no ancient sources exist documenting the salting itself. The element of salting is therefore probably a later invention modeled on the Biblical story of Shechem.[78] The ritual of symbolically drawing a plow over the site of a city is mentioned in ancient sources, but not in reference to Carthage specifically.[79] When Pope Boniface VIII destroyed Palestrina in 1299, he issued a papal bull that it be plowed "following the old example of Carthage in Africa" and also salted.[80] "I have run the plough over it, like the ancient Carthage of Africa, and I have had salt sown upon it...."[81]
+
+When Carthage fell, its nearby rival Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and replaced Carthage as the leading center of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbor until it became useless, and Rome was forced to rebuild Carthage.
+
+By 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus founded a short-lived colony, called Colonia Iunonia, after the Latin name for the Punic goddess Tanit, Iuno Caelestis. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power.
+
+After this ill-fated attempt, a new city of Carthage was built on the same land by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, and by the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the Roman Empire, with a peak population of 500,000.[82] It was the center of the province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the Empire. Among its major monuments was an amphitheater.
+
+Carthage also became a center of early Christianity (see Carthage (episcopal see)). In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, no fewer than 70 bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing against. At the Council of Carthage (397), the biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed.  The Christians at Carthage conducted persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, notably the famous Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed.[83]
+
+The political fallout from the deep disaffection of African Christians is supposedly a crucial factor in the ease with which Carthage and the other centers were captured in the fifth century by Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, who defeated the Roman general Bonifacius and made the city the capital of the Vandal Kingdom. Gaiseric was considered a heretic, too, an Arian, and though Arians commonly despised Catholic Christians, a mere promise of toleration might have caused the city's population to accept him.
+
+The Vandals during their conquest are said to have destroyed parts of Carthage by Victor Vitensis in Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provincia including various buildings and churches.[84]
+
+After a failed attempt to recapture the city in the fifth century, the Eastern Roman Empire finally subdued the Vandals in the Vandalic War in 533–534. Thereafter, the city became the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa, which was made into an exarchate during the emperor Maurice's reign, as was Ravenna on the Italian Peninsula. These two exarchates were the western bulwarks of the Byzantine Empire, all that remained of its power in the West. In the early seventh century Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Carthage, overthrew the Byzantine emperor Phocas, whereupon his son Heraclius succeeded to the imperial throne.
+
+The Roman Exarchate of Africa was not able to withstand the seventh-century Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 686 sent a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qays, who won a battle over the Romans and Berbers led by King Kusaila of the Kingdom of Altava on the plain of Kairouan, but he could not follow that up. In 695, Hassan ibn al-Nu'man captured Carthage and advanced into the Atlas Mountains. An imperial fleet arrived and retook Carthage, but in 698, Hasan ibn al-Nu'man returned and defeated Emperor Tiberios III at the 698 Battle of Carthage. Roman imperial forces withdrew from all of Africa except Ceuta. Fearing that the Byzantine Empire might reconquer it, they decided to destroy Roman Carthage in a scorched earth policy and establish their headquarters somewhere else. Its walls were torn down, the water supply from its aqueducts cut off, the agricultural land was ravaged and its harbors made unusable.[3]
+
+The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to the Byzantine Empire's influence in the region.
+
+It is visible from archaeological evidence, that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied. The neighborhood of Bjordi Djedid continued to be occupied. The Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the historian Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition. They also had production centers nearby. It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period. The Bir Ftouha church might have continued to remain in use though it is not clear when it became uninhabited.[4] Constantine the African was born in Carthage.[85]
+
+The Medina of Tunis, originally a Berber settlement, was established as the new regional center under the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century. Under the Aghlabids, the people of Tunis revolted numerous times, but the city profited from economic improvements and quickly became the second most important in the kingdom. It was briefly the national capital, from the end of the reign of Ibrahim II in 902, until 909, when the Shi'ite Berbers took over Ifriqiya and founded the Fatimid Caliphate.
+
+Carthage remained a residential see until the high medieval period, mentioned in
+two letters of Pope Leo IX dated 1053,[86] written in reply to consultations regarding a conflict between the bishops of Carthage and Gummi.
+In each of the two letters, Pope Leo declares that, after the Bishop of Rome, the first archbishop and chief metropolitan of the whole of Africa is the bishop of Carthage.
+Later, an archbishop of Carthage named Cyriacus was imprisoned by the Arab rulers because of an accusation by some Christians. Pope Gregory VII wrote him a letter of consolation, repeating the hopeful assurances of the primacy of the Church of Carthage, "whether the Church of Carthage should still lie desolate or rise again in glory".
+By 1076, Cyriacus was set free, but there was only one other bishop in the province. These are the last of whom there is mention in that period of the history of the see.[87][88]
+
+The fortress of Carthage was used by the Muslims until Hafsid era and was captured by the Crusaders during the Eighth Crusade. The inhabitants of Carthage were slaughtered by the Crusaders after they took it, and it was used as a base of operations against the Hafsids. After repelling them, Muhammad I al-Mustansir decided to destroy Cathage's defenses completely to prevent a repeat.[5]
+
+Carthage is some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east-northeast of Tunis; the settlements nearest to Carthage were the town of Sidi Bou Said to the north and the village of Le Kram to the south.
+Sidi Bou Said was a village which had grown around the tomb of the eponymous sufi saint (d. 1231), which had been developed into a town under Ottoman rule in the 18th century. Le Kram was developed in the late 19th century under French administration as a settlement close to the port of La Goulette.
+
+In 1881, Tunisia became a French protectorate, and in the same year Charles Lavigerie, who was archbishop of Algiers, became apostolic administrator of the vicariate of Tunis. In the following year, Lavigerie became a cardinal. He "saw himself as the reviver of the ancient Christian Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian of Carthage",[89] and, on 10 November 1884, was successful in his great ambition of having the metropolitan see of Carthage restored, with himself as its first archbishop.[90] In line with the declaration of Pope Leo IX in 1053, Pope Leo XIII acknowledged the revived Archdiocese of Carthage as the primatial see of Africa and Lavigerie as primate.[91][92]
+
+The Acropolium of Carthage (Saint Louis Cathedral of Carthage) was erected on Byrsa hill in 1884.
+
+The Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe conducted a first survey of the topography of the archaeological site (published in 1833).
+Antiquarian interest was intensified following the publication of Flaubert's Salammbô in 1858. Charles Ernest Beulé performed some preliminary excavations of Roman remains on Byrsa hill in 1860.[93] A more systematic survey of both Punic and Roman-era remains is due to Alfred Louis Delattre, who was sent to Tunis by cardinal Charles Lavigerie in 1875 on both an apostolic and an archaeological mission.[94]
+Audollent (1901, p. 203) cites Delattre and Lavigerie to the effect that in the 1880s, locals still knew the area of the ancient city under the name of Cartagenna (i.e. reflecting the Latin n-stem Carthāgine).
+
+Auguste Audollent divides the area of Roman Carthage into four quarters, Cartagenna, Dermèche, Byrsa and La Malga. Cartagenna and Dermèche correspond with the lower city, including the site of Punic Carthage; Byrsa is associated with the upper city, which in Punic times was a walled citadel above the harbour; and La Malga is linked with the more remote parts of the upper city in Roman times.
+
+French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.[95]
+
+A temple at Amman (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessy in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire. While evidence of child sacrifice in Canaan was the object of academic disagreement, with some scholars arguing that merely children's cemeteries had been unearthed in Carthage, the mixture of children's with animal bones as well as associated epigraphic evidence involving mention of mlk led some to believe that, at least in Carthage, child sacrifice was indeed common practice.[96]  However, though the animals were surely sacrificed, this does not entirely indicate that the infants were, and in fact the bones indicate the opposite. Rather, the animal sacrifice was likely done to, in some way, honour the deceased.[97]
+
+In 2016, an ancient Carthaginian individual, who was excavated from a Punic tomb in Byrsa Hill, was found to belong to the rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup. The Young Man of Byrsa specimen dates from the late 6th century BCE, and his lineage is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb.[98]
+
+In 1920, the first seaplane base was built on the Lake of Tunis for the seaplanes of Compagnie Aéronavale.[99] The Tunis Airfield opened in 1938, serving around 5,800 passengers annually on the Paris-Tunis route.[100]
+During World War II, the airport was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force as a headquarters and command control base for the Italian Campaign of 1943.
+Construction on the Tunis-Carthage Airport, which was fully funded by France, began in 1944, and in 1948 the airport become the main hub for Tunisair.
+
+In the 1950s the Lycée Français de Carthage was established to serve French families in Carthage. In 1961 it was given to the Tunisian government as part of the Independence of Tunisia, so the nearby Collège Maurice Cailloux in La Marsa, previously an annex of the Lycée Français de Carthage, was renamed to the Lycée Français de La Marsa and began serving the lycée level. It is currently the Lycée Gustave Flaubert.[101]
+
+After Tunisian independence in 1956, the Tunis conurbation gradually extended around the airport, and Carthage (قرطاج  Qarṭāj) is now a suburb of Tunis, covering the area between Sidi Bou Said and Le Kram.[102][103]
+Its population as of January 2013 was estimated at 21,276,[104]
+mostly attracting the more wealthy residents.[105] If Carthage is not the capital, it tends to be the political pole, a « place of emblematic power » according to Sophie Bessis,[106] leaving to Tunis the economic and administrative roles. The Carthage Palace (the Tunisian presidential palace) is located in the coast.[107]
+
+The suburb has six train stations of the TGM line between Le Kram and Sidi Bou Said:
+Carthage Salammbo (named for Salambo, the fictional daughter of Hamilcar), Carthage Byrsa (named for Byrsa hill), Carthage Dermech (Dermèche), Carthage Hannibal (named for Hannibal), Carthage Présidence (named for the Presidential Palace) and Carthage Amilcar (named for Hamilcar).
+
+The scant remains of what was once a great city are reflected upon in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem, Carthage, published in 1836 with quotes from Sir Grenville Temple's Journal.
+
+The merchants of Carthage were in part heirs of the Mediterranean trade developed by Phoenicia, and so also heirs of the rivalry with Greek merchants. Business activity was accordingly both stimulated and challenged. Cyprus had been an early site of such commercial contests. The Phoenicians then had ventured into the western Mediterranean, founding trading posts, including Utica and Carthage. The Greeks followed, entering the western seas where the commercial rivalry continued. Eventually it would lead, especially in Sicily, to several centuries of intermittent war.[108][109] Although Greek-made merchandise was generally considered superior in design, Carthage also produced trade goods in abundance. That Carthage came to function as a manufacturing colossus was shown during the Third Punic War with Rome. Carthage, which had previously disarmed, then was made to face the fatal Roman siege. The city "suddenly organised the manufacture of arms" with great skill and effectiveness. According to Strabo (63 BC – AD 21) in his Geographica:
+
+[Carthage] each day produced one hundred and forty finished shields, three hundred swords, five hundred spears, and one thousand missiles for the catapults... . Furthermore, [Carthage although surrounded by the Romans] built one hundred and twenty decked ships in two months... for old timber had been stored away in readiness, and a large number of skilled workmen, maintained at public expense.[110]
+
+The textiles industry in Carthage probably started in private homes, but the existence of professional weavers indicates that a sort of factory system later developed. Products included embroidery, carpets, and use of the purple murex dye (for which the Carthaginian isle of Djerba was famous). Metalworkers developed specialized skills, i.e., making various weapons for the armed forces, as well as domestic articles, such as knives, forks, scissors, mirrors, and razors (all articles found in tombs). Artwork in metals included vases and lamps in bronze, also bowls, and plates. Other products came from such crafts as the potters, the glassmakers, and the goldsmiths. Inscriptions on votive stele indicate that many were not slaves but 'free citizens'.[111]
+
+Phoenician and Punic merchant ventures were often run as a family enterprise, putting to work its members and its subordinate clients. Such family-run businesses might perform a variety of tasks:  own and maintain the ships, providing the captain and crew;  do the negotiations overseas, either by barter or buying and selling, of their own manufactured commodities and trade goods, and native products (metals, foodstuffs, etc.) to carry and trade elsewhere; and send their agents to stay at distant outposts in order to make lasting local contacts, and later to establish a warehouse of shipped goods for exchange, and eventually perhaps a settlement. Over generations, such activity might result in the creation of a wide-ranging network of trading operations. Ancillary would be the growth of reciprocity between different family firms, foreign and domestic.[112][113]
+
+State protection was extended to its sea traders by the Phoenician city of Tyre and later likewise by the daughter city-state of Carthage.[114] Stéphane Gsell, the well-regarded French historian of ancient North Africa, summarized the major principles guiding the civic rulers of Carthage with regard to its policies for trade and commerce:
+
+Both the Phoenicians and the Cathaginians were well known in antiquity for their secrecy in general, and especially pertaining to commercial contacts and trade routes.[116][117][118] Both cultures excelled in commercial dealings. Strabo (63BC-AD21) the Greek geographer wrote that before its fall (in 146 BC) Carthage enjoyed a population of 700,000, and directed an alliance of 300 cities.[119] The Greek historian Polybius (c.203–120) referred to Carthage as "the wealthiest city in the world".[120]
+
+A "suffet" (possibly two) was elected by the citizens, and held office with no military power for a one-year term. Carthaginian generals marshalled mercenary armies and were separately elected. From about 550 to 450 the Magonid family monopolized the top military position; later the Barcid family acted similarly. Eventually it came to be that, after a war, the commanding general had to testify justifying his actions before a court of 104 judges.[121]
+
+Aristotle (384–322) discusses Carthage in his work, Politica; he begins: "The Carthaginians are also considered to have an excellent form of government." He briefly describes the city as a "mixed constitution", a political arrangement with cohabiting elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, i.e., a king (Gk: basileus), a council of elders (Gk: gerusia), and the people (Gk: demos).[122]  Later Polybius of Megalopolis (c.204–122, Greek) in his Histories would describe the Roman Republic in more detail as a mixed constitution in which the Consuls were the monarchy, the Senate the aristocracy, and the Assemblies the democracy.[123]
+
+Evidently Carthage also had an institution of elders who advised the Suffets, similar to a Greek gerusia or the Roman Senate.  We do not have a Punic name for this body. At times its members would travel with an army general on campaign.  Members also formed permanent committees.  The institution had several hundred members drawn from the wealthiest class who held office for life.  Vacancies were probably filled by recruitment from among the elite, i.e., by co-option. From among its members were selected the 104 Judges mentioned above. Later the 104 would come to evaluate not only army generals but other office holders as well. Aristotle regarded the 104 as most important; he compared it to the ephorate of Sparta with regard to control over security. In Hannibal's time, such a Judge held office for life.  At some stage there also came to be independent self-perpetuating boards of five who filled vacancies and supervised (non-military) government administration.[124]
+
+Popular assemblies also existed at Carthage. When deadlocked the Suffets and the quasi-senatorial institution of elders might request the assembly to vote; also, assembly votes were requested in very crucial matters in order to achieve political consensus and popular coherence. The assembly members had no legal wealth or birth qualification.  How its members were selected is unknown, e.g., whether by festival group or urban ward or another method.[125][126][127]
+
+The Greeks were favourably impressed by the constitution of Carthage; Aristotle had a separate study of it made which unfortunately is lost. In his Politica he states: "The government of Carthage is oligarchical, but they successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the people after another by sending them to their colonies." "[T]heir policy is to send some [poorer citizens] to their dependent towns, where they grow rich."[128][129] Yet Aristotle continues, "[I]f any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would be no way of restoring peace by legal means." Aristotle remarked also:
+
+Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remain loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.[130]
+
+Here one may remember that the city-state of Carthage, who citizens were mainly Libyphoenicians (of Phoenician ancestry born in Africa), dominated and exploited an agricultural countryside composed mainly of native Berber sharecroppers and farmworkers, whose affiliations to Carthage were open to divergent possibilities. Beyond these more settled Berbers and the Punic farming towns and rural manors, lived the independent Berber tribes, who were mostly pastoralists.
+
+In the brief, uneven review of government at Carthage found in his Politica Aristotle mentions several faults. Thus, "that the same person should hold many offices, which is a favorite practice among the Carthaginians." Aristotle disapproves, mentioning the flute-player and the shoemaker. Also, that "magistrates should be chosen not only for their merit but for their wealth." Aristotle's opinion is that focus on pursuit of wealth will lead to oligarchy and its evils.
+
+[S]urely it is a bad thing that the greatest offices... should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For, whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example; and, where virtue has not the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established.[131]
+
+In Carthage the people seemed politically satisfied and submissive, according to the historian Warmington. They in their assemblies only rarely exercised the few opportunities given them to assent to state decisions. Popular influence over government appears not to have been an issue at Carthage. Being a commercial republic fielding a mercenary army, the people were not conscripted for military service, an experience which can foster the feel for popular political action. But perhaps this misunderstands the society; perhaps the people, whose values were based on small-group loyalty, felt themselves sufficiently connected to their city's leadership by the very integrity of the person-to-person linkage within their social fabric. Carthage was very stable; there were few openings for tyrants. Only after defeat by Rome devastated Punic imperial ambitions did the people of Carthage seem to question their governance and to show interest in political reform.[132]
+
+In 196, following the Second Punic War (218–201), Hannibal Barca, still greatly admired as a Barcid military leader, was elected suffet. When his reforms were blocked by a financial official about to become a judge for life, Hannibal rallied the populace against the 104 judges. He proposed a one-year term for the 104, as part of a major civic overhaul. Additionally, the reform included a restructuring of the city's revenues, and the fostering of trade and agriculture. The changes rather quickly resulted in a noticeable increase in prosperity. Yet his incorrigible political opponents cravenly went to Rome, to charge Hannibal with conspiracy, namely, plotting war against Rome in league with Antiochus the Hellenic ruler of Syria. Although the Roman Scipio Africanus resisted such manoeuvre, eventually intervention by Rome forced Hannibal to leave Carthage. Thus, corrupt city officials efficiently blocked Hannibal Barca in his efforts to reform the government of Carthage.[133][134]
+
+Mago (6th century) was King of Carthage; the head of state, war leader, and religious figurehead.  His family was considered to possess a sacred quality.  Mago's office was somewhat similar to that of a pharaoh, but although kept in a family it was not hereditary, it was limited by legal consent. Picard, accordingly, believes that the council of elders and the popular assembly are late institutions. Carthage was founded by the king of Tyre who had a royal monopoly on this trading venture. Thus it was the royal authority stemming from this traditional source of power that the King of Carthage possessed. Later, as other Phoenician ship companies entered the trading region, and so associated with the city-state, the King of Carthage had to keep order among a rich variety of powerful merchants in their negotiations among themselves and over risky commerce across the Mediterranean. Under these circumstance, the office of king began to be transformed. Yet it was not until the aristocrats of Carthage became wealthy owners of agricultural lands in Africa that a council of elders was institutionalized at Carthage.[135]
+
+Most ancient literature concerning Carthage comes from Greek and Roman sources as Carthage's own documents were destroyed by the Romans.[136][137] Apart from inscriptions, hardly any Punic literature has survived, and none in its own language and script.[138] A brief catalogue would include:[139]
+
+"[F]rom the Greek author Plutarch [(c. 46 – c. 120)] we learn of the 'sacred books' in Punic safeguarded by the city's temples. Few Punic texts survive, however."[150] Once "the City Archives, the Annals, and the scribal lists of suffets" existed, but evidently these were destroyed in the horrific fires during the Roman capture of the city in 146 BC.[151]
+
+Yet some Punic books (Latin: libri punici) from the libraries of Carthage reportedly did survive the fires.[152] These works were apparently given by Roman authorities to the newly augmented Berber rulers.[153][154] Over a century after the fall of Carthage, the Roman politician-turned-author Gaius Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (86–34) reported his having seen volumes written in Punic, which books were said to be once possessed by the Berber king, Hiempsal II (r. 88–81).[155][156][157] By way of Berber informants and Punic translators, Sallust had used these surviving books to write his brief sketch of Berber affairs.[158][159]
+
+Probably some of Hiempsal II's libri punici, that had escaped the fires that consumed Carthage in 146 BC, wound up later in the large royal library of his grandson Juba II (r.25 BC-AD 24).[160] Juba II not only was a Berber king, and husband of Cleopatra's daughter, but also a scholar and author in Greek of no less than nine works.[161] He wrote for the Mediterranean-wide audience then enjoying classical literature. The libri punici inherited from his grandfather surely became useful to him when composing his Libyka, a work on North Africa written in Greek. Unfortunately, only fragments of Libyka survive, mostly from quotations made by other ancient authors.[162] It may have been Juba II who 'discovered' the five-centuries-old 'log book' of Hanno the Navigator, called the Periplus, among library documents saved from fallen Carthage.[163][164][165]
+
+In the end, however, most Punic writings that survived the destruction of Carthage "did not escape the immense wreckage in which so many of Antiquity's literary works perished."[166] Accordingly, the long and continuous interactions between Punic citizens of Carthage and the Berber communities that surrounded the city have no local historian. Their political arrangements and periodic crises, their economic and work life, the cultural ties and social relations established and nourished (infrequently as kin), are not known to us directly from ancient Punic authors in written accounts. Neither side has left us their stories about life in Punic-era Carthage.[167]
+
+Regarding Phoenician writings, few remain and these seldom refer to Carthage. The more ancient and most informative are cuneiform tablets, ca. 1600–1185, from ancient Ugarit, located to the north of Phoenicia on the Syrian coast; it was a Canaanite city politically affiliated with the Hittites. The clay tablets tell of myths, epics, rituals, medical and administrative matters, and also correspondence.[168][169][170] The highly valued works of Sanchuniathon, an ancient priest of Beirut, who reportedly wrote on Phoenician religion and the origins of civilization, are themselves completely lost, but some little content endures twice removed.[171][172] Sanchuniathon was said to have lived in the 11th century, which is considered doubtful.[173][174]  Much later a Phoenician History by Philo of Byblos (64–141) reportedly existed, written in Greek, but only fragments of this work survive.[175][176] An explanation proffered for why so few Phoenician works endured: early on (11th century) archives and records began to be kept on papyrus, which does not long survive in a moist coastal climate.[177] Also, both Phoenicians and Carthaginians were well known for their secrecy.[178][179]
+
+Thus, of their ancient writings we have little of major interest left to us by Carthage, or by Phoenicia the country of origin of the city founders. "Of the various Phoenician and Punic compositions alluded to by the ancient classical authors, not a single work or even fragment has survived in its original idiom." "Indeed, not a single Phoenician manuscript has survived in the original [language] or in translation."[180] We cannot therefore access directly the line of thought or the contour of their worldview as expressed in their own words, in their own voice.[181] Ironically, it was the Phoenicians who "invented or at least perfected and transmitted a form of writing [the alphabet] that has influenced dozens of cultures including our own."[182][183][184]
+
+As noted, the celebrated ancient books on agriculture written by Mago of Carthage survives only via quotations in Latin from several later Roman works.

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+
+
+The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). Its range includes most of Canada and Alaska, all of the contiguous United States, and northern Mexico. It is found near large bodies of open water with an abundant food supply and old-growth trees for nesting.
+
+The bald eagle is an opportunistic feeder which subsists mainly on fish, which it swoops down and snatches from the water with its talons. It builds the largest nest of any North American bird and the largest tree nests ever recorded for any animal species, up to 4 m (13 ft) deep, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) wide, and 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons) in weight. Sexual maturity is attained at the age of four to five years.
+
+Bald eagles are not actually bald; the name derives from an older meaning of the word, "white headed". The adult is mainly brown with a white head and tail. The sexes are identical in plumage, but females are about 25 percent larger than males. The beak is large and hooked. The plumage of the immature is brown.
+
+The bald eagle is the national bird of the United States of America. The bald eagle appears on its seal. In the late 20th century it was on the brink of extirpation in the contiguous United States. Populations have since recovered and the species was removed from the U.S. government's list of endangered species on July 12, 1995 and transferred to the list of threatened species. It was removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the contiguous states on June 28, 2007.
+
+The plumage of an adult bald eagle is evenly dark brown with a white head and tail. The tail is moderately long and slightly wedge-shaped. Males and females are identical in plumage coloration, but sexual dimorphism is evident in the species, in that females are 25% larger than males.[3] The beak, feet and irises are bright yellow. The legs are feather-free, and the toes are short and powerful with large talons. The highly developed talon of the hind toe is used to pierce the vital areas of prey while it is held immobile by the front toes.[4] The beak is large and hooked, with a yellow cere.[5] The adult bald eagle is unmistakable in its native range. The closely related African fish eagle (Haliaeetus vocifer) (from far outside the bald eagle's range) also has a brown body (albeit of somewhat more rufous hue), white head and tail, but differs from the bald in having a white chest and black tip to the bill.[6]
+
+The plumage of the immature is a dark brown overlaid with messy white streaking until the fifth (rarely fourth, very rarely third) year, when it reaches sexual maturity.[3][4] Immature bald eagles are distinguishable from the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), the only other very large, non-vulturine raptorial bird in North America, in that the former has a larger, more protruding head with a larger beak, straighter edged wings which are held flat (not slightly raised) and with a stiffer wing beat and feathers which do not completely cover the legs. When seen well, the golden eagle is distinctive in plumage with a more solid warm brown color than an immature bald eagle, with a reddish-golden patch to its nape and (in immature birds) a highly contrasting set of white squares on the wing.[7] Another distinguishing feature of the immature bald eagle over the mature bird is its black,  yellow-tipped beak; the mature eagle has a fully yellow beak. The bald eagle has sometimes been considered the largest true raptor (accipitrid) in North America. The only larger species of raptor-like bird is the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), a New World vulture which today is not generally considered a taxonomic ally of true accipitrids.[8] However, the golden eagle, averaging 4.18 kg (9.2 lb) and 63 cm (25 in) in wing chord length in its American race (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis), is merely 455 g (1.003 lb) lighter in mean body mass and exceeds the bald eagle in mean wing chord length by around 3 cm (1.2 in).[6][9] Additionally, the bald eagle's close cousins, the relatively longer-winged but shorter-tailed white-tailed eagle and the overall larger Steller's sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus), may, rarely, wander to coastal Alaska from Asia.[6]
+
+The bald eagle has a body length of 70–102 cm (28–40 in). Typical wingspan is between 1.8 and 2.3 m (5 ft 11 in and 7 ft 7 in) and mass is normally between 3 and 6.3 kg (6.6 and 13.9 lb).[6] Females are about 25% larger than males, averaging as much as 5.6 kg (12 lb), and against the males' average weight of 4.1 kg (9.0 lb).[3][10][11][12]
+
+The size of the bird varies by location and generally corresponds with Bergmann's rule, since the species increases in size further away from the Equator and the tropics. For example, eagles from South Carolina average 3.27 kg (7.2 lb) in mass and 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) in wingspan, smaller than their northern counterparts.[13] One field guide in Florida listed similarly small sizes for bald eagles there, at about 4.13 kg (9.1 lb).[14] Of intermediate size, 117 migrant bald eagles in Glacier National Park were found to average 4.22 kg (9.3 lb) but this was mostly (possibly post-dispersal) juvenile eagles, with 6 adults here averaging 4.3 kg (9.5 lb).[15] Wintering eagles in Arizona (winter weights are usually the highest through the year since like many raptors they spend the highest percentage of time foraging during winter) were found to average 4.74 kg (10.4 lb).[16] The largest eagles are from Alaska, where large females may weigh more than 7 kg (15 lb) and span 2.44 m (8 ft 0 in) across the wings.[5][17] A survey of adult weights in Alaska showed that females there weighed on average 5.35 kg (11.8 lb), respectively, and males weighed 4.23 kg (9.3 lb) against immatures which averaged 5.09 kg (11.2 lb) and 4.05 kg (8.9 lb) in the two sexes.[18][19] An Alaskan adult female eagle that was considered outsized weighed some 7.4 kg (16 lb).[20] R.S. Palmer listed a record from 1876 in Wyoming County, New York of an enormous adult bald eagle that was shot and reportedly scaled 8.2 kg (18 lb).[19] Among standard linear measurements, the wing chord is 51.5–69 cm (20.3–27.2 in), the tail is 23–37 cm (9.1–14.6 in) long, and the tarsus is 8 to 11 cm (3.1 to 4.3 in).[6][21] The culmen reportedly ranges from 3 to 7.5 cm (1.2 to 3.0 in), while the measurement from the gape to the tip of the bill is 7–9 cm (2.8–3.5 in).[21][22] The bill size is unusually variable as Alaskan eagles could be up to twice the bill length of "southern birds" (i.e. from Georgia, Louisiana, Florida), with means in between the sexes of 6.83 cm (2.69 in) and 4.12 cm (1.62 in) in culmen length, respectively, from these two areas.[23][24]
+
+The call consists of weak staccato, chirping whistles, kleek kik ik ik ik, somewhat similar in cadence to a gull's call. The calls of young birds tend to be more harsh and shrill than those of adults.[6][7]
+
+The bald eagle is placed in the genus Haliaeetus (sea eagles), and gets both its common and specific scientific names from the distinctive appearance of the adult's head. Bald in the English name is from the older usage meaning "white" rather than "hairless", referring to the white head and tail feathers and their contrast with the darker body, as in piebald.[25] The genus name is New Latin: Haliaeetus (from the Ancient Greek: ἁλιάετος, romanized: haliaetos, lit. 'sea eagle'),[26] and the specific name, leucocephalus, is Latinized (Ancient Greek: λευκός, romanized: leukos, lit. 'white')[27] and (κεφαλή, kephalḗ, 'head').[28][29]
+
+The bald eagle was one of the many species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work Systema Naturae, under the name Falco leucocephalus.[30]
+
+There are two recognized subspecies of bald eagle:[3][31]
+
+The bald eagle forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle of Eurasia. This species pair consists of a white-headed and a tan-headed species of roughly equal size; the white-tailed eagle also has overall somewhat paler brown body plumage. The two species fill the same ecological niche in their respective ranges. The pair diverged from other sea eagles at the beginning of the Early Miocene (c. 10 Ma BP) at the latest, but possibly as early as the Early/Middle Oligocene, 28 Ma BP, if the most ancient fossil record is correctly assigned to this genus.[33]
+
+The bald eagle's natural range covers most of North America, including most of Canada, all of the continental United States, and northern Mexico. It is the only sea eagle endemic to North America. Occupying varied habitats from the bayous of Louisiana to the Sonoran Desert and the eastern deciduous forests of Quebec and New England, northern birds are migratory, while southern birds are resident, remaining on their breeding territory all year. At minimum population, in the 1950s, it was largely restricted to Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, northern and eastern Canada, and Florida.[34] During the interval 1966-2015 bald eagle numbers increased substantially throughout its winter and breeding ranges,[35] and as of 2018 the species nests in every continental state and province in the United States and Canada.[36]
+
+The majority of bald eagles in Canada are found along the British Columbia coast while large populations are found in the forests of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario.[37] Bald eagles also congregate in certain locations in winter. From November until February, one to two thousand birds winter in Squamish, British Columbia, about halfway between Vancouver and Whistler. The birds primarily gather along the Squamish and Cheakamus Rivers, attracted by the salmon spawning in the area.[38] Similar congregations of wintering bald eagles at open lakes and rivers, wherein fish are readily available for hunting or scavenging, are observed in the northern United States.[39]
+
+It has occurred as a vagrant twice in Ireland; a juvenile was shot illegally in Fermanagh on January 11, 1973 (misidentified at first as a white-tailed eagle), and an exhausted juvenile was captured in Kerry on November 15, 1987.[40]
+
+The bald eagle occurs during its breeding season in virtually any kind of American wetland habitat such as seacoasts, rivers, large lakes or marshes or other large bodies of open water with an abundance of fish. Studies have shown a preference for bodies of water with a circumference greater than 11 km (7 mi), and lakes with an area greater than 10 km2 (4 sq mi) are optimal for breeding bald eagles.[41]
+
+The bald eagle typically requires old-growth and mature stands of coniferous or hardwood trees for perching, roosting, and nesting. Tree species reportedly is less important to the eagle pair than the tree's height, composition and location.[42] Perhaps of paramount importance for this species is an abundance of comparatively large trees surrounding the body of water. Selected trees must have good visibility, be over 20 m (66 ft) tall, an open structure, and proximity to prey. If nesting trees are in standing water such as in a mangrove swamp, the nest can be located fairly low, at as low 6 m (20 ft) above the ground.[43] In a more typical tree standing on dry ground, nests may be located from 16 to 38 m (52 to 125 ft) in height. In Chesapeake Bay, nesting trees averaged 82 cm (32 in) in diameter and 28 m (92 ft) in total height, while in Florida, the average nesting tree stands 23 m (75 ft) high and is 23 cm (9.1 in) in diameter.[44][45] Trees used for nesting in the Greater Yellowstone area average 27 m (89 ft) high.[46] Trees or forest used for nesting should have a canopy cover of no more than 60%, and no less than 20%, and be in close proximity to water.[41] Most nests have been found within 200 m (660 ft) of open water. The greatest distance from open water recorded for a bald eagle nest was over 3 km (1.9 mi), in Florida.[8]
+
+Bald eagle nests are often very large in order to compensate for size of the birds. The largest recorded nest was found in Florida in 1963, and was measured at nearly 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep.[47]
+
+In Florida, nesting habitats often consist of mangrove swamps, the shorelines of lakes and rivers, pinelands, seasonally flooded flatwoods, hardwood swamps, and open prairies and pastureland with scattered tall trees. Favored nesting trees in Florida are slash pines (Pinus elliottii), longleaf pines (P. palustris), loblolly pines (P. taeda) and cypress trees, but for the southern coastal areas where mangroves are usually used.[43] In Wyoming, groves of mature cottonwoods or tall pines found along streams and rivers are typical bald eagle nesting habitats. Wyoming eagles may inhabit habitat types ranging from large, old-growth stands of ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa) to narrow strips of riparian trees surrounded by rangeland.[8] In Southeast Alaska, Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis) provided 78% of the nesting trees used by eagles, followed by hemlocks (Tsuga) at 20%.[42] Increasingly, eagles nest in man-made reservoirs stocked with fish.[43]
+
+The bald eagle is usually quite sensitive to human activity while nesting, and is found most commonly in areas with minimal human disturbance. It chooses sites more than 1.2 km (0.75 mi) from low-density human disturbance and more than 1.8 km (1.1 mi) from medium- to high-density human disturbance.[41] However, bald eagles will occasionally nest in large estuaries or secluded groves within major cities, such as Hardtack Island on the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon or John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which are surrounded by a great quantity of human activity.[48][49] Even more contrary to the usual sensitivity to disturbance, a family of bald eagles moved to the Harlem neighborhood in New York City in 2010.[50]
+
+While wintering, bald eagles tend to be less habitat and disturbance sensitive. They will commonly congregate at spots with plentiful perches and waters with plentiful prey and (in northern climes) partially unfrozen waters. Alternately, non-breeding or wintering bald eagles, particularly in areas with a lack of human disturbance, spend their time in various upland, terrestrial habitats sometimes quite far away from waterways. In the northern half of North America (especially the interior portion), this terrestrial inhabitance by bald eagles tends to be especially prevalent because unfrozen water may not be accessible. Upland wintering habitats often consist of open habitats with concentrations of medium-sized mammals, such as prairies, meadows or tundra, or open forests with regular carrion access.[8][42]
+
+The bald eagle is a powerful flier, and soars on thermal convection currents. It reaches speeds of 56–70 km/h (35–43 mph) when gliding and flapping, and about 48 km/h (30 mph) while carrying fish.[51] Its dive speed is between 120–160 km/h (75–99 mph), though it seldom dives vertically.[52] Regarding their flying abilities, despite being morphologically less well adapted to faster flight than golden eagles (especially during dives), the bald eagle is considered surprisingly maneuverable in flight. Bounty hunters shooting from helicopters opined that they were far more difficult to hunt while flying than golden eagles as they would turn, double back or dive as soon as approached. Bald eagles have also been recorded catching up to and then swooping under geese in flight, turning over and thrusting their talons into the other bird's breast.[19] It is partially migratory, depending on location. If its territory has access to open water, it remains there year-round, but if the body of water freezes during the winter, making it impossible to obtain food, it migrates to the south or to the coast. A number of populations are subject to post-breeding dispersal, mainly in juveniles; Florida eagles, for example, will disperse northwards in the summer.[53] The bald eagle selects migration routes which take advantage of thermals, updrafts, and food resources. During migration, it may ascend in a thermal and then glide down, or may ascend in updrafts created by the wind against a cliff or other terrain. Migration generally takes place during the daytime, usually between the local hours of 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., when thermals are produced by the sun.[4]
+
+The bald eagle is an opportunistic carnivore with the capacity to consume a great variety of prey. Throughout their range, fish often comprise the majority of the eagle's diet.[54] In 20 food habit studies across the species' range, fish comprised 56% of the diet of nesting eagles, birds 28%, mammals 14% and other prey 2%.[55] More than 400 species are known to be included in the bald eagle's prey spectrum, far more than its ecological equivalent in the Old World, the white-tailed eagle, is known to take. Despite its considerably lower population, the bald eagle may come in second amongst all North American accipitrids, slightly behind only the red-tailed hawk, in number of prey species recorded.[19][55][56][57] In Southeast Alaska, fish comprise approximately 66% of the year-around diet of bald eagles and 78% of the prey brought to the nest by the parents.[58] Eagles living in the Columbia River Estuary in Oregon were found to rely on fish for 90% of their dietary intake.[59]  At least 100 species of fish have been recorded in the bald eagle's diet.[56] In the Pacific Northwest, spawning trout and salmon provide most of the bald eagles' diet from late summer throughout fall.[60] Southeast Alaskan eagles largely prey on pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha), coho salmon (O. kisutch) and, more locally, sockeye salmon (O. nerka), with Chinook salmon (O. tshawytscha), due to their large size (12 to 18 kg (26 to 40 lb) average adult size) probably being taken only as carrion.[58] Also important in the estuaries and shallow coastlines of southern Alaska are Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii), Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes hexapterus) and eulachon (Thaleichthys pacificus).[58]
+
+In Oregon's Columbia River Estuary, the most significant prey species were largescale suckers (Catostomus macrocheilus) (17.3% of the prey selected there), American shad (Alosa sapidissima; 13%) and common carp (Cyprinus carpio; 10.8%).[59] Eagles living in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland were found to subsist largely on American gizzard shad (Dorosoma cepedianum), threadfin shad (Dorosoma petenense) and white bass (Morone chrysops).[61] Floridian eagles have been reported to prey on catfish, most prevalently the brown bullhead (Ameiurus nebulosus) and any species in the genus Ictalurus as well as mullet, trout, needlefish, and eels.[8][43][62] Wintering eagles on the Platte River in Nebraska preyed mainly on American gizzard shads and common carp.[63] From observation in the Columbia River, 58% of the fish were caught alive by the eagle, 24% were scavenged as carcasses and 18% were pirated away from other animals.[59]
+
+Prey fish targeted by bald eagles are often quite large. When experimenters offered fish of different sizes in the breeding season around Lake Britton in California, fish measuring 34 to 38 cm (13 to 15 in) were taken 71.8% of the time by parent eagles while fish measuring 23 to 27.5 cm (9.1 to 10.8 in) were chosen only 25% of the time.[64] At nests around Lake Superior, the remains of fish (mostly suckers) were found to average 35.4 cm (13.9 in) in total length.[65] In the Columbia River estuary, most preyed on by eagles were estimated to measure between 30 and 60 cm (12 and 24 in) in length, and carp flown with (laboriously) were up to 86 cm (34 in) in length.[59] Much larger marine fish such as Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) and lemon sharks (Negaprion brevirostris) have been recorded among bald eagle prey though probably are only taken as young, as small, newly mature fish, or as carrion.[57][66]
+
+Benthic fishes such as catfish are usually consumed after they die and float to the surface, though while temporarily swimming in the open may be more vulnerable to predation than most fish since their eyes focus downwards.[61] Bald eagles also regularly exploit water turbines which produce battered, stunned or dead fish easily consumed.[67] Predators who leave behind scraps of dead fish that they kill, such as brown bears (Ursus arctos), gray wolves (Canis lupus) and red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), may be habitually followed in order to scavenge the kills secondarily.[58] Once North Pacific salmon die off after spawning, usually local bald eagles eat salmon carcasses almost exclusively. Eagles in Washington need to consume 489 g (1.078 lb) of fish each day for survival, with adults generally consuming more than juveniles and thus reducing potential energy deficiency and increasing survival during winter.[68]
+
+Behind fish, the next most significant prey base for bald eagles are other waterbirds. The contribution of such birds to the eagle's diet is variable, depending on the quantity and availability of fish near the water's surface. Waterbirds can seasonally comprise from 7% to 80% of the prey selection for eagles in certain localities.[59][69] Overall, birds are the most diverse group in the bald eagle's prey spectrum, with 200 prey species recorded.[19][56][57] Exceptionally, in the Greater Yellowstone area, birds were eaten as regularly as fish year-around, with both prey groups comprising 43% of the studied dietary intake.[46] Preferred avian prey includes grebes, alcids, ducks, gulls, coots, herons, egrets, and geese.[70]
+
+Bird species most preferred as prey by eagles tend to be medium-sized, such as western grebes (Aechmophorus occidentalis), mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and American coots (Fulica americana) as such prey is relatively easy for the much larger eagles to catch and fly with.[8][59] American herring gull (Larus smithsonianus) are the favored avian prey species for eagles living around Lake Superior.[65] Larger waterbirds are occasionally prey as well, with wintering emperor geese (Chen canagica) and snow geese (C. caerulescens), which gather in large groups, sometimes becoming regular prey.[21][71] Other large waterbirds hunted at least occasionally by bald eagles have included adults of common loons (Gavis immer),[72] great black-backed gulls (Larus marinus),[73] sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis),[74] great blue herons (Ardea herodias),[55] Canada geese (Branta canadensis),[61] brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis),[43] and fledgling American white pelicans (P. erythrorhynchos).[75] Colony nesting seabirds may be especially vulnerable to predation. Due to easy accessibility and lack of formidable nest defense by such species, bald eagles are capable of preying on such seabirds at all ages, from eggs to mature adults, and can effectively cull large portions of a colony.[76]
+
+Along some portions of the North Pacific coastline, bald eagles which had historically preyed mainly kelp-dwelling fish and supplementally sea otter (Enhydra lutris) pups are now preying mainly on seabird colonies since both the fish (possibly due to overfishing) and otters (cause unknown) have had precipitous population declines, causing concern for seabird conservation.[77] Because of this more extensive predation, some biologist have expressed concern that murres are heading for a "conservation collision" due to heavy eagle predation.[76] Eagles have been confirmed to attack nocturnally active, burrow-nesting seabird species such as storm petrels and shearwaters by digging out their burrows and feeding on all animals they find inside.[78] If a bald eagle flies close by, waterbirds will often fly away en masse, though in other cases they may seemingly ignore a perched eagle. If the said birds are on a colony, this exposed their unprotected eggs and nestlings to scavengers such as gulls.[76] Bird prey may occasionally be attacked in flight, with prey up to the size of Canada geese attacked and killed in mid-air.[70] Unprecedented photographs of a bald eagle unsuccessfully attempting to prey on a much larger adult trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator) in mid-flight were taken in 2012.[79] While adults often actively prey on waterbirds, congregated wintering waterfowl are frequently exploited for carcasses to scavenge by immature eagles in harsh winter weather.[80] Bald eagles have been recorded as killing other raptors on occasion. In some cases, these may be attacks of competition or kleptoparasitism on rival species but ended with the consumption of the victim. Nine species each of other accipitrids and owls are known to have been preyed upon by bald eagles. Owl prey species have ranged in size from western screech-owls (Megascops kennicotti) to snowy owls (Bubo scandiacus).[19][56][57][81] Larger diurnal raptors known to have fallen victim to bald eagles have included red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis),[82] peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus),[83] northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis),[84] ospreys (Pandion haliaetus)[85] and black (Coragyps atratus) and turkey vultures (Cathartes aura).[86]
+
+Mammalian prey includes rabbits, hares, ground squirrels, raccoons (Procyon lotor), muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus), beavers (Castor canadensis), and deer fawns. Newborn, dead, sickly or already injured mammals are often targeted. However, more formidable prey such as adult raccoons and subadult beavers are sometimes attacked. In the Chesapeake Bay area, bald eagles are reportedly the main natural predators of raccoons.[87][88] Other relatively large mammalian prey known to be taken by bald eagles (at least rarely) as adults include Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana),  nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus), red and Arctic foxes (Vulpes vulpes & Vulpes lagopus) and striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis).[89][90] Even an adult bobcat (Lynx rufus) has been recorded amongst their prey, although this may have been scavenged.[91] Where available, seal colonies can provide much food. On Protection Island, Washington, they commonly feed on harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) afterbirths, still-borns and sickly seal pups.[92] On San Juan Island in Washington, introduced European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), mainly those killed by auto accidents, comprise nearly 60% of the dietary intake of eagles.[93] In landlocked areas of North America, wintering bald eagles may become habitual predators of medium-sized mammals that occur in colonies or local concentrations, such as prairie dogs (Cynomys) and jackrabbits (Lepus). Like the golden eagle, bald eagles are capable of attacking jackrabbits and hares of nearly any size[8][94] Together with the golden eagle, bald eagles are occasionally accused of preying on livestock, especially sheep (Ovis aries). There are a handful of proven cases of lamb predation, some of specimens weighing up to 11 kg (24 lb), by bald eagles but they are much less likely to attack a healthy lamb than a golden eagle and both species prefer native, wild prey and are unlikely to cause any extensive detriment to human livelihoods.[95] There is one case of a bald eagle killing and feeding on an adult, pregnant ewe (then joined in eating the kill by at least 3 other eagles), which, weighing on average over 60 kg (130 lb), is much larger than any other known prey taken by this species.[96]
+
+Supplemental prey are readily taken given the opportunity. In some areas reptiles may become regular prey, especially warm areas such as Florida where reptile diversity is high. Turtles are perhaps the most regularly hunted type of reptile.[8] In coastal New Jersey, 14 of 20 studied eagle nests included remains of turtles. The main species found were common musk turtles (Sternotherus odoratus), diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin) and juvenile common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina). In these New Jersey nests, mainly subadult and small adults were taken, ranging in carapace length from 9.2 to 17.1 cm (3.6 to 6.7 in).[97] Similarly, many turtles were recorded in the diet in the Chesapeake Bay.[98] Snakes are also taken occasionally, especially partially aquatic ones, as are amphibians and crustaceans (largely crayfish and crabs).[43][59]
+
+To hunt fish, the eagle swoops down over the water and snatches the fish out of the water with its talons. They eat by holding the fish in one claw and tearing the flesh with the other. Eagles have structures on their toes called spicules that allow them to grasp fish. Osprey also have this adaptation.[51] Bald eagles have powerful talons and have been recorded flying with a 6.8 kg (15 lb) mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) fawn.[99] This feat is the record for the heaviest load carrying ever verified for a flying bird.[100] It has been estimated that the gripping power (pounds by square inch) of the bald eagle is ten times greater than that of a human.[101] Bald eagles can fly with fish at least equal to their own weight, but if the fish is too heavy to lift, the eagle may be dragged into the water. It may swim to safety, in some cases pulling the catch along to the shore as it swims,[102] but some eagles drown or succumb to hypothermia. Many sources claim that bald eagles, like all large eagles, cannot normally take flight carrying prey more than half of their own weight unless aided by favorable wind conditions.[43][71] On numerous occasions, when large prey such as mature salmon or geese are attacked, eagles have been seen to make contact and then drag the prey in a strenuously labored, low flight over the water to a bank, where they then finish off and dismember the prey.[21] When food is abundant, an eagle can gorge itself by storing up to 1 kg (2.2 lb) of food in a pouch in the throat called a crop. Gorging allows the bird to fast for several days if food becomes unavailable.[43] Occasionally, bald eagles may hunt cooperatively when confronting prey, especially relatively large prey such as jackrabbits or herons, with one bird distracting potential prey, while the other comes behind it in order to ambush it.[5][103][104] While hunting waterfowl, bald eagles repeatedly fly at a target and cause it to dive repeatedly, hoping to exhaust the victim so it can be caught (white-tailed eagles have been recorded hunting waterfowl in the same way). When hunting concentrated prey, a successful catch often results in the hunting eagle being pursued by other eagles and needing to find an isolated perch for consumption if it is able to carry it away successfully.[21]
+
+Unlike some other eagle species, bald eagles rarely take on evasive or dangerous prey on their own. The species mainly target prey which is much smaller than themselves, with most live fish caught weighing 1 to 3 kg (2.2 to 6.6 lb) and most waterbirds preyed weighing 0.2 to 2.7 kg (0.44 to 5.95 lb).[58][71][105] On the other hand, some salmon, carp and marine fish, mammals such as deer fawns and lambs and birds such as swans taken by bald eagles are likely to have been up to at least twice the bald eagles' own size (even if the eagle was unable to fly with it).[19][55][56] They obtain much of their food as carrion or via a practice known as kleptoparasitism, by which they steal prey away from other predators. Due to their dietary habits, bald eagles are frequently viewed in a negative light by humans.[8] Thanks to their superior foraging ability and experience, adults are generally more likely to hunt live prey than immature eagles, which often obtain their food from scavenging.[106][107] They are not very selective about the condition or origin, whether provided by humans, other animals, auto accidents or natural causes, of a carcass's presence, but will avoid eating carrion where disturbances from humans are a regular occurrence. They will scavenge carcasses up to the size of whales, though carcasses of ungulates and large fish are seemingly preferred.[21] Bald eagles also may sometimes feed on material scavenged or stolen from campsites and picnics, as well as garbage dumps (dump usage is habitual mainly in Alaska).[108]
+
+When competing for food, eagles will usually dominate other fish-eaters and scavengers, aggressively displacing mammals such as coyotes (Canis latrans) and foxes, and birds such as corvids, gulls, vultures and other raptors.[108] Occasionally, coyotes, bobcats (Lynx rufus) and domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) can displace eagles from carrion, usually less confident immature birds, as has been recorded in Maine.[109] Bald eagles are less active, bold predators than golden eagles and get relatively more of their food as carrion and from kleptoparasitism (although it is now generally thought that golden eagles eat more carrion than was previously assumed).[9] However, the two species are roughly equal in size, aggressiveness and physical strength and so competitions can go either way. Neither species is known to be dominant, and the outcome depends on the size and disposition of the individual eagles involved.[21] Wintering bald and golden eagles in Utah both sometimes won conflicts, though in one recorded instance a single bald eagle successfully displaced two consecutive golden eagles from a kill.[110] The bald eagle is thought to be much more numerous in North America than the golden eagle, with the bald species estimated to number at least 150,000 individuals, about twice as many golden eagles there are estimated to live in North America.[9][36] Due to this, bald eagles often outnumber golden eagles at attractive food sources.[9] Despite the potential for contention between these animals, in New Jersey during winter, a golden eagle and numerous bald eagles were observed to hunt snow geese alongside each other without conflict. Similarly, both eagle species have been recorded, via video-monitoring, to feed on gut piles and carcasses of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in remote forest clearings in the eastern Appalachian Mountains without apparent conflict.[9] Bald eagles as frequently mobbed by smaller raptors, due to their infrequent but unpredictable tendency to hunt other birds of prey.[110] Many bald eagles are habitual kleptoparasites, especially in winters when fish are harder to come by. They have been recorded stealing fish from other predators such as ospreys, herons and even otters.[21][111] They have also been recorded opportunistically pirating birds from peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus), prairie dogs from ferruginous hawks (Buteo regalis) and even jackrabbits from golden eagles.[112][113] When they approach scavengers like dogs, gulls or vultures at carrion sites, they often aggressively attack them and try to force them to disgorge their food.[43] Healthy adult bald eagles are not preyed on in the wild and are thus considered apex predators.[114]
+
+Bald eagles are sexually mature at four or five years of age. When they are old enough to breed, they often return to the area where they were born. It is thought that bald eagles mate for life. However, if one member of a pair dies or disappears, the survivor will choose a new mate. A pair which has repeatedly failed in breeding attempts may split and look for new mates.[115] Bald eagle courtship involves elaborate, spectacular calls and flight displays. The flight includes swoops, chases, and cartwheels, in which they fly high, lock talons, and free-fall, separating just before hitting the ground.[55][116] Usually, a territory defended by a mature pair will be 1 to 2 km (0.62 to 1.24 mi) of waterside habitat.[8]
+
+Compared to most other raptors which mostly nest in April or May, bald eagles are early breeders: nest building or reinforcing is often by mid-February, egg laying is often late February (sometimes during deep snow in the North), and incubation is usually mid-March and early May. Eggs hatch from mid April to early May, and the young fledge late June to early July.[8] The nest is the largest of any bird in North America; it is used repeatedly over many years and with new material added each year may eventually be as large as 4 m (13 ft) deep, 2.5 m (8.2 ft) across and weigh 1 metric ton (1.1 short tons);[3] one nest in Florida was found to be 6.1 m (20 ft) deep, 2.9 meters (9.5 ft) across, and to weigh 3 short tons (2.7 metric tons).[117] This nest is on record as the largest tree nest ever recorded for any animal.[118] Usually nests are used for under five years or so, as they either collapse in storms or break the branches supporting them by their sheer weight. However, one nest in the Midwest was occupied continuously for at least 34 years.[43] The nest is built out of branches, usually in large trees found near water. When breeding where there are no trees, the bald eagle will nest on the ground, as has been recorded largely in areas largely isolated from terrestrial predators, such as Amchitka Island in Alaska.[108]
+
+In Sonora, Mexico, eagles have been observed nesting on top of Hecho catcuses (Pachycereus pectinaboriginum).[119] Nests located on cliffs and rock pinnacles have been reported historically in California, Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah, but currently are only verified to occur only in Alaska and Arizona.[8] The eggs average about 73 mm (2.9 in) long, ranging from 58 to 85 mm (2.3 to 3.3 in), and have a breadth of 54 mm (2.1 in), ranging from 47 to 63 mm (1.9 to 2.5 in).[51][55] Eggs in Alaska averaged 130 g (4.6 oz) in mass, while in Saskatchewan they averaged 114.4 g (4.04 oz).[120][121] As with their ultimate body size, egg size tends to increase further away from the Equator.[55] Eagles produce between one and three eggs per year, two being typical. Rarely, four eggs have been found in nests but these may be exceptional cases of polygyny.[122] Eagles in captivity have been capable of producing up to seven eggs.[123] It is rare for all three chicks to successfully reach the fledgling stage. The oldest chick often bears the advantage of larger size and louder voice, which tends to draw the parents attention towards it.[8] Occasionally, as is recorded in many large raptorial birds, the oldest sibling sometimes attacks and kills its younger sibling(s), especially early in the nesting period when their sizes are most different.[8] However, nearly half of known bald eagles produce two fledglings (more rarely three), unlike in some other "eagle" species such as some in the genus Aquila, in which a second fledgling is typically observed in less than 20% of nests, despite two eggs typically being laid.[18] Both the male and female take turns incubating the eggs, but the female does most of the sitting. The parent not incubating will hunt for food or look for nesting material during this stage. For the first two to three weeks of the nestling period, at least one adult is at the nest almost 100% of the time. After five to six weeks, the attendance of parents usually drops off considerably (with the parents often perching in trees nearby).[8]
+
+A young eaglet can gain up to 170 g (6.0 oz) a day, the fastest growth rate of any North American bird.[43] The young eaglets pick up and manipulate sticks, play tug of war with each other, practice holding things in their talons, and stretch and flap their wings. By eight weeks, the eaglets are strong enough to flap their wings, lift their feet off the nest platform, and rise up in the air.[43] The young fledge at anywhere from 8 to 14 weeks of age, though will remain close to the nest and attended to by their parents for a further 6 weeks. Juvenile eagles first start dispersing away from their parents about 8 weeks after they fledge. Variability in departure date related to effects of sex and hatching order on growth and development.[121] For the next four years, immature eagles wander widely in search of food until they attain adult plumage and are eligible to reproduce.[124] Additionally, as shown by a pair of eagles in Shoal Harbor Migratory Bird Sanctuary located near Sidney, British Columbia on June 9, 2017, bald eagles have been recently recorded to occasionally adopt other raptor fledglings into their nests. The pair of eagles in question were recorded carrying a juvenile red-tailed hawk back to their nest, whereupon the chick was accepted into the family by both the parents and the eagles' three fledgelings. Whether or not the chick survived remained to be seen at the time, as young bald eagles are known for killing their siblings. However, the aggression of the red-tailed hawk may ensure its survival, as the hawks are well known for their ability to successfully defend against an eagle attack.[125] Six weeks after however, it was discovered that the hawk, nicknamed "Spunky" by biologists monitoring the nest, had grown to fledgeling size and was learning how to hunt, indicating that it successfully survived.[126]
+
+The average lifespan of bald eagles in the wild is around 20 years, with the oldest confirmed one having been 38 years of age.[127] In captivity, they often live somewhat longer. In one instance, a captive individual in New York lived for nearly 50 years. As with size, the average lifespan of an eagle population appears to be influenced by its location and access to prey.[128] As they are no longer heavily persecuted, adult mortality is quite low. In one study of Florida eagles, adult bald eagles reportedly had 100% annual survival rate.[9] In Prince William Sound in Alaska, adults had an annual survival rate of 88% even after the Exxon Valdez oil spill adversely affected eagles in the area.[129] Of 1,428 individuals from across the range necropsied by National Wildlife Health Center from 1963 to 1984, 329 (23%) eagles died from trauma, primarily impact with wires and vehicles; 309 (22%) died from gunshot; 158 (11%) died from poisoning; 130 (9%) died from electrocution; 68 (5%) died from trapping; 110 (8%) from emaciation; and 31 (2%) from disease; cause of death was undetermined in 293 (20%) of cases.[130] In this study, 68% of mortality was human-caused.[130] Today eagle-shooting is believed to be considerably reduced due to the species protected status.[131] In one case, an adult eagle investigating a peregrine falcon nest for prey items sustained a concussion from a swooping parent peregrine, and ultimately died days later from it.[132] An early natural history video depicting a cougar (Puma concolor) ambushing and killing an immature bald eagle feeding at a rabbit carcass is viewable online although this film may have been staged.[133]
+
+Most non-human-related mortality involves nestlings or eggs. Around 50% of eagles survive their first year.[124] However, in the Chesapeake Bay area, 100% of 39 radio-tagged nestlings survived to their first year.[134] Occasionally, nestling or egg fatalities are due to nest collapses, starvation, sibling aggression or inclement weather. Another significant cause of egg and nestling mortality is predation. These have been verified to be preyed by large gulls, corvids (including ravens, crows and magpies), wolverines (Gulo gulo), fishers (Martes pennanti), red-tailed hawks, owls, eagles, bobcats (Lynx rufus), American black bears (Ursus americanus) and raccoons.[120][135][136][137][138][139][140][141] If food access is low, parental attendance at the nest may be lower because both parents may have to forage thus resulting in less protection.[18] Nestlings are usually exempt from predation by terrestrial carnivores that are poor tree-climbers, but Arctic foxes (Vulpes lagopus) occasionally snatched nestlings from ground nests on Amchitka Island in Alaska before they were extirpated from the island.[108] The bald eagle will defend its nest fiercely from all comers and has even repelled attacks from bears, having been recorded knocking a black bear out of a tree when the latter tried to climb a tree holding nestlings.[142]
+
+Once a common sight in much of the continent, the bald eagle was severely affected in the mid-20th century by a variety of factors, among them the thinning of egg shells attributed to use of the pesticide DDT.[143] Bald eagles, like many birds of prey, were especially affected by DDT due to biomagnification. DDT itself was not lethal to the adult bird, but it interfered with the bird's calcium metabolism, making the bird either sterile or unable to lay healthy eggs. Female eagles laid eggs that were too brittle to withstand the weight of a brooding adult, making it nearly impossible for the eggs to hatch.[34] It is estimated that in the early 18th century, the bald eagle population was 300,000–500,000,[144] but by the 1950s there were only 412 nesting pairs in the 48 contiguous states of the US.[145][146]
+Other factors in bald eagle population reductions were a widespread loss of suitable habitat, as well as both legal and illegal shooting. In 1930 a New York City ornithologist wrote that in the state of Alaska in the previous 12 years approximately 70,000 bald eagles had been shot. Many of the hunters killed the bald eagles under the long-held beliefs that bald eagles grabbed young lambs and even children with their talons, yet the birds were innocent of most of these alleged acts of predation (lamb predation is rare, human predation is thought to be non-existent).[147] Later illegal shooting was described as "the leading cause of direct mortality in both adult and immature bald eagles," according to a 1978 report in the Endangered Species Technical Bulletin. In 1984, the National Wildlife Federation listed hunting, power-line electrocution, and collisions in flight as the leading causes of eagle deaths. Bald eagles have also been killed by oil, lead, and mercury pollution, and by human and predator intrusion at nests.[148]
+
+The species was first protected in the U.S. and Canada by the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty, later extended to all of North America. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, approved by the U.S. Congress in 1940, protected the bald eagle and the golden eagle, prohibiting commercial trapping and killing of the birds. The bald eagle was declared an endangered species in the U.S. in 1967, and amendments to the 1940 act between 1962 and 1972 further restricted commercial uses and increased penalties for violators.[149][150] Perhaps most significant in the species' recovery, in 1972, DDT was banned from usage in the United States due to the fact that it inhibited the reproduction of many birds.[151] DDT was completely banned in Canada in 1989, though its use had been highly restricted since the late 1970s.[152]
+
+With regulations in place and DDT banned, the eagle population rebounded. The bald eagle can be found in growing concentrations throughout the United States and Canada, particularly near large bodies of water. In the early 1980s, the estimated total population was 100,000 individuals, with 110,000–115,000 by 1992;[3] the U.S. state with the largest resident population is Alaska, with about 40,000–50,000, with the next highest population the Canadian province of British Columbia with 20,000–30,000 in 1992.[3] Obtaining a precise count of bald eagles population is extremely difficult. The most recent data submitted by individual states was in 2006, when 9789 breeding pairs were reported.[153] For some time, the stronghold breeding population of bald eagles in the lower 48 states was in Florida, where over a thousand pairs have held on while populations in other states were significantly reduced by DDT use. Today, the contiguous state with the largest number of breeding pairs of eagles is Minnesota with an estimated 1,312 pairs, surpassing Florida's most recent count of 1,166 pairs. 23, or nearly half, of the 48 contiguous states now have at least 100 breeding pairs of bald eagles.[36] In Washington State, there were only 105 occupied nests in 1980.  That number increased by about 30 per year, so that by 2005 there were 840 occupied nests. 2005 was the last year that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife counted occupied nests. Further population increases in Washington may be limited by the availability of late winter food, particularly salmon.[154]
+
+The bald eagle was officially removed from the U.S. federal government's list of endangered species on July 12, 1995, by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, when it was reclassified from "endangered" to "threatened." On July 6, 1999, a proposal was initiated "To Remove the Bald Eagle in the Lower 48 States From the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife." It was de-listed on June 28, 2007.[155] It has also been assigned a risk level of least concern category on the IUCN Red List.[2] In the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 an estimated 247 were killed in Prince William Sound, though the local population returned to its pre-spill level by 1995.[5] In some areas, the population has increased such that the eagles are a pest.[156]
+
+In December 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed quadrupling the amount of bald eagles that can be killed by the wind electric generation industry without paying a penalty to 4,200 per year.  If issued, the permits would last 30 years, six times the current 5-year permits.[157][158]
+
+Permits are required to keep bald eagles in captivity in the United States. Permits are primarily issued to public educational institutions, and the eagles which they show are permanently injured individuals which cannot be released to the wild. The facilities where eagles are kept must be equipped with adequate caging and facilities, as well as workers experienced in the handling and care of eagles.[159] The bald eagle can be long-lived in captivity if well cared for, but does not breed well even under the best conditions.[160]
+
+In Canada[161] and in England[162] a license is required to keep bald eagles for falconry.[163] Bald eagles cannot legally be kept for falconry in the United States, but a license may be issued in some jurisdictions to allow for using such eagles to perform in birds of prey flight shows.[164][165]
+.
+
+The bald eagle is important in various Native American cultures and, as the national bird of the United States, is prominent in seals and logos, coinage, postage stamps, and other items relating to the U.S. federal government.
+
+The bald eagle is a sacred bird in some North American cultures, and its feathers, like those of the golden eagle, are central to many religious and spiritual customs among Native Americans. Eagles are considered spiritual messengers between gods and humans by some cultures.[166] Many pow wow dancers use the eagle claw as part of their regalia as well. Eagle feathers are often used in traditional ceremonies, particularly in the construction of regalia worn and as a part of fans, bustles and head dresses. In the Navajo tradition an eagle feather is represented to be a protector, along with the feather Navajo medicine men use the leg and wing bones for ceremonial whistles.[167] The Lakota, for instance, give an eagle feather as a symbol of honor to person who achieves a task. In modern times, it may be given on an event such as a graduation from college.[168] The Pawnee considered eagles as symbols of fertility because their nests are built high off the ground and because they fiercely protect their young.[169] The Choctaw considered the bald eagle, who has direct contact with the upper world of the sun, as a symbol of peace.[170]
+
+During the Sun Dance, which is practiced by many Plains Indian tribes, the eagle is represented in several ways. The eagle nest is represented by the fork of the lodge where the dance is held. A whistle made from the wing bone of an eagle is used during the course of the dance. Also during the dance, a medicine man may direct his fan, which is made of eagle feathers, to people who seek to be healed. The medicine man touches the fan to the center pole and then to the patient, in order to transmit power from the pole to the patient. The fan is then held up toward the sky, so that the eagle may carry the prayers for the sick to the Creator.[171]
+
+Current eagle feather law stipulates that only individuals of certifiable Native American ancestry enrolled in a federally recognized tribe are legally authorized to obtain or possess bald or golden eagle feathers for religious or spiritual use. The constitutionality of these laws has been questioned by Native American groups on the basis that it violates the First Amendment by affecting ability to practice their religion freely.[172][173]
+
+The National Eagle Repository, a division of the FWS, exists as a means to receive, process, and store bald and golden eagles which are found dead, and to distribute the eagles, their parts and feathers, to federally recognized Native American tribes for use in religious ceremonies.[174]
+
+The bald eagle is the national bird of the United States of America.[175] The founders of the United States were fond of comparing their new republic with the Roman Republic, in which eagle imagery (usually involving the golden eagle) was prominent. On June 20, 1782, the Continental Congress adopted the design for the Great Seal of the United States depicting a bald eagle grasping 13 arrows and an olive branch with thirteen leaves, with its talons.[176][177][178]
+
+The bald eagle appears on most official seals of the U.S. government, including the presidential seal, the presidential flag, and in the logos of many U.S. federal agencies. Between 1916 and 1945, the presidential flag (but not the seal) showed an eagle facing to its left (the viewer's right), which gave rise to the urban legend that the flag is changed to have the eagle face towards the olive branch in peace, and towards the arrows in wartime.[179]
+
+Contrary to popular legend, there is no evidence that Benjamin Franklin ever publicly supported the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), rather than the bald eagle, as a symbol of the United States. However, in a letter written to his daughter in 1784 from Paris, criticizing the Society of the Cincinnati, he stated his personal distaste for the bald eagle's behavior. In the letter Franklin states:[180]
+
+For my own part. I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly ... besides he is a rank coward: The little king bird not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district.
+
+Franklin opposed the creation of the Society because he viewed it, with its hereditary membership, as a noble order unwelcome in the newly independent Republic, contrary to the ideals of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, for whom the Society was named.  His reference to the two kinds of birds is interpreted as a satirical comparison between the Society of the Cincinnati and Cincinnatus.[181]
+
+Largely because of its role as a symbol of the United States, but also because of its being a large predator, the bald eagle has many representations in popular culture.  Not all of these representations are accurate.  In particular, the movie or television bald eagle typically has a bold, powerful cry.  The actual eagle has a much softer, chirpy voice, not in keeping with its popular image; the call of the red-tailed hawk is often substituted in movies and television.[182]
+

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+Carthage was the center or capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis  in what is now the Tunis Governorate in Tunisia. Carthage was widely considered the most important trading hub of the Ancient Mediterranean and was arguably one of the most affluent cities of the classical world.
+
+The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC.[1] The legendary Queen Alyssa or Dido is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. According to accounts by Timaeus of Tauromenium, she purchased from a local tribe the amount of land that could be covered by an oxhide. Cutting the skin into strips, she laid out her claim and founded an empire that would become, through the Punic Wars, the only existential threat to Rome until the coming of the Vandals several centuries later.[2]
+
+The ancient city was destroyed by the Roman Republic in the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then re-developed as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire.[3] It remained occupied during the Muslim period[4] and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again.[5] It also continued to function as an episcopal see.
+
+The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage.[6][7] The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984.
+
+
+
+The name Carthage /ˈkɑːrθɪdʒ/ is the Early Modern anglicisation of Middle French Carthage /kar.taʒ/,[8] from Latin Carthāgō and Karthāgō (cf. Greek Karkhēdōn (Καρχηδών) and Etruscan *Carθaza) from the Punic qrt-ḥdšt (𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕‎) "new city",[9] implying it was a "new Tyre".[10] The Latin adjective pūnicus, meaning "Phoenician", is reflected in English in some borrowings from Latin—notably the Punic Wars and the Punic language.
+
+The Modern Standard Arabic form قرطاج (Qarṭāj) is an adoption of French Carthage, replacing an older local toponym reported as Cartagenna that directly continued the Latin name.[11]
+
+Carthage was built on a promontory with sea inlets to the north and the south. The city's location made it master of the Mediterranean's maritime trade. All ships crossing the sea had to pass between Sicily and the coast of Tunisia, where Carthage was built, affording it great power and influence. Two large, artificial harbors were built within the city, one for harboring the city's massive navy of 220 warships and the other for mercantile trade. A walled tower overlooked both harbors. The city had massive walls, 37 km (23 mi) in length, longer than the walls of comparable cities. Most of the walls were located on the shore, thus could be less impressive, as Carthaginian control of the sea made attack from that direction difficult. The 4.0 to 4.8 km (2.5 to 3 mi) of wall on the isthmus to the west were truly massive and were never penetrated.
+
+Carthage was one of the largest cities of the Hellenistic period and was among the largest cities in preindustrial history. Whereas by AD 14, Rome had at least 750,000 inhabitants and in the following century may have reached 1 million, the cities of Alexandria and Antioch numbered only a few hundred thousand or less.[12] According to the not-always-reliable history of Herodian, Carthage rivaled Alexandria for second place in the Roman empire.[13]
+
+The Punic Carthage was divided into four equally sized residential areas with the same layout, had religious areas, market places, council house, towers, a theater, and a huge necropolis; roughly in the middle of the city stood a high citadel called the Byrsa. Surrounding Carthage were walls "of great strength" said in places to rise above 13 m, being nearly 10 m thick, according to ancient authors. To the west, three parallel walls were built. The walls altogether ran for about 33 kilometres (21 miles) to encircle the city.[14][15] The heights of the Byrsa were additionally fortified; this area being the last to succumb to the Romans in 146 BC. Originally the Romans had landed their army on the strip of land extending southward from the city.[16][17]
+
+Outside the city walls of Carthage is the Chora or farm lands of Carthage. Chora encompassed a limited area: the north coastal tell, the lower Bagradas river valley (inland from Utica), Cape Bon, and the adjacent sahel on the east coast. Punic culture here achieved the introduction of agricultural sciences first developed for lands of the eastern Mediterranean, and their adaptation to local African conditions.[18]
+
+The urban landscape of Carthage is known in part from ancient authors,[19] augmented by modern digs and surveys conducted by archeologists. The "first urban nucleus" dating to the seventh century, in area about 10 hectares (25 acres), was apparently located on low-lying lands along the coast (north of the later harbors). As confirmed by archaeological excavations, Carthage was a "creation ex nihilo", built on 'virgin' land, and situated at what was then the end of a peninsula. Here among "mud brick walls and beaten clay floors" (recently uncovered) were also found extensive cemeteries, which yielded evocative grave goods like clay masks. "Thanks to this burial archaeology we know more about archaic Carthage than about any other contemporary city in the western Mediterranean." Already in the eighth century, fabric dyeing operations had been established, evident from crushed shells of murex (from which the 'Phoenician purple' was derived). Nonetheless, only a "meager picture" of the cultural life of the earliest pioneers in the city can be conjectured, and not much about housing, monuments or defenses.[20][21] The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) imagined early Carthage, when his legendary character Aeneas had arrived there:
+
+"Aeneas found, where lately huts had been,
+marvelous buildings, gateways, cobbled ways,
+and din of wagons. There the Tyrians
+were hard at work: laying courses for walls,
+rolling up stones to build the citadel,
+while others picked out building sites and plowed
+a boundary furrow. Laws were being enacted,
+magistrates and a sacred senate chosen.
+Here men were dredging harbors, there they laid
+the deep foundations of a theatre,
+and quarried massive pillars... ."[22][23]
+
+The two inner harbours, named cothon in Punic, were located in the southeast; one being commercial, and the other for war. Their definite functions are not entirely known, probably for the construction, outfitting, or repair of ships, perhaps also loading and unloading cargo.[24][25][26] Larger anchorages existed to the north and south of the city.[27] North and west of the cothon were located several industrial areas, e.g., metalworking and pottery (e.g., for amphora), which could serve both inner harbours, and ships anchored to the south of the city.[28]
+
+About the Byrsa, the citadel area to the north,[29] considering its importance our knowledge of it is patchy. Its prominent heights were the scene of fierce combat during the fiery destruction of the city in 146 BC. The Byrsa was the reported site of the Temple of Eshmun (the healing god), at the top of a stairway of sixty steps.[30][31] A temple of Tanit (the city's queen goddess) was likely situated on the slope of the 'lesser Byrsa' immediately to the east, which runs down toward the sea.[32] Also situated on the Byrsa were luxury homes.[33]
+
+South of the citadel, near the cothon was the tophet, a special and very old cemetery, which when begun lay outside the city's boundaries. Here the Salammbô was located, the Sanctuary of Tanit, not a temple but an enclosure for placing stone stelae. These were mostly short and upright, carved for funeral purposes. The presence of infant skeletons from here may indicate the occurrence of child sacrifice, as claimed in the Bible, although there has been considerable doubt among archeologists as to this interpretation and many consider it simply a cemetery devoted to infants.[34] Probably the tophet burial fields were "dedicated at an early date, perhaps by the first settlers."[35][36] Recent studies, on the other hand, indicate that child sacrifice was practiced by the Carthaginians.[37][38]
+
+Between the sea-filled cothon for shipping and the Byrsa heights lay the agora [Greek: "market"], the city-state's central marketplace for business and commerce. The agora was also an area of public squares and plazas, where the people might formally assemble, or gather for festivals. It was the site of religious shrines, and the location of whatever were the major municipal buildings of Carthage. Here beat the heart of civic life. In this district of Carthage, more probably, the ruling suffets presided, the council of elders convened, the tribunal of the 104 met, and justice was dispensed at trials in the open air.[39][40]
+
+Early residential districts wrapped around the Byrsa from the south to the north east. Houses usually were whitewashed and blank to the street, but within were courtyards open to the sky.[41] In these neighborhoods multistory construction later became common, some up to six stories tall according to an ancient Greek author.[42][43] Several architectural floorplans of homes have been revealed by recent excavations, as well as the general layout of several city blocks. Stone stairs were set in the streets, and drainage was planned, e.g., in the form of soakways leaching into the sandy soil.[44] Along the Byrsa's southern slope were located not only fine old homes, but also many of the earliest grave-sites, juxtaposed in small areas, interspersed with daily life.[45]
+
+Artisan workshops were located in the city at sites north and west of the harbours. The location of three metal workshops (implied from iron slag and other vestiges of such activity) were found adjacent to the naval and commercial harbours, and another two were further up the hill toward the Byrsa citadel. Sites of pottery kilns have been identified, between the agora and the harbours, and further north. Earthenware often used Greek models. A fuller's shop for preparing woolen cloth (shrink and thicken) was evidently situated further to the west and south, then by the edge of the city.[46] Carthage also produced objects of rare refinement. During the 4th and 3rd centuries, the sculptures of the sarcophagi became works of art. "Bronze engraving and stone-carving reached their zenith."[47]
+
+The elevation of the land at the promontory on the seashore to the north-east (now called Sidi Bou Saïd), was twice as high above sea level as that at the Byrsa (100 m and 50 m). In between runs a ridge, several times reaching 50 m; it continues northwestward along the seashore, and forms the edge of a plateau-like area between the Byrsa and the sea.[48] Newer urban developments lay here in these northern districts.[49]
+
+Due to the Roman's leveling of the city, the original Punic urban landscape of Carthage was largely lost. Since 1982, French archaeologist Serge Lancel excavated a residential area of the Punic Carthage on top of Byrsa hill near the Forum of the Roman Carthage. The neighborhood can be dated back to early second century BC, and with its houses, shops, and private spaces, is significant for what it reveals about daily life of the Punic Carthage.[50]
+
+The remains have been preserved under embankments, the substructures of the later Roman forum, whose foundation piles dot the district. The housing blocks are separated by a grid of straight streets about 6 m (20 ft) wide, with a roadway consisting of clay; in situ stairs compensate for the slope of the hill. Construction of this type presupposes organization and political will, and has inspired the name of the neighborhood, "Hannibal district", referring to the legendary Punic general or sufet (consul) at the beginning of the second century BC. The habitat is typical, even stereotypical. The street was often used as a storefront/shopfront; cisterns were installed in basements to collect water for domestic use, and a long corridor on the right side of each residence led to a courtyard containing a sump, around which various other elements may be found. In some places, the ground is covered with mosaics called punica pavement, sometimes using a characteristic red mortar.
+
+Punic culture and agricultural sciences, when arrived at Carthage from eastern Mediterranean, gradually adapted to the local African conditions. The merchant harbor at Carthage was developed after settlement of the nearby Punic town of Utica, and eventually the surrounding African countryside was brought into the orbit of the Punic urban centers, first commercially, then politically. Direct management over cultivation of neighbouring lands by Punic owners followed.[51] A 28-volume work on agriculture written in Punic by Mago, a retired army general (c. 300), was translated into Latin and later into Greek. The original and both translations have been lost; however, some of Mago's text has survived in other Latin works.[52] Olive trees (e.g., grafting), fruit trees (pomegranate, almond, fig, date palm), viniculture, bees, cattle, sheep, poultry, implements, and farm management were among the ancient topics which Mago discussed. As well, Mago addresses the wine-maker's art (here a type of sherry).[53][54][55]
+
+In Punic farming society, according to Mago, the small estate owners were the chief producers. They were, two modern historians write, not absent landlords. Rather, the likely reader of Mago was "the master of a relatively modest estate, from which, by great personal exertion, he extracted the maximum yield." Mago counselled the rural landowner, for the sake of their own 'utilitarian' interests, to treat carefully and well their managers and farm workers, or their overseers and slaves.[56] Yet elsewhere these writers suggest that rural land ownership provided also a new power base among the city's nobility, for those resident in their country villas.[57][58] By many, farming was viewed as an alternative endeavour to an urban business. Another modern historian opines that more often it was the urban merchant of Carthage who owned rural farming land to some profit, and also to retire there during the heat of summer.[59] It may seem that Mago anticipated such an opinion, and instead issued this contrary advice (as quoted by the Roman writer Columella):
+
+The man who acquires an estate must sell his house, lest he prefer to live in the town rather than in the country. Anyone who prefers to live in a town has no need of an estate in the country."[60] "One who has bought land should sell his town house, so that he will have no desire to worship the household gods of the city rather than those of the country; the man who takes greater delight in his city residence will have no need of a country estate.[61]
+
+The issues involved in rural land management also reveal underlying features of Punic society, its structure and stratification. The hired workers might be considered 'rural proletariat', drawn from the local Berbers. Whether there remained Berber landowners next to Punic-run farms is unclear. Some Berbers became sharecroppers. Slaves acquired for farm work were often prisoners of war. In lands outside Punic political control, independent Berbers cultivated grain and raised horses on their lands. Yet within the Punic domain that surrounded the city-state of Carthage, there were ethnic divisions in addition to the usual quasi feudal distinctions between lord and peasant, or master and serf. This inherent instability in the countryside drew the unwanted attention of potential invaders.[62] Yet for long periods Carthage was able to manage these social difficulties.[63]
+
+The many amphorae with Punic markings subsequently found about ancient Mediterranean coastal settlements testify to Carthaginian trade in locally made olive oil and wine.[64] Carthage's agricultural production was held in high regard by the ancients, and rivaled that of Rome—they were once competitors, e.g., over their olive harvests. Under Roman rule, however, grain production ([wheat] and barley) for export increased dramatically in 'Africa'; yet these later fell with the rise in Roman Egypt's grain exports. Thereafter olive groves and vineyards were re-established around Carthage. Visitors to the several growing regions that surrounded the city wrote admiringly of the lush green gardens, orchards, fields, irrigation channels, hedgerows (as boundaries), as well as the many prosperous farming towns located across the rural landscape.[65][66]
+
+Accordingly, the Greek author and compiler Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), who enjoyed access to ancient writings later lost, and on which he based most of his writings, described agricultural land near the city of Carthage circa 310 BC:
+
+It was divided into market gardens and orchards of all sorts of fruit trees, with many streams of water flowing in channels irrigating every part. There were country homes everywhere, lavishly built and covered with stucco. ... Part of the land was planted with vines, part with olives and other productive trees. Beyond these, cattle and sheep were pastured on the plains, and there were meadows with grazing horses.[67][68]
+
+Greek cities contested with Carthage for the Western Mediterranean culminating in the Sicilian Wars and the Pyrrhic War over Sicily, while the Romans fought three wars against Carthage, known as the Punic Wars,[69][70] "Punic" meaning "Phoenician" in Latin, as Carthage was a Phoenician colony grown into a kingdom.
+
+The Carthaginian republic was one of the longest-lived and largest states in the ancient Mediterranean. Reports relay several wars with Syracuse and finally, Rome, which eventually resulted in the defeat and destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians were Phoenician settlers originating in the Mediterranean coast of the Near East. They spoke Canaanite, a Semitic language, and followed a local variety of the ancient Canaanite religion.
+
+The fall of Carthage came at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC at the Battle of Carthage.[71] Despite initial devastating Roman naval losses and Rome's recovery from the brink of defeat after the terror of a 15-year occupation of much of Italy by Hannibal, the end of the series of wars resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus. The Romans pulled the Phoenician warships out into the harbor and burned them before the city, and went from house to house, capturing and enslaving the people. About 50,000 Carthaginians were sold into slavery.[72] The city was set ablaze and razed to the ground, leaving only ruins and rubble. After the fall of Carthage, Rome annexed the majority of the Carthaginian colonies, including other North African locations such as Volubilis, Lixus, Chellah.[73]
+
+The legend that the city was sown with salt remains widely accepted despite a lack of evidence among ancient historical accounts;[74] According to R.T. Ridley, the earliest such claim is attributable to B.L. Hallward's chapter in Cambridge Ancient History, published in 1930. Ridley contended that Hallward's claim may have gained traction due to historical evidence of other salted-earth instances such as Abimelech's salting of Shechem in Judges 9:45.[75][76] B.H. Warmington admitted he had repeated Hallward's error, but posited that the legend precedes 1930 and inspired repetitions of the practice. He also suggested that it is useful to understand how subsequent historical narratives have been framed and that the symbolic value of the legend is so great and enduring that it mitigates a deficiency of concrete evidence.[74]
+
+For many years but especially beginning in the 19th century,[77] various texts claim that after defeating the city of Carthage in the Third Punic War (146 BC), the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ordered the city be sacked, forced its surviving inhabitants into slavery, plowed it over and sowed it with salt. However, no ancient sources exist documenting the salting itself. The element of salting is therefore probably a later invention modeled on the Biblical story of Shechem.[78] The ritual of symbolically drawing a plow over the site of a city is mentioned in ancient sources, but not in reference to Carthage specifically.[79] When Pope Boniface VIII destroyed Palestrina in 1299, he issued a papal bull that it be plowed "following the old example of Carthage in Africa" and also salted.[80] "I have run the plough over it, like the ancient Carthage of Africa, and I have had salt sown upon it...."[81]
+
+When Carthage fell, its nearby rival Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and replaced Carthage as the leading center of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbor until it became useless, and Rome was forced to rebuild Carthage.
+
+By 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus founded a short-lived colony, called Colonia Iunonia, after the Latin name for the Punic goddess Tanit, Iuno Caelestis. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power.
+
+After this ill-fated attempt, a new city of Carthage was built on the same land by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, and by the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the Roman Empire, with a peak population of 500,000.[82] It was the center of the province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the Empire. Among its major monuments was an amphitheater.
+
+Carthage also became a center of early Christianity (see Carthage (episcopal see)). In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, no fewer than 70 bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing against. At the Council of Carthage (397), the biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed.  The Christians at Carthage conducted persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, notably the famous Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed.[83]
+
+The political fallout from the deep disaffection of African Christians is supposedly a crucial factor in the ease with which Carthage and the other centers were captured in the fifth century by Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, who defeated the Roman general Bonifacius and made the city the capital of the Vandal Kingdom. Gaiseric was considered a heretic, too, an Arian, and though Arians commonly despised Catholic Christians, a mere promise of toleration might have caused the city's population to accept him.
+
+The Vandals during their conquest are said to have destroyed parts of Carthage by Victor Vitensis in Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provincia including various buildings and churches.[84]
+
+After a failed attempt to recapture the city in the fifth century, the Eastern Roman Empire finally subdued the Vandals in the Vandalic War in 533–534. Thereafter, the city became the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa, which was made into an exarchate during the emperor Maurice's reign, as was Ravenna on the Italian Peninsula. These two exarchates were the western bulwarks of the Byzantine Empire, all that remained of its power in the West. In the early seventh century Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Carthage, overthrew the Byzantine emperor Phocas, whereupon his son Heraclius succeeded to the imperial throne.
+
+The Roman Exarchate of Africa was not able to withstand the seventh-century Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 686 sent a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qays, who won a battle over the Romans and Berbers led by King Kusaila of the Kingdom of Altava on the plain of Kairouan, but he could not follow that up. In 695, Hassan ibn al-Nu'man captured Carthage and advanced into the Atlas Mountains. An imperial fleet arrived and retook Carthage, but in 698, Hasan ibn al-Nu'man returned and defeated Emperor Tiberios III at the 698 Battle of Carthage. Roman imperial forces withdrew from all of Africa except Ceuta. Fearing that the Byzantine Empire might reconquer it, they decided to destroy Roman Carthage in a scorched earth policy and establish their headquarters somewhere else. Its walls were torn down, the water supply from its aqueducts cut off, the agricultural land was ravaged and its harbors made unusable.[3]
+
+The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to the Byzantine Empire's influence in the region.
+
+It is visible from archaeological evidence, that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied. The neighborhood of Bjordi Djedid continued to be occupied. The Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the historian Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition. They also had production centers nearby. It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period. The Bir Ftouha church might have continued to remain in use though it is not clear when it became uninhabited.[4] Constantine the African was born in Carthage.[85]
+
+The Medina of Tunis, originally a Berber settlement, was established as the new regional center under the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century. Under the Aghlabids, the people of Tunis revolted numerous times, but the city profited from economic improvements and quickly became the second most important in the kingdom. It was briefly the national capital, from the end of the reign of Ibrahim II in 902, until 909, when the Shi'ite Berbers took over Ifriqiya and founded the Fatimid Caliphate.
+
+Carthage remained a residential see until the high medieval period, mentioned in
+two letters of Pope Leo IX dated 1053,[86] written in reply to consultations regarding a conflict between the bishops of Carthage and Gummi.
+In each of the two letters, Pope Leo declares that, after the Bishop of Rome, the first archbishop and chief metropolitan of the whole of Africa is the bishop of Carthage.
+Later, an archbishop of Carthage named Cyriacus was imprisoned by the Arab rulers because of an accusation by some Christians. Pope Gregory VII wrote him a letter of consolation, repeating the hopeful assurances of the primacy of the Church of Carthage, "whether the Church of Carthage should still lie desolate or rise again in glory".
+By 1076, Cyriacus was set free, but there was only one other bishop in the province. These are the last of whom there is mention in that period of the history of the see.[87][88]
+
+The fortress of Carthage was used by the Muslims until Hafsid era and was captured by the Crusaders during the Eighth Crusade. The inhabitants of Carthage were slaughtered by the Crusaders after they took it, and it was used as a base of operations against the Hafsids. After repelling them, Muhammad I al-Mustansir decided to destroy Cathage's defenses completely to prevent a repeat.[5]
+
+Carthage is some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east-northeast of Tunis; the settlements nearest to Carthage were the town of Sidi Bou Said to the north and the village of Le Kram to the south.
+Sidi Bou Said was a village which had grown around the tomb of the eponymous sufi saint (d. 1231), which had been developed into a town under Ottoman rule in the 18th century. Le Kram was developed in the late 19th century under French administration as a settlement close to the port of La Goulette.
+
+In 1881, Tunisia became a French protectorate, and in the same year Charles Lavigerie, who was archbishop of Algiers, became apostolic administrator of the vicariate of Tunis. In the following year, Lavigerie became a cardinal. He "saw himself as the reviver of the ancient Christian Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian of Carthage",[89] and, on 10 November 1884, was successful in his great ambition of having the metropolitan see of Carthage restored, with himself as its first archbishop.[90] In line with the declaration of Pope Leo IX in 1053, Pope Leo XIII acknowledged the revived Archdiocese of Carthage as the primatial see of Africa and Lavigerie as primate.[91][92]
+
+The Acropolium of Carthage (Saint Louis Cathedral of Carthage) was erected on Byrsa hill in 1884.
+
+The Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe conducted a first survey of the topography of the archaeological site (published in 1833).
+Antiquarian interest was intensified following the publication of Flaubert's Salammbô in 1858. Charles Ernest Beulé performed some preliminary excavations of Roman remains on Byrsa hill in 1860.[93] A more systematic survey of both Punic and Roman-era remains is due to Alfred Louis Delattre, who was sent to Tunis by cardinal Charles Lavigerie in 1875 on both an apostolic and an archaeological mission.[94]
+Audollent (1901, p. 203) cites Delattre and Lavigerie to the effect that in the 1880s, locals still knew the area of the ancient city under the name of Cartagenna (i.e. reflecting the Latin n-stem Carthāgine).
+
+Auguste Audollent divides the area of Roman Carthage into four quarters, Cartagenna, Dermèche, Byrsa and La Malga. Cartagenna and Dermèche correspond with the lower city, including the site of Punic Carthage; Byrsa is associated with the upper city, which in Punic times was a walled citadel above the harbour; and La Malga is linked with the more remote parts of the upper city in Roman times.
+
+French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.[95]
+
+A temple at Amman (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessy in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire. While evidence of child sacrifice in Canaan was the object of academic disagreement, with some scholars arguing that merely children's cemeteries had been unearthed in Carthage, the mixture of children's with animal bones as well as associated epigraphic evidence involving mention of mlk led some to believe that, at least in Carthage, child sacrifice was indeed common practice.[96]  However, though the animals were surely sacrificed, this does not entirely indicate that the infants were, and in fact the bones indicate the opposite. Rather, the animal sacrifice was likely done to, in some way, honour the deceased.[97]
+
+In 2016, an ancient Carthaginian individual, who was excavated from a Punic tomb in Byrsa Hill, was found to belong to the rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup. The Young Man of Byrsa specimen dates from the late 6th century BCE, and his lineage is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb.[98]
+
+In 1920, the first seaplane base was built on the Lake of Tunis for the seaplanes of Compagnie Aéronavale.[99] The Tunis Airfield opened in 1938, serving around 5,800 passengers annually on the Paris-Tunis route.[100]
+During World War II, the airport was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force as a headquarters and command control base for the Italian Campaign of 1943.
+Construction on the Tunis-Carthage Airport, which was fully funded by France, began in 1944, and in 1948 the airport become the main hub for Tunisair.
+
+In the 1950s the Lycée Français de Carthage was established to serve French families in Carthage. In 1961 it was given to the Tunisian government as part of the Independence of Tunisia, so the nearby Collège Maurice Cailloux in La Marsa, previously an annex of the Lycée Français de Carthage, was renamed to the Lycée Français de La Marsa and began serving the lycée level. It is currently the Lycée Gustave Flaubert.[101]
+
+After Tunisian independence in 1956, the Tunis conurbation gradually extended around the airport, and Carthage (قرطاج  Qarṭāj) is now a suburb of Tunis, covering the area between Sidi Bou Said and Le Kram.[102][103]
+Its population as of January 2013 was estimated at 21,276,[104]
+mostly attracting the more wealthy residents.[105] If Carthage is not the capital, it tends to be the political pole, a « place of emblematic power » according to Sophie Bessis,[106] leaving to Tunis the economic and administrative roles. The Carthage Palace (the Tunisian presidential palace) is located in the coast.[107]
+
+The suburb has six train stations of the TGM line between Le Kram and Sidi Bou Said:
+Carthage Salammbo (named for Salambo, the fictional daughter of Hamilcar), Carthage Byrsa (named for Byrsa hill), Carthage Dermech (Dermèche), Carthage Hannibal (named for Hannibal), Carthage Présidence (named for the Presidential Palace) and Carthage Amilcar (named for Hamilcar).
+
+The scant remains of what was once a great city are reflected upon in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem, Carthage, published in 1836 with quotes from Sir Grenville Temple's Journal.
+
+The merchants of Carthage were in part heirs of the Mediterranean trade developed by Phoenicia, and so also heirs of the rivalry with Greek merchants. Business activity was accordingly both stimulated and challenged. Cyprus had been an early site of such commercial contests. The Phoenicians then had ventured into the western Mediterranean, founding trading posts, including Utica and Carthage. The Greeks followed, entering the western seas where the commercial rivalry continued. Eventually it would lead, especially in Sicily, to several centuries of intermittent war.[108][109] Although Greek-made merchandise was generally considered superior in design, Carthage also produced trade goods in abundance. That Carthage came to function as a manufacturing colossus was shown during the Third Punic War with Rome. Carthage, which had previously disarmed, then was made to face the fatal Roman siege. The city "suddenly organised the manufacture of arms" with great skill and effectiveness. According to Strabo (63 BC – AD 21) in his Geographica:
+
+[Carthage] each day produced one hundred and forty finished shields, three hundred swords, five hundred spears, and one thousand missiles for the catapults... . Furthermore, [Carthage although surrounded by the Romans] built one hundred and twenty decked ships in two months... for old timber had been stored away in readiness, and a large number of skilled workmen, maintained at public expense.[110]
+
+The textiles industry in Carthage probably started in private homes, but the existence of professional weavers indicates that a sort of factory system later developed. Products included embroidery, carpets, and use of the purple murex dye (for which the Carthaginian isle of Djerba was famous). Metalworkers developed specialized skills, i.e., making various weapons for the armed forces, as well as domestic articles, such as knives, forks, scissors, mirrors, and razors (all articles found in tombs). Artwork in metals included vases and lamps in bronze, also bowls, and plates. Other products came from such crafts as the potters, the glassmakers, and the goldsmiths. Inscriptions on votive stele indicate that many were not slaves but 'free citizens'.[111]
+
+Phoenician and Punic merchant ventures were often run as a family enterprise, putting to work its members and its subordinate clients. Such family-run businesses might perform a variety of tasks:  own and maintain the ships, providing the captain and crew;  do the negotiations overseas, either by barter or buying and selling, of their own manufactured commodities and trade goods, and native products (metals, foodstuffs, etc.) to carry and trade elsewhere; and send their agents to stay at distant outposts in order to make lasting local contacts, and later to establish a warehouse of shipped goods for exchange, and eventually perhaps a settlement. Over generations, such activity might result in the creation of a wide-ranging network of trading operations. Ancillary would be the growth of reciprocity between different family firms, foreign and domestic.[112][113]
+
+State protection was extended to its sea traders by the Phoenician city of Tyre and later likewise by the daughter city-state of Carthage.[114] Stéphane Gsell, the well-regarded French historian of ancient North Africa, summarized the major principles guiding the civic rulers of Carthage with regard to its policies for trade and commerce:
+
+Both the Phoenicians and the Cathaginians were well known in antiquity for their secrecy in general, and especially pertaining to commercial contacts and trade routes.[116][117][118] Both cultures excelled in commercial dealings. Strabo (63BC-AD21) the Greek geographer wrote that before its fall (in 146 BC) Carthage enjoyed a population of 700,000, and directed an alliance of 300 cities.[119] The Greek historian Polybius (c.203–120) referred to Carthage as "the wealthiest city in the world".[120]
+
+A "suffet" (possibly two) was elected by the citizens, and held office with no military power for a one-year term. Carthaginian generals marshalled mercenary armies and were separately elected. From about 550 to 450 the Magonid family monopolized the top military position; later the Barcid family acted similarly. Eventually it came to be that, after a war, the commanding general had to testify justifying his actions before a court of 104 judges.[121]
+
+Aristotle (384–322) discusses Carthage in his work, Politica; he begins: "The Carthaginians are also considered to have an excellent form of government." He briefly describes the city as a "mixed constitution", a political arrangement with cohabiting elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, i.e., a king (Gk: basileus), a council of elders (Gk: gerusia), and the people (Gk: demos).[122]  Later Polybius of Megalopolis (c.204–122, Greek) in his Histories would describe the Roman Republic in more detail as a mixed constitution in which the Consuls were the monarchy, the Senate the aristocracy, and the Assemblies the democracy.[123]
+
+Evidently Carthage also had an institution of elders who advised the Suffets, similar to a Greek gerusia or the Roman Senate.  We do not have a Punic name for this body. At times its members would travel with an army general on campaign.  Members also formed permanent committees.  The institution had several hundred members drawn from the wealthiest class who held office for life.  Vacancies were probably filled by recruitment from among the elite, i.e., by co-option. From among its members were selected the 104 Judges mentioned above. Later the 104 would come to evaluate not only army generals but other office holders as well. Aristotle regarded the 104 as most important; he compared it to the ephorate of Sparta with regard to control over security. In Hannibal's time, such a Judge held office for life.  At some stage there also came to be independent self-perpetuating boards of five who filled vacancies and supervised (non-military) government administration.[124]
+
+Popular assemblies also existed at Carthage. When deadlocked the Suffets and the quasi-senatorial institution of elders might request the assembly to vote; also, assembly votes were requested in very crucial matters in order to achieve political consensus and popular coherence. The assembly members had no legal wealth or birth qualification.  How its members were selected is unknown, e.g., whether by festival group or urban ward or another method.[125][126][127]
+
+The Greeks were favourably impressed by the constitution of Carthage; Aristotle had a separate study of it made which unfortunately is lost. In his Politica he states: "The government of Carthage is oligarchical, but they successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the people after another by sending them to their colonies." "[T]heir policy is to send some [poorer citizens] to their dependent towns, where they grow rich."[128][129] Yet Aristotle continues, "[I]f any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would be no way of restoring peace by legal means." Aristotle remarked also:
+
+Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remain loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.[130]
+
+Here one may remember that the city-state of Carthage, who citizens were mainly Libyphoenicians (of Phoenician ancestry born in Africa), dominated and exploited an agricultural countryside composed mainly of native Berber sharecroppers and farmworkers, whose affiliations to Carthage were open to divergent possibilities. Beyond these more settled Berbers and the Punic farming towns and rural manors, lived the independent Berber tribes, who were mostly pastoralists.
+
+In the brief, uneven review of government at Carthage found in his Politica Aristotle mentions several faults. Thus, "that the same person should hold many offices, which is a favorite practice among the Carthaginians." Aristotle disapproves, mentioning the flute-player and the shoemaker. Also, that "magistrates should be chosen not only for their merit but for their wealth." Aristotle's opinion is that focus on pursuit of wealth will lead to oligarchy and its evils.
+
+[S]urely it is a bad thing that the greatest offices... should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For, whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example; and, where virtue has not the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established.[131]
+
+In Carthage the people seemed politically satisfied and submissive, according to the historian Warmington. They in their assemblies only rarely exercised the few opportunities given them to assent to state decisions. Popular influence over government appears not to have been an issue at Carthage. Being a commercial republic fielding a mercenary army, the people were not conscripted for military service, an experience which can foster the feel for popular political action. But perhaps this misunderstands the society; perhaps the people, whose values were based on small-group loyalty, felt themselves sufficiently connected to their city's leadership by the very integrity of the person-to-person linkage within their social fabric. Carthage was very stable; there were few openings for tyrants. Only after defeat by Rome devastated Punic imperial ambitions did the people of Carthage seem to question their governance and to show interest in political reform.[132]
+
+In 196, following the Second Punic War (218–201), Hannibal Barca, still greatly admired as a Barcid military leader, was elected suffet. When his reforms were blocked by a financial official about to become a judge for life, Hannibal rallied the populace against the 104 judges. He proposed a one-year term for the 104, as part of a major civic overhaul. Additionally, the reform included a restructuring of the city's revenues, and the fostering of trade and agriculture. The changes rather quickly resulted in a noticeable increase in prosperity. Yet his incorrigible political opponents cravenly went to Rome, to charge Hannibal with conspiracy, namely, plotting war against Rome in league with Antiochus the Hellenic ruler of Syria. Although the Roman Scipio Africanus resisted such manoeuvre, eventually intervention by Rome forced Hannibal to leave Carthage. Thus, corrupt city officials efficiently blocked Hannibal Barca in his efforts to reform the government of Carthage.[133][134]
+
+Mago (6th century) was King of Carthage; the head of state, war leader, and religious figurehead.  His family was considered to possess a sacred quality.  Mago's office was somewhat similar to that of a pharaoh, but although kept in a family it was not hereditary, it was limited by legal consent. Picard, accordingly, believes that the council of elders and the popular assembly are late institutions. Carthage was founded by the king of Tyre who had a royal monopoly on this trading venture. Thus it was the royal authority stemming from this traditional source of power that the King of Carthage possessed. Later, as other Phoenician ship companies entered the trading region, and so associated with the city-state, the King of Carthage had to keep order among a rich variety of powerful merchants in their negotiations among themselves and over risky commerce across the Mediterranean. Under these circumstance, the office of king began to be transformed. Yet it was not until the aristocrats of Carthage became wealthy owners of agricultural lands in Africa that a council of elders was institutionalized at Carthage.[135]
+
+Most ancient literature concerning Carthage comes from Greek and Roman sources as Carthage's own documents were destroyed by the Romans.[136][137] Apart from inscriptions, hardly any Punic literature has survived, and none in its own language and script.[138] A brief catalogue would include:[139]
+
+"[F]rom the Greek author Plutarch [(c. 46 – c. 120)] we learn of the 'sacred books' in Punic safeguarded by the city's temples. Few Punic texts survive, however."[150] Once "the City Archives, the Annals, and the scribal lists of suffets" existed, but evidently these were destroyed in the horrific fires during the Roman capture of the city in 146 BC.[151]
+
+Yet some Punic books (Latin: libri punici) from the libraries of Carthage reportedly did survive the fires.[152] These works were apparently given by Roman authorities to the newly augmented Berber rulers.[153][154] Over a century after the fall of Carthage, the Roman politician-turned-author Gaius Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (86–34) reported his having seen volumes written in Punic, which books were said to be once possessed by the Berber king, Hiempsal II (r. 88–81).[155][156][157] By way of Berber informants and Punic translators, Sallust had used these surviving books to write his brief sketch of Berber affairs.[158][159]
+
+Probably some of Hiempsal II's libri punici, that had escaped the fires that consumed Carthage in 146 BC, wound up later in the large royal library of his grandson Juba II (r.25 BC-AD 24).[160] Juba II not only was a Berber king, and husband of Cleopatra's daughter, but also a scholar and author in Greek of no less than nine works.[161] He wrote for the Mediterranean-wide audience then enjoying classical literature. The libri punici inherited from his grandfather surely became useful to him when composing his Libyka, a work on North Africa written in Greek. Unfortunately, only fragments of Libyka survive, mostly from quotations made by other ancient authors.[162] It may have been Juba II who 'discovered' the five-centuries-old 'log book' of Hanno the Navigator, called the Periplus, among library documents saved from fallen Carthage.[163][164][165]
+
+In the end, however, most Punic writings that survived the destruction of Carthage "did not escape the immense wreckage in which so many of Antiquity's literary works perished."[166] Accordingly, the long and continuous interactions between Punic citizens of Carthage and the Berber communities that surrounded the city have no local historian. Their political arrangements and periodic crises, their economic and work life, the cultural ties and social relations established and nourished (infrequently as kin), are not known to us directly from ancient Punic authors in written accounts. Neither side has left us their stories about life in Punic-era Carthage.[167]
+
+Regarding Phoenician writings, few remain and these seldom refer to Carthage. The more ancient and most informative are cuneiform tablets, ca. 1600–1185, from ancient Ugarit, located to the north of Phoenicia on the Syrian coast; it was a Canaanite city politically affiliated with the Hittites. The clay tablets tell of myths, epics, rituals, medical and administrative matters, and also correspondence.[168][169][170] The highly valued works of Sanchuniathon, an ancient priest of Beirut, who reportedly wrote on Phoenician religion and the origins of civilization, are themselves completely lost, but some little content endures twice removed.[171][172] Sanchuniathon was said to have lived in the 11th century, which is considered doubtful.[173][174]  Much later a Phoenician History by Philo of Byblos (64–141) reportedly existed, written in Greek, but only fragments of this work survive.[175][176] An explanation proffered for why so few Phoenician works endured: early on (11th century) archives and records began to be kept on papyrus, which does not long survive in a moist coastal climate.[177] Also, both Phoenicians and Carthaginians were well known for their secrecy.[178][179]
+
+Thus, of their ancient writings we have little of major interest left to us by Carthage, or by Phoenicia the country of origin of the city founders. "Of the various Phoenician and Punic compositions alluded to by the ancient classical authors, not a single work or even fragment has survived in its original idiom." "Indeed, not a single Phoenician manuscript has survived in the original [language] or in translation."[180] We cannot therefore access directly the line of thought or the contour of their worldview as expressed in their own words, in their own voice.[181] Ironically, it was the Phoenicians who "invented or at least perfected and transmitted a form of writing [the alphabet] that has influenced dozens of cultures including our own."[182][183][184]
+
+As noted, the celebrated ancient books on agriculture written by Mago of Carthage survives only via quotations in Latin from several later Roman works.

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+Carthage was the center or capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis  in what is now the Tunis Governorate in Tunisia. Carthage was widely considered the most important trading hub of the Ancient Mediterranean and was arguably one of the most affluent cities of the classical world.
+
+The city developed from a Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC.[1] The legendary Queen Alyssa or Dido is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. According to accounts by Timaeus of Tauromenium, she purchased from a local tribe the amount of land that could be covered by an oxhide. Cutting the skin into strips, she laid out her claim and founded an empire that would become, through the Punic Wars, the only existential threat to Rome until the coming of the Vandals several centuries later.[2]
+
+The ancient city was destroyed by the Roman Republic in the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then re-developed as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire.[3] It remained occupied during the Muslim period[4] and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again.[5] It also continued to function as an episcopal see.
+
+The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage.[6][7] The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984.
+
+
+
+The name Carthage /ˈkɑːrθɪdʒ/ is the Early Modern anglicisation of Middle French Carthage /kar.taʒ/,[8] from Latin Carthāgō and Karthāgō (cf. Greek Karkhēdōn (Καρχηδών) and Etruscan *Carθaza) from the Punic qrt-ḥdšt (𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕‎) "new city",[9] implying it was a "new Tyre".[10] The Latin adjective pūnicus, meaning "Phoenician", is reflected in English in some borrowings from Latin—notably the Punic Wars and the Punic language.
+
+The Modern Standard Arabic form قرطاج (Qarṭāj) is an adoption of French Carthage, replacing an older local toponym reported as Cartagenna that directly continued the Latin name.[11]
+
+Carthage was built on a promontory with sea inlets to the north and the south. The city's location made it master of the Mediterranean's maritime trade. All ships crossing the sea had to pass between Sicily and the coast of Tunisia, where Carthage was built, affording it great power and influence. Two large, artificial harbors were built within the city, one for harboring the city's massive navy of 220 warships and the other for mercantile trade. A walled tower overlooked both harbors. The city had massive walls, 37 km (23 mi) in length, longer than the walls of comparable cities. Most of the walls were located on the shore, thus could be less impressive, as Carthaginian control of the sea made attack from that direction difficult. The 4.0 to 4.8 km (2.5 to 3 mi) of wall on the isthmus to the west were truly massive and were never penetrated.
+
+Carthage was one of the largest cities of the Hellenistic period and was among the largest cities in preindustrial history. Whereas by AD 14, Rome had at least 750,000 inhabitants and in the following century may have reached 1 million, the cities of Alexandria and Antioch numbered only a few hundred thousand or less.[12] According to the not-always-reliable history of Herodian, Carthage rivaled Alexandria for second place in the Roman empire.[13]
+
+The Punic Carthage was divided into four equally sized residential areas with the same layout, had religious areas, market places, council house, towers, a theater, and a huge necropolis; roughly in the middle of the city stood a high citadel called the Byrsa. Surrounding Carthage were walls "of great strength" said in places to rise above 13 m, being nearly 10 m thick, according to ancient authors. To the west, three parallel walls were built. The walls altogether ran for about 33 kilometres (21 miles) to encircle the city.[14][15] The heights of the Byrsa were additionally fortified; this area being the last to succumb to the Romans in 146 BC. Originally the Romans had landed their army on the strip of land extending southward from the city.[16][17]
+
+Outside the city walls of Carthage is the Chora or farm lands of Carthage. Chora encompassed a limited area: the north coastal tell, the lower Bagradas river valley (inland from Utica), Cape Bon, and the adjacent sahel on the east coast. Punic culture here achieved the introduction of agricultural sciences first developed for lands of the eastern Mediterranean, and their adaptation to local African conditions.[18]
+
+The urban landscape of Carthage is known in part from ancient authors,[19] augmented by modern digs and surveys conducted by archeologists. The "first urban nucleus" dating to the seventh century, in area about 10 hectares (25 acres), was apparently located on low-lying lands along the coast (north of the later harbors). As confirmed by archaeological excavations, Carthage was a "creation ex nihilo", built on 'virgin' land, and situated at what was then the end of a peninsula. Here among "mud brick walls and beaten clay floors" (recently uncovered) were also found extensive cemeteries, which yielded evocative grave goods like clay masks. "Thanks to this burial archaeology we know more about archaic Carthage than about any other contemporary city in the western Mediterranean." Already in the eighth century, fabric dyeing operations had been established, evident from crushed shells of murex (from which the 'Phoenician purple' was derived). Nonetheless, only a "meager picture" of the cultural life of the earliest pioneers in the city can be conjectured, and not much about housing, monuments or defenses.[20][21] The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) imagined early Carthage, when his legendary character Aeneas had arrived there:
+
+"Aeneas found, where lately huts had been,
+marvelous buildings, gateways, cobbled ways,
+and din of wagons. There the Tyrians
+were hard at work: laying courses for walls,
+rolling up stones to build the citadel,
+while others picked out building sites and plowed
+a boundary furrow. Laws were being enacted,
+magistrates and a sacred senate chosen.
+Here men were dredging harbors, there they laid
+the deep foundations of a theatre,
+and quarried massive pillars... ."[22][23]
+
+The two inner harbours, named cothon in Punic, were located in the southeast; one being commercial, and the other for war. Their definite functions are not entirely known, probably for the construction, outfitting, or repair of ships, perhaps also loading and unloading cargo.[24][25][26] Larger anchorages existed to the north and south of the city.[27] North and west of the cothon were located several industrial areas, e.g., metalworking and pottery (e.g., for amphora), which could serve both inner harbours, and ships anchored to the south of the city.[28]
+
+About the Byrsa, the citadel area to the north,[29] considering its importance our knowledge of it is patchy. Its prominent heights were the scene of fierce combat during the fiery destruction of the city in 146 BC. The Byrsa was the reported site of the Temple of Eshmun (the healing god), at the top of a stairway of sixty steps.[30][31] A temple of Tanit (the city's queen goddess) was likely situated on the slope of the 'lesser Byrsa' immediately to the east, which runs down toward the sea.[32] Also situated on the Byrsa were luxury homes.[33]
+
+South of the citadel, near the cothon was the tophet, a special and very old cemetery, which when begun lay outside the city's boundaries. Here the Salammbô was located, the Sanctuary of Tanit, not a temple but an enclosure for placing stone stelae. These were mostly short and upright, carved for funeral purposes. The presence of infant skeletons from here may indicate the occurrence of child sacrifice, as claimed in the Bible, although there has been considerable doubt among archeologists as to this interpretation and many consider it simply a cemetery devoted to infants.[34] Probably the tophet burial fields were "dedicated at an early date, perhaps by the first settlers."[35][36] Recent studies, on the other hand, indicate that child sacrifice was practiced by the Carthaginians.[37][38]
+
+Between the sea-filled cothon for shipping and the Byrsa heights lay the agora [Greek: "market"], the city-state's central marketplace for business and commerce. The agora was also an area of public squares and plazas, where the people might formally assemble, or gather for festivals. It was the site of religious shrines, and the location of whatever were the major municipal buildings of Carthage. Here beat the heart of civic life. In this district of Carthage, more probably, the ruling suffets presided, the council of elders convened, the tribunal of the 104 met, and justice was dispensed at trials in the open air.[39][40]
+
+Early residential districts wrapped around the Byrsa from the south to the north east. Houses usually were whitewashed and blank to the street, but within were courtyards open to the sky.[41] In these neighborhoods multistory construction later became common, some up to six stories tall according to an ancient Greek author.[42][43] Several architectural floorplans of homes have been revealed by recent excavations, as well as the general layout of several city blocks. Stone stairs were set in the streets, and drainage was planned, e.g., in the form of soakways leaching into the sandy soil.[44] Along the Byrsa's southern slope were located not only fine old homes, but also many of the earliest grave-sites, juxtaposed in small areas, interspersed with daily life.[45]
+
+Artisan workshops were located in the city at sites north and west of the harbours. The location of three metal workshops (implied from iron slag and other vestiges of such activity) were found adjacent to the naval and commercial harbours, and another two were further up the hill toward the Byrsa citadel. Sites of pottery kilns have been identified, between the agora and the harbours, and further north. Earthenware often used Greek models. A fuller's shop for preparing woolen cloth (shrink and thicken) was evidently situated further to the west and south, then by the edge of the city.[46] Carthage also produced objects of rare refinement. During the 4th and 3rd centuries, the sculptures of the sarcophagi became works of art. "Bronze engraving and stone-carving reached their zenith."[47]
+
+The elevation of the land at the promontory on the seashore to the north-east (now called Sidi Bou Saïd), was twice as high above sea level as that at the Byrsa (100 m and 50 m). In between runs a ridge, several times reaching 50 m; it continues northwestward along the seashore, and forms the edge of a plateau-like area between the Byrsa and the sea.[48] Newer urban developments lay here in these northern districts.[49]
+
+Due to the Roman's leveling of the city, the original Punic urban landscape of Carthage was largely lost. Since 1982, French archaeologist Serge Lancel excavated a residential area of the Punic Carthage on top of Byrsa hill near the Forum of the Roman Carthage. The neighborhood can be dated back to early second century BC, and with its houses, shops, and private spaces, is significant for what it reveals about daily life of the Punic Carthage.[50]
+
+The remains have been preserved under embankments, the substructures of the later Roman forum, whose foundation piles dot the district. The housing blocks are separated by a grid of straight streets about 6 m (20 ft) wide, with a roadway consisting of clay; in situ stairs compensate for the slope of the hill. Construction of this type presupposes organization and political will, and has inspired the name of the neighborhood, "Hannibal district", referring to the legendary Punic general or sufet (consul) at the beginning of the second century BC. The habitat is typical, even stereotypical. The street was often used as a storefront/shopfront; cisterns were installed in basements to collect water for domestic use, and a long corridor on the right side of each residence led to a courtyard containing a sump, around which various other elements may be found. In some places, the ground is covered with mosaics called punica pavement, sometimes using a characteristic red mortar.
+
+Punic culture and agricultural sciences, when arrived at Carthage from eastern Mediterranean, gradually adapted to the local African conditions. The merchant harbor at Carthage was developed after settlement of the nearby Punic town of Utica, and eventually the surrounding African countryside was brought into the orbit of the Punic urban centers, first commercially, then politically. Direct management over cultivation of neighbouring lands by Punic owners followed.[51] A 28-volume work on agriculture written in Punic by Mago, a retired army general (c. 300), was translated into Latin and later into Greek. The original and both translations have been lost; however, some of Mago's text has survived in other Latin works.[52] Olive trees (e.g., grafting), fruit trees (pomegranate, almond, fig, date palm), viniculture, bees, cattle, sheep, poultry, implements, and farm management were among the ancient topics which Mago discussed. As well, Mago addresses the wine-maker's art (here a type of sherry).[53][54][55]
+
+In Punic farming society, according to Mago, the small estate owners were the chief producers. They were, two modern historians write, not absent landlords. Rather, the likely reader of Mago was "the master of a relatively modest estate, from which, by great personal exertion, he extracted the maximum yield." Mago counselled the rural landowner, for the sake of their own 'utilitarian' interests, to treat carefully and well their managers and farm workers, or their overseers and slaves.[56] Yet elsewhere these writers suggest that rural land ownership provided also a new power base among the city's nobility, for those resident in their country villas.[57][58] By many, farming was viewed as an alternative endeavour to an urban business. Another modern historian opines that more often it was the urban merchant of Carthage who owned rural farming land to some profit, and also to retire there during the heat of summer.[59] It may seem that Mago anticipated such an opinion, and instead issued this contrary advice (as quoted by the Roman writer Columella):
+
+The man who acquires an estate must sell his house, lest he prefer to live in the town rather than in the country. Anyone who prefers to live in a town has no need of an estate in the country."[60] "One who has bought land should sell his town house, so that he will have no desire to worship the household gods of the city rather than those of the country; the man who takes greater delight in his city residence will have no need of a country estate.[61]
+
+The issues involved in rural land management also reveal underlying features of Punic society, its structure and stratification. The hired workers might be considered 'rural proletariat', drawn from the local Berbers. Whether there remained Berber landowners next to Punic-run farms is unclear. Some Berbers became sharecroppers. Slaves acquired for farm work were often prisoners of war. In lands outside Punic political control, independent Berbers cultivated grain and raised horses on their lands. Yet within the Punic domain that surrounded the city-state of Carthage, there were ethnic divisions in addition to the usual quasi feudal distinctions between lord and peasant, or master and serf. This inherent instability in the countryside drew the unwanted attention of potential invaders.[62] Yet for long periods Carthage was able to manage these social difficulties.[63]
+
+The many amphorae with Punic markings subsequently found about ancient Mediterranean coastal settlements testify to Carthaginian trade in locally made olive oil and wine.[64] Carthage's agricultural production was held in high regard by the ancients, and rivaled that of Rome—they were once competitors, e.g., over their olive harvests. Under Roman rule, however, grain production ([wheat] and barley) for export increased dramatically in 'Africa'; yet these later fell with the rise in Roman Egypt's grain exports. Thereafter olive groves and vineyards were re-established around Carthage. Visitors to the several growing regions that surrounded the city wrote admiringly of the lush green gardens, orchards, fields, irrigation channels, hedgerows (as boundaries), as well as the many prosperous farming towns located across the rural landscape.[65][66]
+
+Accordingly, the Greek author and compiler Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), who enjoyed access to ancient writings later lost, and on which he based most of his writings, described agricultural land near the city of Carthage circa 310 BC:
+
+It was divided into market gardens and orchards of all sorts of fruit trees, with many streams of water flowing in channels irrigating every part. There were country homes everywhere, lavishly built and covered with stucco. ... Part of the land was planted with vines, part with olives and other productive trees. Beyond these, cattle and sheep were pastured on the plains, and there were meadows with grazing horses.[67][68]
+
+Greek cities contested with Carthage for the Western Mediterranean culminating in the Sicilian Wars and the Pyrrhic War over Sicily, while the Romans fought three wars against Carthage, known as the Punic Wars,[69][70] "Punic" meaning "Phoenician" in Latin, as Carthage was a Phoenician colony grown into a kingdom.
+
+The Carthaginian republic was one of the longest-lived and largest states in the ancient Mediterranean. Reports relay several wars with Syracuse and finally, Rome, which eventually resulted in the defeat and destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians were Phoenician settlers originating in the Mediterranean coast of the Near East. They spoke Canaanite, a Semitic language, and followed a local variety of the ancient Canaanite religion.
+
+The fall of Carthage came at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC at the Battle of Carthage.[71] Despite initial devastating Roman naval losses and Rome's recovery from the brink of defeat after the terror of a 15-year occupation of much of Italy by Hannibal, the end of the series of wars resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus. The Romans pulled the Phoenician warships out into the harbor and burned them before the city, and went from house to house, capturing and enslaving the people. About 50,000 Carthaginians were sold into slavery.[72] The city was set ablaze and razed to the ground, leaving only ruins and rubble. After the fall of Carthage, Rome annexed the majority of the Carthaginian colonies, including other North African locations such as Volubilis, Lixus, Chellah.[73]
+
+The legend that the city was sown with salt remains widely accepted despite a lack of evidence among ancient historical accounts;[74] According to R.T. Ridley, the earliest such claim is attributable to B.L. Hallward's chapter in Cambridge Ancient History, published in 1930. Ridley contended that Hallward's claim may have gained traction due to historical evidence of other salted-earth instances such as Abimelech's salting of Shechem in Judges 9:45.[75][76] B.H. Warmington admitted he had repeated Hallward's error, but posited that the legend precedes 1930 and inspired repetitions of the practice. He also suggested that it is useful to understand how subsequent historical narratives have been framed and that the symbolic value of the legend is so great and enduring that it mitigates a deficiency of concrete evidence.[74]
+
+For many years but especially beginning in the 19th century,[77] various texts claim that after defeating the city of Carthage in the Third Punic War (146 BC), the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ordered the city be sacked, forced its surviving inhabitants into slavery, plowed it over and sowed it with salt. However, no ancient sources exist documenting the salting itself. The element of salting is therefore probably a later invention modeled on the Biblical story of Shechem.[78] The ritual of symbolically drawing a plow over the site of a city is mentioned in ancient sources, but not in reference to Carthage specifically.[79] When Pope Boniface VIII destroyed Palestrina in 1299, he issued a papal bull that it be plowed "following the old example of Carthage in Africa" and also salted.[80] "I have run the plough over it, like the ancient Carthage of Africa, and I have had salt sown upon it...."[81]
+
+When Carthage fell, its nearby rival Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and replaced Carthage as the leading center of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbor until it became useless, and Rome was forced to rebuild Carthage.
+
+By 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus founded a short-lived colony, called Colonia Iunonia, after the Latin name for the Punic goddess Tanit, Iuno Caelestis. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power.
+
+After this ill-fated attempt, a new city of Carthage was built on the same land by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, and by the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the Roman Empire, with a peak population of 500,000.[82] It was the center of the province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the Empire. Among its major monuments was an amphitheater.
+
+Carthage also became a center of early Christianity (see Carthage (episcopal see)). In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, no fewer than 70 bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing against. At the Council of Carthage (397), the biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed.  The Christians at Carthage conducted persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, notably the famous Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed.[83]
+
+The political fallout from the deep disaffection of African Christians is supposedly a crucial factor in the ease with which Carthage and the other centers were captured in the fifth century by Gaiseric, king of the Vandals, who defeated the Roman general Bonifacius and made the city the capital of the Vandal Kingdom. Gaiseric was considered a heretic, too, an Arian, and though Arians commonly despised Catholic Christians, a mere promise of toleration might have caused the city's population to accept him.
+
+The Vandals during their conquest are said to have destroyed parts of Carthage by Victor Vitensis in Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provincia including various buildings and churches.[84]
+
+After a failed attempt to recapture the city in the fifth century, the Eastern Roman Empire finally subdued the Vandals in the Vandalic War in 533–534. Thereafter, the city became the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa, which was made into an exarchate during the emperor Maurice's reign, as was Ravenna on the Italian Peninsula. These two exarchates were the western bulwarks of the Byzantine Empire, all that remained of its power in the West. In the early seventh century Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Carthage, overthrew the Byzantine emperor Phocas, whereupon his son Heraclius succeeded to the imperial throne.
+
+The Roman Exarchate of Africa was not able to withstand the seventh-century Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 686 sent a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qays, who won a battle over the Romans and Berbers led by King Kusaila of the Kingdom of Altava on the plain of Kairouan, but he could not follow that up. In 695, Hassan ibn al-Nu'man captured Carthage and advanced into the Atlas Mountains. An imperial fleet arrived and retook Carthage, but in 698, Hasan ibn al-Nu'man returned and defeated Emperor Tiberios III at the 698 Battle of Carthage. Roman imperial forces withdrew from all of Africa except Ceuta. Fearing that the Byzantine Empire might reconquer it, they decided to destroy Roman Carthage in a scorched earth policy and establish their headquarters somewhere else. Its walls were torn down, the water supply from its aqueducts cut off, the agricultural land was ravaged and its harbors made unusable.[3]
+
+The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to the Byzantine Empire's influence in the region.
+
+It is visible from archaeological evidence, that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied. The neighborhood of Bjordi Djedid continued to be occupied. The Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the historian Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition. They also had production centers nearby. It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period. The Bir Ftouha church might have continued to remain in use though it is not clear when it became uninhabited.[4] Constantine the African was born in Carthage.[85]
+
+The Medina of Tunis, originally a Berber settlement, was established as the new regional center under the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century. Under the Aghlabids, the people of Tunis revolted numerous times, but the city profited from economic improvements and quickly became the second most important in the kingdom. It was briefly the national capital, from the end of the reign of Ibrahim II in 902, until 909, when the Shi'ite Berbers took over Ifriqiya and founded the Fatimid Caliphate.
+
+Carthage remained a residential see until the high medieval period, mentioned in
+two letters of Pope Leo IX dated 1053,[86] written in reply to consultations regarding a conflict between the bishops of Carthage and Gummi.
+In each of the two letters, Pope Leo declares that, after the Bishop of Rome, the first archbishop and chief metropolitan of the whole of Africa is the bishop of Carthage.
+Later, an archbishop of Carthage named Cyriacus was imprisoned by the Arab rulers because of an accusation by some Christians. Pope Gregory VII wrote him a letter of consolation, repeating the hopeful assurances of the primacy of the Church of Carthage, "whether the Church of Carthage should still lie desolate or rise again in glory".
+By 1076, Cyriacus was set free, but there was only one other bishop in the province. These are the last of whom there is mention in that period of the history of the see.[87][88]
+
+The fortress of Carthage was used by the Muslims until Hafsid era and was captured by the Crusaders during the Eighth Crusade. The inhabitants of Carthage were slaughtered by the Crusaders after they took it, and it was used as a base of operations against the Hafsids. After repelling them, Muhammad I al-Mustansir decided to destroy Cathage's defenses completely to prevent a repeat.[5]
+
+Carthage is some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east-northeast of Tunis; the settlements nearest to Carthage were the town of Sidi Bou Said to the north and the village of Le Kram to the south.
+Sidi Bou Said was a village which had grown around the tomb of the eponymous sufi saint (d. 1231), which had been developed into a town under Ottoman rule in the 18th century. Le Kram was developed in the late 19th century under French administration as a settlement close to the port of La Goulette.
+
+In 1881, Tunisia became a French protectorate, and in the same year Charles Lavigerie, who was archbishop of Algiers, became apostolic administrator of the vicariate of Tunis. In the following year, Lavigerie became a cardinal. He "saw himself as the reviver of the ancient Christian Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian of Carthage",[89] and, on 10 November 1884, was successful in his great ambition of having the metropolitan see of Carthage restored, with himself as its first archbishop.[90] In line with the declaration of Pope Leo IX in 1053, Pope Leo XIII acknowledged the revived Archdiocese of Carthage as the primatial see of Africa and Lavigerie as primate.[91][92]
+
+The Acropolium of Carthage (Saint Louis Cathedral of Carthage) was erected on Byrsa hill in 1884.
+
+The Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe conducted a first survey of the topography of the archaeological site (published in 1833).
+Antiquarian interest was intensified following the publication of Flaubert's Salammbô in 1858. Charles Ernest Beulé performed some preliminary excavations of Roman remains on Byrsa hill in 1860.[93] A more systematic survey of both Punic and Roman-era remains is due to Alfred Louis Delattre, who was sent to Tunis by cardinal Charles Lavigerie in 1875 on both an apostolic and an archaeological mission.[94]
+Audollent (1901, p. 203) cites Delattre and Lavigerie to the effect that in the 1880s, locals still knew the area of the ancient city under the name of Cartagenna (i.e. reflecting the Latin n-stem Carthāgine).
+
+Auguste Audollent divides the area of Roman Carthage into four quarters, Cartagenna, Dermèche, Byrsa and La Malga. Cartagenna and Dermèche correspond with the lower city, including the site of Punic Carthage; Byrsa is associated with the upper city, which in Punic times was a walled citadel above the harbour; and La Malga is linked with the more remote parts of the upper city in Roman times.
+
+French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.[95]
+
+A temple at Amman (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessy in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire. While evidence of child sacrifice in Canaan was the object of academic disagreement, with some scholars arguing that merely children's cemeteries had been unearthed in Carthage, the mixture of children's with animal bones as well as associated epigraphic evidence involving mention of mlk led some to believe that, at least in Carthage, child sacrifice was indeed common practice.[96]  However, though the animals were surely sacrificed, this does not entirely indicate that the infants were, and in fact the bones indicate the opposite. Rather, the animal sacrifice was likely done to, in some way, honour the deceased.[97]
+
+In 2016, an ancient Carthaginian individual, who was excavated from a Punic tomb in Byrsa Hill, was found to belong to the rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup. The Young Man of Byrsa specimen dates from the late 6th century BCE, and his lineage is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb.[98]
+
+In 1920, the first seaplane base was built on the Lake of Tunis for the seaplanes of Compagnie Aéronavale.[99] The Tunis Airfield opened in 1938, serving around 5,800 passengers annually on the Paris-Tunis route.[100]
+During World War II, the airport was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force as a headquarters and command control base for the Italian Campaign of 1943.
+Construction on the Tunis-Carthage Airport, which was fully funded by France, began in 1944, and in 1948 the airport become the main hub for Tunisair.
+
+In the 1950s the Lycée Français de Carthage was established to serve French families in Carthage. In 1961 it was given to the Tunisian government as part of the Independence of Tunisia, so the nearby Collège Maurice Cailloux in La Marsa, previously an annex of the Lycée Français de Carthage, was renamed to the Lycée Français de La Marsa and began serving the lycée level. It is currently the Lycée Gustave Flaubert.[101]
+
+After Tunisian independence in 1956, the Tunis conurbation gradually extended around the airport, and Carthage (قرطاج  Qarṭāj) is now a suburb of Tunis, covering the area between Sidi Bou Said and Le Kram.[102][103]
+Its population as of January 2013 was estimated at 21,276,[104]
+mostly attracting the more wealthy residents.[105] If Carthage is not the capital, it tends to be the political pole, a « place of emblematic power » according to Sophie Bessis,[106] leaving to Tunis the economic and administrative roles. The Carthage Palace (the Tunisian presidential palace) is located in the coast.[107]
+
+The suburb has six train stations of the TGM line between Le Kram and Sidi Bou Said:
+Carthage Salammbo (named for Salambo, the fictional daughter of Hamilcar), Carthage Byrsa (named for Byrsa hill), Carthage Dermech (Dermèche), Carthage Hannibal (named for Hannibal), Carthage Présidence (named for the Presidential Palace) and Carthage Amilcar (named for Hamilcar).
+
+The scant remains of what was once a great city are reflected upon in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem, Carthage, published in 1836 with quotes from Sir Grenville Temple's Journal.
+
+The merchants of Carthage were in part heirs of the Mediterranean trade developed by Phoenicia, and so also heirs of the rivalry with Greek merchants. Business activity was accordingly both stimulated and challenged. Cyprus had been an early site of such commercial contests. The Phoenicians then had ventured into the western Mediterranean, founding trading posts, including Utica and Carthage. The Greeks followed, entering the western seas where the commercial rivalry continued. Eventually it would lead, especially in Sicily, to several centuries of intermittent war.[108][109] Although Greek-made merchandise was generally considered superior in design, Carthage also produced trade goods in abundance. That Carthage came to function as a manufacturing colossus was shown during the Third Punic War with Rome. Carthage, which had previously disarmed, then was made to face the fatal Roman siege. The city "suddenly organised the manufacture of arms" with great skill and effectiveness. According to Strabo (63 BC – AD 21) in his Geographica:
+
+[Carthage] each day produced one hundred and forty finished shields, three hundred swords, five hundred spears, and one thousand missiles for the catapults... . Furthermore, [Carthage although surrounded by the Romans] built one hundred and twenty decked ships in two months... for old timber had been stored away in readiness, and a large number of skilled workmen, maintained at public expense.[110]
+
+The textiles industry in Carthage probably started in private homes, but the existence of professional weavers indicates that a sort of factory system later developed. Products included embroidery, carpets, and use of the purple murex dye (for which the Carthaginian isle of Djerba was famous). Metalworkers developed specialized skills, i.e., making various weapons for the armed forces, as well as domestic articles, such as knives, forks, scissors, mirrors, and razors (all articles found in tombs). Artwork in metals included vases and lamps in bronze, also bowls, and plates. Other products came from such crafts as the potters, the glassmakers, and the goldsmiths. Inscriptions on votive stele indicate that many were not slaves but 'free citizens'.[111]
+
+Phoenician and Punic merchant ventures were often run as a family enterprise, putting to work its members and its subordinate clients. Such family-run businesses might perform a variety of tasks:  own and maintain the ships, providing the captain and crew;  do the negotiations overseas, either by barter or buying and selling, of their own manufactured commodities and trade goods, and native products (metals, foodstuffs, etc.) to carry and trade elsewhere; and send their agents to stay at distant outposts in order to make lasting local contacts, and later to establish a warehouse of shipped goods for exchange, and eventually perhaps a settlement. Over generations, such activity might result in the creation of a wide-ranging network of trading operations. Ancillary would be the growth of reciprocity between different family firms, foreign and domestic.[112][113]
+
+State protection was extended to its sea traders by the Phoenician city of Tyre and later likewise by the daughter city-state of Carthage.[114] Stéphane Gsell, the well-regarded French historian of ancient North Africa, summarized the major principles guiding the civic rulers of Carthage with regard to its policies for trade and commerce:
+
+Both the Phoenicians and the Cathaginians were well known in antiquity for their secrecy in general, and especially pertaining to commercial contacts and trade routes.[116][117][118] Both cultures excelled in commercial dealings. Strabo (63BC-AD21) the Greek geographer wrote that before its fall (in 146 BC) Carthage enjoyed a population of 700,000, and directed an alliance of 300 cities.[119] The Greek historian Polybius (c.203–120) referred to Carthage as "the wealthiest city in the world".[120]
+
+A "suffet" (possibly two) was elected by the citizens, and held office with no military power for a one-year term. Carthaginian generals marshalled mercenary armies and were separately elected. From about 550 to 450 the Magonid family monopolized the top military position; later the Barcid family acted similarly. Eventually it came to be that, after a war, the commanding general had to testify justifying his actions before a court of 104 judges.[121]
+
+Aristotle (384–322) discusses Carthage in his work, Politica; he begins: "The Carthaginians are also considered to have an excellent form of government." He briefly describes the city as a "mixed constitution", a political arrangement with cohabiting elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, i.e., a king (Gk: basileus), a council of elders (Gk: gerusia), and the people (Gk: demos).[122]  Later Polybius of Megalopolis (c.204–122, Greek) in his Histories would describe the Roman Republic in more detail as a mixed constitution in which the Consuls were the monarchy, the Senate the aristocracy, and the Assemblies the democracy.[123]
+
+Evidently Carthage also had an institution of elders who advised the Suffets, similar to a Greek gerusia or the Roman Senate.  We do not have a Punic name for this body. At times its members would travel with an army general on campaign.  Members also formed permanent committees.  The institution had several hundred members drawn from the wealthiest class who held office for life.  Vacancies were probably filled by recruitment from among the elite, i.e., by co-option. From among its members were selected the 104 Judges mentioned above. Later the 104 would come to evaluate not only army generals but other office holders as well. Aristotle regarded the 104 as most important; he compared it to the ephorate of Sparta with regard to control over security. In Hannibal's time, such a Judge held office for life.  At some stage there also came to be independent self-perpetuating boards of five who filled vacancies and supervised (non-military) government administration.[124]
+
+Popular assemblies also existed at Carthage. When deadlocked the Suffets and the quasi-senatorial institution of elders might request the assembly to vote; also, assembly votes were requested in very crucial matters in order to achieve political consensus and popular coherence. The assembly members had no legal wealth or birth qualification.  How its members were selected is unknown, e.g., whether by festival group or urban ward or another method.[125][126][127]
+
+The Greeks were favourably impressed by the constitution of Carthage; Aristotle had a separate study of it made which unfortunately is lost. In his Politica he states: "The government of Carthage is oligarchical, but they successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the people after another by sending them to their colonies." "[T]heir policy is to send some [poorer citizens] to their dependent towns, where they grow rich."[128][129] Yet Aristotle continues, "[I]f any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would be no way of restoring peace by legal means." Aristotle remarked also:
+
+Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remain loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.[130]
+
+Here one may remember that the city-state of Carthage, who citizens were mainly Libyphoenicians (of Phoenician ancestry born in Africa), dominated and exploited an agricultural countryside composed mainly of native Berber sharecroppers and farmworkers, whose affiliations to Carthage were open to divergent possibilities. Beyond these more settled Berbers and the Punic farming towns and rural manors, lived the independent Berber tribes, who were mostly pastoralists.
+
+In the brief, uneven review of government at Carthage found in his Politica Aristotle mentions several faults. Thus, "that the same person should hold many offices, which is a favorite practice among the Carthaginians." Aristotle disapproves, mentioning the flute-player and the shoemaker. Also, that "magistrates should be chosen not only for their merit but for their wealth." Aristotle's opinion is that focus on pursuit of wealth will lead to oligarchy and its evils.
+
+[S]urely it is a bad thing that the greatest offices... should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For, whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example; and, where virtue has not the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established.[131]
+
+In Carthage the people seemed politically satisfied and submissive, according to the historian Warmington. They in their assemblies only rarely exercised the few opportunities given them to assent to state decisions. Popular influence over government appears not to have been an issue at Carthage. Being a commercial republic fielding a mercenary army, the people were not conscripted for military service, an experience which can foster the feel for popular political action. But perhaps this misunderstands the society; perhaps the people, whose values were based on small-group loyalty, felt themselves sufficiently connected to their city's leadership by the very integrity of the person-to-person linkage within their social fabric. Carthage was very stable; there were few openings for tyrants. Only after defeat by Rome devastated Punic imperial ambitions did the people of Carthage seem to question their governance and to show interest in political reform.[132]
+
+In 196, following the Second Punic War (218–201), Hannibal Barca, still greatly admired as a Barcid military leader, was elected suffet. When his reforms were blocked by a financial official about to become a judge for life, Hannibal rallied the populace against the 104 judges. He proposed a one-year term for the 104, as part of a major civic overhaul. Additionally, the reform included a restructuring of the city's revenues, and the fostering of trade and agriculture. The changes rather quickly resulted in a noticeable increase in prosperity. Yet his incorrigible political opponents cravenly went to Rome, to charge Hannibal with conspiracy, namely, plotting war against Rome in league with Antiochus the Hellenic ruler of Syria. Although the Roman Scipio Africanus resisted such manoeuvre, eventually intervention by Rome forced Hannibal to leave Carthage. Thus, corrupt city officials efficiently blocked Hannibal Barca in his efforts to reform the government of Carthage.[133][134]
+
+Mago (6th century) was King of Carthage; the head of state, war leader, and religious figurehead.  His family was considered to possess a sacred quality.  Mago's office was somewhat similar to that of a pharaoh, but although kept in a family it was not hereditary, it was limited by legal consent. Picard, accordingly, believes that the council of elders and the popular assembly are late institutions. Carthage was founded by the king of Tyre who had a royal monopoly on this trading venture. Thus it was the royal authority stemming from this traditional source of power that the King of Carthage possessed. Later, as other Phoenician ship companies entered the trading region, and so associated with the city-state, the King of Carthage had to keep order among a rich variety of powerful merchants in their negotiations among themselves and over risky commerce across the Mediterranean. Under these circumstance, the office of king began to be transformed. Yet it was not until the aristocrats of Carthage became wealthy owners of agricultural lands in Africa that a council of elders was institutionalized at Carthage.[135]
+
+Most ancient literature concerning Carthage comes from Greek and Roman sources as Carthage's own documents were destroyed by the Romans.[136][137] Apart from inscriptions, hardly any Punic literature has survived, and none in its own language and script.[138] A brief catalogue would include:[139]
+
+"[F]rom the Greek author Plutarch [(c. 46 – c. 120)] we learn of the 'sacred books' in Punic safeguarded by the city's temples. Few Punic texts survive, however."[150] Once "the City Archives, the Annals, and the scribal lists of suffets" existed, but evidently these were destroyed in the horrific fires during the Roman capture of the city in 146 BC.[151]
+
+Yet some Punic books (Latin: libri punici) from the libraries of Carthage reportedly did survive the fires.[152] These works were apparently given by Roman authorities to the newly augmented Berber rulers.[153][154] Over a century after the fall of Carthage, the Roman politician-turned-author Gaius Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (86–34) reported his having seen volumes written in Punic, which books were said to be once possessed by the Berber king, Hiempsal II (r. 88–81).[155][156][157] By way of Berber informants and Punic translators, Sallust had used these surviving books to write his brief sketch of Berber affairs.[158][159]
+
+Probably some of Hiempsal II's libri punici, that had escaped the fires that consumed Carthage in 146 BC, wound up later in the large royal library of his grandson Juba II (r.25 BC-AD 24).[160] Juba II not only was a Berber king, and husband of Cleopatra's daughter, but also a scholar and author in Greek of no less than nine works.[161] He wrote for the Mediterranean-wide audience then enjoying classical literature. The libri punici inherited from his grandfather surely became useful to him when composing his Libyka, a work on North Africa written in Greek. Unfortunately, only fragments of Libyka survive, mostly from quotations made by other ancient authors.[162] It may have been Juba II who 'discovered' the five-centuries-old 'log book' of Hanno the Navigator, called the Periplus, among library documents saved from fallen Carthage.[163][164][165]
+
+In the end, however, most Punic writings that survived the destruction of Carthage "did not escape the immense wreckage in which so many of Antiquity's literary works perished."[166] Accordingly, the long and continuous interactions between Punic citizens of Carthage and the Berber communities that surrounded the city have no local historian. Their political arrangements and periodic crises, their economic and work life, the cultural ties and social relations established and nourished (infrequently as kin), are not known to us directly from ancient Punic authors in written accounts. Neither side has left us their stories about life in Punic-era Carthage.[167]
+
+Regarding Phoenician writings, few remain and these seldom refer to Carthage. The more ancient and most informative are cuneiform tablets, ca. 1600–1185, from ancient Ugarit, located to the north of Phoenicia on the Syrian coast; it was a Canaanite city politically affiliated with the Hittites. The clay tablets tell of myths, epics, rituals, medical and administrative matters, and also correspondence.[168][169][170] The highly valued works of Sanchuniathon, an ancient priest of Beirut, who reportedly wrote on Phoenician religion and the origins of civilization, are themselves completely lost, but some little content endures twice removed.[171][172] Sanchuniathon was said to have lived in the 11th century, which is considered doubtful.[173][174]  Much later a Phoenician History by Philo of Byblos (64–141) reportedly existed, written in Greek, but only fragments of this work survive.[175][176] An explanation proffered for why so few Phoenician works endured: early on (11th century) archives and records began to be kept on papyrus, which does not long survive in a moist coastal climate.[177] Also, both Phoenicians and Carthaginians were well known for their secrecy.[178][179]
+
+Thus, of their ancient writings we have little of major interest left to us by Carthage, or by Phoenicia the country of origin of the city founders. "Of the various Phoenician and Punic compositions alluded to by the ancient classical authors, not a single work or even fragment has survived in its original idiom." "Indeed, not a single Phoenician manuscript has survived in the original [language] or in translation."[180] We cannot therefore access directly the line of thought or the contour of their worldview as expressed in their own words, in their own voice.[181] Ironically, it was the Phoenicians who "invented or at least perfected and transmitted a form of writing [the alphabet] that has influenced dozens of cultures including our own."[182][183][184]
+
+As noted, the celebrated ancient books on agriculture written by Mago of Carthage survives only via quotations in Latin from several later Roman works.

en/882.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+
+
+A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
+
+Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables.
+
+Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant napkin or cloth and mundi the world. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world.
+
+Cartography or map-making is the study and practice of crafting representations of the Earth upon a flat surface (see History of cartography), and one who makes maps is called a cartographer.
+
+Road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form a subset of navigational maps, which also include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and bicycling maps. In terms of quantity, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably made up by local surveys, carried out by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers, and other local agencies.  Many national surveying projects have been carried out by the military, such as the British Ordnance Survey: a civilian government agency, internationally renowned for its comprehensively detailed work.
+
+In addition to location information, maps may also be used to portray contour lines indicating constant values of elevation, temperature, rainfall, etc.
+
+The orientation of a map is the relationship between the directions on the map and the corresponding compass directions in reality. The word "orient" is derived from Latin oriens, meaning east. In the Middle Ages many maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with east at the top (meaning that the direction "up" on the map corresponds to East on the compass). The most common cartographic convention, is that north is at the top of a map.
+
+Maps not oriented with north at the top:
+
+Many maps are drawn to a scale expressed as a ratio, such as 1:10,000, which means that 1 unit of measurement on the map corresponds to 10,000 of that same unit on the ground. The scale statement can be accurate when the region mapped is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, such as a city map. Mapping larger regions, where curvature cannot be ignored, requires projections to map from the curved surface of the Earth to the plane. The impossibility of flattening the sphere to the plane without distortion means that the map cannot have constant scale. Rather, on most projections the best that can be attained is accurate scale along one or two paths on the projection. Because scale differs everywhere, it can only be measured meaningfully as point scale per location. Most maps strive to keep point scale variation within narrow bounds. Although the scale statement is nominal it is usually accurate enough for most purposes unless the map covers a large fraction of the earth. At the scope of a world map, scale as a single number is practically meaningless throughout most of the map. Instead, it usually refers to the scale along the equator.
+
+Some maps, called cartograms, have the scale deliberately distorted to reflect information other than land area or distance. For example, this map (at the right) of Europe has been distorted to show population distribution, while the rough shape of the continent is still discernible.
+
+Another example of distorted scale is the famous London Underground map. The basic geographical structure is respected but the tube lines (and the River Thames) are smoothed to clarify the relationships between stations. Near the center of the map stations are spaced out more than near the edges of map.
+
+Further inaccuracies may be deliberate. For example, cartographers may simply omit military installations or remove features solely in order to enhance the clarity of the map. For example, a road map may not show railroads, smaller waterways or other prominent non-road objects, and even if it does, it may show them less clearly (e.g. dashed or dotted lines/outlines) than the main roads. Known as decluttering, the practice makes the subject matter that the user is interested in easier to read, usually without sacrificing overall accuracy. Software-based maps often allow the user to toggle decluttering between ON, OFF and AUTO as needed. In AUTO the degree of decluttering is adjusted as the user changes the scale being displayed.
+
+Geographic maps use a projection to translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Projection always distorts the surface. There are many ways to apportion the distortion, and so there are many map projections. Which projection to use depends on the purpose of the map.
+
+The various features shown on a map are represented by conventional signs or symbols.  For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads.  Those signs are usually explained in the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet.[2]
+
+Some cartographers prefer to make the map cover practically the entire screen or sheet of paper, leaving no room "outside" the map for information about the map as a whole.
+These cartographers typically place such information in an otherwise "blank" region "inside" the map—cartouche, map legend, title, compass rose, bar scale, etc.
+In particular, some maps contain smaller "sub-maps" in otherwise blank regions—often one at a much smaller scale showing the whole globe and where the whole map fits on that globe, and a few showing "regions of interest" at a larger scale in order to show details that wouldn't otherwise fit.
+Occasionally sub-maps use the same scale as the large map—a few maps of the contiguous United States include a sub-map to the same scale for each of the two non-contiguous states.
+
+To communicate spatial information effectively, features such as rivers, lakes, and cities need to be labeled. Over centuries cartographers have developed the art of placing names on even the densest of maps. Text placement or name placement can get mathematically very complex as the number of labels and map density increases. Therefore, text placement is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so cartographers and GIS users have developed automatic label placement to ease this process.[3][4]
+
+Maps of the world or large areas are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use including infrastructure such as roads, railroads and buildings. Topographic maps show elevations and relief with contour lines or shading. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.
+
+From the last quarter of the 20th century, the indispensable tool of the cartographer has been the computer. Much of cartography, especially at the data-gathering survey level, has been subsumed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The functionality of maps has been greatly advanced by technology simplifying the superimposition of spatially located variables onto existing geographical maps. Having local information such as rainfall level, distribution of wildlife, or demographic data integrated within the map allows more efficient analysis and better decision making. In the pre-electronic age such superimposition of data led Dr. John Snow to identify the location of an outbreak of cholera. Today, it is used by agencies of the human kind, as diverse as wildlife conservationists and militaries around the world.
+
+Even when GIS is not involved, most cartographers now use a variety of computer graphics programs to generate new maps.
+
+Interactive, computerised maps are commercially available, allowing users to zoom in or zoom out (respectively meaning to increase or decrease the scale), sometimes by replacing one map with another of different scale, centered where possible on the same point.  In-car global navigation satellite systems are computerised maps with route-planning and advice facilities which monitor the user's position with the help of satellites. From the computer scientist's point of view, zooming in entails one or a combination of:
+
+For example:
+
+See also: Webpage (Graphics), PDF (Layers), MapQuest, Google Maps, Google Earth, OpenStreetMap or Yahoo! Maps.
+
+The maps that reflect the territorial distribution of climatic conditions based on the results of long-term observations are called climatic maps. These maps can be compiled both for individual climatic features (temperature, precipitation, humidity) and for combinations of them at the earth's surface and in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Climatic maps show climatic features across a large region and permit values of climatic features to be compared in different parts of the region. When generating the map, interpolation can be used to synthesize values where there are no measurements, under the assumption that conditions change smoothly.
+
+Climatic maps generally apply to individual months and to the year as a whole, sometimes to the four seasons, to the growing period, and so forth. On maps compiled from the observations of ground meteorological stations, atmospheric pressure is converted to sea level. Air temperature maps are compiled both from the actual values observed on the surface of the earth and from values converted to sea level. The pressure field in free atmosphere is represented either by maps of the distribution of pressure at different standard altitudes—for example, at every kilometer above sea level—or by maps of baric topography on which altitudes (more precisely geopotentials) of the main isobaric surfaces (for example, 900, 800, and 700 millibars) counted off from sea level are plotted. The temperature, humidity, and wind on aeroclimatic maps may apply either to standard altitudes or to the main isobaric surfaces.
+
+Isolines are drawn on maps of such climatic features as the long-term mean values (of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, total precipitation, and so forth) to connect points with equal values of the feature in question—for example, isobars for pressure, isotherms for temperature, and isohyets for precipitation. Isoamplitudes are drawn on maps of amplitudes (for example, annual amplitudes of air temperature—that is, the differences between the mean temperatures of the warmest and coldest month). Isanomals are drawn on maps of anomalies (for example, deviations of the mean temperature of each place from the mean temperature of the entire latitudinal zone). Isolines of frequency are drawn on maps showing the frequency of a particular phenomenon (for example, annual number of days with a thunderstorm or snow cover). Isochrones are drawn on maps showing the dates of onset of a given phenomenon (for example, the first frost and appearance or disappearance of the snow cover) or the date of a particular value of a meteorological element in the course of a year (for example, passing of the mean daily air temperature through zero). Isolines of the mean numerical value of wind velocity or isotachs are drawn on wind maps (charts); the wind resultants and directions of prevailing winds are indicated by arrows of different length or arrows with different plumes; lines of flow are often drawn. Maps of the zonal and meridional components of wind are frequently compiled for the free atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure and wind are usually combined on climatic maps. Wind roses, curves showing the distribution of other meteorological elements, diagrams of the annual course of elements at individual stations, and the like are also plotted on climatic maps.
+
+Maps of climatic regionalization, that is, division of the earth's surface into climatic zones and regions according to some classification of climates, are a special kind of climatic map.
+
+Climatic maps are often incorporated into climatic atlases of varying geographic range (globe, hemispheres, continents, countries, oceans) or included in comprehensive atlases. Besides general climatic maps, applied climatic maps and atlases have great practical value. Aeroclimatic maps, aeroclimatic atlases, and agroclimatic maps are the most numerous.
+
+Maps exist of the Solar System, and other cosmological features such as star maps. In addition maps of other bodies such as the Moon and other planets are technically not geographical maps.
+
+Diagrams such as schematic diagrams and Gantt charts and treemaps display logical relationships between items, rather than geographical relationships. Topological in nature, only the connectivity is significant. The London Underground map and similar subway maps around the world are a common example of these maps.
+
+General-purpose maps provide many types of information on one map. Most atlas maps, wall maps, and road maps fall into this category. The following are some features that might be shown on general-purpose maps: bodies of water, roads, railway lines, parks, elevations, towns and cities, political boundaries, latitude and longitude, national and provincial parks. These maps give a broad understanding of location and features of an area.  The reader may gain an understanding of the type of landscape, the location of urban places, and the location of major transportation routes all at once.
+
+Some countries required that all published maps represent their national claims regarding border disputes.  For example:
+
+In 2010, the People's Republic of China began requiring that all online maps served from within China be hosted there, making them subject to Chinese laws.[7]

en/883.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,68 @@
+
+
+A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes.
+
+Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although most commonly used to depict geography, maps may represent any space, real or fictional, without regard to context or scale, such as in brain mapping, DNA mapping, or computer network topology mapping. The space being mapped may be two dimensional, such as the surface of the earth, three dimensional, such as the interior of the earth, or even more abstract spaces of any dimension, such as arise in modeling phenomena having many independent variables.
+
+Although the earliest maps known are of the heavens, geographic maps of territory have a very long tradition and exist from ancient times. The word "map" comes from the medieval Latin Mappa mundi, wherein mappa meant napkin or cloth and mundi the world. Thus, "map" became a shortened term referring to a two-dimensional representation of the surface of the world.
+
+Cartography or map-making is the study and practice of crafting representations of the Earth upon a flat surface (see History of cartography), and one who makes maps is called a cartographer.
+
+Road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form a subset of navigational maps, which also include aeronautical and nautical charts, railroad network maps, and hiking and bicycling maps. In terms of quantity, the largest number of drawn map sheets is probably made up by local surveys, carried out by municipalities, utilities, tax assessors, emergency services providers, and other local agencies.  Many national surveying projects have been carried out by the military, such as the British Ordnance Survey: a civilian government agency, internationally renowned for its comprehensively detailed work.
+
+In addition to location information, maps may also be used to portray contour lines indicating constant values of elevation, temperature, rainfall, etc.
+
+The orientation of a map is the relationship between the directions on the map and the corresponding compass directions in reality. The word "orient" is derived from Latin oriens, meaning east. In the Middle Ages many maps, including the T and O maps, were drawn with east at the top (meaning that the direction "up" on the map corresponds to East on the compass). The most common cartographic convention, is that north is at the top of a map.
+
+Maps not oriented with north at the top:
+
+Many maps are drawn to a scale expressed as a ratio, such as 1:10,000, which means that 1 unit of measurement on the map corresponds to 10,000 of that same unit on the ground. The scale statement can be accurate when the region mapped is small enough for the curvature of the Earth to be neglected, such as a city map. Mapping larger regions, where curvature cannot be ignored, requires projections to map from the curved surface of the Earth to the plane. The impossibility of flattening the sphere to the plane without distortion means that the map cannot have constant scale. Rather, on most projections the best that can be attained is accurate scale along one or two paths on the projection. Because scale differs everywhere, it can only be measured meaningfully as point scale per location. Most maps strive to keep point scale variation within narrow bounds. Although the scale statement is nominal it is usually accurate enough for most purposes unless the map covers a large fraction of the earth. At the scope of a world map, scale as a single number is practically meaningless throughout most of the map. Instead, it usually refers to the scale along the equator.
+
+Some maps, called cartograms, have the scale deliberately distorted to reflect information other than land area or distance. For example, this map (at the right) of Europe has been distorted to show population distribution, while the rough shape of the continent is still discernible.
+
+Another example of distorted scale is the famous London Underground map. The basic geographical structure is respected but the tube lines (and the River Thames) are smoothed to clarify the relationships between stations. Near the center of the map stations are spaced out more than near the edges of map.
+
+Further inaccuracies may be deliberate. For example, cartographers may simply omit military installations or remove features solely in order to enhance the clarity of the map. For example, a road map may not show railroads, smaller waterways or other prominent non-road objects, and even if it does, it may show them less clearly (e.g. dashed or dotted lines/outlines) than the main roads. Known as decluttering, the practice makes the subject matter that the user is interested in easier to read, usually without sacrificing overall accuracy. Software-based maps often allow the user to toggle decluttering between ON, OFF and AUTO as needed. In AUTO the degree of decluttering is adjusted as the user changes the scale being displayed.
+
+Geographic maps use a projection to translating the three-dimensional real surface of the geoid to a two-dimensional picture. Projection always distorts the surface. There are many ways to apportion the distortion, and so there are many map projections. Which projection to use depends on the purpose of the map.
+
+The various features shown on a map are represented by conventional signs or symbols.  For example, colors can be used to indicate a classification of roads.  Those signs are usually explained in the margin of the map, or on a separately published characteristic sheet.[2]
+
+Some cartographers prefer to make the map cover practically the entire screen or sheet of paper, leaving no room "outside" the map for information about the map as a whole.
+These cartographers typically place such information in an otherwise "blank" region "inside" the map—cartouche, map legend, title, compass rose, bar scale, etc.
+In particular, some maps contain smaller "sub-maps" in otherwise blank regions—often one at a much smaller scale showing the whole globe and where the whole map fits on that globe, and a few showing "regions of interest" at a larger scale in order to show details that wouldn't otherwise fit.
+Occasionally sub-maps use the same scale as the large map—a few maps of the contiguous United States include a sub-map to the same scale for each of the two non-contiguous states.
+
+To communicate spatial information effectively, features such as rivers, lakes, and cities need to be labeled. Over centuries cartographers have developed the art of placing names on even the densest of maps. Text placement or name placement can get mathematically very complex as the number of labels and map density increases. Therefore, text placement is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so cartographers and GIS users have developed automatic label placement to ease this process.[3][4]
+
+Maps of the world or large areas are often either 'political' or 'physical'. The most important purpose of the political map is to show territorial borders; the purpose of the physical is to show features of geography such as mountains, soil type or land use including infrastructure such as roads, railroads and buildings. Topographic maps show elevations and relief with contour lines or shading. Geological maps show not only the physical surface, but characteristics of the underlying rock, fault lines, and subsurface structures.
+
+From the last quarter of the 20th century, the indispensable tool of the cartographer has been the computer. Much of cartography, especially at the data-gathering survey level, has been subsumed by Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The functionality of maps has been greatly advanced by technology simplifying the superimposition of spatially located variables onto existing geographical maps. Having local information such as rainfall level, distribution of wildlife, or demographic data integrated within the map allows more efficient analysis and better decision making. In the pre-electronic age such superimposition of data led Dr. John Snow to identify the location of an outbreak of cholera. Today, it is used by agencies of the human kind, as diverse as wildlife conservationists and militaries around the world.
+
+Even when GIS is not involved, most cartographers now use a variety of computer graphics programs to generate new maps.
+
+Interactive, computerised maps are commercially available, allowing users to zoom in or zoom out (respectively meaning to increase or decrease the scale), sometimes by replacing one map with another of different scale, centered where possible on the same point.  In-car global navigation satellite systems are computerised maps with route-planning and advice facilities which monitor the user's position with the help of satellites. From the computer scientist's point of view, zooming in entails one or a combination of:
+
+For example:
+
+See also: Webpage (Graphics), PDF (Layers), MapQuest, Google Maps, Google Earth, OpenStreetMap or Yahoo! Maps.
+
+The maps that reflect the territorial distribution of climatic conditions based on the results of long-term observations are called climatic maps. These maps can be compiled both for individual climatic features (temperature, precipitation, humidity) and for combinations of them at the earth's surface and in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Climatic maps show climatic features across a large region and permit values of climatic features to be compared in different parts of the region. When generating the map, interpolation can be used to synthesize values where there are no measurements, under the assumption that conditions change smoothly.
+
+Climatic maps generally apply to individual months and to the year as a whole, sometimes to the four seasons, to the growing period, and so forth. On maps compiled from the observations of ground meteorological stations, atmospheric pressure is converted to sea level. Air temperature maps are compiled both from the actual values observed on the surface of the earth and from values converted to sea level. The pressure field in free atmosphere is represented either by maps of the distribution of pressure at different standard altitudes—for example, at every kilometer above sea level—or by maps of baric topography on which altitudes (more precisely geopotentials) of the main isobaric surfaces (for example, 900, 800, and 700 millibars) counted off from sea level are plotted. The temperature, humidity, and wind on aeroclimatic maps may apply either to standard altitudes or to the main isobaric surfaces.
+
+Isolines are drawn on maps of such climatic features as the long-term mean values (of atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, total precipitation, and so forth) to connect points with equal values of the feature in question—for example, isobars for pressure, isotherms for temperature, and isohyets for precipitation. Isoamplitudes are drawn on maps of amplitudes (for example, annual amplitudes of air temperature—that is, the differences between the mean temperatures of the warmest and coldest month). Isanomals are drawn on maps of anomalies (for example, deviations of the mean temperature of each place from the mean temperature of the entire latitudinal zone). Isolines of frequency are drawn on maps showing the frequency of a particular phenomenon (for example, annual number of days with a thunderstorm or snow cover). Isochrones are drawn on maps showing the dates of onset of a given phenomenon (for example, the first frost and appearance or disappearance of the snow cover) or the date of a particular value of a meteorological element in the course of a year (for example, passing of the mean daily air temperature through zero). Isolines of the mean numerical value of wind velocity or isotachs are drawn on wind maps (charts); the wind resultants and directions of prevailing winds are indicated by arrows of different length or arrows with different plumes; lines of flow are often drawn. Maps of the zonal and meridional components of wind are frequently compiled for the free atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure and wind are usually combined on climatic maps. Wind roses, curves showing the distribution of other meteorological elements, diagrams of the annual course of elements at individual stations, and the like are also plotted on climatic maps.
+
+Maps of climatic regionalization, that is, division of the earth's surface into climatic zones and regions according to some classification of climates, are a special kind of climatic map.
+
+Climatic maps are often incorporated into climatic atlases of varying geographic range (globe, hemispheres, continents, countries, oceans) or included in comprehensive atlases. Besides general climatic maps, applied climatic maps and atlases have great practical value. Aeroclimatic maps, aeroclimatic atlases, and agroclimatic maps are the most numerous.
+
+Maps exist of the Solar System, and other cosmological features such as star maps. In addition maps of other bodies such as the Moon and other planets are technically not geographical maps.
+
+Diagrams such as schematic diagrams and Gantt charts and treemaps display logical relationships between items, rather than geographical relationships. Topological in nature, only the connectivity is significant. The London Underground map and similar subway maps around the world are a common example of these maps.
+
+General-purpose maps provide many types of information on one map. Most atlas maps, wall maps, and road maps fall into this category. The following are some features that might be shown on general-purpose maps: bodies of water, roads, railway lines, parks, elevations, towns and cities, political boundaries, latitude and longitude, national and provincial parks. These maps give a broad understanding of location and features of an area.  The reader may gain an understanding of the type of landscape, the location of urban places, and the location of major transportation routes all at once.
+
+Some countries required that all published maps represent their national claims regarding border disputes.  For example:
+
+In 2010, the People's Republic of China began requiring that all online maps served from within China be hosted there, making them subject to Chinese laws.[7]

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+Cartoon Network is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division of AT&T's WarnerMedia. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992, and primarily broadcasts animated television series, mostly children's programming, ranging from action to animated comedy. It operates usually from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM (ET/PT) and is targeted at children between ages 7 and 15. Its overnight daypart block Adult Swim is aimed at young adults and is treated as a separate entity for promotional purposes and as a separate channel by Nielsen for ratings purposes.[1] A Spanish language audio track for select programs is accessible via second audio programing (SAP); some TV providers offer the Spanish feed as a separate channel by removing the main English-language audio track.
+
+As of September 2018, Cartoon Network is available to approximately 89.212 million pay television households in the United States.[2]
+
+On August 4, 1986, Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists from Kirk Kerkorian; due to concerns over the debt load of his companies, on October 17, 1986, Turner was forced to sell MGM back to Kerkorian after approximately only 75 days of ownership. However, Turner kept much of MGM's film and television library made prior to May 1986 (as well as some of the United Artists library) and formed Turner Entertainment Co.[3]
+
+On October 3, 1988, its cable channel Turner Network Television was launched and had gained an audience with its extensive film library.[4] At this time, Turner's animation library included the MGM cartoon library, the pre-1948 color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies shorts (except Lady, Play Your Mandolin!), and the Fleischer Studios/Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.
+
+In 1991, Turner beat out bidders including MCA Inc. (then-owner of Universal Studios) and Hallmark Cards when it made a deal to purchase animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions for $320 million.[5][6] On February 18, 1992, Turner announced its plans to launch the Cartoon Network as an outlet for Turner's considerable library of animation.[7]
+
+On October 1, 1992, Cartoon Network launched to the finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with a backdrop of cartoon explosions, followed by a special event called Droopy's Guide to the Cartoon Network hosted by the MGM cartoon character Droopy, during which the first cartoon on the network, Rhapsody Rabbit, was shown.[8][9][10][11][12] Initial programming on the channel consisted exclusively of reruns of Warner Bros. cartoons (the pre-1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), the 1933–1957 Popeye cartoons, MGM cartoons, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.[7] At first, cable providers in New York City; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Dallas; and Detroit carried the channel.[10] By the time the network launched, Cartoon Network had an 8,500-hour cartoon library.[13] From its launch until 1995, the network's announcers said the network's name with the word "The" added before "Cartoon Network", thus calling the network "The Cartoon Network". By the time that the network debuted, Cartoon Network also operated a programming block (containing its cartoons) that aired on TNT, entitled "Cartoon Network on TNT".
+
+Cartoon Network was not the first cable channel to have relied on cartoons to attract an audience; however, it was the first 24-hour single-genre channel with animation as its main theme. Turner Broadcasting System had defied conventional wisdom before by launching CNN, a channel providing 24-hour news coverage. The concept was previously thought unlikely to attract a sufficient audience to be particularly profitable, however the CNN experiment had been successful and Turner hoped that Cartoon Network would also find success.[14]
+
+Initially, the channel would broadcast cartoons 24 hours a day. Most of the short cartoons were aired in half-hour or hour-long packages, usually separated by character or studio – Down Wit' Droopy D aired old Droopy Dog shorts, The Tom and Jerry Show presented the classic cat-and-mouse team, and Bugs and Daffy Tonight provided classic Looney Tunes shorts. Late Night Black and White showed early black-and-white cartoons (mostly from the Fleischer Studios and Walter Lantz cartoons from the 1930s, as well as black-and-white Merrie Melodies and MGM cartoons), and ToonHeads would show three shorts with a similar theme and provide trivia about the cartoons.[citation needed] There was also an afternoon cartoon block called High Noon Toons, which was hosted by cowboy hand puppets (an example of the simplicity and imagination the network had in its early years). The majority of the classic animation that was shown on Cartoon Network no longer airs on a regular basis, but Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes, still aired and lasted until 2017.
+
+A challenge for Cartoon Network was to overcome its low penetration of existing cable systems. When launched on October 1, 1992, the channel was only carried by 233 cable systems. However, it benefited from package deals. New subscribers to sister channels TNT and TBS could also get access to Cartoon Network through such deals. The high ratings of Cartoon Network over the following couple of years led to more cable systems including it. By the end of 1994, Cartoon Network had become "the fifth most popular cable channel in the United States".[14]
+
+For the first few years of Cartoon Network's existence, programming meant for the channel would also be simulcast on TBS and/or TNT, both of which were still full-service cable networks that carried a variety of different programming genera, in order to increase the shows' (and Cartoon Network's) exposure; examples include The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Cartoon Planet, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, and 2 Stupid Dogs.
+
+The network's first exclusive original show was The Moxy Show, an animation anthology series first airing in 1993.[15] The first series produced by Cartoon Network was Space Ghost Coast to Coast in 1994, but the show mostly consisted of "recycled animation cells" from the archives of Hanna-Barbera, being an ironic deconstruction of a talk show. It featured live-action guests, mostly consisting of celebrities which were past their prime or counterculture figures. A running gag was that the production cost was dubbed "minimal". The series found its audience among young adults who appreciated its "hip" perspective.[16]
+
+Kevin Sandler considered Space Ghost Coast to Coast instrumental in establishing Cartoon Network's appeal to older audiences. Space Ghost, a 1960s superhero by Hanna-Barbera, was recast as the star of a talk show spoof. This was arguably the first time the network revived a "classic animated icon" in an entirely new context for comedic purposes. Grown-ups who had ceased enjoying the original takes on the characters could find amusement in the "new ironic and self-referential context" for them. Promotional shorts such as the "Scooby-Doo Project", a parody of The Blair Witch Project, gave similar treatments to the Scooby gang.[17] However, there were less successful efforts at such revivals. A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith and Boo Boo Runs Wild (1999) were short cartoons featuring new takes on Yogi Bear's supporting cast by John Kricfalusi. Their style of humor, sexual content and break in tone from the source material was rather out of place among the rest of the Cartoon Network shows, and the network rarely found a place for them in its programming.[18]
+
+In 1994, Hanna-Barbera's new division Cartoon Network Studios was founded and started production on What a Cartoon! (also known as World Premiere Toons and Cartoon Cartoons). This show debuted in 1995, offering original animated shorts commissioned from Hanna-Barbera and various independent animators. The network promoted the series as an attempt to return to the "classic days" of studio animation, offering full animator control, high budgets, and no limited animation. The project was spearheaded by Cartoon Network executives, plus John Kricfalusi and Fred Seibert. Kricfalusi was the creator of  The Ren & Stimpy Show and served as an advisor to the network, while Seibert was formerly one of the driving forces behind Nickelodeon's Nicktoons and would go on to produce the similar animation anthology series Oh Yeah! Cartoons and Random! Cartoons.[16][19]
+
+Cartoon Network was able to assess the potential of certain shorts to serve as pilots for spin-off series and signed contracts with their creators to create ongoing series.[16] Dexter's Laboratory was the most popular short series according to a vote held in 1995 and eventually became the first spin-off of What a Cartoon! in 1996. Three more series based on shorts debuted from 1997 to 1999: Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel (the latter two as segments of the same show; I Am Weasel was later spun off into a separate show), The Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Mike, Lu & Og.[16][19][20] The unrelated series Ed, Edd n Eddy was also launched in 1999, creating a line-up of critically acclaimed shows.[14] Many of these series premiered bearing the "Cartoon Cartoons" brand, airing throughout the network's schedule and prominently on Cartoon Cartoon Fridays, which became the marquee night for premieres of new episodes and series beginning on June 11, 1999.
+
+These original series were intended to appeal to a wider audience than the average Saturday-morning cartoon. Linda Simensky, vice president of original animation, reminded adults and teenage girls that cartoons could appeal to them as well. Kevin Sandler's article of them claimed that these cartoons were both less "bawdy" than their counterparts at Comedy Central and less "socially responsible" than their counterparts at Nickelodeon. Sandler pointed to the whimsical rebelliousness, high rate of exaggeration and self-consciousness of the overall output each individual series managed.[17]
+
+In 1995, Cartoon Network launched "Cartoon Network Online" as an America Online exclusive website. It would later merge with ghostplanet.com as simply "CartoonNetwork.com", and featured games, videos, shopping, Cartoon Orbit, which launched in 2000, and even promotions to movies, video games, food items, toys, etc., such as Campbell's Soup, Ice Age, the original Spy Kids trilogy, the Cat in the Hat, Juicy Drop Pop, Wonder Ball, Hot Wheels, and so many more. In addition, CartoonNetwork.com also ran Cartoon Network's first online original series Web Premiere Toons, which mostly featured interactive web cartoons that ran from 1999 to 2002.
+
+In 1996, Cartoon Network decided to air preschool programming and air them every Sunday morning, such as hiring Children's Television Workshop, the makers of Sesame Street on PBS Kids, to make a show called Big Bag, a live-action/puppet television program targeted at pre-school viewers, as well as Small World, a children's animated anthology show and variety show, in which showcased featured several segments from animated TV programs aimed at preschoolers from several countries around the world except for Japan, China, and Korea. Big Bag ran until 1998, and Small World ran until 2001.
+
+In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner[21] (ironically, Time Warner's predecessor Warner Communications had created rival Nickelodeon, now owned by ViacomCBS, in 1977). The merger consolidated ownership of all the Warner Bros. cartoons, allowing the post-July 1948 and the former Sunset-owned black-and-white cartoons (which Warner Bros. had reacquired in the 1960s) releases to be shown on the network. As most of the post-July 1948 cartoons were still contracted to be shown on Nickelodeon and ABC, the network would not air them until September 1999 (from Nickelodeon) and October 2000 (from ABC), however, the majority of the post-July 1948 cartoons that were shown on its now-sibling broadcast network The WB's Kids' WB block began airing on Cartoon Network in January 1997. Newer animated productions by Warner Bros. Animation also started appearing on the network – mostly reruns of shows that had aired on Kids' WB and some from Fox Kids, along with certain new programs such as Justice League.[22]
+
+Cartoon Network's programming would not be available in Canada until 1997 when a Canadian specialty channel called Teletoon and its French-language counterpart launched.
+
+In 1997, Cartoon Network launched a new action block entitled Toonami. Its lineup initially consisted of 1980s reruns of Robotech and Thundercats. However, new shows were introduced and they consisted of action cartoons and anime, such as Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo!, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and Dragon Ball Z.[23] Toonami was hosted by Moltar from the Space Ghost franchise until 1999, where Toonami was later hosted by its own original character, a muscular teenage robot named TOM. On March 2, 1998, a series of bumpers featuring the instrumental Powerhouse were introduced. These bumpers lasted from 1998 to 2004.[24]
+
+One new original series premiered in 2000: Sheep in the Big City. On April 1, Cartoon Network launched a digital cable and satellite channel known as Boomerang, which was spun off from one of their programming blocks that featured retro animated series and shorts.
+
+Three new original series premiered in 2001: Time Squad, Samurai Jack, and Grim & Evil. On June 18, Betty Cohen, who had served as Cartoon Network's president since its founding, left due to creative disagreements with Jamie Kellner, then-head of Turner Broadcasting. On August 22, Jim Samples was appointed general manager and Executive Vice President of the network, replacing Cohen. Adult Swim debuted on September 2, with an episode of Home Movies; the block initially aired on Sunday nights, with a repeat telecast on Thursdays. The initial lineup consisted of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Sealab 2021, Cowboy Bebop, The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
+
+In 2002, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? and Codename: Kids Next Door premiered; the former was short-lived, but the latter became a juggernaut for the network in the mid-2000s. The first theatrical film based on a Cartoon Network series, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, was released on July 3, 2002. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $16.4 million globally on a budget of $11 million.[25] On October 1 of that year, Cartoon Network celebrated their tenth anniversary, with a montage showcasing the network's various phases over the years.
+
+2003 saw the debuts of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne, both spinoffs of Grim & Evil. On October 3, the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block was rebooted in a live-action format as "Fridays", hosted by Tommy Snider and Nzinga Blake (2003–2004), the latter of which was later replaced by Tara Sands (2005–2007). It aired several new Cartoon Network series, most of which did not bear the "Cartoon Cartoon" sub-brand. Acquired shows started picking up again with Totally Spies! the following year.
+
+In 2004, Cartoon Network premiered three new original series: Megas XLR, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, along with the acquired series Code Lyoko. On June 14, Cartoon Network rebranded, which included an updated version of its original logo (with the checkerboard motif retained and the "C" and "N" being the centerpiece) and a new slogan, "This is Cartoon Network!"[26] The bumpers introduced as part of the rebrand featured 2D cartoon characters from its shows interacting in a CGI city composed of sets from their shows. These bumpers lasted from 2004 to 2007. By now, nearly all of Cartoon Network's classic programming had been relocated to its sister network Boomerang to make way for new programming.
+
+2005 saw the debuts of five more original series: The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Camp Lazlo, Robotboy, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and Ben 10. On August 22, Cartoon Network launched a block aimed at the preschool demographic known as Tickle-U; shows on the block included Gordon the Garden Gnome, Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto!, Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, Little Robots, Peppa Pig, Firehouse Tales, and Gerald McBoing-Boing. The block was largely unsuccessful and was discontinued in 2007. From 2005 to 2008, most of the network's older Cartoon Cartoons (such as Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls) could be viewed in segments on a half-hour block known as The Cartoon Cartoon Show.[27]
+
+In 2005, Cartoon Network signed a deal with AMC Theatres for Summer MovieCamp to feature episodes of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Camp Lazlo, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Codename: Kids Next Door, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends in the big screen.[28]
+
+After its predecessor, What a Cartoon!, Cartoon Network created an all-new animated short series consisting of overseas shorts, pilots, college shorts, or even shorts created for the show itself. That show was called Sunday Pants; it first aired on the day of October 2, 2005. Sunday Pants varies on different types of animation, from traditional hand-drawn animation to Flash, or even CGI, possibly making it similar to other shows such as Liquid Television on MTV or KaBlam! on Nickelodeon. The show was created by Craig "Sven" Gordon and Stuart Hill, and was produced at Spitfire Studios. The show has a similar concept to What a Cartoon!, except that the shorts are 1–3 minutes long and the show is squeezed to be 23 minutes (without commercials). There are animated and live-action intervals in-between shorts. The live-action ones are performed by American band The Slacks, while the animated ones are animated by WeFail. The show lasted for less than a month, with its final airing taking place on October 23, 2005. In January 2006, the show was announced to be returning the month after but said return never came to fruition and the series was ultimately cancelled.
+
+Two new Cartoon Network original series premiered in 2006: Squirrel Boy and Class of 3000. Three made-for-TV movies debuted this year: Codename: Kids Next Door – Operation Z.E.R.O., Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Good Wilt Hunting, and Re-Animated, the latter of which was the network's first live-action TV movie and a collaboration between live-action and animation.
+
+Samples resigned from his post on February 9, 2007, following a bomb scare in Boston caused by packages left around the city that were part of an outdoor marketing campaign promoting the Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.[29][30] On May 2, Stuart Snyder was named Samples' successor.[31] On September 14, the network's look was revamped, with bumpers and station IDs themed to The Hives song "Fall is Just Something That Grown-Ups Invented." 2007 saw the debut of Out of Jimmy's Head, a spin-off of the movie Re-Animated, and the first live-action Cartoon Network series. 2007 also saw the debut of the series Chowder. In late 2007, The network began broadcasting programs from Canadian channels such as YTV and Teletoon, including George of the Jungle, 6teen, Storm Hawks, League of Super Evil, Chaotic, Bakugan Battle Brawlers, Stoked, and the Total Drama series. Each October from 2007 to 2009, Cartoon Network also re-ran 40 episodes of the former Fox Kids series Goosebumps.
+
+Cartoon Network announced at its 2008 upfront that it was working on a new project called The Cartoonstitute, which was headed by animators Craig McCracken as executive producer and Rob Renzetti as supervising producer. Both reported to Rob Sorcher, who created the idea. It would have worked similar to What a Cartoon!, by creating at least 150 pieces of animation within 20 months.[32] Cartoonstitute was eventually cancelled,[citation needed] and out of all the shorts, two or three, Regular Show, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome and Uncle Grandpa, were selected, after animator Craig McCracken (creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) left the network after 15 years in 2009.[citation needed] On September 20, 2008, Cartoon Network ended Toonami after its 11-year run.[33] From 2008 to 2010, Cartoon Network aired animated shorts that served as interstitials between programs, called Wedgies, which included Big Baby, The Bremen Avenue Experience, Calling Cat-22, Nacho Bear, and The Talented Mr. Bixby. On July 14, 2008, the network took on a refreshed look created by Tristan Eaton and animated by Crew972. The bumpers of that era had white, faceless characters called Noods, based on the DIY toy, Munny. These characters had many variations that made them look like characters from different CN shows. The standard network logo was changed to be white, adopting different colors based on the occasion in the same style.[34]
+
+In June 2009, Cartoon Network introduced a block of live-action reality shows called "CN Real", featuring programs such as The Othersiders, Survive This, BrainRush, Destroy Build Destroy, Dude, What Would Happen and Bobb'e Says.[35] The network also aired some limited sports programming, including basketball recaps and Slamball games, during commercial breaks. The lineup was universally panned for being live-action shows on a channel dedicated to cartoons. That year, it also started airing live-action feature films from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. In 2010, the first series produced by Cartoon Network Studios to be broadcast in high definition was Adventure Time.
+
+On May 29, 2010, a new brand identity was introduced, along with new bumpers, a theme, and a tagline, "CHECK it". The branding, designed by Brand New School, consists of the black and white checkerboard which formed the network's first logo (and was carried over in a minimized form to the second logo), as well as various CMYK color variations and various patterns.[36] On December 27, 2010, Adult Swim expanded by one hour, moving its start time from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET.[37] In February 2011, Cartoon Network aired its first sports award show Hall of Game Awards, hosted that year by professional skateboarder Tony Hawk.
+
+At its 2011 upfront, Cartoon Network announced 12 new series, including The Problem Solverz (originally planned for Adult Swim, but switched to CN for being "too cute"), The Amazing World of Gumball, The Looney Tunes Show, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, Level Up (a scripted live-action comedy series with a 90-minute precursor film), Tower Prep, Green Lantern, DreamWorks Dragons (a series based on the DreamWorks film, How to Train Your Dragon), Total Drama: Revenge of the Island, the 4th season of Total Drama; ThunderCats, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, and Ben 10: Omniverse.[38] The network announced it planned to debut a new programming block called DC Nation which would focus on the DC superheroes, the first being the series Green Lantern.[39]
+
+After announcing two new live-action shows in Unnatural History and Tower Prep, which were both cancelled after their first seasons, Cartoon Network acquired the game show, Hole in the Wall (originally aired on Fox). By the end of 2011, Hole in the Wall and the final two CN Real shows, Destroy Build Destroy and Dude, What Would Happen? were removed from Cartoon Network's schedule completely. In 2012, Cartoon Network acquired the television rights to The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, based on the web series, The Annoying Orange and added it to its primetime lineup.[40]
+
+On February 2, 2012, Corus Entertainment and Astral Media, owners of Teletoon, announced they would launch a Canadian version of Cartoon Network that also includes a version of the U.S. network's Adult Swim nighttime block.[41] The channel launched on July 4, 2012.[42] The following month, March 2012, Cartoon Network aired its first documentary, Speak Up, an anti-bullying campaign featuring a special appearance by President Barack Obama.[43] On October 1, 2012, Cartoon Network celebrated its 20th anniversary, airing birthday and party-themed reruns of its shows for several days. Earlier in the year on March 30, 2012, the Cartoon Planet block was revived to air the channel's original programming from the late 1990s through mid-2000s.[44] In addition, the channel announced new programming for 2013, including the live-action series Incredible Crew; the animated series Teen Titans Go!, Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe, I Heart Tuesdays (which never went through production), Clarence, Total Drama: All-Stars, Grojband, Beware the Batman, The Tom and Jerry Show, and Legends of Chima; and a new Powerpuff Girls special, the latter of which aired on January 20, 2014.
+
+On May 20, 2013, Cartoon Network updated its identity by adding new bumpers, graphics, and sounds. A short animation was created for each show, and these animations were used when featuring the show in Next bumpers. The background used in its promos and bumpers was also changed from black to white.[45] On April 28, 2013, the network aired the CNN half-hour documentary The Bully Effect, which details the story of teenager Alex Libby and his struggle with bullying in high school.[46] The special is based on the 2011 film Bully directed by Lee Hirsch.[46]
+
+On March 6, 2014, Stuart Snyder was removed as president and COO of Turner's Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media division after a restructure.[47] On July 16, Christina Miller was named his successor as president and general manager of Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and Boomerang.[48] At the end of the month, Cartoon Network's 8 pm ET/PT primetime hour was given to its night time block Adult Swim, causing new episodes of the network's programming to change time slots.[49] On October 21, 2014, Cartoon Network, along with CNN and Boomerang, were taken off-air from US-based TV provider, Dish Network, due to contract disagreements.[50] However, the channels were restored a month later.
+
+On May 30, 2016, Cartoon Network USA refreshed the channel with new graphics based on previous rebrands in the Check It family called "Dimensional". The new graphics were developed by Bent Design Lab and feature various characters in 3D CGI, stop-motion, and 2D graphic techniques. Branding and marketing agency Troika developed the "Dimensional" style guide, a set of channel-wide standards.[51] In September 2016, the network recovered an extra hour from its Adult Swim block, ending its broadcasting daily at 9 pm in order to air new episodes of Regular Show later. This was later reversed on December 5, 2016.
+
+On October 22, 2016, AT&T reached a deal to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion. The merger was approved by federal regulators on June 12, 2018, and the merger was completed 2 days later, with Time Warner's name changed to WarnerMedia.[52] To celebrate the network's 25th anniversary, Cartoon Network announced an exhibit called "Cartoon Network: 25 Years of Drawing on Creativity" in partnership with the Paley Center, with showings from September 16 to October 8, 2017, in their New York City location, and will move to their Beverly Hills, California location with showings from October 14 to November 19 of that year.[53]
+
+On January 26, 2018, the network announced plans to launch a new cruise ship, in partnership between Turner Broadcasting and Oceanic Group. The ship, Cartoon Network Wave, embarked on its maiden voyage in late 2018.[54][55] On October 29, 2018, Cartoon Network announced construction of its first amusement hotel in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which opened on January 10, 2020.[56][57] The company is working with Palace Entertainment to "offer fun and unexpected ways to experience the animated worlds of Cartoon Network from the moment of arrival," according to current president Christina Miller.[58]
+
+On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of WarnerMedia's Turner Broadcasting division, which involves Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies being transferred to Warner Bros. Entertainment. Although AT&T did not specify any timetable for the changes to take effect, WarnerMedia had begun to remove all Turner references in corporate communications and press releases, referring to that unit's networks as "divisions of WarnerMedia".[59][60][61][62]
+
+On November 27, 2019, it was announced that Christina Miller would be leaving WarnerMedia at the end of 2019. Michael Ouweleen will be serving as interim president of Cartoon Network, with Miller helping with the transition.[63]
+
+On April 7, 2020, Tom Ascheim was named President of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, overseeing Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies.[64]
+
+Cartoon Network's current programming includes original animated series such as Ben 10, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Apple & Onion, Victor and Valentino, and Craig of the Creek, as well as acquired programming from other studios, which as of December 2019 includes Lego Ninjago, Teen Titans Go!, Power Players, Total DramaRama, DC Super Hero Girls and Unikitty!. In the past, Cartoon Network has also produced live-action programming, such as the live-action/animated hybrids Out of Jimmy's Head and The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, and shows such as Level Up, Tower Prep, and Incredible Crew.
+
+In addition, Cartoon Network reruns various Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons, which have been in constant rotation from the network's launch in 1992 until 2017. In its early days, Cartoon Network benefited from having access to a large collection of animated programming, including the libraries of Warner Bros. (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Tom and Jerry and other series), and Hanna-Barbera (The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Snorks, and others). Turner's ownership of Hanna-Barbera gave the network access to an established animation studio, something chief rival Nickelodeon did not yet have.[65] Most of these series were removed by 1999 and moved to Boomerang in 2000.
+
+Much of Cartoon Network's original programming originates from the network's in-house studio, Cartoon Network Studios. Beginning as a division of Hanna-Barbera, this studio would produce some of the network's earliest original series, including Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, Johnny Bravo, and The Powerpuff Girls. Cartoon Cartoons was once the branding for Cartoon Network's original animated television series, but it has seldom been used by the network by 2003. The name was eventually discontinued in 2008.
+
+By the early 2000s, Cartoon Network had established programming blocks aimed at different age demographics. The shows broadcast during the early morning had preschoolers as their target audience and mostly had prosocial behavior as a theme. The Toonami programming block, featured later in the day, mostly included anime shows and its target audience was tweens and teenagers. Prime time shows mostly included classic cartoons, featured as part of The Tex Avery Show, The Chuck Jones Show and The Bob Clampett Show. Preschool programming was discontinued by 2007.
+
+Adult Swim – A night time program block aimed at young adults, which airs content that is not suitable for children. It does not feature any advertising for Cartoon Network programming and, due to its long runtime and different demographics, is branded as a separate channel. Adult Swim airs a mix of live-action and animated comedies, including both original series such as Rick and Morty and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as well as acquired programming like Fox shows and Japanese anime, aired under the Toonami branding since May 2012, every Saturday night. Adult Swim is currently  broadcast daily from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.[66] ET/PT; its starting time has changed various times, from 11:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and to 8:00 p.m.
+
+Cartoon Network shows with established fan followings, such as Dexter's Laboratory, allowed the network to pursue licensing agreements with companies interested in selling series-related merchandise. For example, agreements with Kraft Foods led to widespread in-store advertising for Cartoon Network-related products. The network also worked on cross-promotion campaigns with both Kraft and Tower Records. In product development and marketing, the network has benefited from its relation to corporate parent Time Warner, allowing for mutually beneficial relationships with various subsidiary companies.[67]
+
+Time Warner Cable, the former cable television subsidiary of the corporate parent (which was spun off from Time Warner in 2009), distributes Cartoon Network as part of its packages. Turner Broadcasting System, the subsidiary overseeing various Time Warner-owned networks, helped cross-promote Cartoon Network shows and at times arranged for swapping certain shows between the networks. For example, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, one of CN's original shows, was at times seen at Kids' WB (which was discontinued on May 24, 2008), while Xiaolin Showdown and ¡Mucha Lucha!, two of Kids' WB's original shows, were seen at Cartoon Network. In each case, the swap intended to cultivate a shared audience for the two networks. Time Inc., the former subsidiary overseeing the magazines of the corporate parent, ensured favorable coverage of Cartoon Network and advertising space across its publications. Printed advertisements for CN shows could appear in magazines such as Time, Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated Kids until Time Inc. was spun off from Time Warner on June 9, 2014. AOL, a now-former sibling company to Time Warner covering Internet services, helped promote Cartoon Network shows online by offering exclusive content for certain animated series, online sweepstakes and display advertising for CN.[67]
+
+Warner Home Video, the home video subsidiary, distributed VHS tapes, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs featuring Cartoon Network shows. Select Warner Bros. Family Entertainment VHS releases came with bonus cartoons from Cartoon Network. Rhino Entertainment, the former record label subsidiary of the corporate parent (which was spun off from Time Warner in 2004), distributed cassette tapes and CDs with Cartoon Network-related music. These products were also available through the Warner Bros. Studio Store. DC Comics, the comic book subsidiary, published a series featuring the Powerpuff Girls, indicating it could handle other CN-related characters. Warner Bros., the film studio subsidiary, released The Powerpuff Girls Movie in 2002. Kevin Sandler considered it likely that this film would find its way to HBO or Cinemax, two television network subsidiaries which regularly broadcast feature films. Sandler also viewed book tie-ins through Warner Books as likely, since it was the only area of marketing not covered yet by 2001.[67]
+
+Cartoon Network has, during its history, broadcast most of the Warner Bros. animated shorts originally created between the 1920s and the 1960s, but the network edited out scenes depicting discharge of gunfire, alcohol ingestion, cowboys and Indians gags, tobacco, and politically incorrect humor. The unedited versions were kept from both broadcasting and wide release on the video market. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943), a politically incorrect but critically well-regarded short, was notably omitted entirely, while The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950) and Feed the Kitty (1952), both well-regarded, had their finales heavily edited due to violence.[68]
+
+There was media attention in June 2001 over a network decision concerning further omissions from broadcasting. Cartoon Network formerly scheduled a 49-hour-long marathon annually known as June Bugs, promising to broadcast every Bugs Bunny animated short in chronological order. The network originally intended to include 12 shorts for its 2001 airing of the marathon (one of them part of the Censored Eleven list of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons effectively shelved from distribution) that had become controversial for using ethnic and national stereotypes, albeit broadcasting them past midnight to ensure few children were watching, with introductions concerning their historic value as representatives of another time. The network's corporate parent considered it likely that there would be complaints concerning racial insensitivity. This led to all 12 being omitted in their entirety. Laurie Goldberg, vice-president of public relations, defended the decision, stating, "We're the leader in animation, but we're also one of the top-rated general entertainment networks. There are certain responsibilities that come with that".[68]
+
+Adult Swim (often stylized as [adult swim] or [as]) is a teen/adult-oriented nighttime programming service that airs on Cartoon Network from usually 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM ET/PT everyday in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand; Adult Swim is treated by Nielsen as a separate network in its ratings reports (similar to the company's ratings treatment of Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite and the now-defunct Nickmom) due to differing target demographics between it and Cartoon Network.[1] The network features myriad stylistically variable animated and live-action shows, including original programming, syndicated shows mainly consisting of Fox animated programming, and Japanese anime, generally with minimal or no editing for content. The programs featured on Adult Swim are geared toward a mature audience, in contrast to the originally all-ages young teen and preteen daytime programming on Cartoon Network. Adult Swim moved its start time up an hour at 8pm on March 31, 2014. The 8pm hour was given back to Cartoon Network on numerous occasions, however, which used it to premiere Adventure Time: Stakes in 2015, new episodes of the eighth season of Regular Show in 2016, new episodes of the sixth season of The Amazing World of Gumball in 2018.[69]
+
+Toonami (a portmanteau of "cartoon" and "tsunami", suggesting a "tidal wave" of animated cartoons) is a brand of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide, mostly showing American cartoons and Japanese anime, originating in the United States on March 17, 1997, and ending on September 20, 2008. It was revived on May 26, 2012, as a Saturday night anime block on Adult Swim, reclaiming their Saturday anime lineup, similar to its previous mature-geared "Midnight Run" incarnation which was that block's forerunner. The host was a muscular teenage robot named TOM, voiced by Steven Blum.
+
+The Toonami brand was subsequently used in the United Kingdom as the name of an action-oriented animation channel with two CGI hosts. It replaced a former Cartoon Network-owned channel, CNX, which had been a Toonami/live-action hybrid network.
+
+Toonami was launched as a 24-hour channel in Asia in December 2012, in India in February 2015 and in France in February 2016. "It really is the ultimate home of the action hero," said Sunny Saha from Turner International.[70]
+
+Boomerang began as a programming block on Cartoon Network on December 8, 1992, and continued until October 2004, aimed towards the Baby Boom generation. The block's start time changed frequently but was always aired in the weekends. On April 1, 2000, Boomerang received a new look and was spun off into its own cable channel.[71] In 2017, an online Boomerang video-on-demand service was launched. The SVOD service is the only platform that airs new episodes of "Scooby-Doo", "Looney Tunes" and "Tom & Jerry".[72]
+
+Move It Movement (previously named Get Animated) is a campaign of the channel, encouraging children to get active, more importantly in outdoor areas.[73] The program is designed "to provide support and encouragement in the ongoing battle against childhood obesity."[74] The Get Animated campaign was launched on February 28, 2005.[75]
+
+Cartoon Network On Demand is a video on demand service, which launched in 2002, and allows viewers to watch the latest episodes of the network's content.
+
+A high definition feed of Cartoon Network is available on many cable and all satellite service providers. The high definition feed was launched on October 15, 2007. Like all Turner networks, 4:3-sourced content is stretched on the high definition feed to fill the 16:9 aspect ratio. Starting September 26, 2009, all original shows were unstretched on the high definition feed in which were presented in their original 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The network's HD content airs with letterboxing on the standard definition channel, and since May 13, 2013, the high definition feed is downscaled by the provider for the standard definition feed, resulting in all programming appearing in a 16:9 ratio with letterboxing. Unlike the other Turner networks, standard definition advertising is also stretched into 16:9 mode.
+
+Cartoon Network Studios is a production studio located in the network's West Coast headquarters of Burbank, California, which serves as the network's first animation studio division to provide original programs for the network. While the studio makes original programs for the network, original Cartoon Network shows like The Moxy Show, Big Bag, Cow and Chicken, I.M. Weasel, Mike, Lu & Og, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Sheep in the Big City, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Secret Saturdays, and Sunday Pants were all co-produced by the network itself without the studio.
+
+Williams Street Productions is the adult production studio division that provides original program to the network's late-night program Adult Swim that is located in Atlanta, Georgia, along with the main headquarters of the network.
+
+Cartoon Network Studios Europe (formerly known as Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe until 2017) is the network's European production studio division that is located in London, England, which provides other original programs but from the United Kingdom.
+
+Cartoon Network Latin America Original Productions is the network's Latin America production studio division that is located in Latin America.
+
+Cartoon Network Productions is the network's distribution arm. It distributes the shows, pilots, and movies through various international Cartoon Network channels since 1994.
+
+Cartoon Network Games (formerly known as Cartoon Network Interactive until 2014) is the video game developer and publisher of video games based on Cartoon Network shows since 2000.
+
+Cartoon Network Enterprises is the network's global licensing and merchandising arm established in 2001. It distributes merchandises of various Cartoon Network brands such as The Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, We Bare Bears, Steven Universe, and more.
+
+Cartoon Network has a mobile app that provides the latest full episodes, a live stream from the East and West coast, and games, as well as the network's schedule.
+
+In 2011, Cartoon Network characters were featured in a four-player mascot brawler fighting game similar to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. video game series called Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was later released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii as Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL. Several video games based on the cartoon series Ben 10 were released by Cartoon Network as well. The Cartoon Network website also features various flash games incorporating characters from various Cartoon Network franchises. For example, FusionFall which was a massive multiplayer game released on January 14, 2009, and shut down on August 29, 2013.
+
+Cartoon Network registered its official website, CartoonNetwork.com, on January 9, 1996. It officially launched on July 27, 1998.[76] Sam Register served as the site's Senior Vice President and Creative Director from 1997 to 2001.[77] In its early years, small studios partnered with the network to produce exclusive "Web Premiere Toons", short cartoons made specifically for CartoonNetwork.com.[78] More about animation was included in the "Department of Cartoons", which featured storyboards, episode guides, backgrounds, sound and video files, model sheets, production notes, and other information about shows on the network. In January 1999, the Department of Cartoons showcased the "MGM Golden Age Collection", most of which had not been published or even seen in more than 50 years.[79] Cartoon Network launched Cartoon Orbit, an online gaming network characterized by digital trading cards called "cToons", in October 2000.[80] The game officially ended on October 16, 2006.
+
+In October 2000, CartoonNetwork.com outdid its rival Nickelodeon's website in terms of unique users, scoring 2.12 million compared to Nick.com's 1.95 million.[81] In July 2007, Nielsen ratings data showed visitors spent an average of 77 minutes on the site, surpassing the previous record of 71 minutes set in 2004, and the site ranked 26th in terms of time spent for all US domains.[82][83]
+
+Since the inception of Cartoon Network and Boomerang, Turner has set up international feeds of both networks.[84][85]
+
+Former:

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+Cartoon Network is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division of AT&T's WarnerMedia. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992, and primarily broadcasts animated television series, mostly children's programming, ranging from action to animated comedy. It operates usually from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM (ET/PT) and is targeted at children between ages 7 and 15. Its overnight daypart block Adult Swim is aimed at young adults and is treated as a separate entity for promotional purposes and as a separate channel by Nielsen for ratings purposes.[1] A Spanish language audio track for select programs is accessible via second audio programing (SAP); some TV providers offer the Spanish feed as a separate channel by removing the main English-language audio track.
+
+As of September 2018, Cartoon Network is available to approximately 89.212 million pay television households in the United States.[2]
+
+On August 4, 1986, Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System acquired Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists from Kirk Kerkorian; due to concerns over the debt load of his companies, on October 17, 1986, Turner was forced to sell MGM back to Kerkorian after approximately only 75 days of ownership. However, Turner kept much of MGM's film and television library made prior to May 1986 (as well as some of the United Artists library) and formed Turner Entertainment Co.[3]
+
+On October 3, 1988, its cable channel Turner Network Television was launched and had gained an audience with its extensive film library.[4] At this time, Turner's animation library included the MGM cartoon library, the pre-1948 color Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies shorts (except Lady, Play Your Mandolin!), and the Fleischer Studios/Famous Studios Popeye cartoons.
+
+In 1991, Turner beat out bidders including MCA Inc. (then-owner of Universal Studios) and Hallmark Cards when it made a deal to purchase animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions for $320 million.[5][6] On February 18, 1992, Turner announced its plans to launch the Cartoon Network as an outlet for Turner's considerable library of animation.[7]
+
+On October 1, 1992, Cartoon Network launched to the finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture with a backdrop of cartoon explosions, followed by a special event called Droopy's Guide to the Cartoon Network hosted by the MGM cartoon character Droopy, during which the first cartoon on the network, Rhapsody Rabbit, was shown.[8][9][10][11][12] Initial programming on the channel consisted exclusively of reruns of Warner Bros. cartoons (the pre-1948 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), the 1933–1957 Popeye cartoons, MGM cartoons, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.[7] At first, cable providers in New York City; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Dallas; and Detroit carried the channel.[10] By the time the network launched, Cartoon Network had an 8,500-hour cartoon library.[13] From its launch until 1995, the network's announcers said the network's name with the word "The" added before "Cartoon Network", thus calling the network "The Cartoon Network". By the time that the network debuted, Cartoon Network also operated a programming block (containing its cartoons) that aired on TNT, entitled "Cartoon Network on TNT".
+
+Cartoon Network was not the first cable channel to have relied on cartoons to attract an audience; however, it was the first 24-hour single-genre channel with animation as its main theme. Turner Broadcasting System had defied conventional wisdom before by launching CNN, a channel providing 24-hour news coverage. The concept was previously thought unlikely to attract a sufficient audience to be particularly profitable, however the CNN experiment had been successful and Turner hoped that Cartoon Network would also find success.[14]
+
+Initially, the channel would broadcast cartoons 24 hours a day. Most of the short cartoons were aired in half-hour or hour-long packages, usually separated by character or studio – Down Wit' Droopy D aired old Droopy Dog shorts, The Tom and Jerry Show presented the classic cat-and-mouse team, and Bugs and Daffy Tonight provided classic Looney Tunes shorts. Late Night Black and White showed early black-and-white cartoons (mostly from the Fleischer Studios and Walter Lantz cartoons from the 1930s, as well as black-and-white Merrie Melodies and MGM cartoons), and ToonHeads would show three shorts with a similar theme and provide trivia about the cartoons.[citation needed] There was also an afternoon cartoon block called High Noon Toons, which was hosted by cowboy hand puppets (an example of the simplicity and imagination the network had in its early years). The majority of the classic animation that was shown on Cartoon Network no longer airs on a regular basis, but Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes, still aired and lasted until 2017.
+
+A challenge for Cartoon Network was to overcome its low penetration of existing cable systems. When launched on October 1, 1992, the channel was only carried by 233 cable systems. However, it benefited from package deals. New subscribers to sister channels TNT and TBS could also get access to Cartoon Network through such deals. The high ratings of Cartoon Network over the following couple of years led to more cable systems including it. By the end of 1994, Cartoon Network had become "the fifth most popular cable channel in the United States".[14]
+
+For the first few years of Cartoon Network's existence, programming meant for the channel would also be simulcast on TBS and/or TNT, both of which were still full-service cable networks that carried a variety of different programming genera, in order to increase the shows' (and Cartoon Network's) exposure; examples include The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Cartoon Planet, SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, and 2 Stupid Dogs.
+
+The network's first exclusive original show was The Moxy Show, an animation anthology series first airing in 1993.[15] The first series produced by Cartoon Network was Space Ghost Coast to Coast in 1994, but the show mostly consisted of "recycled animation cells" from the archives of Hanna-Barbera, being an ironic deconstruction of a talk show. It featured live-action guests, mostly consisting of celebrities which were past their prime or counterculture figures. A running gag was that the production cost was dubbed "minimal". The series found its audience among young adults who appreciated its "hip" perspective.[16]
+
+Kevin Sandler considered Space Ghost Coast to Coast instrumental in establishing Cartoon Network's appeal to older audiences. Space Ghost, a 1960s superhero by Hanna-Barbera, was recast as the star of a talk show spoof. This was arguably the first time the network revived a "classic animated icon" in an entirely new context for comedic purposes. Grown-ups who had ceased enjoying the original takes on the characters could find amusement in the "new ironic and self-referential context" for them. Promotional shorts such as the "Scooby-Doo Project", a parody of The Blair Witch Project, gave similar treatments to the Scooby gang.[17] However, there were less successful efforts at such revivals. A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith and Boo Boo Runs Wild (1999) were short cartoons featuring new takes on Yogi Bear's supporting cast by John Kricfalusi. Their style of humor, sexual content and break in tone from the source material was rather out of place among the rest of the Cartoon Network shows, and the network rarely found a place for them in its programming.[18]
+
+In 1994, Hanna-Barbera's new division Cartoon Network Studios was founded and started production on What a Cartoon! (also known as World Premiere Toons and Cartoon Cartoons). This show debuted in 1995, offering original animated shorts commissioned from Hanna-Barbera and various independent animators. The network promoted the series as an attempt to return to the "classic days" of studio animation, offering full animator control, high budgets, and no limited animation. The project was spearheaded by Cartoon Network executives, plus John Kricfalusi and Fred Seibert. Kricfalusi was the creator of  The Ren & Stimpy Show and served as an advisor to the network, while Seibert was formerly one of the driving forces behind Nickelodeon's Nicktoons and would go on to produce the similar animation anthology series Oh Yeah! Cartoons and Random! Cartoons.[16][19]
+
+Cartoon Network was able to assess the potential of certain shorts to serve as pilots for spin-off series and signed contracts with their creators to create ongoing series.[16] Dexter's Laboratory was the most popular short series according to a vote held in 1995 and eventually became the first spin-off of What a Cartoon! in 1996. Three more series based on shorts debuted from 1997 to 1999: Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel (the latter two as segments of the same show; I Am Weasel was later spun off into a separate show), The Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and Mike, Lu & Og.[16][19][20] The unrelated series Ed, Edd n Eddy was also launched in 1999, creating a line-up of critically acclaimed shows.[14] Many of these series premiered bearing the "Cartoon Cartoons" brand, airing throughout the network's schedule and prominently on Cartoon Cartoon Fridays, which became the marquee night for premieres of new episodes and series beginning on June 11, 1999.
+
+These original series were intended to appeal to a wider audience than the average Saturday-morning cartoon. Linda Simensky, vice president of original animation, reminded adults and teenage girls that cartoons could appeal to them as well. Kevin Sandler's article of them claimed that these cartoons were both less "bawdy" than their counterparts at Comedy Central and less "socially responsible" than their counterparts at Nickelodeon. Sandler pointed to the whimsical rebelliousness, high rate of exaggeration and self-consciousness of the overall output each individual series managed.[17]
+
+In 1995, Cartoon Network launched "Cartoon Network Online" as an America Online exclusive website. It would later merge with ghostplanet.com as simply "CartoonNetwork.com", and featured games, videos, shopping, Cartoon Orbit, which launched in 2000, and even promotions to movies, video games, food items, toys, etc., such as Campbell's Soup, Ice Age, the original Spy Kids trilogy, the Cat in the Hat, Juicy Drop Pop, Wonder Ball, Hot Wheels, and so many more. In addition, CartoonNetwork.com also ran Cartoon Network's first online original series Web Premiere Toons, which mostly featured interactive web cartoons that ran from 1999 to 2002.
+
+In 1996, Cartoon Network decided to air preschool programming and air them every Sunday morning, such as hiring Children's Television Workshop, the makers of Sesame Street on PBS Kids, to make a show called Big Bag, a live-action/puppet television program targeted at pre-school viewers, as well as Small World, a children's animated anthology show and variety show, in which showcased featured several segments from animated TV programs aimed at preschoolers from several countries around the world except for Japan, China, and Korea. Big Bag ran until 1998, and Small World ran until 2001.
+
+In 1996, Turner Broadcasting System merged with Time Warner[21] (ironically, Time Warner's predecessor Warner Communications had created rival Nickelodeon, now owned by ViacomCBS, in 1977). The merger consolidated ownership of all the Warner Bros. cartoons, allowing the post-July 1948 and the former Sunset-owned black-and-white cartoons (which Warner Bros. had reacquired in the 1960s) releases to be shown on the network. As most of the post-July 1948 cartoons were still contracted to be shown on Nickelodeon and ABC, the network would not air them until September 1999 (from Nickelodeon) and October 2000 (from ABC), however, the majority of the post-July 1948 cartoons that were shown on its now-sibling broadcast network The WB's Kids' WB block began airing on Cartoon Network in January 1997. Newer animated productions by Warner Bros. Animation also started appearing on the network – mostly reruns of shows that had aired on Kids' WB and some from Fox Kids, along with certain new programs such as Justice League.[22]
+
+Cartoon Network's programming would not be available in Canada until 1997 when a Canadian specialty channel called Teletoon and its French-language counterpart launched.
+
+In 1997, Cartoon Network launched a new action block entitled Toonami. Its lineup initially consisted of 1980s reruns of Robotech and Thundercats. However, new shows were introduced and they consisted of action cartoons and anime, such as Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo!, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, and Dragon Ball Z.[23] Toonami was hosted by Moltar from the Space Ghost franchise until 1999, where Toonami was later hosted by its own original character, a muscular teenage robot named TOM. On March 2, 1998, a series of bumpers featuring the instrumental Powerhouse were introduced. These bumpers lasted from 1998 to 2004.[24]
+
+One new original series premiered in 2000: Sheep in the Big City. On April 1, Cartoon Network launched a digital cable and satellite channel known as Boomerang, which was spun off from one of their programming blocks that featured retro animated series and shorts.
+
+Three new original series premiered in 2001: Time Squad, Samurai Jack, and Grim & Evil. On June 18, Betty Cohen, who had served as Cartoon Network's president since its founding, left due to creative disagreements with Jamie Kellner, then-head of Turner Broadcasting. On August 22, Jim Samples was appointed general manager and Executive Vice President of the network, replacing Cohen. Adult Swim debuted on September 2, with an episode of Home Movies; the block initially aired on Sunday nights, with a repeat telecast on Thursdays. The initial lineup consisted of Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Sealab 2021, Cowboy Bebop, The Brak Show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
+
+In 2002, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones? and Codename: Kids Next Door premiered; the former was short-lived, but the latter became a juggernaut for the network in the mid-2000s. The first theatrical film based on a Cartoon Network series, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, was released on July 3, 2002. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $16.4 million globally on a budget of $11 million.[25] On October 1 of that year, Cartoon Network celebrated their tenth anniversary, with a montage showcasing the network's various phases over the years.
+
+2003 saw the debuts of The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne, both spinoffs of Grim & Evil. On October 3, the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays block was rebooted in a live-action format as "Fridays", hosted by Tommy Snider and Nzinga Blake (2003–2004), the latter of which was later replaced by Tara Sands (2005–2007). It aired several new Cartoon Network series, most of which did not bear the "Cartoon Cartoon" sub-brand. Acquired shows started picking up again with Totally Spies! the following year.
+
+In 2004, Cartoon Network premiered three new original series: Megas XLR, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, along with the acquired series Code Lyoko. On June 14, Cartoon Network rebranded, which included an updated version of its original logo (with the checkerboard motif retained and the "C" and "N" being the centerpiece) and a new slogan, "This is Cartoon Network!"[26] The bumpers introduced as part of the rebrand featured 2D cartoon characters from its shows interacting in a CGI city composed of sets from their shows. These bumpers lasted from 2004 to 2007. By now, nearly all of Cartoon Network's classic programming had been relocated to its sister network Boomerang to make way for new programming.
+
+2005 saw the debuts of five more original series: The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Camp Lazlo, Robotboy, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and Ben 10. On August 22, Cartoon Network launched a block aimed at the preschool demographic known as Tickle-U; shows on the block included Gordon the Garden Gnome, Yoko! Jakamoko! Toto!, Harry and His Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, Little Robots, Peppa Pig, Firehouse Tales, and Gerald McBoing-Boing. The block was largely unsuccessful and was discontinued in 2007. From 2005 to 2008, most of the network's older Cartoon Cartoons (such as Dexter's Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls) could be viewed in segments on a half-hour block known as The Cartoon Cartoon Show.[27]
+
+In 2005, Cartoon Network signed a deal with AMC Theatres for Summer MovieCamp to feature episodes of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Camp Lazlo, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Codename: Kids Next Door, and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends in the big screen.[28]
+
+After its predecessor, What a Cartoon!, Cartoon Network created an all-new animated short series consisting of overseas shorts, pilots, college shorts, or even shorts created for the show itself. That show was called Sunday Pants; it first aired on the day of October 2, 2005. Sunday Pants varies on different types of animation, from traditional hand-drawn animation to Flash, or even CGI, possibly making it similar to other shows such as Liquid Television on MTV or KaBlam! on Nickelodeon. The show was created by Craig "Sven" Gordon and Stuart Hill, and was produced at Spitfire Studios. The show has a similar concept to What a Cartoon!, except that the shorts are 1–3 minutes long and the show is squeezed to be 23 minutes (without commercials). There are animated and live-action intervals in-between shorts. The live-action ones are performed by American band The Slacks, while the animated ones are animated by WeFail. The show lasted for less than a month, with its final airing taking place on October 23, 2005. In January 2006, the show was announced to be returning the month after but said return never came to fruition and the series was ultimately cancelled.
+
+Two new Cartoon Network original series premiered in 2006: Squirrel Boy and Class of 3000. Three made-for-TV movies debuted this year: Codename: Kids Next Door – Operation Z.E.R.O., Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: Good Wilt Hunting, and Re-Animated, the latter of which was the network's first live-action TV movie and a collaboration between live-action and animation.
+
+Samples resigned from his post on February 9, 2007, following a bomb scare in Boston caused by packages left around the city that were part of an outdoor marketing campaign promoting the Adult Swim series Aqua Teen Hunger Force.[29][30] On May 2, Stuart Snyder was named Samples' successor.[31] On September 14, the network's look was revamped, with bumpers and station IDs themed to The Hives song "Fall is Just Something That Grown-Ups Invented." 2007 saw the debut of Out of Jimmy's Head, a spin-off of the movie Re-Animated, and the first live-action Cartoon Network series. 2007 also saw the debut of the series Chowder. In late 2007, The network began broadcasting programs from Canadian channels such as YTV and Teletoon, including George of the Jungle, 6teen, Storm Hawks, League of Super Evil, Chaotic, Bakugan Battle Brawlers, Stoked, and the Total Drama series. Each October from 2007 to 2009, Cartoon Network also re-ran 40 episodes of the former Fox Kids series Goosebumps.
+
+Cartoon Network announced at its 2008 upfront that it was working on a new project called The Cartoonstitute, which was headed by animators Craig McCracken as executive producer and Rob Renzetti as supervising producer. Both reported to Rob Sorcher, who created the idea. It would have worked similar to What a Cartoon!, by creating at least 150 pieces of animation within 20 months.[32] Cartoonstitute was eventually cancelled,[citation needed] and out of all the shorts, two or three, Regular Show, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome and Uncle Grandpa, were selected, after animator Craig McCracken (creator of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) left the network after 15 years in 2009.[citation needed] On September 20, 2008, Cartoon Network ended Toonami after its 11-year run.[33] From 2008 to 2010, Cartoon Network aired animated shorts that served as interstitials between programs, called Wedgies, which included Big Baby, The Bremen Avenue Experience, Calling Cat-22, Nacho Bear, and The Talented Mr. Bixby. On July 14, 2008, the network took on a refreshed look created by Tristan Eaton and animated by Crew972. The bumpers of that era had white, faceless characters called Noods, based on the DIY toy, Munny. These characters had many variations that made them look like characters from different CN shows. The standard network logo was changed to be white, adopting different colors based on the occasion in the same style.[34]
+
+In June 2009, Cartoon Network introduced a block of live-action reality shows called "CN Real", featuring programs such as The Othersiders, Survive This, BrainRush, Destroy Build Destroy, Dude, What Would Happen and Bobb'e Says.[35] The network also aired some limited sports programming, including basketball recaps and Slamball games, during commercial breaks. The lineup was universally panned for being live-action shows on a channel dedicated to cartoons. That year, it also started airing live-action feature films from Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema. In 2010, the first series produced by Cartoon Network Studios to be broadcast in high definition was Adventure Time.
+
+On May 29, 2010, a new brand identity was introduced, along with new bumpers, a theme, and a tagline, "CHECK it". The branding, designed by Brand New School, consists of the black and white checkerboard which formed the network's first logo (and was carried over in a minimized form to the second logo), as well as various CMYK color variations and various patterns.[36] On December 27, 2010, Adult Swim expanded by one hour, moving its start time from 10 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET.[37] In February 2011, Cartoon Network aired its first sports award show Hall of Game Awards, hosted that year by professional skateboarder Tony Hawk.
+
+At its 2011 upfront, Cartoon Network announced 12 new series, including The Problem Solverz (originally planned for Adult Swim, but switched to CN for being "too cute"), The Amazing World of Gumball, The Looney Tunes Show, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, Level Up (a scripted live-action comedy series with a 90-minute precursor film), Tower Prep, Green Lantern, DreamWorks Dragons (a series based on the DreamWorks film, How to Train Your Dragon), Total Drama: Revenge of the Island, the 4th season of Total Drama; ThunderCats, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, and Ben 10: Omniverse.[38] The network announced it planned to debut a new programming block called DC Nation which would focus on the DC superheroes, the first being the series Green Lantern.[39]
+
+After announcing two new live-action shows in Unnatural History and Tower Prep, which were both cancelled after their first seasons, Cartoon Network acquired the game show, Hole in the Wall (originally aired on Fox). By the end of 2011, Hole in the Wall and the final two CN Real shows, Destroy Build Destroy and Dude, What Would Happen? were removed from Cartoon Network's schedule completely. In 2012, Cartoon Network acquired the television rights to The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, based on the web series, The Annoying Orange and added it to its primetime lineup.[40]
+
+On February 2, 2012, Corus Entertainment and Astral Media, owners of Teletoon, announced they would launch a Canadian version of Cartoon Network that also includes a version of the U.S. network's Adult Swim nighttime block.[41] The channel launched on July 4, 2012.[42] The following month, March 2012, Cartoon Network aired its first documentary, Speak Up, an anti-bullying campaign featuring a special appearance by President Barack Obama.[43] On October 1, 2012, Cartoon Network celebrated its 20th anniversary, airing birthday and party-themed reruns of its shows for several days. Earlier in the year on March 30, 2012, the Cartoon Planet block was revived to air the channel's original programming from the late 1990s through mid-2000s.[44] In addition, the channel announced new programming for 2013, including the live-action series Incredible Crew; the animated series Teen Titans Go!, Uncle Grandpa, Steven Universe, I Heart Tuesdays (which never went through production), Clarence, Total Drama: All-Stars, Grojband, Beware the Batman, The Tom and Jerry Show, and Legends of Chima; and a new Powerpuff Girls special, the latter of which aired on January 20, 2014.
+
+On May 20, 2013, Cartoon Network updated its identity by adding new bumpers, graphics, and sounds. A short animation was created for each show, and these animations were used when featuring the show in Next bumpers. The background used in its promos and bumpers was also changed from black to white.[45] On April 28, 2013, the network aired the CNN half-hour documentary The Bully Effect, which details the story of teenager Alex Libby and his struggle with bullying in high school.[46] The special is based on the 2011 film Bully directed by Lee Hirsch.[46]
+
+On March 6, 2014, Stuart Snyder was removed as president and COO of Turner's Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media division after a restructure.[47] On July 16, Christina Miller was named his successor as president and general manager of Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and Boomerang.[48] At the end of the month, Cartoon Network's 8 pm ET/PT primetime hour was given to its night time block Adult Swim, causing new episodes of the network's programming to change time slots.[49] On October 21, 2014, Cartoon Network, along with CNN and Boomerang, were taken off-air from US-based TV provider, Dish Network, due to contract disagreements.[50] However, the channels were restored a month later.
+
+On May 30, 2016, Cartoon Network USA refreshed the channel with new graphics based on previous rebrands in the Check It family called "Dimensional". The new graphics were developed by Bent Design Lab and feature various characters in 3D CGI, stop-motion, and 2D graphic techniques. Branding and marketing agency Troika developed the "Dimensional" style guide, a set of channel-wide standards.[51] In September 2016, the network recovered an extra hour from its Adult Swim block, ending its broadcasting daily at 9 pm in order to air new episodes of Regular Show later. This was later reversed on December 5, 2016.
+
+On October 22, 2016, AT&T reached a deal to acquire Time Warner for $108.7 billion. The merger was approved by federal regulators on June 12, 2018, and the merger was completed 2 days later, with Time Warner's name changed to WarnerMedia.[52] To celebrate the network's 25th anniversary, Cartoon Network announced an exhibit called "Cartoon Network: 25 Years of Drawing on Creativity" in partnership with the Paley Center, with showings from September 16 to October 8, 2017, in their New York City location, and will move to their Beverly Hills, California location with showings from October 14 to November 19 of that year.[53]
+
+On January 26, 2018, the network announced plans to launch a new cruise ship, in partnership between Turner Broadcasting and Oceanic Group. The ship, Cartoon Network Wave, embarked on its maiden voyage in late 2018.[54][55] On October 29, 2018, Cartoon Network announced construction of its first amusement hotel in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which opened on January 10, 2020.[56][57] The company is working with Palace Entertainment to "offer fun and unexpected ways to experience the animated worlds of Cartoon Network from the moment of arrival," according to current president Christina Miller.[58]
+
+On March 4, 2019, AT&T announced a major reorganization of WarnerMedia's Turner Broadcasting division, which involves Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies being transferred to Warner Bros. Entertainment. Although AT&T did not specify any timetable for the changes to take effect, WarnerMedia had begun to remove all Turner references in corporate communications and press releases, referring to that unit's networks as "divisions of WarnerMedia".[59][60][61][62]
+
+On November 27, 2019, it was announced that Christina Miller would be leaving WarnerMedia at the end of 2019. Michael Ouweleen will be serving as interim president of Cartoon Network, with Miller helping with the transition.[63]
+
+On April 7, 2020, Tom Ascheim was named President of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, overseeing Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Adult Swim and Turner Classic Movies.[64]
+
+Cartoon Network's current programming includes original animated series such as Ben 10, Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart, Apple & Onion, Victor and Valentino, and Craig of the Creek, as well as acquired programming from other studios, which as of December 2019 includes Lego Ninjago, Teen Titans Go!, Power Players, Total DramaRama, DC Super Hero Girls and Unikitty!. In the past, Cartoon Network has also produced live-action programming, such as the live-action/animated hybrids Out of Jimmy's Head and The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange, and shows such as Level Up, Tower Prep, and Incredible Crew.
+
+In addition, Cartoon Network reruns various Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons, which have been in constant rotation from the network's launch in 1992 until 2017. In its early days, Cartoon Network benefited from having access to a large collection of animated programming, including the libraries of Warner Bros. (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Tom and Jerry and other series), and Hanna-Barbera (The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Snorks, and others). Turner's ownership of Hanna-Barbera gave the network access to an established animation studio, something chief rival Nickelodeon did not yet have.[65] Most of these series were removed by 1999 and moved to Boomerang in 2000.
+
+Much of Cartoon Network's original programming originates from the network's in-house studio, Cartoon Network Studios. Beginning as a division of Hanna-Barbera, this studio would produce some of the network's earliest original series, including Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, Johnny Bravo, and The Powerpuff Girls. Cartoon Cartoons was once the branding for Cartoon Network's original animated television series, but it has seldom been used by the network by 2003. The name was eventually discontinued in 2008.
+
+By the early 2000s, Cartoon Network had established programming blocks aimed at different age demographics. The shows broadcast during the early morning had preschoolers as their target audience and mostly had prosocial behavior as a theme. The Toonami programming block, featured later in the day, mostly included anime shows and its target audience was tweens and teenagers. Prime time shows mostly included classic cartoons, featured as part of The Tex Avery Show, The Chuck Jones Show and The Bob Clampett Show. Preschool programming was discontinued by 2007.
+
+Adult Swim – A night time program block aimed at young adults, which airs content that is not suitable for children. It does not feature any advertising for Cartoon Network programming and, due to its long runtime and different demographics, is branded as a separate channel. Adult Swim airs a mix of live-action and animated comedies, including both original series such as Rick and Morty and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as well as acquired programming like Fox shows and Japanese anime, aired under the Toonami branding since May 2012, every Saturday night. Adult Swim is currently  broadcast daily from 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.[66] ET/PT; its starting time has changed various times, from 11:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. and to 8:00 p.m.
+
+Cartoon Network shows with established fan followings, such as Dexter's Laboratory, allowed the network to pursue licensing agreements with companies interested in selling series-related merchandise. For example, agreements with Kraft Foods led to widespread in-store advertising for Cartoon Network-related products. The network also worked on cross-promotion campaigns with both Kraft and Tower Records. In product development and marketing, the network has benefited from its relation to corporate parent Time Warner, allowing for mutually beneficial relationships with various subsidiary companies.[67]
+
+Time Warner Cable, the former cable television subsidiary of the corporate parent (which was spun off from Time Warner in 2009), distributes Cartoon Network as part of its packages. Turner Broadcasting System, the subsidiary overseeing various Time Warner-owned networks, helped cross-promote Cartoon Network shows and at times arranged for swapping certain shows between the networks. For example, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, one of CN's original shows, was at times seen at Kids' WB (which was discontinued on May 24, 2008), while Xiaolin Showdown and ¡Mucha Lucha!, two of Kids' WB's original shows, were seen at Cartoon Network. In each case, the swap intended to cultivate a shared audience for the two networks. Time Inc., the former subsidiary overseeing the magazines of the corporate parent, ensured favorable coverage of Cartoon Network and advertising space across its publications. Printed advertisements for CN shows could appear in magazines such as Time, Entertainment Weekly and Sports Illustrated Kids until Time Inc. was spun off from Time Warner on June 9, 2014. AOL, a now-former sibling company to Time Warner covering Internet services, helped promote Cartoon Network shows online by offering exclusive content for certain animated series, online sweepstakes and display advertising for CN.[67]
+
+Warner Home Video, the home video subsidiary, distributed VHS tapes, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs featuring Cartoon Network shows. Select Warner Bros. Family Entertainment VHS releases came with bonus cartoons from Cartoon Network. Rhino Entertainment, the former record label subsidiary of the corporate parent (which was spun off from Time Warner in 2004), distributed cassette tapes and CDs with Cartoon Network-related music. These products were also available through the Warner Bros. Studio Store. DC Comics, the comic book subsidiary, published a series featuring the Powerpuff Girls, indicating it could handle other CN-related characters. Warner Bros., the film studio subsidiary, released The Powerpuff Girls Movie in 2002. Kevin Sandler considered it likely that this film would find its way to HBO or Cinemax, two television network subsidiaries which regularly broadcast feature films. Sandler also viewed book tie-ins through Warner Books as likely, since it was the only area of marketing not covered yet by 2001.[67]
+
+Cartoon Network has, during its history, broadcast most of the Warner Bros. animated shorts originally created between the 1920s and the 1960s, but the network edited out scenes depicting discharge of gunfire, alcohol ingestion, cowboys and Indians gags, tobacco, and politically incorrect humor. The unedited versions were kept from both broadcasting and wide release on the video market. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943), a politically incorrect but critically well-regarded short, was notably omitted entirely, while The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950) and Feed the Kitty (1952), both well-regarded, had their finales heavily edited due to violence.[68]
+
+There was media attention in June 2001 over a network decision concerning further omissions from broadcasting. Cartoon Network formerly scheduled a 49-hour-long marathon annually known as June Bugs, promising to broadcast every Bugs Bunny animated short in chronological order. The network originally intended to include 12 shorts for its 2001 airing of the marathon (one of them part of the Censored Eleven list of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons effectively shelved from distribution) that had become controversial for using ethnic and national stereotypes, albeit broadcasting them past midnight to ensure few children were watching, with introductions concerning their historic value as representatives of another time. The network's corporate parent considered it likely that there would be complaints concerning racial insensitivity. This led to all 12 being omitted in their entirety. Laurie Goldberg, vice-president of public relations, defended the decision, stating, "We're the leader in animation, but we're also one of the top-rated general entertainment networks. There are certain responsibilities that come with that".[68]
+
+Adult Swim (often stylized as [adult swim] or [as]) is a teen/adult-oriented nighttime programming service that airs on Cartoon Network from usually 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM ET/PT everyday in the United States, and broadcasts in countries such as Australia and New Zealand; Adult Swim is treated by Nielsen as a separate network in its ratings reports (similar to the company's ratings treatment of Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite and the now-defunct Nickmom) due to differing target demographics between it and Cartoon Network.[1] The network features myriad stylistically variable animated and live-action shows, including original programming, syndicated shows mainly consisting of Fox animated programming, and Japanese anime, generally with minimal or no editing for content. The programs featured on Adult Swim are geared toward a mature audience, in contrast to the originally all-ages young teen and preteen daytime programming on Cartoon Network. Adult Swim moved its start time up an hour at 8pm on March 31, 2014. The 8pm hour was given back to Cartoon Network on numerous occasions, however, which used it to premiere Adventure Time: Stakes in 2015, new episodes of the eighth season of Regular Show in 2016, new episodes of the sixth season of The Amazing World of Gumball in 2018.[69]
+
+Toonami (a portmanteau of "cartoon" and "tsunami", suggesting a "tidal wave" of animated cartoons) is a brand of Cartoon Network, used initially for action-oriented programming blocks on Cartoon Network television channels worldwide, mostly showing American cartoons and Japanese anime, originating in the United States on March 17, 1997, and ending on September 20, 2008. It was revived on May 26, 2012, as a Saturday night anime block on Adult Swim, reclaiming their Saturday anime lineup, similar to its previous mature-geared "Midnight Run" incarnation which was that block's forerunner. The host was a muscular teenage robot named TOM, voiced by Steven Blum.
+
+The Toonami brand was subsequently used in the United Kingdom as the name of an action-oriented animation channel with two CGI hosts. It replaced a former Cartoon Network-owned channel, CNX, which had been a Toonami/live-action hybrid network.
+
+Toonami was launched as a 24-hour channel in Asia in December 2012, in India in February 2015 and in France in February 2016. "It really is the ultimate home of the action hero," said Sunny Saha from Turner International.[70]
+
+Boomerang began as a programming block on Cartoon Network on December 8, 1992, and continued until October 2004, aimed towards the Baby Boom generation. The block's start time changed frequently but was always aired in the weekends. On April 1, 2000, Boomerang received a new look and was spun off into its own cable channel.[71] In 2017, an online Boomerang video-on-demand service was launched. The SVOD service is the only platform that airs new episodes of "Scooby-Doo", "Looney Tunes" and "Tom & Jerry".[72]
+
+Move It Movement (previously named Get Animated) is a campaign of the channel, encouraging children to get active, more importantly in outdoor areas.[73] The program is designed "to provide support and encouragement in the ongoing battle against childhood obesity."[74] The Get Animated campaign was launched on February 28, 2005.[75]
+
+Cartoon Network On Demand is a video on demand service, which launched in 2002, and allows viewers to watch the latest episodes of the network's content.
+
+A high definition feed of Cartoon Network is available on many cable and all satellite service providers. The high definition feed was launched on October 15, 2007. Like all Turner networks, 4:3-sourced content is stretched on the high definition feed to fill the 16:9 aspect ratio. Starting September 26, 2009, all original shows were unstretched on the high definition feed in which were presented in their original 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The network's HD content airs with letterboxing on the standard definition channel, and since May 13, 2013, the high definition feed is downscaled by the provider for the standard definition feed, resulting in all programming appearing in a 16:9 ratio with letterboxing. Unlike the other Turner networks, standard definition advertising is also stretched into 16:9 mode.
+
+Cartoon Network Studios is a production studio located in the network's West Coast headquarters of Burbank, California, which serves as the network's first animation studio division to provide original programs for the network. While the studio makes original programs for the network, original Cartoon Network shows like The Moxy Show, Big Bag, Cow and Chicken, I.M. Weasel, Mike, Lu & Og, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Sheep in the Big City, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Secret Saturdays, and Sunday Pants were all co-produced by the network itself without the studio.
+
+Williams Street Productions is the adult production studio division that provides original program to the network's late-night program Adult Swim that is located in Atlanta, Georgia, along with the main headquarters of the network.
+
+Cartoon Network Studios Europe (formerly known as Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe until 2017) is the network's European production studio division that is located in London, England, which provides other original programs but from the United Kingdom.
+
+Cartoon Network Latin America Original Productions is the network's Latin America production studio division that is located in Latin America.
+
+Cartoon Network Productions is the network's distribution arm. It distributes the shows, pilots, and movies through various international Cartoon Network channels since 1994.
+
+Cartoon Network Games (formerly known as Cartoon Network Interactive until 2014) is the video game developer and publisher of video games based on Cartoon Network shows since 2000.
+
+Cartoon Network Enterprises is the network's global licensing and merchandising arm established in 2001. It distributes merchandises of various Cartoon Network brands such as The Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, We Bare Bears, Steven Universe, and more.
+
+Cartoon Network has a mobile app that provides the latest full episodes, a live stream from the East and West coast, and games, as well as the network's schedule.
+
+In 2011, Cartoon Network characters were featured in a four-player mascot brawler fighting game similar to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. video game series called Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was later released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the Wii as Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL. Several video games based on the cartoon series Ben 10 were released by Cartoon Network as well. The Cartoon Network website also features various flash games incorporating characters from various Cartoon Network franchises. For example, FusionFall which was a massive multiplayer game released on January 14, 2009, and shut down on August 29, 2013.
+
+Cartoon Network registered its official website, CartoonNetwork.com, on January 9, 1996. It officially launched on July 27, 1998.[76] Sam Register served as the site's Senior Vice President and Creative Director from 1997 to 2001.[77] In its early years, small studios partnered with the network to produce exclusive "Web Premiere Toons", short cartoons made specifically for CartoonNetwork.com.[78] More about animation was included in the "Department of Cartoons", which featured storyboards, episode guides, backgrounds, sound and video files, model sheets, production notes, and other information about shows on the network. In January 1999, the Department of Cartoons showcased the "MGM Golden Age Collection", most of which had not been published or even seen in more than 50 years.[79] Cartoon Network launched Cartoon Orbit, an online gaming network characterized by digital trading cards called "cToons", in October 2000.[80] The game officially ended on October 16, 2006.
+
+In October 2000, CartoonNetwork.com outdid its rival Nickelodeon's website in terms of unique users, scoring 2.12 million compared to Nick.com's 1.95 million.[81] In July 2007, Nielsen ratings data showed visitors spent an average of 77 minutes on the site, surpassing the previous record of 71 minutes set in 2004, and the site ranked 26th in terms of time spent for all US domains.[82][83]
+
+Since the inception of Cartoon Network and Boomerang, Turner has set up international feeds of both networks.[84][85]
+
+Former:

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+Casablanca (Arabic: الدار البيضاء‎, romanized: Ad-dār al-Bayḍā' [adˈdaːru ɫbajdˤaːʔ] or كازابلانكا, the white house, Darija Accent [ænfæ] incline) is the largest city of Morocco. Located in the central-western part of Morocco bordering the Atlantic Ocean, it is the largest city in the Maghreb region and the eighth-largest in the Arab world. Casablanca is Morocco's chief port and one of the largest financial centers in Africa. According to the 2019 population estimate, the city has a population of about 3.71 million in the urban area and over 4.27 million in the Greater Casablanca. Casablanca is considered the economic and business center of Morocco, although the national political capital is Rabat.
+
+The leading Moroccan companies and many international corporations doing business in the country have their headquarters and main industrial facilities in Casablanca. Recent industrial statistics show Casablanca holds its recorded position as the primary industrial zone of the nation. The Port of Casablanca is one of the largest artificial ports in the world,[3] and the second largest port of North Africa, after Tanger-Med 40 km (25 mi) east of Tangier.[4] Casablanca also hosts the primary naval base for the Royal Moroccan Navy.
+
+The original name of Casablanca was Anfa (Neo-Tifinagh: ⴰⵏⴼⴰ), in Berber language, by at least the seventh century BC.[citation needed] After the Portuguese took control of the city in the 15th century AD, they rebuilt it, changing the name to Casa Branca ([kazɐ'bɾɐ̃kɐ]), meaning 'white house' in Portuguese. The present name, which is the Spanish version (pronounced [ka̠sa̠ˈβ̞la̠ŋka̠]), came when the Portuguese kingdom was integrated in personal union to the Spanish kingdom. During the French protectorate in Morocco, the name remained Casablanca (pronounced [kazablɑ̃ka]). In 1755 an earthquake destroyed most of the town. It was rebuilt by Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah who changed the name into the local Arabic Ad-dār al-Bayḍā' (الدار البيضاء), although occasionally "Casablanca" is written in Arabic (كازابلانكا, Kāzāblānkā). The city is still nicknamed Casa by many locals and outsiders to the city. In many other cities with a different dialect, it is called Ad-dār al-Bayḍā, instead.
+
+The area which is today Casablanca was founded and settled by Berbers by at least the seventh century BC.[5] It was used as a port by the Phoenicians and later the Romans.[citation needed] In his book Description of Africa, Leo Africanus refers to ancient Casablanca as "Anfa", a great city founded in the Berber kingdom of Barghawata in 744 AD. He believed Anfa was the most "prosperous city on the Atlantic Coast because of its fertile land."[6] Barghawata rose as an independent state around this time, and continued until it was conquered by the Almoravids in 1068. Following the defeat of the Barghawata in the 12th century, Arab tribes of Hilal and Sulaym descent settled in the region, mixing with the local Berbers, which led to widespread Arabization.[7][8] During the 14th century, under the Merinids, Anfa rose in importance as a port. The last of the Merinids were ousted by a popular revolt in 1465.[9]
+
+In the early 15th century, the town became an independent state once again, and emerged as a safe harbour for pirates and privateers, leading to it being targeted by the Portuguese, who bombarded the town which led to its destruction in 1468.[10] The Portuguese used the ruins of Anfa to build a military fortress in 1515. The town that grew up around it was called Casa Branca, meaning "white house" in Portuguese.
+
+Between 1580 and 1640, the Crown of Portugal was integrated to the Crown of Spain, so Casablanca and all other areas occupied by the Portuguese were under Spanish control, though maintaining an autonomous Portuguese administration. As Portugal broke ties with Spain in 1640, Casablanca came under fully Portuguese control once again.[11] The Europeans eventually abandoned the area completely in 1755 following an earthquake which destroyed most of the town.[12]
+
+The town was finally reconstructed by Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah (1756–1790), the grandson of Moulay Ismail and an ally of George Washington, with the help of Spaniards from the nearby emporium. The town was called ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʼ (الدار البيضاء), the Arabic translation of the Portuguese Casa Branca.
+
+In the 19th century, the area's population began to grow as it became a major supplier of wool to the booming textile industry in Britain and shipping traffic increased (the British, in return, began importing gunpowder tea, used in Morocco's national drink, mint tea).[13] By the 1860s, around 5,000 residents were there, and the population grew to around 10,000 by the late 1880s.[14] Casablanca remained a modestly sized port, with a population reaching around 12,000 within a few years of the French conquest and arrival of French colonialists in 1906. By 1921, this rose to 110,000,[15] largely through the development of shanty towns.
+
+The Treaty of Algeciras of 1906 formalized French preeminence in Morocco and included three measures that directly impacted Casablanca: that French officers would control operations at the customs office and seize revenue as collateral for loans given by France, that the French holding company La Compagnie Marocaine would develop the port of Casablanca, and that a French-and-Spanish-trained police force would be assembled to patrol the port.[17]
+
+To build the port's breakwater, narrow-gauge track was laid in June 1907 for a small Decauville locomotive to connect the port to a quarry in Roches Noires, passing through the sacred Sidi Belyout graveyard. In resistance to this and the measures of the 1906 Treaty of Algeciras, tribesmen of the Chaouia attacked the locomotive, killing 9 Compagnie Marocaine laborers—3 French, 3 Italians, and 3 Spanish.[18]
+
+In response, the French bombarded the city with multiple gunboats and landed troops inside the town, causing severe damage and 15,000 dead and wounded. In the immediate aftermath of the bombardment and the deployment of French troops, the European homes and the Mellah, or Jewish quarter, were sacked, and the latter was also set ablaze.[19]
+
+The bombardment and military invasion of the city effectively began the French military conquest of Morocco, although French control of Casablanca was not formalized until the French Protectorat was established by the Treaty of Fes March 1912.
+
+General Hubert Lyautey assigned the planning of the new colonial port city to Henri Prost. As he did in other Moroccan cities, Prost designed a European ville nouvelle outside the walls of the medina. In Casablanca, he also designed a new "ville indigène" to house Moroccans arriving from other cities.[20]
+
+Europeans formed almost half the population of Casablanca.[21]
+
+After Philippe Pétain of France signed the armistice with the Nazis, he ordered French troops in France's colonial empire to defend French territory against any aggressors—Allied or otherwise—applying a policy of "asymmetrical neutrality" in favor of the Germans.[22] French colonists in Morocco generally supported Pétain, while politically conscious Moroccans tended to favor de Gaulle and the Allies.[23]
+
+Operation Torch, which started on 8 November 1942, was the British-American invasion of French North Africa during the North African campaign of World War II. The Western Task Force, composed of American units led by Major General George S. Patton and Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt, carried out the invasions of Mehdia, Fedhala, and Asfi. American forces captured Casablanca from Vichy control when France surrendered November 11, 1942, but the Naval Battle of Casablanca continued until American forces sank German submarine U-173 on November 16.[24]
+
+Casablanca was the site of the Nouasseur Air Base, a large American air base used as the staging area for all American aircraft for the European Theater of Operations during World War II. The air field has since become Mohammed V International Airport.
+
+Casablanca hosted the Anfa Conference (also called the Casablanca Conference) in January 1943. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt discussed the progress of the war. Also in attendance were the Free France generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud, though they played minor roles and didn't participate in the military planning.
+
+It was at this conference that the Allies adopted the doctrine of "unconditional surrender," meaning that the Axis powers would be fought until their defeat. Roosevelt also met privately with Sultan Muhammad V and expressed his support for Moroccan independence after the war.[25] This became a turning point, as Moroccan nationalists were emboldened to openly seek complete independence.[25]
+
+During the 1940s and 1950s, Casablanca was a major centre of anti-French rioting.
+
+April 7, 1947, a massacre of working class Moroccans, carried out by Senegalese Tirailleurs in the service of the French colonial army, was instigated just as Sultan Muhammed V was due to make a speech in Tangier appealing for independence.[26]
+
+Riots in Casablanca took place from December 7–8, 1952, in response to the assassination of the Tunisian labor unionist Farhat Hached by La Main Rouge—the clandestine militant wing of French intelligence.[27] Then, on 25 December 1953 (Christmas Day), Muhammad Zarqtuni orchestrated a bombing of Casablanca's Central Market in response to the forced exile of Sultan Muhammad V and the royal family on August 20 (Eid al-Adha) of that year.[28]
+
+Morocco gained independence from France in 1956.[29]
+
+January 4–7, 1961, the city hosted an ensemble of progressive African leaders during the Casablanca Conference of 1961. Among those received by King Muhammad V were Gamal Abd An-Nasser, Kwame Nkrumah, Modibo Keïta, and Ahmed Sékou Touré, Ferhat Abbas.[30][31][32]
+
+Casablanca was a major departure point for Jews leaving Morocco through Operation Yachin, an operation conducted by Mossad to secretly migrate Moroccan Jews to Israel between November 1961 and spring 1964.[33]
+
+The 1965 student protests organized by the National Union of Popular Forces-affiliated National Union of Moroccan Students, which spread to cities around the country and devolved into riots, started on March 22, 1965 in front of Lycée Mohammed V in Casablanca.[34][35][36] The protests started as a peaceful march to demand the right to public higher education for Morocco, but expanded to include concerns of laborers, the unemployed, and other marginalized segments of society, and devolved into vandalism and rioting.[37] The riots were violently repressed by security forces with tanks and armored vehicles; Moroccan authorities reported a dozen deaths while the UNFP reported more than 1,000.[34]
+
+King Hassan II blamed the events on teachers and parents, and declared in a speech to the nation on March 30, 1965: "There is no greater danger to the State than a so-called intellectual. It would have been better if you were all illiterate.”[38][39]
+
+On June 6, 1981, the Casablanca Bread Riots took place.[40] Hassan II appointed the French-trained lawyer Driss Basri, who would later become a symbol of the Years of Lead, with quelling the protests.[41] The government stated that 66 people were killed and 100 were injured, while opposition leaders put the number of dead at 637, saying that many of these were killed by police and army gunfire.[40]
+
+In March 2000, more than 60 women's groups organized demonstrations in Casablanca proposing reforms to the legal status of women in the country.[42] About 40,000 women attended, calling for a ban on polygamy and the introduction of divorce law (divorce being a purely religious procedure at that time). Although the counter-demonstration attracted half a million participants, the movement for change started in 2000 was influential on King Mohammed VI, and he enacted a new mudawana, or family law, in early 2004, meeting some of the demands of women's rights activists.[43]
+
+On 16 May 2003, 33 civilians were killed and more than 100 people were injured when Casablanca was hit by a multiple suicide bomb attack carried out by Moroccans and claimed by some to have been linked to al-Qaeda. Twelve suicide bombers struck five locations in the city.[44]
+
+Another series of suicide bombings struck the city in early 2007.[45][46][47] These events illustrated some of the persistent challenges the city faces in addressing poverty and integrating disadvantaged neighborhoods and populations.[48] One initiative to improve conditions in the city's disadvantaged neighborhoods was the creation of the Sidi Moumen Cultural Center.[48]
+
+As calls for reform spread through the Arab world in 2011, Moroccans joined in, but concessions by the ruler led to acceptance. However, in December, thousands of people demonstrated in several parts of the city, especially the city center near la Fontaine, desiring more significant political reforms.
+
+Casablanca is located on the Atlantic coast of the Chaouia Plains which have historically been the breadbasket of Morocco.[49] Apart from the Atlantic coast, the Bouskoura forest is the only natural attraction in the city.[50] The forest was planted in the 20th century and consists mostly of eucalyptus, palm, and pine trees.[51] It is located halfway to the city's international airport.
+
+The only watercourse in Casablanca is oued Bouskoura,[52] a small seasonal creek that until 1912 reached the Atlantic Ocean near the actual port. Most of oued Bouskoura's bed has been covered due to urbanization and only the part south of El Jadida road can now be seen. The closest permanent river to Casablanca is Oum Rabia, 70 km (43.50 mi) to the south-east.
+
+Casablanca has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csa). The cool Canary Current off the Atlantic coast moderates temperature variation, which results in a climate remarkably similar to that of coastal Los Angeles, with similar temperature ranges. The city has an annual average of 72 days with significant precipitation, which amounts to 412 mm (16.2 in) per year. The highest and lowest temperatures ever recorded in the city are 40.5 °C (104.9 °F) and −2.7 °C (27.1 °F), respectively. The highest amount of rainfall recorded in a single day is 178 mm (7.0 in) on 30 November 2010.
+
+The Grand Casablanca region is considered the locomotive of the development of the Moroccan economy. It attracts 32% of the country's production units and 56% of industrial labor. The region uses 30% of the national electricity production. With MAD 93 billion, the region contributes to 44% of the industrial production of the kingdom. About 33% of national industrial exports, MAD 27 billion, comes from the Grand Casablanca; 30% of the Moroccan banking network is concentrated in Casablanca.[56]
+
+One of the most important Casablancan exports is phosphate. Other industries include fishing, fish canning, sawmills, furniture production, building materials, glass, textiles, electronics, leather work, processed food, spirits, soft drinks, and cigarettes.[57]
+
+The Casablanca and Mohammedia seaports activity represent 50% of the international commercial flows of Morocco.[citation needed] Almost the entire Casablanca waterfront is under development, mainly the construction of huge entertainment centres between the port and Hassan II Mosque, the Anfa Resort project near the business, entertainment and living centre of Megarama, the shopping and entertainment complex of Morocco Mall, as well as a complete renovation of the coastal walkway. The Sindbad park is planned to be totally renewed with rides, games and entertainment services.[58]
+
+Royal Air Maroc has its head office at the Casablanca-Anfa Airport.[59] In 2004, it announced that it was moving its head office from Casablanca to a location in Province of Nouaceur, close to Mohammed V International Airport.[60] The agreement to build the head office in Nouaceur was signed in 2009.[61]
+
+The biggest CBD of Casablanca and Maghreb is in the North of the town in Sidi Maarouf near the mosque of Hassan II and the biggest project of skycrapers of Maghreb and Africa Casablanca Marina.
+
+Casablanca is a commune, part of the region of Casablanca-Settat. The commune is divided into eight districts or prefectures, which are themselves divided into 16 subdivisions or arrondissements and one municipality. The districts and their subdivisions are:[62]
+
+The list of neighborhoods is indicative and not complete:
+
+The commune of Casablanca recorded a population of 3,359,818 in the 2014 Moroccan census.[2] About 98% live in urban areas. Around 25% of them are under 15 and 9% are over 60 years old. The population of the city is about 11% of the total population of Morocco. Grand Casablanca is also the largest urban area in the Maghreb. 99.9% of the population of Morocco are Arab and Berber Muslims.[63]
+During the French protectorate in Morocco, European Christians formed almost half the population of Casablanca.[21] Since independence in 1956, the European population has decreased substantially.The city also is still home for a small community of Moroccan Christians, as well as a small group of foreign resident Roman Catholics.[64][65]
+
+Jews have a long history in Casablanca. A Sephardic Jewish community was in Anfa up to the destruction of the city by the Portuguese in 1468. Jews were slow to return to the town, but by 1750, the Rabbi Elijah Synagogue was built as the first Jewish synagogue in Casablanca. It was destroyed along with much of the town in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.[5]
+
+Approximately 28,000 Moroccan Jews immigrated to the State of Israel between 1948 and 1951, many through Casablanca.[66] Casablanca then became a departure point in Operation Yachin, the covert Mossad-organized migration operation from 1961–1964. In 2018 only 2,500 Moroccan Jews left in Casablanca,[67] while according to the World Jewish Congress only 1,000 Moroccan Jews left in Casablanca.[68]
+
+Today, the Jewish cemetery of Casablanca is one of the major cemeteries of the city, and many synagogues remain in service, but the city's Jewish community has dwindled. The Moroccan Jewish Museum is a museum established in the city in 1997.[69]
+
+Public: University of Hassan II Casablanca
+
+Private:
+
+International schools:
+
+Most of the city's places of worship are Muslim mosques.[70] Some of the city's synagogues, such as Ettedgui Synagogue, also remain.[71] There are also Christian churches; some remain in use — particularly by the West African migrant community — while many of the churches built during the colonial period have been repurposed, such as Church of the Sacred Heart.[72]
+
+Casablanca is home to two popular football clubs: Wydad Casablanca[73] and Raja Casablanca[74]—which are rivals.[75] Raja's symbol is an eagle and Wydad's symbol is a star and crescent which means a symbol of Islam. These two popular clubs have produced some of Morocco's best players, such as: Salaheddine Bassir, Abdelmajid Dolmy, Baddou Zaki, Aziz Bouderbala, and Noureddine Naybet. Other football teams on top of these two major teams based in the city of Casablanca include Rachad Bernoussi, TAS de Casablanca, Majd Al Madina, and Racing Casablanca.
+
+Casablanca hosts The Grand Prix Hassan II, a professional men's tennis tournament of the ATP tour. It first began in 1986, and is played on clay courts type at Complexe Al Amal.
+
+Notable winners of the Hassan II Grand-Prix are Thomas Muster in 1990, Hicham Arazi in 1997, Younes El Aynaoui in 2002, and Stanislas Wawrinka in 2010.
+
+Casablanca staged the 1961 Pan Arab Games, the 1983 Mediterranean Games, and games during the 1988 Africa Cup of Nations. Morocco was scheduled to host the 2015 African Nations Cup, but decided to decline due to Ebola fears. Morocco was expelled and the tournament was held in Equatorial Guinea.[76]
+
+The Grand Stade de Casablanca is the proposed title of the planned football stadium to be built in the city. Once completed in 2014, it will be used mostly for football matches and will serve as the home of Raja Casablanca, Wydad Casablanca, and the Morocco national football team. The stadium was designed with a capacity of 93,000 spectators, making it one of the highest-capacity stadiums in Africa. Once completed, it will replace the Stade Mohamed V. The initial idea of the stadium was for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, for which Morocco lost their bid to South Africa. Nevertheless, the Moroccan government supported the decision to go ahead with the plans. It will be completed in 2025. The idea of the stadium was also for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, for which Morocco lost their bid to Canada, Mexico and United States. It is now hoping for the 2030 FIFA World Cup which Morocco is co-bidding with either African neighbors Tunisia and Algeria or two European nations Spain and Portugal.
+
+al-Haja al-Hamdawiya, one of the most iconic figures in aita music, was born in Casablanca.[77] Nass El Ghiwane, led by Laarbi Batma, came out of Hay Mohammadi in Casablanca.[78] Abdelhadi Belkhayat and Abdelwahab Doukkali are musicians specializing in traditional Moroccan Arabic popular music.[79] Zina Daoudia, Abdelaziz Stati, Abdellah Daoudi, and Said Senhaji are notable Moroccan chaabi musicians.
+
+Abdelakabir Faradjallah founded Attarazat Addahabia, a Moroccan funk band, in 1968.[80] Fadoul, another funk band, formed in the 1970s.[81]
+
+Hoba Hoba Spirit also formed in Casablanca, and is still based there.[82] Casablanca has a thriving hiphop scene, with artists such as El Grande Toto, Don Big, 7liwa, and Issam Harris.[83]
+
+Casablanca hosts numerous music festivals, such as Jazzablanca and L'Boulevard,[84][85] as well as a museum dedicated to Andalusi music, Dar ul-Aala.[86]
+
+The French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is associated with Casablanca.
+
+Driss Chraïbi's novel The Simple Past takes place in Casablanca. Mohamed Zafzaf lived in Maarif.
+
+Lamalif, a radical leftist political and cultural magazine, was based in Casablanca.
+
+Casablanca's International Book Fair is held at the fair grounds opposite Hassan II Mosque annually in February.
+
+Tayeb Saddiki, described as the father of Moroccan theater, grew up in Casablanca and made his career there.[87] Hanane el-Fadili and Hassan El Fad are popular comedians from Casablanca. Gad Elmaleh is another comedian from Casablanca, though he has made his career abroad.[88]
+
+The École des Beaux-Arts of Casablanca was founded in 1919 by a French Orientalist painter named Édouard Brindeau de Jarny, who started his career teaching drawing at Lycée Lyautey.[89][90] The Casablanca School—a Modernist art movement and collective including artists such as Farid Belkahia, Mohamed Melihi, and Mohammed Chabâa—developed out of the École des Beaux-Arts of Casablanca in the late 1960s.[91]
+
+The Academy of Traditional Arts, part of the Hassan II Mosque complex, was founded October 31, 2012.[92]
+
+L'Uzine is a community-based art and culture space in Casablanca.[93]
+
+Rebel Spirit published The Casablanca Guide (الدليل البيضاوي, Le Guide Casablancais) a comic book about life in Casablanca.[94]
+
+Sbagha Bagha is a street art festival during which murals are created on the sides of apartment buildings.[95]
+
+Postcard companies such as Léon & Lévy were active in Casablanca. Gabriel Veyre also worked and eventually died in Casablanca.
+
+Marcelin Flandrin (1889-1957), a French military photographer, settled in Casablanca and recorded much of the early colonial period in Morocco with his photography.[96] With his staged nude postcard photos taken in Casablanca's colonial brothel quarter, Flandrin was also responsible for disseminating the orientalist image of Moroccan women as sexual objects.[97]
+
+Casablanca has a thriving street photography scene.[98] Yoriyas is prominent among photographers capturing the economic capital's street scenes, and has attracted international attention.[99]
+
+In the first half of the 20th century, Casablanca had many movie theaters, such as Cinema Rialto, Cinema Lynx and Cinema Vox—the largest in Africa at the time it was built.[100][101][102]
+
+The 1942 American film Casablanca is supposedly set in Casablanca and has had a lasting impact on the city's image, though it was filmed entirely in California and doesn't feature a single Moroccan character with a speaking role.[103] Salut Casa! was a propaganda film brandishing France's purported colonial triumph in its mission civilizatrice in the city.[104]
+
+Love in Casablanca (1991), starring Abdelkarim Derqaoui and Muna Fettou, is one of the first Moroccan films to deal with Morocco's complex realities and depict life in Casablanca with verisimilitude. Nour-Eddine Lakhmari's Casanegra (2008) depicts the harsh realities of Casablanca's working classes.[105][106] The films Ali Zaoua (2000), Horses of God (2012), and Ghazzia (2017) of Nabil Ayouch—a French director of Moroccan heritage—deal with street crime, terrorism, and social issues in Casablanca, respectively.[107] The events in Meryem Benm'Barek-Aloïsi's 2018 film Sofia revolve around an illegitimate pregnancy in Casablanca.[108] Hicham Lasri and Said Naciri also from Casablanca.
+
+Casablanca's architecture and urban development are historically significant. The city is home to many notable buildings in a variety of styles, including traditional Moroccan architecture, various colonial architectural styles, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Neo-Mauresque, Streamline Moderne, Modernism, Brutalism, and more. During the French Protectorate, the French government described Casablanca as a "laboratory of urbanism."[109]
+
+The work of the Groupe des Architectes Modernes Marocains (GAMMA) on public housing projects—such as Carrières Centrales in Hay Mohammadi—in a style described as vernacular modernism influenced modernist architecture around the world.[110][111]
+
+Casamémoire and MAMMA. are two organizations dedicated to the preservation and appreciation of the city's architectural heritage.
+
+The Casablanca Tramway is the rapid transit tram system in Casablanca. As of 2019, the network consists of two lines covering 47.5 km (30 mi), with 71 stops; further lines (ط3 and ط4) are under construction.[112][113]
+
+Since the 1970s, Casablanca had planned to build a metro system to offer some relief to the problems of traffic congestion and poor air quality.[114][115] However, the city council voted to abandon the metro project in 2014 due to high costs, and decided to continue expanding the already operating tram system instead.[116]
+
+Casablanca's main airport is Mohammed V International Airport, Morocco's busiest airport. Regular domestic flights serve Marrakech, Rabat, Agadir, Oujda, Tangier, Al Hoceima, and Laayoune, as well as other cities.
+
+Casablanca is well-served by international flights to Europe, especially French and Spanish airports, and has regular connections to North American, Middle Eastern and sub-Saharan African destinations. New York City, Montreal, Paris, Washington D.C., London and Dubai are important primary destinations.
+
+The older, smaller Casablanca-Anfa Airport to the west of the city, served certain destinations including Damascus, and Tunis, and was largely closed to international civilian traffic in 2006. It has been closed and destroyed to build the "Casablanca Finance City", the new heart of the city of Casablanca. Casablanca Tit Mellil Airport is located in the nearby community of Tit Mellil.
+
+Compagnie de Transports au Maroc (CTM) offers private intercity coach buses on various lines run servicing most notable Moroccan towns, as well as a number of European cities. These run from the CTM Bus Station on Leo Africanus Street near the Central Market in downtown Casablanca. Supratours, an affiliate of ONCF, also offers coach bus service at a slightly lower cost, departing from a station on Wilad Zian Street.[117] There is another bus station farther down on the same street called the Wilad Zian Bus Station; this station is the country's largest bus station, serving over 800 buses daily, catering more to Morocco's lower income population.[118][119]
+
+Registered taxis in Casablanca are coloured red and known as petit taxis (small taxis), or coloured white and known as grands taxis (big taxis). As is standard Moroccan practice, petits taxis, typically small-four door Dacia Logan, Peugeot 207, or similar cars, provide metered cab service in the central metropolitan areas. Grands taxis, generally older Mercedes-Benz sedans, provide shared mini-bus like service within the city on predefined routes, or shared intercity service. Grands taxis may also be hired for private service by the hour or day.
+
+Casablanca is served by three main railway stations run by the national rail service, the ONCF.
+
+Casa-Voyageurs is the main intercity station, from which trains run south to Marrakech or El Jadida and north to Mohammedia and Rabat, and then on either to Tangier or Meknes, Fes, Taza and Oujda/Nador. It also serves as the southern terminus of the Al-Boraq high speed line from Tangier. A dedicated airport shuttle service to Mohammed V International Airport also has its primary in-city stop at this station, for connections on to further destinations.
+
+Casa-Port serves primarily commuter trains such as the Train Navette Rapide (TNR or Aouita) operating on the Casablanca – Kenitra rail corridor, with some connecting trains running on to Gare de Casa-Voyageurs. The station provides a direct interchange between train and shipping services, and is located near several port-area hotels. It is the nearest station to the old town of Casablanca, and to the modern city centre, around the landmark Casablanca Twin Center. Casa-Port station is being rebuilt in a modern and enlarged configuration. During the construction, the station is still operational. From 2013, it will provide a close connection from the rail network to the city's new tram network.
+
+Casa-Oasis was originally a suburban commuter station which was fully redesigned and rebuilt in the early 21st century, and officially reopened in 2005 as a primary city rail station. Owing to its new status, all southern intercity train services to and from Casa-Voyageurs now call at Casa-Oasis. ONCF stated in 2005 that the refurbishment and upgrading of Casa-Oasis to intercity standards was intended to relieve passenger congestion at Casa-Voyageurs station.
+
+Although Mohammed V International Airport receives most international flights into Morocco,[120] international tourism in Casablanca is not as developed as it is in cities like Marrakesh.[121] Casablanca, however, attracts fewer tourists than those of cities such as Fes and Marrakech.
+
+The Hassan II Mosque, which is the second largest mosque in Africa and the seventh largest in the world, is the city's main tourist attraction.[122][123] Visitors also come to see the city's rich architectural heritage.[124]
+
+Popular sites for national tourism include shopping centers such as Morocco Mall, Anfa Place, the Marina Shopping Center, and the Tachfine Center. Additional sites include the Corniche and the beach of Ain Diab, and parks such as the Arab League Park or the Sindibad theme park.[125][126][127]
+
+Sunset at Ain Diab Beach
+
+Casablanca Beach
+
+Colonial architecture near UN Square
+
+Hassan II Mosque
+
+Arab League Park
+
+
+
+Casablanca is twinned with:
+
+Coordinates: 33°32′N 7°35′W / 33.533°N 7.583°W / 33.533; -7.583

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+
+
+A waterfall is an area where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops in the course of a stream or river. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf.
+
+Waterfalls are commonly formed in the upper course of a river where lakes fall into in steep mountains.[1] Because of their landscape position, many waterfalls occur over bedrock fed by little contributing area, so they may be ephemeral and flow only during rainstorms or significant snowmelt. The further downstream, the more perennial a waterfall can be. Waterfalls can have a wide range of widths and depths.
+
+When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens slowly and is dominated by impacts of water-borne sediment on the rock, while downstream the erosion occurs more rapidly.[1][3] As the watercourse increases its velocity at the edge of the waterfall, it may pluck material from the riverbed, if the bed is fractured or otherwise more erodible. Hydraulic jets and hydraulic jumps at the toe of a falls can generate large forces to erode the bed,[4] especially when forces are amplified by water-borne sediment. Horseshoe-shaped falls focus the erosion to a central point, also enhancing riverbed change below a waterfalls.[5] A process known as "potholing" involves local erosion of a potentially deep hole in bedrock due to turbulent whirlpools spinning stones around on the bed, drilling it out. Sand and stones carried by the watercourse therefore increase erosion capacity.[1] This causes the waterfall to carve deeper into the bed and to recede upstream. Often over time, the waterfall will recede back to form a canyon or gorge downstream as it recedes upstream, and it will carve deeper into the ridge above it.[6] The rate of retreat for a waterfall can be as high as one-and-a-half metres per year.[1]
+
+Often, the rock stratum just below the more resistant shelf will be of a softer type, meaning that undercutting due to splashback will occur here to form a shallow cave-like formation known as a rock shelter under and behind the waterfall. Eventually, the outcropping, more resistant cap rock will collapse under pressure to add blocks of rock to the base of the waterfall. These blocks of rock are then broken down into smaller boulders by attrition as they collide with each other, and they also erode the base of the waterfall by abrasion, creating a deep plunge pool in the gorge downstream.
+
+Streams can become wider and shallower just above waterfalls due to flowing over the rock shelf, and there is usually a deep area just below the waterfall because of the kinetic energy of the water hitting the bottom. However, a study of waterfalls systematics reported that waterfalls can be wider or narrower above or below a falls, so almost anything is possible given the right geological and hydrological setting.[7] Waterfalls normally form in a rocky area due to erosion. After a long period of being fully formed, the water falling off the ledge will retreat, causing a horizontal pit parallel to the waterfall wall. Eventually, as the pit grows deeper, the waterfall collapses to be replaced by a steeply sloping stretch of river bed.[1] In addition to gradual processes such as erosion, earth movement caused by earthquakes or landslides or volcanoes can cause a differential in land heights which interfere with the natural course of a water flow, and result in waterfalls.
+
+A river sometimes flows over a large step in the rocks that may have been formed by a fault line. Waterfalls can occur along the edge of a glacial trough, where a stream or river flowing into a glacier continues to flow into a valley after the glacier has receded or melted. The large waterfalls in Yosemite Valley are examples of this phenomenon, which is referred to as a hanging valley. Another reason hanging valleys may form is where two rivers join and one is flowing faster than the other.[1]
+
+Waterfalls can be grouped into ten broad classes based on the average volume of water present on the fall (which depends on both the waterfall's average flow and its height) using a logarithmic scale.  Class 10 waterfalls include Niagara Falls, Paulo Afonso Falls and Khone Falls.
+
+Classes of other well-known waterfalls include Victoria Falls and Kaieteur Falls (Class 9); Rhine Falls and Gullfoss (Class 8); Angel Falls and Dettifoss (Class 7); Yosemite Falls, Lower Yellowstone Falls, and Umphang Thee Lor Sue Waterfall (Class 6); and Sutherland Falls (Class 5).[8]
+
+Alexander von Humboldt (1820s) "Father of Modern Geography" Humboldt was mostly marking waterfalls on maps for river navigation purposes.
+
+Oscar von Engeln (1930s) Published "Geomorphology: systematic and regional", this book had a whole chapter devoted to waterfalls, and is one of the earliest examples of published works on waterfalls.
+
+R. W. Young (1980s) Wrote "Waterfalls: form and process" this work made waterfalls a much more serious topic for research for modern Geoscientists.[9]
+
+Some waterfalls are also distinct in that they do not flow continuously. Ephemeral waterfalls only flow after a rain or a significant snowmelt.[11][12][13]
+
+Powerscourt Waterfall is the tallest Waterfall in Ireland.
+
+Aerial view of Iguazu Falls on the Iguazu River between Brazil and Argentina.
+
+Aerial view of Niagara Falls in the state of New York, United States, and province of Ontario, Canada.
+
+Nohkalikai Falls is one of the tallest plunge type waterfalls in India.[14]
+
+Shaki Waterfall in Armenia, Syunik Province
+
+Significant waterfalls,[15] listed alphabetically:
+
+Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou province, China, is a block-type waterfall and a cataract.
+
+Song Khon Waterfall in Loei Province, Thailand is an example of a cascade waterfall.
+
+In Pamukkale, Turkey is an example of travertine terraces built by flowing water.
+
+First fall of Elephant Falls in Shillong, India, is an example of a horsetail-punchbowl waterfall.

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+
+
+Caste is a form of social stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution.[1][2][3] Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of India's Hindu society into rigid social groups, with roots in India's ancient history and persisting to the present time.[1][4] However, the economic significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanization and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside Hinduism and India. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in female populations of ants and bees.[5]
+
+According to the United Nations, caste discrimination affects an estimated 250 million people worldwide.[6][7]
+
+The English word "caste" derives from the Spanish and Portuguese casta, which, according to the John Minsheu's Spanish dictionary (1569), means "race, lineage, tribe or breed".[8] When the Spanish colonized the New World, they used the word to mean a "clan or lineage". It was, however, the Portuguese who first employed casta in the primary modern sense of the English word 'caste' when they applied it to the thousands of endogamous, hereditary Indian social groups they encountered upon their arrival in India in 1498.[8][9] The use of the spelling "caste", with this latter meaning, is first attested in English in 1613.[8]
+
+Modern India's caste system is based on the colonial superimposition of the Portuguese word “casta” on the four-fold theoretical classification called Varna and on natural social groupings called Jāti. From 1901 onwards, for the purposes of the Decennial Census, the British classified all Jātis into one or the other of the Varna categories as described in ancient texts. Herbert Hope Risley, the Census Commissioner, noted that "The principle suggested as a basis was that of classification by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion at the present day, and manifesting itself in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern representatives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Indian system."[10]
+
+Varna, as mentioned in ancient Hindu texts, describes society as divided into four categories: Brahmins (scholars and yajna priests), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), Vaishyas (farmers, merchants and artisans) and Shudras (workmen/service providers). The texts do not mention any hierarchy or a separate, untouchable category in Varna classifications. Scholars believe that the Varnas system was never truly operational in society and there is no evidence of it ever being a reality in Indian history. The practical division of the society had always been in terms of Jatis (birth groups), which are not based on any specific religious principle, but could vary from ethnic origins to occupations to geographic areas. The Jātis have been endogamous social groups without any fixed hierarchy but subject to vague notions of rank articulated over time based on lifestyle and social, political or economic status. Many of India's major empires and dynasties like the Mauryas,[11] Shalivahanas,[12] Chalukyas,[13] Kakatiyas[14] among many others, were founded by people who would have been classified as Shudras, under the Varnas system. It is well established that by the 9th century, kings from all the four Varnas, including Brahmins and Vaishyas, had occupied the highest seat in the monarchical system in Hindu India, contrary to the Varna theory.[15] In many instances, as in Bengal, historically the kings and rulers had been called upon, when required, to mediate on the ranks of Jātis, which might number in thousands all over the subcontinent and vary by region. In practice, the jātis may or may not fit into the Varna classes and many prominent Jatis, for example the Jats and Yadavs, straddled two Varnas i.e. Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, and the Varna status of Jātis itself was subject to articulation over time.
+
+Starting with the British colonial Census of 1901 led by Herbert Hope Risley, all the jātis were grouped under the theoretical varnas categories.[16] According to political scientist Lloyd Rudolph, Risley believed that varna, however ancient, could be applied to all the modern castes found in India, and "[he] meant to identify and place several hundred million Indians within it."[17] In an effort to arrange various castes in order of precedence functional grouping was based less on the occupation that prevailed in each case in the present day than on that which was traditional with it, or which gave rise to its differentiation from the rest of the community. "This action virtually removed Indians from the progress of history and condemned them to an unchanging position and place in time. In one sense, it is rather ironic that the British, who continually accused the Indian people of having a static society, should then impose a construct that denied progress"[18] The terms varna (conceptual classification based on occupation) and jāti (groups) are two distinct concepts: while varna is a theoretical four-part division, jāti (community) refers to the thousands of actual endogamous social groups prevalent across the subcontinent. The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than the varnas, as it provided a convenient shorthand; but a problem arises when colonial Indologists sometimes confuse the two.[19] Thus, starting with the 1901 Census, caste officially became India's essential institution, with an imprimatur from the British administrators, augmenting a discourse that had already dominated Indology. “Despite India's acquisition of formal political independence, it has still not regained the power to know its own past and present apart from that discourse”.[20]
+
+Upon independence from Britain, the Indian Constitution listed 1,108 castes across the country as Scheduled Castes in 1950, for positive discrimination.[21] The Untouchable communities are sometimes called Scheduled Castes, Dalit or Harijan in contemporary literature.[22] India is home to over 200 million Dalits.[23] In 2001, Dalits were 16.2% of India's population.[24] Most of the 15 million bonded child workers are from the lowest castes.[25][26] According to Paul Diwakar, a Dalit activist from the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, "India has 600,000 villages and almost every village a small pocket on the outskirts is meant for Dalits."[27] Independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. In 2005, government recorded approximately 110,000 cases of reported violent acts, including rape and murder, against Dalits.[28] For 2012, the government recorded 651 murders, 3,855 injuries, 1,576 rapes, 490 kidnappings, and 214 cases of arson.[29]
+
+The socio-economic limitations of the caste system are reduced due to urbanization and affirmative action. Nevertheless, the caste system still exists in endogamy and patrimony, and thrives in the politics of democracy, where caste provides ready made constituencies to politicians. The globalization and economic opportunities from foreign businesses has influenced the growth of India's middle-class population. Some members of the Chhattisgarh Potter Caste Community (CPCC) are middle-class urban professionals and no longer potters unlike the remaining majority of traditional rural potter members. There is persistence of caste in Indian politics. Caste associations have evolved into caste-based political parties. Political parties and the state perceive caste as an important factor for mobilization of people and policy development.[30]
+
+Studies by Bhatt and Beteille have shown changes in status, openness, mobility in the social aspects of Indian society. As a result of modern socio-economic changes in the country, India is experiencing significant changes in the dynamics And the economics of its social sphere.[31] While arranged marriages are still the most common practice in India, the internet has provided a network for younger Indians to take control of their relationships through the use of dating apps. This remains isolated to informal terms, as marriage is not often achieved through the use of these apps.[32] Hypergamy is still a common practice in India and Hindu culture. Men are expected to marry within their caste, or one below, with no social repercussions. If a woman marries into a higher caste, then her children will take the status of their father. If she marries down, her family is reduced to the social status of their son in law. In this case, the women are bearers of the egalitarian principle of the marriage. There would be no benefit in marrying a higher caste if the terms of the marriage did not imply equality.[33] However, men are systematically shielded from the negative implications of the agreement.
+
+Geographical factors also determine adherence to the caste system. Many Northern villages are more likely to participate in exogamous marriage, due to a lack of eligible suitors within the same caste. Women in North India have been found to be less likely to leave or divorce their husbands since they are of a relatively lower caste system, and have higher restrictions on their freedoms. On the other hand, Pahari women, of the northern mountains, have much more freedom to leave their husbands without stigma. This often leads to better husbandry as his actions are not protected by social expectations.[34]
+
+Chiefly among the factors influencing the rise of exogamy is the rapid urbanisation in India experienced over the last century. It is well known that urban centers tend to be less reliant on agriculture and are more progressive as a whole. As India’s cities boomed in population, the job market grew to keep pace. Prosperity and stability were now more easily attained by an individual, and the anxiety to marry quickly and effectively was reduced. Thus, younger, more progressive generations of urban Indians are less likely than ever to participate in the antiquated system of arranged endogamy.
+
+India has also implemented a form of Affirmative Action, locally known as “reservation groups”. Quota system jobs, as well as placements in publicly funded colleges, hold spots for the 8% of India’s minority, and underprivileged groups. As a result, in states such as Tamil Nadu or those in the north-east, where underprivileged populations predominate, over 80% of government jobs are set aside in quotas. In education, colleges lower the marks necessary for the Dalits to enter.[35]
+
+The Nepalese caste system resembles in some respects the Indian jāti system, with numerous jāti divisions with a varna system superimposed. Inscriptions attest the beginnings of a caste system during the Licchavi period. Jayasthiti Malla (1382–1395) categorized Newars into 64 castes (Gellner 2001). A similar exercise was made during the reign of Mahindra Malla (1506–1575). The Hindu social code was later set up in Gorkha by Ram Shah (1603–1636).
+
+McKim Marriott claims a social stratification that is hierarchical, closed, endogamous and hereditary is widely prevalent, particularly in western parts of Pakistan. Frederik Barth in his review of this system of social stratification in Pakistan suggested that these are castes.[36][37][38]
+
+The caste system in Sri Lanka is a division of society into strata,[39] influenced by the textbook varnas and jāti system found in India. Ancient Sri Lankan texts such as the Pujavaliya, Sadharmaratnavaliya and Yogaratnakaraya and inscriptional evidence show that the above hierarchy prevailed throughout the feudal period. The repetition of the same caste hierarchy even as recently as the 18th century, in the British/Kandyan period Kadayimpoth – Boundary books as well indicates the continuation of the tradition right up to the end of Sri Lanka's monarchy.
+
+Balinese caste structure has been described as being based either on three categories--the noble triwangsa (thrice born), the middle class of dwijāti (twice born), and the lower class of ekajāti (once born)--or on four castes[40]
+
+The Brahmana caste was further subdivided by these Dutch ethnographers into two: Siwa and Buda. The Siwa caste was subdivided into five: Kemenuh, Keniten, Mas, Manuba and Petapan. This classification was to accommodate the observed marriage between higher-caste Brahmana men with lower-caste women. The other castes were similarly further sub-classified by these 19th-century and early-20th-century ethnographers based on numerous criteria ranging from profession, endogamy or exogamy or polygamy, and a host of other factors in a manner similar to castas in Spanish colonies such as Mexico, and caste system studies in British colonies such as India.[40]
+
+In the Philippines, pre-colonial societies do not have a single social structure. The class structures can be roughly categorized into four types:[41]
+
+During the period of Yuan Dynasty, ruler Kublai Khan enforced a Four Class System, which was a legal caste system. The order of four classes of people was maintained by the information of the descending order were:
+
+Today, the Hukou system is considered by various sources as the current caste system of China.[44][45][46]
+
+There is significant controversy over the social classes of Tibet, especially with regards to the serfdom in Tibet controversy.
+
+Heidi Fjeld [no] has put forth the argument that pre-1950s Tibetan society was functionally a caste system, in contrast to previous scholars who defined the Tibetan social class system as similar to European feudal serfdom, as well as non-scholarly western accounts which seek to romanticize a supposedly 'egalitarian' ancient Tibetan society.
+
+In Japan's history, social strata based on inherited position rather than personal merit, were rigid and highly formalized in a system called mibunsei (身分制). At the top were the Emperor and Court nobles (kuge), together with the Shōgun and daimyō. Below them, the population was divided into four classes: samurai, peasants, craftsmen and merchants. Only samurai were allowed to bear arms. A samurai had a right to kill any peasants, craftsman or merchant who he felt were disrespectful. Merchants were the lowest caste because they did not produce any products. The castes were further sub-divided; for example, peasants were labelled as furiuri, tanagari, mizunomi-byakusho among others. As in Europe, the castes and sub-classes were of the same race, religion and culture.
+
+Howell, in his review of Japanese society notes that if a Western power had colonized Japan in the 19th century, they would have discovered and imposed a rigid four-caste hierarchy in Japan.[47]
+
+De Vos and Wagatsuma observe that Japanese society had a systematic and extensive caste system. They discuss how alleged caste impurity and alleged racial inferiority, concepts often assumed to be different, are superficial terms, and are due to identical inner psychological processes, which expressed themselves in Japan and elsewhere.[48]
+
+Endogamy was common because marriage across caste lines was socially unacceptable.[48][49]
+
+Japan had its own untouchable caste, shunned and ostracized, historically referred to by the insulting term Eta, now called Burakumin. While modern law has officially abolished the class hierarchy, there are reports of discrimination against the Buraku or Burakumin underclasses.[50] The Burakumin are regarded as "ostracised".[51] The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō and those of residents of Korean and Chinese descent.
+
+The baekjeong (백정) were an "untouchable" outcaste of Korea. The meaning today is that of butcher. It originates in the Khitan invasion of Korea in the 11th century. The defeated Khitans who surrendered were settled in isolated communities throughout Goryeo to forestall rebellion. They were valued for their skills in hunting, herding, butchering, and making of leather, common skill sets among nomads. Over time, their ethnic origin was forgotten, and they formed the bottom layer of Korean society.
+
+In 1392, with the foundation of the Confucian Joseon dynasty, Korea systemised its own native class system. At the top were the two official classes, the Yangban, which literally means "two classes". It was composed of scholars (munban) and warriors (muban). Scholars had a significant social advantage over the warriors. Below were the jung-in (중인-中人: literally "middle people". This was a small class of specialized professions such as medicine, accounting, translators, regional bureaucrats, etc. Below that were the sangmin (상민-常民: literally 'commoner'), farmers working their own fields. Korea also had a serf population known as the nobi. The nobi population could fluctuate up to about one third of the population, but on average the nobi made up about 10% of the total population.[52] In 1801, the vast majority of government nobi were emancipated,[53] and by 1858 the nobi population stood at about 1.5% of the total population of Korea.[54] The hereditary nobi system was officially abolished around 1886–87 and the rest of the nobi system was abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894,[54] but traces remained until 1930.
+
+The opening of Korea to foreign Christian missionary activity in the late 19th century saw some improvement in the status of the baekjeong. However, everyone was not equal under the Christian congregation, and even so protests erupted when missionaries tried to integrate baekjeong into worship, with non-baekjeong finding this attempt insensitive to traditional notions of hierarchical advantage.[citation needed] Around the same time, the baekjeong began to resist open social discrimination.[55] They focused on social and economic injustices affecting them, hoping to create an egalitarian Korean society. Their efforts included attacking social discrimination by upper class, authorities, and "commoners", and the use of degrading language against children in public schools.[56]
+
+With the Gabo reform of 1896, the class system of Korea was officially abolished. Following the collapse of the Gabo government, the new cabinet, which became the Gwangmu government after the establishment of the Korean Empire, introduced systematic measures for abolishing the traditional class system. One measure was the new household registration system, reflecting the goals of formal social equality, which was implemented by the loyalists' cabinet. Whereas the old registration system signified household members according to their hierarchical social status, the new system called for an occupation.[57]
+
+While most Koreans by then had surnames and even bongwan, although still substantial number of cheonmin, mostly consisted of serfs and slaves, and untouchables did not. According to the new system, they were then required to fill in the blanks for surname in order to be registered as constituting separate households. Instead of creating their own family name, some cheonmins appropriated their masters' surname, while others simply took the most common surname and its bongwan in the local area. Along with this example, activists within and outside the Korean government had based their visions of a new relationship between the government and people through the concept of citizenship, employing the term inmin ("people") and later, kungmin ("citizen").[57]
+
+The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea reported that "Every North Korean citizen is assigned a heredity-based class and socio-political rank over which the individual exercises no control but which determines all aspects of his or her life."[58] Called Songbun, Barbara Demick describes this "class structure" as an updating of the hereditary "caste system", a combination of Confucianism and Stalinism.[59] Bad family background is called "tainted blood", and that by law this "tainted blood" lasts three generations.[60]
+
+Ancient Hawaii was a class-based society. People were born into specific social classes; social mobility was not unknown, but it was extremely rare. The main classes were:
+
+Yezidi society is hierarchical. The secular leader is a hereditary emir or prince, whereas a chief sheikh heads the religious hierarchy. The Yazidi are strictly endogamous; members of the three Yazidi castes, the murids, sheikhs and pirs, marry only within their group.
+
+Pre-Islamic Sassanid society was immensely complex, with separate systems of social organization governing numerous different groups within the empire.[62] Historians believe society comprised four[63][64][65]
+social classes:
+
+In Yemen there exists a hereditary caste, the African-descended Al-Akhdam who are kept as perennial manual workers. Estimates put their number at over 3.5 million residents who are discriminated, out of a total Yemeni population of around 22 million.[66]
+
+Various sociologists have reported caste systems in Africa.[67][68][69] The specifics of the caste systems have varied in ethnically and culturally diverse Africa, however the following features are common – it has been a closed system of social stratification, the social status is inherited, the castes are hierarchical, certain castes are shunned while others are merely endogamous and exclusionary.[70] In some cases, concepts of purity and impurity by birth have been prevalent in Africa. In other cases, such as the Nupe of Nigeria, the Beni Amer of East Africa, and the Tira of Sudan, the exclusionary principle has been driven by evolving social factors.[71]
+
+Among the Igbo of Nigeria – especially Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Edo and Delta states of the country – Obinna finds Osu caste system has been and continues to be a major social issue. The Osu caste is determined by one's birth into a particular family irrespective of the religion practised by the individual. Once born into Osu caste, this Nigerian person is an outcast, shunned and ostracized, with limited opportunities or acceptance, regardless of his or her ability or merit. Obinna discusses how this caste system-related identity and power is deployed within government, Church and indigenous communities.[67]
+
+The osu class systems of eastern Nigeria and southern Cameroon are derived from indigenous religious beliefs and discriminate against the "Osus" people as "owned by deities" and outcasts.
+
+The Songhay economy was based on a caste system. The most common were metalworkers, fishermen, and carpenters. Lower caste participants consisted of mostly non-farm working immigrants, who at times were provided special privileges and held high positions in society. At the top were noblemen and direct descendants of the original Songhai people, followed by freemen and traders.[72]
+
+In a review of social stratification systems in Africa, Richter reports that the term caste has been used by French and American scholars to many groups of West African artisans. These groups have been described as inferior, deprived of all political power, have a specific occupation, are hereditary and sometimes despised by others. Richter illustrates caste system in Ivory Coast, with six sub-caste categories. Unlike other parts of the world, mobility is sometimes possible within sub-castes, but not across caste lines. Farmers and artisans have been, claims Richter, distinct castes. Certain sub-castes are shunned more than others. For example, exogamy is rare for women born into families of woodcarvers.[73]
+
+Similarly, the Mandé societies in Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone have social stratification systems that divide society by ethnic ties. The Mande class system regards the jonow slaves as inferior. Similarly, the Wolof in Senegal is divided into three main groups, the geer (freeborn/nobles), jaam (slaves and slave descendants) and the underclass neeno. In various parts of West Africa, Fulani societies also have class divisions. Other castes include Griots, Forgerons, and Cordonniers.
+
+Tamari has described endogamous castes of over fifteen West African peoples, including the Tukulor, Songhay, Dogon, Senufo, Minianka, Moors, Manding, Soninke, Wolof, Serer, Fulani, and Tuareg. Castes appeared among the Malinke people no later than 14th century, and was present among the Wolof and Soninke, as well as some Songhay and Fulani populations, no later than 16th century. Tamari claims that wars, such as the Sosso-Malinke war described in the Sunjata epic, led to the formation of blacksmith and bard castes among the people that ultimately became the Mali empire.
+
+As West Africa evolved over time, sub-castes emerged that acquired secondary specializations or changed occupations. Endogamy was prevalent within a caste or among a limited number of castes, yet castes did not form demographic isolates according to Tamari. Social status according to caste was inherited by off-springs automatically; but this inheritance was paternal. That is, children of higher caste men and lower caste or slave concubines would have the caste status of the father.[69]
+
+Ethel M. Albert in 1960 claimed that the societies in Central Africa were caste-like social stratification systems.[74] Similarly, in 1961, Maquet notes that the society in Rwanda and Burundi can be best described as castes.[75] The Tutsi, noted Maquet, considered themselves as superior, with the more numerous Hutu and the least numerous Twa regarded, by birth, as respectively, second and third in the hierarchy of Rwandese society. These groups were largely endogamous, exclusionary and with limited mobility.[76]
+
+In a review published in 1977, Todd reports that numerous scholars report a system of social stratification in different parts of Africa that resembles some or all aspects of caste system. Examples of such caste systems, he claims, are to be found in Ethiopia in communities such as the Gurage and Konso. He then presents the Dime of Southwestern Ethiopia, amongst whom there operates a system which Todd claims can be unequivocally labelled as caste system. The Dime have seven castes whose size varies considerably. Each broad caste level is a hierarchical order that is based on notions of purity, non-purity and impurity. It uses the concepts of defilement to limit contacts between caste categories and to preserve the purity of the upper castes. These caste categories have been exclusionary, endogamous and the social identity inherited.[78] Alula Pankhurst has published a study of caste groups in SW Ethiopia.[79]
+
+Among the Kafa, there were also traditionally groups labeled as castes. "Based on research done before the Derg regime, these studies generally presume the existence of a social hierarchy similar to the caste system. At the top of this hierarchy were the Kafa, followed by occupational groups including blacksmiths (Qemmo), weavers (Shammano), bards (Shatto), potters, and tanners (Manno). In this hierarchy, the Manjo were commonly referred to as hunters, given the lowest status equal only to slaves."[80]
+
+The Borana Oromo of southern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa also have a class system, wherein the Wata, an acculturated hunter-gatherer group, represent the lowest class. Though the Wata today speak the Oromo language, they have traditions of having previously spoken another language before adopting Oromo.[81]
+
+The traditionally nomadic Somali people are divided into clans, wherein the Rahanweyn agro-pastoral clans and the occupational clans such as the Madhiban were traditionally sometimes treated as outcasts.[82] As Gabboye, the Madhiban along with the Yibir and Tumaal (collectively referred to as sab) have since obtained political representation within Somalia, and their general social status has improved with the expansion of urban centers.[77]
+
+For centuries, through the modern times, the majority regarded Cagots who lived primarily in the Basque region of France and Spain as an inferior caste, the untouchables. While they had the same skin color and religion as the majority, in the churches they had to use segregated doors, drink from segregated fonts, and receive communion on the end of long wooden spoons. It was a closed social system. The socially isolated Cagots were endogamous, and chances of social mobility non-existent.[83][84]
+
+Spain has had a number of isolated and endogamous social groups where an individual's mores, culture and worth is set at birth. These groups had negligible mobility. Example groups include the Vaqueiros de Alzada of Asturias, the Maragatos of Leon, the Agotes of Navarra, and the Kale (gypsies) of the entire Iberian peninsula. These have been called castes, and by some as accursed races.[85][86]
+
+Early modern era in Germany witnessed the so called unehrliche Leute (dishonourable or dishonest people), an outcaste group. They were considered dishonourable by virtue of their trades. This dishonour was either hereditary or it arose from ritual pollution whereby honourable citizens could become dishonourable by coming into casual contact with members of these untouchables. Therefore, the social mores required the upper caste honorable people to shun and ostracize the lower caste dishonourable people. Exclusion led to endogamy. The dishonourable people included the executioners, skinners, grave-diggers, latrine-cleaners, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, sow-gelders (spay female animals), and bailiffs.[87][88][89]
+
+In July 2013, the UK government announced its intention to amend the Equality Act 2010, to "introduce legislation on caste, including any necessary exceptions to the caste provisions, within the framework of domestic discrimination law".[90] Section 9(5) of the Equality Act 2010 provides that "a Minister may by order amend the statutory definition of race to include caste and may provide for exceptions in the Act to apply or not to apply to caste".
+
+From September 2013 to February 2014, Meena Dhanda led a project on "Caste in Britain" for the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).[91]
+
+In W. Lloyd Warner's view, the historic relationship between Blacks and Whites in the US showed many caste-like features such as residential segregation and marriage restrictions.[92] Discrimination based upon socio-economic factors are historically prevalent within the country.
+
+According to Gerald D. Berreman, in the two systems, there are rigid rules of avoidance and certain types of contacts are defined as contaminating. In India, there are complex religious features which make up the system, whereas in the United States race and color are the basis for differentiation. The caste systems in India and the United States have higher groups which desire to retain their positions for themselves and thus perpetuate the two systems.[93]
+
+The process of creating a homogenized society by social engineering in both India and the US has created other institutions that have made class distinctions among different groups evident. Anthropologist James C. Scott elaborates on how “global capitalism is perhaps the most powerful force for homogenization, whereas the state may be the defender of local difference and variety in some instances.”[94] The caste system further emphasizes differences between the socio-economic classes that arise as a product of capitalism, which makes social mobility more difficult. Parts of the United States are sometimes divided by race and class status despite the national narrative of integration.
+
+As a result of increased immigration, many Indian Americans have brought their traditional caste values to the United States. A survey commissioned by Equality Labs finds that caste discrimination is also playing out in the United States. 2/3 of the members of the lowest caste, called Dalits, said that they have faced workplace discrimination due to their caste. 41% of the Dalits who were surveyed said that they have experienced discrimination in education because the caste system is now being practiced in the United States.[95]

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+Lisbon (/ˈlɪzbən/; Portuguese: Lisboa; [liʒˈboɐ] (listen))[4] is the capital and the largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 505,526[1] within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2.[5] Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administrative limits with a population of around 2.8 million people, being the 10th-most populous urban area in the European Union.[3] About 3 million people live in the Lisbon metropolitan area, which represents approximately 27% of the country's population.[2] It is mainland Europe's westernmost capital city and the only one along the Atlantic coast. Lisbon lies in the western Iberian Peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean and the River Tagus. The westernmost portions of its metro area, the Portuguese Riviera, form the westernmost point of Continental Europe, culminating at Cabo da Roca.
+
+Lisbon is recognised as an alpha-level global city because of its importance in finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, education and tourism.[6] Lisbon is one of two Portuguese cities (alongside Porto) to be recognised as a global city.[7][8] It is one of the major economic centres on the continent, with a growing financial sector and one of the largest container ports on Europe's Atlantic coast.[9] Additionally, Humberto Delgado Airport served 29 million passengers in 2018, being the busiest airport in Portugal, the 3rd busiest in the Iberian Peninsula and the 20th busiest in Europe.[10] The motorway network and the high-speed rail system of Alfa Pendular links the main cities of Portugal to Lisbon.[11] The city is the 9th-most-visited city in Southern Europe, after Rome, Istanbul, Barcelona, Milan, Venice, Madrid, Florence and Athens, with 3,320,300 tourists in 2017.[12] The Lisbon region has a higher GDP PPP per capita than any other region in Portugal. Its GDP amounts to US$96.3 billion and thus $32,434 per capita.[13][14] The city occupies the 40th place of highest gross earnings in the world.[15] Most of the headquarters of multinational corporations in Portugal are located in the Lisbon area.[16] It is also the political centre of the country, as its seat of government and residence of the head of state.
+
+Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world, and the second-oldest European capital city (after Athens), predating other modern European capitals by centuries. Julius Caesar made it a municipium called Felicitas Julia,[17] adding to the name Olissipo. Ruled by a series of Germanic tribes from the 5th century, it was captured by the Moors in the 8th century. In 1147, the Crusaders under Afonso Henriques reconquered the city and since then it has been the political, economic and cultural center of Portugal.
+
+Lisbon's name may have been derived from Proto-Celtic or Celtic Olisippo, Lissoppo, or a similar name which other visiting peoples like the ancient Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans adapted accordingly, such as the pre-Roman appellation for the Tagus River, Lisso or Lucio.  Classical authors writing in Latin and Greek, including Strabo, Solinus, and Martianus Capella,[18][19] referred to popular legends that the city of Lisbon was founded by the mythical hero Ulysses (Odysseus).[20][21] Lisbon's name was written Ulyssippo in Latin by the geographer Pomponius Mela, a native of Hispania. It was later referred to as "Olisippo" by Pliny the Elder and by the Greeks as Olissipo (Ὀλισσιπών) or Olissipona (Ὀλισσιπόνα).[22][23]
+
+Another claim repeated in non-academic literature is that the name of Lisbon could be traced back to Phoenician times, referring to a supposedly Phoenician term Alis-Ubo, meaning "safe harbour".[24] Although modern archaeological excavations show a Phoenician presence at this location since 1200 BC,[25] this folk etymology has no historical credibility.
+
+Lisbon's name is commonly abbreviated as "LX" or "Lx", originating in an antiquated spelling of Lisbon as ‘‘Lixbõa’’.[26] While the old spelling has since been completely dropped from usage and goes against modern language standards, the abbreviation is still commonly used.
+
+During the Neolithic period, the region was inhabited by Pre-Celtic tribes, who built religious and funerary monuments, megaliths, dolmens and menhirs, which still survive in areas on the periphery of Lisbon.[27] The Indo-European Celts invaded in the 1st millennium BC, mixing with the Pre-Indo-European population, thus giving rise to Celtic-speaking local tribes such as the Cempsi.
+
+Although the first fortifications on Lisbon's Castelo hill are known to be no older than the 2nd century BC, recent archaeological finds have shown that Iron Age people occupied the site from the 8th to 6th centuries BC.[28][29][30] This indigenous settlement maintained commercial relations with the Phoenicians, which would account for the recent findings of Phoenician pottery and other material objects. Archaeological excavations made near the Castle of São Jorge (Castelo de São Jorge) and Lisbon Cathedral indicate a Phoenician presence at this location since 1200 BC,[25] and it can be stated with confidence that a Phoenician trading post stood on a site[31][32] now the centre of the present city, on the southern slope of Castle hill.[33] The sheltered harbour in the Tagus River estuary was an ideal spot for an Iberian settlement and would have provided a secure harbour for unloading and provisioning Phoenician ships.[34] The Tagus settlement was an important centre of commercial trade with the inland tribes, providing an outlet for the valuable metals, salt and salted-fish they collected, and for the sale of the Lusitanian horses renowned in antiquity.
+
+According to a persistent legend, the location was named for the mythical Ulysses, who founded the city when he sailed westward to the ends of the known world.[35]
+
+Following the defeat of Hannibal in 202 BC during the Punic wars, the Romans determined to deprive Carthage of its most valuable possession: Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula). The defeat of Carthaginian forces by Scipio Africanus in Eastern Hispania allowed the pacification of the west, led by Consul Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus. Decimus obtained the alliance of Olissipo (which sent men to fight alongside the Roman Legions against the northwestern Celtic tribes) by integrating it into the empire, as the Municipium Cives Romanorum Felicitas Julia. Local authorities were granted self-rule over a territory that extended 50 kilometres (31 miles); exempt from taxes, its citizens were given the privileges of Roman citizenship,[17] and it was then integrated with the Roman province of Lusitania (whose capital was Emerita Augusta).
+
+Lusitanian raids and rebellions during Roman occupation required the construction of a wall around the settlement. During Augustus' reign, the Romans also built a great theatre; the Cassian Baths (underneath Rua da Prata); temples to Jupiter, Diana, Cybele, Tethys and Idea Phrygiae (an uncommon cult from Asia Minor), in addition to temples to the Emperor; a large necropolis under Praça da Figueira; a large forum and other buildings such as insulae (multi-storied apartment buildings) in the area between Castle Hill and the historic city core. Many of these ruins were first unearthed during the mid-18th century (when the recent discovery of Pompeii made Roman archaeology fashionable among Europe's upper classes).
+
+The city prospered as piracy was eliminated and technological advances were introduced, consequently Felicitas Julia became a center of trade with the Roman provinces of Britannia (particularly Cornwall) and the Rhine. Economically strong, Olissipo was known for its garum (a fish sauce highly prized by the elites of the empire and exported in amphorae to Rome), wine, salt, and horse-breeding, while Roman culture permeated the hinterland. The city was connected by a broad road to Western Hispania's two other large cities, Bracara Augusta in the province of Tarraconensis (Portuguese Braga), and Emerita Augusta, the capital of Lusitania. The city was ruled by an oligarchical council dominated by two families, the Julii and the Cassiae, although regional authority was administered by the Roman Governor of Emerita or directly by Emperor Tiberius. Among the majority of Latin speakers lived a large minority of Greek traders and slaves.
+
+Olissipo, like most great cities in the Western Empire, was a center for the dissemination of Christianity. Its first attested Bishop was Potamius (c. 356), and there were several martyrs during the period of persecution of the Christians: Verissimus, Maxima, and Julia are the most significant examples. By the time of the Fall of Rome, Olissipo had become a notable Christian center.
+
+Following the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire there were barbarian invasions; between 409 and 429 the city was occupied successively by Sarmatians, Alans and Vandals. The Germanic Suebi, who established a kingdom in Gallaecia (modern Galicia and northern Portugal), with its capital in Bracara Augusta, also controlled the region of Lisbon until 585. In 585, the Suebi Kingdom was integrated into the Germanic Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo, which comprised all of the Iberian Peninsula: Lisbon was then called Ulishbona.
+
+On 6 August 711, Lisbon was taken by Muslim forces. These conquerors, who were mostly Berbers and Arabs from North Africa and the Middle East, built many mosques and houses, rebuilt the city wall (known as the Cerca Moura) and established administrative control, while permitting the diverse population (Muladi, Mozarabs, Berbers, Arabs, Jews, Zanj and Saqaliba) to maintain their socio-cultural lifestyles. Mozarabic was the native language spoken by most of the Christian population although Arabic was widely known as spoken by all religious communities. Islam was the official religion practised by the Arabs, Berbers, Zanj, Saqaliba and Muladi (muwalladun).
+
+The Muslim influence is still visible in the Alfama district, an old quarter of Lisbon that survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake: many place-names are derived from Arabic and the Alfama (the oldest existing district of Lisbon) was derived from the Arabic "al-hamma".
+
+For a brief time Lisbon was an independent Muslim kingdom known as the Taifa of Lisbon (1022–1094), before being conquered by the larger Taifa of Badajoz.
+
+In 1108 Lisbon was raided and occupied by Norwegian crusaders led by Sigurd I on their way to the Holy Land as part of the Norwegian Crusade and occupied by crusader forces for three years.[37] It was taken by the Moorish Almoravids in 1111.
+
+In 1147, as part of the Reconquista, crusader knights led by Afonso I of Portugal besieged and reconquered Lisbon. The city, with around 154,000 residents at the time, was returned to Christian rule. The reconquest of Portugal and re-establishment of Christianity is one of the most significant events in Lisbon's history, described in the chronicle Expugnatione Lyxbonensi, which describes, among other incidents, how the local bishop was killed by the crusaders and the city's residents prayed to the Virgin Mary as it happened. Some of the Muslim residents converted to Roman Catholicism and most of those who did not convert fled to other parts of the Islamic world, primarily Muslim Spain and North Africa. All mosques were either completely destroyed or converted into churches. As a result of the end of Muslim rule, spoken Arabic quickly lost its place in the everyday life of the city and disappeared altogether.
+
+With its central location, Lisbon became the capital city of the new Portuguese territory in 1255.
+The first Portuguese university was founded in Lisbon in 1290 by King Denis I; for many years the Studium Generale (General Study) was transferred intermittently to Coimbra, where it was installed permanently in the 16th century as the University of Coimbra.
+
+In 1384, the city was besieged by King Juan I of Castille, as a part of the ongoing 1383–1385 Crisis. The result of the siege was a victory for the Portuguese led by Nuno Álvares Pereira.
+
+During the last centuries of the Middle Ages, the city expanded substantially and became an important trading post with both Northern European and Mediterranean cities.
+
+Most of the Portuguese expeditions of the Age of Discovery left Lisbon during the period from the end of the 15th century to the beginning of the 17th century, including Vasco da Gama's expedition to India in 1498. In 1506, 3,000 Jews were massacred in Lisbon.[38] The 16th century was Lisbon's golden era: the city was the European hub of commerce between Africa, India, the Far East and later, Brazil, and acquired great riches by exploiting the trade in spices, slaves, sugar, textiles and other goods. This period saw the rise of the exuberant Manueline style in architecture, which left its mark in many 16th-century monuments (including Lisbon's Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery, which were declared UNESCO World Heritage Sites). A description of Lisbon in the 16th century was written by Damião de Góis and published in 1554.[39]
+
+The succession crisis of 1580, initiated a sixty-year period of dual monarchy in Portugal and Spain under the Spanish Habsburgs.[40][41] This is referred to as the "Philippine Dominion" (Domínio Filipino), since all three Spanish kings during that period were called Philip (Filipe). In 1589 Lisbon was the target of an incursion by the English Armada led by Francis Drake, while Queen Elizabeth supported a Portuguese pretender in Antonio, Prior of Crato, but support for Crato was lacking and the expedition was a failure. The Portuguese Restoration War, which began with a coup d'état organised by the nobility and bourgeoisie in Lisbon and executed on 1 December 1640, restored Portuguese independence. The period from 1640 to 1668 was marked by periodic skirmishes between Portugal and Spain, as well as short episodes of more serious warfare until the Treaty of Lisbon was signed in 1668.
+
+In the early 18th century, gold from Brazil allowed King John V to sponsor the building of several Baroque churches and theatres in the city. Prior to the 18th century, Lisbon had experienced several significant earthquakes – eight in the 14th century, five in the 16th century (including the 1531 earthquake that destroyed 1,500 houses and the 1597 earthquake in which three streets vanished), and three in the 17th century.
+
+On 1 November 1755, the city was destroyed by another devastating earthquake, which killed an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 Lisbon residents[42] of a population estimated at between 200,000 and 275,000,[43][44] and destroyed 85 percent of the city's structures.[45] Among several important buildings of the city, the Ribeira Palace and the Hospital Real de Todos os Santos were lost. In coastal areas, such as Peniche, situated about 80 km (50 mi) north of Lisbon, many people were killed by the following tsunami.
+
+By 1755, Lisbon was one of the largest cities in Europe; the catastrophic event shocked the whole of Europe and left a deep impression on its collective psyche. Voltaire wrote a long poem, Poême sur le désastre de Lisbonne, shortly after the quake, and mentioned it in his 1759 novel Candide (indeed, many argue that this critique of optimism was inspired by that earthquake). Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. also mentions it in his 1857 poem, The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay.
+
+After the 1755 earthquake, the city was rebuilt largely according to the plans of Prime Minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, the 1st Marquis of Pombal; the lower town began to be known as the Baixa Pombalina (Pombaline central district). Instead of rebuilding the medieval town, Pombal decided to demolish what remained after the earthquake and rebuild the city centre in accordance with principles of modern urban design. It was reconstructed in an open rectangular plan with two great squares: the Praça do Rossio and the Praça do Comércio. The first, the central commercial district, is the traditional gathering place of the city and the location of the older cafés, theatres and restaurants; the second became the city's main access to the River Tagus and point of departure and arrival for seagoing vessels, adorned by a triumphal arch (1873) and monument to King Joseph I.
+
+In the first years of the 19th century, Portugal was invaded by the troops of Napoléon Bonaparte, forcing Queen Maria I and Prince-Regent John (future John VI) to flee temporarily to Brazil. By the time the new King returned to Lisbon, many of the buildings and properties were pillaged, sacked or destroyed by the invaders.
+
+During the 19th century, the Liberal movement introduced new changes into the urban landscape. The principal areas were in the Baixa and along the Chiado district, where shops, tobacconists shops, cafés, bookstores, clubs and theatres proliferated. The development of industry and commerce determined the growth of the city, seeing the transformation of the Passeio Público, a Pombaline era park, into the Avenida da Liberdade, as the city grew farther from the Tagus.
+
+Lisbon was the site of the regicide of Carlos I of Portugal in 1908, an event which culminated two years later in the establishment of the First Republic.
+
+The city refounded its university in 1911 after centuries of inactivity in Lisbon, incorporating reformed former colleges and other non-university higher education schools of the city (such as the Escola Politécnica – now Faculdade de Ciências). Today there are two public universities in the city (University of Lisbon and New University of Lisbon), a public university institute  (ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute) and a polytechnic institute (IPL – Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa).
+
+During World War II, Lisbon was one of the very few neutral, open European Atlantic ports, a major gateway for refugees to the U.S. and a haven for spies. More than 100,000 refugees were able to flee Nazi Germany via Lisbon.[46]
+
+During the Estado Novo regime (1926–1974), Lisbon was expanded at the cost of other districts within the country, resulting in nationalist and monumental projects. New residential and public developments were constructed; the zone of Belém was modified for the 1940 Portuguese Exhibition, while along the periphery new districts appeared to house the growing population. The inauguration of the bridge over the Tagus allowed rapid connection between both sides of the river.
+
+Lisbon was the site of three revolutions in the 20th century. The first, the 5 October 1910 revolution, brought an end to the Portuguese monarchy and established the highly unstable and corrupt Portuguese First Republic. The 6 June 1926 revolution would see the end of that first republic and firmly establish the Estado Novo, or the Portuguese Second Republic, as the ruling regime.
+
+The Carnation Revolution, which took place on 25 April 1974, ended the right-wing Estado Novo regime and reformed the country to become as it is today, the Portuguese Third Republic.
+
+In the 1990s, many of the districts were renovated and projects in the historic quarters were established to modernise those areas, for instance, architectural and patrimonial buildings were renovated, the northern margin of the Tagus was re-purposed for leisure and residential use, the Vasco da Gama Bridge was constructed and the eastern part of the municipality was re-purposed for Expo '98 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Vasco da Gama's sea voyage to India, a voyage that would bring immense riches to Lisbon and cause many of Lisbon's landmarks to be built.
+
+In 1988, a fire in the historical district of Chiado saw the destruction of many 18th-century Pombaline style buildings. A series of restoration works has brought the area back to its former self and made it a high-scale shopping district.
+
+The Lisbon Agenda was a European Union agreement on measures to revitalise the EU economy, signed in Lisbon in March 2000. In October 2007 Lisbon hosted the 2007 EU Summit, where an agreement was reached regarding a new EU governance model. The resulting Treaty of Lisbon was signed on 13 December 2007 and came into force on 1 December 2009.
+
+Lisbon has been the site for many international events and programmes. In 1994, Lisbon was the European Capital of Culture. On 3 November 2005, Lisbon hosted the MTV European Music Awards. On 7 July 2007, Lisbon held the ceremony of the "New 7 Wonders Of The World"[47] election, in the Luz Stadium, with live transmission for millions of people all over the world. Every two years, Lisbon hosts the Rock in Rio Lisboa Music Festival, one of the largest in the world.
+Lisbon hosted the NATO summit (19–20 November 2010), a summit meeting that is regarded as a periodic opportunity for Heads of State and Heads of Government of NATO member states to evaluate and provide strategic direction for Alliance activities.[48] The city hosts the Web Summit and is the head office for the Group of Seven Plus (G7+). In 2018 it hosted the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time as well as the Michelin Gala.[49]
+
+Lisbon is located at 38°42′49.75″N 9°8′21.79″W / 38.7138194°N 9.1393861°W / 38.7138194; -9.1393861, situated at the mouth of the Tagus River and is the westernmost capital of a mainland European country.
+
+The westernmost part of Lisbon is occupied by the Monsanto Forest Park, a 10 km2 (4 sq mi) urban park, one of the largest in Europe, and occupying 10% of the municipality.
+
+The city occupies an area of 100.05 km2 (39 sq mi), and its city boundaries, unlike those of most major cities, coincide with those of the municipality.[50] The rest of the urbanised area of the Lisbon urban area, known generically as Greater Lisbon (Portuguese: Grande Lisboa) includes several administratively defined cities and municipalities, in the north bank of the Tagus River. The larger Lisbon metropolitan area includes the Setúbal Peninsula to the south.
+
+Lisbon has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa)[51] with mild, rainy winters and warm to hot, dry summers. The average annual temperature is 17.4 °C (63.3 °F), 21.3 °C (70.3 °F) during the day and 13.5 °C (56.3 °F) at night.
+
+In the coldest month – January – the highest temperature during the day typically ranges from 10 to 18 °C (50 to 64 °F), the lowest temperature at night ranges from 3 to 13 °C (37 to 55 °F) and the average sea temperature is 15 °C (59 °F).[52] In the warmest month – August – the highest temperature during the day typically ranges from 25 to 32 °C (77 to 90 °F), the lowest temperature at night ranges from 14 to 20 °C (57 to 68 °F) and the average sea temperature is 20 °C (68 °F).[52]
+
+Among European capitals, Lisbon ranks among those with the warmest winters and one of the mildest night time temperatures, with an average of 8.3 °C (46.9 °F) in the coldest month, and 18.6 °C (65.5 °F) in the warmest month.  The minimum temperature recorded in Lisbon was −1.2 °C (30 °F) in February 1956 and −1 °C (30 °F) in January 1985. The maximum temperature recorded in Lisbon was 44.0 °C (111.2 °F) on 4 August 2018.[53]
+
+Sunshine hours are 2,806 per year, from an average of 4.6 hours of sunshine duration per day in December to an average of 11.4 hours of sunshine duration per day in July.[54] The annual average rainfall is 774 mm (30.5 in), with November being the wettest month.
+
+The municipality of Lisbon included 53 freguesias (civil parishes) until November 2012. A new law ("Lei n.º 56/2012") reduced the number of freguesias to the following 24:[57]
+
+Locally, Lisbon's inhabitants may commonly refer to the spaces of Lisbon in terms of historic Bairros de Lisboa (neighbourhoods). These communities have no clearly defined boundaries and represent distinctive quarters of the city that have in common a historical culture, similar living standards, and identifiable architectural landmarks, as exemplified by the Bairro Alto, Alfama, Chiado, and so forth.
+
+Although today it is quite central, it was once a mere suburb of Lisbon, comprising mostly farms and country estates of the nobility with their palaces. In the 16th century, there was a brook there which the nobles used to promenade in their boats. During the late 19th century, Alcântara became a popular industrial area, with many small factories and warehouses.
+
+In the early 1990s, Alcântara began to attract youth because of the number of pubs and discothèques. This was mainly due to its outer area of mostly commercial buildings, which acted as barriers to the noise-generating nightlife (which acted as a buffer to the residential communities surrounding it). In the meantime, some of these areas began to become gentrified, attracting loft developments and new flats, which have profited from its river views and central location.
+
+The riverfront of Alcântara is known for its nightclubs and bars. The area is commonly known as docas (docks), since most of the clubs and bars are housed in converted dock warehouses.
+
+The oldest district of Lisbon, it spreads down the southern slope from the Castle of São Jorge to the River Tagus. Its name, derived from the Arabic Al-hamma, means fountains or baths. During the Islamic invasion of Iberia, the Alfama constituted the largest part of the city, extending west to the Baixa neighbourhood. Increasingly, the Alfama became inhabited by fishermen and the poor: its fame as a poor neighbourhood continues to this day. While the 1755 Lisbon earthquake caused considerable damage throughout the capital, the Alfama survived with little damage, thanks to its compact labyrinth of narrow streets and small squares.
+
+It is a historical quarter of mixed-use buildings occupied by Fado bars, restaurants, and homes with small shops downstairs. Modernising trends have invigorated the district: old houses have been re-purposed or remodeled, while new buildings have been constructed. Fado, the typically Portuguese style of melancholy music, is common (but not obligatory) in the restaurants of the district.
+
+The Mouraria, or Moorish quarter, is one of the most traditional neighborhoods of Lisbon,[58] although most of its old buildings were demolished by the Estado Novo between the 1930s and the 1970s.[59] It takes its name from the fact that after the reconquest of Lisbon, the Muslims who remained were confined to this part of the city.[60] In turn, the Jews were confined to three neighbourhoods called "Judiarias"[61]
+
+Bairro Alto (literally the upper quarter in Portuguese) is an area of central Lisbon that functions as a residential, shopping and entertainment district; it is the center of the Portuguese capital's nightlife, attracting hipster youth and members of various music subcultures. Lisbon's Punk, Gay, Metal, Goth, Hip Hop and Reggae scenes all find a home in the Bairro with its many clubs and bars that cater to them. The crowds in the Bairro Alto are a multicultural mix of people representing a broad cross-section of modern Portuguese society, many of them being entertainment seekers and devotees of various music genres outside the mainstream, Fado, Portugal's national music, still survives in the midst of the new nightlife.
+
+The heart of the city is the Baixa or city centre; the Pombaline Baixa is an elegant district, primarily constructed after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, taking its name from its benefactor, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, who was the minister of Joseph I of Portugal (1750–1777) and a key figure during the Portuguese Enlightenment. Following the 1755 disaster, Pombal took the lead in rebuilding Lisbon, imposing strict conditions and guidelines on the construction of the city, and transforming the organic street plan that characterised the district before the earthquake into its current grid pattern. As a result, the Pombaline Baixa is one of the first examples of earthquake-resistant construction. Architectural models were tested by having troops march around them to simulate an earthquake. Notable features of Pombaline structures include the Pombaline cage, a symmetrical wood-lattice framework aimed at distributing earthquake forces, and inter-terrace walls that were built higher than roof timbers to inhibit the spread of fires.
+
+The parish of Beato (Lisbon) stands out for the new cultural dynamics it has been experiencing in recent years. The manufacturing districts and the industrial facilities by the riverside docks are the place of choice for contemporary art galleries, iconic bars, and gourmet restaurants that simmer in the streets. This reality has not gone unnoticed by the national press, and Visão,[62] TimeOut,[63] or Jornal de Negócios[64] have already made notice of this parish that hides treasures such as the National Museum of the Azulejo or the Palacio do Grilo.
+
+Belém is famous as the place from which many of the great Portuguese explorers set off on their voyages of discovery. In particular, it is the place from which Vasco da Gama departed for India in 1497 and Pedro Álvares Cabral departed for Brazil in 1499. It is also a former royal residence and features the 17th – 18th-century Belém Palace, a former royal residence now occupied by the President of Portugal, and the Ajuda Palace, begun in 1802 but never completed.
+
+Perhaps Belém's most famous feature is its tower, Torre de Belém, whose image is much used by Lisbon's tourist board. The tower was built as a fortified lighthouse late in the reign of Dom Manuel l (1515–1520) to guard the entrance to the port. It stood on a little island in right side of the Tagus, surrounded by water. Belém's other major historical building is the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos (Jerónimos Monastery), which the Torre de Belém was built partly to defend. Belém's most notable modern feature is the Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries) built for the Portuguese World Fair in 1940. In the heart of Belém is the Praça do Império: gardens centred upon a large fountain, laid out during World War II. To the west of the gardens lies the Centro Cultural de Belém. Belém is one of the most visited Lisbon districts. Here is located the Estádio do Restelo, house of Belenenses.
+
+The Chiado is a traditional shopping area that mixes old and modern commercial establishments, concentrated specially in the Rua do Carmo and the Rua Garrett. Locals as well as tourists visit the Chiado to buy books, clothing and pottery as well as to have a cup of coffee. The most famous café of Chiado is A Brasileira, famous for having had poet Fernando Pessoa among its customers. The Chiado is also an important cultural area, with several museums and theatres, including the opera. Several buildings of the Chiado were destroyed in a fire in 1988, an event that deeply shocked the country. Thanks to a renovation project that lasted more than 10 years, coordinated by celebrated architect Siza Vieira, the affected area has now virtually recovered.
+
+The ornate, late 18th-century Estrela Basilica is the main attraction of this district. The church with its large dome is located on a hill in what was at the time the western part of Lisbon and can be seen from great distances. The style is similar to that of the Mafra National Palace, late baroque and neoclassical. The façade has twin bell towers and includes statues of saints and some allegorical figures. São Bento Palace, the seat of the Portuguese parliament and the official residences of the Prime Minister of Portugal and the President of the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal, are in this district. Also in this district is Estrela Park, a favorite with families. There are exotic plants and trees, a duck pond, various sculptures, a children's playground, and many cultural events going on through the year, including outdoor cinema, markets, and music festivals.
+
+Parque das Nações (Park of Nations) is the newest district in Lisbon; it emerged from an urban renewal program to host the 1998 World Exhibition of Lisbon, also known as Expo'98. The area suffered massive changes giving Parque das Nações a futuristic look. A long lasting legacy of the same, the area has become another commercial and higher-end residential area for the city.
+
+Central in the area is the Gare do Oriente (Orient railway station), one of the main transport hubs of Lisbon for trains, buses, taxis, and the metro. Its glass and steel columns are inspired by Gothic architecture, lending the whole structure a visual fascination (especially in sunlight or when illuminated at night). It was designed by the architect Santiago Calatrava from Valencia, Spain. The Parque das Nações is across the street.
+
+The area is pedestrian-friendly with new buildings, restaurants, gardens, the Casino Lisbon, the FIL building (International Exhibition and Fair), the Camões Theatre and the Oceanário de Lisboa (Lisbon Oceanarium), which is the second largest in the world. The district's Altice Arena has become Lisbon's "jack-of-all-trades" performance arena. Seating 20,000, it has staged events from concerts to basketball tournaments.
+
+Fernando Medina is the current and 77th Mayor of Lisbon.
+
+The city of Lisbon is rich in architecture; Romanesque, Gothic, Manueline, Baroque, Modern and Postmodern constructions can be found all over Lisbon. The city is also crossed by historical boulevards and monuments along the main thoroughfares, particularly in the upper districts; notable among these are the Avenida da Liberdade (Avenue of Liberty), Avenida Fontes Pereira de Melo, Avenida Almirante Reis and Avenida da República (Avenue of the Republic).
+
+Lisbon is home to numerous prominent museums and art collections, from all around the world. The National Museum of Ancient Art, which has one of the largest art collections in the world, and the National Coach Museum, which has the world's largest collection of royal coaches and carriages, are the two most visited museums in the city. Other notable national museums include the National Museum of Archaeology, the Museum of Lisbon, the National Azulejo Museum, the National Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National Museum of Natural History & Science.
+
+Prominent private museums and galleries include the Gulbenkian Museum (run by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, one of the wealthiest foundations in the world), which houses one of the largest private collections of antiquaries and art in the world, the Berardo Collection Museum, which houses the private collection of Portuguese billionaire Joe Berardo, the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, and the Museum of the Orient. Other popular museums include the Electricity Museum, the Ephemeral Museum, the Museu da Água, and the Museu Benfica, among many others.
+
+Lisbon's Opera House, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, hosts a relatively active cultural agenda, mainly in autumn and winter. Other important theatres and musical houses are the Centro Cultural de Belém, the Teatro Nacional D. Maria II, the Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Teatro Camões.
+
+The monument to Christ the King (Cristo-Rei) stands on the southern bank of the Tagus River, in Almada. With open arms, overlooking the whole city, it resembles the Corcovado monument in Rio de Janeiro, and was built after World War II, as a memorial of thanksgiving for Portugal's being spared the horrors and destruction of the war.
+
+13 June is Lisbon´s holiday in honour of the city's saint, Anthony of Lisbon (Portuguese: Santo António). Saint Anthony, also known as Saint Anthony of Padua, was a wealthy Portuguese bohemian who was canonised and made Doctor of the Church after a life preaching to the poor. Although Lisbon’s patron saint is Saint Vincent of Saragossa, whose remains are housed in the Sé Cathedral, there are no festivities associated with this saint.
+
+Eduardo VII Park, the second largest park in the city following the Parque Florestal de Monsanto (Monsanto Forest Park), extends down the main avenue (Avenida da Liberdade), with many flowering plants and greenspaces, that includes the permanent collection of subtropical and tropical plants in the winter garden (Portuguese: Estufa Fria). Originally named Parque da Liberdade, it was renamed in honour of Edward VII of England who visited Lisbon in 1903.
+
+Lisbon is home every year to the Lisbon Gay & Lesbian Film Festival,[65] the Lisboarte, the DocLisboa – Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival,[66] the Festival Internacional de Máscaras e Comediantes, the Lisboa Mágica – Street Magic World Festival, the Monstra – Animated Film Festival, the Lisbon Book Fair,[67] the Peixe em Lisboa – Lisbon Fish and Flavours,[68] and many others.
+
+Lisbon has two sites listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site: Belém Tower and Jerónimos Monastery. Furthermore, in 1994, Lisbon was the European Capital of Culture and, in 1998, organised the Expo '98 (1998 Lisbon World Exposition).
+
+Lisbon is also home to the Lisbon Architecture Triennial,[69] the Moda Lisboa (Fashion Lisbon),[70] ExperimentaDesign – Biennial of Design[71] and LuzBoa – Biennial of Light.[72]
+
+In addition, the mosaic Portuguese pavement (Calçada Portuguesa) was born in Lisbon, in the mid-1800s. The art has since spread to the rest of the Portuguese Speaking world. The city remains one of the most expansive examples of the technique, nearly all walkways and even many streets being created and maintained in this style.
+
+In May 2018, the city hosted the 63rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, after the victory of Salvador Sobral with the song "Amar pelos dois" in Kiev on 13 May 2017.
+
+The historical population of the city was around 35,000 in 1300 AD. Up to 60,000 in 1400 AD, and rising to 70,000 in 1500 AD. Between 1528–1590 the population went from 70,000 to 120,000. The population was about 150,000 in 1600 AD, and almost 200,000 in 1700 AD.[74][75][76]
+
+The Lisbon metropolitan area incorporates two NUTS III (European statistical subdivisions): Grande Lisboa (Greater Lisbon), along the northern bank of the Tagus River, and Península de Setúbal (Setúbal Peninsula), along the southern bank. These two subdivisions make for the Região de Lisboa (Lisbon Region). The population density of the city itself is 6,458 inhabitants per square kilometre (16,730/sq mi).
+
+Lisbon has 552,700[77] inhabitants within the administrative center on the area of only 100.05 km2[5] Administratively defined cities that exist in the vicinity of the capital are in fact part of the metropolitan perimeter of Lisbon. The urban area has a population of 2,666,000 inhabitants, being the eleventh largest urban area in the European Union after Paris, London, Ruhr area, Madrid, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin, Rome, Naples and Athens.[3] The whole metropolis of Lisbon (metropolitan area) has about 3 million inhabitants. According to official government data, the Lisbon metropolitan area has 3,121,876 inhabitants.[2] Other sources also show a similar number, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development – 2,797,612 inhabitants;[78] according to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations – 2,890,000;[79] according to the European Statistical Office Eurostat – 2,839,908;[80] according to the Brookings Institution has 2,968,600 inhabitants.[81]
+
+
+
+The Lisbon region is the wealthiest region in Portugal and it is well above the European Union's GDP per capita average – it produces 45% of the Portuguese GDP. Lisbon's economy is based primarily on the tertiary sector. Most of the headquarters of multinationals operating in Portugal are concentrated in the Grande Lisboa Subregion, specially in the Oeiras municipality. The Lisbon metropolitan area is heavily industrialized, especially the south bank of the Tagus river (Rio Tejo).
+
+The Lisbon region is rapidly growing, with GDP (PPP) per capita calculated for each year as follows: €22,745 (2004)[83] – €23,816 (2005)[84] – €25,200 (2006)[85] – €26,100 (2007).[86] The Lisbon metropolitan area had a GDP amounting to $96.3 billion, and $32,434 per capita.[87]
+
+The country's chief seaport, featuring one of the largest and most sophisticated regional markets on the Iberian Peninsula, Lisbon and its heavily populated surroundings are also developing as an important financial centre and a dynamic technological hub. Automobile manufacturers have erected factories in the suburbs, for example, AutoEuropa.
+
+Lisbon has the largest and most developed mass media sector of Portugal, and is home to several related companies ranging from leading television networks and radio stations to major newspapers.
+
+The Euronext Lisbon stock exchange, part of the pan-European Euronext system together with the stock exchanges of Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris, is tied with the New York Stock Exchange since 2007, forming the multinational NYSE Euronext group of stock exchanges.
+
+Lisbonite industry has very large sectors in oil, as refineries are found just across the Tagus, textile mills, shipyards and fishing.
+
+Before Portugal's sovereign debt crisis and an EU-IMF rescue plan, for the decade of 2010 Lisbon was expecting to receive many state funded investments, including building a new airport, a new bridge, an expansion of the Lisbon Metro 30 km (18.64 mi) underground, the construction of a mega-hospital (or central hospital), the creation of two lines of a TGV to join Madrid, Porto, Vigo and the rest of Europe, the restoration of the main part of the town (between the Marquês de Pombal roundabout and Terreiro do Paço), the creation of a large number of bike lanes, as well as modernization and renovation of various facilities.[88]
+
+Lisbon was the 18th most "livable city" in the world in 2015 according to lifestyle magazine Monocle.[89]
+
+Tourism is also a significant industry; a 2018 report stated that the city receives an average of 4.5 million tourists per year.[90] Hotel revenues alone generated €714.8 million in 2017, an increase of 18.7% over 2016.[91]
+
+Lisboa was elected the "World's Leading City Destination and World's Leading City Break Destination 2018".[92]
+
+The Lisbon Metro connects the city centre with the upper and eastern districts, and also reaches some suburbs that are part of the Lisbon metropolitan area, such as Amadora and Loures. It is the fastest way to get around the city and it provides a good number of interchanging stations with other types of transportation. From the Lisbon Airport station to the city centre it may take roughly 25 mins. As of 2018, the Lisbon Metro comprises four lines, identified by individual colours (blue, yellow, green and red) and 56 stations, with a total length of 44.2 km. Several expansion projects have been proposed, being the most recent the transformation of the Green Line into a circular line and the creation of two more stations (Santos and Estrela).
+
+A traditional form of public transport in Lisbon is the tram. Introduced in 1901, electric trams were originally imported from the US,[93] and called the americanos. The earliest trams can still be seen in the Museu da Carris (the Public Transport Museum). Other than on the modern Line 15, the Lisbon tramway system still employs small (four wheel) vehicles of a design dating from the early twentieth century. These distinctive yellow trams are one of the tourist icons of modern Lisbon, and their size is well suited to the steep hills and narrow streets of the central city.[94][95]
+
+There are four commuter train lines departing from Lisbon: the Cascais, Sintra and Azambuja lines (operated by CP – Comboios de Portugal), as well as a fourth line to Setúbal (operated by Fertagus), which crosses the Tagus river via the 25 de Abril Bridge. The major railway stations are Santa Apolónia, Rossio, Gare do Oriente, Entrecampos, and Cais do Sodré.
+
+The local bus service within Lisbon is operated by Carris.
+
+There are other commuter bus services from the city (connecting cities outside Lisbon, and connecting these cities to Lisbon): Vimeca,[96] Rodoviária de Lisboa,[97] Transportes Sul do Tejo,[98] Boa Viagem,[99] Barraqueiro[100] are the main ones, operating from different terminals in the city.
+
+Lisbon is connected to its suburbs and throughout Portugal by an extensive motorway network. There are three circular motorways around the city; the 2ª Circular, the IC17 (CRIL), and the A9 (CREL).
+
+The city is connected to the far side of the Tagus by two important bridges:
+
+The foundations for a third bridge across the Tagus have already been laid, but the overall project has been postponed due to the economic crisis in Portugal and all of Europe.
+
+Another way of crossing the river is by taking the ferry. The operator is Transtejo & Soflusa,[103] which runs from different locations within the city: Cacilhas, Seixal, Montijo, Porto Brandão and Trafaria under the brand Transtejo and to Barreiro under the brand Soflusa.
+
+Humberto Delgado Airport is located within the city limits. It is the headquarters and hub for TAP Portugal as well as a hub for Easyjet, Azores Airlines, Ryanair, EuroAtlantic Airways, White Airways, and Hi Fly. A second airport has been proposed, but the project has been put on hold because of the Portuguese and European economic crisis, and also because of the long discussion on whether a new airport is needed. However, the last proposal is military air base in Montijo that would be replaced by a civil airport. So, Lisbon would have two airports, the current airport in north and a new in the south of the city.
+
+Cascais Aerodrome, 20 km West of the city centre, in Cascais, offers commercial domestic flights.
+
+The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Lisbon, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 59 min. 11.5% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 23.1% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 6 km, while 10% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.[104]
+
+In Greater Lisbon area, particularly in the Portuguese Riviera, an area popular with expats and foreign nationals, there are numerous international schools, including the Carlucci American International School of Lisbon (only American school in Portugal), Saint Julian's School (British),  Saint Dominic's International School (British), Deutsche Schule Lissabon (German), Instituto Español Giner de los Ríos (Spanish), and Lycée Français Charles Lepierre (French).
+
+In the city, there are three public universities and a university institute. The University of Lisbon, which is the largest university in Portugal, was created in 2013 with the union of the Technical University of Lisbon and the Classical University of Lisbon (which was known as the University of Lisbon). The New University of Lisbon, founded in 1973, is another public university in Lisbon and is known internationally by its Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE),its economics and management faculty. The third public university is Universidade Aberta. Additionally, there's ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute (founded in 1972), a university institute that provides degrees in all academic disciplines.
+
+Major private institutions of higher education include the Portuguese Catholic University, focused on law and management, as well as the Lusíada University, the Universidade Lusófona, and the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa, among others.
+
+The total number of enrolled students in higher education in Lisbon was, for the 2007–2008 school year, of 125,867 students, of whom 81,507 in the Lisbon's public institutions.[105]
+
+Lisbon is home to Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, the Portuguese national library, which has over 3 million books and manuscripts. The library has some rare books and manuscripts, such as an original Gutenberg Bible and original books by Erasmus, Christophe Platin and Aldus Manutius. Another relevant library is the Torre do Tombo National Archive, one of the most important archives in the world, with over 600 years and one of the oldest active Portuguese institutions. There are, among several others, the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino and the Arquivo Histórico Militar.
+
+Lisbon has a long tradition in sports. It hosted several matches, including the final, of the UEFA Euro 2004 championship. The city also played host to the final of the 2001 IAAF World Indoor Championships and the European Fencing Championships in 1983 and 1992, as well as the 2003 World Men's Handball Championship, and the 2008 European Judo Championships. From 2006 to 2008, Lisbon was the starting point for the Dakar Rally. The city hosted the 2014 UEFA Champions League Final. In 2008 and 2016, the city hosted the European Triathlon Championships. Lisbon has a leg at the Volvo Ocean Race.
+
+The city hosts three association football clubs in Portugal's highest league, the Primeira Liga. Sport Lisboa e Benfica, commonly known as simply Benfica, has won 37 league titles in addition to two European Cups. Lisbon's second-most successful club is Sporting Clube de Portugal (commonly known as Sporting and often referred to as Sporting Lisbon abroad to prevent confusion with other teams with the same name), winner of 18 league titles and the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. A third club, C.F. Os Belenenses (commonly Belenenses or Belenenses Lisbon), based in the Belém quarter, has solely won one league title. Other major clubs in Lisbon include Atlético, Casa Pia, and Oriental.
+
+Lisbon has two UEFA category four stadiums; Benfica's Estádio da Luz (Stadium of Light), with a capacity of over 65,000 and Sporting's Estádio José Alvalade, with a capacity of over 50,000. There is also Belenenses' Estádio do Restelo, with a capacity of over 30,000. The Estádio Nacional, in nearby Oeiras, has a capacity of 37,000 and was used exclusively for Portuguese international football matches and cup finals until the construction of larger stadia in the city. It held the 1967 European Cup Final.
+
+Other sports, such as basketball, futsal, handball, roller hockey, rugby union and volleyball are also popular; the latter's national stadium is in Lisbon. There are many other sport facilities in Lisbon, ranging from athletics, sailing, golfing to mountain-biking. Lisboa and Troia golf course are two of many stunning golf courses located in Lisbon. Every March the city hosts the Lisbon Half Marathon, while in September the Portugal Half Marathon.
+
+Lisbon is part of the Union of Luso-Afro-Americo-Asiatic Capital Cities[106][107][108] from 28 June 1985, establishing brotherly relations with the following cities:
+
+Lisbon is part of the Union of Ibero-American Capital Cities[109] from 12 October 1982 establishing brotherly relations with the following cities:
+
+Lisbon has additional cooperation agreements with the following cities:[107][108]

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+
+
+A leaf (plural leaves) is the principal lateral appendage of the vascular plant stem,[1] usually borne above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. The leaves and stem together form the shoot.[2] Leaves are collectively referred to as foliage, as in "autumn foliage".[3][4] In most leaves, the primary photosynthetic tissue, the palisade mesophyll, is located on the upper side of the blade or lamina of the leaf[1] but in some species, including the mature foliage of Eucalyptus,[5] palisade mesophyll is present on both sides and the leaves are said to be isobilateral. Most leaves are flattened and have distinct upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces that differ in color, hairiness, the number of stomata (pores that intake and output gases), the amount and structure of epicuticular wax and other features. Leaves are mostly green in color due to the presence of a compound called chlorophyll that is essential for photosynthesis as it absorbs light energy from the sun. A leaf with white patches or edges is called a variegated leaf.
+
+Leaves can have many different shapes, sizes, and textures. The broad, flat leaves with complex venation of flowering plants are known as megaphylls and the species that bear them, the majority, as broad-leaved or megaphyllous plants. In the clubmosses, with different evolutionary origins, the leaves are simple (with only a single vein) and are known as microphylls.[6] Some leaves, such as bulb scales, are not above ground. In many aquatic species, the leaves are submerged in water. Succulent plants often have thick juicy leaves, but some leaves are without major photosynthetic function and may be dead at maturity, as in some cataphylls and spines. Furthermore, several kinds of leaf-like structures found in vascular plants are not totally homologous with them. Examples include flattened plant stems called phylloclades and cladodes, and flattened leaf stems called phyllodes which differ from leaves both in their structure and origin.[4][7] Some structures of non-vascular plants look and function much like leaves. Examples include the phyllids of mosses and liverworts.
+
+Leaves are the most important organs of most vascular plants.[8] Green plants are autotrophic, meaning that they do not obtain food from other living things but instead create their own food by photosynthesis. They capture the energy in sunlight and use it to make simple sugars, such as glucose and sucrose, from carbon dioxide and water. The sugars are then stored as starch, further processed by chemical synthesis into more complex organic molecules such as proteins or cellulose, the basic structural material in plant cell walls, or metabolized by cellular respiration to provide chemical energy to run cellular processes. The leaves draw water from the ground in the transpiration stream through a vascular conducting system known as xylem and obtain carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by diffusion through openings called stomata in the outer covering layer of the leaf (epidermis), while leaves are orientated to maximize their exposure to sunlight. Once sugar has been synthesized, it needs to be transported to areas of active growth such as the plant shoots and roots. Vascular plants transport sucrose in a special tissue called the phloem. The phloem and xylem are parallel to each other, but the transport of materials is usually in opposite directions. Within the leaf these vascular systems branch (ramify) to form veins which supply as much of the leaf as possible, ensuring that cells carrying out photosynthesis are close to the transportation system.[9]
+
+Typically leaves are broad, flat and thin (dorsiventrally flattened), thereby maximising the surface area directly exposed to light and enabling the light to penetrate the tissues and reach the chloroplasts, thus promoting photosynthesis. They are arranged on the plant so as to expose their surfaces to light as efficiently as possible without shading each other, but there are many exceptions and complications. For instance, plants adapted to windy conditions may have pendent leaves, such as in many willows and eucalypts. The flat, or laminar, shape also maximizes thermal contact with the surrounding air, promoting cooling. Functionally, in addition to carrying out photosynthesis, the leaf is the principal site of transpiration, providing the energy required to draw the transpiration stream up from the roots, and guttation.
+
+Many gymnosperms have thin needle-like or scale-like leaves that can be advantageous in cold climates with frequent snow and frost.[10] These are interpreted as reduced from megaphyllous leaves of their Devonian ancestors.[6] Some leaf forms are adapted to modulate the amount of light they absorb to avoid or mitigate excessive heat, ultraviolet damage, or desiccation, or to sacrifice light-absorption efficiency in favor of protection from herbivory. For xerophytes the major constraint is not light flux or intensity, but drought.[11] Some window plants such as Fenestraria species and some Haworthia species such as Haworthia tesselata and Haworthia truncata are examples of xerophytes.[12] and Bulbine mesembryanthemoides.[13]
+
+Leaves also function to store chemical energy and water (especially in succulents) and may become specialized organs serving other functions, such as tendrils of peas and other legumes, the protective spines of cacti and the insect traps in carnivorous plants such as Nepenthes and Sarracenia.[14] Leaves are the fundamental structural units from which cones are constructed in gymnosperms (each cone scale is a modified megaphyll leaf known as a sporophyll)[6]:408  and from which flowers are constructed in flowering plants.[6]:445
+
+The internal organization of most kinds of leaves has evolved to maximize exposure of the photosynthetic organelles, the chloroplasts, to light and to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide while at the same time controlling water loss. Their surfaces are waterproofed by the plant cuticle and gas exchange between the mesophyll cells and the atmosphere is controlled by minute (length and width measured in tens of µm) openings called stomata which open or close to regulate the rate exchange of carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor into and out of the internal intercellular space system. Stomatal opening is controlled by the turgor pressure in a pair of guard cells that surround the stomatal aperture. In any square centimeter of a plant leaf, there may be from 1,000 to 100,000 stomata.[15]
+
+The shape and structure of leaves vary considerably from species to species of plant, depending largely on their adaptation to climate and available light, but also to other factors such as grazing animals (such as deer), available nutrients, and ecological competition from other plants. Considerable changes in leaf type occur within species, too, for example as a plant matures; as a case in point Eucalyptus species commonly have isobilateral, pendent leaves when mature and dominating their neighbors; however, such trees tend to have erect or horizontal dorsiventral leaves as seedlings, when their growth is limited by the available light.[16] Other factors include the need to balance water loss at high temperature and low humidity against the need to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. In most plants, leaves also are the primary organs responsible for transpiration and guttation (beads of fluid forming at leaf margins).
+
+Leaves can also store food and water, and are modified accordingly to meet these functions, for example in the leaves of succulent plants and in bulb scales. The concentration of photosynthetic structures in leaves requires that they be richer in protein, minerals, and sugars than, say, woody stem tissues. Accordingly, leaves are prominent in the diet of many animals.
+
+Correspondingly, leaves represent heavy investment on the part of the plants bearing them, and their retention or disposition are the subject of elaborate strategies for dealing with pest pressures, seasonal conditions, and protective measures such as the growth of thorns and the production of phytoliths, lignins, tannins and poisons.
+
+Deciduous plants in frigid or cold temperate regions typically shed their leaves in autumn, whereas in areas with a severe dry season, some plants may shed their leaves until the dry season ends. In either case, the shed leaves may be expected to contribute their retained nutrients to the soil where they fall.
+
+In contrast, many other non-seasonal plants, such as palms and conifers, retain their leaves for long periods; Welwitschia retains its two main leaves throughout a lifetime that may exceed a thousand years.
+
+The leaf-like organs of bryophytes (e.g., mosses and liverworts), known as phyllids, differ morphologically from the leaves of vascular plants in that they lack vascular tissue, are usually only a single cell thick and have no cuticle stomata or internal system of intercellular spaces. The leaves of bryophytes are only present on the gametophytes, while in contrast the leaves of vascular plants are only present on the sporophytes, and are associated with buds (immature shoot systems in the leaf axils). These can further develop into either vegetative or reproductive structures.[14]
+
+Simple, vascularized leaves (microphylls), such as those of the early  Devonian lycopsid Baragwanathia, first evolved as enations, extensions of the stem. True leaves or euphylls of larger size and with more complex venation did not become widespread in other groups until the Devonian period, by which time the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere had dropped significantly. This occurred independently in several separate lineages of vascular plants, in progymnosperms like Archaeopteris, in Sphenopsida, ferns and later in the  gymnosperms and angiosperms.  Euphylls are also referred to as macrophylls or megaphylls (large leaves).[6]
+
+A structurally complete leaf of an angiosperm consists of a petiole (leaf stalk), a lamina (leaf blade), stipules (small structures located to either side of the base of the petiole) and a sheath. Not every species produces leaves with all of these structural components. The proximal stalk or petiole is called a stipe in ferns. The lamina is the expanded, flat component of the leaf which contains the chloroplasts. The sheath is a structure, typically at the base that fully or partially clasps the stem above the node, where the latter is attached. Leaf sheathes typically occur in grasses and Apiaceae (umbellifers). Between the sheath and the lamina, there may be a pseudopetiole, a petiole like structure. Pseudopetioles occur in some monocotyledons including bananas, palms and bamboos.[18] Stipules may be conspicuous (e.g. beans and roses), soon falling or otherwise not obvious as in Moraceae or absent altogether as in the Magnoliaceae. A petiole may be absent (apetiolate), or the blade may not be laminar (flattened). The tremendous variety shown in leaf structure (anatomy) from species to species is presented in detail below under morphology. The petiole mechanically links the leaf to the plant and provides the route for transfer of water and sugars to and from the leaf. The lamina is typically the location of the majority of photosynthesis. The upper (adaxial) angle between a leaf and a stem is known as the axil of the leaf. It is often the location of a bud. Structures located there are called "axillary".
+
+External leaf characteristics, such as shape, margin, hairs, the petiole, and the presence of stipules and glands, are frequently important for identifying plants to family, genus or species levels, and botanists have developed a rich terminology for describing leaf characteristics. Leaves almost always have determinate growth. They grow to a specific pattern and shape and then stop. Other plant parts like stems or roots have non-determinate growth, and will usually continue to grow as long as they have the resources to do so.
+
+The type of leaf is usually characteristic of a species (monomorphic), although some species produce more than one type of leaf (dimorphic or polymorphic). The longest leaves are those of the Raffia palm, R. regalis which may be up to 25 m (82 ft) long and 3 m (9.8 ft) wide.[19] The terminology associated with the description of leaf morphology is presented, in illustrated form, at Wikibooks.
+
+Where leaves are basal, and lie on the ground, they are referred to as prostrate.
+
+
+
+Different terms are usually used to describe the arrangement of leaves on the stem (phyllotaxis):
+
+As a stem grows, leaves tend to appear arranged around the stem in a way that optimizes yield of light. In essence, leaves form a helix pattern centered around the stem, either clockwise or counterclockwise, with (depending upon the species) the same angle of divergence. There is a regularity in these angles and they follow the numbers in a Fibonacci sequence: 1/2, 2/3, 3/5, 5/8, 8/13, 13/21, 21/34, 34/55, 55/89. This series tends to the golden angle, which is approximately 360° × 34/89 ≈ 137.52° ≈ 137° 30′. In the series, the numerator indicates the number of complete turns or "gyres" until a leaf arrives at the initial position and the denominator indicates the number of leaves in the arrangement. This can be demonstrated by the following:
+
+
+
+Two basic forms of leaves can be described considering the way the blade (lamina) is divided. A simple leaf has an undivided blade. However, the leaf may be dissected to form lobes, but the gaps between lobes do not reach to the main vein. A compound leaf has a fully subdivided blade, each leaflet of the blade being separated along a main or secondary vein. The leaflets may have petiolules and stipels, the equivalents of the petioles and stipules of leaves. Because each leaflet can appear to be a simple leaf, it is important to recognize where the petiole occurs to identify a compound leaf. Compound leaves are a characteristic of some families of higher plants, such as the Fabaceae. The middle vein of a compound leaf or a frond, when it is present, is called a rachis.
+
+Petiolated leaves have a petiole (leaf stalk), and are said to be petiolate.
+
+Sessile (epetiolate) leaves have no petiole and the blade attaches directly to the stem. Subpetiolate leaves are nearly petiolate or have an extremely short petiole and may appear to be sessile.
+
+In clasping or decurrent leaves, the blade partially surrounds the stem.
+
+When the leaf base completely surrounds the stem, the leaves are said to be perfoliate, such as in Eupatorium perfoliatum.
+
+In peltate leaves, the petiole attaches to the blade inside the blade margin.
+
+In some Acacia species, such as the koa tree (Acacia koa), the petioles are expanded or broadened and function like leaf blades; these are called phyllodes. There may or may not be normal pinnate leaves at the tip of the phyllode.
+
+A stipule, present on the leaves of many dicotyledons, is an appendage on each side at the base of the petiole, resembling a small leaf. Stipules may be lasting and not be shed (a stipulate leaf, such as in roses and beans), or be shed as the leaf expands, leaving a stipule scar on the twig (an exstipulate leaf).
+The situation, arrangement, and structure of the stipules is called the "stipulation".
+
+Veins (sometimes referred to as nerves) constitute one of the more visible leaf traits or characteristics. The veins in a leaf represent the vascular structure of the organ, extending into the leaf via the petiole and providing transportation of water and nutrients between leaf and stem, and play a crucial role in the maintenance of leaf water status and photosynthetic capacity.They also play a role in the mechanical support of the leaf.[20][21] Within the lamina of the leaf, while some vascular plants possess only a single vein, in most this vasculature generally divides (ramifies) according to a variety of patterns (venation) and form cylindrical bundles, usually lying in the median plane of the mesophyll, between the two layers of epidermis.[22] This pattern is often specific to taxa, and of which angiosperms possess two main types, parallel and reticulate (net like). In general, parallel venation is typical of monocots, while reticulate is more typical of eudicots and magnoliids ("dicots"), though there are many exceptions.[23][22][24]
+
+The vein or veins entering the leaf from the petiole are called primary or first order veins. The veins branching from these are secondary or second order veins. These primary and secondary veins are considered major veins or lower order veins, though some authors include third order.[25] Each subsequent branching is sequentially numbered, and these are the higher order veins, each branching being associated with a narrower vein diameter.[26] In parallel veined leaves, the primary veins run parallel and equidistant to each other for most of the length of the leaf and then converge or fuse (anastomose) towards the apex. Usually, many smaller minor veins interconnect these primary veins, but may terminate with very fine vein endings in the mesophyll. Minor veins are more typical of angiosperms, which may have as many as four higher orders.[25] In contrast, leaves with reticulate venation there is a single (sometimes more) primary vein in the centre of the leaf, referred to as the midrib or costa and is continuous with the vasculature of the petiole more proximally. The midrib then branches to a number of smaller secondary veins, also known as second order veins, that extend toward the leaf margins. These often terminate in a hydathode, a secretory organ, at the margin. In turn, smaller veins branch from the secondary veins, known as tertiary or third order (or higher order) veins, forming  a dense reticulate pattern. The areas or islands of mesophyll lying between the higher order veins, are called areoles. Some of the smallest veins (veinlets) may have their endings in the areoles, a process known as areolation.[26] These minor veins act as the sites of exchange between the mesophyll and the plant's vascular system.[21] Thus, minor veins collect the products of photosynthesis (photosynthate) from the cells where it takes place, while major veins are responsible for its transport outside of the leaf. At the same time water is being transported in the opposite direction.[27][23][22]
+
+The number of vein endings is very variable, as is whether second order veins end at the margin, or link back to other veins.[24] There are many elaborate variations on the patterns that the leaf veins form, and these have functional implications. Of these, angiosperms have the greatest diversity.[25] Within these the major veins function as the support and distribution network for leaves and are correlated with leaf shape. For instance, the parallel venation found in most monocots correlates with their  elongated leaf shape and wide leaf base, while reticulate venation is seen in simple entire leaves, while  digitate leaves typically have venation in which three or more primary veins diverge radially from a single point.[28][21][26][29]
+
+In evolutionary terms, early emerging taxa tend to have dichotomous branching with reticulate systems emerging later. Veins appeared in the Permian period (299–252 mya), prior to the appearance of angiosperms in the Triassic (252–201 mya), during which vein hierarchy appeared enabling higher function, larger leaf size and adaption to a wider variety of climatic conditions.[25] Although it is the more complex pattern, branching veins appear to be plesiomorphic and in some form were present in ancient seed plants as long as 250 million years ago. A pseudo-reticulate venation that is actually a highly modified penniparallel one is an autapomorphy of some Melanthiaceae, which are monocots; e.g., Paris quadrifolia (True-lover's Knot). In leaves with reticulate venation, veins form a scaffolding matrix imparting mechanical rigidity to leaves.[30]
+
+Leaves are normally extensively vascularized and typically have networks of vascular bundles containing xylem, which supplies water for photosynthesis, and phloem, which transports the sugars produced by photosynthesis. Many leaves are covered in trichomes (small hairs) which have diverse  structures and functions.
+
+The major tissue systems present are
+
+These three tissue systems typically form a regular organization at the cellular scale. Specialized cells that differ markedly from surrounding cells, and which often synthesize specialized products such as crystals, are termed idioblasts.[31]
+
+Cross-section of a leaf
+
+Epidermal cells
+
+Spongy mesophyll cells
+
+The epidermis is the outer layer of cells covering the leaf. It is covered with a waxy cuticle which is impermeable to liquid water and water vapor and forms the boundary separating the plant's inner cells from the external world. The cuticle is in some cases thinner on the lower epidermis than on the upper epidermis, and is generally thicker on leaves from dry climates as compared with those from wet climates.[32] The epidermis serves several functions: protection against water loss by way of transpiration, regulation of gas exchange and secretion of metabolic compounds. Most leaves show dorsoventral anatomy: The upper (adaxial) and lower (abaxial) surfaces have somewhat different construction and may serve different functions.
+
+The epidermis tissue includes several differentiated cell types; epidermal cells, epidermal hair cells (trichomes), cells in the stomatal complex; guard cells and subsidiary cells. The epidermal cells are the most numerous, largest, and least specialized and form the majority of the epidermis. They are typically more elongated in the leaves of monocots than in those of dicots.
+
+Chloroplasts are generally absent in epidermal cells, the exception being the guard cells of the stomata. The stomatal pores perforate the epidermis and are surrounded on each side by chloroplast-containing guard cells, and two to four subsidiary cells that lack chloroplasts, forming a specialized cell group known as the stomatal complex. The opening and closing of the stomatal aperture is controlled by the stomatal complex and regulates the exchange of gases and water vapor between the outside air and the interior of the leaf. Stomata therefore play the important role in allowing photosynthesis without letting the leaf dry out. In a typical leaf, the stomata are more numerous over the abaxial (lower) epidermis than the adaxial (upper) epidermis and are more numerous in plants from cooler climates.
+
+Most of the interior of the leaf between the upper and lower layers of epidermis is a parenchyma (ground tissue)  or chlorenchyma tissue called the mesophyll (Greek for "middle leaf"). This assimilation tissue is the primary location of photosynthesis in the plant. The products of photosynthesis are called "assimilates".
+
+In ferns and most flowering plants, the mesophyll is divided into two layers:
+
+Leaves are normally green, due to chlorophyll in chloroplasts in the mesophyll cells.  Plants that lack chlorophyll cannot photosynthesize.
+
+The veins are the vascular tissue of the leaf and are located in the spongy layer of the mesophyll. The pattern of the veins is called venation. In angiosperms the venation is typically parallel in monocotyledons and forms an interconnecting network in broad-leaved plants. They were once thought to be typical examples of pattern formation through ramification, but they may instead exemplify a pattern formed in a stress tensor field.[33][34][35]
+
+A vein is made up of a vascular bundle. At the core of each bundle are clusters of two
+distinct types of conducting cells:
+
+The xylem typically lies on the adaxial side of the vascular bundle and the phloem typically lies on the abaxial side. Both are embedded in a dense parenchyma tissue, called the sheath, which usually includes some structural collenchyma tissue.
+
+According to Agnes Arber's partial-shoot theory of the leaf, leaves are partial shoots,[36] being derived from leaf primordia of the shoot apex. Early in development they are dorsiventrally flattened with both dorsal and ventral surfaces.[14] Compound leaves are closer to shoots than simple leaves. Developmental studies have shown that compound leaves, like shoots, may branch in three dimensions.[37][38] On the basis of molecular genetics, Eckardt and Baum (2010) concluded that "it is now generally accepted that compound leaves express both leaf and shoot properties."[39]
+
+Plants respond and adapt to environmental factors, such as light and mechanical stress from wind. Leaves need to support their own mass and align themselves in such a way as to optimize their exposure to the sun, generally more or less horizontally. However, horizontal alignment maximizes exposure to bending forces and failure from stresses such as wind, snow, hail, falling debris, animals, and abrasion from surrounding foliage and plant structures. Overall leaves are relatively flimsy with regard to other plant structures such as stems, branches and roots.[40]
+
+Both leaf blade and petiole structure influence the leaf's response to forces such as wind, allowing a degree of repositioning to minimize drag and damage, as opposed to resistance. Leaf movement like this may also increase turbulence of the air close to the surface of the leaf, which thins the boundary layer of air immediately adjacent to the surface, increasing the capacity for gas and heat exchange, as well as photosynthesis. Strong wind forces may result in diminished leaf number and surface area, which while reducing drag, involves a trade off of also reducing photosynthesis. Thus, leaf design may involve compromise between carbon gain, thermoregulation and water loss on the one hand, and the cost of sustaining both static and dynamic loads. In vascular plants, perpendicular forces are spread over a larger area and are relatively flexible in both bending and torsion, enabling elastic deforming without damage.[40]
+
+Many leaves rely on hydrostatic support arranged around a skeleton of vascular tissue for their strength, which depends on maintaining leaf water status. Both the mechanics and architecture of the leaf reflect the need for transportation and support. Read and Stokes (2006) consider two basic models, the "hydrostatic" and "I-beam leaf" form (see Fig 1).[40] Hydrostatic leaves such as in Prostanthera lasianthos are large and thin, and may involve the need for multiple leaves rather single large leaves because of the amount of veins needed to support the periphery of large leaves. But large leaf size favors efficiency in photosynthesis and water conservation, involving further trade offs. On the other hand, I-beam leaves such as Banksia marginata involve specialized structures to stiffen them. These I-beams are formed from bundle sheath extensions of sclerenchyma meeting stiffened sub-epidermal layers. This shifts the balance from reliance on hydrostatic pressure to structural support, an obvious advantage where water is relatively scarce.
+[40] Long narrow leaves bend more easily than ovate leaf blades of the same area. Monocots typically have such linear leaves that maximize surface area while minimising self-shading. In these a high proportion of longitudinal main veins provide additional support.[40]
+
+Although not as nutritious as other organs such as fruit, leaves provide a food source for many organisms. The leaf is a vital source of energy production for the plant, and plants have evolved protection against animals that consume leaves, such as tannins, chemicals which hinder the digestion of proteins and have an unpleasant taste. Animals that are specialized to eat leaves are known as folivores.
+
+Some species have cryptic adaptations by which they use leaves in avoiding predators.  For example, the caterpillars of some leaf-roller moths will create a small home in the leaf by folding it over themselves. Some sawflies similarly roll the leaves of their food plants into tubes. Females of the Attelabidae, so-called leaf-rolling weevils, lay their eggs into leaves that they then roll up as means of protection. Other herbivores and their predators mimic the appearance of the leaf. Reptiles such as some chameleons, and insects such as some katydids, also mimic the oscillating movements of leaves in the wind, moving from side to side or back and forth while evading a possible threat.
+
+Leaves in temperate, boreal, and seasonally dry zones may be seasonally deciduous (falling off or dying for the inclement season). This mechanism to shed leaves is called abscission. When the leaf is shed, it leaves a leaf scar on the twig. In cold autumns, they sometimes change color, and turn yellow, bright-orange, or red, as various accessory pigments (carotenoids and xanthophylls) are revealed when the tree responds to cold and reduced sunlight by curtailing chlorophyll production. Red anthocyanin pigments are now thought to be produced in the leaf as it dies, possibly to mask the yellow hue left when the chlorophyll is lost—yellow leaves appear to attract herbivores such as aphids.[41] Optical masking of chlorophyll by anthocyanins reduces risk of photo-oxidative damage to leaf cells as they senesce, which otherwise may lower the efficiency of nutrient retrieval from senescing autumn leaves.[42]
+
+In the course of evolution, leaves have adapted to different environments in the following ways:[citation needed]
+
+
+
+May be coarsely dentate, having large teeth
+
+or glandular dentate, having teeth which bear glands
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The leaf surface is also host to a large variety of microorganisms; in this context it is referred to as the phyllosphere.
+
+
+
+"Hairs" on plants are properly called trichomes. Leaves can show several degrees of hairiness. The meaning of several of the following terms can overlap.
+
+A number of different classification systems of the patterns of leaf veins (venation or veination) have been described,[24] starting with Ettingshausen (1861),[45] together with many different descriptive terms, and the terminology has been described as "formidable".[24] One of the commonest among these is the Hickey system, originally developed for "dicotyledons" and using a number of Ettingshausen's terms derived from Greek (1973–1979):[46][47][48] (see also: Simpson Figure 9.12, p. 468)[24]
+
+Types 4–6 may similarly be subclassified as basal (primaries joined at the base of the blade) or suprabasal (diverging above the blade base), and perfect or imperfect, but also flabellate.
+
+At about the same time, Melville (1976) described a system applicable to all Angiosperms and using Latin and English terminology.[49] Melville also had six divisions, based on the order in which veins develop.
+
+A modified form of the Hickey system was later incorporated into the Smithsonian classification (1999) which proposed seven main types of venation, based on the architecture of the primary veins, adding Flabellate as an additional main type. Further classification was then made on the basis of secondary veins, with 12 further types, such as;
+
+terms which had been used as subtypes in the original Hickey system.[50]
+
+Further descriptions included the higher order, or minor veins and the patterns of areoles (see Leaf Architecture Working Group, Figures 28–29).[50]
+
+Analyses of vein patterns often fall into consideration of the vein orders, primary vein type, secondary vein type (major veins), and minor vein density. A number of authors have adopted simplified versions of these schemes.[51][24] At its simplest the primary vein types can be considered in three or four groups depending on the plant divisions being considered;
+
+where palmate refers to multiple primary veins that radiate from the petiole, as opposed to branching from the central main vein in the pinnate form, and encompasses both of Hickey types 4 and 5, which are preserved as subtypes; e.g., palmate-acrodromous (see National Park Service Leaf Guide).[52]
+
+Alternatively, Simpson uses:[24]
+
+However, these simplified systems allow for further division into multiple subtypes. Simpson,[24] (and others)[54] divides parallel and netted (and some use only these two terms for Angiosperms)[55] on the basis of the number of primary veins (costa) as follows;
+
+These complex systems are not used much in morphological descriptions of taxa, but have usefulness in plant identification,
+[24] although criticized as being unduly burdened with jargon.[58]
+
+An older, even simpler system, used in some flora[59] uses only two categories, open and closed.[60]
+
+There are also many other descriptive terms, often with very specialized usage and confined to specific taxonomic groups.[61] The conspicuousness of veins depends on a number of features. These include the width of the veins, their prominence in relation to the lamina surface and the degree of opacity of the surface, which may hide finer veins. In this regard, veins are called obscure and the order of veins that are obscured and whether upper, lower or both surfaces, further specified.[62][53]
+
+Terms that describe vein prominence include bullate, channelled, flat, guttered, impressed, prominent and recessed (Fig. 6.1 Hawthorne & Lawrence 2013).[58][63] Veins may show different types of prominence in different areas of the leaf. For instance Pimenta racemosa has a channelled midrib on the upper surfae, but this is prominent on the lower surface.[58]
+
+Describing vein prominence:
+
+Describing other features:
+
+The terms megaphyll, macrophyll, mesophyll, notophyll, microphyll, nanophyll and leptophyll are used to describe leaf sizes (in descending order), in a classification devised in 1934 by Christen C. Raunkiær and since modified by others.[70]

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+
+
+Caste is a form of social stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution.[1][2][3] Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of India's Hindu society into rigid social groups, with roots in India's ancient history and persisting to the present time.[1][4] However, the economic significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanization and affirmative action programs. A subject of much scholarship by sociologists and anthropologists, the Hindu caste system is sometimes used as an analogical basis for the study of caste-like social divisions existing outside Hinduism and India. The term "caste" is also applied to morphological groupings in female populations of ants and bees.[5]
+
+According to the United Nations, caste discrimination affects an estimated 250 million people worldwide.[6][7]
+
+The English word "caste" derives from the Spanish and Portuguese casta, which, according to the John Minsheu's Spanish dictionary (1569), means "race, lineage, tribe or breed".[8] When the Spanish colonized the New World, they used the word to mean a "clan or lineage". It was, however, the Portuguese who first employed casta in the primary modern sense of the English word 'caste' when they applied it to the thousands of endogamous, hereditary Indian social groups they encountered upon their arrival in India in 1498.[8][9] The use of the spelling "caste", with this latter meaning, is first attested in English in 1613.[8]
+
+Modern India's caste system is based on the colonial superimposition of the Portuguese word “casta” on the four-fold theoretical classification called Varna and on natural social groupings called Jāti. From 1901 onwards, for the purposes of the Decennial Census, the British classified all Jātis into one or the other of the Varna categories as described in ancient texts. Herbert Hope Risley, the Census Commissioner, noted that "The principle suggested as a basis was that of classification by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion at the present day, and manifesting itself in the facts that particular castes are supposed to be the modern representatives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Indian system."[10]
+
+Varna, as mentioned in ancient Hindu texts, describes society as divided into four categories: Brahmins (scholars and yajna priests), Kshatriyas (rulers and warriors), Vaishyas (farmers, merchants and artisans) and Shudras (workmen/service providers). The texts do not mention any hierarchy or a separate, untouchable category in Varna classifications. Scholars believe that the Varnas system was never truly operational in society and there is no evidence of it ever being a reality in Indian history. The practical division of the society had always been in terms of Jatis (birth groups), which are not based on any specific religious principle, but could vary from ethnic origins to occupations to geographic areas. The Jātis have been endogamous social groups without any fixed hierarchy but subject to vague notions of rank articulated over time based on lifestyle and social, political or economic status. Many of India's major empires and dynasties like the Mauryas,[11] Shalivahanas,[12] Chalukyas,[13] Kakatiyas[14] among many others, were founded by people who would have been classified as Shudras, under the Varnas system. It is well established that by the 9th century, kings from all the four Varnas, including Brahmins and Vaishyas, had occupied the highest seat in the monarchical system in Hindu India, contrary to the Varna theory.[15] In many instances, as in Bengal, historically the kings and rulers had been called upon, when required, to mediate on the ranks of Jātis, which might number in thousands all over the subcontinent and vary by region. In practice, the jātis may or may not fit into the Varna classes and many prominent Jatis, for example the Jats and Yadavs, straddled two Varnas i.e. Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, and the Varna status of Jātis itself was subject to articulation over time.
+
+Starting with the British colonial Census of 1901 led by Herbert Hope Risley, all the jātis were grouped under the theoretical varnas categories.[16] According to political scientist Lloyd Rudolph, Risley believed that varna, however ancient, could be applied to all the modern castes found in India, and "[he] meant to identify and place several hundred million Indians within it."[17] In an effort to arrange various castes in order of precedence functional grouping was based less on the occupation that prevailed in each case in the present day than on that which was traditional with it, or which gave rise to its differentiation from the rest of the community. "This action virtually removed Indians from the progress of history and condemned them to an unchanging position and place in time. In one sense, it is rather ironic that the British, who continually accused the Indian people of having a static society, should then impose a construct that denied progress"[18] The terms varna (conceptual classification based on occupation) and jāti (groups) are two distinct concepts: while varna is a theoretical four-part division, jāti (community) refers to the thousands of actual endogamous social groups prevalent across the subcontinent. The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than the varnas, as it provided a convenient shorthand; but a problem arises when colonial Indologists sometimes confuse the two.[19] Thus, starting with the 1901 Census, caste officially became India's essential institution, with an imprimatur from the British administrators, augmenting a discourse that had already dominated Indology. “Despite India's acquisition of formal political independence, it has still not regained the power to know its own past and present apart from that discourse”.[20]
+
+Upon independence from Britain, the Indian Constitution listed 1,108 castes across the country as Scheduled Castes in 1950, for positive discrimination.[21] The Untouchable communities are sometimes called Scheduled Castes, Dalit or Harijan in contemporary literature.[22] India is home to over 200 million Dalits.[23] In 2001, Dalits were 16.2% of India's population.[24] Most of the 15 million bonded child workers are from the lowest castes.[25][26] According to Paul Diwakar, a Dalit activist from the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, "India has 600,000 villages and almost every village a small pocket on the outskirts is meant for Dalits."[27] Independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. In 2005, government recorded approximately 110,000 cases of reported violent acts, including rape and murder, against Dalits.[28] For 2012, the government recorded 651 murders, 3,855 injuries, 1,576 rapes, 490 kidnappings, and 214 cases of arson.[29]
+
+The socio-economic limitations of the caste system are reduced due to urbanization and affirmative action. Nevertheless, the caste system still exists in endogamy and patrimony, and thrives in the politics of democracy, where caste provides ready made constituencies to politicians. The globalization and economic opportunities from foreign businesses has influenced the growth of India's middle-class population. Some members of the Chhattisgarh Potter Caste Community (CPCC) are middle-class urban professionals and no longer potters unlike the remaining majority of traditional rural potter members. There is persistence of caste in Indian politics. Caste associations have evolved into caste-based political parties. Political parties and the state perceive caste as an important factor for mobilization of people and policy development.[30]
+
+Studies by Bhatt and Beteille have shown changes in status, openness, mobility in the social aspects of Indian society. As a result of modern socio-economic changes in the country, India is experiencing significant changes in the dynamics And the economics of its social sphere.[31] While arranged marriages are still the most common practice in India, the internet has provided a network for younger Indians to take control of their relationships through the use of dating apps. This remains isolated to informal terms, as marriage is not often achieved through the use of these apps.[32] Hypergamy is still a common practice in India and Hindu culture. Men are expected to marry within their caste, or one below, with no social repercussions. If a woman marries into a higher caste, then her children will take the status of their father. If she marries down, her family is reduced to the social status of their son in law. In this case, the women are bearers of the egalitarian principle of the marriage. There would be no benefit in marrying a higher caste if the terms of the marriage did not imply equality.[33] However, men are systematically shielded from the negative implications of the agreement.
+
+Geographical factors also determine adherence to the caste system. Many Northern villages are more likely to participate in exogamous marriage, due to a lack of eligible suitors within the same caste. Women in North India have been found to be less likely to leave or divorce their husbands since they are of a relatively lower caste system, and have higher restrictions on their freedoms. On the other hand, Pahari women, of the northern mountains, have much more freedom to leave their husbands without stigma. This often leads to better husbandry as his actions are not protected by social expectations.[34]
+
+Chiefly among the factors influencing the rise of exogamy is the rapid urbanisation in India experienced over the last century. It is well known that urban centers tend to be less reliant on agriculture and are more progressive as a whole. As India’s cities boomed in population, the job market grew to keep pace. Prosperity and stability were now more easily attained by an individual, and the anxiety to marry quickly and effectively was reduced. Thus, younger, more progressive generations of urban Indians are less likely than ever to participate in the antiquated system of arranged endogamy.
+
+India has also implemented a form of Affirmative Action, locally known as “reservation groups”. Quota system jobs, as well as placements in publicly funded colleges, hold spots for the 8% of India’s minority, and underprivileged groups. As a result, in states such as Tamil Nadu or those in the north-east, where underprivileged populations predominate, over 80% of government jobs are set aside in quotas. In education, colleges lower the marks necessary for the Dalits to enter.[35]
+
+The Nepalese caste system resembles in some respects the Indian jāti system, with numerous jāti divisions with a varna system superimposed. Inscriptions attest the beginnings of a caste system during the Licchavi period. Jayasthiti Malla (1382–1395) categorized Newars into 64 castes (Gellner 2001). A similar exercise was made during the reign of Mahindra Malla (1506–1575). The Hindu social code was later set up in Gorkha by Ram Shah (1603–1636).
+
+McKim Marriott claims a social stratification that is hierarchical, closed, endogamous and hereditary is widely prevalent, particularly in western parts of Pakistan. Frederik Barth in his review of this system of social stratification in Pakistan suggested that these are castes.[36][37][38]
+
+The caste system in Sri Lanka is a division of society into strata,[39] influenced by the textbook varnas and jāti system found in India. Ancient Sri Lankan texts such as the Pujavaliya, Sadharmaratnavaliya and Yogaratnakaraya and inscriptional evidence show that the above hierarchy prevailed throughout the feudal period. The repetition of the same caste hierarchy even as recently as the 18th century, in the British/Kandyan period Kadayimpoth – Boundary books as well indicates the continuation of the tradition right up to the end of Sri Lanka's monarchy.
+
+Balinese caste structure has been described as being based either on three categories--the noble triwangsa (thrice born), the middle class of dwijāti (twice born), and the lower class of ekajāti (once born)--or on four castes[40]
+
+The Brahmana caste was further subdivided by these Dutch ethnographers into two: Siwa and Buda. The Siwa caste was subdivided into five: Kemenuh, Keniten, Mas, Manuba and Petapan. This classification was to accommodate the observed marriage between higher-caste Brahmana men with lower-caste women. The other castes were similarly further sub-classified by these 19th-century and early-20th-century ethnographers based on numerous criteria ranging from profession, endogamy or exogamy or polygamy, and a host of other factors in a manner similar to castas in Spanish colonies such as Mexico, and caste system studies in British colonies such as India.[40]
+
+In the Philippines, pre-colonial societies do not have a single social structure. The class structures can be roughly categorized into four types:[41]
+
+During the period of Yuan Dynasty, ruler Kublai Khan enforced a Four Class System, which was a legal caste system. The order of four classes of people was maintained by the information of the descending order were:
+
+Today, the Hukou system is considered by various sources as the current caste system of China.[44][45][46]
+
+There is significant controversy over the social classes of Tibet, especially with regards to the serfdom in Tibet controversy.
+
+Heidi Fjeld [no] has put forth the argument that pre-1950s Tibetan society was functionally a caste system, in contrast to previous scholars who defined the Tibetan social class system as similar to European feudal serfdom, as well as non-scholarly western accounts which seek to romanticize a supposedly 'egalitarian' ancient Tibetan society.
+
+In Japan's history, social strata based on inherited position rather than personal merit, were rigid and highly formalized in a system called mibunsei (身分制). At the top were the Emperor and Court nobles (kuge), together with the Shōgun and daimyō. Below them, the population was divided into four classes: samurai, peasants, craftsmen and merchants. Only samurai were allowed to bear arms. A samurai had a right to kill any peasants, craftsman or merchant who he felt were disrespectful. Merchants were the lowest caste because they did not produce any products. The castes were further sub-divided; for example, peasants were labelled as furiuri, tanagari, mizunomi-byakusho among others. As in Europe, the castes and sub-classes were of the same race, religion and culture.
+
+Howell, in his review of Japanese society notes that if a Western power had colonized Japan in the 19th century, they would have discovered and imposed a rigid four-caste hierarchy in Japan.[47]
+
+De Vos and Wagatsuma observe that Japanese society had a systematic and extensive caste system. They discuss how alleged caste impurity and alleged racial inferiority, concepts often assumed to be different, are superficial terms, and are due to identical inner psychological processes, which expressed themselves in Japan and elsewhere.[48]
+
+Endogamy was common because marriage across caste lines was socially unacceptable.[48][49]
+
+Japan had its own untouchable caste, shunned and ostracized, historically referred to by the insulting term Eta, now called Burakumin. While modern law has officially abolished the class hierarchy, there are reports of discrimination against the Buraku or Burakumin underclasses.[50] The Burakumin are regarded as "ostracised".[51] The burakumin are one of the main minority groups in Japan, along with the Ainu of Hokkaidō and those of residents of Korean and Chinese descent.
+
+The baekjeong (백정) were an "untouchable" outcaste of Korea. The meaning today is that of butcher. It originates in the Khitan invasion of Korea in the 11th century. The defeated Khitans who surrendered were settled in isolated communities throughout Goryeo to forestall rebellion. They were valued for their skills in hunting, herding, butchering, and making of leather, common skill sets among nomads. Over time, their ethnic origin was forgotten, and they formed the bottom layer of Korean society.
+
+In 1392, with the foundation of the Confucian Joseon dynasty, Korea systemised its own native class system. At the top were the two official classes, the Yangban, which literally means "two classes". It was composed of scholars (munban) and warriors (muban). Scholars had a significant social advantage over the warriors. Below were the jung-in (중인-中人: literally "middle people". This was a small class of specialized professions such as medicine, accounting, translators, regional bureaucrats, etc. Below that were the sangmin (상민-常民: literally 'commoner'), farmers working their own fields. Korea also had a serf population known as the nobi. The nobi population could fluctuate up to about one third of the population, but on average the nobi made up about 10% of the total population.[52] In 1801, the vast majority of government nobi were emancipated,[53] and by 1858 the nobi population stood at about 1.5% of the total population of Korea.[54] The hereditary nobi system was officially abolished around 1886–87 and the rest of the nobi system was abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894,[54] but traces remained until 1930.
+
+The opening of Korea to foreign Christian missionary activity in the late 19th century saw some improvement in the status of the baekjeong. However, everyone was not equal under the Christian congregation, and even so protests erupted when missionaries tried to integrate baekjeong into worship, with non-baekjeong finding this attempt insensitive to traditional notions of hierarchical advantage.[citation needed] Around the same time, the baekjeong began to resist open social discrimination.[55] They focused on social and economic injustices affecting them, hoping to create an egalitarian Korean society. Their efforts included attacking social discrimination by upper class, authorities, and "commoners", and the use of degrading language against children in public schools.[56]
+
+With the Gabo reform of 1896, the class system of Korea was officially abolished. Following the collapse of the Gabo government, the new cabinet, which became the Gwangmu government after the establishment of the Korean Empire, introduced systematic measures for abolishing the traditional class system. One measure was the new household registration system, reflecting the goals of formal social equality, which was implemented by the loyalists' cabinet. Whereas the old registration system signified household members according to their hierarchical social status, the new system called for an occupation.[57]
+
+While most Koreans by then had surnames and even bongwan, although still substantial number of cheonmin, mostly consisted of serfs and slaves, and untouchables did not. According to the new system, they were then required to fill in the blanks for surname in order to be registered as constituting separate households. Instead of creating their own family name, some cheonmins appropriated their masters' surname, while others simply took the most common surname and its bongwan in the local area. Along with this example, activists within and outside the Korean government had based their visions of a new relationship between the government and people through the concept of citizenship, employing the term inmin ("people") and later, kungmin ("citizen").[57]
+
+The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea reported that "Every North Korean citizen is assigned a heredity-based class and socio-political rank over which the individual exercises no control but which determines all aspects of his or her life."[58] Called Songbun, Barbara Demick describes this "class structure" as an updating of the hereditary "caste system", a combination of Confucianism and Stalinism.[59] Bad family background is called "tainted blood", and that by law this "tainted blood" lasts three generations.[60]
+
+Ancient Hawaii was a class-based society. People were born into specific social classes; social mobility was not unknown, but it was extremely rare. The main classes were:
+
+Yezidi society is hierarchical. The secular leader is a hereditary emir or prince, whereas a chief sheikh heads the religious hierarchy. The Yazidi are strictly endogamous; members of the three Yazidi castes, the murids, sheikhs and pirs, marry only within their group.
+
+Pre-Islamic Sassanid society was immensely complex, with separate systems of social organization governing numerous different groups within the empire.[62] Historians believe society comprised four[63][64][65]
+social classes:
+
+In Yemen there exists a hereditary caste, the African-descended Al-Akhdam who are kept as perennial manual workers. Estimates put their number at over 3.5 million residents who are discriminated, out of a total Yemeni population of around 22 million.[66]
+
+Various sociologists have reported caste systems in Africa.[67][68][69] The specifics of the caste systems have varied in ethnically and culturally diverse Africa, however the following features are common – it has been a closed system of social stratification, the social status is inherited, the castes are hierarchical, certain castes are shunned while others are merely endogamous and exclusionary.[70] In some cases, concepts of purity and impurity by birth have been prevalent in Africa. In other cases, such as the Nupe of Nigeria, the Beni Amer of East Africa, and the Tira of Sudan, the exclusionary principle has been driven by evolving social factors.[71]
+
+Among the Igbo of Nigeria – especially Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia, Ebonyi, Edo and Delta states of the country – Obinna finds Osu caste system has been and continues to be a major social issue. The Osu caste is determined by one's birth into a particular family irrespective of the religion practised by the individual. Once born into Osu caste, this Nigerian person is an outcast, shunned and ostracized, with limited opportunities or acceptance, regardless of his or her ability or merit. Obinna discusses how this caste system-related identity and power is deployed within government, Church and indigenous communities.[67]
+
+The osu class systems of eastern Nigeria and southern Cameroon are derived from indigenous religious beliefs and discriminate against the "Osus" people as "owned by deities" and outcasts.
+
+The Songhay economy was based on a caste system. The most common were metalworkers, fishermen, and carpenters. Lower caste participants consisted of mostly non-farm working immigrants, who at times were provided special privileges and held high positions in society. At the top were noblemen and direct descendants of the original Songhai people, followed by freemen and traders.[72]
+
+In a review of social stratification systems in Africa, Richter reports that the term caste has been used by French and American scholars to many groups of West African artisans. These groups have been described as inferior, deprived of all political power, have a specific occupation, are hereditary and sometimes despised by others. Richter illustrates caste system in Ivory Coast, with six sub-caste categories. Unlike other parts of the world, mobility is sometimes possible within sub-castes, but not across caste lines. Farmers and artisans have been, claims Richter, distinct castes. Certain sub-castes are shunned more than others. For example, exogamy is rare for women born into families of woodcarvers.[73]
+
+Similarly, the Mandé societies in Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone have social stratification systems that divide society by ethnic ties. The Mande class system regards the jonow slaves as inferior. Similarly, the Wolof in Senegal is divided into three main groups, the geer (freeborn/nobles), jaam (slaves and slave descendants) and the underclass neeno. In various parts of West Africa, Fulani societies also have class divisions. Other castes include Griots, Forgerons, and Cordonniers.
+
+Tamari has described endogamous castes of over fifteen West African peoples, including the Tukulor, Songhay, Dogon, Senufo, Minianka, Moors, Manding, Soninke, Wolof, Serer, Fulani, and Tuareg. Castes appeared among the Malinke people no later than 14th century, and was present among the Wolof and Soninke, as well as some Songhay and Fulani populations, no later than 16th century. Tamari claims that wars, such as the Sosso-Malinke war described in the Sunjata epic, led to the formation of blacksmith and bard castes among the people that ultimately became the Mali empire.
+
+As West Africa evolved over time, sub-castes emerged that acquired secondary specializations or changed occupations. Endogamy was prevalent within a caste or among a limited number of castes, yet castes did not form demographic isolates according to Tamari. Social status according to caste was inherited by off-springs automatically; but this inheritance was paternal. That is, children of higher caste men and lower caste or slave concubines would have the caste status of the father.[69]
+
+Ethel M. Albert in 1960 claimed that the societies in Central Africa were caste-like social stratification systems.[74] Similarly, in 1961, Maquet notes that the society in Rwanda and Burundi can be best described as castes.[75] The Tutsi, noted Maquet, considered themselves as superior, with the more numerous Hutu and the least numerous Twa regarded, by birth, as respectively, second and third in the hierarchy of Rwandese society. These groups were largely endogamous, exclusionary and with limited mobility.[76]
+
+In a review published in 1977, Todd reports that numerous scholars report a system of social stratification in different parts of Africa that resembles some or all aspects of caste system. Examples of such caste systems, he claims, are to be found in Ethiopia in communities such as the Gurage and Konso. He then presents the Dime of Southwestern Ethiopia, amongst whom there operates a system which Todd claims can be unequivocally labelled as caste system. The Dime have seven castes whose size varies considerably. Each broad caste level is a hierarchical order that is based on notions of purity, non-purity and impurity. It uses the concepts of defilement to limit contacts between caste categories and to preserve the purity of the upper castes. These caste categories have been exclusionary, endogamous and the social identity inherited.[78] Alula Pankhurst has published a study of caste groups in SW Ethiopia.[79]
+
+Among the Kafa, there were also traditionally groups labeled as castes. "Based on research done before the Derg regime, these studies generally presume the existence of a social hierarchy similar to the caste system. At the top of this hierarchy were the Kafa, followed by occupational groups including blacksmiths (Qemmo), weavers (Shammano), bards (Shatto), potters, and tanners (Manno). In this hierarchy, the Manjo were commonly referred to as hunters, given the lowest status equal only to slaves."[80]
+
+The Borana Oromo of southern Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa also have a class system, wherein the Wata, an acculturated hunter-gatherer group, represent the lowest class. Though the Wata today speak the Oromo language, they have traditions of having previously spoken another language before adopting Oromo.[81]
+
+The traditionally nomadic Somali people are divided into clans, wherein the Rahanweyn agro-pastoral clans and the occupational clans such as the Madhiban were traditionally sometimes treated as outcasts.[82] As Gabboye, the Madhiban along with the Yibir and Tumaal (collectively referred to as sab) have since obtained political representation within Somalia, and their general social status has improved with the expansion of urban centers.[77]
+
+For centuries, through the modern times, the majority regarded Cagots who lived primarily in the Basque region of France and Spain as an inferior caste, the untouchables. While they had the same skin color and religion as the majority, in the churches they had to use segregated doors, drink from segregated fonts, and receive communion on the end of long wooden spoons. It was a closed social system. The socially isolated Cagots were endogamous, and chances of social mobility non-existent.[83][84]
+
+Spain has had a number of isolated and endogamous social groups where an individual's mores, culture and worth is set at birth. These groups had negligible mobility. Example groups include the Vaqueiros de Alzada of Asturias, the Maragatos of Leon, the Agotes of Navarra, and the Kale (gypsies) of the entire Iberian peninsula. These have been called castes, and by some as accursed races.[85][86]
+
+Early modern era in Germany witnessed the so called unehrliche Leute (dishonourable or dishonest people), an outcaste group. They were considered dishonourable by virtue of their trades. This dishonour was either hereditary or it arose from ritual pollution whereby honourable citizens could become dishonourable by coming into casual contact with members of these untouchables. Therefore, the social mores required the upper caste honorable people to shun and ostracize the lower caste dishonourable people. Exclusion led to endogamy. The dishonourable people included the executioners, skinners, grave-diggers, latrine-cleaners, shepherds, barber-surgeons, millers, sow-gelders (spay female animals), and bailiffs.[87][88][89]
+
+In July 2013, the UK government announced its intention to amend the Equality Act 2010, to "introduce legislation on caste, including any necessary exceptions to the caste provisions, within the framework of domestic discrimination law".[90] Section 9(5) of the Equality Act 2010 provides that "a Minister may by order amend the statutory definition of race to include caste and may provide for exceptions in the Act to apply or not to apply to caste".
+
+From September 2013 to February 2014, Meena Dhanda led a project on "Caste in Britain" for the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).[91]
+
+In W. Lloyd Warner's view, the historic relationship between Blacks and Whites in the US showed many caste-like features such as residential segregation and marriage restrictions.[92] Discrimination based upon socio-economic factors are historically prevalent within the country.
+
+According to Gerald D. Berreman, in the two systems, there are rigid rules of avoidance and certain types of contacts are defined as contaminating. In India, there are complex religious features which make up the system, whereas in the United States race and color are the basis for differentiation. The caste systems in India and the United States have higher groups which desire to retain their positions for themselves and thus perpetuate the two systems.[93]
+
+The process of creating a homogenized society by social engineering in both India and the US has created other institutions that have made class distinctions among different groups evident. Anthropologist James C. Scott elaborates on how “global capitalism is perhaps the most powerful force for homogenization, whereas the state may be the defender of local difference and variety in some instances.”[94] The caste system further emphasizes differences between the socio-economic classes that arise as a product of capitalism, which makes social mobility more difficult. Parts of the United States are sometimes divided by race and class status despite the national narrative of integration.
+
+As a result of increased immigration, many Indian Americans have brought their traditional caste values to the United States. A survey commissioned by Equality Labs finds that caste discrimination is also playing out in the United States. 2/3 of the members of the lowest caste, called Dalits, said that they have faced workplace discrimination due to their caste. 41% of the Dalits who were surveyed said that they have experienced discrimination in education because the caste system is now being practiced in the United States.[95]

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+
+
+
+Spanish (español (help·info)) or Castilian[b] (/kæˈstɪliən/ (listen), castellano (help·info)) is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe and today is a global language with more than 483 million native speakers, mainly in Spain and the Americas. It is the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese,[4][5] and the world's fourth-most spoken language, after English, Mandarin Chinese and Hindi.
+
+Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century,[6] and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Beginning in 1492, the Spanish language was taken to the viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania and the Philippines.[7]
+
+A 1949 study by Italian-American linguist Mario Pei, analyzing the degree of difference from a language's parent (Latin, in the case of Romance languages) by comparing phonology, inflection, syntax, vocabulary, and intonation, indicated the following percentages (the higher the percentage, the greater the distance from Latin): In the case of Spanish, it is one of the closest Romance languages to Latin (20% distance), only behind Sardinian (8% distance) and Italian (12% distance).[8] Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek.[9][10]
+Spanish vocabulary has been in contact with Arabic from an early date, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula and around 8% of its vocabulary has an Arabic lexical root.[11][12][13][14][11] It has also had small influences from Basque, Iberian, Celtiberian, Visigothic, and other neighboring Ibero-Romance languages.[15][11] Additionally, it has absorbed vocabulary from other languages, particularly other Romance languages—French, Italian, Andalusi Romance, Portuguese, Galician, Catalan, Occitan, and Sardinian—as well as from Quechua, Nahuatl, and other indigenous languages of the Americas.[16]
+
+Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. It is also used as an official language by the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Union of South American Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the African Union and many other international organizations.[17]
+
+Despite its large number of speakers, the Spanish language does not feature prominently in scientific writing, though it is better represented in the humanities.[18] 75% of scientific production in Spanish is divided into three thematic areas: social sciences, medical sciences and arts/humanities. Spanish is the third most used language on the internet after English and Chinese.[19]
+
+It is estimated that there are more than 437 million people who speak Spanish as a native language, which qualifies it as second on the lists of languages by number of native speakers.[4] Instituto Cervantes claims that there are an estimated 477 million Spanish speakers with native competence and 572 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language—including speakers with limited competence—and more than 21 million students of Spanish as a foreign language.[20]
+
+Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, and 18 countries and one territory in the Americas. Speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. It is also an optional language in the Philippines as it was a Spanish colony from 1569 to 1899. In the European Union, Spanish is the mother tongue of 8% of the population, with an additional 7% speaking it as a second language.[21] The country with the largest number of native speakers is Mexico.[22] Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States.[23] In 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over, 38 million speak Spanish at home.[24]
+
+According to a 2011 paper by U.S. Census Bureau Demographers Jennifer Ortman and Hyon B. Shin,[25] the number of Spanish speakers is projected to rise through 2020 to anywhere between 39 million and 43 million, depending on the assumptions one makes about immigration. Most of these Spanish speakers will be Hispanic, with Ortman and Shin projecting between 37.5 million and 41 million Hispanic Spanish speakers by 2020.
+
+In Spain and in some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español (Spanish) but also castellano (Castilian), the language from the kingdom of Castile, contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician, Basque, Asturian, Catalan, Aragonese and Occitan.
+
+The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. "the other Spanish languages"). Article III reads as follows:
+
+El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. ... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas...
+Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities...
+
+The Spanish Royal Academy, on the other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications, but from 1713 to 1923 called the language castellano.
+
+The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by the Spanish Royal Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms—español and castellano—are regarded as synonymous and equally valid.[26]
+
+The term castellano comes from the Latin word castellanus, which means "of or pertaining to a fort or castle".[27]
+
+Different etymologies have been suggested for the term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Provençal word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin *hispaniolus. It comes from the Latin name of the province of Hispania that included the current territory of the Iberian Peninsula.[28]
+
+There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Menéndez Pidal suggested that the classic hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin, as it happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon). The word *hispanione evolved into the Old Spanish españón, which eventually, became español.[citation needed]
+
+The Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin, which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War, beginning in 210 BC. Previously, several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages)—some related to Latin via Indo-European, and some that are not related at all—were spoken in the Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Basque (still spoken today), Iberian, Celtiberian and Gallaecian.
+
+The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages—Mozarabic (Andalusi Romance), Navarro-Aragonese, Leonese, Catalan, Portuguese, Galician, Occitan, and later, French and Italian. Spanish also borrowed a considerable number of words from Arabic, as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the migration of tribes and a period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin, the form of Latin in use at that time.
+
+According to the theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal, local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos, and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo, where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century.[30] In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese, and, according to some authors, was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista, and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus, much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic-derived words, make up around 8% of the language today).[31] The written standard for this new language was developed in the cities of Toledo, in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid, from the 1570s.[30]
+
+The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages, including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o—which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in the following table:
+
+Spanish is marked by the palatalization of the Latin double consonants nn and ll (thus Latin
+annum > Spanish año, and Latin anellum > Spanish
+anillo).
+
+The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably "fortified" to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with the consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v, with some exceptions in Caribbean Spanish.[citation needed]
+
+Peculiar to Spanish (as well as to the neighboring Gascon dialect of Occitan, and attributed to a Basque substratum) was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h-, still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and from neighboring Romance languages, there are many f-/h-doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both Spanish for "deep", but fondo means "bottom" while hondo means "deep"); hacer (Spanish for "to make") is cognate to the root word of satisfacer (Spanish for "to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho (Spanish for "satisfied").
+
+Compare the examples in the following table:
+
+Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table:
+
+beaucoup
+
+In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent a dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants, known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes, which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩). See History of Spanish (Modern development of the Old Spanish sibilants) for details.
+
+The Gramática de la lengua castellana, written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija, was the first grammar written for a modern European language.[33] According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I, she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire.[34] In his introduction to the grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire."[35]
+
+From the sixteenth century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").[36]
+
+In the twentieth century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara, and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City. For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language.
+
+Most of the grammatical and typological features of Spanish are shared with the other Romance languages. Spanish is a fusional language. The noun and adjective systems exhibit two genders and two numbers. In addition, articles and some pronouns and determiners have a neuter gender in their singular form. There are about fifty conjugated forms per verb, with 3 tenses: past, present, future; 2 aspects for past: perfective, imperfective; 4 moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional, imperative; 3 persons: first, second, third; 2 numbers: singular, plural; 3 verboid forms: infinitive, gerund, and past participle. Verbs express T-V distinction by using different persons for formal and informal addresses. (For a detailed overview of verbs, see Spanish verbs and Spanish irregular verbs.)
+
+Spanish syntax is considered right-branching, meaning that subordinate or modifying constituents tend to be placed after their head words. The language uses prepositions (rather than postpositions or inflection of nouns for case), and usually—though not always—places adjectives after nouns, as do most other Romance languages.
+
+The language is classified as a subject–verb–object language; however, as in most Romance languages, constituent order is highly variable and governed mainly by topicalization and focus rather than by syntax. It is a "pro-drop", or "null-subject" language—that is, it allows the deletion of subject pronouns when they are pragmatically unnecessary. Spanish is described as a "verb-framed" language, meaning that the direction of motion is expressed in the verb while the mode of locomotion is expressed adverbially (e.g. subir corriendo or salir volando; the respective English equivalents of these examples—'to run up' and 'to fly out'—show that English is, by contrast, "satellite-framed", with mode of locomotion expressed in the verb and direction in an adverbial modifier).
+
+Subject/verb inversion is not required in questions, and thus the recognition of declarative or interrogative may depend entirely on intonation.
+
+The Spanish phonemic system is originally descended from that of Vulgar Latin. Its development exhibits some traits in common with the neighboring dialects—especially Leonese and Aragonese—as well as other traits unique to Castilian. Castilian is unique among its neighbors in the aspiration and eventual loss of the Latin initial /f/ sound (e.g. Cast. harina vs. Leon. and Arag. farina).[37] The Latin initial consonant sequences pl-, cl-, and fl- in Spanish typically become ll- (originally pronounced [ʎ]), while in Aragonese they are preserved, and in Leonese they present a variety of outcomes, including [tʃ], [ʃ], and [ʎ]. Where Latin had -li- before a vowel (e.g. filius) or the ending -iculus, -icula (e.g. auricula), Old Spanish produced [ʒ], that in Modern Spanish became the velar fricative [x] (hijo, oreja, where neighboring languages have the palatal lateral [ʎ] (e.g. Portuguese filho, orelha; Catalan fill, orella).
+
+The Spanish phonemic inventory consists of five vowel phonemes (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/) and 17 to 19 consonant phonemes (the exact number depending on the dialect[38]). The main allophonic variation among vowels is the reduction of the high vowels /i/ and /u/ to glides—[j] and [w] respectively—when unstressed and adjacent to another vowel. Some instances of the mid vowels /e/ and /o/, determined lexically, alternate with the diphthongs /je/ and /we/ respectively when stressed, in a process that is better described as morphophonemic rather than phonological, as it is not predictable from phonology alone.
+
+The Spanish consonant system is characterized by (1) three nasal phonemes, and one or two (depending on the dialect) lateral phoneme(s), which in syllable-final position lose their contrast and are subject to assimilation to a following consonant; (2) three voiceless stops and the affricate /tʃ/; (3) three or four (depending on the dialect) voiceless fricatives; (4) a set of voiced obstruents—/b/, /d/, /ɡ/, and sometimes /ʝ/—which alternate between approximant and plosive allophones depending on the environment; and (5) a phonemic distinction between the "tapped" and "trilled" r-sounds (single ⟨r⟩ and double ⟨rr⟩ in orthography).
+
+In the following table of consonant phonemes, /ʎ/ is marked with an asterisk (*) to indicate that it is preserved only in some dialects. In most dialects it has been merged with /ʝ/ in the merger called yeísmo. Similarly, /θ/ is also marked with an asterisk to indicate that most dialects do not distinguish it from /s/ (see seseo), although this is not a true merger but an outcome of different evolution of sibilants in Southern Spain.
+
+The phoneme /ʃ/ is in parentheses () to indicate that it appears only in loanwords. Each of the voiced obstruent phonemes /b/, /d/, /ʝ/, and /ɡ/ appears to the right of a pair of voiceless phonemes, to indicate that, while the voiceless phonemes maintain a phonemic contrast between plosive (or affricate) and fricative, the voiced ones alternate allophonically (i.e. without phonemic contrast) between plosive and approximant pronunciations.
+
+Spanish is classified by its rhythm as a syllable-timed language: each syllable has approximately the same duration regardless of stress.[40][41]
+
+Spanish intonation varies significantly according to dialect but generally conforms to a pattern of falling tone for declarative sentences and wh-questions (who, what, why, etc.) and rising tone for yes/no questions.[42][43] There are no syntactic markers to distinguish between questions and statements and thus, the recognition of declarative or interrogative depends entirely on intonation.
+
+Stress most often occurs on any of the last three syllables of a word, with some rare exceptions at the fourth-last or earlier syllables. The tendencies of stress assignment are as follows:[44]
+
+In addition to the many exceptions to these tendencies, there are numerous minimal pairs that contrast solely on stress such as sábana ('sheet') and sabana ('savannah'); límite ('boundary'), limite ('[that] he/she limits') and limité ('I limited'); líquido ('liquid'), liquido ('I sell off') and liquidó ('he/she sold off').
+
+The orthographic system unambiguously reflects where the stress occurs: in the absence of an accent mark, the stress falls on the last syllable unless the last letter is ⟨n⟩, ⟨s⟩, or a vowel, in which cases the stress falls on the next-to-last (penultimate) syllable. Exceptions to those rules are indicated by an acute accent mark over the vowel of the stressed syllable. (See Spanish orthography.)
+
+Spanish is the primary language of 20 countries worldwide. It is estimated that the combined total number of Spanish speakers is between 470 and 500 million, making it the second most widely spoken language in terms of native speakers.[46][47]
+
+Spanish is the third most spoken language by total number of speakers (after Mandarin and English). Internet usage statistics for 2007 also show Spanish as the third most commonly used language on the Internet, after English and Mandarin.[48]
+
+In Europe, Spanish is an official language of Spain, the country after which it is named and from which it originated. It is widely spoken in Gibraltar, and also commonly spoken in Andorra, although Catalan is the official language there.[49]
+
+Spanish is also spoken by small communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany.[50] Spanish is an official language of the European Union. In Switzerland, which had a massive influx of Spanish migrants in the 20th century, Spanish is the native language of 2.2% of the population.[51]
+
+Most Spanish speakers are in Hispanic America; of all countries with a majority of Spanish speakers, only Spain and Equatorial Guinea are outside the Americas. Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure—of Argentina, Bolivia (co-official with Quechua, Aymara, Guarani, and 34 other languages), Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní),[52] Peru (co-official with Quechua, Aymara, and "the other indigenous languages"[53]), Puerto Rico (co-official with English),[54] Uruguay, and Venezuela.
+Spanish has no official recognition in the former British colony of Belize; however, per the 2000 census, it is spoken by 43% of the population.[55][56] Mainly, it is spoken by the descendants of Hispanics who have been in the region since the seventeenth century; however, English is the official language.[57]
+
+Due to their proximity to Spanish-speaking countries, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil have implemented Spanish language teaching into their education systems. The Trinidad government launched the Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005.[58] In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President, making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil.[59] In September 2016 this law was revoked by Michel Temer after impeachment of Dilma Rousseff.[60] In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken.[61]
+
+According to 2006 census data, 44.3 million people of the U.S. population were Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin;[62] 38.3 million people, 13 percent of the population over five years old speak Spanish at home.[63] The Spanish language has a long history of presence in the United States due to early Spanish and, later, Mexican administration over territories now forming the southwestern states, also Louisiana ruled by Spain from 1762 to 1802, as well as Florida, which was Spanish territory until 1821.
+
+Spanish is by far the most common second language in the US, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included.[64] While English is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico.[65] The language also has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, and Phoenix; as well as more recently, Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Nashville, Orlando, Tampa, Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration.
+
+In Africa, Spanish is official (along with Portuguese and French) in Equatorial Guinea, as well as an official language of the African Union. In Equatorial Guinea, Spanish is the predominant language when native and non-native speakers (around 500,000 people) are counted, while Fang is the most spoken language by number of native speakers.[66][67]
+
+Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in North Africa, which include the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the Plazas de soberanía, and the Canary Islands archipelago (population 2,000,000), located some 100 km (62 mi) off the northwest coast of mainland Africa. In northern Morocco, a former Spanish protectorate that is also geographically close to Spain, approximately 20,000 people speak Spanish as a second language, while Arabic is the de jure official language. A small number of Moroccan Jews also speak the Sephardic Spanish dialect Haketia (related to the Ladino dialect spoken in Israel). Spanish is spoken by some small communities in Angola because of the Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned in time for their country's independence.[68]
+
+In Western Sahara, formerly Spanish Sahara, Spanish was officially spoken during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today, Spanish in this disputed territory is maintained by populations of Sahrawi nomads numbering about 500,000 people, and is de facto official alongside Arabic in the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, although this entity receives limited international recognition.[69][70]
+
+Spanish and Philippine Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization (1565–1898), it was the language of government, trade and education, and spoken as a first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos. In the mid-nineteenth century, the colonial government set up a free public education system with Spanish as the medium of instruction. This increased use of Spanish throughout the islands led to the formation of a class of Spanish-speaking intellectuals called the Ilustrados. By the time of Philippine independence in 1898, around 70% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, with 10% speaking it as their first and only language and about 60% of the population spoke it as their second or third language.[71]
+
+Despite American administration after the defeat of Spain in the Spanish–American War in 1898, the usage of Spanish continued in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration. Gradually, however, the American government began increasingly promoting the use of English, and it characterized Spanish as a negative influence of the past. Eventually, by the 1920s, English became the primary language of administration and education.[72] But despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines when it became independent in 1946, alongside English and Filipino, a standardized version of Tagalog.
+
+Spanish was removed from official status in 1973 under the administration of Ferdinand Marcos, but regained its status as an official language two months later under Presidential Decree No. 155, dated 15 March 1973.[73] It remained an official language until 1987, with the ratification of the present constitution, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language.[74] In 2010, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo encouraged the reintroduction of Spanish-language teaching in the Philippine education system.[75] But by 2012, the number of secondary schools at which the language was either a compulsory subject or an elective had become very limited.[76] Today, despite government promotions of Spanish, less than 0.5% of the population report being able to speak the language proficiently.[77] Aside from standard Spanish, a Spanish-based creole language—Chavacano—developed in the southern Philippines. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish.[78] Speakers of the Zamboangueño variety of Chavacano were numbered about 360,000 in the 2000 census.[79] The local languages of the Philippines also retain Spanish influence, with many words being derived from Mexican Spanish, owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, and then directly from Madrid until 1898.[80][81]
+
+Philippine Spanish is a dialect of the Spanish language in the Philippines. The variant is very similar to Mexican Spanish, because of Mexican and Latin American emigration to the Spanish East Indies over the years. 
+From 1565 to 1821, the Philippines, which were a part of the Spanish East Indies, were governed by the Captaincy General of the Philippines as a territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain centered in Mexico. It was only administered directly from Spain in 1821 after Mexico gained its independence that same year. Since the Philippines was a former territory of the Viceroyalty of New Spain for most of the Spanish colonial period, Spanish as was spoken in the Philippines had a greater affinity to American Spanish rather than to Peninsular Spanish.
+
+Chavacano or Chabacano [tʃaβaˈkano] is a group of Spanish-based creole language varieties spoken in the Philippines. The variety spoken in Zamboanga City, located in the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, has the highest concentration of speakers. Other currently existing varieties are found in Cavite City and Ternate, located in the Cavite province on the island of Luzon.[4] Chavacano is the only Spanish-based creole in Asia.
+
+Spanish is also the official language and the most spoken on Easter Island which is geographically part of Polynesia in Oceania and politically part of Chile. Easter Island's traditional language is Rapa Nui, an Eastern Polynesian language.
+
+Spanish loan words are present in the local languages of Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Marshall Islands and Micronesia, all of which formerly comprised the Spanish East Indies.[82][83]
+
+The following table shows the number of Spanish speakers in some 79 countries.
+
+There are important variations (phonological, grammatical, and lexical) in the spoken Spanish of the various regions of Spain and throughout the Spanish-speaking areas of the Americas.
+
+The variety with the most speakers is Mexican Spanish. It is spoken by more than twenty percent of the world's Spanish speakers (more than 112 million of the total of more than 500 million, according to the table above). One of its main features is the reduction or loss of unstressed vowels, mainly when they are in contact with the sound /s/.[220][221]
+
+In Spain, northern dialects are popularly thought of as closer to the standard, although positive attitudes toward southern dialects have increased significantly in the last 50 years. Even so, the speech of Madrid, which has typically southern features such as yeísmo and s-aspiration, is the standard variety for use on radio and television.[222][223][224][225] However, the variety used in the media is that of Madrid's educated classes, where southern traits are less evident, in contrast with the variety spoken by working-class Madrid, where those traits are pervasive. The educated variety of Madrid is indicated by many as the one that has most influenced the written standard for Spanish.[226]
+
+The four main phonological divisions are based respectively on (1) the phoneme /θ/ ("theta"), (2) the debuccalization of syllable-final /s/, (3) the sound of the spelled ⟨s⟩, (4) and the phoneme /ʎ/ ("turned y"),[227]
+
+The main morphological variations between dialects of Spanish involve differing uses of pronouns, especially those of the second person and, to a lesser extent, the object pronouns of the third person.
+
+Virtually all dialects of Spanish make the distinction between a formal and a familiar register in the second-person singular and thus have two different pronouns meaning "you": usted in the formal and either tú or vos in the familiar (and each of these three pronouns has its associated verb forms), with the choice of tú or vos varying from one dialect to another. The use of vos (and/or its verb forms) is called voseo. In a few dialects, all three pronouns are used, with usted, tú, and vos denoting respectively formality, familiarity, and intimacy.[229]
+
+In voseo, vos is the subject form (vos decís, "you say") and the form for the object of a preposition (voy con vos, "I am going with you"), while the direct and indirect object forms, and the possessives, are the same as those associated with tú: Vos sabés que tus amigos te respetan ("You know your friends respect you").
+
+The verb forms of general voseo are the same as those used with tú except in the present tense (indicative and imperative) verbs. The forms for vos generally can be derived from those of vosotros (the traditional second-person familiar plural) by deleting the glide [i̯], or /d/, where it appears in the ending: vosotros pensáis > vos pensás; vosotros volvéis > vos volvés, pensad! (vosotros) > pensá! (vos), volved! (vosotros) > volvé! (vos) .
+
+In Chilean voseo on the other hand, almost all verb forms are distinct from their standard tú-forms.
+
+The use of the pronoun vos with the verb forms of tú (vos piensas) is called "pronominal voseo". Conversely, the use of the verb forms of vos with the pronoun tú (tú pensás or tú pensái) is called "verbal voseo". 
+In Chile, for example, verbal voseo is much more common than the actual use of the pronoun vos, which is usually reserved for highly informal situations.
+
+And in Central American voseo, one can see even further distinction.
+
+Although vos is not used in Spain, it occurs in many Spanish-speaking regions of the Americas as the primary spoken form of the second-person singular familiar pronoun, with wide differences in social consideration. Generally, it can be said that there are zones of exclusive use of tuteo (the use of tú) in the following areas: almost all of Mexico, the West Indies, Panama, most of Colombia, Peru, Venezuela and coastal Ecuador.
+
+Tuteo as a cultured form alternates with voseo as a popular or rural form in Bolivia, in the north and south of Peru, in Andean Ecuador, in small zones of the Venezuelan Andes (and most notably in the Venezuelan state of Zulia), and in a large part of Colombia. Some researchers maintain that voseo can be heard in some parts of eastern Cuba, and others assert that it is absent from the island.[230]
+
+Tuteo exists as the second-person usage with an intermediate degree of formality alongside the more familiar voseo in Chile, in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, in the Azuero Peninsula in Panama, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, and in parts of Guatemala.
+
+Areas of generalized voseo include Argentina, Nicaragua, eastern Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Colombian departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Risaralda, Quindio and Valle del Cauca.[229]
+
+Ustedes functions as formal and informal second person plural in over 90% of the Spanish-speaking world, including all of Hispanic America, the Canary Islands, and some regions of Andalusia. In Seville, Huelva, Cadiz, and other parts of western Andalusia, the familiar form is constructed as ustedes vais, using the traditional second-person plural form of the verb. Most of Spain maintains the formal/familiar distinction with ustedes and vosotros respectively.
+
+Usted is the usual second-person singular pronoun in a formal context, but it is used jointly with the third-person singular voice of the verb. It is used to convey respect toward someone who is a generation older or is of higher authority ("you, sir"/"you, ma'am"). It is also used in a familiar context by many speakers in Colombia and Costa Rica and in parts of Ecuador and Panama, to the exclusion of tú or vos. This usage is sometimes called ustedeo in Spanish.
+
+In Central America, especially in Honduras, usted is often used as a formal pronoun to convey respect between the members of a romantic couple. Usted is also used that way between parents and children in the Andean regions of Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela.
+
+Most speakers use (and the Real Academia Española prefers) the pronouns lo and la for direct objects (masculine and feminine respectively, regardless of animacy, meaning "him", "her", or "it"), and le for indirect objects (regardless of gender or animacy, meaning "to him", "to her", or "to it"). The usage is sometimes called "etymological", as these direct and indirect object pronouns are a continuation, respectively, of the accusative and dative pronouns of Latin, the ancestor language of Spanish.
+
+Deviations from this norm (more common in Spain than in the Americas) are called "leísmo", "loísmo", or "laísmo", according to which respective pronoun, le, lo, or la, has expanded beyond the etymological usage (le as a direct object, or lo or la as an indirect object).
+
+Some words can be significantly different in different Hispanophone countries. Most Spanish speakers can recognize other Spanish forms even in places where they are not commonly used, but Spaniards generally do not recognize specifically American usages. For example, Spanish mantequilla, aguacate and albaricoque (respectively, 'butter', 'avocado', 'apricot') correspond to manteca (word used for lard in Peninsular Spanish), palta, and damasco, respectively, in Argentina, Chile (except manteca), Paraguay, Peru (except manteca and damasco), and Uruguay.
+
+Spanish is closely related to the other West Iberian Romance languages, including Asturian, Aragonese, Galician, Ladino, Leonese, Mirandese and Portuguese.
+
+It is generally acknowledged that Portuguese and Spanish speakers can communicate in written form, with varying degrees of mutual intelligibility.[231][232][233][234]
+Mutual intelligibility of the written Spanish and Portuguese languages is remarkably high, and the difficulties of the spoken forms are based more on phonology than on grammatical and lexical dissimilarities. Ethnologue gives estimates of the lexical similarity between related languages in terms of precise percentages. For Spanish and Portuguese, that figure is 89%. Italian, on the other hand its phonology similar to Spanish, but has a lower lexical similarity of 82%. Mutual intelligibility between Spanish and French or between Spanish and Romanian is lower still, given lexical similarity ratings of 75% and 71% respectively.[235][236] And comprehension of Spanish by French speakers who have not studied the language is much lower, at an estimated 45%. In general, thanks to the common features of the writing systems of the Romance languages, interlingual comprehension of the written word is greater than that of oral communication.
+
+The following table compares the forms of some common words in several Romance languages:
+
+1. Also nós outros in early modern Portuguese (e.g. The Lusiads), and nosoutros in Galician.
+2. Alternatively nous autres in French.
+3. Also noialtri in Southern Italian dialects and languages.
+4. Medieval Catalan (e.g. Llibre dels fets).
+5. Depending on the written norm used (see Reintegrationism).
+6. From Basque esku, "hand" + erdi, "half, incomplete". Notice that this negative meaning also applies for Latin sinistra(m) ("dark, unfortunate").
+7. Romanian caș (from Latin cāsevs) means a type of cheese. The universal term for cheese in Romanian is brânză (from unknown etymology).[237]
+
+Judaeo-Spanish, also known as Ladino,[238] is a variety of Spanish which preserves many features of medieval Spanish and Portuguese and is spoken by descendants of the Sephardi Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.[238] Conversely, in Portugal the vast majority of the Portuguese Jews converted and became 'New Christians'. Therefore, its relationship to Spanish is comparable with that of the Yiddish language to German. Ladino speakers today are almost exclusively Sephardi Jews, with family roots in Turkey, Greece, or the Balkans, and living mostly in Israel, Turkey, and the United States, with a few communities in Hispanic America.[238] Judaeo-Spanish lacks the Native American vocabulary which was acquired by standard Spanish during the Spanish colonial period, and it retains many archaic features which have since been lost in standard Spanish. It contains, however, other vocabulary which is not found in standard Spanish, including vocabulary from Hebrew, French, Greek and Turkish, and other languages spoken where the Sephardim settled.
+
+Judaeo-Spanish is in serious danger of extinction because many native speakers today are elderly as well as elderly olim (immigrants to Israel) who have not transmitted the language to their children or grandchildren. However, it is experiencing a minor revival among Sephardi communities, especially in music. In the case of the Latin American communities, the danger of extinction is also due to the risk of assimilation by modern Castilian.
+
+A related dialect is Haketia, the Judaeo-Spanish of northern Morocco. This too tended to assimilate with modern Spanish, during the Spanish occupation of the region.
+
+Spanish is written in the Latin script, with the addition of the character ⟨ñ⟩ (eñe, representing the phoneme /ɲ/, a letter distinct from ⟨n⟩, although typographically composed of an ⟨n⟩ with a tilde). Formerly the digraphs ⟨ch⟩ (che, representing the phoneme /t͡ʃ/) and ⟨ll⟩ (elle, representing the phoneme /ʎ/), were also considered single letters. However, the digraph ⟨rr⟩ (erre fuerte, 'strong r', erre doble, 'double r', or simply erre), which also represents a distinct phoneme /r/, was not similarly regarded as a single letter. Since 1994 ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ have been treated as letter pairs for collation purposes, though they remained a part of the alphabet until 2010. Words with ⟨ch⟩ are now alphabetically sorted between those with ⟨cg⟩ and ⟨ci⟩, instead of following ⟨cz⟩ as they used to. The situation is similar for ⟨ll⟩.[239][240]
+
+Thus, the Spanish alphabet has the following 27 letters:
+
+Since 2010, none of the digraphs (ch, ll, rr, gu, qu) is considered a letter by the Spanish Royal Academy.[241]
+
+The letters k and w are used only in words and names coming from foreign languages (kilo, folklore, whisky, kiwi, etc.).
+
+With the exclusion of a very small number of regional terms such as México (see Toponymy of Mexico), pronunciation can be entirely determined from spelling. Under the orthographic conventions, a typical Spanish word is stressed on the syllable before the last if it ends with a vowel (not including ⟨y⟩) or with a vowel followed by ⟨n⟩ or an ⟨s⟩; it is stressed on the last syllable otherwise. Exceptions to this rule are indicated by placing an acute accent on the stressed vowel.
+
+The acute accent is used, in addition, to distinguish between certain homophones, especially when one of them is a stressed word and the other one is a clitic: compare el ('the', masculine singular definite article) with él ('he' or 'it'), or te ('you', object pronoun) with té ('tea'), de (preposition 'of') versus dé ('give' [formal imperative/third-person present subjunctive]), and se (reflexive pronoun) versus sé ('I know' or imperative 'be').
+
+The interrogative pronouns (qué, cuál, dónde, quién, etc.) also receive accents in direct or indirect questions, and some demonstratives (ése, éste, aquél, etc.) can be accented when used as pronouns. Accent marks used to be omitted on capital letters (a widespread practice in the days of typewriters and the early days of computers when only lowercase vowels were available with accents), although the Real Academia Española advises against this and the orthographic conventions taught at schools enforce the use of the accent.
+
+When u is written between g and a front vowel e or i, it indicates a "hard g" pronunciation. A diaeresis ü indicates that it is not silent as it normally would be (e.g., cigüeña, 'stork', is pronounced [θiˈɣweɲa]; if it were written *cigueña, it would be pronounced *[θiˈɣeɲa]).
+
+Interrogative and exclamatory clauses are introduced with inverted question and exclamation marks (¿ and ¡, respectively).
+
+The Royal Spanish Academy (Spanish: Real Academia Española), founded in 1713,[242] together with the 21 other national ones (see Association of Spanish Language Academies), exercises a standardizing influence through its publication of dictionaries and widely respected grammar and style guides.[243]
+Because of influence and for other sociohistorical reasons, a standardized form of the language (Standard Spanish) is widely acknowledged for use in literature, academic contexts and the media.
+
+The Association of Spanish Language Academies (Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, or ASALE) is the entity which regulates the Spanish language. It was created in Mexico in 1951 and represents the union of all the separate academies in the Spanish-speaking world. It comprises the academies of 23 countries, ordered by date of Academy foundation: Spain (1713),[245] Colombia (1871),[246] Ecuador (1874),[247] Mexico (1875),[248] El Salvador (1876),[249] Venezuela (1883),[250] Chile (1885),[251] Peru (1887),[252] Guatemala (1887),[253] Costa Rica (1923),[254] Philippines (1924),[255] Panama (1926),[256] Cuba (1926),[257]
+Paraguay (1927),[258] Dominican Republic (1927),[259] Bolivia (1927),[260] Nicaragua (1928),[261] Argentina (1931),[262] Uruguay (1943),[263] Honduras (1949),[264] Puerto Rico (1955),[265] United States (1973)[266] and Equatorial Guinea (2016).[267]
+
+The Instituto Cervantes (Cervantes Institute) is a worldwide nonprofit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. This organization has branched out in over 20 different countries, with 75 centers devoted to the Spanish and Hispanic American cultures and Spanish language. The ultimate goals of the Institute are to promote universally the education, the study, and the use of Spanish as a second language, to support methods and activities that help the process of Spanish-language education, and to contribute to the advancement of the Spanish and Hispanic American cultures in non-Spanish-speaking countries. The institute's 2015 report "El español, una lengua viva" (Spanish, a living language) estimated that there were 559 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Its latest annual report "El español en el mundo 2018" (Spanish in the world 2018) counts 577 million Spanish speakers worldwide. Among the sources cited in the report is the U.S. Census Bureau, which estimates that the U.S. will have 138 million Spanish speakers by 2050, making it the biggest Spanish-speaking nation on earth, with Spanish the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens.[268]
+
+Spanish is one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the Organization of American States, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the African Union, the Union of South American Nations, the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat, the Latin Union, the Caricom, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Inter-American Development Bank, and numerous other international organizations.
+
+
+
+
+

en/892.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,381 @@
+
+
+– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in Spain (green)
+
+Catalonia (/ˌkætəˈloʊniə/; Catalan: Catalunya [kətəˈluɲə]; Aranese: Catalonha [kataˈluɲɔ]; Spanish: Cataluña [kataˈluɲa]) is an autonomous community on the northeastern corner of Spain, designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy.[c][9]
+Catalonia consists of four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. The capital and largest city is Barcelona, the second-most populated municipality in Spain and the core of the fifth most populous urban area in the European Union.[10] It comprises most of the territory of the former Principality of Catalonia (with the remainder Roussillon now part of France's Pyrénées-Orientales, Occitanie). It is bordered by France (Occitanie) and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon to the west and Valencia to the south. The official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan.[11]
+
+In the late 8th century, various counties were established by the Frankish kingdom across and near the eastern Pyrenees as a defensive barrier against Muslim invasions. The eastern counties were united under the rule of the Frankish vassal, the count of Barcelona. In the 10th century the County of Barcelona became progressively independent.[12] In 1137, Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon were united by marriage under the Crown of Aragon. Within the Crown, the Catalan counties adopted a common polity known as Principality of Catalonia, developing its own institutional system, such as courts (parliament), Generalitat and constitutions, becoming the base for the Crown of Aragon's naval power, trade and expansionism in the Mediterranean. In the later Middle Ages, Catalan literature flourished. During the last Medieval centuries natural disasters, social turmoils and military conflicts affected the Principality. In 1469, the king of Aragon and the queen of Castile were married and ruled their realms together, retaining all of their distinct institutions and legislation.
+
+During the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659), Catalonia revolted (1640–1652) against a large and burdensome presence of the royal army in its territory, being briefly proclaimed a republic under French protection, until it was largely reconquered by the Spanish army. By the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), the Spanish Crown ceded the northern parts of Catalonia, mostly the Roussillon, to France. During the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), the Crown of Aragon sided against the Bourbon Philip V of Spain; following Catalan defeat on 11 September 1714, Philip V imposed a unifying administration across Spain, enacting the Nueva Planta decrees which, like in the other realms of the Crown of Aragon, suppressed the Catalan institutions and rights. This led to the eclipse of Catalan as a language of government and literature, replaced by Spanish. Throughout the 18th century, Catalonia experienced economic growth.
+
+In the 19th century, Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic and Carlist Wars. In the second third of the century, Catalonia experienced industrialisation. As wealth from the industrial expansion grew, it saw a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism while several workers movements appeared. With the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), the Generalitat was restored as a Catalan autonomous government. After the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing Catalan self-government and banning the official use of the Catalan language. After a period of autarky, from the late 1950s through to the 1970s Catalonia saw rapid economic growth, drawing many workers from across Spain, making Barcelona one of Europe's largest industrial metropolitan areas and turning Catalonia into a major tourist destination. Since the Spanish transition to democracy (1975–1982), Catalonia has regained self-government and is now one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain. In the 2010s there has been growing support for Catalan independence. On 27 October 2017, the Catalan Parliament declared unilaterally independence following a disputed referendum. The Spanish Senate voted in favour of enforcing direct rule by removing the Catalan government and calling a snap regional election for 21 December. On 2 November, the Spanish Supreme Court imprisoned seven former ministers of the Catalan government on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds, while several others—including then-President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont—fled to other European countries.
+
+The name Catalonia—Catalunya in Catalan, spelled Cathalonia, or Cathalaunia in Medieval Latin—began to be used for the homeland of the Catalans (Cathalanenses) in the late 11th century and was probably used before as a territorial reference to the group of counties that comprised part of the March of Gothia and March of Hispania under the control of the Count of Barcelona and his relatives.[13] The origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence.
+
+One theory suggests that Catalunya derives from the name Gothia (or Gauthia) Launia ("Land of the Goths"), since the origins of the Catalan counts, lords and people were found in the March of Gothia, known as Gothia, whence Gothland > Gothlandia > Gothalania > Cathalaunia > Catalonia theoretically derived.[14][15] During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the local medley of Goths with Alans, initially constituting a Goth-Alania.[16]
+
+Other less plausible or recent theories suggest:
+
+In English, Catalonia is pronounced /kætəˈloʊniə/. The native name, Catalunya, is pronounced [kətəˈluɲə] in Central Catalan, the most widely spoken variety, whose pronunciation is considered standard.[23] The Spanish name is Cataluña ([kataˈluɲa]), and the Aranese name is Catalonha ([kataˈluɲɔ]).
+
+The first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic. The oldest known trace of human occupation is a mandible found in Banyoles, described by some sources as pre-Neanderthal some 200,000 years old; other sources suggest it to be only about one third that old.[24] From the next prehistoric era, the Epipalaeolithic or Mesolithic, important remains survive, the greater part dated between 8000 and 5000 BC, such as those of Sant Gregori (Falset) and el Filador (Margalef de Montsant). The most important sites from these eras, all excavated in the region of Moianès, are the Balma del Gai (Epipaleolithic) and the Balma de l'Espluga (late Epipaleolithic and Early Neolithic).[25]
+
+The Neolithic era began in Catalonia around 5000 BC, although the population was slower to develop fixed settlements than in other places, thanks to the abundance of woods, which allowed the continuation of a fundamentally hunter-gatherer culture. An example of such settlements would be La Draga, an "early Neolithic village which dates from the end of the 6th millennium BC."[26]
+
+The Chalcolithic period developed in Catalonia between 2500 and 1800 BC, with the beginning of the construction of copper objects. The Bronze Age occurred between 1800 and 700 BC. There are few remnants of this era, but there were some known settlements in the low Segre zone. The Bronze Age coincided with the arrival of the Indo-Europeans through the Urnfield Culture, whose successive waves of migration began around 1200 BC, and they were responsible for the creation of the first proto-urban settlements.[27] Around the middle of the 7th century BC, the Iron Age arrived in Catalonia.
+
+In pre-Roman times, the area that is now called Catalonia in the north-east of Iberian Peninsula – like the rest of the Mediterranean side of the peninsula – was populated by the Iberians. The Iberians of this area – the Ilergetes, Indigetes and Lacetani (Cerretains) – also maintained relations with the peoples of the Mediterranean. Some urban agglomerations became relevant, including Ilerda (Lleida) inland, Hibera (perhaps Amposta or Tortosa) or Indika (Ullastret). Coastal trading colonies were established by the ancient Greeks, who settled around the Gulf of Roses, in Emporion (Empúries) and Roses in the 8th century BC. The Carthaginians briefly ruled the territory in the course of the Second Punic War and traded with the surrounding Iberian population.
+
+After the Carthaginian defeat by the Roman Republic, the north-east of Iberia became the first to come under Roman rule and became part of Hispania, the westernmost part of the Roman Empire. Tarraco (modern Tarragona) was one of the most important Roman cities in Hispania and the capital of the province of Tarraconensis. Other important cities of the Roman period are Ilerda (Lleida), Dertosa (Tortosa), Gerunda (Girona) as well as the ports of Empuriæ (former Emporion) and Barcino (Barcelona). As for the rest of Hispania, Latin law was granted to all cities under the reign of Vespasian (69-79 AD), while Roman citizenship was granted to all free men of the empire by the Edict of Caracalla in 212 AD (Tarraco, the capital, was already a colony of Roman law since 45 BC). It was a rich agricultural province (olive oil, vine, wheat), and the first centuries of the Empire saw the construction of roads (the most important being the Via Augusta, parallel to Mediterranean coastline) and infrastructure like aqueducts.
+
+Conversion to Christianity, attested in the 3rd century, was completed in urban areas in the 4th century. Although Hispania remained under Roman rule and did not fall under the rule of Vandals, Swabians and Alans in the 5th century, the main cities suffered frequent sacking and some deurbanization.
+
+After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area was conquered by the Visigoths and was ruled as part of the Visigothic Kingdom for almost two and a half centuries. In 718, it came under Muslim control and became part of Al-Andalus, a province of the Umayyad Caliphate. From the conquest of Roussillon in 760, to the conquest of Barcelona in 801, the Frankish empire took control of the area between Septimania and the Llobregat river from the Muslims and created heavily militarised, self-governing counties. These counties formed part of the historiographically known as the Gothic and Hispanic marches, a buffer zone in the south of the Frankish empire in the former province of Septimania and in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to act as a defensive barrier for the Frankish empire against further Muslim invasions from Al-Andalus.[28]
+
+These counties came under the rule of the counts of Barcelona, who were Frankish vassals nominated by the emperor of the Franks, to whom they were feudatories (801–988). The earliest known use of the name "Catalonia" for these counties dates to 1117. At the end of the 9th century, the Count of Barcelona Wilfred the Hairy made his title hereditary and founded the dynasty of the House of Barcelona, which ruled Catalonia until 1410.
+
+In 988 Borrell II, Count of Barcelona, did not recognise the new French king Hugh Capet as his king, evidencing the loss of dependency from Frankish rule and confirming his successors (from Ramon Borrell I to Ramon Berenguer IV) as independent of the Capetian crown whom they regarded as usurpers of the Carolingian Frankish realm.[29] At the beginning of eleventh century the Catalan counties suffered an important process of feudalisation, partially controlled by the church's sponsored Peace and Truce Assemblies and by the negotiation skills of the Count of Barcelona Ramon Berenguer I, which began the codification of feudal law in the written Usages of Barcelona, becoming the basis of the Catalan law. In 1137, Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona decided to accept King Ramiro II of Aragon's proposal to marry Queen Petronila, establishing the dynastic union of the County of Barcelona with the Kingdom of Aragon, creating the Crown of Aragon and making the Catalan counties that were united under the county of Barcelona into a principality of the Aragonese Crown.
+
+In 1258, by means of the Treaty of Corbeil, James I of Aragon King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, king of Mallorca and of Valencia, renounced his family rights and dominions in Occitania and recognised the king of France as heir of the Carolingian Dynasty. The king of France, Louis IX, formally relinquished his claims of feudal lordship over all the Catalan counties, except the County of Foix, despite the opposition of the king of Aragon and count of Barcelona.[30] This treaty confirmed, from French point of view, the independence of the Catalan counties established and exerciced during the previous three centuries, but also meant the irremediable separation between the geographical areas of Catalonia and Languedoc.
+
+As a coastal territory, Catalonia became the base of the Aragonese Crown's maritime forces, which spread the power of the Aragonese Crown in the Mediterranean, and made Barcelona into a powerful and wealthy city. In the period of 1164–1410, new territories, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, Sardinia, the Kingdom of Sicily, Corsica, and, briefly, the Duchies of Athens and Neopatras, were incorporated into the dynastic domains of the House of Aragon. The expansion was accompanied by a great development of the Catalan trade, creating an extensive trade network across the Mediterranean which competed with those of the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice.
+
+At the same time, the Principality of Catalonia developed a complex institutional and political system based in the concept of a pact between the estates of the realm and the king. Laws had to be approved in the General Court of Catalonia, one of the first parliamentary bodies of Europe that banned the royal power to create legislation unilaterally (since 1283).[31] The Courts were composed of the three Estates, were presided over by the king of Aragon, and approved the constitutions, which created a compilation of rights for the citizenship of the Principality. In order to collect general taxes, the Courts of 1359 established a permanent representative of deputies position, called the Deputation of the General (and later usually known as Generalitat), which gained political power over the next centuries.[32]
+
+The domains of the Aragonese Crown were severely affected by the Black Death pandemic and by later outbreaks of the plague. Between 1347 and 1497 Catalonia lost 37 percent of its population.[33] In 1410, King Martin I died without surviving descendants. Under the Compromise of Caspe, Ferdinand from the Castilian House of Trastámara received the Crown of Aragon as Ferdinand I of Aragon.[34] During the reign of his son, John II, social and political tensions caused the Catalan Civil War (1462–1472).
+
+Ferdinand II of Aragon, the grandson of Ferdinand I, and Queen Isabella I of Castile were married in 1469, later taking the title the Catholic Monarchs; subsequently, this event was seen by historiographers as the dawn of a unified Spain. At this time, though united by marriage, the Crowns of Castile and Aragon maintained distinct territories, each keeping its own traditional institutions, parliaments, laws and currency.[35] Castile commissioned expeditions to the Americas and benefited from the riches acquired in the Spanish colonisation of the Americas, but, in time, also carried the main burden of military expenses of the united Spanish kingdoms. After Isabella's death, Ferdinand II personally ruled both kingdoms.
+
+By virtue of descent from his maternal grandparents, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, in 1516 Charles I of Spain became the first king to rule the Crowns of Castile and Aragon simultaneously by his own right. Following the death of his paternal (House of Habsburg) grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, he was also elected Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1519.[36]
+
+Over the next few centuries, the Principality of Catalonia was generally on the losing side of a series of wars that led steadily to an increased centralization of power in Spain. Despite this fact, between the 16th and 18th centuries, the participation of the political community in the local and the general Catalan government grew, while the kings remained absent and its constitutional system continued to consolidate. Tensions between Catalan institutions and the Monarchy began to arise. The large and burdensome presence of the Spanish royal army in the Principality due to the Franco-Spanish War led to an uprising of peasants, provoking the Reapers' War (1640–1652), which saw Catalonia rebel (briefly as a republic led by the chairman of the Generalitat, Pau Claris) with French help against the Spanish Crown for overstepping Catalonia's rights during the Thirty Years' War.[37] Within a brief period France took full control of Catalonia. Most of Catalonia was reconquered by the Spanish Monarchy but Catalan rights were recognised. Roussillon was lost to France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659).[38]
+
+The most significant conflict concerning the governing monarchy was the War of the Spanish Succession, which began when the childless Charles II of Spain, the last Spanish Habsburg, died without an heir in 1700. Charles II had chosen Philip V of Spain from the French House of Bourbon. Catalonia, like other territories that formed the Crown of Aragon, rose up in support of the Austrian Habsburg pretender Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, in his claim for the Spanish throne as Charles III of Spain. The fight between the houses of Bourbon and Habsburg for the Spanish Crown split Spain and Europe.
+
+The fall of Barcelona on 11 September 1714 to the Bourbon king Philip V militarily ended the Habsburg claim to the Spanish Crown, which became legal fact in the Treaty of Utrecht. Philip felt that he had been betrayed by the Catalan Courts, as it had initially sworn its loyalty to him when he had presided over it in 1701. In retaliation for the betrayal, and inspired by the French absolutist style of government, the first Bourbon king introduced the Nueva Planta decrees, that incorporated the lands of the Crown of Aragon, including the Principality of Catalonia, as provinces under the Crown of Castile in 1716, terminating their separate institutions, laws and rights, as well as their pactist politics, within a united kingdom of Spain.[39] From the second third of 18th century onwards Catalonia carried out a successful process of proto-industrialization, reinforced in the late quarter of the century when the Castile's trade monopoly with American colonies ended.
+
+At the beginning of the nineteenth century Catalonia was severely affected by the Napoleonic Wars. In 1808 it was occupied by the French troops, the resistance against the occupation eventually developed into the Peninsular War. The rejection to French dominion was institutionalized with the creation of "juntas" (councils) who, remaining loyal to the Bourbons, exercised the sovereignty and representation of the territory due to the disappearance of the old institutions. Napoleon took direct control of Catalonia to establish order, creating the Government of Catalonia under the rule of Marshall Augereau, and making Catalan briefly an official language again. Between 1812 and 1814 Catalonia was annexed to France and organized as four départements.[40] The French troops evacuated Catalan territory at the end of 1814. After the Bourbon restoration in Spain and the death of the absolutist king Ferdinand VII, Carlist Wars erupted against the new born liberal state of Isabella II. Catalonia was divided, the coast and most industrialized areas support liberalism, while many inland areas were in the hands of Carlists, as the last ones proposed to reestablish the institutional systems suppressed in the Nueva Planta decrees in all the ancient realms of the Crown of Aragon.
+
+In the second third of the 19th century, it became an industrial center. This process was boosted by, amongst other things, national protectionist laws [es] (although the policy of the Spanish government during those times changed many times between free trade and protectionism) and the conditions of proto-industrialization of the prior two centuries of the Catalan urban areas and its countryside. Along the century, textile industry flourished in urban areas and in the countryside, usually in the form of company towns. To this day it remains one of the most industrialised areas of Spain. In 1832 it was inaugurated in Barcelona the factory Bonaplata, the first of the country which worked with steam engine. During those years, Barcelona was the focus of important revolutionary uprisings, called "bullangues", causing a difficult relation between many sectors of Catalan society and the central government and, in Catalonia, a republican current began to develop; also, inevitably, many Catalans favored a more federal Spain. Meanwhile, the Catalan language saw a cultural renaissance (the Renaixença) at popular and bourgeois level. After the fall of the First Spanish Republic and the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty (1874), Catalan nationalism grew in importance.
+
+The Anarchists had been active throughout the early 20th century, founding the CNT trade union and achieving one of the first eight-hour workday in Europe in 1919.[41] Growing resentment of conscription and of the military culminated in the Tragic Week in Barcelona in 1909. In the first third of the 20th century, Catalonia gained and lost varying degrees of autonomy several times. In 1914, the four Catalan provinces were authorized to create a Commonwealth (Catalan: Mancomunitat de Catalunya), without any legislative power or specific autonomy which carried out an ambitious program of modernization, but it was disbanded in 1925 by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930). During the last steps of the Dictatorship, Barcelona celebrated the 1929 International Exposition,[42] while Spain began to suffer an economical crisis.
+
+After the fall of the dictator and a brief proclamation of the Catalan Republic during the events which led to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939),[43] it received its first Statute of Autonomy from the Spanish Republic's Parliament, establishing an autonomous body, the Generalitat of Catalonia, which included a parliament, a government and a court of appeal, and the left-wing independentist leader Francesc Macià was elected its first president. The governments of the Republican Generalitat, led by the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) members Francesc Macià (1931-1933) and Lluís Companys (1933-1940) made efforts to implement an advanced and progressive social agenda, despite the internal difficulties. This period was marked by political unrest, the effects of the economic crisis and their social repercussions. The Statute of Autonomy was suspended in 1934, due to the Events of 6 October in Barcelona, as a response[clarification needed] to the accession of right-wing Spanish nationalist party CEDA to the government of the Republic, considered close to fascism.[44]
+After the electoral victory of the Popular Front in February 1936, the Government of Catalonia was pardoned and the self-government restored.
+
+The defeat of the military rebellion against the Republican government in Barcelona placed Catalonia firmly in the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. During the war, there were two rival powers in Catalonia: the de jure power of the Generalitat and the de facto power of the armed popular militias.[45] Violent confrontations between the workers' parties (CNT-FAI and POUM against the PSUC) culminated in the defeat of the first ones in 1937. The situation resolved itself progressively in favor of the Generalitat, but at the same time the Generalitat was partially losing its autonomous power within Republican Spain. In 1938 Franco's troops broke the Republican territory in two, isolating Catalonia from the rest of the Republic. The defeat of the Republican army in the Battle of the Ebro led in 1938 and 1939 to the occupation of Catalonia by Franco's forces.
+
+The defeat of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War brought to power the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, whose first ten-year rule was particularly violent, autocratic, and repressive both in a political, cultural, social, and economical sense.[46] In Catalonia, any kind of public activities associated with Catalan nationalism, republicanism, anarchism, socialism, liberalism, democracy or communism, including the publication of books on those subjects or simply discussion of them in open meetings, was banned.
+
+Franco's regime banned the use of Catalan in government-run institutions and during public events, and also the Catalan institutions of self-government were abolished. The pro-Republic of Spain president of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, was taken to Spain from his exile in the German-occupied France, and was tortured and executed in the Montjuïc Castle of Barcelona for the crime of 'military rebellion'.[47]
+
+During later stages of Francoist Spain, certain folkloric and religious celebrations in Catalan resumed and were tolerated. Use of Catalan in the mass media had been forbidden, but was permitted from the early 1950s[48] in the theatre. Despite the ban during the first years and the difficulties of the next period, publishing in Catalan continued throughout his rule.[49]
+
+The years after the war were extremely hard. Catalonia, like many other parts of Spain, had been devastated by the war. Recovery from the war damage was slow and made more difficult by the international trade embargo and the autarkic politics of Franco's regime. By the late 1950s the region had recovered its pre-war economic levels and in the 1960s was the second fastest growing economy in the world in what became known as the Spanish miracle. During this period there was a spectacular growth of industry and tourism in Catalonia that drew large numbers of workers to the region from across Spain and made the area around Barcelona into one of Europe's largest industrial metropolitan areas.
+
+After Franco's death in 1975, Catalonia voted for the adoption of a democratic Spanish Constitution in 1978, in which Catalonia recovered political and cultural autonomy, restoring the Generalitat (exiled since the end of the Civil War in 1939) in 1977 and adopting a new Statute of Autonomy in 1979. First election to the Parliament of Catalonia under this Statute gave the Catalan presidency to Jordi Pujol, a position he would hold until 2003. During this time, he also led Convergència i Unió (CiU), a center-right Catalan nationalist electoral coalition. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the institutions of Catalan autonomy continued to develop, among them an autonomous police force (Mossos d'Esquadra, in 1983),[50] and the broadcasting network Televisió de Catalunya and its first channel TV3, created in 1983.[51] Today, Catalonia is one of the most economically dynamic communities of Spain. The Catalan capital and largest city, Barcelona, is a major international cultural centre and a major tourist destination. In 1992, Barcelona hosted the Summer Olympic Games.
+
+In November 2003, elections to the Parliament of Catalonia gave the government to a left-wing catalanist coalition formed by the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC-PSOE), Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and Initiative for Catalonia Greens (ICV), and the socialist Pasqual Maragall was appointed president. The new government redacted a new version of the Statute of Autonomy, which consolidated and extended certain aspects of self-government.
+
+The new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, approved after a referendum in 2006, was contested by important sectors of the Spanish society, especially by the conservative People's Party, which sent the law to the Constitutional Court of Spain. In 2010, the Court declared non-valid some of the articles that established an autonomous Catalan system of Justice, improved aspects of the financing, a new territorial division, the status of Catalan language or the symbolical declaration of Catalonia as a nation.[52] This decision was severely contested by large sectors of Catalan society, which increased the demands of independence.[53]
+
+A controversial independence referendum was held in Catalonia on 1 October 2017, using a disputed voting process.[54][55] It was declared illegal and suspended by the Constitutional Court of Spain, because it breached the 1978 Constitution.[56][57] Subsequent developments saw, on 27 October 2017, a symbolic declaration of independence by the Parliament of Catalonia, the enforcement of direct rule by the Spanish government through the use of Article 155 of the Constitution,[58][59][60][61][62] the dismissal of the Executive Council and the dissolution of the Parliament, with a snap regional election called for 21 December 2017, which ended with a victory of pro-independence parties.[63] Former President Carles Puigdemont and five former cabinet ministers fled Spain (such as Belgium, in Puigdemont's case), whereas nine other cabinet members, including vice-president Oriol Junqueras, were sentenced to prison under various charges of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds.[64][65] Quim Torra became the 131st President of the Government of Catalonia on 17 May 2018,[66] after the Spanish courts blocked three other candidates.[67]
+
+In 2018, the Assemblea Nacional Catalana joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) on behalf of Catalonia.[68]
+
+On 14 October 2019, the Spanish Supreme court sentenced several Catalan political leaders involved in organizing a referendum on Catalonia's independence from Spain were convicted on charges ranging from sedition to misuse of public funds, with sentences ranging from 9 to 13 years in prison. This decision sparked demonstrations around Catalonia.[69]
+
+The climate of Catalonia is diverse. The populated areas lying by the coast in Tarragona, Barcelona and Girona provinces feature a Hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa). The inland part (including the Lleida province and the inner part of Barcelona province) show a mostly Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa). The Pyrenean peaks have a continental (Köppen D) or even Alpine climate (Köppen ET) at the highest summits, while the valleys have a maritime or oceanic climate sub-type (Köppen Cfb).
+
+In the Mediterranean area, summers are dry and hot with sea breezes, and the maximum temperature is around 26–31 °C (79–88 °F). Winter is cool or slightly cold depending on the location. It snows frequently in the Pyrenees, and it occasionally snows at lower altitudes, even by the coastline. Spring and autumn are typically the rainiest seasons, except for the Pyrenean valleys, where summer is typically stormy.
+
+The inland part of Catalonia is hotter and drier in summer. Temperature may reach 35 °C (95 °F), some days even 40 °C (104 °F). Nights are cooler there than at the coast, with the temperature of around 14–17 °C (57–63 °F). Fog is not uncommon in valleys and plains; it can be especially persistent, with freezing drizzle episodes and subzero temperatures during winter, mainly along the Ebro and Segre valleys and in Plain of Vic.
+
+Catalonia has a marked geographical diversity, considering the relatively small size of its territory. The geography is conditioned by the Mediterranean coast, with 580 kilometres (360 miles) of coastline, and large relief units of the Pyrenees to the north. The Catalan territory is divided into three main geomorphological units:[70]
+
+The Catalan Pyrenees represent almost half in length of the Pyrenees, as it extends more than 200 kilometres (120 miles). Traditionally differentiated the Axial Pyrenees (the main part) and the Pre-Pyrenees (southern from the Axial) which are mountainous formations parallel to the main mountain ranges but with lower altitudes, less steep and a different geological formation. The highest mountain of Catalonia, located north of the comarca of Pallars Sobirà is the Pica d'Estats (3,143 m), followed by the Puigpedrós (2,914 m). On the Pre-Pyrenees is located the Serra del Cadí, that separates the valley of Cerdanya from the Central Depression.
+
+Central Catalan Depression is a plain located between the Pyrenees and Pre-Coastal Mountains. The Depression lands are located between 200 and 600 metres (660 and 1,970 feet). The plains and the water that descend from the Pyrenees have made it fertile territory for agriculture and there are built numerous irrigation canals. Other important plain is the Empordà, located on the northeast.
+
+The Catalan Mediterranean system is based on two (more or less) parallel ranges to the coast, in a Northwest direction towards the Southwest. These two mountain ranges are the Coastal and the Pre-Coastal. The Coastal Range is minor extent and it has lower altitudes, while the Pre-Coastal is larger in both length and height. The most relevant mountains of this area are Montserrat, Montseny and Ports. Within the ranges are a series of plains, the entities over which form the Coastal and the Pre-Coastal Depressions. The Coastal Depression is located on the East of the Coastal Range towards the coast. The Pre-Coastal, on the other hand, is located in the interior, between the two mountain ranges, and constitutes the basis of the plains of Vallès and Penedès.
+
+Catalonia is a showcase of European landscapes on a small scale. Just over 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 square miles) hosting a variety of substrates, soils, climates, directions, altitudes and distances to the sea. The area is of great ecological diversity and a remarkable wealth of landscapes, habitats and species.
+
+The fauna of Catalonia comprises a minority of animals endemic to the region and a majority of non-native animals. Much of Catalonia enjoys a Mediterranean climate (except mountain areas), which makes many of the animals that live there adapted to Mediterranean ecosystems. Of mammals, there are plentiful wild boar, red foxes, as well as roe deer and in the Pyrenees, the Pyrenean chamois. Other large species such as the bear have been recently reintroduced.
+
+Waters of Balearic Sea are rich in biodiversity, and even the megafaunas of ocean; various type of whales (such as fin, sperm, and pilot) and dolphins live within the area.[71][72]
+
+Most of Catalonia belongs to the Mediterranean Basin. The Catalan hydrographic network consists of two important basins, the one of the Ebro and the one that comprises the internal basins of Catalonia (respectively covering 46.84% and 51.43% of the territory), all of them flow to the Mediterranean. Furthermore, there is the Garona river basin that flows to the Atlantic Ocean, but it only covers 1.73% of the Catalan territory.
+
+The hydrographic network can be divided in two sectors, an occidental slope or Ebro river slope and one oriental slope constituted by minor rivers that flow to the Mediterranean along the Catalan coast. The first slope provides an average of 18,700 cubic hectometres (4.5 cubic miles) per year, while the second only provides an average of 2,020 hm3 (0.48 cu mi)/year. The difference is due to the big contribution of the Ebro river, from which the Segre is an important tributary. Moreover, in Catalonia there is a relative wealth of groundwaters, although there is inequality between comarques, given the complex geological structure of the territory.[73] In the Pyrenees there are many small lakes, remnants of the ice age. The biggest are the lake of Banyoles and the recently recovered lake of Ivars.
+
+The Catalan coast is almost rectilinear, with a length of 580 kilometres (360 mi) and few landforms—the most relevant are the Cap de Creus and the Gulf of Roses to the north and the Ebro Delta to the south. The Catalan Coastal Range hugs the coastline, and it is split into two segments, one between L'Estartit and the town of Blanes (the Costa Brava), and the other at the south, at the Costes del Garraf.
+
+The principal rivers in Catalonia are the Ter, Llobregat, and the Ebro (Catalan: Ebre), all of which run into the Mediterranean.
+
+The majority of Catalan population is concentrated in 30% of the territory, mainly in the coastal plains. Intensive agriculture, livestock farming and industrial activities have been accompanied by a massive tourist influx (more than 20 million annual visitors), a rate of urbanization and even of major metropolisation which has led to a strong urban sprawl: two thirds of Catalans live in the urban area of Barcelona, while the proportion of urbanized soils increased from 4.2% in 1993 to 6.2% in 2009, a growth of 48.6% in sixteen years, complemented with a dense network of transport infrastructure. This is accompanied by a certain agricultural abandonment (decrease of 15% of all areas cultivated in Catalonia between 1993 and 2009) and a global threat to natural environment. Human activities have also put some animal species at risk, or even led to their disappearance from the territory, like the gray wolf and probably the brown bear of the Pyrenees. The pressure created by this model of life means that the country's ecological footprint exceeds its administrative area.[74]
+
+Faced with this problems, Catalan authorities initiated several measures whose purpose is to protect natural ecosystems. Thus, in 1990, the Catalan government created the Nature Conservation Council (Catalan: Consell de Protecció de la Natura), an advisory body with the aim to study, protect and manage the natural environments and landscapes of Catalonia. In addition, the Generalitat has carried out the Plan of Spaces of Natural Interest (Pla d'Espais d'Interès Natural or PEIN) in 1992 while eighteen Natural Spaces of Special Protection (Espais Naturals de Protecció Especial or ENPE) have been instituted.
+
+There's a National Park, Aigüestortes i Estany de Sant Maurici; fourteen Natural Parks, Alt Pirineu, Aiguamolls de l'Empordà, Cadí-Moixeró, Cap de Creus, Sources of Ter and Freser, Collserola, Ebro Delta, Ports, Montgrí, Medes Islands and Baix Ter, Montseny, Montserrat, Sant Llorenç del Munt and l'Obac, Serra de Montsant and the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone; as well as three Natural Places of National Interest (Paratge Natural d'Interes Nacional or PNIN), the Pedraforca, the Poblet Forest and the Albères.
+
+After Franco's death in 1975 and the adoption of a democratic constitution in Spain in 1978, Catalonia recovered and extended the powers that it had gained in the Statute of Autonomy of 1932[75] but lost with the fall of the Second Spanish Republic[76] at the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.
+
+This autonomous community has gradually achieved more autonomy since the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The Generalitat holds exclusive jurisdiction in education, health, culture, environment, communications, transportation, commerce, public safety and local government, and only shares jurisdiction with the Spanish government in justice.[77] In all, some analysts argue that formally the current system grants Catalonia with "more self-government than almost any other corner in Europe".[78]
+
+The support for Catalan nationalism ranges from a demand for further autonomy and the federalisation of Spain to the desire for independence from the rest of Spain, expressed by Catalan independentists.[79] The first survey following the Constitutional Court ruling that cut back elements of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy, published by La Vanguardia on 18 July 2010, found that 46% of the voters would support independence in a referendum.[80] In February of the same year, a poll by the Open University of Catalonia gave more or less the same results.[81] Other polls have shown lower support for independence, ranging from 40 to 49%.[82][83][84] Although it is established in the whole of the territory, support for independence is significantly higher in the hinterland and the northeast, away from the more populated coastal areas such as Barcelona.[85]
+
+Since 2011 when the question started to be regularly surveyed by the governmental Center for Public Opinion Studies (CEO), support for Catalan independence has been on the rise.[86] According to the CEO opinion poll from July 2016, 47.7% of Catalans would vote for independence and 42.4% against it while, about the question of preferences, according to the CEO opinion poll from March 2016, a 57.2 claim to be "absolutely" or "fairly" in favour of independence.[87][88] Other polls have shown lower support for independence, ranging from 40 to 49%.[82][83][84] Other polls show more variable results, according with the Spanish CIS, as of December 2016, 47% of Catalans rejected independence and 45% supported it.[89]
+
+In hundreds of non-binding local referendums on independence, organised across Catalonia from 13 September 2009, a large majority voted for independence, although critics argued that the polls were mostly held in pro-independence areas. In December 2009, 94% of those voting backed independence from Spain, on a turn-out of 25%.[90] The final local referendum was held in Barcelona, in April 2011. On 11 September 2012, a pro-independence march pulled in a crowd of between 600,000 (according to the Spanish Government), 1.5 million (according to the Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona), and 2 million (according to its promoters);[91][92] whereas poll results revealed that half the population of Catalonia supported secession from Spain.
+
+Two major factors were Spain's Constitutional Court's 2010 decision to declare part of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia unconstitutional, as well as the fact that Catalonia contributes 19.49% of the central government's tax revenue, but only receives 14.03% of central government's spending.[93]
+
+Parties that consider themselves either Catalan nationalist or independentist have been present in all Catalan governments since 1980. The largest Catalan nationalist party, Convergence and Union, ruled Catalonia from 1980 to 2003, and returned to power in the 2010 election. Between 2003 and 2010, a leftist coalition, composed by the Catalan Socialists' Party, the pro-independence Republican Left of Catalonia and the leftist-environmentalist Initiative for Catalonia-Greens, implemented policies that widened Catalan autonomy.[citation needed]
+
+In the 25 November 2012 Catalan parliamentary election, sovereigntist parties supporting a secession referendum gathered 59.01% of the votes and held 87 of the 135 seats in the Catalan Parliament. Parties supporting independence from the rest of Spain obtained 49.12% of the votes and a majority of 74 seats.
+
+Artur Mas, then the president of Catalonia, organised early elections that took place on 27 September 2015. In these elections, Convergència and Esquerra Republicana decided to join, and they presented themselves under the coalition named "Junts pel Sí" (in Catalan, "Together for Yes"). "Junts pel Sí" won 62 seats and was the most voted party, and CUP (Candidatura d'Unitat Popular, a far-left and independentist party) won another 10, so the sum of all the independentist forces/parties was 72 seats, reaching an absolute majority, but not in number of individual votes, comprising 47,74% of the total.[94]
+
+The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia is the fundamental organic law, second only to the Spanish Constitution from which the Statute originates.
+
+In the Spanish Constitution of 1978 Catalonia, along with the Basque Country and Galicia, was defined as a "nationality". The same constitution gave Catalonia the automatic right to autonomy, which resulted in the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 1979.
+
+Both the 1979 Statute of Autonomy and the current one, approved in 2006, state that "Catalonia, as a nationality, exercises its self-government constituted as an Autonomous Community in accordance with the Constitution and with the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, which is its basic institutional law, always under the law in Spain".[95]
+
+The Preamble of the 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia states that the Parliament of Catalonia has defined Catalonia as a nation, but that "the Spanish Constitution recognizes Catalonia's national reality as a nationality".[96] While the Statute was approved by and sanctioned by both the Catalan and Spanish parliaments, and later by referendum in Catalonia, it has been subject to a legal challenge by the surrounding autonomous communities of Aragon, Balearic Islands and Valencia,[97] as well as by the conservative People's Party. The objections are based on various issues such as disputed cultural heritage but, especially, on the Statute's alleged breaches of the principle of "solidarity between regions" in fiscal and educational matters enshrined by the Constitution.[98]
+
+Spain's Constitutional Court assessed the disputed articles and on 28 June 2010, issued its judgment on the principal allegation of unconstitutionality presented by the People's Party in 2006. The judgment granted clear passage to 182 articles of the 223 that make up the fundamental text. The court approved 73 of the 114 articles that the People's Party had contested, while declaring 14 articles unconstitutional in whole or in part and imposing a restrictive interpretation on 27 others.[99] The court accepted the specific provision that described Catalonia as a "nation", however ruled that it was a historical and cultural term with no legal weight, and that Spain remained the only nation recognised by the constitution.[100][101][102][103]
+
+The Catalan Statute of Autonomy establishes that Catalonia is organised politically through the Generalitat of Catalonia (in Catalan: Generalitat de Catalunya), conformed by the Parliament, the Presidency of the Generalitat, the Government or Executive Council and the other institutions created by the Parliament, among them the Ombudsman (Síndic de Greuges), the Office of Auditors (Sindicatura de Comptes) or the Council for Statutory Guarantees (Consell de Garanties Estatutàries)
+
+The Parliament of Catalonia (in Catalan: Parlament de Catalunya) is the legislative body of the Generalitat and represents the citizens of Catalonia. It is elected every four years by universal suffrage, and it has powers to legislate in different matters such as education, health, culture, internal institutional and territorial organization, election and control of the president of the Generalitat and the Government, budget and other affairs, according with the Statute of Autonomy. The last Catalan election was held on 21 December 2017, and its current president is Roger Torrent, incumbent since January 2018.
+
+The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia (in Catalan: president de la Generalitat de Catalunya) is the highest representative of Catalonia, and is also responsible of leading the government's action. Since the restoration of the Generalitat on the return of democracy in Spain, the presidents of Catalonia have been Josep Tarradellas (1977–1980, president in exile since 1954), Jordi Pujol (1980–2003), Pasqual Maragall (2003–2006), José Montilla (2006–2010), Artur Mas (2010–2016), Carles Puigdemont (2016–2017) and, after the imposition of direct rule from Madrid, Quim Torra (2018–).
+
+The Executive Council (in Catalan: Consell Executiu) or Government (Govern), is the body responsible of the government of the Generalitat, it holds executive and regulatory power. It comprises the president of the Generalitat, the First Minister (or the Vice President) and the Ministers (consellers). Its seat is the Palau de la Generalitat, in Barcelona.
+
+Catalonia has its own police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra (officially called Mossos d'Esquadra-Policia de la Generalitat de Catalunya), whose origins date back to the 18th century. Since 1980 they have been under the command of the Generalitat, and since 1994 they have expanded in number in order to replace the national Civil Guard and National Police Corps, which report directly to the Homeland Department of Spain. The national bodies retain personnel within Catalonia to exercise functions of national scope such as overseeing ports, airports, coasts, international borders, custom offices, the identification of documents and arms control, immigration control, terrorism prevention, arms trafficking prevention, amongst others.
+
+Most of the justice system is administered by national judicial institutions, the highest body and last judicial instance in the Catalan jurisdiction, integrating the Spanish judiciary, is the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. The criminal justice system is uniform throughout Spain, while civil law is administered separately within Catalonia. The civil laws that are subject to autonomous legislation have been codified in the Civil Code of Catalonia (Codi civil de Catalunya) since 2002.[104]
+
+Navarre, the Basque Country and Catalonia are the Spanish communities with the highest degree of autonomy in terms of law enforcement.
+
+Catalonia is organised territorially into provinces, further subdivided into comarques and municipalities. The 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia establishes the administrative organisation of three local authorities: vegueries, comarques, and municipalities.
+
+Catalonia is divided administratively into four provinces, the governing body of which is the Provincial Deputation (Catalan: Diputació Provincial, Spanish: Diputación Provincial). The four provinces and their populations are:[105]
+
+Comarques (singular: "comarca") are entities composed by the municipalities to manage their responsibilities and services. The current regional division has its roots in a decree of the Generalitat de Catalunya of 1936, in effect until 1939, when it was suppressed by Franco. In 1987 the Government adopted the territorial division again and in 1988 three new comarques were added (Alta Ribagorça, Pla d'Urgell and Pla de l'Estany), and in 2015 was created another comarca, the Moianès. At present there are 41. Every comarca is administered by a comarcal council (consell comarcal).
+
+The Val d'Aran (Aran Valley), until 2015 considered as a comarca, is officially defined today as "unique territorial entity", has a special status and its autonomous government is named Conselh Generau d'Aran.[106]
+
+There are at present 948 municipalities (municipis) in Catalonia. Each municipality is run by a council (ajuntament) elected every four years by the residents in local elections. The council consists of a number of members (regidors) depending on population, who elect the mayor (alcalde or batlle). Its seat is the town hall (ajuntament, casa de la ciutat or casa de la vila).
+
+An aerial view of Barcelona
+
+The city of Tarragona
+
+The city of Lleida
+
+The city of Girona
+
+The vegueria is a new type of division defined as a specific territorial area for the exercise of government and inter-local cooperation with legal personality. The current Statute of Autonomy states vegueries are intended to supersede provinces in Catalonia, and take over many of functions of the comarques.
+
+The territorial plan of Catalonia (Pla territorial general de Catalunya) provided six general functional areas,[107] but was amended by Law 24/2001, of 31 December, recognizing the Alt Pirineu i Aran as a new functional area differentiated of Ponent.[108] On 14 July 2010 the Catalan Parliament approved the creation of the functional area of the Penedès.[109]
+
+A highly industrialized land, the nominal GDP of Catalonia in 2018 was €228 billion (second after the community of Madrid, €230 billion) and the per capita GDP was €30,426 ($32,888), behind Madrid (€35,041), the Basque Country (€33,223), and Navarre (€31,389).[110] That year, the GDP growth was 2.3%.[111] In recent years, and increasingly following the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017, there has been a negative net relocation rate of companies based in Catalonia moving to other autonomous communities of Spain. From the 2017 independence referendum until the end of 2018, for example, Catalonia lost 5454 companies to other parts of Spain (mainly Madrid), 2359 only in 2018, gaining 467 new ones from the rest of the country during 2018.[112][113]
+
+Catalonia's long-term credit rating is BB (Non-Investment Grade) according to Standard & Poor's, Ba2 (Non-Investment Grade) according to Moody's, and BBB- (Low Investment Grade) according to Fitch Ratings.[114][115][116] Catalonia's rating is tied for worst with between 1 and 5 other autonomous communities of Spain, depending on the rating agency.[116]
+
+In the context of the financial crisis of 2007–2008, Catalonia was expected to suffer a recession amounting to almost a 2% contraction of its regional GDP in 2009.[117] Catalonia's debt in 2012 was the highest of all Spain's autonomous communities,[118] reaching €13,476 million, i.e. 38% of the total debt of the 17 autonomous communities,[119] but in recent years its economy recovered a positive evolution and the GDP grew a 3.3% in 2015.[120]
+
+Catalonia is amongst the List of country subdivisions by GDP over 100 billion US dollars and is a member of the Four Motors for Europe organisation.
+
+The distribution of sectors is as follows:[121]
+
+The main tourist destinations in Catalonia are the city of Barcelona, the beaches of the Costa Brava in Girona, the beaches of the Costa del Maresme and Costa del Garraf from Malgrat de Mar to Vilanova i la Geltrú and the Costa Daurada in Tarragona. In the High Pyrenees there are several ski resorts, near Lleida. On 1 November 2012, Catalonia started charging a tourist tax.[122] The revenue is used to promote tourism, and to maintain and upgrade tourism-related infrastructure.
+
+Many savings banks were based in Catalonia before the independence referendum of 2017, with 10 of the 46 Spanish savings banks having headquarters in the region at that time. This list included Europe's premier savings bank, La Caixa, who, on 7 October 2017, a week after the referendum, moved its headquarters to Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands and CaixaBank to Valencia, in the Valencian Community.[123] The first private bank in Catalonia, Banc Sabadell, ranked fourth among all Spanish private banks, also moved its headquarters to Alicante, in the Valencian Community.[124]
+
+The stock market of Barcelona, which in 2016 had a volume of around €152 billion, is the second largest of Spain after Madrid, and Fira de Barcelona organizes international exhibitions and congresses to do with different sectors of the economy.[125]
+
+The main economic cost for the Catalan families is the purchase of a home. According to data from the Society of Appraisal on 31 December 2005 Catalonia is, after Madrid, the second most expensive region in Spain for housing: 3,397 €/m2 on average (see Spanish property bubble).
+
+The unemployment rate stood at 11.5% in 2018 and was lower than the national average.[126]
+
+Airports in Catalonia are owned and operated by Aena (a Spanish Government entity) except two airports in Lleida which are operated by Aeroports de Catalunya (an entity belonging to the Government of Catalonia).
+
+Since the Middle Ages, Catalonia has been well integrated into international maritime networks. The port of Barcelona (owned and operated by Puertos del Estado [es], a Spanish Government entity) is an industrial, commercial and tourist port of worldwide importance. With 1,950,000 TEUs in 2015, it is the first container port in Catalonia, the third in Spain after Valencia and Algeciras in Andalusia, the 9th in the Mediterranean Sea, the 14th in Europe and the 68th in the world. It is sixth largest cruise port in the world, the first in Europe and the Mediterranean with 2,364,292 passengers in 2014. The ports of Tarragona (owned and operated by Puertos del Estado) in the southwest and Palamós near Girona at northeast are much more modest. The port of Palamós and the other ports in Catalonia (26) are operated and administered by Ports de la Generalitat [ca], a Catalan Government entity.
+
+The development of these infrastructures, resulting from the topography and history of the Catalan territory, responds strongly to the administrative and political organization of this autonomous community.
+
+There are 12,000 kilometres (7,500 mi) of roads throughout Catalonia.
+
+The principal highways are  AP-7  (Autopista de la Mediterrània) and  A-7  (Autovia de la Mediterrània). They follow the coast from the French border to Valencia, Murcia and Andalusia. The main roads generally radiate from Barcelona. The  AP-2   (Autopista del Nord-est) and  A-2  (Autovia del Nord-est) connect inland and onward to Madrid.
+
+Other major roads are:
+
+Public-own roads in Catalonia are either managed by the autonomous government of Catalonia (e.g.,  C-  roads) or the Spanish government (e.g.,  AP- ,  A- ,  N-  roads).
+
+Catalonia saw the first railway construction in the Iberian Peninsula in 1848, linking Barcelona with Mataró. Given the topography most lines radiate from Barcelona. The city has both suburban and inter-city services. The main east coast line runs through the province connecting with the SNCF (French Railways) at Portbou on the coast.
+
+There are two publicly owned railway companies operating in Catalonia: the Catalan FGC that operates commuter and regional services, and the Spanish national RENFE that operates long-distance and high-speed rail services (AVE and Avant) and the main commuter and regional service Rodalies de Catalunya, administered by the Catalan government since 2010.
+
+High-speed rail (AVE) services from Madrid currently reach Lleida, Tarragona and Barcelona. The official opening between Barcelona and Madrid took place 20 February 2008. The journey between Barcelona and Madrid now takes about two-and-a-half hours. A connection to the French high-speed TGV network has been completed (called the Perpignan–Barcelona high-speed rail line) and the Spanish AVE service began commercial services on the line 9 January 2013, later offering services to Marseille on their high speed network.[127][128] This was shortly followed by the commencement of commercial service by the French TGV on 17 January 2013, leading to an average travel time on the Paris-Barcelona TGV route of 7h 42m.[128][129] This new line passes through Girona and Figueres with a tunnel through the Pyrenees.
+
+
+
+As of 2017, the official population of Catalonia was 7,522,596.[130] 1,194,947 residents did not have Spanish citizenship, accounting for about 16% of the population.[131]
+
+The Urban Region of Barcelona includes 5,217,864 people and covers an area of 2,268 km2 (876 sq mi). The metropolitan area of the Urban Region includes cities such as L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sabadell, Terrassa, Badalona, Santa Coloma de Gramenet and Cornellà de Llobregat.
+
+In 1900, the population of Catalonia was 1,966,382 people and in 1970 it was 5,122,567.[130] The sizeable increase of the population was due to the demographic boom in Spain during the 60s and early 70s[132] as well as in consequence of large-scale internal migration from the rural economically weak regions to its more prospering industrial cities. In Catalonia that wave of internal migration arrived from several regions of Spain, especially from Andalusia, Murcia[133] and Extremadura.[134]
+
+Immigrants from other countries settled in Catalonia since the 1990s;[135] a large percentage comes from Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe, and smaller numbers from Asia and Southern Europe, often settling in urban centers such as Barcelona and industrial areas.[136] In 2017, Catalonia had 1,194,497 foreign residents (15.9% of the total population) with non-Spanish ID cards, without including those who acquired the Spanish citizenship.[137]
+
+Religion in Catalonia (2016)[139]
+
+Historically, all the Catalan population was Christian, specifically Catholic, but since the 1980s there has been a trend of decline of Christianity and parallel growth of irreligion (including stances of atheism and agnosticism) and other religions. According to the most recent study sponsored by the government of Catalonia, as of 2016, 61.9% of the Catalans identify as Christians, up from 56.5% in 2014,[140] of whom 58.0% Catholics, 3.0% Protestants and Evangelicals, 0.9% Orthodox Christians and 0.6% Jehovah's Witnesses. At the same time, 16.0% of the population identify as atheists, 11.9% as agnostics, 4.8% as Muslims, 1.3% as Buddhists, and a further 2.4% as being of other religions.[139]
+
+According to the linguistic census held by the Government of Catalonia in 2013, Spanish is the most spoken language in Catalonia (46.53% claim Spanish as "their own language"), followed by Catalan (37.26% claim Catalan as "their own language"). In everyday use, 11.95% of the population claim to use both languages equally, whereas 45.92% mainly use Spanish and 35.54% mainly use Catalan. There is a significant difference between the Barcelona metropolitan area (and, to a lesser extent, the Tarragona area), where Spanish is more spoken than Catalan, and the more rural and small town areas, where Catalan clearly prevails over Spanish.[141]
+
+Originating in the historic territory of Catalonia, Catalan has enjoyed special status since the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of 1979 which declares it to be "Catalonia's own language",[142] a term which signifies a language given special legal status within a Spanish territory, or which is historically spoken within a given region. The other languages with official status are Spanish, which has official status throughout Spain, and Aranese Occitan, which enjoys co-official status with Catalan and Spanish in the Val d'Aran.
+
+Since the Statute of Autonomy of 1979, Aranese (a dialect of Gascon Occitan) has also been official and subject to special protection in Val d'Aran. This small area of 7,000 inhabitants was the only place where a dialect of Occitan has received full official status. Then, on 9 August 2006, when the new Statute came into force, Occitan became official throughout Catalonia. Occitan is the mother tongue of 22.4% of the population of Val d'Aran.[143] Catalan Sign Language is also officially recognised.[11]
+
+Although not considered an "official language" in the same way as Catalan, Spanish, and Aranese, Catalan Sign Language, with about 18,000 users in Catalonia,[144] is granted official recognition and support: "The public authorities shall guarantee the use of Catalan sign language and conditions of equality for deaf people who choose to use this language, which shall be the subject of education, protection and respect."[11]
+
+Under Francoist Spain, Catalan was excluded from the public education system and all other official use, so that for example families were not allowed to officially register children with Catalan names.[147] Although never completely banned, Catalan language publishing was severely restricted during the early 1940s, with only religious texts and small-run self-published texts being released. Some books were published clandestinely or circumvented the restrictions by showing publishing dates prior to 1936.[148] This policy was changed in 1946, when restricted publishing in Catalan resumed.[149]
+
+Rural–urban migration originating in other parts of Spain also reduced the social use of Catalan in urban areas and increased the use of Spanish. Lately, a similar sociolinguistic phenomenon has occurred with foreign immigration. Catalan cultural activity increased in the 1960s and Catalan classes began thanks to the initiative of associations such as Òmnium Cultural.
+
+After the end of Francoist Spain, the newly established self-governing democratic institutions in Catalonia embarked on a long-term language policy to recover the use of Catalan[150] and has, since 1983, enforced laws which attempt to protect and extend the use of Catalan. This policy, known as the "linguistic normalisation" (normalització lingüística in Catalan, normalización lingüística in Spanish) has been supported by the vast majority of Catalan political parties through the last thirty years. Some groups consider these efforts a way to discourage the use of Spanish,[151][152][153][154] whereas some others, including the Catalan government[155] and the European Union[156] consider the policies respectful,[157] or even as an example which "should be disseminated throughout the Union".[158]
+
+Today, Catalan is the main language of the Catalan autonomous government and the other public institutions that fall under its jurisdiction. Basic public education is given basically in Catalan, but also there are some hours per week of Spanish medium instruction. Businesses are required to display all information (e.g. menus, posters) at least in Catalan, under penalty of fines. There is no obligation to display this information in either Occitan or Spanish, although there is no restriction on doing so in these or other languages. The use of fines was introduced in a 1997 linguistic law[161] that aims to increase the public use of Catalan and defend the rights of Catalan speakers. In the other hand, the constitution of Spain obligates every citizen to know Spanish.
+
+The law ensures that both Catalan and Spanish – being official languages – can be used by the citizens without prejudice in all public and private activities,.[162] The Generalitat uses Catalan in its communications and notifications addressed to the general population, but citizens can also receive information from the Generalitat in Spanish if they so desire.[163] Debates in the Catalan Parliament take place almost exclusively in Catalan and the Catalan public television broadcasts programs basically in Catalan.
+
+Due to the intense immigration which Spain in general and Catalonia in particular experienced in the first decade of the 21st century, many foreign languages are spoken in various cultural communities in Catalonia, of which Rif-Berber,[164] Moroccan Arabic, Romanian[165] and Urdu are the most common ones.[166]
+
+In Catalonia, there is a high social and political consensus on the language policies favoring Catalan, also among Spanish speakers and speakers of other languages.[167][168][169][170][needs update] However, some of these policies have been criticised for trying to promote Catalan by imposing fines on businesses. For example, following the passage of the law on Catalan cinema in March 2010, which established that half of the movies shown in Catalan cinemas had to be in Catalan, a general strike of 75% of the cinemas took place.[171] The Catalan government gave in and dropped the clause that forced 50% of the movies to be dubbed or subtitled in Catalan before the law came to effect.[172] On the other hand, organisations such as Plataforma per la Llengua reported different violations of the linguistic rights of the Catalan speakers in Catalonia and the other Catalan-speaking territories in Spain, most of them caused by the institutions of the Spanish government in these territories.[173]
+
+The Catalan language policy has been challenged by some political parties in the Catalan Parliament. Citizens, currently the main opposition party, has been one of the most consistent critics of the Catalan language policy within Catalonia. The Catalan branch of the People's Party has a more ambiguous position on the issue: on one hand, it demands a bilingual Catalan–Spanish education and a more balanced language policy that would defend Catalan without favoring it over Spanish,[174] whereas on the other hand, a few local PP politicians have supported in their municipalities measures privileging Catalan over Spanish[175] and it has defended some aspects of the official language policies, sometimes against the positions of its colleagues from other parts of Spain.[176]
+
+Catalonia has given to the world many important figures in the area of the art. Catalan painters internationally known are, among others, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies. Closely linked with the Catalan pictorial atmosphere, Pablo Picasso lived in Barcelona during his youth, training them as an artist and creating the movement of cubism. Other important artists are Claudi Lorenzale for the medieval Romanticism that marked the artistic Renaixença, Marià Fortuny for the Romanticism and Catalan Orientalism of the nineteenth century, Ramon Casas or Santiago Rusiñol, main representatives of the pictorial current of Catalan modernism from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, Josep Maria Sert for early 20th-century Noucentisme, or Josep Maria Subirachs for expressionist or abstract sculpture and painting of the late twentieth century.
+
+The most important painting museums of Catalonia are the Teatre-Museu Dalí in Figueres, the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), Picasso Museum, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Joan Miró Foundation, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) and the CaixaForum.
+
+In the field of architecture were developed and adapted to Catalonia different artistic styles prevalent in Europe, leaving footprints in many churches, monasteries and cathedrals, of Romanesque[177] (the best examples of which are located in the northern half of the territory) and Gothic styles. The Gothic developed in Barcelona and its area of influence is known as Catalan Gothic, with some particular characteristics. The church of Santa Maria del Mar is an example of this kind of style. During the Middle Ages, many fortified castles were built by feudal nobles to mark their powers.
+
+There are some examples of Renaissance (such as the Palau de la Generalitat), Baroque and Neoclassical architectures. In the late nineteenth century Modernism (Art Nouveau) appeared as the national art. The world-renowned Catalan architects of this style are Antoni Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Thanks to the urban expansion of Barcelona during the last decades of the century and the first ones of the next, many buildings of the Eixample are modernists. In the field of architectural rationalism, which turned especially relevant in Catalonia during the Republican era (1931-1939) highlighting Josep Lluís Sert and Josep Torres i Clavé, members of the GATCPAC and, in contemporany architecture, Ricardo Bofill and Enric Miralles.
+
+There are several UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Catalonia:
+
+The oldest surviving literary use of the Catalan language is considered to be the religious text known as Homilies d'Organyà, written either in late 11th or early 12th century.
+
+There are two historical moments of splendor of Catalan literature. The first begins with the historiographic chronicles of the 13th century (chronicles written between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries narrating the deeds of the monarchs and leading figures of the Crown of Aragon) and the subsequent Golden Age of the 14th and 15th centuries. After that period, between the 16th and 19th centuries the Romantic historiography defined this era as the Decadència, considered as the "decadent" period in Catalan literature because of a general falling into disuse of the vernacular language in cultural contexts and lack of patronage among the nobility.
+
+The second moment of splendor began in the 19th century with the cultural and political Renaixença (Renaissance) represented by writers and poets such as Jacint Verdaguer, Víctor Català (pseudonym of Caterina Albert i Paradís), Narcís Oller, Joan Maragall and Àngel Guimerà. During the 20th century, avant-garde movements developed, initiated by the Generation of '14 (called Noucentisme in Catalonia), represented by Eugeni d'Ors, Joan Salvat-Papasseit, Josep Carner, Carles Riba, J.V. Foix and others. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the Civil War (Generation of '36) and the Francoist period, Catalan literature was maintained despite the repression against the Catalan language, being often produced in exile.
+
+The most outstanding authors of this period are Salvador Espriu, Josep Pla, Josep Maria de Sagarra (the latter three being considered as the main responsible of the renewal of Catalan prose), Mercè Rodoreda, Joan Oliver Sallarès or "Pere Quart", Pere Calders, Gabriel Ferrater, Manuel de Pedrolo, Agustí Bartra or Miquel Martí i Pol. In addition, several foreign writers who fought in the framework of the International Brigades then recount their experiences of fighting in their works, historical or fictional, with for example Homage to Catalonia of the British George Orwell in 1938 or Le Palace in 1962 and The Georgics in 1981 by Frenchman Claude Simon.
+
+After the transition to democracy (1975–1978) and the restoration of the Generalitat (1977), literary life and the editorial market have returned to normality and literary production in Catalan is being bolstered with a number of language policies intended to protect Catalan culture. Besides the aforementioned authors, other relevant 20th-century writers of the Francoist and democracy periods include Joan Brossa, Agustí Bartra, Manuel de Pedrolo, Pere Calders or Quim Monzó.
+
+Ana María Matute, Jaime Gil de Biedma, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán and Juan Goytisolo are among the most prominent Catalan writers in the Spanish language since the democratic restoration in Spain.
+
+Castells are one of the main manifestations of Catalan popular culture. The activity consists in constructing human towers by competing colles castelleres (teams). This practice originated in Valls, on the region of the Camp de Tarragona, during the 18th century, and later it was extended along the next two centuries to the rest of the territory. The tradition of els Castells i els Castellers was declared Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2010.
+
+In main celebrations, other elements of the Catalan popular culture are also usually present: parades with gegants (giants), bigheads, stick-dancers and musicians, and the correfoc, where devils and monsters dance and spray showers of sparks using firecrackers. Another traditional celebration in Catalonia is La Patum de Berga, declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the UNESCO on 25 November 2005.[178]
+
+Christmas in Catalonia lasts two days, plus Christmas Eve. On the 25th, Christmas is celebrated, followed by a similar feast on the 26, called Sant Esteve (Saint Steve's Day). This allows families to visit and dine with different sectors of the extended family, or get together with friends on the second day.
+
+One of the most deeply-rooted and curious Christmas traditions is the popular figure of the Tió de Nadal, consisting of an (often hollow) log with a face painted on it and often two little front legs appended, usually wearing a Catalan hat and scarf. Note that the word has nothing to do with the Spanish word tío, meaning uncle. Tió means log in Catalan. The log is sometimes "found in the woods" (in an event staged for children) and then adopted and taken home, where it is fed and cared for during a month or so. On Christmas Day or on Christmas Eve, a game is played where children march around the house singing a song requesting the log to poop, then they tap the log gently with a stick, as if a magic wand, to make it poop, and lo and behold, as if through magic, it poops candy, and sometimes other small gifts. Usually the larger or main gifts are brought by the Three Kings on 6 January, and the tió only brings small things.
+
+Another custom is to make a pessebre (nativity scene) in the home or in shop windows, the latter sometimes competing in originality or shear size and detail. Churches often host exhibits of numerous dioramas by nativity scene makers, or a single nativity scene they put out, and town halls generally put out a nativity scene in the central square. In Barcelona, every year, the main nativity scene is designed by different artists, and often ends up being an interesting, post-modern or conceptual and strange creation. In the home, the nativity scene often consists of strips of cork bark to represent cliffs or mountains in the background, moss as grass in the foreground, some wood chips or other as dirt, and aluminum foil for rivers and lakes. The traditional figurines often included are the three wise men on camels or horses, which are moved every day or so to go closer to the manger, a star with a long tail in the background to lead people to the spot, the annunciation with shepherds having a meal and an angel appearing (hanging from something), a washer lady washing clothes in the pond, sheep, ducks, people carrying packages on their backs, a donkey driver with a load of twigs, and atrezzo such as a starry sky, miniature towns placed in the distance, either Oriental-styled or local-looking, a bridge over the river, trees, etc.
+
+One of the most astonishing and sui-generis figurines traditionally placed in the nativity scene, to the great glee of children, is the caganer, a person depicted in the act of defecating.[179] This figurine is hidden in some corner of the nativity scene and the game is to detect it. Of course, churches forgo this figurine, and the main nativity scene of Barcelona, for instance, likewise does not feature it. The caganer is so popular it has, together with the tió, long been a major part of the Christmas markets, where they come in the guise of your favorite politicians or other famous people, as well as the traditional figures of a Catalan farmer. People often buy a figurine of a caganer in the guise of a famous person they are actually fond of, contrary to what one would imagine, though sometimes people buy a caganer in the guise of someone they dislike, although this means they have to look at them in the home...
+
+Another (extended) Christmas tradition is the celebration of the Epiphany on 6 January, which is called Reis, meaning Three Kings Day. This is every important in Catalonia and the Catalan-speaking areas, and families go to watch major parades on the eve of the Epiphany, where they can greet the kings and watch them pass by in pomp and circumstance, on floats and preceded and followed by pages, musicians, dancers, etc. They often give the kings letters with their gift requests, which are collected by the pages. On the next day, the children find the gifts the three kings brought for them.
+
+In addition to traditional local Catalan culture, traditions from other parts of Spain can be found as a result of migration from other regions, for instance the celebration of the Andalusian Feria de Abril in Catalonia.
+
+On 28 July 2010, second only after the Canary Islands, Catalonia became another Spanish territory to forbid bullfighting. The ban, which went into effect on 1 January 2012, had originated in a popular petition supported by over 180,000 signatures.[180]
+
+The sardana is considered to be the most characteristic Catalan folk dance, interpreted to the rhythm of tamborí, tible and tenora (from the oboe family), trumpet, trombó (trombone), fiscorn (family of bugles) and contrabaix with three strings played by a cobla, and are danced in a circle dance. Other tunes and dances of the traditional music are the contrapàs (obsolete today), ball de bastons (the "dance of sticks"), the moixiganga, the goigs (popular songs), the galops or the jota in the southern part. The havaneres are characteristic in some marine localities of the Costa Brava, especially during the summer months when these songs are sung outdoors accompanied by a cremat of burned rum.
+
+Art music was first developed, up to the nineteenth century and, as in much of Europe, in a liturgical setting, particularly marked by the Escolania de Montserrat. The main Western musical trends have marked these productions, medieval monodies or polyphonies, with the work of Abbot Oliba in the eleventh century or the compilation Llibre Vermell de Montserrat ("Red Book of Montserrat") from the fourteenth century. Through the Renaissance there were authors such as Pere Albert Vila, Joan Brudieu or the two Mateu Fletxa ("The Old" and "The Young"). Baroque had composers like Joan Cererols. The Romantic music was represented by composers such as Fernando Sor, Josep Anselm Clavé (father of choir movement in Catalonia and responsible of the music folk reviving) or Felip Pedrell.
+
+Modernisme also expressed in musical terms from the end of the 19th century onwards, mixing folkloric and post-romantic influences, through the works of Isaac Albéniz and Enric Granados. The avant-garde spirit initiated by the modernists is prolonged throughout the twentieth century, thanks to the activities of the Orfeó Català, a choral society founded in 1891, with its monumental concert hall, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Catalan, built by Lluís Domènech i Montaner from 1905 to 1908, the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra created in 1944 and composers, conductors and musicians engaged against the Francoism like Robert Gerhard, Eduard Toldrà and Pau Casals.
+
+Performances of opera, mostly imported from Italy, began in the 18th century, but some native operas were written as well, including the ones by Domènec Terradellas, Carles Baguer, Ramon Carles, Isaac Albéniz and Enric Granados. The Barcelona main opera house, Gran Teatre del Liceu (opened in 1847), remains one of the most important in Spain, hosting one of the most prestigious music schools in Barcelona, the Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu. Several lyrical artists trained by this institution gained international renown during the 20th century, such as Victoria de los Ángeles, Montserrat Caballé, Giacomo Aragall and Josep Carreras.
+
+Cellist Pau Casals is admired as an outstanding player. Other popular musical styles were born in the second half of the 20th century such as Nova Cançó from the 1960s with Lluís Llach and the group Els Setze Jutges, the Catalan rumba in the 1960s with Peret, Catalan Rock from the late 1970s with La Banda Trapera del Río and Decibelios for Punk Rock, Sau, Els Pets, Sopa de Cabra or Lax'n'Busto for pop rock or Sangtraït for hard rock, electropop since the 1990s with OBK and indie pop from the 1990s.
+
+Catalonia is the autonomous community, along with Madrid, that has the most media (TV, Magazines, Newspapers etc.). In Catalonia there is a wide variety of local and comarcal media. With the restoration of democracy, many newspapers and magazines, until then in the hands of the Franco government, were recovered in order to convert them into free and democratic media, while local radios and televisions were implemented.
+
+Televisió de Catalunya, which broadcasts entirely in the Catalan language, is the main Catalan public TV. It has five channels: TV3, El 33/Super3, 3/24, Esport3 and TV3CAT. In 2018, TV3 became the first television channel to be the most viewed one for nine consecutive years in Catalonia.[181][182] State televisions that broadcast in Catalonia in Spanish language include Televisión Española (with few emissions in Catalan), Antena 3, Cuatro, Telecinco, and La Sexta. Other smaller Catalan television channels include; 8TV (owned by Grup Godó), Barça TV and the local televisions, the greatest exponent of which is betevé [ca], the TV channel of Barcelona, which also broadcasts in Catalan.
+
+The two main Catalan newspapers of general information are El Periódico de Catalunya and La Vanguardia, both with editions in Catalan and Spanish. Catalan only published newspapers include Ara and El Punt Avui (from the fusion of El Punt and Avui in 2011), as well as most part of the local press. The Spanish newspapers, such as El País, El Mundo or La Razón, can be also acquired.
+
+Catalonia has a long tradition of use of radio, the first regular radio broadcast in the country was from Ràdio Barcelona in 1924.[183] Today, the public Catalunya Ràdio (owned by Catalan Media Corporation) and the private RAC 1 (belonging to Grup Godó) are the two main radios of Catalonia, both in Catalan.
+
+Regarding the cinema, after the democratic transition, three styles have dominated since then. First, auteur cinema, in the continuity of the Barcelona School, emphasizes experimentation and form, while focusing on developing social and political themes. Worn first by Josep Maria Forn or Bigas Luna, then by Marc Recha, Jaime Rosales and Albert Serra, this genre has achieved some international recognition. Then, the documentary became another genre particularly representative of contemporary Catalan cinema, boosted by Joaquim Jordà i Català and José Luis Guerín. Later, horror films and thrillers have also emerged as a specialty of the Catalan film industry, thanks in particular to the vitality of the Sitges Film Festival, created in 1968. Several directors have gained worldwide renown thanks to this genre, starting with Jaume Balagueró and his series REC (co-directed with Valencian Paco Plaza), Juan Antonio Bayona and El Orfanato or Jaume Collet-Serra with Orphan, Unknown and Non-Stop.
+
+Catalan actors have shot for Spanish and international productions, such as Sergi López.
+
+The Museum of Cinema - Tomàs Mallol Collection (Museu del Cinema - Col.lecció Tomàs Mallol in Catalan) of Girona is home of important permanent exhibitions of cinema and pre-cinema objects. Other important institutions for the promotion of cinema are the Gaudí Awards (Premis Gaudí in Catalan, which replaced from 2009 Barcelona Film Awards themselves created in 2002), serving as equivalent for Catalonia to the Spanish Goya or French César.
+
+Seny is a form of ancestral Catalan wisdom or sensibleness. It involves well-pondered perception of situations, level-headedness, awareness, integrity, and right action. Many Catalans consider seny something unique to their culture, is based on a set of ancestral local customs stemming from the scale of values and social norms of their society.
+
+Sport has a distinct importance in Catalan life and culture since the beginning of the 20th century and consequently, has a well developed sport infrastructure. The main sports are football, basketball, handball, rink hockey, tennis and motorsport.
+
+Despite the fact that the most popular sports are represented outside by the Spanish national teams, Catalonia can officially play as itself in some others, like korfball, futsal or rugby league.[184] Most of Catalan Sports Federations have a long tradition and some of them participated in the foundation of international sports federations, as the Catalan Federation of Rugby, that was one of the founder members of the Fédération Internationale de Rugby Amateur (FIRA) in 1934.[185] The majority of Catalan sport federations are part of the Sports Federation Union of Catalonia (Catalan: Unió de Federacions Esportives de Catalunya), founded in 1933.
+
+The Catalan Football Federation also periodically fields a national team against international opposition, organizing friendly matches. In the recent years they have played with Bulgaria, Argentina, Brazil, Basque Country, Colombia, Nigeria, Cape Verde and Tunisia. The biggest football clubs are FC Barcelona (also known as Barça), who have won five European Cups (UEFA Champions League), and RCD Espanyol, who have twice been runner-up of the UEFA Cup. Both play in La Liga.
+
+The Catalan waterpolo is one of the main powers of the Iberian Peninsula. The Catalans won triumphs in waterpolo competitions at European and world level by club (the Barcelona was champion of Europe in 1981/82 and the Catalonia in 1994/95) and national team (one gold and one silver in Olympic Games and World Championships). It also has many international synchronized swimming champions.
+
+Motorsport has a long tradition in Catalonia, which involving many people, with some world champions and several competitions organized since the beginning of the 20th century. The Circuit de Catalunya, built in 1991, is one of the main motorsport venues, holding the Catalan motorcycle Grand Prix, the Spanish F1 Grand Prix, a DTM race, and several other races.
+
+Catalonia hosted many relevant international sport events, such as the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, and also the 1955 Mediterranean Games, the 2013 World Aquatics Championships or the 2018 Mediterranean Games. It held annually the fourth-oldest still-existing cycling stage race in the world, the Volta a Catalunya (Tour of Catalonia).[186]
+
+Olympic Park of Montjuïc, Barcelona. At the centre, the Olympic Stadium Lluís Companys
+
+Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona
+
+Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya
+
+Pep Guardiola
+
+Catalonia has its own representative and distinctive national symbols such as:[187]
+
+Catalan gastronomy has a long culinary tradition. Various local food recipes have been described in documents dating from the fifteenth century. As with all the cuisines of the Mediterranean, Catatonian dishes make abundant use of fish, seafood, olive oil, bread and vegetables. Regional specialties include the pa amb tomàquet (bread with tomato), which consists of bread (sometimes toasted), and tomato seasoned with olive oil and salt. Often the dish is accompanied with any number of sausages (cured botifarres, fuet, iberic ham, etc.), ham or cheeses. Others dishes include the calçotada, escudella i carn d'olla, suquet de peix (fish stew), and a dessert, Catalan cream.
+
+Catalan vineyards also have several Denominacions d'Origen wines, such as: Priorat, Montsant, Penedès and Empordà. There is also a sparkling wine, the cava.[191]
+
+Catalonia is internationally recognized for its fine dining. Three of The World's 50 Best Restaurants are in Catalonia,[192] and four restaurants have three Michelin stars, including restaurants like El Bulli or El Celler de Can Roca, both of which regularly dominate international rankings of restaurants.[193]
+
+Mont-rebei Gorge, Lleida
+
+Val de Ruda, Val d'Aran
+
+Aigua Blava
+
+Montserrat
+
+Forest in the Montseny Massif
+
+Montblanc during the Medieval Week
+
+Tortosa
+
+Park Güell, Barcelona
+
+Cadaqués, Girona, close to French border
+
+Poblet Monastery
+
+Medieval Bridge of Besalú
+
+This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Catalonia". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

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+
+The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a fatal incident in the United States space program that occurred on Tuesday, January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger (OV-099) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The crew consisted of five NASA astronauts, and two payload specialists. The mission carried the designation STS-51-L and was the tenth flight for the Challenger orbiter.
+
+The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 UTC). The disintegration of the vehicle began after a joint in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The failure was caused by the failure of O-ring seals used in the joint that were not designed to handle the unusually cold conditions that existed at this launch. The seals' failure caused a breach in the SRB joint, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRB's aft field joint attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces broke up the orbiter.
+
+The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. The exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown; several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. The shuttle had no escape system,[a][1] and the impact of the crew compartment at terminal velocity with the ocean surface was too violent to be survivable.[2]
+
+The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident,[3] with the agency violating its own safety rules. NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton-Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings, but they had failed to address this problem properly. NASA managers also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning, and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors.
+
+Approximately 17 percent of the American population witnessed the launch on live television broadcast because of the presence of high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first teacher in space. Media coverage of the accident was extensive; one study reported that 85 percent of Americans surveyed had heard the news within an hour of the accident.[4] The Challenger disaster has been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.
+
+Each of the two solid rocket boosters (SRBs) was constructed of seven sections, six of which were permanently joined in pairs at the factory. For each flight, the four resulting segments were then assembled in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), with three field joints. The factory joints were sealed with asbestos-silica insulation applied over the joint, while each field joint was sealed with two rubber O-rings. After the destruction of Challenger, the number of O-rings per field joint was increased to three.[5] The seals of all of the SRB joints were required to contain the hot, high-pressure gases produced by the burning solid propellant inside, thus forcing them out of the nozzle at the aft end of each rocket.
+
+During the Space Shuttle design process, a McDonnell Douglas report in September 1971 discussed the safety record of solid rockets. While a safe abort was possible after most types of failures, one was especially dangerous: a burnthrough by hot gases of the rocket's casing. The report stated that "if burnthrough occurs adjacent to [liquid hydrogen/oxygen] tank or orbiter, timely sensing may not be feasible and abort not possible", accurately foreshadowing the Challenger accident.[6] Morton-Thiokol was the contractor responsible for the construction and maintenance of the shuttle's SRBs. As originally designed by Thiokol, the O-ring joints in the SRBs were supposed to close more tightly due to forces generated at ignition, but a 1977 test showed that when pressurized water was used to simulate the effects of booster combustion, the metal parts bent away from each other, opening a gap through which gases could leak. This phenomenon, known as "joint rotation", caused a momentary drop in air pressure. This made it possible for combustion gases to erode the O-rings. In the event of widespread erosion, a flame path could develop, causing the joint to burst—which would have destroyed the booster and the shuttle.[7]:118
+
+Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center wrote to the manager of the Solid Rocket Booster project, George Hardy, on several occasions suggesting that Thiokol's field joint design was unacceptable. For example, one engineer suggested that joint rotation would render the secondary O-ring useless, but Hardy did not forward these memos to Thiokol, and the field joints were accepted for flight in 1980.[8]
+
+Evidence of serious O-ring erosion was present as early as the second space shuttle mission, STS-2, which was flown by Columbia. Contrary to NASA regulations, the Marshall Center did not report this problem to senior management at NASA, but opted to keep the problem within their reporting channels with Thiokol. Even after the O-rings were redesignated as "Criticality 1" — meaning that their failure would result in the destruction of the Orbiter, no one at Marshall suggested that the shuttles be grounded until the flaw could be fixed.[8]
+
+After the 1984 launch of STS-41-D, flown by Discovery, the first occurrence of hot gas "blow-by" was discovered beyond the primary O-ring. In the post-flight analysis, Thiokol engineers found that the amount of blow-by was relatively small and had not impinged upon the secondary O-ring, and concluded that for future flights, the damage was an acceptable risk. However, after the Challenger disaster, Thiokol engineer Brian Russell identified this event as the first "big red flag" regarding O-ring safety.[9]
+
+By 1985, with seven of nine shuttle launches that year using boosters displaying O-ring erosion or hot gas blow-by,[10] Marshall and Thiokol realized that they had a potentially catastrophic problem on their hands. Perhaps most concerning was the launch of STS-51-B in April 1985, flown by Challenger, in which the worst O-ring damage to date was discovered in post-flight analysis. The primary O-ring of the left nozzle had been eroded so extensively that it had failed to seal, and for the first time hot gases had eroded the secondary O-ring.[11] They began the process of redesigning the joint with three inches (76 mm) of additional steel around the tang. This tang would grip the inner face of the joint and prevent it from rotating. They did not call for a halt to shuttle flights until the joints could be redesigned, but rather treated the problem as an acceptable flight risk. For example, Lawrence Mulloy, Marshall's manager for the SRB project since 1982, issued and waived launch constraints for six consecutive flights. Thiokol even went as far as to persuade NASA to declare the O-ring problem "closed".[8] Donald Kutyna, a member of the Rogers Commission, later likened this situation to an airline permitting one of its planes to continue to fly despite evidence that one of its wings was about to fall off.
+
+Challenger was originally set to launch from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 14:42 Eastern Standard Time (EST) on Wednesday, January 22, 1986. Delays in the previous mission, STS-61-C, caused the launch date to be moved to January 23 and then to January 24. The launch was rescheduled again, to Saturday, January 25, due to bad weather at the transoceanic abort landing (TAL) site in Dakar, Senegal. NASA decided to use the TAL site at Casablanca, Morocco, but because it was not equipped for night landings, the launch had to be moved to the morning. Predictions of unacceptable weather at Kennedy Space Center on January 26 caused the launch to be rescheduled for 09:37 EST on Monday, January 27.[12]
+
+The planned January 27 launch was initially delayed due to problems with the exterior access hatch. First, a micro-switch indicator malfunctioned.  Its purpose was to verify that the orbiter's hatch was safely locked.[7]:150–53 Then, a stripped bolt prevented the closeout crew from removing a closing fixture from the hatch.[7]:154 By the time repair personnel had sawed off the fixture, crosswinds at the Shuttle Landing Facility exceeded the limits for a return-to-launch-site abort. While the crew waited for the winds to die down, the launch window expired, forcing yet another scrub.[13]
+
+Forecasts for January 28 predicted an unusually cold morning, with temperatures close to −1 °C (30 °F), the minimum temperature permitted for launch. The Shuttle was never certified to operate in temperatures that low. The O-rings, as well as many other critical components, had no test data to support any expectation of a successful launch in such conditions.[14][15]
+
+By mid-1985 Thiokol engineers worried that others did not share their concerns about the low temperature effects on the boosters. Engineer Bob Ebeling in October 1985 wrote a memo—titled "Help!" so others would read it—of concerns regarding low temperatures and O-rings. After the weather forecast, NASA personnel remembered Thiokol's warnings and contacted the company. When a Thiokol manager asked Ebeling about the possibility of a launch at 18 °F (−8 °C), he answered "[W]e're only qualified to 40° [40 °F or 4 °C] ... 'what business does anyone even have thinking about 18°, we're in no-man's land.'" After his team agreed that a launch risked disaster, Thiokol immediately called NASA recommending a postponement until temperatures rose in the afternoon. NASA manager Jud Lovingood responded that Thiokol could not make the recommendation without providing a safe temperature. The company prepared for a teleconference two hours later during which it would have to justify a no-launch recommendation.[14][15]
+
+At the teleconference on the evening of January 27, Thiokol engineers and managers discussed the weather conditions with NASA managers from Kennedy Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center. Several engineers (most notably Allan McDonald, Ebeling and Roger Boisjoly) reiterated their concerns about the effect of low temperatures on the resilience of the rubber O-rings that sealed the joints of the SRBs, and recommended a launch postponement.[15] They argued that they did not have enough data to determine whether the joints would properly seal if the O-rings were colder than 54 °F (12 °C). This was an important consideration, since the SRB O-rings had been designated as a "Criticality 1" component, meaning that there was no backup if both the primary and secondary O-rings failed, and their failure could destroy the Orbiter and kill its crew.
+
+Thiokol management initially supported its engineers' recommendation to postpone the launch, but NASA staff opposed a delay. During the conference call, Hardy told Thiokol, "I am appalled. I am appalled by your recommendation." Mulloy said, "My God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch—next April?"[15] NASA believed that Thiokol's hastily prepared presentation's quality was too poor to support such a statement on flight safety.[14] One argument by NASA personnel contesting Thiokol's concerns was that if the primary O-ring failed, the secondary O-ring would still seal. This was unproven, and was in any case an argument that did not apply to a "Criticality 1" component. As astronaut Sally Ride stated when questioning NASA managers before the Rogers Commission, it is forbidden to rely on a backup for a "Criticality 1" component.
+
+NASA claimed that it did not know of Thiokol's earlier concerns about the effects of the cold on the O-rings, and did not understand that Rockwell International, the shuttle's prime contractor, additionally viewed the large amount of ice present on the pad as a constraint to launch.
+
+According to Ebeling, a second conference call was scheduled with only NASA and Thiokol management, excluding the engineers. For reasons that are unclear, Thiokol management disregarded its own engineers' warnings and now recommended that the launch proceed as scheduled;[15][16] NASA did not ask why.[14] Ebeling told his wife that night that Challenger would blow up.[17]
+
+Ken Iliff, a former NASA Chief Scientist who had worked on the Space Shuttle Program since its first mission (and the X-15 program before that), stated this in 2004:
+
+Not violating flight rules was something I had been taught on the X-15 program. It was something that we just never did. We never changed a mission rule on the fly. We aborted the mission and came back and discussed it. Violating a couple of mission rules was the primary cause of the Challenger accident.[18]
+
+The Thiokol engineers had also argued that the low overnight temperatures of 18 °F (−8 °C) projected on the day[16] prior to launch would almost certainly result in SRB temperatures below their redline of 39 °F (4 °C). Ice had accumulated all over the launch pad, raising concerns that ice could damage the shuttle upon lift-off. The Kennedy Ice Team inadvertently pointed an infrared camera at the aft field joint of the right SRB and found the temperature to be only 9 °F (−13 °C). This was believed to be the result of supercooled air blowing on the joint from the liquid oxygen (LOX) tank vent. It was much lower than the air temperature and far below the design specifications for the O-rings. The low reading was later determined to be erroneous, the error caused by not following the temperature probe manufacturer's instructions. Tests and adjusted calculations later confirmed that the temperature of the joint was not substantially different from the ambient temperature.
+
+The temperature on the day of the launch was far lower than had been the case with previous launches: below freezing at 28.0 to 28.9 °F (−2.2 to −1.7 °C); previously, the coldest launch had been at 54 °F (12 °C). Although the Ice Team had worked through the night removing ice, engineers at Rockwell still expressed concern. Rockwell engineers watching the pad from their headquarters in Downey, California, were horrified when they saw the amount of ice. They feared that during launch, ice might be shaken loose and strike the shuttle's thermal protection tiles, possibly due to the aspiration induced by the jet of exhaust gas from the SRBs. Rocco Petrone, the head of Rockwell's space transportation division, and his colleagues viewed this situation as a launch constraint, and told Rockwell's managers at the Cape that Rockwell could not support a launch. Rockwell's managers at the Cape voiced their concerns in a manner that led Houston-based mission manager Arnold Aldrich to go ahead with the launch. Aldrich decided to postpone the shuttle launch by an hour to give the Ice Team time to perform another inspection. After that last inspection, during which the ice appeared to be melting, Challenger was cleared to launch at 11:38 am EST.[16]
+
+The following account of the accident is derived from real time telemetry data and photographic analysis, as well as from transcripts of air-to-ground and mission control voice communications.[19] All times are given in seconds after launch and correspond to the telemetry time-codes from the closest instrumented event to each described event.[20]
+
+The Space Shuttle main engines (SSMEs) were ignited at T -6.6 seconds. The SSMEs were liquid-fueled and could be safely shut down (and the launch aborted if necessary) until the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) ignited at T=0 (which was at 11:38:00.010 EST) and the hold-down bolts were released with explosives, freeing the vehicle from the pad. At lift off, the three SSMEs were at 100% of their original rated performance, and began throttling up to 104% under computer control. With the first vertical motion of the vehicle, the gaseous hydrogen vent arm retracted from the external tank (ET) but failed to latch back. Review of film shot by pad cameras showed that the arm did not re-contact the vehicle, and thus it was ruled out as a contributing factor in the accident.[20] The post-launch inspection of the pad also revealed that kick springs on four of the hold-down bolts were missing, but they were similarly ruled out as a possible cause.[21]
+
+Later review of launch film showed that at T+0.678, strong puffs of dark gray smoke were emitted from the right-hand SRB near the aft strut that attached the booster to the ET. The last smoke puff occurred at about T+2.733. The last view of smoke around the strut was at T+3.375. It was later determined that these smoke puffs were caused by the opening and closing of the aft field joint of the right-hand SRB. The booster's casing had ballooned under the stress of ignition. As a result of this ballooning, the metal parts of the casing bent away from each other, opening a gap through which hot gases—above 5,000 °F (2,760 °C)—leaked. This had occurred in previous launches, but each time the primary O-ring had shifted out of its groove and formed a seal. Although the SRB was not designed to function this way, it appeared to work well enough, and Morton-Thiokol changed the design specs to accommodate this process, known as extrusion.
+
+While extrusion was taking place, hot gases leaked past (a process called "blow-by"), damaging the O-rings until a seal was made. Investigations by Morton-Thiokol engineers determined that the amount of damage to the O-rings was directly related to the time it took for extrusion to occur, and that cold weather, by causing the O-rings to harden, lengthened the time of extrusion. The redesigned SRB field joint used subsequent to the Challenger accident used an additional interlocking mortise and tang with a third O-ring, mitigating blow-by.
+
+On the morning of the disaster, the primary O-ring had become so hard due to the cold that it could not seal in time. The temperature had dropped below the glass transition temperature of the O-rings. Above the glass transition temperature, the O-rings display properties of elasticity and flexibility, while below the glass transition temperature, they become rigid and brittle. The secondary O-ring was not in its seated position due to the metal bending. There was now no barrier to the gases, and both O-rings were vaporized across 70 degrees of arc. Aluminum oxides from the burned solid propellant sealed the damaged joint, temporarily replacing the O-ring seal before flame passed through the joint.
+
+As the vehicle cleared the tower, the SSMEs were operating at 104% of their rated maximum thrust, and control switched from the Launch Control Center (LCC) at Kennedy to the Mission Control Center (MCC) at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. To prevent aerodynamic forces from structurally overloading the orbiter, at T+28 the SSMEs began throttling down to limit the velocity of the shuttle in the dense lower atmosphere, per normal operating procedure. At T+35.379, the SSMEs throttled back further to the planned 65%. Five seconds later, at about 19,000 feet (5,800 m), Challenger passed through Mach 1. At T+51.860, the SSMEs began throttling back up to 104% as the vehicle passed beyond max q, the period of maximum aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle.
+
+Beginning at about T+37 and for 27 seconds, the shuttle experienced a series of wind shear events that were stronger than on any previous flight.[22]
+
+At T+58.788, a tracking film camera captured the beginnings of a plume near the aft attach strut on the right SRB. Unknown to those on Challenger or in Houston, hot gas had begun to leak through a growing hole in one of the right-hand SRB joints. The force of the wind shear shattered the temporary oxide seal that had taken the place of the damaged O-rings, removing the last barrier to flame passing through the joint. Had it not been for the wind shear, the fortuitous oxide seal might have held through booster burnout.
+
+Within a second, the plume became well defined and intense. Internal pressure in the right SRB began to drop because of the rapidly enlarging hole in the failed joint, and at T+60.238 there was visual evidence of flame burning through the joint and impinging on the external tank.[19]
+
+At T+64.660, the plume suddenly changed shape, indicating that a leak had begun in the liquid hydrogen (LH2) tank, located in the aft portion of the external tank. The nozzles of the main engines pivoted under computer control to compensate for the unbalanced thrust produced by the booster burn-through. The pressure in the shuttle's external LH2 tank began to drop at T+66.764, indicating the effect of the leak.[19]
+
+At this stage the situation still seemed normal both to the crew and to flight controllers. At T+68, the CAPCOM Richard O. Covey informed the crew that they were "go at throttle up", and Commander Dick Scobee confirmed, "Roger, go at throttle up"; this was the last communication from Challenger on the air-to-ground loop.[19]
+
+At T+72.284, the right SRB pulled away from the aft strut attaching it to the external tank. Later analysis of telemetry data showed a sudden lateral acceleration to the right at T+72.525, which may have been felt by the crew. The last statement captured by the crew cabin recorder came just half a second after this acceleration, when Pilot Michael J. Smith said, "Uh-oh."[23] Smith may also have been responding to onboard indications of main engine performance, or to falling pressures in the external fuel tank.
+
+At T+73.124, the aft dome of the liquid hydrogen tank failed, producing a propulsive force that rammed the hydrogen tank into the LOX tank in the forward part of the ET. At the same time, the right SRB rotated about the forward attach strut, and struck the intertank structure. The external tank at this point suffered a complete structural failure, the LH2 and LOX tanks rupturing, mixing, and igniting, creating a fireball that enveloped the whole stack.[24]
+
+The breakup of the vehicle began at T+73.162 seconds and at an altitude of 48,000 feet (15 km).[25] With the external tank disintegrating (and with the semi-detached right SRB contributing its thrust on an anomalous vector), Challenger veered from its correct attitude with respect to the local airflow, resulting in a load factor of up to 20 g, well over its design limit of 5 g and was quickly ripped apart by abnormal aerodynamic forces (the orbiter did not explode as is often suggested, as the force of the external tank breakup was well within its structural limits). The two SRBs, which could withstand greater aerodynamic loads, separated from the ET and continued in uncontrolled powered flight. The SRB casings were made of half-inch-thick (12.7 mm) steel and were much stronger than the orbiter and ET; thus, both SRBs survived the breakup of the space shuttle stack, even though the right SRB was still suffering the effects of the joint burn-through that had set the destruction of Challenger in motion.[21]
+
+The more robustly constructed crew cabin also survived the breakup of the launch vehicle, as it was designed to survive 20 psi (140 kPa) while the estimated pressure it had been subjected to during orbiter breakup was only about 4–5 psi (28–34 kPa). While the SRBs were subsequently destroyed remotely by the Range Safety Officer, the detached cabin continued along a ballistic trajectory and was observed exiting the cloud of gases at T+75.237.[21] Twenty-five seconds after the breakup of the vehicle, the altitude of the crew compartment peaked at a height of 65,000 feet (20 km).[25] The cabin was stabilized during descent by the large mass of electrical wires trailing behind it. At T+76.437 the nose caps and drogue parachutes of the SRBs separated, as designed, and the drogue of the right-hand SRB was seen by a tracking camera, bearing the frustum and its location aids.[26]
+
+The Thiokol engineers who had opposed the decision to launch were watching the events on television. They had believed that any O-ring failure would have occurred at liftoff, and thus were happy to see the shuttle successfully leave the launch pad. At about one minute after liftoff, a friend of Boisjoly said to him "Oh God. We made it. We made it!" Boisjoly recalled that when the shuttle was destroyed a few seconds later, "we all knew exactly what happened".[15] Veteran astronaut Robert Crippen was preparing to command STS-62-A, scheduled for mid-year, when his crew stopped training to watch the launch. Pete Aldridge recalled, "I was waiting for the orbiter, as we all were, to come out of the smoke. But as soon as that explosion occurred, Crippen obviously knew what it was. His head dropped. I remember this so distinctly".[27]
+
+In Mission Control, there was a burst of static on the air-to-ground loop as Challenger disintegrated. Television screens showed a cloud of smoke and water vapor (the product of hydrogen+oxygen combustion) where Challenger had been, with pieces of debris falling toward the ocean. At about T+89, flight director Jay Greene prompted his Flight Dynamics Officer (FIDO) for information. FIDO responded that "the [radar] filter has discreting sources", a further indication that Challenger had broken into multiple pieces. Moments later, the Ground Control Officer reported "negative contact (and) loss of downlink" of radio and telemetry data from Challenger. Greene ordered his team to "watch your data carefully" and look for any sign that the Orbiter had escaped.
+
+At T+110.250, the range safety officer (RSO) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station sent radio signals that activated the range safety system's "destruct" packages on board both solid rocket boosters. This was a normal contingency procedure, undertaken because the RSO judged the free-flying SRBs a possible threat to land or sea. The same destruct signal would have destroyed the external tank had it not already disintegrated.[28] The SRBs were close to the end of their scheduled burn (110 seconds after launch) and had nearly exhausted their propellants when the destruct command was sent, so very little, if any, explosive force was generated by this event.
+
+Public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt reported: "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction. We have no downlink."[19]
+
+On the Mission Control loop, Greene ordered that contingency procedures be put into effect; these procedures included locking the doors of the control center, shutting down telephone communications with the outside world, and following checklists that ensured that the relevant data were correctly recorded and preserved.[29]
+
+Nesbitt relayed this information to the public: "We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded. The flight director confirms that. We are looking at checking with the recovery forces to see what can be done at this point."[19]
+
+The crew cabin, made of reinforced aluminum, was a particularly robust section of the orbiter.[30] During vehicle breakup, it detached in one piece and slowly tumbled into a ballistic arc. NASA estimated the load factor at separation to be between 12 and 20 g; within two seconds it had already dropped to below 4 g and within 10 seconds the cabin was in free fall. The forces involved at this stage were probably insufficient to cause major injury.
+
+At least some of the crew were alive and at least briefly conscious after the breakup, as three of the four recovered Personal Egress Air Packs (PEAPs) on the flight deck were found to have been activated.[31] These were those of Judith Resnik, mission specialist Ellison Onizuka, and pilot Michael J. Smith.[32] The location of Smith's activation switch, on the back side of his seat, likely indicated that either Resnik or Onizuka activated it for him. Astronaut Mike Mullane wrote that "There had been nothing in our training concerning the activation of a PEAP in the event of an in-flight emergency. The fact that Judy or El had done so for Mike Smith made them heroic in my mind."[32] Investigators found their remaining unused air supply consistent with the expected consumption during the 2-minute-and-45-second post-breakup trajectory.
+
+While analyzing the wreckage, investigators discovered that several electrical system switches on pilot Mike Smith's right-hand panel had been moved from their usual launch positions. Mike Mullane wrote, "These switches were protected with lever locks that required them to be pulled outward against a spring force before they could be moved to a new position." Later tests established that neither force of the explosion nor the impact with the ocean could have moved them, indicating that Smith made the switch changes, presumably in a futile attempt to restore electrical power to the cockpit after the crew cabin detached from the rest of the orbiter.[33]
+
+Whether the crew members remained conscious long after the breakup is unknown, and largely depends on whether the detached crew cabin maintained pressure integrity. If it did not, the time of useful consciousness at that altitude is just a few seconds; the PEAPs supplied only unpressurized air, and hence would not have helped the crew to retain consciousness. If, on the other hand, the cabin was not depressurized or only slowly depressurizing, they may have been conscious for the entire fall until impact. Recovery of the cabin found that the middeck floor had not suffered buckling or tearing, as would result from a rapid decompression, thus providing some evidence that the depressurization may not have happened suddenly.
+
+NASA routinely trained shuttle crews for splashdown events, but the cabin hit the ocean surface at roughly 207 mph (333 km/h), with an estimated deceleration at impact of well over 200 g, far beyond the structural limits of the crew compartment or crew survivability levels, and far greater than almost any automobile, aircraft, or train accident. The crew would have been torn from their seats and killed instantly by the extreme impact force.[25]
+
+On July 28, 1986, NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Flight, former astronaut Richard H. Truly, released a report on the deaths of the crew from the director of Space and Life Sciences at the Johnson Space Center, Joseph P. Kerwin. A medical doctor and former astronaut, Kerwin was a veteran of the 1973 Skylab 2 mission. According to the Kerwin Report:
+
+The findings are inconclusive. The impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface was so violent that evidence of damage occurring in the seconds which followed the disintegration was masked. Our final conclusions are:
+
+Some experts believe most if not all of the crew were alive and possibly conscious during the entire descent until impact with the ocean. Astronaut and NASA lead accident investigator Robert Overmyer said, "I not only flew with Dick Scobee, we owned a plane together, and I know Scob did everything he could to save his crew. Scob fought for any and every edge to survive. He flew that ship without wings all the way down ... they were alive."[30]
+
+During powered flight of the space shuttle, crew escape was not possible. Launch escape systems were considered several times during shuttle development, but NASA's conclusion was that the shuttle's expected high reliability would preclude the need for one. Modified SR-71 Blackbird ejection seats and full pressure suits were used for the two-man crews on the first four shuttle orbital missions, which were considered test flights, but they were removed for the "operational" missions that followed. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board later declared, after the 2003 Columbia re-entry disaster, that the space shuttle system should never have been declared operational because it is experimental by nature due to the limited number of flights as compared to certified commercial aircraft. The multi-deck design of the crew cabin precluded use of such ejection seats for larger crews. Providing some sort of launch escape system had been considered, but deemed impractical due to "limited utility, technical complexity and excessive cost in dollars, weight or schedule delays".[28][a]
+
+After the loss of Challenger, the question was re-opened, and NASA considered several different options, including ejector seats, tractor rockets, and emergency egress through the bottom of the orbiter. NASA once again concluded that all of the launch escape systems considered would be impractical due to the sweeping vehicle modifications that would have been necessary and the resultant limitations on crew size. A system was designed to give the crew the option to leave the shuttle during gliding flight, but this system would not have been usable in the Challenger situation.[34]
+
+President Ronald Reagan had been scheduled to give the 1986 State of the Union Address on the evening of the Challenger disaster. After a discussion with his aides, Reagan postponed the State of the Union, and instead addressed the nation about the disaster from the Oval Office of the White House. Reagan's national address was written by Peggy Noonan, and was listed as one of the most significant speeches of the 20th century in a survey of 137 communication scholars.[35][36] It finished with the following statement, which quoted from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr.:
+
+We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'[37]
+
+Three days later, Ronald and Nancy Reagan traveled to the Johnson Space Center to speak at a memorial service honoring the crew members, where he stated:
+
+Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain.[38]
+
+It was attended by 6,000 NASA employees and 4,000 guests,[39][40] as well as by the families of the crew.[41]:17 During the ceremony, an Air Force band led the singing of "God Bless America" as NASA T-38 Talon jets flew directly over the scene, in the traditional missing-man formation.[39][40] All activities were broadcast live by the national television networks.[39]
+
+Rumors surfaced in the weeks after the disaster that the White House itself had pressed for Challenger to launch before the scheduled January 28 State of the Union address, because Reagan had intended to mention the launch in his remarks.[42] Three weeks before the State of the Union address was to have been given, NASA did suggest that Reagan make callouts to the assumed successful Challenger launch, and to mention Christa McAuliffe's shuttle voyage as "'the ultimate field trip' of an American schoolteacher".[42] In March 1986, The White House released a copy of the original State of the Union speech as it would have been given before the disaster. In that speech, Reagan intended to mention an X-ray experiment launched on Challenger and designed by a guest he'd invited to the address, but he did not plan any other specific discussion about the launch or NASA in the address.[42][43] Inclusion of extensive discussion of NASA, the launch, or McAuliffe in the State of the Union address effectively stopped at the desk of Cabinet Secretary Alfred H. Kingon.[42] In the rescheduled State of the Union address on February 4, President Reagan did mention the deceased Challenger crew members, and modified his remarks about the X-ray experiment as "launched and lost".
+
+In the first minutes after the accident, recovery efforts were begun by NASA's Launch Recovery Director, who ordered the ships normally used by NASA for recovery of the solid rocket boosters to be sent to the location of the water impact. Search and rescue aircraft were also dispatched. At this stage, since debris was still falling, the Range Safety Officer (RSO) held both aircraft and ships out of the impact area until it was considered safe for them to enter. It was about an hour until the RSO allowed the recovery forces to begin their work.[44]
+
+The search and rescue operations that took place in the first week after the Challenger accident were managed by the Department of Defense on behalf of NASA, with assistance from the United States Coast Guard, and mostly involved surface searches. According to the Coast Guard, "the operation was the largest surface search in which they had participated."[44] This phase of operations lasted until February 7. In order to discourage scavengers, NASA did not disclose the exact location of the debris field and insisted on secrecy, utilizing code names such as "Target 67" to refer to the crew cabin and "Tom O'Malley" to refer to any crew remains.[45] Radio Shack stores in the Cape Canaveral area were soon completely sold out of radios that could tune into the frequency used by Coast Guard vessels.[45] Thereafter, recovery efforts were managed by a Search, Recovery, and Reconstruction team; its aim was to salvage debris that would help in determining the cause of the accident. Sonar, divers, remotely operated submersibles and crewed submersibles were all used during the search, which covered an area of 486 square nautical miles (1,670 km2), and took place at water depths between 70 feet (21 m) and 1,200 feet (370 m).[46] On March 7, divers from the USS Preserver identified what might be the crew compartment on the ocean floor.[47][48] The finding, along with discovery of the remains of all seven crew members, was confirmed the next day and on March 9, NASA announced the finding to the press.[49] The crew cabin was severely crushed and fragmented from the extreme impact forces; one member of the search team described it as "largely a pile of rubble with wires protruding from it". The largest intact section was the rear wall containing the two payload bay windows and the airlock. All windows in the cabin had been destroyed, with only small bits of glass still attached to the frames. Impact forces appeared to be greatest on the left side, indicating that it had struck the water in a nose-down, left-end-first position.
+
+Inside the twisted debris of the crew cabin were the bodies of the astronauts which, after weeks of immersion in salt water and exposure to scavenging marine life, were in a "semi-liquefied state that bore little resemblance to anything living".  However, according to John Devlin, the skipper of the USS Preserver, they "were not as badly mangled as you'd see in some aircraft accidents".  Lt. Cmdr James Simpson of the Coast Guard reported finding a helmet with ears and a scalp in it.[50]  Judith Resnik was the first to be removed, followed by Christa McAuliffe, with more remains retrieved over several hours. Due to the hazardous nature of the recovery operation (the cabin was filled with large pieces of protruding jagged metal), the Navy divers protested that they would not go on with the work unless the cabin was hauled onto the ship's deck.
+
+During the recovery of the remains of the crew, Gregory Jarvis's body floated out of the shattered crew compartment and was lost to the diving team. A day later, it was seen floating on the ocean's surface. It sank as a team prepared to pull it from the water. Determined not to end the recovery operations without retrieving Jarvis, Crippen rented a fishing boat at his own expense and went searching for the body. On April 15, near the end of the salvage operations, the Navy divers found Jarvis. His body had settled to the sea floor, 101.2 feet (30.8 m) below the surface, some 0.7 nautical miles (1.3 km; 0.81 mi) from the final resting place of the crew compartment. The body was recovered and brought to the surface before being processed with the other crew members and then prepared for release to Jarvis's family.[51]
+
+Navy pathologists performed autopsies on the crew members, but due to the poor condition of the bodies, the exact cause of death could not be determined for any of them. The crew transfer took place on April 29, 1986, three months and one day after the accident. Seven hearses carried the crew's remains from the Life Sciences Facility on Cape Canaveral to a waiting MAC C-141 aircraft. Their caskets were each draped with an American flag and carried past an honor guard and followed by an astronaut escort. The astronaut escorts for the Challenger crew were Dan Brandenstein, James Buchli, Norm Thagard, Charles Bolden, Tammy Jernigan, Dick Richards, and Loren Shriver. Once the crew's remains were aboard the jet, they were flown to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be processed and then released to their relatives.
+
+It had been suggested early in the investigation that the accident was caused by inadvertent detonation of the Range Safety destruct charges on the external tank, but the charges were recovered mostly intact and a quick overview of telemetry data immediately ruled out that theory.
+
+The three shuttle main engines were found largely intact and still attached to the thrust assembly despite extensive damage from impact with the ocean, marine life, and immersion in salt water. They had considerable heat damage due to a LOX-rich shutdown caused by the drop in hydrogen fuel pressure as the external tank began to fail. The memory units from Engines 1 and 2 were recovered, cleaned, and their contents analyzed, which confirmed normal engine operation until LH2 starvation began at T+72 seconds. Loss of fuel pressure and rising combustion chamber temperatures caused the computers to shut off the engines. Since there was no evidence of abnormal SSME behavior until 72 seconds (only about one second before the breakup of Challenger), the engines were ruled out as a contributing factor in the accident.
+
+Other recovered orbiter components showed no indication of pre-breakup malfunction. Recovered parts of the TDRSS satellite also did not disclose any abnormalities other than damage caused by vehicle breakup, impact, and immersion in salt water. The solid rocket motor boost stage for the payload had not ignited either and was quickly ruled out as a cause of the accident.
+
+The solid rocket booster debris had no signs of explosion (other than the Range Safety charges splitting the casings open), or propellant debonding and cracking. There was no question about the RSO manually destroying the SRBs following vehicle breakup, so the idea of the destruct charges accidentally detonating was ruled out. Premature separation of the SRBs from the stack or inadvertent activation of the recovery system was also considered, but telemetry data quickly disproved that idea. Nor was there any evidence of in-flight structural failure since visual and telemetry evidence showed that the SRBs remained structurally intact up to and beyond vehicle breakup. The aft field joint on the right SRB did show extensive burn damage.
+
+Telemetry proved that the right SRB, after the failure of the lower struts, had come loose and struck the external tank. The exact point where the struts broke could not be determined from film of the launch, nor were the struts or the adjacent section of the external tank recovered during salvage operations. Based on the location of the rupture in the right SRB, the P12 strut most likely failed first. The SRB's nose cone also exhibited some impact damage from this behavior (for comparison, the left SRB nose cone had no damage at all) and the intertank region had signs of impact damage as well. In addition, the orbiter's right wing had impact and burn damage from the right SRB colliding with it following vehicle breakup.
+
+Most of the initially considered failure modes were soon ruled out and by May 1, enough of the right solid rocket booster had been recovered to determine the original cause of the accident, and the major salvage operations were concluded. While some shallow-water recovery efforts continued, this was unconnected with the accident investigation; it aimed to recover debris for use in NASA's studies of the properties of materials used in spacecraft and launch vehicles.[44] The recovery operation was able to pull 15 short tons (14 t) of debris from the ocean; this means that 55% of Challenger, 5% of the crew cabin and 65% of the satellite cargo are still missing.[52] Some of the missing debris continued to wash up on Florida shores for some years, such as on December 17, 1996, nearly 11 years after the incident, when two large pieces of the shuttle were found at Cocoa Beach.[53] Under 18 U.S.C. § 641 it is against the law to be in possession of Challenger debris, and any newly discovered pieces must be turned over to NASA.[54]
+
+On board Challenger was an American flag, dubbed the Challenger flag, that was sponsored by Boy Scout Troop 514 of Monument, Colorado. It was recovered intact, still sealed in its plastic container.[55]
+
+A soccer ball from the personal effects locker of Mission Specialist Ellison Onizuka was also recovered intact from the wreckage, and was later flown to the International Space Station aboard Soyuz Expedition 49 by American astronaut Robert S. Kimbrough. It is currently on display at Clear Lake High School in Houston, which was attended by Onizuka's children.[56]
+
+All recovered non-organic debris from Challenger was ultimately buried in a former missile silo at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 31.
+
+The remains of the crew that were identifiable were returned to their families on April 29, 1986. Three of the crew members, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee, and Capt. Michael J. Smith, were buried by their families at Arlington National Cemetery at individual grave sites. Mission Specialist Lt Col Ellison Onizuka was buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. Ronald McNair was buried in Rest Lawn Memorial Park in Lake City, South Carolina. Christa McAuliffe was buried at Calvary Cemetery in her hometown of Concord, New Hampshire.[57] Gregory Jarvis was cremated, and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. Unidentified crew remains were buried communally at the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial in Arlington on May 20, 1986.[58]
+
+As a result of the disaster, several National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellites that only the shuttle could launch were grounded because of the accident. This was a dilemma the NRO had feared since the 1970s when the shuttle was designated as the United States' primary launch system for all government and commercial payloads.[59][60] Compounding NASA's problems were difficulties with its Titan and Delta rocket programs which suffered other unexpected rocket failures around the time of the Challenger disaster.
+
+On August 28, 1985, a Titan 34D[61] carrying a KH-11 Kennen satellite exploded after liftoff over Vandenberg Air Force Base, when the first stage propellant feed system failed. It was the first failure of a Titan missile since 1978. On April 18, 1986, another Titan 34D-9[61][62] carrying a classified payload,[62] said to be a Big Bird spy satellite, exploded at about 830 feet (250 m) above the pad after liftoff over Vandenberg AFB, when a burnthrough occurred on one of the rocket boosters. On May 3, 1986, a Delta 3914[61] carrying the GOES-G weather satellite[63] exploded 71 seconds after liftoff over Cape Canaveral Air Force Station due to an electrical malfunction on the Delta's first stage, which prompted the range safety officer on the ground to decide to destroy the rocket, just as a few of the rocket's boosters were jettisoned. As a result of these three failures, NASA decided to cancel all Titan and Delta launches from Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg for four months until the problems in the rockets' designs were solved.
+
+A separate related accident occurred at the Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada (PEPCON) plant in Henderson, Nevada. Due to the shuttle fleet being grounded, excess ammonium perchlorate that was manufactured as rocket fuel was being kept on site. This excess ammonium perchlorate later caught fire and the magnitude of the resulting explosion destroyed the PEPCON facility and the neighboring Kidd & Co marshmallow factory.[64]
+
+In the aftermath of the accident, NASA was criticized for its lack of openness with the press. The New York Times noted on the day after the accident that "neither Jay Greene, flight director for the ascent, nor any other person in the control room, was made available to the press by the space agency."[65] In the absence of reliable sources, the press turned to speculation; both The New York Times and United Press International ran stories suggesting that a fault with the space shuttle external tank had caused the accident, despite the fact that NASA's internal investigation had quickly focused in on the solid rocket boosters.[66][67] "The space agency," wrote space reporter William Harwood, "stuck to its policy of strict secrecy about the details of the investigation, an uncharacteristic stance for an agency that long prided itself on openness."[66]
+
+The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, also known as the Rogers Commission after its chairman, was formed to investigate the disaster. The commission members were Chairman William P. Rogers, Vice Chairman Neil Armstrong, David Acheson, Eugene Covert, Richard Feynman, Robert Hotz, Donald Kutyna, Sally Ride, Robert Rummel, Joseph Sutter, Arthur Walker, Albert Wheelon, and Chuck Yeager. The commission worked for several months and published a report of its findings. It found that the Challenger accident was caused by a failure in the O-rings sealing a joint on the right solid rocket booster, which allowed pressurized hot gases and eventually flame to "blow by" the O-ring and make contact with the adjacent external tank, causing structural failure. The failure of the O-rings was attributed to a faulty design, whose performance could be too easily compromised by factors including the low ambient temperature on the day of launch. The O-rings would not work properly at ambient temperatures below 50 °F (10 °C)- and it was 36 °F (2 °C) on the morning of the launch.[68][69] According to the report in July 1985, a memorandum was sent to Michael Weeks, the agency's No. 2 shuttle official, and Jesse W. Moore, the associate administrator in charge of the shuttle program, raising attention to the "failure history" of the O rings and recommending a review of the matter.
+
+More broadly, the report also considered the contributing causes of the accident. Most salient was the failure of both NASA and Morton-Thiokol to respond adequately to the danger posed by the deficient joint design. Rather than redesigning the joint, they came to define the problem as an acceptable flight risk. The report found that managers at Marshall had known about the flawed design since 1977, but never discussed the problem outside their reporting channels with Thiokol—a flagrant violation of NASA regulations. Even when it became more apparent how serious the flaw was, no one at Marshall considered grounding the shuttles until a fix could be implemented. On the contrary, Marshall managers went as far as to issue and waive six launch constraints related to the O-rings.[8] The report also strongly criticized the decision-making process that led to the launch of Challenger, saying that it was seriously flawed:[16]
+
+failures in communication ... resulted in a decision to launch 51-L based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers.[16]
+
+One of the commission's members was theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman, who was then seriously ill with cancer, was reluctant to undertake the job. He did so to find the root cause of the disaster and to speak plainly to the public about his findings.[70] 
+Before going to Washington, D.C., Feynman did his own investigation. He became suspicious about the O-rings. “O-rings show scorching in Clovis check,” he scribbled in his notes. "Once a small hole burns through generates a large hole very fast! Few seconds catastrophic failure."[71] At the start of investigation, fellow members Dr. Sally Ride and General Donald J. Kutyna told Feynman that the O-rings had not been tested at temperatures below 50 °F (10 °C).[72] During a televised hearing, Feynman demonstrated how the O-rings became less resilient and subject to seal failures at ice-cold temperatures by immersing a sample of the material in a glass of ice water. While other members of the Commission met with NASA and supplier top management, Feynman sought out the engineers and technicians for the answers.[73] He was critical of flaws in NASA's "safety culture", so much so that he threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on the reliability of the shuttle, which appeared as Appendix F.[73][74] In the appendix, he argued that the estimates of reliability offered by NASA management were wildly unrealistic, differing as much as a thousandfold from the estimates of working engineers. "For a successful technology," he concluded, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."[75]
+
+The U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology also conducted hearings and, on October 29, 1986, released its own report on the Challenger accident.[76] The committee reviewed the findings of the Rogers Commission as part of its investigation and agreed with the Rogers Commission as to the technical causes of the accident. It differed from the committee in its assessment of the accident's contributing causes:
+
+the Committee feels that the underlying problem which led to the Challenger accident was not poor communication or underlying procedures as implied by the Rogers Commission conclusion. Rather, the fundamental problem was poor technical decision-making over a period of several years by top NASA and contractor personnel, who failed to act decisively to solve the increasingly serious anomalies in the Solid Rocket Booster joints.[76]
+
+After the Challenger accident, further shuttle flights were suspended, pending the results of the Rogers Commission investigation. Whereas NASA had held an internal inquiry into the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, its actions after Challenger were more constrained by the judgment of outside bodies. The Rogers Commission offered nine recommendations on improving safety in the space shuttle program, and NASA was directed by President Reagan to report back within thirty days as to how it planned to implement those recommendations.[77]
+
+When the disaster happened, the Air Force had performed extensive modifications of its Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6, pronounced as "Slick Six") at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, for launch and landing operations of classified Shuttle launches of satellites in polar orbit, and was planning its first polar flight for October 15, 1986. Originally built for the Manned Orbital Laboratory project cancelled in 1969, the modifications were proving problematic and expensive,[78] costing over $4 billion (equivalent to $9.3 billion today). The Challenger loss motivated the Air Force to set in motion a chain of events that finally led to the May 13, 1988, decision to cancel its Vandenberg Shuttle launch plans in favor of the Titan IV uncrewed launch vehicle.
+
+In response to the commission's recommendation, NASA initiated a total redesign of the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters, which was watched over by an independent oversight group as stipulated by the commission.[77] NASA's contract with Morton-Thiokol, the contractor responsible for the solid rocket boosters, included a clause stating that in the event of a failure leading to "loss of life or mission", Thiokol would forfeit $10 million (equivalent to $23.3 million today) of its incentive fee and formally accept legal liability for the failure. After the Challenger accident, Thiokol agreed to "voluntarily accept" the monetary penalty in exchange for not being forced to accept liability.[41]:355
+
+NASA also created a new Office of Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance, headed as the commission had specified by a NASA associate administrator who reported directly to the NASA administrator. George Martin, formerly of Martin Marietta, was appointed to this position.[79] Former Challenger flight director Jay Greene became chief of the Safety Division of the directorate.[80]
+
+The unrealistically optimistic launch schedule pursued by NASA had been criticized by the Rogers Commission as a possible contributing cause to the accident. After the accident, NASA attempted to aim at a more realistic shuttle flight rate: it added another orbiter, Endeavour, to the space shuttle fleet to replace Challenger, and it worked with the Department of Defense to put more satellites in orbit using expendable launch vehicles rather than the shuttle.[81] In August 1986, President Reagan also announced that the shuttle would no longer carry commercial satellite payloads.[81] After a 32-month hiatus, the next shuttle mission, STS-26, was launched on September 29, 1988.
+
+Although changes were made by NASA after the Challenger accident, many commentators have argued that the changes in its management structure and organizational culture were neither deep nor long-lasting.
+
+After the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, attention once again focused on the attitude of NASA management towards safety issues. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) concluded that NASA had failed to learn many of the lessons of Challenger. In particular, the agency had not set up a truly independent office for safety oversight; the CAIB decided that in this area, "NASA's response to the Rogers Commission did not meet the Commission's intent".[82] The CAIB believed that "the causes of the institutional failure responsible for Challenger have not been fixed", saying that the same "flawed decision making process" that had resulted in the Challenger accident was responsible for Columbia's destruction seventeen years later.[83]
+
+While the presence of New Hampshire's Christa McAuliffe, a member of the Teacher in Space program, on the Challenger crew had provoked some media interest, there was little live broadcast coverage of the launch. The only live national TV coverage available publicly was provided by CNN.[84] Los Angeles station KNBC also carried the launch with anchor Kent Shocknek describing the tragedy as it happened.[85] Live radio coverage of the launch and explosion was heard on ABC Radio anchored by Vic Ratner and Bob Walker.[86] CBS Radio broadcast the launch live then returned to their regularly scheduled programming just a few seconds before the explosion, necessitating anchor Christopher Glenn to hastily scramble back on the air to report what had happened.[87]
+
+NBC, CBS, and ABC all broke into regular programming shortly after the accident; NBC's John Palmer announced there had been "a major problem" with the launch. Both Palmer and CBS anchor Dan Rather reacted to cameras catching live video of something descending by parachute into the area where Challenger debris was falling with confusion and speculation that a crew member may have ejected from the shuttle and survived. The shuttle had no individual ejection seats or a crew escape capsule. Mission control identified the parachute as a paramedic parachuting into the area but this was also incorrect based on internal speculation at mission control. The chute was the parachute and nose cone from one of the solid rocket boosters which had been destroyed by the range safety officer after the explosion.[88] Due to McAuliffe's presence on the mission, NASA arranged for many US public schools to view the launch live on NASA TV.[89] As a result, many who were schoolchildren in the US in 1986 had the opportunity to view the launch live. After the accident, 17 percent of respondents in one study reported that they had seen the shuttle launch, while 85 percent said that they had learned of the accident within an hour. As the authors of the paper reported, "only two studies have revealed more rapid dissemination [of news]." One of those studies is of the spread of news in Dallas after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, while the other is the spread of news among students at Kent State regarding President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death.[90] Another study noted that "even those who were not watching television at the time of the disaster were almost certain to see the graphic pictures of the accident replayed as the television networks reported the story almost continuously for the rest of the day."[91] Children were even more likely than adults to have seen the accident live, since many children—48 percent of nine- to thirteen-year-olds, according to a New York Times poll—watched the launch at school.[91]
+
+Following the day of the accident, press interest remained high. While only 535 reporters were accredited to cover the launch, three days later there were 1,467 reporters at Kennedy Space Center and another 1,040 at the Johnson Space Center. The event made headlines in newspapers worldwide.[66]
+
+The Challenger accident has frequently been used as a case study in the study of subjects such as engineering safety, the ethics of whistle-blowing, communications, group decision-making, and the dangers of groupthink. It is part of the required readings for engineers seeking a professional license in Canada and other countries.[92] Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who had warned about the effect of cold weather on the O-rings, left his job at Morton-Thiokol and became a speaker on workplace ethics.[93] He argues that the caucus called by Morton-Thiokol managers, which resulted in a recommendation to launch, "constituted the unethical decision-making forum resulting from intense customer intimidation."[94] For his honesty and integrity leading up to and directly following the shuttle disaster, Roger Boisjoly was awarded the Prize for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Many colleges and universities have also used the accident in classes on the ethics of engineering.[95][96]
+
+Information designer Edward Tufte has claimed that the Challenger accident is an example of the problems that can occur from the lack of clarity in the presentation of information. He argues that if Morton-Thiokol engineers had more clearly presented the data that they had on the relationship between low temperatures and burn-through in the solid rocket booster joints, they might have succeeded in persuading NASA managers to cancel the launch. To demonstrate this, he took all of the data he claimed the engineers had presented during the briefing, and reformatted it onto a single graph of O-ring damage versus external launch temperature, showing the effects of cold on the degree of O-ring damage. Tufte then placed the proposed launch of Challenger on the graph according to its predicted temperature at launch. According to Tufte, the launch temperature of Challenger was so far below the coldest launch, with the worst damage seen to date, that even a casual observer could have determined that the risk of disaster was severe.[97]
+
+Tufte has also argued that poor presentation of information may have also affected NASA decisions during the last flight of the space shuttle Columbia.[98]
+
+Boisjoly, Wade Robison, a Rochester Institute of Technology professor, and their colleagues have vigorously repudiated Tufte's conclusions about the Morton-Thiokol engineers' role in the loss of Challenger. First, they argue that the engineers didn't have the information available as Tufte claimed: "But they did not know the temperatures even though they did try to obtain that information. Tufte has not gotten the facts right even though the information was available to him had he looked for it."[99] They further argue that Tufte "misunderstands thoroughly the argument and evidence the engineers gave."[99] They also criticized Tufte's diagram as "fatally flawed by Tufte's own criteria. The vertical axis tracks the wrong effect, and the horizontal axis cites temperatures not available to the engineers and, in addition, mixes O-ring temperatures and ambient air temperature as though the two were the same."[99]
+
+The Challenger disaster also provided a chance to see how traumatic events affected children's psyches. The large number of children who saw the accident live or in replays the same day was well known that day, and influenced the speech President Reagan gave that evening.
+
+I want to say something to the schoolchildren of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.
+
+At least one psychological study has found that memories of the Challenger explosion were similar to memories of experiencing single, unrepeated traumas. The majority of children's memories of Challenger were often clear and consistent, and even things like personal placement such as who they were with or what they were doing when they heard the news were remembered well. In one U.S. study, children's memories were recorded and tested again. Children on the East Coast recalled the event more easily than children on the West Coast, due to the time difference. Children on the East Coast either saw the explosion on TV while in school, or heard people talking about it. On the other side of the country, most children were either on their way to school, or just beginning their morning classes. Researchers found that those children who saw the explosion on TV had a more emotional connection to the event, and thus had an easier time remembering it. After one year the children's memories were tested, and those on the East Coast recalled the event better than their West Coast counterparts. Regardless of where they were when it happened, the Challenger explosion was still an important event that many children easily remembered.[100]
+
+After the accident, NASA's Space Shuttle fleet was grounded for almost three years while the investigation, hearings, engineering redesign of the SRBs, and other behind-the-scenes technical and management reviews, changes, and preparations were taking place. At 11:37 on September 29, 1988, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off with a crew of five, all veteran astronauts,[101] from Kennedy Space Center pad 39-B. Its crew included Richard O. Covey, who had given the last status callout to Challenger before its breakup, "Challenger, go at throttle up". The shuttle carried a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-C (named TDRS-3 after deployment), which replaced TDRS-B, the satellite that was launched and lost on Challenger. The "Return to Flight" launch of Discovery also represented a test of the redesigned boosters, a shift to a more conservative stance on safety (being the first time the crew had launched in pressure suits since STS-4, the last of the four initial Shuttle test flights), and a chance to restore national pride in the American space program, especially crewed space flight. The mission, STS-26, was a success (with only two minor system failures, one of a cabin cooling system and one of a Ku-band antenna), and a regular schedule of STS flights followed, continuing without extended interruption until the 2003 Columbia disaster.
+
+Barbara Morgan, the backup for McAuliffe who trained with her in the Teacher in Space program and was at KSC watching her launch on January 28, 1986, flew on STS-118 as a Mission Specialist in August 2007.
+
+NASA had intended to send a wide range of civilian passengers into space on subsequent flights. These plans were all scrapped immediately following the Challenger disaster.
+
+NBC News's Cape Canaveral correspondent Jay Barbree was among 40 candidates in NASA's Journalist in Space Program. The first journalist was due to fly on the shuttle Challenger in September 1986. In 1984, prior to establishing the Teacher in Space Program (TISP), NASA created the Space Flight Participant Program whose aim was "to select teachers, journalists, artists, and other people who could bring their unique perspective to the human spaceflight experience as a passenger on the space shuttle."[citation needed] Notable among early potential passengers was Caroll Spinney who, from 1969–2018, played the characters Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on the children's television show Sesame Street. In 2014, after the situation was mentioned in the documentary I Am Big Bird, NASA confirmed the revelation, stating this:
+
+A review of past documentation shows there were initial conversations with Sesame Street regarding their potential participation on a Challenger flight, but that plan was never approved.
+
+Spinney went on to say that the Big Bird costuming was prohibitive in the tight quarters of the NASA Space Shuttles and they had moved on.[102]
+
+The families of the Challenger crew organized the Challenger Center for Space Science Education as a permanent memorial to the crew. Forty-three learning centers and one headquarters office have been established by this non-profit organization.[103][citation needed]
+
+The astronauts' names are among those of several astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the line of duty, listed on the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, Florida.
+
+The final episode of the second season of Punky Brewster is notable for centering on the very recent, real-life Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Punky and her classmates watched the live coverage of the shuttle launch in Mike Fulton's class. After the accident occurred, Punky is traumatized, and finds her dreams to become an astronaut are crushed. She writes a letter to NASA, and is visited by special guest star Buzz Aldrin.[104][105]
+
+Seven asteroids were named after the crew members: 3350 Scobee, 3351 Smith, 3352 McAuliffe, 3353 Jarvis, 3354 McNair, 3355 Onizuka, and 3356 Resnik. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on March 26, 1986 (M.P.C. 10550).[106]
+
+On the evening of April 5, 1986, the Rendez-vous Houston concert commemorated and celebrated the crew of the Challenger. It features a live performance by musician Jean Michel Jarre, a friend of crew member Ron McNair. McNair was supposed to play the saxophone from space during the track "Last Rendez-Vous". It was to have become the first musical piece professionally recorded in space.[citation needed] His substitute for the concert was Houston native Kirk Whalum.[citation needed]
+
+In June 1986, singer-songwriter John Denver, a pilot with a deep interest in going to space himself, released the album One World including the song "Flying For Me" as a tribute to the Challenger crew.
+
+Hard rock band Keel dedicated their 1986 album The Final Frontier to the "Astronauts of the Space Shuttle Challenger the 28 of January 1986". On the cover of the album is a stylized "space shuttle" type vehicle with the band's logo, flying over the sea.[107]
+
+Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was dedicated to the crew of the Challenger. Principal photography for The Voyage Home began four weeks after Challenger and her crew were lost.
+
+An unpainted decorative oval in the Brumidi Corridors of the United States Capitol was finished with a portrait depicting the crew by Charles Schmidt in 1987.[108] The scene was painted on canvas and then applied to the wall.[108]
+
+In 1988, seven craters on the far side of the Moon, within the Apollo Basin, were named after the fallen astronauts by the IAU.[109]
+
+In Huntsville, Alabama, home of Marshall Space Flight Center, Challenger Elementary School, Challenger Middle School, and the Ronald E. McNair Junior High School are all named in memory of the crew. Huntsville has also named new schools posthumously in memory of each of the Apollo 1 astronauts and the final Space Shuttle Columbia crew. Streets in a neighborhood established in the late-1980s in nearby Decatur are named in memory of each of the Challenger crew members (Onizuka excluded), as well as the three deceased Apollo 1 astronauts.[citation needed] Julian Harris Elementary School is located on McAuliffe Drive, and its mascot is the Challengers.
+
+The Squadron "Challenger" 17 is an Air Force unit in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets that emphasizes athletic and academic success in honor of the Challenger crew.[110] The unit was established in 1992.[111]
+
+In San Antonio, Texas, Scobee Elementary School opened in 1987, the year after the disaster. Students at the school are referred to as "Challengers". An elementary school in Nogales, Arizona, commemorates the accident in name, Challenger Elementary School, and their school motto, "Reach for the sky". The suburbs of Seattle, Washington are home to Challenger Elementary School in Issaquah, Washington[112] and Christa McAuliffe Elementary School in Sammamish, Washington.[113] and Dick Scobee Elementary in Auburn, Washington. In San Diego, California, the next-opened public middle school in the San Diego Unified School District was named Challenger Middle School.[114] The City of Palmdale, the birthplace of the entire shuttle fleet, and its neighbor City of Lancaster, California, both renamed 10th Street East, from Avenue M to Edwards Air Force Base, to Challenger Way in honor of the lost shuttle and its crew.[citation needed] This is the road that the Challenger, Enterprise, and Columbia all were towed along in their initial move from U.S. Air Force Plant 42 to Edwards AFB after completion since Palmdale airport had not yet installed the shuttle crane for placement of an orbiter on the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.[citation needed] In addition, the City of Lancaster has built Challenger Middle School, and Challenger Memorial Hall at the former site of the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, all in tribute to the Challenger shuttle and crew.[citation needed] Another school was opened in Chicago, IL as the Sharon Christa McAuliffe Elementary school.[115] The public Peers Park in Palo Alto, California features a Challenger Memorial Grove that includes redwood trees grown from seeds carried aboard Challenger in 1985.[116] In Boise, ID, Boise High School has a memorial to the Challenger astrounauts. In 1986 in Webster, Texas, the Challenger Seven Memorial Park was also dedicated in remembrance of the event.[117] Their Spirits Circle the Earth was installed in Columbus, Ohio, in 1987.
+
+In Port Saint John, Florida within Brevard County the same county that the Kennedy Space Center resides in is the Challenger 7 Elementary School which is named in memory of the seven crew members of STS-51-L.[118] There is a middle school in neighboring Rockledge, McNair Magnet School, named after astronaut Ronald McNair.[119] A middle school (formerly high school) in Mohawk, New York is named after Payload Specialist Gregory Jarvis. There are schools named in honor of Christa McAuliffe in Boynton Beach, Florida; Denver, Colorado; Riverside, California; Saratoga, California; Stockton, California; Lowell, Massachusetts; Houston, Texas; Germantown, Maryland;[120] Green Bay, Wisconsin;[121] Hastings, Minnesota;[122] Lenexa, Kansas; and Jackson, New Jersey.[123] The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, a science museum and planetarium in Concord, New Hampshire, is partly named in her honor. The draw bridge over the barge canal on State Rd.3 on Merritt Island, Florida, is named the Christa McAuliffe Memorial Bridge.[124] In Oxnard, CA, McAuliffe Elementary School is named after Christa McAuliffe, and bears tribute to the crew of the Challenger flight in its logo, with an image of the Shuttle and the motto "We Meet The Challenge." The crew and mission are also tributed by the schools mascot, The Challengers, and their saying "We Reach for the Stars."[125]
+
+The 1996 science fiction television series Space Cases is set on a spaceship known as the Christa, named in honor of Christa McAuliffe, described in the series as "an Earth teacher who died during the early days of space exploration".
+
+In 1997, playwright Jane Anderson wrote a play inspired by the Challenger incident, titled Defying Gravity.[126]
+
+In 2001, Peruvian American rapper Immortal Technique released an album titled Revolutionary Vol. 1 which contained the song Dance With The Devil. A hidden track at the conclusion of the song contains the lyrics "I'm bout to blow up like, NASA Challenger computer chips".[127]
+
+In 2004, President George W. Bush conferred posthumous Congressional Space Medals of Honor to all 14 crew members lost in the Challenger and Columbia accidents.[128]
+
+In 2009, Allan J. McDonald, former director of the Space Shuttle Solid Motor Rocket Project for Morton-Thiokol, Inc. published his book Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. Up to that point, no one directly involved in the decision to launch Challenger had published a memoir about the experience.[129]
+
+On June 14, 2011, Christian singer Adam Young, through his electronica project, released a song about the Challenger incident on his third studio album All Things Bright and Beautiful.
+
+In December 2013, Beyoncé Knowles released a song titled "XO", which begins with a sample of former NASA public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt, recorded moments after the disaster: "Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction."[130] The song raised controversy, with former NASA astronauts and families labelling Knowles's sample as "insensitive".[131] Hardeep Phull of the New York Post described the sample's presence as "tasteless",[132] and Keith Cowing of NASA Watch suggested that the usage of the clip ranged from "negligence" to "repugnant".[133] On December 30, 2013, Knowles issued a statement to ABC News, saying: "My heart goes out to the families of those lost in the Challenger disaster. The song "XO" was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones and to remind us that unexpected things happen, so love and appreciate every minute that you have with those who mean the most to you. The songwriters included the audio in tribute to the unselfish work of the Challenger crew with hope that they will never be forgotten."[134] On December 31, 2013, NASA criticized the use of the sample, stating that "The Challenger accident is an important part of our history; a tragic reminder that space exploration is risky and should never be trivialized. NASA works everyday to honor the legacy of our fallen astronauts as we carry out our mission to reach for new heights and explore the universe."[130][133]
+
+On June 16, 2015, post-metal band Vattnet Viskar released a full-length album titled Settler which was largely inspired by the Challenger accident and Christa McAuliffe in particular. The album was released in Europe on June 29. Guitarist Chris Alfieri stated in a June 17, 2015 interview with Decibel Magazine that, "Christa was from Concord, New Hampshire, the town that I live in. One of my first memories is the Challenger mission's demise, so it's a personal thing for me. But the album isn't about the explosion, it's about everything else. Pushing to become something else, something better. A transformation, and touching the divine."[135]
+
+On July 23, 2015, Australian post-rock band We Lost The Sea released an album titled Departure Songs about human sacrifice for the greater good, or for the progress of the human race itself, including the song "Challenger" which is split into two parts: "Flight" and "Swan Song".[136] The song samples audio from NASA, a William S. Burroughs lecture, reactions of people witnessing the disaster, and Ronald Reagan's national address.[137]
+
+On June 27, 2015, the "Forever Remembered" exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Florida, opened and includes a display of a section of Challenger's recovered fuselage to memorialize and honor the fallen astronauts. The exhibit was opened by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden along with family members of the crew.[138]
+
+On August 7, 2015 English singer-songwriter Frank Turner released his sixth album Positive Songs for Negative People which includes the song "Silent Key".[139]
+
+The mountain range Challenger Colles on Pluto was named in honor of the victims of the Challenger disaster.
+
+The Challenger Columbia Stadium in League City, Texas is named in honor of the victims of both the Challenger disaster as well as the Columbia disaster in 2003.
+
+A tree for each astronaut was planted in NASA's Astronaut Memorial Grove at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, not far from the Saturn V building, along with trees for each astronaut from the Apollo 1 and Columbia disasters.[140] Tours of the space center pause briefly near the grove for a moment of silence, and the trees can be seen from nearby NASA Road 1.
+
+Until 2010, the live broadcast of the launch and subsequent disaster by CNN was the only known on-location video footage from within range of the launch site. As of March 15, 2014[update], eight other motion picture recordings of the event have become publicly available:
+
+An ABC television movie titled Challenger was broadcast on February 24, 1990. It stars Barry Bostwick as Scobee, Brian Kerwin as Smith, Joe Morton as McNair, Keone Young as Onizuka, Julie Fulton as Resnik, Richard Jenkins as Jarvis, and Karen Allen as McAuliffe.[149][150][151]
+
+A BBC docudrama titled The Challenger was broadcast on March 18, 2013, based on the last of Richard Feynman's autobiographical works, What Do You Care What Other People Think? It stars William Hurt as Feynman.[152][153]
+
+A film produced by Vision Makers was released on January 25, 2019. It stars Dean Cain and Glenn Morshower and tells the story of the evening before the disaster where one engineer tried to stop the mission from launching.[154]
+
+The first episode of History Channel's documentary titled Days That Shaped America is about Challenger.[155]
+
+This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
+
+Coordinates: 28°38′24″N 80°16′48″W / 28.64000°N 80.28000°W / 28.64000; -80.28000
+

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+A disaster is a serious disruption occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.[1][2] Developing countries suffer the greatest costs when a disaster hits – more than 95 percent of all deaths caused by hazards occur in developing countries, and losses due to natural hazards are 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries than in industrialized countries.[3][4] No matter what society disasters occur in, they tend to induce change in government and social life. They may even alter the course of history by broadly affecting entire populations and exposing mismanagement or corruption regardless of how tightly information is controlled in a society.
+
+The word disaster is derived from Middle French désastre and that from Old Italian disastro, which in turn comes from the Ancient Greek pejorative prefix δυσ-, (dus-) "bad"[5] and ἀστήρ (aster), "star".[6] The root of the word disaster ("bad star" in Greek) comes from an astrological sense of a calamity blamed on the position of planets.[7]
+
+Disasters are routinely divided into natural or human-made,[8] although complex disasters, where there is no single root cause, are more common in developing countries. A specific disaster may spawn a secondary disaster that increases the impact. A classic example is an earthquake that causes a tsunami, resulting in coastal flooding. Some manufactured disasters have been ascribed to nature.[8]
+
+Some researchers also differentiate between recurring events such as seasonal flooding, and those considered unpredictable.[9]
+
+A natural disaster is a natural process or phenomenon that may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage.
+
+Various phenomena like earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, tsunamis, cyclones and pandemics are all natural hazards that kill thousands of people and destroy billions of dollars of habitat and property each year. However, the rapid growth of the world's population and its increased concentration often in hazardous environments has escalated both the frequency and severity of disasters. With the tropical climate and unstable landforms, coupled with deforestation, unplanned growth proliferation, non-engineered constructions make the disaster-prone areas more vulnerable. Developing countries suffer more or less chronically from natural disasters due to ineffective communication combined with insufficient budgetary allocation for disaster prevention and management.
+
+Human-instigated disasters are the consequence of technological or human hazards. Examples include stampedes, fires, transport accidents, industrial accidents, oil spills, terrorist attacks, 
+nuclear explosions/nuclear radiation. War and deliberate attacks may also be put in this category.
+
+Other types of induced disasters include the more cosmic scenarios of catastrophic global warming, nuclear war, and bioterrorism.
+
+One opinion argues that all disasters can be seen as human-made, due to human failure to introduce appropriate emergency management measures.[10]
+
+The following table categorizes some disasters and notes first response initiatives.[11]
+