People.

Madeleine McCann.

Madeleine was born in Leicester and lived with her family in Rothley, also in Leicestershire. At her parents' request, she was made a ward of court in England shortly after the disappearance, which gave the court statutory powers to act

Kate and Gerry McCann.

Madeleine's parents are both physicians and practising Roman Catholics. Kate Marie McCann, "née" Healy (born 1968, Huyton, near Liverpool) attended All Saints School in Anfield, then Notre Dame High School in Everton Valley, graduating in 1992 with a degree in medicine from the University of Dundee. She moved briefly into obstetrics and gynaecology, then anaesthetics, and

Tapas Seven.

The McCanns were on holiday with seven friends and eight children in all, including the McCanns' three. The nine adults dined together most evenings at 20:30 in the resort's tapas restaurant, as a result of which the media dubbed the friends the "Tapas Seven". The Tapas Seven included Fiona and David Payne, both physicians, their two children, and Fiona's mother, Dianne Webster. The McCanns had known the Paynes for years; Kate

5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, Praia da Luz.

The McCanns arrived on 28 April 2007, for their seven-night spring break in Praia da Luz, a village with a population of 1,000, known as "little Britain" because of the concentration of British homeowners and holidaymakers. They had booked through the British holiday company Mark Warner Ltd, and were placed in 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, an apartment owned by a retired teacher from Liverpool, one of several privately owned properties rented by the company.  5A was a two-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in the fifth block of a group of apartments known as Waterside Village, which lay on the perimeter of part of Mark Warner's Ocean Club resort. Matthew and Rachel Oldfield were next door in 5B, Jane Tanner and Russell O'Brien in 5D, and the Paynes and Dianne Webster on the first floor. Located on the

Thursday, 3 May 2007.

20:30: Tapas restaurant.

Thursday, 3 May, was the penultimate day of the family's holiday. Over breakfast Madeleine asked: "Why didn't you come when [her brother] and I cried last night?" After the disappearance, her parents wondered whether this meant someone had entered the children's bedroom. Her mother also noticed a large brown stain on Madeleine's pyjama top.  The children spent the morning in the resort's Kids' Club, then the family lunched at their apartment before heading to the pool. Kate took the last known photograph of Madeleine at 2:29 that afternoon, sitting by the pool next to her father and two-year-old sister. The children returned to Kids' Club, then at 18:00 their mother took them back to 5A, while their father went for a tennis lesson. The McCanns put the children to bed at around 19:00. Madeleine was left asleep in short-sleeved, pink-and-white Marks and Spencer's Eeyore pyjamas, next to her comfort blanket and a soft toy, Cuddle Cat.  At 20:30 the parents left 5A to dine with their friends in the Ocean Club's open-air tapas restaurant, located on

21:15: Tanner sighting.

The sighting by Jane Tanner, one of the Tapas Seven, of a man carrying a child that night became an important part of the early investigation. She had left the restaurant just after 21:00 to check on her own daughter, passing Madeleine's father on Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins on his way back to the restaurant from his 21:05 check. He had stopped to chat to a British holidaymaker, but neither man recalled having seen Tanner. This puzzled the Portuguese police, given how narrow the street was, and led them to accuse Tanner of having invented the sighting.  Tanner told the police that at around 21:15 she had noticed a man carrying a young child walk across the junction of Rua Dr Francisco Gentil Martins and Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva just ahead of her. He was not far from Madeleine's bedroom, heading east, away from the front of apartment 5A. In the early days of the investigation, the direction in which he was walking was thought to be

22:00: Smith sighting.

The rejection of the Tanner sighting as crucial to the timeline allowed investigators to focus on another sighting of a man carrying a child that night, this one reported to the Portuguese police on 26 May 2007 by Martin and Mary Smith, who had been in Praia da Luz on holiday from Ireland. Scotland Yard concluded in 2013 that the Smith sighting offered the approximate time of Madeleine's kidnap.  The Smiths saw the man at around 22:00 on

22:00: Reported missing.

Madeleine's mother had intended to check on the children at 21:30, but Matthew Oldfield, one of the Tapas Seven, offered to do it when he checked on his own children in the apartment next door to 5A. He noticed that the McCanns' children's bedroom door was wide open, but after hearing no noise, he left 5A without looking far enough into the bedroom to see whether Madeleine was there. He could not recall whether the bedroom window and its exterior shutter were open at this point. Early on in the investigation, the Portuguese police accused Oldfield of involvement because he had volunteered to do the check, suggesting to him that he had handed Madeleine to someone through the

Early response.

Portuguese police.

Two officers from the gendarmerie, the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), arrived at the resort at 23:10 from Lagos, five miles (8 km) away. At midnight, after briefly searching, they alerted the criminal police, the Polícia Judiciária (PJ), in nearby Portimão. Kate McCann said the PJ arrived just after 01:00. According to the PJ, they arrived within 10 minutes of being alerted. At 02:00 two patrol dogs were brought to the resort and at 08:00 four search-and-rescue dogs. Police officers had their leave cancelled and started searching waterways, wells, caves, sewers and ruins. Inspector Gonçalo Amaral, head of the PJ in Portimão, became the inquiry's coordinator.  It was widely acknowledged that mistakes were made during the so-called "golden hours" soon after the disappearance. Neither border nor marine police were given descriptions of Madeleine for many hours, and officers did not make house-to-house searches. According to Kate, roadblocks were first put in place at 10:00 the next morning. Police did not request motorway surveillance

British police.

In the UK it was agreed that Madeleine's home force, Leicestershire police—led by Chief Constable Matt Baggott—would coordinate the British response, although it remained a Portuguese inquiry. A strategic coordinating group, or "gold" group, was put together, representing Leicestershire police, the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), and the National Police Improvement Agency. The PJ gave a team from the UK

Media and PR.

A PJ officer acknowledged in 2010 that the Portuguese police had been suspicious of the McCanns from the start, because of the "media circus". Gerry McCann told "Vanity Fair" in 2008 that he had decided to "market" Madeleine to keep her in the public eye. To that end, a string of public-relations people arrived in Praia da Luz, deeply resented by the local police, who saw the media attention as counterproductive. Alex Woolfall of the British PR firm Bell Pottinger, representing Mark Warner Ltd, dealt with the media for the first ten days, then the British government sent in press officers. This was apparently unprecedented.  The first government press officer was Sheree Dodd, a former "Daily Mirror" journalist, who was followed by Clarence Mitchell, director of media monitoring for the Central Office of Information. When the government withdrew Mitchell, the McCanns hired Justine McGuinness, who was reportedly headhunted for the job. When she left, Hanover Communications took over briefly, headed by Charles Lewington, formerly John Major's private secretary. In September 2007 Brian Kennedy of Everest Windows stepped

First Portuguese inquiry (2007–2008).

First "arguido".

Twelve days after the disappearance, Robert Murat, a 34-year-old British-Portuguese property consultant, became the first "arguido". Born in Hammersmith, west London, Murat lived in his mother's house, "Casa Liliana", 150 yards (137 m) from apartment 5A in the direction in which the man in the Tanner sighting had walked. He was made an "arguido" after a "Sunday Mirror" journalist told police he had been asking about the case. The PJ had briefly signed him up as an official interpreter; he said he had wanted to help because he had a daughter in England around Madeleine's age.  Three members of the Tapas Seven—Fiona Payne, Russell O'Brien and Rachael Oldfield—said they had seen Murat outside apartment 5A shortly after the disappearance, as did an Ocean Club nanny and two British holidaymakers. This would not have been surprising considering how close Murat lived to 5A, but he and his mother said he had been at home all evening. The McCann circle was clearly suspicious of Murat: one of the McCanns' supporters offered Richard Bilton, a BBC reporter, "exclusive access to any new developments in

Witness statements.

In statements to the PJ, witnesses described men behaving oddly near apartment 5A in the days before the disappearance and on the day itself. Scotland Yard came to believe that these men may have been engaged in reconnaissance for an abduction or burglary. There had been a fourfold increase in burglaries between January and May 2007, including two in the McCanns' block in the 17 days before the disappearance, during which burglars had entered through windows. Several witnesses reported men collecting for charity. On 20 April, a bedraggled-looking man asked a tourist in her apartment near 5A for money for an orphanage in nearby Espiche; apparently there were no orphanages or similar in or near Espiche at the time. The witness described the man as pushy and intimidating. On 25 or 26 April, the tourist who rented apartment 5A before the McCanns found a man on his balcony who had entered via the steps from the street. Polite and clean-shaven, the visitor asked for money for an orphanage. On the day of the disappearance, 3 May, there were four charity collections by two

McCanns as "arguidos".

Early suspicion.

The first indication that the media were turning against the McCanns was on 6 June 2007, when a German journalist asked them during a Berlin press conference whether they were involved in the disappearance. On 30 June a 3,000-word article entitled "The Madeleine Case: A Pact of Silence" appeared in "Sol", a Portuguese weekly, stating that the McCanns were suspects, highlighting alleged inconsistencies between their statements, and implying that the Tanner sighting had been invented. The reporters had obtained the Tapas Sevens' mobile numbers and that of another witness, so it was apparent that the inquiry had a leak.  This and later articles in the Portuguese press, invariably followed up in the UK,

Portugal sends a letter rogatory.

On 28 June 2007, the McCanns suggested to the PJ that the police request help from Danie Krugel, a South African former police officer who had developed a "matter orientation system", a handheld device that he claimed could locate missing people using DNA and satellites. On hearing about this years later, one scientist said it had caused his "BS detector to go off the scale". Kate McCann wrote in 2011 that Krugel's claims made no sense, but the couple were desperate. In the second week of June they sent him hair and eyelashes from Madeleine collected from the family home by relatives in the UK. Krugel arrived in Praia da Luz on 15 July, and told the McCanns his equipment had picked up a "static signal" in an area of the beach near the Rocha Negra cliff.  The officer in charge of the

British sniffer dogs arrive.

Keela was a crime-scene-investigation (CSI) dog trained to give her handler, Martin Grime, a "passive alert" to the scent of human blood by placing her nose close to the spot, then freezing in that position. Eddie was an enhanced-victim-recovery dog (EVRD, or cadaver dog) who gave a "bark alert" to the scent of human cadavers, including shortly after the death of the subject, even if the remains were buried, incinerated, or in water. He was trained to bark only in response to that scent and not for any other reason.  The dogs arrived in Praia da Luz on 31 July 2007, and were taken to apartment 5A, nearby wasteland, and the beach. Both dogs alerted behind the sofa in the living room of 5A, and Eddie gave an alert near the wardrobe in the main bedroom. There were no alerts on the beach or wasteland. The PJ obtained warrants to search the house the McCanns had rented on Rua das Flores, and the silver Renault Scénic the couple had hired 24 days after Madeleine went missing. The house and grounds were searched on 2 August. The only

British DNA analysis.

Hair and other fibres were collected from areas in the car and apartment 5A where Keela and Eddie had given alerts, and were sent to the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in Birmingham for DNA profiling, arriving around 8 August 2007. At this point, according to the "Sunday Times", the PJ "abandoned the abduction theory". On 8 August, without waiting for the results from Birmingham, the Portuguese police called the McCanns to a meeting in Portimão, where Guilhermino Encarnação, PJ regional director, and Luis Neves, coordinator of the Direcção Central de Combate ao Banditismo in Lisbon, told them the case was now a murder inquiry. When Encarnação died of stomach cancer in 2010, "The Daily Telegraph" identified him as a major source of the leaks against the McCanns. Both the McCanns were interrogated that day; the officers suggested that Kate's

McCanns made "arguidos".

John Lowe's email was translated into Portuguese on 4 September 2007. The next day, according to Kate, the PJ proposed that, if she were to admit that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment, and that she had hidden the body, she might only serve a two-year sentence. Her husband would not be charged and would be free to leave. Both parents were given "arguido" status on 7 September, and were advised by their lawyer not to answer questions. The PJ told Gerry that Madeleine's DNA had been found in the car boot and behind the sofa in 5A. Gerry did respond to questions,

McCanns return to the UK, Almeida report.

Despite their "arguido" status, the McCanns were allowed to leave Portugal, and on legal advice did so immediately, arriving back in England on 9 September 2007. The following day Chief Inspector Tavares de Almeida of the PJ in Portimão signed a nine-page report concluding that Madeleine had died in apartment 5A as a result of an accident, that the restaurant meal and apparent regular checks on the McCann children had been part of the cover-up, that the Tapas Seven had helped to mislead the police, and that the McCanns had concealed the body then faked an abduction. An 11-page document from the Information Analysis Brigade in Lisbon analysed alleged discrepancies in the McCanns' statements. On 11 September the public prosecutor, José Cunha de Magalhães e Meneses, handed the 10-volume case file to a judge, Pedro Miguel dos Anjos Frias. Meneses applied for the seizure of Kate's diary and Gerry's laptop. The police also wanted to trace telephone calls the McCanns

Gonçalo Amaral's removal, later developments.

On 2 October 2007 Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral, the inquiry's coordinator, was removed from his post and transferred from Portimão to Faro after telling the newspaper "Diário de Notícias" that the British police had only pursued leads helpful to the McCanns. As an example, he criticized their decision to follow up an anonymous email to Prince Charles that claimed a former Ocean Club employee had taken Madeleine.  Amaral was himself made an "arguido" one day after Madeleine's disappearance, in relation to his investigation of another case, the disappearance of Joana Cipriano. The following month he was charged with making a false statement, and four other officers were charged with assault. Eight-year-old Joana Cipriano had vanished in 2004 from Figueira, seven miles (11 km) from Praia da Luz. Her body was never found, and no murder weapon was identified. Her mother and the mother's brother were convicted of her murder after confessing, but the mother retracted her confession, saying she had been beaten

Inquiry closed (21 July 2008).

On 21 July 2008 the Portuguese Attorney General, Fernando José Pinto Monteiro, announced that there was no evidence to link the McCanns or Robert Murat to the disappearance. Their "arguido" status was lifted and the case was closed. On 4 August Portugal's Ministério Público released 17 case files containing 11,233 pages on CD-ROM to the media, including 2,550 pages of sightings. The files included a 58-page prosecutors' report, which concluded: "No element

Amaral's book (24 July 2008).

The bad feeling between the McCanns and the PJ had reached such a height that Chief Inspector Gonçalo Amaral resigned in June 2008 to write a book alleging that Madeleine had died in an accident in the apartment and that, to cover it up, the McCanns had faked an abduction. Three days after the case closed, his book, "Maddie: A Verdade da Mentira" ("Maddie: The Truth of the Lie"), was published in Portugal by Guerra & Paz. By November 2008 it had sold 180,000 copies and by 2010 had been translated into six languages. A documentary based on the book was broadcast on TVI

Madeleine's Fund inquiry (2007–2011).

Raising money.

The McCanns set up Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned Ltd on 15 May 2007, 12 days after the disappearance. Over 80 million people visited the fund's website in the three months after the disappearance. From September 2007, Brian Kennedy of Everest Windows supported the couple financially, and Kennedy's lawyer joined the fund's board of directors. it had seven directors, including the McCanns.  Appeals by public figures were screened at football matches across Britain. Between May 2007 and March 2008, the fund received £1,846,178, including £1.4 million through the bank, £390,000 online, and £64,000 from merchandise. Donations included £250,000 from the "News of the

Private investigators.

Madeleine's Fund hired several firms of private investigators, causing friction with the Portuguese police. Shortly after the disappearance, an anonymous benefactor paid for the services of a British security company, Control Risks. There had reportedly been four independent sightings from North Africa; Brian Kennedy went to Morocco himself in September 2007 to look into one. A Norwegian woman had reported seeing a girl matching Madeleine's description in a petrol station near Marrakesh, Morocco, on 9 May 2007; the child had reportedly asked the man she was with, in English, "Can we see Mummy soon?" When the witness returned home to Spain, she learned about the disappearance and telephoned the Spanish police. A month later, according to Kate McCann, the police had still not formally interviewed the woman, which led the McCanns to fear that leads were not being pursued. The McCanns themselves

Oakley International.

In 2008 Madeleine's Fund hired Oakley International, a Washington, D.C.-registered detective agency, for over £500,000 for six months. (The company owner, Kevin Halligen, was arrested in 2009 in connection with an unrelated fraud allegation. He died in 2018.) Oakley sent a five-man team to Portugal. Led by Henri Exton, a former British police officer who had worked for MI5, the team engaged in undercover operations within the Ocean Club and among paedophile rings and the Roma community.  Exton questioned the significance of the Tanner sighting of a man carrying a child at 21:15 near apartment 5A, and focused instead on the Smith sighting at 22:00—the sighting by Martin and Mary Smith of a man carrying a child toward the beach. The Oakley team based on the Smiths' description. This was a sensitive issue, because on 9 September 2007 Martin Smith had watched BBC footage of the McCanns arrive in the UK from Portugal, at the height of public debate about their alleged involvement. As Gerry McCann exited the aircraft with his son in his arms, Smith believed he recognized him as the man he had seen carrying the child

Further police inquiries (2011–present).

Gamble report.

The McCanns met the British Home Secretary Alan Johnson in 2009 to request a review of the case. Johnson commissioned a scoping report from Jim Gamble, then head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). By March 2010 the Home Office had begun discussions with the Association of Chief Police Officers about setting up a British inquiry.  Delivered in May 2010, the Gamble report examined how several British agencies had become involved in the search for Madeleine,

Operation Grange.

In May 2011, under Home Secretary Theresa May, Scotland Yard launched an investigative review, Operation Grange, with a team of 29 detectives and eight civilians. The announcement of the review appeared to have been triggered by a News International campaign, by way of one of its British tabloids, "The Sun". On 11 May 2011, as it was serializing Kate McCann's book, "Madeleine", "The Sun"s front page hosted an open letter from the McCanns in which they asked Prime Minister David Cameron to set up a new inquiry; 20,000 people signed the newspaper's petition that day. On the same day, according to her testimony to the Leveson Inquiry, Theresa May spoke by telephone, at her instigation, to Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, and Dominic Mohan, editor of "The Sun". The next day she wrote to the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson, to say that the Portuguese

Theories: Planned abduction, burglary, wandered off.

DCI Redwood made clear that Operation Grange was looking at a "criminal act by a stranger", most likely a planned abduction or a burglary that Madeleine had disturbed. There had been a fourfold increase in local burglaries between January and May 2007, including two in the McCanns' block in the 17 days before the disappearance, during which intruders had entered through windows. In an interview in April 2017, just before the 10th anniversary of the disappearance, Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner, Mark Rowley, appeared to dismiss the "burglary gone wrong" hypothesis, while adding that it was "not entirely ruled out". Referring to the suspects who might have been involved in burglaries in the area, he said that police had "pretty much closed off that group of people". The remaining detectives were focusing on a small number of inquiries that they believed were significant. Also that month there were claims that Scotland Yard was looking for

Tracking mobile phone calls.

Using mobile-phone tracking techniques, and with the cooperation of over 30 countries, police traced who had used cell phones near the scene of the disappearance within the important time frame. The analysis turned up several calls and texts near the Ocean Club between a 30-year-old former Ocean Club bus driver, and his 24-year-old and 53-year-old associates. Detectives interviewed them in June 2014;

Holiday-home sexual assaults.

Scotland Yard issued another appeal in March 2014 for information about a man who had entered holiday homes occupied by British families in four incidents in the western Algarve between 2004 and 2006, two of them in Praia da Luz. On those occasions he had sexually assaulted five white girls, aged 7–10, in their beds. The man spoke

Searches and interviews in Praia da Luz.

In June 2014, officers from Scotland Yard and the PJ, accompanied by archaeologists and sniffer dogs, searched drains and dug in of wasteland in Praia da Luz. Nothing was found. The following month, at Scotland Yard's request, the PJ in Faro interviewed four Portuguese citizens, with Scotland Yard in attendance. No evidence was found to implicate them. One man, an associate of Robert Murat, was first questioned shortly after the disappearance. Pedro do Carmo, deputy director

German investigations in 2020.

In June 2020, the public prosecutor of the German city of Braunschweig ordered an inquiry regarding a possible involvement of a 43-year-old man, believed to have been living in a borrowed VW camper van in the Algarve at the time of McCann's disappearance. The suspect's car, a Jaguar XJR6, was registered to a new owner the day after McCann disappeared. The prosecutor's office started proceedings on suspicion of McCann's murder. Hans Christian Wolters, from the public prosecutor's office, stated that they are operating under the presumption that McCann is dead, due to the suspect's criminal record. The suspect, identified only as Christian B.

Other inquiries.

In the early days of the inquiry, the Portuguese police searched through images seized from paedophile investigations, and Madeleine's parents were shown photographs of sex offenders in case they recognized them from Praia de Luz. Several British paedophiles were of interest. In May 2009 investigators working for the McCanns tried to question one, Raymond Hewlett; he had allegedly told someone he knew what happened to Madeleine, but he retracted and died of cancer in Germany in December that year. Scotland Yard made inquiries about two paedophiles who had been in jail in Scotland since 2010 for murder. The men were running a window-cleaning service in the Canary Islands when Madeleine went missing.

Tabloids and social media.

"Trial by media".

Eilis O'Hanlon wrote that the disappearance "could almost stand as a metaphor for the rise of social media as the predominant mode of public discourse". Twitter, one year old when Madeleine went missing, became the source of much of the vitriol. Ten years later, the "#McCann" hashtag was still producing over 100 tweets an hour, according to researchers at the University of Huddersfield. Social media's attacks included a threat to kidnap one of the McCanns' twins, and when Scotland Yard and "Crimewatch" staged their reconstruction in 2013, there was

Libel actions.

In addition to the McCanns' legal efforts against Gonçalo Amaral and his publisher, the McCanns and Tapas Seven brought libel actions against several newspapers. The "Daily Express", "Daily Star" and their sister Sunday papers, owned by Northern & Shell, published front-page apologies in 2008 and donated £550,000 to Madeleine's Fund. The Tapas Seven were awarded £375,000 against the Express group, also donated to Madeleine's Fund, along with an apology in the "Daily Express". The McCanns received £55,000 from "The Sunday Times" in 2013 when the newspaper implied that

Netflix documentary (2019).

Netflix released an eight-part documentary series, "The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann", on 15 March 2019. Interviewees included Jim Gamble, former head of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command; Alan Johnson, former British home secretary; Brian Kennedy, the British businessman who supported the McCanns financially; Justine McGuiness, the McCanns' former spokesperson; Gonçalo Amaral, former head of the PJ investigation; Robert Murat, the first "arguido"; Julian Peribañez, a former Método 3 private investigator; Sandra Felgueiras, a Portuguese journalist who covered the disappearance; and Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, authors of "Looking for Madeleine" (2014).

Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) disappeared on the evening of 3 May 2007 from her bed in a holiday apartment at a resort in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve region of Portugal. The "Daily Telegraph" described the disappearance as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history". Her whereabouts remain unknown, and German prosecutors in 2020 have stated that they assume that she is dead.

Zmizení Madeleine McCann bylo ohlášeno 3. května 2007. Madeleine zmizela během večeře jejích britských rodičů, na dovolené v apartmánu Praia da Luz v portugalském Algarve. Policie usoudila, že bylo toto tříleté děvčátko uneseno.


History.

The Latin name "Durius" may go back to the name used by the Celtic tribes who inhabited the area before Roman times: the Celtic root is "*dubro-." In modern Welsh, "dŵr" is "water," as well as "dour" in modern Breton with cognate "dobhar" in Irish. In Roman times, the river was personified as a god, Durius.  A folk-etymological derivation suggests that the name Douro comes for the Portuguese word for "golden".  The river basin was depopulated in the 8th century, according to Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz this was a deliberate act by Alfonso I of Asturias for the defence of his Kingdom, which led the area to be named Repoblación.  The Douro "vinhateiro" (winegrowing), an area of the Douro Valley in Portugal long devoted to vineyards, has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Traditionally, the wine was taken downriver in flat-bottom boats called "rabelos," to be stored in barrels in cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia, just across the river from Porto. In the 1960s and 1970s, dams with locks were built along the river, allowing river traffic from the upper regions in Spain and along the border. Nowadays Port wine is transported to Vila Nova de Gaia in tanker trucks.  In 1998, Portugal and Spain signed the Albufeira Convention, an agreement on the sharing of trans-boundary rivers to include the Douro, Tagus and Guadiana. The convention superseded an original agreement on the Douro, signed in 1927, that was expanded in 1964 and 1968 to include tributaries.

Geography.

It is the third-longest river in the Iberian Peninsula after the Tagus and Ebro. Its total length is, of which only sections of the Portuguese extension below the fall line are navigable, by light rivercraft.  In its Spanish section, the Douro crosses the great Castilian "meseta" and meanders through five provinces of the autonomous community of Castile and León: Soria, Burgos, Valladolid, Zamora, and Salamanca, passing through the towns of Soria, Almazán, Aranda de Duero, Tordesillas, and Zamora.  In this region, there are few tributaries of the Douro. The most important are the Pisuerga, passing through Valladolid, and the Esla, which passes through Zamora. This region is generally semi-arid plains, with wheat and in some places, especially near "Aranda de Duero", with vineyards, in the Ribera del Duero wine region. Sheep rearing is also still important.  The drainage basin borders those of Miño to the north, Ebro to the east, and Tajo to the south.  For, the river forms part of the national border line between Spain and Portugal, in a region of narrow canyons. It formed a historical barrier to invasions, creating a cultural/linguistic divide. In these isolated areas, in which the Aldeadávila Dam impounds the river, there are protected areas: the International Douro Natural Park (on the Portuguese side) and the Arribes del Duero Natural Park (on the Zamoran margin).  The Douro fully enters Portuguese territory just after the confluence with the Águeda River; once the Douro enters Portugal, major population centres are less frequent along the river. Except for Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia at the river mouth, the only population centres of any note are Foz do Tua, Pinhão and Peso da Régua. Tributaries here are small, merging into the Douro along the canyons; the most important are Côa, Tua, Sabor, Corgo, Tavora, Paiva, Tâmega, and Sousa. None of these small, fast-flowing rivers is navigable.

Human geography.

Major Spanish riverside towns include Soria, Almazán, Aranda de Duero, Tordesillas, Zamora and major Portuguese towns include Miranda do Douro, Foz Côa, Peso da Régua, Lamego, Vila Nova de Gaia, and Porto. The most populous cities along the Douro River are Valladolid and Zamora in Spain, and Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia in Portugal. The latter two are located at the mouth of the Douro at the Atlantic Ocean.  In Portugal, the Douro flows through the districts of Bragança, Guarda, Viseu, Vila Real, Aveiro and Porto. Porto is the main hub city in northern Portugal. Its historic centre has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its significant architecture and history.

Economy.

These reaches of the Douro have a microclimate allowing for cultivation of olives, almonds, and especially grapes, which are important for making the famous Port wine. The region around Pinhão and São João da Pesqueira is considered to be the centre of Port wine, with its "quintas" (or farms/estates) that extend along the steep slopes of the river valleys. In the 21st century, many of these "quintas" are owned by multinational wine companies.  Recently, a prosperous tourist industry has developed based on river excursions from Porto to points along the Upper Douro valley.  The Douro railway line (in Portuguese: "Linha do Douro") was completed in 1887; it connects Porto, Rio Tinto, Ermesinde, Valongo, Paredes, Penafiel, Livração, Marco de Canaveses, Régua, Tua and Pocinho. Pocinho is near the city of Foz Côa, which is close to Côa Valley Paleolithic Art site. This is considered important to the archaeological pre-historic patrimony, and it has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Dams.

Fifteen dams have been built on the Douro to regulate the water flow, generate hydroelectric power, and allow navigation through locks. Beginning at the headwaters, the first five dams are in Spain: Cuerda del Pozo, Los Rábanos, San José, Villalcampo and Castro Dams. The next five downstream are along the Portuguese-Spanish border; the first three are owned and operated by Portugal: (Miranda, Picote and Bemposta Dams), while the next two belong to Spain: (Aldeadávila and Saucelle Dams).  The Douro's last five dams are in Portugal, and allow for navigation: Pocinho, Valeira, Régua, Carrapatelo, and Crestuma–Lever dams. Vessels with a maximum length of and width of can pass through the five locks. The highest lock, at Carrapatelo Dam, has a maximum lift of. The waters of Pocinho lake reach above sea level. Unannounced releases of water from upstream Spanish dams occasionally causes navigation issues in these locks.

The Douro (,, ; ; ) is one of the major rivers of the Iberian Peninsula, flowing from its source near Duruelo de la Sierra in Soria Province across northern-central Spain and Portugal to its outlet at Porto.

Douro (, ) je řeka ve Španělsku (Kastilie a León) a v Portugalsku (Norte) na Pyrenejském poloostrově. Částečně tvoří hranici mezi oběma zeměmi. Je 925 km dlouhá (podle některých pramenů až 938 km). V délce 112 km tvoří portugalsko-španělskou státní hranici a v délce 213 km teče Portugalskem. Povodí má rozlohu přibližně 95 000 km2.


Early life and education.

Karl Barth was born on 10 May 1886, in Basel, Switzerland, to Johann Friedrich "Fritz" Barth (1852–1912) and Anna Katharina (Sartorius) Barth (1863–1938). Karl had two younger brothers, Peter Barth (1888–1940) and Heinrich Barth (1890–1965), and two sisters, Katharina and Gertrude. Fritz Barth was a theology professor and pastor and desired for Karl to follow his positive line of Christianity, which clashed with Karl's desire to receive a liberal protestant education. Karl began his student career at the University of Bern, and then transferred to the University of Berlin to study under Adolf von Harnack, and then transferred briefly to the University of Tübingen before finally in Marburg to study under Wilhelm Herrmann (1846-1922). From 1911 to 1921 he served as a Reformed pastor in the village of Safenwil in the canton of Aargau. In 1913 he married Nelly Hoffmann, a talented violinist. They had a daughter and four sons, one of whom was the New Testament scholar Markus Barth (6 October 1915–1 July 1994). Later he was professor of theology in Göttingen (1921–1925), Münster (1925–1930) and Bonn (1930–1935), in Germany. While serving at Göttingen he met Charlotte von Kirschbaum, who became his long-time secretary and assistant; she played a large role in the writing of his epic, the "Church Dogmatics". He was deported from Germany in 1935 after he refused to sign (without modification) the Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler and went back to Switzerland and became a professor in Basel (1935–1962).

Break from Liberalism.

In August 1914, Karl Barth was dismayed to learn that his venerated teachers including Adolf von Harnack had signed the "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three German Intellectuals to the Civilized World"; as a result, Barth concluded he could not follow their understanding of the Bible and history any longer.

"The Epistle to the Romans".

Barth first began his commentary "The Epistle to the Romans" (Ger. "Der Römerbrief") in the summer of 1916 while he was still a pastor in Safenwil, with the first edition appearing in December 1918 (but with a publication date of 1919). On the strength of the first edition of the commentary, Barth was invited to teach at the University of Göttingen. Barth decided around October 1920 that he was dissatisfied with the first edition and heavily revised it the following eleven months, finishing the second edition around September 1921. Particularly in the thoroughly re-written second edition of 1922, Barth argued that the God who is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus challenges and overthrows any attempt to ally God with human cultures, achievements, or possessions. The book's popularity led to its republication and reprinting in several languages.

Barmen Declaration.

In 1934, as the Protestant Church attempted to come to terms with the Third Reich, Barth was largely responsible for the writing of the Barmen declaration (Ger. "Barmer Erklärung"). This declaration rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity by arguing that the Church's allegiance to the God of Jesus Christ should give it the impetus and resources to resist the influence of other lords, such as the German "Führer", Adolf Hitler. Barth mailed this declaration to Hitler personally. This was one of the founding documents of the Confessing Church and Barth was elected a member of its leadership council, the Bruderrat.  He was forced to resign from his professorship at the University of Bonn in 1935 for refusing to swear an oath to Hitler. Barth then returned to his native Switzerland, where he assumed a chair in systematic theology at the University of Basel. In the course of his appointment, he was required to answer a routine question asked of all Swiss civil servants: whether he supported the national defense. His answer was, "Yes, especially on the northern border!" The newspaper "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" carried his 1936 criticism of the philosopher Martin Heidegger for his support of the Nazis. In 1938 he wrote a letter to a Czech colleague Josef Hromádka in which he declared that soldiers who fought against the Third Reich were serving a Christian cause.

"Church Dogmatics".

Barth's theology found its most sustained and compelling expression in his five-volume "magnum opus", the "Church Dogmatics" (Ger. ""Kirchliche Dogmatik""). Widely regarded as an important theological work, the "Church Dogmatics" represents the pinnacle of Barth's achievement as a theologian. "Church Dogmatics" runs to over six million words and 9,000 pages – one of the longest works of systematic theology ever written. The "Church Dogmatics" is in five volumes: the Doctrine of the Word of God, the Doctrine of God, the Doctrine of Creation, the Doctrine of Reconciliation and the Doctrine of Redemption. Barth's planned fifth volume was never written and the fourth volume's final part-volume was unfinished.

Examples of Karl Barth's contributions to theology.

Some theologians have suggested that Karl Barth's greatest contributions to theology may be summarized on one sheet of paper, but others have argued that is impossible to reduce his published works in such a way. Some of Karl Barth's best ideas include the following loci:

Later life and death.

After the end of the Second World War, Barth became an important voice in support both of German penitence and of reconciliation with churches abroad. Together with Hans Iwand, he authored the Darmstadt Statement in 1947 – a more concrete statement of German guilt and responsibility for the Third Reich and Second World War than the 1945 Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt. In it, he made the point that the Church's willingness to side with anti-socialist and conservative forces had led to its susceptibility for National Socialist ideology. In the context of the developing Cold War, that controversial statement was rejected by anti-Communists in the West who supported the CDU course of re-militarization, as well as by East German dissidents who believed that it did not sufficiently depict the dangers of Communism. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. In the 1950s, Barth sympathized with the peace movement and opposed German rearmament.  Barth wrote a 1960 article for "The Christian Century" regarding the "East-West question" in which he denied any inclination toward Eastern communism and stated he did not wish to live under Communism or wish anyone to be forced to do so; he acknowledged a fundamental disagreement with most of those around him, writing: "I do not comprehend how either politics or Christianity require [sic] or even permit such a disinclination to lead to the conclusions which the West has drawn with increasing sharpness in the past 15 years. I regard anticommunism as a matter of principle an evil even greater than communism itself."  In 1962, Barth visited the United States and lectured at Princeton Theological Seminary, the University of Chicago, the Union Theological Seminary and the San Francisco Theological Seminary. He was invited to be a guest at the Second Vatican Council. At the time Barth's health did not permit him to attend. However, he was able to visit the Vatican and be a guest of the pope in 1967, after which he wrote the small volume "Ad Limina Apostolorum [At the Threshold of the Apostles]".  Barth was featured on the cover of the 20 April 1962 issue of "Time" magazine, an indication that his influence had reached out of academic and ecclesiastical circles and into mainstream American religious culture.  Barth died on 10 December 1968, at his home in Basel, Switzerland. The evening before his death, he had encouraged his lifelong friend Eduard Thurneysen that he should not be downhearted, "For things are ruled, not just in Moscow or in Washington or in Peking, but things are ruled – even here on earth—entirely from above, from heaven above.”

Theology.

Karl Barth's most significant theological work is his summa theology titled the "Church Dogmatics", which contains Barth's doctrine of the word of God, doctrine of God, doctrine of reconciliation and doctrine of redemption. Barth is most well known for reorienting all theological discussion around Jesus.

Trinitarian focus.

One major objective of Barth is to recover the doctrine of the Trinity in theology from its putative loss in liberalism. His argument follows from the idea that God is the object of God's own self-knowledge, and revelation in the Bible means the self-unveiling to humanity of the God who cannot be discovered by humanity simply through its own intuition. God's revelation comes to man'vertically from above' ("Senkrecht von Oben").

Election.

One of the most influential and controversial features of Barth's Dogmatics was his doctrine of election ("Church Dogmatics" II/2). Barth's theology entails a rejection of the idea that God chose each person to either be saved or damned based on purposes of the Divine will, and it was impossible to know why God chose some and not others.  Barth's doctrine of election involves a firm rejection of the notion of an eternal, hidden decree. In keeping with his Christo-centric methodology, Barth argues that to ascribe the salvation or damnation of humanity to an abstract absolute decree is to make some part of God more final and definitive than God's saving act in Jesus Christ. God's absolute decree, if one may speak of such a thing, is God's gracious decision to be for humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Drawing from the earlier Reformed tradition, Barth retains the notion of double predestination but makes Jesus himself the object of both divine election and reprobation simultaneously; Jesus embodies both God's election of humanity and God's rejection of human sin. While some regard this revision of the doctrine of election as an improvement on the Augustinian-Calvinist doctrine of the predestination of individuals, critics, namely Brunner, have charged that Barth's view amounts to a soft universalism, thereby departing from Augustinian-Calvinism.  Barth’s doctrine of objective atonement develops as he distances himself from Anselm of Canterbury’s doctrine of the atonement. In "The Epistle to the Romans", Barth endorses Anselm’s idea that God who is robbed of his honor must punish those who robbed him. In "Church Dogmatics" I/2, Barth advocates divine freedom in the incarnation with the support of Anselm’s "Cur Deus Homo". Barth holds that Anselm’s doctrine of the atonement preserves both God’s freedom and the necessity of Christ’s incarnation. The positive endorsement of Anselmian motives in "Cur Deus Homo" continues in "Church Dogmatics" II/1. Barth maintains with Anselm that the sin of humanity cannot be removed by the merciful act of divine forgiveness alone. In "Church Dogmatics" IV/1, however, Barth’s doctrine of the atonement diverges from that of Anselm. By over-christologizing the doctrine, Barth completes his formulation of objective atonement. He finalizes the necessity of God’s mercy at the place where Anselm firmly establishes the dignity and freedom of the will of God. In Barth’s view, God’s mercy is identified with God’s righteousness in a distinctive way where God’s mercy always takes the initiative. The change in Barth’s reception of Anselm’s doctrine of the atonement is, therefore, alleged to show that Barth’s doctrine entails support for universalism.

Salvation.

Barth argued that previous perspectives on sin and salvation, influenced by strict Calvinist thinking, sometimes misled Christians into thinking that predestination set up humanity such that the vast majority of human beings were foreseen to disobey and reject God, with damnation coming to them as a matter of fate.  Barth's view of salvation is centrally Christological, with his writings stating that in Jesus Christ the reconciliation of all of mankind to God has essentially already taken place and that through Christ man is already elect and justified.  Karl Barth denied that he was a Universalist. However, Barth asserted that eternal salvation for everyone, even those that reject God, is a possibility that is not just an open question but should be hoped for by Christians as a matter of grace; specifically, he wrote, "Even though theological consistency might seem to lead our thoughts and utterances most clearly in this direction, we must not arrogate to ourselves that which can be given and received only as a free gift", just hoping for total reconciliation.  Barth, in the words of a later scholar, went a "significant step beyond traditional theology" in that he argued against more conservative strains of Protestant Christianity in which damnation is seen as an absolute certainty for many or most people. To Barth, Christ's grace is central.

Understanding of Mary.

Unlike many Protestant theologians, Barth wrote on the topic of Mariology (the theological study of Mary). Barth's views on the subject agreed with much Roman Catholic dogma but he disagreed with the Catholic veneration of Mary. Aware of the common dogmatic tradition of the early Church, Barth fully accepted the dogma of Mary as the Mother of God, seeing a rejection of that title equivalent to rejecting the doctrine that Christ's human and divine natures are inseparable (contra the Nestorian heresy). Through Mary, Jesus belongs to the human race. Through Jesus, Mary is Mother of God.

Charlotte von Kirschbaum.

Charlotte von Kirschbaum was Barth's theological academic colleague for more than three decades. George Hunsinger summarizes the influence of von Kirschbaum on Barth's work: "As his unique student, critic, researcher, adviser, collaborator, companion, assistant, spokesperson, and confidante, Charlotte von Kirschbaum was indispensable to him. He could not have been what he was, or have done what he did, without her."  An article written in 2017 by Christiane Tietz (originally a paper she delivered at the 2016 American Academy of Religion in San Antonio, Texas) for the academic journal "Theology Today" engages letters released in both 2000 and 2008 written by Barth, Charlotte von Kirschbaum, and Nelly Barth, which discuss the complicated relationship between all three individuals that occurred over the span of 40 years. The letters published in 2008 between von Kirschbaum and Barth from 1925-1935 made public "the deep, intense, and overwhelming love between these two human beings."

In literature.

In John Updike's "Roger's Version", Roger Lambert is a professor of religion. Lambert is influenced by the works of Karl Barth. That is the primary reason that he rejects his student's attempt to use computational methods to understand God.  Harry Mulisch's "The Discovery of Heaven" makes mentions of Barth's "Church Dogmatics", as does David Markson's "The Last Novel". In the case of Mulisch and Markson, it is the ambitious nature of the "Church Dogmatics" that seems to be of significance. In the case of Updike, it is the emphasis on the idea of God as "Wholly Other" that is emphasized.  In Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead", the preacher John Ames reveres Barth's "Epistle to the Romans" and refers to it as his favorite book other than the Bible.  Whittaker Chambers cites Barth in nearly all his books: "Witness" (p. 507), "Cold Friday" (p. 194), and "Odyssey of a Friend" (pp. 201, 231).  In Flannery O'Connor's letter to Brainard Cheney, she said "I distrust folks who have ugly things to say about Karl Barth. I like old Barth. He throws the furniture around."

Center for Barth Studies.

Princeton Theological Seminary, where Barth lectured in 1962, houses the Center for Barth Studies, which is dedicated to supporting scholarship related to the life and theology of Karl Barth. The Barth Center was established in 1997 and sponsors seminars, conferences, and other events. It also holds the Karl Barth Research Collection, the largest in the world, which contains nearly all of Barth's works in English and German, several first editions of his works, and an original handwritten manuscript by Barth.

Karl Barth (; ; – ) was a Swiss Reformed theologian who is most well known for his landmark commentary "The Epistle to the Romans (1921)" (a.k.a Romans II), his involvement in the Confessing Church, and authorship of the Barmen Declaration, and especially his unfinished five volume theological summa the "Church Dogmatics" (published in twelve part-volumes between 1932-1967). Barth's influence expanded well beyond the academic realm to mainstream culture, leading him to be featured on the cover of "Time" on 20 April 1962.

Karl Barth (10. května 1886, Basilej – 10. prosince 1968, Basilej) byl švýcarský protestantský teolog, iniciátor a vůdčí osobnost tzv. dialektické teologie (zvané též teologie krize či teologie Slova). Řada autorů jej považuje za nejvýznamnějšího a nejvlivnějšího teologa 20. století.


Early life and career.

Cech was born to parents of Czech origin (his grandfather was Czech, his other grandparents were first-generation Americans) in Chicago, he grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. In junior high school, he knocked on the doors of geology professors at the University of Iowa, and asked them to discuss crystal structures, meteorites and fossils.  In 1966, he entered Grinnell College where he studied Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Inferno, constitutional history and chemistry. He married his organic chemistry lab partner, Carol Lynn Martinson, and graduated with a B.A. in 1970. In 1975, Cech completed his PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and in the same year, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he engaged in postdoctoral research. In 1978, he obtained his first faculty position at the University of Colorado where he lectured undergraduate students in chemistry and biochemistry, and where he remains on the faculty, currently as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 2000, Cech succeeded Purnell Choppin as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland. He also continues to head his biochemistry laboratory, the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Cech continues to teach undergraduate chemistry at CU-Boulder. On April 1, 2008, Cech announced that he would step down as the president of HHMI, to return to teaching and research, in spring 2009.

Research.

Cech's main research area is that of the process of transcription in the nucleus of cells. He studies how the genetic code of DNA is transcribed into RNA. In the 1970s, Cech had been studying the splicing of RNA in the unicellular organism "Tetrahymena thermophila" when he discovered that an unprocessed RNA molecule could splice itself. In 1982, Cech became the first to show that RNA molecules are not restricted to being passive carriers of genetic information – they can have catalytic functions and can participate in cellular reactions. RNA-processing reactions and protein synthesis on ribosomes in particular are catalysed by RNA. RNA enzymes are known as ribozymes and have provided a new tool for gene technology. They also have the potential to provide new therapeutic agents – for example, they have the ability to destroy and cleave invading, viral RNAs.  Cech's second area of research is on telomeres, the structure that protects the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres are shortened with every duplication of DNA, and must be lengthened again. He studies telomerase, the enzyme that copies the telomeric sequences and lengthens them. The active site protein subunits of telomerase comprise a new class of reverse transcriptases, enzymes previously thought to be restricted to viruses and transposable elements. Telomerase is activated in 90% of human cancers. Therefore, a drug that would inhibit its activity could be useful in treating cancer.

Awards.

Cech's work has been recognised by many awards and prizes including: lifetime Professorship by the American Cancer Society (1987), the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University (1988), the Heineken Prize of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (1988), the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (1988), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1989, shared with Sidney Altman), the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1990 and the National Medal of Science (1995). In 1987, Cech was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences and in 1988 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007, he received the Othmer Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to progress in chemistry and science.

Thomas Robert Cech (born December 8, 1947) is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA. He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division. As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado.

Thomas Robert Cech (* 8. prosince 1947, Chicago) je americký biochemik. V roce 1989 obdržel společně se Sidneym Altmanem Nobelovu cenu za chemii za nalezení katalytické aktivity ribonukleové kyseliny (RNA).


History.

The new DTM (2000).

During the ITC era, a large proportion of the revenue generated by the championship went to the FIA, with the result that less went to the teams who subsequently complained of little return on their increasingly large investment in the high-tech touring car series. Since 1997, many ideas had been discussed in order to find a compromise for the rules of a new DTM racing series. Opel put the primary emphasis on cost control, Mercedes-Benz supported expensive development in competition, BMW wanted an international series rather than one focused on Germany only, while Audi insisted on allowing their trademark quattro four-wheel drive system (despite running the rear wheel drive Audi R8) in sports car racing.  The DTM returned in 2000 as Mercedes and Opel had agreed to use cars that were based on the concept car that was shown by Opel on various occasions (e.g. the 1999 24 Hours Nürburgring where Opel celebrated its 100th

DTM (2000–2003).

In May 2000, the new DTM started with the traditional Hockenheimring round on the short course. Some cars competing in the race had no or few sponsorship decals. While Opel's cars could match the speed of most Mercedes cars in the 2000 season, the hastily developed Abt-Audi ended up

Ups and downs for Opel.

In 2000, Manuel Reuter came second in the championship. After that year, no Opel driver was among the top three in the overall championship, with few podium finishes and no victories for the disappointing "lightnings". On the other hand, it was Opel team boss Volker Strycek who brought a new highlight to the fans, by racing a modified DTM car on the

Audi joins DTM in 2004.

After their successes with the Audi R8 and the official support of the Abt-TT-Rs at the Nürburgring, Audi finally joined the DTM as a factory entrant in 2004. The three constructors involved decided to switch to saloon bodies. The road models used as

DTM in 2005–2006.

The championship suffered a setback in 2004 when long-time entrant Opel decided to pull out of the series at the end of the 2005 season, as part of a large cost-cutting operation in General Motors European division. Initially, the gap looked

DTM in 2007–2013.

The DTM carried on with only two manufacturers in spite of the television agreement requiring three manufacturers to participate in the series. The 2007-2009 seasons were marked by the dominance of Audi. Swede Mattias Ekström won the second of his two titles in 2007, and Timo Scheider took the driver's championship in the following two years. Mercedes-Benz were in the runner-up positions in both 2008 and 2009 (Paul di Resta in

Recent history (2014–present).

In 2014, the body shape and aerodynamic pieces of all DTM cars were modified to improve racing. The double-header races (Saturday and Sunday races) were also revived in 2015, thus switching from races with total laps run to timed races. The qualifying format was also reformatted into a single-session timed qualification (similar to the Formula One qualifying format used from

International expansion.

DTM-SuperGT unification.

In March 2010, The GT Association (the governing body of the Super GT series in Japan) initially announced that the ITR were beginning to align the technical regulations with Super GT's GT500 class and NASCAR's Grand American Road Racing Association Grand Touring division to

NASCAR Holdings / IMSA.

On 27 March 2013, the ITR and NASCAR Holdings road racing division, the International Motor Sports Association announced a North American DTM series that was scheduled to start between 2015 and 2016 based on the 2014 DTM/Class One regulations. As of 2019, a North American DTM series has yet to run, despite interest being shown by the North

Race format.

When the DTM series returned, it used a similar format to the final season of the former DTM in 1996: two races of 100 kilometres, with a short break between them. In 2001 and 2002 there was a short race of 35 kilometres as well as a long race of 100 kilometres, which included one pit stop and points scored for the top 10 as in earlier seasons. From 2003 to 2014 there was only one race, which had a distance of about 250 kilometres, and two mandatory pit stops.  For the 2015 season a new race format was

DTM drivers.

The drivers have been a mixture of young and older drivers, including well known former Formula One drivers David Coulthard, Bernd Schneider, Allan McNish, Jean Alesi, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, Ralf Schumacher, JJ Lehto, Pedro Lamy, Karl Wendlinger, Emanuele Pirro, Stefano Modena and two-time F1 world champion Mika Häkkinen. Others, such as Laurent Aïello, Tom Kristensen, Dindo Capello, Frank Biela, Marco Werner, Lucas Luhr, Alexandre Prémat, Yves Olivier, Jaroslav Janiš, and Alain Menu have made their career racing in sports cars and touring cars.  The DTM is also increasingly being used by young drivers such as Robert Wickens and Gary Paffett to jump-start their racing career in single-seaters. Wickens was in the 2012 Mercedes young driver program and in his first year of DTM. This strategy appears to have worked well for Christijan Albers, who built a reputation by

Cars and specifications.

Chassis.

The DTM is a customized mass-produced touring car. The championship controls and specifies the chassis/car and engine manufacturers that teams are allowed to use each season. The league's choice of manufacturers are changed every three years. Currently Audi and BMW provides the cars to all teams, with Audi and BMW providing the engines respectively. Opel has provided cars and engines in 2000-2005 with two different models (Astra in 2000-2003 later Vectra GTS V8 in 2004-2005). On 24 October 2004, Opel stated that it would be ending its DTM program effective with the end of the 2005 season, citing costs that exceeded value as well as company restructuring, according to then Opel Motorsport Director Volker Strycek, "The company is reviewing the prioritization, efficiency and customer focus of its spending, or instance, it is in the process of analyzing the efficiency of its advertising buying, and has decided to end its participation in DTM racing in Germany after completing the '05 season." The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters cars closely resemble public road vehicles but heavily modified into a race version. Aston Martin was also provided the cars to R-Motorsport team in 2019, but left DTM after 2020 season due to failed to secure manufacturer's engine supplier.  In 2000, Mercedes-Benz AMG came to the new DTM from the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Mercedes-Benz won their first race in 1st Hockenheimring round, as well as the series title. In July 2017, Mercedes-Benz AMG company officials announced the company's withdrawal from German touring car racing after 2018 season and the immediate discontinuation of its DTM program, coinciding with its entrance into FIA Formula E Championship in 2019, and its discontinuation of its DMSB

Engines.

First-generation.

The cars were powered by traditional classic naturally-aspirated (no turbocharger or supercharger) indirect-injected with four-stroke Otto cycle unleaded petrol-burning stock block V8 engines, with aluminium alloy blocks, DOHC valvetrain actuating four-valves per cylinder and limited to displacement since the series' resumption in 2000. These first-generation DTM car engines produced about power output at 8,500 rpm in 2000-2016 and later slightly increased to over in 2017-2018 as a result of intake air restrictor slight increase from. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz provided DTM engines with the manufacturers and models respectively (Audi has provided TT DTM later A4 DTM later A5 DTM and later RS5 DTM through its tuning partner Neil Brown Engineering in 2002 until 2018 while BMW has provided M3 DTM and later M4 DTM and also Mercedes-Benz has provided

Second-generation.

The current, second-generation Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters engine unit (known as "Class One") was introduced in 2019, the current engines are based on Japanese Super GT GT500 class engines. All Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters cars switched from outgoing traditional V8 naturally-aspirated electronic indirect multi-point injection to an all-new road car-based mass-produced fuel-efficient Inline-4 cylinder with four-stroke piston Otto cycle inter-cooled turbocharged direct injection engine from the 2019 season onwards called the "Class One" while the current coupé-style cars will also remain from 2019 beyond. This will mark the return of turbocharged engines in 2019 season for the first time since 1989 Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft season (see Turbocharger for full story). The all-new second-generation engine fuel delivery will be gasoline direct injection instead of traditional electronic indirect multi-point injection. The current second generation engines are fully based on public legal production vehicles. The power output of all-new second-generation DTM engine was increased from in 2019 and later reduced from in 2020.  Audi, BMW and HWA are currently providing DTM new generation engines with the manufacturers respectively but HWA left DTM after 2019 season due to string of poor results.  The engine components are steel/aluminium alloy blocks, DOHC

Fuel.

At its inception, all the DTM cars currently use ordinary unleaded racing fuel, which has been the "de facto" standard in German touring car racing since original DTM 1994 and the reborn of DTM in 2000 until 2019 (previously the original DTM were used leaded fuels in 1984-1993). Since the 2010 season, the fuel of all DTM cars is currently Aral Ultimate 102 RON unleaded racing fuel. In 2005-2009, the Aral Ultimate 100 RON unleaded fuel was used for all DTM cars. From

Lubricants.

The lubricant supplier of all DTM cars are mandatory recommendation by per manufacturer

Cooling components.

The car also features internal cooling upgrades, a new water radiator, radiator duct, oil/water heat exchanger, modified oil degasser, new oil and water pipes and new heat exchanger fixing brackets. PWR is the current DTM cooling component supplier since 2000.

Performance.

According to research and pre-season stability tests, the pre-2019 model can go 0 to 100 km/h in approximately 2.6 seconds. The car had a top speed of meaning that it is the second fastest touring car behind the Australian V8 Supercars.  Since DTM switched from traditional classic electronic indirect-injected V8 naturally aspirated engines to fuel-efficient direct-injected inline-4 turbocharged engines since 2019 season, the current model can go 0 to 100 km/h in approximately 2.8 seconds and now has a top speed of and thus outperforming Australian Supercars top speed (Albeit, DTM cars use 102 RON fuel compared with Australian Supercars using E85 fuel. A fair comparison would be both series cars using the same fuel type).

Balance of Performance.

In 2015, Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters were introduced the Balance of Performance (BoP) weight to improve racing spectacle. The Balance of Performance (BoP) weight regulations were the car weight allowance range must be in 2015-2016 later changed to from the mid-2017 season. The Balance of Performance (BoP) weight regulations were scrapped just before the Austrian race due to several protests and criticisms from DTM teams.

Prohibitions.

Driver aids like ABS, traction control, launch control, active suspension, cockpit-adjustable anti-roll bar and partial car-to-team

Driver safety.

The safety is very important for all Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers. Race suit, Nomex underwear, gloves, socks, boots and headsocks are requiredly by driver. Meanwhile, the helmets for all Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers are made of carbon-fibre shell,

Comparison with Formula One.

A Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters car is a single-seat touring car racing.  Over the years both Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters and Formula One race schedules are traditionally held in permanent racing courses. The increased stress and speed of these tracks mean that the cars tended to be heavier, wider and have shorter wheelbases than F1 cars (increasing stability but decreasing agility).  When the weight of the driver is factored in, a Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters car weighed over 55% more than a Formula One Car. The minimum weight for a Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters car was adjusted from based on the weight of the driver compared to the field average; with the driver included, all cars had a minimum weight of (with a Balance of Performance weight

Scoring systems.

This is the evolution of DTM points scoring system history since reborn.  Additionally, the top three placed drivers in qualifying also received points: If in the case of a tie, DTM will determine the champion based on the most first-place finishes. If there is still a tie, DTM will determine the champion by the most second-place finishes, then the most third-place finishes, etc., until a champion is determined. DTM will apply the same system to other ties in the rankings at the close of the season and at any other time during the season.

The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM, German Touring Car Masters) is a touring car series sanctioned by ITR e.V. who have been affiliated to the DMSB-FIA since 1984, respectively. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe, racing a silhouette racing car based on a mass-produced road car.

Německé mistrovství cestovních vozů známý pod zkratkou DTM (od roku 2000 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, historicky Deutsche Tourenwagen-Meisterschaft) je druh automobilových závodů konajících se na uzavřených okruzích, především v Německu. DTM bylo založeno v roce 1984. Spadá pod německý klub ADAC motorsport.


Introduction.

Coherence was originally conceived in connection with Thomas Young's double-slit experiment in optics but is now used in any field that involves waves, such as acoustics, electrical engineering, neuroscience, and quantum mechanics. Coherence describes the statistical similarity of a field (electromagnetic field, quantum wave packet etc.) at two points in space or time. The property of coherence is the basis for commercial applications such as holography, the Sagnac gyroscope, radio antenna arrays, optical coherence tomography and telescope interferometers (astronomical optical interferometers and radio telescopes).

Mathematical definition.

A precise definition is given at degree of coherence.  The coherence function between two signals formula_1 and formula_2 is defined as  where formula_4 is the cross-spectral density of the signal and formula_5 and formula_6 are the power spectral density functions of formula_1 and formula_2, respectively. The cross-spectral density and the power spectral density are defined as the Fourier transforms of the cross-correlation and the autocorrelation signals, respectively. For instance, if the signals are functions of time, the cross-correlation is a measure of the similarity of the two signals as a function of the time lag relative to each other and the autocorrelation is a measure of the similarity of each signal with itself in different instants of time. In this case the coherence is a function of frequency. Analogously, if formula_1 and formula_2 are functions of space, the cross-correlation measures the similarity of two signals in different points in space and the autocorrelations the similarity of the signal relative to itself for a certain separation distance. In that case, coherence is a function of wavenumber (spatial frequency).  The coherence varies in the interval formula_11. If formula_12 it means that the signals are perfectly correlated or linearly related and if formula_13 they are totally uncorrelated. If a linear system is being measured, formula_1 being the input and formula_2 the output, the coherence function will be unitary all over the spectrum. However, if non-linearities are present in the system the coherence will vary in the limit given above.

Coherence and correlation.

The coherence of two waves expresses how well correlated the waves are as quantified by the cross-correlation function. The cross-correlation quantifies the ability to predict the phase of the second wave by knowing the phase of the first. As an example, consider two waves perfectly correlated for all times. At any time, phase difference will be constant. If, when combined, they exhibit perfect constructive interference, perfect destructive interference, or something in-between but with constant phase difference, then it follows that they are perfectly coherent. As will be discussed below, the second wave need not be a separate entity. It could be the first wave at a different time or position. In this case, the measure of correlation is the autocorrelation function (sometimes called self-coherence). Degree of correlation involves correlation functions.

Examples of wave-like states.

These states are unified by the fact that their behavior is described by a wave equation or some generalization thereof.  In most of these systems, one can measure the wave directly. Consequently, its correlation with another wave can simply be calculated. However, in optics one cannot measure the electric field directly as it oscillates much faster than any detector's time resolution. Instead, we measure the intensity of the light. Most of the concepts involving coherence which will be introduced below were developed in the field of optics and then used in other fields. Therefore, many of the standard measurements of coherence are indirect measurements, even in fields where the wave can be measured directly.

Temporal coherence.

Temporal coherence is the measure of the average correlation between the value of a wave and itself delayed by τ, at any pair of times. Temporal coherence tells us how monochromatic a source is. In other words, it characterizes how well a wave can interfere with itself at a different time. The delay over which the phase or amplitude wanders by a significant amount (and hence the correlation decreases by significant amount) is defined as the coherence time "τ". At a delay of τ=0 the degree of coherence is perfect, whereas it drops significantly as the delay passes "τ=τ". The coherence length "L" is defined as the distance the wave travels in time τ.  One should be careful not to confuse the coherence time with the time duration of the signal, nor the coherence length with the coherence area (see below).

The relationship between coherence time and bandwidth.

It can be shown that the larger the range of frequencies Δf a wave contains, the faster the wave decorrelates (and hence the smaller τ is). Thus there is a tradeoff:  Formally, this follows from the convolution theorem in mathematics, which relates the Fourier transform of the power spectrum (the intensity of each frequency) to its autocorrelation.

Examples of temporal coherence.

We consider four examples of temporal coherence.  Monochromatic sources are usually lasers; such high monochromaticity implies long coherence lengths (up to hundreds of meters). For example, a stabilized and monomode helium–neon laser can easily produce light with coherence lengths of 300 m. Not all lasers are monochromatic, however (e.g. for a mode-locked Ti-sapphire laser, Δλ ≈ 2 nm - 70 nm). LEDs are characterized by Δλ ≈ 50 nm, and tungsten filament lights exhibit Δλ ≈ 600 nm, so these sources have shorter coherence times than the most monochromatic lasers.  Holography requires light with a long coherence time. In contrast, optical coherence tomography, in its classical version, uses light with a short coherence time.

Measurement of temporal coherence.

In optics, temporal coherence is measured in an interferometer such as the Michelson interferometer or Mach–Zehnder interferometer. In these devices, a wave is combined with a copy of itself that is delayed by time τ. A detector measures the time-averaged intensity of the light exiting the interferometer. The resulting interference visibility (e.g. see Figure 4) gives the temporal coherence at delay τ. Since for most natural light sources, the coherence time is much shorter than the time resolution of any detector, the detector itself does the time averaging. Consider the example shown in Figure 3. At a fixed delay, here 2τ, an infinitely fast detector would measure an intensity that fluctuates significantly over a time "t" equal to τ. In this case, to find the temporal coherence at 2τ, one would manually time-average the intensity.

Spatial coherence.

In some systems, such as water waves or optics, wave-like states can extend over one or two dimensions. Spatial coherence describes the ability for two points in space, "x" and "x", in the extent of a wave to interfere, when averaged over time. More precisely, the spatial coherence is the cross-correlation between two points in a wave for all times. If a wave has only 1 value of amplitude over an infinite length, it is perfectly spatially coherent. The range of separation between the two points over which there is significant interference defines the diameter of the coherence area, "A" (Coherence length, often a feature of a source, is usually an industrial term related to the coherence time of the source, not the coherence area in the medium.) A is the relevant type of coherence for the Young's double-slit interferometer. It is also used in optical imaging systems and particularly in various types of astronomy telescopes. Sometimes people also use "spatial coherence" to refer to the visibility when a wave-like state is combined with a spatially shifted copy of itself.

Examples of spatial coherence.

Consider a tungsten light-bulb filament. Different points in the filament emit light independently and have no fixed phase-relationship. In detail, at any point in time the profile of the emitted light is going to be distorted. The profile will change randomly over the coherence time formula_17. Since for a white-light source such as a light-bulb formula_17 is small, the filament is considered a spatially incoherent source. In contrast, a radio antenna array, has large spatial coherence because antennas at opposite ends of the array emit with a fixed phase-relationship. Light waves produced by a laser often have high temporal and spatial coherence (though the degree of coherence depends strongly on the exact properties of the laser). Spatial coherence of laser beams also manifests itself as speckle patterns and diffraction fringes seen at the edges of shadow.  Holography requires temporally and spatially coherent light. Its inventor, Dennis Gabor, produced successful holograms more than ten years before lasers were invented. To produce coherent light he passed the monochromatic light from an emission line of a mercury-vapor lamp through a pinhole spatial filter.  In February 2011 it was reported that helium atoms, cooled to near absolute zero / Bose–Einstein condensate state, can be made to flow and behave as a coherent beam as occurs in a laser.

Spectral coherence.

Waves of different frequencies (in light these are different colours) can interfere to form a pulse if they have a fixed relative phase-relationship (see Fourier transform). Conversely, if waves of different frequencies are not coherent, then, when combined, they create a wave that is continuous in time (e.g. white light or white noise). The temporal duration of the pulse formula_19 is limited by the spectral bandwidth of the light formula_20 according to:  which follows from the properties of the Fourier transform and results in Küpfmüller's uncertainty principle (for quantum particles it also results in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle).  If the phase depends linearly on the frequency (i.e. formula_22) then the pulse will have the minimum time duration for its bandwidth (a "transform-limited" pulse), otherwise it is chirped (see dispersion).

Measurement of spectral coherence.

Measurement of the spectral coherence of light requires a nonlinear optical interferometer, such as an intensity optical correlator, frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG), or spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER).

Polarization and coherence.

Light also has a polarization, which is the direction in which the electric field oscillates. Unpolarized light is composed of incoherent light waves with random polarization angles. The electric field of the unpolarized light wanders in every direction and changes in phase over the coherence time of the two light waves. An absorbing polarizer rotated to any angle will always transmit half the incident intensity when averaged over time.  If the electric field wanders by a smaller amount the light will be partially polarized so that at some angle, the polarizer will transmit more than half the intensity. If a wave is combined with an orthogonally polarized copy of itself delayed by less than the coherence time, partially polarized light is created.  The polarization of a light beam is represented by a vector in the Poincaré sphere. For polarized light the end of the vector lies on the surface of the sphere, whereas the vector has zero length for unpolarized light. The vector for partially polarized light lies within the sphere

Applications.

Holography.

Coherent superpositions of "optical wave fields" include holography. Holographic objects are used frequently in daily life in bank notes and credit cards.

Non-optical wave fields.

Further applications concern the coherent superposition of "non-optical wave fields". In quantum mechanics for example one considers a probability field, which is related to the wave function formula_23 (interpretation: density of the probability amplitude). Here the applications concern, among others, the future technologies of quantum computing and the already available technology of quantum cryptography. Additionally the problems of the following subchapter are treated.

Modal Analysis.

Coherence is used to check the quality of the transfer functions (FRFs) being measured. Low coherence can be caused by poor signal to noise ratio, and/or inadequate frequency resolution.

Quantum coherence.

In quantum mechanics, all objects have wave-like properties (see de Broglie waves). For instance, in Young's double-slit experiment electrons can be used in the place of light waves. Each electron's wave-function goes through both slits, and hence has two separate split-beams that contribute to the intensity pattern on a screen. According to standard wave theory these two contributions give rise to an intensity pattern of bright bands due to constructive interference, interlaced with dark bands due to destructive interference, on a downstream screen. This ability to interfere and diffract is related to coherence (classical or quantum) of the waves produced at both slits. The association of an electron with a wave is unique to quantum theory.  When the incident beam is represented by a quantum pure state, the split beams downstream of the two slits are represented as a superposition of the pure states representing each split beam. The quantum description of imperfectly coherent paths is called a mixed state. A perfectly coherent state has a density matrix (also called the "statistical operator") that is a projection onto the pure coherent state and is equivalent to a wave function, while a mixed state is described by a classical probability distribution for the pure states that make up the mixture.  Macroscopic scale quantum coherence leads to novel phenomena, the so-called macroscopic quantum phenomena. For instance, the laser, superconductivity and superfluidity are examples of highly coherent quantum systems whose effects are evident at the macroscopic scale. The macroscopic quantum coherence (off-diagonal long-range order, ODLRO) for superfluidity, and laser light, is related to first-order (1-body) coherence/ODLRO, while superconductivity is related to second-order coherence/ODLRO. (For fermions, such as electrons, only even orders of coherence/ODLRO are possible.) For bosons, a Bose–Einstein condensate is an example of a system exhibiting macroscopic quantum coherence through a multiple occupied single-particle state.  The classical electromagnetic field exhibits macroscopic quantum coherence. The most obvious example is the carrier signal for radio and TV. They satisfy Glauber's quantum description of coherence.  Recently M. B. Plenio and co-workers constructed an operational formulation of quantum coherence as a resource theory. They introduced coherence monotones analogous to the entanglement monotones. Quantum coherence has been shown to be equivalent to quantum entanglement in the sense that coherence can be faithfully described as entanglement, and conversely that each entanglement measure corresponds to a coherence measure.

In physics, two wave sources are perfectly coherent if their frequency and waveform are identical and their phase difference is constant. Coherence is an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e. temporally and spatially constant) interference. It contains several distinct concepts, which are limiting cases that never quite occur in reality but allow an understanding of the physics of waves, and has become a very important concept in quantum physics. More generally, coherence describes all properties of the correlation between physical quantities of a single wave, or between several waves or wave packets.

Koherencí rozumíme vzájemnou souvislost fáze a amplitudy vlnění vycházejících buď ze dvou různých míst na povrchu zářícího tělesa (koherence prostorová) nebo vlnění vycházejícího z jednoho místa, avšak s určitým časovým odstupem (koherence časová).


Geography.

The area of the province is.  The city of Dobrovelychkivka is the geographical center of Ukraine.

History.

The oblast was created as part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on January 10, 1939 out of the northern raions of Mykolaiv Oblast. In 1954 the oblast lost some raions to the newly created Cherkasy Oblast, but later that year received its western raions from the Odessa Oblast.

Points of interest.

The following sites were nominated for the Seven Wonders of Ukraine:

Administrative divisions.

The Kirovohrad Oblast is administratively subdivided into 21 raions (districts) as well as 4 cities (municipalities) which are directly subordinate to the oblast government: Oleksandriia, Svitlovodsk, Znamianka, and the administrative center of the oblast, Kropyvnytskyi.  Note: Asterisks (*) Though the administrative center of the rayon is housed in the city/town that it is named after, cities do not answer to the rayon authorities only towns do; instead they are directly subordinated to the oblast government and therefore are not counted as part of rayon statistics.

Nomenclature.

Most of Ukraine's oblasts are named after their capital cities, officially referred to as "oblast centers" (, translit. "oblasnyi tsentr"). The name of each oblast is a relative adjective, formed by adding a feminine suffix to the name of respective center city: "Kirovohrad" is the center of the "Kirovohrads’ka oblast’" (Kirovohrad Oblast). Most oblasts are also sometimes referred to in a feminine noun form, following the convention of traditional regional place names, ending with the suffix "-shchyna", as is the case with the Kirovohrad Oblast, "Kirovohradshchyna".

Kirovohrad Oblast (, translit. "Kirovohrads’ka oblast’"; also referred to as Kirovohradschyna - ) is an oblast (province) of Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kropyvnytskyi, formerly known as Kirovohrad. Its population is. Between 1939 and 2016, Kropyvnytskyi was called Kirovohrad and was named after the First Secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Sergei Kirov. Due to decommunization laws (on 14 July 2016) the name of the city was changed to Kropyvnytskyi. Kirovohrad Oblast was not renamed because as such it is mentioned in the Constitution of Ukraine, and the Oblast can only be renamed by a constitutional amendment. On 20 June 2018, the Committee on State Building, Regional Policy and Local Self-Government of the Ukrainian parliament backed the proposal to rename Kirovohrad Oblast to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast. In February 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared constitutional the bill on renaming Kirovohrad Oblast to Kropyvnytskyi Oblast.

Kirovohradská oblast (ukrajinsky Кіровоградська область [Kirovohrads’ka oblasť]; někdy též Кіровоградщина / "Kirovohradščyna") je jednou z 24 samosprávných oblastí Ukrajiny. Rozkládá se v geografickém středu země; hlavním městem je Kropyvnyckyj (245 000 obyv.); dalším významnějším městem je železniční uzel Oleksandrija. Oblast byla ustavena 10. ledna 1939. Na východě zasahuje oblast k řece Dněpr, napříč západní částí pak protéká Jižní Buh.