Etymology.

The earliest variant of the name that became "Tennessee" was recorded by Captain Juan Pardo, the Spanish explorer, when he and his men passed through an American Indian village named "Tanasqui" in 1567 while traveling inland from South Carolina. In the early 18th century, British traders encountered a Cherokee town named Tanasi (or "Tanase") in present-day Monroe County, Tennessee. The town was located on a river of the same name (now known as the Little Tennessee River), and appears on maps as early as 1725. It is not known whether this was the same town as the one encountered by Juan Pardo, although recent research suggests that Pardo's "Tanasqui" was located at the confluence of the Pigeon River and the French Broad River, near modern Newport.  The meaning and origin of the word are uncertain. Some accounts suggest it is a Cherokee modification of an earlier Yuchi word. It has been said to mean "meeting place", "winding river", or "river of the great bend". According to ethnographer James Mooney, the name "can not be analyzed" and its meaning is lost.  The modern spelling, "Tennessee", is attributed to James Glen, the governor of South Carolina, who used this spelling in his official correspondence during the 1750s. The spelling was popularized by the publication of Henry Timberlake's "" in 1765. In 1788, North Carolina created "Tennessee County", the third county to be established in what is now Middle Tennessee. (Tennessee County was the predecessor to present-day Montgomery and Robertson counties.) When a constitutional convention met in 1796 to organize a new state out of the Southwest Territory, it adopted "Tennessee" as the name of the state.

Nickname.

Tennessee is known as The Volunteer State, a nickname some claimed was earned during the War of 1812 because of the prominent role played by volunteer soldiers from Tennessee, especially during the Battle of New Orleans. Other sources differ on the origin of the state

Geography.

Tennessee borders eight other states: Kentucky and Virginia to the north; North Carolina to the east; Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi on the south; Arkansas and Missouri on the Mississippi River to the west. Tennessee is tied with Missouri as the state bordering the most other states. The state is trisected by the Tennessee River.  The highest point in the state is Clingmans Dome at. Clingmans Dome, which lies on Tennessee's eastern border, is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail, and is the third highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River. The state line between Tennessee and North Carolina crosses the summit. The state's lowest point is the Mississippi River at the Mississippi state line:. The geographical center of the state is located in Murfreesboro.  The state of Tennessee is geographically, culturally, economically, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions: East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee. The state constitution allows no more than two justices of the five-member Tennessee Supreme Court to be from one Grand Division and a similar rule applies to certain commissions and boards.  Tennessee features six principal physiographic regions: the Blue Ridge, the Appalachian Ridge and Valley Region, the Cumberland Plateau, the Highland Rim, the Nashville Basin, and the Gulf Coastal Plain. Tennessee is home to the most caves in the United States, with more than ten thousand documented.

East Tennessee.

The Blue Ridge area lies on the eastern edge of Tennessee, which borders North Carolina. This region of Tennessee is characterized by the high mountains and rugged terrain of the western Blue Ridge Mountains, which are subdivided into several subranges, namely the Great Smoky Mountains, the Bald Mountains, the Unicoi Mountains, the Unaka Mountains and Roan Highlands, and the Iron Mountains.  The average elevation of the Blue Ridge area is above sea level. Clingmans Dome, the state's highest point, is located in this region. The Blue Ridge area was never more than sparsely populated, and today much of it is protected by the Cherokee National Forest, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and several federal wilderness areas and state parks. Stretching west from the Blue Ridge for approximately is the Ridge and Valley region, in which numerous tributaries join to form the Tennessee River in the Tennessee Valley.

Middle Tennessee.

West of the Cumberland Plateau is the Highland Rim, an elevated plain that surrounds the Nashville Basin. The northern section of the Highland Rim, known for its high tobacco production, is sometimes called the Pennyroyal Plateau; it is located primarily in Southwestern Kentucky. The Nashville Basin is characterized by rich, fertile farm country and great diversity of natural wildlife.  Middle Tennessee was a common destination of settlers crossing the Appalachians from Virginia in the late 18th century and early

West Tennessee.

West of the Highland Rim and Nashville Basin is the Gulf Coastal Plain, which includes the Mississippi embayment. The Gulf Coastal Plain is, in terms of area, the predominant land region in Tennessee. It is part of the large geographic land area that begins at the Gulf of Mexico and extends north into southern Illinois. In Tennessee, the Gulf Coastal Plain is divided into three sections that extend from the Tennessee River in the east to the Mississippi River in the west.  The easternmost section, about in width, consists of hilly land that runs along

Public lands.

Areas under the control and management of the National Park Service include the following:  Fifty-four state parks, covering some as well as parts of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Cherokee National

Climate.

Most of the state has a humid subtropical climate, with the exception of some of the higher elevations in the Appalachians, which are classified as having a mountain temperate or humid continental climate due to cooler temperatures. The Gulf of Mexico is the dominant factor in the climate of Tennessee, with winds from the south being responsible for most of the state's annual precipitation. Generally, the state has hot summers and mild to cool winters with generous precipitation throughout the year, with highest average monthly precipitation generally in the winter and spring months, between December and April. The driest months, on average, are August to October. On average the state receives of precipitation annually. Snowfall ranges from in West Tennessee to over in the highest mountains in East Tennessee.  Summers in the state are generally hot and humid, with most of the state averaging a high of around during the summer months. Winters tend

Major cities.

The capital and largest city is Nashville, though Knoxville, Kingston, and Murfreesboro have all served as state capitals in the past. Nashville's 13-county metropolitan area has been the state's largest since c. 1990. Memphis was the

History.

Early history.

The area now known as Tennessee was first inhabited by Paleo-Indians nearly 12,000 years ago. The names of the cultural groups who inhabited the area between first settlement and the time of European contact are unknown, but several distinct cultural phases have been named by archaeologists, including Archaic (8000–1000 BC), Woodland (1000 BC1000 AD), and Mississippian (1000–1600 AD), whose chiefdoms were the cultural predecessors of the Muscogee people who inhabited the Tennessee River Valley before Cherokee migration into the river's headwaters.  The first recorded European excursions into what is now called Tennessee were three expeditions led by Spanish explorers, namely Hernando de Soto in 1540, Tristan de Luna

Statehood and increasing settlement.

Tennessee was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796 as the 16th state. It was the first state created from territory under the jurisdiction of the United States federal government. Apart from the former Thirteen Colonies only Vermont and Kentucky predate Tennessee's statehood, and neither was ever a federal territory. The Constitution of the State of Tennessee, Article I, Section 31, states that the beginning point for identifying the boundary is the extreme height of the Stone Mountain, at the place where the line of Virginia intersects it, and basically runs the extreme heights of mountain chains through the Appalachian Mountains separating North Carolina from Tennessee past the Native American towns of Cowee and Old Chota, thence along the main ridge of the said mountain (Unicoi Mountain) to the southern boundary of the state; all the territory, lands and waters lying west of said line are

Civil War and Reconstruction.

In February 1861, secessionists in Tennessee's state government—led by Governor Isham Harris—sought voter approval for a convention to sever ties with the United States, but Tennessee voters rejected the referendum by a 54–46% margin. The strongest opposition to secession came from East Tennessee, which later tried to form a separate Union-aligned state. Following the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter in April and Lincoln's call for troops from Tennessee and other states in response, Governor Isham Harris began military mobilization, submitted an ordinance of secession to the General Assembly, and made direct overtures to the Confederate government. The Tennessee legislature ratified an agreement to enter a military league with the Confederate States on May 7, 1861. On June 8, 1861, with people in Middle Tennessee having significantly changed their position, voters

20th century.

On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the thirty-sixth and final state necessary to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provided women the right to vote. Disenfranchising voter registration requirements continued to keep most African Americans and many poor whites, both men and women, off the voter rolls.  The need to create work for the unemployed during the Great Depression, a desire for rural electrification, the need to control annual spring flooding and improve shipping capacity on the Tennessee River were all factors that drove the federal creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in 1933. Through the power of the TVA projects, Tennessee quickly became the nation's largest public utility supplier.  During World War II, the availability of abundant TVA electrical power led the Manhattan Project to locate one of the principal sites for production and isolation of weapons-grade fissile material in East Tennessee. The planned community of Oak Ridge was built from scratch to provide accommodations for the facilities and workers. These sites

21st century.

In 2002, businessman Phil Bredesen was elected to become the 48th governor in January 2003. Also in 2002, Tennessee amended the state constitution to allow for the establishment of a lottery. Tennessee's Bob Corker was the only freshman Republican elected to the United States Senate in the 2006 midterm elections. The state constitution was amended to reject same-sex marriage. In January 2007, Ron Ramsey became the first Republican elected as Speaker of the State Senate since Reconstruction,

Demographics.

The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Tennessee was 6,829,174 on July 1, 2019, an increase of 483,069 people since the 2010 United States Census, or 7.61%. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 124,385 (584,236 births minus 459,851 deaths), and an increase from net migration of 244,537 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 66,412, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 178,125.  Twenty percent of Tennesseans were born outside the South in 2008, compared to a figure of 13.5% in 1990. In recent years, Tennessee has received an influx of people relocating from California, Florida, New York, New Jersey and the New England States for the low cost of living, and the booming healthcare and automobile industries. Metropolitan Nashville is one of the fastest-growing areas in the country due in part to these factors.  The center of population of Tennessee is located in Rutherford County, in the city of Murfreesboro.

Ethnicity.

In 2010, 4.6% of the total population was of Hispanic or Latino origin (they may be of any race), up from 2.2% in 2000. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population in Tennessee grew by 134.2%, the third highest of any state. That same year Non-Hispanic whites were 75.6% of the population, compared to 63.7% of the population nationwide.  In 2010, approximately 4.4% of Tennessee's population was foreign-born, an increase of about 118.5% since 2000. Of the foreign-born population, approximately 31.0% were naturalized citizens and 69.0% non-citizens. The foreign-born population was approximately 49.9% from Latin America, 27.1% from Asia, 11.9% from

Birth data.

As of 2011, 36.3% of Tennessee's population younger than age1 were minorities.  "Note: Births

Religion.

The religious affiliations of the people of Tennessee as of 2014:  The largest denominations by number of adherents in 2010 were the Southern Baptist Convention with 1,483,356; the United Methodist Church with 375,693; the Roman Catholic Church with 222,343; and the Churches of Christ with 214,118.  As of January 1, 2009, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) reported 43,179 members,

Economy.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2011 Tennessee's real gross state product was $233.997 billion. In 2003, the per capita personal income was $28,641, 36th in the nation, and 91% of the national per capita personal income of $31,472. In 2004, the median household income was $38,550, 41st in the nation, and 87% of the national median of $44,472.  For 2012, the state held an asset surplus of $533 million, one of only eight states in the nation to report a surplus.  Major outputs for the state include textiles, cotton, cattle, and electrical power. Tennessee has more than 82,000 farms, roughly 59 percent of which accommodate beef cattle. Although cotton was an early crop in Tennessee, large-scale cultivation of the fiber did not begin until the 1820s with the opening of the land between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers. The upper wedge of the Mississippi Delta extends into southwestern Tennessee, and it was in this fertile section that cotton took hold. Soybeans are also heavily planted in West Tennessee, focusing on the northwest corner of the state.  Large corporations with headquarters in Tennessee include FedEx, AutoZone and International Paper, all based in Memphis; Pilot Corporation and Regal Entertainment Group, based in Knoxville; Eastman Chemical Company, based in Kingsport; Hospital Corporation of America and Caterpillar Financial, based in Nashville; and Unum, based in Chattanooga.  Tennessee is also a major hub for the automotive industry. Three automobile manufacturers have factories in Tennessee: Nissan in Smyrna, General Motors in Spring Hill, and Volkswagen in Chattanooga. Nissan moved its North American corporate headquarters from California to Franklin, Tennessee in 2005, and Mitsubishi Motors did the same in 2019.  Other major manufacturers include a $2 billion polysilicon production facility owned by Wacker Chemie in Bradley County and a $1.2 billion polysilicon production facility owned by Hemlock Semiconductor in Clarksville.  Tennessee is a right to work state, as are most of its Southern neighbors. Unionization has historically been low and continues to decline as in most of the U.S. generally. As of August 2019, the state has an unemployment rate of 3.5%, which is ranked 28th in the country. As of 2015, 16.7% of the population of Tennessee lives below the poverty line, which is higher than the national average of 14.7%.

Taxation.

Tennessee has a reputation as low-tax state and is usually ranked as one of the five states with the lowest tax burden on residents. It is one of nine states that do not have a general income tax; the sales tax is the primary means of funding the government. The Hall income tax is a tax imposed on most dividends and interest. The tax rate was 6% from 1937 to 2016, but is in the process of being completely phased out by January 1, 2021. The first $1,250 of individual income and $2,500 of joint income is exempt from this tax.

Tourism.

Tourism contributes billions of dollars every year to the state's economy, and Tennessee is ranked among the Top 10 destinations in the nation. In 2014 a record 100 million people visited the state resulting in $17.7 billion in tourism related spending within the state, an increase of 6.3% over 2013; tax revenue from tourism equaled $1.5 billion. Each county in Tennessee saw at least $1 million from tourism while 19 counties received at least $100 million (Davidson, Shelby, and Sevier counties were the top three). Tourism-generated jobs for the state reached 152,900, a 2.8% increase. International travelers to Tennessee accounted for $533 million in spending.  In 2013 tourism within the state from local citizens accounted for 39.9% of tourists, the second highest originating location for tourists to Tennessee is the state of Georgia, accounting for 8.4% of tourists. Forty-four percent of stays in the state were "day trips", 25% stayed one night, 15% stayed two nights, and 11% stayed four or more nights. The average stay was 2.16 nights, compared to 2.03 nights for the U.S. as a whole. The average person spent $118

Energy and mineral production.

Tennessee's electric utilities are regulated monopolies, as in many other states. As of 2019, the Tennessee Valley Authority owned over 90% of generating capacity. Nuclear power is the largest source of electricity generation in Tennessee, producing about 43.7% of its power in 2019. The same year, 22.9% of the power was produced by coal, 20.3% from natural gas, 12.1% from hydroelectric power, and 1.6% from other renewables. About 56% of the electricity generated in Tennessee produces no greenhouse gas emissions. Tennessee is a net consumer of electricity, receiving power from other TVA facilities in neighboring states such as the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in northern Alabama.  Tennessee is home to the two newest civilian nuclear power reactors in the United States, at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Rhea County. Unit 1 began operation in 1996 and Unit 2 began operation in 2016, making it the first and only new nuclear power reactor to begin operation in the United States in the 21st century. Tennessee was also an early leader

Culture.

Music.

Tennessee has played a critical role in the development of many forms of American popular music, including rock and roll, blues, country, and rockabilly. Beale Street in Memphis is considered by many to be the birthplace of the blues, with musicians such as W. C. Handy performing in its clubs as early as 1909. Memphis is also home to Sun Records, where musicians such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and

Literature.

Notable writers with ties to Tennessee include Cormac McCarthy, Peter Taylor, James Agee,

Sports.

Tennessee is home to four major professional sports franchises: the Tennessee Titans have played in the National Football League since 1997, the Memphis Grizzlies have played in the National Basketball Association since 2001, the Nashville Predators have played in the National Hockey League since 1998, and Nashville SC has played in Major League Soccer since 2020.  The state is also home to 13 teams playing in minor leagues. Nine Minor League Baseball teams call the state their home. The Memphis Redbirds and Nashville Sounds, each of the Pacific Coast League, compete at the Triple-A level, the highest before Major League Baseball. The

Transportation.

Interstate highways.

Interstate 40 crosses the state in an east–west orientation. Its branch interstate highways include I-240 in Memphis; I-440 in Nashville; I-840 in Nashville; I-140 from Knoxville to Alcoa; and I-640 in Knoxville. I-26, although technically an east–west interstate, runs from the North Carolina border below Johnson City to its terminus at Kingsport. I-24 is an east–west interstate that runs from Chattanooga to Clarksville. In

Airports.

Major airports within the state include Memphis International Airport (MEM), Nashville International Airport (BNA), McGhee Tyson Airport (TYS) outside of Knoxville in Blount

Railroads.

For passenger rail service, Memphis and Newbern, are served by the Amtrak City of New Orleans line on its run between Chicago, Illinois, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Nashville is served by the Music City Star commuter rail

Governance.

Similar to the United States Federal Government, Tennessee's government has three parts. The Executive Branch is led by Tennessee's governor, who holds office for a four-year term and may serve a maximum of two consecutive terms. The governor is the only official who is elected statewide. Unlike most states, the state does not elect the lieutenant governor directly; the Tennessee Senate elects its Speaker, who serves as lieutenant governor. The governor is supported by 22 cabinet-level departments, most headed by a commissioner who serves at the pleasure of the governor: The Executive Branch also includes several agencies, boards and commissions, some of which are under the auspices of one of the cabinet-level departments.  The bicameral Legislative Branch, known as the Tennessee General Assembly, consists of the 33-member Senate and the 99-member House of Representatives. Senators serve four-year terms, and House members serve two-year terms. Each chamber chooses its own speaker. The speaker of the state Senate also holds the title of lieutenant governor. Constitutional officials in the legislative branch are elected by a joint session of the legislature.  The highest court in Tennessee is the state Supreme Court. It has a chief justice and four associate justices. No more than two justices can be from the same Grand Division. The Supreme Court of Tennessee also appoints the Attorney General, a practice not found in any of the other 49 states. Both the Court of Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals have 12 judges. A number of local, circuit, and federal courts provide judicial services.  Tennessee's current state constitution was adopted in 1870. The state had two earlier constitutions. The first was adopted in 1796, the year Tennessee joined the union, and the second was adopted in 1834. The 1870 Constitution outlaws martial law within its jurisdiction. This may be a result of the experience of Tennessee residents and other Southerners during the period of military control by Union (Northern) forces of the U.S. government after the American Civil War.

Politics.

Tennessee politics, like that of most U.S. states, are dominated by the Republican and the Democratic parties. Historian Dewey W. Grantham traces divisions in the state to the period of the American Civil War; for decades afterward, the eastern third of the state was heavily Republican and the western two thirds mostly voted Democratic. This division was related to the state's pattern of farming, plantations and slaveholding. The eastern section was made up of yeoman farmers, but Middle and West Tennessee farmers cultivated crops such as tobacco and cotton which were dependent on the use of slave labor. These areas became defined as Democratic after the war.  During Reconstruction, freedmen and former free people of color were granted the right to vote; most joined the Republican Party. Numerous African Americans were elected to local offices, and some to state office. Following Reconstruction, Tennessee continued to have competitive party politics,

Law enforcement.

State agencies.

The state of Tennessee maintains four dedicated law enforcement entities: the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC).  The Highway Patrol is the primary law enforcement entity that concentrates on

Local.

Local law enforcement is divided between County Sheriff's Offices and Municipal Police Departments. Tennessee's Constitution requires that each County have an elected Sheriff. In 94 of the 95 counties the Sheriff is the chief law enforcement officer in the county and has jurisdiction over the county as a whole. Each Sheriff's Office

Firearms.

Gun laws in Tennessee regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition. Concealed carry and open-carry of a handgun is permitted

Capital punishment.

Capital punishment has existed in Tennessee at various times since statehood. Before 1913, the method of execution was hanging. From 1913 to 1915, there was a hiatus on executions but they were reinstated in 1916 when electrocution became the new method. From 1972 to 1978, after the Supreme Court ruled ("Furman v. Georgia") capital punishment unconstitutional, there were no further executions. Capital punishment was restarted in 1978, although those prisoners awaiting execution between 1960 and 1978 had their sentences mostly commuted to life in prison. From 1916 to 1960 the state executed 125 inmates. For a variety of reasons there were no further executions until 2000. Since 2000, Tennessee has executed seven prisoners. Tennessee has 59 prisoners on death row (as of October 2018).  Lethal injection was approved by the legislature in 1998, though those who were sentenced to death before January 1, 1999, may request electrocution. In May 2014, the Tennessee General Assembly passed a law allowing the use of the electric chair for death row executions when lethal injection drugs are not available.

Tribal.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians is the only federally recognized Native American Indian tribe in

Education.

Tennessee has a rich variety of public, private, charter, and specialized education facilities ranging from pre-school through university.

Colleges and universities.

Public higher education is under the oversight of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission which provides guidance to two

Local school districts.

Public primary and secondary education systems are operated by county, city, or special school districts to provide

Museums.

Over 250 public and private museums are located in Tennessee, including renowned museums

State symbols.

State symbols, found in Tennessee Code Annotated; Title 4, Chapter 1, Part 3, include:

Tennessee (, ;) officially the State of Tennessee, is a state in the southeastern United States. Tennessee is the 36th largest by area and the 16th most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by eight states, with Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the west, and Missouri to the northwest. The Appalachian Mountains dominate the eastern part of the state, and the Mississippi River forms its western border. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, with a 2019 population of 670,820 and a 2019 metro population of 1,934,317. Tennessee's second largest city is Memphis, which had a population of 651,073 and metro population of 1,346,045 in 2019.

Tennessee (anglická výslovnost, oficiálně ) je stát nacházející se na východě Spojených států amerických, v oblasti východních jižních států v jižním regionu USA. Tennessee hraničí na severu s Kentucky a Virginií, na východě se Severní Karolínou, na jihu s Georgií, Alabamou a Mississippi a na západě s Arkansasem a Missouri.


History.

Early optical character recognition may be traced to technologies involving telegraphy and creating reading devices for the blind. In 1914, Emanuel Goldberg developed a machine that read characters and converted them into standard telegraph code. Concurrently, Edmund Fournier d'Albe developed the Optophone, a handheld scanner that when moved across a printed page, produced tones that corresponded to specific letters or characters.  In the late 1920s and into the 1930s Emanuel Goldberg developed what he called a "Statistical Machine" for searching microfilm archives using an optical code recognition system. In 1931 he was granted USA Patent number 1,838,389 for the invention. The patent was acquired by IBM.

Blind and visually impaired users.

In 1974, Ray Kurzweil started the company Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc. and continued development of omni-font OCR, which could recognize text printed in virtually any font (Kurzweil is often credited with inventing omni-font OCR, but it was in use by companies, including CompuScan, in the late 1960s and 1970s). Kurzweil decided that the best application of this technology would be to create a reading machine for the blind, which would allow blind people to have a computer read text to them out loud. This device required the invention of two enabling technologiesthe CCD flatbed scanner and the text-to-speech synthesizer. On January 13, 1976, the successful finished product was unveiled during a widely reported news conference headed by Kurzweil and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind. In 1978, Kurzweil Computer Products began selling a commercial version of the optical character recognition computer program. LexisNexis was one of the first customers, and bought the program to upload legal paper and news documents onto its nascent online databases. Two years later, Kurzweil sold his company to Xerox, which had an interest in further commercializing paper-to-computer text conversion. Xerox eventually spun it off as Scansoft, which merged with Nuance Communications.  In the 2000s, OCR was made available online as a service (WebOCR), in a cloud computing environment, and in mobile applications like real-time translation of foreign-language signs on a smartphone. With the advent of smart-phones and smartglasses, OCR can be used in internet connected mobile device applications that extract text captured using the device's camera. These devices that do not have OCR functionality built into the operating system will typically use an OCR API to extract the text from the image file captured and provided by the device. The OCR API returns the extracted text, along with information about the location of the detected text in the original image back to the device app for further processing (such as text-to-speech) or display.  Various commercial and open source OCR systems are available for most common writing systems, including Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Indic, Bengali (Bangla), Devanagari, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.

Applications.

OCR engines have been developed into many kinds of domain-specific OCR applications, such as receipt OCR, invoice OCR, check OCR, legal billing document OCR.  They can be used for:

Types.

OCR is generally an "offline" process, which analyses a static document. There are cloud based services which provide an online OCR API service. Handwriting movement analysis can be used as input to handwriting recognition. Instead of merely using the shapes of glyphs and words, this technique is able to capture motions, such as the order in which segments are drawn, the direction, and the pattern of putting the pen down and lifting it. This additional information can make the end-to-end process more accurate. This technology is also known as "on-line character recognition", "dynamic character recognition", "real-time character recognition", and "intelligent character recognition".

Techniques.

Pre-processing.

OCR software often "pre-processes" images to improve the chances of successful recognition. Techniques include:  Segmentation of fixed-pitch fonts is accomplished relatively simply by aligning the image to a uniform grid based on where vertical grid lines will least often intersect black areas. For proportional fonts, more sophisticated techniques are needed because whitespace between letters can sometimes be greater than that between words, and vertical lines can intersect more than one character.

Text recognition.

There are two basic types of core OCR algorithm, which may produce a ranked list of candidate characters.  Matrix matching involves comparing an image to a stored glyph on a pixel-by-pixel basis; it is also known as "pattern matching", "pattern recognition", or "image correlation". This relies on the input glyph being correctly isolated from the rest of the image, and on the stored glyph being in a similar font and at the same scale. This technique works best with typewritten text and does not work well when new fonts are encountered. This is the technique the early physical photocell-based OCR implemented, rather directly.  Feature extraction decomposes glyphs into "features" like lines, closed loops, line direction, and line intersections. The extraction features reduces the dimensionality of the representation and makes the recognition process computationally efficient. These features are compared with an abstract vector-like representation of a character, which might reduce to one or more glyph prototypes. General techniques of feature detection in computer vision are applicable to this type of OCR, which is commonly seen in "intelligent" handwriting recognition and indeed most modern OCR software. Nearest neighbour classifiers such as the k-nearest neighbors algorithm are used to compare image features with stored glyph features and choose the nearest match.  Software such as Cuneiform and Tesseract use a two-pass approach to character recognition. The second pass is known as "adaptive recognition" and uses the letter shapes recognized with high confidence on the first pass to recognize better the remaining letters on the second pass. This is advantageous for unusual fonts or low-quality scans where the font is distorted (e.g. blurred or faded).  Modern OCR software like for example OCRopus or Tesseract uses neural networks which were trained to recognize whole lines of text instead of focusing on single characters.  The OCR result can be stored in the standardized ALTO format, a dedicated XML schema maintained by the United States Library of Congress. Other common formats include hOCR and PAGE XML.  For a list of optical character recognition software see Comparison of optical character recognition software.

Post-processing.

OCR accuracy can be increased if the output is constrained by a lexicona list of words that are allowed to occur in a document. This might be, for example, all the words in the English language, or a more technical lexicon for a specific field. This technique can be problematic if the document contains words not in the lexicon, like proper nouns. Tesseract uses its dictionary to influence the character segmentation step, for improved accuracy.  The output stream may be a plain text stream or file of characters, but more sophisticated OCR systems can preserve the original layout of the page and produce, for example, an annotated PDF that includes both the original image of the page and a searchable textual representation.  "Near-neighbor analysis" can make use of co-occurrence frequencies to correct errors, by noting that certain words are often seen together. For example, "Washington, D.C." is generally far more common in English than "Washington DOC".  Knowledge of the grammar of the language being scanned can also help determine if a word is likely to be a verb or a noun, for example, allowing greater accuracy.  The Levenshtein Distance algorithm has also been used in OCR post-processing to further optimize results from an OCR API.

Application-specific optimizations.

In recent years, the major OCR technology providers began to tweak OCR systems to deal more efficiently with specific types of input. Beyond an application-specific lexicon, better performance may be had by taking into account business rules, standard expression, or rich information contained in color images. This strategy is called "Application-Oriented OCR" or "Customized OCR", and has been applied to OCR of license plates, invoices, screenshots, ID cards, driver licenses, and automobile manufacturing.  The New York Times has adapted the OCR technology into a proprietary tool they entitle, "Document Helper", that enables their interactive news team to accelerate the processing of documents that need to be reviewed. They note that it enables them to process what amounts to as many as 5,400 pages per hour in preparation for reporters to review the contents.

Workarounds.

There are several techniques for solving the problem of character recognition by means other than improved OCR algorithms.

Forcing better input.

Special fonts like OCR-A, OCR-B, or MICR fonts, with precisely specified sizing, spacing, and distinctive character shapes, allow a higher accuracy rate during transcription in bank check processing. Ironically however, several prominent OCR engines were designed to capture text in popular fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman, and are incapable of capturing text in these fonts that are specialized and much different from popularly used fonts. As Google Tesseract can be trained to recognize new fonts, it can recognize OCR-A, OCR-B and MICR fonts.  "Comb fields" are pre-printed boxes that encourage humans to write more legiblyone glyph per box. These are often printed in a "dropout color" which can be easily removed by the OCR system.  Palm OS used a special set of glyphs, known as "Graffiti" which are similar to printed English characters but simplified or modified for easier recognition on the platform's computationally limited hardware. Users would need to learn how to write these special glyphs.  Zone-based OCR restricts the image to a specific part of a document. This is often referred to as "Template OCR".

Crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing humans to perform the character recognition can quickly process images like computer-driven OCR, but with higher accuracy for recognizing images than is obtained with computers. Practical systems include the Amazon Mechanical Turk and reCAPTCHA. The National Library of Finland has developed an online interface for users to correct OCRed texts in the standardized ALTO format. Crowd sourcing has also been used not to perform character recognition directly but to invite software developers to develop image processing algorithms, for example, through the use of rank-order tournaments.

Accuracy.

Commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Information Science Research Institute (ISRI) had the mission to foster the improvement of automated technologies for understanding machine printed documents, and it conducted the most authoritative of the "Annual Test of OCR Accuracy" from 1992 to 1996.  Recognition of Latin-script, typewritten text is still not 100% accurate even where clear imaging is available. One study based on recognition of 19th- and early 20th-century newspaper pages concluded that character-by-character OCR accuracy for commercial OCR software varied from 81% to 99%; total accuracy can be achieved by human review or Data Dictionary Authentication. Other areas—including recognition of hand printing, cursive handwriting, and printed text in other scripts (especially those East Asian language characters which have many strokes for a single character)—are still the subject of active research. The MNIST database is commonly used for testing systems' ability to recognise handwritten digits.  Accuracy rates can be measured in several ways, and how they are measured can greatly affect the reported accuracy rate. For example, if word context (basically a lexicon of words) is not used to correct software finding non-existent words, a character error rate of 1% (99% accuracy) may result in an error rate of 5% (95% accuracy) or worse if the measurement is based on whether each whole word was recognized with no incorrect letters.  An example of the difficulties inherent in digitizing old text is the inability of OCR to differentiate between the "long s" and "f" characters.  Web-based OCR systems for recognizing hand-printed text on the fly have become well known as commercial products in recent years (see Tablet PC history). Accuracy rates of 80% to 90% on neat, clean hand-printed characters can be achieved by pen computing software, but that accuracy rate still translates to dozens of errors per page, making the technology useful only in very limited applications.  Recognition of cursive text is an active area of research, with recognition rates even lower than that of hand-printed text. Higher rates of recognition of general cursive script will likely not be possible without the use of contextual or grammatical information. For example, recognizing entire words from a dictionary is easier than trying to parse individual characters from script. Reading the "Amount" line of a cheque (which is always a written-out number) is an example where using a smaller dictionary can increase recognition rates greatly. The shapes of individual cursive characters themselves simply do not contain enough information to accurately (greater than 98%) recognize all handwritten cursive script.  Most programs allow users to set "confidence rates". This means that if the software does not achieve their desired level of accuracy, a user can be notified for manual review.  An error introduced by OCR scanning is sometimes termed a "scanno" (by analogy with the term "typo").

Unicode.

Characters to support OCR were added to the Unicode Standard in June 1993, with the release of version 1.1.  Some of these characters are mapped from fonts specific to MICR, OCR-A or OCR-B.

Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scene-photo (for example the text on signs and billboards in a landscape photo) or from subtitle text superimposed on an image (for example: from a television broadcast).

Optické rozpoznávání znaků či OCR (z anglického "") je metoda, která pomocí scanneru umožňuje digitalizaci tištěných textů, s nimiž pak lze pracovat jako s normálním počítačovým textem. Počítačový program převádí obraz buď automaticky, nebo se musí naučit rozpoznávat znaky. Převedený text je téměř vždy v závislosti na kvalitě předlohy třeba podrobit důkladné korektuře, protože OCR program nemusí rozeznat všechna písmena správně. OCR – zpracování textu z tištěné do elektronické podoby je použitelné pro všechny tištěné výstupy z laserových, inkoustových, termosublimačních a jehličkových tiskáren a samozřejmě pro předlohy vytištěné knihtiskem. U nevhodných předloh, např. slabě vytištěných jehličkových výtisků nebo dohromady slitých písmen, se z časového hlediska vyplatí spíše přepis textu.


Dynamics.

The asteroids of the Hilda group (Hildas) are in 3:2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter. That is, their orbital periods are 2/3 that of Jupiter. They move along the orbits with a semimajor axis near 4.0 AU and moderate values of eccentricity (up to 0.3) and inclination (up to 20°). Unlike the Jupiter trojans they may have any difference in longitude with Jupiter, nevertheless avoiding dangerous approaches to the planet.  The Hildas taken together constitute a dynamic triangular figure with slightly convex sides and trimmed apices in the triangular libration points of Jupiter—the "Hildas Triangle". The "asteroidal stream" within the sides of the triangle is about 1 AU wide, and in the apexes this value is 20-40% greater. Figure 1 shows the positions of the Hildas (black) against a background of all known asteroids (gray) up to Jupiter's orbit at January 1, 2005.  Each of the Hilda objects moves along its own elliptic orbit. However, at any moment the Hildas together constitute this triangular configuration, and all the orbits together form a predictable ring. Figure 2 illustrates this with the Hildas positions (black) against a background of their orbits (gray). For the majority of these asteroids, their position in orbit may be arbitrary, except for the external parts of the apexes (the objects near aphelion) and the middles of the sides (the objects near perihelion). The Hildas Triangle has proven to be dynamically stable over a long time span.  The typical Hilda object has a retrograde perihelion motion. On average, the velocity of perihelion motion is greater when the orbital eccentricity is lesser, while the nodes move more slowly. All typical objects in aphelion would seemingly approach closely to Jupiter, which should be destabilising for them—but the variation of the orbital elements over time prevents this, and conjunctions with Jupiter occur only near the perihelion of Hilda asteroids. Moreover, the apsidal line oscillates near the line of conjunction with different amplitude and a period of 2.5 to 3.0 centuries.  In addition to the fact that the Hildas triangle revolves in sync with Jupiter, the density of asteroids in the stream exhibits quasi-periodical waves. At any time, the density of objects in the triangle's apexes is more than twice the density within the sides. The Hildas "rest" at their aphelia in the apexes for an average of 5.0-5.5 years, whereas they move along the sides more quickly, averaging 2.5 to 3.0 years. The orbital periods of these asteroids are approximately 7.9 years, or two thirds that of Jupiter.  Although the triangle is nearly equilateral, some asymmetry exists. Due to the eccentricity of Jupiter's orbit, the side - slightly differs from the two other sides. When Jupiter is in aphelion, the mean velocity of the objects moving along this side is somewhat smaller than that of the objects moving along the other two sides. When Jupiter is in perihelion, the reverse is true.  At the apexes of the triangle corresponding to the points and of Jupiter's orbit, the Hildas approach the Trojans. At the mid-sides of the triangle, they are close to the asteroids of the external part of the asteroid belt. The velocity dispersion of Hildas is more evident than that of Trojans in the regions where they intersect. The dispersion of Trojans in inclination is twice that of the Hildas. Due to this, as much as one quarter of the Trojans cannot intersect with the Hildas, and at all times many Trojans are located outside Jupiter's orbit. Therefore, the regions of intersection are limited. This is illustrated by the adjacent figure that shows the Hildas (black) and the Trojans (gray) along the ecliptic plane. One can see the spherical form of the Trojan swarms.  When moving along each side of the triangle, the Hildas travel more slowly than the Trojans, but encounter a denser neighborhood of outer-asteroid-belt asteroids. Here, the velocity dispersion is much smaller.

Research.

The observed peculiarities in the Hildas' motion are based on data for a few hundred objects known to date and generate still more questions. Further observations are needed to expand on the list of Hildas. Such observations are most favorable when Earth is near conjunction with the mid-sides of the Hildas Triangle. These moments occur each 4 and 1/3 months. In these circumstances the brilliance of objects of similar size could run up to 2.5 magnitudes as compared to the apexes.  The Hildas traverse regions of the Solar system from approximately 2 AU up to Jupiter's orbit. This entails a variety of physical conditions and the neighborhood of various groups of asteroids. On further observation some theories on the Hildas may have to be revised.

The Hilda asteroids (adj. "Hildian") are a dynamical group of more than 4000 asteroids located beyond the asteroid belt in a 3:2 orbital resonance with Jupiter. The namesake is the asteroid 153 Hilda. Hildas move in their elliptical orbits so that their aphelia put them opposite Jupiter (at ), or 60° ahead of or behind Jupiter at the and Lagrangian points. Over three successive orbits each Hilda asteroid approaches all of these three points in sequence. A Hilda's orbit has a semi-major axis between 3.7 and 4.2 AU (the average over a long time span is 3.97), an eccentricity less than 0.3, and an inclination less than 20°. Two collisional families exist within the Hilda group: the Hilda family and the Schubart family. The namesake for the latter family is 1911 Schubart.

Hildina skupina je souhrnné označení pro několik stovek planetek (411 objektů s definitivním označením a 546 pouze s provizorním označením v srpnu 2005) obíhajících Slunce ve vzdálenosti odpovídající komensurabilitě 2:3 s Jupiterem. Jejich střední vzdálenost od Slunce (velká poloosa dráhy) je přibližně rovna 3,7 až 4,2 AU, sklon dráhy k ekliptice nepřesahuje 20° a excentricita hodnotu 0,07. Vedle Trojánů je to jediný případ, kdy komensurabilita s Jupiterem vede k vytvoření stabilní skupiny planetek místo Kirkwoodových mezer, v nichž jsou dráhy objektů nestabilní.


Club career.

Early career.

Born in Oss, North Brabant, Van Nistelrooy started his career in 1993, aged 17, with Dutch Eerste Divisie side Den Bosch, where he was converted from a central midfielder to centre-forward, after playing for local clubs Nooit Gedacht and RKSV Margriet. After netting 12 goals in 31 games in the 1996–97 campaign, he transferred for €360,000 to Heerenveen the next year, and scored 13 goals in 31 matches in his only season with the club. He was then signed by PSV Eindhoven the next season for €6.3 million, a then-record transfer sum between two Dutch teams.  He scored 31 goals in 34 matches, the highest season total in the Eredivisie and second-highest in Europe overall, in addition to scoring all three of PSV's goals in a Champions League match against HJK Helsinki on 25 November 1998. Van Nistelrooy capped off the year by winning the Dutch Player of the Year award. The following season, he won his second Eredivisie scoring title with 29 goals. According to a 2001 interview with "The Daily Telegraph," Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson said that his son, Darren, who was at try-outs for Eredivisie rival Heerenveen at the time, begged his father, "You've got to sign Van Nistelrooy right away, he's fantastic. We've been watching him." Ferguson sent team representatives to PSV's next league game and signed Van Nistelrooy the next day.

Manchester United.

Van Nistelrooy looked set to complete a club record £18.5 million transfer to Manchester United in the summer of 2000. He was to be unveiled at a press conference four days later, but this was instead used to announce that the transfer had been postponed over concerns about his fitness, having not played for a month due to problems with his knee. The transfer was then cancelled after PSV refused to agree to further medical tests, and the next day he suffered a rupture to his anterior cruciate knee ligaments during a training session, leaving him injured for a year.  A year later, Van Nistelrooy signed a five-year contract after passing his medical. He downplayed United's £19 million investment to reporters, saying, "The price is not heavy for me – it lifts me up because it means United have big confidence in me."

2001–02.

Van Nistelrooy made his debut in the Charity Shield against Liverpool, scoring in a 2–1 loss. On 19 August, Van Nistelrooy made his Premier League debut against Fulham at Old Trafford, and scored two goals to help United to a 3–2 win. He scored his first Champions League goals on 17 October in a 3–2 loss to Deportivo La Coruña.  On 22 December, Van Nistelrooy scored his first Premier League hat-trick in a 6–1 win against Southampton. In the FA Cup, Van Nistelrooy started on the bench for the third round tie against Aston Villa due to a groin strain, but was substituted on for Luke Chadwick in the second-half with United 2–0 down and scored two "sublime" goals in three minutes to help United advance to the fourth round with a 3–2 win.  In total during his first season, Van Nistelrooy scored 23 goals in 32 league games. He broke the record he shared with Mark Stein, Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry, by scoring in eight consecutive league games. He also scored ten Champions League goals, and was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year.

2002–03.

The following season, he finished as the top Premier League scorer with 25 goals in 34 games, with a goal on the final day against Everton earning him the Golden Boot ahead of Arsenal's Thierry Henry. His tally included three hat-tricks against Newcastle United, Fulham, and Charlton Athletic. He also scored in each of the final eight games of the season as United won the title. Van Nistelrooy won the Premier League Player of the Season in 2003. He was accredited with spearheading the title win for United with a goal tally that was described as "astonishing". After scoring 12 Champions League goals, he was named by UEFA as the best striker in Europe.

2003–04.

Van Nistelrooy started the 2003–04 season by scoring twice in his first two league matches. This meant he had scored in 10 consecutive league games, then a Premier League record, which stood until 2015 when Jamie Vardy scored in 11 consecutive matches. In the 0–0 draw on 21 September 2003, later dubbed the Battle of Old Trafford, Van Nistelrooy was at the centre of one of the most infamous incidents of the Arsenal–Manchester United rivalry. After missing a last-minute penalty that would have won the game for United, Van Nistelrooy was attacked by Martin Keown, prompting a melee involving several players from both sides; five Arsenal players including Keown received various bans and fines, while the club itself received a record fine of £175,000. Earlier in the game, he had been fouled by Patrick Vieira, who was sent off for a second bookable offence. Vieira and his manager Arsène Wenger both accused Van Nistelrooy of cheating and stamping on Vieira, prompting a vociferous defence by Alex Ferguson.  On 27 September, he scored a hat-trick against Leicester City in a 4–1 victory. He scored his 100th goal for the club in a dramatic 4–3 victory over Everton on 7 February 2004.  In the FA Cup fifth round derby against Manchester City, Van Nistelrooy scored twice to help ten-man United win 4–2, and again scored twice in the quarter-final against Fulham as United came from behind to win 2–1. He scored a further two goals, including one penalty, in United's victory over Millwall in the 2004 FA Cup Final.

2004–05.

Van Nistelrooy missed a large part of the 2004–05 season due to injury, but nonetheless scored a Champions League-best eight goals. One of them was his 30th career European goal, which he scored in a 2–2 Champions League group stage draw with Lyon on 16 September 2004, overtaking Denis Law's previous club record of 28 goals. Law later said to reporters, "I'm delighted for Ruud. It could not happen to a nicer guy."  On 24 October, Arsenal returned to Old Trafford for another dramatic fixture. Arsenal entered the fixture with 49-game unbeaten run and had been dubbed "The Invincibles", but United won the game 2–0. Van Nistelrooy scored the opening goal from the penalty spot, atoning for the penalty miss the previous year, with Wayne Rooney scoring a second. Van Nistelrooy was later banned for three games for a foul on Ashley Cole that the referee had missed. On 3 November, Van Nistelrooy scored all four goals in a 4–1 win against Sparta Prague. On 17 April 2005, he scored two goals in the FA Cup semi-final in a 4–1 win against Newcastle, but United lost the final on penalties to Arsenal.

2005–06.

At the start of the 2005–06 season, Van Nistelrooy scored in United's first four Premier League games. He finished as the second-highest league scorer with 21 goals, behind Arsenal's Thierry Henry. However, he was benched for the League Cup Final against Wigan Athletic, fuelling speculation of a rift between him and Alex Ferguson, which Van Nistelrooy denied. He was nonetheless left on the bench for six consecutive league matches, and though he then returned to the starting line-up and scored match-winners against West Ham United and Bolton Wanderers, fresh doubt spread over Van Nistelrooy's future when he was benched for United's season finale win over Charlton Athletic. Ferguson claimed that Van Nistelrooy was angry at the decision and left the stadium three hours before kick-off. On 9 May 2006, it was reported that Van Nistelrooy's exclusion from the squad was due to a training session fight between him and teammate Cristiano Ronaldo. Van Nistelrooy allegedly criticised Ronaldo's tendency to hold onto the ball instead of passing to his teammates, which sparked the fight, after which Van Nistelrooy remarked, "Go crying to your daddy," which was in reference to United's Portuguese assistant manager, Carlos Queiroz. Ronaldo, however, took the statement literally and allegedly broke into tears since his father José had died eight months previously. Van Nistelrooy later apologised to Ferguson for his behaviour in the previous few months.  Van Nistelrooy signed with Spanish La Liga side Real Madrid on 28 July, departing Old Trafford after five seasons with a total of 150 goals in 219 appearances, with his final goal coming on 1 April against Bolton, scoring what proved to be the winning goal. With 38 goals, he is also the club's second all-time European goalscorer, behind Wayne Rooney.

Real Madrid.

On 15 July 2006, Ferguson confirmed that Van Nistelrooy wanted to leave Manchester United and Real Madrid announced two weeks later that he had signed a three-year contract after being purchased for €14 million.  Van Nistelrooy made his debut for the Spanish club in a 1–0 friendly win over Reggina on 4 August 2006. Van Nistelrooy scored a hat-trick in his second league match against Levante and, on 12 November 2006, he scored all four of Real Madrid's goals in a 4–1 victory over Osasuna. For the first six months he was a teammate of Ronaldo, a player whom Van Nistelrooy regards as the best he ever played with. Van Nistelrooy won the league's Pichichi award with 25 goals as Real Madrid took home the 2006–07 title, and he also equalled the longest consecutive scoring streak in La Liga history with seven straight matches, tying a league record shared by Hugo Sánchez.  In January 2008, Van Nistelrooy signed a contract extension keeping him with Madrid until 2010, with the expiration date one day shy of his 34th birthday. He underwent ankle surgery in March, and returned for the El Clásico derby against Barcelona on 7 May, in which he netted a penalty two minutes after coming on as a substitute. He finished the season with 20 goals in 33 appearances.  In November 2008, Real Madrid announced that Van Nistelrooy would miss the remainder of the 2008–09 season after exploratory arthroscopic surgery revealed a partially torn meniscus in his right knee, with an expected recovery time of six to nine months following a second operation to repair the damage. Van Nistelrooy travelled to the United States to see specialist Richard Steadman, who had previously operated on the same knee back in 2000. At the time of his injury, he had 10 goals in 12 club appearances for the season. Following the injury, he was de-registered by Real Madrid for the rest of the 2008–09 season, and his shirt number was given to Dani Parejo. On 24 August 2009, in the last pre-season match before the start of La Liga, Van Nistelrooy stepped on the pitch for the first time since his injury and played the last 15 minutes of the game against Rosenborg, substituting Kaká. Van Nistelrooy came on for Cristiano Ronaldo in the 80th minute against Xerez in his first La Liga match since recovering from his injury. In the 81st minute, he provided the assist for a Karim Benzema goal, following it with his own 88th-minute goal. During his strike, however, he picked up a thigh injury, where it was later revealed by Real Madrid that he would be out from first team action for up to six weeks. On 27 October, Van Nistelrooy made his second comeback of the season coming on as a substitute for Raúl in the 71st minute against Alcorcón in the Copa del Rey.

Hamburg.

On 23 January 2010, Van Nistelrooy signed an 18-month contract with the German club Hamburger SV until June 2011. He made his first appearance for the club after coming off the bench in the last two minutes of Hamburg's 3–3 draw with 1. FC Köln on 6 February. Van Nistelrooy scored his first two goals for Hamburg on 13 February 2010 against VfB Stuttgart in the 75th and 77th minutes of a 3–1 win, after entering the game just a few minutes prior. On 11 March 2010, he scored his first UEFA Europa League goal in the 40th minute of Hamburg's match against Anderlecht.  Van Nistelrooy scored his only competitive hat-trick with Hamburg on 15 August 2010, in a 5–1 win over Torgelower SV Greif in the first round of the 2010–11 DFB-Pokal. On 21 August 2010, he scored a brace in Hamburg's season opener against Schalke 04, which HSV won 2–1. During that match, he played against his friend and former Real Madrid teammate Raúl, who was making his Bundesliga debut. In the January transfer window, Van Nistelrooy was linked a return move back to Real Madrid and could be used for a short-term basis to cover, following injuries of Gonzalo Higuaín and Karim Benzema as manager José Mourinho would be happy for Van Nistelrooy to join the club as Mourinho left the door for him. Van Nistelrooy admitted he seriously considered moving back to the club if the bid happened. The club, however, rejected Madrid's bid for Van Nistelrooy, giving the club a warning as Hamburg wants to keep hold of him until the transfer window ended. Despite being angered over his move to Real Madrid rejected, Van Nistelrooy said he would remain committed at Hamburg. During a match between Hamburg and Hannover 96 on 16 April 2011, Van Nistelrooy suffered a calf injury that kept him out until the last matchday.  Van Nistelrooy netted seven goals and made two assists in 25 appearances in his only full season with Hamburg.

Málaga.

On 1 June 2011, Van Nistelrooy returned to Spain to pen a one-year deal with La Liga side Málaga, on a free transfer. Van Nistelrooy was presented at La Rosaleda Stadium as he was welcomed by 15,000 Málaga fans. He made his debut in a 2–1 loss against Sevilla on the opening game of the 2011–12 season.  Van Nistelrooy registered his first goal on 1 October 2011 against Getafe. On 21 December, against the same club, he opened the scoring with a volley as Málaga won 3–2 on aggregate in the Copa del Rey. Later on in the season, Van Nistelrooy scored two more goals in the league against Espanyol and Racing Santander, with the latter being his final goal of his career. Just one day before his retirement, Van Nistelrooy made his last appearance of his career, coming on as a substitute in the 75th minute for goalscorer Salomón Rondón, who scored the only goal in Málaga's league match against Sporting Gijón.  On 14 May 2012, Van Nistelrooy announced his retirement from football at the age of 35. He told Sport1 he previously made hints that his football career was coming to an end after insisting Málaga would be his last club.

International career.

Van Nistelrooy earned 70 caps and scored 35 goals for the Netherlands. He made his debut for the national team in a friendly match against Germany on 18 November 1998. However, the cruciate ligament injury which postponed his transfer to Manchester United also ruled Van Nistelrooy out of Euro 2000.  As the Dutch failed to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, Van Nistelrooy did not make his tournament debut for the Netherlands until Euro 2004, where he and the Czech Republic's Milan Baroš were the only players to score in all three group stage matches. The Netherlands reached the semi-finals where they were defeated by hosts Portugal 2–1. Van Nistelrooy was named in the tournament all-star team.  During a 2006 World Cup qualifying match, he scored in the Dutch's 4–0 win over bottom-placed Andorra and was yellow-carded for going to Andorra player Antoni Lima and celebrating in front of him, following an incident six minutes before when Van Nistelrooy missed a penalty and Lima laughed at him. He was a part of coach Marco van Basten's squad for the 2006 World Cup finals, for which he served as the official FIFA/SOS ambassador. He started, and was substituted, in all of the Netherlands' group stage matches, and scored his lone goal against the Ivory Coast. Van Nistelrooy was dropped to the bench by Van Basten without an explanation for the Netherlands' second round match, which saw them again eliminated by Portugal.  Van Basten left the striker out of the squad for a friendly against the Republic of Ireland on 16 August 2006. Dirk Kuyt replaced Van Nistelrooy in their next match against Portugal in September. After Klaas-Jan Huntelaar was unavailable for Euro 2008 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Belarus due to injury, Van Nistelrooy refused Van Basten's request to take his place on the roster.  On 23 January 2007, Van Nistelrooy announced his retirement from international football following continued disputes with Van Basten, which had started back in 2006 during the course of the World Cup finals matches. After several phone conversations and at the persuasion of veteran goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar, however, both player and coach put aside their differences. Van Basten announced four months later that Van Nistelrooy was returning to the "Oranje". On 8 September, Van Nistelrooy filled Huntelaar's spot, as previously requested, for the qualifier against Bulgaria, scoring in a 2–0 victory, and scored the winning goal four days later in injury time of the Netherlands' win over Albania.  At Euro 2008, Van Nistelrooy scored for the Netherlands in their decisive 3–0 victory over Italy in the group stage, and scored the equaliser in their eventual 3–1 loss to Russia in the quarter-finals. On 4 August, he again announced his retirement from international competition.  During the buildup to the 2010 World Cup, Van Nistelrooy again made himself available, but was left out by the Netherlands' new coach Bert van Marwijk. After being left out for the World Cup, Van Nistelrooy said he had no choice but to face the fact that his international career is finished.  After main striker Robin van Persie suffered an injury during a match with his club Arsenal, Van Marwijk gave Van Nistelrooy a chance to reclaim his position as the main striker of the Netherlands' national team. Van Nistelrooy was invited to two Netherlands' Group E qualification matches for Euro 2012 against San Marino and Finland. He scored in the 5–0 victory against San Marino on 3 September 2010.  Van Nistelrooy was again recalled to the squad in March 2011 for two Euro 2012 qualification games with Hungary, after injuries to strikers Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Arjen Robben and Theo Janssen. In the away game on 25 March, he appeared as a late substitute for Dirk Kuyt while in the return game in Amsterdam four days later, he came off the bench to score his 35th international goal. adding it is "wonderful to be able to add something to this Oranje team", as he told Berend Scholten.

Style of play.

A highly prolific goalscorer, Van Nistelrooy was known for being extremely clinical and opportunistic in front of goal, and stood out throughout his career for his outstanding striking ability and finishing ability with either foot as well as his head, which earned him a reputation as one of the best strikers of his generation. Due to his excellent positional sense, quick reactions, and intelligent offensive movement, he excelled at finding space in the penalty area and at anticipating his opponents to the ball, and was also known for his ability to time his runs to lose his markers, beat the offside trap, and get on the end of his teammates' passes; his tendency to be in the right place at the right time in the box saw him occasionally labelled as a "poacher" in the media.  A well-rounded centre-forward, in addition to his eye for goal, Van Nistelrooy was gifted with pace, physical strength, and shooting power, as well as excellent technical skills, and an ability to hold up the ball with his back to goal and link-up with his teammates or provide them with assists, due to his ability to read the game. He was also an accurate penalty taker. In spite of his talent and goalscoring ability, however, at times he drew criticism from managers, players and pundits for his controversial behaviour, as well as for having a tendency to be selfish, overly flamboyant, or for his penchant for simulation.

Coaching career.

PSV under-17s.

On 22 June 2013, Van Nistelrooy joined PSV as a coaching intern working with the under-17s. He was revealed as the new striker coach of the under-17s, 19s and the reserve team in February 2016.

Netherlands.

In March 2014, it was announced that Van Nistelrooy would be assisting Guus Hiddink after the 2014 World Cup.

PSV under-19s.

On 25 June 2018, Van Nistelrooy became the new manager of the PSV under-19s, taking over Mark van Bommel, who left his role for the senior team.  In December 2019 it was confirmed, that Van Nistelrooy beside his position at PSV, also had been added to Ronald Koeman's backroom staff as an assistant manager together with Maarten Stekelenburg ahead of the Euro 2020, after Kees van Wonderen recently had left the position.

Outside football.

Personal life.

Van Nistelrooy married his girlfriend, Leontien Slaats, in July 2004. The couple had their first child, a girl named Moa Annette, in September 2006, and a son named Liam in March 2008. Van Nistelrooy was brought up as a Roman Catholic.

Charity.

Van Nistelrooy and his wife are both heavily involved with the charity organization SOS Children's Villages. The organization has been around since 1949 and is an international development charity which serves to protect the interests and rights of children. Van Nistelrooy was officially appointed "FIFA for SOS Children's Villages" Ambassador in the Netherlands on 1 September 2001.  On 17 November 2009, Van Nistelrooy and his wife hosted SOS at Ciudad Real Madrid. The purpose of the event was to help create a calendar which would be sold to benefit the organization.

Endorsements.

Van Nistelrooy was sponsored by sportswear company Nike and appeared in Nike commercials. In a global Nike advertising campaign in the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan, he starred in a "Secret Tournament" commercial (branded "Scorpion KO") directed by Terry Gilliam, appearing alongside football players such as Thierry Henry, Ronaldo, Edgar Davids, Fabio Cannavaro, Francesco Totti, Ronaldinho, Luís Figo and Hidetoshi Nakata, with former player Eric Cantona as the tournament "referee".

Media career.

During the 2014 World Cup, Van Nistelrooy worked as a studio analyst for ESPN.

Honours.

PSV  Manchester United  Real Madrid  Individual

Rutgerus Johannes Martinus "Ruud" van Nistelrooy (; ; born 1 July 1976) is a Dutch football coach and former player. He is currently the coach of the PSV Eindhoven under-19s team and assistant manager for Netherlands.

Ruud van Nistelrooy (celým jménem Rutgerus Johannes Martinus van Nistelrooij, * 1. července 1976, Oss, Severní Brabantsko, Nizozemsko) je bývalý nizozemský fotbalový útočník, jehož poslední klub byl španělský Málaga CF. V letech 1999 a 2000 získal ocenění nizozemský fotbalista roku. Pelé ho roku 2004 zařadil mezi 125 nejlepších žijících fotbalistů. Ligové tituly získal v Nizozemsku s PSV Eindhoven (2×), v Anglii s Manchesterem United (1×) a ve Španělsku s Realem Madrid (2×). Ruud byl výjimečný útočník především při zakončování gólových šancí. Na svoji výšku 188 cm byl neobyčejně hbitý a šikovný, což bylo přičítáno jeho předchozímu gymnastickému tréninku.