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5,397	Chris Morris (satirist)	Christopher J. Morris (born 15 June 1962) is an English comedian, radio presenter, actor and filmmaker. Known for his deadpan, dark humour, surrealism and controversial subject matter, he has been praised by the British Film Institute for his "uncompromising, moralistic drive". Morris teamed up with his radio producer Armando Iannucci in the early 1990s to create On the Hour, a satire of news programmes. A television spin off, The Day Today, launched the career of comedian Steve Coogan and was hailed as one of the most important satirical shows of the 1990s. Morris further developed the satirical news format with Brass Eye, which lampooned celebrities whilst focusing on themes such as crime and drugs. For some, the apotheosis of Morris's career was a Brass Eye special dealing with the moral panic surrounding paedophilia. It became one of the most complained-about programmes in British television history, leading the Daily Mail to describe him as "the most loathed man on TV". Morris's similarly controversial postmodern sketch comedy and ambient music radio show Blue Jam gained a cult following. It was adapted into the TV series Jam, hailed as "the most radical and original television programme broadcast in years", and Morris won the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film after expanding a Blue Jam sketch into My Wrongs 8245–8249 & 117 starring Paddy Considine. Nathan Barley, a sitcom written in collaboration with then little-known Charlie Brooker that satirised hipsters, had low ratings but success with its DVD release. Morris joined the cast of sitcom The IT Crowd, his first project in which he did not have writing or producing input. In 2010, Morris directed his feature-length film, Four Lions, which satirised Islamic terrorism through its portrayal of a group of inept British Muslims. Reception was largely positive, earning Morris his second BAFTA Film Award, this time for Outstanding Debut. He has directed four episodes of Iannucci's political comedy Veep and appeared onscreen in The Double and Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle also serving as script-editor for the latter. His second feature-length film, The Day Shall Come, was released in 2019. ==Early life== Christopher J. Morris was born on 15 June 1962 in Colchester, Essex, and Paul Michael Morris. His father was a GP. Morris has a large red birthmark almost completely covering the left side of his face and neck, which he disguises with makeup when acting. He grew up in a Victorian farmhouse in the village of Buckden, Cambridgeshire, which he described as "very dull". He has two younger brothers, including theatre director Tom Morris. From an early age, he was a prankster and had a passion for radio. From the age of 10, he was educated at the independent Jesuit boarding school Stonyhurst College in Stonyhurst, Lancashire. He went to study zoology at the University of Bristol, where he gained a 2:1. ==Career== ===Radio=== On graduating, Morris pursued a career as a musician in various bands, for which he played the bass guitar. He then went to work for Radio West, a local radio station in Bristol. He then took up a news traineeship with BBC Radio Cambridgeshire, where he took advantage of access to editing and recording equipment to create elaborate spoofs and parodies. He also spent time in early 1987 hosting a 2–4pm afternoon show and finally ended up presenting Saturday morning show I.T. In July 1987, he moved on to BBC Radio Bristol to present his own show, No Known Cure, broadcast on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The show was surreal and satirical, with odd interviews conducted with unsuspecting members of the public. He was fired from Bristol in 1990 after "talking over the news bulletins and making silly noises". In 1988 he also joined, from its launch, Greater London Radio (GLR). He presented The Chris Morris Show on GLR until 1993, when one show got suspended after a sketch was broadcast involving a child "outing" celebrities. In 1991, Morris joined Armando Iannucci's spoof news project On the Hour. Broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it saw him work alongside Iannucci, Steve Coogan, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring and Rebecca Front. \|width = 30% \|align = right }} In 1994, a BBC Two television series based on On the Hour was broadcast under the name The Day Today. The Day Today made a star of Morris, and marked the television debut of Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge character. The programme ended on a high after just one series, with Morris winning the 1994 British Comedy Award for Best Newcomer for his lead role as the Paxmanesque news anchor. In 1996, Morris appeared on the daytime programme The Time, The Place, posing as an academic, Thurston Lowe, in a discussion entitled "Are British Men Lousy Lovers?", but was found out when a producer alerted the show's host, John Stapleton. The second episode of Brass Eye, for example, satirised drugs and the political rhetoric surrounding them. To help convey the satire, Morris invented a fictional drug by the name of "cake". In the episode, British celebrities and politicians describe the supposed symptoms in detail; David Amess mentioned the fictional drug at Parliament. In 2001, Morris satirised the moral panic regarding paedophilia in the most controversial episode of Brass Eye, "Paedogeddon". Channel 4 apologised for the episode after receiving criticism from tabloids and around 3,000 complaints from viewers, which, at the time, was the most for an episode of British television.). Co-written by Brooker and Morris, the series was broadcast on Channel 4 in early 2005. ===The IT Crowd and Comedy Vehicle=== Morris appeared in The IT Crowd, a Channel 4 sitcom which focuses on the information technology department of the fictional company Reynholm Industries. The series was written and directed by Graham Linehan (with whom Morris collaborated on The Day Today, Brass Eye and Jam) and produced by Ash Atalla. Morris played Denholm Reynholm, the eccentric managing director of the company. This marked the first time Morris had acted in a substantial role in a project which he has not developed himself. Morris's character was killed off during episode two of the second series. His character made a brief return in the first episode of the third series. In November 2007, Morris wrote an article for The Observer in response to Ronan Bennett's article published six days earlier in The Guardian. Bennett's article, "Shame on us", accused the novelist Martin Amis of racism. Morris's response, "The absurd world of Martin Amis", was also highly critical of Amis; although he did not accede to Bennett's accusation of racism, Morris likened Amis to the Muslim cleric Abu Hamza (who was jailed for inciting racial hatred in 2006), suggesting that both men employ "mock erudition, vitriol and decontextualised quotes from the Qu'ran" to incite hatred. Morris served as script editor for the 2009 series Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, working with former colleagues Stewart Lee, Kevin Eldon and Armando Iannucci. He maintained this role for the second (2011) and third series (2014), also appearing as a mock interviewer dubbed the "hostile interrogator" in the third and fourth series. ===Four Lions, Veep, and other appearances=== Morris completed his debut feature film Four Lions in late 2009, a satire based on a group of Islamist terrorists in Sheffield. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010 and was short-listed for the festival's World Cinema Narrative prize. The film (working title Boilerhouse) was picked up by Film Four. Morris told The Sunday Times that the film sought to do for Islamic terrorism what Dad's Army, the classic BBC comedy, did for the Nazis by showing them as "scary but also ridiculous". In 2012, Morris directed the seventh and penultimate episode of the first season of Veep, an Armando Iannucci-devised American version of The Thick of It. In 2013, he returned to direct two episodes for the second season of Veep, and a further episode for season three in 2014. In 2013, Morris appeared briefly in Richard Ayoade's The Double, a black comedy film based on the Fyodor Dostoyevsky novella of the same name. Morris had previously worked with Ayoade on Nathan Barley and The IT Crowd. In February 2014, Morris made a surprise appearance at the beginning of a Stewart Lee live show, introducing the comedian with fictional anecdotes about their work together. The following month, Morris appeared in the third series of Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle as a "hostile interrogator", a role previously occupied by Armando Iannucci. In December 2014, it was announced that a short radio collaboration with Noel Fielding and Richard Ayoade would be broadcast on BBC Radio 6. According to Fielding, the work had been in progress since around 2006. However, in January 2015 it was decided, 'in consultation with [Morris]', that the project was not yet complete, and so the intended broadcast did not go ahead. ===The Day Shall Come=== A statement released by Film4 in February 2016 made reference to funding what would be Morris's second feature film. In November 2017 it was reported that Morris had shot the movie, starring Anna Kendrick, in the Dominican Republic but the title was not made public. It was later reported in January 2018 that Jim Gaffigan and Rupert Friend had joined the cast of the still-untitled film, and that the plot would revolve around an FBI hostage situation gone wrong. The completed film, titled The Day Shall Come, had its world premiere at South by Southwest on 11 March 2019. ===Music=== Morris often co-writes and performs incidental music for his television shows, notably with Jam and the 'extended remix' version, Jaaaaam. In the early 1990s Morris contributed a Pixies parody track entitled "Motherbanger" to a flexi-disc given away with an edition of Select music magazine. Morris supplied sketches for British band Saint Etienne's 1993 single "You're in a Bad Way" (the sketch 'Spongbake' appears at the end of the 4th track on the CD single). In 2000, Morris collaborated by mail with Amon Tobin to create the track "Bad Sex", which was released as a B-side on the Tobin single "Slowly". Anglo-French band Stereolab's song "Nothing to Do with Me" from their 2001 album Sound-Dust featured various lines from Chris Morris sketches as lyrics. == Style == Ramsey Ess of Vulture described Morris's comedy style as "crass" and "shocking", but noted an "underlying morality" and integrity, as well as the humour being Morris's priority. In 2005, Channel 4 aired a show called The Comedian's Comedian in which foremost writers and performers of comedy ranked their 50 favourite acts. Morris was at number eleven. Morris won the BAFTA for outstanding debut with his film Four Lions. Adeel Akhtar and Nigel Lindsay collected the award in his absence. Lindsay stated that Morris had sent him a text message before they collected the award reading, 'Doused in petrol, Zippo at the ready'. In June 2012 Morris was placed at number 16 in the Top 100 People in UK Comedy. In 2010, a biography, Disgusting Bliss: The Brass Eye of Chris Morris, was published. Written by Lucian Randall, the book depicted Morris as "brilliant but uncompromising", and a "frantic-minded perfectionist". In November 2014, BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast a three-hour retrospective of Morris's radio career called 'Raw Meat Radio', which was presented by Mary Anne Hobbs and featured interviews with Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham, Paul Garner, and others. ===Awards=== Morris won the Best TV Comedy Newcomer award from the British Comedy Awards in 1994 for his performance in The Day Today. He has won two BAFTA awards: the BAFTA Award for Best Short Film in 2002 for My Wrongs #8245–8249 & 117, and the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British director, writer or producer in 2011 for Four Lions. ==Personal life== Morris and his wife, actress-turned-literary agent Jo Unwin, live in the Brixton district of London. The pair met in 1984 at the Edinburgh Festival, when he was playing bass guitar for the Cambridge Footlights Revue and she was in a comedy troupe called the Millies. They have two sons. ==Works== ===Film=== ===Television=== ===Other=== Various works at BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (1986–1987) (presenter) No Known Cure (July 1987 – March 1990, BBC Radio Bristol) (presenter) Chris Morris (1988–1993, BBC GLR) (presenter) Morning Edition (July 1990, BBC Radio 5) (guest presenter) The Chris Morris Christmas Show (25 December 1990, BBC Radio 1) On the Hour (1991–1992, BBC Radio 4) (co-writer, performer) It's Only TV (September 1992, LWT) (unbroadcast pilot) Why Bother? (1994, BBC Radio 3) (performer, editor) The Chris Morris Music Show (1994, BBC Radio 1) (presenter) Blue Jam (1997–1999, BBC Radio 1) (writer, director, performer, editor) Second Class Male/Time To Go (1999, satirical newspaper column for The Observer) The Smokehammer (2002, website) Absolute Atrocity Special (2002, newspaper pullout for The Observer)	[ "TVGoHome", "Why Bother? (radio show)", "Pixies (band)", "The Double (Fyodor Dostoyevsky novel)", "Sound-Dust", "Jam (TV series)", "black comedy", "Nazism", "sketch comedy", "British Academy Film Awards", "Big Train", "Footlights", "Anna Kendrick", "dark humour", "Paedogeddon", "Warp Records", "Jeremy Paxman", "Veep (TV series)", "Channel 4", "BBC London 94.9", "News of the World", "Four Lions", "The Day Today", "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle", "Kevin Eldon", "The Independent", "Chortle", "Internet Movie Database", "Paddy Considine", "Danny Baker", "The Thick of It", "I'm Alan Partridge", "inciting racial hatred", "Stonyhurst College", "short film", "BBC Radio 3", "Jim Gaffigan", "Spitting Image", "John Stapleton (English journalist)", "You're in a Bad Way", "Ash Atalla", "Ronan Bennett", "BBC Radio 1", "ambient music", "Islamic terrorism", "BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer", "Fyodor Dostoyevsky", "Rupert Friend", "2:1", "birthmark", "New York (magazine)", "Richard Herring", "LWT", "Jesuits", "parody", "Saint Etienne (band)", "Mary Anne Hobbs", "BBC Radio 4", "BBC Two", "Peter Baynham", "The IT Crowd", "deadpan", "University of Bristol", "Brass Eye", "Film Four", "apotheosis", "South by Southwest", "British Film Institute", "postmodern", "List of Edinburgh festivals", "hipster (contemporary subculture)", "Charlie Brooker", "Veep", "Colchester", "moral panic", "Stonyhurst", "The Sunday Times", "Abu Hamza al-Masri", "Film4", "The Hollywood Reporter", "Warp Films", "Flexi disc", "Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling", "Stewart Lee", "My Wrongs 8245–8249 & 117", "The Time, The Place", "Steve Coogan", "Essex", "YouTube", "BBC Radio Bristol", "Victorian era", "Peter Cook", "BAFTA Award for Best Short Film", "The Guardian", "British Comedy Awards winners", "London", "Nathan Barley", "BBC Radio Cambridgeshire", "Armando Iannucci", "Tom Morris (director)", "general practitioner", "TheGuardian.com", "National Comedy Awards", "cult following", "Vulture (website)", "select magazine", "Stereolab", "Buckden, Cambridgeshire", "BBC Radio London", "Dominican Republic", "On the Hour", "surrealism", "Sundance Film Festival", "Noel Fielding", "Richard Ayoade", "paedophilia", "Blue Jam", "Brixton", "Amon Tobin", "British Academy of Film and Television Arts", "Dad's Army", "Graham Linehan", "Alan Partridge", "Rebecca Front", "Galaxy (UK TV channel)", "British Muslim", "The Day Shall Come", "The Observer", "Paul Garner (comedian)", "zoology", "BAFTA", "NME", "Second Class Male/Time To Go", "The Chris Morris Music Show", "Daily Mail", "Zippo", "BBC Radio 4 Extra", "Martin Amis", "The Double (2013 film)", "David Amess" ]
5,399	Colorado	is a state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas to the east, and Oklahoma to the southeast. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers, and desert lands. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is the eighth-largest U.S. state by area and the 21st by population. The United States Census Bureau estimated the population of Colorado to be 5,957,493 as of July 1, 2024, a 3.2% increase from the 2020 United States census. The region has been inhabited by Native Americans and their ancestors for at least 13,500 years and possibly much longer. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route for early peoples who spread throughout the Americas. In 1848, much of the Nuevo México region was annexed to the United States with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858–1862 created an influx of settlers. On February 28, 1861, U.S. President James Buchanan signed an act creating the Territory of Colorado, Major parts of the economy include government and defense, mining, agriculture, tourism, and increasingly other kinds of manufacturing. With increasing temperatures and decreasing water availability, Colorado's agriculture forestry and tourism economies are expected to be heavily affected by climate change. ==History== The region that is today the State of Colorado has been inhabited by Native Americans and their Paleoamerican ancestors for at least 13,500 years and possibly more than 37,000 years. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route that was important to the spread of early peoples throughout the Americas. The Lindenmeier site in Larimer County contains artifacts dating from approximately 8720 BCE. The Ancient Pueblo peoples lived in the valleys and mesas of the Colorado Plateau in far southwestern Colorado. The Ute Nation inhabited the mountain valleys of the Southern Rocky Mountains and the Western Rocky Mountains, even as far east as the Front Range of the present day. The Apache and the Comanche also inhabited the Eastern and Southeastern parts of the state. In the 17th century, the Arapaho and Cheyenne moved west from the Great Lakes region to hunt across the High Plains of Colorado and Wyoming. The Spanish Empire claimed Colorado as part of Nuevo México. The U.S. acquired the territorial claim to the eastern Rocky Mountains with the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. This U.S. claim conflicted with the claim by Spain to the upper Arkansas River Basin. In 1806, Zebulon Pike led a U.S. Army reconnaissance expedition into the disputed region. Colonel Pike and his troops were arrested by Spanish cavalrymen in the San Luis Valley the following February, taken to Chihuahua, and expelled from Mexico the following July. The U.S. relinquished its claim to all land south and west of the Arkansas River and south of 42nd parallel north and west of the 100th meridian west as part of its purchase of Florida from Spain with the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. The treaty took effect on February 22, 1821. Having settled its border with Spain, the U.S. admitted the southeastern portion of the Territory of Missouri to the Union as the state of Missouri on August 10, 1821. The remainder of Missouri Territory, including what would become northeastern Colorado, became an unorganized territory and remained so for 33 years over the question of slavery. After 11 years of war, Spain finally recognized the independence of Mexico with the Treaty of Córdoba signed on August 24, 1821. Mexico eventually ratified the Adams–Onís Treaty in 1831. The Texian Revolt of 1835–36 fomented a dispute between the U.S. and Mexico which eventually erupted into the Mexican–American War in 1846. Mexico surrendered its northern territory to the U.S. with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the war in 1848; this included much of the western and southern areas of Colorado. Most American settlers first traveled to Colorado through the Santa Fe Trail, which connected the U.S. to Santa Fe and the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro southward. Others were traveling overland west to the Oregon Country, the new goldfields of California, or the new Mormon settlements of the State of Deseret in the Salt Lake Valley, avoided the rugged Southern Rocky Mountains, and instead followed the North Platte River and Sweetwater River to South Pass (Wyoming), the lowest crossing of the Continental Divide between the Southern Rocky Mountains and the Central Rocky Mountains. In 1849, the Mormons of the Salt Lake Valley organized the extralegal State of Deseret, claiming the entire Great Basin and all lands drained by the rivers Green, Grand, and Colorado. The federal government of the U.S. flatly refused to recognize the new Mormon government because it was theocratic and sanctioned plural marriage. Instead, the Compromise of 1850 divided the Mexican Cession and the northwestern claims of Texas into a new state and two new territories, the state of California, the Territory of New Mexico, and the Territory of Utah. On April 9, 1851, Hispano settlers from the area of Taos settled the village of San Luis, then in the New Mexico Territory, as Colorado's first permanent Euro-American settlement, further cementing the traditions of New Mexican cuisine and New Mexico music in the developing Southern Rocky Mountain Front. In 1854, Senator Stephen A. Douglas persuaded the U.S. Congress to divide the unorganized territory east of the Continental Divide into two new organized territories, the Territory of Kansas and the Territory of Nebraska, and an unorganized southern region known as the Indian Territory. Each new territory was to decide the fate of slavery within its boundaries, but this compromise merely served to fuel animosity between free soil and pro-slavery factions. The gold seekers organized the Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson on August 24, 1859, but this new territory failed to secure approval from the Congress of the United States embroiled in the debate over slavery. The election of Abraham Lincoln for the President of the United States on November 6, 1860, led to the secession of nine southern slave states and the threat of civil war among the states. Seeking to augment the political power of the Union states, the Republican Party-dominated Congress quickly admitted the eastern portion of the Territory of Kansas into the Union as the free State of Kansas on January 29, 1861, leaving the western portion of the Kansas Territory, and its gold-mining areas, as unorganized territory. ===Territory act=== Thirty days later on February 28, 1861, outgoing U.S. President James Buchanan signed an Act of Congress organizing the free Territory of Colorado. In 1859, a U.S. Army topographic expedition led by Captain John Macomb located the confluence of the Green River with the Grand River in what is now Canyonlands National Park in Utah. The Macomb party designated the confluence as the source of the Colorado River. On April 12, 1861, South Carolina artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter to start the American Civil War. While many gold seekers held sympathies for the Confederacy, the vast majority remained fiercely loyal to the Union cause. In 1862, a force of Texas cavalry invaded the Territory of New Mexico and captured Santa Fe on March 10. The object of this Western Campaign was to seize or disrupt Colorado and California's gold fields and seize Pacific Ocean ports for the Confederacy. A hastily organized force of Colorado volunteers force-marched from Denver City, Colorado Territory, to Glorieta Pass, New Mexico Territory, in an attempt to block the Texans. On March 28, the Coloradans and local New Mexico volunteers stopped the Texans at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, destroyed their cannon and supply wagons, and dispersed 500 of their horses and mules. The Texans were forced to retreat to Santa Fe. Having lost the supplies for their campaign and finding little support in New Mexico, the Texans abandoned Santa Fe and returned to San Antonio in defeat. The Confederacy made no further attempts to seize the Southwestern United States. In 1864, Territorial Governor John Evans appointed the Reverend John Chivington as Colonel of the Colorado Volunteers with orders to protect white settlers from Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors who were accused of stealing cattle. Colonel Chivington ordered his troops to attack a band of Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped along Sand Creek. Chivington reported that his troops killed more than 500 warriors. The militia returned to Denver City in triumph, but several officers reported that the so-called battle was a blatant massacre of Indians at peace, that most of the dead were women and children, and that the bodies of the dead had been hideously mutilated and desecrated. Three U.S. Army inquiries condemned the action, and incoming President Andrew Johnson asked Governor Evans for his resignation, but none of the perpetrators was ever punished. This event is now known as the Sand Creek massacre. In the midst and aftermath of the Civil War, many discouraged prospectors returned to their homes, but a few stayed and developed mines, mills, farms, ranches, roads, and towns in Colorado Territory. On September 14, 1864, James Huff discovered silver near Argentine Pass, the first of many silver strikes. In 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad laid its tracks west to Weir, now Julesburg, in the northeast corner of the Territory. The Union Pacific linked up with the Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, to form the First transcontinental railroad. The Denver Pacific Railway reached Denver in June of the following year, and the Kansas Pacific arrived two months later to forge the second line across the continent. In 1872, rich veins of silver were discovered in the San Juan Mountains on the Ute Indian reservation in southwestern Colorado. The Ute people were removed from the San Juan Mountains the following year. ===Statehood=== The United States Congress passed an enabling act on March 3, 1875, specifying the requirements for the Territory of Colorado to become a state. On August 1, 1876 (four weeks after the Centennial of the United States), U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado to the Union as the 38th state and earning it the moniker "Centennial State". The discovery of a major silver lode near Leadville in 1878 triggered the Colorado Silver Boom. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 invigorated silver mining, and Colorado's last, but greatest, gold strike at Cripple Creek a few months later lured a new generation of gold seekers. Colorado women were granted the right to vote on November 7, 1893, making Colorado the second state to grant universal suffrage and the first one by a popular vote (of Colorado men). The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 led to a staggering collapse of the mining and agricultural economy of Colorado, but the state slowly and steadily recovered. Between the 1880s and 1930s, Denver's floriculture industry developed into a major industry in Colorado. This period became known locally as the Carnation Gold Rush. ===Twentieth and twenty-first centuries=== Poor labor conditions and discontent among miners resulted in several major clashes between strikers and the Colorado National Guard, including the 1903–1904 Western Federation of Miners Strike and Colorado Coalfield War, the latter of which included the Ludlow massacre that killed a dozen women and children. Both the 1913–1914 Coalfield War and the Denver streetcar strike of 1920 resulted in federal troops intervening to end the violence. In 1927, the 1927-28 Colorado coal strike occurred and was ultimately successful in winning a dollar a day increase in wages. During it however the Columbine Mine massacre resulted in six dead strikers following a confrontation with Colorado Rangers. In a separate incident in Trinidad the mayor was accused of deputizing members of the KKK against the striking workers. More than 5,000 Colorado miners—many immigrants—are estimated to have died in accidents since records were first formally collected following an 1884 accident in Crested Butte that killed 59. In 1924, the Ku Klux Klan Colorado Realm achieved dominance in Colorado politics. With peak membership levels, the Second Klan levied significant control over both the local and state Democrat and Republican parties, particularly in the governor's office and city governments of Denver, Cañon City, and Durango. A particularly strong element of the Klan controlled the Denver Police. Cross burnings became semi-regular occurrences in cities such as Florence and Pueblo. The Klan targeted African-Americans, Catholics, Eastern European immigrants, and other non-White Protestant groups. Efforts by non-Klan lawmen and lawyers including Philip Van Cise led to a rapid decline in the organization's power, with membership waning significantly by the end of the 1920s. From the 1940s and 1970s, many protest movements gained momentum in Colorado, predominantly in Denver. This included the Chicano Movement, a civil rights, and social movement of Mexican Americans emphasizing a Chicano identity that is widely considered to have begun in Denver. The National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference was held in Colorado in March 1969. In 1967, Colorado was the first state to loosen restrictions on abortion when governor John Love signed a law allowing abortions in cases of rape, incest, or threats to the woman's mental or physical health. Many states followed Colorado's lead in loosening abortion laws in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the late 1990s, Colorado has been the site of multiple major mass shootings, including the infamous Columbine High School massacre in 1999 which made international news, where two gunmen killed 12 students and one teacher, before committing suicide. The incident has spawned many copycat incidents. On July 20, 2012, a gunman killed 12 people in a movie theater in Aurora. The state responded with tighter restrictions on firearms, including introducing a limit on magazine capacity. On March 22, 2021, a gunman killed 10 people, including a police officer, in a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder. In an instance of anti-LGBT violence, a gunman killed 5 people at a nightclub in Colorado Springs during the night of November 19–20, 2022. Four warships of the U.S. Navy have been named the USS Colorado. The first USS Colorado was named for the Colorado River and served in the Civil War and later the Asiatic Squadron, where it was attacked during the 1871 Korean Expedition. The later three ships were named in honor of the state, including an armored cruiser and the battleship USS Colorado, the latter of which was the lead ship of her class and served in World War II in the Pacific beginning in 1941. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battleship USS Colorado was located at the naval base in San Diego, California, and thus went unscathed. The most recent vessel to bear the name USS Colorado is Virginia-class submarine USS Colorado (SSN-788), which was commissioned in 2018. ==Geography== Colorado is notable for its diverse geography, which includes alpine mountains, high plains, deserts with huge sand dunes, and deep canyons. In 1861, the United States Congress defined the boundaries of the new Territory of Colorado exclusively by lines of latitude and longitude, stretching from 37°N to 41°N latitude, and from 102°02′48″W to 109°02′48″W longitude (25°W to 32°W from the Washington Meridian). After years of government surveys, the borders of Colorado were officially defined by 697 boundary markers and 697 straight boundary lines. Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah are the only states that have their borders defined solely by straight boundary lines with no natural features. The southwest corner of Colorado is the Four Corners Monument at 36°59′56″N, 109°2′43″W. The Four Corners Monument, located at the place where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet, is the only place in the United States where four states meet. The Colorado plains are mostly prairies but also include deciduous forests, buttes, and canyons. Precipitation averages annually. Eastern Colorado is presently mainly farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages and towns. Corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops. Most villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from both surface and subterranean sources. Surface water sources include the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams. Subterranean water is generally accessed through artesian wells. Heavy usage of these wells for irrigation purposes caused underground water reserves to decline in the region. Eastern Colorado also hosts a considerable amount and range of livestock, such as cattle ranches and hog farms. ===Front Range=== Roughly 70% of Colorado's population resides along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is partially protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The "Front Range" includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Castle Rock, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley, and other townships and municipalities in between. On the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in western Colorado (which is known as "The Western Slope") are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose. ===Mountains=== To the west of the Great Plains of Colorado rises the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Notable peaks of the Rocky Mountains include Longs Peak, Mount Blue Sky, Pikes Peak, and the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg, in southern Colorado. This area drains to the east and the southeast, ultimately either via the Mississippi River or the Rio Grande into the Gulf of Mexico. The Rocky Mountains within Colorado contain 53 true peaks and 58 named peaks that are or higher in elevation above sea level, known as fourteeners. These mountains are largely covered with trees such as conifers and aspens up to the tree line, at an elevation of about in southern Colorado to about in northern Colorado. Above this tree line, only alpine vegetation grows. Much of the alpine snow melts by mid-August except for a few snow-capped peaks and a few small glaciers. The Colorado Mineral Belt, stretching from the San Juan Mountains in the southwest to Boulder and Central City on the front range, contains most of the historic gold- and silver-mining districts of Colorado. The 30 highest major summits of the Rocky Mountains of North America are all within the state. The summit of Mount Elbert at elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains of North America. Colorado is the only U.S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado, and into Cheyenne County, Kansas, is the lowest in Colorado at elevation. This point, which is the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. ====Continental Divide==== The Continental Divide of the Americas extends along the crest of the Rocky Mountains. The area of Colorado to the west of the Continental Divide is called the Western Slope of Colorado. West of the Continental Divide, water flows to the southwest via the Colorado River and the Green River towards the Gulf of California. Within the interior of the Rocky Mountains are several large parks which are high broad basins. In the north, on the east side of the Continental Divide is the North Park of Colorado. The North Park is drained by the North Platte River, which flows north into Wyoming and Nebraska. Just to the south of North Park, but on the western side of the Continental Divide, is the Middle Park of Colorado, which is drained by the Colorado River. The South Park of Colorado is the region of the headwaters of the South Platte River. ===South Central region=== In south-central Colorado is the large San Luis Valley, where the headwaters of the Rio Grande are located. The northern part of the valley is the San Luis Closed Basin, an endorheic basin that helped created the Great Sand Dunes. The valley sits between the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and San Juan Mountains. The Rio Grande drains due south into New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico. Across the Sangre de Cristo Range to the east of the San Luis Valley lies the Wet Mountain Valley. These basins, particularly the San Luis Valley, lie along the Rio Grande rift, a major geological formation of the Rocky Mountains, and its branches. ===Western Slope=== The Western Slope of Colorado includes the western face of the Rocky Mountains and all of the area to the western border. This area includes several terrains and climates from alpine mountains to arid deserts. The Western Slope includes many ski resort towns in the Rocky Mountains and towns west to Utah. It is less populous than the Front Range but includes a large number of national parks and monuments. The northwestern corner of Colorado is a sparsely populated region, and it contains part of the noted Dinosaur National Monument, which not only is a paleontological area, but is also a scenic area of rocky hills, canyons, arid desert, and streambeds. Here, the Green River briefly crosses over into Colorado. The Western Slope of Colorado is drained by the Colorado River and its tributaries (primarily the Gunnison River, Green River, and the San Juan River). The Colorado River flows through Glenwood Canyon, and then through an arid valley made up of desert from Rifle to Parachute, through the desert canyon of De Beque Canyon, and into the arid desert of Grand Valley, where the city of Grand Junction is located. Also prominent is the Grand Mesa, which lies to the southeast of Grand Junction; the high San Juan Mountains, a rugged mountain range; and to the north and west of the San Juan Mountains, the Colorado Plateau. Grand Junction, Colorado, at the confluence of the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers, is the largest city on the Western Slope. Grand Junction and Durango are the only major centers of television broadcasting west of the Continental Divide in Colorado, though most mountain resort communities publish daily newspapers. Grand Junction is located at the juncture of Interstate 70 and US 50, the only major highways in western Colorado. Grand Junction is also along the major railroad of the Western Slope, the Union Pacific. This railroad also provides the tracks for Amtrak's California Zephyr passenger train, which crosses the Rocky Mountains between Denver and Grand Junction. The Western Slope includes multiple notable destinations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, including Glenwood Springs, with its resort hot springs, and the ski resorts of Aspen, Breckenridge, Vail, Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs, and Telluride. Higher education in and near the Western Slope can be found at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Western Colorado University in Gunnison, Fort Lewis College in Durango, and Colorado Mountain College in Glenwood Springs and Steamboat Springs. The Four Corners Monument in the southwest corner of Colorado marks the common boundary of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah; the only such place in the United States. ==Climate== The climate of Colorado is more complex than states outside of the Mountain States region. Unlike most other states, southern Colorado is not always warmer than northern Colorado. Most of Colorado is made up of mountains, foothills, high plains, and desert lands. Mountains and surrounding valleys greatly affect the local climate. Northeast, east, and southeast Colorado are mostly the high plains, while Northern Colorado is a mix of high plains, foothills, and mountains. Northwest and west Colorado are predominantly mountainous, with some desert lands mixed in. Southwest and southern Colorado are a complex mixture of desert and mountain areas. ===Eastern Plains=== The climate of the Eastern Plains is semi-arid (Köppen climate classification: BSk) with low humidity and moderate precipitation, usually from annually, although many areas near the rivers are semi-humid climate. The area is known for its abundant sunshine and cool, clear nights, which give this area a great average diurnal temperature range. The difference between the highs of the days and the lows of the nights can be considerable as warmth dissipates to space during clear nights, the heat radiation not being trapped by clouds. The Front Range urban corridor, where most of the population of Colorado resides, lies in a pronounced precipitation shadow as a result of being on the lee side of the Rocky Mountains. In summer, this area can have many days above and often . On the plains, the winter lows usually range from . About 75% of the precipitation falls within the growing season, from April to September, but this area is very prone to droughts. Most of the precipitation comes from thunderstorms, which can be severe, and from major snowstorms that occur in the winter and early spring. Otherwise, winters tend to be mostly dry and cold. In much of the region, March is the snowiest month. April and May are normally the rainiest months, while April is the wettest month overall. The Front Range cities closer to the mountains tend to be warmer in the winter due to Chinook winds which warms the area, sometimes bringing temperatures of or higher in the winter. ===Extreme weather=== Extreme weather changes are common in Colorado, although a significant portion of the extreme weather occurs in the least populated areas of the state. Thunderstorms are common east of the Continental Divide in the spring and summer, yet are usually brief. Hail is a common sight in the mountains east of the Divide and across the eastern Plains, especially the northeast part of the state. Hail is the most commonly reported warm-season severe weather hazard, and occasionally causes human injuries, as well as significant property damage. The eastern Plains are subject to some of the biggest hail storms in North America. and May 8, 2017, the latter being the costliest ever in the state. The Eastern Plains are part of the extreme western portion of Tornado Alley; some damaging tornadoes in the Eastern Plains include the 1990 Limon F3 tornado and the 2008 Windsor EF3 tornado, which devastated a small town. Portions of the eastern Plains see especially frequent tornadoes, both those spawned from mesocyclones in supercell thunderstorms and from less intense landspouts, such as within the Denver convergence vorticity zone (DCVZ). the Big Thompson River flooding of 1976 and the 2013 Colorado floods. Hot weather is common during summers in Denver. The city's record in 1901 for the number of consecutive days above was broken during the summer of 2008. The new record of 24 consecutive days surpassed the previous record by almost a week. Much of Colorado is very dry, with the state averaging only of precipitation per year statewide. The state rarely experiences a time when some portion is not in some degree of drought. The lack of precipitation contributes to the severity of wildfires in the state, such as the Hayman Fire of 2002. Other notable fires include the Fourmile Canyon Fire of 2010, the Waldo Canyon Fire and High Park Fire of June 2012, and the Black Forest Fire of June 2013. Even these fires were exceeded in severity by the Pine Gulch Fire, Cameron Peak Fire, and East Troublesome Fire in 2020, all being the three largest fires in Colorado history (see 2020 Colorado wildfires). And the Marshall Fire which started on December 30, 2021, while not the largest in state history, was the most destructive ever in terms of property loss (see Marshall Fire). However, some of the mountainous regions of Colorado receive a huge amount of moisture from winter snowfalls. The spring melts of these snows often cause great waterflows in the Yampa River, the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Arkansas River, the North Platte River, and the South Platte River. Water flowing out of the Colorado Rocky Mountains is a very significant source of water for the farms, towns, and cities of the southwest states of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, as well as the Midwest, such as Nebraska and Kansas, and the southern states of Oklahoma and Texas. A significant amount of water is also diverted for use in California; occasionally (formerly naturally and consistently), the flow of water reaches northern Mexico. ===Climate change=== ===Records=== The highest official ambient air temperature ever recorded in Colorado was on July 20, 2019, at John Martin Dam. The lowest official air temperature was on February 1, 1985, at Maybell. ===Extreme temperatures=== ===Earthquakes=== Despite its mountainous terrain, Colorado experiences less seismic activity than states like California and Alaska. There are over 90 potentially active faults, and since 1867, Colorado has experienced 700 recorded earthquakes of magnitude 2.5 or higher. The U.S. National Earthquake Information Center is located in Golden. On August 22, 2011, a 5.3 magnitude earthquake occurred west-southwest of the city of Trinidad. There were no casualties and only a small amount of damage was reported. It was the second-largest earthquake in Colorado's history, the largest being a magnitude 6.6 earthquake, recorded in 1882. Four minor earthquakes rattled Colorado on August 24, 2018, ranging from magnitude 2.9 to 4.3. , there were 525 recorded earthquakes in Colorado since 1973, a majority of which range 2 to 3.5 on the Richter scale. ==Fauna== A process of extirpation by trapping and poisoning of the gray wolf (Canis lupus) from Colorado in the 1930s saw the last wild wolf in the state shot in 1945. A wolf pack recolonized Moffat County, Colorado in northwestern Colorado in 2019. Cattle farmers have expressed concern that a returning wolf population potentially threatens their herds. While there is fossil evidence of Harrington's mountain goat in Colorado between at least 800,000 years ago and its extinction with megafauna roughly 11,000 years ago, the mountain goat is not native to Colorado but was instead introduced to the state over time during the interval between 1947 and 1972. Despite being an artificially-introduced species, the state declared mountain goats a native species in 1993. In 2013, 2014, and 2019, an unknown illness killed nearly all mountain goat kids, leading to a Colorado Parks and Wildlife investigation. The native population of pronghorn in Colorado has varied wildly over the last century, reaching a low of only 15,000 individuals during the 1960s. However, conservation efforts succeeded in bringing the stable population back up to roughly 66,000 by 2013. The population was estimated to have reached 85,000 by 2019 and had increasingly more run-ins with the increased suburban housing along the eastern Front Range. State wildlife officials suggested that landowners would need to modify fencing to allow the greater number of pronghorns to move unabated through the newly developed land. Pronghorns are most readily found in the northern and eastern portions of the state, with some populations also in the western San Juan Mountains. Common wildlife found in the mountains of Colorado include mule deer, southwestern red squirrel, golden-mantled ground squirrel, yellow-bellied marmot, moose, American pika, and red fox, all at exceptionally high numbers, though moose are not native to the state. The foothills include deer, fox squirrel, desert cottontail, mountain cottontail, and coyote. The prairies are home to black-tailed prairie dog, the endangered swift fox, American badger, and white-tailed jackrabbit. ==Government== ===State government=== Like the federal government and all other U.S. states, Colorado's state constitution provides for three branches of government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches. The Governor of Colorado heads the state's executive branch. The current governor is Jared Polis, a Democrat. Colorado's other statewide elected executive officers are the Lieutenant Governor of Colorado (elected on a ticket with the Governor), Secretary of State of Colorado, Colorado State Treasurer, and Attorney General of Colorado, all of whom serve four-year terms. The seven-member Colorado Supreme Court is the state's highest court. The Colorado Court of Appeals, with 22 judges, sits in divisions of three judges each. Colorado is divided into 23 judicial districts, each of which has a district court and a county court with limited jurisdiction. The state also has specialized water courts, which sit in seven distinct divisions around the state and which decide matters relating to water rights and the use and administration of water. The state legislative body is the Colorado General Assembly, which is made up of two houses – the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House has 65 members and the Senate has 35. , the Democratic Party holds a 23 to 12 majority in the Senate and a 46 to 19 majority in the House. Most Coloradans are native to other states (nearly 60% according to the 2000 census), and this is illustrated by the fact that the state did not have a native-born governor from 1975 (when John David Vanderhoof left office) until 2007, when Bill Ritter took office; his election the previous year marked the first electoral victory for a native-born Coloradan in a gubernatorial race since 1958 (Vanderhoof had ascended from the Lieutenant Governorship when John Arthur Love was given a position in Richard Nixon's administration in 1973). Tax is collected by the Colorado Department of Revenue. ====Politics==== Colorado was once considered a swing state, but has become a relatively safe blue state in both state and federal elections since the late 2010s. In presidential elections, it had not been won until 2020 by double digits since 1984 and has backed the winning candidate in 9 of the last 11 elections. Coloradans have elected 17 Democrats and 12 Republicans to the governorship in the last 100 years. In presidential politics, Colorado was considered a reliably Republican state during the post-World War II era, voting for the Democratic candidate only in 1948, 1964, and 1992. However, it became a competitive swing state in the 1990s. Since the mid-2000s, it has swung heavily to the Democrats, voting for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Kamala Harris in 2024. Colorado politics exhibits a contrast between conservative cities such as Colorado Springs and Grand Junction, and liberal cities such as Boulder and Denver. Democrats are strongest in metropolitan Denver, the college towns of Fort Collins and Boulder, southern Colorado (including Pueblo), and several western ski resort counties. The Republicans are strongest in the Eastern Plains, Colorado Springs, Greeley, and far Western Colorado near Grand Junction. Colorado is represented by two members of the United States Senate: Class 2, John Hickenlooper (Democratic), since 2021 Class 3, Michael Bennet (Democratic), since 2009 Colorado is represented by eight members of the United States House of Representatives: 1st district: Diana DeGette (Democratic), since 1997 2nd district: Joe Neguse (Democratic), since 2019 3rd district: Jeff Hurd (Republican), since 2025 4th district: Lauren Boebert (Republican), since 2021 5th district: Jeff Crank (Republican), since 2025 6th district: Jason Crow (Democratic), since 2019 7th district: Brittany Pettersen (Democratic), since 2023 8th district: Gabe Evans (Republican), since 2025 In a 2020 study, Colorado was ranked as the seventh easiest state for citizens to vote in. ====Significant initiatives and legislation enacted in Colorado==== Colorado was the first state in the union to enact, by voter referendum, a law extending suffrage to women. That initiative was approved by the state's voters on November 7, 1893. On the November 8, 1932, ballot, Colorado approved the repeal of alcohol prohibition more than a year before the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. Colorado has banned, via C.R.S. section 12-6-302, the sale of motor vehicles on Sunday since at least 1953. In 1972, Colorado voters rejected a referendum proposal to fund the 1976 Winter Olympics, which had been scheduled to be held in the state. Denver had been chosen by the International Olympic Committee as the host city on May 12, 1970. In 1992, by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, Colorado voters approved an amendment to the state constitution (Amendment 2) that would have prevented any city, town, or county in the state from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to recognize homosexuals or bisexuals as a protected class. In 1996, in a 6–3 ruling in Romer v. Evans, the U.S. Supreme Court found that preventing protected status based upon homosexuality or bisexuality did not satisfy the Equal Protection Clause. In 2006, voters passed Amendment 43, which banned same-sex marriage in Colorado. That initiative was nullified by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. In 2024, Colorado residents voted to establish an explicit right to abortion in Colorado's state constitution and to repeal Amendment 43's defunct marriage ban. In 2012, voters amended the state constitution protecting the "personal use" of marijuana for adults, establishing a framework to regulate cannabis like alcohol. The first recreational marijuana shops in Colorado, and by extension the United States, opened their doors on January 1, 2014. The state-issued digital identifications will be considered valid when Real ID enforcement begins in 2025, in line with the Real ID Act of 2005. By November 2022 The Colorado Governor's Office of Information Technology announced that the myColorado app had over 1 million users. On December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump was disqualified from the 2024 United States presidential election in part due to his alleged incitement of the January 6 United States Capitol attack. On March 4, 2024, the United States Supreme Court overruled the Colorado decision. ===Counties=== The State of Colorado is divided into 64 counties. Two of these counties, the City and County of Broomfield and the City and County of Denver, have consolidated city and county governments. Counties are important units of government in Colorado since there are no civil townships or other minor civil divisions. The most populous county in Colorado is El Paso County, the home of the City of Colorado Springs. The second most populous county is the City and County of Denver, the state capital. Five of the 64 counties now have more than 500,000 residents, while 12 have fewer than 5,000 residents. The ten most populous Colorado counties are all located in the Front Range Urban Corridor. Mesa County is the most populous county on the Colorado Western Slope. Coloradan Hispanics and Latinos (of any race and heritage) made up 20.7% of the population. According to the 2000 census, the largest ancestry groups in Colorado are German (22%), Mexican (18%), Irish (12%), and English (12%). Persons reporting German ancestry are especially numerous in the Front Range, the Rockies (west-central counties), and Eastern parts/High Plains. Colorado has a high proportion of Hispanic, mostly Mexican-American, citizens in Metropolitan Denver, Colorado Springs, as well as the smaller cities of Greeley and Pueblo, and elsewhere. Southern, Southwestern, and Southeastern Colorado have a large number of Hispanos, the descendants of the early settlers of colonial Spanish origin. In 1940, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Colorado's population as 8.2% Hispanic and 90.3% non-Hispanic White. The Hispanic population of Colorado has continued to grow quickly over the past decades. By 2019, Hispanics made up 22% of Colorado's population, and Non-Hispanic Whites made up 70%. Spoken English in Colorado has many Spanish idioms. Colorado also has some large African-American communities located in Denver, in the neighborhoods of Montbello, Five Points, Whittier, and many other East Denver areas. The state has sizable numbers of Asian-Americans of Mongolian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Southeast Asian, and Japanese descent. The highest population of Asian Americans can be found on the south and southeast side of Denver, as well as some on Denver's southwest side. The Denver metropolitan area is considered more liberal and diverse than much of the state when it comes to political issues and environmental concerns. The population of Native Americans in the state is small. Native Americans are concentrated in metropolitan Denver and the southwestern corner of Colorado, where there are two Ute reservations. The majority of Colorado's immigrants are from Mexico, India, China, Vietnam, Korea, Germany and Canada. There were a total of 70,331 births in Colorado in 2006. (Birth rate of 14.6 per thousand.) In 2007, non-Hispanic Whites were involved in 59.1% of all births. Some 14.06% of those births involved a non-Hispanic White person and someone of a different race, most often with a couple including one Hispanic. A birth where at least one Hispanic person was involved counted for 43% of the births in Colorado. As of the 2010 census, Colorado has the seventh highest percentage of Hispanics (20.7%) in the U.S. behind New Mexico (46.3%), California (37.6%), Texas (37.6%), Arizona (29.6%), Nevada (26.5%), and Florida (22.5%). Per the 2000 census, the Hispanic population is estimated to be 918,899, or approximately 20% of the state's total population. Colorado has the 5th-largest population of Mexican-Americans, behind California, Texas, Arizona, and Illinois. In percentages, Colorado has the 6th-highest percentage of Mexican-Americans, behind New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada. ===Birth data=== In 2011, 46% of Colorado's population younger than the age of one were minorities, meaning that they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic White. Note: Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number. Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one Hispanic group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race. In 2017, Colorado recorded the second-lowest fertility rate in the United States outside of New England, after Oregon, at 1.63 children per woman. ===Language=== The English language, the official language of the state, is the most commonly spoken language in Colorado. The second most commonly spoken language in the state is the Spanish language. The Colorado River Numic language, also known as the Ute dialect, is still spoken in Colorado. ===Religion=== Major religious affiliations of the people of Colorado as of 2014 were 64% Christian, of whom there are 44% Protestant, 16% Roman Catholic, 3% Mormon, and 1% Eastern Orthodox. Other religious breakdowns according to the Pew Research Center were 1% Judaism, 1% Muslim, 1% Buddhist, and 4% other. Secular Coloradans made up 29% of the population. In 2020, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, Christianity was 66% of the population. Judaism was also reported to have increased in this separate study, forming 2% of the religious landscape, while the religiously unaffiliated were reported to form 28% of the population in this separate study. In 2022, the same organization reported 61% was Christian (39% Protestant, 19% Catholic, 2% Mormon, 1% Eastern Orthodox), 2% New Age, 1% Jewish, 1% Hindu, and 34% religiously unaffiliated. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, the largest Christian denominations by the number of adherents in 2010 were the Catholic Church with 811,630; multi-denominational Evangelical Protestants with 229,981; and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with 151,433. In 2020, the Association of Religion Data Archives determined the largest Christian denominations were Catholics (873,236), non/multi/inter-denominational Protestants (406,798), and Mormons (150,509). Throughout its non-Christian population, there were 12,500 Hindus, 7,101 Hindu Yogis, and 17,369 Buddhists at the 2020 study. Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church was the first permanent Catholic parish in modern-day Colorado and was constructed by Spanish colonists from New Mexico in modern-day Conejos. Latin Church Catholics are served by three dioceses: the Archdiocese of Denver and the Dioceses of Colorado Springs and Pueblo. The first permanent settlement by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Colorado arrived from Mississippi and initially camped along the Arkansas River just east of the present-day site of Pueblo. == Health == Colorado is generally considered among the healthiest states by behavioral and healthcare researchers. Among the positive contributing factors is the state's well-known outdoor recreation opportunities and initiatives. However, there is a stratification of health metrics with wealthier counties such as Douglas and Pitkin performing significantly better relative to southern, less wealthy counties such as Huerfano and Las Animas. === Obesity === According to several studies, Coloradans have the lowest rates of obesity of any state in the US. , 24% of the population was considered medically obese, and while the lowest in the nation, the percentage had increased from 17% in 2004. === Life expectancy === According to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, residents of Colorado had a 2014 life expectancy of 80.21 years, the longest of any U.S. state. === Homelessness === According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 10,397 homeless people in Colorado. == Economy == In 2019 the total employment was 2,473,192. The number of employer establishments is 174,258. The total state product in 2015 was $318.6 billion. Median Annual Household Income in 2016 was $70,666, 8th in the nation. Per capita personal income in 2010 was $51,940, ranking Colorado 11th in the nation. The state's economy broadened from its mid-19th-century roots in mining when irrigated agriculture developed, and by the late 19th century, raising livestock had become important. Early industry was based on the extraction and processing of minerals and agricultural products. Current agricultural products are cattle, wheat, dairy products, corn, and hay. The federal government operates several federal facilities in the state, including NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), United States Air Force Academy, Schriever Air Force Base located approximately east of Peterson Air Force Base, and Fort Carson, both located in Colorado Springs within El Paso County; NOAA, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder; U.S. Geological Survey and other government agencies at the Denver Federal Center near Lakewood; the Denver Mint, Buckley Space Force Base, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Denver; and a federal Supermax Prison and other federal prisons near Cañon City. In addition to these and other federal agencies, Colorado has abundant National Forest land and four National Parks that contribute to federal ownership of of land in Colorado, or 37% of the total area of the state. In the second half of the 20th century, the industrial and service sectors expanded greatly. The state's economy is diversified and is notable for its concentration on scientific research and high-technology industries. Other industries include food processing, transportation equipment, machinery, chemical products, the extraction of metals such as gold (see Gold mining in Colorado), silver, and molybdenum. Colorado now also has the largest annual production of beer in any state. Denver is an important financial center. The state's diverse geography and majestic mountains attract millions of tourists every year, including 85.2 million in 2018. Tourism contributes greatly to Colorado's economy, with tourists generating $22.3 billion in 2018. Several nationally known brand names have originated in Colorado factories and laboratories. From Denver came the forerunner of telecommunications giant Qwest in 1879, Samsonite luggage in 1910, Gates belts and hoses in 1911, and Russell Stover Candies in 1923. Kuner canned vegetables began in Brighton in 1864. From Golden came Coors beer in 1873, CoorsTek industrial ceramics in 1920, and Jolly Rancher candy in 1949. CF&I railroad rails, wire, nails, and pipe debuted in Pueblo in 1892. Holly Sugar was first milled from beets in Holly in 1905, and later moved its headquarters to Colorado Springs. The present-day Swift packed meat of Greeley evolved from Monfort of Colorado, Inc., established in 1930. Estes model rockets were launched in Penrose in 1958. Fort Collins has been the home of Woodward Governor Company's motor controllers (governors) since 1870, and Waterpik dental water jets and showerheads since 1962. Celestial Seasonings herbal teas have been made in Boulder since 1969. Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory made its first candy in Durango in 1981. Colorado has a flat 4.63% income tax, regardless of income level. On 3 November 2020 voters authorized an initiative to lower that income tax rate to 4.55 percent. Unlike most states, which calculate taxes based on federal adjusted gross income, Colorado taxes are based on taxable income—income after federal exemptions and federal itemized (or standard) deductions. Colorado's state sales tax is 2.9% on retail sales. When state revenues exceed state constitutional limits, according to Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation, full-year Colorado residents can claim a sales tax refund on their individual state income tax return. Many counties and cities charge their own rates, in addition to the base state rate. There are also certain county and special district taxes that may apply. Real estate and personal business property are taxable in Colorado. The state's senior property tax exemption was temporarily suspended by the Colorado Legislature in 2003. The tax break was scheduled to return for the assessment year 2006, payable in 2007. , the state's unemployment rate was 4.2%. The West Virginia teachers' strike in 2018 inspired teachers in other states, including Colorado, to take similar action. === Agriculture === Corn is grown in the Eastern Plains of Colorado. Arid conditions and drought negatively impacted yields in 2020 and 2022. === Natural resources === Colorado has significant hydrocarbon resources. According to the Energy Information Administration, Colorado hosts seven of the largest natural gas fields in the United States, and two of the largest oil fields. Conventional and unconventional natural gas output from several Colorado basins typically accounts for more than five percent of annual U.S. natural gas production. Colorado's oil shale deposits hold an estimated of oil—nearly as much oil as the entire world's proven oil reserves. Substantial deposits of bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite coal are found in the state. Uranium mining in Colorado goes back to 1872, when pitchblende ore was taken from gold mines near Central City, Colorado. Not counting byproduct uranium from phosphate, Colorado is considered to have the third-largest uranium reserves of any U.S. state, behind Wyoming and New Mexico. When Colorado and Utah dominated radium mining from 1910 to 1922, uranium and vanadium were the byproducts (giving towns like present-day Superfund site Uravan their names). Uranium price increases from 2001 to 2007 prompted several companies to revive uranium mining in Colorado. During the 1940s certain communities–including Naturita and Paradox–earned the moniker of "yellowcake towns" from their relationship with uranium mining. Price drops and financing problems in late 2008 forced these companies to cancel or scale back the uranium-mining project. As of 2016, there were no major uranium mining operations in the state, though plans existed to restart production. ===Electricity generation=== Colorado's high Rocky Mountain ridges and eastern plains offer wind power potential, and geologic activity in the mountain areas provides the potential for geothermal power development. Much of the state is sunny and could produce solar power. Major rivers flowing from the Rocky Mountains offer hydroelectric power resources. ==Culture== ===Arts and film=== List of museums in Colorado List of theaters in Colorado Music of Colorado Several film productions have been shot on location in Colorado, especially prominent Westerns like True Grit, The Searchers, City Slickers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and My Life With the Walter Boys. Several historic military forts, railways with trains still operating, and mining ghost towns have been used and transformed for historical accuracy in well-known films. There are also several scenic highways and mountain passes that helped to feature the open road in films such as Vanishing Point, Bingo and Starman. Some Colorado landmarks have been featured in films, such as The Stanley Hotel in Dumb and Dumber and The Shining and the Sculptured House in Sleeper. In 2015, Furious 7 was to film driving sequences on Pikes Peak Highway in Colorado. The TV adult-animated series South Park takes place in central Colorado in the titular town. Additionally, The TV series Good Luck Charlie was set, but not filmed, in Denver, Colorado. The Colorado Office of Film and Television has noted that more than 400 films have been shot in Colorado. There are also several established film festivals in Colorado, including Aspen Filmfest and Aspen Shortsfest, Boulder International Film Festival, Castle Rock Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, Festivus Film Festival, Mile High Horror Film Festival, Moondance International Film Festival, Mountainfilm in Telluride, Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival, and Telluride Film Festival. On March 27, 2025, it was announced Sundance Film Festival would move to Boulder starting in 2027 after reaching a deal for a ten-year duration. Many notable writers have lived or spent extended periods in Colorado. Beat Generation writers Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady lived in and around Denver for several years each. Irish playwright Oscar Wilde visited Colorado on his tour of the United States in 1882, writing in his 1906 Impressions of America that Leadville was "the richest city in the world. It has also got the reputation of being the roughest, and every man carries a revolver." ===Cuisine=== Colorado is known for its Southwest and Rocky Mountain cuisine, with Mexican restaurants found throughout the state. Boulder was named America's Foodiest Town 2010 by Bon Appétit. Boulder, and Colorado in general, is home to several national food and beverage companies, top-tier restaurants and farmers' markets. Boulder also has more Master Sommeliers per capita than any other city, including San Francisco and New York. Denver is known for steak, but now has a diverse culinary scene with many restaurants. Polidori Sausage is a brand of pork products available in supermarkets, which originated in Colorado, in the early 20th century. The Food & Wine Classic is held annually each June in Aspen. Aspen also has a reputation as the culinary capital of the Rocky Mountain region. ===Wine and beer=== Colorado wines include varietals that have attracted favorable notice from outside the state. With wines made from traditional Vitis vinifera grapes along with wines made from cherries, peaches, plums, and honey, Colorado wines have won top national and international awards for their quality. Colorado's grape growing regions contain the highest elevation vineyards in the United States, with most viticulture in the state practiced between above sea level. The mountain climate ensures warm summer days and cool nights. Colorado is home to two designated American Viticultural Areas of the Grand Valley AVA and the West Elks AVA, where most of the vineyards in the state are located. However, an increasing number of wineries are located along the Front Range. In 2018, Wine Enthusiast Magazine named Colorado's Grand Valley AVA in Mesa County, Colorado, as one of the Top Ten wine travel destinations in the world. Colorado is home to many nationally praised microbreweries, including New Belgium Brewing Company, Odell Brewing Company,and Great Divide Brewing Company. The area of northern Colorado near and between the cities of Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins is known as the "Napa Valley of Beer" due to its high density of craft breweries. ===Marijuana and hemp=== Colorado is open to cannabis (marijuana) tourism. With the adoption of the 64th state amendment in 2012, Colorado became the first state in the union to legalize marijuana for medicinal (2000), industrial (referring to hemp, 2012), and recreational (2012) use. Colorado's marijuana industry sold $1.31 billion worth of marijuana in 2016 and $1.26 billion in the first three-quarters of 2017. The state generated tax, fee, and license revenue of $194 million in 2016 on legal marijuana sales. Colorado regulates hemp as any part of the plant with less than 0.3% THC. On April 4, 2014, Senate Bill 14–184 addressing oversight of Colorado's industrial hemp program was first introduced, ultimately being signed into law by Governor John Hickenlooper on May 31, 2014. ====Medicinal use==== On November 7, 2000, 54% of Colorado voters passed Amendment 20, which amends the Colorado State constitution to allow the medical use of marijuana. A patient's medical use of marijuana, within the following limits, is lawful: (I) No more than of a usable form of marijuana; and (II) No more than twelve marijuana plants, with six or fewer being mature, flowering plants that are producing a usable form of marijuana. Currently, Colorado has listed "eight medical conditions for which patients can use marijuana—cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, muscle spasms, seizures, severe pain, severe nausea and cachexia, or dramatic weight loss and muscle atrophy". While governor, John Hickenlooper allocated about half of the state's $13 million "Medical Marijuana Program Cash Fund" to medical research in the 2014 budget. By 2018, the Medical Marijuana Program Cash Fund was the "largest pool of pot money in the state" and was used to fund programs including research into pediatric applications for controlling autism symptoms. ====Recreational use==== On November 6, 2012, voters amended the state constitution to protect "personal use" of marijuana for adults, establishing a framework to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. The first recreational marijuana shops in Colorado, and by extension the United States, opened their doors on January 1, 2014. ==Transportation== Colorado's primary mode of transportation (in terms of passengers) is its highway system. Interstate 25 (I-25) is the primary north–south highway in the state, connecting Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Denver, and Fort Collins, and extending north to Wyoming and south to New Mexico. I-70 is the primary east–west corridor. It connects Grand Junction and the mountain communities with Denver and enters Utah and Kansas. The state is home to a network of US and Colorado highways that provide access to all principal areas of the state. Many smaller communities are connected to this network only via county roads. Denver International Airport (DIA) is the third-busiest domestic U.S. and international airport in the world by passenger traffic. DIA handles by far the largest volume of commercial air traffic in Colorado and is the busiest U.S. hub airport between Chicago and the Pacific coast, making Denver the most important airport for connecting passenger traffic in the western United States. Public transportation bus services are offered both intra-city and inter-city—including the Denver metro area's RTD services. The Regional Transportation District (RTD) operates the popular RTD Bus & Rail transit system in the Denver Metropolitan Area. the RTD rail system had 170 light-rail vehicles, serving of track. In addition to local public transit, intercity bus service is provided by Burlington Trailways, Bustang and Greyhound Lines. Amtrak operates two passenger rail lines in Colorado, the California Zephyr and Southwest Chief. Colorado's contribution to world railroad history was forged principally by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad which began in 1870 and wrote the book on mountain railroading. In 1988 the "Rio Grande" was acquired, but was merged into, the Southern Pacific Railroad by their joint owner Philip Anschutz. On September 11, 1996, Anschutz sold the combined company to the Union Pacific Railroad, creating the largest railroad network in the United States. The Anschutz sale was partly in response to the earlier merger of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe which formed the large Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), Union Pacific's principal competitor in western U.S. railroading. Both Union Pacific and BNSF have extensive freight operations in Colorado. Colorado's freight railroad network consists of 2,688 miles of Class I trackage. It is integral to the U.S. economy, being a critical artery for the movement of energy, agriculture, mining, and industrial commodities as well as general freight and manufactured products between the East and Midwest and the Pacific coast states. In August 2014, Colorado began to issue driver licenses to aliens not lawfully in the United States who lived in Colorado. In September 2014, KCNC reported that 524 non-citizens were issued Colorado driver licenses that are normally issued to U.S. citizens living in Colorado. ==Education== The first institution of higher education in the Colorado Territory was the Colorado Seminary, opened on November 16, 1864, by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The seminary closed in 1867 but reopened in 1880 as the University of Denver. In 1870, the Bishop George Maxwell Randall of the Episcopal Church's Missionary District of Colorado and Parts Adjacent opened the first of what become the Colorado University Schools which would include the Territorial School of Mines opened in 1873 and sold to the Colorado Territory in 1874. These schools were initially run by the Episcopal Church. An 1861 territorial act called for the creation of a public university in Boulder, though it would not be until 1876 that the University of Colorado was founded. The 1876 act also renamed Territorial School of Mines as the Colorado School of Mines. An 1870 territorial act created the Agricultural College of Colorado which opened in 1879. The college was renamed the Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1935, and became Colorado State University in 1957. The first Catholic college in Colorado was the Jesuit Sacred Heart College, which was founded in New Mexico in 1877, moved to Morrison in 1884, and to Denver in 1887. The college was renamed Regis College in 1921 and Regis University in 1991. On April 1, 1924, armed students patrolled the campus after a burning cross was found, the climax of tensions between Regis College and the locally-powerful Ku Klux Klan. Following a 1950 assessment by the Service Academy Board, it was determined that there was a need to supplement the U.S. Military and Naval Academies with a third school that would provide commissioned officers for the newly independent Air Force. On April 1, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law that moved for the creation of a U.S. Air Force Academy. Later that year, Colorado Springs was selected to host the new institution. From its establishment in 1955, until the construction of appropriate facilities in Colorado Springs was completed and opened in 1958, the Air Force Academy operated out of Lowry Air Force Base in Denver. With the opening of the Colorado Springs facility, the cadets moved to the new campus, though not in the full-kit march that some urban and campus legends suggest. The first class of Space Force officers from the Air Force Academy commissioned on April 18, 2020. ==Indigenous People== See Indigenous People of Colorado The two Native American reservations remaining in Colorado are the Southern Ute Indian Reservation (1873; Ute dialect: Kapuuta-wa Moghwachi Núuchi-u) and Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation (1940; Ute dialect: Wʉgama Núuchi). The two abolished Indian reservations in Colorado were the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation (1851–1870) and Ute Indian Reservation (1855–1873). ==Military installations== The major military installations in Colorado include: Buckley Space Force Base (1938–) Air Reserve Personnel Center (1953–) Fort Carson (U.S. Army 1942–) Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (1983–) Peterson Space Force Base (1942–) Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station (1961–) Schriever Space Force Base (1983–) United States Air Force Academy (1954–) Former military posts in Colorado include: Spanish Fort (Spanish Army 1819–1821) Fort Massachusetts (U.S. Army 1852–1858) Fort Garland (U.S. Army 1858–1883) Camp Collins (U.S. Army 1862–1870) Fort Logan (U.S. Army 1887–1946) Colorado National Guard Armory (1913–1933) Fitzsimons Army Hospital (U.S. Army 1918–1999) Denver Medical Depot (U.S. Army 1925–1949) Lowry Air Force Base (1938–1994) Pueblo Army Air Base (1941–1948) Rocky Mountain Arsenal (U.S. Army 1942–1992) Pueblo Chemical Depot (U.S. Army 1942–2024) Camp Hale (U.S. Army 1942–1945) La Junta Army Air Field (1942–1946) Leadville Army Air Field (1943–1944) ==Protected areas== Colorado is home to: ==Sports== Colorado has five major professional sports leagues, all based in the Denver metropolitan area. Colorado is the least populous state with a franchise in each of the major professional sports leagues. The Colorado Springs Snow Sox professional baseball team is based in Colorado Springs. The team is a member of the Pecos League, an independent baseball league which is not affiliated with Major or Minor League Baseball. The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is a major hill climbing motor race held on the Pikes Peak Highway. The Cherry Hills Country Club has hosted several professional golf tournaments, including the U.S. Open, U.S. Senior Open, U.S. Women's Open, PGA Championship and BMW Championship. === Professional sports teams === === College athletics === The following universities and colleges participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I.	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Congress", "List of national historic sites in Colorado", "abortion in Colorado", "U.S. Women's Open", "North American Vertical Datum of 1988", "University of Colorado Boulder", "Julesburg, Colorado", "El Paso County, Colorado", "Parachute, Colorado", "Race and ethnicity in the United States Census", "Hispanic", "settlement (migration)", "The Denver Post", "Central Pacific Railroad", "The Searchers (film)", "Non-Hispanic whites", "Colorado's 1st congressional district", "Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold", "Tornado outbreak of May 22–27, 2008", "United States Supreme Court", "County (United States)", "Blue grama grass", "India", "alcohol (drug)", "Mexican Americans", "USL League One", "25th meridian west from Washington", "U.S. Senior Open", "Coors Brewing Company", "Mongolian American", "Phil Weiser", "New Mexico", "hay", "attack on Pearl Harbor", "endorheic basin", "Ute Nation", "Great Lakes region", "Glendale, Colorado", "Boulder International Film Festival", "swing state", "North Platte River", "Asiatic Squadron", "Denver Museum of Nature and Science", "Uranium mining in Colorado", "Rio Grande rift", "Major League Soccer", "bisexuality", "Colorado House of Representatives", "Attorney General of Colorado", "Sculptured House", "High-capacity magazine ban", "landspout", "Unity Party of America", "Colorado-class battleship", "Korea", "Latin Church", "hydrocarbon", "Dwight Eisenhower", "Indian Territory", "Medical cannabis in the United States", "Hispanics and Latinos in Colorado", "Colorado Central Railroad", "List of regional trails in Colorado", "Mountain West Conference", "Western Athletic Conference", "Denver Union Station", "Kansas Territory", "Rocky Mountain News", "2020 Colorado wildfires", "Spanish language", "National Climatic Data Center", "Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver", "California gold rush", "List of national heritage areas in Colorado", "Republic of Texas", "Independent politician (United States)", "Festivus Film Festival", "Rhodochrosite", "Colorado Avalanche", "Odell Brewing Company", "diurnal temperature variation", "Fort Logan", "Colorado Labor Wars", "Compromise of 1850", "Mechanical engineering", "Colorado Amendment 64", "Basketball", "Cold semi-arid climate", "Camino Real de Tierra Adentro", "Dave Young (Colorado politician)", "Glenwood Springs, Colorado", "KTLA", "Fort Collins, Colorado", "Fitzsimons Army Hospital", "Connecticut", "Big 12 Conference", "Fort Sumter", "Colorado's 7th congressional district", "U.S. Geological Survey", "World War II", "Nevada", "English language", "Rocky Mountain Arsenal", "Dianne Primavera", "Denver Art Museum", "Marshall Fire", "U.S. Air Force Academy", "Buddhism in the United States", "black-tailed prairie dog", "National Park Service", "Rocky Mountains", "Illinois", "Pueblo West, Colorado", "Colorado Hairstreak", "Colorado Organic Act", "Littleton, Colorado", "aspen", "Climatological normal", "USS Colorado (ACR-7)", "English Americans", "Grand Junction, Colorado", "life expectancy", "megafauna", "Conejos, Colorado", "List of census-designated places in Colorado", "Non-Hispanic or Latino whites", "Lakewood, Colorado", "lignite", "mountain cottontail", "Groton, Connecticut", "cross burning", "Judaism", "University of Northern Colorado", "United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit", "NCAA Division III", "Agaricus julius", "Colorado River", "Colorado Department of Revenue", "Stegosaurus", "Mormonism and polygamy", "soybean", "Asian Americans", "Colorado College", "National Catholic Welfare Council", "Rocky Mountain National Park", "Mexican-American", "secession", "Lieutenant Governor of Colorado", "Asian American", "Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station", "Ute Mountain Ute Indian Reservation", "List of national monuments in Colorado", "Violence against LGBT people", "United States Census Bureau", "Virginia-class submarine", "American Constitution Party (Colorado)", "Superfund site", "Ticket (election)", "Empower Field at Mile High", "oil shale", "Western (genre)", "Hinduism in the United States", "Grand Valley AVA", "Denver Center for the Performing Arts", "Schriever Space Force Base", "San Juan River (Colorado River)", "Sommelier", "consolidated city-county", "Regis University" ]
5,401	Carboniferous	The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Permian Period, Ma. It is the fifth and penultimate period of the Paleozoic era and the fifth period of the Phanerozoic eon. In North America, the Carboniferous is often treated as two separate geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. The name Carboniferous means "coal-bearing", from the Latin ("coal") and ("bear, carry"), and refers to the many coal beds formed globally during that time. The first of the modern "system" names, it was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822, based on a study of the British rock succession. Carboniferous is the period during which both terrestrial animal and land plant life was well established. Stegocephalia (four-limbed vertebrates including true tetrapods), whose forerunners (tetrapodomorphs) had evolved from lobe-finned fish during the preceding Devonian period, became pentadactylous during the Carboniferous. The period is sometimes called the Age of Amphibians because of the diversification of early amphibians such as the temnospondyls, which became dominant land vertebrates, as well as the first appearance of amniotes including synapsids (the clade to which modern mammals belong) and sauropsids (which include modern reptiles and birds) during the late Carboniferous. Land arthropods such as arachnids (e.g. trigonotarbids and Pulmonoscorpius), myriapods (e.g. Arthropleura) and especially insects (particularly flying insects) also underwent a major evolutionary radiation during the late Carboniferous. Vast swaths of forests and swamps covered the land, which eventually became the coal beds characteristic of the Carboniferous stratigraphy evident today. The later half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. A minor marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred at the end of the period, caused by climate change. Atmospheric oxygen levels, originally thought to be consistently higher than today throughout the Carboniferous, have been shown to be more variable, increasing from low levels at the beginning of the Period to highs of 25–30%. The similarity in successions between the British Isles and Western Europe led to the development of a common European timescale with the Carboniferous System divided into the lower Dinantian, dominated by carbonate deposition and the upper Silesian with mainly siliciclastic deposition. The Dinantian was divided into the Tournaisian and Viséan stages. The Silesian was divided into the Namurian, Westphalian and Stephanian stages. The Tournaisian is the same length as the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) stage, but the Viséan is longer, extending into the lower Serpukhovian. In Russia, in the 1840s British and Russian geologists divided the Carboniferous into the Lower, Middle and Upper series based on Russian sequences. In the 1890s these became the Dinantian, Moscovian and Uralian stages. The Serpukivian was proposed as part of the Lower Carboniferous, and the Upper Carboniferous was divided into the Moscovian and Gzhelian. The Bashkirian was added in 1934. ==== Mississippian ==== The Mississippian was proposed by Alexander Winchell in 1870 named after the extensive exposure of lower Carboniferous limestone in the upper Mississippi River valley.The Viséan Stage was introduced by André Dumont in 1832 and is named after the city of Visé, Liège Province, Belgium. In 1967, the base of the Visean was officially defined as the first black limestone in the Leffe facies at the Bastion Section in the Dinant Basin. These changes are now thought to be ecologically driven rather than caused by evolutionary change, and so this has not been used as the location for the GSSP. Instead, the GSSP for the base of the Visean is located in Bed 83 of the sequence of dark grey limestones and shales at the Pengchong section, Guangxi, southern China. It is defined by the first appearance of the fusulinid Eoparastaffella simplex in the evolutionary lineage Eoparastaffella ovalis – Eoparastaffella simplex and was ratified in 2009. === Cyclothems === A cyclothem is a succession of non-marine and marine sedimentary rocks, deposited during a single sedimentary cycle, with an erosional surface at its base. Whilst individual cyclothems are often only metres to a few tens of metres thick, cyclothem sequences can be many hundreds to thousands of metres thick and contain tens to hundreds of individual cyclothems. The main period of cyclothem deposition occurred during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age from the Late Mississippian to early Permian, when the waxing and waning of ice sheets led to rapid changes in eustatic sea level. During the Pennsylvanian, vast amounts of organic debris accumulated in the peat mires that formed across the low-lying, humid equatorial wetlands of the foreland basins of the Central Pangean Mountains in Laurussia, and around the margins of the North and South China cratons. However, significant Mesozoic and Cenozoic coal deposits formed after lignin-digesting fungi had become well established, and fungal degradation of lignin may have already evolved by the end of the Devonian, even if the specific enzymes used by basidiomycetes had not. thumb\|Approximate positions of the continents in the late Carboniferous (c. 302 Ma). AM. Amuria; AN. Annamia; AT. Alexander terrane; K. Kazakhstania; MO. Mongol-Okhotsk Ocean; NC. North China; PA. Paleoasian Ocean; SC. South China; SA. Slide Mountain-Angayucham Ocean; T. Tarim; YTQ. Yukon-Tanana and Quesnellia terranes. Plate boundaries: red – subduction; white – ridges; yellow – transform. The orogeny was caused by a series of continental collisions between Laurussia, Gondwana and the [[Armorican terrane\|Armorican terrane assemblage (much of modern-day Central and Western Europe including Iberia) as the Rheic Ocean closed and Pangea formed. This mountain building process began in the Middle Devonian and continued into the early Permian. The Armorican terranes rifted away from Gondwana during the Late Ordovician. As they drifted northwards the Rheic Ocean closed in front of them, and they began to collide with southeastern Laurussia in the Middle Devonian. The Uralian orogeny began in the Late Devonian and continued, with some hiatuses, into the Jurassic. From the Late Devonian to early Carboniferous, the Magnitogorsk island arc, which lay between Kazakhstania and Laurussia in the Ural Ocean, collided with the passive margin of northeastern Laurussia (Baltica craton). The suture zone between the former island arc complex and the continental margin formed the Main Uralian Fault, a major structure that runs for more than 2,000 km along the orogen. Accretion of the island arc was complete by the Tournaisian, but subduction of the Ural Ocean between Kazakhstania and Laurussia continued until the Bashkirian when the ocean finally closed and continental collision began. Subduction of the Panthalassic oceanic plate along its western margin resulted in the Antler orogeny in the Late Devonian to Early Mississippian. Further north along the margin, slab roll-back, beginning in the Early Mississippian, led to the rifting of the Yukon–Tanana terrane and the opening of the Slide Mountain Ocean. Along the northern margin of Laurussia, orogenic collapse of the Late Devonian to Early Mississippian Innuitian orogeny led to the development of the Sverdrup Basin. The northern to northeastern margin of Gondwana (northeast Africa, Arabia, India and northeastern West Australia) was a passive margin along the southern edge of the Paleo-Tethys with cyclothem deposition including, during more temperate intervals, coal swamps in Western Australia. By the late Carboniferous, all these complexes had accreted to the Siberian craton as shown by the intrusion of post-orogenic granites across the region. As Kazakhstania had already accreted to Laurussia, Siberia was effectively part of Pangea by 310 Ma, although major strike-slip movements continued between it and Laurussia into the Permian. A continental magmatic arc above a south-dipping subduction zone lay along the northern North China margin, consuming the Paleoasian Ocean. Warmer periods with reduced ice volume within the Bashkirian, the late Moscovian and the latest Kasimovian to mid-Gzhelian are inferred from the disappearance of glacial sediments, the appearance of deglaciation deposits and rises in sea levels. This ended suddenly as a rapid increase in CO2 concentrations to c. 600 ppm resulted in a warmer climate. This rapid rise in CO2 may have been due to a peak in pyroclastic volcanism and/or a reduction in burial of terrestrial organic matter. Depending on the preservation of source material, some techniques represent moments in time (e.g. halite gas inclusions), whilst others have a wider time range (e.g. the charcoal record and pyrite). Results from these different methods for the Carboniferous vary. === Effects of climate on sedimentation === The changing climate was reflected in regional-scale changes in sedimentation patterns. In the relatively warm waters of the Early to Middle Mississippian, carbonate production occurred to depth across the gently dipping continental slopes of Laurussia and North and South China (carbonate ramp architecture) === Effects of climate on biodiversity === The main phase of the LPIA was considered a crisis for marine biodiversity with the loss of many genera, followed by low biodiversity. However, recent studies of marine life suggest the rapid climate and environmental changes that accompanied the onset of the main glacial phase resulted in an adaptive radiation with a rapid increase in the number of species. There was a major restructuring of wetland forests during the Kasimovian glacial interval, with the loss of arborescent (tree-like) lycopisids and other wetland groups, and a general decline in biodiversity. These events are attributed to the drop in CO2 levels below 400 ppm. whilst the distribution of continents across the paleo-tropics meant vast areas of land were available for the spread of tropical rainforests. These variations reflect the changing influence of weathering and sediment supply to the oceans of the growing Central Pangean Mountains. By the Serpukhovian basement rocks, such as granite, had been uplifted and exposed to weathering. The decline towards the end of the Carboniferous is interpreted as a decrease in continental weathering due to the more arid conditions. === Oxygen and carbon isotope ratios in seawater === Unlike Mg2+/Ca2+ and 87Sr/86Sr isotope ratios, which are consistent across the world's oceans at any one time, δ18O and δ13C preserved in the fossil record can be affected by regional factors. For the first time foraminifera took a prominent part in the marine faunas. The large spindle-shaped genus Fusulina and its relatives were abundant in what is now Russia, China, Japan, North America; other important genera include Valvulina, Endothyra, Archaediscus, and Saccammina (the latter common in Britain and Belgium). Some Carboniferous genera are still extant. The first true priapulids appeared during this period. The microscopic shells of radiolarians are found in cherts of this age in the Culm of Devon and Cornwall, and in Russia, Germany and elsewhere. Sponges are known from spicules and anchor ropes, and include various forms such as the Calcispongea Cotyliscus and Girtycoelia, the demosponge Chaetetes, and the genus of unusual colonial glass sponges Titusvillia. Both reef-building and solitary corals diversify and flourish; these include both rugose (for example, Caninia, Corwenia, Neozaphrentis), heterocorals, and tabulate (for example, Chladochonus, Michelinia) forms. Conularids were well represented by Conularia Bryozoa are abundant in some regions; the fenestellids including Fenestella, Polypora, and Archimedes, so named because it is in the shape of an Archimedean screw. Brachiopods are also abundant; they include productids, some of which reached very large for brachiopods size and had very thick shells (for example, the -wide Gigantoproductus), while others like Chonetes were more conservative in form. Athyridids, spiriferids, rhynchonellids, and terebratulids are also very common. Inarticulate forms include Discina and Crania. Some species and genera had a very wide distribution with only minor variations. Annelids such as Serpulites are common fossils in some horizons. Among the mollusca, the bivalves continue to increase in numbers and importance. Typical genera include Aviculopecten, Posidonomya, Nucula, Carbonicola, Edmondia, and Modiola. Gastropods are also numerous, including the genera Murchisonia, Euomphalus, Naticopsis. Nautiloid cephalopods are represented by tightly coiled nautilids, with straight-shelled and curved-shelled forms becoming increasingly rare. Goniatite ammonoids such as Aenigmatoceras are common. Trilobites are rarer than in previous periods, on a steady trend towards extinction, represented only by the proetid group. Ostracoda, a class of crustaceans, were abundant as representatives of the meiobenthos; genera included Amphissites, Bairdia, Beyrichiopsis, Cavellina, Coryellina, Cribroconcha, Hollinella, Kirkbya, Knoxiella, and Libumella. Crinoids were highly numerous during the Carboniferous, though they suffered a gradual decline in diversity during the Middle Mississippian. Dense submarine thickets of long-stemmed crinoids appear to have flourished in shallow seas, and their remains were consolidated into thick beds of rock. Prominent genera include Cyathocrinus, Woodocrinus, and Actinocrinus. Echinoids such as Archaeocidaris and Palaeechinus were also present. The blastoids, which included the Pentreinitidae and Codasteridae and superficially resembled crinoids in the possession of long stalks attached to the seabed, attain their maximum development at this time. File:Aviculopecten subcardiformis01.JPG\|Aviculopecten subcardiformis; a bivalve from the Logan Formation (lower Carboniferous) of Wooster, Ohio (external mold) File:LoganFauna011312.jpg\|Bivalves (Aviculopecten) and brachiopods (Syringothyris) in the Logan Formation (lower Carboniferous) in Wooster, Ohio File:Syringothyris01.JPG\|Syringothyris sp.; a spiriferid brachiopod from the Logan Formation (lower Carboniferous) of Wooster, Ohio (internal mold) File:Palaeophycus01.JPG\|Palaeophycus ichnosp.; a trace fossil from the Logan Formation (lower Carboniferous) of Wooster, Ohio File:PlatyceratidMississippian.JPG\|Crinoid calyx from the lower Carboniferous of Ohio with a conical platyceratid gastropod (Palaeocapulus acutirostre) attached File:Conulariid03.jpg\|Conulariid from the lower Carboniferous of Indiana File:Syringoporid.jpg\|Tabulate coral (a syringoporid); Boone Limestone (lower Carboniferous) near Hiwasse, Arkansas File:Typhloesus interpretation 2022.jpg\|Typhloesus was a bizarre invertebrate that lived in Montana. It is possibly a mollusk related to gastropods. File:Essexella asherae.JPG\|Essexella was a cnidarian that lived in Northern Illinois. It was long considered a scyphozoan, but is now regarded as a Sea anemone File:Concavicaris georgeorum.png\|Concavicaris was a long lasting genus of thylacocephalan arthropod that lived from the Devonian to the Carboniferous. File:Triproetus bonbon cropped.jpg\|Triproetus was a genus of proetid trilobite, which were the only order that survived the end-Devonian extinction File:Daidal.png\|Daidal was a basal species of Mantis shrimp (stomatopoda) File:Jeletzkya douglassae.jpg\|Jeletzkya was an early genus of coleoid cephalopod from northern Illinois File:Syllipsimopodi bideni.webp\|Syllipsimopodi was the earliest known vampyropod cephalopod, originating from Carboniferous rocks of Montana. ===Freshwater and lagoonal invertebrates=== Freshwater Carboniferous invertebrates include various bivalve molluscs that lived in brackish or fresh water, such as Anthraconaia, Naiadites, and Carbonicola; diverse crustaceans such as Candona, Carbonita, Darwinula, Estheria, Acanthocaris, Dithyrocaris, and Anthrapalaemon. The eurypterids were also diverse, and are represented by such genera as Adelophthalmus, Megarachne (originally misinterpreted as a giant spider, hence its name) and the specialised very large Hibbertopterus. Many of these were amphibious. Frequently a temporary return of marine conditions resulted in marine or brackish water genera such as Lingula, Orbiculoidea, and Productus being found in the thin beds known as marine bands. File:20210116 Megarachne hypothetical reconstruction.png\|Megarachne was a large freshwater eurypterid from South America that was originally misidentified as a spider File:Adelophthalmus irinae.png\|Adelophthalmus was the only genus of eurypterine eurypterid that survived past the Devonian File:Hibbertopterus scouleri.jpg\|Due to its large and compact shell, Hibbertopterus was one of if not the heaviest eurypterid in the fossil record === Terrestrial invertebrates === Fossil remains of air-breathing insects, myriapods, and arachnids are known from the Carboniferous. Their diversity when they do appear, however, shows that these arthropods were both well-developed and numerous. Some arthropods grew to large sizes with the up to millipede-like Arthropleura being the largest-known land invertebrate of all time. In the mid-Mississippian the oldest known winged insects appears, followed by the huge predatory Protodonata (griffinflies), which includes Meganeura, a giant dragonfly-like insect and with a wingspan of ca. —the largest flying insect ever to roam the planet. Further groups are the Syntonopterodea (relatives of present-day mayflies), the abundant and often large sap-sucking Palaeodictyopteroidea, the diverse herbivorous Protorthoptera, and numerous basal Dictyoptera (ancestors of cockroaches). Many insects have been obtained from the coalfields of Saarbrücken and Commentry, and from the hollow trunks of fossil trees in Nova Scotia. Some British coalfields have yielded good specimens: Archaeoptilus, from the Derbyshire coalfield, had a large wing with preserved part, and some specimens (Brodia) still exhibit traces of brilliant wing colors. In the Nova Scotian tree trunks land snails (Archaeozonites, Dendropupa) have been found. File:Meganeura.png\|The late Carboniferous giant dragonfly-like insect Meganeura grew to wingspans over . File:20210116 Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis.png\|The gigantic Pulmonoscorpius from the early Carboniferous reached a length of up to . File:Arthropleura Reconstruction.jpg\|Arthropleura was a giant millipede that fed on the Carboniferous plants. At long, it was the largest terrestrial arthropod that ever lived. File:Homaloneura ligeia.jpg\|Homaloneura, a palaeodictyopteran insect which have two winglets on thorax in addition to four wings. File:Helenodora inopinata.jpg\|Helenodora inopinata, a stem-group onychophoran known from Indiana File:Blattoidae - Fossil.JPG\|A roachoid insect found in Carboniferous rocks of France File:20201202 Maiocercus celticus.png\|Maiocercus was a trigonotarbid arachnid that lived in the United Kingdom around 310 million years ago. ===Fish=== Many fish inhabited the Carboniferous seas; predominantly Elasmobranchs (sharks and their relatives). These included some, like Psammodus, with crushing pavement-like teeth adapted for grinding the shells of brachiopods, crustaceans, and other marine organisms. Other groups of elasmobranchs, like the ctenacanthiformes grew to large sizes, with some genera like Saivodus reaching around . Other fish had piercing teeth, such as the Symmoriida; some, the petalodonts, had peculiar cycloid cutting teeth. Most of the other cartilaginous fish were marine, but others like the Xenacanthida, and several genera like Bandringa invaded fresh waters of the coal swamps. Among the bony fish, the Palaeonisciformes found in coastal waters also appear to have migrated to rivers. Sarcopterygian fish were also prominent, and one group, the Rhizodonts, reached very large size. Most species of Carboniferous marine fish have been described largely from teeth, fin spines and dermal ossicles, with smaller freshwater fish preserved whole. Freshwater fish were abundant, and include the genera Ctenodus, Uronemus, Acanthodes, Cheirodus, and Gyracanthus. Chondrichthyes (especially holocephalans like the Stethacanthids) underwent a major evolutionary radiation during the Carboniferous. It is believed that this evolutionary radiation occurred because the decline of the placoderms at the end of the Devonian caused many environmental niches to become unoccupied and allowed new organisms to evolve and fill these niches. As a result of the evolutionary radiation Carboniferous holocephalans assumed a wide variety of bizarre shapes including Stethacanthus which possessed a flat brush-like dorsal fin with a patch of denticles on its top. Stethacanthus unusual fin may have been used in mating rituals. Other groups like the eugeneodonts filled in the niches left by large predatory placoderms. These fish were unique as they only possessed one row of teeth in their upper or lower jaws in the form of elaborate tooth whorls. The first members of the helicoprionidae, a family eugeneodonts that were characterized by the presence of one circular tooth whorl in the lower jaw, appeared during the early Carboniferous. Perhaps the most bizarre radiation of holocephalans at this time was that of the iniopterygiformes, an order of holocephalans that greatly resembled modern day flying fish that could have also "flown" in the water with their massive, elongated pectoral fins. They were further characterized by their large eye sockets, club-like structures on their tails, and spines on the tips of their fins. File:Stethacanthus BW.jpg\|Akmonistion of the Holocephali order Symmoriida roamed the oceans of the early Carboniferous. File:Falcatus.jpg\|Falcatus was a Carboniferous holocephalan, with a high degree of sexual dimorphism. File:Dracopristis hoffmanorum.png\|Dracopristis was a Ctenacanthiform elasmobranch from the late Carboniferous of New Mexico. File:Ornithoprion hertwigi.png\|Ornithoprion was a small-sized Eugeneodont holocephalan that had an elongated lower jaw. File:Allenypterus montanus (Restoration) (cropped).jpg\|Allenypterus was a Coelacanth fish known from the Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana. File:†Phanerosteon phonax Carboniferous Bear Gulch.jpg\|Phanerosteon was a Bony fish belonging to the extinct order Palaeonisciformes. File:Edestus recon.png\|Edestus was a large eugeneodontid fish that possessed two tooth whorls in its mouth File:Rhizodus.jpg\|Rhizodus was a large freshwater Rhizodont sarcopterygian from Europe and North America. File:Squatinactis NT small.jpg\|Squatinactis, a genus of elasmobranch fish from Montana that possessed enlarged pectoral fins similar to modern angel sharks File:Bandringa SW.png\|Bandringa is a bizarre elasmobranch fish that lived in Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania during the Moscovian stage. It superficially resembled a paddlefish, with an elongated upper rostrum. File:Iniopteryxrushlaui.JPG\|Iniopteryx was a holocephalan that lived in North America. This fish belonged to a group called the Iniopterygiformes, that possibly lived like flying fish. File:Strigilodus tollesonae-novataxa 2023-Hodnett Toomey Olson.jpg\|Restoration of Strigilodus, a petalodont holocephalan from the upper Carboniferous of Kentucky. ===Tetrapods=== Carboniferous amphibians were diverse and common by the middle of the period, more so than they are today; some were as long as 6 meters, and those fully terrestrial as adults had scaly skin. They included basal tetrapod groups classified in early books under the Labyrinthodontia. These had a long body, a head covered with bony plates, and generally weak or undeveloped limbs. The largest were over 2 meters long. They were accompanied by an assemblage of smaller amphibians included under the Lepospondyli, often only about long. Some Carboniferous amphibians were aquatic and lived in rivers (Loxomma, Eogyrinus, Proterogyrinus); others may have been semi-aquatic (Ophiderpeton, Amphibamus, Hyloplesion) or terrestrial (Dendrerpeton, Tuditanus, Anthracosaurus). The Carboniferous rainforest collapse slowed the evolution of amphibians who could not survive as well in the cooler, drier conditions. Amniotes, however, prospered because of specific key adaptations. One of the greatest evolutionary innovations of the Carboniferous was the amniote egg, which allowed the laying of eggs in a dry environment, as well as keratinized scales and claws, allowing for the further exploitation of the land by certain tetrapods. These included the earliest sauropsid reptiles (Hylonomus), and the earliest known synapsid (Archaeothyris). Synapsids quickly became huge and diversified in the Permian, only for their dominance to stop during the Mesozoic. Sauropsids (reptiles, and also, later, birds) also diversified but remained small until the Mesozoic, during which they dominated the land, as well as the water and sky, only for their dominance to stop during the Cenozoic. Reptiles underwent a major evolutionary radiation in response to the drier climate that preceded the rainforest collapse. By the end of the Carboniferous amniotes had already diversified into a number of groups, including several families of synapsid pelycosaurs, protorothyridids, captorhinids, saurians and araeoscelids. File:Pederpes2223DB.jpg\|The amphibian-like Pederpes, the most primitive tetrapod found in the Mississippian, and known from Scotland. File:Hylonomus BW.jpg\|Hylonomus, the earliest sauropsid reptile, appeared in the Pennsylvanian, and is known from the Joggins Formation in Nova Scotia, and possibly New Brunswick. File:Petrolacosaurus BW.jpg\|Petrolacosaurus, the earliest known diapsid reptile, lived during the late Carboniferous. File:Archaeothyris BW.jpg\|Archaeothyris is the oldest known synapsid, and is found in rocks from Nova Scotia. File:Coloraderpeton.jpg\|Coloraderpeton was a snake-like aïstopod tetrapodomorph from the late Carboniferous of Colorado. File:Crassigyrinus BW.jpg\|Crassigyrinus was a carnivorous stem-tetrapod from the early Carboniferous of Scotland. File:Microbrachis pelikani.png\|Microbrachis was a lepospondyl amphibian known from the Czech Republic. File:Amphibamus BW.jpg\|Amphibamus was a dissorophoid temnospondyl from the late Carboniferous of Illinois. ===Fungi=== As plants and animals were growing in size and abundance in this time, land fungi diversified further. Marine fungi still occupied the oceans. All modern classes of fungi were present in the late Carboniferous. ==Extinction events== ===Romer's gap=== The first 15 million years of the Carboniferous had very limited terrestrial fossils. While it has long been debated whether the gap is a result of fossilisation or relates to an actual event, recent work indicates there was a drop in atmospheric oxygen levels, indicating some sort of ecological collapse. The gap saw the demise of the Devonian fish-like ichthyostegalian labyrinthodonts and the rise of the more advanced temnospondylian and reptiliomorphan amphibians that so typify the Carboniferous terrestrial vertebrate fauna. ===Carboniferous rainforest collapse=== Before the end of the Carboniferous, an extinction event occurred. On land this event is referred to as the Carboniferous rainforest collapse. Vast tropical rainforests collapsed suddenly as the climate changed from hot and humid to cool and arid. This was likely caused by intense glaciation and a drop in sea levels. The new climatic conditions were not favorable to the growth of rainforest and the animals within them. Rainforests shrank into isolated islands, surrounded by seasonally dry habitats. Towering lycopsid forests with a heterogeneous mixture of vegetation were replaced by much less diverse tree fern dominated flora. Amphibians, the dominant vertebrates at the time, fared poorly through this event with large losses in biodiversity; reptiles continued to diversify through key adaptations that let them survive in the drier habitat, specifically the hard-shelled egg and scales, both of which retain water better than their amphibian counterparts.	[ "Ephemeroptera", "pentadactylous", "Δ18O", "insect", "brachiopod", "Terebratulida", "Sarcopterygii", "soil", "Ordovician", "Millstone Grit", "Cycadophyta", "Ophiderpeton", "Uzbekistan", "Accretionary wedge", "Caninia (genus)", "Allenypterus", "ice sheet", "Jeletzkya", "Temnospondyli", "Proetida", "Tournai", "Homaloneura", "temnospondyl", "Sphenophyllum", "Visean", "Anabathra (plant)", "Cimmerian terrane", "aragonite", "Platyceratidae", "labyrinthodont", "Anthozoa", "Akmonistion", "Candona", "South Pole", "Discina (brachiopod)", "Central Asian Orogenic Belt", "bauxite", "Cardiocarpus", "Equisetales", "Suture (geology)", "genetic divergence", "facies", "Biology Letters", "Pecopteris", "helicoprionidae", "Carbonicola (bivalve)", "List of Carboniferous tetrapods", "breccia", "fold and thrust belt", "vertebrate", "captorhinidae", "Asselian", "catkin", "First appearance datum", "Aidaralash", "Chondrichthyes", "Czech Republic", "Devonian", "Inland sea", "hederellid", "Commentry", "Daidal", "Bryozoa", "Biome", "Foraminifera", "System (stratigraphy)", "Dissorophoidea", "Δ13C", "Annelid", "Bathgate", "Devon", "Compression (geology)", "Chronostratigraphy", "Rhynchonellida", "Streptognathodus", "Vampyropoda", "stem-group", "Naiadites", "w:stigmaria", "Saivodus", "Basidiomycota", "Geological formation", "Westphalian (stage)", "Kanimblan Orogeny", "era (geology)", "Archimedes (bryozoan)", "Wooster, Ohio", "Continental shelf", "Sverdrup Basin Magmatic Province", "Carbon dioxide", "Tethys Ocean", "aragonite sea", "flying fish", "Colorado", "Igneous rock", "seafloor spreading", "island arc", "eustatic sea level", "strontium", "Sergei Nikitin (geologist)", "reptile", "Plate tectonics", "weathering", "Brodia", "Petrolacosaurus", "Biomineralization", "North China craton", "Medullosales", "pelycosaur", "dragonfly", "pyrite", "Voltziales", "Sphenopteris", "orocline", "Conularids", "Ctenacanthiformes", "sedimentary basin", "arthropod", "Typhloesus", "Protorthoptera", "Elasmobranch", "Estheria (crustacean)", "sandstone", "rift", "Rhizodontida", "Crassigyrinus", "subsidence", "lycopsid", "Archaeozonites", "Fusulinida", "Pennsylvanian (geology)", "Megaphyton", "Arthropleura", "orogenic collapse", "Serpukhov", "Drawdown (climate)", "Adelophthalmus", "Megarachne", "Pederpes", "Chonetes", "interglacial", "Anthracosaurus", "Lepidophloios", "reef", "Maiocercus", "Bear Gulch Limestone", "Old Red Sandstone", "Araeoscelidia", "Richard Kirwan", "evolutionary radiation", "Siberia", "Cyclopteris", "meiobenthos", "clay", "onychophora", "Milankovitch cycles", "lobe-finned fish", "Kentucky", "Kazakhstania", "Protorothyrididae", "Pangaea", "International Commission on Stratigraphy", "Lepidodendron", "Baltica", "Archimedean screw", "Helenodora", "United States Geological Survey", "enzyme", "Geologic time scale", "Uralian orogeny", "diapsid", "Aviculopecten", "shale", "William Phillips (geologist)", "Paleobiology (journal)", "Central Pangean Mountains", "amniote", "Mountain formation", "Variscan orogeny", "Lepospondyli", "Callistophytales", "Nautilida", "Pulmonoscorpius", "Lochriea", "Ostracod", "Epiphyte", "Stethacanthidae", "Liège Province", "xylem", "Psammodus", "Till", "Cortex (botany)", "Indiana", "Meganisoptera", "Tuditanus", "Strigilodus tollesonae", "mudstone", "Ammonoidea", "Rhizodont", "gymnosperm", "Holocephali", "Tian Shan", "Palaeonisciformes", "River delta", "Hexactinellid", "Phanerozoic", "Hyloplesion", "Sphenophyllales", "Dendropupa", "Iberian Peninsula", "w:Sigillaria", "Kansas", "William Daniel Conybeare", "Hamilton Quarry", "Serpukhovian", "erosion", "Guangxi", "Ohio", "Rostrum (anatomy)", "eon (geology)", "Declinognathodus", "Jurassic", "Sea anemone", "Gzhel (selo), Moscow Oblast", "arachnid", "Basement (geology)", "Titusvillia", "Namurian", "Extant taxon", "radiolaria", "Bashkortostan", "Petalodontiformes", "Earth-Science Reviews", "Gulf of Mexico", "Guizhou", "Niche (ecology)", "Neuropteris", "Stephanian (stage)", "Osteichthyes", "Dictyoptera", "Coleoidea", "Δ15N", "tree fern", "Productus", "volcanic rock", "Acanthodes", "Eogyrinus", "Porifera", "echinoderm", "Iniopteryx", "Peatland", "Lepidostrobus", "sauria", "Ural Ocean", "Siphonodella", "Lepidodendrales", "North America", "aïstopod", "Glacial period", "stratigraphy", "Cordaitales", "Pennsylvania", "Anoxic waters", "mudrock", "stomatopoda", "extinction event", "Visé", "Coal measures", "permineralisation", "terrane", "Phanerosteon", "Tabulata", "Evolution: Education and Outreach", "Amphibamus", "Radiometric dating", "Yukon–Tanana terrane", "Carbonate platform", "Coloraderpeton", "unconformity", "biostratigraphy", "Siberia (continent)", "Meganeura", "Labyrinthodont", "Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point", "Laurentia", "sedimentary rock", "New Brunswick", "Darwinula", "Sofia Semikhatova", "Sauropsida", "East Kirkton Quarry", "Montagne Noire", "Spiriferida", "Estuary", "endemism", "Posidonomya", "Carboniferous rainforest collapse", "Lingula (genus)", "Kazakhstan", "Ostracoda", "Accretion (geology)", "fungi", "trace fossil", "Culm Measures", "Gastropod", "Falcatus", "Kasimovian", "Avalonia", "Fault (geology)", "Dendrerpeton", "Palaeodictyopteroidea", "Symmoriida", "paddlefish", "Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology", "Paleo-Tethys Ocean", "Dinantian", "Peng Chong", "J. J. Stevenson (geologist)", "William Conybeare (geologist)", "Microbrachis", "terrestrial animal", "Joggins Formation", "Carbonate rock", "Dinant", "coal", "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America", "snake", "Cordaites", "evaporite", "Archaeothyris", "Tetrapodomorpha", "Essexella", "Paleozoic", "Edinburgh", "synapsid", "Aqtöbe", "Andean orogeny", "Arrow Canyon Range", "Sigillaria", "morphotype", "marine invertebrate", "crustacean", "calcite sea", "Uranium-238", "bivalve", "List of fossil sites", "Cladoxylopsida", "Gondwana", "palaeodictyoptera", "Lycopodiales", "Mississippi River", "Dermal denticle", "Ouachita orogeny", "ecological collapse", "Magnitogorsk", "Dracopristis", "lagoon", "Squatinactis", "Pterygota", "Stigmaria", "Gzhelian", "passive margin", "Δ34S", "Xenacanthida", "ctenacanthiformes", "Alleghanian orogeny", "Alethopteris", "Coal forest", "blastoid", "trigonotarbid", "Eurypterina", "priapulid", "Mississippian (geology)", "myriapod", "Rheic Ocean", "petalodont", "microconchids", "Eugeneodontida", "conodont", "mollusc", "Antler orogeny", "National Geographic", "Goniatite", "Appalachian Mountains", "thylacocephala", "South China cratons", "Mississippian age", "Stegocephalia", "w:Stigmaria", "Cornwall", "Slide Mountain Ocean", "eurypterid", "coal ball", "Carboniferous Limestone", "Late Paleozoic icehouse", "Oceanic trench", "Montana", "clade", "Productida", "Nova Scotia", "Deformation (geology)", "Gyracanthus", "Edestus", "Ural Mountains", "sauropsid", "Ramenskoye, Moscow Oblast", "Qinling orogenic belt", "mammal", "cockroach", "supercontinent", "Trilobite", "Cyclothems", "roachoid", "Coelacanth", "Pteridospermatophyta", "Rhizodus", "Triproetus", "limestone", "Amurian Plate", "Brachiopod", "André Dumont (geologist)", "secondary growth", "Granton Shrimp Bed", "Altai Mountains", "Hibbertopterus", "Total organic carbon", "Crania (genus)", "Conodont", "ichthyostegalia", "Armorican terrane", "Hylonomus", "Syllipsimopodi", "Turkey", "crinoid", "Filicales", "Archaeocidaris", "tetrapod", "Ctenodus", "Carbonita (crustacean)", "Loxomma", "Silesian (series)", "Stethacanthus", "New Mexico", "Myriapoda", "Embryophyte", "Gigantoproductus", "Trigonotarbida", "Lagerstätten", "Tournaisian", "Calamites", "Main Uralian Fault", "Alexander Winchell", "scyphozoa", "Panthalassa", "spicule (sponge)", "Bashkiria (1917–1919)", "demosponge", "Continental arc", "Nautiloid", "Rugosa", "Permian", "Bandringa", "La Serre", "Caulopteris", "Aenigmatoceras", "Saarbrücken", "Elasmobranchii", "Logan Formation", "Walchia", "amphibian", "Ornithoprion", "Euomphalus", "stratotype", "reptiliomorpha", "mid-ocean ridge", "Angelshark", "metamorphism", "cephalopod", "Laurasia", "Bashkirian", "Nevada", "ikaite", "Unconformity", "Latin", "Ocean", "Illinois", "Viséan", "John Farey Sr.", "Basal (phylogenetics)", "Boreal Sea", "Erosion surface", "siliciclastic", "Sequence stratigraphy", "Mazon Creek", "Nucula", "Kuznetsk Basin", "charcoal", "Crinoid", "lignin", "Proterogyrinus", "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences", "chert", "halite", "foreland basin", "Innuitian orogeny", "iniopterygiformes", "Moscovian (Carboniferous)", "Placodermi", "granite", "tetrapodomorph", "Kasimov", "Athyridida" ]
5,403	Comoros	The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros, is an archipelagic country made up of three islands in Southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city is Moroni. The religion of the majority of the population, and the official state religion, is Sunni Islam. Comoros proclaimed its independence from France on 6 July 1975. The Comoros is the only country of the Arab League which is entirely in the Southern Hemisphere. It is a member state of the African Union, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, and the Indian Ocean Commission. The country has three official languages: Shikomori, French and Arabic. At , the Comoros is the third-smallest African country by area. In 2019, its population was estimated to be 850,886. The sovereign state consists of three major islands and numerous smaller islands, all of the volcanic Comoro Islands with the exception of Mayotte. Mayotte voted against independence from France in a referendum in 1974, and continues to be administered by France as an overseas department. France has vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have affirmed Comorian sovereignty over the island. Mayotte became an overseas department and a region of France in 2011 following a referendum which was passed overwhelmingly. The Comoros were likely first settled by Austronesian/Malagasy peoples, Bantu speakers from East Africa, and seafaring Arab traders. From 1500 the Sultanate of Anjouan dominated the islands, with Grande Comore split between several sultans. It became part of the French colonial empire during the 19th century, before its independence in 1975. It has experienced more than 20 coups or attempted coups, with various heads of state assassinated. Along with this constant political instability, it has one of the highest levels of income inequality of any nation, and ranks in the medium quartile on the Human Development Index. Between 2009 and 2014, about 19% of the population lived below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day by purchasing power parity. == Etymology == The name "Comoros" derives from the Arabic word qamar ("moon"). == History == === Settlement === According to mythology, a jinni dropped a jewel, which formed a great circular inferno. This became the Karthala volcano, which created the island of Ngazidja (Grande Comore). King Solomon is also said to have visited the island accompanied by his queen Bilqis. The first attested human inhabitants of the Comoro Islands are now thought to have been Austronesian settlers travelling by boat from islands in Southeast Asia. These people arrived in the area no later than the eighth century AD, the date of the earliest known archaeological site, found on Mayotte, although settlement beginning in the first century has been postulated. Subsequent settlers came from the east coast of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf, the Malay Archipelago, and Madagascar. Bantu-speaking settlers were present on the islands from the beginnings of settlement , probably brought to the islands as slaves. Development of the Comoros is divided into phases. The earliest reliably recorded phase is the Dembeni phase (eighth to tenth centuries), during which there were several small settlements on each island. From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, trade with the island of Madagascar and merchants from the Swahili coast and the Middle East flourished, more villages were founded and existing villages grew. Settlers from the Arabian peninsula, particularly Hadhramaut, arrived during this period. === Medieval Comoros === According to legend, in 632, upon hearing of Islam, islanders are said to have dispatched an emissary, Mtswa-Mwindza, to Mecca—but by the time he arrived there, the Islamic prophet Muhammad had died. Nonetheless, after a stay in Mecca, he returned to Ngazidja, where he built a mosque in his home town of Ntsaweni, and led the gradual conversion of the islanders to Islam. In 933, the Comoros was referred to by Omani sailors as the Perfume Islands. Among the earliest accounts of East Africa, the works of Al-Masudi describe early Islamic trade routes, and how the coast and islands were frequently visited by Muslims including Persian and Arab merchants and sailors in search of coral, ambergris, ivory, tortoiseshell, gold and slaves for the Arabic slave trade. They also brought Islam to the people of the Zanj including the Comoros. As the importance of the Comoros grew along the East African coast, both small and large mosques were constructed. The Comoros are part of the Swahili cultural and economic complex and the islands became a major hub of trade and an important location in a network of trading towns that included Kilwa, in present-day Tanzania, Sofala (an outlet for Zimbabwean gold), in Mozambique, and Mombasa in Kenya. For much of the 16th century the islands provided provisions to the Portuguese fort at Mozambique and although there was no formal attempt by the Portuguese crown to take possession, a number of Portuguese traders settled and married local women. By the end of the 16th century local rulers on the African mainland were beginning to push back and, with the support of the Omani Sultan Saif bin Sultan they began to defeat the Dutch and the Portuguese. One of his successors, Said bin Sultan, increased Omani Arab influence in the region, moving his administration to nearby Zanzibar, which came under Omani rule. Nevertheless, the Comoros remained independent, and although the three smaller islands were usually politically unified, the largest island, Ngazidja, was divided into a number of autonomous kingdoms (ntsi). The islands were well placed to meet the needs of Europeans, initially supplying the Portuguese in Mozambique, then ships, particularly the English, on the route to India, and, later, slaves to the plantation islands in the Mascarenes. The islands were repopulated by slaves from the mainland, who were traded to the French in Mayotte and the Mascarenes. On the Comoros, it was estimated in 1865 that as much as 40% of the population consisted of slaves. France first established colonial rule in the Comoros by taking possession of Mayotte in 1841 when the Sakalava usurper sultan (also known as Tsy Levalo) signed the Treaty of April 1841, which ceded the island to the French authorities. After its annexation, France attempted to convert Mayotte into a sugar plantation colony. Meanwhile, Ndzwani (or Johanna as it was known to the British) continued to serve as a way station for English merchants sailing to India and the Far East, as well as American whalers, although the British gradually abandoned it following their possession of Mauritius in 1814, and by the time the Suez Canal opened in 1869 there was no longer any significant supply trade at Ndzwani. Local commodities exported by the Comoros were, in addition to slaves, coconuts, timber, cattle and tortoiseshell. British and American settlers, as well as the island's sultan, established a plantation-based economy that used about one-third of the land for export crops. In addition to sugar on Mayotte, ylang-ylang and other perfume plants, vanilla, cloves, coffee, cocoa beans, and sisal were introduced. In 1886, Mwali was placed under French protection by its Sultan Mardjani Abdou Cheikh. That same year, Sultan Said Ali of Bambao, one of the sultanates on Ngazidja, placed the island under French protection in exchange for French support of his claim to the entire island, which he retained until his abdication in 1910. In 1908 the four islands were unified under a single administration (Colonie de Mayotte et dépendances) and placed under the authority of the French colonial Governor-General of Madagascar. In 1909, Sultan Said Muhamed of Ndzwani abdicated in favour of French rule and in 1912 the protectorates were abolished and the islands administered as a single colony. Two years later the colony was abolished and the islands became a province of the colony of Madagascar. The population of Mayotte voted against independence from France in three referendums during this period. The first, held on all the islands on 22 December 1974, won 63.8% support for maintaining ties with France on Mayotte; the second, held in February 1976, confirmed that vote with an overwhelming 99.4%, while the third, in April 1976, confirmed that the people of Mayotte wished to remain a French territory. The three remaining islands, ruled by President Soilihi, instituted a number of socialist and isolationist policies that soon strained relations with France. On 13 May 1978, Bob Denard, once again commissioned by the French intelligence service (SDECE), returned to overthrow President Soilihi and reinstate Abdallah with the support of the French, Rhodesian and South African governments. Ali Soilihi was captured and executed a few weeks later. In contrast to Soilihi, Abdallah's presidency was marked by authoritarian rule and increased adherence to traditional Islam and the country was renamed the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros (République Fédérale Islamique des Comores; جمهورية القمر الإتحادية الإسلامية). Bob Denard served as Abdallah's first advisor; nicknamed the "Viceroy of the Comoros," he was sometimes considered the real strongman of the regime. Very close to South Africa, which financed his "presidential guard," he allowed Paris to circumvent the international embargo on the apartheid regime via Moroni. He also set up from the archipelago a permanent mercenary corps, called upon to intervene at the request of Paris or Pretoria in conflicts in Africa. Abdallah continued as president until 1989 when, fearing a probable coup, he signed a decree ordering the Presidential Guard, led by Bob Denard, to disarm the armed forces. Shortly after the signing of the decree, Abdallah was allegedly shot dead in his office by a disgruntled military officer, though later sources claim an antitank missile was launched into his bedroom and killed him. Although Denard was also injured, it is suspected that Abdallah's killer was a soldier under his command. A few days later, Bob Denard was evacuated to South Africa by French paratroopers. Said Mohamed Djohar, Soilihi's older half-brother, then became president, and served until September 1995, when Bob Denard returned and attempted another coup. This time France intervened with paratroopers and forced Denard to surrender. The French removed Djohar to Reunion, and the Paris-backed Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim became president by election. He led the country from 1996, during a time of labour crises, government suppression, and secessionist conflicts, until his death in November 1998. He was succeeded by Interim President Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde. The islands of Ndzwani and Mwali declared their independence from the Comoros in 1997, in an attempt to restore French rule. But France rejected their request, leading to bloody confrontations between federal troops and rebels. In April 1999, Colonel Azali Assoumani, Army Chief of Staff, seized power in a bloodless coup, overthrowing the Interim President Massounde, citing weak leadership in the face of the crisis. This was the Comoros' 18th coup, or attempted coup d'état since independence in 1975. Assoumani failed to consolidate power and reestablish control over the islands, which was the subject of international criticism. The African Union, under the auspices of President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, imposed sanctions on Ndzwani to help broker negotiations and effect reconciliation. Under the terms of the Fomboni Accords, signed in December 2001 by the leaders of all three islands, the official name of the country was changed to the Union of the Comoros; the new state was to be highly decentralised and the central union government would devolve most powers to the new island governments, each led by a president. The Union president, although elected by national elections, would be chosen in rotation from each of the islands every five years. Assoumani stepped down in 2002 to run in the democratic election of the President of the Comoros, which he won. Under ongoing international pressure, as a military ruler who had originally come to power by force, and was not always democratic while in office, Assoumani led the Comoros through constitutional changes that enabled new elections. A Loi des compétences law was passed in early 2005 that defines the responsibilities of each governmental body, and is in the process of implementation. The elections in 2006 were won by Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi, a Sunni Muslim cleric nicknamed the "Ayatollah" for his time spent studying Islam in Iran. Assoumani honoured the election results, thus allowing the first peaceful and democratic exchange of power for the archipelago. Colonel Mohammed Bacar, a French-trained former gendarme elected President of Ndzwani in 2001, refused to step down at the end of his five-year mandate. He staged a vote in June 2007 to confirm his leadership that was rejected as illegal by the Comoros federal government and the African Union. On 25 March 2008 hundreds of soldiers from the African Union and the Comoros seized rebel-held Ndzwani, generally welcomed by the population: there have been reports of hundreds, if not thousands, of people tortured during Bacar's tenure. Some rebels were killed and injured, but there are no official figures. At least 11 civilians were wounded. Some officials were imprisoned. Bacar fled in a speedboat to Mayotte to seek asylum. Anti-French protests followed in the Comoros (see 2008 invasion of Anjouan). Bacar was eventually granted asylum in Benin. Since independence from France, the Comoros experienced more than 20 coups or attempted coups. Following elections in late 2010, former Vice-president Ikililou Dhoinine was inaugurated as president on 26 May 2011. Dhoinine is the first President of the Comoros from the island of Mwali. Following the 2016 elections, Azali Assoumani, from Ngazidja, became president for a third term. In 2018 Assoumani held a referendum on constitutional reform that would permit a president to serve two terms. The amendments passed, although the vote was widely contested and boycotted by the opposition, and in April 2019, and to widespread opposition, Assoumani was re-elected president to serve the first of potentially two five-year terms. In January 2020, the legislative elections in Comoros were dominated by President Azali Assoumani's party, the Convention for the Renewal of the Comoros, CRC. It took an overwhelming majority in the parliament. In 2021, Comoros signed and ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, making it a nuclear-weapon-free state. and in 2023, Comoros was invited as a non-member guest to the G7 summit in Hiroshima. On 18 February 2023 the Comoros assumed the presidency of the African Union. In January 2024, President Azali Assoumani was re-elected with 63% of the vote in the disputed presidential election. In January 2025, the ruling party of president Azali Assoumani won parliamentary election, taking 28 out of 33 parliamentary seats. The opposition parties rejected the results. == Geography == The Comoros is formed by Ngazidja (Grande Comore), Mwali (Mohéli) and Ndzwani (Anjouan), three major islands in the Comoros Archipelago, as well as many minor islets. The islands are officially known by their Comorian language names, though international sources still use their French names (given in parentheses above). The capital and largest city, Moroni, is located on Ngazidja and the most densely populated city is Anjouan. The archipelago is situated in the Indian Ocean, in the Mozambique Channel, between the African coast (nearest to Mozambique and Tanzania) and Madagascar, with no land borders. At , it is one of the smallest countries in the world. The Comoros also has claim to of territorial seas. The interiors of the islands vary from steep mountains to low hills. The areas and populations (at the 2017 Census) of the main islands are as follows: {\| class="sortable wikitable" \|- ! Name \|\| Area km2\|\| Populationcensus 2017 The islands are rarely subject to cyclones. === Biodiversity === The Comoros constitute an ecoregion in their own right, Comoros forests. It had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.69/10, ranking it 33rd globally out of 172 countries. In December 1952 a specimen of the West Indian Ocean coelacanth fish was re-discovered off the Comoros coast. The 66 million-year-old species was thought to have been long extinct until its first recorded appearance in 1938 off the South African coast. Between 1938 and 1975, 84 specimens were caught and recorded. ===Protected areas=== There are six national parks in the Comoros – Karthala, Coelacanth, and Mitsamiouli Ndroudi on Grande Comore, Mount Ntringui and Shisiwani on Anjouan, and Mohéli National Park on Mohéli. Karthala and Mount Ntrigui national parks cover the highest peaks on the respective islands, and Coelacanth, Mitsamiouli Ndroudi, and Shisiwani are marine national parks that protect the island's coastal waters and fringing reefs. Mohéli National Park includes both terrestrial and marine areas. == Government == Politics of the Comoros takes place in a framework of a unitary presidential republic, whereby the President of the Comoros is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. The Constitution of the Union of the Comoros was ratified by referendum on 23 December 2001, and the islands' constitutions and executives were elected in the following months. It had previously been considered a military dictatorship, and the transfer of power from Azali Assoumani to Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi in May 2006 was a watershed moment as it was the first peaceful transfer in Comorian history. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The preamble of the constitution guarantees an Islamic inspiration in governance, a commitment to human rights, and several specific enumerated rights, democracy, "a common destiny" for all Comorians. Each of the islands (according to Title II of the Constitution) has a great amount of autonomy in the Union, including having their own constitutions (or Fundamental Law), president, and Parliament. The presidency and Assembly of the Union are distinct from each of the islands' governments. Up to a referendum on 30.7.2018 (62.7% participation, 92.34% for the amendment according to the Comorian government) the presidency of the Union rotated between the islands. === Legal system === The Comorian legal system rests on Islamic law, an inherited French (Napoleonic Code) legal code, and customary law (mila na ntsi). Village elders, kadis or civilian courts settle most disputes. The judiciary is independent of the legislative and the executive. The Supreme Court acts as a Constitutional Council in resolving constitutional questions and supervising presidential elections. As High Court of Justice, the Supreme Court also arbitrates in cases where the government is accused of malpractice. The Supreme Court consists of two members selected by the president, two elected by the Federal Assembly, and one by the council of each island. A referendum took place on 16 May 2009 to decide whether to cut down the government's unwieldy political bureaucracy. 52.7% of those eligible voted, and 93.8% of votes were cast in approval of the referendum. Following the implementation of the changes, each island's president became a governor and the ministers became councillors. === Foreign relations === In November 1975, the Comoros became the 143rd member of the United Nations. The new nation was defined as comprising the entire archipelago, although the citizens of Mayotte chose to become French citizens and keep their island as a French territory. The Comoros has repeatedly pressed its claim to Mayotte before the United Nations General Assembly, which adopted a series of resolutions under the caption "Question of the Comorian Island of Mayotte", opining that Mayotte belongs to the Comoros under the principle that the territorial integrity of colonial territories should be preserved upon independence. As a practical matter, however, these resolutions have little effect and there is no foreseeable likelihood that Mayotte will become de facto part of the Comoros without its people's consent. More recently, the Assembly has maintained this item on its agenda but deferred it from year to year without taking action. Other bodies, including the Organisation of African Unity, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, have similarly questioned French sovereignty over Mayotte. To close the debate and to avoid being integrated by force in the Union of the Comoros, the population of Mayotte overwhelmingly chose to become an overseas department and a region of France in a 2009 referendum. The new status was effective on 31 March 2011 and Mayotte has been recognised as an outermost region by the European Union on 1 January 2014. This decision legally integrates Mayotte in the French Republic. The Comoros is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Arab League, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Indian Ocean Commission and the African Development Bank. On 10 April 2008, the Comoros became the 179th nation to accept the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The Comoros signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Azali Assoumani, President of the Comoros and Chair of the African Union, attended the 2023 Russia–Africa Summit in Saint Petersburg. In May 2013 the Union of the Comoros became known for filing a referral to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the events of "the 31 May 2010 Israeli raid on the Humanitarian Aid Flotilla bound for [the] Gaza Strip". In November 2014 the ICC Prosecutor eventually decided that the events did constitute war crimes but did not meet the gravity standards of bringing the case before ICC. The emigration rate of skilled workers was about 21.2% in 2000. === Military === The military resources of the Comoros consist of a small standing army and a 500-member police force, as well as a 500-member defence force. A defence treaty with France provides naval resources for protection of territorial waters, training of Comorian military personnel, and air surveillance. France maintains the presence of a few senior officers in the Comoros at government request, as well as a small maritime base and a Foreign Legion Detachment (DLEM) on Mayotte. Once the new government was installed in May–June 2011, an expert mission from UNREC (Lomé) came to the Comoros and produced guidelines for the elaboration of a national security policy, which were discussed by different actors, notably the national defence authorities and civil society. By the end of the programme in end March 2012, a normative framework agreed upon by all entities involved in SSR will have been established. This will then have to be adopted by Parliament and implemented by the authorities. === Human rights === Both male and female same-sex sexual acts are illegal in Comoros. Such acts are punished with up to five years' imprisonment. == Economy == The level of poverty in the Comoros is high, but "judging by the international poverty threshold of $1.9 per person per day, only two out of every ten Comorians could be classified as poor, a rate that places the Comoros ahead of other low-income countries and 30 percentage points ahead of other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa." Poverty declined by about 10% between 2014 and 2018, and living conditions generally improved. and have contributed to decreases in poverty and increases in living standards. An October 2005 paper by the Comoros Ministry of Planning and Regional Development, however, reported that "registered unemployment rate is 14.3 percent, distributed very unevenly among and within the islands, but with marked incidence in urban areas." In 2019, more than 56% of the labor force was employed in agriculture, with 29% employed in industry and 14% employed in services. The islands' agricultural sector is based on the export of spices, including vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves, and thus susceptible to price fluctuations in the volatile world commodity market for these goods. High population densities, as much as 1000 per square kilometre in the densest agricultural zones, for what is still a mostly rural, agricultural economy may lead to an environmental crisis in the near future, especially considering the high rate of population growth. In 2004 the Comoros' real GDP growth was a low 1.9% and real GDP per capita continued to decline. These declines are explained by factors including declining investment, drops in consumption, rising inflation, and an increase in trade imbalance due in part to lowered cash crop prices, especially vanilla. The Comoros has an inadequate transportation system, a young and rapidly increasing population, and few natural resources. The low educational level of the labour force contributes to a subsistence level of economic activity, high unemployment, and a heavy dependence on foreign grants and technical assistance. Agriculture contributes 40% to GDP and provides most of the exports. The government is struggling to upgrade education and technical training, to privatise commercial and industrial enterprises, to improve health services, to diversify exports, to promote tourism, and to reduce the high population growth rate. The Comoros is a member of the Organisation for the Harmonisation of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). == Demographics == With about 850,000 residents, the Comoros is one of the least populous countries in the world, but its population density is high, with an average of . In 2001, 34% of the population was considered urban, but the urban population has since grown; in recent years rural population growth has been negative, while overall population growth is still relatively high. In 1958 the population was 183,133. In 2009, almost half the population of the Comoros was under the age of 15. Major urban centres include Moroni, Mitsamihuli, Foumbouni, Mutsamudu, Domoni, and Fomboni. There are between 200,000 and 350,000 Comorians in France. === Ethnic groups === The islands of the Comoros are 97.1% ethnically Comorian, which is a mixture of Bantu, Malagasy, and Arab people. === Languages === The most common languages in the Comoros are the Comorian languages, collectively known as Shikomori. They are related to Swahili, and the four different variants (Shingazidja, Shimwali, Shindzwani and Shimaore) are spoken on each of the four islands. Arabic and Latin scripts are both used, Arabic being the more widely used, and an official orthography has recently been developed for the Latin script. Arabic and French are also official languages, along with Comorian. Arabic is widely known as a second language, being the language of Quranic teaching. French is the administrative language and the language of most non-Quranic formal education. === Religion === Sunni Islam is the dominant religion, followed by as much as 99% of the population. Comoros is the only Muslim-majority country in Southern Africa and one of the three southernmost Muslim-majority territories, along with Mayotte and the Australian territory of Cocos Islands. A minority of the population of the Comoros are Christian, both Catholic and Protestant denominations are represented, and most Malagasy residents are also Christian. Immigrants from metropolitan France are mostly Catholic. === Health === There are 15 physicians per 100,000 people. The fertility rate was 4.7 per adult woman in 2004. Life expectancy at birth is 67 for females and 62 for males. In the 2024 Global Hunger Index (GHI), Comoros ranks 81st out of 127 countries with sufficient data, with a score of 18.8, which indicates a moderate level of hunger. == Education == Almost all children attend Quran religious schools, usually before, although increasingly in tandem with regular schooling. Children are taught about the Qur'an, and memorise it, and learn the Arabic script. Most parents prefer their children to attend Koran religious schools before moving on to the French- English based schooling system. Although the state sector is plagued by a lack of resources, and the teachers by unpaid salaries, there are numerous private and community schools of relatively good standard. The national curriculum, apart from a few years during the revolutionary period immediately post-independence, has been very much based on the French system, both because resources are French and most Comorans hope to go on to further education in France, Spain and Italy. There have recently been moves to "Comorianise" the syllabus and integrate the two systems, the formal and the Quran religious schools, into one, thus moving away from the secular educational system inherited from France. Pre-colonisation education systems in Comoros focused on necessary skills such as agriculture, caring for livestock and completing household tasks. Religious education also taught Islam. The education system underwent a transformation during colonisation in the early 1900s which brought secular education based on the French system. This was mainly for children of the elite. After Comoros gained independence in 1975, the education system changed again. Funding for teachers' salaries was lost, and many went on strike. Thus, the public education system was not functioning between 1997 and 2001. Since gaining independence, the education system has also undergone a democratisation and options exist for those other than the elite. Enrollment has also grown. In 2000, 44.2% of children aged 5 to 14 years were attending school. There is a general lack of facilities, equipment, qualified teachers, textbooks and other resources. Salaries for teachers are often so far in arrears that many refuse to work. Prior to 2000, students seeking a university education had to attend school outside of the country In Europe and Americas especially: France, United Kingdom.: However, in the early 2000s a university was created in the country. This served to help economic growth and to fight the "flight" of many educated people who were not returning to the islands to work. Comorian has no native script, but both the Arabic and Latin alphabets are used. In 2004, about 57 percent of the population was literate in the Latin script while more than 90 percent were literate in the Arabic script. == Culture == Traditionally, women on Ndzwani wear red and white patterned garments called shiromani, while on Ngazidja and Mwali colourful shawls called leso are worn. Many women apply a paste of ground sandalwood and coral called msindzano to their faces. Traditional male clothing is a long white shirt known as a nkandu, and a bonnet called a kofia. === Marriage === There are two types of marriages in Comoros, the little marriage (known as Mna daho on Ngazidja) and the customary marriage (known as ada on Ngazidja, harusi on the other islands). The little marriage is a simple legal marriage. It is small, intimate, and inexpensive, and the bride's dowry is nominal. A man may undertake a number of Mna daho marriages in his lifetime, often at the same time, a woman fewer; but both men and women will usually only undertake one ada, or grand marriage, and this must generally be within the village. The hallmarks of the grand marriage are dazzling gold jewelry, two weeks of celebration and an enormous bridal dowry. Although the expenses are shared between both families as well as with a wider social circle, an ada wedding on Ngazidja can cost up to €50,000. Many couples take a lifetime to save for their ada, and it is not uncommon for a marriage to be attended by a couple's adult children. The ada marriage marks a man's transition in the Ngazidja age system from youth to elder. His status in the social hierarchy greatly increases, and he will henceforth be entitled to speak in public and participate in the political process, both in his village and more widely across the island. He will be entitled to display his status by wearing a mharuma, a type of shawl, across his shoulders, and he can enter the mosque by the door reserved for elders, and sit at the front. A woman's status also changes, although less formally, as she becomes a "mother" and moves into her own house. The system is less formalised on the other islands, but the marriage is nevertheless a significant and costly event across the archipelago. The ada is often criticized because of its great expense, but at the same time it is a source of social cohesion and the main reason why migrants in France and elsewhere continue to send money home. Increasingly, marriages are also being taxed for the purposes of village development. === Kinship and social structure === Comorian society has a bilateral descent system. Lineage membership and inheritance of immovable goods (land, housing) is matrilineal, passed in the maternal line, similar to many Bantu peoples who are also matrilineal, while other goods and patronymics are passed in the male line. However, there are differences between the islands, the matrilineal element being stronger on Ngazidja. === Media === There are two daily national newspapers published in the Comoros, the government-owned Al-Watwan, and the privately owned La Gazette des Comores, both published in Moroni. There are a number of smaller newsletters published on an irregular basis as well as a variety of news websites. The government-owned ORTC (Office de Radio et Télévision des Comores) provides national radio and television service. There is a TV station run by the Anjouan regional government, and regional governments on the islands of Grande Comore and Anjouan each operate a radio station. There are also a few independent and small community radio stations that operate on the islands of Grande Comore and Mohéli, and these two islands have access to Mayotte Radio and French TV.	[ "Said bin Sultan", "List of countries and dependencies by area", "+269", "East Africa Time", "Fatou Bensouda", "France", "French language", "tortoiseshell", "Mount Karthala", "Kenya", "Sultanate of Bambao", "Swahili coast", "Islamic Republic", "2018 Comorian constitutional referendum", "Swahili people", "international poverty line", "Islam", "Mecca", "Saif bin Sultan", "republic", "French Republic", "fertility rate", "Comorian franc", "archipelago", "Hiroshima", "Movement of Non-Aligned Countries", "Ahmed Abdallah", "Europe", "La Grille", "msindzano", "low-income countries", "Southeastern Africa", "Foumbouni", "BBC News", "Wreck Rock", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "sandalwood", "Ndzwani", "Middle East", "Mwali", "Mitsamihuli", "Malay Archipelago", "GDP", "Kyoto Protocol", "New York City", "Napoleonic Code", "List of sultans on the Comoros", "French Madagascar", "slave", "ylang-ylang", "Forest Landscape Integrity Index", "wikt:قمر", "Said Mohamed Djohar", "Life expectancy", "Zanj", "Americas", "Southern Hemisphere", "2019 Comorian presidential election", "Nioumakele", "Domoni", "Assembly of the Union of the Comoros", "ILO", "Spain", "The New Humanitarian", "Presidential system", "legislative", "Mombasa", "Betsimisaraka people", "List of countries by income equality", "commodity market", "Executive power", "Roman Catholicism in the Comoros", "History of the Comoros", "archipelagic country", "Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi", "Poverty threshold", "2024 Comorian presidential election", "Oman", "Al-Masudi", "Human Development Index", "Mount Ntringui", "unitary state", "region of France", "mythology", "Outline of the Comoros", "vanilla", "Islamic law", "Latin script", "President of the Comoros", "lateen", "Mozambique", "Governor-General of Madagascar", "Glorioso Islands", "Official script", "Arabic slave trade", "Heavily indebted poor countries", "African Development Bank", "presidential republic", "Zimbabwe", "Languages of the Comoros", "Cocos Islands", "Thabo Mbeki", "European Union", "Mutsamudu", "Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean", "South Rock", "2025 Comorian parliamentary election", "Moroni, Comoros", "List of countries by Human Development Index", "Grande Glorieuse", "cyclone", "Economic inequality", "Indian Ocean", "Makua people", "Comoro Islands", "Ngazidja", "Bantu language", "Comoros forests", "United Kingdom", "1999 Comorian coup d'état", "OHADA", "Legislative power", "Comorians", "outermost region", "United Nations General Assembly", "Arabic script", "Muslim", "Suez Canal", "Mascarenes", "United Nations Development Programme", "Kilwa", "Island Southeast Asia", "SDECE", "The World Factbook", "Swahili language", "Comorian languages", "Ismaili", "LGBT rights in the Comoros", "Catholic", "mosque", "shield volcano", "Shisiwani National Park", "French overseas departments and territories", "bilateral descent", "Moustadroine Abdou", "Pen and Sword Books", "Quran", "spice", "Shikomori", "South Asian ethnic groups", "colonisation", "Tanzania", "List of sovereign states by date of formation", "East Africa", "Mayotte", "African Union", "1978 Comorian coup d'état", "Jinn", "Comoros slave trade", "Ikililou Dhoinine", "Mohéli National Park", "Organisation of African Unity", "Bantu peoples", "King Solomon", "Île du Lys", "Italy", "Azali Assoumani", "Creole peoples", "WP:MOSNUM", "Arab League", "2020 Comorian legislative election", "caldera", "World Bank", "Library of Congress", "Bureau of International Labor Affairs", "volcanic crater lake", "Forms of government", "International Futures", "Comorian language", "Sunni Islam", "Austronesian languages", "London", "Qur'an", "ecoregion", "Bantu languages", "Al-Watwan", "United Nations", "Anjouan", "legal system", "Islam in the Comoros", "Convention for the Renewal of the Comoros", "English language", "purchasing power parity", "Vasco da Gama", "List of vetoed United Nations Security Council resolutions", "Muhammad", "Ali Soilihi", "2009 Mahoran status referendum", "colonization", "Arabic", "Demographics of the Comoros", "Sakalava", "Madagascar", "2008 invasion of Anjouan", "gold", "International Monetary Fund", "Latin", "Jimilime", "treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons", "Index of Comoros-related articles", "Malagasy people", "Queen of Sheba", "Persia", "Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons", "Said Mohamed Jaffar", "Kilwa Sultanate", "Remittance", "coral", "Mozambique Channel", "ambergris", "Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim", "Karthala", "ivory", "Grande Comore", "Library of Congress Country Studies", "Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde", "British Mauritius", "head of government", "moon", "multi-party system", "unemployment rate", "1974 Comorian independence referendum", "Swahili Coast", "Bob Denard", "Banc du Geyser", "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie", "perfume", "newspaper", "Persian Gulf", "essential oil", "public domain", "Fomboni", "Arab", "2023 Russia–Africa Summit", "cinnamon", "U.S. Department of Labor", "National seal of the Comoros", "Sima, Comoros", ".km", "1976 Mahoran status referendum", "cloves", "unemployment", "Reuters", "Mohéli", "Udzima wa ya Masiwa", "French colonial empire", "Mohammed Bacar", "French Foreign Legion", "poverty", "Salaries", "Indian Ocean Commission", "Organisation of Islamic Co-operation", "West Indian Ocean coelacanth", "Chinese people", "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation", "Paris", "Austronesian people", "Gemstone", "Slavery in the Comoros", "Hadhramaut", "head of state", "overseas department", "Zanzibar", "judiciary", "Flag of the Comoros", "Twarab" ]
5,404	Critical philosophy	Critical philosophy () is a movement inaugurated by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). It is dedicated to the self-examination of reason with the aim of exposing its inherent limitations, that is, to defining the possibilities of knowledge as a prerequisite to advancing to knowledge itself. According to Kant, only after such self-criticism does it become possible to develop metaphysics in a non-dogmatic way. The three critical texts of the Kantian corpus are the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgement, published between 1781 and 1790 and primarily concerned, respectively, with metaphysics, morality, and teleology. Contemporaries of Kant such as Johann Georg Hamann and Johann Gottfried Herder rejected the notion of "pure" reason upon which this project depends. They claim that reason depends upon language, which always introduces historical contingencies.	[ "metaphysics", "Critical idealism", "Johann Gottfried Herder", "Immanuel Kant", "teleology", "Charles Bernard Renouvier", "Johann Georg Hamann", "Critique of Judgement", "Critique of Pure Reason", "Léon Brunschvicg", "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "ethics", "Critique of Practical Reason", "Critical thinking", "dogma" ]
5,405	China	China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the third-largest country by land area.{{efn\|The total area ranking relative to the United States depends on the measurement of the total areas of both countries. See list of countries and dependencies by area for more information. The following two primary sources represent the range of estimates of China's and the United States' total areas. The Encyclopædia Britannica lists China as world's third-largest country (after Russia and Canada) with a total area of 9,572,900 km, The CIA World Factbook lists China as the fourth-largest country (after Russia, Canada and the United States) with a total area of 9,596,960 km, Both sources exclude both Taiwan and coastal and territorial waters from the area of China. However, the CIA World Factbook includes the United States coastal and territorial waters, while Encyclopædia Britannica excludes them. Notably, the Encyclopædia Britannica specifies the United States' area (excluding coastal and territorial waters) as 9,525,067 km, which is less than either source's figure given for China's area. "China" appears in Richard Eden's 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The origin of the Sanskrit word is a matter of debate. In 1655, Martino Martini suggested that the word China is derived ultimately from the name of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE). Alternative suggestions include the names for Yelang and the Jing or Chu state. The official name of the modern state is the "People's Republic of China" (). The shorter form is "China" (), from ('central') and ('state'), a term which developed under the Western Zhou dynasty in reference to its royal demesne. It was used in official documents as an synonym for the state under the Qing. The name Zhongguo is also translated as in English. China is sometimes referred to as mainland China or "the Mainland" when distinguishing it from the Republic of China or the PRC's Special Administrative Regions. The hominid fossils of Peking Man, a Homo erectus who used fire, have been dated to between 680,000 and 780,000 years ago. The fossilized teeth of Homo sapiens (dated to 125,000–80,000 years ago) have been discovered in Fuyan Cave. Chinese proto-writing existed in Jiahu around 6600 BCE, at Damaidi around 6000 BCE, Dadiwan from 5800 to 5400 BCE, and Banpo dating from the 5th millennium BCE. Some scholars have suggested that the Jiahu symbols (7th millennium BCE) constituted the earliest Chinese writing system. The Shang dynasty that traditionally succeeded the Xia is the earliest for which there are both contemporary written records and undisputed archaeological evidence. The Shang ruled much of the Yellow River valley until the 11th century BCE, with the earliest hard evidence dated . The oracle bone script, attested from but generally assumed to be considerably older, represents the oldest known form of written Chinese, and is the direct ancestor of modern Chinese characters. The Shang were overthrown by the Zhou, who ruled between the 11th and 5th centuries BCE, though the centralized authority of Son of Heaven was slowly eroded by fengjian lords. Some principalities eventually emerged from the weakened Zhou and continually waged war with each other during the 300-year Spring and Autumn period. By the time of the Warring States period of the 5th–3rd centuries BCE, there were seven major powerful states left. === Imperial China === ==== Qin and Han ==== The Warring States period ended in 221 BCE after the state of Qin conquered the other six states, reunited China and established the dominant order of autocracy. King Zheng of Qin proclaimed himself the Emperor of the Qin dynasty, becoming the first emperor of a unified China. He enacted Qin's legalist reforms, notably the standardization of Chinese characters, measurements, road widths, and currency. His dynasty also conquered the Yue tribes in Guangxi, Guangdong, and Northern Vietnam. The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, falling soon after the First Emperor's death. Following widespread revolts during which the imperial library was burned, the Han dynasty emerged to rule China between 206 BCE and 220 CE, creating a cultural identity among its populace still remembered in the ethnonym of the modern Han Chinese. Despite the Han's initial decentralization and the official abandonment of the Qin philosophy of Legalism in favor of Confucianism, Qin's legalist institutions and policies continued to be employed by the Han government and its successors. ==== Three Kingdoms, Jin, Northern and Southern dynasties ==== After the end of the Han dynasty, a period of strife known as Three Kingdoms followed, at the end of which Wei was swiftly overthrown by the Jin dynasty. The Jin fell to civil war upon the ascension of a developmentally disabled emperor; the Five Barbarians then rebelled and ruled northern China as the Sixteen States. The Xianbei unified them as the Northern Wei, whose Emperor Xiaowen reversed his predecessors' apartheid policies and enforced a drastic sinification on his subjects. In the south, the general Liu Yu secured the abdication of the Jin in favor of the Liu Song. The various successors of these states became known as the Northern and Southern dynasties, with the two areas finally reunited by the Sui in 581. ==== Sui, Tang and Song ==== The Sui restored the Han to power through China, reformed its agriculture, economy and imperial examination system, constructed the Grand Canal, and patronized Buddhism. However, they fell quickly when their conscription for public works and a failed war in northern Korea provoked widespread unrest. Under the succeeding Tang and Song dynasties, Chinese economy, technology, and culture entered a golden age. The Tang dynasty retained control of the Western Regions and the Silk Road, which brought traders to as far as Mesopotamia and the Horn of Africa, and made the capital Chang'an a cosmopolitan urban center. However, it was devastated and weakened by the An Lushan rebellion in the 8th century. In 907, the Tang disintegrated completely when the local military governors became ungovernable. The Song dynasty ended the separatist situation in 960, leading to a balance of power between the Song and the Liao dynasty. The Song was the first government in world history to issue paper money and the first Chinese polity to establish a permanent navy which was supported by the developed shipbuilding industry along with the sea trade. Between the 10th and 11th century CE, the population of China doubled to around 100 million people, mostly because of the expansion of rice cultivation in central and southern China, and the production of abundant food surpluses. The Song dynasty also saw a revival of Confucianism, in response to the growth of Buddhism during the Tang, and a flourishing of philosophy and the arts, as landscape art and porcelain were brought to new levels of complexity. However, the military weakness of the Song army was observed by the Jin dynasty. In 1127, Emperor Emeritus Huizong, Emperor Qinzong of Song and the capital Bianjing were captured during the Jin–Song wars. The remnants of the Song retreated to southern China and reestablished the Song at Jiankang. ===== Yuan ===== The Mongol conquest of China began in 1205 with the campaigns against Western Xia by Genghis Khan, who also invaded Jin territories. In 1271, the Mongol leader Kublai Khan established the Yuan dynasty, which conquered the last remnant of the Song dynasty in 1279. Before the Mongol invasion, the population of Song China was 120 million citizens; this was reduced to 60 million by the time of the census in 1300. A peasant named Zhu Yuanzhang overthrew the Yuan in 1368 and founded the Ming dynasty as the Hongwu Emperor. Under the Ming dynasty, China enjoyed another golden age, developing one of the strongest navies in the world and a rich and prosperous economy amid a flourishing of art and culture. It was during this period that admiral Zheng He led the Ming treasure voyages throughout the Indian Ocean, reaching as far as East Africa. ==== Ming ==== In the early Ming dynasty, China's capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing. With the budding of capitalism, philosophers such as Wang Yangming critiqued and expanded Neo-Confucianism with concepts of individualism and equality of four occupations. The scholar-official stratum became a supporting force of industry and commerce in the tax boycott movements, which, together with the famines and defense against Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) and Later Jin incursions led to an exhausted treasury. In 1644, Beijing was captured by a coalition of peasant rebel forces led by Li Zicheng. The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide when the city fell. The Manchu Qing dynasty, then allied with Ming dynasty general Wu Sangui, overthrew Li's short-lived Shun dynasty and subsequently seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty. ==== Qing ==== The Qing dynasty, which lasted from 1644 until 1912, was the last imperial dynasty of China. The Ming-Qing transition (1618–1683) cost 25 million lives, but the Qing appeared to have restored China's imperial power and inaugurated another flowering of the arts. After the Southern Ming ended, the further conquest of the Dzungar Khanate added Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang to the empire. Meanwhile, China's population growth resumed and shortly began to accelerate. It is commonly agreed that pre-modern China's population experienced two growth spurts, one during the Northern Song period (960–1127), and other during the Qing period (around 1700–1830). By the High Qing era China was possibly the most commercialized country in the world, and imperial China experienced a second commercial revolution by the end of the 18th century. On the other hand, the centralized autocracy was strengthened in part to suppress anti-Qing sentiment with the policy of valuing agriculture and restraining commerce, like the Haijin during the early Qing period and ideological control as represented by the literary inquisition, causing some social and technological stagnation. === Fall of the Qing dynasty === In the mid-19th century, the Opium Wars with Britain and France forced China to pay compensation, open treaty ports, allow extraterritoriality for foreign nationals, and cede Hong Kong to the British under the 1842 Treaty of Nanking, the first of what have been termed the unequal treaties. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) resulted in Qing China's loss of influence in the Korean Peninsula, as well as the cession of Taiwan to Japan. The Qing dynasty also began experiencing internal unrest in which tens of millions of people died, especially in the White Lotus Rebellion, the failed Taiping Rebellion that ravaged southern China in the 1850s and 1860s and the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in the northwest. The initial success of the Self-Strengthening Movement of the 1860s was frustrated by a series of military defeats in the 1880s and 1890s. In the 19th century, the great Chinese diaspora began. Losses due to emigration were added to by conflicts and catastrophes such as the Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879, in which between 9 and 13 million people died. The Guangxu Emperor drafted a reform plan in 1898 to establish a modern constitutional monarchy, but these plans were thwarted by the Empress Dowager Cixi. The ill-fated anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion of 1899–1901 further weakened the dynasty. Although Cixi sponsored a program of reforms known as the late Qing reforms, the Xinhai Revolution of 1911–1912 ended the Qing dynasty and established the Republic of China. Puyi, the last Emperor, abdicated in 1912. === Establishment of the Republic and World War II === On 1 January 1912, the Republic of China was established, and Sun Yat-sen of the Kuomintang (KMT) was proclaimed provisional president. In March 1912, the presidency was given to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing general who in 1915 proclaimed himself Emperor of China. In the face of popular condemnation and opposition from his own Beiyang Army, he was forced to abdicate and re-establish the republic in 1916. After Yuan Shikai's death in 1916, China was politically fragmented. Its Beijing-based government was internationally recognized but virtually powerless; regional warlords controlled most of its territory. During this period, China participated in World War I and saw a far-reaching popular uprising (the May Fourth Movement). In the late 1920s, the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek was able to reunify the country under its own control with a series of deft military and political maneuverings known collectively as the Northern Expedition. The Kuomintang moved the nation's capital to Nanjing and implemented "political tutelage", an intermediate stage of political development outlined in Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People program for transforming China into a modern democratic state. The Kuomintang briefly allied with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Northern Expedition, though the alliance broke down in 1927 after Chiang violently suppressed the CCP and other leftists in Shanghai, marking the beginning of the Chinese Civil War. The CCP declared areas of the country as the Chinese Soviet Republic (Jiangxi Soviet) in November 1931 in Ruijin, Jiangxi. The Jiangxi Soviet was wiped out by the KMT armies in 1934, leading the CCP to initiate the Long March and relocate to Yan'an in Shaanxi. It would be the base of the communists before major combat in the Chinese Civil War ended in 1949. In 1931, Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria. Japan invaded other parts of China in 1937, precipitating the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), a theater of World War II. The war forced an uneasy alliance between the Kuomintang and the CCP. Japanese forces committed numerous war atrocities against the civilian population; as many as 20 million Chinese civilians died. An estimated 40,000 to 300,000 Chinese were massacred in Nanjing alone during the Japanese occupation. China, along with the UK, the United States, and the Soviet Union, were recognized as the Allied "Big Four" in the Declaration by United Nations. Along with the other three great powers, China was one of the four major Allies of World War II, and was later considered one of the primary victors in the war. After the surrender of Japan in 1945, Taiwan, along with the Penghu, were handed over to Chinese control; however, the validity of this handover is controversial. === People's Republic === China emerged victorious but war-ravaged and financially drained. The continued distrust between the Kuomintang and the Communists led to the resumption of civil war. Constitutional rule was established in 1947, but because of the ongoing unrest, many provisions of the ROC constitution were never implemented in mainland China. In 1950, the PRC captured Hainan from the ROC and annexed Tibet. However, remaining Kuomintang forces continued to wage an insurgency in western China throughout the 1950s. The CCP consolidated its popularity among the peasants through the Land Reform Movement, which included the state-tolerated executions of between 1 and 2 million landlords by peasants and former tenants. Though the PRC initially allied closely with the Soviet Union, the relations between the two communist nations gradually deteriorated, leading China to develop an independent industrial system and its own nuclear weapons. The Chinese population increased from 550 million in 1950 to 900 million in 1974. However, the Great Leap Forward, an idealistic massive industrialization project, resulted in an estimated 15 to 55 million deaths between 1959 and 1961, mostly from starvation. In 1964, China detonated its first atomic bomb. In 1966, Mao and his allies launched the Cultural Revolution, sparking a decade of political recrimination and social upheaval that lasted until Mao's death in 1976. In October 1971, the PRC replaced the ROC in the United Nations, and took its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. === Reforms and contemporary history === After Mao's death, the Gang of Four were arrested by Hua Guofeng and held responsible for the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution was rebuked, with millions rehabilitated. Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, and instituted large-scale political and economic reforms, together with the "Eight Elders", most senior and influential members of the party. The government loosened its control and the communes were gradually disbanded. Agricultural collectivization was dismantled and farmlands privatized. While foreign trade became a major focus, special economic zones (SEZs) were created. Inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) were restructured and some closed. This marked China's transition away from planned economy. China adopted its current constitution on 4 December 1982. In 1989, there were protests such those in Tiananmen Square, and then throughout the entire nation. Jiang Zemin was elevated to become the CCP general secretary, becoming the paramount leader. Jiang continued economic reforms, closing many SOEs and trimming down "iron rice bowl" (life-tenure positions). China's economy grew sevenfold during this time. However, the growth also severely impacted the country's resources and environment, and caused major social displacement. Xi Jinping succeeded Hu as paramount leader at the 18th CCP National Congress in 2012. Shortly after his ascension to power, Xi launched a vast anti-corruption crackdown, that prosecuted more than 2 million officials by 2022. During his tenure, Xi has consolidated power unseen since the initiation of economic and political reforms. == Geography == China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts in the arid north to the subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, respectively, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China connects through the Kazakh border to the Eurasian Steppe. The territory of China lies between latitudes 18° and 54° N, and longitudes 73° and 135° E. The geographical center of China is marked by the Center of the Country Monument at . China's landscapes vary significantly across its vast territory. In the east, along the shores of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there are extensive and densely populated alluvial plains, while on the edges of the Inner Mongolian plateau in the north, broad grasslands predominate. Southern China is dominated by hills and low mountain ranges, while the central-east hosts the deltas of China's two major rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze River. Other major rivers include the Xi, Mekong, Brahmaputra and Amur. To the west sit major mountain ranges, most notably the Himalayas. High plateaus feature among the more arid landscapes of the north, such as the Taklamakan and the Gobi Desert. The world's highest point, Mount Everest (8,848 m), lies on the Sino-Nepalese border. The country's lowest point, and the world's third-lowest, is the dried lake bed of Ayding Lake (−154 m) in the Turpan Depression. === Climate === China's climate is mainly dominated by dry seasons and wet monsoons, which lead to pronounced temperature differences between winter and summer. In the winter, northern winds coming from high-latitude areas are cold and dry; in summer, southern winds from coastal areas at lower latitudes are warm and moist. A major environmental issue in China is the continued expansion of its deserts, particularly the Gobi Desert. Although barrier tree lines planted since the 1970s have reduced the frequency of sandstorms, prolonged drought and poor agricultural practices have resulted in dust storms plaguing northern China each spring, which then spread to other parts of East Asia, including Japan and Korea. Water quality, erosion, and pollution control have become important issues in China's relations with other countries. Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could potentially lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people. According to academics, in order to limit climate change in China to electricity generation from coal in China without carbon capture must be phased out by 2045. With current policies, the GHG emissions of China will probably peak in 2025, and by 2030 they will return to 2022 levels. However, such pathway still leads to three-degree temperature rise. Official government statistics about Chinese agricultural productivity are considered unreliable, due to exaggeration of production at subsidiary government levels. Much of China has a climate very suitable for agriculture and the country has been the world's largest producer of rice, wheat, tomatoes, eggplant, grapes, watermelon, spinach, and many other crops. In 2021, 12 percent of global permanent meadows and pastures belonged to China, as well as 8% of global cropland. === Biodiversity === China is one of 17 megadiverse countries, lying in two of the world's major biogeographic realms: the Palearctic and the Indomalayan. By one measure, China has over 34,687 species of animals and vascular plants, making it the third-most biodiverse country in the world, after Brazil and Colombia. The country is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity; its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan was received by the convention in 2010. China is home to at least 551 species of mammals (the third-highest in the world), 1,221 species of birds (eighth), 424 species of reptiles (seventh) and 333 species of amphibians (seventh). Wildlife in China shares habitat with, and bears acute pressure from, one of the world's largest population of humans. At least 840 animal species are threatened, vulnerable or in danger of local extinction, due mainly to human activity such as habitat destruction, pollution and poaching for food, fur and traditional Chinese medicine. Endangered wildlife is protected by law, and , the country has over 2,349 nature reserves, covering a total area of 149.95 million hectares, 15 percent of China's total land area. Most wild animals have been eliminated from the core agricultural regions of east and central China, but they have fared better in the mountainous south and west. The Baiji was confirmed extinct on 12 December 2006. China has over 32,000 species of vascular plants, and is home to a variety of forest types. Cold coniferous forests predominate in the north of the country, supporting animal species such as moose and Asian black bear, along with over 120 bird species. China has over 10,000 recorded species of fungi. === Environment === In the early 2000s, China has suffered from environmental deterioration and pollution due to its rapid pace of industrialization. Regulations such as the 1979 Environmental Protection Law are fairly stringent, though they are poorly enforced, frequently disregarded in favor of rapid economic development. China has the second-highest death toll because of air pollution, after India, with approximately 1 million deaths. Although China ranks as the highest CO emitting country, it only emits 8 tons of CO per capita, significantly lower than developed countries such as the United States (16.1), Australia (16.8) and South Korea (13.6). Greenhouse gas emissions by China are the world's largest. China has prioritized clamping down on pollution, bringing a significant decrease in air pollution in the 2010s. In 2020, the Chinese government announced its aims for the country to reach its peak emissions levels before 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 in line with the Paris Agreement, which, according to Climate Action Tracker, would lower the expected rise in global temperature by 0.2–0.3 degrees – "the biggest single reduction ever estimated by the Climate Action Tracker". China is the world's leading investor in renewable energy and its commercialization, with $546 billion invested in 2022; it is a major manufacturer of renewable energy technologies and invests heavily in local-scale renewable energy projects. In 2023, 60.5% of China's electricity came from coal (largest producer in the world), 13.2% from hydroelectric power (largest), 9.4% from wind (largest), 6.2% from solar energy (largest), 4.6% from nuclear energy (second-largest), 3.3% from natural gas (fifth-largest), and 2.2% from bioenergy (largest); in total, 31% of China's energy came from renewable energy sources. Despite its emphasis on renewables, China remains deeply connected to global oil markets and next to India, has been the largest importer of Russian crude oil in 2022. === Political geography === China is the third-largest country in the world by land area after Russia, and the third- or fourth-largest country in the world by total area. China's total area is generally stated as being approximately . Specific area figures range from according to the Encyclopædia Britannica,China has the longest combined land border in the world, measuring and its coastline covers approximately from the mouth of the Yalu River (Amnok River) to the Gulf of Tonkin. China has resolved its land borders with 12 out of 14 neighboring countries, having pursued substantial compromises in most of them. China currently has a disputed land border with India and Bhutan. China is additionally involved in maritime disputes with multiple countries over territory in the East and South China Seas, such as the Senkaku Islands and the entirety of South China Sea Islands. == Government and politics == The People's Republic of China is a one-party state governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP describes itself as guided by socialism with Chinese characteristics, which is Marxism adapted to Chinese circumstances. The Chinese constitution states that the PRC "is a socialist state governed by a people's democratic dictatorship that is led by the working class and based on an alliance of workers and peasants", that the state institutions "shall practice the principle of democratic centralism", and that "the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party." The PRC officially terms itself as a democracy, using terms such as whole-process people's democracy. with among the heaviest restrictions worldwide in many areas, most notably against freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, free formation of social organizations, freedom of religion and free access to the Internet. China has consistently been ranked amongst the lowest as an "authoritarian regime" by the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, ranking at 145th out of 167 countries in 2024. Other sources suggest that terming China as "authoritarian" does not sufficiently account for the multiple consultation mechanisms that exist in Chinese government. === Chinese Communist Party === According to the CCP constitution, its highest body is the National Congress held every five years. The National Congress elects the Central Committee, who then elects the party's Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee and the general secretary (party leader), the top leadership of the country. The current general secretary is Xi Jinping, who took office on 15 November 2012. At the local level, the secretary of the CCP committee of a subdivision outranks the local government level; CCP committee secretary of a provincial division outranks the governor while the CCP committee secretary of a city outranks the mayor. === Government === The government in China is under the sole control of the CCP. The CCP controls appointments in government bodies, with most senior government officials being CCP members. The NPC meets annually, while the NPC Standing Committee, around 150 members elected from NPC delegates, meets every couple of months. The NPC is dominated by the CCP, with another eight minor parties having nominal representation under the condition of upholding CCP leadership. The president is elected by the NPC. The presidency is the ceremonial state representative, but not the constitutional head of state. The incumbent president is Xi Jinping, who is also the general secretary of the CCP and the chairman of the Central Military Commission, making him China's paramount leader and supreme commander of the Armed Forces. The premier is the head of government, with Li Qiang being the incumbent. The premier is officially nominated by the president and then elected by the NPC, and has generally been either the second- or third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC). The premier presides over the State Council, China's cabinet, composed of four vice premiers, state councilors, and the heads of ministries and commissions. The governance of China is characterized by a high degree of political centralization but significant economic decentralization. Policy instruments or processes are often tested locally before being applied more widely, resulting in a policy that involves experimentation and feedback. Generally, central government leadership refrains from drafting specific policies, instead using the informal networks and site visits to affirm or suggest changes to the direction of local policy experiments or pilot programs. The typical approach is that central government leadership begins drafting formal policies, law, or regulations after policy has been developed at local levels. The PRC regards the island of Taiwan as its Taiwan Province, Kinmen and Matsu as a part of Fujian Province and islands the ROC controls in the South China Sea as a part of Hainan Province and Guangdong Province, although all these territories are governed by the Republic of China (ROC). Geographically, all 31 provincial divisions of mainland China can be grouped into six regions: North China, East China, Southwestern China, Northwestern China, South Central China, and Northeast China. === Foreign relations === The PRC has diplomatic relations with 179 United Nation members states and maintains embassies in 174. , China has one of the largest diplomatic networks of any country in the world. In 1971, the PRC replaced the Republic of China (ROC) as the sole representative of China in the United Nations and as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is a member of intergovernmental organizations including the G20, the SCO, the BRICS, the East Asia Summit, and the APEC. China was also a former member and leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, and still considers itself an advocate for developing countries. The PRC officially maintains the one-China principle, which holds the view that there is only one sovereign state in the name of China, represented by the PRC, and that Taiwan is part of that China. The unique status of Taiwan has led to countries recognizing the PRC to maintain unique "one-China policies" that differ from each other; some countries explicitly recognize the PRC's claim over Taiwan, while others, including the U.S. and Japan, only acknowledge the claim. especially in the matter of armament sales. Most countries have switched recognition from the ROC to the PRC since the latter replaced the former in the UN in 1971. Much of current Chinese foreign policy is reportedly based on Premier Zhou Enlai's Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and is also driven by the concept of "harmony without uniformity", which encourages diplomatic relations between states despite ideological differences. This policy may have led China to support or maintain close ties with states that are regarded as dangerous and repressive by Western nations, such as Sudan, North Korea and Iran. China's close relationship with Myanmar has involved support for its ruling governments as well as for its ethnic rebel groups, including the Arakan Army. China has a close political, economic and military relationship with Russia, and the two states often vote in unison in the UN Security Council. China's relationship with the United States is complex, and includes deep trade ties but significant political differences. Since the early 2000s, China has followed a policy of engaging with African nations for trade and bilateral co-operation. It maintains extensive and highly diversified trade links with the European Union, and became its largest trading partner for goods. China is increasing its influence in Central Asia and South Pacific. The country has strong trade ties with ASEAN countries and major South American economies, and is the largest trading partner of Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, and several others. In 2013, China initiated the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a large global infrastructure building initiative with funding on the order of $50–100 billion per year. BRI could be one of the largest development plans in modern history. It expanded significantly over the next six years and, , included 138 countries and 30 international organizations. In addition to intensifying foreign policy relations, the focus is particularly on building efficient transport routes, especially the maritime Silk Road with its connections to East Africa and Europe. However many loans made under the program are unsustainable and China has faced a number of calls for debt relief from debtor nations. === Military === The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is considered one of the world's most powerful militaries and has rapidly modernized in the recent decades. Since 2024, it consists of four services: the Ground Force (PLAGF), the Navy (PLAN), the Air Force (PLAAF) and the Rocket Force (PLARF). It also has four independent arms: the Aerospace Force, the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force, and the Joint Logistics Support Force, the first three of which were split from the disbanded Strategic Support Force (PLASSF). Its nearly 2.2 million active duty personnel is the largest in the world. The PLA holds the world's third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the world's second-largest navy by tonnage. China's official military budget for 2023 totalled US$224 billion (1.55 trillion Yuan), the second-largest in the world, though SIPRI estimates that its real expenditure that year was US$296 billion, making up 12% of global military spending and accounting for 1.7% of the country's GDP. According to SIPRI, its military spending from 2012 to 2021 averaged US$215 billion per year or 1.7 per cent of GDP, behind only the United States at US$734 billion per year or 3.6 per cent of GDP. The PLA is commanded by the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the party and the state; though officially two separate organizations, the two CMCs have identical membership except during leadership transition periods and effectively function as one organization. The chairman of the CMC is the commander-in-chief of the PLA. === Sociopolitical issues and human rights === The situation of human rights in China has attracted significant criticism from foreign governments, foreign press agencies, and non-governmental organizations, alleging widespread civil rights violations such as detention without trial, forced confessions, torture, restrictions of fundamental rights, and excessive use of the death penalty. Since its inception, Freedom House has ranked China as "not free" in its Freedom in the World survey, China has limited protections regarding LGBT rights. Although some criticisms of government policies and the ruling CCP are tolerated, censorship of political speech and information are amongst the harshest in the world and routinely used to prevent collective action. China also has the most comprehensive and sophisticated Internet censorship regime in the world, with numerous websites being blocked. The government suppresses popular protests and demonstrations that it considers a potential threat to "social stability". China additionally uses a massive surveillance network of cameras, facial recognition software, sensors, and surveillance of personal technology as a means of social control of persons living in the country. where significant numbers of ethnic minorities reside, including violent police crackdowns and religious suppression. Since 2017, the Chinese government has been engaged in a harsh crackdown in Xinjiang, with around one million Uyghurs and other ethnic and religion minorities being detained in internment camps aimed at changing the political thinking of detainees, their identities, and their religious beliefs. According to Western reports, political indoctrination, torture, physical and psychological abuse, forced sterilization, sexual abuse, and forced labor are common in these facilities. According to a 2020 Foreign Policy report, China's treatment of Uyghurs meets the UN definition of genocide, while a separate UN Human Rights Office report said they could potentially meet the definitions for crimes against humanity. The Chinese authorities have also cracked down on dissent in Hong Kong, especially after the passage of a national security law in 2020. In 2017 and 2020, the Pew Research Center ranked the severity of Chinese government restrictions on religion as being among the world's highest, despite ranking religious-related social hostilities in China as low in severity. The Global Slavery Index estimated that in 2016 more than 3.8 million people (0.25% of the population) were living in "conditions of modern slavery", including victims of human trafficking, forced labor, forced marriage, child labor, and state-imposed forced labor. The state-imposed re-education through labor (laojiao) system was formally abolished in 2013, but it is not clear to what extent its practices have stopped. The much larger reform through labor (laogai) system includes labor prison factories, detention centers, and re-education camps; the Laogai Research Foundation has estimated in June 2008 that there were nearly 1,422 of these facilities, though it cautioned that this number was likely an underestimate. === Public views of government === Political concerns in China include the growing gap between rich and poor and government corruption. Nonetheless, international surveys show the Chinese public have a high level of satisfaction with their government. == Economy == China has the world's second-largest economy in terms of nominal GDP, and the world's largest in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP). , China accounts for around 18% of the global economy by nominal GDP. China is one of the world's fastest-growing major economies, with its economic growth having been almost consistently above 6 percent since the introduction of the reform and opening up policy in 1978. According to the World Bank, China's GDP grew from $150 billion in 1978 to $17.96 trillion by 2022. It ranks 64th by nominal GDP per capita, making it an upper-middle income country. Of the world's 500 largest companies, 135 are headquartered in China. As of at least 2024, China has the world's second-largest equity markets and futures markets, as well as the third-largest bond market. China was one of the world's foremost economic powers throughout the arc of East Asian and global history. The country had one of the largest economies in the world for most of the past two millennia, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since economic reforms began in 1978, China has developed into a highly diversified economy and one of the most consequential players in international trade. Major sectors of competitive strength include manufacturing, retail, mining, steel, textiles, automobiles, energy generation, green energy, banking, electronics, telecommunications, real estate, e-commerce, and tourism. China has three out of the ten largest stock exchanges in the world—Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen—that together have a market capitalization of over $15.9 trillion, . China has three out of the world's ten most competitive financial centers according to the 2024 Global Financial Centres Index—Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen. Modern-day China is often described as an example of state capitalism or party-state capitalism. The state dominates in strategic "pillar" sectors such as energy production and heavy industries, but private enterprise has expanded enormously, with around 30 million private businesses recorded in 2008. According to official statistics, privately owned companies constitute more than 60% of China's GDP. China has been the world's largest manufacturing nation since 2010, after overtaking the U.S., which had been the largest for the previous hundred years. China has also been the second-largest in high-tech manufacturing country since 2012, according to US National Science Foundation. China is the second-largest retail market after the United States. China leads the world in e-commerce, accounting for over 37% of the global market share in 2021. China is the world's leader in electric vehicle consumption and production, manufacturing and buying half of all the plug-in electric cars (BEV and PHEV) in the world . China is also the leading producer of batteries for electric vehicles as well as several key raw materials for batteries. === Tourism === China received 65.7 million international visitors in 2019, and in 2018 was the fourth-most-visited country in the world. China hosts the world's second-largest number of World Heritage Sites (56) after Italy, and is one of the most popular tourist destinations (first in the Asia-Pacific). === Wealth === China accounted for 18.6% of the world's total wealth in 2022, second highest in the world after the U.S. China brought more people out of extreme poverty than any other country in history—between 1978 and 2018, China reduced extreme poverty by 800 million. From 1978 to 2018, the average standard of living multiplied by a factor of twenty-six. Wages in China have grown significantly in the last 40 years—real (inflation-adjusted) wages grew seven-fold from 1978 to 2007. Per capita incomes have also risen significantly – when the PRC was founded in 1949, per capita income in China was one-fifth of the world average; per capita incomes now equal the world average itself. It has a high level of economic inequality, which has increased quickly since the economic reforms. Income inequality decreased in the 2010s, and China's Gini coefficient was 0.357 in 2021. and 6.2 million millionaires. China had 85 female billionaires , two-thirds of the global total. China has had the world's largest middle-class population since 2015; the middle-class grew to 500 million by 2024. === China in the global economy === China has been a member of the WTO since 2001 and is the world's largest trading power. By 2016, China was the largest trading partner of 124 countries. China became the world's largest trading nation in 2013 by the sum of imports and exports, as well as the world's largest commodity importer, accounting for roughly 45% of maritime's dry-bulk market. China's foreign exchange reserves reached US$3.246 trillion , making its reserves by far the world's largest. In 2022, China was amongst the world's largest recipient of inward foreign direct investment (FDI), attracting $180 billion, though most of these were speculated to be from Hong Kong. In 2021, China's foreign exchange remittances were $US53 billion making it the second-largest recipient of remittances in the world. China also invests abroad, with a total outward FDI of $147.9 billion in 2023, and a number of major takeovers of foreign firms by Chinese companies. Economists have argued that the renminbi is undervalued, due to currency intervention from the Chinese government, giving China an unfair trade advantage. China has also been widely criticized for manufacturing large quantities of counterfeit goods. The U.S. government has also alleged that China does not respect intellectual property (IP) rights and steals IP through espionage operations. In 2020, Harvard University's Economic Complexity Index ranked complexity of China's exports 17th in the world, up from 24th in 2010. The Chinese government has promoted the internationalization of the renminbi in order to wean itself off its dependence on the U.S. dollar as a result of perceived weaknesses of the international monetary system. The renminbi is a component of the IMF's special drawing rights and the world's fourth-most traded currency . However, partly due to capital controls that make the renminbi fall short of being a fully convertible currency, it remains far behind the Euro, the U.S. Dollar and the Japanese Yen in international trade volumes. === Science and technology === ==== Historical ==== China was a world leader in science and technology until the Ming dynasty. Ancient and medieval Chinese discoveries and inventions, such as papermaking, printing, the compass, and gunpowder (the Four Great Inventions), became widespread across East Asia, the Middle East and later Europe. Chinese mathematicians were the first to use negative numbers. By the 17th century, the Western World surpassed China in scientific and technological advancement. The causes of this early modern Great Divergence continue to be debated by scholars. After repeated military defeats by the European colonial powers and Imperial Japan in the 19th century, Chinese reformers began promoting modern science and technology as part of the Self-Strengthening Movement. After the Communists came to power in 1949, efforts were made to organize science and technology based on the model of the Soviet Union, in which scientific research was part of central planning. After Mao's death in 1976, science and technology were promoted as one of the Four Modernizations, and the Soviet-inspired academic system was gradually reformed. ==== Modern era ==== Since the end of the Cultural Revolution, China has made significant investments in scientific research and is quickly catching up with the U.S. in R&D spending. China officially spent around 2.7% of its GDP on R&D in 2024, totaling to around $496 billion. According to the World Intellectual Property Indicators, China received more applications than the U.S. did in 2018 and 2019 and ranked first globally in patents, utility models, trademarks, industrial designs, and creative goods exports in 2021. It was ranked 11th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024, a considerable improvement from its rank of 35th in 2013. Chinese supercomputers ranked among the fastest in the world. Its efforts to develop the most advanced semiconductors and jet engines have seen delays and setbacks. China is developing its education system with an emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Its academic publication apparatus became the world's largest publisher of scientific papers in 2016. In 2022, China overtook the US in the Nature Index, which measures the share of published articles in leading scientific journals. ===== Space program ===== The Chinese space program started in 1958 with some technology transfers from the Soviet Union. However, it did not launch the nation's first satellite until 1970 with the Dong Fang Hong I, which made China the fifth country to do so independently. In 2003, China became the third country in the world to independently send humans into space with Yang Liwei's spaceflight aboard Shenzhou 5. As of 2023, eighteen Chinese nationals have journeyed into space, including two women. In 2011, China launched its first space station testbed, Tiangong-1. In 2013, a Chinese robotic rover Yutu successfully touched down on the lunar surface as part of the Chang'e 3 mission. In 2019, China became the first country to land a probe—Chang'e 4—on the far side of the Moon. In 2020, Chang'e 5 successfully returned Moon samples to the Earth, making China the third country to do so independently. In 2021, China became the third country to land a spacecraft on Mars and the second one to deploy a rover (Zhurong) on Mars. China completed its own modular space station, the Tiangong, in low Earth orbit on 3 November 2022. On 29 November 2022, China performed its first in-orbit crew handover aboard the Tiangong. In May 2023, China announced a plan to land humans on the Moon by 2030. To that end, China has been developing a lunar-capable super-heavy launcher, the Long March 10, a new crewed spacecraft, and a crewed lunar lander. China sent Chang'e 6 on 3 May 2024, which conducted the first lunar sample return from Apollo Basin on the far side of the Moon. This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was achieved by Chang'e 5 from the lunar near side 4 years ago. It also carried a Chinese rover called Jinchan to conduct infrared spectroscopy of lunar surface and imaged Chang'e 6 lander on lunar surface. The lander-ascender-rover combination was separated with the orbiter and returner before landing on 1 June 2024, at 22:23 UTC. It landed on the Moon's surface on 1 June 2024. The ascender was launched back to lunar orbit on 3 June 2024, at 23:38 UTC, carrying samples collected by the lander, which later completed another robotic rendezvous, before docking in lunar orbit. The sample container was then transferred to the returner, which landed on Inner Mongolia in June 2024, completing China's far side extraterrestrial sample return mission. == Infrastructure == After a decades-long infrastructural boom, China has produced numerous world-leading infrastructural projects: it has the largest high-speed rail network, the most supertall skyscrapers, the largest power plant (the Three Gorges Dam), the most extensive ultra-high-voltage transmission network and innovation infrastructure, and a global satellite navigation system with the largest number of satellites. === Telecommunications === China is the largest telecom market in the world and currently has the largest number of active cellphones of any country, with over 1.7 billion subscribers, . It has the largest number of internet and broadband users, with over 1.1 billion Internet users —equivalent to around 78.6% of its population. By 2018, China had more than 1 billion 4G users, accounting for 40% of world's total. China is making rapid advances in 5G—by late 2018, China had started large-scale and commercial 5G trials. , China had over 810 million 5G users and 3.38 million base stations installed. China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, are the three large providers of mobile and internet in China. China Telecom alone served more than 145 million broadband subscribers and 300 million mobile users; China Unicom had about 300 million subscribers; and China Mobile, the largest of them all, had 925 million users, . Combined, the three operators had over 3.4 million 4G base-stations in China. Several Chinese telecommunications companies, most notably Huawei and ZTE, have been accused of spying for the Chinese military. China has developed its own satellite navigation system, dubbed BeiDou, which began offering commercial navigation services across Asia in 2012 as well as global services by the end of 2018. Beidou followed GPS and GLONASS as the third completed global navigation satellite. === Transport === Since the late 1990s, China's national road network has been significantly expanded through the creation of a network of national highways and expressways. In 2022, China's highways had reached a total length of , making it the longest highway system in the world. China has the world's largest market for automobiles, having surpassed the United States in both auto sales and production. The country is the world's largest exporter of cars by number as of 2023. A side-effect of the rapid growth of China's road network has been a significant rise in traffic accidents. In urban areas, bicycles remain a common mode of transport, despite the increasing prevalence of automobiles – , there are approximately 200 million bicycles in China. China's railways, which are operated by the state-owned China State Railway Group Company, are among the busiest in the world, handling a quarter of the world's rail traffic volume on only 6 percent of the world's tracks in 2006. , the country had of railways, the second-longest network in the world. The railways strain to meet enormous demand particularly during the Chinese New Year holiday, when the world's largest annual human migration takes place. China's high-speed rail (HSR) system started construction in the early 2000s. By the end of 2023, high speed rail in China had reached of dedicated lines alone, making it the longest HSR network in the world. Services on the Beijing–Shanghai, Beijing–Tianjin, and Chengdu–Chongqing lines reach up to , making them the fastest conventional high speed railway services in the world. With an annual ridership of over 2.3 billion passengers in 2019, it is the world's busiest. The network includes the Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed railway, the single longest HSR line in the world, and the Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway, which has three of longest railroad bridges in the world. The Shanghai maglev train, which reaches , is the fastest commercial train service in the world. Since 2000, the growth of rapid transit systems in Chinese cities has accelerated. , 55 Chinese cities have urban mass transit systems in operation. , China boasts the five longest metro systems in the world with the networks in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenzhen being the largest. The civil aviation industry in China is mostly state-dominated, with the Chinese government retaining a majority stake in the majority of Chinese airlines. The top three airlines in China are Air China, China Southern Airlines, and China Eastern Airlines, which collectively made up 71% of the market in 2018, are all state-owned. Air travel has expanded rapidly in the last decades, with the number of passengers increasing from 16.6 million in 1990 to 551.2 million in 2017. China had approximately 259 airports in 2024. China has over 2,000 river and seaports, about 130 of which are open to foreign shipping. Of the fifty busiest container ports, 15 are located in China, of which the busiest is the Port of Shanghai, also the busiest port in the world. The country's inland waterways are the world's sixth-longest, and total . === Water supply and sanitation === Water supply and sanitation infrastructure in China is facing challenges such as rapid urbanization, as well as water scarcity, contamination, and pollution. According to the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, 93% of rural households had access to basic sanitation in 2022 (up from 77% in 2015). The ongoing South–North Water Transfer Project intends to abate water shortage in the north. == Demographics == The 2020 Chinese census recorded the population as approximately 1,411,778,724. About 17.95% were 14 years old or younger, 63.35% were between 15 and 59 years old, and 18.7% were over 60 years old. Between 2010 and 2020, the average population growth rate was 0.53%. The next major loosening of the policy was enacted in December 2013, allowing families to have two children if one parent is an only child. In 2016, the one-child policy was replaced in favor of a two-child policy. A three-child policy was announced on 31 May 2021, due to population aging, In 2023, the total fertility rate was reported to be 1.09, ranking among the lowest in the world. In 2023, National Bureau of Statistics estimated that the population fell 850,000 from 2021 to 2022, the first decline since 1961. According to one group of scholars, one-child limits had little effect on population growth or total population size. However, these scholars have been challenged. The policy, along with traditional preference for boys, may have contributed to an imbalance in the sex ratio at birth. The 2020 census found that males accounted for 51.2% of the total population. However, China's sex ratio is more balanced than it was in 1953, when males accounted for 51.8% of the population. === Urbanization === China has urbanized significantly in recent decades. The percent of the country's population living in urban areas increased from 20% in 1980 to over 67% in 2024. China has over 160 cities with a population of over one million, including the 18 megacities (cities with a population of over 10 million) of Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Xi'an, Suzhou, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Hangzhou, Linyi, Shijiazhuang, Dongguan, Qingdao, Changsha and Hefei. The total permanent population of Chongqing, Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu is above 20 million. Shanghai is China's most populous urban area while Chongqing is its largest city proper, the only city in China with a permanent population of over 30 million. The figures in the table below are from the 2020 census, and are only estimates of the urban populations within administrative city limits; a different ranking exists for total municipal populations. The large "floating populations" of migrant workers make conducting censuses in urban areas difficult; the figures below include only long-term residents. === Ethnic groups === China legally recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, who comprise the Zhonghua minzu. The largest of these nationalities are the Han Chinese, who constitute more than 91% of the total population. – outnumber other ethnic groups in every place excluding Tibet, Xinjiang, Linxia, and autonomous prefectures like Xishuangbanna. Ethnic minorities account for less than 10% of the population of China, according to the 2020 census. === Languages === There are as many as 292 living languages in China. The languages most commonly spoken belong to the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family, which contains Mandarin (spoken by 80% of the population), and other varieties of Chinese language: Jin, Wu, Min, Hakka, Yue, Xiang, Gan, Hui, Ping and unclassified Tuhua (Shaozhou Tuhua and Xiangnan Tuhua). Languages of the Tibeto-Burman branch, including Tibetan, Qiang, Naxi and Yi, are spoken across the Tibetan and Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau. Other ethnic minority languages in southwestern China include Zhuang, Thai, Dong and Sui of the Tai-Kadai family, Miao and Yao of the Hmong–Mien family, and Wa of the Austroasiatic family. Across northeastern and northwestern China, local ethnic groups speak Altaic languages including Manchu, Mongolian and several Turkic languages: Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Salar and Western Yugur. Korean is spoken natively along the border with North Korea. Sarikoli, the language of Tajiks in western Xinjiang, is an Indo-European language. Taiwanese indigenous peoples, including a small population on the mainland, speak Austronesian languages. Standard Chinese, a variety based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, is the national language of China, having de facto official status. In the autonomous regions of China, other languages may also serve as a lingua franca, such as Uyghur in Xinjiang, where governmental services in Uyghur are constitutionally guaranteed. ===Religion=== Freedom of religion is guaranteed by China's constitution, although religious organizations that lack official approval can be subject to state persecution. Over the millennia, the Chinese civilization has been influenced by various religious movements. The "three doctrines" of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism have historically shaped Chinese culture, enriching a theological and spiritual framework of traditional religion which harks back to the early Shang and Zhou dynasty. Chinese folk religion, which is framed by the three doctrines and by other traditions, consists in allegiance to the shen, who can be deities of the surrounding nature or ancestral principles of human groups, concepts of civility, culture heroes, many of whom feature in Chinese mythology and history. Amongst the most popular cults of folk religion are those of the Yellow Emperor, embodiment of the God of Heaven and one of the two divine patriarchs of the Chinese people, of Mazu (goddess of the seas), and often reconstructing them into forms of "highly curated" civil religion—as well as in a national and international promotion of Buddhism. China is home to many of the world's tallest religious statues, representing either deities of Chinese folk religion or enlightened beings of Buddhism; the tallest of all is the Spring Temple Buddha in Henan. Statistics on religious affiliation in China are difficult to gather due to complex and varying definitions of religion and the diffusive nature of Chinese religious traditions. Scholars note that in China there is no clear boundary between the three doctrines and local folk religious practices. According to studies published in 2023, compiling demographic analyses conducted throughout the 2010s and the early 2020s, 70% of the Chinese population believed in or practiced Chinese folk religion—among them, with an approach of non-exclusivity, 33.4% may be identified as Buddhists, 19.6% as Taoists, and 17.7% as adherents of other types of folk religion. There are also ethnic minorities in China who maintain their own indigenous religions, while major religions characteristic of specific ethnic groups include Tibetan Buddhism among Tibetans, Mongols and Yugurs, and Islam among the Hui, Uyghur, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz peoples, and other ethnicities in the northern and northwestern regions of the country. === Education === Compulsory education in China comprises primary and junior secondary school, which together last for nine years from the age of 6 and 15. The Gaokao, China's national university entrance exam, is a prerequisite for entrance into most higher education institutions. Vocational education is available to students at the secondary and tertiary level. More than 10 million Chinese students graduated from vocational colleges every year. In 2023, about 91.8 percent of students continued their education at a three-year senior secondary school, while 60.2 percent of secondary school graduates were enrolled in higher education. China has the largest education system in the world, with about 291 million students and 18.92 million full-time teachers in over 498,300 schools in 2023. However, there remains an inequality in education spending. In 2010, the annual education expenditure per secondary school student in Beijing totalled ¥20,023, while in Guizhou, one of the poorest provinces, it only totalled ¥3,204. China's literacy rate has grown dramatically, from only 20% in 1949 and 65.5% in 1979, to 97% of the population over age 15 in 2020. , China has over 3,074 universities, with over 47.6 million students enrolled in mainland China, giving China the largest higher education system in the world. , China had the world's highest number of top universities. Currently, China trails only the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of representation on lists of the top 200 universities according to the 2023 Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities, a composite ranking system of three world-most followed university rankings (ARWU+QS+THE). China is home to two of the highest-ranking universities (Tsinghua University and Peking University) in Asia and emerging economies, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities. These universities are members of the C9 League, an alliance of elite Chinese universities offering comprehensive and leading education. === Health === The National Health Commission, together with its counterparts in the local commissions, oversees the health needs of the population. An emphasis on public health and preventive medicine has characterized Chinese health policy since the early 1950s. The Communist Party started the Patriotic Health Campaign, which was aimed at improving sanitation and hygiene, as well as treating and preventing several diseases. Diseases such as cholera, typhoid and scarlet fever, which were previously rife in China, were nearly eradicated by the campaign. After Deng Xiaoping began instituting economic reforms in 1978, the health of the Chinese public improved rapidly because of better nutrition, although many of the free public health services provided in the countryside disappeared. Healthcare in China became mostly privatized, and experienced a significant rise in quality. In 2009, the government began a three-year large-scale healthcare provision initiative worth US$124 billion. By 2011, the campaign resulted in 95% of China's population having basic health insurance coverage. By 2022, China had established itself as a key producer and exporter of pharmaceuticals, producing around 40 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients in 2017. , the life expectancy at birth exceeds 78 years. , the infant mortality rate is 5 per thousand. Both have improved significantly since the 1950s. Rates of stunting, a condition caused by malnutrition, have declined from 33.1% in 1990 to 9.9% in 2010. Despite significant improvements in health and the construction of advanced medical facilities, China has several emerging public health problems, such as respiratory illnesses caused by widespread air pollution, hundreds of millions of cigarette smokers, and an increase in obesity among urban youths. In 2010, air pollution caused 1.2 million premature deaths in China. Chinese mental health services are inadequate. China's large population and densely populated cities have led to serious disease outbreaks, such as SARS in 2003, although this has since been largely contained. The COVID-19 pandemic was first identified in Wuhan in December 2019; pandemic led the government to enforce strict public health measures intended to completely eradicate the virus, a goal that was eventually abandoned in December 2022 after protests against the policy. == Culture and society== Since ancient times, Chinese culture has been heavily influenced by Confucianism. Chinese culture, in turn, has heavily influenced East Asia and Southeast Asia. For much of the country's dynastic era, opportunities for social advancement could be provided by high performance in the prestigious imperial examinations, which have their origins in the Han dynasty. The literary emphasis of the exams affected the general perception of cultural refinement in China, such as the belief that calligraphy, poetry and painting were higher forms of art than dancing or drama. Chinese culture has long emphasized a sense of deep history and a largely inward-looking national perspective. Examinations and a culture of merit remain greatly valued in China today. Today, the Chinese government has accepted numerous elements of traditional Chinese culture as being integral to Chinese society. With the rise of Chinese nationalism and the end of the Cultural Revolution, various forms of traditional Chinese art, literature, music, film, fashion and architecture have seen a vigorous revival, and folk and variety art in particular have sparked interest nationally and even worldwide. Access to foreign media remains heavily restricted. === Architecture === Chinese architecture has developed over millennia in China and has remained a vestigial source of perennial influence on the development of East Asian architecture, including in Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. and minor influences on the architecture of Southeast and South Asia including the countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Chinese architecture is characterized by bilateral symmetry, use of enclosed open spaces, feng shui (e.g. directional hierarchies), a horizontal emphasis, and an allusion to various cosmological, mythological or in general symbolic elements. Chinese architecture traditionally classifies structures according to type, ranging from pagodas to palaces. === Literature === Chinese literature has its roots in the Zhou dynasty's literary tradition. The classical texts of China encompass a wide range of thoughts and subjects, such as the calendar, military, astrology, herbology, and geography, as well as many others. Among the most significant early works are the I Ching and the Shujing, which are part of the Four Books and Five Classics. These texts were the cornerstone of the Confucian curriculum sponsored by the state throughout the dynastic periods. Inherited from the Classic of Poetry, classical Chinese poetry developed to its floruit during the Tang dynasty. Li Bai and Du Fu opened the forking ways for the poetic circles through romanticism and realism respectively. Chinese historiography began with the Shiji, the overall scope of the historiographical tradition in China is termed the Twenty-Four Histories, which set a vast stage for Chinese fictions along with Chinese mythology and folklore. Pushed by a burgeoning citizen class in the Ming dynasty, Chinese classical fiction rose to a boom of the historical, town and gods and demons fictions as represented by the Four Great Classical Novels which include Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber. Along with the wuxia fictions of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng, it remains an enduring source of popular culture in the Chinese sphere of influence. In the wake of the New Culture Movement after the end of the Qing dynasty, Chinese literature embarked on a new era with written vernacular Chinese for ordinary citizens. Hu Shih and Lu Xun were pioneers in modern literature. Various literary genres, such as misty poetry, scar literature, young adult fiction and the xungen literature, which is influenced by magic realism, emerged following the Cultural Revolution. Mo Yan, a xungen literature author, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012. === Music === Chinese music covers a highly diverse range of music from traditional music to modern music. Chinese music dates back before the pre-imperial times. Traditional Chinese musical instruments were traditionally grouped into eight categories known as bayin (八音). Traditional Chinese opera is a form of musical theatre in China originating thousands of years and has regional style forms such as Beijing and Cantonese opera. Chinese pop (C-Pop) includes mandopop and cantopop. Chinese hip hop and Hong Kong hip hop have become popular. === Fashion === Hanfu is the historical clothing of the Han people in China. The qipao or cheongsam is a popular Chinese female dress. The hanfu movement has been popular in contemporary times and seeks to revitalize Hanfu clothing. China Fashion Week is the country's only national-level fashion festival. === Cinema === Cinema was first introduced to China in 1896 and the first Chinese film, Dingjun Mountain, was released in 1905. China has had the largest number of movie screens in the world since 2016; China became the largest cinema market in 2020. The top three highest-grossing films in China were Ne Zha 2 (2025), The Battle at Lake Changjin (2021), and Wolf Warrior 2 (2017). === Cuisine === Chinese cuisine is highly diverse, drawing on several millennia of culinary history and geographical variety, in which the most influential are known as the "Eight Major Cuisines", including Sichuan, Cantonese, Jiangsu, Shandong, Fujian, Hunan, Anhui, and Zhejiang cuisines. Chinese cuisine is known for its breadth of cooking methods and ingredients. China's staple food is rice in the northeast and south, and wheat-based breads and noodles in the north. Bean products such as tofu and soy milk remain a popular source of protein. Pork is now the most popular meat in China, accounting for about three-fourths of the country's total meat consumption. There is also the vegetarian Buddhist cuisine and the pork-free Chinese Islamic cuisine. Chinese cuisine, due to the area's proximity to the ocean and milder climate, has a wide variety of seafood and vegetables. Offshoots of Chinese food, such as Hong Kong cuisine and American Chinese cuisine, have emerged in the Chinese diaspora. === Sports === China has one of the oldest sporting cultures. There is evidence that archery (shèjiàn) was practiced during the Western Zhou dynasty. Swordplay (jiànshù) and cuju, a sport loosely related to association football date back to China's early dynasties as well. Physical fitness is widely emphasized in Chinese culture, with morning exercises such as qigong and tai chi widely practiced, and commercial gyms and private fitness clubs are gaining popularity. Basketball is the most popular spectator sport in China. The Chinese Basketball Association and the American National Basketball Association also have a huge national following amongst the Chinese populace, with native-born and NBA-bound Chinese players and well-known national household names such as Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian being held in high esteem. China's professional football league, known as Chinese Super League, is the largest football market in East Asia. Other popular sports include martial arts, table tennis, badminton, swimming and snooker. China is home to a huge number of cyclists, with an estimated 470 million bicycles . China has the world's largest esports market. Many more traditional sports, such as dragon boat racing, Mongolian-style wrestling and horse racing are also popular. China has participated in the Olympic Games since 1932, although it has only participated as the PRC since 1952. China hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where its athletes received 48 gold medals – the highest number of any participating nation that year. China also won the most medals at the 2012 Summer Paralympics, with 231 overall, including 95 gold. In 2011, Shenzhen hosted the 2011 Summer Universiade. China hosted the 2013 East Asian Games in Tianjin and the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, the first country to host both regular and Youth Olympics. Beijing and its nearby city Zhangjiakou collaboratively hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics, making Beijing the first dual Olympic city by holding both the Summer Olympics and the Winter Olympics. China hosted the Asian Games in 1990 (Beijing), 2010 (Guangzhou), and 2023 (Hangzhou).	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dictatorship", "Mienic languages", "esports", "Stanford University Press", "Naxi language", ".澳门", "Russia", "International Monetary Fund", "Gobi Desert", "British Hong Kong", "Tibetan Buddhism", "population of China", "floating population", "Sino-Tibetan language family", "List of countries by military expenditures", "Nepal", "People's Daily", "List of cities in China by population", "List of destroyed libraries", "taxus", "freedom of assembly", "Space.com", "China–Iran relations", "List of mammals of China", "renewable energy", "Later Jin (1616–1636)", "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence", "Tibet Autonomous Region", "longitude", "Sogdia", "constitutional monarchy", "Manchu shamanism", "Xi'an", "badminton", "Zhangjiakou", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "Freedom in the World", "Second Sino-Japanese War", "First Sino-Japanese War", "List of countries by rail usage", "Declaration by United Nations", "Shandong", "Chinese herbology", "Yugurs", "CNBC", "geographical center", "Brahmaputra River", "rubber stamp (politics)", "Great Wall of China", "People's commune", "Southern Ming", "sexual abuse", "re-education through labor", "Traditional Chinese musical instruments", "Chinese Islamic cuisine", "SIPRI", "classical Chinese poetry", "Wang Yangming", "Khanbaliq", "Paris Agreement", "Kyrgyz in China", "Economy of East Asia", "dictatorship", "War of the Eight Princes", "Freedom of the press in China", "Encyclopædia Britannica", "Zhejiang", "China at the 1952 Summer Olympics", "List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP per capita", "island of Taiwan", "Retrocession of Taiwan", "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", "erosion", "religion in China", "unequal treaties", "United Nations Development Programme", "List of countries by manufacturing output", "People's Liberation Army Navy", "plateau", "middle school", "Mekong", "Chang'e 6", "bamboo", "Mount Everest", "Hierarchy", "Al Jazeera Media Network", "Upheaval of the Five Barbarians", "Uyghur language", "Encirclement campaigns", "International Security", "Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars", "Shun dynasty", "Southwestern China", "Four Modernizations", "Manufacturing", "coniferous", "World Heritage Sites by country", "Warlord Era", "Guizhou", "Hong Kong University Press", "Water Margin", "extraterritoriality", "Urbanization in China", "Yi Jianlian", "Mongol conquest of China", "Southeast Asia", "Chinese culture", "freedom of speech", "Horn of Africa", "Allegations of intellectual property theft by China", "Marco Polo Bridge", "list of countries by population (United Nations)", "Chinese nationalism", "Portuguese language", "Asian black bear", "Spring Temple Buddha", "Forbidden City", "Protected areas of China", "primary school", "Standard Chinese", "Beiyang government", "Guangdong", "Greenhouse gas emissions by China", "List of high-speed railway lines", "Yao Ming", "Sport in China", "socialism with Chinese characteristics", "two-child policy", "Harvard University Press", "Book of Documents", "Case Western Reserve University School of Law", "Shandong cuisine", "Active ingredient", "East China Sea EEZ disputes", "Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China", "History of the Han dynasty", "late Qing reforms", "Taiwan", "Purchasing power parity", "Western Zhou", "Environmental issues in India", "Tiananmen Square protests and massacre", "Qing", "2008 Summer Olympics medal table", "18th parallel north", "Laogai", "United States", "Yearbook of the United Nations", "Urban rail transit in China", "Buddhism in China", "1990 Asian Games", "Palgrave MacMillan", "Hangzhou", "traditional Chinese medicine", "subtropical", "AIIB", "Union of Concerned Scientists", "Mahabharata", "Chinese architecture", "Geography", "direct-administered municipalities of China", "Tianjin", "stilt house", "World economy", "Income inequality", "Century of humiliation", "Maoist", "Education in China", "literary inquisition", "The Wall Street Journal", "The Tuscaloosa News", "Industrialisation", "Chinese philosophy", "cult (religious practice)", "Chinese Soviet Republic", "Zheng He", "Li Qiang", "Battle of Hainan Island", "Chinese Basketball Association", "Simplified Chinese", "Megacity", "International Security (journal)", "debt relief", "Aging of China", "National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference", "Erlitou culture", "Hong Kong Stock Exchange", "Malaysia", "total fertility rate", "Martino Martini", "Beijing dialect", "Non-Aligned Movement", "Dadiwan culture", "Inner Mongolia", "Sichuan", "Zhuang languages", "human sex ratio", "Democratic parties (China)", "State-owned enterprises of China", "Human rights in Tibet", "Northern and southern China", "Zhou dynasty", "lingua franca", "List of supertall skyscrapers", "Population and Development Review", "Great Hall of the People", "CCP General Secretary", "wuxia", "Retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan", "World Trade Organization", "University of British Columbia", "Treaty of Shimonoseki", "foreign direct investment", "List of countries by total fertility rate", "Ming", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "gunpowder", "Willamette University College of Law", "Province-level divisions of China", "73rd meridian east", "written vernacular Chinese", "Chinese astrology", "Chinese Communist Party", "Mongolian wrestling", "1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre", "Emperor of China", "India", "Mental health in China", "Psychological abuse", "heavy industry", "Yalu River", "1911 Revolution", "China Fashion Week", "Chemistry World", "Hua Guofeng", "Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)", "Encounter Books", "Radio France Internationale", "China–North Korea relations", "Geography of Taiwan", "Allies of World War II", "space station", "Nuclear power in China", "2022 Winter Olympics", "List of countries by rail transport network size", "Kuomintang Islamic insurgency", "Suzhou", "National Park Service", "Chinese diaspora", "Kinmen", "gods and demons fiction", "End of World War II in Asia", "Korean language", "Stockholm International Peace Research Institute", "Hong Kong hip hop", "Chinese geography", "Tiananmen Square", "Subtropical", "Ministry of Education (China)", "Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China", "Air China", "Senkaku Islands dispute", "Sino-Indian border dispute", "Peking opera", "Qiu Xigui", "List of universities in China", "Economic Complexity Index", "Chinese folklore", "2012 Summer Paralympics", "Chinese emigration", "Three Principles of the People", "TOP500", "UN Security Council", "Ministry of Ecology and Environment", "List of largest cities", "Ming dynasty", "Southward expansion of the Han dynasty", "Ember (non-profit organisation)", "surrender of Japan", "Lowy Institute", "freedom of the press", "Li Zicheng", "List of sovereign states by number of broadband Internet subscriptions", "Hefei", "Dong Fang Hong I", "Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference", "Chinese Buddhism", "understory", "Zhao Leji", "Scientific American", "Afghanistan", "Northeast China", "destruction of the Library of Alexandria", "About.Com", "Chinese theology", "Qingdao", "United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758", "Rankings of universities in China", "Chinese painting", "unitary state", "Global Financial Centres Index", "moose", "ZTE", "Homo erectus", "Chinese historiography", "Jiahu", "ancient India", "List of countries by number of scientific and technical journal articles", "mainland China", "xungen movement", "List of countries by imports", "Central Asia", "water pollution", "Chinese crewed lunar lander", "basic sanitation", "Rowman & Littlefield Publishers", "President of China", "Kaifeng", "Forced labour", "biogeographic realm", "Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty", "Wu Sangui", "infant mortality", "Empress Dowager Cixi", "crimes against humanity", "National Health Commission", "Pew Research Center", "Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party", "Kyrgyzstan", "China Southern Airlines", "nominal GDP", "Chinese calligraphy", "Austronesian languages", "Shenzhen Stock Exchange", "Cheongsam", "Beijing–Guangzhou high-speed railway", "Macau", "Climate Action Tracker", "Han conquest of Gojoseon", "The Washington Post", "Ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission in China", "Peking University", "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society", "Chinese cuisine", "First United Front", "swimming (sport)", "Chinese salvationist religions", "NPR", "Yue Chinese", "Anhui cuisine", "University of Hawaii Press", "Gini coefficient", "Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress", "List of countries by number of millionaires", "Communism", "China–Myanmar relations", "Greenwood Publishing Group", "grassland", "Emperor Huizong of Song", "Handover of Macau", "Stunted growth", "Global Positioning System", "Yuan Shikai", "The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press", "megadiverse countries", "An Lushan rebellion", "Los Angeles Times", "cycling", "magic realism", "Yelang", "Retreat of the government of Republic of China to Taiwan", "Territorial disputes of the People's Republic of China", "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation", "Smoking in China", "World War I", "Marxist–Leninist", "Bronze Age", "CNN Travel", "CNN", "Vietnam", "Pangu", "Premier of China", "Vietnamese architecture", "Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei", "List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita", "Rowman & Littlefield", "List of countries by number of Internet users", "human rights in China", "Chinese Super League", "National Emblem of China", "The World Factbook", "Haijin", "Christianity", "Chatham House", "The Hollywood Reporter", "s:zh:尚書", "Nisu language", "East Asia", "UC Davis", "Qing dynasty", "Archaeology (magazine)", "Freedom House", "NBC News", "Reform and Opening Up", "Sohu", "Sixteen Kingdoms", "cuju", "Hong Kong cuisine", "Bloomberg News", "dry season", "Constitution of the People's Republic of China", "State Council of the People's Republic of China", "next-generation crewed spacecraft", "China Family Panel Studies", "World Heritage Site", "+86", "Qin (state)", "Sinitic languages", "Two Chinas", "Empire of Japan", "Macanese pataca", "demesne", "Yutu (rover)", "Warring States period", "Japan", "National Basketball Association", "Karakoram", "Yan Ruoqu", "France", "anti-Qing sentiment", "National People's Congress", "Bohai Sea", "Chinese palace", "Classic of Poetry", "Huizhou Chinese", "Hmongic language", "Xiangnan Tuhua", "World Intellectual Property Indicators", "Xiang Chinese", "Traditional games of China", "Uyghur people", "deities", "CPPCC Chairman", "Chu–Han Contention", "BBC", "invention of gunpowder", "Yunnan", "Transition from Ming to Qing", "University of Southern California", "Eight-Nation Alliance", "Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary", "meritocracy", "Official script", "Linyi", "Three Gorges Dam", "China Internet Information Center", "Chongqing", "Legalism (Chinese philosophy)", "pagodas", "Cantonese opera", "Varieties of Chinese", "C9 League", "paramount leader", "Bhutan", "Tiangong-1", "List of countries by number of mobile numbers in use", "provinces of China", "Heidelberg University", "Bhutan–China border", "Dynasties in Chinese history", "one-party state", "American Chinese cuisine", "List of Chinese inventions", "East Asia Summit", "Mongolia", "Kazakhs in China", "World Tourism rankings", "People's Liberation Army Ground Force", "Second United Front", "list of statues by height", "nl:Lode Vanoost", "Jiang Zemin", "China–Sudan relations", "Tang dynasty", "Council on Foreign Relations", "rainforest", "List of highest bridges", "Wolf Warrior 2", "Chinese characters", "Beijing–Shanghai high-speed railway", "History of paper", "Guangxu Emperor", "proto-writing", "China under Xi Jinping", "Health Promotion International", "S&P Global", "Min Chinese", "Mao Zedong", "planned economy", "Banpo", "sandstorms", "Timeline of late anti-Qing rebellions", "Xinjiang internment camps", "party-state capitalism", "Han campaigns against Dian", "Baiji", "freedom of religion", "ASEAN", "Self-Strengthening Movement", "Sichuan cuisine", "Shenzhen", "Chinese language", "Islam", "Richard Eden (translator)", "China during World War I", "Patriotic Health Campaign", "Renewable energy in China", "Mazu", "Chinese cooking techniques", "Shanghai", "special drawing rights", "Yale University Press", "Global Slavery Index", "conifer", "s:zh:尚書/梓材", "Jin dynasty (1115–1234)", "Pax Sinica", "coal in China", "Himalayas", "internationalization of the renminbi", "Indomalayan realm", "tertiary education", "Shanghai Metro", "Fortune Global 500", "Pacific Ocean", "Mongolian folk religion", "Grand Canal of China", "Korean Peninsula", "Jerry Norman (sinologist)", "Sanskrit", "Hanfu", "Yellow Sea", "table tennis", "List of countries by number of billionaires", "Wa language", "Capital punishment in China", "Temple of Heaven", "Wiley (publisher)", "United Front (China)", "US$", "Hani language", "Cantonese cuisine", "QS World University Rankings", "United Front Work Department", "Kam language", "Liang Yusheng", "Renminbi", "Christianity in China", "Gang of Four", "The Taipei Times", "The Christian Science Monitor", "Jiangxi", "One China", "Time in China", "Foreign-exchange reserves of China", "National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party", "Chang'an", "People's Liberation Army Rocket Force", "low Earth orbit", "Tibeto-Burman languages", "Great Wall", "Unequal treaty", "Beiyang Army", "snooker", "Arakan Army", "Western Zhou dynasty", "Empire of China (1915–1916)", "Chinese Civil War", "Shenzhen Metro", "Quaternary Science Reviews", "Chinese literature", "Nanjing", "Northern Vietnam", "Fujian", "renminbi", "Tiananmen", "List of ethnic groups in China", ".cn", "Mongol conquest of Western Xia", "Northern Song", "gym", "List of high-speed railway lines in China", "cradles of civilization", "Xianbei", "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics" ]
5,407	California	Presently, close to one out of every nine United States residents live in California. The United States Census Bureau reported that the population of California was 39.54 million on April 1, 2020, a 6.13% increase since the 2010 census. Then in 2020, the state began to experience population declines continuing every year, attributable mostly to moves out of state but also due to declining birth rates, COVID-19 pandemic deaths, and less internal migration from other states to California. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between 2021 and 2022, 818,000 California residents moved out of state with emigrants listing high cost of living, high taxes, and a difficult business environment as the motivation. San Francisco is the most densely-populated city in California and one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S.. Four of the top 20 most populous cities in the U.S. are in California: Los Angeles (2nd), San Diego (8th), San Jose (13th), and San Francisco (17th). The center of population of California is located four miles west-southwest of the city of Shafter, Kern County. As of 2020, California ranked fourth among states by life expectancy, with a life expectancy of 79.0 years. Starting in the year 2010, for the first time since the California Gold Rush, California-born residents made up the majority of the state's population. Along with the rest of the United States, California's immigration pattern has also shifted over the course of the late 2000s to early 2010s. Immigration from Latin American countries has dropped significantly with most immigrants now coming from Asia. Net immigration from Mexico, previously the most common country of origin for new immigrants, has dropped to zero / less than zero since more Mexican nationals are departing for their home country than immigrating. The number of migrants arrested attempting to cross the Mexican border in the Southwest decreased from a high of 1.1million in 2005 to 367,000 in 2011. Despite these recent trends, illegal aliens constituted an estimated 7.3 percent of the state's population, the third highest percentage of any state in the country, totaling nearly 2.6million. In particular, illegal immigrants tended to be concentrated in Los Angeles, Monterey, San Benito, Imperial, and Napa Counties—the latter four of which have significant agricultural industries that depend on manual labor. More than half of illegal immigrants originate from Mexico. have adopted sanctuary policies. According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 171,521 homeless people in California. ===Race and ethnicity=== According to the United States Census Bureau in 2022 the population self-identified as (alone or in combination): 56.5% White (including Hispanic Whites), 33.7% non-Hispanic white, 18.1% Asian, 7.3% Black or African American, 3.2% Native American and Alaska Native, 0.9% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 34.3% some other race. These numbers add up to more than 100% because respondents can select multiple racial identities. 19% of Californians identified as two or more races in 2022, although excluding respondents who selected "some other race", only 5% identified as two or more races. By ethnicity, in 2018 the population was 60.7% non-Hispanic (of any race) and 39.3% Hispanic or Latino (of any race). Hispanics are the largest single ethnic group in California. Non-Hispanic whites constituted 36.8% of the state's population. However, they make up only a small part of California's Hispanic population today, estimated at 500,000. California has the largest Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan population, together making up over 90% of the state's Latino population. According to 2022 estimates from the American Community Survey, 32.4% of the population had Mexican ancestry, 6.6% had German ancestry, 6.1% had English ancestry, 5.6% had Irish ancestry, 4.9% had Chinese ancestry, 4.3% had Filipino ancestry, 4% had Central American ancestry (Mostly Salvadoran and Guatemalan), 3.4% had Italian ancestry, 2.8% listed themselves as American, and 2.5% had Indian ancestry. , 75.1% of California's population younger than age 1 were minorities, meaning they had at least one parent who was not non-Hispanic white (white Hispanics are counted as minorities). In terms of total numbers, California has the largest population of White Americans in the United States, an estimated 22,200,000 residents including people identifying as white in combination with any other race. The state has the 5th largest population of African Americans in the United States, an estimated 2,250,000 residents. California's Asian American population is estimated at 7.1million, constituting a third of the nation's total. California's Native American population of 504,000 is the most of any state, with 103,030 identifying as Non-Hispanic and belonging mostly to the Indigenous peoples of California. Most of the state's Native American population identifies as Hispanic and belongs to Indigenous Mexican or Central American ethnic groups, including 185,200 identifying as Mexican American Indian and 67,904 identifying as Central American Indian. According to estimates from 2011, California has the largest minority population in the United States by numbers, making up 60% of the state population. Over the past 25 years, the population of non-Hispanic whites has declined, while Hispanic and Asian populations have grown. Between 1970 and 2011, non-Hispanic whites declined from 80% of the state's population to 40%, while Hispanics grew from 32% in 2000 to 38% in 2011. It is currently projected that Hispanics will rise to 49% of the population by 2060, primarily due to domestic births rather than immigration. With the decline of immigration from Latin America, Asian Americans now constitute the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in California; this growth is primarily driven by immigration from China, India, and the Philippines, respectively. Most of California's immigrant population are born in Mexico (3.9 million), the Philippines (825,200), China (768,400), India (556,500), and Vietnam (502,600). California has the largest multiracial population in the United States. Mexican is the most common ancestry in California, followed by English, German, and Irish. ===Languages=== English serves as California's de jure and de facto official language. According to the 2021 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau, 56.08% (20,763,638) of California residents age5 and older spoke only English at home, while 43.92% spoke another language at home. 60.35% of people who speak a language other than English at home are able to speak English "well" or "very well", with this figure varying significantly across the different linguistic groups. Spanish is the most commonly spoken language in California, behind English, spoken by 28.18% (10,434,308) of the population (in 2021). Spanish was the official administrative language of California through the Spanish and Mexican eras, until 1848. Following the U.S. Conquest of California and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the U.S. Government guaranteed the rights of Spanish-speaking Californians. The first Constitution of California was written in both languages at the Monterey Constitutional Convention of 1849 and protected the rights of Spanish speakers to use their language in government proceedings and mandating that all government documents be published in both English and Spanish. Despite the initial recognition of Spanish by early American governments in California, the revised 1879 constitution stripped the rights of Spanish speakers and the official status of Spanish. The growth of the English-only movement by the mid-20th century led to the passage of 1986 California Proposition 63, which enshrined English as the only official language in California and ended Spanish language instruction in schools. 2016 California Proposition 58 reversed the prohibition on bilingual education, though there are still many barriers to the proliferation of Spanish bilingual education, including a shortage of teachers and lack of funding. The government of California has since made efforts to promote Spanish language access and bilingual education, as have private educational institutions in California. Many businesses in California promote the usage of Spanish by their employees, to better serve both California's Hispanic population and the larger Spanish-speaking world. California has historically been one of the most linguistically diverse areas in the world, with more than 70 indigenous languages derived from 64 root languages in six language families. A survey conducted between 2007 and 2009 identified 23 different indigenous languages among California farmworkers. All of California's indigenous languages are endangered, although there are now efforts toward language revitalization. California has the highest concentration nationwide of Chinese, Vietnamese and Punjabi speakers. As a result of the state's increasing diversity and migration from other areas across the country and around the globe, linguists began noticing a noteworthy set of emerging characteristics of spoken American English in California since the late 20th century. This variety, known as California English, has a vowel shift and several other phonological processes that are different from varieties of American English used in other regions of the United States. === Religion === The largest religious denominations by number of adherents as a percentage of California's population in 2014 were the Catholic Church with 28 percent, Evangelical Protestants with 20 percent, and Mainline Protestants with 10 percent. Together, all kinds of Protestants accounted for 32 percent. Those unaffiliated with any religion represented 27 percent of the population. The breakdown of other religions is 1% Muslim, 2% Hindu and 2% Buddhist. This is a change from 2008, when the population identified their religion with the Catholic Church with 31 percent; Evangelical Protestants with 18 percent; and Mainline Protestants with 14 percent. In 2008, those unaffiliated with any religion represented 21 percent of the population. The breakdown of other religions in 2008 was 0.5% Muslim, 1% Hindu and 2% Buddhist. The American Jewish Year Book placed the total Jewish population of California at about 1,194,190 in 2006. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) the largest denominations by adherents in 2010 were the Catholic Church with 10,233,334; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with 763,818; and the Southern Baptist Convention with 489,953. California has a large Catholic population due to the large numbers of Mexicans and Central Americans living within its borders. California has twelve dioceses and two archdioceses, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the former being the largest archdiocese in the United States. A Pew Research Center survey revealed that California is somewhat less religious than the rest of the states: 62 percent of Californians say they are "absolutely certain" of their belief in God, while in the nation 71 percent say so. The survey also revealed 48 percent of Californians say religion is "very important", compared to 56 percent nationally. ==Culture== The culture of California is a Western culture and has its modern roots in the culture of the United States, but also, historically, many Hispanic Californio and Mexican influences. As a border and coastal state, California culture has been greatly influenced by several large immigrant populations, especially those from Latin America and Asia. California has long been a subject of interest in the public mind and has often been promoted by its boosters as a kind of paradise. In the early 20th century, fueled by the efforts of state, the building projects during the Great Depression and local boosters, many Americans saw the Golden State as an ideal resort destination, sunny and dry all year round with easy access to the ocean and mountains. In the 1960s, popular music groups such as the Beach Boys promoted the image of Californians as laid-back, tanned beach-goers. ===Media and entertainment=== Hollywood and the rest of the Los Angeles area is a major global center for entertainment, with the U.S. film industry's "Big Five" major film studios (Columbia, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros.) as well as many minor film studios being based in or around the area. Many animation studios are also headquartered in the state. The four major American television commercial broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox) as well as other networks all have production facilities and offices in the state. All the four major commercial broadcast networks, plus the two major Spanish-language networks (Telemundo and Univision) each have at least three owned-and-operated TV stations in California, including at least one in Los Angeles and at least one in San Francisco. One of the oldest radio stations in the United States still in existence, KCBS (AM) in the San Francisco Bay Area, was founded in 1909. Universal Music Group, one of the "Big Four" record labels, is based in Santa Monica, while Warner Records is based in Los Angeles. Many independent record labels, such as Mind of a Genius Records, are also headquartered in the state. California is also the birthplace of several international music genres, including the Bakersfield sound, Bay Area thrash metal, alternative rock, g-funk, nu metal, glam metal, thrash metal, psychedelic rock, stoner rock, punk rock, hardcore punk, metalcore, pop punk, surf music, third wave ska, west coast hip hop, west coast jazz, jazz rap, and many other genres. Other genres such as pop rock, indie rock, hard rock, hip hop, pop, rock, rockabilly, country, heavy metal, grunge, new wave and disco were popularized in the state. In addition, many British bands, such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and the Rolling Stones settled in the state after becoming internationally famous. As the home of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area is the headquarters of several prominent internet media, social media, and other technology companies. Three of the "Big Five" technology companies (Apple, Meta, and Google) are based in the area as well as other services such as Netflix, Pandora Radio, Twitter, Yahoo!, and YouTube. Other prominent companies that are headquartered here include HP inc. and Intel. Microsoft and Amazon also have offices in the area. California, particularly Southern California, is considered the birthplace of modern car culture. Several fast food, fast casual, and casual dining chains were also founded California, including some that have since expanded internationally like California Pizza Kitchen, Denny's, IHOP, McDonald's, Panda Express, and Taco Bell. ===Sports=== California has 18 major professional sports league franchises, far more than any other state. The San Francisco Bay Area has five major league teams, while the Greater Los Angeles Area is home to ten. San Diego has two major league teams and Sacramento has one. The NFL Super Bowl has been hosted in California 12 times at five different stadiums: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Rose Bowl, Stanford Stadium, Levi's Stadium, and San Diego Stadium. A thirteenth, Super Bowl LVI, was held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on February 13, 2022. California has long had many respected collegiate sports programs. California is home to the oldest college bowl game, the annual Rose Bowl, among others. The NFL has three teams in the state: the Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers, and San Francisco 49ers. MLB has four teams in the state: the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, and San Diego Padres. The NBA has four teams in the state: the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Sacramento Kings. Additionally, the WNBA also has one team in the state: the Los Angeles Sparks. The NHL has three teams in the state: the Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, and San Jose Sharks. MLS has four teams in the state: the Los Angeles Galaxy, San Jose Earthquakes, Los Angeles FC, and San Diego FC. MLR has one team in the state: the San Diego Legion. California is the only U.S. state to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The 1932 and 1984 summer games were held in Los Angeles. Squaw Valley Ski Resort (now Palisades Tahoe) in the Lake Tahoe region hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics, marking the fourth time that California will have hosted the Olympic Games. Multiple games during the 1994 FIFA World Cup took place in California, with the Rose Bowl hosting eight matches (including the final), while Stanford Stadium hosted six matches. In addition to the Olympic games, California also hosts the California State Games. Many sports, such as surfing, snowboarding, and skateboarding, were invented in California, while others like volleyball, beach soccer, and skiing were popularized in the state. Other sports that are big in the state include golf, rodeo, tennis, mountain climbing, marathon running, horse racing, bowling, mixed martial arts, boxing, and motorsports, especially NASCAR and Formula One. ==Education== California has the most school students in the country, with over 6.2 million in the 2005–06 school year, giving California more students in school than 36 states have in total population and one of the highest projected enrollments in the country. Public secondary education consists of high schools that teach elective courses in trades, languages, and liberal arts with tracks for gifted, college-bound and industrial arts students. California's public educational system is supported by a unique constitutional amendment that requires a minimum annual funding level for grades K–12 and community colleges that grows with the economy and student enrollment figures. In 2016, California's K–12 public school per-pupil spending was ranked 22nd in the nation ($11,500 per student vs. $11,800 for the U.S. average). For 2012, California's K–12 public schools ranked 48th in the number of employees per student, at 0.102 (the U.S. average was 0.137), while paying the 7th most per employee, $49,000 (the U.S. average was $39,000). ===Higher education=== California public postsecondary education is organized into three separate systems: The state's public research university system is the University of California (UC). As of fall 2011, the University of California had a combined student body of 234,464 students. There are ten UC campuses; nine are general campuses offering both undergraduate and graduate programs which culminate in the award of bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctorates; there is one specialized campus, UC San Francisco, which is entirely dedicated to graduate education in health care, and is home to the UCSF Medical Center, the highest-ranked hospital in California. The system was originally intended to accept the top one-eighth of California high school students, but several of the campuses have become even more selective. The UC system historically held exclusive authority to award the doctorate, but this has since changed and CSU now has limited statutory authorization to award a handful of types of doctoral degrees independently of UC. The California State University (CSU) system has almost 430,000 students. The CSU (which takes the definite article in its abbreviated form, while UC does not) was originally intended to accept the top one-third of California high school students, but several of the campuses have become much more selective. The CSU was originally authorized to award only bachelor's and master's degrees, and could award the doctorate only as part of joint programs with UC or private universities. Since then, CSU has been granted the authority to independently award several doctoral degrees (in specific academic fields that do not intrude upon UC's traditional jurisdiction). The California Community Colleges system provides lower-division coursework culminating in the associate degree, as well as basic skills and workforce training culminating in various kinds of certificates. (Fifteen California community colleges now award four-year bachelor's degrees in disciplines which are in high demand in their geographical area.) It is the largest network of higher education in the U.S., composed of 112 colleges serving a student population of over 2.6million. California is also home to notable private universities such as Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Southern California, the Claremont Colleges, Santa Clara University, Loyola Marymount University, the University of San Diego, the University of San Francisco, Chapman University, Pepperdine University, Occidental College, and University of the Pacific, among numerous other private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions. California has a particularly high density of arts colleges, including the California College of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, San Francisco Art Institute, Art Center College of Design, and Academy of Art University, among others. ==Economy== California's economy ranks among the largest in the world. , the gross state product (GSP) is $4.0trillion ($102,500 per capita), the largest of any U.S. state. California is responsible for one seventh of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). , California's nominal GDP is larger than all but four countries. In terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), it is larger than all but eight countries. California's economy is larger than Africa and Australia and is almost as large as South America. The state recorded total, non-farm employment of 16,677,800 As of 2024, California is home to 57 of the Fortune 500 companies, the highest number of any U.S. state. As the largest and second-largest U.S. ports respectively, the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach in Southern California collectively play a pivotal role in the global supply chain, together hauling in about 40% of all imports to the United States by TEU volume. The five largest sectors of employment in California are trade, transportation, and utilities; government; professional and business services; education and health services; and leisure and hospitality. In output, the five largest sectors are financial services, followed by trade, transportation, and utilities; education and health services; government; and manufacturing. California has an unemployment rate of 3.9% . California's economy is dependent on trade and international related commerce accounts for about one-quarter of the state's economy, and representing 7% of their GDP; California's biggest trade partner is Mexico. In 2008, California exported $144billion worth of goods, up from $134billion in 2007 and $127billion in 2006. Vehicles, computers and electronic products are California's top exports, accounting for 42 percent of all the state's exports in 2008; over 50 car companies operate in California, such as Tesla and Mazda. This increase has occurred despite a 15 percent decline in acreage devoted to farming during the period, and water supply suffering from chronic instability. Factors contributing to the growth in sales-per-acre include more intensive use of active farmlands and technological improvements in crop production. In 2011, that number grew to $43.5billion products revenue. The agriculture sector accounts for two percent of the state's GDP and employs around three percent of its total workforce. === Income === Per capita GDP in 2021 was $85,546, ranking fourth in the nation. Per capita income varies widely by geographic region and profession. The Central Valley is the most impoverished, with migrant farm workers making less than minimum wage. According to a 2005 report by the Congressional Research Service, the San Joaquin Valley was characterized as one of the most economically depressed regions in the United States, on par with the region of Appalachia. Using the supplemental poverty measure, California has a poverty rate of 23.5%, the highest of any state in the country. However, using the official measure the poverty rate was only 13.3% as of 2017. Many coastal cities include some of the wealthiest per-capita areas in the United States. The high-technology sectors in Northern California, specifically Silicon Valley, in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, have emerged from the economic downturn caused by the dot-com bust. In 2019, there were 1,042,027 millionaire households in the state, more than any other state in the nation. In 2010, California residents were ranked first among the states with the best average credit score of 754. File:USA-World Nominal GDP.PNG\|If California was an independent country, its gross domestic product (nominal) would rank fifth in the world (2022). File:California counties by GDP 2021.png\|California counties by GDP (2021) ===State finances=== State spending increased from $56billion in 1998 to $127billion in 2011. California has the third highest per capita spending on welfare among the states, as well as the highest spending on welfare at $6.67billion. In January 2011, California's total debt was at least $265billion. On June 27, 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed a balanced budget (no deficit) for the state, its first in decades; however, the state's debt remains at $132billion. With the passage of Proposition 30 in 2012 and Proposition 55 in 2016, California now levies a 13.3% maximum marginal income tax rate with ten tax brackets, ranging from 1% at the bottom tax bracket of $0 annual individual income to 13.3% for annual individual income over $1,000,000 (though the top brackets are only temporary until Proposition 55 expires at the end of 2030). While Proposition 30 also enacted a minimum state sales tax of 7.5%, this sales tax increase was not extended by Proposition 55 and reverted to a previous minimum state sales tax rate of 7.25% in 2017. Local governments can and do levy additional sales taxes in addition to this minimum rate. All real property is taxable annually. Property tax increases are capped at 2% annually or the rate of inflation (whichever is lower), per Proposition 13. ===Energy=== Because it is the most populous state in the United States, California is one of the country's largest users of energy. The state has extensive hydro-electric energy generation facilities, however, moving water is the single largest energy use in the state. Also, due to high energy rates, conservation mandates, mild weather in the largest population centers and strong environmental movement, its per capita energy use is one of the smallest of any state in the United States. Due to the high electricity demand, California imports more electricity than any other state, primarily hydroelectric power from states in the Pacific Northwest (via Path 15 and Path 66) and coal- and natural gas-fired production from the desert Southwest via Path 46. The state's crude oil and natural gas deposits are located in the Central Valley and along the coast, including the large Midway-Sunset Oil Field. Natural gas-fired power plants typically account for more than one-half of state electricity generation. As a result of the state's strong environmental movement, California has some of the most aggressive renewable energy goals in the United States. The Clean Energy, Jobs and Affordability Act of 2022 commits the state to running its operations on clean, renewable energy resources by 2035, and SB 1203 also requires the state to achieve net-zero operations for all agencies. Currently, several solar power plants such as the Solar Energy Generating Systems facility are located in the Mojave Desert. California's wind farms include Altamont Pass, San Gorgonio Pass, and Tehachapi Pass. The Tehachapi area is also where the Tehachapi Energy Storage Project is located. Several dams across the state provide hydro-electric power. It would be possible to convert the total supply to 100% renewable energy, including heating, cooling and mobility, by 2050. California has one major nuclear power plant (Diablo Canyon) in operation. The San Onofre nuclear plant was shut down in 2013. More than 1,700tons of radioactive waste are stored at San Onofre, and sit on the coast where there is a record of past tsunamis. Voters banned the approval of new nuclear power plants since the late 1970s because of concerns over radioactive waste disposal. Several cities such as Oakland, Berkeley and Davis have declared themselves as nuclear-free zones. ===Transportation=== ====Highways==== California's vast terrain is connected by an extensive system of controlled-access highways ('freeways'), limited-access roads ('expressways'), and highways. California is known for its car culture, giving California's cities a reputation for severe traffic congestion. Construction and maintenance of state roads and statewide transportation planning are primarily the responsibility of the California Department of Transportation, nicknamed "Caltrans". The rapidly growing population of the state is straining all of its transportation networks, and California has some of the worst roads in the United States. The Reason Foundation's 19th Annual Report on the Performance of State Highway Systems ranked California's highways the third-worst of any state, with Alaska second, and Rhode Island first. The state has been a pioneer in road construction. One of the state's more visible landmarks, the Golden Gate Bridge, was the longest suspension bridge main span in the world at between 1937 (when it opened) and 1964. With its orange paint and panoramic views of the bay, this highway bridge is a popular tourist attraction and also accommodates pedestrians and bicyclists. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (often abbreviated the "Bay Bridge"), completed in 1936, transports about 280,000 vehicles per day on two-decks. Its two sections meet at Yerba Buena Island through the world's largest diameter transportation bore tunnel, at wide by high. The Arroyo Seco Parkway, connecting Los Angeles and Pasadena, opened in 1940 as the first freeway in the Western United States. It was later extended south to the Four Level Interchange in downtown Los Angeles, regarded as the first stack interchange ever built. The California Highway Patrol is the largest statewide police agency in the United States in employment with more than 10,000 employees. They are responsible for providing any police-sanctioned service to anyone on California's state-maintained highways and on state property. By the end of 2021, 30,610,058 people in California held a California Department of Motor Vehicles-issued driver's licenses or state identification card, and there were 36,229,205 registered vehicles, including 25,643,076 automobiles, 853,368 motorcycles, 8,981,787 trucks and trailers, and 121,716 miscellaneous vehicles (including historical vehicles and farm equipment). ====Air travel==== Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the 4th busiest airport in the world in 2018, and San Francisco International Airport (SFO), the 25th busiest airport in the world in 2018, are major hubs for trans-Pacific and transcontinental traffic. There are about a dozen important commercial airports and many more general aviation airports throughout the state. ====Railroads==== Inter-city rail travel is provided by Amtrak California; the three routes, the Capitol Corridor, Pacific Surfliner, and San Joaquin, are funded by Caltrans. These services are the busiest intercity rail lines in the United States outside the Northeast Corridor and ridership is continuing to set records. The routes are becoming increasingly popular over flying, especially on the LAX-SFO route. Integrated subway and light rail networks are found in Los Angeles (Los Angeles Metro Rail) and San Francisco (Muni Metro). Light rail systems are also found in San Jose (VTA light rail), San Diego (San Diego Trolley), Sacramento (SacRT light rail), and Northern San Diego County (Sprinter). Furthermore, commuter rail networks serve the San Francisco Bay Area (Altamont Corridor Express, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Caltrain, Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit), Greater Los Angeles (Metrolink), and San Diego County (Coaster). The California High-Speed Rail Authority was authorized in 1996 by the state legislature to plan a California High-Speed Rail system to put before the voters. The plan they devised, 2008 California Proposition 1A, connecting all the major population centers in the state, was approved by the voters at the November 2008 general election. The first phase of construction was begun in 2015, and the first segment long, is planned to be put into operation by the end of 2030. Planning and work on the rest of the system is continuing, with funding for completing it is an ongoing issue. California's 2023 integrated passenger rail master plan includes a high speed rail system. ====Busses==== Nearly all counties operate bus lines, and many cities operate their own city bus lines as well. Intercity bus travel is provided by Greyhound, Megabus, and Amtrak Thruway. ===Water=== California's interconnected water system is the world's largest, managing over of water per year, centered on six main systems of aqueducts and infrastructure projects. Water use and conservation in California is a politically divisive issue, as the state experiences periodic droughts and has to balance the demands of its large agricultural and urban sectors, especially in the arid southern portion of the state. The state's widespread redistribution of water also invites the frequent scorn of environmentalists. The California Water Wars, a conflict between Los Angeles and the Owens Valley over water rights, is one of the most well-known examples of the struggle to secure adequate water supplies. Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said: We've been in crisis for quite some time because we're now 38million people and not anymore 18million people like we were in the late 60s. So it developed into a battle between environmentalists and farmers and between the south and the north and between rural and urban. And everyone has been fighting for the last four decades about water. ==Government and politics== ===State government=== The capital city of California is Sacramento. The state is organized into three branches of government—the executive branch consisting of the governor and the other independently elected constitutional officers; the legislative branch consisting of the Assembly and Senate; and the judicial branch consisting of the Supreme Court of California and lower courts. The state also allows ballot propositions: direct participation of the electorate by initiative, referendum, recall, and ratification. Before the passage of Proposition 14 in 2010, California allowed each political party to choose whether to have a closed primary or a primary where only party members and independents vote. After June 8, 2010, when Proposition 14 was approved, excepting only the United States president and county central committee offices, all candidates in the primary elections are listed on the ballot with their preferred party affiliation, but they are not the official nominee of that party. At the primary election, the two candidates with the top votes will advance to the general election regardless of party affiliation. The many California state agencies that are under the governor's cabinet are grouped together to form cabinet-level entities that are referred to by government officials as "superagencies". Those departments that are directly under the other independently elected officers work separately from these superagencies. ====Legislative branch==== The California State Legislature consists of a 40-member Senate and 80-member Assembly. Senators serve four-year terms and Assembly members two. Members of the Assembly are subject to term limits of six terms, and members of the Senate are subject to term limits of three terms. ====Judicial branch==== California's legal system is explicitly based upon English common law but carries many features from Spanish civil law, such as community property. California's prison population grew from 25,000 in 1980 to over 170,000 in 2007. Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment and the state has the largest "Death Row" population in the country (though Oklahoma and Texas are far more active in carrying out executions). California has performed 13 executions since 1976, with the last being in 2006. California's judiciary system is the largest in the United States with a total of 1,600 judges (the federal system has only about 840). At the apex is the seven-member Supreme Court of California, while the California Courts of Appeal serve as the primary appellate courts and the California Superior Courts serve as the primary trial courts. Justices of the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal are appointed by the governor, but are subject to retention by the electorate every 12 years. The administration of the state's court system is controlled by the Judicial Council, composed of the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, 14 judicial officers, four representatives from the State Bar of California, and one member from each house of the state legislature. In fiscal year 2020–2021, the state judiciary's 2,000 judicial officers and 18,000 judicial branch employees processed approximately 4.4 million cases. ===Local government=== California has an extensive system of local government that manages public functions throughout the state. Like most states, California is divided into counties, of which there are 58 (including San Francisco) covering the entire state. Most urbanized areas are incorporated as cities. School districts, which are independent of cities and counties, handle public education. Many other functions, such as fire protection and water supply, especially in unincorporated areas, are handled by special districts. ====Counties==== California is divided into 58 counties. Per Article 11, Section 1, of the Constitution of California, they are the legal subdivisions of the state. The county government provides countywide services such as law enforcement, jails, elections and voter registration, vital records, property assessment and records, tax collection, public health, health care, social services, libraries, flood control, fire protection, animal control, agricultural regulations, building inspections, ambulance services, and education departments in charge of maintaining statewide standards. In addition, the county serves as the local government for all unincorporated areas. Each county is governed by an elected board of supervisors. ====City and town governments==== Incorporated cities and towns in California are either charter or general-law municipalities. There are about 3,400 special districts in California. A special district, defined by California Government Code § 16271(d) as "any agency of the state for the local performance of governmental or proprietary functions within limited boundaries", provides a limited range of services within a defined geographic area. The geographic area of a special district can spread across multiple cities or counties, or could consist of only a portion of one. Most of California's special districts are single-purpose districts, and provide one service. ===Federal representation=== The state of California sends 52 members to the House of Representatives, the nation's largest congressional state delegation. Consequently, California also has the largest number of electoral votes in national presidential elections, with 54. The former speaker of the House of Representatives is the representative of California's 20th district, Kevin McCarthy. California is represented in the United States Senate by Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff. ===Armed forces=== In California, , the U.S. Department of Defense had a total of 117,806 active duty servicemembers of which 88,370 were Sailors or Marines, 18,339 were Airmen, and 11,097 were Soldiers, with 61,365 Department of Defense civilian employees. Additionally, there were a total of 57,792 Reservists and Guardsman in California. In 2010, Los Angeles County was the largest origin of military recruits in the United States by county, with 1,437 individuals enlisting in the military. However, , Californians were relatively under-represented in the military as a proportion to its population. In 2000, California, had 2,569,340 veterans of United States military service. , there were 1,942,775 veterans living in California, of which 1,457,875 served during a period of armed conflict, and just over four thousand served before World WarII (the largest population of this group of any state). California's military forces consist of the Army and Air National Guard, the naval and state military reserve (militia), and the California Cadet Corps. ===Politics=== California has an idiosyncratic political culture compared to the rest of the country, and is sometimes regarded as a trendsetter. In socio-cultural mores and national politics, Californians are perceived as more liberal than other Americans, especially those who live in the inland states. In the 2016 United States presidential election, California had the third highest percentage of Democratic votes behind the District of Columbia and Hawaii. In the 2020 United States presidential election, it had the 6th highest behind the District of Columbia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Hawaii. According to the Cook Political Report, California contains five of the 15 most Democratic congressional districts in the United States. California was the second state to recall their state governor, the second state to legalize abortion, and the only state to ban marriage for gay couples twice by vote (including Proposition8 in 2008). Voters also passed Proposition 71 in 2004 to fund stem cell research, making California the second state to legalize stem cell research, and Proposition 14 in 2010 to completely change the state's primary election process. California has also experienced disputes over water rights; and a tax revolt, culminating with the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, limiting state property taxes. California voters have rejected affirmative action on multiple occasions, most recently in November 2020. The state's trend towards the Democratic Party and away from the Republican Party can be seen in state elections. From 1899 to 1939, California had exclusively Republican governors. Since 1990, California has generally elected Democratic candidates to federal, state and local offices, including current Governor Gavin Newsom; however, the state has elected Republican Governors, though many of its Republican Governors, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, tend to be considered moderate Republicans and more centrist than the national party. Several political movements have advocated for California independence. The California National Party and the California Freedom Coalition both advocate for California independence along the lines of progressivism and civic nationalism. The Yes California movement attempted to organize an independence referendum via ballot initiative for 2019, which was then postponed. The Democrats also hold a supermajority in both houses of the state legislature. There are 62 Democrats and 18 Republicans in the Assembly; and 32 Democrats and eight Republicans in the Senate. From 1952 through 1988, California was a Republican-leaning state, as the party carried the state's electoral votes in nine of ten elections, with 1964 as the sole exception. Southern California Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were both elected twice as the 37th and 40th U.S. Presidents, respectively. However, Democrats have won all of California's electoral votes for the last eight elections, starting in 1992. In the United States House, the Democrats held a 34–19 edge in the California delegation of the 110th United States Congress in 2007. As the result of gerrymandering, the districts in California were usually dominated by one or the other party, and few districts were considered competitive. In 2008, Californians passed Proposition 20 to empower a 14-member independent citizen commission to redraw districts for both local politicians and Congress. After the 2012 elections, when the new system took effect, Democrats gained four seats and held a 38–15 majority in the delegation. Following the 2018 midterm House elections, Democrats won 46 out of 53 congressional house seats in California, leaving Republicans with seven. In general, Democratic strength is centered in the populous coastal regions of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the San Francisco Bay Area. Republican strength is still greatest in eastern parts of the state. Orange County had remained largely Republican until the 2016 and 2018 elections, in which a majority of the county's votes were cast for Democratic candidates. One study ranked Berkeley, Oakland, Inglewood and San Francisco in the top 20 most liberal American cities; and Bakersfield, Orange, Escondido, Garden Grove, and Simi Valley in the top 20 most conservative cities. In October 2022, out of the 26,876,800 people eligible to vote, 21,940,274 people were registered to vote. Of the people registered, the three largest registered groups were Democrats (10,283,258), Republicans (5,232,094), and No Party Preference (4,943,696). === Twinned regions === California has region twinning arrangements with: Catalonia, autonomous community of Spain Alberta, province of Canada Jeju Province of South Korea Guangdong, province of China	[ "Aerospace manufacturer", "Great Depression", "Shafter, California", "California Superior Courts", "Earl Warren Building", "California State Senate", "European colonization of the Americas", "Los Angeles International Airport", "Gold Rush", "fog", "Bear Flag", "William B. 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5,408	Columbia River	The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: Nch’i-Wàna or Nchi wana; Sinixt dialect ) is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river forms in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. It flows northwest and then south into the U.S. state of Washington, then turns west to form most of the border between Washington and the state of Oregon before emptying into the Pacific Ocean. The river is long, and its largest tributary is the Snake River. Its drainage basin is roughly the size of France and extends into seven states of the United States and one Canadian province. The fourth-largest river in the United States by flow, the Columbia has the greatest flow of any river into the eastern Pacific. The Columbia and its tributaries have been central to the region's culture and economy for thousands of years. They have been used for transportation since ancient times, linking the region's many cultural groups. The river system hosts many species of anadromous fish, which migrate between freshwater habitats and the saline waters of the Pacific Ocean. These fish—especially the salmon species—provided the core subsistence for native peoples. The first documented European discovery of the Columbia River occurred when Bruno de Heceta sighted the river's mouth in 1775. On May 11, 1792, a private American ship, Columbia Rediviva, under Captain Robert Gray from Boston became the first non-indigenous vessel to enter the river. Later in 1792, William Robert Broughton of the British Royal Navy commanding HMS Chatham as part of the Vancouver Expedition, navigated past the Oregon Coast Range and upriver to what is now Vancouver, Washington. In the following decades, fur-trading companies used the Columbia as a key transportation route. Overland explorers entered the Willamette Valley through the scenic, but treacherous Columbia River Gorge, and pioneers began to settle the valley in increasing numbers. Steamships along the river linked communities and facilitated trade; the arrival of railroads in the late 19th century, many running along the river, supplemented these links. Since the late 19th century, public and private sectors have extensively developed the river. To aid ship and barge navigation, locks have been built along the lower Columbia and its tributaries, and dredging has opened, maintained, and enlarged shipping channels. Since the early 20th century, dams have been built across the river for power generation, navigation, irrigation, and flood control. The 14 hydroelectric dams on the Columbia's main stem and many more on its tributaries produce more than 44 percent of total U.S. hydroelectric generation. Production of nuclear power has taken place at two sites along the river. Plutonium for nuclear weapons was produced for decades at the Hanford Site, which is now the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States. These developments have greatly altered river environments in the watershed, mainly through industrial pollution and barriers to fish migration. == Course == The Columbia begins its journey in the southern Rocky Mountain Trench in British Columbia (BC). Columbia Lake above sea level and the adjoining Columbia Wetlands form the river's headwaters. The trench is a broad, deep, and long glacial valley between the Canadian Rockies and the Columbia Mountains in BC. For its first , the Columbia flows northwest along the trench through Windermere Lake and the town of Invermere, a region known in BC as the Columbia Valley, then northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake. Rounding the northern end of the Selkirk Mountains, the river turns sharply south through a region known as the Big Bend Country, passing through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes. Revelstoke, the Big Bend, and the Columbia Valley combined are referred to in BC parlance as the Columbia Country. Below the Arrow Lakes, the Columbia passes the cities of Castlegar, located at the Columbia's confluence with the Kootenay River, and Trail, two major population centers of the West Kootenay region. The Pend Oreille River joins the Columbia about north of the United States–Canada border. The Columbia enters eastern Washington flowing south and turning to the west at the Spokane River confluence. It marks the southern and eastern borders of the Colville Indian Reservation and the western border of the Spokane Indian Reservation. The river turns south after the Okanogan River confluence, then southeasterly near the confluence with the Wenatchee River in central Washington. This C-shaped segment of the river is also known as the "Big Bend". During the Missoula Floods 1015,000 years ago, much of the floodwater took a more direct route south, forming the ancient river bed known as the Grand Coulee. After the floods, the river found its present course, and the Grand Coulee was left dry. The construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in the mid-20th century impounded the river, forming Lake Roosevelt, from which water was pumped into the dry coulee, forming the reservoir of Banks Lake. The river flows past The Gorge Amphitheatre, a prominent concert venue in the Northwest, then through Priest Rapids Dam, and then through the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Entirely within the reservation is Hanford Reach, the only U.S. stretch of the river that is completely free-flowing, unimpeded by dams, and not a tidal estuary. The Snake River and Yakima River join the Columbia in the Tri-Cities population center. The Columbia makes a sharp bend to the west at the Washington–Oregon border. The river defines that border for the final of its journey. The Deschutes River joins the Columbia near The Dalles. Between The Dalles and Portland, the river cuts through the Cascade Range, forming the dramatic Columbia River Gorge. Via the gorge, the Columbia crosses the Cascades at a lower elevation than any other river. The gorge is known for its strong and steady winds, scenic beauty, and its role as an important transportation link. The river continues west, bending sharply to the north-northwest near Portland and Vancouver, Washington, at the Willamette River confluence. Here the river slows considerably, dropping sediment that might otherwise form a river delta at the Columbia's mouth. Near Longview, Washington and the Cowlitz River confluence, the river turns west again. The Columbia empties into the Pacific Ocean just west of Astoria, Oregon, over the Columbia Bar, a shifting sandbar that makes the river's mouth one of the most hazardous stretches of water to navigate in the world. Because of the danger and the many shipwrecks near the mouth, it acquired a reputation as the "Graveyard of Ships". The Columbia drains an area of about . The Columbia is the twelfth-longest river and has the sixth-largest drainage basin in the United States. and the Canadian part of its basin ranks 13th in size among Canadian basins. The Columbia shares its name with nearby places, such as British Columbia, as well as with landforms and bodies of water. == Discharge == With an average flow at the mouth of about , the Columbia is the largest river by discharge flowing into the Pacific from the Americas and is the fourth-largest by volume in the U.S. The lowest flow recorded at The Dalles was on April 16, 1968, and was caused by the initial closure of the John Day Dam, upstream. *1858–1899: 6,280 m3/s == Geology == When the rifting of Pangaea, due to the process of plate tectonics, pushed North America away from Europe and Africa and into the Panthalassic Ocean (ancestor to the modern Pacific Ocean), the Pacific Northwest was not part of the continent. As the North American continent moved westward, the Farallon Plate subducted under its western margin. As the plate subducted, it carried along island arcs which were accreted to the North American continent, resulting in the creation of the Pacific Northwest between 150 and 90 million years ago. The general outline of the Columbia Basin was not complete until between 60 and 40 million years ago, but it lay under a large inland sea later subject to uplift. Between 50 and 20 million years ago, from the Eocene through the Miocene eras, tremendous volcanic eruptions frequently modified much of the landscape traversed by the Columbia. The lower reaches of the ancestral river passed through a valley near where Mount Hood later arose. Carrying sediments from erosion and erupting volcanoes, it built a thick delta that underlies the foothills on the east side of the Coast Range near Vernonia in northwestern Oregon. Between 17 million and 6 million years ago, huge outpourings of flood basalt lava covered the Columbia River Plateau and forced the lower Columbia into its present course. The modern Cascade Range began to uplift 5 to 4 million years ago. Cutting through the uplifting mountains, the Columbia River significantly deepened the Columbia River Gorge. The river and its drainage basin experienced some of the world's greatest known catastrophic floods toward the end of the last ice age. The periodic rupturing of ice dams at Glacial Lake Missoula resulted in the Missoula Floods, with discharges exceeding the combined flow of all the other rivers in the world, dozens of times over thousands of years. Various studies have placed the date of the Bonneville Slide anywhere between 1060 and 1760 AD; the idea that the landslide debris present today was formed by more than one slide is relatively recent and may explain the large range of estimates. The pile of debris resulting from the Bonneville Slide blocked the river until rising water finally washed away the sediment. It is not known how long it took the river to break through the barrier; estimates range from several months to several years. Much of the landslide's debris remained, forcing the river about south of its previous channel and forming the Cascade Rapids. In 1938, the construction of Bonneville Dam inundated the rapids as well as the remaining trees that could be used to refine the estimated date of the landslide. == Indigenous peoples == Humans have inhabited the Columbia's watershed for more than 15,000 years, with a transition to a sedentary lifestyle based mainly on salmon starting about 3,500 years ago. In 1962, archaeologists found evidence of human activity dating back 11,230 years at the Marmes Rockshelter, near the confluence of the Palouse and Snake rivers in eastern Washington. In 1996 the skeletal remains of a 9,000-year-old prehistoric man (dubbed Kennewick Man) were found near Kennewick, Washington. The discovery rekindled debate in the scientific community over the origins of human habitation in North America and sparked a protracted controversy over whether the scientific or Native American community was entitled to possess and/or study the remains. Many different Native Americans and First Nations peoples have a historical and continuing presence on the Columbia. South of the Canada–US border, the Colville, Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Yakama, Wanapum, Nez Perce, Cayuse, Palus, Umatilla, Cowlitz, and the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs live along the US stretch. Along the upper Snake River and Salmon River, the Shoshone Bannock tribes are present. The Sinixt or Lakes people lived on the lower stretch of the Canadian portion, while above that the Shuswap people (Secwepemc in their own language) reckon the whole of the upper Columbia east to the Rockies as part of their territory. The Canadian portion of the Columbia Basin outlines the traditional homelands of the Canadian Kootenay–Ktunaxa. The Chinook tribe, which is not federally recognized, who live near the lower Columbia River, call it ' or ' in the Upper Chinook (Kiksht) language, and it is Nch’i-Wàna or Nchi wana to the Sahaptin (Ichishkíin Sɨ́nwit)-speaking peoples of its middle course in present-day Washington. The river is known as by the Sinixt people, who live in the area of the Arrow Lakes in the river's upper reaches in Canada. All three terms essentially mean "the big river". Oral histories describe the formation and destruction of the Bridge of the Gods, a land bridge that connected the Oregon and Washington sides of the river in the Columbia River Gorge. The bridge, which aligns with geological records of the Bonneville Slide, was described in some stories as the result of a battle between gods, represented by Mount Adams and Mount Hood, in their competition for the affection of a goddess, represented by Mount St. Helens. Native American stories about the bridge differ in their details but agree in general that the bridge permitted increased interaction between tribes on the north and south sides of the river. Horses, originally acquired from Spanish New Mexico, spread widely via native trade networks, reaching the Shoshone of the Snake River Plain by 1700. The Nez Perce, Cayuse, and Flathead people acquired their first horses around 1730. Along with horses came aspects of the emerging plains culture, such as equestrian and horse training skills, greatly increased mobility, hunting efficiency, trade over long distances, intensified warfare, the linking of wealth and prestige to horses and war, and the rise of large and powerful tribal confederacies. The Nez Perce and Cayuse kept large herds and made annual long-distance trips to the Great Plains for bison hunting, adopted the plains culture to a significant degree, and became the main conduit through which horses and the plains culture diffused into the Columbia River region. Other peoples acquired horses and aspects of the plains culture unevenly. The Yakama, Umatilla, Palus, Spokane, and Coeur d'Alene maintained sizable herds of horses and adopted some of the plains cultural characteristics, but fishing and fish-related economies remained important. Less affected groups included the Molala, Klickitat, Wenatchi, Okanagan, and Sinkiuse-Columbia peoples, who owned small numbers of horses and adopted few plains culture features. Some groups remained essentially unaffected, such as the Sanpoil and Nespelem people, whose culture remained centered on fishing. Natives of the region encountered foreigners at several times and places during the 18th and 19th centuries. European and American vessels explored the coastal area around the mouth of the river in the late 18th century, trading with local natives. The contact would prove devastating to the indigenous Chinookan speaking peoples; a large portion of their population was wiped out by a smallpox epidemic. Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie crossed what is now interior British Columbia in 1793. From 1805 to 1806, the Lewis and Clark Expedition entered the Oregon Country along the Clearwater and Snake rivers, and encountered numerous small settlements of natives. Their records recount tales of hospitable traders who were not above stealing small items from the visitors. They also noted brass teakettles, a British musket, and other artifacts that had been obtained in trade with coastal tribes. From the earliest contact with westerners, the natives of the mid- and lower Columbia were not tribal, but instead congregated in social units no larger than a village, and more often at a family level; these units would shift with the season as people moved about, following the salmon catch up and down the river's tributaries. Sparked by the 1847 Whitman Massacre, a number of violent battles were fought between American settlers and the region's natives. The subsequent wars over Northwest territory, especially the Yakima War, decimated the native population and removed much land from native control. As years progressed, the right of natives to fish along the Columbia became the central issue of contention with the states, commercial fishers, and private property owners. The US Supreme Court upheld fishing rights in landmark cases in 1905 and 1918, as well as the 1974 case United States v. Washington, commonly called the Boldt Decision. Fish were central to the culture of the region's natives, both as sustenance and as part of their religious beliefs. Natives drew fish from the Columbia at several major sites, which also served as trading posts. Celilo Falls, located east of the modern city of The Dalles, was a vital hub for trade and the interaction of different cultural groups, being used for fishing and trading for 11,000 years. Prior to contact with westerners, villages along this stretch may have at times had a population as great as 10,000. The site drew traders from as far away as the Great Plains. The Cascades Rapids of the Columbia River Gorge, and Kettle Falls and Priest Rapids in eastern Washington, were also major fishing and trading sites. In prehistoric times the Columbia's salmon and steelhead runs numbered an estimated annual average of 10 to 16 million fish. In comparison, the largest run since 1938 was in 1986, with 3.2 million fish entering the Columbia. The annual catch by natives has been estimated at . The most important and productive native fishing site was located at Celilo Falls, which was perhaps the most productive inland fishing site in North America. The falls were located at the border between Chinookan- and Sahaptian-speaking peoples and served as the center of an extensive trading network across the Pacific Plateau. Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent. Salmon canneries established by white settlers beginning in 1866 had a strong negative impact on the salmon population, and in 1908 US president Theodore Roosevelt observed that the salmon runs were but a fraction of what they had been 25 years prior. As river development continued in the 20th century, each of these major fishing sites was flooded by a dam, beginning with Cascades Rapids in 1938. The development was accompanied by extensive negotiations between natives and US government agencies. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, a coalition of various tribes, adopted a constitution and incorporated after the 1938 completion of the Bonneville Dam flooded Cascades Rapids; Still, in the 1930s, there were natives who lived along the river and fished year round, moving along with the fish's migration patterns throughout the seasons. The Yakama were slower to do so, organizing a formal government in 1944. In the 21st century, the Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribes all have treaty fishing rights along the Columbia and its tributaries. In 1957 Celilo Falls was submerged by the construction of The Dalles Dam, and the native fishing community was displaced. The affected tribes received a $26.8 million settlement for the loss of Celilo and other fishing sites submerged by The Dalles Dam. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs used part of its $4 million settlement to establish the Kah-Nee-Ta resort south of Mount Hood. Shortly after the Salmon Scam, many Columbia River-based indigenous tribes received federally recognized status. The Siletz Tribe was the first to restore its federal recognition in 1977, followed by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe in 1982, the Grand Ronde Tribe in 1983, the Lower Umpqua Tribe, Siuslaw Tribe, and Coos Tribe in 1984, the Klamath Tribe in 1986, and the Coquille Tribe in 1989. While all the aforementioned tribes received federally recognized status, the Chinook Indian Nation had their federal recognition revoked in 2002 by the Bush administration, and are fighting to have it restored. In 2023, members of the Yakama Nation expressed their dismay for the construction of a Goldendale-based pumped hydroelectric energy storage project. Jeremy Takala of the Yakama Nation embodies Yakama belief on the importance of Columbia River crops to food and medicine, stating "the [Goldendale] project being proposed here, it will definitely impact our life". The Goldendale-pumped hydro storage unit could allow for reused water use in reservoirs, which would be placed on mountainous terrain overlooking the Columbia River. The mountainous terrain where the unit would be placed in is Juniper Point, referred to by the Yakama as Pushpum. Pushpum has rock formations, as well as food and medicine capabilities that are essential to the Yakama. Members of the Yakama tribe wish for consent on the Goldendale project, as opposed to consultation. == New waves of explorers == Some historians believe that Japanese or Chinese vessels blown off course reached the Northwest Coast long before Europeans—possibly as early as 219 BCE. Historian Derek Hayes claims that "It is a near certainty that Japanese or Chinese people arrived on the northwest coast long before any European." It is unknown whether they landed near the Columbia. The Maris Pacifici map published in 1589 features on the west coast of North-America an intriguing resemblance of two major coastline features: the mouth of the Columbia River identified as "Rio Grande" and the delta of the Fraser River labeled "Baia de las isleas". These rivers may have been too sighted by European visitors long before official records would confirm nearly 200 years later. In spite of limited evidence of Francis Drake expedition 1579 whereabouts in the Pacific Northwest, Pacific Northwest BC history commentator Sam Bawlf posited that the Ortelius mapped coastal features were a proof that Drake sighted the mouth of the Columbia and the Fraser River delta. Evidence exists that Spanish castaways reached the shore in 1679 and traded with the Clatsop; if these were the first Europeans to see the Columbia, they failed to send word home to Spain. In the 18th century, there was strong interest in discovering a Northwest Passage that would permit navigation between the Atlantic (or inland North America) and the Pacific Ocean. Many ships in the area, especially those under Spanish and British command, searched the northwest coast for a large river that might connect to Hudson Bay or the Missouri River. The first documented European discovery of the Columbia River was that of Bruno de Heceta, who in 1775 sighted the river's mouth. On the advice of his officers, he did not explore it, as he was short-staffed and the current was strong. He considered it a bay, and called it Ensenada de Asunción (Assumption Cove). Later Spanish maps, based on his sighting, showed a river, labeled Río de San Roque (The Saint Roch River), He named Cape Disappointment for the non-existent river, not realizing the cape marks the northern edge of the river's mouth. What happened next would form the basis for decades of both cooperation and dispute between British and American exploration of, and ownership claim to, the region. Royal Navy commander George Vancouver sailed past the mouth in April 1792 and observed a change in the water's color, but he accepted Meares' report and continued on his journey northward. Gray's discovery of the Columbia River was later used by the United States to support its claim to the Oregon Country, which was also claimed by Russia, Great Britain, Spain and other nations. In October 1792, Vancouver sent Lieutenant William Robert Broughton, his second-in-command, up the river. Broughton got as far as the Sandy River at the western end of the Columbia River Gorge, about upstream, sighting and naming Mount Hood. Broughton formally claimed the river, its drainage basin, and the nearby coast for Britain. In contrast, Gray had not made any formal claims on behalf of the United States. Because the Columbia was at the same latitude as the headwaters of the Missouri River, there was some speculation that Gray and Vancouver had discovered the long-sought Northwest Passage. A 1798 British map showed a dotted line connecting the Columbia with the Missouri. When the American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark charted the vast, unmapped lands of the American West in their overland expedition (1803–1805), they found no passage between the rivers. After crossing the Rocky Mountains, Lewis and Clark built dugout canoes and paddled down the Snake River, reaching the Columbia near the present-day Tri-Cities, Washington. They explored a few miles upriver, as far as Bateman Island, before heading down the Columbia, concluding their journey at the river's mouth and establishing Fort Clatsop, a short-lived establishment that was occupied for less than three months. Canadian explorer David Thompson, of the North West Company, spent the winter of 180708 at Kootanae House near the source of the Columbia at present-day Invermere, BC. Over the next few years he explored much of the river and its northern tributaries. In 1811 he traveled down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, arriving at the mouth just after John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company had founded Astoria. On his return to the north, Thompson explored the one remaining part of the river he had not yet seen, becoming the first Euro-descended person to travel the entire length of the river. In 1825, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) established Fort Vancouver on the bank of the Columbia, in what is now Vancouver, Washington, as the headquarters of the company's Columbia District, which encompassed everything west of the Rocky Mountains, north of California, and south of Russian-claimed Alaska. Chief Factor John McLoughlin, a physician who had been in the fur trade since 1804, was appointed superintendent of the Columbia District. The HBC reoriented its Columbia District operations toward the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia, which became the region's main trunk route. In the early 1840s Americans began to colonize the Oregon country in large numbers via the Oregon Trail, despite the HBC's efforts to discourage American settlement in the region. For many the final leg of the journey involved travel down the lower Columbia River to Fort Vancouver. This part of the Oregon Trail, the treacherous stretch from The Dalles to below the Cascades, could not be traversed by horses or wagons (only watercraft, at great risk). This prompted the 1846 construction of the Barlow Road. In the Treaty of 1818 the United States and Britain agreed that both nations were to enjoy equal rights in Oregon Country for 10 years. By 1828, when the so-called "joint occupation" was renewed indefinitely, it seemed probable that the lower Columbia River would in time become the border between the two nations. For years the Hudson's Bay Company successfully maintained control of the Columbia River and American attempts to gain a foothold were fended off. In the 1830s, American religious missions were established at several locations in the lower Columbia River region. In the 1840s a mass migration of American settlers undermined British control. The Hudson's Bay Company tried to maintain dominance by shifting from the fur trade, which was in decline, to exporting other goods such as salmon and lumber. Colonization schemes were attempted, but failed to match the scale of American settlement. Americans generally settled south of the Columbia, mainly in the Willamette Valley. The Hudson's Bay Company tried to establish settlements north of the river, but nearly all the British colonists moved south to the Willamette Valley. The hope that the British colonists might dilute the American presence in the valley failed in the face of the overwhelming number of American settlers. These developments rekindled the issue of "joint occupation" and the boundary dispute. While some British interests, especially the Hudson's Bay Company, fought for a boundary along the Columbia River, the Oregon Treaty of 1846 set the boundary at the 49th parallel. As part of the treaty, the British retained all areas north of the line while the United States acquired the south. The Columbia River became much of the border between the U.S. territories of Oregon and Washington. Oregon became a U.S. state in 1859, while Washington later entered into the Union in 1889. By the turn of the 20th century, the difficulty of navigating the Columbia was seen as an impediment to the economic development of the Inland Empire region east of the Cascades. The dredging and dam building that followed would permanently alter the river, disrupting its natural flow but also providing electricity, irrigation, navigability and other benefits to the region. == Navigation == American captain Robert Gray and British captain George Vancouver, who explored the river in 1792, proved that it was possible to cross the Columbia Bar. Many of the challenges associated with that feat remain today; even with modern engineering alterations to the mouth of the river, the strong currents and shifting sandbar make it dangerous to pass between the river and the Pacific Ocean. The use of steamboats along the river, beginning with the British Beaver in 1836 and followed by American vessels in 1850, contributed to the rapid settlement and economic development of the region. Steamboats operated in several distinct stretches of the river: on its lower reaches, from the Pacific Ocean to Cascades Rapids; from the Cascades to the Dalles-Celilo Falls; from Celilo to Priests Rapids; on the Wenatchee Reach of eastern Washington; on British Columbia's Arrow Lakes; and on tributaries like the Willamette, the Snake and Kootenay Lake. The boats, initially powered by burning wood, carried passengers and freight throughout the region for many years. Early railroads served to connect steamboat lines interrupted by waterfalls on the river's lower reaches. In the 1880s, railroads maintained by companies such as the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company began to supplement steamboat operations as the major transportation links along the river. === Opening the passage to Lewiston === As early as 1881, industrialists proposed altering the natural channel of the Columbia to improve navigation. Cascade Locks and Canal were first constructed in 1896 around the Cascades Rapids, enabling boats to travel safely through the Columbia River Gorge. The Celilo Canal, bypassing Celilo Falls, opened to river traffic in 1915. In the mid-20th century, the construction of dams along the length of the river submerged the rapids beneath a series of reservoirs. An extensive system of locks allowed ships and barges to pass easily between reservoirs. A navigation channel reaching Lewiston, Idaho, along the Columbia and Snake rivers, was completed in 1975. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens caused mudslides in the area, which reduced the Columbia's depth by for a stretch, disrupting Portland's economy. === Deeper shipping channel === Efforts to maintain and improve the navigation channel have continued to the present day. In 1990 a new round of studies examined the possibility of further dredging on the lower Columbia. The plans were controversial from the start because of economic and environmental concerns. In 1999, Congress authorized deepening the channel between Portland and Astoria from , which will make it possible for large container and grain ships to reach Portland and Vancouver. The project has met opposition because of concerns about stirring up toxic sediment on the riverbed. Portland-based Northwest Environmental Advocates brought a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers, but it was rejected by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2006. The project includes measures to mitigate environmental damage; for instance, the US Army Corps of Engineers must restore 12 times the area of wetland damaged by the project. Work on the project began in 2005 and concluded in 2010. The project's cost is estimated at $150 million. The federal government is paying 65 percent, Oregon and Washington are paying $27 million each, and six local ports are also contributing to the cost. == Dams == In 1902, the United States Bureau of Reclamation was established to aid in the economic development of arid western states. One of its major undertakings was building Grand Coulee Dam to provide irrigation for the of the Columbia Basin Project in central Washington. With the onset of World War II, the focus of dam construction shifted to production of hydroelectricity. Irrigation efforts resumed after the war. River development occurred within the structure of the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada. The United States Congress passed the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1925, which directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Power Commission to explore the development of the nation's rivers. This prompted agencies to conduct the first formal financial analysis of hydroelectric development; the reports produced by various agencies were presented in House Document 308. Those reports, and subsequent related reports, are referred to as 308 Reports. The 308 Reports generated 176 publications across the United States. Of those 176 documents, thirteen of them were generated in the Pacific Northwest. In 1932, one of the thirteen reports was released on the Columbia River, titled The Columbia River and Minor Tributaries. The report was backed by many engineers and state politicians who believed that the creation of Dams along the Columbia River would be a strong candidate for generation of hydroelectric power. The report led to congressional action, where dams at Bonneville and Grand Coulee were authorized in 1933. The report itself emphasized the economic values of dam creation. Additionally, the reports emphasized the importance of dams for river navigation. Furthermore, the reports emphasized the importance of hydropower, storage of water for irrigation techniques, and flood control. To ensure that the dams did not affect biodiversity, many engineers and state politicians regarded the importance of salmon within the region. Thus, dams were to be built at a low height that would permit salmon to pass over. In the late 1920s, political forces in the Northwestern United States generally favored the private development of hydroelectric dams along the Columbia. But the overwhelming victories of gubernatorial candidate George W. Joseph in the 1930 Republican primary, and later his law partner Julius Meier, were understood to demonstrate strong public support for public ownership of dams. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill that enabled the construction of the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams as public works projects. The legislation was attributed to the efforts of Oregon Senator Charles McNary, Washington Senator Clarence Dill, and Oregon Congressman Charles Martin, among others. In 1948, floods swept through the Columbia watershed, destroying Vanport, then the second largest city in Oregon, and impacting cities as far north as Trail, BC. The flooding prompted the U.S. Congress to pass the Flood Control Act of 1950, authorizing the federal development of additional dams and other flood control mechanisms. By that time local communities had become wary of federal hydroelectric projects, and sought local control of new developments; a public utility district in Grant County, Washington, ultimately began construction of the dam at Priest Rapids. In the 1960s, the United States and Canada signed the Columbia River Treaty, which focused on flood control and the maximization of downstream power generation. Canada's obligation was met by building three dams (two on the Columbia, and one on the Duncan River), the last of which was completed in 1973. Today the main stem of the Columbia River has fourteen dams, of which three are in Canada and eleven in the United States. Four mainstem dams and four lower Snake River dams contain navigation locks to allow ship and barge passage from the ocean as far as Lewiston, Idaho. The river system as a whole has more than 400 dams for hydroelectricity and irrigation. The installation of dams dramatically altered the landscape and ecosystem of the river. At one time, the Columbia was one of the top salmon-producing river systems in the world. Previously active fishing sites, such as Celilo Falls in the eastern Columbia River Gorge, have exhibited a sharp decline in fishing along the Columbia in the last century, and salmon populations have been dramatically reduced. Fish ladders have been installed at some dam sites to help the fish journey to spawning waters. Fish ladders have been seen as highly effective when configurations to fishway exits are properly configured, as reconstructing the Bradford Island fish ladder allowed Sockeye salmon to stray away from spillway zones, reducing fallback (the rate at which fish are found moving away from a dam post-migration) and mortality birthrates. However, improper construction of fish ladders can result in salmon populations exerting significantly more energy when breeding, which results in higher levels of fallback. Chief Joseph Dam has no fish ladders and completely blocks fish migration to the upper half of the Columbia River system. In 2019, both the Yakama and Lummi Northwest Nations proposed to remove the Bonneville, John Day, and The Dalles dams due to their belief removal would strengthen salmon population. The former Chairman of the Lummi Nation, Jay Julius, stated in 2019 that the fate of salmon without dam removal for the Lummi Nation is a "horrifying reality". JoDe Goudy, a former Chairman of the Yakama Nation, coincides with beliefs of the Lummi Nation, stating "The Columbia River Dams were built on this false legal foundation, and decimated the Yakama Nation’s fisheries, traditional foods, and cultural sites.". Both Nations have worked with nonprofit advocacy organizations to further removal agendas. Throughout 2021, the nonprofit organization Earthjustice represented 10 conservation and fishing organizations in negotiations with President Joe Biden over removal of dam operations on the Snake River. These negotiations culminated in a lawsuit, with Earthjustice requesting to completely halt operations due to their belief of Snake River Dam effects on salmon and steelhead fish runs. On December 15, 2021, the two parties agreed to settle the dispute and focus on a plan to mitigate fish extinction. Proposed in December 2023, President Joe Biden agreed to a $1 billion mandate, which will attempt to reintroduce Columbia River salmon blockaded by dams. The mandate asked for the Bonneville Power Administration to supply US$300 million over a ten-year span starting in 2024, which includes habitat restoration and upgrades in fish hatcheries. Furthermore, the Biden administration has publicly stated it will examine the possibility of doubling fish and wildlife spending to meet tribal needs. As a benchmark for financial utilization, US$1 billion in backlogged projects have been identified in the Columbia River Basin. The mandate did not call for the removal of four dams on the Snake River. === Irrigation === The Bureau of Reclamation's Columbia Basin Project focused on the generally dry region of central Washington known as the Columbia Basin, which features rich loess soil. The project provides water to more than of fertile but arid land in central Washington, In 1992–1993, a lesser drought affected farmers, hydroelectric power producers, shippers, and wildlife managers. === Hydroelectricity === The Columbia's heavy flow and large elevation drop over a short distance, , give it tremendous capacity for hydroelectricity generation. In comparison, the Mississippi drops less than . The Columbia alone possesses one-third of the United States's hydroelectric potential. In 2012, the river and its tributaries accounted for 29 GW of hydroelectric generating capacity, contributing 44 percent of the total hydroelectric generation in the nation. The largest of the 150 hydroelectric projects, the Grand Coulee Dam and Chief Joseph Dam are also the largest in the United States. As of 2017, Grand Coulee is the fifth largest hydroelectric plant in the world. Inexpensive hydropower supported the location of a large aluminum industry in the region because its reduction from bauxite requires large amounts of electricity. Until 2000, the Northwestern United States produced up to 17 percent of the world's aluminum and 40 percent of the aluminum produced in the United States. The commoditization of power in the early 21st century, coupled with a drought that reduced the generation capacity of the river, damaged the industry and by 2001, Columbia River aluminum producers had idled 80 percent of its production capacity. Power remains relatively inexpensive along the Columbia, and since the mid-2000 several global enterprises have moved server farm operations into the area to avail themselves of cheap power. Downriver of Grand Coulee, each dam's reservoir is closely regulated by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and various Washington public utility districts to ensure flow, flood control, and power generation objectives are met. Increasingly, hydro-power operations are required to meet standards under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and other agreements to manage operations to minimize impacts on salmon and other fish, and some conservation and fishing groups support removing four dams on the lower Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia. In 1941, the BPA hired Oklahoma folksinger Woody Guthrie to write songs for a documentary film promoting the benefits of hydropower. In the month he spent traveling the region Guthrie wrote 26 songs, which have become an important part of the cultural history of the region. == Ecology and environment == === Fish migration === The Columbia supports several species of anadromous fish that migrate between the Pacific Ocean and freshwater tributaries of the river. Sockeye salmon, Coho and Chinook ("king") salmon, and steelhead, all of the genus Oncorhynchus, are ocean fish that migrate up the rivers at the end of their life cycles to spawn. White sturgeon, which take 15 to 25 years to mature, typically migrate between the ocean and the upstream habitat several times during their lives. Salmon populations declined dramatically after the establishment of canneries in 1867. In 1879 it was reported that 545,450 salmon, with an average weight of were caught (in a recent season) and mainly canned for export to England. A can weighing could be sold for 8d or 9d. By 1908, there was widespread concern about the decline of salmon and sturgeon. In that year, the people of Oregon passed two laws under their newly instituted program of citizens' initiatives limiting fishing on the Columbia and other rivers. Then in 1948, another initiative banned the use of seine nets (devices already used by Native Americans, and refined by later settlers) altogether. Dams interrupt the migration of anadromous fish. Salmon and steelhead return to the streams in which they were born to spawn; where dams prevent their return, entire populations of salmon die. Some of the Columbia and Snake River dams employ fish ladders, which are effective to varying degrees at allowing these fish to travel upstream. Another problem exists for the juvenile salmon headed downstream to the ocean. Previously, this journey would have taken two to three weeks. With river currents slowed by the dams, and the Columbia converted from a wild river to a series of slackwater pools, the journey can take several months, which increases the mortality rate. In some cases, the Army Corps of Engineers transports juvenile fish downstream by truck or river barge. The Chief Joseph Dam and several dams on the Columbia's tributaries entirely block migration, and there are no migrating fish on the river above these dams. Sturgeons have different migration habits and can survive without ever visiting the ocean. In many upstream areas cut off from the ocean by dams, sturgeon simply live upstream of the dam. Not all fish have suffered from the modifications to the river; the northern pikeminnow (formerly known as the squawfish) thrives in the warmer, slower water created by the dams. Research in the mid-1980s found that juvenile salmon were suffering substantially from the predatory pikeminnow, and in 1990, in the interest of protecting salmon, a "bounty" program was established to reward anglers for catching pikeminnow. In 1994, the salmon catch was smaller than usual in the rivers of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, causing concern among commercial fishermen, government agencies, and tribal leaders. US government intervention, to which the states of Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon objected, included an 11-day closure of an Alaska fishery. In April 1994 the Pacific Fisheries Management Council unanimously approved the strictest regulations in 18 years, banning all commercial salmon fishing for that year from Cape Falcon north to the Canada–US border. In the winter of 1994, the return of coho salmon far exceeded expectations, which was attributed in part to the fishing ban. Also in 1994, United States Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt proposed the removal of several Pacific Northwest dams because of their impact on salmon spawning. The Northwest Power Planning Council approved a plan that provided more water for fish and less for electricity, irrigation, and transportation. Environmental advocates have called for the removal of certain dams in the Columbia system in the years since. Of the 227 major dams in the Columbia River drainage basin, the four Washington dams on the lower Snake River are often identified for removal, for example in an ongoing lawsuit concerning a Bush administration plan for salmon recovery. Historically, the Snake produced over 1.5 million spring and summer Chinook salmon, a number that has dwindled to several thousand in recent years. Idaho Power Company's Hells Canyon dams have no fish ladders (and do not pass juvenile salmon downstream), and thus allow no steelhead or salmon to migrate above Hells Canyon. In 2007, the destruction of the Marmot Dam on the Sandy River was the first dam removal in the system. Other Columbia Basin dams that have been removed include Condit Dam on Washington's White Salmon River, and the Milltown Dam on the Clark Fork in Montana. === Pollution === In southeastern Washington, a stretch of the river passes through the Hanford Site, established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. The site served as a plutonium production complex, with nine nuclear reactors and related facilities along the banks of the river. From 1944 to 1971, pump systems drew cooling water from the river and, after treating this water for use by the reactors, returned it to the river. Before being released back into the river, the used water was held in large tanks known as retention basins for up to six hours. Longer-lived isotopes were not affected by this retention, and several terabecquerels entered the river every day. By 1957, the eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford dumped a daily average of 50,000 curies of radioactive material into the Columbia. These releases were kept secret by the federal government until the release of declassified documents in the late 1980s. Radiation was measured downstream as far west as the Washington and Oregon coasts. The nuclear reactors were decommissioned at the end of the Cold War, and the Hanford site is the focus of one of the world's largest environmental cleanup, managed by the Department of Energy under the oversight of the Washington Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency. Nearby aquifers contain an estimated 270 billion US gallons (1 billion m3) of groundwater contaminated by high-level nuclear waste that has leaked out of Hanford's underground storage tanks. , 1 million US gallons (3,785 m3) of highly radioactive waste is traveling through groundwater toward the Columbia River. This waste is expected to reach the river in 12 to 50 years if cleanup does not proceed on schedule. In addition to concerns about nuclear waste, numerous other pollutants are found in the river. These include chemical pesticides, bacteria, arsenic, dioxins, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB). Studies have also found significant levels of toxins in fish and the waters they inhabit within the basin. Accumulation of toxins in fish threatens the survival of fish species, and human consumption of these fish can lead to health problems. Water quality is also an important factor in the survival of other wildlife and plants that grow in the Columbia River drainage basin. The states, indigenous tribes, and federal government are all engaged in efforts to restore and improve the water, land, and air quality of the Columbia River drainage basin and have committed to work together to accomplish critical ecosystem restoration efforts. Several cleanup efforts are underway, including Superfund projects at Portland Harbor, Hanford, and Lake Roosevelt. In early 2022, thousands of protestors demonstrated a demand for heightened cleanup efforts within the Hanford Nuclear Site. In June 2022, nearly 200 protestors attended the Hanford Journey Event, an educational tour which allowed those concerned about the Hanford Nuclear Site to learn about proposed cleanup efforts.The Hanford Journey Event was co-sponsored by the Yakama Nation. Davis Washines, a representative from the Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, alluded to "[the Hanford cleanup] has a lot of meaning to us, to our people. And not just for us, our personal safety, but to this ground, to the water, because they were here before we were". Congress responded in 2022 by increasing the budget for the Hanford clean-up efforts, after thousands of comments were sent to federal authorities to prevent high-level waste storage at Hanford. Starting between April and June 2025, the Hanford Nuclear Site is expected to melt radioactive wastes combined with glass flakes at a rate of 21 metric tons per day. The melters being utilized have a lifespan of five years, which requires their replacement in 2030. As of 2023, the Hanford site cleanup project is sixteen years behind schedule. One of the harmful chemicals located in the Hanford site, strontium-90, reached over 2,000 times the standard concentration for drinking water in August 2022. Timber industry activity further contaminates river water, for example in the increased sediment runoff that results from clearcuts. The Northwest Forest Plan, a piece of federal legislation from 1994, mandated that timber companies consider the environmental impacts of their practices on rivers like the Columbia. On July 1, 2003, Christopher Swain became the first person to swim the Columbia River's entire length, to raise public awareness about the river's environmental health. Throughout 2019, a series of wildfires were ongoing in Oregon on indigenous land belonging to the Umpqua Tribe. The Umpqua Tribe lost possession to their former territory in 1853, which is now known as Elliott State Forest. Elliott State Forest has been the subject of many deforestation initiatives over past years. In December 2018, the Umpqua tribe settled in Oregon after purchasing land from the Bureau of Land Management. Michael Rondeau, a descendent of the Umpqua tribe, expressed his contradictory emotions on the acquisition, stating that he felt "sadness that my grandparents and great aunts and uncles and beyond that did not have a day of recognition". On July 14, 2019, in the Milepost 97 wildfires, 25% of the Umpqua's forest territory burned down. On March 7, 2022, Columbia Riverkeeper, a climate advocacy group, sued Weyerhaeuser, a timber and forest products company, for possible contamination of the Columbia River. Columbia Riverkeeper accused Weyerhaeuser of releasing harmful levels of runoff through their Longview Mill into the Columbia River. Furthermore, Columbia Riverkeeper stated that runoff could result in harmful bacteria growth. As of May 6, 2022, Weyerhaeuser reached a settlement with Columbia Riverkeeper. Weyerhaeuser was determined to contribute US$600,000 for river restoration and proposed potential fines of up to US$5,000 for each subsequent act of pollution between 2023 and 2025. === Nutrient cycle === Both natural and anthropogenic processes are involved in the cycling of nutrients in the Columbia River basin. Natural processes in the system include estuarine mixing of fresh and ocean waters, and climate variability patterns such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (both climatic cycles that affect the amount of regional snowpack and river discharge). Natural sources of nutrients in the Columbia River include weathering, leaf litter, salmon carcasses, runoff from its tributaries, and ocean estuary exchange. Major anthropogenic impacts on nutrients in the basin are due to fertilizers from agriculture, sewage systems, logging, and the construction of dams. Nutrient dynamics vary in the river basin from the headwaters to the main river and dams, to finally reaching the Columbia River estuary and ocean. Upstream in the headwaters, salmon runs are the main source of nutrients. Dams along the river impact nutrient cycling by increasing residence time of nutrients, and reducing the transport of silicate to the estuary, which directly impacts diatoms, a type of phytoplankton. The dams are also a barrier to salmon migration and can increase the amount of methane locally produced. except for nitrogen, which is delivered into the estuary by ocean upwelling sources. == Watershed == Most of the Columbia's drainage basin (which, at , is about the size of France) lies roughly between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Cascade Mountains on the west. In the United States and Canada the term watershed is often used to mean drainage basin. The term Columbia Basin is used to refer not only to the entire drainage basin but also to subsets of the river's watershed, such as the relatively flat and unforested area in eastern Washington bounded by the Cascades, the Rocky Mountains, and the Blue Mountains. Within the watershed are diverse landforms including mountains, arid plateaus, river valleys, rolling uplands, and deep gorges. Grand Teton National Park lies in the watershed, as well as parts of Yellowstone National Park, Glacier National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, and North Cascades National Park. Canadian National Parks in the watershed include Kootenay National Park, Yoho National Park, Glacier National Park, and Mount Revelstoke National Park. Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America, In 2016, over eight million people lived within the Columbia's drainage basin. Of this total about 3.5 million people lived in Oregon, 2.1 million in Washington, 1.7 million in Idaho, half a million in British Columbia, and 0.4 million in Montana. Population in the watershed has been rising for many decades and is projected to rise to about 10 million by 2030. The highest population densities are found west of the Cascade Mountains along the I-5 corridor, especially in the Portland-Vancouver urban area. High densities are also found around Spokane, Washington, and Boise, Idaho. Although much of the watershed is rural and sparsely populated, areas with recreational and scenic values are growing rapidly. The central Oregon county of Deschutes is the fastest-growing in the state. Populations have also been growing just east of the Cascades in central Washington around the city of Yakima and the Tri-Cities area. Projections for the coming decades assume growth throughout the watershed. The Canadian part of the Okanagan subbasin is also growing rapidly. Climate varies greatly within the watershed. Elevation ranges from sea level at the river mouth to more than in the mountains, and temperatures vary with elevation. The highest peak is Mount Rainier, at . High elevations have cold winters and short cool summers; interior regions are subject to great temperature variability and severe droughts. Over some of the watershed, especially west of the Cascade Mountains, precipitation maximums occur in winter, when Pacific storms come ashore. Atmospheric conditions block the flow of moisture in summer, which is generally dry except for occasional thunderstorms in the interior. Annual precipitation varies from more than a year in the Cascades to less than in the interior. Much of the watershed gets less than a year. Further north along the Continental Divide, a short portion of the combined Continental and Laurentian divides separate the Columbia watershed from the Mackenzie-Slave-Athabasca watershed, which empties into the Arctic Ocean. The Nelson and Mackenzie watersheds are separated by a divide between streams flowing to the Arctic Ocean and those of the Hudson Bay watershed. This divide meets the Continental Divide at Snow Dome (also known as Dome), near the northernmost bend of the Columbia River. To the southeast, in western Wyoming, another divide separates the Columbia watershed from the Colorado–Green watershed, which empties into the Gulf of California. The Columbia, Colorado, and Mississippi watersheds meet at Three Waters Mountain in the Wind River Range of . To the south, in Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming, the Columbia watershed is divided from the Great Basin, whose several watersheds are endorheic, not emptying into any ocean but rather drying up or sinking into sumps. and Sproats Meadow Northwest, Oregon. To the north, mostly in British Columbia, the Columbia watershed borders the Fraser River watershed. To the west and southwest the Columbia watershed borders a number of smaller watersheds that drain to the Pacific Ocean, such as the Klamath River in Oregon and California and the Puget Sound Basin in Washington.	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Gibbs", "Priest Rapids", "Sockeye salmon", "World Wide Fund for Nature", "Kootanae House", "Saint Roch", "Charles McNary", "Gigawatt", "United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit", "University of Idaho Press", "Alfred A. Knopf", "Oregon Treaty", "Russian Empire", "Pangaea", "Kennewick Man", "Geographic Names Information System", "File:Map of Lewis and Clark's Track, Across the Western Portion of North America, published 1814.jpg", "The Dalles, Oregon", "United States Geological Survey", "salmon cannery", "Bannock (tribe)", "Lewis and Clark Expedition", "Los Angeles Times", "Longview, Washington", "Alberta", "List of ecoregions in North America (CEC)", "National Priorities List", "land reclamation", "flood control", "Windermere Lake (British Columbia)", "Plutonium", "Steamboats of Columbia River, Wenatchee Reach", "Julius Meier", "Mount Revelstoke National Park", "navigation", "Factor (agent)", "Great Basin", "Robert Gray (sea captain)", "discharge (hydrology)", "shrub-steppe", "Columbia River Gorge", "Chinookan", "Lewis River (Washington)", "dugout canoe", "Coho salmon", "hydroelectricity", "Marmes Rockshelter", "Colville Indian Reservation", "Vancouver, Washington", "Tsuga heterophylla", "Okanagan", "List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem)", "Wyoming", "Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation", "bean", "Northwest Power and Conservation Council", "William Robert Broughton", "Canadian Rockies", "Wenatchee River", "Maris Pacifici", "Pacific County, Washington", "Umatilla (tribe)", "New Deal", "Clearwater River (Idaho)", "Clatsop", "Gulf of California", "First Nations in Canada", "private sector", "Idaho", "Mount Rainier National Park", "Colville (tribe)", "Columbia River Treaty", "Pacific Fur Company", "Green River (Colorado River)", "environmental remediation", "Castle Rock, Washington", "Trail, British Columbia", "University of Oregon Press", "Oregon Coast Range", "Cascades Rapids", "dams", "John Jacob Astor", "Snake River Plain", "Hells Canyon", "Gulf of Mexico", "Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife", "Mount St. Helens", "headwater", "Salmon River (Idaho)", "Yoho National Park", "Caxton Press (United States)", "George Vancouver", "Franklin D. Roosevelt", "coulee", "Residence time (fluid dynamics)", "Oklahoma", "loess", "gray wolf", "List of dams in the Columbia River watershed", "Palus (tribe)", "Timothy Egan", "Shoshone Falls", "List of rivers of Oregon", "Washington Territory", "U.S. Regional Fishery Management Councils", "Bruno de Heceta", "Rowena, Oregon", "Taylor & Francis", "Mountain Press Publishing Company", "John Day Dam", "The Columbia River Collection", "White Salmon River", "Blaeberry River", "alfalfa", "beet", "Rivers and Harbors Act", "Mackenzie River", "Cascade Rapids", "North America", "Humboldt River", "diatom", "Oregon boundary dispute", "Barlow Road", "Canada lynx", "Flood Control Act of 1950", "Trafford Publishing", "Revelstoke, British Columbia", "state of Washington", "Farallon Plate", "Washington Department of Natural Resources", "France", "Estella Mine", "sump", "The Oregon Encyclopedia", "bison", "Kootenay River", "New Albion", "Columbia District", "Washington (state)", "drainage basin", "Cold War", "Snake River", "Wenatchi", "tide gauge", "Aluminium production", "El Niño–Southern Oscillation", "Theodore Roosevelt", "nuclear waste", "Sandy River (Oregon)", "University of California Press", "Interstate 84 (Oregon–Utah)", "Castlegar, British Columbia", "canal", "logging", "Francis Drake's circumnavigation", "Vernonia, Oregon", "nuclear weapon", "river delta", "Malott, Washington", "Estuary", "phytoplankton", "endemism", "Steamship", "fish migration", "Sam Bawlf", "Grand Teton National Park", "Laurentian Divide", "tide", "United States", "steamboat", "flood basalt", "Kah-Nee-Ta High Desert Resort and Casino", "Hood River, Oregon", "Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau", "Vancouver Expedition", "North Cascades National Park", "Continental climate", "Arcadia Publishing", "Hudson's Bay Company", "fertilizer", "Milltown Dam", "Bonneville Power Administration", "List of rivers of Washington (state)", "power generation", "high-level", "climate", "Oregon Territory", "Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake", "Celilo Canal", "308 Reports", "Condit Hydroelectric Project", "glacier", "anadromous", "Steamboats of the Arrow Lakes", "John McLoughlin", "Grant County, Washington", "methane", "Pend Oreille River", "Nautical channel", "braided river", "Palouse River", "Deschutes County, Oregon", "Grand Coulee Dam", "Beaver (steamship)", "economic development", "Sinixt people", "Oregon Historical Quarterly", "Missouri River", "River flow", "Inland Empire (Pacific Northwest)", "Cape Falcon, Oregon", "Bateman Island", "dam", "Kootenay National Park", "Miocene", "plutonium", "Mississippi River", "HMS Chatham (1788)", "Saskatchewan River", "Nespelem (tribe)", "public sector", "sagebrush", "Chief Joseph Dam", "Spokane River", "list of dams in the Columbia River watershed", "Boise, Idaho", "Whitman Massacre", "Cayuse people", "wikt:ensenada", "Quaternary glaciation", "Bridge of the Gods (geologic event)", "Bonneville Dam", "Time (magazine)", "seine fishing", "Wallula Gap", "Roll on Columbia", "Charles Martin (Oregon politician)", "Glacial Lake Missoula", "White sturgeon", "Boston, Oregon", "navigability", "Mount Rainier", "The Dalles Dam", "Superfund", "Channeled Scablands", "iUniverse", "Tributary", "Columbia River drainage basin", "reservoir", "dredging", "Utah", "Upper Chinook language", "salmon run", "Thuja plicata", "Columbia Mountains", "Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company", "Columbia Basin Project", "Snow Dome (Canada)", "Clatsop County, Oregon", "Columbia River Estuary", "Spillimacheen River", "aluminum", "Pacific Northwest", "Puget Sound", "Idaho Power", "Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)", "Oncorhynchus", "Empire Builder", "Plains Indian", "Montana", "International Boundary Waters Treaty", "tributary", "Oregon Trail", "Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry", "Duncan River (British Columbia)", "Clarence Dill", "United States Department of the Interior", "Oregon Blue Book", "Arrow Lakes", "Presidency of George W. Bush", "William Clark", "Yakama", "server farm", "Great Salt Lake", "Hudson Bay", "bald eagle", "Kettle River (Columbia River)", "Triple Divide Peak (Montana)", "University of Toronto Press", "Columbia Bar", "Portland, Oregon", "orchard", "freshwater ecoregion", "Strait of Juan de Fuca", "Columbia River Maritime Museum", "Spokane, Washington", "Columbia Gorge", "estuary", "Fish ladder", "American West", "Ohio River", "Pacific Ocean", "Federal Columbia River Power System", "Beaver River (Columbia River)", "List of ecoregions in Oregon", "Big Bend Country", "isotope", "head of tide", "Assumption of Mary", "Sahaptin language", "Wenatchee, Washington", "Cascade Locks and Canal", "Golden, British Columbia", "cubic meters per second", "Columbia Park (Kennewick, Washington)", "endorheic basin", "Mount Adams (Washington)", "The Columbian", "1700 Cascadia earthquake", "Northwest Passage", "Treaty of 1818", "Yellowstone National Park", "Robert Gray's Columbia River expedition", "public utility district", "Astoria, Oregon", "Missoula Floods", "cubic feet per second", "Harney Basin", "Molala people", "Columbia River Drainage Basin", "Klickitat (tribe)", "confluence", "Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs", "John Meares", "Wanapum", "Slave River", "Willamette Valley", "Royal Navy", "List of longest rivers of Canada", "Woody Guthrie", "George, Washington", "University of British Columbia Press", "Columbia Valley", "Shoshone", "Lake Lewis", "Canoe River (British Columbia)", "Fort Vancouver", "channeled scablands", "World War II", "sewage", "Nevada", "Yakima River", "1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens", "smallpox", "Rocky Mountain Trench", "irrigation", "List of Hudson Bay rivers", "Rocky Mountains", "Lewiston, Idaho", "Glacier National Park (U.S.)", "Rainbow trout", "Vanport, Oregon", "United States v. Washington", "United States Secretary of the Interior", "North West Company", "upwelling", "Lake Winnipeg", "East Wenatchee, Washington", "Coeur d'Alene Tribe", "Washington Department of Ecology", "Willamette River", "Steamboats of the Willamette River", "List of tributaries of the Columbia River", "Colorado River", "Sinixt dialect", "mentha", "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers", "lock (water transport)", "Cape Disappointment (Washington)", "United States Environmental Protection Agency", "Columbia Country", "jetty", "Glacier National Park (Canada)", "1948 Columbia River flood", "Sasquatch Books", "Columbia Wetlands", "Kinbasket Lake", "Alaska Dispatch News", "United States Army Corps of Engineers", "Celilo Falls", "Pacific Decadal Oscillation", "Kennewick, Washington" ]
5,409	Commelinales	{{Automatic taxobox \|fossil_range = Late Cretaceous - Recent \|image = Flor - Quintana Roo - México.jpg \|image_caption = Tradescantia pallida \|taxon = Commelinales \|authority = Mirb. ex Bercht. & J.Presl ==Taxonomy== According to the most recent classification scheme, the APG IV of 2016, the order includes five families: Commelinaceae Haemodoraceae Hanguanaceae Philydraceae Pontederiaceae This is unchanged from the APG III of 2009 and the APG II of 2003, but different from the older APG system of 1998, which did not include Hanguanaceae. === Previous classification systems === The older Cronquist system of 1981, which was based purely on morphological data, placed the order in subclass Commelinidae of class Liliopsida and included the families Commelinaceae, Mayacaceae, Rapateaceae and Xyridaceae. These families are now known to be only distantly related. In the classification system of Dahlgren the Commelinales were one of four orders in the superorder Commeliniflorae (also called Commelinanae), and contained five families, of which only Commelinaceae has been retained by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group.	[ "Jan Svatopluk Presl", "tapetum (botany)", "Mycorrhiza", "Angiosperm Phylogeny Group", "Mayacaceae", "APG III system", "Zingiberales", "APG II system", "ginger", "Friedrich von Berchtold", "Late Cretaceous", "Synapomorphy", "Commelinidae", "Genus", "Cretaceous", "cardamom", "Xyridaceae", "Cronquist system", "Rapateaceae", "Charles-François Brisseau de Mirbel", "banana", "raphides", "Liliopsida", "superorder", "Commelinaceae", "Rolf Dahlgren", "APG system", "Haemodoraceae", "Hanguanaceae", "Tradescantia pallida", "Pontederiaceae", "Philydraceae", "APG IV system", "flowering plant" ]
5,411	Cucurbitales	The Cucurbitales are an order of flowering plants, included in the rosid group of dicotyledons. This order mostly belongs to tropical areas, with limited presence in subtropical and temperate regions. The order includes shrubs and trees, together with many herbs and climbers. One major characteristic of the Cucurbitales is the presence of unisexual flowers, mostly pentacyclic, with thick pointed petals (whenever present). The pollination is usually performed by insects, but wind pollination is also present (in Coriariaceae and Datiscaceae). The order consists of roughly 2600 species in eight families. The largest families are Begoniaceae (begonia family) with around 1500 species and Cucurbitaceae (gourd family) with around 900 species. These two families include the only economically important plants. Specifically, the Cucurbitaceae (gourd family) include some food species, such as squash, pumpkin (both from Cucurbita), watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris), and cucumber and melons (Cucumis). The Begoniaceae are known for their horticultural species, of which there are over 130 with many more varieties. == Overview == The Cucurbitales are an order of plants with a cosmopolitan distribution, particularly diverse in the tropics. Most are herbs, climber herbs, woody lianas or shrubs but some genera include canopy-forming evergreen lauroid trees. Members of the Cucurbitales form an important component of low to montane tropical forest with greater representation in terms of the number of species. Although not known with certainty the total number of species in the order, conservative estimates indicate about 2600 species worldwide, distributed in 109 genera. Some of the synapomorphies of the order are: leaves in spiral with secondary veins palmated, calyx or perianth valvate, and the elevated stomatal calyx/perianth bearing separate styles. The two whorls are similar in texture. Tetrameles nudiflora is a tree of immense proportions of height and width; Tetramelaceae, Anisophylleaceae, and Corynocarpaceae are tall canopy trees in temperate and tropical forests. The genus Dendrosicyos, with the only species being the cucumber tree, is adapted to the arid semidesert island of Socotra. Deciduous perennial Cucurbitales lose all of their leaves for part of the year depending on variations in rainfall. The leaf loss coincides with the dry season in tropical, subtropical and arid regions. In temperate or polar climates, the dry season is due to the inability of the plant to absorb water available in the form of ice. Apodanthaceae are obligatory endoparasites that only emerge once a year in the form of small flowers that develop into small berries, however taxonomists have not agreed on the exact placement of this family within the Cucurbitales. Over half of the known members of this order belong to the greatly diverse begonia family Begoniaceae, with around 1500 species in two genera. Before modern DNA-molecular classifications, some Cucurbitales species were assigned to orders as diverse as Ranunculales, Malpighiales, Violales, and Rafflesiales. Early molecular studies revealed several surprises, such as the nonmonophyly of the traditional Datiscaceae, including Tetrameles and Octomeles, but the exact relationships among the families remain unclear.	[ "Octomeles", "analogous structures", "Tetrameles nudiflora", "Jan Svatopluk Presl", "dry season", "Datiscaceae", "molecular phylogenetics", "Proceedings of the Royal Society B", "Laurel forest", "Angiosperm Phylogeny Group", "Corynocarpaceae", "Tetramelaceae", "Fagales", "Malpighiales", "Socotra", "Friedrich von Berchtold", "tropics", "Violales", "Celastrales", "divergent evolution", "pumpkin", "watermelon", "Begoniaceae", "Taxon (journal)", "gourd", "begonia", "Cucurbitaceae", "Dendrosicyos", "Ranunculaceae", "Tetrameles", "American Journal of Botany", "Outgroup (cladistics)", "pentacyclic", "Cretaceous", "BMC Evolutionary Biology", "Coriariaceae", "Lauraceae", "Antoine Laurent de Jussieu", "leaves", "temperate", "melon", "dicotyledon", "Cronquist system", "Anisophylleaceae", "Ranunculales", "cucumber", "Rafflesiales", "Gondwana", "squash (fruit)", "Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society", "convergent evolution", "Anemophily", "Apodanthaceae", "Rosales", "polar climate", "Cucurbita", "Cucumis", "Rafflesiaceae", "cultivar", "rosid", "flowering plant", "Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution" ]
5,412	Contra dance	Contra dance (also contradance, contra-dance and other variant spellings) is a form of folk dancing made up of long lines of couples. It has mixed origins from English country dance, Scottish country dance, and French dance styles in the 17th century. Sometimes described as New England folk dance or Appalachian folk dance, contra dances can be found around the world, but are most common in the United States (periodically held in nearly every state), Canada, and other Anglophone countries. A contra dance event is a social dance that one can attend without a partner. The dancers form couples, and the couples form sets of two couples in long lines starting from the stage and going down the length of the dance hall. Throughout the course of a dance, couples progress up and down these lines, dancing with each other couple in the line. The dance is led by a caller who teaches the sequence of moves, called "figures," in the dance before the music starts. In a single dance, a caller may include anywhere from six to twelve figures, which are repeated as couples progress up and down the lines. Each time through the dance takes 64 beats, after which the pattern is repeated. The essence of the dance is in following the pattern with your set and your line; since there is no required footwork, many people find contra dance easier to learn than other forms of social dancing. Almost all contra dances are danced to live music. The music played includes, but is not limited to, Irish, Scottish, old-time, bluegrass and French-Canadian folk tunes. The fiddle is considered the core instrument, though other stringed instruments can be used, such as the guitar, banjo, bass and mandolin, as well as the piano, accordion, flute, clarinet and more. Techno contra dances are done to techno music, typically accompanied by DJ lighting. Music in a dance can consist of a single tune or a medley of tunes, and key changes during the course of a dance are common. Many callers and bands perform for local contra dances, and some are hired to play for dances around the U.S. and Canada. Many dancers travel regionally (or even nationally) to contra dance weekends and week-long contra dance camps, where they can expect to find other dedicated and skilled dancers, callers, and bands. ==History== Contra dance has European origins, and over 100 years of cultural influences from many different sources. At the end of the 17th century, English country dances were taken up by French dance masters. The French called these dances contredanses (which roughly translated by sound "countrydance" to "contredanse"), as indicated in a 1706 dance book called Recueil de Contredances. Over time these dances returned to England and were spread and reinterpreted in the United States, and eventually the French form of the name came to be associated with the American folk dances, where they were alternatively called "country dances" or in some parts of New England such as New Hampshire, "contradances". Contra dances were fashionable in the United States and were considered one of the most popular social dances across class lines in the late 18th century, though these events were usually referred to as "country dances" until the 1780s, when the term contra dance became more common to describe these events. In the mid-19th century, group dances started to decline in popularity in favor of quadrilles, lancers, and couple dances such as the waltz and polka. By the late 19th century, contras were mostly confined to rural settings. This began to change with the square dance revival of the 1920s, pioneered by Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company, in part as a response in opposition to modern jazz influences in the United States. In the 1920s, Ford asked his friend Benjamin Lovett, a dance coordinator in Massachusetts, to come to Michigan to begin a dance program. Initially, Lovett could not as he was under contract at a local inn; consequently, Ford bought the property rights to the inn. Lovett and Ford initiated a dance program in Dearborn, Michigan that included several folk dances, including contras. Ford also published a book titled Good Morning: After a Sleep of Twenty-Five Years, Old-Fashioned Dancing Is Being Revived in 1926 detailing steps for some contra dances. In the 1930s and 1940s, the popularity of jazz, swing, and big band music caused contra dance to decline in several parts of the US; the tradition carried on primarily in towns within the northeastern portions of North America, such as Ohio, the Maritime provinces of Canada, and particularly in New England. Ralph Page almost single-handedly maintained the New England tradition until it was revitalized in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly by Ted Sannella and Dudley Laufman. The New England contra dance tradition was also maintained in Vermont by the Ed Larkin Old Time Contra Dancers, formed by Edwin Loyal Larkin in 1934. The group Larkin founded is still performing, teaching the dances, and holding monthly open house dances in Tunbridge, Vermont. By then, early dance camps, retreats, and weekends had emerged, such as Pinewoods Camp, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, which became primarily a music and dance camp in 1933, and NEFFA, the New England Folk Festival, also in Massachusetts, which began in 1944. Pittsburgh Contra Dance celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2015. These and others continue to be popular and some offer other dances and activities besides contra dancing. In the 1970s, Sannella and other callers introduced dance moves from English Country Dance, such as heys and gypsies, to the contra dances. New dances, such as Shadrack's Delight by Tony Parkes, featured symmetrical dancing by all couples. (Previously, the actives and inactives – see Progression – had significantly different roles). Double progression dances, popularized by Herbie Gaudreau, added to the aerobic nature of the dances, and one caller, Gene Hubert, wrote a quadruple progression dance, Contra Madness. Becket formation was introduced, with partners starting the dance next to each other in the line instead of opposite each other. The Brattleboro Dawn Dance started in 1976, and continues to run semiannually. In the early 1980s, Tod Whittemore started the first Saturday dance in the Peterborough Town House, which remains one of the more popular regional dances. The Peterborough dance influenced Bob McQuillen, who became a notable musician in New England. As musicians and callers moved to other locations, they founded contra dances in Michigan, Washington, Oregon, California, Texas, and elsewhere. ==Events== Contra dances take place in more than 200 cities and towns across the U.S. (), as well as in other countries. Contra dance events are typically open to all, regardless of experience, unless explicitly stated otherwise. It is common to see dancers with a wide range of ages, from children to the elderly. Most dancers are white and middle or upper-middle class. Contra dances are family-friendly, and alcohol consumption is not part of the culture. Many events offer beginner-level instructions prior to the dance. A typical evening of contra dance is three hours long, including an intermission. The event consists of a number of individual contra dances, each lasting about 15 minutes, and typically a band intermission with some waltzes, schottisches, polkas, or Swedish hambos. In some places, square dances are thrown into the mix, sometimes at the discretion of the caller. Music for the evening is typically performed by a live band, playing jigs and reels from Ireland, Scotland, Canada, or the USA. The tunes may range from traditional originating a century ago, to modern compositions including electric guitar, synth keyboard, and driving percussion – so long as the music fits the timing for contra dance patterns. Sometimes, a rock tune will be woven in. Generally, a leader, known as a caller, will teach each individual dance just before the music for that dance begins. During this introductory walk-through, participants learn the dance by walking through the steps and formations, following the caller's instructions. The caller gives the instructions orally, and sometimes augments them with demonstrations of steps by experienced dancers in the group. The walk-through usually proceeds in the order of the moves as they will be done with the music; in some dances, the caller may vary the order of moves during the dance, a fact that is usually explained as part of the caller's instructions. After the walk-through, the music begins and the dancers repeat that sequence many times before that dance ends, often 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the length of the contra lines. Calls are normally given at least the first few times through, and often for the last. At the end of each dance, the dancers thank their partners. In North America, the norm at contra dances is to change partners after each dance. In the short break between individual dances, the dancers invite each other to dance. Booking ahead by asking partner or partners ahead of time for each individual dance is common at some venues, but has been discouraged by some. Most contra dances do not have an expected dress code. No special outfits are worn, but comfortable and loose-fitting clothing that does not restrict movement is usually recommended. Women usually wear skirts or dresses as they are cooler than wearing trousers; some men also dance in kilts or skirts. Low heeled, broken-in, soft-soled, non-marking shoes, such as dance shoes, sneakers, or sandals, are recommended and, in some places, required. As in any social dance, cooperation is vital to contra dancing. Since over the course of any single dance individuals interact with not just their partners but everyone else in the set, contra dancing might be considered a group activity. As will necessarily be the case when beginners are welcomed in by more practiced dancers, mistakes are made; most dancers are willing to help beginners in learning the steps. However, because the friendly, social nature of the dances can be misinterpreted or even abused, some groups have created anti-harassment policies. ==Form== ===Formations=== Contra dances are arranged in long lines of couples. A pair of lines is called a set. Sets are generally arranged so they run the length of the hall, with the top of the set being the end closest to the band and caller, and the bottom of the set being the end farthest from the caller. Couples consist of two people, traditionally one male and one female, though same-sex pairs are increasingly common. Traditionally the dancers are referred to as the lady and gent, though various other terms have been used: some dances have used men and women, rejecting ladies and gents as elitist; others have used gender-neutral role terms such as bares and bands, jets and rubies or larks and robins. Couples interact primarily with an adjacent couple for each round of the dance. Each sub-group of two interacting couples is known to choreographers as a minor set and to dancers as a foursome or hands four. Couples in the same minor set are neighbors. Minor sets originate at the head of the set, starting with the topmost dancers as the ones (the active couple or actives); the other couple are twos (or inactives). The ones are said to be above their neighboring twos; twos are below. If there is an uneven number of couples dancing, the bottom-most couple will wait out the first time through the dance. There are four common ways of arranging couples in the minor sets: proper, improper, Becket, and triple formations. Since the mid twentieth century, there has been a shift towards improper dances, in which gents and ladies alternate on each side of the set, being the most common formation. Triple dances have also lost popularity in modern contras, while Becket formation, in which dancers stand next to their partners, facing another couple, is a modern innovation. ===Progression=== A fundamental aspect of contra dancing is that, during a single dance, each dancer has one partner, but interacts with many different people. During a single dance, the same pattern is repeated over and over (one time through lasts roughly 30 seconds), but each time, a pair of dancers will dance with new neighbors (moving on to new neighbors is called progressing). Dancers do not need to memorize these patterns in advance, since the dance leader, or caller, will generally explain the pattern for this dance before the music begins, and give people a chance to walk through the pattern so dancers can learn the moves. The walk through also helps dancers understand how the dance pattern leads them toward new people each time. Once the music starts, the caller continues to describe each move until the dancers are comfortable with that dance pattern. The dance progression is built into the contra dance pattern as continuous motion with the music, and does not interrupt the dancing. While all dancers in the room are part of the same dance pattern, half of the couples in the room are moving toward the band at any moment and half are moving away, so when everybody steps forward, they find new people to dance with. Once a couple reaches the end of the set, they switch direction, dancing back along the set the other way. A single dance runs around ten minutes, long enough to progress at least 15–20 times. If the sets are short to medium length the caller often tries to run the dance until each couple has danced with every other couple both as a one and a two and returned to where they started. A typical room of contra dancers may include about 120 people; but this varies from 30 people in smaller towns, to over 300 people in cities like Washington DC, Los Angeles, or New York. With longer sets (more than 60 people), one dance typically does not allow dancing with every dancer in the group. ==Choreography== Contra dance choreography specifies the dance formation, the figures, and the sequence of those figures in a dance. Contra dance figures (with a few exceptions) do not have defined footwork; within the limits of the music and the comfort of their fellow dancers, individuals move according to their own taste. Most contra dances consist of a sequence of about 6 to 12 individual figures, prompted by the caller in time to the music as the figures are danced. As the sequence repeats, the caller may cut down his or her prompting, and eventually drop out, leaving the dancers to each other and the music. A figure is a pattern of movement that typically takes eight counts, although figures with four or 16 counts are also common. Each dance is a collection of figures assembled to allow the dancers to progress along the set (see "Progression", above). A count (as used above) is one half of a musical measure, such as one quarter note in time or three eighth notes in time. A count may also be called a step, as contra dance is a walking form, and each count of a dance typically matches a single physical step in a figure. Typical contra dance choreography comprises four parts, each 16 counts (8 measures) long. The parts are called A1, A2, B1 and B2. This nomenclature stems from the music: Most contra dance tunes (as written) have two parts (A and B), each 8 measures long, and each fitting one part of the dance. The A and B parts are each played twice in a row, hence, A1, A2, B1, B2. While the same music is generally played in, for example, parts A1 and A2, distinct choreography is followed in those parts. Thus, a contra dance is typically 64 counts, and goes with a 32 measure tune. Tunes of this form are called "square"; tunes that deviate from this form are called "crooked". Sample contra dances: Traditional – the actives do most of the movement Chorus jig (proper duple minor) A1 (16) Actives down the outside and back. (The inactives stand still or substitute a swing). A2 (16) Actives down the center, turn individually, come back, and cast off. (The inactives stand still for the first , take a step up the hall, and then participate in the cast). B1 (16) Actives turn contra corners. (The inactives participate in half the turns.) B2 (16) Actives meet in the middle for a balance and swing, end swing facing up. (The inactives stand still.) Note: inactives will often clog in place or otherwise participate in the dance, even though the figures do not call for them to move. Modern – the dance is symmetrical for actives and inactives "Hay in the Barn" by Chart Guthrie (improper duple minor) A1 (16) Neighbors balance and swing A2 (8) Ladies chain across, (8) half hey, ladies pass right shoulders to start. B1 (16) Partners balance and swing. B2 (8) Ladies chain across, (8) half hey, ladies pass right shoulders to start. Many modern contra dances have these characteristics: longways for as many as will first couples improper, or Becket formation flowing choreography no-one stationary for more than 16 beats (e.g. first couple balance and swing, finish facing down to make lines of four) containing at least one swing and normally both a partner swing and a neighbor swing the vast majority of the moves from a set of well-known moves that the dancers know already composed mostly of moves that keep all dancers connected generally danced to 32 bar jigs or reels played at between 110 and 130 bpm danced with a smooth walk with many spins and twirls An event which consists primarily (or solely) of dances in this style is sometimes referred to as a "modern urban contra dance". ==Music== The most common contra dance repertoire is rooted in the Anglo-Celtic tradition as it developed in North America. Irish, Scottish, French Canadian, and Old-time tunes are common, and Klezmer tunes have also been used. The old-time repertoire includes very few of the jigs common in the others. Tunes used for a contra dance are nearly always "square" 64-beat tunes, in which one time through the tune is each of two 16-beat parts played twice (this is notated AABB). However, any 64-beat tune will do; for instance, three 8-beat parts could be played AABB AACC, or two 8-beat parts and one 16-beat part could be played AABB CC. Tunes not 64 beats long are called "crooked" and are almost never used for contra dancing, although a few crooked dances have been written as novelties. Contra tunes are played at a narrow range of tempos, between 108 and 132 bpm. Fiddles are considered to be the primary melody instrument in contra dancing, though other stringed instruments can also be used, such as the mandolin or banjo, in addition to a few wind instruments; for example, the accordion. The piano, guitar, and double bass are frequently found in the rhythm section of a contra dance band. Occasionally, percussion instruments are also used in contra dancing, such as the Irish bodhran or less frequently, the dumbek or washboard. The last few years have seen some of the bands incorporate the Quebecois practice of tapping feet on a board while playing an instrument (often the fiddle). Until the 1970s it was traditional to play a single tune for the duration of a contra dance (about 5 to 10 minutes). Since then, contra dance musicians have typically played tunes in sets of two or three related (and sometimes contrasting) tunes, though single-tune dances are again becoming popular with some northeastern bands. In the Celtic repertoires it is common to change keys with each tune. A set might start with a tune in G, switch to a tune in D, and end with a tune in Bm. Here, D is related to G as its dominant (5th), while D and Bm share a key signature of two sharps. In the old-time tradition the musicians will either play the same tune for the whole dance, or switch to tunes in the same key. This is because the tunings of the five-string banjo are key-specific. An old-time band might play a set of tunes in D, then use the time between dances to retune for a set of tunes in A. (Fiddlers also may take this opportunity to retune; tune- or key-specific fiddle tunings are uncommon in American Anglo-Celtic traditions other than old-time.) In the Celtic repertoires it is most common for bands to play sets of reels and sets of jigs. However, since the underlying beat structure of jigs and reels is the same (two "counts" per bar) bands will occasionally mix jigs and reels in a set. Some of the most popular contra dance bands in recent years are Great Bear, Perpetual E-Motion, Buddy System, Crowfoot, Elixir, the Mean Lids, Nor'easter, Nova, Pete's Posse, the Stringrays, the Syncopaths, and Wild Asparagus. ===Techno contras=== In recent years, younger contra dancers have begun establishing "crossover contra" or "techno contra" – contra dancing to techno, hip-hop, and other modern forms of music. While challenging for DJs and callers, the fusion of contra patterns with moves from hip-hop, tango, and other forms of dance has made this form of contra dance a rising trend since 2008. Techno differs from other contra dancing in that it is usually done to recorded music, although there are some bands that play live for techno dances. Techno has become especially prevalent in Asheville, North Carolina, but regular techno contra dance series are spreading up the East Coast to locales such as Charlottesville, Virginia; Washington, D.C.; Amherst, Massachusetts; Greenfield, Massachusetts; and various North Carolina dance communities, with one-time or annual events cropping up in locations farther west, including California, Portland, Oregon, and Washington state. They also sometimes appear as late night events during contra dance weekends. In response to the demand for techno contra, a number of contra dance callers have developed repertoires of recorded songs to play that go well with particular contra dances; these callers are known as DJs. A kind of techno/traditional contra fusion has arisen, with at least one band, Buddy System, playing live music melded with synth sounds for techno contra dances.	[ "Maritime provinces", "Benjamin Lovett", "double bass", "clarinet", "New England", "mandolin", "Appalachia", "Washington, D.C.", "square dance", "Scottish country dance", "Dudley Laufman", "Syncopaths", "Gene Hubert", "caller (dance)", "Ford Motor Company", "tempo", "country dance", "Ted Sannella", "Nor'easter (band)", "folk dance", "Buddy System", "big band", "jazz", "quadrilles", "dumbek", "Crowfoot ( contra dance band)", "The Assembly (magazine)", "New Hampshire", "fiddle", "washboard (musical instrument)", "Scottish folk music", "New England Folk Festival", "Nova (American band)", "Portland, Oregon", "synthesizer", "Contra dance choreography", "Ceili dance", "Peterborough, New Hampshire", "Yankee Dutch crossing", "New England Folk Festival Association", "English Country Dance", "Podorythmie", "contra dance choreography", "Brattleboro, Vermont", "schottische", "Greenfield, Massachusetts", "jig", "piano", "accordion", "alcohol (drug)", "guitar", "hambo", "Double bass", "Henry Ford", "Wild Asparagus", "Brasstown, North Carolina", "DJ lighting", "Tony Parkes (caller)", "International folk dance", "Ohio", "Bob McQuillen", "swing music", "Asheville, North Carolina", "Weston, Vermont", "banjo", "Mean Lids", "Tunbridge, Vermont", "bar (music)", "Ralph Page", "Quadrille", "Western Folklore", "Contra dance form", "Old-time music", "Les Lanciers", "YouTube", "Klezmer", "polka", "Caller (dance)", "bodhran", "Bluegrass music", "flute", "Folk music of Ireland", "techno", "reel (dance)", "Great Bear (band)", "English country dance", "Dearborn, Michigan", "Susquehanna Breakdown Music Festival", "choreography", "music", "Country Dance and Song Society", "French-Canadian music", "key change", "Pete's Posse", "Amherst, Massachusetts", "English-speaking world", "waltz", "traditional music", "social dance", "Stringrays", "Plymouth, Massachusetts", "Scottish music", "Pinewoods Dance Camp", "Charlottesville, Virginia", "Dance Research Journal", "family-friendly", "crooked tune" ]
5,413	Coin collecting	Coin collecting is the collecting of coins or other forms of minted legal tender. Coins of interest to collectors include beautiful, rare, and historically significant pieces. Collectors may be interested, for example, in complete sets of a particular design or denomination, coins that were in circulation for only a brief time, or coins with errors. Coin collecting can be differentiated from numismatics, in that the latter is the systematic study of currency as a whole, though the two disciplines are closely interlinked. Many factors determine a coin's value including grade, rarity, and popularity. Commercial organizations offer grading services and will grade, authenticate, attribute, and encapsulate most coins. ==History== People have hoarded coins for their bullion value for as long as coins have been minted. However, the collection of coins for their artistic value was a later development. Evidence from the archaeological and historical record of Ancient Rome and medieval Mesopotamia indicates that coins were collected and catalogued by scholars and state treasuries. It also seems probable that individual citizens collected old, exotic or commemorative coins as an affordable, portable form of art. According to Suetonius in his De vita Caesarum (The Lives of the Twelve Caesars), written in the first century AD, the emperor Augustus sometimes presented old and exotic coins to friends and courtiers during festivals and other special occasions. While the literary sources are scarce, it's evident that collecting of ancient coins persisted in the Western World during the Middle Ages among rulers and high nobility. Contemporary coin collecting and appreciation began around the fourteenth century. During the Renaissance, it became a fad among some members of the privileged classes, especially kings and queens. The Italian scholar and poet Petrarch is credited with being the pursuit's first and most famous aficionado. Following his lead, many European kings, princes, and other nobility kept collections of ancient coins. Some notable collectors were Pope Boniface VIII, Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV of France, Ferdinand I of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV of France and Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, who started the Berlin Coin Cabinet (German: Münzkabinett Berlin). Perhaps because only the very wealthy could afford the pursuit, in Renaissance times coin collecting became known as the "Hobby of Kings". During the 17th and 18th centuries coin collecting remained a pursuit of the well-to-do. But rational, Enlightenment thinking led to a more systematic approach to accumulation and study. Numismatics as an academic discipline emerged in these centuries at the same time as a growing middle class, eager to prove their wealth and sophistication, began to collect coins. During the 19th and 20th centuries, coin collecting increased further in popularity. The market for coins expanded to include not only antique coins, but foreign or otherwise exotic currency. Coin shows, trade associations, and regulatory bodies emerged during these decades. == Motivations == The motivations for collecting vary. Possibly the most common type of collectors are the hobbyists, who amass a collection primarily for the pleasure of it without the intention of making a profit. Another frequent reason for purchasing coins is as an investment. As with stamps, precious metals, or other commodities, coin prices vary based on supply and demand. Prices drop for coins that are not in long-term demand, and increase along with a coin's perceived or intrinsic value. Investors buy with the expectation that the value of their purchase will increase over the long term. As with all types of investment, the principle of caveat emptor applies, and study is recommended before buying. Likewise, as with most collectibles, a coin collection does not produce income until it is sold, and may even incur costs (for example, the cost of safe deposit box storage) in the interim. Some people collect coins for patriotic reasons and mints from various countries create coins specifically for patriotic collectors. One example of a patriotic coin was minted in 1813 by the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata. One of the first pieces of legislation the new country enacted (after the revolution that freed it from Spanish rule) was to mint coins to replace the Spanish currency that had been in use. Another example is the U.S. 2022 Purple Heart Commemorative Coin Program. ==Collector types== Some coin collectors are generalists and accumulate examples from a broad variety of historical or geographically significant coins, but most collectors focus on a narrower, specialist interest. For example, some collectors focus on coins based on a common theme, such as coins from a country (often the collector's own), a coin each year from a series, or coins with a common mint mark. There are also completists who seek an example of every type of coin within a certain category. One of the most famous of this type of collector is Louis E. Eliasberg, the only collector thus far to assemble a complete set of known coins of the United States. Foreign coin collecting is another type of collection that numismatics enjoy collecting. This is most common with coins whose metal value exceeds their spending value. Speculators, be they amateurs or commercial buyers, may purchase coins in bulk or in small batches, and often act with the expectation of delayed profit. A final type of collector is the inheritor, an accidental collector who acquires coins from another person as part of an inheritance. The inheritor type may not necessarily have an interest in or know anything about numismatics at the time of the acquisition. Nevertheless, most grading systems use similar terminology, and values and remain mutually intelligible. ==Certification services== Third-party grading (TPG), aka coin certification services, emerged in the 1980s with the goals of standardizing grading, exposing alterations, and eliminating counterfeits. For tiered fees, certification services grade, authenticate, attribute, and encapsulate coins in clear plastic holders. Coin certification has greatly reduced the number of counterfeits and grossly over graded coins, and improved buyer confidence. Certification services can sometimes be controversial because grading is subjective; coins may be graded differently by different services or even upon resubmission to the same service. The numeric grade alone does not represent all of a coin's characteristics, such as toning, strike, brightness, color, luster, and attractiveness. Due to potentially large differences in value over slight differences in a coin's condition, some submitters will repeatedly resubmit a coin to a grading service in the hope of receiving a higher grade. Because fees are charged for certification, submitters must funnel money away from purchasing additional coins. == Clubs == Coin collector clubs offer a variety of benefits to members. They usually serve as a source of information and unification of people interested in coins. Collector clubs are popular both offline and online.	[ "Coin slab", "caveat emptor", "Philatelic investment", "Anno Domini", "hoarding", "sestertius", "fad", "Holy Roman Empire", "Numismatics", "American Numismatic Association", "Coin shows in the United States", "Mesopotamia", "Detroit", "Mint (facility)", "safe deposit box", "Byron Reed Collection", "Renaissance", "Exonumia", "Scandinavian Monetary Union", "coin", "collecting", "mint mark", "sterling silver", "United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata", "Regular issue coinage", "inheritance", "Henry IV of France", "legal tender", "Royal Canadian Mint Numismatic Coins (2000s)", "Augustus", "Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences", "mint error", "Emperor Maximilian I", "United States coinage", "Suetonius", "Berlin Coin Cabinet", "historical record", "Pope Boniface VIII", "Age of Enlightenment", "archaeological record", "proof coinage", "Coin", "Coin catalog", "Royal Canadian Numismatic Association", "Coin grading", "Coin capsule", "sv:Myntsamlande", "value (economics)", "Louis XIV", "Seigniorage", "Third-party grading", "Cleaning (coinage)", "List of most expensive coins", "coin grading", "Ancient Rome", "Petrarch", "counterfeit money", "Commemorative coin", "middle class", "numismatics", "Nero", "precious metal", "supply and demand", "Louis E. Eliasberg", "Challenge coin", "Numismatic Guaranty Company", "bullion", "Royal Canadian Mint", "currency", "artistic", "Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg", "Hans Memling" ]
5,415	Crokinole	Crokinole ( ) is a disk-flicking dexterity board game, possibly of Canadian origin, similar to the games of pitchnut, carrom, and pichenotte, with elements of shuffleboard and curling reduced to table-top size. Players take turns shooting discs across the circular playing surface, trying to land their discs in the higher-scoring regions of the board, particularly the recessed centre hole of 20 points, while also attempting to knock opposing discs off the board, and into the 'ditch'. In crokinole, the shooting is generally towards the centre of the board, unlike carroms and pitchnut, where the shooting is towards the four outer corner pockets, as in pool. Crokinole is also played using cue sticks, and there is a special category for cue stick participants at the World Crokinole Championships in Tavistock, Ontario, Canada. ==Equipment== Board dimensions vary with a playing surface typically of polished wood or laminate approximately in diameter. The arrangement is 3 concentric rings worth 5, 10, and 15 points as you move in from the outside. There is a shallow 20-point hole at the centre. The inner 15-point ring is guarded with 8 small bumpers or posts. The outer ring of the board is divided into four quadrants. The outer edge of the board is raised slightly to keep errant shots from flying out, with a gutter between the playing surface and the edge to collect discarded pieces. Crokinole boards are typically octagonal or round in shape. The wooden discs are roughly checker-sized, slightly smaller in diameter than the board's central hole, and typically have one side slightly concave and one side slightly convex, mainly due to the inherent features of wood, more than a planned design. Alternatively, the game may be played with ring-shaped pieces with a central hole. ===Powder=== The use of any lubricating powder in crokinole is controversial, with some purists reviling the practice. Powder is sometimes used to ensure pieces slide smoothly on the surface. Boric acid was popular for a long time, but is now considered toxic and has been replaced with safer substitutes. The EU has classified Boric acid as a "Serious Health Hazard". In the UK, many players use a version of anti-set-off spray powder, from the printing industry, which has specific electrostatic properties, with particles of 50-micrometre diameter (). The powder is made of pure food-grade plant/vegetable starch. The World Crokinole Championships in Tavistock, Ontario, Canada, states: "The WCC waxes boards, as required, with paste wax. On tournament day powdered shuffleboard wax (CAPO fast speed, yellow and white container) is placed in the ditch. Only tournament organizers will apply quality granular shuffleboard wax. Wax will be placed in the ditch area so that players can rub their discs in the wax prior to shooting, if they desire. Contestants are not allowed to apply lubricants of any type to the board. Absolutely no other lubricant will be allowed". ==Gameplay== Crokinole is most commonly played by two players, or by four players in teams of two, with partners sitting across the board from each other. Players take turns flicking their discs from the outer edge of their quadrant of the board onto the playfield. Shooting is usually done by flicking the disc with a finger, though sometimes small cue sticks may be used. If there are any enemy discs on the board, a player must make contact, directly or indirectly, with an enemy disc during the shot. If unsuccessful, the shot disc is "fouled" and removed from the board, along with any of the player's other discs that were moved during the shot. When there are no enemy discs on the board, many (but not all) rules also state that a player must shoot for the centre of the board, and a shot disc must finish either completely inside the 15-point guarded ring line, or (depending on the specifics of the rules) be inside or touching this line. This is often called the "no hiding" rule, since it prevents players from placing their first shots where their opponent must traverse completely through the guarded centre ring to hit them and avoid fouling. When playing without this rule, a player may generally make any shot desired, and as long as a disc remains completely inside the outer line of the playfield, it remains on the board. During any shot, any disc that falls completely into the recessed central "20" hole (a.k.a. the "Toad" or "Dukie") is removed from play, and counts as twenty points for the owner of the disc at the end of the round, assuming the shot is valid. Scoring occurs after all pieces (generally 12 per player or team) have been played, and is differential: i.e., the player or team with higher score is awarded the difference between the higher and lower scores for the round, thus only one team or player each round gains points. Play continues until a predetermined winning score is reached. ==History of the game== After 30 years of research, Wayne Kelly published his assessment of the first origins of crokinole, in The Crokinole Book, Toronto, MacMillan Company of Canada, 1969, p.61), and the oldest piece dated at 1875 by Ekhardt Wettlaufer. Could Ekhardt Wettlaufer have visited friends in New York state, noticed an unusual and entertaining parlour game being played, and upon arrival at home, made an imitation as a gift for his son? After all, he was a talented, and no doubt resourceful, painter and woodworker. Or was it the other way around? Did Mr. M. B. Ross travel to Ontario, take note of a quaint piece of rural folk art, and upon return to New York, put his American entrepreneurial skills to work - complete with patent name - on his new crokinole board? As the trail is more than 100 years old and no other authoritative source can be found, it appears, at the moment, that Eckhardt Wettlaufer or M. B. Ross are as close as we can get to answering the question WHO (made the first crokinole board.)" The earliest known crokinole board was made by craftsman Eckhardt Wettlaufer in 1876 in Perth County, Ontario, Canada. It is said Wettlaufer crafted the board as a fifth birthday present for his son Adam, which is now part of the collection at the Joseph Schneider Haus, a national historic site in Kitchener, Ontario, with a focus on Germanic folk art. Several other home-made boards dating from southwestern Ontario in the 1870s have been discovered since the 1990s. A board game similar to crokinole was patented on 20 April 1880 by Joshua K. Ingalls (US Patent No. 226,615). Crokinole is often believed to be of Mennonite or Amish origins, but there is no factual data to support such a claim. The reason for this misconception may be due to its popularity in Mennonite and Amish groups. The game was viewed as a rather innocuous pastime – unlike the perception that diversions such as card playing or dancing were considered "works of the Devil" as held by many 19th-century Protestant groups. The oldest roots of crokinole, from the 1860s, suggest the British and South Asian games, such as carrom, are the most likely antecedents of what became crokinole. In 2006, a documentary film called Crokinole was released. The world premiere occurred at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo, Ontario, in early 2006. The movie follows some of the competitors of the 2004 World Crokinole Championship as they prepare for the event. ==Origins of the name== The name "crokinole" derives from , a French word today designating: in France, a kind of cookie (or biscuit in British English), similar to a biscotto; in French Canada, a pastry somewhat similar to a doughnut (except for the shape). It also used to designate the action of flicking with the finger (Molière, Le malade imaginaire; or Voltaire, Lettre à Frédéric II Roi de Prusse; etc.), and this seems the most likely origin of the name of the game. was also a synonym of , a word that gave its name to the different but related games of pichenotte and pitchnut. From The Crokinole Book 3rd Edition by Wayne S. Kelly "Is it possible that the English word 'crokinole' is simply an etymological offspring of the French word 'croquignole'? It would appear so for the following reasons. Going back to the entry for Crokinole in Webster's Third New International Dictionary, within the etymological brackets, it says: [French croquignole, fillip]. This is a major clue. The word fillip, according to Webster's, has two definitions: "1. a blow or gesture made by the sudden forcible release of a finger curled up against the thumb; a short sharp blow. 2. to strike by holding the nail of a finger curled up against the ball of the thumb and then suddenly releasing it from that position". So it seems evident, then, that our game of crokinole derives its name from the verb form (of croquignole) defining the principal action in the game, that of flicking or 'filliping' a playing piece across the board". The word Crokinole is generally acknowledged to have been derived from the French Canadian word "Croquignole", a word with several meanings, such as fillip, snap, biscuit, bun and a woman's wavy hairstyle popular at the turn of the century. The US state of New York shares border crossings with both of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, all three of which are popular "hotbeds" of Crokinole playing. Crokinole is called ('flick-board') (and occasionally knipsdesh (flick-table)) in the Plautdietsch spoken by Russian Mennonites. ==World Crokinole Championship== The World Crokinole Championship (WCC) tournament has been held annually since 1999 on the first Saturday of June in Tavistock, Ontario. Tavistock was chosen as the host city because it was the home of Eckhardt Wettlaufer, the maker of the earliest known board. The tournament has seen registration from every Canadian province, several American states, Germany, Australia, Spain and the UK. The WCC singles competition begins with a qualifying round in which competitors play 10 matches against randomly assigned opponents. The qualifying round is played in a large randomly determined competition. At the end of the opening round, the top 16 competitors move on to the playoffs. The top four in the playoffs advance to a final round robin to play each other, and the top two compete in the finals. The WCC doubles competition begins with a qualifying round of 8 matches against randomly assigned opponents with the top six teams advancing to a playoff round robin to determine the champions. The WCC has multiple divisions, including a singles finger-shooting category for competitive players (adult singles), novices (recreational), and younger players (intermediate, 11–14 yrs; junior, 6–10 yrs), as well as a division for cue-shooters (cues singles). The WCC also awards a prize for the top 20-hole shooter in the qualifying round of competitive singles, recreational singles, cues singles, intermediate singles, and in the junior singles. The tournament also holds doubles divisions for competitive fingers-shooting (competitive doubles), novices (recreational doubles), younger players (youth doubles, 6–16yrs), and cues-shooting (cues doubles). The official board builder of the World Crokinole Championships is Jeremy Tracey. ==National Crokinole Association== The National Crokinole Association (NCA) is an association that supports existing, and the development of new, crokinole clubs and tournaments. While the majority of NCA events are based in Ontario, Canada, the NCA has held sanctioned events in the Canadian provinces of PEI and BC, as well as in New York State. The collection of NCA tournaments is referred to as the NCA Tour. Each NCA Tour season begins at the Tavistock World Crokinole Championships in June, and concludes at the Ontario Singles Crokinole Championship in May of the following years. The results of each tournament award points for each player, as they compete for their season-ending ranking classification.	[ "physics", "card playing", "cookie", "biscotti", "shuffleboard", "Pool (cue sports)", "Mennonite", "mwod:fillip", "Tavistock, Ontario", "board game", "Voltaire", "anti-set-off spray powder", "East Zorra-Tavistock", "Draughts", "Joseph Schneider", "mwod:croquignole", "Category:Disk-flicking games", "Amish", "Perth County, Ontario", "pichenotte", "pitchnut", "Novuss", "doughnut", "curling", "Table shuffleboard", "Eckhardt Wettlaufer", "Plautdietsch", "Canadian French", "Euclidean plane geometry", "Pichenotte", "Molière", "eye–hand coordination", "Fine motor skill", "biscuit", "Waterloo, Ontario", "electrostatic", "Chapayev (game)", "Russian Mennonites", "cue stick", "carrom" ]
5,416	Capitalism	Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a number of basic constituent elements: private property, property rights, capital accumulation, profit motive, competitive markets, free price system, international factor movements, voluntary exchange, economic freedom, commodification, entrepreneurship, division of labor, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth. Capitalist economies tend to experience a business cycle of economic growth followed by recessions. Economists, historians, political economists, and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire or free-market capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, obstacles to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies. The degree of competition in markets and the role of intervention and regulation, as well as the scope of state ownership, vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which different markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most of the existing capitalist economies are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and in some cases economic planning. Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as mercantilist practices by European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production, characterized by factory work, and a complex division of labor. Through the process of globalization, capitalism spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially before World War I and after the end of the Cold War. During the 19th century, capitalism was largely unregulated by the state, but became more regulated in the post–World War II period through Keynesianism, followed by a return of more unregulated capitalism starting in the 1980s through neoliberalism. == Etymology == The term "capitalist", meaning an owner of capital, appears earlier than the term "capitalism" and dates to the mid-17th century. "Capitalism" is derived from capital, which evolved from , a late Latin word based on , meaning "head"—which is also the origin of "chattel" and "cattle" in the sense of movable property (only much later to refer only to livestock). emerged in the 12th to 13th centuries to refer to funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money or money carrying interest. By 1283, it was used in the sense of the capital assets of a trading firm and was often interchanged with other words—wealth, money, funds, goods, assets, property and so on. four years before its first recorded English usage by Arthur Young in his work Travels in France (1792). In his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817), David Ricardo referred to "the capitalist" many times. English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge used "capitalist" in his work Table Talk (1823). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon used the term in his first work, What is Property? (1840), to refer to the owners of capital. Benjamin Disraeli used the term in his 1845 work Sybil. Marx did not use the form capitalism but instead used capital, capitalist and capitalist mode of production, which appear frequently. Due to the word being coined by socialist critics of capitalism, economist and historian Robert Hessen stated that the term "capitalism" itself is a term of disparagement and a misnomer for economic individualism. Bernard Harcourt agrees with the statement that the term is a misnomer, adding that it misleadingly suggests that there is such a thing as "capital" that inherently functions in certain ways and is governed by stable economic laws of its own. In the English language, the term "capitalism" first appears, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), in 1854, in the novel The Newcomes by novelist William Makepeace Thackeray, where the word meant "having ownership of capital". Also according to the OED, Carl Adolph Douai, a German American socialist and abolitionist, used the term "private capitalism" in 1863. Other terms sometimes used for capitalism are: Capitalist mode of production Economic liberalism Free enterprise Free enterprise economy Market economy Profits system Self-regulating market Societies officially founded in opposition to capitalism (such as the Soviet Union) have sometimes been argued to actually exhibit characteristics of capitalism. Nancy Fraser describes usage of the term "capitalism" by many authors as "mainly rhetorical, functioning less as an actual concept than as a gesture toward the need for a concept". Some doubt that the term "capitalism" possesses valid scientific dignity, Consequently, understanding of the concept of capitalism tends to be heavily influenced by opponents of capitalism and by the followers and critics of Karl Marx.]] Capitalism, in its modern form, can be traced to the emergence of agrarian capitalism and mercantilism in the early Renaissance, in city-states like Florence. Capital has existed incipiently on a small scale for centuries in the form of merchant, renting and lending activities and occasionally as small-scale industry with some wage labor. Simple commodity exchange and consequently simple commodity production, which is the initial basis for the growth of capital from trade, have a very long history. During the Islamic Golden Age, Arabs promulgated capitalist economic policies such as free trade and banking. Their use of Indo-Arabic numerals facilitated bookkeeping. These innovations migrated to Europe through trade partners in cities such as Venice and Pisa. Italian mathematicians traveled the Mediterranean talking to Arab traders and returned to popularize the use of Indo-Arabic numerals in Europe. === Agrarianism === The economic foundations of the feudal agricultural system began to shift substantially in 16th-century England as the manorial system had broken down and land began to become concentrated in the hands of fewer landlords with increasingly large estates. Instead of a serf-based system of labor, workers were increasingly employed as part of a broader and expanding money-based economy. The system put pressure on both landlords and tenants to increase the productivity of agriculture to make profit; the weakened coercive power of the aristocracy to extract peasant surpluses encouraged them to try better methods, and the tenants also had incentive to improve their methods in order to flourish in a competitive labor market. Terms of rent for land were becoming subject to economic market forces rather than to the previous stagnant system of custom and feudal obligation. === Mercantilism === The economic doctrine prevailing from the 16th to the 18th centuries is commonly called mercantilism. This period, the Age of Discovery, was associated with the geographic exploration of foreign lands by merchant traders, especially from England and the Low Countries. Mercantilism was a system of trade for profit, although commodities were still largely produced by non-capitalist methods. although Karl Polanyi argued that the hallmark of capitalism is the establishment of generalized markets for what he called the "fictitious commodities", i.e. land, labor and money. Accordingly, he argued that "not until 1834 was a competitive labor market established in England, hence industrial capitalism as a social system cannot be said to have existed before that date". England began a large-scale and integrative approach to mercantilism during the Elizabethan Era (1558–1603). A systematic and coherent explanation of balance of trade was made public through Thomas Mun's argument England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, or the Balance of our Forraign Trade is The Rule of Our Treasure. It was written in the 1620s and published in 1664. European merchants, backed by state controls, subsidies and monopolies, made most of their profits by buying and selling goods. In the words of Francis Bacon, the purpose of mercantilism was "the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufacturers; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulation of prices...". After the period of the proto-industrialization, the British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company, after massive contributions from the Mughal Bengal, inaugurated an expansive era of commerce and trade. These companies were characterized by their colonial and expansionary powers given to them by nation-states.]] In the mid-18th century a group of economic theorists, led by David Hume (1711–1776) and Adam Smith (1723–1790), challenged fundamental mercantilist doctrines—such as the belief that the world's wealth remained constant and that a state could only increase its wealth at the expense of another state. During the Industrial Revolution, industrialists replaced merchants as a dominant factor in the capitalist system and effected the decline of the traditional handicraft skills of artisans, guilds and journeymen. Industrial capitalism marked the development of the factory system of manufacturing, characterized by a complex division of labor between and within work process and the routine of work tasks; and eventually established the domination of the capitalist mode of production. Industrial Britain eventually abandoned the protectionist policy formerly prescribed by mercantilism. In the 19th century, Richard Cobden (1804–1865) and John Bright (1811–1889), who based their beliefs on the Manchester School, initiated a movement to lower tariffs. In the 1840s Britain adopted a less protectionist policy, with the 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws and the 1849 repeal of the Navigation Acts. Britain reduced tariffs and quotas, in line with David Ricardo's advocacy of free trade. === Modernity === Broader processes of globalization carried capitalism across the world. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a series of loosely connected market systems had come together as a relatively integrated global system, in turn intensifying processes of economic and other globalization. Late in the 20th century, capitalism overcame a challenge by centrally-planned economies and is now the encompassing system worldwide, with the mixed economy as its dominant form in the industrialized Western world. Industrialization allowed cheap production of household items using economies of scale, while rapid population growth created sustained demand for commodities. The imperialism of the 18th-century decisively shaped globalization. After the First and Second Opium Wars (1839–60) by Britain and France and the completion of the British conquest of India by 1858 and the French conquest of Africa, Polynesia and Indochina by 1887, vast populations of Asia became consumers of European exports. Europeans colonized areas of Africa and the Pacific islands. Colonisation by Europeans, notably of Africa by the British and French, yielded valuable natural resources such as rubber, diamonds and coal and helped fuel trade and investment between the European imperial powers, their colonies and the United States: From the 1870s to the early 1920s, the global financial system was mainly tied to the gold standard. The United Kingdom first formally adopted this standard in 1821. Soon to follow were Canada in 1853, Newfoundland in 1865, the United States and Germany (de jure) in 1873. New technologies, such as the telegraph, the transatlantic cable, the radiotelephone, the steamship and railways allowed goods and information to move around the world to an unprecedented degree. In the United States, the term "capitalist" primarily referred to powerful businessmen until the 1920s due to widespread societal skepticism and criticism of capitalism and its most ardent supporters. Contemporary capitalist societies developed in the West from 1950 to the present and this type of system continues throughout the world—relevant examples started in the United States after the 1950s, France after the 1960s, Spain after the 1970s, Poland after 2015, and others. At this stage most capitalist markets are considered developed and characterized by developed private and public markets for equity and debt, a high standard of living (as characterized by the World Bank and the IMF), large institutional investors and a well-funded banking system. A significant managerial class has emerged and decides on a significant proportion of investments and other decisions. A different future than that envisioned by Marx has started to emerge—explored and described by Anthony Crosland in the United Kingdom in his 1956 book The Future of Socialism and by John Kenneth Galbraith in North America in his 1958 book The Affluent Society, 90 years after Marx's research on the state of capitalism in 1867. The postwar boom ended in the late 1960s and early 1970s and the economic situation grew worse with the rise of stagflation. Monetarism, a modification of Keynesianism that is more compatible with laissez-faire analyses, gained increasing prominence in the capitalist world, especially under the years in office of Ronald Reagan in the United States (1981–1989) and of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom (1979–1990). Public and political interest began shifting away from the so-called collectivist concerns of Keynes's managed capitalism to a focus on individual choice, called "remarketized capitalism". The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union allowed for capitalism to become a truly global system in a way not seen since before World War I. The development of the neoliberal global economy would have been impossible without the fall of communism. Harvard Kennedy School economist Dani Rodrik distinguishes between three historical variants of capitalism: Capitalism 1.0 during the 19th century entailed largely unregulated markets with a minimal role for the state (aside from national defense, and protecting property rights); Capitalism 2.0 during the post-World War II years entailed Keynesianism, a substantial role for the state in regulating markets, and strong welfare states; Capitalism 2.1 entailed a combination of unregulated markets, globalization, and various national obligations by states. ==== Relationship to democracy ==== The relationship between democracy and capitalism is a contentious area in theory and in popular political movements. The extension of adult-male suffrage in 19th-century Britain occurred along with the development of industrial capitalism and representative democracy became widespread at the same time as capitalism, leading capitalists to posit a causal or mutual relationship between them. However, according to some authors in the 20th-century, capitalism also accompanied a variety of political formations quite distinct from liberal democracies, including fascist regimes, absolute monarchies and single-party states. without making concessions to greater political freedom. Political scientists Torben Iversen and David Soskice see democracy and capitalism as mutually supportive. Robert Dahl argued in On Democracy that capitalism was beneficial for democracy because economic growth and a large middle class were good for democracy. He also argued that a market economy provided a substitute for government control of the economy, which reduces the risks of tyranny and authoritarianism. Friedman claimed that centralized economic operations are always accompanied by political repression. In his view, transactions in a market economy are voluntary and the wide diversity that voluntary activity permits is a fundamental threat to repressive political leaders and greatly diminishes their power to coerce. Some of Friedman's views were shared by John Maynard Keynes, who believed that capitalism was vital for freedom to survive and thrive. Freedom House, an American think-tank that conducts international research on, and advocates for, democracy, political freedom and human rights, has argued that "there is a high and statistically significant correlation between the level of political freedom as measured by Freedom House and economic freedom as measured by the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation survey". In Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics asserted that inequality is the inevitable consequence of economic growth in a capitalist economy and the resulting concentration of wealth can destabilize democratic societies and undermine the ideals of social justice upon which they are built. States with capitalistic economic systems have thrived under political regimes deemed to be authoritarian or oppressive. Singapore has a successful open market economy as a result of its competitive, business-friendly climate and robust rule of law. Nonetheless, it often comes under fire for its style of government which, though democratic and consistently one of the least corrupt, operates largely under a one-party rule. Furthermore, it does not vigorously defend freedom of expression as evidenced by its government-regulated press, and its penchant for upholding laws protecting ethnic and religious harmony, judicial dignity and personal reputation. The private (capitalist) sector in the People's Republic of China has grown exponentially and thrived since its inception, despite having an authoritarian government. Augusto Pinochet's rule in Chile led to economic growth and high levels of inequality by using authoritarian means to create a safe environment for investment and capitalism. Similarly, Suharto's authoritarian reign and extirpation of the Communist Party of Indonesia allowed for the expansion of capitalism in Indonesia. The term "capitalism" in its modern sense is often attributed to Karl Marx. In Das Kapital, Marx analyzed the "capitalist mode of production" using a method of critique that later became known as Marxism. However, while Marx did discuss capitalism extensively, he used the term "capitalism" less frequently than "capitalist mode of production." His collaborator, Friedrich Engels, played a significant role in popularizing the term in more political interpretations of their work. In the 20th century, supporters of the capitalist system often replaced the term "capitalism" with phrases such as "free enterprise" or "private enterprise" to avoid its negative connotations. Similarly, the term "capitalist" was sometimes substituted with "investor" or "entrepreneur" to emphasize productive roles rather than passive wealth accumulation. == Characteristics == In general, capitalism as an economic system and mode of production can be summarized by the following: Capital accumulation: production for profit and accumulation as the implicit purpose of all or most of production, constriction or elimination of production formerly carried out on a common social or private household basis. Exchange of services can be in form of wage labor. The use of the price mechanism to allocate resources between competing uses. Freedom of capitalists to act in their self-interest in managing their business and investments. Capital suppliance by "the single owner of a firm, or by shareholders in the case of a joint-stock company." === Market === In free market and laissez-faire forms of capitalism, markets are used most extensively with minimal or no regulation over the pricing mechanism. In mixed economies, which are almost universal today, markets continue to play a dominant role, but they are regulated to some extent by the state in order to correct market failures, promote social welfare, conserve natural resources, fund defense and public safety or other rationale. In state capitalist systems, markets are relied upon the least, with the state relying heavily on state-owned enterprises or indirect economic planning to accumulate capital. Competition arises when more than one producer is trying to sell the same or similar products to the same buyers. Adherents of the capitalist theory believe that competition leads to innovation and more affordable prices. Monopolies or cartels can develop, especially if there is no competition. A monopoly occurs when a firm has exclusivity over a market. Hence, the firm can engage in rent seeking behaviors such as limiting output and raising prices because it has no fear of competition. Governments have implemented legislation for the purpose of preventing the creation of monopolies and cartels. In 1890, the Sherman Antitrust Act became the first legislation passed by the United States Congress to limit monopolies. === Wage labor === Wage labor, usually referred to as paid work, paid employment, or paid labor, refers to the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer in which the worker sells their labor power under a formal or informal employment contract. These transactions usually occur in a labor market where wages or salaries are market-determined. In exchange for the money paid as wages (usual for short-term work-contracts) or salaries (in permanent employment contracts), the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer. A wage laborer is a person whose primary means of income is from the selling of their labor in this way. === Profit motive === The profit motive, in the theory of capitalism, is the desire to earn income in the form of profit. Stated differently, the reason for a business's existence is to turn a profit. The profit motive functions according to rational choice theory, or the theory that individuals tend to pursue what is in their own best interests. Accordingly, businesses seek to benefit themselves and/or their shareholders by maximizing profit. In capitalist theoretics, the profit motive is said to ensure that resources are being allocated efficiently. For instance, Austrian economist Henry Hazlitt explains: "If there is no profit in making an article, it is a sign that the labor and capital devoted to its production are misdirected: the value of the resources that must be used up in making the article is greater than the value of the article itself". Socialist theorists note that, unlike mercantilists, capitalists accumulate their profits while expecting their profit rates to remain the same. This causes problems as earnings in the rest of society do not increase in the same proportion. === Private property === The relationship between the state, its formal mechanisms, and capitalist societies has been debated in many fields of social and political theory, with active discussion since the 19th century. Hernando de Soto is a contemporary Peruvian economist who has argued that an important characteristic of capitalism is the functioning state protection of property rights in a formal property system where ownership and transactions are clearly recorded. According to de Soto, this is the process by which physical assets are transformed into capital, which in turn may be used in many more ways and much more efficiently in the market economy. A number of Marxian economists have argued that the inclosure acts in England and similar legislation elsewhere were an integral part of capitalist primitive accumulation and that specific legal frameworks of private land ownership have been integral to the development of capitalism. Private property rights are not absolute, as in many countries the state has the power to seize private property, typically for public use, under the powers of eminent domain. === Market competition === In capitalist economics, market competition is the rivalry among sellers trying to achieve such goals as increasing profits, market share and sales volume by varying the elements of the marketing mix: price, product, distribution and promotion. Merriam-Webster defines competition in business as "the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favourable terms". It was described by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776) and later economists as allocating productive resources to their most highly valued uses and encouraging efficiency. Smith and other classical economists before Antoine Augustine Cournot were referring to price and non-price rivalry among producers to sell their goods on best terms by bidding of buyers, not necessarily to a large number of sellers nor to a market in final equilibrium. Competition is widespread throughout the market process. It is a condition where "buyers tend to compete with other buyers, and sellers tend to compete with other sellers". In the works of Adam Smith, the idea of capitalism is made possible through competition which creates growth. Although capitalism had not entered mainstream economics at the time of Smith, it is vital to the construction of his ideal society. One of the foundational blocks of capitalism is competition. Smith believed that a prosperous society is one where "everyone should be free to enter and leave the market and change trades as often as he pleases." He believed that the freedom to act in one's self-interest is essential for the success of a capitalist society. In response to the idea that if all participants focus on their own goals, society's well-being will be water under the bridge, Smith maintains that despite the concerns of intellectuals, "global trends will hardly be altered if they refrain from pursuing their personal ends." He insisted that the actions of a few participants cannot alter the course of society. Instead, Smith maintained that they should focus on personal progress instead and that this will result in overall growth to the whole. Competition between participants, "who are all endeavoring to justle one another out of employment, obliges every man to endeavor to execute his work" through competition towards growth. However, capitalist economies may experience fluctuations in growth that cannot be accounted for by demographic or technological changes. These fluctuations, which involve sustained periods of economic growth and recession, are referred to as business cycles in macroeconomics. Economic growth is measured as growth in investment, economic output, and economic consumption per capita. Changes in hours of employment on their own are not considered as a factor of economic growth. Capitalism in the form of money-making activity has existed in the shape of merchants and money-lenders who acted as intermediaries between consumers and producers engaging in simple commodity production (hence the reference to "merchant capitalism") since the beginnings of civilisation. What is specific about the "capitalist mode of production" is that most of the inputs and outputs of production are supplied through the market (i.e. they are commodities) and essentially all production is in this mode. A society, region or nation is capitalist if the predominant source of incomes and products being distributed is capitalist activity, but even so this does not yet mean necessarily that the capitalist mode of production is dominant in that society. Mixed economies rely on the nation they are in to provide some goods or services, while the free market produces and maintains the rest. == Supply and demand == In capitalist economic structures, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It postulates that in a perfectly competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers (at the current price) will equal the quantity supplied by producers (at the current price), resulting in an economic equilibrium for price and quantity. The "basic laws" of supply and demand, as described by David Besanko and Ronald Braeutigam, are the following four: If demand increases (demand curve shifts to the right) and supply remains unchanged, then a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price. If demand decreases (demand curve shifts to the left) and supply remains unchanged, then a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price. If demand remains unchanged and supply increases (supply curve shifts to the right), then a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price. If demand remains unchanged and supply decreases (supply curve shifts to the left), then a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price. === Supply schedule === A supply schedule is a table that shows the relationship between the price of a good and the quantity supplied. === Demand schedule === A demand schedule, depicted graphically as the demand curve, represents the amount of some goods that buyers are willing and able to purchase at various prices, assuming all determinants of demand other than the price of the good in question, such as income, tastes and preferences, the price of substitute goods and the price of complementary goods, remain the same. According to the law of demand, the demand curve is almost always represented as downward sloping, meaning that as price decreases, consumers will buy more of the good. Just like the supply curves reflect marginal cost curves, demand curves are determined by marginal utility curves. === Equilibrium === In the context of supply and demand, economic equilibrium refers to a state where economic forces such as supply and demand are balanced and in the absence of external influences the (equilibrium) values of economic variables will not change. For example, in the standard text-book model of perfect competition equilibrium occurs at the point at which quantity demanded and quantity supplied are equal. Market equilibrium, in this case, refers to a condition where a market price is established through competition such that the amount of goods or services sought by buyers is equal to the amount of goods or services produced by sellers. This price is often called the competitive price or market clearing price and will tend not to change unless demand or supply changes. === Partial equilibrium === Partial equilibrium, as the name suggests, takes into consideration only a part of the market to attain equilibrium. Jain proposes (attributed to George Stigler): "A partial equilibrium is one which is based on only a restricted range of data, a standard example is price of a single product, the prices of all other products being held fixed during the analysis". === History === According to Hamid S. Hosseini, the "power of supply and demand" was discussed to some extent by several early Muslim scholars, such as fourteenth century Mamluk scholar Ibn Taymiyyah, who wrote: "If desire for goods increases while its availability decreases, its price rises. On the other hand, if availability of the good increases and the desire for it decreases, the price comes down". John Locke's 1691 work Some Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising of the Value of Money includes an early and clear description of supply and demand and their relationship. In this description, demand is rent: "The price of any commodity rises or falls by the proportion of the number of buyer and sellers" and "that which regulates the price... [of goods] is nothing else but their quantity in proportion to their rent". David Ricardo titled one chapter of his 1817 work Principles of Political Economy and Taxation "On the Influence of Demand and Supply on Price". In Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Ricardo more rigorously laid down the idea of the assumptions that were used to build his ideas of supply and demand. In his 1870 essay "On the Graphical Representation of Supply and Demand", Fleeming Jenkin in the course of "introduc[ing] the diagrammatic method into the English economic literature" published the first drawing of supply and demand curves therein, including comparative statics from a shift of supply or demand and application to the labor market. The model was further developed and popularized by Alfred Marshall in the 1890 textbook Principles of Economics. They vary in their institutional makeup and by their economic policies. The common features among all the different forms of capitalism are that they are predominantly based on the private ownership of the means of production and the production of goods and services for profit; the market-based allocation of resources; and the accumulation of capital. They include advanced capitalism, corporate capitalism, finance capitalism, free-market capitalism, mercantilism, state capitalism and welfare capitalism. Other theoretical variants of capitalism include anarcho-capitalism, community capitalism, humanistic capitalism, neo-capitalism, state monopoly capitalism, and technocapitalism. === Advanced === Advanced capitalism is the situation that pertains to a society in which the capitalist model has been integrated and developed deeply and extensively for a prolonged period. Various writers identify Antonio Gramsci as an influential early theorist of advanced capitalism, even if he did not use the term himself. In his writings, Gramsci sought to explain how capitalism had adapted to avoid the revolutionary overthrow that had seemed inevitable in the 19th century. At the heart of his explanation was the decline of raw coercion as a tool of class power, replaced by use of civil society institutions to manipulate public ideology in the capitalists' favour. Jürgen Habermas has been a major contributor to the analysis of advanced-capitalistic societies. Habermas observed four general features that characterise advanced capitalism: Concentration of industrial activity in a few large firms. Constant reliance on the state to stabilise the economic system. A formally democratic government that legitimises the activities of the state and dissipates opposition to the system. The use of nominal wage increases to pacify the most restless segments of the work force. === Corporate === Corporate capitalism is a free or mixed-market capitalist economy characterized by the dominance of hierarchical and bureaucratic corporations. === Finance === Finance capitalism is the subordination of processes of production to the accumulation of money profits in a financial system. In their critique of capitalism, Marxism and Leninism both emphasise the role of finance capital as the determining and ruling-class interest in capitalist society, particularly in the latter stages. Rudolf Hilferding is credited with first bringing the term finance capitalism into prominence through Finance Capital, his 1910 study of the links between German trusts, banks and monopolies—a study subsumed by Vladimir Lenin into Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917), his analysis of the imperialist relations of the great world powers. Lenin concluded that the banks at that time operated as "the chief nerve centres of the whole capitalist system of national economy". For the Comintern (founded in 1919), the phrase "dictatorship of finance capitalism" became a regular one. Fernand Braudel would later point to two earlier periods when finance capitalism had emerged in human history—with the Genoese in the 16th century and with the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries—although at those points it developed from commercial capitalism. Giovanni Arrighi extended Braudel's analysis to suggest that a predominance of finance capitalism is a recurring, long-term phenomenon, whenever a previous phase of commercial/industrial capitalist expansion reaches a plateau. === Free market === A capitalist free-market economy is an economic system where prices for goods and services are set entirely by the forces of supply and demand and are expected, by its adherents, to reach their point of equilibrium without intervention by government policy. It typically entails support for highly competitive markets and private ownership of the means of production. Laissez-faire capitalism is a more extensive form of this free-market economy, but one in which the role of the state is limited to protecting property rights. In anarcho-capitalist theory, property rights are protected by private firms and market-generated law. According to anarcho-capitalists, this entails property rights without statutory law through market-generated tort, contract and property law, and self-sustaining private industry. Fernand Braudel argued that free market exchange and capitalism are to some degree opposed; free market exchange involves transparent public transactions and a large number of equal competitors, while capitalism involves a small number of participants using their capital to control the market via private transactions, control of information, and limitation of competition. === Mercantile === Mercantilism is a nationalist form of early capitalism that came into existence approximately in the late 16th century. It is characterized by the intertwining of national business interests with state-interest and imperialism. Consequently, the state apparatus is used to advance national business interests abroad. An example of this is colonists living in America who were only allowed to trade with and purchase goods from their respective mother countries (e.g., United Kingdom, France and Portugal). Mercantilism was driven by the belief that the wealth of a nation is increased through a positive balance of trade with other nations—it corresponds to the phase of capitalist development sometimes called the primitive accumulation of capital. === Social === A social market economy is a free-market or mixed-market capitalist system, sometimes classified as a coordinated market economy, where government intervention in price formation is kept to a minimum, but the state provides significant services in areas such as social security, health care, unemployment benefits and the recognition of labor rights through national collective bargaining arrangements. This model is prominent in Western and Northern European countries as well as Japan, albeit in slightly different configurations. The vast majority of enterprises are privately owned in this economic model. Rhine capitalism is the contemporary model of capitalism and adaptation of the social market model that exists in continental Western Europe today. === State === State capitalism is a capitalist market economy dominated by state-owned enterprises, where the state enterprises are organized as commercial, profit-seeking businesses. The designation has been used broadly throughout the 20th century to designate a number of different economic forms, ranging from state-ownership in market economies to the command economies of the former Eastern Bloc. According to Aldo Musacchio, a professor at Harvard Business School, state capitalism is a system in which governments, whether democratic or autocratic, exercise a widespread influence on the economy either through direct ownership or various subsidies. Musacchio notes a number of differences between today's state capitalism and its predecessors. In his opinion, gone are the days when governments appointed bureaucrats to run companies: the world's largest state-owned enterprises are now traded on the public markets and kept in good health by large institutional investors. Contemporary state capitalism is associated with the East Asian model of capitalism, dirigisme and the economy of Norway. Alternatively, Merriam-Webster defines state capitalism as "an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control". In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Friedrich Engels argued that state-owned enterprises would characterize the final stage of capitalism, consisting of ownership and management of large-scale production and communication by the bourgeois state. In his writings, Vladimir Lenin characterized the economy of Soviet Russia as state capitalist, believing state capitalism to be an early step toward the development of socialism. Some economists and left-wing academics including Richard D. Wolff and Noam Chomsky, as well as many Marxist philosophers and revolutionaries such as Raya Dunayevskaya and C.L.R. James, argue that the economies of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc represented a form of state capitalism because their internal organization within enterprises and the system of wage labor remained intact. The term is not used by Austrian School economists to describe state ownership of the means of production. The economist Ludwig von Mises argued that the designation of state capitalism was a new label for the old labels of state socialism and planned economy and differed only in non-essentials from these earlier designations. === Welfare === Welfare capitalism is capitalism that includes social welfare policies. Today, welfare capitalism is most often associated with the models of capitalism found in Central and Northern Europe such as the Nordic model, social market economy and Rhine capitalism. In some cases, welfare capitalism exists within a mixed economy, but welfare states can and do exist independently of policies common to mixed economies such as state interventionism and extensive regulation. A mixed economy is a largely market-based capitalist economy consisting of both private and public ownership of the means of production and economic interventionism through macroeconomic policies intended to correct market failures, reduce unemployment and keep inflation low. The degree of intervention in markets varies among different countries. Some mixed economies such as France under dirigisme also featured a degree of indirect economic planning over a largely capitalist-based economy. Most modern capitalist economies are defined as mixed economies to some degree, however French economist Thomas Piketty state that capitalist economies might shift to a much more laissez-faire approach in the near future. === Eco-capitalism === Eco-capitalism, also known as "environmental capitalism" or (sometimes) "green capitalism", is the view that capital exists in nature as "natural capital" (ecosystems that have ecological yield) on which all wealth depends. Therefore, governments should use market-based policy-instruments (such as a carbon tax) to resolve environmental problems. The term "Blue Greens" is often applied to those who espouse eco-capitalism. Eco-capitalism can be thought of as the right-wing equivalent to Red Greens. === Sustainable capitalism === Sustainable capitalism is a conceptual form of capitalism based upon sustainable practices that seek to preserve humanity and the planet, while reducing externalities and bearing a resemblance of capitalist economic policy. A capitalistic economy must expand to survive and find new markets to support this expansion. Capitalist systems are often destructive to the environment as well as certain individuals without access to proper representation. However, sustainability provides quite the opposite; it implies not only a continuation, but a replenishing of resources. Sustainability is often thought of to be related to environmentalism, and sustainable capitalism applies sustainable principles to economic governance and social aspects of capitalism as well. The importance of sustainable capitalism has been more recently recognized, but the concept is not new. Changes to the current economic model would have heavy social environmental and economic implications and require the efforts of individuals, as well as compliance of local, state and federal governments. Controversy surrounds the concept as it requires an increase in sustainable practices and a marked decrease in current consumptive behaviors. This is a concept of capitalism described in Al Gore and David Blood's manifesto for the Generation Investment Management to describe a long-term political, economic and social structure which would mitigate current threats to the planet and society. According to their manifesto, sustainable capitalism would integrate the environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects into risk assessment in attempt to limit externalities. Most of the ideas they list are related to economic changes, and social aspects, but strikingly few are explicitly related to any environmental policy change. In this context, "capital" is defined as money or a financial asset invested for the purpose of making more money (whether in the form of profit, rent, interest, royalties, capital gain or some other kind of return). In mainstream economics, accounting and Marxian economics, capital accumulation is often equated with investment of profit income or savings, especially in real capital goods. The concentration and centralisation of capital are two of the results of such accumulation. In modern macroeconomics and econometrics, the phrase "capital formation" is often used in preference to "accumulation", though the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) refers nowadays to "accumulation". The term "accumulation" is occasionally used in national accounts. == Wage labor == Wage labor refers to the sale of labor under a formal or informal employment contract to an employer. In Marxist economics, these owners of the means of production and suppliers of capital are generally called capitalists. The description of the role of the capitalist has shifted, first referring to a useless intermediary between producers, then to an employer of producers, and finally to the owners of the means of production. == Criticism == Criticism of capitalism comes from various political and philosophical approaches, including anarchist, socialist, religious and nationalist viewpoints. Of those who oppose it or want to modify it, some believe that capitalism should be removed through revolution while others believe that it should be changed slowly through political reforms. Prominent critiques of capitalism allege that it is inherently exploitative, alienating, unstable, unsustainable, and economically inefficient—and that it creates massive economic inequality, commodifies people, degrades the environment, is undemocratic, embeds uneven and underdevelopment between nation states, and leads to an erosion of human rights because of its incentivization of imperialist expansion and war. Other critics argue that such inequities are not due to the ethic-neutral construct of the economic system commonly known as capitalism, but to the ethics of those who shape and execute the system. For example, some contend that Milton Friedman's (human) ethic of 'maximizing shareholder value' creates a harmful form of capitalism, while a Millard Fuller or John Bogle (human) ethic of 'enough' creates a sustainable form. Equitable ethics and unified ethical decision-making is theorized to create a less damaging form of capitalism. Inheritance has been argued to not be a fundamental part of capitalism, instead part of nepotism.	[ "Economic equilibrium", "Jay W. Richards", "MIT Press", "John Hunt Publishing", "state monopoly capitalism", "International Studies Quarterly", "social welfare", "European colonization of the Americas", "Madrid", "Singapore", "private ownership", "transatlantic telegraph cable", "Office of Justice Programs", "undemocratic", "investor", "Robert Hessen", "Marxian economics", "stagflation", "Financial capital", "Second Opium War", "Late capitalism", "x-efficiency", "investment", "Anti-capitalism", "Private property", "Africa", "John J. McCusker", "Richard Cobden", "SAGE Publications", "Leninism", "Report on Manufactures", "Economic liberalism", "serf", "Austrian School", "managerial class", "Carl Boggs", "Spanish miracle", "wage", "mixed economy", "rent seeking", "financial capital", "Invisible hand", "Giovanni Arrighi", "cattle", "public safety", "Labor (economics)", "monopoly", "Antoine Augustin Cournot", "contract", "democracy", "steamship", "Global financial crisis in September 2008", "Belknap Press", "Eco-socialism", "real vs. nominal in economics", "Polynesia", "wealth", "shareholder", "Paris School of Economics", "economic interventionism", "David Soskice", "Augusto Pinochet", "Johns Hopkins University Press", "Renaissance", "History of Newfoundland and Labrador", "import quota", "Ludwig von Mises", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "employer", "Karl Marx", "The Future of Socialism", "State (polity)", "Capitalist state", "Surveillance capitalism", "Adam Smith", "choice", "Principles of Economics (Marshall)", "neo-capitalism", "World Bank", "Wealth concentration", "business cycle", "Henry Holt and Company", "return on investment", "Past & Present (journal)", "Ancient economic thought", "Monthly Review", "Supply (economics)", "Harper and Row", "artisan", "The Economist", "Social Science Information", "International Monetary Fund", "Perspectives on capitalism by school of thought", "Samuel Taylor Coleridge", "Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66", "factory system", "Trente Glorieuses", "C.L.R. James", "Sustainable capitalism", "standard of living", "comparative statics", "workforce", "wikt:incentivize", "Ben Tarnoff", "PBS", "Marxism", "Mercantilism", "Das Kapital", "unsustainable", "Florence", "Self-made man", "scarcity", "Haymarket Books", "Production (economics)", "international factor movements", "Capitalism (disambiguation)", "labour economics", "Random House", "Elizabethan Era", "think-tank", "Economic Affairs (journal)", "Eastern Bloc", "Mughal Bengal", "Princeton University Press", "labor economics", "State capitalism", "Communism", "Richard D. Wolff", "Friedrich Hayek", "Communist Party of Indonesia", "salary", "Freedom in the World", "commodification", "welfare capitalism", "Humanistic economics", "Competition (economics)", "market clearing", "Excess supply", "Pontormo", "Individualism", "University of Minnesota Press", "railway", "Lexington Books", "The Wealth of Nations", "Economy of Poland", "Social Forces", "environmental degradation", "William I. Robinson", "socioeconomics", "Soviet Union", "supply and demand", "Jonathan Cape", "national accounts", "Economic interventionism", "capital accumulation", "economic model", "Socialism", "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism", "State monopoly capitalism", "Christian views on poverty and wealth", "Navigation Acts", "unit price", "Truthout", "Mamluk", "Environmental, social and corporate governance", "World War I", "state capitalism", "Low Countries", "trading room", "Principles of Political Economy and Taxation", "socialist", "The Great Transformation (book)", "Carl Adolph Douai", "Eco-capitalism", "OECD", "The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics", "exchange-value", "Werner Sombart", "Encyclopædia Britannica", "complementary good", "What is Property?", "fascism", "Palgrave Macmillan", "Collectivism and individualism", "One-party state", "public ownership", "rubber", "Perestroika", "Houghton Mifflin", "law of demand", "Age of Discovery", "price mechanism", "social equality", "neoliberal", "private property", "Perfect competition", "Perfect information", "Noam Chomsky", "radiotelephone", "Bernard Harcourt", "Marx's theory of alienation", "military", "Pyramid of Capitalist System", "Index of Economic Freedom", "Comintern", "macroeconomics", "Milton Friedman", "Indonesia", "Labour economics", "religious", "coordinated market economy", "Indochina", "David Hume", "Alexander Hamilton", "Robert Dahl", "military–industrial complex", "The Guardian", "market economy", "Freedom House", "capital (economics)", "Rent-seeking", "market failure", "Resistance Books", "social policies", "Market (economics)", "free-market capitalism", "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", "Sybil (novel)", "Malcolm Harris", "OECD Observer", "Inheritance", "de jure", "globalization", "Personal property", "ecosystem", "forms of capitalism", "social market economy", "Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder", "Suharto", "United Province of Canada", "Arabs", "state interventionism", "representative democracy", "Philosophy (journal)", "The Newcomes", "economic inequality", "merchant", "accounting", "Taylor & Francis", "economics", "Ronald Reagan", "aristocracy", "nationalist", "perfect competition", "economies of scale", "France", "environmentalism", "human rights", "University of Chicago Press", "anarchist", "Harvard University Press", "HarperOne", "Paul Craig Roberts", "Marxists Internet Archive", "Al Gore", "revolution", "anarcho-capitalism", "Cold War", "nation", "mainstream economics", "money", "Raya Dunayevskaya", "proto-industrialization", "Nawabs of Bengal", "Economic sociology", "Henry Hazlitt", "Manchester capitalism", "Hernando de Soto (economist)", "Verso Books", "Corn Laws", "Journal Historical Materialism", "political freedom", "wage labor", "Edward E. Baptist", "Industrial Revolution", "Absolute monarchy", "society", "Indo-Arabic numerals", "OR Books", "joint-stock company", "Pierre-Joseph Proudhon", "means of production", "International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences", "imperialist", "dissolution of the Soviet Union", "John Bright", "agrarianism", "Post-capitalism", "population growth", "Crisis of capitalism", "Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)", "Alfred Marshall", "Capital (Marxism)", "Oxford University Press", "Merriam-Webster", "The Affluent Society", "Racial capitalism", "Technical University of Madrid", "natural capital", "German Americans", "econometrics", "Medici bank", "Antonio Gramsci", "neoliberalism", "Economic efficiency", "work for hire", "Ashgate Publishing", "ruling-class", "coal", "United Kingdom", "James Murray (lexicographer)", "England", "Foreign Affairs", "bookkeeping", "diamonds", "Forbes", "division of labor", "surplus value", "Advanced capitalism", "Division of labour", "protectionist", "Economic rent", "Ibn Taymiyyah", "Sustainability", "Millard Fuller", "Monopoly", "Graph of a function", "Exploitation of labour", "eminent domain", "telegraph", "Harcourt College Publishing", "French people", "Amsterdam University Press", "Vladimir Lenin", "employment", "Mixed economy", "Externality", "Faber and Faber", "The Hindu", "Cambridge University Press", "Thomas Piketty", "Gar Alperovitz", "economic growth", "Post–World War II economic expansion", "Capitalist Realism", "Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890", "Entrepreneurship", "commodity", "bounded rationality", "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "Market socialism", "Beacon Press", "Private ownership", "wikt:equilibrium", "Capital accumulation", "Crony capitalism", "laissez-faire", "John Tinnell", "Margaret Thatcher", "Censorship in Singapore", "economic planning", "First Opium War", "gold standard", "Nationalization", "community capitalism", "Regulatory economics", "capital formation", "Zed Books", "inclosure act", "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", "labour market", "natural resource", "Law of supply and demand", "humanistic capitalism", "Islamic Golden Age", "British East India Company", "Peak capitalism", "Om Prakash (historian)", "state-owned enterprises", "Capital (economics)", "Transaction Publishers", "Picador (imprint)", "Corporatocracy", "cartels", "marketing mix", "resource depletion", "Keynesian economics", "law of value", "Bengal Presidency", "Free market", "Abolitionism in the United States", "Polity Press", "marginal utility", "Thomas Mun", "Capital in the Twenty-First Century", "Laissez-faire", "factory", "Nancy Fraser", "Indicative planning", "economic policy", "industrialists", "demand curve", "uneven and combined development", "journeyman", "environmental problem", "Keynesianism", "collective bargaining", "Naomi Klein", "Democratic peace theory", "Austrian economist", "free price system", "Blackwell Publishing", "Profit (economics)", "The New York Review of Books", "Yale University Press", "financial system", "East Asian model of capitalism", "suffrage", "Étienne Clavier", "resource", "Industrialization", "Dutch East India Company", "unstable", "John Maynard Keynes", "Labour/Le Travail", "South-Western College Publishing", "Bailout Capitalism", "Louis Blanc", "Nature (journal)", "Journal of Southern History", "Arthur Young (writer)", "economist.com", "W.W. Norton", "banking system", "innovation", "John Kenneth Galbraith", "Friedrich Engels", "primitive accumulation of capital", "Battle of Plassey", "Slovakia", "The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism", "Wiley (publisher)", "Fernand Braudel", "Monetarism", "Google Books", "Routledge", "Reformism", "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", "David Ricardo", "dirigisme", "civil society", "Output (economics)", "Rudolf Hilferding", "Daron Acemoglu", "Planned economy", "substitute good", "George Stigler", "policy instruments", "competitive market", "free trade", "California", "Fleeming Jenkin", "communism", "authoritarian", "use-value", "Anarcho-capitalism", "Wage labour", "marginal cost", "simple commodity production", "Anthony Crosland", "factors of production", "primitive accumulation", "economic system", "mixed economies", "Francis Bacon", "Commodity", "nepotism", "entrepreneurship", "labor power", "Capital: Critique of Political Economy", "Karl Polanyi", "Verso", "Property rights (economics)", "World War II", "rational choice theory", "Oxford English Dictionary", "price determination", "Post-Fordism", "English language", "Jürgen Habermas", "political repression", "labor rights", "Good (economics)", "United States in the 1950s", "demand", "SAGE Publishing", "Recession", "Economic growth", "Basic Books", "mathematicians", "profit motive", "underdevelopment", "Latin", "British people", "Benjamin Disraeli", "Generation Investment Management", "ecological yield", "political leader", "investment (macroeconomics)", "Le Livre noir du capitalisme", "mercantilism", "David Blood", "The Road to Serfdom", "Cambridge Journal of Economics", "free market", "economic equilibrium", "imperialism", "Louis Hyman", "Market economy", "Inter-Asia Cultural Studies", "Legitimation Crisis", "Nordic model", "William Makepeace Thackeray", "employment contract", "carbon tax", "economic freedom", "tariffs", "Laissez-faire capitalism", "Expansionism", "The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era", "Torben Iversen", "market process", "Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)", "voluntary exchange", "merchant capitalism", "colonialism", "John Locke", "technocapitalism", "manorial system", "classical economist" ]
5,420	Cross ownership	Cross ownership is a method of reinforcing business relationships by owning stocks in the companies with which a given company does business. Heavy cross ownership is referred to as circular ownership. In the US, "cross ownership" also refers to a type of investment in different mass-media properties in one market. ==Cross ownership of stock== Countries noted to have high levels of cross ownership include: Japan Germany Examples of the positives of cross ownership: Closely ties each business to the economic destiny of its business partners Promotes a slow rate of economic change Cross ownership of shares is criticized for: Stagnating the economy Wasting capital that could be used to improve productivity Expanding economic downturns by preventing reallocation of capital Lessening control of shareholders over corporate leadership. A major factor in perpetuating cross-ownership of shares is a high capital gains tax rate. Companies have less incentive to sell cross-owned shares when taxes are high, as the tax liability reduces the net proceeds from the sale. For example, a company owns $1000 of stock in another company that was originally purchased for $200. If the capital gains tax rate is 25% (as in Germany), the $800 profit ($1000 - $200) would result in a tax liability of $200 ($800 × 0.25). After paying the tax, the company would retain a net gain of $600 ($800 profit - $200 tax). However, the immediate tax expense may discourage the company from selling, as holding the stock defers the tax liability and preserves the full value of the assets on paper. Long term cross ownership of shares combined with a high capital tax rate greatly increases periods of asset deflation both in time and in severity. ==Media cross ownership== Cross ownership also refers to a type of media ownership in which one type of communications (say a newspaper) owns or is the sister company of another type of medium (such as a radio or TV station). One example is The New York Timess former ownership of WQXR Radio, and the Chicago Tribune's similar relationship with WGN Radio (WGN-AM) and Television (WGN-TV). To prevent one license holder from having too much local media ownership, the Federal Communications Commission generally does not allow cross ownership unless the license holder obtains a waiver. Examples include News Corporation and the Tribune Company, both in New York. The mid-1970s cross-ownership guidelines grandfathered already-existing cross ownerships, such as Tribune-WGN, New York Times-WQXR and the New York Daily News ownership of WPIX Television and Radio.	[ "News Corporation (1980–2013)", "capital gains tax", "Germany", "New York Daily News", "WGN-AM", "WGN-TV", "Japan", "Tribune Company", "WPIX", "Federal Communications Commission", "WQXR-FM", "The New York Times", "Chicago Tribune" ]
5,421	Cardiology	Cardiology () is the study of the heart. Cardiology is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease, and electrophysiology. Physicians who specialize in this field of medicine are called cardiologists, a sub-specialty of internal medicine. Pediatric cardiologists are pediatricians who specialize in cardiology. Physicians who specialize in cardiac surgery are called cardiothoracic surgeons or cardiac surgeons, a specialty of general surgery. == Specializations == All cardiologists in the branch of medicine study the disorders of the heart, but the study of adult and child heart disorders each require different training pathways. Therefore, an adult cardiologist (often simply called "cardiologist") is inadequately trained to take care of children, and pediatric cardiologists are not trained to treat adult heart disease. Surgical aspects outside of cardiac rhythm device implant are not included in cardiology and are in the domain of cardiothoracic surgery. For example, coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG), cardiopulmonary bypass and valve replacement are surgical procedures performed by surgeons, not cardiologists. Typically a cardiologist would first identify who is in need of cardiac surgery and refer them to a cardiac surgeon for the procedure. However, some invasive procedures such as cardiac catheterization and pacemaker implantation are performed by cardiologists. ===Adult cardiology=== Cardiology is a specialty of internal medicine. To become a cardiologist in the United States, a three-year residency in internal medicine is followed by a three-year fellowship in cardiology. It is possible to specialize further in a sub-specialty. Recognized sub-specialties in the U.S. by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education are clinical cardiac electrophysiology, interventional cardiology, adult congenital heart disease, and advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. Cardiologists may further become certified in echocardiography by the National Board of Echocardiography, in nuclear cardiology by the Certification Board of Nuclear Cardiology, in cardiovascular computed tomography by the Certification Board of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography in cardiovascular MRI by the Certification Board of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. Recognized subspecialties in the U.S. by the American Osteopathic Association Bureau of Osteopathic Specialists include clinical cardiac electrophysiology and interventional cardiology. In India, a three-year residency in General Medicine or Pediatrics after M.B.B.S. and then three years of residency in cardiology are needed to be a D.M. (holder of a Doctorate of Medicine [D.M.])/Diplomate of National Board (DNB) in Cardiology. Per Doximity, adult cardiologists earn an average of $436,849 per year in the U.S. ==== Cardiac electrophysiology ==== Cardiac electrophysiology is the science of elucidating, diagnosing, and treating the electrical activities of the heart. The term is usually used to describe studies of such phenomena by invasive (intracardiac) catheter recording of spontaneous activity as well as of cardiac responses to programmed electrical stimulation (PES). These studies are performed to assess complex arrhythmias, elucidate symptoms, evaluate abnormal electrocardiograms, assess risk of developing arrhythmias in the future, and design treatment. These procedures increasingly include therapeutic methods (typically radiofrequency ablation, or cryoablation) in addition to diagnostic and prognostic procedures. Other therapeutic modalities employed in this field include antiarrhythmic drug therapy and implantation of pacemakers and automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (AICD). The cardiac electrophysiology study typically measures the response of the injured or cardiomyopathic myocardium to PES on specific pharmacological regimens in order to assess the likelihood that the regimen will successfully prevent potentially fatal sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT) or ventricular fibrillation (VF) in the future. Sometimes a series of electrophysiology-study drug trials must be conducted to enable the cardiologist to select the one regimen for long-term treatment that best prevents or slows the development of VT or VF following PES. Such studies may also be conducted in the presence of a newly implanted or newly replaced cardiac pacemaker or AICD. The training required to become an electrophysiologist is long and requires eight years after medical school (within the U.S.). Three years of internal medicine residency, three years of cardiology fellowship, and two years of clinical cardiac electrophysiology. ==== Cardiogeriatrics ==== Cardiogeriatrics, or geriatric cardiology, is the branch of cardiology and geriatric medicine that deals with the cardiovascular disorders in elderly people. Cardiac disorders such as coronary heart disease, including myocardial infarction, heart failure, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation, are common and are a major cause of mortality in elderly people. Vascular disorders such as atherosclerosis and peripheral arterial disease cause significant morbidity and mortality in aged people. ==== Imaging ==== Cardiac imaging includes echocardiography (echo), cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR), and computed tomography of the heart. Those who specialize in cardiac imaging may undergo more training in all imaging modes or focus on a single imaging modality. Echocardiography (or "echo") uses standard two-dimensional, three-dimensional, and Doppler ultrasound to create images of the heart. It is used to evaluate and quantify cardiac size and function, valvular function, and can assist with diagnosis and treatment of conditions including heart failure, heart attack, valvular heart disease, congenital heart defects, pericardial disease, and aortic disease. Those who specialize in echo may spend a significant amount of their clinical time reading echos and performing transesophageal echo, in particular using the latter during procedures such as insertion of a left atrial appendage occlusion device. Transesophageal echo provides higher spatial resolution than trans thoracic echocardiography and because the probe is located in the esophagus, it is not limited by attenuation due to anterior chest structures such as the ribs, chest wall, breasts, lungs that can hinder the quality of trans thoracic echocardiography. It is generally indicated for a variety of indications including: when the standard transthoracic echocardiogram is non diagnostic, for detailed evaluation of abnormalities that are typically in the far field, such as the aorta, left atrial appendage, evaluation of native or prosthetic heart valves, evaluation of cardiac masses, evaluation of endocarditis, valvular abscesses, or for the evaluation of cardiac source of embolus. It is frequently used in the setting of atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter to facilitate the clinical decision with regard to anticoagulation, cardioversion and/or radio frequency ablation. Cardiac MRI utilizes special protocols to image heart structure and function with specific sequences for certain diseases such as hemochromatosis and amyloidosis. Cardiac CT utilizes special protocols to image heart structure and function with particular emphasis on coronary arteries. ==== Interventional cardiology ==== Interventional cardiology is a branch of cardiology that deals specifically with the catheter based treatment of structural heart diseases. A large number of procedures can be performed on the heart by catheterization, including angiogram, angioplasty, atherectomy, and stent implantation. These procedures all involve insertion of a sheath into the femoral artery or radial artery (but, in practice, any large peripheral artery or vein) and cannulating the heart under visualization (most commonly fluoroscopy). This cannulation allows indirect access to the heart, bypassing the trauma caused by surgical opening of the chest. The main advantages of using the interventional cardiology or radiology approach are the avoidance of the scars and pain, and long post-operative recovery. Additionally, interventional cardiology procedure of primary angioplasty is now the gold standard of care for an acute myocardial infarction. This procedure can also be done proactively, when areas of the vascular system become occluded from atherosclerosis. The Cardiologist will thread this sheath through the vascular system to access the heart. This sheath has a balloon and a tiny wire mesh tube wrapped around it, and if the cardiologist finds a blockage or stenosis, they can inflate the balloon at the occlusion site in the vascular system to flatten or compress the plaque against the vascular wall. Once that is complete a stent is placed as a type of scaffold to hold the vasculature open permanently. ====Cardiomyopathy/heart failure==== A relatively newer specialization of cardiology is in the field of heart failure and heart transplant. Cardiomyopathy is a disease of the heart muscle that make it larger or stiffer, sometimes making the heart worse at pumping blood. Specialization of general cardiology to just that of the cardiomyopathies leads to also specializing in heart transplant and pulmonary hypertension. ====Cardiooncology==== A recent specialization of cardiology is that of cardiooncology. This area specializes in the cardiac management in those with cancer and in particular those with plans for chemotherapy or those who have experienced cardiac complications of chemotherapy. === Preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation === In recent times, the focus is gradually shifting to preventive cardiology due to increased cardiovascular disease burden at an early age. According to the WHO, 37% of all premature deaths are due to cardiovascular diseases and out of this, 82% are in low and middle income countries. Clinical cardiology is the sub specialty of cardiology which looks after preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation. Preventive cardiology also deals with routine preventive checkup though noninvasive tests, specifically electrocardiography, fasegraphy, stress tests, lipid profile and general physical examination to detect any cardiovascular diseases at an early age, while cardiac rehabilitation is the upcoming branch of cardiology which helps a person regain their overall strength and live a normal life after a cardiovascular event. A subspecialty of preventive cardiology is sports cardiology. Because heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world including United States (cdc.gov), national health campaigns and randomized control research has developed to improve heart health. ===Pediatric cardiology=== Helen B. Taussig is known as the founder of pediatric cardiology. She became famous through her work with Tetralogy congenital heart defect in which oxygenated and deoxygenated blood enters the circulatory system resulting from a ventricular septal defect (VSD) right beneath the aorta. This condition causes newborns to have a bluish-tint, cyanosis, and have a deficiency of oxygen to their tissues, hypoxemia. She worked with Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas at the Johns Hopkins Hospital where they experimented with dogs to look at how they would attempt to surgically cure these "blue babies". They eventually figured out how to do just that by the anastomosis of the systemic artery to the pulmonary artery and called this the Blalock-Taussig Shunt. Tetralogy of Fallot, pulmonary atresia, double outlet right ventricle, transposition of the great arteries, persistent truncus arteriosus, and Ebstein's anomaly are various congenital cyanotic heart diseases, in which the blood of the newborn is not oxygenated efficiently, due to the heart defect. ===Adult congenital heart disease=== As more children with congenital heart disease are surviving into adulthood, a hybrid of adult and pediatric cardiology has emerged called adult congenital heart disease (ACHD). This field can be entered as either adult or pediatric cardiology. ACHD specializes in congenital diseases in the setting of adult diseases (e.g., coronary artery disease, COPD, diabetes) that is, otherwise, atypical for adult or pediatric cardiology. == The heart == As the center focus of cardiology, the heart has numerous anatomical features (e.g., atria, ventricles, heart valves) and numerous physiological features (e.g., systole, heart sounds, afterload) that have been encyclopedically documented for many centuries. The heart is located in the middle of the abdomen with its tip slightly towards the left side of the abdomen. Disorders of the heart lead to heart disease and cardiovascular disease and can lead to a significant number of deaths: cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and caused 24.95% of total deaths in 2008. The primary responsibility of the heart is to pump blood throughout the body. It pumps blood from the body — called the systemic circulation — through the lungs — called the pulmonary circulation — and then back out to the body. This means that the heart is connected to and affects the entirety of the body. Simplified, the heart is a circuit of the circulation. While plenty is known about the healthy heart, the bulk of study in cardiology is in disorders of the heart and restoration, and where possible, of function. The heart is a muscle that squeezes blood and functions like a pump. The heart's systems can be classified as either electrical or mechanical, and both of these systems are susceptible to failure or dysfunction. The electrical system of the heart is centered on the periodic contraction (squeezing) of the muscle cells that is caused by the cardiac pacemaker located in the sinoatrial node. The study of the electrical aspects is a sub-field of electrophysiology called cardiac electrophysiology and is epitomized with the electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG). The action potentials generated in the pacemaker propagate throughout the heart in a specific pattern. The system that carries this potential is called the electrical conduction system. Dysfunction of the electrical system manifests in many ways and may include Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, ventricular fibrillation, and heart block. The mechanical system of the heart is centered on the fluidic movement of blood and the functionality of the heart as a pump. The mechanical part is ultimately the purpose of the heart and many of the disorders of the heart disrupt the ability to move blood. Heart failure is one condition in which the mechanical properties of the heart have failed or are failing, which means insufficient blood is being circulated. Failure to move a sufficient amount of blood through the body can cause damage or failure of other organs and may result in death if severe. === Coronary circulation === Coronary circulation is the circulation of blood in the blood vessels of the heart muscle (the myocardium). The vessels that deliver oxygen-rich blood to the myocardium are known as coronary arteries. The vessels that remove the deoxygenated blood from the heart muscle are known as cardiac veins. These include the great cardiac vein, the middle cardiac vein, the small cardiac vein and the anterior cardiac veins. As the left and right coronary arteries run on the surface of the heart, they can be called epicardial coronary arteries. These arteries, when healthy, are capable of autoregulation to maintain coronary blood flow at levels appropriate to the needs of the heart muscle. These relatively narrow vessels are commonly affected by atherosclerosis and can become blocked, causing angina or myocardial infarction (a.k.a., a heart attack). The coronary arteries that run deep within the myocardium are referred to as subendocardial. The coronary arteries are classified as "end circulation", since they represent the only source of blood supply to the myocardium; there is very little redundant blood supply, which is why blockage of these vessels can be so critical. === Cardiac examination === The cardiac examination (also called the "precordial exam"), is performed as part of a physical examination, or when a patient presents with chest pain suggestive of a cardiovascular pathology. It would typically be modified depending on the indication and integrated with other examinations especially the respiratory examination. Like all medical examinations, the cardiac examination follows the standard structure of inspection, palpation and auscultation. == Heart disorders == Cardiology is concerned with the normal functionality of the heart and the deviation from a healthy heart. Many disorders involve the heart itself, but some are outside of the heart and in the vascular system. Collectively, the two are jointly termed the cardiovascular system, and diseases of one part tend to affect the other. === Coronary artery disease === Coronary artery disease, also known as "ischemic heart disease", is a group of diseases that includes: stable angina, unstable angina, myocardial infarction, and is one of the causes of sudden cardiac death. It is within the group of cardiovascular diseases of which it is the most common type. The first sign is occasionally a heart attack. Risk factors include: high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, lack of exercise, obesity, high blood cholesterol, poor diet, and excessive alcohol, among others. Other risks include depression. The underlying mechanism involves atherosclerosis of the arteries of the heart. A number of tests may help with diagnoses including: electrocardiogram, cardiac stress testing, coronary computed tomographic angiography, and coronary angiogram, among others. Prevention is by eating a healthy diet, regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight and not smoking. There is limited evidence for screening people who are at low risk and do not have symptoms. Treatment involves the same measures as prevention. In those with stable CAD it is unclear if PCI or CABG in addition to the other treatments improve life expectancy or decreases heart attack risk. In 2013 CAD was the most common cause of death globally, resulting in 8.14 million deaths (16.8%) up from 5.74 million deaths (12%) in 1990. The risk of death from CAD for a given age has decreased between 1980 and 2010 especially in developed countries. The number of cases of CAD for a given age has also decreased between 1990 and 2010. In the U.S. in 2010 about 20% of those over 65 had CAD, while it was present in 7% of those 45 to 64, and 1.3% of those 18 to 45. ===Cardiomyopathy=== Heart failure, or formally cardiomyopathy, is the impaired function of the heart, and there are numerous causes and forms of heart failure. The causes of cardiomyopathy can be genetic, viral, or lifestyle-related. Key symptoms of cardiomyopathy include shortness of breath, fatigue, and irregular heartbeats. Understanding the specific function of cardiac muscle is crucial, as the heart muscle's main role is to pump blood throughout the body efficiently. ===Cardiac arrhythmia=== Cardiac arrhythmia, also known as "cardiac dysrhythmia" or "irregular heartbeat", is a group of conditions in which the heartbeat is too fast, too slow, or irregular in its rhythm. A heart rate that is too fast – above 100 beats per minute in adults – is called tachycardia. A heart rate that is too slow – below 60 beats per minute – is called bradycardia. Many types of arrhythmia present no symptoms. When symptoms are present, they may include palpitations, or feeling a pause between heartbeats. More serious symptoms may include lightheadedness, passing out, shortness of breath, or chest pain. While most types of arrhythmia are not serious, some predispose a person to complications such as stroke or heart failure. Arrhythmias are due to problems with the electrical conduction system of the heart. Most arrhythmias can be effectively treated. Arrhythmia affects millions of people. In Europe and North America, as of 2014, atrial fibrillation affects about 2% to 3% of the population. Atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter resulted in 112,000 deaths in 2013, up from 29,000 in 1990. About 80% of sudden cardiac death is the result of ventricular arrhythmias. If not treated within minutes, death usually occurs. The most common cause of cardiac arrest is coronary artery disease. Less common causes include major blood loss, lack of oxygen, very low potassium, heart failure, and intense physical exercise. A number of inherited disorders may also increase the risk including long QT syndrome. The initial heart rhythm is most often ventricular fibrillation. The diagnosis is confirmed by finding no pulse. Among those who survive targeted temperature management may improve outcomes. An implantable cardiac defibrillator may be placed to reduce the chance of death from recurrence. In the United States, cardiac arrest outside of hospital occurs in about 13 per 10,000 people per year (326,000 cases). In hospital cardiac arrest occurs in an additional 209,000 Cardiac arrest becomes more common with age. It affects males more often than females. The percentage of people who survive with treatment is about 8%. Many who survive have significant disability. Many U.S. television shows, however, have portrayed unrealistically high survival rates of 67%. === Hypertension === Hypertension, also known as "high blood pressure", is a long term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated. High blood pressure usually does not cause symptoms. Long term high blood pressure, however, is a major risk factor for coronary artery disease, stroke, heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, vision loss, and chronic kidney disease. Lifestyle factors can increase the risk of hypertension. These include excess salt in the diet, excess body weight, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Blood pressure is expressed by two measurements, the systolic and diastolic pressures, which are the maximum and minimum pressures, respectively. High blood pressure is present if the resting blood pressure is persistently at or above 140/90 mmHg for most adults. When diagnosing high blood pressure, ambulatory blood pressure monitoring over a 24-hour period appears to be more accurate than "in-office" blood pressure measurement at a physician's office or other blood pressure screening location. Lifestyle changes and medications can lower blood pressure and decrease the risk of health complications. Lifestyle changes include weight loss, decreased salt intake, physical exercise, and a healthy diet. The treatment of moderate to severe high arterial blood pressure (defined as >160/100 mmHg) with medication is associated with an improved life expectancy and reduced morbidity. The effect of treatment for blood pressure between 140/90 mmHg and 160/100 mmHg is less clear, with some studies finding benefits while others do not. High blood pressure affects between 16% and 37% of the population globally. ==== Essential vs Secondary hypertension ==== Essential hypertension is the form of hypertension that by definition has no identifiable cause. It is the most common type of hypertension, affecting 95% of hypertensive patients, it tends to be familial and is likely to be the consequence of an interaction between environmental and genetic factors. Prevalence of essential hypertension increases with age, and individuals with relatively high blood pressure at younger ages are at increased risk for the subsequent development of hypertension. Hypertension can increase the risk of cerebral, cardiac, and renal events. Secondary hypertension is a type of hypertension which is caused by an identifiable underlying secondary cause. It is much less common than essential hypertension, affecting only 5% of hypertensive patients. It has many different causes including endocrine diseases, kidney diseases, and tumors. It also can be a side effect of many medications. ==== Complications of hypertension ==== Complications of hypertension are clinical outcomes that result from persistent elevation of blood pressure. Hypertension is a risk factor for all clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis since it is a risk factor for atherosclerosis itself. It is an independent predisposing factor for heart failure, coronary artery disease, stroke, and peripheral arterial disease. It is the most important risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, in industrialized countries. === Congenital heart defects === A congenital heart defect, also known as a "congenital heart anomaly" or "congenital heart disease", is a problem in the structure of the heart that is present at birth. Signs and symptoms depend on the specific type of problem. Most congenital heart problems do not occur with other diseases. Complications that can result from heart defects include heart failure. Certain cases may be due to infections during pregnancy such as rubella, use of certain medications or drugs such as alcohol or tobacco, parents being closely related, or poor nutritional status or obesity in the mother. Having a parent with a congenital heart defect is also a risk factor. Occasionally heart transplantation is required. They affect between 4 and 75 per 1,000 live births depending upon how they are diagnosed. About 6 to 19 per 1,000 cause a moderate to severe degree of problems. Pulmonary atresia with an intact ventricular septum: This type of pulmonary atresia is associated with complete and intact septum between the ventricles. ==== Transposition of great arteries ==== There are two different types of transposition of the great arteries, Dextro-transposition of the great arteries and Levo-transposition of the great arteries, depending on where the chambers and vessels connect. Dextro-transposition happens in about 1 in 4,000 newborns and is when the right ventricle pumps blood into the aorta and deoxygenated blood enters the bloodstream. The temporary procedure is to create an atrial septal defect. A permanent fix is more complicated and involves redirecting the pulmonary return to the right atrium and the systemic return to the left atrium, which is known as the Senning procedure. The Rastelli procedure can also be done by rerouting the left ventricular outflow, dividing the pulmonary trunk, and placing a conduit in between the right ventricle and pulmonary trunk. Levo-transposition happens in about 1 in 13,000 newborns and is characterized by the left ventricle pumping blood into the lungs and the right ventricle pumping the blood into the aorta. This may not produce problems at the beginning, but will eventually due to the different pressures each ventricle uses to pump blood. Switching the left ventricle to be the systemic ventricle and the right ventricle to pump blood into the pulmonary artery can repair levo-transposition. ==== Persistent truncus arteriosus ==== Persistent truncus arteriosus is when the truncus arteriosus fails to split into the aorta and pulmonary trunk. This occurs in about 1 in 11,000 live births and allows both oxygenated and deoxygenated blood into the body. The repair consists of a VSD closure and the Rastelli procedure. ==== Ebstein anomaly ==== Ebstein's anomaly is characterized by a right atrium that is significantly enlarged and a heart that is shaped like a box. This is very rare and happens in less than 1% of congenital heart disease cases. The surgical repair varies depending on the severity of the disease. Pediatric cardiology is a sub-specialty of pediatrics. To become a pediatric cardiologist in the U.S., one must complete a three-year residency in pediatrics, followed by a three-year fellowship in pediatric cardiology. Per doximity, pediatric cardiologists make an average of $303,917 in the U.S. Bernard Lown (1921–2021), original developer of the defibrillator Woldemar Mobitz (1889–1951), described and classified the two types of second-degree atrioventricular block often called "Mobitz Type I" and "Mobitz Type II" Jacqueline Noonan (1928–2020), discoverer of Noonan syndrome that is the top syndromic cause of congenital heart disease John Parkinson (1885–1976), known for Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome Helen B. Taussig (1898–1986), founder of pediatric cardiology and extensively worked on blue baby syndrome Paul Dudley White (1886–1973), known for Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome Fredrick Arthur Willius (1888–1972), founder of the cardiology department at the Mayo Clinic and an early pioneer of electrocardiography Louis Wolff (1898–1972), known for Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome Karel Frederik Wenckebach (1864–1940), first described what is now called type I second-degree atrioventricular block in 1898	[ "congenital heart defect", "Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine", "chemotherapy", "cardioversion", "percutaneous coronary intervention", "blood pressure", "renal", "Doppler ultrasound", "Surgery", "Doximity", "non-cyanotic heart defect", "diastolic", "artificial pacemaker", "Turner syndrome", "randomized controlled trial", "Shortness of breath", "electrophysiology", "blood test", "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice", "medical diagnosis", "middle cardiac vein", "tachycardia", "Angina pectoris", "heart disease", "most common causes of death", "Medicine", "statin", "persistent truncus arteriosus", "pacemaker", "electrocardiograms", "birth defect", "heartburn", "Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine", "Heart failure", "blue baby syndrome", "Environment (biophysical)", "fluoroscopy", "implantable cardioverter-defibrillator", "shortness of breath", "double outlet right ventricle", "blood", "Holter monitor", "European Society of Cardiology", "Levine's sign", "iodine", "Millimeter of mercury", "Ageing", "pulmonary circulation", "Pulmonic stenosis", "lung", "hypercholesterolaemia", "mortality rate", "Physician", "heart block", "small cardiac vein", "Willem Einthoven", "electrocardiography", "ventricular septal defect", "Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine", "Cardiology in Review", "premature heart beat", "hypoxemia", "National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute", "Cardiology diagnostic tests and procedures", "cardiac resynchronization therapy", "National Heart Foundation of Australia", "Outline of cardiology", "atrial septal defect", "sinoatrial node", "Johns Hopkins Hospital", "Ventricle (heart)", "Diagnostic tests in cardiology", "Annals of Cardiac Anaesthesia", "blood thinner", "cyanotic heart defect", "electrophysiology study", "chest pain", "heart transplantation", "Transposition of the Great Arteries", "Cardiac cycle", "Levine scale", "cardiopulmonary bypass", "cause of death", "heart valves", "overweight", "Pulmonary atresia", "truncus arteriosus", "cerebrum", "Noonan syndrome", "Circulatory system", "Marfan syndrome", "systole (medicine)", "antiarrhythmic agent", "Andreas Gruentzig", "Rastelli procedure", "Heart Rhythm Society", "Indication (medicine)", "Paul Dudley White", "ventricular fibrillation", "cardiac catheterization", "systemic circulation", "Jacqueline Noonan", "supraventricular tachycardia", "stroke", "heart sounds", "Glossary of medicine", "blood pressure medication", "cardiovascular disease", "The Medical Clinics of North America", "pregnancy", "Down syndrome", "fasegraphy", "heart", "anterior cardiac veins", "heart murmurs", "smoking", "Robert Atkins (nutritionist)", "femoral artery", "coronary computed tomographic angiography", "Current Drug Targets", "valvular heart disease", "Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome", "Canadian Cardiovascular Society", "Coronary catheterization", "procainamide", "disability", "ambulatory blood pressure monitoring", "doximity", "blood pressure measurement", "myocardium", "cardiac pacemaker", "general surgery", "Levo-Transposition of the great arteries", "bradyarrhythmia", "premature ventricular contraction", "Cardiac stress test", "Cardiac catheterization", "heart transplant", "Karel Frederik Wenckebach", "cardiac", "International Journal of Cardiology", "Dextro-Transposition of the great arteries", "Journal of Vascular Surgery", "NSTEMI", "catheter procedure", "Wallace Brigden", "bradycardia", "medicine", "Circulation (journal)", "obesity", "hypertension", "childbirth", "cardiothoracic surgery", "catheter", "Helen B. 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5,422	Capcom	is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Onimusha, Sengoku Basara, Dead Rising, Dragon's Dogma, Ace Attorney, and Marvel vs. Capcom. Established in 1979, it has become an international enterprise with subsidiaries in East Asia (Hong Kong), Europe (London, England), and North America (San Francisco, California). ==History== ===Founding and arcade games (1979-1984)=== Capcom's predecessor, I.R.M. Corporation, was founded on May 30, 1979 by Kenzo Tsujimoto, who was still president of Irem Corporation when he founded I.R.M. He worked at both companies at the same time until leaving Irem in 1983. The original companies that spawned Capcom's Japan branch were I.R.M. and its subsidiary Japan Capsule Computers Co., Ltd., both of which were devoted to the manufacture and distribution of electronic game machines. The two companies underwent a name change to Sanbi Co., Ltd. in September 1981. In January 1989, Capcom Co., Ltd. merged with Sanbi Co., Ltd., resulting in the current Japan branch. "Capsule" alludes to how Capcom likened its game software to "a capsule packed to the brim with gaming fun", and to the company's desire to protect its intellectual property with a hard outer shell, preventing illegal copies and inferior imitations. The successful 1985 arcade games Commando and Ghosts 'n Goblins have been credited as the products "that shot [Capcom] to 8-bit silicon stardom" in the mid-1980s. Starting with Commando (late 1985), Capcom began licensing their arcade games for release on home computers, notably to British software houses Elite Systems and U.S. Gold in the late 1980s. ===Console game development (1985-1999)=== Beginning with a Nintendo Entertainment System port of 1942 (published in Dec. 1985), the company ventured into the market of home console video games, while their highest-grossing title is the fighting game Street Fighter II (1991), driven largely by its success in arcades. In the late 1980s, Capcom was on the verge of bankruptcy when the development of a strip Mahjong game called Mahjong Gakuen started. It outsold Ghouls 'n Ghosts, the eighth highest-grossing arcade game of 1989 in Japan, and is credited with saving the company from financial crisis. Capcom has been noted as the last major publisher to be committed to 2D games, though it was not entirely by choice. The company's commitment to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as its platform of choice caused them to lag behind other leading publishers in developing 3D-capable arcade boards. Also, the 2D animated cartoon-style graphics seen in games such as Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors and X-Men: Children of the Atom proved popular, leading Capcom to adopt them as a signature style and use them in more games. In 1994, Capcom adapted its Street Fighter series of fighting games into a film of the same name. While commercially successful, it was critically panned. A 2002 adaptation of its Resident Evil series faced similar criticism but was also successful in theaters. The company sees films as a way to build sales for its video games. ===Transition to modern gaming systems (2000-2009)=== In the early 2000's, Capcom focused many of its resources on bringing series from arcade and earlier consoles onto more modern hardware, bringing these games out from 2D to 3D space. One of the most successful titles during this period was Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube (2005), which received universal acclaim, was a financial success for Capcom, and let to ports to multiple systems. Other major successes include Street Fighter IV (2008). While it did remain in the business in Japan, it gradually left the American market in 2003 and closed its arcade subsidiary in March 2004. ===Struggling releases (2009-2017)=== Despite its successes from the previous decade, Capcom releases several titles that were considered misfires during the 2010s. Both Resident Evil 5 (2009) and Resident Evil 6 (2012) were seen to lean far too much into action-oriented gameplay while forgoing the balance with the survivor horror elements of the earlier games in the series. Capcom outsourced the next Devil May Cry title to Ninja Theory, resulting in DmC: Devil May Cry (2013), a re-envisioning of the series that failed to resonate with players. notably, examples are DmC: Devil May Crys PC version and its PlayStation 4 and Xbox One remasters, Dragon's Dogmas PC version, and Dead Risings version on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. In 2012, Capcom came under criticism for controversial sales tactics, such as the implementation of disc-locked content, which requires players to pay for additional content that is already available within the game's files, most notably in Street Fighter X Tekken. The company defended the practice. It has also been criticized for other business decisions, such as not releasing certain games outside of Japan (most notably the Sengoku Basara series), abruptly cancelling anticipated projects (most notably Mega Man Legends 3), and shutting down Clover Studio. On August 27, 2014, Capcom filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Koei Tecmo Games at the Osaka District Court for 980 million yen in damage. Capcom claimed Koei Tecmo infringed a patent it obtained in 2002 regarding a play feature in video games. In 2015, the PlayStation 4 version of Ultra Street Fighter IV was pulled from the Capcom Pro Tour due to numerous technical issues and bugs. ===Refocus on successful franchises (2017-present)=== Following several years of unclear direction, management at Capcom changed in the mid-2010s to try to refocus the company on its successful properties. The company recognized that many of their titles during that period were attempts to bring Western game concepts into their titles but without failing to capture how these mechanics were implemented in Western games. To correct this, the company changed its approach to try to develop games that would be fun for players worldwide, rather than developing games that felt like they were niche Japanese titles. Additionally, Capcom began developing the RE Engine to replace the older MT Framework, helping their studios develop across a wider range of hardware including newer consoles. On November 2, 2020, the company reported that its servers were affected by ransomware, scrambling its data, and the threat actors, the Ragnar Locker hacker group, had allegedly stolen 1TB of sensitive corporate data and were blackmailing Capcom to pay them to remove the ransomware. By mid-November, the group began putting information from the hack online, which included contact information for up to 350,000 of the company's employees and partners, as well as plans for upcoming games, indicating that Capcom opted to not pay the group. Capcom affirmed that no credit-card or other sensitive financial information was obtained in the hack. In 2021, Capcom removed appearances of the Rising Sun Flag from their rerelease of Street Fighter II. Although Capcom did not provide an official explanation for the flag's removal, due to the flag-related controversy, it is speculated that it was done so to avoid offending segments of the international gaming community. Artist and author Judy A. Juracek filed a lawsuit in June 2021 against Capcom for copyright infringement. In the court filings, she asserted Capcom had used images from her 1996 book Surfaces in their cover art and other assets for Resident Evil 4, Devil May Cry and other games. This was discovered due to the 2020 Capcom data breach, with several files and images matching those that were included within the book's companion CD-ROM. The court filings noted one image file of a metal surface, named ME0009 in Capcom's files, to have the same exact name on the book's CD-ROM. Juracek was seeking over in damages and $2,500 to $25,000 in false copyright management for each photograph Capcom used. Before a court date could be made, the matter was settled "amicably" in February 2022. It comes on the heels of Capcom being accused by Dutch movie director Richard Raaphorst of copying the monster design of his movie Frankenstein's Army into their game Resident Evil Village. In February 2022, it was reported by Bloomberg that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund had purchased a 5% stake in Capcom, for an approximate value of US$332 million. In July 2023, Capcom acquired Tokyo-based computer graphics studio Swordcanes Studio. In July 2024, Capcom acquired Taiwan-based computer graphics studio Minimum Studios. ==Corporate structure== ===Development divisions=== In its beginning few years, Capcom's Japan branch had three development groups referred to as "Planning Rooms", led by Tokuro Fujiwara, Takashi Nishiyama and Yoshiki Okamoto. Later, games developed internally were created by several numbered "Production Studios", each assigned to different games. Capcom has two internal Consumer Games Development divisions: Division 1, headed by Jun Takeuchi, develops Resident Evil, Mega Man, Devil May Cry, Dead Rising, and other major franchises (usually targeting global audiences). Division 2, headed by Ryozo Tsujimoto, develops Ace Attorney, Onimusha, Sengoku Basara, Ōkami, and other franchises with more traditional IP (usually targeting audiences in Asia) alongside online-focused franchises such as Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom, and Lost Planet. In addition to these teams, Capcom commissions outside development studios to ensure a steady output of titles. However, following poor sales of Dark Void and Bionic Commando, its management has decided to limit outsourcing to sequels and newer versions of installments in existing franchises, reserving the development of original titles for its in-house teams. The production of games, budgets, and platform support are decided on in development approval meetings, attended by the company management and the marketing, sales and quality control departments. During this period, Capcom also helped publish several original titles from up-and-coming Western developers, including Remember Me, Dark Void, and Spyborgs, titles other publishers were not willing to gamble on. Other games of note are the titles Ōkami, Ōkamiden, and Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. ===Branches and subsidiaries=== Capcom Co., Ltd.'s head office building and R&D building are in Chūō-ku, Osaka. The parent company also has a branch office in the Shinjuku Mitsui Building in Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo; and the Ueno Facility, a branch office in Iga, Mie Prefecture. ===Game-related media=== In addition to home, online, mobile, arcade, pachinko, and pachislot games, Capcom publishes strategy guides; Suleputer, an in-house marketing and music label established in cooperation with Sony Music Entertainment Intermedia in 1998, publishes CDs, DVDs, and other media based on Capcom's games. Captivate (renamed from Gamers Day in 2008), an annual private media summit, is traditionally used for new game and business announcements. == Creations == ===Hardware=== Capcom's first arcade board system was the CP System, released in 1988 with the game Forgotten Worlds. They later designed the CP System II and CP System III. In 2019, Capcom released the Capcom Home Arcade, containing a total of 16 built-in CPS-1 and CPS-2 emulated games. === Technology === MT Framework RE Engine ==Game sales== Capcom started its Street Fighter franchise in 1987. The series of fighting games are among the most popular in their genre. Having sold over 50 million copies, it is one of Capcom's flagship franchises. The company also introduced its Mega Man series in 1987, which has sold over 40 million copies. The company released the first entry in its Resident Evil survival horror series in 1996, which become its most successful game series, selling over 150 million copies. After releasing the second entry in the Resident Evil series, Capcom began a Resident Evil game for PlayStation 2. As it was significantly different from the existing series' games, Capcom decided to spin it into its own series, Devil May Cry. The first three entries were exclusively for PlayStation 2; further entries were released for non-Sony consoles. The entire series has sold over 30 million copies. Capcom began its Monster Hunter series in 2004, which has sold over 100 million copies on a variety of consoles. Capcom compiles a "Platinum Titles" list, updated quarterly, of its games that have sold over one million copies. It contains over 100 video games. This table shows the top ten titles, by sold copies, as of June 30, 2024.	[ "Nintendo Switch", "Commando (video game)", "Kotaku", "Clover Studio", "Video game arcade cabinet", "Frankenstein's Army", "medal game", "Vulgus", "Hong Kong", "Ghouls 'n Ghosts", "PlayStation 3", "Zack and Wiki", "Sawaki Takeyasu", "Sengoku Basara", "Spyborgs", "Mie Prefecture", "San Francisco", "Game Republic", "Kenzo Tsujimoto", "Public Investment Fund", "Europe", "Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors", "Rising Sun Flag", "Capcom Bowling", "GameSpot", "Lost Planet: Extreme Condition", "UTV Ignition Games", "Takashi Nishiyama", "Suleputer", "Super Nintendo Entertainment System", "Nishi-Shinjuku", "Microsoft Windows", "Resident Evil 2 (2019 video game)", "Iga, Mie", "Video arcade", "Video game development", "Capcom Five", "coin-operated", "arcade video game", "Resident Evil 5", "Jun Takeuchi", "CP System III", "Electro-mechanical games", "Ōkami", "Shinjuku, Tokyo", "Xbox Series X/S", "Public company", "Hideki Kamiya", "Chūō-ku, Osaka", "Imagine Media", "BBC", "home computers", "MT Framework", "Tango Gameworks", "silicon", "Game Revolution", "Shinjuku Mitsui Building", "Akira Nishitani", "Porting of video games", "Street Fighter IV", "Strider (arcade game)", "List of Capcom games", "pachislot", "List of best-selling video game franchises", "Next Generation (magazine)", "strategy guide", "Level-5 Comcept", "PlatinumGames", "ransomware", "Street Fighter (1994 film)", "Mega Man Legends 3", "Onimusha", "Xbox One", "Resident Evil Village", "Forgotten Worlds", "IBM PC DOS", "Ignition Tokyo", "Xbox 360", "1942 (video game)", "The Games Machine", "Monster Hunter Rise", "UBM Tech", "Resident Evil", "bowling alley", "X-Men: Children of the Atom (video game)", "fighting game", "PlayStation 4", "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard", "Ryozo Tsujimoto", "CP System II", "Resident Evil (film)", "England", "Dragon's Dogma", "RE Engine", "Inti Creates", "Nyu Media", "Ghosts 'n Goblins (video game)", "Ōkamiden", "VG247", "video game publisher", "Commodore 64", "Mega Man", "Atsushi Inaba", "California", "Keiji Inafune", "Dead Rising (video game)", "Devil May Cry", "game localization", "Monster Hunter: World", "PlayStation 5", "clipped compound", "Elite Systems", "Eurogamer", "patent infringement", "IGN", "Capcom Cup", "Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective", "Devil May Cry 5", "1989 in video games", "Street Fighter", "GameCube", "East Asia", "Street Fighter II", "Sony", "Evolution Championship Series", "CD-ROM", "Resident Evil 3 (2020 video game)", "The Guardian", "Video game industry", "Dimps", "Street Fighter X Tekken", "Arika", "London", "DreamHack", "Monster Hunter", "CraveOnline", "Resident Evil 4", "PlayStation 2", "Sony Music Entertainment Japan", "Crafts & Meister", "video game company", "Nintendo Entertainment System", "copyright infringement", "Ace Attorney", "CP System", "Shinji Mikami", "bowling", "pachinko", "Bloomberg News", "DmC: Devil May Cry", "Wii", "U.S. Gold", "Sega", "Yoshiki Okamoto", "Tokuro Fujiwara", "Ultra Street Fighter IV", "ten-pin bowling", "Capcom Coin-Op", "independent games", "Irem", "Ninja Theory", "Mahjong", "Lost Planet", "Dead Rising", "Monster Hunter World: Iceborne", "Street Fighter V", "amusement arcades", "home console", "Resident Evil 6", "Dark Void", "Katsuhiro Sudo", "Remember Me (video game)", "Noritaka Funamizu", "dōjin soft", "Koei Tecmo Games", "Bionic Commando (2009 video game)", "Osaka", "Asura's Wrath", "Polygon (website)", "North America", "Gamest", "Tokyo", "Marvel vs. Capcom", "personal computer" ]
5,428	History of Cambodia	The history of Cambodia, a country in mainland Southeast Asia, begins with the earliest evidence of habitation around 5000 BCE. Detailed records of a political structure on the territory of what is now Cambodia first appear in Chinese annals in reference to Funan, a polity that encompassed the southernmost part of the Indochinese peninsula during the 1st to 6th centuries. Centered at the lower Mekong, Funan is noted as the oldest regional Hindu culture, which suggests prolonged socio-economic interaction with maritime trading partners of the Indosphere in the west. By the 6th century a civilization, called Chenla or Zhenla in Chinese annals, firmly replaced Funan, as it controlled larger, more undulating areas of Indochina and maintained more than a singular centre of power. The Khmer Empire was established by the early 9th century. Sources refer here to a mythical initiation and consecration ceremony to claim political legitimacy by founder Jayavarman II at Mount Kulen (Mount Mahendra) in 802 CE. A succession of powerful sovereigns, continuing the Hindu devaraja cult tradition, reigned over the classical era of Khmer civilization until the 11th century. A new dynasty of provincial origin introduced Buddhism, which according to some scholars resulted in royal religious discontinuities and general decline. The royal chronology ends in the 14th century. Great achievements in administration, agriculture, architecture, hydrology, logistics, urban planning and the arts are testimony to a creative and progressive civilisation - in its complexity a cornerstone of Southeast Asian cultural legacy. The decline continued through a transitional period of approximately 100 years followed by the Middle Period of Cambodian history, also called the Post-Angkor Period, beginning in the mid 15th century. Although the Hindu cults had by then been all but replaced, the monument sites at the old capital remained an important spiritual centre. Yet since the mid 15th century the core population steadily moved to the east and – with brief exceptions – settled at the confluence of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers at Chaktomuk, Longvek and Oudong. Maritime trade was the basis for a very prosperous 16th century. But, as a result foreigners – Muslim Malays and Cham, Christian European adventurers and missionaries – increasingly disturbed and influenced government affairs. Ambiguous fortunes, a robust economy on the one hand and a disturbed culture and compromised royalty on the other were constant features of the Longvek era. By the 15th century, the Khmers' traditional neighbours, the Mon people in the west and the Cham people in the east had gradually been pushed aside or replaced by the resilient Siamese/Thai and Annamese/Vietnamese, respectively. These powers had perceived, understood and increasingly followed the imperative of controlling the lower Mekong basin as the key to control all Indochina. A weak Khmer kingdom only encouraged the strategists in Ayutthaya (later in Bangkok) and in Huế. Attacks on and conquests of Khmer royal residences left sovereigns without a ceremonial and legitimate power base. Interference in succession and marriage policies added to the decay of royal prestige. Oudong was established in 1601 as the last royal residence of the Middle Period. The 19th-century arrival of the European colonial powers with concrete policies of global control put an end to regional feuds and as Siam/Thailand escaped colonisation as a buffer state, Vietnam was to be the focal point of French colonial ambition. Cambodia, although largely neglected, had been colonized by the Indochinese Union given a perceived entity and was able to carry and reclaim its identity. Following the Japanese occupation during World War II, which coincided with the investiture of king Sihanouk. The era of modern Cambodian history began. The Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–70), independent since 1953, struggled to remain neutral in a world shaped by polarisation of the nuclear powers USA and Soviet Union. As the Indochinese war escalated, and Cambodia became increasingly involved, the Khmer Republic resulted in 1970. Another result was a civil war which by 1975, ended with the takeover by the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia endured its darkest hour – Democratic Kampuchea == Prehistory and early history == Radiocarbon dating of a cave at Laang Spean in Battambang Province, northwest Cambodia confirmed the presence of Hoabinhian stone tools from 6000 to 7000 BCE and pottery from 4200 BCE. Starting in 2009 archaeological research of the Franco-Cambodian Prehistoric Mission has documented a complete cultural sequence from 71.000 years BP to the Neolithic period in the cave. Finds since 2012 lead to the common interpretation, that the cave contains the archaeological remains of a first occupation by hunter and gatherer groups, followed by Neolithic people with highly developed hunting strategies and stone tool making techniques, as well as highly artistic pottery making and design, and with elaborate social, cultural, symbolic and exequial practices. Cambodia participated in the Maritime Jade Road, which was in place in the region for 3,000 years, beginning in 2000 BCE to 1000 CE. Skulls and human bones found at Samrong Sen in Kampong Chhnang Province date from 1500 BCE. Heng Sophady (2007) has drawn comparisons between Samrong Sen and the circular earthwork sites of eastern Cambodia. These people may have migrated from South-eastern China to the Indochinese Peninsula. Scholars trace the first cultivation of rice and the first bronze making in Southeast Asia to these people. 2010 Examination of skeletal material from graves at Phum Snay in north-west Cambodia revealed an exceptionally high number of injuries, especially to the head, likely to have been caused by interpersonal violence. The graves also contain a quantity of swords and other offensive weapons used in conflict. The Iron Age period of Southeast Asia begins around 500 BCE and lasts until the end of the Funan era - around 500 A.D. as it provides the first concrete evidence for sustained maritime trade and socio-political interaction with India and South Asia. By the 1st century settlers have developed complex, organised societies and a varied religious cosmology, that required advanced spoken languages very much related to those of the present day. The most advanced groups lived along the coast and in the lower Mekong River valley and the delta regions in houses on stilts where they cultivated rice, fished and kept domesticated animals. ==Funan Kingdom (1st century – 550/627)== Chinese annals contain detailed records of the first known organised polity, the Kingdom of Funan, on Cambodian and Vietnamese territory characterised by "high population and urban centers, the production of surplus food...socio-political stratification [and] legitimized by Indian religious ideologies". Centered around the lower Mekong and Bassac rivers from the first to sixth century CE with "walled and moated cities" such as Angkor Borei in Takeo Province and Óc Eo in modern An Giang Province, Vietnam. Early Funan was composed of loose communities, each with its own ruler, linked by a common culture and a shared economy of rice farming people in the hinterland and traders in the coastal towns, who were economically interdependent, as surplus rice production found its way to the ports. By 1986 Funan controlled the strategic coastline of Indochina and the maritime trade routes. Cultural and religious ideas reached Funan via the Indian Ocean trade route. Trade with India had commenced well before 500 BCE as Sanskrit hadn't yet replaced Pali. In the period 2012-2013 dignitaries of the Chinese Kingdom of Wu visited the Funan city Vyadharapura. Envoys Kang Tai and Zhu Ying defined Funan as to be a distinct Hindu culture. Trade with China had begun after the southward expansion of the Han Dynasty, around the 2nd century BCE Effectively Funan "controlled strategic land routes in addition to coastal areas" and occupied a prominent position as an "economic and administrative hub" between The Indian Ocean trade network and China, collectively known as the Maritime Silk Road. Trade routes, that eventually ended in distant Rome are corroborated by Roman and Persian coins and artefacts, unearthed at archaeological sites of 2nd and 3rd century settlements. Funan is associated with myths, such as the Kattigara legend and the Khmer founding legend in which an Indian Brahman or prince named Preah Thaong in Khmer, Kaundinya in Sanskrit and Hun-t’ien in Chinese records marries the local ruler, a princess named Nagi Soma (Lieu-Ye in Chinese records), thus establishing the first Cambodian royal dynasty. Scholars debate as to how deep the narrative is rooted in actual events and on Kaundinya's origin and status. A Chinese document, that underwent 4 alterations and a 3rd-century epigraphic inscription of Champa are the contemporary sources. Some scholars consider the story to be simply an allegory for the diffusion of Indic Hindu and Buddhist beliefs into ancient local cosmology and culture whereas some historians dismiss it chronologically. Chinese annals report that Funan reached its territorial climax in the early 3rd century under the rule of king Fan Shih-man, extending as far south as Malaysia and as far west as Burma. A system of mercantilism in commercial monopolies was established. Exports ranged from forest products to precious metals and commodities such as gold, elephants, ivory, rhinoceros horn, kingfisher feathers, wild spices like cardamom, lacquer, hides and aromatic wood. Under Fan Shih-man Funan maintained a formidable fleet and was administered by an advanced bureaucracy, based on a "tribute-based economy, that produced a surplus which was used to support foreign traders along its coasts and ostensibly to launch expansionist missions to the west and south". Miriam T. Stark calls it simply Funan: [The]"notion of Fu Nan as an early "state"...has been built largely by historians using documentary and historical evidence" and Michael Vickery remarks: "Nevertheless, it is...unlikely that the several ports constituted a unified state, much less an 'empire'". Other sources though, imply imperial status: "Vassal kingdoms spread to southern Vietnam in the east and to the Malay peninsula in the west" and "Here we will look at two empires of this period...Funan and Srivijaya". The question of how Funan came to an end is in the face of almost universal scholarly conflict impossible to pin down. Chenla is the name of Funan's successor in Chinese annals, first appearing in 616/617 CE The archaeological approach to and interpretation of the entire early historic period is considered to be a decisive supplement for future research. The "Lower Mekong Archaeological Project" focuses on the development of political complexity in this region during the early historic period. LOMAP survey results of 2003 to 2005, for example, have helped to determine that "...the region's importance continued unabated throughout the pre-Angkorian period...and that at least three [surveyed areas] bear Angkorian-period dates and suggest the continued importance of the delta." Most of the Chinese recordings on Chenla, including that of Chenla conquering Funan, have been contested since the 1970s as they are generally based on single remarks in the Chinese annals, as author Claude Jacques emphasised the very vague character of the Chinese terms 'Funan' and 'Chenla', while more domestic epigraphic sources become available. Claude Jacques summarises: "Very basic historical mistakes have been made" because "the history of pre-Angkorean Cambodia was reconstructed much more on the basis of Chinese records than on that of [Cambodian] inscriptions" and as new inscriptions were discovered, researchers "preferred to adjust the newly discovered facts to the initial outline rather than to call the Chinese reports into question". The notion of Chenla's centre being in modern Laos has also been contested. "All that is required is that it be inland from Funan." The most important political record of pre-Angkor Cambodia, the inscription K53 from Ba Phnom, dated 667 CE does not indicate any political discontinuity, either in royal succession of kings Rudravarman, Bhavavarman I, Mahendravarman [Citrasena], Īśānavarman, and Jayavarman I or in the status of the family of officials who produced the inscription. Another inscription of a few years later, K44, 674 CE, commemorating a foundation in Kampot province under the patronage of Jayavarman I, refers to an earlier foundation in the time of King Raudravarma, presumably Rudravarman of Funan, and again there is no suggestion of political discontinuity. The History of the T'ang asserts that shortly after 706 the country was split into and . The names signify a northern and a southern half, which may conveniently be referred to as Upper and Lower Chenla. By the late 8th century Water Chenla had become a vassal of the Sailendra dynasty of Java – the last of its kings were killed and the polity incorporated into the Javanese monarchy around 790 CE. Land Chenla acquired independence under Jayavarman II in 802 CE Ancient Chinese records mention two kings, Shrutavarman and Shreshthavarman who ruled at the capital Shreshthapura located in modern-day southern Laos. The immense influence on the identity of Cambodia to come was wrought by the Khmer Kingdom of Bhavapura, in the modern day Cambodian city of Kampong Thom. Its legacy was its most important sovereign, Ishanavarman who completely conquered the kingdom of Funan during 612–628. He chose his new capital at the Sambor Prei Kuk, naming it Ishanapura. ==Khmer Empire (802–1431)== The six centuries of the Khmer Empire are characterised by unparalleled technical and artistic progress and achievements, political integrity and administrative stability. The empire represents the cultural and technical apogee of the Cambodian and Southeast Asian pre-industrial civilisation. The Khmer Empire was preceded by Chenla, a polity with shifting centres of power, which was split into Land Chenla and Water Chenla in the early 8th century. By the late 8th century Water Chenla was absorbed by the Malays of the Srivijaya Empire and the Javanese of the Shailandra Empire and eventually incorporated into Java and Srivijaya. Indravarman I (877–889) and his son and successor Yasovarman I (889–900), who established the capital Yasodharapura ordered the construction of huge water reservoirs (barays) north of the capital. The water management network depended on elaborate configurations of channels, ponds, and embankments built from huge quantities of clayey sand, the available bulk material on the Angkor plain. Dikes of the East Baray still exist today, which are more than long and wide. The largest component is the West Baray, a reservoir about long and across, containing approximately 50 million m3 of water. Royal administration was based on the religious idea of the Shivaite Hindu state and the central cult of the sovereign as warlord and protector – the "Varman". This centralised system of governance appointed royal functionaries to provinces. The Mahidharapura dynasty – its first king was Jayavarman VI (1080 to 1107), which originated west of the Dângrêk Mountains in the Mun river valley discontinued the old "ritual policy", genealogical traditions and crucially, Hinduism as exclusive state religion. Some historians relate the empires' decline to these religious discontinuities. The area that comprises the various capitals was spread out over around , it is nowadays commonly called Angkor. The combination of sophisticated wet-rice agriculture, based on an engineered irrigation system and the Tonlé Sap's spectacular abundance in fish and aquatic fauna, as protein source guaranteed a regular food surplus. Recent Geo-surveys have confirmed that Angkor maintained the largest pre-industrial settlement complex worldwide during the 12th and 13th centuries – some three quarters of a million people lived there. Sizeable contingents of the public workforce were to be redirected to monument building and infrastructure maintenance. A growing number of researchers relates the progressive over-exploitation of the delicate local eco-system and its resources alongside large scale deforestation and resulting erosion to the empires' eventual decline. Under king Suryavarman II (1113–1150) the empire reached its greatest geographic extent as it directly or indirectly controlled Indochina, the Gulf of Thailand and large areas of northern maritime Southeast Asia. Suryavarman II commissioned the temple of Angkor Wat, built in a period of 37 years, its five towers representing Mount Meru is considered to be the most accomplished expression of classical Khmer architecture. However, territorial expansion ended when Suryavarman II was killed in battle attempting to invade Đại Việt. It was followed by a period of dynastic upheaval and a Cham invasion that culminated in the sack of Angkor in 1177. King Jayavarman VII (reigned 1181–1219) is generally considered to be Cambodia's greatest King. A Mahayana Buddhist, he initiates his reign by striking back against Champa in a successful campaign. During his nearly forty years in power he becomes the most prolific monument builder, who establishes the city of Angkor Thom with its central temple the Bayon. Further outstanding works are attributed to him – Banteay Kdei, Ta Prohm, Neak Pean and Sra Srang. The construction of an impressive number of utilitarian and secular projects and edifices, such as maintenance of the extensive road network of Suryavarman I, in particular the royal road to Phimai and the many rest houses, bridges and hospitals make Jayavarman VII unique among all imperial rulers. In August 1296, the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan arrived at Angkor and remained at the court of king Srindravarman until July 1297. He wrote a detailed report, The Customs of Cambodia, on life in Angkor. His portrayal is one of the most important sources of understanding historical Angkor as the text offers valuable information on the everyday life and the habits of the inhabitants of Angkor. The last Sanskrit inscription is dated 1327, and records the succession of Indrajayavarman by Jayavarman IX Parameshwara (1327–1336). The empire was an agrarian state that consisted essentially of three social classes, the elite, workers and slaves. The elite included advisers, military leaders, courtiers, priests, religious ascetics and officials. Workers included agricultural labourers and also a variety of craftsman for construction projects. Slaves were often captives from military campaigns or distant villages. Coinage did not exist and the barter economy was based on agricultural produce, principally rice, with regional trade as an insignificant part of the economy. ==Cambodia Middle Period (1431–1863)== The term "Post-Angkor Period of Cambodia", also the "Middle Period" refers to the historical era from the early 15th century to 1863, the beginning of the French Protectorate of Cambodia. Reliable sources – particularly for the 15th and 16th century – are very rare. A conclusive explanation that relates to concrete events manifesting the decline of the Khmer Empire has not yet been produced. However, most modern historians contest that several distinct and gradual changes of religious, dynastic, administrative and military nature, environmental problems and ecological imbalance coincided with shifts of power in Indochina and must all be taken into account to make an interpretation. In recent years, focus has notably shifted towards studies on climate changes, human–environment interactions and the ecological consequences. Epigraphy in temples, ends in the third decade of the fourteenth, and does not resume until the mid-16th century. Recording of the Royal Chronology discontinues with King Jayavarman IX Parameshwara (or Jayavarma-Paramesvara) – there exists not a single contemporary record of even a king's name for over 200 years. Construction of monumental temple architecture had come to a standstill after Jayavarman VII's reign. According to author Michael Vickery there only exist external sources for Cambodia's 15th century, the Chinese Ming Shilu annals and the earliest Royal Chronicle of Ayutthaya. Wang Shi-zhen (王世貞), a Chinese scholar of the 16th century, remarked: "The official historians are unrestrained and are skilful at concealing the truth; but the memorials and statutes they record and the documents they copy cannot be discarded." The central reference point for the entire 15th century is a Siamese intervention of some undisclosed nature at the capital Yasodharapura (Angkor Thom) around the year 1431. Historians relate the event to the shift of Cambodia's political centre southward to the region of Phnom Penh, Longvek and later Oudong. via which the first contact with European explorers and adventurers does occur. Wars with the Siamese result in loss of territory and eventually the conquest of the capital Longvek in 1594. Richard Cocks, of the East India Company established trade with Cochin, China, and Cambodia by 1618, but the Cambodia commerce was not authorized by the directors in London and was short-lived until it was revived in 1651, again without authorization. The Vietnamese on their "Southward March" reach Prei Nokor/Saigon at the Mekong Delta in the 17th century. This event initiates the slow process of Cambodia losing access to the seas and independent marine trade. Siamese and Vietnamese dominance intensified during the 17th and 18th century, resulting in frequent displacements of the seat of power as the Khmer royal authority decreased to the state of a vassal. In the early 19th century with dynasties in Vietnam and Siam firmly established, Cambodia was placed under joint suzerainty, having lost its national sovereignty. British agent John Crawfurd states: "...the King of that ancient Kingdom is ready to throw himself under the protection of any European nation..." To save Cambodia from being incorporated into Vietnam and Siam, the Cambodians entreated the aid of the Luzones/Lucoes (Filipinos from Luzon-Philippines) that previously participated in the Burmese-Siamese wars as mercenaries. When the embassy arrived in Luzon, the rulers were now Spaniards, so they asked them for aid too, together with their Latin American troops imported from Mexico, in order to restore the then Christianised King, Satha II, as monarch of Cambodia, this, after a Thai/Siamese invasion was repelled. However that was only temporary. Nevertheless, the future King, Ang Duong, also enlisted the aid of the French who were allied to the Spanish (As Spain was ruled by a French royal dynasty the Bourbons). The Cambodian king agreed to colonial France's offers of protection in order to restore the existence of the Cambodian monarchy, which took effect with King Norodom Prohmbarirak signing and officially recognising the French protectorate on 11 August 1863. ==French colonial period (1863–1953)== In August 1863 King Norodom signed an agreement with the French placing the kingdom under the protection of France. Norodom died in 1904, and his two successors, Sisowath and Monivong, were content to allow the French to control the country, but in 1940 France was defeated in a brief border war with Thailand and forced to surrender the provinces of Battambang and Angkor (the ancient site of Angkor itself was retained). King Monivong died in April 1941, The new government did away with the romanization of the Khmer language that the French colonial administration was beginning to enforce and officially reinstated the Khmer script. This measure taken by the short-lived governmental authority would be popular and long-lasting, for since then no government in Cambodia has tried to romanise the Khmer language again. After Allied military units entered Cambodia, the Japanese military forces present in the country were disarmed and repatriated. The French were able to reimpose the colonial administration in Phnom Penh in October the same year. Sihanouk's "royal crusade for independence" resulted in grudging French acquiescence to his demands for a transfer of sovereignty. A partial agreement was struck in October 1953. Sihanouk then declared that independence had been achieved and returned in triumph to Phnom Penh. As a result of the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina, Cambodia was able to bring about the withdrawal of the Viet Minh troops from its territory and to withstand any residual impingement upon its sovereignty by external powers. Neutrality was the central element of Cambodian foreign policy during the 1950s and 1960s. By the mid-1960s, parts of Cambodia's eastern provinces were serving as bases for North Vietnamese Army and National Liberation Front (NVA/NLF) forces operating against South Vietnam, and the port of Sihanoukville was being used to supply them. As NVA/VC activity grew, the United States and South Vietnam became concerned, and in 1969, the United States began a 14-month-long series of bombing raids targeted at NVA/VC elements, contributing to destabilisation. The bombing campaign took place no further than ten, and later inside the Cambodian border, areas where the Cambodian population had been evicted by the NVA. Prince Sihanouk, fearing that the conflict between communist North Vietnam and South Vietnam might spill over to Cambodia, publicly opposed the idea of a bombing campaign by the United States along the Vietnam–Cambodia border and inside Cambodian territory. However, Peter Rodman claimed, "Prince Sihanouk complained bitterly to us about these North Vietnamese bases in his country and invited us to attack them". In December 1967 Washington Post journalist Stanley Karnow was told by Sihanouk that if the US wanted to bomb the Vietnamese communist sanctuaries, he would not object, unless Cambodians were killed. The same message was conveyed to US President Johnson's emissary Chester Bowles in January 1968. So the US had no real motivation to overthrow Sihanouk. However, Prince Sihanouk wanted Cambodia to stay out of the North Vietnam–South Vietnam conflict and was very critical of the United States government and its allies (the South Vietnamese government). Prince Sihanouk, facing internal struggles of his own, due to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, did not want Cambodia to be involved in the conflict. Sihanouk wanted the United States and its allies (South Vietnam) to keep the war away from the Cambodian border. Sihanouk did not allow the United States to use Cambodian air space and airports for military purposes. This upset the United States greatly and contributed to their view of Prince Sihanouk as a North Vietnamese sympathiser and a thorn in the side of the United States. However, declassified documents indicate that as late as March 1970 the Nixon administration was hoping to garner "friendly relations" with Sihanouk. Throughout the 1960s, domestic Cambodian politics became polarised. Opposition to the government grew within the middle class and leftists including Paris-educated leaders like Son Sen, Ieng Sary, and Saloth Sar (later known as Pol Pot), who led an insurgency under the clandestine Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK). Sihanouk called these insurgents the Khmer Rouge, literally the "Red Khmer". But the 1966 national assembly elections showed a significant swing to the right, and General Lon Nol formed a new government, which lasted until 1967. During 1968 and 1969, the insurgency worsened. However, members of the government and army, who resented Sihanouk's ruling style as well as his tilt away from the United States, did have a motivation to overthrow him. ==Khmer Republic and the War (1970–75)== While visiting Beijing in 1970 Sihanouk was ousted by a military coup led by Prime Minister General Lon Nol and Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak in the early hours of 18 March 1970. However, as early as 12 March 1970, the CIA Station Chief told Washington that based on communications from Sirik Matak, Lon Nol's cousin, that "the (Cambodian) army was ready for a coup". Lon Nol assumed power after the military coup and immediately allied Cambodia with the United States. Son Ngoc Thanh, an opponent of Pol Pot, announced his support for the new government. On 9 October, the Cambodian monarchy was abolished, and the country was renamed the Khmer Republic. The new regime immediately demanded that the Vietnamese communists leave Cambodia. Hanoi rejected the new republic's request for the withdrawal of NVA troops. In response, the United States moved to provide material assistance to the new government's armed forces, which were engaged against both CPK insurgents and NVA forces. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces, desperate to retain their sanctuaries and supply lines from North Vietnam, immediately launched armed attacks on the new government. The North Vietnamese quickly overran large parts of eastern Cambodia, reaching to within of Phnom Penh. The North Vietnamese turned the newly won territories over to the Khmer Rouge. The king urged his followers to help in overthrowing this government, hastening the onset of civil war. In April 1970, US President Richard Nixon announced to the American public that US and South Vietnamese ground forces had entered Cambodia in a campaign aimed at destroying NVA base areas in Cambodia (see Cambodian Incursion). The US had already been bombing Vietnamese positions in Cambodia for well over a year by that point. Although a considerable quantity of equipment was seized or destroyed by US and South Vietnamese forces, containment of North Vietnamese forces proved elusive. The Khmer Republic's leadership was plagued by disunity among its three principal figures: Lon Nol, Sihanouk's cousin Sirik Matak, and National Assembly leader In Tam. Lon Nol remained in power in part because none of the others were prepared to take his place. In 1972, a constitution was adopted, a parliament elected, and Lon Nol became president. But disunity, the problems of transforming a 30,000-man army into a national combat force of more than 200,000 men, and spreading corruption weakened the civilian administration and army. The Khmer Rouge insurgency inside Cambodia continued to grow, aided by supplies and military support from North Vietnam. Pol Pot and Ieng Sary asserted their dominance over the Vietnamese-trained communists, many of whom were purged. At the same time, the Khmer Rouge (CPK) forces became stronger and more independent of their Vietnamese patrons. By 1973, the CPK were fighting battles against government forces with little or no North Vietnamese troop support, and they controlled nearly 60% of Cambodia's territory and 25% of its population. The government made three unsuccessful attempts to enter into negotiations with the insurgents, but by 1974, the CPK was operating openly as divisions, and some of the NVA combat forces had moved into South Vietnam. Lon Nol's control was reduced to small enclaves around the cities and main transportation routes. More than two million refugees from the war lived in Phnom Penh and other cities. On New Year's Day 1975, Communist troops launched an offensive which, in 117 days of the hardest fighting of the war, caused the collapse of the Khmer Republic. Simultaneous attacks around the perimeter of Phnom Penh pinned down Republican forces, while other CPK units overran fire bases controlling the vital lower Mekong resupply route. A US-funded airlift of ammunition and rice ended when Congress refused additional aid for Cambodia. The Lon Nol government in Phnom Penh surrendered on 17 April 1975, just five days after the US mission evacuated Cambodia. === Foreign involvement in the rise of the Khmer Rouge === The relationship between the massive carpet bombing of Cambodia by the United States and the growth of the Khmer Rouge, in terms of recruitment and popular support, has been a matter of interest to historians. Some historians, including Michael Ignatieff, Adam Jones and Greg Grandin, have cited the United States intervention and bombing campaign (spanning 1965–1973) as a significant factor which lead to increased support for the Khmer Rouge among the Cambodian peasantry. According to Ben Kiernan, the Khmer Rouge "would not have won power without U.S. economic and military destabilization of Cambodia. ... It used the bombing's devastation and massacre of civilians as recruitment propaganda and as an excuse for its brutal, radical policies and its purge of moderate communists and Sihanoukists." Pol Pot biographer David P. Chandler writes that the bombing "had the effect the Americans wanted – it broke the Communist encirclement of Phnom Penh", but it also accelerated the collapse of rural society and increased social polarization. Peter Rodman and Michael Lind claimed that the United States intervention saved the Lon Nol regime from collapse in 1970 and 1973. Craig Etcheson acknowledged that U.S. intervention increased recruitment for the Khmer Rouge but disputed that it was a primary cause of the Khmer Rouge victory. William Shawcross wrote that the United States bombing and ground incursion plunged Cambodia into the chaos that Sihanouk had worked for years to avoid. By 1973, Vietnamese support of the Khmer Rouge had largely disappeared. China "armed and trained" the Khmer Rouge both during the civil war and the years afterward. Owing to Chinese, U.S., and Western support, the Khmer Rouge-dominated Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK) held Cambodia's UN seat until 1993, long after the Cold War had ended. ==Democratic Kampuchea (Khmer Rouge era) (1975–79)== Immediately after its victory, the CPK ordered the evacuation of all cities and towns, sending the entire urban population into the countryside to work as farmers, as the CPK was trying to reshape society into a model that Pol Pot had conceived. The new government sought to completely restructure Cambodian society. Remnants of the old society were abolished and religion was suppressed. Agriculture was collectivised, and the surviving part of the industrial base was abandoned or placed under state control. Cambodia had neither a currency nor a banking system. Within the CPK, the Paris-educated leadership—Pol Pot, Ieng Sary, Nuon Chea, and Son Sen—were in control. A new constitution in January 1976 established Democratic Kampuchea as a Communist People's Republic, and a 250-member Assembly of the Representatives of the People of Kampuchea (PRA) was selected in March to choose the collective leadership of a State Presidium, the chairman of which became the head of state. Prince Sihanouk resigned as head of state on 2 April. The purge was done speedily and efficiently as Pol Pot's soldiers quickly killed at least more than 100,000 to 250,000 eastern Cambodians right after deporting them to execution site locations in Central, North and North-Western Zones within a month's time, making it the bloodiest episode of mass murder under Pol Pot's regime. Religious institutions were not spared by the Khmer Rouge as well, in fact religion was so viciously persecuted to such an extent that the vast majority of Cambodia's historic architecture, 95% of Cambodia's Buddhist temples, was completely destroyed. Ben Kiernan estimates that 1.671 million to 1.871 million Cambodians died as a result of Khmer Rouge policy, or between 21% and 24% of Cambodia's 1975 population. A study by French demographer Marek Sliwinski calculated slightly fewer than 2 million unnatural deaths under the Khmer Rouge out of a 1975 Cambodian population of 7.8 million; 33.5% of Cambodian men died under the Khmer Rouge compared to 15.7% of Cambodian women. According to a 2001 academic source, the most widely accepted estimates of excess deaths under the Khmer Rouge range from 1.5 million to 2 million, although figures as low as 1 million and as high as 3 million have been cited; conventionally accepted estimates of deaths due to Khmer Rouge executions range from 500,000 to 1 million, "a third to one half of excess mortality during the period." While considerably higher than earlier and more widely accepted estimates of Khmer Rouge executions, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam)'s Craig Etcheson defended such estimates of over one million executions as "plausible, given the nature of the mass grave and DC-Cam's methods, which are more likely to produce an under-count of bodies rather than an over-estimate." Despite being based on a house-to-house survey of Cambodians, the estimate of 3.3 million deaths promulgated by the Khmer Rouge's successor regime, the People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), is generally considered to be an exaggeration; among other methodological errors, the PRK authorities added the estimated number of victims that had been found in the partially-exhumed mass graves to the raw survey results, meaning that some victims would have been double-counted. ==Vietnamese occupation and the PRK (1979–93)== On 10 January 1979, after the Vietnamese army and the KUFNS (Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation) invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge, the new People's Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) was established with Heng Samrin as head of state. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces retreated rapidly to the jungles near the Thai border. The Khmer Rouge and the PRK began a costly struggle that played into the hands of the larger powers China, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Khmer People's Revolutionary Party's rule gave rise to a guerrilla movement of three major resistance groups – the FUNCINPEC (Front Uni National pour un Cambodge Indépendant, Neutre, Pacifique, et Coopératif), the KPLNF (Khmer People's National Liberation Front) and the PDK (Party of Democratic Kampuchea, the Khmer Rouge under the nominal presidency of Khieu Samphan). "All held dissenting perceptions concerning the purposes and modalities of Cambodia's future". Civil war displaced 600,000 Cambodians, who fled to refugee camps along the border to Thailand and tens of thousands of people were murdered throughout the country. Peace efforts began in Paris in 1989 under the State of Cambodia, culminating two years later in October 1991 in a comprehensive peace settlement. The United Nations was given a mandate to enforce a ceasefire and deal with refugees and disarmament known as the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). ==Modern Cambodia (1993–present)== On 23 October 1991, the Paris Conference reconvened to sign a comprehensive settlement giving the UN full authority to supervise a cease-fire, repatriate the displaced Khmer along the border with Thailand, disarm and demobilise the factional armies, and prepare the country for free and fair elections. Prince Sihanouk, President of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia (SNC), and other members of the SNC returned to Phnom Penh in November 1991, to begin the resettlement process in Cambodia. The UN Advance Mission for Cambodia (UNAMIC) was deployed at the same time to maintain liaison among the factions and begin demining operations to expedite the repatriation of approximately 370,000 Cambodians from Thailand. On 16 March 1992, the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) arrived in Cambodia to begin implementation of the UN settlement plan and to become operational on 15 March 1992 under Yasushi Akashi, the Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General. UNTAC grew into a 22,000-strong civilian and military peacekeeping force tasked to ensure the conduct of free and fair elections for a constituent assembly. Over 4 million Cambodians (about 90% of eligible voters) participated in the May 1993 elections. Pre-election violence and intimidation was widespread, caused by SOC (State of Cambodia – made up largely of former PDK cadre) security forces, mostly against the FUNCINPEC and BLDP parties according to UNTAC. The Khmer Rouge or Party of Democratic Kampuchea (PDK), whose forces were never actually disarmed or demobilized blocked local access to polling places. Prince Ranariddh's (son of Norodom Sihanouk) royalist Funcinpec Party was the top vote recipient with 45.5% of the vote, followed by Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party and the Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party, respectively. Funcinpec then entered into a coalition with the other parties that had participated in the election. A coalition government resulted between the Cambodian People's Party and FUNCINPEC, with two co-prime ministers – Hun Sen, since 1985 the prime minister in the Communist government, and Norodom Ranariddh. The parties represented in the 120-member assembly proceeded to draft and approve a new constitution, which was promulgated 24 September 1993. It established a multiparty democracy in the framework of a constitutional monarchy, with the former Prince Sihanouk elevated to King. Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen became First and Second Prime Ministers, respectively, in the Royal Cambodian Government (RGC). Hun Sen and his government have seen much controversy. Hun Sen was a former Khmer Rouge commander who was originally installed by the Vietnamese and, after the Vietnamese left the country, maintains his strong man position by violence and oppression when deemed necessary. In 1997, fearing the growing power of his co-Prime Minister, Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Hun launched a coup, using the army to purge Ranariddh and his supporters. Ranariddh was ousted and fled to Paris while other opponents of Hun Sen were arrested, tortured and some summarily executed. On 4 October 2004, the Cambodian National Assembly ratified an agreement with the United Nations on the establishment of a tribunal to try senior leaders responsible for the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. International donor countries have pledged a US$43 Million share of the three-year tribunal budget as Cambodia contributes US$13.3 Million. The tribunal has sentenced several senior Khmer Rouge leaders since 2008. Cambodia is still infested with countless land mines, indiscriminately planted by all warring parties during the decades of war and upheaval. The Cambodia National Rescue Party was dissolved ahead of the 2018 Cambodian general election and the ruling Cambodian People's Party also enacted tighter curbs on mass media. The CPP won every seat in the National Assembly without a major opposition, effectively solidifying de facto one-party rule in the country. Cambodia's longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen, one of the world's longest-serving leaders, has a very firm grip on power. He has been accused of the crackdown on opponents and critics. His Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has been in power since 1979. In December 2021, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced his support for his son Hun Manet to succeed him after the next election, which is expected to take place in 2023. In July 2023 election, the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) easily won by landslide in flawed election, after disqualification of Cambodia's most important opposition, Candlelight Party. On 22 August 2023, Hun Manet was sworn in as the new Cambodian prime minister.	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Chandler", "Suryavarman I", "Sino-Vietnamese War", "Jayavarman VII", "In Tam", "erosion", "Age of Discovery", "Khmer script", "Richard Cocks", "Ta Prohm", "Heng Samrin", "Muslim", "Yasovarman I", "World History Encyclopedia", "Funcinpec", "Democratic Kampuchea", "Son Sen", "Nuon Chea", "Federal Research Division", "art", "Jayavarman IX", "deforestation", "Sirik Matak", "History of Asia", "Mekong", "Jayavarman VI", "Kingdom of Kampuchea (1945)", "Maritime Silk Road", "Cambodian–Vietnamese War", "Modern Cambodia", "1997 Cambodian Coup", "Adam Jones (Canadian scholar)", "Indian Ocean trade", "United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia", "agriculture", "Longvek", "National Academies Press", "Sisowath Sirik Matak", "Đồng Tháp Province", "KUFNS", "Chinese Foreign Ministry", "Indochina", "Vietnamese people", "Library of Congress", "Cambodian Civil War", "Angkor", "Mission (Christianity)", "2023 Cambodian general election", "Tháp Mười", "United Nations", "cult (religious practice)", "World War II", "Sui dynasty", "Buddhist Liberal Democratic Party", "urban planning", "Associated Press", "Pallava dynasty", "John Crawfurd", "hydrology", "Japanese occupation of Cambodia", "Hoabinhian", "Pali", "Bayon", "Srindravarman", "Viceroyalty of New Spain", "Norodom of Cambodia", "Haripunjaya", "Jayavarman II", "Neak Pean", "Cambodian coup of 1970", "infrastructure", "Tonlé Sap", "mercantilism", "war elephant", "Gulf of Thailand", "Southeast Asia", "Suryavarman II", "Neolithic", "Battambang Province", "architecture", "Yasodharapura", "Huế", "East India Company", "Khmer people", "maritime Southeast Asia", "Cham people", "The Customs of Cambodia", "British Empire", "Party of Democratic Kampuchea", "Indosphere", "Malaysia", "Strongman (politics)", "Khieu Samphan", "Hun Sen", "William Shawcross", "devaraja", "Phum Snay", "Angkor Borei District", "Hindu", "1954 Geneva Conference", "Michael Vickery (historian)", "Ang Duong", "Thai people", "Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–70)", "Indravarman I", "Pol Pot", "Óc Eo", "Roluos", "Buddhism", "Dângrêk Mountains", "The Nation", "French colonial empire", "Viet Cong", "Ben Kiernan", "Mahayana Buddhism", "Epigraphy", "The New York Times", "Economic history of Cambodia", "Sasanian Empire", "Politics of Cambodia", "Avalokiteshvara", "Military history of Cambodia", "Maritime Jade Road", "Viet Minh", "Ayutthaya Kingdom", "Lon Nol", "Srivijaya", "Rattanakosin Kingdom", "East Baray", "History of Buddhism in Cambodia", "Zhou Daguan", "Long An", "List of kings of Cambodia", "Vietnam War", "Hun Manet" ]
5,429	Geography of Cambodia	Cambodia is a country in mainland Southeast Asia. It borders Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, the Gulf of Thailand and covers a total area of approximately . The country is situated in its entirety inside the tropical Indomalayan realm and the Indochina Time zone (ICT). Cambodia's main geographical features are the low lying Central Plain that includes the Tonlé Sap basin, the lower Mekong River flood-plains and the Bassac River plain surrounded by mountain ranges to the north, east, in the south-west and south. The central lowlands extend into Vietnam to the south-east. The south and south-west of the country constitute a long coast at the Gulf of Thailand, characterized by sizable mangrove marshes, peninsulas, sandy beaches and headlands and bays. Cambodia's territorial waters account for over 50 islands. The highest peak is Phnom Aural, sitting above sea level. The landmass is bisected by the Mekong River, which at is the longest river in Cambodia. After extensive rapids, turbulent sections and cataracts in Laos, the river enters the country at Stung Treng province, is predominantly calm and navigable during the entire year as it widens considerably in the lowlands. The Mekong's waters disperse into the surrounding wetlands of central Cambodia and strongly affect the seasonal nature of the Tonlé Sap lake. Two third of the country's population live in the lowlands, where the rich sediment deposited during the Mekong's annual flooding makes the agricultural lands highly fertile. As deforestation and over-exploitation affected Cambodia only in recent decades, forests, low mountain ranges and local eco-regions still retain much of their natural potential and although still home to the largest areas of contiguous and intact forests in mainland Southeast Asia, multiple serious environmental issues persist and accumulate, which are closely related to rapid population growth, uncontrolled globalization and inconsequential administration. The majority of the country lies within the Tropical savanna climate zone, as the coastal areas in the South and West receive noticeably more and steady rain before and during the wet season. These areas constitute the easternmost fringes of the south-west monsoon, determined to be inside the Tropical monsoon climate. Countrywide there are two seasons of relatively equal length, defined by varying precipitation as temperatures and humidity are generally high and steady throughout the entire year. ==Geological development== Mainland Southeast Asia consists of allochthonous continental blocks from Gondwanaland. These include the South China, Indochina, Sibumasu, and West Burma blocks, which amalgamated to form the Southeast Asian continent during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic periods. The current geological structure of South China and South-East Asia is determined to be the response to the "Indo-sinian" collision in South-East Asia during the Carboniferous. The Indo-Sinian orogeny was followed by extension of the Indo-Chinese block, the formation of rift basins and thermal subsidence during the early Triassic. The Indochina continental block, which is separated from the South China Block by the Jinshajiang-Ailaoshan Suture zone, is an amalgamation of the Viet-Lao, Khorat-Kontum, Uttaradit (UTD), and Chiang Mai-West Kachin terranes, all of which are separated by suture zones or ductile shear zones. The Khorat-Kontum terrane, which includes western Laos, Cambodia and southern Vietnam, consists of the Kontum metamorphic complex, Paleozoic shallow marine deposits, upper Permian arc volcanic rocks and Mesozoic terrigenous sedimentary rocks. The central plains consist mainly of Quaternary sands, loam and clay, as most of the northern mountain regions and the coastal region are largely composed of Cretaceous granite, Triassic stones and Jurassic sandstone formations. ==General topography== Bowl- or saucer-shaped, Cambodia covers in the south-western part of the Indochinese peninsula as its landmass and marine territory is situated entirely within the tropics. The bowl's bottom represents Cambodia's interior, about 75 percent, consisting of alluvial flood-plains of the Tonlé Sap basin, the lower Mekong River and the Bassac River plain, whose waters feed the large and almost centrally located wetlands. As humans preferably settle in these fertile and easily accessible central lowlands, major transformations and widespread cultivation through wet-rice agriculture have over the centuries shaped the landscape into distinctive regional cultivated lands. Domestic plants, such as sugar palms, Coconut trees and banana groves almost exclusively skirt extensive rice paddies, as natural vegetation is confined to elevated lands and near waterways. The Mekong traverses the north to south-east portions of the country, where the low-lying plains extend into Vietnam and reach the South China Sea at the Mekong Delta region. Cambodia's low mountain ranges - representing the walls of the bowl - remain as the result of only rather recent substantial infrastructural development and economic exploitation - in particular in remote areas - formidably forested. The country is fringed to the north by the Dangrek Mountains plateau, bordering Thailand and Laos, to the north-east by the Annamite Range, in the south-west by the Cardamom Mountains and in the South by the Elephant Mountains. Highlands to the north-east and to the east merge into the Central Highlands and the Mekong Delta lowlands of Vietnam. A heavily indented coastline at the Gulf of Thailand of length and 60 offshore islands, that dot the territorial waters and locally merge with tidal mangrove marshes - the environmental basis for a remarkable range of marine and coastal eco-regions. ===Soils=== "Sandy materials cover a large proportion of the landscape of Cambodia, on account of the siliceous sedimentary formations that underlie much of the Kingdom. Mesozoic sandstone dominates most of the basement geology in Cambodia and hence has a dominating influence on the properties of upland soils. Arenosols (sandy soils featuring very weak or no soil development) are mapped on only 1.6% of the land area." "Sandy surface textures are more prevalent than the deep sandy soils that fit the definition for Arenosols. Sandy textured profiles are common amongst the most prevalent soil groups, including Acrisols and Leptosols. The Acrisols are the most prevalent soil group occupying the lowlands - nearly half of the land area of Cambodia. Low fertility and toxic amounts of aluminium pose limitations to its agricultural use, crops that can be successfully cultivated include rubber tree, oil palm, coffee and sugar cane. The main subgroups are: Gleyic Acrisols (20.5%, Haplic Acrisols (13.3%), Plinthic Acrisol (8.7%) and Ferric Acrisol (6.3%)." ===Geographical extremes=== Northernmost point: Ta Veaeng District, Rattanakiri Province () Southernmost point: Koh Poulo Wai, Kampot Province () Easternmost point: Ou Ya Dav District, Rattanakiri Province () Westernmost point: Malai District, Banteay Meanchey Province () ==Regions== ===Central plain=== The vast alluvial and lacustrine interconnected Cambodian flood-plain is a geologically relatively recent depression where the sediments of the Mekong and its tributaries accumulate as waters are subject to frequent course changes. The area covers . The Tonlé Sap lake and - river system occupies the lowest area. The Tonlé Sap River is a waterway that branches off the Mekong near Phnom Penh in the north-westerly direction and meets the Tonle Sap lake after around . Its waters' flow reverses direction every year, caused by greatly varying amounts of water carried by the Mekong over the course of a year and the impact of monsoonal rains, that coincides with the river's maximum. The plains of the Mekong and Tonle Sap basin are confined in the North by the Dangrek and Central Annamite Mountains, and to the South by the Cardamom Mountains and Elephant Mountains. The plains completely surround the Tonle Sap Lake in the western half of the country and wind their way through the middle of the country following the course of the Mekong River. The two basins actually form a single body of water, the whole of which effects about 75% of Cambodia’s land cover. ===Flow reversal=== The Mekong river and its tributaries increase water volumes in spring (May) on the northern hemisphere, mainly caused by melting snows. As the Mekong enters Cambodia (over 95% of its waters have already joined the river) it widens and inundates large areas. The plain's deepest point - the Tonle Sap - flooded area varies from a low of around with a depth of around 1 meter at the end of the dry season (April) to and a depth of up to 9 meters in October/November. This figure rose to during 2000 when some of the worst flood conditions recorded caused over 800 deaths in Cambodia and Vietnam. Inflow starts in May/June with maximum rates of flow of around 10,000 m3/s by late August and ends in October/November, amplified by precipitation of the annual monsoon. In November the lake reaches its maximum size. The annual monsoon coincides to cease around this time of the year. As the Mekong river begins its minimum around this time of the year and its water level falls deeper than the inundated Tonle Sap lake, Tonle Sap river and surrounding wetlands, waters of the lake's basin now drains via the Tonle Sap river into the Mekong. The Mekong branches off into several arms near Phnom Penh and reaches Vietnamese territory south of Koh Thom and Loek Daek districts of Kandal Province. ===Southern Mountains=== This region represents the eastern parts of the original extent of the wet evergreen forests that cover the Cardamom - and Elephant Mountains in South-West Cambodia and along the mountains east of Bangkok in Thailand. The densely wooded hills receive rainfall of annually on their western slopes (which are subject to the South-West monsoons) but only on their eastern - rain shadow - slopes. The Cardamom/Krâvanh Mountains Occupying Koh Kong Province and Kampong Speu Province, running in a north-western to south-eastern direction and rising to more than . The highest mountain of Cambodia, Phnom Aural, at is located in Aoral District in Kampong Speu Province. The Cardamom Mountains form - including the north-western part of Chanthaburi Province, Thailand, the 'Soi Dao Mountains' - the Cardamom Mountains Moist Forests Ecoregion, that is considered to be one of the most species-rich and intact natural habitats in the region. The climate, size inaccessibility and seclusion of the mountains have allowed a rich variety of wildlife to thrive. The Cardamom and Elephant Mountains remain to be fully researched and documented. The Elephant Mountains Chuŏr Phnum Dâmrei - A north-south-trending range of high hills, an extension of the Cardamom/Krâvanh Mountains, in south-eastern Cambodia, rising to elevations of between 500 and 1,000 meters. Extending north from the Gulf of Thailand, they reach a high point in the Bok Koŭ ridge at Mount Bokor near the sea. To the south-west of the Southern mountain ranges extends a narrow coastal plain that contains the Kampong Saom Bay area and the Sihanoukville peninsula, facing the Gulf of Thailand. ===Northern Mountains=== The Dangrek Mountains A forested range of hills averaging , dividing Thailand from Cambodia, mainly formed of massive sandstone with slate and silt. A few characteristic basalt hills are located on the northern side of the mountain chain. This east–west-trending range extends from the Mekong River westward for approximately , merging with the highland area near San Kamphaeng, Thailand. Essentially the southern escarpment of the sandstone Khorat Plateau of northeastern Thailand, the Dângrêk range slopes gradually northward to the Mun River in Thailand but falls more abruptly in the south to the Cambodian plain. Its highest point is . The watershed along the escarpment in general terms marks the boundary between Thailand and Cambodia, however there are exceptions. The region is covered in dry evergreen forest, mixed dipterocarp forest, and deciduous dipterocarp forests. Tree species like Pterocarpus macrocarpus, Shorea siamensis and Xylia xylocarpa var. kerrii dominate. Illegal logging are issues on both, the Thai as well as on the Cambodian side, leaving large hill stretches denuded, vulnerable tree species such as Dalbergia cochinchinensis have been affected. Forest fires are common during the dry season. Annamite Range Lying to the east of the Mekong River, the long chain of mountains called the Annamite Mountains of Indochina and the lowlands that surround them make up the Greater Annamites ecoregion. Levels of rainfall vary from annually. Mean annual temperatures are about . This eco-region contains some of the last relatively intact moist forests in Indochina. Moisture-laden monsoon winds, that blow in from the Gulf of Tonkin ensure permanent high air humidity. Plants and animals adapted to moist conditions, to seek refuge here and evolve into highly specialized types that are found nowhere else on Earth. Ethnically diverse More than 30 ethnic groups of indigenous people live in the Annamites, each with their distinctive and traditional music, language, dress and customs. The natural resources of the Greater Annamites are vital to all of these people. ===Eastern Highlands=== Tall grasses and deciduous forests cover the ground east of the Mekong River in Mondulkiri, where the transitional plains merge with the eastern highlands at altitudes from . The landscape has suffered from rubber farming, logging and particularly mining, although sizable areas of pristine jungle survive, which are home to rare and endemic wildlife. ===Coast=== Cambodia's coastal area covers , distributed among four provinces: Sihanoukville province, Kampot province, Koh Kong province, and Kep province. The total length of the Cambodian coastal area has been disputed. The most widely accepted length is , a 1997 survey by the DANIDA organization announced a length at , and in 1973 the Oil Authority found the coast to be long. The Food and Agriculture Organization claims a length of in one of its studies. The southern mountain ranges drain to the south and west towards the shallow sea. Sediments on the continental shelf are the basis for extensive mangroves marshes, in particular in the Koh Kong province and the Ream National Park. ===Islands=== Cambodia’s islands fall under administration of the 4 coastal provinces. "There are 60 islands in Cambodia's coastal waters. They include 23 in Koh Kong province, 2 in Kampot province, 22 in Sihanoukville and 13 in Kep city.[sic]" Most islands are, apart from the two small groups of the outer islands, in relative proximity to the coast. The islands and the coastal region of Koh Kong Province are mainly composed of upper Jurassic and lower Cretaceous sandstone massives. ==Climate== Cambodia's climate, like that of much of the rest of mainland Southeast Asia is dominated by monsoons, which are known as tropical wet and dry because of the distinctly marked seasonal differences. The monsoonal air-flows are caused by annual alternating high pressure and low pressure over the Central Asian landmass. In summer, moisture-laden air—the southwest monsoon—is drawn landward from the Indian Ocean. The flow is reversed during the winter, and the northeast monsoon sends back dry air. The southwest monsoon brings the rainy season from mid-May to mid-September or to early October, and the northeast monsoon flow of drier and cooler air lasts from early November to March. Temperatures are fairly uniform throughout the Tonlé Sap Basin area, with only small variations from the average annual mean of around . The maximum mean is about ; the minimum mean, about . Maximum temperatures of higher than , however, are common and, just before the start of the rainy season, they may rise to more than . Minimum night temperatures sporadically fall below . in January, the coldest month. May is the warmest month - although strongly influenced by the beginning of the wet season, as the area constitutes the easternmost fringe of the south-west monsoon. Tropical cyclones only rarely cause damage in Cambodia. The total annual rainfall average is between , and the heaviest amounts fall in the southeast. Rainfall from April to September in the Tonlé Sap Basin-Mekong Lowlands area averages annually, but the amount varies considerably from year to year. Rainfall around the basin increases with elevation. It is heaviest in the mountains along the coast in the southwest, which receive from to more than of precipitation annually as the southwest monsoon reaches the coast. This area of greatest rainfall drains mostly to the sea; only a small quantity goes into the rivers flowing into the basin. Relative humidity is high throughout the entire year; usually exceeding 90%. During the dry season daytime humidity rates average around 50 percent or slightly lower, climbing to about 90% during the rainy season. \| 29\|29\|29\|30\|31\|30\|29\|29\|29\|29\|30\|29 \| 25\|26\|27\|28\|28\|28\|27\|27\|27\|27\|26\|25 \| 44\|30.6\|63.1\|129.5\|190\|301.1\|305\|378.9\|351.1\|226.9\|120.8\|55.5 }} ==Hydrology== The Mekong River and its tributaries comprise one of the largest river systems in the world. The central Tonle Sap, the Great Lake has several input rivers, the most important being the Tonle Sap River, which contributes 62% of the total water supply during the rainy season. Direct rainfall on the lake and the other rivers in the sub-basin contribute the remaining 38%. Major rivers are the Sen river, Sreng River, Stung Pouthisat River, Sisophon River, Mongkol Borei River, and Sangkae River. Smaller rivers in the southeast, the Cardamom Mountains and Elephant Range form separate drainage divides. To the east the rivers flow into the Tonle Sap, as in the south-west rivers flow into the Gulf of Thailand. Toward the southern slopes of the Elephant Mountains, small rivers flow south-eastward on the eastern side of the divide. The Mekong River flows southward from the Cambodia-Laos border to a point south of Kratié (town), where it turns west for about and then turns southwest towards Phnom Penh. Extensive rapids run north of Kratie city. From Kampong Cham Province the gradient slopes very gently, and inundation of areas along the river occurs at flood stage. From June through November—through breaks in the natural levees that have built up along its course. At Phnom Penh four major water courses meet at a point called the Chattomukh (Four Faces). The Mekong River flows in from the northeast and the Tonle Sap river emanates from the Tonle Sap—flows in from the northwest. They divide into two parallel channels, the Mekong River proper and the Bassac River, and flow independently through the delta areas of Cambodia and Vietnam to the South China Sea. The flow of water into the Tonle Sap is seasonal. In spring, the flow of the Mekong River, fed by monsoon rains, increases to a point where its outlets through the delta can't handle the enormous volume of water. At this point, the water pushes northward up the Tonle Sap river and empties into the Tonle Sap lake, thereby increasing the size of the lake from about to about at the height of the flooding. After the Mekong's waters crest — when its downstream channels can handle the volume of water — the flow reverses, and water flows out of the engorged lake. As the level of the Tonle Sap retreats, it deposits a new layer of sediment. The annual flooding, combined with poor drainage immediately around the lake, transforms the surrounding area into marshlands, unusable for agricultural purposes during the dry season. The sediment deposited into the lake during the Mekong's flood stage appears to be greater than the quantity carried away later by the Tonle Sap River. Gradual silting of the lake would seem to be occurring; during low-water level, it is only about deep, while at flood stage it is between deep. ==Vegetation & ecoregions== Cambodia has one of the highest levels of forest cover in the region as the interdependence of Cambodia’s geography and hydrology makes it rich in natural resources and biological diversity - among the bio-richest countries in Southeast Asia. In Cambodia forest cover is around 46% of the total land area, equivalent to 8,068,370 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 11,004,790 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 7,464,400 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 603,970 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 4% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity). For the year 2015, 100% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership. The Royal Government of Cambodia estimates Cambodia contains approximately 10.36 million hectares of forest cover, representing approximately 57.07% of Cambodia’s land area (2011). On the contrary, international observers and independent sources provide rather different numbers. Consensus permeates, as most sources agree, that deforestation in Cambodia, loss of seasonal wetlands and habitat destruction - among countless minor factors - correlates with the absence of strict administrative control and indifference in law enforcement - not only in Cambodia but the entire region. Figures and assessments are numerous as are available sources. as seen in numbers below, which provide a wide range for interpretation. About (1%) of forest cover is planted forest. Overall Cambodia’s forests contain an estimated 464 million metric tonnes of carbon stock in living forest biomass. Approximately 40% of Cambodia’s Forests have some level of protection, while one of the Cambodia Millennium Development Goals targets is to achieve a 60% forest cover by 2015. According to the Forestry Administration statistics, a total of 380,000 hectares of forest were cleared between 2002 and 2005/2006 - a deforestation rate of 0.5% per year. The main cause of deforestation has been determined to be large-scale agricultural expansions. ===Southern Annamites Montane Rain Forests ecoregion=== The Southern Annamites Montane Rain Forests ecoregion of the montane forests of Kontuey Nea, "the dragon's tail" in the remote north-west of Cambodia, where the boundaries of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam meet [this is in the northeast, not the northwest?], is remarkably rich in biodiversity. The relatively intact forests occupy a broad topographic range - from lowlands with wet evergreen forests to montane habitats with evergreen hardwood and conifer forests. The complex geological, topographic and climatic ( rainfall and temperature ) facets that characterize the region make forest structure and composition unique and very variable. There is an unusually high number of near-endemic and endemic species among the many species to be found in the area. The entire eco-region has a size of . ===The Great Lake ecosystem=== The Tonle Sap, also known as the Great Lake in central Cambodia is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia and one of the richest inland fishing grounds in the world. The Lake functions as a natural flood water reservoir for the Mekong system as a whole and therefore is an important source of water for the Mekong Delta during the dry season. The ecosystem has developed as a result of the Mekong’s seasonal flow fluctuations. The forest gradually yields to bushes and finally grassland with increasing distance from the lake. Henri Mouhot: "Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China" 1864 On higher quality soils or at higher elevation, areas of mixed deciduous forest and semi-evergreen forests occur. This variety of vegetation types accounts for the quantity and diversity of species of the Great Lake ecosystem. Interlocking forest, - grassland and marshland patches provide the many facets and refugia for the abundant local wildlife. The lake’s flooded forest and the surrounding floodplains are of utmost importance for Cambodia's agriculture as the region represents the cultural heart of Cambodia, the center of the national freshwater fishery industry - the nation's primary protein source. Threats to the lake include widespread pollution, stress through growth of the local population which is dependent on the lake for subsistence and livelihood, over-harvesting of fish and other aquatic - often endangered - species, habitat destruction and potential changes in the hydrology, such as the construction and operation of dams, that disrupt the lake's natural flood cycle. However, concerns that the lake is rapidly filling with sediment seem - according to studies - to be unfounded at the present time. ===Wetlands=== Wetlands cover more than 30% of Cambodia. In addition to the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap floodplain there are the Stung Sen River and the coastal Stung Koh Pao - and Stung Kep estuaries of Koh Kong Province and Kep Province. The freshwater wetlands of Cambodia represent one of the most diverse ecosystems worldwide. The area’s extensive wetland habitats are the product of the annual Mekong maximum, the simultaneous wet season and the drainage paths of a number of minor rivers. See also:Geography of Cambodia#Hydrology The numerous and varied wetlands are Cambodia's central and traditional settlement area, the productive environments for rice cultivation, freshwater fisheries, other forms of agriculture and aquaculture and the constantly growing tourism sector. Considering the eco-region's importance, a variety of plans for local wetland management consolidation exist with varying degrees of completion. ===Coastal habitats=== The Cambodian coastline consists of of over 30 species of mangroves - among the most biologically diverse wetlands on earth. The most pristine mangrove forests are found in Koh Kong Province. In addition to mangroves, sea-grass beds extend throughout the coastal areas, especially in Kampot Province, the Sihanoukville Bay Delta and the Kep municipal waters. The meadows are highly productive, but few animals feed directly on the grasses. Those that do tend to be vertebrates such as sea turtles, dabbling ducks and geese. "With their roots deep in mud, jagged and gnarled mangrove trees are able to grow in the brackish wetlands between land and sea where other plant life cannot survive. The trees offer refuge and nursery grounds for fish, crabs, shrimp, and mollusks. They are nesting - and migratory sites for hundreds of bird species. They also provide homes for monkeys, lizards, sea turtles, and many other animals as well as countless insects." ==Protected areas== "The 1993 Royal Decree on the Protection of Natural Areas recognized 23 protected areas, which at the time covered more than 18% of the country’s total land area." Natural parks (sometimes described as ‘national parks’) Wildlife reserves Protected scenic view areas (sometimes described as ‘protected landscapes’) Multi-purpose areas ==Political and human geography== Cambodia borders Vietnam over a length of , Thailand over a length of and Laos over a length of , with in total and an additional of coastline. The capital (reach thani) and provinces (khaet) of Cambodia are first-level administrative divisions. Cambodia is divided into 25 provinces including the capital. Municipalities and districts are the second-level administrative divisions of Cambodia. The provinces are subdivided into 159 districts and 26 municipalities. The districts and municipalities in turn are further divided into communes (khum) and quarters (sangkat). ===Land use=== Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have experienced major changes in land use and land cover over the last two decades. The emergence from cold war rivalries and recent major economic reforms result in a shift from subsistence agrarian modes of production to market-based agricultural production and industrialized economies, which are heavily integrated into regional and global trade systems. ===Regional divisions=== Cambodia's boundaries were for the most part based upon those recognized by France and by neighboring countries during the colonial period. The boundary with Thailand runs along the watershed of the Dangrek Mountains, although only in its northern sector. The border with Laos and the border with Vietnam result from French administrative decisions and do not follow major natural features. Border disputes have broken out in the past and do persist between Cambodia and Thailand as well as between Cambodia and Vietnam. Image:Cambodia, administrative divisions - de - colored, 2013.svg\|right\|550px poly 355 962 361 973 371 973 375 962 381 964 376 955 378 931 390 921 397 905 398 898 393 885 420 844 437 832 442 848 436 855 440 868 431 885 444 902 443 930 436 937 431 933 426 934 407 951 410 955 407 966 413 981 408 996 411 1008 416 1009 418 1015 415 1030 404 1037 379 1090 222 1125 178 1097 257 1035 304 1035 320 1012 350 1008 345 1002 349 991 355 988 360 980 Sihanoukville poly 471 1081 492 1033 523 1030 528 1070 524 1095 Kep poly 399 1053 422 1024 412 996 413 941 457 926 440 896 472 913 491 922 515 904 526 907 532 926 548 931 548 938 555 968 590 968 609 1006 591 1033 589 1064 554 1070 542 1103 529 1083 537 1017 492 1028 468 1082 Kampot poly 518 909 550 969 555 975 590 960 593 998 589 1022 590 1049 600 1070 652 1066 665 1025 687 1006 666 957 672 919 666 889 641 870 638 857 595 855 585 929 Takéo poly 606 779 613 845 666 825 645 770 Phnom Penh poly 611 725 573 831 614 832 595 856 652 860 655 885 675 898 667 932 673 968 707 964 727 868 712 819 680 799 655 809 654 823 647 829 628 834 617 837 608 826 613 814 615 807 612 798 613 782 623 779 641 780 650 791 656 808 686 799 696 766 667 756 671 740 663 727 643 741 622 735 Kandal poly 684 805 683 763 724 740 760 736 772 757 820 759 837 776 846 796 838 810 821 820 817 846 812 876 811 889 806 918 808 933 806 950 783 954 759 956 749 981 705 961 722 909 737 867 724 829 Prey Veng poly 870 805 830 807 821 864 816 897 800 930 802 954 852 925 864 974 874 995 886 966 906 986 940 998 940 963 940 949 944 929 925 914 921 914 905 899 884 881 873 869 873 854 Svay Rieng poly 713 751 688 766 672 756 676 735 662 723 639 735 630 741 621 728 625 704 642 687 646 623 714 639 694 604 746 595 762 575 797 575 829 574 834 618 865 645 900 659 924 681 936 696 934 706 970 713 1014 711 1005 725 1008 761 1014 781 1005 793 965 766 927 751 879 782 862 787 827 762 790 753 762 752 741 728 Kampong Cham poly 476 695 458 633 513 609 521 547 584 549 625 574 636 607 635 634 632 668 635 699 622 718 609 736 599 746 565 751 547 760 507 749 Kampong Chhnang poly 366 738 471 680 511 755 565 759 597 736 601 744 576 830 611 838 597 860 583 921 553 920 519 900 497 918 473 926 446 899 435 894 438 853 435 815 410 805 386 781 Kampong Speu poly 355 964 343 946 342 922 328 920 316 902 302 906 286 954 290 969 275 976 269 966 248 964 240 975 263 1018 251 1029 234 1007 207 972 199 955 214 943 211 926 216 918 208 889 201 889 190 881 187 870 184 842 192 838 185 816 174 796 170 785 169 755 155 736 149 720 139 700 139 691 180 691 191 693 216 706 229 707 252 696 265 696 283 668 293 671 300 665 315 670 345 700 354 701 360 710 379 711 394 732 375 733 379 743 375 747 373 760 379 772 379 786 413 811 420 808 429 808 432 813 441 816 437 835 421 842 392 888 394 897 395 903 388 923 377 932 377 955 380 965 373 963 372 974 362 974 360 964 Koh Kong poly 60 448 86 450 113 418 129 434 135 490 132 523 111 535 83 537 72 533 70 507 77 489 Pailin poly 189 134 241 173 247 216 273 197 295 239 371 175 532 213 545 185 557 171 560 106 485 90 424 97 389 95 351 81 310 81 241 96 Oddar Meanchey poly 565 106 557 177 533 203 524 255 533 291 543 312 587 321 576 355 581 395 621 371 641 389 655 428 668 437 761 358 802 327 798 274 776 239 798 231 871 218 852 185 809 167 781 174 747 172 726 151 704 116 697 131 674 147 648 109 635 97 594 89 Preah Vihear poly 286 212 290 358 171 361 125 346 123 321 29 324 33 301 90 298 93 273 138 248 163 183 186 142 219 177 239 177 242 217 275 201 Banteay Meanchey poly 285 352 280 229 377 183 417 200 493 206 529 209 518 245 524 271 525 287 527 314 587 312 566 382 539 401 536 442 483 502 439 472 402 433 372 389 Siem Reap poly 35 321 115 326 121 354 171 355 239 356 296 363 363 369 408 430 369 453 347 489 341 540 336 573 282 559 243 558 205 565 179 574 164 593 146 595 82 536 149 515 129 418 100 417 92 438 89 446 67 440 46 430 30 407 Battambang poly 127 594 127 696 214 707 279 685 304 669 379 711 401 733 482 681 454 633 514 610 518 566 474 519 440 471 391 420 363 467 344 498 341 552 339 581 296 561 277 551 260 564 212 560 199 564 189 581 Pursat poly 466 510 528 566 537 549 561 544 603 557 627 571 635 590 641 609 641 621 640 631 708 647 693 591 748 610 753 568 841 571 792 335 648 440 633 404 643 367 564 380 543 408 533 452 Kampong Thom poly 810 390 846 635 928 696 980 722 1084 709 1086 635 1006 592 982 545 1052 492 1041 427 998 414 968 359 961 337 898 400 870 426 836 403 Kratie poly 781 230 794 297 795 364 803 412 863 420 926 367 1002 364 1037 367 1048 361 1028 294 1054 249 1046 202 1085 190 1069 93 1022 62 975 83 909 116 939 171 943 211 922 228 859 214 Stung Tren poly 1071 98 1077 187 1042 209 1050 256 1028 315 1044 359 1055 389 1132 416 1161 404 1163 369 1288 374 1254 254 1226 202 1220 178 1227 119 1246 89 1261 34 1239 54 1234 69 1222 59 1211 62 1191 82 1176 103 1145 93 1135 110 1108 120 Ratanakkiri poly 981 350 988 397 1010 424 1046 427 1045 493 1007 517 991 566 1006 585 1029 629 1096 640 1090 683 1150 685 1185 618 1232 627 1250 644 1272 594 1280 530 1260 464 1262 417 1276 378 1227 372 1183 365 1156 370 1142 399 1116 412 1074 398 1045 375 1026 352 988 354 Mondulkiri desc top-left \|} ==Area and boundaries== Area: total: country rank in the world: 88th land: water: Area comparative: Australia comparative: slightly less than the size of Victoria Canada comaparative: slightly more than times the size of New Brunswick United States comparative: approximately the size of Oklahoma United Kingdom comparative: approximately the size of the United Kingdom EU comparative: slightly less than twice the size of Portugal Maritime claims: territorial sea: contiguous zone: exclusive economic zone: continental shelf: Elevation extremes lowest point: Gulf of Thailand highest point: Phnum Aoral Border disputes Cambodian–Thai border dispute Cambodian–Vietnamese land dispute Lakes Tonlé Sap Lake Yak Loum Crater Lake — Ratanakiri ==Natural resources== Oil and natural gas - In addition to the four parts of mining project, the oilfield, Block A was discovered in 2005 and located offshore in the gulf of Thailand Chevron would operate and hold a 30% interest Block A which cover . It is expected to get 30-year-production permit in the second quarter of 2011. In late 1969, the Cambodian government granted a permit to a French company to explore for petroleum in the Gulf of Thailand. By 1972 none had been located, and exploration ceased when the Khmer Republic (see Appendix B) fell in 1975. Subsequent oil and gas discoveries in the Gulf of Thailand and in the South China Sea, however, could spark renewed interest in Cambodia's offshore area, especially because the country is on the same continental shelf as its Southeast Asian oil-producing neighbors. Timber Dipterocarpus alatus (chheuteal tan) sawnwood, veneer, plywood Anisoptera glabra (mersawa, phdiek) sawnwood, veneer, plywood Hopea odorata (koki) Sawmilling, construction (bridges, boats) Shorea vulgaris (choë(r) chông) sawmilling, construction (housing) Heritiera javanica (synonym Tarrietia javanica) sawnwood (decorative, furniture) Gemstones - Gemstone areas are located in Samlot district of Battambang, Paillin, Ratanakkiri, and Takéo Province Iron ore - Hermatite (Fe2O3); Magnetite (Fe3O4); Limonite (2Fe2O3, 3H2O) - was found in two areas, one located in Phnom Deck and the others located in Koh Keo of Preah Vihear Province, and Thalaborivath of Stung Treng Province. According to General Department of Mineral, the total iron reserves in Phnom Deck area are estimated at 5 to 6 Million tons and other deposits may add 2 to 3 Million tons. Gold - Gold deposit was found in four provinces: Kampong Cham (The Rumchek in Memot area), Kampong Thom (Phnom Chi area), Preah Vihear (Phnom Deck in Roveing district), Ratanakiri (Oyadav district) and Mondulkiri Bauxite – was found in Battambang Province and Chhlong district in Mondulkiri Province. Antimony (Sb) – found in Sre Peang area, Pursat Province Chromium (Cr) – found in Sre Peang area, Pursat Province manganese phosphates Hydro-power - Hydroelectric dams: Lower Se San 2 Dam, Stung Treng Dam Arable land Marine resources Total renewable water resources: (2011) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural): Total: /yr (4%/2%/94%) Per capita: /yr (2006) ==Environmental issues== ===Natural hazards=== Monsoonal rains (June to November) Mekong flooding Occasional droughts ===Human impact=== Issues Illegal logging activities throughout the country rubber tree mono-cultures and strip mining for gold in the eastern highlands gem mining in the western region along the border with Thailand destruction of mangrove swamps threatens natural fisheries, illegal fishing and over-fishing large scale sand mining in river beds and estuaries of Koh Kong's mangrove marshes affects tidal balance A nascent environmental movement has been noticed by NGO's - and it is gaining strength, as the example of local resistance against the building of a Chinese hydro-electric dam in the Areng Valley shows. Cambodia has a bad but improving performance in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) with an overall ranking of 146 out of 180 countries in 2016. This is among the worst in the Southeast Asian region, only ahead of Laos and Myanmar. The EPI was established in 2001 by the World Economic Forum as a global gauge to measure how well individual countries perform in implementing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The environmental areas where Cambodia performs worst on the EPI (i.e. highest ranking) are air quality (148), water resource management (140) and health impacts of environmental issues (137), with the areas of sanitation, environmental impacts of fisheries and forest management following closely. Cambodia has an unusually large expanse of protected areas, both on land and at sea, with the land-based protections covering about 20% of the country. This secures Cambodia a better than average ranking of 61 in relation to biodiversity and habitat, despite the fact deforestation, illegal logging, construction and poaching are heavily deteriorating these protections and habitats in reality, partly fueled by the government's placement of economic land concessions and plantations within protected areas. In November 2017, the U.S. cut funds to help clear unexploded ordnance including land mines and chemical weapons in Cambodia which it had dropped during the Vietnam War. Consequences Flooding Deforestation Soil erosion in rural areas Declining fish stocks Decreasing access to clean water Habitat loss and declining biodiversity ===International agreements and conventions=== Cambodia is party to the following treaties: Convention on Biological Diversity Convention on Climate Change MARPOL 73/78 Tropical Timber 94 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands Signed, but not ratified: Law of the Sea	[ "Banteay Meanchey", "World Economic Forum", "Khorat Plateau", "Carboniferous", "List of islands of Cambodia", "levee", "France", "phosphate", "primary forest", "Kampong Chhnang Province", "Phnum Aoral", "Cambodian–Thai border dispute", "clay", "Battambang", "terrane", "Stung Tren", "List of Cambodian inland islands", "Ta Khmau", "Pterocarpus macrocarpus", "Convention on Biological Diversity", "Arenosol", "Khmer Republic", "Triassic", "Quaternary", "Ream National Park", "mammal", "petroleum", "Environmental Performance Index", "Mittelgebirge", "Coconut", "Illegal logging", "Lumber", "thermal subsidence", "Sangkae River", "Ou Ya Dav District", "Kampong Speu (town)", "Gold", "South China Sea", "mainland Southeast Asia", "shear zone", "Dâmrei Mountains", "Kratié (city)", "Chromium", "Metamorphic core complex", "Stung Pouthisat River", "Tonle Sap", "Prey Veng Province", "Tonlé Sap River", "Tboung Khmum Province", "New Brunswick", "orogeny", "wildlife trade", "continent", "Banlung", "waterfall", "biomass", "Kep province", "logging", "Sustainable Development Goals", "List of rivers of Cambodia", "conifer", "manganese", "Tropical monsoon climate", "Ratanakiri Province", "Kampong Thom (city)", "Pursat", "French Protectorate of Cambodia", "Dipterocarpaceae", "Ratanakiri", "Koh Rong Sanloem", "biodiversity", "Svay Rieng Province", "Oddar Meanchey Province", "deforestation in Cambodia", "Rattanakiri", "Banteay Meanchey Province", "poaching", "Koh Poulo Wai", "Preah Sihanouk Province", "Mekong Delta", "Mekong River", "allochthon", "Suture (geology)", "Suong", "Portugal", "Indomalayan realm", "Cambodia", "Sihanoukville (city)", "Stung Sen Wildlife Sanctuary", "Kandal Province", "MARPOL 73/78", "Siem Reap", "Deforestation in Cambodia", "water resource management", "endemic", "Kampot (city)", "peninsula", "Vietnam", "Sibumasu", "Gulf of Tonkin", "Sreng River", "Geography of Cambodia", "Borassus flabellifer", "Cardamom Mountains", "Kampot Province", "Phnom Penh", "Senmonorom", "Pailin Province", "Iron", "natural capital", "Sisophon River", "Heritiera javanica", "Natural rubber", "Dangrek Mountains", "Serei Saophoan (city)", "sanitation", "Phnom Aural", "Mondulkiri", "Preah Vihear Province", "Tonne", "Montane ecology", "oil palm", "Non-governmental organization", "Dipterocarpus alatus", "Anisoptera glabra", "Lacustrine plain", "Cambodia–Vietnam relations", "Sihanoukville province", "Law of the Sea", "geography", "rubber tree", "Jurassic", "Mekong", "UTC+07:00", "Mekong river", "Leptosol", "West Burma block", "Paleozoic", "Xylia xylocarpa", "drainage divide", "Stung Treng", "Kouprey", "Oddar Meanchey", "Pursat Province", "Stung Treng Dam", "Soil erosion", "Koh Kong province", "Tbeng Meanchey", "Bauxite", "seasonal tropical forest", "Permian", "fish", "Pailin", "Doun Kaev (town)", "deciduous tree", "Antimony", "Asia", "deciduous", "Siliceous rock", "Hopea odorata", "Annamite Range", "World Bank", "Indochina", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "banana", "Dalbergia cochinchinensis", "habitat destruction", "Siem Reap Province", "Gondwana", "Petroleum", "Takéo Province", "air quality", "Samraong (town)", "loam", "United Nations", "Ratanakkiri", "Thailand", "Shorea siamensis", "Victoria (state)", "IUCN", "reptile", "mangrove", "Mesozoic", "Koh Kong (city)", "Mondulkiri Province", "Krong Kep (town)", "Central Vietnam", "forest cover", "Ministry of Planning (Cambodia)", "globalization", "precipitation", "Alluvial plain", "Koh Kong Province", "sugar cane", "Oklahoma", "coffee", "Stung Treng Province", "Bok Koŭ", "Tonlé Sap", "Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests", "Gulf of Thailand", "Southeast Asia", "tropics", "natural gas", "Battambang Province", "Malai District", "Kampong Chhnang (city)", "Henri Mouhot", "Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests", "environmental impacts of fisheries", "Kampot province", "continental shelf", "Kampong Cham (city)", "European Union", "Cretaceous", "Kampong Speu Province", "sediment", "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change", "Kep Province", "State ownership", "Seagrass", "unexploded ordnance", "dipterocarp forest", "sandstone", "Tropical Timber 94", "Kratié Province", "Dângrêk Mountains", "rift", "monsoon", "Arable land", "evergreen forest", "Provinces of Cambodia", "Bassac River", "Kep (town)", "Tropical cyclone", "granite", "Lower Se San 2 Dam", "Kratié (town)", "Aoral District", "Sihanoukville Province", "Acrisol", "Monsoon of South Asia", "Paddy field", "Terrigenous sediment", "Mongkol Borei River", "Shorea vulgaris", "Mango showers", "Tropical savanna climate", "Prey Veng (city)", "Gemstone", "Hydropower", "Khone Falls", "Danish International Development Agency", "Laos", "Svay Rieng City", "Kampong Cham Province", "Ramsar Convention", "bird", "Ta Veaeng District", "Kampong Thom Province" ]
5,430	Demographics of Cambodia	Demographic features of the population of Cambodia include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. ==Population size and structure== Between 1874 and 1921, the total population of Cambodia increased from about 946,000 to 2.4 million. By 1950, it had increased to between 3,710,107 and 4,073,967, and in 1962 it had reached 5.7 million. From the 1960s until 1975, the population of Cambodia increased by about 2.2% yearly, the lowest increase in Southeast Asia. By 1975 when the Khmer Rouge took power, the population was estimated at 7.3 million. Of this total an estimated one to two million reportedly died between 1975 and 1978. In 1981, the PRK gave the official population figure as nearly 6.7 million, although approximately 6.3 million to 6.4 million is probably more accurate. The average annual rate of population growth from 1978 to 1985 was 2.3% (see table 2, Appendix A). A post-Khmer Rouge baby boom pushed the population above 10 million, although growth has slowed in recent years. In 1959, about 45% of the population was under 15 years of age. By 1962, this had increased slightly to 46%. In 1962, an estimated 52% of the population was between 15 and 64 years of age, while 2% were older than 65. The percentage of males and females in the three groups was almost the same. ===Age distribution=== Pyramide Cambodge.PNG\|Cambodian Population Pyramid-2005 Population pyramid cambodia 2019.png\|Population pyramid, urban-rural, Cambodia, 2019 ===Urbanization=== Urban population: 39.4% of total population (2019) Rate of urbanization: 7.8% annual rate of change (2008—2019) ==Vital statistics== ===UN estimates=== ===Fertility=== The total fertility rate in Cambodia was 3.0 children per woman in 2010. ===Demographic and Health Surveys=== Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Total fertility rate and other related statistics by province, as of 2014: ===Infant and childhood mortality=== Childhood mortality rates are decreasing in Cambodia. ==Ethnic groups== The largest of the ethnic groups in Cambodia are the Khmer, who comprise 95.8% of the total population There are also small numbers of other minority groups. Tai peoples in Cambodia include the Lao along the Mekong at the northeast border, Thai (urban and rural), and the culturally Burmese Kola, who have visibly influenced the culture of Pailin Province. Even smaller numbers of recent Hmong immigrants reside along the Lao border and various Burmese peoples have immigrated to the capital, Phnom Penh. ==Languages== Official language Khmer is an Austroasiatic language spoken by over 90% of the Cambodian population. The vast majority of Khmer speakers use the Central Khmer dialect. Central Khmer is the variety spoken in the central plain where the ethnic Khmers most heavily concentrate. Other Khmer dialects include the Phnom Penh variety, as well as Northern Khmer (Surin Khmer), Western Khmer (Cardamom Khmer), Southern Khmer (Khmer Krom), and the Khmer Khe dialect in Stung Treng province. The Northern Khmer dialect is also spoken by over a million Khmers in the southern regions of Northeast Thailand. Western Khmer displays features of the Middle Khmer language, and is considered a conservative dialect. Southern Khmer is the first language of the Khmer Krom people in the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam. Minority languages: According to Glottolog, 22 languages other than Khmer are spoken in Cambodia, most of which are also Austroasiatic languages. Other Austroasiatic languages of Cambodia include Kuy, Por (Pear), Somray, Chong, Suoy, Sa'och, Tampuan, Kaco', Stieng, Mnong, Brao, Krung (Rade), and Sou (Laven). Many of these languages are also spoken in Vietnam. Vietnamese itself is also spoken in parts of Cambodia. Non-Austroasiatic minority languages of Cambodia include Cham, and Jarai, (Austronesian) as well as Thai and Lao (Tai-Kadai). Languages of education English and French are used to different extents in education. Sign language Cambodian Sign Language ==Religions== Buddhism: 97.1%, Islam: 2.0%, Christianity: 0.3%, Others: 0.5% ==Emigration== Countries with notable populations of Cambodians are:	[ "Khmer keyboard", "Khorat Plateau", "Khmer language", "French language", "Kampong Chhnang Province", "Brao people", "Mnong language", "Islam", "Hmong people", "Somray language", "Vietnamese Cambodians", "Northern Khmer dialect", "Laven language", "demography", "Ethnic group", "Champa", "Khmer Rouge", "Tonle Sap", "Prey Veng Province", "Tampuan language", "Austroasiatic languages", "Chinese Cambodians", "Brao language", "Khmer Khe dialect", "longevity", "Ratanakiri Province", "Bunong people", "Rade people", "dialect", "Svay Rieng Province", "Chamic peoples", "Kuy language", "Oddar Meanchey Province", "Banteay Meanchey Province", "Mekong Delta", "Mekong River", "Vietnamese language", "Kreung people", "Khmer Krom", "Cambodia", "Kandal Province", "Cham language", "Vietnam", "Pear people", "Stieng people", "Phnom Penh", "Kampot Province", "Cardamom Mountains", "Pailin Province", "Preah Vihear Province", "Suoy language", "Kuy people", "Stieng language", "population", "Ethnic groups in Cambodia", "Religion in Cambodia", "Kratie Province", "population pyramid", "Christianity", "Pursat Province", "Chinese Cambodian", "urbanization", "Pearic peoples", "Tai peoples", "Middle Khmer", "Vietnamese people", "maternity", "Cambodian Sign Language", "Jarai language", "Siem Reap Province", "Takéo Province", "Austronesian languages", "List of ethnic groups in Myanmar", "Sa'och language", "Pear language", "Thailand", "English language", "Mondulkiri Province", "Lao people", "Lao language", "Koh Kong Province", "Stung Treng Province", "Kavet people", "Rade language", "Southeast Asia", "Khmer Loeu", "Battambang Province", "Glottolog", "Khmer people", "Thai language", "Cham people", "Theravada Buddhism", "Kra–Dai languages", "Kampong Speu Province", "Chams", "Kep Province", "Thai people", "Kula people (Asia)", "Kratié Province", "Buddhism", "Chinese people", "Chong language", "Mahayana Buddhism", "Sihanoukville Province", "Isan", "Western Khmer dialect", "Kacoʼ language", "WP:SDNONE", "population density", "Tampuan people", "Jarai people", "Laos", "Kampong Cham Province", "Kampong Thom Province" ]
5,431	Politics of Cambodia	The politics of Cambodia are defined within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the king serves as the head of state, and the prime minister is the head of government. In practice, Cambodia is an authoritarian state, as power is centralized in the hands of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) under long-standing leader Hun Sen. Civil society groups, independent media and opposition parties are repressed, and elections are not free and fair. The 1993 constitution, which is currently in force, was promulgated as a result of the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, followed by elections organized under the aegis of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. The constitution declares Cambodia to be an "independent, sovereign, peaceful, permanently neutral and non-aligned country." The constitution also proclaims a liberal, multiparty democracy in which powers are devolved to the executive, the judiciary and the legislature. However, there is no effective opposition to the Prime Minister Hun Sen, who had been in power from 1984 until 2023. His Cambodian People's Party won all 125 seats in the National Assembly in 2018 after the banning of opposition party CNRP and KNLF. KNLF became a main opposition exiled in Denmark after CNRP was dissolved. During the communal election in 2022 and the national election in 2023, there were no international observers. The government is considered to be autocratic. Executive power is exercised by the Royal Government, on behalf of and with the consent of the monarch. The government is constituted of the Council of Ministers, headed by the prime minister. The prime minister is aided in his functions by members of the Council such as deputy prime ministers, senior ministers and other ministers. Legislative power is vested in a bicameral legislature composed of the National Assembly, which has the power to vote on draft law, and the Senate, that has the power of review. Upon passage of legislation through the two chambers, the draft law is presented to the monarch for signing and promulgation. The judiciary is tasked with the protection of rights and liberties of the citizens, and with being an impartial arbiter of disputes. The Supreme Court is the highest court of the country and takes appeals from lower courts on questions of law. A separate body called the Constitutional Council was established to provide interpretations of the constitution and the laws, and also to resolve disputes related to election of members of the legislature. The Cambodian People's Party has dominated the political landscape since the 1997 coup d'état in Phnom Penh. Other prominent political parties include the royalist FUNCINPEC and the erstwhile Cambodia National Rescue Party that was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017. Comparative political scientists Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have described Cambodia as a "competitive authoritarian regime", a hybrid regime type with important characteristics of both democracy and authoritarianism. In July 2023 election, the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) easily won by a landslide in flawed election, after disqualification of Cambodia's most important opposition, Candlelight Party. On 22 August 2023, Hun Manet, son of Hun Sen, was sworn in as the new Cambodian prime minister. == Legal framework == Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy with a unitary structure and a parliamentary form of government. The constitution, which prescribes the governing framework, was promulgated in September 1993 by the Constituent Assembly that resulted from the 1993 general election conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). The assembly adopted the basic principles and measures mandated under the Paris Peace Agreements into the text of the constitution. Assimilated into the governing charter, these provisions place the constitution as the supreme law of the land; declare Cambodia's status as a sovereign, independent and neutral state; enshrine a liberal, multi-party democracy with fair and periodic elections; guarantee respect for human rights; and provide for an independent judiciary. The brutality of the Democratic Kampuchea regime had especially necessitated the inclusion of provisions concerning human rights in order to prevent a return to the policies and practices of the past. These criteria had been drawn from the Namibian constitution drafting process that took place in 1982. The constitution further sanctifies the status of international law in the issue of human rights by binding Cambodia to "respect" the provisions of human rights treaties adopted by the UN. The 1993 constitution has been amended eight times since its passage – in 1994, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2014 and 2018. === Separation of powers === The powers are devolved to three branches of the state: the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, in recognition of the doctrine of separation of powers. Political sovereignty rests with the Cambodian people, who exercise their power through the three arms of the state. The Royal Government, which wields executive power, is directly responsible to the National Assembly. The judiciary, which is an independent power, is tasked with the protection of citizens' rights and liberties. Buddhism is proclaimed as the state religion. === Influences on legal system === The legal system of Cambodia is civil law and has been strongly influenced by the legal heritage of France as a consequence of colonial rule. The Soviet-Vietnamese system dominated the country from 1981 until 1989, and Sri Lankan jurist Basil Fernando argues that its elements are present in the current system as well. The role of customary law, based on Buddhist beliefs and unwritten law drawn from the Angkorean period, is also prevalent. === Market economy === The constitution contains a commitment to the "market economy system", which along with accompanying provisions effects a fundamental change in the role of the state from the past. Security of private property and the right to sell and exchange freely, necessary conditions for the functioning of the market economy, are provided for. The state's powers of expropriation are limited to the extent they serve public interest, to be exercised only when "fair and just" compensation is made in advance. Operating under the slogan Le Cambodge s'aide lui-même or "Cambodia will help itself", one of the earliest undertakings of the Royal Government was to implement programs to ensure the economic rehabilitation of Cambodia and its integration in the regional and global economies. On 10 March 1994, the Royal Government declared an "irreversible and irrevocable" move away from a centrally-planned economy towards a market-oriented economy. From September 24, 1993, through October 7, 2004, Norodom Sihanouk reigned as king, after having previously served in a number of offices (including king) since 1941. Under the constitution, the king has no political power, but as Norodom Sihanouk was revered in the country, his word often carried much influence in the government. The king, often irritated over the conflicts in his government, several times threatened to abdicate unless the political factions in the government got along. This put pressure on the government to solve their differences. This influence of the king was often used to help mediate differences in government. After the abdication of King Norodom Sihanouk in 2004, he was succeeded by his son Norodom Sihamoni. While the retired king was highly revered in his country for dedicating his lifetime to Cambodia, the current king has spent most of his life abroad in France. Thus, it remains to be seen whether the new king's views will be as highly respected as his father's. Although in the Khmer language there are many words meaning "king", the word officially used in Khmer (as found in the 1993 Cambodian constitution) is preăhmôhaksăt (Khmer regular script: ព្រះមហាក្សត្រ), which literally means: preăh- ("excellent", cognate of the Pali word vara) -môha- (from Sanskrit, meaning "great", cognate with "maha-" in maharaja) -ksăt ("warrior, ruler", cognate of the Sanskrit word kṣatrá). On the occasion of King Norodom Sihanouk's retirement in September 2004, the Cambodian National Assembly coined a new word for the retired king: preăhmôhavireăkksăt (Khmer regular script: ព្រះមហាវីរក្សត្រ), where vireăk comes from Sanskrit vīra, meaning "brave or eminent man, hero, chief", cognate of Latin vir, viris, English virile. Preăhmôhavireăkksăt is translated in English as "King-Father" (), although the word "father" does not appear in the Khmer noun. As preăhmôhavireăkksăt, Norodom Sihanouk retained many of the prerogatives he formerly held as preăhmôhaksăt and was a highly respected and listened-to figure. Thus, in effect, Cambodia could be described as a country with two Kings during Sihanouk's lifetime: the one who was the head of state, the preăhmôhaksăt Norodom Sihamoni, and the one who was not the head of state, the preăhmôhavireăkksăt Norodom Sihanouk. Sihanouk died of a pulmonary infarction on October 15, 2012. ===Succession to the throne=== Unlike most monarchies, Cambodia's monarchy is not necessarily hereditary and the king is not allowed to select his own heir. Instead, a new king is chosen by a Royal Council of the Throne, consisting of the president of the National Assembly, the prime minister, the president of the Senate, the first and second vice presidents of the Senate, the chiefs of the orders of Mohanikay and Thammayut, and the first and second vice-president of the assembly. The Royal Council meets within a week of the king's death or abdication and selects a new king from a pool of candidates with royal blood. It has been suggested that Cambodia's ability to peacefully appoint a new king shows that Cambodia's government has stabilized incredibly from the situation the country was in during the 1970s (see History of Cambodia). ==Executive branch== The prime minister of Cambodia is a representative from the ruling party of the National Assembly. The prime minister is appointed by the king on the recommendation of the president and vice presidents of the National Assembly. The prime minister must receive be given a vote of confidence by the National Assembly. The prime minister is officially the head of government in Cambodia. The prime minister appoints a Council of Ministers. Officially, the prime minister's duties include chairing meetings of the Council of Ministers (Cambodia's version of a cabinet) and appointing and leading a government. The prime minister and the government make up Cambodia's executive branch of government. The current prime minister is Cambodian People's Party (CPP) member Hun Manet. He has held this position since 2023. Result 1998 election, one year after the CPP staged a bloody coup in Phnom Penh to overthrow elected Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, president of the FUNCINPEC party. ==Legislative branch== The legislative branch of the Cambodian government is made up of a bicameral parliament. The National Assembly ( ) has 125 members, elected for a five-year term by proportional representation. The Senate ( ) has 61 members. Two of these members are appointed by the king, two are elected by the lower house of the government, and the remaining fifty-seven are elected popularly by "functional constituencies". Members in this house serve a six-year term. The official duty of the Parliament is to legislate and make laws. Bills passed by the Parliament are given to the king who gives the proposed bills royal assent. The king does not have veto power over bills passed by the National Assembly and thus, cannot withhold royal assent. The National Assembly also has the power to dismiss the prime minister and his government by a two-thirds vote of no confidence. ===Senate=== The upper house of the Cambodian legislature is called the Senate. It consists of sixty-one members. Two of these members are appointed by the king, two are elected by the lower house of the government, and the remaining fifty-seven are elected popularly by electors from provincial and local governments, in a similar fashion to the Senate of France. Members in this house serve six-year terms. Prior to 2006, elections had last been held for the Senate in 1999. New elections were supposed to have occurred in 2004, but these elections were initially postponed. On January 22, 2006, 11,352 possible voters went to the poll and chose their candidates. This election was criticized by local monitoring non-governmental organizations as being undemocratic. , the Cambodian People's Party holds forty-three seats in the Senate, constituting a significant majority. The two other major parties holding seats in the Senate are the FUNCIPEC party (holding twelve seats) and the Sam Rainsy Party (holding two seats). ===National Assembly=== The lower house of the legislature is called the National Assembly. It is made up of 125 members, elected by popular vote to serve a five-year term. Elections were last held for the National Assembly in July 2013. To vote in legislative elections, one must be at least eighteen years of age. However, to be elected to the legislature, one must be at least twenty-five years of age. The National Assembly is led by a president and two vice presidents who are selected by the assembly members prior to each session. , the Cambodian People's Party holds all 125 seats in the National Assembly. ==Political parties and elections== ===2023 general election results=== ==Judicial branch== The judicial branch is independent from the rest of the government, as specified by the Cambodian Constitution. The highest court of judicial branch is the Supreme Council of the Magistracy. Other, lower courts also exist. Until 1997, Cambodia did not have a judicial branch of government despite the nation's Constitution requiring one. In 2003, Judge Kim Sathavy was in charge of establishing the first Royal School for Judges and Prosecutors to train a new generation of magistrates and legal clerks for Cambodia. The main duties of the judiciary are to prosecute criminals, settle lawsuits, and, most importantly, protect the freedoms and rights of Cambodian citizens. However, in reality, the judicial branch in Cambodia is highly corrupt and often serves as a tool of the executive branch to silence civil society and its leaders. There are currently 17 justices on the Supreme Council. ==Foreign relations== Cambodia is a member of the ACCT, AsDB, ASEAN, ESCAP, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat (nonsignatory user), International Monetary Fund, Interpol, IOC, ISO (subscriber), ITU, NAM, OPCW, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WB, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, WToO, WTrO (applicant) === International rankings === ==Provincial and local governments== Below the central government are 24 provincial and municipal administration. (In rural areas, first-level administrative divisions are called provinces; in urban areas, they are called municipalities.) The administrations are a part of the Ministry of the Interior and their members are appointed by the central government. In practice, the allocation of responsibilities between various levels of government is uncertain. This uncertainty has created additional opportunities for corruption and increased costs for investors.	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5,432	Economy of Cambodia	\| gini = 23.6 (2024) \| hdi = \| labor = \| occupations = \| current account = −$1.563 billion (2024 est.) B+ (domestic) B+ (foreign) BB- (T&C assessment)}} \| aid = $934 million pledged in grants and concessional loans for 2011 by international donors \| reserves = $21.285 billion (25 April 2024 est.) Cambodia had a gross domestic product (GDP) of $28.54 billion in 2022. Per capita income, although rapidly increasing, is low compared with most neighboring countries. Cambodia's two largest industries are textiles and tourism, while agricultural activities remain the main source of income for many Cambodians living in rural areas. The service sector is heavily concentrated on trading activities and catering-related services. Recently, Cambodia has reported that oil and natural gas reserves have been found off-shore. In 1995, with a GDP of $2.92 billion the Cambodian government transformed the country's economic system from a planned economy to its present market-driven system. Following those changes, growth was estimated at a value of 7% while inflation dropped from 26% in 1994 to only 6% in 1995. Imports increased due to the influx of foreign aid, and exports, particularly from the country's garment industry, also increased. Although there was a constant economic growth, this growth translated to only about 0.71% for the ASEAN economy in 2016, compared with neighboring Indonesia, which contributed 37.62%. After four years of improving economic performance, Cambodia's economy slowed in 1997–1998 due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis, civil unrest, and political infighting. Foreign investments declined during this period. Also, in 1998 the main harvest was hit by drought. But in 1999, the first full year of relative peace in 30 years, progress was made on economic reforms and growth resumed at 4%. Currently, Cambodia's foreign policy focuses on establishing friendly borders with its neighbors (such as Thailand and Vietnam), as well as integrating itself into regional (ASEAN) and global (WTO) trading systems. Some of the obstacles faced by this emerging economy are the need for a better education system and the lack of a skilled workforce; particularly in the poverty-ridden countryside, which struggles with inadequate basic infrastructure. Nonetheless, Cambodia continues to attract investors because of its low wages, plentiful labor, proximity to Asian raw materials, and favorable tax treatment. ==Recent economic history== Following its independence from France in 1953, the Cambodian state has undergone five periods of political, social, and economic transformation: First Kingdom of Cambodia (1953–1970) Khmer Republic (1970–1975) Democratic Kampuchea (1975–1982, ousted in 1979); became Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea in exile (1982–1993) People's Republic of Kampuchea (1979–1989), later renamed "State of Cambodia" (1989–1993) Second Kingdom of Cambodia (1993–present) In 1989, the State of Cambodia implemented reform policies that transformed the Cambodian economic system from a command economy to an open market one. In line with the economic reformation, private property rights were introduced and state-owned enterprises were privatized. Cambodia also focused on integrating itself into regional and international economic blocs, such as the Association of South East Asian Nations and the World Trade Organization respectively. These policies triggered a growth in the economy, with its national GDP growing at an average of 6.1% before a period of domestic unrest and regional economic instability in 1997 (1997 Asian financial crisis). In 2007, Cambodia's gross domestic product grew by an estimated 18.6%. Garment exports rose by almost 8%, while tourist arrivals increased by nearly 35%. With exports decreasing, the 2007 GDP growth was driven largely by consumption and investment. Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows reached US$600 million (7 percent of GDP), slightly more than what the country received in official aid. Domestic investment, driven largely by the private sector, accounted for 23.4 percent of GDP. Export growth, especially to the US, began to slow in late 2007 accompanied by stiffer competition from Vietnam and emerging risks (a slowdown in the US economy and lifting of safeguards on China's exports). US companies were the fifth largest investors in Cambodia, with more than $1.2 billion in investments over the period 1997–2007. Cambodia was severely damaged economically by the 2008 financial crisis, and its main economic sector, the garment industry, suffered a 23% drop in exports to the United States and Europe. As a result, 60,000 workers were laid off. However, in the last quarter of 2009 and early 2010, conditions were beginning to improve and the Cambodian economy began to recover. Cambodian exports to the US for the first 11 months of 2012 reached $2.49 billion, a 1 per cent increase year-on-year. Its imports of US goods grew 26 per cent for that period, reaching $213 million. Another factor underscoring the potential of the Cambodian economy is the recent halving of its poverty rate. The poverty rate is 20.5 per cent, meaning that approximately 2.8 million people live below the poverty line. == Data == The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1986–2020 (with IMF staff estimates in 2021–2026). Inflation below 5% is in green. The annual unemployment rate is extracted from the World Bank, although the International Monetary Fund find them unreliable. In 2010, 236 garment export-oriented factories were operating and registered with GMAC, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, with 93% being foreign direct investment (FDI). As seen in the table above, Cambodia's garment industry is characterized by a small percentage of local ownership. This is a reflection of the deficiency of skilled workers in the country as well as the limited leverage and autonomy Cambodian factories have in strategic decisions. Another characteristic of the industry is the country's competitive advantage as the only country where garment factories are monitored and reported according to national and international standards. This has allowed Cambodia to secure its share of quotas for exports to the US through the US-Cambodia Trade Agreement on Textiles and Apparel (1999–2004), which linked market access to labor standards. However, the Cambodian garment industry remains vulnerable to global competition due to a lack of adequate infrastructure, labor unrest, the absence of a domestic textile industry, and almost complete dependence on imported textile material. GMAC is establishing a specialized training institute to train garment workers. The institute is in Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone and will be completed by late 2016. It aims to train 1,600 garment workers in the first three years and 240 university students each year as part of a separate program. === Agriculture === Agriculture is the traditional mainstay of the Cambodian economy. Agriculture accounted for 90 percent of GDP in 1985 and employed approximately 80 percent of the work force. Rice is the principal commodity. Major secondary crops include maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, soybeans, sesame seeds, dry beans, and rubber. The principal commercial crop is rubber. In the 1980s it was an important primary commodity, second only to rice, and one of the country's few sources of foreign exchange. === Tourism === In the 1960s, Cambodia was a prominent tourist destination in the Southeast Asian region. Due to protracted periods of civil war, insurgencies, and especially the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge (see Khmer Rouge Genocide), Cambodia's tourism industry was reduced to being virtually non-existent. Since the late 1990s, tourism is fast becoming Cambodia's second largest industry, just behind the garment manufacturing. In 2006, Cambodia's tourism sector generated a revenue of US$1.594 billion, which made up approximately 16% of the country's GDP. === Gambling industry === === Construction === The increase in tourist arrivals has led to growing demand for hotels and other forms of accommodation surrounding tourist hotspots. Siem Reap in particular has seen a construction boom in recent years. The capital Phnom Penh has also witnessed a growth in the construction and real estate sectors. Recently, planned projects that have been on the pipeline for several years have been shelved temporarily due to a reduction in foreign investment. From 2009, the Cambodian government has allowed foreigners to own condominiums. This has helped in attracting real estate investors from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. The construction sector attracted investment of $2.1 billion in 2012 which is a 72 per cent rise compared with 2011. Construction licenses issued stood at 1,694 projects in 2012, which was 20% lower than 2011 but they were higher in value. === Resources === Oil seeps were discovered in Cambodia as early as the 1950s by Russian and Chinese geologists. Development of the industry was delayed, however, by the Vietnam and Cambodian Civil Wars and the political uncertainty that followed. Further discoveries of oil and natural gas deposits offshore in the early 2000s led to renewed domestic and international interest in Cambodia's production possibilities. As of 2013, the US company Chevron, Japanese JOGMEC and other international companies maintained production sites both on shore and off. Chevron alone had invested over US$160 million and drilled 18 wells. Sok Khavan, acting director general of the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority, estimated that once the contracts are finalized and legal issues resolved, the Cambodian government will receive approximately 70% of the revenues, contributing to an economy in which the GDP is projected to increase five-fold by 2030. In addition, there are 10,000 square miles offshore in the Gulf of Thailand that holds potential reserves of 12-14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and an unspecified amount of oil. ===Foreign aid=== Cambodia's emerging democracy has received strong international support. Under the mandate of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), $1.72 billion (1.72 G$) was spent in an effort to bring basic security, stability and democratic rule to the country. Various news and media reports suggest that since 1993 the country has been the recipient of some US$10 billion in foreign aid. With regards to economic assistance, official donors had pledged $880 million at the Ministerial Conference on the Rehabilitation of Cambodia (MCRRC) in Tokyo in June 1992. In addition to that figure, $119 million was pledged in September 1993 at the International Committee on the Reconstruction of Cambodia (ICORC) meeting in Paris, and $643 million at the March 1994 ICORC meeting in Tokyo. Cambodia experienced a shortfall in foreign aid in the year 2005 due to the government's failure to pass anti-corruption laws, opening up a single import/export window, increasing its spending on education, and complying with policies of good governance. In response, the government adopted the National Strategic Development Plan for 2006–10 (also known as the “Third Five-Year Plan”). The plan focused on three major areas: the speeding up of economic growth at an annual rate of 6-7% eradicating corruption developing public structures in favor of quality (i.e. by education, training, and healthcare) over quantity (i.e. rapid population growth) === Banking === There are no significant barriers to bank entry. At the end of 2013, there stood 35 commercial banks. Since 2011 new banks with offshore funding have begun to enter the market. === Telecommunications === === Energy === Cambodia has significant potential for developing renewable energy and could potentially run its energy system on 100% renewable sources. The country, however, remains one of the few countries in the ASEAN region that has not adopted renewable energy targets. To attract more investment in renewable energy Cambodia could adopt targets, improve renewable energy governance, develop a regulatory framework, improve project bankability and facilitate market entry for international investors. === Transport === === Child labour === === Trade - EBA Issues === The announcement from February 12, 2020, was to suspend "Everything But Arms" (EBA) trade preferences between EU and Cambodia. The country has known to be the second largest beneficiary from EBA's program. The EU's preliminary conclusion sent to Cambodian government on November 12, 2019, because Cambodia failed to address serious human and labor rights concerns under Human Rights Watch. Moreover, the issue behind ending the opposition party (CNRP) and dropping charges against the leader of CNRP violated the right to freedom of expression. === Other industry === Cambodia is encouraging investment in EV assembly plants. Cambodia's 2022 Long-Term Strategy for Carbon Neutrality to have 40% EV cars and busses and 70% electric motorbikes by 2050. There is little evidence that the Law on Patents, Utility Model Certificates and Industrial Designs (2006) has been of practical use, thus far, to any but the larger foreign firms operating in Cambodia. By 2012, 27 patent applications had been filed, all by foreigners. Of the 42 applications for industrial design received up to 2012, 40 had been filed by foreigners. Nevertheless, the law has no doubt encouraged foreign firms to introduce technological improvements to their on-shore production systems, which can only be beneficial. ==Statistics== Investment (gross fixed) 3% of GDP (2011 est.) Household income or consumption by percentage share lowest 10%: 2.6% highest 10%: 23.7% (2011) Agriculture - products rice, rubber, corn, vegetables, cashews, tapioca, silk Industries tourism, garments, construction, rice milling, fishing, wood and wood products, rubber, cement, gem mining, textiles Industrial production growth rate 5.7% (2011 est.) Electricity Exchange rates	[ "2008 financial crisis", "ASEAN", "Cambodian conflict (1979–1998)", "Cambodian riel", "Standard & Poor's", "The Observatory of Economic Complexity", "Least developed countries", "List of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI", "sesame seed", "Singapore", "Khmer Republic", "Multi Fibre Arrangement", "maize", "gross domestic product", "Poverty in Cambodia", "GDP", "World Trade Organization", "Cambodian government", "Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea", "Purchasing power parity", "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation", "cassava", "Foreign direct investment", "Angkor Wat", "Cambodia", "Oxford University Press", "Human Development Report", "sweet potato", "Siem Reap", "1000000000 (number)", "Vietnam", "Phnom Penh", "List of countries by Human Development Index", "construction", "People's Republic of Kampuchea", "Cambodia and the World Bank", "rubber", "List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita", "democracy", "United Nations Development Programme", "Democratic Kampuchea", "Special Economic Zones of Cambodia", "Mekong", "Child sex tourism", "small and medium-sized enterprises", "Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership", "United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia", "Secondary sector of the economy", "Indonesia", "World Bank", "Tertiary sector of the economy", "List of countries by GDP (nominal)", "Cambodian Civil War", "market economy", "Rice", "Association of South East Asian Nations", "Group of 77", "Per capita income", "Thailand", "Chevron Corporation", "ASEAN Free Trade Area", "Royal Palace, Phnom Penh", "Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation", "Ease of doing business index", "International Monetary Fund", "Agriculture in Cambodia", "infrastructure", "List of countries by GDP (PPP)", "Tonlé Sap", "WTO", "Gulf of Thailand", "Primary sector of the economy", "Southeast Asia", "Cambodia (1953–1970)", "Malaysia", "Petroleum seep", "Bambara groundnut", "soybean", "List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita", "planned economy", "Everything but Arms", "command economy", "1997 Cambodian coup d'état", "Paris", "Khmer Rouge Genocide", "1997 Asian financial crisis", "Tokyo", "Tourism in Cambodia", "Vietnam War" ]
5,433	Telecommunications in Cambodia	{{Infobox \|title=Telecommunications in Cambodia \|image1= \|caption1=Communications towers in Kampong Thom \|label1 = Telephone land lines \|data1 = 55,603 (2020) \|label2 = Mobile lines \|data2 = 21,086,791 (2020) Smart Axiata, a leading telecommunications company, in 2019 conducted a live trial of its 5G network with support from China's Huawei. The company said it expects to begin rolling out 5G services in Cambodia by the end of 2019. GSMA predicted that by 2025, Cambodia will have approximately 24.3 million total mobile connections with smartphone connections up to 69%. The market is predicted to adopt 1.6 million of 5G connections within 5 years from 2020. Though so, it's believed that 4G still have room for growth and will continue to be the majority network connection. \|- \| Mobitel \|\| CamGSM Co., Ltd. \|\| Also known as Cellcard Incorporates the former Mfone \|- \| CooTel \|\| Xinwei (Cambodia) Telecom Co., Ltd \|\| \|- \| SEATEL \|\| Southeast Asia Telecom (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. \|\| Incorporates the former GT-TEL \|- \| Metfone \|\| Viettel (Cambodia) Pte., Ltd. \|\| Incorporates the former Beeline \|- \| qb \|\| Cambodia Advance Communications Co., Ltd. (CADCOMMS) \|\| \|} ==Radio and television== As of 2019, Cambodian broadcasters were a mixture of state-owned, joint public-private, and privately owned companies. Early in 2011, very likely at the urging of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, all Cambodian ISPs blocked the hosting service Blogspot, apparently in reaction to a December 2010 post on KI-Media, a blog run by Cambodians from both inside and outside the country. The site, which is often critical of the administration, described the prime minister and other officials as "traitors" after opposition leader Sam Rainsy alleged they had sold land to Vietnam at a contested national border. All ISPs but one subsequently restored service to the sites following customer complaints. In February 2011, however, multiple ISPs reinstated blocks on individual Blogspot sites, including KI-Media, Khmerization—another critical citizen journalist blog—and a blog by the Khmer political cartoonist Sacrava. The constitution provides for freedom of speech and press; however, these rights were not always respected in practice. The 1995 press law prohibits prepublication censorship or imprisonment for expressing opinions; however, the government uses the penal code to prosecute citizens on defamation, disinformation, and incitement charges. The penal code does not prescribe imprisonment for defamation, but does for incitement or spreading disinformation, which carry prison sentences of up to three years. Judges also can order fines, which may lead to jail time if not paid. The constitution requires that free speech not adversely affect public security. and it will get launched in February 2022.	[ ".kh", "Banteay Meanchey", "Ultra high frequency", "Democratic Kampuchea", "Ratanakiri", "Media of Cambodia", "Corruption in Cambodia", "Vientiane", "Telecom Cambodia", "5G", "Radio Free Asia", "Svay Rieng Province", "History of Cambodia (1979-present)", "Hang Meas HDTV", "Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Cambodia", "Battambang Province", "Sam Rainsy", "Kampong Thom City", "TV5 Cambodia", "Great Firewall", "Cambodia", "Hun Sen", "Pailin", "Kandal Province", "Siem Reap", "Hanoi", "Huawei", "Lotus Radio FM 100.5hz", "Moscow", "Prime Minister of Cambodia", "Ministry of Interior (Cambodia)", "Vietnam", "Phnom Penh", "Kampot Province", "Freedom House", "Intersputnik", "Siem Reap Province", "disinformation", "mobile phone", "Khmer Rouge", "Sihanoukville Province", "Paris", "WP:SDNONE", "Women's Media Centre of Cambodia", "Mondulkiri", "Bayon Television", "National Television of Cambodia", "Blogspot", "Preah Vihear Province", "Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Cambodia)", "3G", "Facebook", "Cambodian Television Network", "Kampong Cham Province", "Kampong Thom Province" ]
5,434	Transport in Cambodia	The system of transport in Cambodia, rudimentary at the best of times, was severely damaged in the chaos that engulfed the nation in the latter half of the 20th century. The country's weak transport infrastructure hindered emergency relief efforts, exacerbating the logistical issues of procurement of supplies in general and their distribution. Cambodia received Soviet technical assistance and equipment to support the maintenance of the transportation network. ==Road transport== === Highway network === Total - 38,257 km (2004) Paved - 2,406 km (2004) Unpaved - 35,851 km (2004) Of the current total roadway network, only about 50% of the roads and highways are hard surfaced, all-weather, and in good condition. About 50% of the roads were constructed of crushed stone, gravel, or compacted earth. Secondary roads are of unimproved earth or were little more than tracks. In 1981 Cambodia opened a newly repaired section of National Route 1 which runs southeast from Phnom Penh to the Vietnamese border. The road, which suffered damage during the war years, was restored most probably by Vietnamese army engineers. In the late-1980s, Cambodia's road network was both underutilized and unable to meet even the modest demands placed upon it by a preindustrial agrarian society. Commercial vehicles, such as trucks and buses, were insufficient in number and lacked the spare parts necessary to keep them running. Road construction and maintenance were ignored by a financially hard-pressed governments, while insurgents regularly destroyed bridges and rendered some routes unsafe for travel. Cambodia is upgrading the main highways to international standards and most are vastly improved from 2006. Most main roads are now paved. And now road construction is on going from the Thailand border at Poipet to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat). Funded by over $3 billion of Chinese loans, Chinese companies have built of roads as well as several major bridges. An expressway network is being developed, the 190km Phnom Penh-Sikhanoukville expressway (E4) opened in October 2022, the construction to Bavet started in June 2023. Chart of 01/2014 === Other transport === Motorcycles are by far the most common transport medium in Cambodia. "Cyclo" (as hand-me-down French) or cycle rickshaws were popular in the 1990s but are increasingly replaced by remorques (carriages attached to motorcycles) and rickshaws imported from India. Cyclos are unique to Cambodia in that the cyclist sits behind the passenger(s) seat, as opposed to cycle rickshaws in neighbouring countries where the cyclist is at the front and pulls the carriage. With 78% mobile phone penetration rate, ride-hailing apps have become popular in recent years. The first locally owned ride-hailing app, ExNet taxi app, was launched in 2016, after which another locally developed PassApp taxi was also introduced. The ExNet and PassApp use the same technology and architect for their application, except that ExNet is a taxi-based ride-hailing service while PassApp is more of rickshaw-based one. Uber and Grab joined the market in 2017. The entry and later merger of Uber and Grab did not negatively affect the local apps as the locals have the first-mover advantage and could secure a large number of patrons. As of today, PassApp is seen as an able competitor for the Singapore-based Grab in the Cambodian transport market. Thai Duong Bus Cambodia Aside from the private-hire vehicles and ride-hailing service, public transport is also available but only in the capital. Phnom Penh city bus service started in 2015 with only three routes under the assistance of JICA. Today, Phnom Penh City Bus operates 13 routes. ==Railways== Two rail lines exist, both originating in Phnom Penh and totaling about 612 kilometers of 1,000 mm (3 ft 3 3⁄8 in) metre gauge single track. The first line or the northern line, built by The French colonial government, running from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the Thai border, between 1930 and 1940, with Phnom Penh Railway Station opening in 1932. The final connection with Thailand was completed by Royal State Railways in 1942. The service from Bangkok to Battambang was suspended when the French Indochinese Government resumed sovereignty over Battambang and the Sisophon area from Thailand on 17 December 1946, as Thailand was seen as a supporter of Khmer Issarak, the anti-French, Khmer nationalist political movement. A third line is planned to connect Phnom Penh with Vietnam, the last missing link of the planned rail corridor between Singapore and the city of Kunming, China. A new north–south line is also planned. The lines from Phnom Penh to Sisophon and from Sisophon to Poipet have been rehabilitated; starting with Poipet to Srey Sisophon in April 2018 and Sisophon to Phnom Penh in early July (2018). (or Toll Royal Railway). Toll Royal Railway (Cambodia) had been given a 30-year concession from The Royal Government of Cambodia to operate Cambodia's railway network. ===Routes=== Phnom Penh - Pursat - Moung Ruessei - Battambang - Sisophon - Poipet Phnom Penh - Takeo - Touk Meas - Damnak Chang'aeur - Veal Renh - Sihanoukville ==Waterways== The nation's extensive inland waterways were important historically in domestic trade. The Mekong and the Tonlé Sap Rivers, their numerous tributaries, and the Tonlé Sap provided avenues of considerable length, including 3,700 kilometers navigable all year by craft drawing 0.6 meters and another 282 kilometers navigable to craft drawing 1.8 meters. In some areas, especially west of the Mekong River and north of the Tonle Sap River, the villages were completely dependent on waterways for communications. Launches, junks, or barges transport passengers, rice, and other food in the absence of roads and railways. According to the Ministry of Communications, Transport, and Post, Cambodia's main ferry services crossing the Bassac River and the middle Mekong River were restored in 1985. The major Mekong River navigation routes also were cleared for traffic. Seaplane service to all waterways and islands in now offered by Aero Cambodia Airline. ===Seaports and harbors=== Cambodia has two major ports, Phnom Penh Autonomous Port and Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, also known as Kampong Som, and five minor ports. Phnom Penh, at the junction of the Bassac, the Mekong, and the Tonle Sap Rivers, is the only river port capable of receiving 8,000-ton ships during the wet season and 5,000-ton ships during the dry season. In 2018 the port received 205,000 TEUs totalling 2.9 million tonnes. Its 2018 profits were US$7.35 million, up 36% from 2017. Sihanoukville port reopened in late-1979. It had been built in 1960 with French assistance. In 1980 some 180 Soviet dockworkers, having brought with them forklifts and trucks, were reportedly working at Kampong Som as longshoremen or as instructors of unskilled Cambodian port workers. By 1984 approximately 1,500 Cambodian port workers were handling 2,500 tons of cargo per day. According to official statistics, Sihanoukville had handled only 769,500 tons in the four prior years (1979 to 1983), a level that contrasted sharply with the port's peacetime capacity of about one million tons of cargo per year. ====Merchant marine==== Total: 626 ships ( or over) totaling / Ships by type: bulk carrier 41, cargo ship 533, chemical tanker 10, container ship 8, passenger ship/cargo 6, petroleum tanker 11, refrigerated cargo 15, roll-on/roll-off 1, vehicle carrier 1 (2008) Note: 467 foreign-owned: Canada 2, China 193, Cyprus 7, Egypt 13, Gabon 1, Greece 3, Hong Kong 8, Indonesia 22, Japan 1, South Korea 22, Latvia 1, Lebanon 8, Netherlands 1, Romania 1, Russia 83, Singapore 4, Syria 48, Taiwan 1, Turkey 26, Ukraine 34, UAE 34, United States 6 (2008) ==Airports== The country possesses twenty-six airfields, of which only thirteen were usable in the mid-1980s. Eight airfields had permanent-surface runways. Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport in the tourist city of Siem Reap is the largest airport and replaced Siem Reap International Airport. In the past, tourist traffic into Siem Reap International Airport saw passenger numbers overtook those of Phnom Penh in 2006. Cambodia's second largest airport is Phnom Penh International Airport in Phnom Penh; it also serves as the main base for the renascent Cambodian Air Force. Cambodia also opened a new Soviet-built airfield at Ream, Sihanouk International Airport in late-1983, which never saw commercial air traffic until January 2007. There are additional airports in Battambang and Stung Treng. The new national airline Cambodia Angkor Air was launched in 2009, with an investment from Vietnam Airlines, later in January 2025, it officially rebranched as Air Cambodia. Aero Cambodia Airline started business in 2011 offering flights to all airports and waterways with seaplanes. The low-cost airline AirAsia Cambodia was launched in 2022, with an investment from Malaysia AirAsia. Techo Takhmao International Airport, intended to replace the existing Phnom Penh International Airport as the city's main airport, currently under construction in Kandal, Cambodia. Located about 30–40 kilometres (16–22 NM; 19–25 mi) south of Phnom Penh, it is expected to open in 2023 and be fully operational by 2025. ===Airports with paved runways=== Total: 6 (2010) 2,500 to 3,000 m: 3 1,500 to 2,500 m: 2 1,000 to 1,500 m: 1 ===Airports with unpaved runways=== Total: 11 (2010) 1,500 to 2,500 m: 1 1,000 to 1,500 m: 9 under 1,000 m: 1 ===Heliports=== 1 (2010)	[ "bus", "junk (ship)", "river port", "Transport in Phnom Penh", "Neak Leung", "Hong Kong", "Battambang", "cycle rickshaw", "National Highway 7 (Cambodia)", "passenger ship", "Singapore", "Veal Renh", "bridge", "AirAsia Cambodia", "Lebanon", "National Highway 5 (Cambodia)", "Moung Ruessei", "National Highway 2 (Cambodia)", "Tonle Sap River", "Cambodia Angkor Air", "ferry", "Netherlands", "waterway", "Tonlé Sap River", "National Highway 8 (Cambodia)", "Soviet Union", "Uber", "Greece", "Siem Reap International Airport", "bulk carrier", "Romania", "Insurgency", "oil tanker", "ship", "Taiwan", "Cambodian Air Force", "Bavet", "Pursat", "Phnom Den", "Phnom Penh Autonomous Port", "National Highway 6 (Cambodia)", "AirAsia", "Canada", "Ukraine", "cargo ship", "Angkor Wat", "United States", "Cambodia", "Sihanoukville (city)", "Damnak Chang'aeur", "Kandal Province", "Siem Reap", "airfield", "Kampot (city)", "Ministry of Public Works and Transport, of Cambodia", "Vietnam", "Phnom Penh", "Turkey", "agrarian society", "chemical tanker", "Egypt", "Latvia", "Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (Cambodia)", "Vietnam Airlines", "container ship", "National Highway 3 (Cambodia)", "South Korea", "road", "transport network", "Twenty-foot equivalent unit", "Air Cambodia", "Grab (company)", "Mekong", "Prek Tamak Bridge", "Stung Treng", "Sihanouk International Airport", "Sihanoukville Autonomous Port", "tonne", "Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport", "China", "Auto part", "Phnom Penh International Airport", "National Highway 1 (Cambodia)", "Indonesia", "Sisophon", "Bavet municipality", "Takéo Province", "Syria", "Skuon", "Techo Takhmao International Airport", "Expressways of Cambodia", "Poipet", "Thailand", "Russia", "Touk Meas", "infrastructure", "highway", "Tonlé Sap", "gravel", "National Highway 4 (Cambodia)", "barge", "State Secretariat of Civil Aviation", "UAE", "vehicle carrier", "Aero Cambodia Airline", "roll-on/roll-off", "Gabon", "Bassac River", "Cyprus", "WP:SDNONE", "Japan", "Laos", "rice" ]
5,436	Foreign relations of Cambodia	The Cambodian government has diplomatic relations with most countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, as well as all of its Asian neighbors, including China, India, Vietnam, Laos, South Korea, and Thailand. The government is a member of most major international organizations, including the United Nations and its specialized agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The government is an Asian Development Bank (ADB) member, a member of ASEAN, and of the WTO. In 2005 Cambodia attended the inaugural East Asia Summit. The government is also a member of the Pacific Alliance (as observer) and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (as dialogue partner). ==International disputes== Cambodia is involved in a dispute regarding offshore islands and sections of the boundary with Vietnam. In addition, the maritime boundary Cambodia has with Vietnam is undefined. Parts of Cambodia's border with Thailand are indefinite, and the maritime boundary with Thailand is not clearly defined. ==Illicit drugs== Cambodia is a transshipment site for Golden Triangle heroin, and possibly a site of money laundering. There is corruption related to narcotics in parts of the government, military and police. Cambodia is also a possible site of small-scale opium, heroin, and amphetamine production. The country is a large producer of cannabis for the international market. ==International organization participation== ACCT, AsDB, ASEAN, ASEAN-Japan Centre, ESCAP, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat (nonsignatory user), International Monetary Fund, Interpol, IOC, ISO (subscriber), ITU, NAM, OPCW, PCA, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WB, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO, WToO, WTrO (applicant) == Diplomatic relations == List of countries which Cambodia maintains diplomatic relations with: ===Asia=== ===Europe=== ===Oceania=== ==Country with no relations== There are 17 countries that haven't establish any diplomatic relations with Cambodia:	[ "Cambodia–Thailand relations", "ASEAN", "International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement", "maritime boundary", "France", "Washington, D.C.", "Cambodian–Thai border dispute", "International Civil Aviation Organization", "International Development Association", "Cambodia–North Korea relations", "Cambodia–France relations", "Charles de Gaulle", "United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific", "Khmer Republic", "Hanoi", "Taipei Economic and Cultural Office", "Permanent Court of Arbitration", "Cambodia–Israel relations", "World Trade Organization", "Bangkok", "amphetamine", "Beijing", "Taiwan", "Canberra", "Germany", "ASEAN-Japan Centre", "List of diplomatic missions of Cambodia", "Cambodia–Denmark relations", "Vientiane", "Shanghai Cooperation Organisation", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "UNESCO", "transshipment", "Intelsat", "Cambodia–India relations", "International Olympic Committee", "United States", "Norodom Sihanouk", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands)", "Siem Reap", "Cambodia–Pakistan relations", "Lee Hsien Loong", "Francophonie", "International Labour Organization", "Vietnam", "International Atomic Energy Agency", "Phnom Penh", "Royal Government of Cambodia", "Brunei–Cambodia relations", "India", "Ankara", "United Kingdom", "Cambodia–Canada relations", "World Meteorological Organization", "International Telecommunication Union", "Foreign relations of the United Kingdom", "Ho Chi Minh City", "South Korea", "Cambodia–Japan relations", "Cambodia–Vietnam relations", "Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)", "Cambodia–Germany relations", "Cambodia–United Kingdom relations", "United Nations Industrial Development Organization", "One China", "world Trade Organization", "Bandar Seri Begawan", "Cambodia–South Korea relations", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "List of diplomatic missions in Cambodia", "China", "East Asia Summit", "World Health Organization", "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development", "Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique", "Embassy of Cambodia, London", "World Bank", "Cambodian-Vietnamese War", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "International Fund for Agricultural Development", "Cambodian Civil War", "International Organization for Standardization", "London", "Berlin", "United Nations", "Group of 77", "Seoul", "International Criminal Court", "World Tourism Organization", "Cambodia–Turkey relations", "Thailand", "Interpol", "Dagens Nyheter", "International Monetary Fund", "Cambodia–Indonesia relations", "cannabis (drug)", "Cambodia–Malaysia relations", "Chenla Kingdom", "heroin", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Israel)", "Cambodia–Philippines relations", "gov.uk", "Cambodia–China relations", "Cambodia–United States relations", "Cambodia–Laos relations", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (South Korea)", "Cambodia–Laos border", "Norodom Sihamoni", "Australia–Cambodia relations", "Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons", "opium", "IFRCS", "Cambodia–Singapore relations", "Asian Development Bank", "Paris", "WP:SDNONE", "Lee Myung-bak", "money laundering", "Universal Postal Union", "Cambodia–Ukraine relations", "Srivijaya", "Pacific Alliance", "Laos", "Tokyo", "Manila" ]
5,437	Khmer architecture	Khmer architecture (), also known as Angkorian architecture (), is the architecture produced by the Khmer during the Angkor period of the Khmer Empire from approximately the later half of the 8th century CE to the first half of the 15th century CE. The architecture of the Indian rock-cut temples, particularly in sculpture, had an influence on Southeast Asia and was widely adopted into the Indianised architecture of Cambodian (Khmer), Annamese and Javanese temples (of the Greater India). Evolved from Indian influences, Khmer architecture became clearly distinct from that of the Indian sub-continent as it developed its own special characteristics, some of which were created independently and others of which were incorporated from neighboring cultural traditions, resulting in a new artistic style in Asian architecture unique to the Angkorian tradition. The development of Khmer architecture as a distinct style is particularly evident in artistic depictions of divine and royal figures with facial features representative of the local Khmer population, including rounder faces, broader brows, and other physical characteristics. In any study of Angkorian architecture, the emphasis is necessarily on religious architecture, since all the remaining Angkorian buildings are religious in nature. During the period of Angkor, only temples and other religious buildings were constructed of stone. Non-religious buildings such as dwellings were constructed of perishable materials such as wood, and so have not survived. The religious architecture of Angkor has characteristic structures, elements, and motifs, which are identified in the glossary below. Since a number of different architectural styles succeeded one another during the Angkorean period, not all of these features were equally in evidence throughout the period. Indeed, scholars have referred to the presence or absence of such features as one source of evidence for dating the remains. ==Periodization== Many temples had been built before Cambodia became the powerful Khmer Empire which dominated a large part of mainland Southeast Asia. At that time, Khmer was known as the Chenla kingdom, the predecessor state of the Khmer empire. Latest research reveals that the Khmer already erected stone buildings in the protohistoric period, which they used for the worship of mighty tutelary spirits. This earliest extant architecture consists of relatively small cells made from prefabricated megalithic construction parts, which probably date at least to the second century BC. There are three pre-Angkorean architectural styles: Sambor Prei Kuk style (610–650): Sambor Prei Kuk, also known as Isanapura, was the capital of the Chenla Kingdom. Temples of Sambor Prei Kuk were built in rounded, plain colonettes with capitals that include a bulb. Prei Khmeng style (635–700): structures reveal masterpieces of sculpture but examples are scarce. Colonettes are larger than those of previous styles. Buildings were more heavily decorated but had general decline in standards. Kompong Preah style (700–800): temples with more decorative rings on colonettes which remain cylindrical. Brick constructions were being continued. Scholars have worked to develop a periodization of Angkorean architectural styles. The following periods and styles may be distinguished. Each is named for a particular temple regarded as paradigmatic for the style. Kulen style (825–875): continuation of pre-Angkorean style but it was a period of innovation and borrowing such as from Cham temples. Tower is mainly square and relatively high as well as brick with laterite walls and stone door surrounds but square and octagonal colonettes begin to appear. Preah Ko style (877–886): Hariharalaya was the first capital city of the Khmer empire located in the area of Angkor; its ruins are in the area now called Roluos some fifteen kilometers southeast of the modern city of Siem Reap. The earliest surviving temple of Hariharalaya is Preah Ko; the others are Bakong and Lolei. The temples of the Preah Ko style are known for their small brick towers and for the great beauty and delicacy of their lintels. Bakheng Style (889–923): Bakheng was the first temple mountain constructed in the area of Angkor proper north of Siem Reap. It was the state temple of King Yasovarman, who built his capital of Yasodharapura around it. Located on a hill (phnom), it is currently one of the most endangered of the monuments, having become a favorite perch for tourists eager to witness a glorious sundown at Angkor. Koh Ker Style (921–944): during the reign of King Jayavarman IV, capital of Khmer empire was removed from Angkor region through the north which is called Koh Ker. The architectural style of temples in Koh Ker, scale of buildings diminishes toward center. Brick still main material but sandstone also used. Pre Rup Style (944–968): under King Rajendravarman, the Angkorian Khmer built the temples of Pre Rup,East Mebon]] and Phimeanakas. Their common style is named after the state temple mountain of Pre Rup. Banteay Srei Style (967–1000): Banteay Srei is the only major Angkorian temple constructed not by a monarch, but by a courtier. It is known for its small scale and the extreme refinement of its decorative carvings, including several famous narrative bas-reliefs dealing with scenes from Indian mythology. Khleang Style (968–1010): the Khleang temples, first use of galleries. Cruciform gopuras. Octagonal colonettes. Restrained decorative carving. A few temples that were built in this style are Ta Keo, Phimeanakas. Baphuon Style (1050–1080): Baphuon, the massive temple mountain of King Udayadityavarman II was apparently the temple that most impressed the Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor toward the end of the 13th century. Its unique relief carvings have a naive dynamic quality that contrast with the rigidity of the figures typical of some other periods. As of 2008, Baphuon is under restoration and cannot currently be appreciated in its full magnificence. Classical or Angkor Wat Style (1080–1175): Angkor Wat, the temple and perhaps the mausoleum of King Suryavarman II, is the greatest of the Angkorian temples and defines what has come to be known as the classical style of Angkorian architecture. Other temples in this style are Banteay Samre and Thommanon in the area of Angkor, and Phimai in modern Thailand. Bayon Style (1181–1243): in the final quarter of the 12th century, King Jayavarman VII freed the country of Angkor from occupation by an invasionary force from Champa. Thereafter, he began a massive program of monumental construction, paradigmatic for which was the state temple called the Bayon. The king's other foundations participated in the style of the Bayon, and included Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Angkor Thom, and Banteay Thom. Though grandiose in plan and elaborately decorated, the temples exhibit a hurriedness of construction that contrasts with the perfection of Angkor Wat. Post Bayon Style (1243–1431): following the period of frantic construction under Jayavarman VII, Angkorian architecture entered the period of its decline. The 13th century Terrace of the Leper King is known for its dynamic relief sculptures of demon kings, dancers, and nāgas. ==Materials== Angkorian builders used brick, sandstone, laterite and wood as their materials. The ruins that remain are of brick, sandstone and laterite, the wood elements having been lost to decay and other destructive processes. ===Brick=== The earliest Angkorian temples were made mainly of brick. Good examples are the temple towers of Preah Ko, Lolei and Bakong at Hariharalaya, and Chóp Mạt in Tay Ninh. Decorations were usually carved into a stucco applied to the brick, rather than into the brick itself. This was because bricks were a softer material, and did not lend themselves to sculpting, as opposed to stones of different kinds such as the Sandstones or the Granites. However, the tenets of the Sacred Architecture as enunciated in the Vedas and the Shastras, require no adhesives to be used while building blocks are assembled one over the other to create the Temples, as such bricks have been used only in relatively smaller temples such as Lolei and The Preah Ko. Besides, strength of bricks is much lesser as compared to the stones (mentioned here-in) and the former degrade with age. Angkor's neighbor state of Champa was also the home to numerous brick temples that are similar in style to those of Angkor. The most extensive ruins are at Mỹ Sơn in Vietnam. A Cham story tells of the time that the two countries settled an armed conflict by means of a tower-building contest proposed by the Cham King Po Klaung Garai. While the Khmer built a standard brick tower, Po Klaung Garai directed his people to build an impressive replica of paper and wood. ===Sandstone=== The only stone used by Angkorian builders was sandstone, obtained from the Kulen mountains. Since its obtainment was considerably more expensive than that of brick, sandstone only gradually came into use, and at first was used for particular elements such as door frames. The 10th-century temple of Ta Keo is the first Angkorian temple to be constructed more or less entirely from Sandstone. ===Laterite=== Angkorian builders used laterite, a clay that is soft when taken from the ground but that hardens when exposed to the sun, for foundations and other hidden parts of buildings. Because the surface of laterite is uneven, it was not suitable for decorative carvings, unless first dressed with stucco. Laterite was more commonly used in the Khmer provinces than at Angkor itself. Because the water table in this entire region is well high, Laterite has been used in the underlying layers of Angkor Wat and other temples (especially the larger ones), because it can absorb water and help towards better stability of the Temple. File:Preah Ko 1.jpg\|Preah Ko, completed in 879 CE, was a temple made mainly of brick. File:Ta Keo 01.jpg\|Ta Keo, a temple built in the 10th century, was constructed more or less entirely from sandstone. File:Prasat Prang Ku Somboon-006.jpg\|Prasat Prang Ku in Sisaket, Thailand, was built with laterite. ==Structures== ===Central sanctuary=== The central sanctuary of an Angkorian temple was home to the temple's primary deity, the one to whom the site was dedicated: typically Shiva or Vishnu in the case of a Hindu temple, Buddha or a bodhisattva in the case of a Buddhist temple. The deity was represented by a statue (or in the case of Shiva, most commonly by a linga). Since the temple was not considered a place of worship for use by the population at large, but rather a home for the deity, the sanctuary needed only to be large enough to hold the statue or linga; it was never more than a few metres across. Its importance was instead conveyed by the height of the tower (prasat) rising above it, by its location at the centre of the temple, and by the greater decoration on its walls. Symbolically, the sanctuary represented Mount Meru, the legendary home of the Hindu gods. ===Prang=== The prang is the tall finger-like spire, usually richly carved, common to much Khmer religious architecture. ===Enclosure=== Khmer temples were typically enclosed by a concentric series of walls, with the central sanctuary in the middle; this arrangement represented the mountain ranges surrounding Mount Meru, the mythical home of the gods. Enclosures are the spaces between these walls, and between the innermost wall and the temple itself. By modern convention, enclosures are numbered from the centre outwards. The walls defining the enclosures of Khmer temples are frequently lined by galleries, while passage through the walls is by way of gopuras located at the cardinal points. ===Gallery=== A gallery is a passageway running along the wall of an enclosure or along the axis of a temple, often open to one or both sides. Historically, the form of the gallery evolved during the 10th century from the increasingly long hallways which had earlier been used to surround the central sanctuary of a temple. During the period of Angkor Wat in the first half of the 12th century, additional half galleries on one side were introduced to buttress the structure of the temple. ===Gopura=== A gopura is an entrance building. At Angkor, passage through the enclosure walls surrounding a temple compound is frequently accomplished by means of an impressive gopura, rather than just an aperture in the wall or a doorway. Enclosures surrounding a temple are often constructed with a gopura at each of the four cardinal points. In plan, gopuras are usually cross-shaped and elongated along the axis of the enclosure wall. If the wall is constructed with an accompanying gallery, the gallery is sometimes connected to the arms of the gopura. Many Angkorian gopuras have a tower at the centre of the cross. The lintels and pediments are often decorated, and guardian figures (dvarapalas) are often placed or carved on either side of the doorways. ===Hall of Dancers=== A Hall of Dancers is the structure of a type found in certain late 12th-century temples constructed under King Jayavarman VII: Ta Prohm, Preah Khan, Banteay Kdei and Banteay Chhmar. It is a rectangular building elongated along the temple's east axis and divided into four courtyards by galleries. Formerly it had a roof made of perishable materials; now only the stone walls remain. The pillars of the galleries are decorated with carved designs of dancing apsaras; hence scholars have suggested that the hall itself may have been used for dancing. ===House of Fire=== House of Fire, or Dharmasala, is the name given to a type of building found only in temples constructed during the reign of late 12th-century monarch Jayavarman VII: Preah Khan, Ta Prohm and Banteay Chhmar. A House of Fire has thick walls, a tower at the west end and south-facing windows. Scholars theorize that the House of Fire functioned as a "rest house with fire" for travellers. An inscription at Preah Khan tells of 121 such rest houses lining the highways into Angkor. The Chinese traveller Zhou Daguan expressed his admiration for these rest houses when he visited Angkor in 1296 CE. Another theory is that the House of Fire had a religious function as the repository the sacred flame used in sacred ceremonies. ===Library=== Structures conventionally known as "libraries" are a common feature of the Khmer temple architecture, but their true purpose remains unknown. Most likely they functioned broadly as religious shrines rather than strictly as repositories of manuscripts. Freestanding buildings, they were normally placed in pairs on either side of the entrance to an enclosure, opening to the west. ===Srah and baray=== Srahs and barays were reservoirs, generally created by excavation and embankment, respectively. It is not clear whether the significance of these reservoirs was religious, agricultural, or a combination of the two. The two largest reservoirs at Angkor were the West Baray and the East Baray located on either side of Angkor Thom. The East Baray is now dry. The West Mebon is an 11th-century temple standing at the center of the West Baray and the East Mebon is a 10th-century temple standing at the center of the East Baray. The baray associated with Preah Khan is the Jayataka, in the middle of which stands the 12th-century temple of Neak Pean. Scholars have speculated that the Jayataka represents the Himalayan lake of Anavatapta, known for its miraculous healing powers. ===Temple mountain=== The dominant scheme for the construction of state temples in the Angkorian period was that of the Temple Mountain, an architectural representation of Mount Meru, the home of the gods in Hinduism. Enclosures represented the mountain chains surrounding Mount Meru, while a moat represented the ocean. The temple itself took shape as a pyramid of several levels, and the home of the gods was represented by the elevated sanctuary at the center of the temple. The first great temple mountain was the Bakong, a five-level pyramid dedicated in 881 by King Indravarman I. The structure of Bakong took shape of stepped pyramid, popularly identified as temple mountain of early Khmer temple architecture. The striking similarity of the Bakong and Borobudur in Java, going into architectural details such as the gateways and stairs to the upper terraces, strongly suggests that Borobudur might have served as the prototype of Bakong. There must have been exchanges of travelers, if not mission, between Khmer kingdom and the Sailendras in Java. Transmitting to Cambodia not only ideas, but also technical and architectural details of Borobudur, including arched gateways in corbelling method. Other Khmer temple mountains include Baphuon, Pre Rup, Ta Keo, Koh Ker, the Phimeanakas, and most notably the Phnom Bakheng at Angkor. According to Charles Higham, "A temple was built for the worship of the ruler, whose essence, if a Saivite, was embodied in a linga... housed in the central sanctuary which served as a temple-mausoleum for the ruler after his death...these central temples also contained shrines dedicated to the royal ancestors and thus became centres of ancestor worship". ==Elements== ===Bas-relief=== Bas-reliefs are individual figures, groups of figures, or entire scenes cut into stone walls, not as drawings but as sculpted images projecting from a background. Sculpture in bas-relief is distinguished from sculpture in haut-relief, in that the latter projects farther from the background, in some cases almost detaching itself from it. The Angkorian preferred to work in bas-relief, while their neighbors the Cham were partial to haut-relief. Narrative bas-reliefs are bas-reliefs depicting stories from mythology or history. Until about the 11th century, the Angkorian Khmer confined their narrative bas-reliefs to the space on the tympana above doorways. The most famous early narrative bas-reliefs are those on the tympana at the 10th-century temple of Banteay Srei, depicting scenes from Hindu mythology as well as scenes from the great works of Indian literature, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. By the 12th century, however, the Angkorian artists were covering entire walls with narrative scenes in bas-relief. At Angkor Wat, the external gallery wall is covered with some 12,000 or 13,000 square meters of such scenes, some of them historical, some mythological. Similarly, the outer gallery at the Bayon contains extensive bas-reliefs documenting the everyday life of the medieval Khmer as well as historical events from the reign of King Jayavarman VII. ===Colonnette=== Colonnettes were narrow decorative columns that served as supports for the beams and lintels above doorways or windows. Depending on the period, they were round, rectangular, or octagonal in shape. Colonnettes were often circled with molded rings and decorated with carved leaves. ===Corbelling=== Angkorian engineers tended to use the corbel arch in order to construct rooms, passageways and openings in buildings. A corbel arch is constructed by adding layers of stones to the walls on either side of an opening, with each successive layer projecting further towards the centre than the one supporting it from below, until the two sides meet in the middle. The corbel arch is structurally weaker than the true arch. The use of corbelling prevented the Angkorian engineers from constructing large openings or spaces in buildings roofed with stone, and made such buildings particularly prone to collapse once they were no longer maintained. These difficulties did not, of course, exist for buildings constructed with stone walls surmounted by a light wooden roof. The problem of preventing the collapse of corbelled structures at Angkor remains a serious one for modern conservation. ===Lintel, pediment, and tympanum=== A lintel is a horizontal beam connecting two vertical columns between which runs a door or passageway. Because the Angkorean lacked the ability to construct a true arch, they constructed their passageways using lintels or corbelling. A pediment is a roughly triangular structure above a lintel. A tympanum is the decorated surface of a pediment. The styles employed by Angkorean artists in the decoration of lintels evolved over time, as a result, the study of lintels has proven a useful guide to the dating of temples. Some scholars have endeavored to develop a periodization of lintel styles. The most beautiful Angkorean lintels are thought to be those of the Preah Ko style from the late 9th century. Common motifs in the decoration of lintels include the kala, the nāga and the makara, as well as various forms of vegetation. Also frequently depicted are the Hindu gods associated with the four cardinal directions, with the identity of the god depicted on a given lintel or pediment depending on the direction faced by that element. Indra, the god of the sky, is associated with East; Yama, the god of judgment and Hell, with South; Varuna, the god of the ocean, with West; and Kubera, god of wealth, with North. ====List of Khmer lintel styles==== Sambor Prei Kuk style: inward-facing makaras with tapering bodies. Four arches joined by three medallions, the central once carved with Indra. Small figure on each makara. A variation is with figures replacing the makaras and a scene with figures below the arch. Prei Khmeng style: continuation of Sambor Prei Kuk but makaras disappear, being replaced by incurving ends and figures. Arches more rectilinear. Large figures sometimes at each end. A variation is a central scene below the arch, usually Vishnu Reclining. Kompong Preah style: high quality carving. Arches replaced by a garland of vegetation (like a wreath) more or less segmented. Medallions disappear, central one sometimes replaced by a knot of leaves. Leafy pendants spray out above and below garland. Kulen style: great diversity, with influences from Champa and Java, including the kala and outward-facing makaras. Preah Ko style: some of the most beautiful of all Khmer lintels, rich, will-carved and imaginative. Kala in center, issuing garland on either side. Distinct loops of vegetation curl down from garland. Outward-facing makaras sometimes appear at the ends. Vishnu on Garuda common. Bakheng style: continuation of Preah Ko but less fanciful and tiny figures disappear. Loop of vegetation below the naga form tight circular coils. Garland begins to dip in the center. Koh Ker style: center occupied by a prominent scene, taking up almost the entire height of the lintel. Usually no lower border. Dress of figures shows a curved line to the sampot tucked in below waist. Pre Rup style: tendency to copy earlier style, especially Preah Ko and Bakheng. Central figures. Re-appearance of lower border. Banteay Srei style: increase in complexity and detail. Garland sometimes makes pronounced loop on either side with kala at top of each loop. Central figure. Khleang style: less ornate than those of Banteay Srei. Central kala with triangular tongue, its hands holding the garland which is bent at the center. Kala sometimes surmounted by a divinity. Loops of garland on either side divided by flora stalk and pendant. Vigorous treatment of vegetation. Baphuon style: the central kala surmounted by divinity, usually riding a steed or a Vishnu scene, typically from the life of Krishna. Loops of garland no longer cut. Another type is a scene with many figures and little vegetation. Angkor Wat style: centered, framed and linked by garlands. A second type is a narrative scene filled with figures. When nagas appear, they curls are tight and prominent. Dress mirrors that of devatas and apsaras in bas-reliefs. No empty spaces. Bayon style: most figures disappear, usually only a kala at the bottom of the lintel surmounted by small figure. Mainly Buddhist motifs. In the middle of the period the garland is cut into four parts, while later a series of whorls of foliage replace the four divisions. ===Stairs=== Angkorean stairs are notoriously steep. Frequently, the length of the riser exceeds that of the tread, producing an angle of ascent somewhere between 45 and 70 degrees. The reasons for this peculiarity appear to be both religious and monumental. From the religious perspective, a steep stairway can be interpreted as a "stairway to heaven", the realm of the gods. "From the monumental point of view", according to Angkor-scholar Maurice Glaize, "the advantage is clear – the square of the base not having to spread in surface area, the entire building rises to its zenith with a particular thrust". Apsaras and devatas are ubiquitous at Angkor, but are most common in the foundations of the 12th century. Depictions of true (dancing) apsaras are found, for example, in the Hall of Dancers at Preah Khan, in the pillars that line the passageways through the outer gallery of the Bayon, and in the famous bas-relief of Angkor Wat depicting the churning of the Ocean of Milk. The largest population of devatas (around 2,000) is at Angkor Wat, where they appear individually and in groups. ===Dvarapala=== Dvarapalas are human or demonic temple guardians, generally armed with lances and clubs. They are presented either as a stone statues or as relief carvings in the walls of temples and other buildings, generally close to entrances or passageways. Their function is to protect the temples. Dvarapalas may be seen, for example, at Preah Ko, Lolei, Banteay Srei, Preah Khan and Banteay Kdei. ===Gajasimha and Reachisey=== The gajasimha is a mythical animal with the body of a lion and the head of an elephant. At Angkor, it is portrayed as a guardian of temples and as a mount for some warriors. The gajasimha may be found at Banteay Srei and at the temples belonging to the Roluos group. The reachisey is another mythical animal, similar to the gajasimha, with the head of a lion, a short elephantine trunk, and the scaly body of a dragon. It occurs at Angkor Wat in the epic bas reliefs of the outer gallery. ===Garuda=== Garuda is a divine being that is part man and part bird. He is the lord of birds, the mythological enemy of nāgas, and the battle steed of Vishnu. Depictions of Garuda at Angkor number in the thousands, and though Indian in inspiration exhibit a style that is uniquely Khmer. They may be classified as follows: As part of a narrative bas relief, Garuda is shown as the battle steed of Vishnu or Krishna, bearing the god on his shoulders, and simultaneously fighting against the god's enemies. Numerous such images of Garuda may be observed in the outer gallery of Angkor Wat. Garuda serves as an atlas supporting a superstructure, as in the bas relief at Angkor Wat that depicts heaven and hell. Garudas and stylized mythological lions are the most common atlas figures at Angkor. Garuda is depicted in the pose of a victor, often dominating a nāga, as in the gigantic relief sculptures on the outer wall of Preah Khan. In this context, Garuda symbolizes the military power of the Khmer kings and their victories over their enemies. Not coincidentally, the city of Preah Khan was built on the site of King Jayavarman VII's victory over invaders from Champa. In free-standing nāga sculptures, such as in nāga bridges and balustrades, Garuda is often depicted in relief against the fan of nāga heads. The relationship between Garuda and the nāga heads is ambiguous in these sculptures: it may be one of cooperation, or it may again be one of domination of the nāga by Garuda. In Khmer temple architecture, the kala serves as a common decorative element on lintels, tympana and walls, where it is depicted as a monstrous head with a large upper jaw lined by large carnivorous teeth, but with no lower jaw. Some kalas are shown disgorging vine-like plants, and some serve as the base for other figures. Scholars have speculated that the origin of the kala as a decorative element in Khmer temple architecture may be found in an earlier period when the skulls of human victims were incorporated into buildings as a kind of protective magic or apotropaism. Such skulls tended to lose their lower jaws when the ligaments holding them together dried out. Thus, the kalas of Angkor may represent the Khmer civilization's adoption into its decorative iconography of elements derived from long forgotten primitive antecedents. ===Krishna=== Scenes from the life of Krishna, a hero and Avatar of the god Vishnu, are common in the relief carvings decorating Angkorian temples, and unknown in Angkorian sculpture in the round. The literary sources for these scenes are the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa, and the Bhagavata Purana. The following are some of the most important Angkorian depictions of the life of Krishna: A series of bas reliefs at the 11th-century temple pyramid called Baphuon depicts scenes of the birth and childhood of Krishna. Numerous bas reliefs in various temples show Krishna subduing the nāga Kaliya. In Angkorian depictions, Krishna is shown effortlessly stepping on and pushing down his opponent's multiple heads. Also common is the depiction of Krishna as he lifts Mount Govardhana with one hand in order to provide the cowherds with shelter from the deluge caused by Indra. Krishna is frequently depicted killing or subduing various demons, including his evil uncle Kamsa. An extensive bas relief in the outer gallery of Angkor Wat depicts Krishna's battle with the asura Bana. In battle, Krishna is shown riding on the shoulders of Garuda, the traditional mount of Vishnu. In some scenes, Krishna is depicted in his role as charioteer, advisor and protector of Arjuna, the hero of the Mahabharata. A well-known bas relief from the 10th-century temple of Banteay Srei depicts the Krishna and Arjuna helping Agni to burn down Khandava forest. ===Linga=== The linga is a phallic post or cylinder symbolic of the god Shiva and of creative power. As a religious symbol, the function of the linga is primarily that of worship and ritual, and only secondarily that of decoration. In the Khmer empire, certain lingas were erected as symbols of the king himself, and were housed in royal temples in order to express the king's consubstantiality with Siva. The lingas that survive from the Angkorean period are generally made of polished stone. The lingas of the Angkorian period are of several different types. Some lingas are implanted in a flat square base called a yoni, symbolic of the womb. On the surface of some lingas is engraved the face of Siva. Such lingas are called mukhalingas. Some lingas are segmented into three parts: a square base symbolic of Brahma, an octagonal middle section symbolic of Vishnu, and a round tip symbolic of Shiva. ===Makara=== A makara is a mythical sea monster with the body of a serpent, the trunk of an elephant, and a head that can have features reminiscent of a lion, a crocodile, or a dragon. In Khmer temple architecture, the motif of the makara is generally part of a decorative carving on a lintel, tympanum, or wall. Often the makara is depicted with some other creature, such as a lion or serpent, emerging from its gaping maw. The makara is a central motif in the design of the famously beautiful lintels of the Roluos group of temples: Preah Ko, Bakong, and Lolei. At Banteay Srei, carvings of makaras disgorging other monsters may be observed on many of the corners of the buildings. ===Nāga=== Mythical serpents, or nāgas, represent an important motif in Khmer architecture as well as in free-standing sculpture. They are frequently depicted as having multiple heads, always uneven in number, arranged in a fan. Each head has a flared hood, in the manner of a cobra. Nāgas are frequently depicted in Angkorian lintels. The composition of such lintels characteristically consists in a dominant image at the center of a rectangle, from which issue swirling elements that reach to the far ends of the rectangle. These swirling elements may take shape as either vinelike vegetation or as the bodies of nāgas. Some such nāgas are depicted wearing crowns, and others are depicted serving as mounts for human riders. To the Angkorian, nāgas were symbols of water and figured in the myths of origin for the Khmer people, who were said to be descended from the union of an Indian Brahman and a serpent princess from Cambodia. Nāgas were also characters in other well-known legends and stories depicted in Khmer art, such as the churning of the Ocean of Milk, the legend of the Leper King as depicted in the bas-reliefs of the Bayon, and the story of Mucalinda, the serpent king who protected the Buddha from the elements. ===Nāga Bridge=== Nāga bridges are causeways or true bridges lined by stone balustrades shaped as nāgas. In some Angkorian nāga-bridges, as for example those located at the entrances to 12th century city of Angkor Thom, the nāga-shaped balustrades are supported not by simple posts but by stone statues of gigantic warriors. These giants are the devas and asuras who used the nāga king Vasuki in order to the churn the Ocean of Milk in quest of the amrita or elixir of immortality. The story of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk or samudra manthan has its source in Indian mythology. ===Quincunx=== A quincunx is a spatial arrangement of five elements, with four elements placed as the corners of a square and the fifth placed in the center. The five peaks of Mount Meru were taken to exhibit this arrangement, and Khmer temples were arranged accordingly in order to convey a symbolic identification with the sacred mountain. The five brick towers of the 10th-century temple known as East Mebon, for example, are arranged in the shape of a quincunx. The quincunx also appears elsewhere in designs of the Angkorian period, as in the riverbed carvings of Kbal Spean. ===Shiva=== Most temples at Angkor are dedicated to Shiva. In general, the Angkorian Khmer represented and worshipped Shiva in the form of a lingam, though they also fashioned anthropomorphic statues of the god. Anthropomorphic representations are also found in Angkorian bas reliefs. A famous tympanum from Banteay Srei depicts Shiva sitting on Mount Kailasa with his consort, while the demon king Ravana shakes the mountain from below. At Angkor Wat and Bayon, Shiva is depicted as a bearded ascetic. His attributes include the mystical eye in the middle of his forehead, the trident, and the rosary. His vahana or mount is the bull Nandi. ===Vishnu=== Angkorian representations of Vishnu include anthropomorphic representations of the god himself, as well as representations of his incarnations or Avatars, especially Rama and Krishna. Depictions of Vishnu are prominent at Angkor Wat, the 12th-century temple that was originally dedicated to Vishnu. Bas reliefs depict Vishna battling with against asura opponents, or riding on the shoulders of his vahana or mount, the gigantic eagle-man Garuda. Vishnu's attributes include the discus, the conch shell, the baton, and the orb. ==Wooden architecture== ===Palaces=== During the Angkor era, the architectural landscape consisted predominantly of temples constructed from durable materials such as brick, sandstone, and laterite. In stark contrast, the royal residences of the Khmer courts were predominantly crafted from wood and other perishable materials, rendering them susceptible to the ravages of time and leaving no trace of their existence in the present day. The enduring remnants of this era are the brick or stone temples, such as those found in the Angkor complex, which stand as the sole vestiges of what was once expansive wooden settlements and palaces. However, a meticulous 13th-century account by a Chinese emissary to Angkor provides a detailed description of the palace, depicting it as an assemblage of imposing structures crowned with lead-tiled roofs. Intricately carved bas reliefs at Bayon and Banteay Chhmar portray various wooden buildings featuring triangular pediments and roofs, identified as representative of the royal halls within Angkorian palaces. As the Khmer people gradually embraced Buddhism, a discernible transition from stone temples to wooden architecture occurred. This shift marked the adoption of wooden structures as the new norm in Khmer architecture, supplanting the erstwhile prominence of stone temples in earlier periods. ===Ordinary housing=== The nuclear family, in rural Cambodia, typically lives in a rectangular house that may vary in size from four by six meters to six by ten meters. It is constructed of a wooden frame with gabled thatch roof and walls of woven bamboo. Khmer houses typically are raised on stilts as much as three meters for protection from annual floods. Two ladders or wooden staircases provide access to the house. The steep thatch roof overhanging the house walls protects the interior from rain. Typically, a house contains three rooms separated by partitions of woven bamboo. Chinese and Vietnamese houses in Cambodian town and villages typically are built directly on the ground and have earthen, cement, or tile floors, depending upon the economic status of the owner. Urban housing and commercial buildings may be of brick, masonry, or wood.	[ "baray", "Terrace of the Leper King", "vanaras", "levee", "Airavata", "Pre Rup", "Medang Kingdom", "Vedas", "Bakong", "buttress", "Battambang", "Rural Khmer house", "Bhagavata Purana", "West Baray", "West Mebon", "Architecture of Cambodia", "stepped pyramid", "Nandi (bull)", "Khmer sculpture", "Ramayana", "Jayavarman IV", "Duryodhana", "Greater India", "brick", "gajasimha", "Khmer Empire", "amrita", "apsara", "Phnom Bakheng", "Champa", "Kaliya", "Banteay Srei", "Udayadityavarman II", "Sambor Prei Kuk", "Nāga", "Indra", "Banteay Samre", "corbelling", "Po klaung garai", "Kamsa", "Sailendra", "Bakheng", "Anavatapta", "vajra", "Lolei", "Indianization of Southeast Asia", "Mucalinda", "tutelary spirits", "Rama", "kāla (time)", "asuras", "tympanum (architecture)", "Naga (mythology)", "Chenla", "Hinduism", "Agni", "Indian sub-continent", "Vishnu", "Govardhan Hill", "vahana", "Angkor Wat", "linga", "Vasuki (snake)", "lingam", "devatas", "Tay Ninh", "Phimeanakas", "Cambodia", "Avatar", "Hariharalaya", "cardinal point", "Brahma", "stairs", "Kubera", "Siem Reap", "Angkor Thom", "Phimai", "Shiva", "Vietnam", "Sugriva", "Phnom Penh", "Preah Khan", "Phnom Kulen", "New Khmer Architecture", "Battle of Kurukshetra", "Makara (Hindu mythology)", "Varuna", "Lanka", "Banteay Kdei", "Cham (Asia)", "Khleang", "Vishnu Purana", "Brahman", "Mount Meru", "Arjuna", "Buddhist", "Kamadeva", "Ta Prohm", "Ocean of Milk", "Pandavas", "Yasovarman I", "Harivamsa", "pediment", "Charles Higham (archaeologist)", "Mahabharata", "Federal Research Division", "lintel", "Indian rock-cut architecture", "Kompong Preah", "makara (Hindu mythology)", "Bas-reliefs", "Stair tread", "Deva (Hinduism)", "Bhima", "Hindu mythology", "architecture of Indonesia", "Apsaras", "sampot", "nāga", "bodhisattva", "Nataraja", "Stair riser", "Yama", "Koh Ker", "Silver Pagoda", "Angkor", "Dvarapala", "Journal of Global Archaeology", "Banteay Chhmar", "Hindu temple architecture", "Corbel arch", "Protohistory", "samudra manthan", "yoni", "devata", "Prei Khmeng", "Thailand", "East Mebon", "Ravana", "Garuda", "true arch", "Thommanon", "Prang (architecture)", "dvarapala", "Bayon", "lintel (architecture)", "Neak Pean", "History of Indian influence on Southeast Asia", "Ta Keo", "gopura", "Chenla Kingdom", "Rakshasas", "Southeast Asia", "Suryavarman II", "Java", "Vali (Ramayana)", "Kauravas", "Shaiva", "mukhalinga", "2nd century BC", "laterite", "Khmer people", "Baphuon", "Names of Vietnam", "Hindu", "apotropaism", "Kbal Spean", "apsaras", "Preah Ko", "reservoir", "Indravarman I", "Rakshasa", "sandstone", "Khmer empire", "quincunx", "Mỹ Sơn", "corbel arch", "Asura (Hinduism)", "balustrade", "Avalokiteshvara", "Rajendravarman", "shakti", "Maurice Glaize", "Krishna", "Phnom Kulen National Park", "Art of Champa", "Atlas (architecture)", "East Baray", "Gautama Buddha", "Zhou Daguan", "Roluos", "Jayavarman VII", "Borobudur", "Sisaket Province" ]
5,438	Capricorn	Capricorn (pl. capricorni or capricorns) may refer to: Capricornus, a constellation often called Capricorn Capricorn (astrology), an astrological sign of the zodiac ==Places== Capricorn and Bunker Group, islands of the southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia Capricorn District Municipality, Limpopo province, South Africa Capricorn Caves, Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia ==Animals== Capricorn, an animal from the ibex family, particularly the Alpine ibex Capricornis, a genus of goat-like or antelope-like animals ==Arts, entertainment, and media== ===Fictional characters=== Capricorn (comics), several Marvel Comics characters Capricorn (Inkworld), Inkheart character ===Music=== ====Groups and labels==== Capricorn Records, an American record label active 1969–1979 Capricorn (ensemble), a British chamber ensemble active 1973–2000 ====Albums==== Capricorn (Jay Chou album), 2008 Capricorn (Trevor Powers album), 2020 Capricorn (Mike Tramp album), 1997 "Capricorn (A Brand New Name)", a 2002 single by 30 Seconds to Mars from their self-titled album ====Songs==== "Capricorn", a song by IQ from their 1997 concept album Subterranea "Capricorn", a song by Barclay James Harvest from the album Eyes of the Universe "Capricorn", a song by Motörhead from the album Overkill "Capricorn" (song), a song by Vampire Weekend on the album Only God Was Above Us === Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media === Capricorn, a 1988 manga series created by Johji Manabe Capricorn One, a 1977 thriller film ==Brands and enterprises== Capricorn (microprocessor), a family of microprocessors used in the HP series 80 scientific microcomputers Capricorn, one of the names for the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer Capricorn Investment Holdings, an umbrella for the Capricorn group of companies ==Other uses== Capricorn, a ship that on January 28, 1980, collided with and sank the USCGC Blackthorn (WLB-391) Capricorn Africa Society, a pressure group in British African colonies	[ "Capricorn Investment Holdings", "Capricorn (Mike Tramp album)", "Capricorn (Jay Chou album)", "WP:RCAT", "Overkill (Motörhead album)", "USCGC Blackthorn (WLB-391)", "Capricorn (microprocessor)", "Johji Manabe", "Capricornia (disambiguation)", "Capricornis", "Capricorn One", "Capricorn (song)", "Capricorn (comics)", "Capricorn (ensemble)", "Capricorn Africa Society", "Capricorn (Trevor Powers album)", "Capricorn Records", "Alpine ibex", "Capricorn Caves", "Capricorn (A Brand New Name)", "Subterranea (album)", "Capricorn (astrology)", "Capricornus", "Capricorn District Municipality", "Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer", "Capricorn and Bunker Group", "Tropic of Capricorn (disambiguation)", "Capricorn (Inkworld)", "Eyes of the Universe" ]
5,439	Capricornus	{{Infobox constellation \|name=Capricornus \|abbreviation=Cap \|genitive=Capricorni \|pronounce=, genitive \|symbolism=the Sea-Goat \|RA= to \|dec= to ]] ===Stars=== Capricornus is a faint constellation, with only one star above magnitude 3; its alpha star has a magnitude of only 3.6. The brightest star in Capricornus is δ Capricorni, also called Deneb Algedi, with a magnitude of 2.9, located 39 light-years from Earth. Like several other stars such as Denebola and Deneb, it is named for the Arabic word for "tail or end" (deneb) and “young goat / kid” (al-gedi); its traditional name means "tail to head” or “back to the beginning", which could be related to the Ouroboros or Janus since the zodiac relates to January. Deneb Algedi is a Beta Lyrae variable star (a type of eclipsing binary). It ranges by about 0.2 magnitudes with a period of 24.5 hours. The other bright stars in Capricornus range in magnitude from 3.1 to 5.1. α Capricorni is a multiple star. The primary (α2 Cap), 109 light-years from Earth, is a yellow-hued giant star of magnitude 3.6; the secondary (α1 Cap), 690 light-years from Earth, is a yellow-hued supergiant star of magnitude 4.3. The two stars are distinguishable by the naked eye, and both are themselves multiple stars. α1 Capricorni is accompanied by a star of magnitude 9.2; α2 Capricorni is accompanied by a star of magnitude 11.0; this faint star is itself a binary star with two components of magnitude 11. Also called Algedi or Giedi, the traditional names of α Capricorni come from the Arabic word for "the kid", which references the constellation's mythology. β Capricorni is a double star also known as Dabih. It is a yellow-hued giant star of magnitude 3.1, 340 light-years from Earth. The secondary is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 6.1. The two stars are distinguishable in binoculars. β Capricorni's traditional name comes from the Arabic phrase for "the lucky stars of the slaughterer," a reference to ritual sacrifices performed by ancient Arabs at the heliacal rising of Capricornus. Another star visible to the naked eye is γ Capricorni, sometimes called Nashira ("bringing good tidings"); it is a white-hued giant star of magnitude 3.7, 139 light-years from Earth. π Capricorni is a double star with a blue-white hued primary of magnitude 5.1 and a white-hued secondary of magnitude 8.3. It is 670 light-years from Earth and the components are distinguishable in a small telescope. ===Deep-sky objects=== Several galaxies and star clusters are contained within Capricornus. Messier 30 is a globular cluster located 1 degree south of the galaxy group that contains NGC 7103. The constellation also harbors the wide spiral galaxy NGC 6907. Messier 30 (NGC 7099) is a centrally-condensed globular cluster of magnitude 7.5 . At a distance of 30,000 light-years, it has chains of stars extending to the north that are resolvable in small amateur telescopes. One galaxy group located in Capricornus is HCG 87, a group of at least three galaxies located 400 million light-years from Earth (redshift 0.0296). It contains a large elliptical galaxy, a face-on spiral galaxy, and an edge-on spiral galaxy. The face-on spiral galaxy is experiencing abnormally high rates of star formation, indicating that it is interacting with one or both members of the group. Furthermore, the large elliptical galaxy and the edge-on spiral galaxy, both of which have active nuclei, are connected by a stream of stars and dust, indicating that they too are interacting. Astronomers predict that the three galaxies may merge millions of years in the future to form a giant elliptical galaxy. ==History == The constellation was first attested in depictions on a cylinder-seal from around the 21st century BCE, it was explicitly recorded in the Babylonian star catalogues before 1000 BCE. In the Early Bronze Age the winter solstice occurred in the constellation, but due to the precession of the equinoxes, the December solstice now takes place in the constellation Sagittarius. The Sun is now in the constellation Capricorn (as distinct from the astrological sign) from late January through mid-February. Although the solstice during the northern hemisphere's winter no longer takes place while the sun is in the constellation Capricornus, as it did until 130 BCE, the astrological sign called Capricorn is still used to denote the position of the solstice, and the latitude of the sun's most southerly position continues to be called the Tropic of Capricorn, a term which also applies to the line on the Earth at which the sun is directly overhead at local noon on the day of the December solstice. The planet Neptune was discovered by German astronomer Johann Galle, near Deneb Algedi (δ Capricorni) on 23 September 1846, as Capricornus can be seen best from Europe at 4:00 in September (although, by modern constellation boundaries established in the early 20th century CE, Neptune lay within the confines of Aquarius at the time of its discovery). ==Mythology== Despite its faintness, the constellation Capricornus has one of the oldest mythological associations, having been consistently represented as a hybrid of a goat and a fish since the Middle Bronze Age, when the Babylonians used "The Goat-Fish" as a symbol of their god Ea. Capricornus is also sometimes identified as Pan, the god with a goat's horns and legs, who saved himself from the monster Typhon by giving himself a fish's tail and diving into a river. ==Visualizations== Capricornus's brighter stars are found on a triangle whose vertices are α2 Capricorni (Giedi), δ Capricorni (Deneb Algiedi), and ω Capricorni. Ptolemy's method of connecting the stars of Capricornus has been influential. Capricornus is usually drawn as a goat with the tail of a fish. H. A. Rey has suggested an alternative visualization, which graphically shows a goat. The goat's head is formed by the triangle of stars ι Cap, θ Cap, and ζ Cap. The goat's horn sticks out with stars γ Cap and δ Cap. Star δ Cap, at the tip of the horn, is of the third magnitude. The goat's tail consists of stars β Cap and α2 Cap: star β Cap being of the third magnitude. The goat's hind foot consists of stars ψ Cap and ω Cap. Both of these stars are of the fourth magnitude. ==Equivalents== In Chinese astronomy, constellation Capricornus lies in The Black Tortoise of the North (). The Nakh peoples called this constellation Roofing Towers (). In the Society Islands, the figure of Capricornus was called Rua-o-Mere, "Cavern of parental yearnings". In Indian astronomy and Indian astrology, it is called Makara, the crocodile.	[ "LP 816-60", "IC 1337", "Beta Capricorni", "Ptolemy", "Eridanus (constellation)", "galaxy group", "Goat", "H. A. Rey", "interacting galaxy", "Tau Capricornids", "Alpha1 Capricorni", "Psi Capricorni", "Rhea (mythology)", "Makara", "Chi Capricornids", "Indian astrology", "galaxy merger", "Yale University Press", "Gamma Capricorni", "60th parallel north", "Messier 30", "constellation", "Theta Capricorni", "Capricornids-Sagittariids", "Sea (astronomy)", "eclipsing binary", "Indian astronomy", "Horn (anatomy)", "Neptune", "Chinese astronomy", "Omega Capricorni", "Beta Lyrae variable", "Middle Bronze Age", "South Pole", "Nakh peoples", "Johann Gottfried Galle", "Tropic of Capricorn", "cornucopia", "Denebola", "elliptical galaxy", "Zodiac", "Oxford University Press", "Ea (god)", "Microscopium", "NGC 7103", "Hippocampus (mythology)", "NGC 6907", "Zeus", "winter solstice", "mythological hybrid", "Early Bronze Age", "Deneb", "Iota Capricorni", "Alpha Capricorni", "star formation", "goat", "double star", "redshift", "fish", "Alpha2 Capricorni", "Amalthea (mythology)", "Alpha Capricornids", "Aquila (constellation)", "88 modern constellations", "December solstice", "Bayer designation", "Capricornus in Chinese astronomy", "light-years", "Piscis Austrinus", "Zeta Capricorni", "Latin", "Cronus", "Babylonian star catalogues", "Delta Capricorni", "Pisces (constellation)", "HCG 87", "spiral galaxy", "Sagittarius (constellation)", "Society Islands", "Black Tortoise", "Pan (god)", "Typhon", "active galactic nucleus", "Aquarius (constellation)", "zodiac", "Pi Capricorni", "Sigma Capricornids", "precession of the equinoxes", "Capricorn (astrology)", "Greek mythology", "sea goat", "heliacal rising", "International Astronomical Union" ]
5,447	Cameroon	Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Cameroon's population of nearly 31 million people speak 250 native languages, in addition to the national tongues of English and French, or both. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões (Shrimp River), which became Cameroon in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884 known as Kamerun. After World War I, it was divided between France and the United Kingdom as League of Nations mandates. France took four-fifths and the United Kingdom one-fifth of the territory and both ruled it under mandate until independence in 1960 and 1961 respectively. The Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) political party advocated independence but was outlawed by France in the 1950s, leading to the national liberation insurgency fought between French and UPC militant forces until early 1971. In 1960, the French-administered part of Cameroon became independent, as the Republic of Cameroun, under President Ahmadou Ahidjo. The southern part of British Cameroons federated with it in 1961 to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The federation was abandoned in 1972. The country was renamed the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and back to the Republic of Cameroon in 1984 by a presidential decree by President Paul Biya. Biya, the incumbent president, has led the country since 1982 following Ahidjo's resignation; he previously held office as prime minister from 1975 onward. Cameroon is governed as a unitary presidential republic. The official languages of Cameroon are French and English, the official languages of former French Cameroons and British Cameroons. Christianity is the majority religion in Cameroon, with significant minorities practising Islam and traditional faiths. It has experienced tensions from the English-speaking territories, where politicians have advocated for greater decentralisation and even complete separation or independence (as in the Southern Cameroons National Council). In 2017, tensions over the creation of an Ambazonian state in the English-speaking territories escalated into open warfare. Large numbers of Cameroonians live as subsistence farmers. The country is often referred to as "Africa in miniature" for its geological, linguistic, and cultural diversity. Its natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas. Cameroon's highest point, at almost , is Mount Cameroon in the Southwest Region. Cameroon's most populous cities are Douala on the Wouri River, its economic capital and main seaport; Yaoundé, its political capital; and Garoua. Limbé in the southwest has a natural seaport. Cameroon is well known for its native music styles, particularly Makossa, Njang, and Bikutsi, and its successful national football team. It is a member state of the African Union, the United Nations, the (OIF), the Commonwealth of Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. ==Etymology== Originally, Cameroon was the exonym given by the Portuguese to the Wouri River, which they called meaning 'river of shrimps' or 'shrimp river', referring to the then abundant Cameroon ghost shrimp. Today the country's name in Portuguese remains . ==History== ===Early history=== Evidence from digs at Shum Laka in the Northwest Region shows human occupation in Cameroon dating back 30,000 years. The longest continuous inhabitants are groups such as the Baka (Pygmies). From there, Bantu migrations into eastern, southern and central Africa are believed to have occurred about 2,000 years ago. Over the following few centuries, European interests regularised trade with the coastal peoples, and Christian missionaries pushed inland. It is taught in Cameroon today by the Bamum Scripts and Archives Project. The German Empire claimed the territory as the colony of Kamerun in 1884 and began a steady push inland; the natives resisted. Under the aegis of Germany, commercial companies were local administrations. These concessions used forced labour to run profitable banana, rubber, palm oil, and cocoa plantations. ===French and British rule=== With the defeat of Germany in World War I, Kamerun became a League of Nations mandate territory and was split into French Cameroon () and British Cameroon in 1919. France integrated the economy of Cameroon with that of France and improved the infrastructure with capital investments and skilled workers, modifying the colonial system of forced labour. The League of Nations mandates were converted into United Nations Trusteeships in 1946, and the question of independence became a pressing issue in French Cameroon. This prompted a long guerrilla war waged by the UPC and the assassination of several of the party's leaders, including Ruben Um Nyobè, Félix-Roland Moumié and Ernest Ouandie. In the British Cameroons, the question was whether to reunify with French Cameroon or join Nigeria; the British ruled out the option of independence. ===Independence=== On 1 January 1960, French Cameroun gained independence from France under President Ahmadou Ahidjo as the Republic of Cameroon. ====Federal Republic of Cameroon==== On 1 October 1961, the formerly British Southern Cameroons gained independence from the United Kingdom by vote of the UN General Assembly and merged into the Republic of Cameroon to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The federal republic was composed of two federated states, East Cameroon and West Cameroon, each with its own legislature, government, and prime minister. 1 October is now observed as Unification Day, a public holiday. Ahidjo used the ongoing war with the UPC to concentrate power in the presidency, continuing with this even after the suppression of the UPC in 1971. ====United Republic of Cameroon and Republic of Cameroon==== Ahidjo's political party, the Cameroon National Union (CNU), became the sole legal political party on 1 September 1966, and on 20 May 1972, a referendum was passed to abolish the federal system of government in favour of a United Republic of Cameroon, headed from Yaoundé. This day is now the country's National Day, a public holiday. Ahidjo pursued an economic policy of planned liberalism, prioritising cash crops and petroleum development. The government used oil money to create a national cash reserve, pay farmers, and finance major development projects; however, many initiatives failed when Ahidjo appointed unqualified allies to direct them. The national flag was changed on 20 May 1975 with the two stars removed and replaced with a large central star as a symbol of national unity. Ahidjo stepped down on 4 November 1982 and left power to his constitutional successor, Paul Biya. However, Ahidjo remained in control of the CNU and tried to run the country from behind the scenes until Biya and his allies pressured him into resigning. Biya began his administration by moving toward a more democratic government, but a failed coup d'état nudged him toward the leadership style of his predecessor. In 1987, Dja Faunal Reserve, Cameroon's first World Heritage Site, was inscribed on the list by UNESCO. An economic crisis took effect in the mid-1980s to late 1990s as a result of international economic conditions, drought, falling petroleum prices, and years of corruption, mismanagement, and cronyism. Cameroon turned to foreign aid, cut government spending, and privatised industries. With the reintroduction of multi-party politics in December 1990, the former British Southern Cameroons pressure groups called for greater autonomy, and the Southern Cameroons National Council advocated complete secession as the Republic of Ambazonia. The 1992 Labour Code of Cameroon gives workers the freedom to belong to a trade union or not to belong to any trade union at all. It is the choice of a worker to join any trade union in their occupation since there is more than one trade union in each occupation. In June 2006, talks concerning a territorial dispute over the Bakassi peninsula were resolved. The talks involved President Paul Biya of Cameroon, then President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, and then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and resulted in Cameroonian control of the oil-rich peninsula. The northern portion of the territory was formally handed over to the Cameroonian government in August 2006, and the remainder of the peninsula was left to Cameroon two years later, in 2008. The boundary change triggered a local separatist insurgency, as many Bakassians refused to accept Cameroonian rule. While most militants laid down their arms in November 2009, some carried on fighting for years. In February 2008, Cameroon experienced its worst violence in 15 years when a transport union strike in Douala escalated into violent protests in 31 municipal areas. Boko Haram launched several attacks into Cameroon, killing 84 civilians in a December 2014 raid, but suffering a heavy defeat in a raid in January 2015. Cameroon declared victory over Boko Haram on Cameroonian territory in September 2018. Since November 2016, protesters from the predominantly English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions of the country have been campaigning for continued use of the English language in schools and courts. People were killed and hundreds were jailed as a result of these protests. In 2017, Biya's government blocked the regions' access to the Internet for three months. In September, separatists started a guerilla war for the independence of the Anglophone region as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. The government responded with a military offensive, and the insurgency spread across the Northwest and Southwest regions. , fighting between separatist guerillas and government forces continues. During 2020, numerous terrorist attacks—many of them carried out without claims of credit—and government reprisals have led to bloodshed throughout the country. Since 2016, more than 450,000 people have fled their homes. The conflict indirectly led to an upsurge in Boko Haram attacks, as the Cameroonian military largely withdrew from the north to focus on fighting the Ambazonian separatists. More than 30,000 people in northern Cameroon fled to Chad after ethnic clashes over access to water between Musgum fishermen and ethnic Arab Choa herders in December 2021. ==Politics and government== The President of Cameroon is elected and creates policy, administers government agencies, commands the armed forces, negotiates and ratifies treaties, and declares a state of emergency. The president appoints government officials at all levels, from the prime minister (considered the official head of government), to the provincial governors and divisional officers. The president is selected by popular vote every seven years. Cameroon's legal system is a mixture of civil law, common law, and customary law. ===Political culture=== Cameroon is viewed as rife with corruption at all levels of government. In 1997, Cameroon established anti-corruption bureaus in 29 ministries, but only 25% became operational, However, the corruption has gotten worse, regardless of the existing anti-corruption bureaus, as Transparency International ranked Cameroon 152 on a list of 180 countries in 2018. President Biya's Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) was the only legal political party until December 1990. Numerous regional political groups have since formed. The primary opposition is the Social Democratic Front (SDF), based largely in the Anglophone region of the country and headed by John Fru Ndi. Biya and his party have maintained control of the presidency and the National Assembly in national elections, which rivals contend were unfair. In 2017, President Biya shut down the Internet in the English-speaking region for 94 days, at the cost of hampering five million people, including Silicon Mountain startups. Freedom House ranks Cameroon as "not free" in terms of political rights and civil liberties. The last parliamentary elections were held on 9 February 2020. Cameroon relies heavily on France for its defence, President Biya has engaged in a decades-long clash with the government of Nigeria over possession of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula. By 2004, Nigeria had failed to meet the deadline to hand over the peninsula. A UN-mediated summit in June 2006 facilitated an agreement for Nigeria to withdraw from the region and both leaders signed the Greentree Agreement. The withdrawal and handover of control was completed by August 2006. In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Cameroon, signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region. === Military === The Cameroon Armed Forces (French: Forces armées camerounaises, FAC) consists of the country's army (Armée de Terre), the country's navy (Marine Nationale de la République (MNR), including naval infantry), the Cameroonian Air Force (Armée de l'Air du Cameroun, AAC), and the Gendarmerie. ===Human rights=== Human rights organisations accuse police and military forces of mistreating and even torturing criminal suspects, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, and political activists. Prisons are overcrowded with little access to adequate food and medical facilities, Since December 2020, Human Rights Watch claimed that Islamist armed group Boko Haram has stepped up attacks and killed at least 80 civilians in towns and villages in the Far North region of Cameroon. ===Administrative divisions=== The constitution divides Cameroon into 10 semi-autonomous regions, each under the administration of an elected Regional Council. Each region is headed by a presidentially appointed governor. The regions are subdivided into 58 divisions (French ). These are headed by presidentially appointed divisional officers (). The divisions are further split into sub-divisions (), headed by assistant divisional officers (). The districts, administered by district heads (), are the smallest administrative units. The three northernmost regions are the Far North (), North (), and Adamawa (). Directly south of them are the Centre () and East (). The South Province () lies on the Gulf of Guinea and the southern border. Cameroon's western region is split into four smaller regions: the Littoral () and South-West () regions are on the coast, and the North-West () and West () regions are in the western grassfields. Cameroon lies between latitudes 1° and 13°N, and longitudes 8° and 17°E. Cameroon controls 12 nautical miles of the Atlantic Ocean. Tourist literature describes Cameroon as "Africa in miniature" because it exhibits all major climates and vegetation of the continent: coast, desert, mountains, rainforest, and savanna. The country's neighbours are Nigeria and the Atlantic Ocean to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Exceedingly hot and humid with a short dry season, this belt is densely forested and includes some of the wettest places on earth, part of the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko coastal forests. Equatorial rainforest dominates this region, although its alternation between wet and dry seasons makes it less humid than the coast. This area is part of the Atlantic Equatorial coastal forests ecoregion. An irregular chain of mountains, hills, and plateaus known as the Cameroon range extends from Mount Cameroon on the coast—Cameroon's highest point at Volcanism here has created crater lakes. On 21 August 1986, one of these, Lake Nyos, belched carbon dioxide and killed between 1,700 and 2,000 people. This area has been delineated by the World Wildlife Fund as the Cameroonian Highlands forests ecoregion. The southern plateau rises northward to the grassy, rugged Adamawa Plateau. This feature stretches from the western mountain area and forms a barrier between the country's north and south. Its average elevation is , The northern lowland region extends from the edge of the Adamawa to Lake Chad with an average elevation of . ===Wildlife=== Cameroon's wildlife is composed of its flora and fauna. It is one of the wettest parts of Africa and records Africa's second-highest concentration of biodiversity. In Cameroon forest cover is around 43% of the total land area, equivalent to 20,340,480 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 22,500,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forests covered 20,279,380 hectares (ha), and planted forests covered 61,100 hectares (ha). Around 15% of the forest area was found within protected areas, for the year 2015, 100% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership. To preserve its wildlife, Cameroon has more than 20 protected reserves comprising national parks, zoos, forest reserves, and sanctuaries. The protected areas were first created in the northern region under the colonial administration in 1932; the first two reserves established were Mozogo Gokoro Reserve and the Bénoué Reserve, which was followed by the Waza Reserve on 24 March 1934. The coverage of reserves was initially about 4 percent of the country's area, rising to 12 percent; the administration proposes to cover 30 percent of the land area. Its rich wildlife consists of 8,260 recorded plant species including 156 endemic species, 409 species of mammals of which 14 are endemic, 690 species of birds which includes 8 endemic species, 250 species of reptiles, and 200 species of amphibians. Cameroon is part of the Bank of Central African States (of which it is the dominant economy), Its currency is the CFA franc. and 23.8% of the population was living below the international poverty threshold of US$1.90 a day in 2014. Since the late 1980s, Cameroon has been following programmes advocated by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce poverty, privatise industries, and increase economic growth. An estimated 70% of the population farms, and agriculture comprised an estimated 16.7% of GDP in 2017. Livestock are raised throughout the country. Fishing employs 5,000 people and provides over 100,000 tons of seafood each year. Bushmeat, long a staple food for rural Cameroonians, is today a delicacy in the country's urban centres. The commercial bushmeat trade has now surpassed deforestation as the main threat to wildlife in Cameroon. The southern rainforest has vast timber reserves, estimated to cover 37% of Cameroon's total land area. Factory-based industry accounted for an estimated 26.5% of GDP in 2017. Rapids and waterfalls obstruct the southern rivers, but these sites offer opportunities for hydroelectric development and supply most of Cameroon's energy. The Sanaga River powers the largest hydroelectric station, located at Edéa. The rest of Cameroon's energy comes from oil-powered thermal engines. Much of the country remains without reliable power supplies. Three trans-African automobile routes pass through Cameroon: the Lagos-Mombasa Highway the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway the Dakar-N'Djamena Highway Transport in Cameroon is often difficult. Only 6.6% of the roadways are tarred. Road banditry has long hampered transport along the eastern and western borders, and since 2005, the problem has intensified in the east as the Central African Republic has further destabilised. International airports are located in Douala and Yaoundé, with a third under construction in Maroua. Douala is the country's principal seaport and Kribi Deepwater Port started operations in 2014. In the north, the Bénoué River is seasonally navigable from Garoua across into Nigeria. Although press freedoms have improved since the first decade of the 21st century, the press is corrupt and beholden to special interests and political groups. Newspapers routinely self-censor to avoid government reprisals. However, cell phone networks and Internet providers have increased dramatically since the first decade of the 21st century and are largely unregulated. ==Demographics== The population of Cameroon was in . The life expectancy was 62.3 years (60.6 years for males and 64 years for females). Population density is highest in the large urban centres, the western highlands, and the northeastern plain. Douala, Yaoundé, and Garoua are the largest cities. In contrast, the Adamawa Plateau, southeastern Bénoué depression, and most of the South Cameroon Plateau are sparsely populated. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the fertility rate was 4.8 in 2013 with a population growth rate of 2.56%. Smaller movements are occurring as workers seek employment in lumber mills and plantations in the south and east. Although the national sex ratio is relatively even, these out-migrants are primarily males, which leads to unbalanced ratios in some regions. Both monogamous and polygamous marriage are practised, and the average Cameroonian family is large and extended. In the north, women tend to the home, and men herd cattle or work as farmers. In the south, women grow the family's food, and men provide meat and grow cash crops. Cameroonian society is male-dominated, and violence and discrimination against women are common. The number of distinct ethnic and linguistic groups in Cameroon is estimated to be between 230 and 282. The Adamawa Plateau broadly bisects these into northern and southern divisions. The northern peoples are Sudanic groups, who live in the central highlands and the northern lowlands, and the Fulani, who are spread throughout northern Cameroon. A small number of Shuwa Arabs live near Lake Chad. Southern Cameroon is inhabited by speakers of Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages. Bantu-speaking groups inhabit the coastal and equatorial zones, while speakers of Semi-Bantu languages live in the Western grassfields. Some 5,000 Gyele and Baka Pygmy peoples roam the southeastern and coastal rainforests or live in small, roadside settlements. Nigerians make up the largest group of foreign nationals. ===Refugees=== In 2007, Cameroon hosted approximately 97,400 refugees and asylum seekers. Of these, 49,300 were from the Central African Republic (many driven west by war), Kidnappings of Cameroonian citizens by Central African bandits have increased since 2005. On 4 June 2014, AlertNet reported: ===Languages=== The official percentage of French and English speakers by the Presidency of Cameroon is estimated to be 70% and 30% respectively. German, the language of the original colonisers, has long since been displaced by French and English. Cameroonian Pidgin English is the lingua franca in the formerly British-administered territories. A mixture of English, French, and Pidgin called Camfranglais has been gaining popularity in urban centres since the mid-1970s. making Cameroon one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world. In 2017, there were language protests by the Anglophone population against perceived oppression by francophone speakers. The military was deployed against the protesters and people were killed, hundreds imprisoned and thousands fled the country. This culminated in the declaration of an independent Republic of Ambazonia, which has since evolved into the Anglophone Crisis. ===Religion=== Cameroon has a high level of religious freedom and diversity. Large cities have significant populations of both groups. Shias, and non-denominational Muslims. People from the North-West and South-West provinces, which used to be a part of British Cameroons, have the highest proportion of Protestants. The French-speaking regions of the southern and western regions are largely Catholic. In the northern regions, the locally dominant Fulani ethnic group is almost completely Muslim, but the overall population is fairly evenly divided among Muslims, Christians, and followers of indigenous religious beliefs (called Kirdi ("pagan") by the Fulani). Most children have access to state-run schools that are cheaper than private and religious facilities. The educational system is a mixture of British and French precedents, with most instruction in English or French. Cameroon has one of the highest school attendance rates in Africa. In December 2014, a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor issued by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs mentioned Cameroon among the countries that resorted to child labor in the production of cocoa. The quality of health care is generally low. Life expectancy at birth is estimated to be 56 years in 2012, with 48 healthy life years expected. Fertility rate remains high in Cameroon with an average of 4.8 births per woman and an average mother's age of 19.7 years old at first birth. In 2014, just 4.1% of total GDP expenditure was allocated to healthcare. Due to financial cuts in the health care system, there are few professionals. Doctors and nurses who were trained in Cameroon emigrate because in Cameroon the payment is poor while the workload is high. Nurses are unemployed even though their help is needed. Some of them help out voluntarily so they will not lose their skills. Outside the major cities, facilities are often dirty and poorly equipped. In 2012, the top three deadly diseases were HIV/AIDS, lower respiratory tract infection, and diarrheal diseases. The HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in 2016 was estimated at 3.8% for those aged 15–49, although a strong stigma against the illness keeps the number of reported cases artificially low. Female genital mutilation (FGM), while not widespread, is practised among some populations; according to a 2013 UNICEF report, 1% of women in Cameroon have undergone FGM. Also impacting women's and girls' health, the contraceptive prevalence rate is estimated to be just 34.4% in 2014. Traditional healers remain a popular alternative to evidence-based medicine. ==Culture== ===Music and dance=== Music and dance are integral parts of Cameroonian ceremonies, festivals, social gatherings, and storytelling. The dances' purposes range from pure entertainment to religious devotion. Traditionally, music is transmitted orally. In a typical performance, a chorus of singers echoes a soloist. Musical accompaniment may be as simple as clapping hands and stamping feet, but traditional instruments include bells worn by dancers, clappers, drums, and talking drums, flutes, horns, rattles, scrapers, stringed instruments, whistles, and xylophones; combinations of these vary by ethnic group and region. Some performers sing complete songs alone, accompanied by a harplike instrument. Popular music styles include ambasse bey of the coast, assiko of the Bassa, mangambeu of the Bangangte, and tsamassi of the Bamileke. Nigerian music has influenced Anglophone Cameroonian performers, and Prince Nico Mbarga's highlife hit "Sweet Mother" is the top-selling African record in history. The two most popular music styles are makossa and bikutsi. Makossa developed in Douala and mixes folk music, highlife, soul, and Congo music. Performers such as Manu Dibango, Francis Bebey, Moni Bilé, and Petit-Pays popularised the style worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s. Bikutsi originated as war music among the Ewondo. Artists such as Anne-Marie Nzié developed it into popular dance music beginning in the 1940s, and performers such as Mama Ohandja and Les Têtes Brulées popularised it internationally during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. ===Cuisine=== Cuisine varies by region, but a large, one-course, evening meal is common throughout the country. A typical dish is based on cocoyams, maize, cassava (manioc), millet, plantains, potatoes, rice, or yams, often pounded into dough-like fufu. This is served with a sauce, soup, or stew made from greens, groundnuts, palm oil, or other ingredients. Meat and fish are popular but expensive additions, with chicken often reserved for special occasions. Dishes are often quite spicy; seasonings include salt, red pepper sauce, and maggi. Cutlery is common, but food is traditionally manipulated with the right hand. Breakfast consists of leftovers of bread and fruit with coffee or tea. Generally, breakfast is made from wheat flour in different foods such as puff-puff (doughnuts), accra banana made from bananas and flour, bean cakes, and many more. Snacks are popular, especially in larger towns where they may be bought from street vendors. ===Fashion=== Cameroon's relatively large and diverse population is likewise diverse in its fashions. Climate, religious, ethnic, and cultural beliefs, and the influences of colonialism, imperialism, and globalisation are all factors in contemporary Cameroonian dresses. Noteworthy Cameroonian dresses include Pagnes, sarongs worn by Cameroon women; Chechia, a traditional hat; kwa, a male handbag; and Gandura, male custom attire. Wrappers and loincloths are used extensively by both women and men but their use varies by region, with influences from Fulani styles more present in the north and Igbo and Yoruba styles more often in the south and west. Imane Ayissi is one of Cameroon's most prominent fashion designers and has received international recognition. ===Local arts and crafts=== Traditional arts and crafts are practised throughout the country for commercial, decorative, and religious purposes. Woodcarvings and sculptures are especially common. The high-quality clay of the western highlands is used for pottery and ceramics. Contemporary art is mainly promoted by independent cultural organisations (Doual'art, Africréa) and artist-run initiatives (Art Wash, Atelier Viking, ArtBakery). ===Literature=== Cameroonian literature has concentrated on both European and African themes. Colonial-era writers such as Louis-Marie Pouka and Sankie Maimo were educated by European missionary societies and advocated assimilation into European culture to bring Cameroon into the modern world. After World War II, writers such as Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono analysed and criticised colonialism and rejected assimilation. In the 1960s, Mongo Beti, Ferdinand Léopold Oyono and other writers explored postcolonialism, problems of African development, and the recovery of African identity. In the mid-1970s, filmmakers such as Jean-Pierre Dikongué Pipa and Daniel Kamwa dealt with the conflicts between traditional and postcolonial society. Literature and films during the next two decades focused more on wholly Cameroonian themes. ===Sports=== National policy strongly advocates sport in all forms. Traditional sports include canoe racing and wrestling, and several hundred runners participate in the Mount Cameroon Race of Hope each year. Cameroon is one of the few tropical countries to have competed in the Winter Olympics. Sport in Cameroon is dominated by football. Amateur football clubs abound, organised along ethnic lines or under corporate sponsors. The national team has been one of the most successful in Africa since its strong showing in the 1982 and 1990 FIFA World Cups. Cameroon has won five African Cup of Nations titles and the gold medal at the 2000 Olympics. Cameroon was the host country of the Women Africa Cup of Nations in November–December 2016, the 2020 African Nations Championship and the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations. The women's football team is known as the "Indomitable Lionesses", and like their men's counterparts, are also successful on the international stage, although it has not won any major trophy. Cricket has also entered into Cameroon as an emerging sport with the Cameroon Cricket Federation participating in international matches. Cameroon has produced multiple National Basketball Association players including Pascal Siakam, Joel Embiid, D. J. Strawberry, Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, Christian Koloko, and Luc Mbah a Moute. The former UFC Heavyweight Champion, Francis Ngannou, hails from Cameroon.	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5,448	History of Cameroon	At the crossroads of West Africa and Central Africa, the territory of what is now Cameroon has seen human habitation since some time in the Middle Paleolithic, likely no later than 130,000 years ago. The earliest discovered archaeological evidence of humans dates from around 30,000 years ago at Shum Laka. The Bamenda highlands in western Cameroon near the border with Nigeria are one of the most likely origin for the Bantu peoples, whose language and culture came to dominate most of central and southern Africa between 1000 BCE and 1000 CE. European traders arrived in the fifteenth century and Cameroon was the exonym given by the Portuguese to the Wouri river, which they called Rio dos Camarões—"river of shrimps" or "shrimp river", referring to the then-abundant Cameroon ghost shrimp. Cameroon was a source of slaves for the slave trade. While the northern part of Cameroon was subject to influence from the Islamic kingdoms in the Chad basin and the Sahel, the south was largely ruled by small kings, chieftains, and fons. Cameroon as a political entity emerged from the colonization of Africa by Europeans. From 1884, Cameroon was a German colony, German Kamerun, with its borders drawn through negotiations between the Germans, British, and French. After the First World War, the League of Nations mandated France to administer most of the territory, with the United Kingdom administering a small portion in the west. Following World War II, the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, instituted a Trusteeship system, leaving France and Britain in control of their respective regions, French Cameroon and British Cameroon. In 1960, Cameroon became independent with part of British Cameroons voting to join former French Cameroon. Cameroon has had only two presidents since independence and while opposition parties were legalized in 1990 only one party has ever governed. Cameroon has maintained close relations with France and allied itself largely with Western political and economic interests throughout the Cold War and into the twenty-first century. This consistency gave Cameroon a reputation as one of the most stable countries in the region. In 2017, tensions between Anglophone Cameroonians in former British territory and the Francophone-dominated government led to an ongoing civil war known as the Anglophone Crisis in the west of the country, while Islamist insurgents Boko Haram continue to carry out military and terror attacks in the north of the country. In January 2024, Cameroon launched the world's first routine malaria vaccine program, using the World Health Organization (WHO)-approved RTS,S vaccine developed by British drugmaker GSK. The initiative aims to save thousands of African children's lives annually. Despite some skepticism, health experts emphasize careful community outreach to combat vaccine hesitancy and stress the importance of using existing preventive measures alongside vaccines. ==Pre-colonial history== ===Prehistory=== Archaeological research has been relatively scarce in Cameroon due to a lack of resources and transportation infrastructure. Historically the warm, wet climate in many parts of the country was thought of as inhospitable to the preservation of remains, but recent finds and the introduction of new techniques have challenged that assumption. Evidence from digs at Shum Laka in the Northwest Region shows human occupation dating back 30,000 years while in the dense forests of the south, the oldest evidence of occupation is around 7000 years old. Recent research in southern Cameroon indicates that the Iron Age may have started there as early as 1000 BCE and was certainly well established by 100 BCE at the latest. The early European presence in Cameroon was primarily devoted to coastal trade and the acquisition of slaves. In fact, Jesko von Puttkamer was relieved of duty as governor of the colony due to his untoward actions toward the native Cameroonians. In 1911 at the Treaty of Fez after the Agadir Crisis, France ceded a nearly 300,000 km2 portion of the territory of French Equatorial Africa to Kamerun which became Neukamerun (New Cameroon), while Germany ceded a smaller area in the north in present-day Chad to France. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the British invaded Cameroon from Nigeria and the French from French Equatorial Africa in the Kamerun campaign. The last German fort in the country surrendered in February 1916. After the Allied victory, the territory was partitioned between the United Kingdom and France, which was formalized on June 28, 1919, with League of Nations mandates (Class B). France gained the larger geographical share, transferred Neukamerun back to neighboring French colonies, and ruled the rest from Yaoundé as Cameroun (French Cameroons). An insurrection broke out among the Bassa people on 18 to 19 December 1956. Several dozen anti-UPC figures were murdered or kidnapped, bridges, telephone lines, and other infrastructure were sabotaged. The French military and native security forces violently repressed these uprisings, which led to many native Cameroonians joining the cause of independence and long-running guerilla war. Several UPC militias were formed though their access to weapons was very limited. Though the UPC was a multi-ethnic movement, the pro-independence movement was seen as particularly strong among the Bamileke and Bassa peoples, and both were targeted by the French for severe repression, including razing of villages, forced relocations, and indiscriminate killings in what was sometimes called the Bamileke War or the Cameroon Independence War. Though the uprising was suppressed, guerilla violence and reprisals continued even after independence. Legislative elections were held on 23 December 1956 and the resulting Assembly passed a decree on 16 April 1957 which made French Cameroon a state. It took back its former status of associated territory as a member of the French Union. Its inhabitants became Cameroonian citizens, and Cameroonian institutions were created under a parliamentary democracy. On 12 June 1958, the Legislative Assembly of French Cameroon asked the French government to: "Accord independence to the State of Cameroon at the ends of their trusteeship. Transfer every competence related to the running of internal affairs of Cameroon to Cameroonians". On 19 October 1958, France recognized the right of its United Nations trust territory to choose independence. On 24 October 1958, the Legislative Assembly of French Cameroon solemnly proclaimed the desire of Cameroonians to see their country accede full independence on 1 January 1960. It enjoined the government of French Cameroon to ask France to inform the General Assembly of the United Nations, to abrogate the trusteeship accord concomitant with the independence of French Cameroon. On 12 November 1958, France asked the United Nations to grant French Cameroon independence and end the Trusteeship. On 5 December 1958, the United Nations’ General Assembly took note of the French government's declaration according to which French Cameroon would gain independence on 1 January 1960. On 13 March 1959, the United Nations’ General Assembly resolved that the UN Trusteeship Agreement with France for French Cameroon would end when French Cameroon became independent on 1 January 1960. ===British Cameroons (1918–1961)=== ====Nigerian administration==== The British territory was administered as two areas, Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. Northern Cameroons consisted of two non-contiguous sections, divided by a point where the Nigerian and Cameroon borders met and were governed as part of the Northern Region of Nigeria. Southern Cameroons was administered as a province of Eastern Nigeria. In British Cameroons, many German administrators were allowed to run the plantations of the southern coastal area after World War I. A British parliamentary publication, Report on the British Sphere of the Cameroons (May 1922, p. 62-8), reported that the German plantations there were "as a whole . . . wonderful examples of industry, based on solid scientific knowledge. The natives have been taught discipline and have come to realize what can be achieved by industry. Large numbers who return to their villages take up cocoa or other cultivation on their own account, thus increasing the general prosperity of the country." In the 1930s, most of the white population still consisted of Germans, most of whom were interned in British camps starting in June 1940. The native population showed little interest in volunteering for the British forces during World War II; only 3,500 men did so. When the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946, British Cameroons was reclassified as a UN trust territory, administered through the UN Trusteeship Council, but remained under British control. The United Nations approved the Trusteeship Agreements for British Cameroons to be governed by Britain on June 12, 1946. ====Plebiscite and independence==== French Cameroun became independent, as Cameroun or Cameroon, in January 1960, and Nigeria was scheduled for independence later that same year, which raised the question of what to do with the British territory. After some discussion (which had been going on since 1959), a plebiscite was agreed to and held on 11 February 1961. The Muslim-majority Northern area opted for union with Nigeria, and the Southern area voted to join Cameroon. ==Independence and the Ahidjo era (1960–1982)== French Cameroon achieved independence on January 1, 1960. After Guinea, it was the second of France's colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa to become independent. On 21 February 1960, the new nation held a constitutional referendum, approving a new constitution. On 5 May 1960, Ahmadou Ahidjo became president. Ahidjo aligned himself closely with France and allowed many French advisers and administrators to stay on as well as leaving most of the country's assets in the hands of French companies. ===Union with Southern Cameroon=== On 12 February 1961, the results of the Southern Cameroon plebiscite were announced and it was learned that Southern Cameroons had voted for unification with the Republic Of Cameroon, sometimes called "reunification" since both regions had been part of German Kamerun. To negotiate the terms of this union, the Foumban Conference was held on 16–21 July 1961. John Ngu Foncha, the leader of the Kamerun National Democratic Party and the Southern Cameroons elected government represented Southern Cameroons while Ahidjo represented Cameroon. The agreement reached was a new constitution, based heavily on the version adopted in Cameroon earlier that year, but with a federal structure granting former British Cameroons - now West Cameroon - jurisdiction over certain issues and procedural rights. Buea became the capital of West Cameroon while Yaounde doubled as the federal capital and East Cameroonian capital. Neither side was particularly satisfied as Ahidjo had wanted a unitary or more centralized state while the West Cameroonians had wanted more explicit protections. On 14 August 1961, the federal constitution was adopted, with Ahidjo as president. Foncha became the prime minister of West Cameroon and vice president of the Federal Republic of Cameroon. The unification of British and French Cameroon has caused linguistic and cultural tensions within Cameroon, which has led to violence. ===Civil War and repression=== The UPC, which had demanded a full break with France and many of whom espoused Marxist or other leftist ideologies, were not satisfied with Ahidjo's rule and close cooperation with the French and did not lay down their arms at independence and sought to overthrow Ahidjo's regime which they viewed as too subservient to France and some, but not all, espoused overtly Marxist views. Ahidjo requested continued French assistance in suppressing the UPC rebels in what became known as the Bamileke War after the region where much of the fighting took place. The UPC was ultimately defeated with government forces capturing the last important rebel leader in 1970. During the intervening years, Ahidjo used emergency powers granted due to the war and the fear of further ethnic conflict to centralize power in himself. He implemented a highly centralized and authoritarian government that used arbitrary police custody, prohibition of meetings and rallies, submission of publications to prior censorship, restriction of freedom of movement through the establishment of passes or curfews, and a prohibition on trade unions to prevent opposition. Anyone accusation of "compromising public safety" was handled outside traditional criminal process - without the right to a lawyer or any appeal. Sentences of life imprisonment at hard labor or death were numerous and executions were often public. In 1966, opposition parties were banned and Cameroon became a one-party state. Solomon Tandeng Muna became vice president. In 1972, a referendum was held on a new constitution, which replaced the federation between East and West with a unitary state called the United Republic of Cameroon and further expanded the power of the president. Official results claimed 98.2% turnout and 99.99% of votes in favor of the new constitution. Although Ahidjo's rule was authoritarian, he was seen as noticeably lacking in charisma in comparison to many post-colonial African leaders. He didn't follow the anti-western policies pursued by many of these leaders, which helped Cameroon achieve a degree of comparative political stability, retain Western investment, and see fairly steady economic growth. ===Discovery of oil=== Cameroon became an oil-producing country in 1977. The accounting of oil revenues was totally opaque and many Cameroonians felt the money was mismanaged or embezzled since. Oil remains a primary driver of the economy, though the country is not as oil-dependent as many other producers in the region. ==Biya Era (1982–present)== On 30 June 1975, Paul Biya, a long-serving bureaucrat and administrator in the Ahidjo government, was appointed Prime Minister. On November 4, 1982, Ahidjo resigned as president and Biya was his legal successor. Many observers were surprised, as Biya is a Christian from the south while Ahidjo was a Muslim from the North and Ahidjo was only 59 years old. However, Ahidjo did not resign his role as leader of the governing party, and many speculated that he hoped Biya would be a figurehead, or perhaps even a temporary caretaker, as Ahidjo was rumored to be ill and receiving medical care in France. ===Rift and coup attempt=== Despite previous good relations, in 1983 a rift was apparent between Biya and Ahidjo. Ahidjo left for France and publicly accused Biya of abuse of power. Ahidjo sought to use his continuing control over the party apparatus to sideline Biya, by causing the party, not the President to set the government's agenda. However, at the party conference in September, Biya was elected to lead the party and Ahidjo resigned. However, by 1990, pressure from Western governments was mounting as the end of the Cold War made them less tolerant of authoritarian allies. In December 1990, opposition parties were legalized for the first time since 1966. The first multiparty elections were held in 1992 and were hotly contested. Biya won with 40% of the vote against 36 for his closest competitor and 19 for another opposition party. In Parliament, Biya's ruling party on a plurality with 45% of the votes but failed to obtain a majority. The competitiveness of the election was not to Biya's liking and subsequent elections have been widely criticized by opposition parties and international observers as rigged and suffering from numerous and widespread irregularities. The ruling party has had no trouble gaining large majorities. Pressure from Anglophone groups in former British Cameroons resulted in changes to the constitution in 1996, which purported to decentralize power but fell short of Anglophone demands to reestablish the federal structure. As a result of continued opposition, many of the changes adopted in 1996 have never been fully implemented and power remains highly centralized in the President. ==Contemporary issues== ===Boko Haram=== In 2014, the Boko Haram insurgency spread into Cameroon from Nigeria. In May 2014, in the wake of the Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping, Presidents Paul Biya of Cameroon and Idriss Déby of Chad announced they were waging war on Boko Haram, and deployed troops to the Northern Nigerian border. Cameroon announced in September 2018 that Boko Haram had been repelled, but the conflict persists in the northern border areas nonetheless. ===Anglophone Crisis=== In November 2016, major protests broke out in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon. In September 2017, the protests and the government's response to them escalated into an armed conflict, with separatists declaring the independence of Ambazonia and starting a guerilla war against the Cameroonian Army. ==Football== Cameroon has received some international attention following the relative success of its football team. The team has qualified for the FIFA World Cup eight times, more than any other African team. However, the team has only made it out of the group stage once, in 1990, when they became the first African team to reach the quarter-final of the World Cup. They have also won five Africa Cup of Nations.	[ "Ambazonia", "Aro Confederacy", "Treaty of Fez", "Southern Cameroons", "John Ngu Foncha", "List of heads of state of Cameroon", "shrimps", "Otto von Bismarck", "Foumban Conference", "Lake Monoun", "1975 Nigerian coup d'état", "Boko Haram", "Atlantic slave trade", "Ruben Um Nyobe", "Marxist", "Woermann-Linie", "Duala people", "Bafut Wars", "Buea", "UN Trust Territories", "Free France", "Cold War", "Christian missionaries", "West Africa", "Bamenda highlands", "Eastern Nigeria", "UN trust territory", "Guinea", "Cameroon", "railway", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "southern Africa", "Iron Age", "2016–2017 Cameroonian protests", "Guerrilla warfare", "Agadir Crisis", "Cameroon ghost shrimp", "Bamileke", "de: Nord-West Kamerun Gesellschaft", "Lake Nyos", "Douala", "Dieter Nohlen", "League of Nations", "Ngazargamu", "Cameroon national football team", "Bantu expansion", "Cameroons", "German Kamerun", "Germans", "List of heads of government of Cameroon", "carbon dioxide", "Niger", "civil war", "Northwest Region (Cameroon)", "Portugal", "World War I", "Kamerun National Democratic Party", "Yaoundé", "Blockade of Africa", "Kamerun campaign", "Greentree Agreement", "trans-Saharan trade", "unfree labour", "Oxford University Press", "Bamenda", "1984 Cameroonian coup d'état attempt", "RTS,S", "Kanem-Bornu Empire", "Wouri river", "Asphyxia", "Chibok schoolgirl kidnapping", "Salt mining", "Prime Minister of Cameroon", "Politics of Cameroon", "UN Trusteeship Council", "West Cameroon", "Anglophone Cameroonian", "Transatlantic Slave Trade", "Bassa people (Cameroon)", "Adamawa Wars", "Islamist", "Chad", "limnic eruption", "Cameroonian parliamentary election, 1956", "Bamileke War", "French Cameroun", "French Cameroon", "U.S. State Department", "Timeline of Yaounde", "Japoma Bridge", "Shum Laka", "Scramble for Africa", "UN Trust Territory", "British Cameroons referendum, 1961", "Middle Paleolithic", "Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves", "Grassfields languages", "United Nations trust territories", "hunter-gatherers", "one-party state", "Cameroun", "Ahmadou Ahidjo", "Paul Biya", "World Health Organization", "Fon (title)", "Chad basin", "Bantu peoples", "Yaounde", "quinine", "Constitution of Cameroon", "Union des populations du Cameroun", "Jantzen & Thormählen", "British Cameroons", "Adolph Woermann", "Central African Pygmies", "Muslim conquest of North Africa", "Solomon Tandeng Muna", "Siege of Mora", "League of Nations mandate", "Nigeria", "Cross River (Nigeria)", "Lagos", "Bantu languages", "Malaria", "Cameroon Line", "Jesko von Puttkamer", "Rio del Rey", "1992 Cameroonian presidential election", "Timeline of Douala", "French Union", "Idriss Déby", "1992 Cameroonian parliamentary election", "infrastructure", "Neukamerun", "the United Kingdom", "bronze", "Central Africa", "Northern Cameroons", "de: Südkamerun Gesellschaft", "Common Era", "Slave Trade Act 1807", "History of Africa", "George Allen & Unwin", "Cameroon Armed Forces", "Agriculture", "Chari River", "Northern Region, Nigeria", "Mali", "terracotta", "Sanaga River", "Sao civilisation", "Gustav Nachtigal", "Sokoto Caliphate", "Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque", "French Equatorial Africa", "Boko Haram insurgency", "Fulani War", "British Cameroon", "Anglophone Crisis", "BCE", "Adamawa Emirate", "SOCFIN Group", "Lake Chad", "Sahel", "exonym", "Lake Chad Basin" ]
5,449	Geography of Cameroon	At , Cameroon is the world's 53rd largest country. It is slightly larger than the nation of Sweden and the US state of California. It is comparable in size to Papua New Guinea. Cameroon's landmass is , with of water. The country is located in Central and West Africa, bordering the Bight of Biafra, between Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. Cameroon is sometimes described as "Africa in miniature" because it exhibits all the major climates and vegetation of the continent: mountains, desert, rain forest, savanna grassland, and ocean coastland. Cameroon can be divided into five geographic zones. These are distinguished by dominant physical, climatic, and vegetative features. ==Natural regions== Cameroon is one of the wettest parts of Africa and records Africa's second highest concentration of biodiversity. In Cameroon forest cover is around 43% of the total land area, equivalent to 20,340,480 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 22,500,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 20,279,380 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 61,100 hectares (ha). Around 15% of the forest area was found within protected areas, for the year 2015, 100% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership. Cameroon's coastal plain extends inland from the Gulf of Guinea (part of the Atlantic Ocean) to the edge of a plateau. In the former western state, however, the mass of Mount Cameroon reaches almost to the sea. The plain is densely forested including areas of Central African mangroves especially around Douala and in the estuary of the Cross River on the border with Nigeria. A recent global remote sensing analysis suggested that there were 643 km2 of tidal flats in Cameroon, making it the 39th ranked country in terms of tidal flat area. The low South Cameroon Plateau, rising from the coastal plain and dominated by tropical rain forest, has an average elevation of . It is less humid than the coast. In western Cameroon is an irregular chain of mountains, hills, and plateaus that extends from Mount Cameroon almost to Lake Chad at the northern tip of the country. This region includes the Bamenda, Bamiléké, and Mambilla highlands. It also contains some of the country's most fertile soils, notably around volcanic Mt. Cameroon. This area of tropical forest has been categorised by the World Wildlife Fund as the Cameroonian Highlands forests ecoregion with Mount Cameroon considered separately because as an active volcano it has a distinct environment from the other mountains. From the forested southern plateau the land rises northward to the grassy, rugged Adamaoua (Adamawa) highlands. Stretching across Cameroon from the western mountain area, the Adamaoua forms a barrier between the north and south. Its average elevation is . The southern savanna plain extends from the edge of the Adamaoua to Lake Chad. Its characteristic vegetation is scrub and grass. This is region of sparse rainfall and high median temperatures has been included as part of the East Sudanian savanna ecoregion. == Climate == The climate varies with terrain, from tropical along the coast to semiarid and hot in the north. Exceedingly hot and humid, the coastal belt includes some of the wettest places on earth. For example, Debundscha, at the base of Mt. Cameroon, has an average annual rainfall of . ==Biodiversity== The wide diversity of climates and natural regions of Cameroon, as coastline, mountains, savanna, deserts, and tropical forests, allows that the country counts with rich biodiversity. Twenty-two million hectares from the Congo Basin forest ecosystem are located in Cameroon, where 9,000 plant species, 900 bird species, and 320 mammals species live, included 156 endemic plants, eight endemic birds, and 14 endemic mammals. The border with Nigeria has one of the highest concentration of biodiversity in Africa. As part of the conservation efforts to protect threatened natural resources, Cameroon has established protected areas since 1932, included national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, faunal reserves, and one flora sanctuary. Cameroon had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 8.00/10, ranking it 29th globally out of 172 countries. ==Rivers== The country has four patterns of drainage. In the south, the principal rivers flow southwestward or westward directly to the Gulf of Guinea – the Wouri, and lesser Dibamba, Bimbia and Mungo to the Cameroon estuary near Douala; Sanaga, Nyong, and Ntem further south along the coast; Akwayafe and Manyu (which joins Nigerian Cross), and the lesser Ndian and Meme north of the coast. The Dja and Kadeï, however, drain southeastward into the Congo River. In northern Cameroon, the Benoué River (Benue) runs north and west, eventually into the Niger, while the Logone River flows northward into Lake Chad. Some of the borders of Cameron follow rivers, including the Aïna, Akwayafe, and Ntem or Campo. ==Data== Location: Central Africa, bordering the Bight of Biafra, between Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria Geographic coordinates: Continent: Africa Area: total: land: water: country rank in the world: 53rd Area – comparative: Australia comparative: slightly more than twice the size of Victoria Canada comparative: slightly smaller than the Yukon United Kingdom comparative: slightly less than twice the size of the United Kingdom United States comparative: slightly more than larger than California EU comparative: slightly smaller than Spain; slightly larger than Sweden Land boundaries: total: 5,018 km border countries: Central African Republic 901 km, Chad 1,116 km, Republic of the Congo 494 km, Equatorial Guinea 183 km, Gabon 349 km, Nigeria 1,975 km Coastline: 402 km Maritime claims: territorial sea: Terrain: diverse, with coastal plain in southwest, dissected plateau in center, mountains in west, plains in north Elevation extremes: lowest point: Atlantic Ocean 0 m highest point: Fako (on. Mt. Cameroon) 4,095 m Natural resources: petroleum, bauxite, iron ore, timber, hydropower Land use: arable land: 13.12% permanent crops: 3.28% other: 83.61% (2012) Irrigated land: 256.5 km2 (2003) Total renewable water resources: 285.5 km3 (2011) Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural): total: 0.97 km3/yr (23%/10%/68%) per capita: 58.9 m3/yr (2005) Natural hazards: Recent limnic eruptions with release of carbon dioxide: from Lake Monoun, 15 August 1984, killing 37 from Lake Nyos, 21 August 1986, killing as many as 1,800 Environment – current issues: water-borne diseases are prevalent; deforestation; overgrazing; desertification; poaching; overfishing Environment – international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling signed, but not ratified: Nuclear Test Ban Geography – note: sometimes referred to as 'the hinge of Africa;' throughout the country there are areas of thermal springs and indications of current or prior volcanic activity; Mount Cameroon, the highest mountain in Sub-Saharan west Africa, is an active volcano == Extreme points == This is a list of the extreme points of Cameroon, the points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location. Northernmost point – unnamed peninsula jutting into Lake Chad, Far North Region Easternmost point – unnamed location on the border with the Republic of Congo in the Sangha River opposite the Congolese town of Bomassa, East Region Southernmost point – unnamed headland at the confluence on the Sangha River and the Ngoko River immediately north of the Congolese town of Ouesso, East Region Westernmost point – unnamed point on Akwabana Island, Southwest Region ==Gallery== File:Koppen-Geiger Map CMR present.svg\|Cameroon map of Köppen climate classification. File:Hills near Ngaoundal.jpg\|Countryside near Ngaoundal in Cameroon's Adamawa Region. File:Berges du Wouri 05.jpg\|A view of Wouri River with a transport vessel in the Littoral Region of Cameroon	[ "desertification", "Congo Basin", "remote sensing", "Akwayafe River", "Lake Monoun", "Ntem River", "World Wildlife Fund", "Ozone Layer Protection", "Far North Province", "Benue River", "List of protected areas of Cameroon", "Fako", "Bamenda highlands", "Cameroon", "Ouesso", "Mambilla highlands", "overgrazing", "Adamaoua highlands", "Aïna River", "Ngaoundal", "Wouri River", "hydropower", "Forest Landscape Integrity Index", "Lake Nyos", "Douala", "Geology of Cameroon", "Spain", "Mt. Cameroon", "Deutscher Wetterdienst", "savanna", "bauxite", "carbon dioxide", "poaching", "Mungo River, Cameroon", "estuary", "Logone River", "Cameroonian Highlands forests", "Tropical Timber 83", "peninsula", "European Union", "Papua New Guinea", "Gulf of Guinea", "Ndian River", "Meme River", "Endemism", "Dja River", "Yukon", "World Meteorological Organization", "Chad", "Bimbia River", "limnic eruption", "Bomassa", "Law of the Sea", "Republic of the Congo", "deforestation", "plateau", "California", "Equatorial Guinea", "Biodiversity", "National Climatic Data Center", "confluence", "Nuclear Test Ban", "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration", "Nigeria", "Campo River", "Cross River (Nigeria)", "Nyong River", "Central African mangroves", "South Cameroon Plateau", "ecoregion", "overfishing", "Adamawa Region", "plain", "Victoria (state)", "East Sudanian savanna", "List of volcanoes in Cameroon", "Akwabana Island", "forest cover", "Mount Cameroon", "Bamiléké highlands", "Republic of Congo", "Endangered Species", "East Region (Cameroon)", "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change", "State ownership", "Southwest region (Cameroon)", "Dibamba River", "Tropical Timber 94", "Sangha River", "Gabon", "Congo River", "Sanaga River", "Sweden", "Ngoko River", "WP:SDNONE", "Kadei River", "Bight of Biafra", "Lake Chad", "Debundscha", "Mount Cameroon and Bioko montane forests", "Central African Republic", "Manyu River" ]
5,450	Demographics of Cameroon	The demographic profile of Cameroon is complex for a country of its population. Cameroon comprises an estimated 250 distinct ethnic groups, which may be formed into five large regional-cultural divisions: western highlanders (Semi-Bantu or grassfielders), including the Bamileke, Bamum (or Bamoun), and many smaller Tikar groups in the Northwest (est. 38% of total population); coastal tropical forest peoples, including the Bassa, Duala (or Douala), and many smaller groups in the Southwest (12%); southern tropical forest peoples, including the Beti-Pahuin, Bulu (a subgroup of Beti-Pahuin), Fang (subgroup of Beti-Pahuin), Maka, Njem, and Baka pygmies (18%); predominantly Islamic peoples of the northern semi-arid regions (the Sahel) and central highlands, including the Fulani ( or Peuhl; ) (14%); and the "Kirdi", non-Islamic or recently Islamic peoples of the northern desert and central highlands (18%). The Cameroon government held two national censuses during the country's first 44 years as an independent country, in 1976 and again in 1987. Results from the second head count were never published. A third census, expected to take years to produce results, began on November 11, 2005, with a three-week interviewing phase. It is one of a series of projects and reforms required by the International Monetary Fund as prerequisites for foreign debt relief. The first results were published in 2010. ==Population== According to the total population was in , compared to only 4 466 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 40.6%, 55.9% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 3.5% was 65 years or older. Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.I.2010) (Data refer to national projections.): Population Estimates by Sex and Age Group (01.VII.2019) (Source: Population projections and estimates of priority targets for the various health programs and interventions, National Institute of Statistics (2016).): ===Demographic and Health Surveys=== Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): Fertility data as of 2011 (DHS Program): ==Vital statistics== Registration of vital events is in Cameroon not complete. The Population Departement of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. ==Ethnic groups== Cameroon Highlanders 31% Equatorial Bantu 19% Kanuri Indigenous languages of Cameroon include: Arab Shuwa Bamum Basaa Bikya Bung Kanuri Ngumba Yeni Lamnso Meta' Mafa ==Religion== Roman Catholic 38.3%, Protestant 25.5%, other Christian 6.9%, Muslim 24.4%, animist 2.2%, other 0.5%, none 2.2% (2018 est.)	[ "population", "International Monetary Fund", "Adamawa Province", "debt relief", "North Region (Cameroon)", "Cameroonian Pidgin English", "French language", "West Region (Cameroon)", "Meta' language", "Tikar", "Baka (nomadic Central African people)", "South Region (Cameroon)", "Littoral Region (Cameroon)", "Northwest Region (Cameroon)", "Bung language", "Islam", "Kirdi", "Far North Province", "Kanuri people", "Northwest Province, Cameroon", "Yaoundé", "Southwest Region (Cameroon)", "fertility rate", "varieties of Arabic", "demographics", "Duala people", "East Region (Cameroon)", "Yeni language", "Southwest Province, Cameroon", "Far North Region, Cameroon", "Buea", "ethnic groups", "Bamenda", "Fula language", "Bantu peoples", "Maka people", "Basaa language", "Bikya language", "Centre Region (Cameroon)", "Beti-Pahuin", "pygmy", "Lamnso language", "Cameroon", "Ewondo language", "Semi-Bantu", "Hausa people", "Bamum language", "Ethnic group", "Bassa people (Cameroon)", "North Province, Cameroon", "Kanuri language", "Njem", "Voice of America", "Ngumba language", "population density", "Adamawa Region", "Fula people", "net reproduction rate", "Bamum people", "Baggara", "Bamileke", "English language", "Mafa people", "Douala", "Sahel", "Chadian Arabic", "Fang people" ]
5,451	Politics of Cameroon	The politics of Cameroon takes place in the context of an electoral autocracy where multi-party elections have been held since 1992, the ruling party wins every election, and Paul Biya has been president since 1982. Since Cameroon's independence in 1960, it has been a single-party state and ruled only by two presidents: Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya. Political opposition are repressed and elections are manipulated in favor of the ruling party. Nominally, it is a unitary presidential republic, whereby the President of Cameroon is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. A prime ministerial position exists and is nominally head of government, implying a semi-presidential system, although de facto only serves to assist the president. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly of Cameroon. ==Political background== The government adopted legislation in 1997 to authorize the formation of multiple political parties and ease restrictions on forming civil associations and private newspapers. Cameroon's first multiparty legislative and presidential elections were held in 1992 followed by municipal elections in 1996 and another round of legislative and presidential elections in 1997. Because the government refused to consider opposition demands for an independent election commission, the three major opposition parties boycotted the October 1997 presidential election, which Biya easily won. The leader of one of the opposition parties, Bello Bouba Maigari of the NUDP, subsequently joined the government. Cameroon has a number of independent newspapers. Censorship was abolished in 1996, but the government sometimes seizes or suspends newspapers and occasionally arrests journalists. Although a 1990 law authorizes private radio and television stations, the government has not granted any licenses as of March 1998. The Cameroonian Government's human rights record has been improving over the years but remains flawed. There continue to be reported abuses, including beatings of detainees, arbitrary arrests, and illegal searches. The judiciary is frequently corrupt, inefficient, and subject to political influence. Worthy of note is the fact that Cameroon is the only country in which two Constitutions are applicable side by side. For example, the 1972 Constitution designates the Prime Minister as constitutional successor of the Head of State in case of incapacity, death, resignation or unaccountable absence of the incumbent. Contrarily, the 1996 Constitutional Reform designates the President of the Senate as constitutional successor; but the Senate (provided for by 1996 Reform) does not exist. Apart from increasing the presidential mandate from 5 years to 7 years, very few amendments of the 1996 Constitutional Reform have been applied. ==Executive branch== \|President \|Paul Biya \|Cameroon People's Democratic Movement \|6 November 1982 \|- \|Prime Minister \|Joseph Dion Ngute \|Cameroon People's Democratic Movement \|4 January 2019 \|} The 1972 constitution of the Republic of Cameroon as modified by 1996 reforms provides for a strong central government dominated by the executive. The president is empowered to name and dismiss cabinet members (regardless of parliamentary representation), judges, generals, provincial governors, prefects, sub-prefects, and heads of Cameroon's parastatal (about 100 state-controlled) firms, obligate or disburse expenditures, approve or veto regulations, declare states of emergency, and appropriate and spend profits of parastatal firms. The president is not required to consult the National Assembly. In 2008, a constitutional amendment was passed that eliminated term limits for president. The judiciary is subordinate to the executive branch's Ministry of Justice. The Supreme court may review the constitutionality of a law only at the president's request. All local government officials are employees of the central government's Ministry of Territorial Administration, from which local governments also get most of their budgets. While the president, the minister of justice, and the president's judicial advisers (the Supreme Court) top the judicial hierarchy, traditional rulers, courts, and councils also exercise functions of government. Traditional courts still play a major role in domestic, property, and probate law. Tribal laws and customs are honored in the formal court system when not in conflict with national law. Traditional rulers receive stipends from the national government. ==Legislative branch== The 180-member National Assembly meets in ordinary session three times a year (March/April, June/July, and November/December), and has seldom, until recently, made major changes in legislation proposed by the executive. Laws are adopted by majority vote of members present or, if the president demands a second reading, of a total membership. Following government pledges to reform the strongly centralized 1972 constitution, the National Assembly adopted a number of amendments in December 1995 which were promulgated in January 1996. The amendments call for the establishment of a 100-member senate as part of a bicameral legislature, the creation of regional councils, and the fixing of the presidential term to 7 years, renewable once. One-third of senators are to be appointed by the President, and the remaining two-thirds are to be chosen by indirect elections. The government has established the Senate in 2013. ==Political parties and elections== ==Judicial branch== The judiciary is subordinate to the executive branch's Ministry of Justice. The Supreme Court may review the constitutionality of a law only at the president's request. == The role of women == In an article on the construction of a ‘model Cameroonian woman’ in the Cameroonian parliament, Lilian Atanga, examines arguments used to perpetuate a popular ideal and discourses which "sustain and maintain the status quo (e.g. of women as domestic or women as cooks)". ==International organization participation== Cameroon is member of: ACCT, ACP, AfDB, BDEAC, C, CEEAC, ECA, FAO, FZ, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, ITU, ITUC, NAM, OAU, OIC, OPCW, PCA, UDEAC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNITAR, UPU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO	[ "International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement", "International Finance Corporation", "International Civil Aviation Organization", "International Development Association", "Tribal law", "electoral autocracy", "International Mobile Satellite Organization", "List of governments of Cameroon", "Permanent Court of Arbitration", "Cameroon People's Democratic Movement", "World Trade Organization", "bicameral legislature", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "Executive power", "UNESCO", "Intelsat", "Presidents of Cameroon", "International Olympic Committee", "Joseph Ngute", "African Development Bank", "International Labour Organization", "Ministry of Justice of Cameroon", "International Atomic Energy Agency", "CEEAC", "Prime Minister of Cameroon", "prefect", "National Union for Democracy and Progress (Cameroon)", "presidential system", "International Maritime Organization", "Commonwealth of Nations", "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa", "Senate (Cameroon)", "World Meteorological Organization", "International Telecommunication Union", "Legislative power", "United Nations Institute for Training and Research", "President of Cameroon", "Semi-presidential republic", "United Nations Industrial Development Organization", "Supreme Court of Cameroon", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "Paul Biya", "Ahmadou Ahidjo", "senate", "National Assembly (Cameroon)", "probate law", "Organisation of African Unity", "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development", "Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique", "World Federation of Trade Unions", "World Health Organization", "Gender and Language", "Customs and Economic Union of Central Africa", "Forms of government", "Bello Bouba Maigari", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "International Fund for Agricultural Development", "Group of 77", "International Trade Union Confederation", "International Criminal Court", "World Tourism Organization", "unitary republic", "ACP (Lomé Convention)", "International Monetary Fund", "sub-prefect", "Interpol (organization)", "Supreme court", "Cameroon public administration structure", "National Assembly of Cameroon", "head of government", "Human rights in Cameroon", "parastatal", "BDEAC", "multi-party system", "Islamic Development Bank", "Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons", "Non-Aligned Movement", "Franc zone", "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation", "WP:SDNONE", "Universal Postal Union", "Colin Powell", "head of state", "World Customs Organization" ]
5,452	Economy of Cameroon	\|gini = 46.6 (2014, World Bank) \|hdi = \|labor = \|occupations = \|reserves = $3.235 billion (31 December 2017 est.) == Agriculture == In 2018, Cameroon produced: 5million tons of cassava (13th largest producer in the world); 3.9million tonnes of plantain (3rd largest producer in the world, only behind Congo and Ghana); 2.6million tons of palm oil (7th largest producer in the world); 2.3million tons of maize; 1.9million tons of taro (3rd largest producer in the world, second only to Nigeria and China); 1.4million tons of sorghum; 1.2million tons of banana; 1.2million tons of sugarcane; 1million tons of tomato (19th largest producer in the world); 674,000 tonnes of yam (7th largest producer in the world); 594,000 tons of peanut; 410,000 tons of sweet potato; 402,000 tons of beans; 332,000 tons of rice; 310,000 tons of pineapple; 307,000 tons of cocoa (5th largest producer in the world, after Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Nigeria); 302,000 tons of potato; 301,000 tons of onion; 249,000 tons of cotton. In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products, such as coffee (33,000 tons) and natural rubber (55,000 tons). ==Finance and banking== Cameroon's financial system is the largest in the CEMAC region. Access to financial services is limited, particularly for SMEs. Aside from a traditional tendency for banks to prefer dealing with large, established companies, determining factors are also found in interest rates for loans to SMEs being capped at 15 percent and being heavily taxed. As of 2006, bank loans to SMEs hardly reached 15 percent of total outstanding loans (Molua, 2002). In 2018, Cameroon's financial system is being requested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to increase its tax base to cover the losses from the North-West and South-West Cameroon's regions instabilities, the loss of oil revenue, the failure to deliver on port facilities, and the decline in oil production from mature oil fields. ==Macro-economic trend== Cameroon became an oil-producing country in 1977. Claiming to want to make reserves for difficult times, the authorities manage "off-budget" oil revenues in total opacity (the funds are placed in Paris, Switzerland and New York accounts). Several billion dollars are thus diverted to the benefit of oil companies and regime officials. The influence of France and its 9,000 nationals in Cameroon remains considerable. African Affairs magazine noted in the early 1980s that they "continue to dominate almost all key sectors of the economy, much as they did before independence. French nationals control 55% of the modern sector of the Cameroonian economy and their control over the banking system is total. Recent signs, however, are encouraging. As of March 1998, Cameroon's fifth IMF program – a 3-year enhanced structural adjustment program approved in August 1997 – is on track. Cameroon has rescheduled its Paris Club debt at favorable terms. GDP has grown by about 5% a year beginning in 1995. There is cautious optimism that Cameroon is emerging from its long period of economic hardship. The Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) signed recently by the IMF and Government of Cameroon calls for greater macroeconomic planning and financial accountability; privatization of most of Cameroon's nearly 100 remaining non-financial parastatal enterprises; elimination of state marketing board monopolies on the export of cocoa, certain coffees, and cotton; privatization and price competition in the banking sector; implementation of the 1992 labor code; a vastly improved judicial system; and political liberalization to boost investment. France is Cameroon's main trading partner and source of private investment and foreign aid. Cameroon has an investment guaranty agreement and a bilateral accord with the United States. USA investment in Cameroon is about $1 million, most of it in the oil sector. Inflation has been brought back under control. Cameroon aims at becoming emerging by 2035. The government embarked upon a series of economic reform programs supported by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) beginning in the late 1980s. Many of these measures have been painful; the government slashed civil service salaries by 65% in 1993. The CFA franc – the common currency of Cameroon and 13 other African states – was devalued by 50% in January 1994. The government failed to meet the conditions of the first four IMF programs. This is a chart of trend of gross domestic product of Cameroon at market prices estimated by the International Monetary Fund with figures in millions of Central African CFA Francs. The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2022. Inflation below 5% is in green. ==Mining== ==Gallery== File:Douala.JPG\|Douala File:Limbe1.png\|A touristic area in Limbe File:YaoundeSportPalace.png\|Yaoundé Sport palace File:Fulani herd in the dust.jpg\|A Fulani herder drives his cattle in northern Cameroon. File:Asky plane 7810.jpg\|Douala International Airport File:Touristic Buses.jpg\|Intercity buses in transit during the night (Touristique Express) File:WL-Cameroun-Train Yaoundé-Ngaoundéré.jpg\|Interurban passenger train on the move in Cameroon (Douala-Yaounde-Ngaoundere) File:Nouveau pont sur le Wouri 04.jpg\|Douala Seaport File:Transport de boissons 01.jpg\|A truck transporting beers to various localities in Cameroon	[ "Standard & Poor's", "France", "List of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI", "refining", "oil reserves", "petroleum", "Cameroon", "maize", "pineapple", "New York City", "recession", "Africa", "Cocoa bean", "World Trade Organization", "Douala", "cotton", "ship", "Limbe, Cameroon", "CEMAC", "Purchasing power parity", "CFA franc", "privatization", "food processing", "ISO 4217", "cassava", "sub-Saharan Africa", "Yaoundé", "Economic Community of Central African States", "United States", "export", "petroleum product", "palm oil", "Transport in Cameroon", "microfinance", "electrical", "Human Development Report", "sweet potato", "sugarcane", "List of countries by Human Development Index", "monopoly", "labor code", "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa", "List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita", "banking", "African Continental Free Trade Agreement", "bean", "United Nations Development Programme", "potato", "onion", "lumber", "Yam (vegetable)", "transport", "Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility", "African Union", "Secondary sector of the economy", "crude oil", "Gross domestic product", "World Bank", "Tertiary sector of the economy", "Developing country", "List of countries by GDP (nominal)", "banana", "sorghum", "Government budget deficit", "Switzerland", "aluminium", "Paris Club", "Ease of doing business index", "International Monetary Fund", "taro", "coffee", "List of countries by GDP (PPP)", "textiles", "Primary sector of the economy", "natural rubber", "civil service", "foreign aid", "tomato", "peanut", "List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita", "food", "fuel", "machinery", "Paris", "Cooking banana", "Fula people", "foreign debt", "rice", "currency" ]
5,453	Telecommunications in Cameroon	Telecommunications in Cameroon include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet. == History == During German rule, It was set up in the protectorate of Kamerun the first telegraph line, the first telephone line, and the first wireless telegraph. However, the country remained undeveloped in telecommunications. During First World War, Germans followed a scorched-earth policy that meant the destruction of communication lines, included telephone and telegraph. In British Cameroon, from 1916 to 1950s, communications in the country relied on flag post runners that had been described as "human telephone lines". Paths followed by the runners served as a base of the development of telegraph lines in the territory. For instance, the line from Buea-Kumba to Ossidinge used the same paths that the mail runners. In the mid-1930s, the wiring of British Cameroon received more support. ==Radio and television== Radio stations: state-owned Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV); one private radio broadcaster; about 70 privately owned, unlicensed radio stations operating, but subject to closure at any time; foreign news services are required to partner with a state-owned national station (2007); The government maintains tight control over broadcast media. State-owned Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV), operates both a TV and a radio network. It was the only officially recognized and fully licensed broadcaster until August 2007 when the government issued licenses to two private TV and one private radio broadcasters. International call prefix: 00 Main lines: 737,400 lines in use, 88th in the world (2012); Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2011). 985,565 users (2011); 749,600 users, 106th in the world (2009). Wireless broadband: Unknown (2012). Internet hosts: 10,207 hosts, 134th in the world (2012); Internet service providers (ISPs): Creolink Communications A number of projects are underway that will improve Internet access, telecommunications, and Information and communications technology (ICT) in general: Implementation of the e-post project, connecting 234 post offices throughout the country; Extension of the national optical fiber network, installation of the initial 3,200 km of fiber is complete and studies for the installation of an additional 3,400 km are underway; Construction of multipurpose community telecentres, some 115 telecentres are operating with an additional 205 under construction; Construction of metropolitan optical loops, the urban optical loop of Douala is complete and construction of the Yaounde loop is underway; Construction of submarine cable landing points; Establishment of public key infrastructure (PKI); Construction of a regional technology park to support the development of ICTs. ===Internet censorship and surveillance=== There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or reports that the government monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms. Although the law provides for freedom of speech and press, it also criminalizes media offenses, and the government restricts freedoms of speech and press. Government officials threaten, harass, arrest, and deny equal treatment to individuals or organizations that criticize government policies or express views at odds with government policy. Individuals who criticize the government publicly or privately sometimes face reprisals. Press freedom is constrained by strict libel laws that suppress criticism. These laws authorize the government, at its discretion and the request of the plaintiff, to criminalize a civil libel suit or to initiate a criminal libel suit in cases of alleged libel against the president and other high government officials. Such crimes are punishable by prison terms and heavy fines. Although the constitution and law prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, these rights are subject to restriction for the "higher interests of the state", and there are credible reports that police and gendarmes harass citizens, conduct searches without warrants, and open or seize mail with impunity.	[ "List of terrestrial fibre optic cable projects in Africa", "ACE (cable system)", "Top-level domain", "List of international call prefixes", "Radio broadcasting", "France", "Communications satellite", "The World Factbook", "Information and communications technology", "List of countries by IPv4 address allocation", "SAT-3/WASC", "Intelsat", "Portugal", "libel", "e-mail", "United States", "freedom of speech", "public key infrastructure", "Ossidinge", "List of countries by number of Internet hosts", "Yaounde", "Kamerun", "Scorched earth", "Reporters Without Borders", "microwave radio relay", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Cameroon", "Calling code", ".cm", "List of countries by number of broadband Internet subscriptions", "freedom of the press", "tropospheric scatter", "Media of Cameroon", "List of international submarine communications cables", "BBC World Service", "Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation", "British Cameroon", "WP:SDNONE", "Atlantic Ocean", "Internet service provider", "International Telecommunication Union", "Douala", "chat rooms", "Cameroon Radio Television", "List of countries by number of Internet users", "Television broadcasting" ]
5,454	Transport in Cameroon	This article provides a breakdown of the transportation options available in Cameroon. These options are available to citizens and tourists such as railways, roadways, waterways, pipelines, and airlines. These avenues of transport are used by citizens for personal transportation, of goods, and by tourists for both accessing the country and traveling. == Railways == Railways in Cameroon are operated by Camrail, a subsidiary of French investment group Bolloré. As of May 2014, Camrail operated regular daily services on three routes: Douala - Kumba Douala - Yaoundé Yaoundé - Ngaoundéré Kribi - Mbalam and Nabeba in Republic of the Congo - under construction in 2022. Edéa - Kribi - proposed connection to deep water port. There are no rail links with neighboring countries except Republic of the Congo. == Roadways == Total highways: 50,000 km Paved: 5,000 km Unpaved: 45,000 km (2004) Cameroon lies at a key point in the Trans-African Highway network, with three routes crossing its territory: Dakar-N'Djamena Highway, connecting just over the Cameroon border with the N'Djamena-Djibouti Highway Lagos-Mombasa Highway Tripoli-Cape Town Highway Cameroon's central location in the network means that efforts to close the gaps in the network across Central Africa rely on Cameroon's participation in maintaining the network, and the network has the potential to profoundly influence Cameroon's regional trade. Except for the several relatively good toll roads that connect major cities (all of them one-lane) roads are poorly maintained and subject to inclement weather, since only 10% of the roadways are tarred. It is likely that within a decade, a great deal of trade between West Africa and Southern Africa will be moving on the network through Yaoundé. National highways in Cameroon: N1: Yaoundé - Bertoua - Ngaoundéré - Garoua - Maroua - Kouséri, border with Chad. N2: Yaoundé - Mbalmayo - Ebolowa - Woleu Ntem, border with Gabon. N3: Yaoundé - Edéa - Douala - Idenau. N4: Yaoundé - Bafia - Bafoussam. N5: Douala - Nkongsamba - Bafang - Bafoussam. N6: Ejagham, border with Nigeria - Bamenda - Bafoussam - Tibati - Lokoti. N7: Edéa - Kribi. N8: Mutengene - Kumba - Mamfé. N9: Mbalmayo - Nki, border with Congo. N10: Yaoundé - Bertoua - Batouri - Kenzou, border with the Central African Republic. N11 Bamenda Ring Road Linking, Mezam, Ngokitujia, Mbui, Boyo and Menchum Prices of petrol rose steadily in 2007 and 2008, leading to a transport union strike in Douala on 25 February 2008. The strike quickly escalated into violent protests and spread to other major cities. The uprising finally subsided on 29 February. == Waterways == 2,090 km; of decreasing importance. Navigation mainly on the Benue River; limited during the rainy season. == Seaports and harbors == Douala - main port, railhead, and second-largest city Bonaberi - railhead to northwest Garoua Kribi - oil pipeline from Chad Kribi South - proposed iron ore export port, about 40 km south of Kribi. Tiko ==Pipelines== 888 km of oil line (2008) == Airports == The main international airport is the Douala International Airport and a secondary international airport at Yaoundé Nsimalen International Airport. As of May 2014, Cameroon had regular international air connections with nearly every major international airport in West and Southwest Africa and several connections to Europe and East Africa. In 2008 there were 34 airports, only 10 of which had paved runways. List of airports in Cameroon === Airports - with paved runways === total: 10 over 3,047 m: 2 2,438 to 3,047 m: 4 1,524 to 2,437 m: 3 914 to 1,523 m: 1 (2008) === Airports - with unpaved runways === total: 24 1,524 to 2,437 m: 4 914 to 1,523 m: 14 under 914 m: 6 (2008)	[ "railhead", "Trans-African Highway network", "Bafoussam", "Republic of the Congo", "France", "Railway stations in Cameroon", "Mamfé", "Bonaberi", "African Integrated High Speed Railway Network", "Bolloré", "Central Africa", "Yaoundé Nsimalen International Airport", "Lagos-Mombasa Highway", "Cameroon Tribune", "Lokoti", "Tibati", "Central African Republic", "subsidiary", "Tripoli-Cape Town Highway", "Idenau", "Garoua", "Bafang", "Yaoundé", "Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville)", "Ngaoundéré", "Cameroon National Highway 5", "Kumba", "2008 Cameroonian anti-government protests", "Bamenda", "Benue River", "Cameroon National Highway 9", "Maroua", "East Province (Cameroon)", "List of airports in Cameroon", "Cameroon", "Ebolowa", "Gabon", "Tiko", "Edéa", "Cameroon National Highway 3", "Nigeria", "Cameroon National Highway 10", "Mutengene", "AIHSRN", "Nkongsamba", "Trans-Sahelian Highway", "Batouri", "Douala International Airport", "WP:SDNONE", "Kribi", "Mbalam", "Bertoua", "Cameroon National Highway 8", "Cameroon National Highway 2", "Nabeba", "Bafia", "Camrail", "Mbalmayo", "Chad", "Kribi South", "Douala", "Cameroon National Highway 4", "Cameroon National Highway 7", "Kouséri", "Ndjamena-Djibouti Highway" ]
5,455	Cameroon Armed Forces	The Cameroon Armed Forces () are the military of the Republic of Cameroon. The armed forces number 40,000 personnel in ground, air, and naval forces. There are approximately 40,000 troops in the army across three military regions. Approximately 1,300 troops are part of the Cameroonian Navy, which is headquartered at Douala. Under 600 troops are part of the Air Force. There is an additional 12,500 paramilitary troops that serve as a gendarmerie (policing force) or reconnaissance role. The Cameroonian armed forces have bases spread all over Cameroon, including in Ngaoundéré. Air Force bases are located in Garoua, Yaoundé, Douala and Bamenda. It has generally remained loyal to the government and acted to ensure the stability of the regime, and not acted as an independent political force. Traditional dependence on the French defense capability, although reduced, continues to be the case as French military advisers remain closely involved in preparing the Cameroonian forces for deployment to the contested Bakassi Peninsula. ==Army== With over 40,000 troops, the Army remains the most important component in terms of numbers. The Army is under the responsibility of the Chief of Staff, Major-General Nkoa Atenga, whose staff is in Yaoundé. Currently, the organization dates from 2001 with a distribution in several types of units: combat units, response units (unités d'intervention), unités de soutien et d'appui, and finally special reserve units as part of 3 joint military régions (interarmées) and the 10 military land sectors. Army units have been trained and equipped to fight in the swampy coastal terrain facing the Bakassi peninsula. Although prepared for an armed conflict with Nigeria in recent years, the Cameroon Army does not have operational experience against other forces, therefore, it is not possible to assess its ability to respond to changing threats and opposing tactics. Combat units of the army include: The Headquarters Brigade, located in Yaoundé. This brigade is responsible for protecting the capital and supporting the institutions. The President of the Republic has to allow any of its deployments. The brigade consists of acommand and support battalion; a support battalion; a bataillon honneurs et protection (BHP); and three infantry battalions. Three command and support battalions; The Rapid Intervention Battalion (Btaillon d'Intervention Rapide, BIR) The (Brigade d'Intervention Rapide, or also BIR), (which currently has no general staff) and is made up of three rapid response battalions, stationed in Douala, Tiko and Koutaba. These three battalions are respectively the Special Amphibious Battalion (Bataillon Spécial Amphibie; BSA), the Bataillon des Troupes Aéroportées (BTAP), and the Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (Bataillon Blindé de Reconnaissance; BBR) equipped with Type 07P infantry fighting vehicle and PTL-02 tank destroyer bought recently from China. The BSA is inspired by the French Special Forces. This brigade is a tactical battle unit under the authority of the Chief of Staff of the armed forces. For this to be engaged, the President's agreement is necessary. Five motorised infantry brigades, supposed to be stationed in one military sector but which can then be engaged without any regard to the territorial division of the country. These brigades currently do not have a general staff. In theory, they consist of 11 motorised infantry battalions; 5 support battalions and 3 backing battalions; however, the motorised battalions are in reality not operational due to a lack of staff, equipment and vehicles. === Organization === The territory is divided into 5 combined arms military regions (RMIA): RMIA1 (Yaoundé) RMIA2 (Douala) RMIA3 (Garoua) RMIA4 (Maroua) RMIA5 (Bamenda) === 1st Military Region === 11th Ebolowa Brigade: 11th BCS (command and support battalion) in Ebolowa 12th BIM (motorized infantry battalion) in Ebolowa 12th BIM at Djoum 13th BIM at Ambam 11th BA (support battalion) at Sangmélima 12th Bertoua brigade 12th BCS in Bertoua 14th BIM in Bertoua 15th BIM to Yokadouma 16th BIM at Garoua-Boulaï 12th BA in Bertoua === 2nd Military Region === Rapid Intervention Brigade Headquarters at Bafoussam Special Amphibious Battalion (BSA) at Tiko Airborne Battalion (BTAP) in Koutaba Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (BBR) in Douala 21st Motorized infantry brigade of Buéa Here, he was assaulted by police in June 2001, with no particular reason stated. 1: Aresa 2300 landing craft 6: Aresa 750 Commandos RIBs 5: 1200 Stealth RIBs 1: 1200 Defcon RIB 2: P108 and P109 patrol boats No officers were graduated until 1970. Every graduation of cadets takes place on 18 January. Non-Commissioned Officer Training School (Ecole des sous officiers du cameroun) Both commissioned and noncommissioned officers were sent to various military schools in France, Greece, and the Soviet Union. The total number of Cameroonian military cadets with a Russian educational background were few.	[ "Combined Services Military Academy (Cameroon)", "Joseph Beti Assomo", "captain (Navy)", "Sangmélima", "President of Cameroon", "Bafoussam", "Type 067 landing craft utility", "Mamfé", "Major-General", "Loum, Cameroon", "Bakassi Peninsula", "Garoua", "René Claude Meka", "Yaoundé", "Djoum", "PTL-02", "Joseph Ngute", "Republic of Cameroon", "Paul Biya", "Ngaoundéré", "Kumba", "Bakassi peninsula", "Bamenda", "Garoua-Boulaï", "Maroua", "Yokadouma", "Chief of the Defence Staff (Cameroon)", "Philip Njaru", "Ebolowa", "Tiko", "Prime Minister of Cameroon", "Boston Whaler", "Swiftships", "Central African Republic Civil War (2012–2014)", "Bakassi conflict", "Buéa", "Kumba (Cameroon)", "Journal du Cameroun", "Boko Haram insurgency", "Military ranks of Cameroon", "Type 07P", "Anglophone Crisis", "Bertoua", "Soviet Union", "Ambam", "Rapid Intervention Battalion, Cameroon", "Greece", "Cameroonian Air Force", "Koutaba", "military region", "Douala", "Akwaya", "Bamileke War" ]
5,456	Foreign relations of Cameroon	Cameroon's noncontentious, low-profile approach to foreign relations puts it squarely in the middle of other African and developing country states on major issues. It supports the principles of non-interference in the affairs of developing countries and increased assistance to underdeveloped countries. Cameroon is an active participant in the United Nations, where its voting record demonstrates its commitment to causes that include international peacekeeping, the rule of law, environmental protection, and Third World economic development. In the UN and other human rights fora, Cameroon's non-confrontational approach has generally led it to avoid criticizing other countries. Cameroon enjoys good relations with France, the United States and other developed countries. Cameroon enjoys generally good relations with its African neighbors. It supports UN peacekeeping activities in Central Africa. ==International disputes== Delimitation of international boundaries in the vicinity of Lake Chad, the lack of which led to border incidents in the past, is complete and awaits ratification by Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria; dispute with Nigeria over land and maritime boundaries around the Bakasi Peninsula and Lake Chad is currently before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as is a dispute with Equatorial Guinea over the exclusive maritime economic zone. As of 10 October 2012, it has been resolved that Cameroon own Bakassi. Cameroon also faces a complaint filed with the African Commission on Human Rights by the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) and the Southern Cameroons Peoples Organization (SCAPO) against the Government of the Republic of Cameroon, in which the complainants allege that the Republic of Cameroon is illegally occupying the territory of Southern Cameroons. The SCNC and SCAPO ultimately seek the independence of the territory of Southern Cameroons. As of 2008, both parties have submitted briefs and responded to the Human Rights Commissions' inquiries. A ruling by the African Commission on Human Rights is awaited. == Diplomatic relations == List of countries which Cameroon maintains diplomatic relations with: ==Multilateral relations== In addition to the United Nations, Cameroon is very active in other multilateral organisations or global institutions such as the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, The Commonwealth, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Group of 77, the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union and the Economic Community of Central African States.	[ "The Commonwealth", "maritime boundary", "Southern Cameroons", "Economic Partnership Agreements", "environmentalism", "human rights", "Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization", "Federal Republic of Cameroon", "Washington, D.C.", "Central Africa", "Istanbul", "Niger", "Equatorial Guinea", "Bakassi Peninsula", "L'Harmattan", "rule of law", "Yaoundé", "gov.uk", "International Court of Justice", "Greentree Agreement", "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie", "African Union", "Yaounde", "Abuja", "peacekeeping", "Francophonie", "Non-Aligned Movement", "Cameroon", "Moscow", "Viettel", "Abidjan", "Ottawa", "British High Commission", "Bakasi Peninsula", "London", "High Commission of Cameroon, London", "National sovereignty", "the Economic Community of Central African States", "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation", "United Nations", "Group of 77", "Ankara", "African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights", "Africa", "Commonwealth of Nations", "World Trade Organization", "Third World", "Japan", "Chad", "List of diplomatic missions in Cameroon", "Tokyo", "Lake Chad", "Foreign relations of the United Kingdom", "List of diplomatic missions of Cameroon", "boundary delimitation", "Central African Republic", "Southern Cameroons National Council" ]
5,460	Geography of Cape Verde	Cape Verde (formally, the Republic of Cabo Verde) is a group of arid Atlantic islands which are home to distinct communities of plants, birds, and reptiles. == Location and description == The Cape Verde Islands are located in the mid-Atlantic Ocean some off the west coast of the continent of Africa. The landscape varies from dry plains to high active volcanoes with cliffs rising steeply from the ocean. The climate is arid. The total size is . The archipelago consists of ten islands and five islets, divided into the windward (Barlavento) and leeward (Sotavento) groups. In the west of the Barlavento group, Santo Antão, São Vicente, São Nicolau, Santa Luzia and islets Branco and Raso are volcanic and somewhat rocky yet quite widely capable of supporting semi-arid agriculture. In the east of the Barlavento group, Sal and Boa Vista are lightly-hilled, desert islands whose economies were based on salt and rely on fishing and tourism, having more in common with the Sotavento island Maio. There are four main islands of the Sotavento group. The western three islands, Brava, Fogo and Santiago, are rocky and volcanic agricultural islands, with the longest histories of human habitation. The fourth and easternmost island Maio is a flat desert island whose economy was primarily based on salt, giving it more in common with the Barlavento islands Sal and Boa Vista. The Ilhéus do Rombo are barren islets north of Brava. The total area of the Sotavento Islands is . The interior valleys support denser natural vegetation. Maritime claims: Measured from claimed archipelagic baselines Continental shelf: 5,591 km2 }} Rainfall is irregular, historically causing periodic droughts and famines. Experiments with fog collectors have been conducted since 1962, however, such collectors had not been expanded beyond the Serra Malagueta community of Santiago Island, as of 2009. The average precipitation per year in Praia is . \| source 2 = Deutscher Wetterdienst (extremes, precipitation days, and sun) }} == Forests == In Cabo Verde forest cover is around 11% of the total land area, equivalent to 45,720 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, up from 15,380 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 13,680 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 32,040 hectares (ha). For the year 2015, 100% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership. The islands constitute the unique Cape Verde Islands dry forests ecoregion, according to the World Wildlife Fund. == Flora == Cape Verde is the driest archipelago of the ecoregion of Macaronesia. That with a greater influence of African species due to its geographical location near the African mainland of the Sahel. At first, the islands of Cabo Verde housed an extensive savanna and dry forest cover, but mostly it was removed to convert to agricultural land, which, together with the arid climate and rugged terrain, has led to a soil erosion and desertification widespread. However, the archipelago can be divided into four broad ecological zones (arid, semiarid, subhumid and humid), according to altitude and average annual rainfall ranging from 200 mm in the arid areas of the coast to more than 1000 mm in the humid mountain. Mostly rainfall precipitation is due to condensation of the ocean mist. Today much of the forest cover comprises relatively immature agroforestry plantations, in which are used non-native species such as Prosopis juliflora, Leucaena leucocephala and Jatropha curcas. The native laurel forest species are in wet area only in mountainous areas. On the lower and drier islands the vegetation, before human colonization, consisted of savanna or steppe vegetation, with the flattest inland portion supporting semi-desert plants. At higher altitudes, a form of arid shrubland was also present. These islands were covered with savanna on the plains and arid shrubland on the mountainsides, but after over 500 years of human habitation (after Portuguese colonisation) nearly all the original vegetation has been cleared in favour of widespread agriculture including the grazing of goats, sheep and cattle and the planting of imported crop species. There are some remaining patches of dry forest high on steep mountainside including a number of endemic plant species, but these are inaccessible and hard to study. On the higher islands and somewhat wetter islands, exclusively in mountainous areas, like Santo Antao island, the climate is suitable for the development of dry monsoon forest, and laurel forest as this vegetation is believed to have been present in the past. However, most vegetation has now been converted to agriculture and forest fragments are now restricted to areas where cultivation is not possible, such as mountain peaks and steep slopes. The demand for wood has resulted in deforestation and desertification. Of particular note is the endemic type of humid subtropical laurel forest of macaronesian laurisilva, found on several of the Macaronesian African mainland enclaves and Macaronesian islands of the North Atlantic, namely Madeira Islands, the Azores, Cape Verde Islands, and the Canary Islands; these are a relic of the Pliocene subtropical forests, supporting numerous endemic species. This laurisilva forests are found in the islands of Macaronesia in the eastern Atlantic, in particular the Azores, Madeira Islands, and western Canary Islands, from 400 m to 1,200 m elevation. Trees of the genera Apollonias (Lauraceae), Ocotea (Lauraceae), Persea (Lauraceae), Clethra (Clethraceae), Dracaena (Ruscaceae), and Picconia (Oleaceae) are characteristic. The Madeira Islands laurel forest was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999. == Fauna == There are four endemic bird species including the Raso lark along with more common swifts, larks, warblers, and sparrows. The islands are an important breeding site for seabirds including the Cape Verde shearwater and Fea's petrel (Pterodroma feae), which breeds only here and in Madeira. Santiago Island holds the only breeding site of the endemic and critically endangered Bourne's heron. The 11 endemic reptile species include a giant gecko (Tarentola gigas), and there are other geckos and skinks in abundance. The giant skink (Macroscincus coctei) is now thought to be extinct. == Threats and protection == Almost all of the natural environment has been destroyed by conversion to agriculture and logging for firewood, as well as natural soil erosion, all of which has threatened several species of birds and reptiles. The remaining original forest exists at high altitudes only. Newer problems include illegal beach sand extraction and overfishing while the nesting birds are vulnerable due to introduced mammals, including cats and rats. Environment - international agreements Party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands == Extreme points == Northernmost point - Ponta do Sol on Santao Antão Island Southernmost point - Ponta Nho Martinho on Brava Westernmost point - Ponta Chao de Mongrade on Santao Antão* Easternmost point - Ponta Meringuel on Boa Vista *This is also the westernmost point of Africa	[ "North Atlantic", "Endemic (ecology)", "Cape Verde – Senegal Maritime Delimitation Treaty", "Furna (Brava)", "Canary Islands", "maritime boundary", "Vila do Maio", "Cape Verde Islands dry forests", "gecko", "Clethra", "Ruscaceae", "clay", "kaolin", "larks", "Santiago, Cape Verde", "Espargos", "Sal Island", "Cape Verde-type hurricane", "World Wildlife Fund", "Ponta Chao de Mongrade", "Mindelo", "Northern Hemisphere", "Macaronesia", "salt", "archipelago", "Tarrafal de São Nicolau, Cape Verde", "dry forest", "Central Intelligence Agency", "forest", "Sahara", "Picconia", "mountain", "Ilhéu Raso", "Ponta Meringuel", "Exclusive Economic Zone", "Desertification", "fog collector", "Africa", "Calheta de São Miguel", "Cape Verde shearwater", "Apollonias", "Pombas", "Ilhéu do Baluarte", "Santo Antão, Cape Verde", "Amílcar Cabral International Airport", "Dracaena (plant)", "Calheta, Cape Verde", "Deutscher Wetterdienst", "limestone", "Nelson Mandela International Airport", "Pliocene", "UNESCO", "desert", "Ocotea", "Ilhéus Secos", "Salt", "Santa Luzia, Cape Verde", "Oleaceae", "Estância de Baixo", "Ponta Nho Martinho", "Hazardous Wastes", "Raso lark", "subtropical", "Mount Fogo", "Praia", "Cova Figueira", "Tarentola", "Ilhéu Rabo de Junco", "skink", "Ribeira Grande, Cape Verde", "boundary delimitation", "Maio, Cape Verde", "Barlavento Islands", "Mosteiros, Cape Verde", "Macroscincus coctei", "Exclusive economic zone", "tropical cyclone", "U.S. State Department", "Ribeira Brava, Cape Verde", "Law of the Sea", "Assomada", "laurel forest", "The World Factbook", "Orography", "Azores", "São Nicolau, Cape Verde", "basalt", "Biodiversity", "Volcanic islands", "Cape Verde", "Environmental Modification Convention", "Sal, Cape Verde", "agriculture", "Porto Novo, Cape Verde", "fish", "Senegal", "Old World sparrow", "Tarrafal, Cape Verde", "Volcano", "Fea's petrel", "Cidade Velha", "Boa Vista, Cape Verde", "Nuclear Test Ban", "laurisilva", "Treaty", "ecoregion", "São Vicente, Cape Verde", "trade winds", "Atlantic Ocean", "overfishing", "Madeira Islands", "Ponta do Sol, Cape Verde", "Madeira", "Nova Sintra", "warblers", "Bourne's heron", "forest cover", "Persea", "Sal Rei", "cloud forest", "moisture", "Sotavento Islands", "humid subtropical", "World Heritage Site", "Ilhéu dos Pássaros", "orography", "soil erosion", "São Filipe, Cape Verde", "Swift (bird)", "Lauraceae", "Ilhéu de Sal-Rei", "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change", "Agriculture", "State ownership", "solar radiation", "dew point", "Fogo, Cape Verde", "Pedra Badejo", "Santa Maria, Cape Verde", "gypsum", "drought", "Ilhéu Branco", "Umbria", "WP:SDNONE", "arid", "Cape Verde – Mauritania Maritime Delimitation Treaty", "Brava, Cape Verde", "tourism", "Ilhéus do Rombo", "Mauritania", "Marine Dumping", "desertification" ]
5,461	Demographics of Cape Verde	Demographic features of the population of Cape Verde include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. Cape Verde has about 540,000 inhabitants. A large proportion (236,000) of Cape Verdeans live on the main island, Santiago. Many more live abroad in the Cape Verdean diaspora in mainland Africa, Europe, U.S., Brazil, et cetera. The archipelago of Cape Verde was first discovered and claimed by Portuguese sailors working for the Portuguese Crown in 1456. Cape Verdeans are West African. Many foreigners from other parts of the world settled in Cape Verde as their permanent country. The difficulty of survival in a country with few natural resources has historically induced Cape Verdeans to emigrate. In fact, of the more than 1 million people of Cape Verdean ancestry in the world, only a little more than one-third actually live on the islands. Some 500,000 people of Cape Verdean ancestry live in the United States, mainly in New England. Many people of Cape Verdean ancestry also live in Portugal, Netherlands, France, Italy and Senegal. Cape Verdean populations also settled Spain, Germany, Canada, and other CPLP countries (Angola, Brazil and Guinea-Bissau). Since independence from Portugal in 1975, a number of Cape Verdean students have continued to be admitted every year to Portuguese high schools, polytechnical institutes and universities, through bilateral agreements between the Portuguese and Cape Verdean governments. Portuguese functions as a state language. Virtually all formal documents and official declarations are in Portuguese. But it is not the first language. Cape Verdean, commonly called Kriolu, is spoken as a mother tongue by virtually all Cape Verdeans, irrespective of social status or religious affiliation. Moreover, historical linguists often attribute Cape Verdean Creole as the oldest "New World" contact language. It is a "contact" language in the sense that it was born and evolved between linguistically different groups who, by necessity, had to create a common language to communicate with each other. There is a rich repertoire of literature and songs in Cape Verdean Creole. In religion, the majority of Cape Verdeans follow Catholic Christianity. There are some Protestants, Baháʼís and Muslims. ==Population== According to the total population was in , compared to only 178,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 31.8%, 62.3% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 5.9% was 65 years or older. ==Vital statistics== Vital events of Cape Verde are not (yet) available for recent years. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. ===Demographic and Health Surveys=== Total fertility rate (TFR) (wanted fertility rate) and crude birth rate (CBR): Fertility data from 2005 (DHS Program): === Life expectancy === ==Ethnic groups== ===Genetics=== E1b1a, R1b The predominance of West African mitochondrial DNA haplotypes in their maternal gene pool, the major West African Y-chromosome lineage E3a was observed only at a frequency of 15.9%. Overall, these results indicate that gene flow from multiple sources and sex-specific patterns have been important in the formation of the genomic diversity in the Cabo Verde islands. ==Languages== Portuguese (official), Kriolu According to results from 2016, 72.8% of the population aged 12 or above could speak a language besides Kriolu, and the vast majority of them spoke Portuguese, the official language of the country and the language from colonial time. Ability to speak non-Kriolu languages also varied greatly by age, with younger generation being substantially more likely to speak a non-creole language. ==Religion== Catholic 77.3%, Protestant 3.7% (includes Church of the Nazarene 1.7%, Adventist 1.5%, Universal Kingdom of God 0.4%, and God and Love 0.1%), other Christian 4.3% (includes Christian Rationalism 1.9%, Jehovah's Witness 1%, Assembly of God 0.9%, and New Apostolic 0.5%), Islam 1.8%, Other 1.3%, None 10.8%, Unspecified 0.7% (2010 estimate)	[ "Instituto Nacional de Estatística (Cape Verde)", "population", "Germany", "Spain", "Demography", "Catholic Church", "E1b1a", "New England", "France", "French language", "Protestants", "Universal Church of the Kingdom of God", "Christianity", "Canada", "Spanish language", "Islam", "Portugal", "Adventism", "R1b", "Protestant", "Cape Verde", "Guinea-Bissau", "United States", "Senegal", "Cape Verdean Creole", "Theistic rationalism", "Jehovah's Witness", "Italy", "New Apostolic", "Angola", "Portuguese language", "Cape Verdean diaspora", "Portuguese Cape Verde", "Church of the Nazarene", "Ethnic group", "Italian language", "Assembly of God", "Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries", "Netherlands", "Brazil", "WP:SDNONE", "population density", "Baháʼí Faith", "God and Love", "English language", "Cape Verdeans" ]
5,462	Politics of Cape Verde	Politics of Cape Verde takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Cape Verde is the head of government and the President of the Republic of Cape Verde is the head of state, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature. The constitution, first approved in 1980 and substantially revised in 1992, forms the basis of government organization. It declares that the government is the "organ that defines, leads, and executes the general internal and external policy of the country" and is responsible to the National Assembly. ==Political conditions== Following independence in 1975, the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) established a one-party political system. This became the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV) in 1980, as Cape Verde sought to distance itself from Guinea-Bissau, following unrest in that country. In 1991, following growing pressure for a more pluralistic society, multi-party elections were held for the first time. The opposition party, the Movement for Democracy (Movimento para a Democracia, MpD), won the legislative elections, and formed the government. The MpD candidate also defeated the PAICV candidate in the presidential elections. In the 1996 elections, the MpD increased their majority, but in the 2001 the PAICV returned to power, winning both the Legislative and the Presidential elections. Generally, Cape Verde enjoys a stable democratic system. The elections have been considered free and fair, there is a free press, and the rule of law is respected by the State. In acknowledgment of this, Freedom House granted Cape Verde two first places in its annual Freedom in the World report, a perfect score. It is the only African country to receive this score. The Prime Minister is the head of the government and as such proposes other ministers and secretaries of state. The Prime Minister is nominated by the National Assembly and appointed by the President. The President is the head of state and is elected by popular vote for a five-year term; the most recent elections were held in 2021. Also in the legislative branch, the National Assembly (Assembleia Nacional) has 72 members, elected for a five-year term by proportional representation. Movement for Democracy (MpD) ousted the ruling African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV) for the first time in 15 years in the 2016 parliamentary election. The leader of MpD, Ulisses Correia e Silva has been prime minister since 2016. Jorge Carlos Almeida Fonseca was elected president in August 2011 and re-elected in October 2016. He is also supported by MpD. In April 2021, the ruling centre-right Movement for Democracy (MpD) of Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva, won the parliamentary election. In October 2021, opposition candidate and former prime minister, José Maria Neves of PAICV, won Cape Verde's presidential election. On 9 November 2021, José Maria Neves was sworn in as the new President of Cape Verde. ==Political parties and elections== ==Courts and criminal law== The judicial system is composed of the Supreme Court and the regional courts. Of the five Supreme Court judges, one is appointed by the President, one by the National Assembly, and three by the Superior Judiciary Council. This council consists of the President of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, eight private citizens, two judges, two prosecutors, the senior legal inspector of the Attorney General's office, and a representative of the Ministry of Justice. Judges are independent and may not belong to a political party. In October 2000, a female judge who was known for taking strict legal measures in cases of domestic violence was transferred from the capital to the countryside. Separate courts hear civil, constitutional and criminal cases. Appeal is to the Supreme Court. Reforms to strengthen an overburdened judiciary were implemented in 1998. Free legal counsel is provided to indigents, defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and trials are public. Judges must lay charges within 24 hours of arrests. The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respects this provision in practice. The constitution provides for the right to a fair trial and due process, and an independent judiciary usually enforces this right. Unlike in the previous year, there were no reports of politicization and biased judgement in the judiciary. Cases involving former public office holders still are under investigation. For example, investigations continued in the case of the former prime minister accused of embezzlement in the privatization of ENACOL (a parastatal oil supply firm) in which he allegedly embezzled approximately $16,250 (2 million Cape Verdean escudos) from the buyers of the parastatal. The case of four persons accused of church desecration in 1996 also was under investigation. These individuals filed a complaint with the Attorney General against the judiciary police for alleged fabrication of evidence. The constitution provides for the right to a fair trial. Defendants are presumed to be innocent; they have the right to a public, non-jury trial; to counsel; to present witnesses; and to appeal verdicts. Regional courts adjudicate minor disputes on the local level in rural areas. The Ministry of Justice does not have judicial powers; such powers lie with the courts. A law nr. 36/V/97 was promulgated on August 25, 1997, regulating the "Statute of Lusophone Citizen", concerning nationals from any country member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (article 2), stating in its article 3 that "The lusophone citizen with residence in Cape Verde is recognized the active and passive electoral capacity for municipal elections, under conditions of the law. The lusophone citizen with residence in Cape Verde has the right to exercise political activity related to his electoral capacity." ==International organization participation== ACCT, ACP, AfDB, AU, CCC, ECA, ECOWAS, FAO, G-77, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM (observer), ITU, ITUC, NAM, OAU, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO (applicant)	[ "International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement", "International Finance Corporation", "International Organization for Migration", "Freedom in the World", "republic", "International Civil Aviation Organization", "International Development Association", "Movement for Democracy (Cape Verde)", "2016 Cape Verdean presidential election", "African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde", "Economic Community of West African States", "Semi-presidential system", "World Trade Organization", "List of heads of state of Cape Verde", "1991 Cape Verdean parliamentary election", "2016 Cape Verdean parliamentary election", "President of Cape Verde", "Santa Cruz, Cape Verde", "Customs Coordination Council", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "Executive power", "São Domingos, Cape Verde", "UNESCO", "Intelsat", "Guinea-Bissau", "African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde", "African Development Bank", "Santa Catarina, Cape Verde", "International Labour Organization", "International Maritime Organization", "2021 Cape Verdean parliamentary election", "Praia", "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa", "World Meteorological Organization", "International Telecommunication Union", "Legislative power", "2011 Cape Verdean presidential election", "Ribeira Grande, Cape Verde", "Maio, Cape Verde", "Mosteiros, Cape Verde", "IOC", "National Assembly of Cape Verde", "Santa Catarina do Fogo", "United Nations Industrial Development Organization", "São Nicolau, Cape Verde", "Cape Verde", "wikt:apatrid", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "Paul, Cape Verde", "Sal, Cape Verde", "Porto Novo, Cape Verde", "African Union", "Organisation of African Unity", "Ulisses Correia e Silva", "Tarrafal, Cape Verde", "Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique", "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development", "Cabinet of Cape Verde", "World Health Organization", "Boa Vista, Cape Verde", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "International Fund for Agricultural Development", "Freedom House", "São Vicente, Cape Verde", "United Nations", "Group of 77", "Ribeira Grande de Santiago", "International Trade Union Confederation", "São Salvador do Mundo", "Social Science Research Network", "Prime Minister of Cape Verde", "ACP (Lomé Convention)", "International Monetary Fund", "Interpol (organization)", "Tarrafal de São Nicolau", "head of government", "multi-party system", "representative democracy", "São Lourenço dos Órgãos", "São Filipe, Cape Verde", "proportional representation", "Community of Portuguese Language Countries", "José Maria Neves", "Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons", "Non-Aligned Movement", "São Miguel, Cape Verde", "Jorge Carlos Fonseca", "WP:SDNONE", "Universal Postal Union", "Brava, Cape Verde", "head of state", "judiciary" ]
5,465	Transport in Cape Verde	Most transportation in Cape Verde is done by air. There are regular flights between the major islands (Santiago, Sal and São Vicente), with less frequent flights to the other islands. Boat transportation is available, though not widely used nor dependable. In the major cities, public bus transport runs periodically, and taxis are common. In smaller towns, there are mostly hiaces and/or taxis. == Types of transport == Railways: 0 km - There are no railways in Cape Verde. There was a short overhead conveyor system for salt from the open salt lake on Sal to the port at Pedra de Lume, and a short rail track to the pier at Santa Maria for similar purposes. Both are now disused. Roadways: total: 10,000 km including unpaved tracks accessible only to four wheel drive vehicles asphalt: 360 km cobbled: 5,000 km (2007 estimates) The majority of Cape Verdean roads are paved with cobblestones cut from local basalt. Recent international aid has allowed the asphalting of many roads including all of the highway between Praia and Tarrafal, all of the highway between Praia and Cidade Velha, and all of the highway between Praia, Pedra Badejo, and Calheta de São Miguel on Santiago, and the dual carriageway between Santa Maria and Espargos on Sal. A new ring road has been built from Praia International Airport around the city of Praia. The primary method of intercity and inter-village transport for Cape Verdeans is by aluguer shared taxis, commonly called Yasi, which is a derived from the name HiAce, because the Toyota HiAce is the most common shared taxi model. Few Cape Verdeans own cars, but ownership is rising rapidly with increasing prosperity, particularly on Santiago Island. Ports and harbours: Mindelo on São Vicente is the main port for cruise liners and the terminus for the ferry service to Santo Antão. A marina for yachts is undergoing enlargement (2007). Praia on Santiago is a main hub for ferry service to other islands. Palmeira on Sal supplies fuel for the main airport on the island, Amílcar Cabral International Airport, and is important for hotel construction on the island. Porto Novo on Santo Antão is the only source for imports and exports of produce from the island as well as passenger traffic since the closure of the airstrip at Ponta do Sol. There are smaller harbours, essentially single jetties at Tarrafal on São Nicolau, Sal Rei on Boa Vista, Vila do Maio (Porto Inglês) on Maio, São Filipe on Fogo and Furna on Brava. These are terminals for inter island ferry service carrying freight and passengers. There are small harbours, with protective breakwaters, used by fishing boats at Tarrafal on Santiago, Pedra de Lume on Sal and Ponta do Sol on Santo Antão. Some offer suitable protection for small yachts. The pier at Santa Maria on Sal used by both fishing and dive boats has been rehabilitated. Merchant marine:total: 10ships by type: chemical tanker 1, trawler/cargo ship 5, passenger/cargo 5foreign owned: 2 (Spain 1, UK 1) (2008) Airports 7 operational in 2014 - 4 international and 3 domestic. 2 non-operational, one on Brava and the other on Santo Antão, closed for safety reasons. Over 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 3 914 to 1,400 m: 3 International Airports: Amílcar Cabral International Airport, Sal Island. Opened and began operating international flights from 1939. Named Sal International Airport until 1975. Nelson Mandela International Airport, Santiago Island. Opened and began operating international flights from 2005. Named Praia International Airport from 2005 until 2013. Replaced the Francisco Mendes International Airport which served the island from 1961 to 2005, and is now closed. Aristides Pereira International Airport, Boa Vista Island. Airport paved and began operating international traffic in 2007. Named Rabil Airport until 2011. Cesária Évora Airport, Sao Vicente Island. Opened in 1960 and became an international airport in 2009. Named Sao Pedro Airport until 2011. International passenger traffic is forecast to exceed 250,000 passengers for 2007. Annual growth, mostly of tourists from Europe is anticipated to continue at just under 20%. (Source ASA Cape Verde airport authority) Main Airlines serving the country: TACV Cabo Verde Airlines Cabo Verde Express Cape Verde Express Halcyonair Cabo Verde Airways - dissolved in 2013 TAP Portugal TACV flies daily international flights from Lisbon to Sal or Praia and once a week from Amsterdam, Munich, Paris, Las Palmas, Fortaleza and Boston to one or other of the international airports. It operates on a frequency varying from daily to thrice weekly on inter-island flights to each of the seven islands with operational airports and also to Dakar. It has a fleet of two Boeing 757s and three ATR42s have been replaced by ATR72s. It is currently (2010) undergoing privatization at the insistence of the World Bank. ==Road network== The road network of Cape Verde is managed by the national government (Instituto de Estradas) and by the municipalities. The total length of the road network is 1,650 km, of which 1,113 km national roads and 537 km municipal roads. Of the national roads, 36% is asphalted. == Air Services == TACV Cabo Verde Airlines, the national airline, flies weekly from Boston Logan International Airport to Praia International Airport at Praia Santiago island. Currently (2007) these flights are on Wednesdays, but schedules vary and are subject to change. It also has flights four times weekly from Lisbon to Francisco Mendes (the recently opened airport at Praia on Santiago island) and four times weekly from Lisbon to Amílcar Cabral International Airport on Sal island. There is a flight on Mondays from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport to Sal and on Thursdays from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport via Munich-Riem Airport to Sal. Return flights are just after midnight on the same day. From Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Spain there are night flights on Mondays and Thursdays, with departures just after midnight. Return flights are the previous day. There is a service from Praia to Fortaleza, Brazil on Mondays and Thursdays departing early evening and returning at night. All international flights are operated by Boeing 757 aircraft. Most international flights are subject to delay and sometimes cancellation. TAP Air Portugal the Portuguese national carrier operates a daily service from Lisbon to Sal with late evening departures returning after midnight and reaching Lisbon in the early morning. Most flights are delayed and onward connections from Lisbon can be missed as a result. TAP and other European carriers provide connections with most European capitals, enabling same day through flights. From the UK, direct routes by Astraeus from London Gatwick and Manchester to Sal ceased in April 2008; their website has not taken reservations since May 2008. TACV Cabo Verde Airlines opened a route from London Stansted in October 2008 though it was rumoured that flights were being cancelled due to minimum take up though with effect from May 2008, TACV have ceased flights from London Gatwick. There is a Fly TACV website, and you can book from their website. Reservations should be made via the UK TACV office on 0870 774 7338. Thomson Airways have opened additional routes from London Gatwick and Manchester on Mondays and Fridays. Various options and bookings can be made via Thomsonfly to both Sal and Boa Vista. Hamburg International provides a charter service from Hamburg via Düsseldorf on Thursdays and Condor operates from Frankfurt Rhein Main on Tuesdays returning on Wednesday. Neos operates charter flights from Milan Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino and Bologna on Wednesdays. TACV Cabo Verde Airlines, the national airline has been a monopoly carrier within the island archipelago (2007). It operates services from the main hub airports at Sal and Santiago to Boa Vista, Fogo, Maio, São Nicolau and São Vicente at frequencies ranging from thrice weekly to thrice daily. Air strips on the other islands of Brava and Santo Antão are closed (2007) and can only be reached by ferry services from other islands. TACV does not publish timetables; flight times are listed on departure boards. Tickets can be bought at the TACV shop at each airport by queuing and paying in cash (euros or escudos). Flights are often delayed and sometimes cancelled due to weather or operational conditions. Services are operated by ATR 42 turboprop aircraft, which are being replaced (2007) by the enlarged ATR 72 aircraft. Inter island tariffs vary depending on the distance but are generally around €180 return. Air passes are obtainable for multiple flights, when buying an international ticket on TACV. Halcyonair a private carrier with Portuguese and Cape Verdean shareholders is commenced operations on inter-island flights during 2007. It has obtained the necessary licensing from the Cape Verde Government. == Travel within the islands == The frequency and regularity of publicly-accessible ground transportation services vary between the islands and municipalities. There are some common features that can be found throughout Cape Verde. The primary mode of transportation between municipalities is via shared minibuses commonly referred to as a "yasi", because of the Toyota HiAce which makeup the majority of the minibuses in service. While 12-14 passenger "yasi" class minibuses connect the major municipalities at their end points, modified pickup trucks with partially covered cabs and benches installed in the back transport passengers along shorter distances through minor municipalities and the rural areas in between. These modified pickup trucks are referred to as "hilux" after the Toyota Hilux, the common model adapted. Notably, both "yasi" and "hilux" transportation will stop and pickup any passenger that hails them, as well as drop off any passenger that requests to disembark at any point. intermuncipality transportation licenses are granted on an individual basis to each vehicle in the name of the owner by the Direcção Geral dos Transportes e Rodoviários (General Directorate of Transport and Roads). With the exception of the Praia ⇄ Assomada route on Santiago, all yasi and hilux class vehicles licensed to carry passengers act as individual freelancers, not collectively. As such, they do not adhere to scheduling, and have no obligation to provide service. This includes many vehicles running the same route, owned by the same person. Brava Hiluxes and yasis connect Furna and Nova Sintra mostly when boats arrive. Other parts of the island are connected by these vehicles. Fogo Fogo has many yasis running the routes between São Filipe and Mosteiros, São Filipe and Chã das Calderas. Unlike many other islands, these buses depart at roughly the same time every day, and despite the presence of multiple vehicles running each route, passengers can find themselves stranded if they do not board a vehicle during the limited departure window. Yasis tend to depart Mosteiros headed to São Filipe around 6am, and tend to Depart São Filipe headed to Chã around noon. São Vicente Mindelo has a municipal bus service run by the company Transcor. Yasi and hilux transportation connects Mindelo with other parts of the island. Other transportation companies especially minibuses include Transporte Morabeza, Transporte Alegría, Amizade, Sotral y Automindelo. Santiago Maura Company and Sol Atlántico are the only two companies that have been granted municipal bus service licenses. Over the past decade, Maura Company, which had previously been the dominant bus company, has retired the majority of its buses, while many that continue to run are in a state of disrepair due to financial difficulties. Sol Atlántico, in contrast, has greatly increased its fleet of buses, adding several new high capacity buses in 2015. Municipal bus prices are regulated at 44 escudos per ride. Transfers are not allowed. Bus schedules do not exist, but buses start running around 6am and stop around 9pm. Bus stops exist, and are frequently infiltrated by minibus vehicles (also called "yasis") and both (taxi) licensed and unlicensed "clan" taxis illegally running municipal bus routes without a municipal license. No other city on Santiago has a municipal bus service. The government of Assomada has solicited requests for a bus service but so far none has been approved, and there are no short-term plans for any bus company to enter the municipal market. Transportation between the municipalities and rural areas is handled predominantly by yasi and hilux transportation. Rates are not fixed and range from 20 escudos for short trips between rural areas up to 500 escudos for Praia ⇄ Tarrafal. Some commonly accepted prices charged between municipalities are 100 escudos for Praia ⇄ São Domingos, 150 escudos for Praia ⇄ Orgãos, and 250 escudos for Praia ⇄ Assomada. Some of the yasis start collecting passengers before dawn to transport between Praia and Assomada and Praia and Pedra Badejo, and the last departures usually occur between 7 and 8pm. These vehicles do not maintain a schedule (with the exception of two early morning vehicles departing Assomada at 5:40 and 6:20 headed to Praia), instead choosing to drive around in circles within the urban centers of Praia, Assomada, and Pedra Badejo to pick up passengers until they are full, or over capacity (14 passengers is the legal limit for an actual Toyota HiAce), at which point they depart. Yasi drivers employ helpers to hawk out the window the destination of the yasi, as well as the obligatory "cheio", meaning full, with little regard for the number of people aboard. Helpers and drivers sometimes use shills (fake passengers) to overcome the common chicken and egg problem wherein passengers will not board an empty (or low passenger) minibus in an urban center because they know it will not depart until it is full. They will board a nearly-full (or over capacity) bus because they know it is likely to depart soon. In 2015 a project called EcobusCV started running a fleet of dual fuel waste vegetable oil / diesel modified Toyota HiACE minibuses using a scheduled service model between Praia and Assomada. Buses depart one per hour, on the hour, from designated bus stops in Praia, at Igreja Nova Apostólica in Fazenda, and Assomada, in front of the court house. The current departure schedule as of September 15 is one departure per hour, every hour starting at 7am, with the last departure at 6pm. EcobusCV plans to expand to departures in 30 minute intervals before the end of 2015. EcobusCV has instituted aggressive, transparent pricing undercutting the informal generally accepted prices between municipalities, which has started to cause freelance yasis to alter their pricing. Taxis are common in Praia and Assomada. Taxis with a base in Praia are painted beige, while taxis with a base in Assomada are painted white. They can carry passengers between municipalities, but they are prohibited from circulating and picking up passengers outside of their base city, though they will usually pickup passengers if they get hailed on their way back to their home city. Taximeters are installed in most legal taxis, but many are not functional and they are almost never used because the generally accepted rates are cheaper than what the taximeter would usually count. In Praia there is a large number of "clan" or clandestine taxis that operate without paying for a license. Most people identify Toyota Corolla hatchbacks as clans and they are frequently hailed. While the minimum taximeter price is officially 80, in practice 100 is the minimum a person pays if they board a taxi. Taxi rates in Praia generally go up to 250 escudos from the furthest points of the city to Plateau, and cross town taxis cap out at 400 during the day. Rates generally go up by 50 escudos after 10pm, though for longer distances some will try to charge an extra 100. An exception to this rule is the airport. Airport rates generally range from 500 to 1000 depending on the starting place or destination, and can go up by several hundred at night. Sal Sal has unscheduled yasi service between Espargos and Santa Maria, with frequent departures in the morning from Espargos, where most locals live, to Santa Maria, where most locals work, and vice versa in the afternoon. == Inter-Island ferries in Cape Verde == Several ferries operate between the islands with much lower fares than the airlines. These are provided by various independent shipping companies and their conditions and seaworthiness vary. Many services depart from Praia at about midnight, arriving in outlying islands at breakfast time. Return trips often depart around mid-day. Service schedules are approximate and delays or cancellations of service are common. Conditions can be very crowded it is advisable to pre-book a cabin for all but the shortest of trips. Passages can be very rough in winter. Departure days vary according to the season and are frequently altered. Enquire at the shipping offices in Praia and other Cape Verdean ports. In early 2011, the Kriola, the first of a proposed fleet of ferryboats belonging to the company Cabo Verde Fast Ferry (CVFF) arrived in Praia directly from Singapore. It was custom-built there by the Dutch shipbuilding company, Damen Group. The Kriola operates regular service among the Sotavento islands of Brava, Fogo, and Santiago. ===Ferry routes=== Boa Vista (Sal Rei)–Maio (Cidade do Maio) Fogo (São Filipe-Vale de Cavaleiros)–Brava (Furna) Maio (Cidade do Maio)–Santiago (Porto Praia) Sal (Palmeira)–Boa Vista (Sal Rei) Santiago (Porto Praia)–Fogo (São Filipe-Vale de Cavaleiros) Santiago (Porto Praia)–São Vicente (Mindelo-Porto Grande) - longest ferry route Santiago (Porto Praia)–Brava (Furna) Santo Antāo (Porto Novo)–São Vicente (Mindelo-Porto Grande) São Nicolau (Tarrafal de São Nicolau)–Sal (Palmeira) São Nicolau (Preguiça)–Sal (Palmeira) São Vicente (Porto Grande)–São Nicolau (Tarrafal de São Nicolau) São Vicente (Porto Grande)–São Nicolau (Preguiça) Lesser ferry routes: Within Santo Antão: Tarrafal de Monte Trigo–Monte Trigo (45 min) - shortest ferry route Within São Nicolau: Preguiça–Carriçal	[ "Canary Islands", "Boston Logan International Airport", "Administrative divisions of Cape Verde", "Vale de Cavaleiros", "Santiago, Cape Verde", "Espargos", "Munich-Riem Airport", "Mindelo", "Furna, Cape Verde", "Sao Vicente, Cape Verde", "waste vegetable oil", "Pedra de Lume", "Tarrafal de São Nicolau, Cape Verde", "Frankfurt Airport", "List of airports in Cape Verde", "Halcyonair", "Fortaleza", "TACV Cabo Verde Airlines", "Praia International Airport", "TAP Air Portugal", "Calheta de São Miguel", "Bologna Airport", "Cesária Évora Airport", "Santo Antão, Cape Verde", "Amílcar Cabral International Airport", "Preguiça, Cape Verde", "Neos (airline)", "Nelson Mandela International Airport", "cargo ship", "São Filipe, Cape Verde (municipality)", "Toyota Hilux", "Peace Corps", "Praia", "chemical tanker", "Las Palmas", "Aristides Pereira International Airport", "Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport", "Furna (Brava), Cape Verde", "Gatwick Airport", "Hamburg International", "Maio, Cape Verde", "Thomsonfly", "aluguer", "Vila do Maio, Cape Verde", "Tarrafal de Monte Trigo", "Porto Grande Bay", "Manchester Airport", "São Nicolau, Cape Verde", "Monte Trigo", "shills", "basalt", "Damen Group", "Milan Malpensa", "Cape Verde", "Sal, Cape Verde", "Toyota HiAce", "Porto Novo, Cape Verde", "Tarrafal, Cape Verde", "Astraeus", "Cidade Velha", "Boa Vista, Cape Verde", "Merchant marine", "São Vicente, Cape Verde", "Santiago", "Amsterdam Schiphol Airport", "Praia Harbor", "Carriçal", "Railway", "Sal Rei", "Tarrafal de São Nicolau, Cape Verde (municipality)", "TACV", "Sotavento Islands", "Palmeira, Cape Verde", "public domain", "Fogo, Cape Verde", "List of ports in Cape Verde", "Cidade do Maio", "Pedra Badejo", "Santa Maria, Cape Verde", "WP:SDNONE", "Brava, Cape Verde", "Francisco Mendes International Airport", "Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport", "Stansted Airport" ]
5,466	Cape Verdean Armed Forces	{{Infobox national military \| name = Cape Verdean Armed Forces \| native_name = \| image = \| alt = \| caption = \| image2 = \| alt2 = \| caption2 = \| motto = \| founded = \| current_form = \| branches = \| headquarters = \| flying_hours = \| website = \| commander-in-chief = José Maria Pereira Neves \| commander-in-chief_title = Commander-in-Chief \| chief minister = \| chief minister_title = \| minister = Janine Tatiana dos Santos Lélis \| minister_title = Minister of National Defense \| commander = Major general Anildo Emanuel da Graça Morais \| commander_title = Chief of Staff \| manpower = \| age = 18 \| conscription = 14 months \| manpower_data = \| manpower_age = \| available = \| available_f = \| fit = \| fit_f = \| reaching = \| reaching_f = \| active = 1,200 \| ranked = \| reserve = \| deployed = \| amount = $11.2 million (2018) \| percent_GDP = 0.6% (2018) The most recent engagement of the FACV was the Monte Tchota massacre that resulted in 11 deaths. ==Structure== The Cape Verdean Armed Forces are part of the Ministry of National Defense of Cape Verde and include: the military bodies of command: Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Office of the CEMFA Staff of the Armed Forces (EMFA) Personnel Command Logistics Command the National Guard the Coast Guard ===National Guard=== The National Guard (Guarda National) is the main branch of the Cape Verdean Armed Forces for the military defense of the country, being responsible for the execution of land and maritime environment operations and the support to internal security. It includes: Territorial commands: 1st Military Region Command 2nd Military Region Command 3rd Military Region Command Corps: Military Police Corps Marine Corps Artillery Corps There is no general command of the National Guard. Each military region command is headed by a lieutenant-colonel directly subordinate to the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, and includes units of the three corps. ===Coast Guard=== The Coast Guard (Guarda Costeira) is the branch of the Cape Verdean Armed Forces responsible for the defense and protection of the country's economic interests at the sea under national jurisdiction and for providing air and naval support to land and amphibious operations. It includes: Coast Guard Command Maritime Security Operations Center (COSMAR) Naval Squadron Air Squadron The Coast Guard is headed by an officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The Naval and Air Squadrons incorporate, respectively, all the vessels and aircraft of the Cape Verdean Armed Forces. ==Ranks== The rank insignia for commissioned officers for the national guard and coast guard. The rank insignia of enlisted for the national guard and coast guard. ==Equipment== === Small Arms === === Armored vehicles === 10 BRDM-2 ===Artillery=== 12 82-PM-41 However these three aircraft were supplemented in 1991 by a Dornier 228 light aircraft equipped for use by the Coast Guard, and, in the late 1990s by an EMB-110 aircraft from Brazil, similarly equipped for maritime operations. The government has been in negotiations with China to acquire multirole helicopters for both military and civilian use. ====Current inventory==== {\| class="wikitable" ! style="text-align:center;"\|Aircraft ! style="text-align: center;"\|Origin ! style="text-align:l center;"\|Type ! style="text-align:left;"\|Variant ! style="text-align:center;"\|In service ! style="text-align: center;"\|Notes \|- ! style="align: center;" colspan="7" \| Maritime patrol \|- \| CASA C-212 \| Spain \| Maritime patrol / SAR \| \| 1 \| Flown for the Coast Guard \|- \| Dornier 228 \| Germany \| Maritime patrol / SAR \| \| 2	[ "Monte Tchota massacre", "Germany", "Spain", "Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (Cape Verde)", "ZPU", "Dornier 228", "Guardiao (P511)", "BRDM-2", "Anildo Emanuel da Graça Morais", "NATO", "Guinea-Bissau War of Independence", "120-PM-43 mortar", "Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe", "Military ranks of Cape Verde", "Portugal", "Damen Group", "Cape Verde", "Guinea-Bissau", "CASA C-212 Aviocar", "Helicopter", "Search and rescue", "China", "9K32 Strela-2", "Utility helicopter", "African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde", "PK machine gun", "Colombia", "José Maria Pereira Neves", "ZU-23-2", "Antonov An-26", "List of presidents of Cape Verde", "Makarov pistol", "Ministry of National Defense (Cape Verde)", "Maritime patrol aircraft", "82-PM-41", "cocaine", "Damen Stan patrol vessel", "Defense Intelligence Agency", "Netherlands", "Project 89 Kondor Minesweeper", "drug trafficking", "SKS", "armed forces", "EMB-110", "International Institute for Strategic Studies", "Soviet Union", "patrol craft", "AKM", "Harbin Z-9", "SVD (rifle)" ]
5,467	Foreign relations of Cape Verde	Cape Verde follows a policy of nonalignment and seeks cooperative relations with all friendly states. Angola, Brazil, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, France, Germany, Portugal, Senegal, Russia, South Korea and the United States maintain embassies in Praia. Cape Verde is actively interested in foreign affairs, especially in Africa. It has bilateral relations with some Lusophone nations and holds membership in a number of international organizations. It also participates in most international conferences on economic and political issues. == Diplomatic relations == List of countries which Cape Verde maintains diplomatic relations with: ==Bilateral relations== ==Multilateral Relations== ===European Union===	[ "Nice", "List of diplomatic missions of Cape Verde", "Germany", "Cape Verde–United States relations", "African Growth and Opportunity Act", "Dakar", "France", "South Africa", "Angola–Cape Verde relations", "Lusophone", "infrastructure", "Portuguese Empire", "Washington, D.C.", "UNITA", "Bissau", "Cape Verde–France relations", "Cape Verde–Spain relations", "Madrid", "Portugal", "L'Harmattan", "Cape Verde–Guinea-Bissau relations", "Lisbon", "hurricane", "Cape Verde", "Guinea-Bissau", "South Korea", "United States", "Cuban troops", "Cape Verde–China relations", "Bilateralism", "Senegal", "Brasília", "Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme", "Community of Portuguese Language Countries", "Angolan President", "Cuba", "Moscow", "Cape Verde–Turkey relations", "Angola", "José Eduardo dos Santos", "neutrality (international relations)", "Pedro Pires", "Manuel Inocêncio Sousa", "Indian Council for Cultural Relations", "Outline of Cape Verde", "Brazil", "List of diplomatic missions in Cape Verde", "New York City", "Paris", "Sudan Tribune", "United Nations", "Praia", "WP:SDNONE", "Millennium Challenge Corporation", "Africa", "Brazil–Cape Verde relations", "Brill Publishers", "Maputo", "People's Republic of China", "Cape Verde–Portugal relations", "volcanic eruption", "Beijing", "Facebook", "Prime Minister of Cape Verde", "Revolutionary Armed Forces of the People", "Boston", "Luanda", "Russia", "Benguela" ]
5,468	Cayman Islands	The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located south of Cuba and north-east of Honduras, between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The capital city is George Town on Grand Cayman, which is the most populous of the three islands. The Cayman Islands is considered to be part of the geographic Western Caribbean zone as well as the Greater Antilles. The territory is a major offshore financial centre for international businesses and the rich mainly due to the state charging no tax on income earned or stored. With a GDP per capita of US$109,684 the Cayman Islands has the highest standard of living in the Caribbean, and one of the highest in the world. Immigrants from over 140 countries and territories reside in the Cayman Islands. == History == === Origins and colonization === , no evidence has been found that the islands had been occupied before their discovery by Europeans. The Cayman Islands got their name from the word for crocodile (caiman) in the language of the Arawak-Taíno people. It is believed that the first European to sight the islands was Christopher Columbus, on 10 May 1503, during his final voyage to the Americas. He named them "Las Tortugas", after the large number of turtles found there (which were soon hunted to near-extinction). However, in succeeding decades, the islands began to be referred to as "Caimanas" or "Caymanes". Sir Francis Drake briefly visited the islands in 1586. The first recorded permanent inhabitant, Isaac Bodden, was born on Grand Cayman around 1661. He was the grandson of an original settler named Bodden, probably one of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers involved in the capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. England took formal control of the Cayman Islands, along with Jamaica, as a result of the Treaty of Madrid of 1670. Many were purchased and brought to the islands from Africa. That has resulted in the majority of native Caymanians being of African or English descent. Legend has it that King George III rewarded the islanders for their generosity with a promise never to introduce taxes, because one of the ships carried a member of the King's family. Despite the legend, the story is not true. The islands continued to be governed as part of the Colony of Jamaica until 1962, when they became a separate Crown colony, after Jamaica became an independent Commonwealth realm. along with a bank and several hotels, as well as the introduction of a number of scheduled flights and cruise stop-overs. In April 1986, the first marine protected areas were designated in the Cayman Islands, making them the first islands in the Caribbean to protect their fragile marine life. === 21st century === The constitution was further modified in 2001 and 2009, codifying various aspects of human rights legislation. It created an storm surge which flooded many areas of Grand Cayman. Power, water, and communications were disrupted for months in some areas. Within two years, a major rebuilding program on Grand Cayman meant that its infrastructure was almost back to its pre-hurricane condition. Due to the tropical location of the islands, more hurricanes or tropical systems have affected the Cayman Islands than any other region in the Atlantic basin. On average, it has been brushed, or directly hit, every 2.23 years. == Geography == The islands are in the western Caribbean Sea and are the peaks of an undersea mountain range called the Cayman Ridge (or Cayman Rise). This ridge flanks the Cayman Trough, deep which lies to the south. The islands lie in the northwest of the Caribbean Sea, east of Quintana Roo, Mexico and Yucatán State, Mexico, northeast of Costa Rica, north of Panama, south of Cuba and west of Jamaica. They are situated about south of Miami, east of Mexico, south of Cuba, and about northwest of Jamaica. Grand Cayman is by far the largest, with an area of . Grand Cayman's two "sister islands", Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, are about east north-east of Grand Cayman and have areas of respectively. The nearest land mass from Grand Cayman is the Canarreos Archipelago (about 240 km or 150 miles away), whereas the nearest from the easternmost island Cayman Brac is the Jardines de la Reina archipelago (about 160 km or 100 miles away) – both of which are part of Cuba. All three islands were formed by large coral heads covering submerged ice-age peaks of western extensions of the Cuban Sierra Maestra range and are mostly flat. One notable exception to this is The Bluff on Cayman Brac's eastern part, which rises to above sea level, the highest point on the islands. The terrain is mostly a low-lying limestone base surrounded by coral reefs. The portions of prehistoric coral reef that line the coastline and protrude from the water are referred to as ironshore. ===Flora=== In Cayman Islands forest cover is around 53% of the total land area, equivalent to 12,720 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 13,130 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 12,720 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 0 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 0% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity). For the year 2015, 0% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 12% private ownership and 88% with ownership listed as other or unknown. ===Fauna=== The mammalian species in the Cayman Islands include the introduced Central American agouti and eight species of bats. At least three now extinct native rodent species were present until the discovery of the islands by Europeans. Marine life around the island of the Grand Cayman includes tarpon, silversides (Atheriniformes), French angelfish (Pomacanthus paru), and giant barrel sponges. A number of cetaceans are found in offshore waters. These species include the goose-beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris), Blainville's beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) and sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus). Cayman avian fauna includes two endemic subspecies of Amazona parrots: Amazona leucocephala hesterna or Cuban amazon, presently restricted to the island of Cayman Brac, but formerly also on Little Cayman, and Amazona leucocephala caymanensis or Grand Cayman parrot, which is native to the Cayman Islands, forested areas of Cuba, and the Isla de la Juventud. Little Cayman and Cayman Brac are also home to red-footed and brown boobies. Although the barn owl (Tyto alba) occurs in all three of the islands they are not commonplace. The Cayman Islands also possess five endemic subspecies of butterflies. These butterfly breeds can be viewed at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park on the Grand Cayman. Among other notable fauna at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park is the critically threatened blue iguana, which is also known as the Grand Cayman iguana (Cyclura lewisi). The blue iguana is endemic to the Grand Cayman particularly because of rocky, sunlit, open areas near the island's shores that are advantageous for the laying of eggs. Nevertheless, habitat destruction and invasive mammalian predators remain the primary reasons that blue iguana hatchlings do not survive naturally. The Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) once inhabited the islands. And the American crocodile (Crocodylus acutus) is also believed to be slowly repopulating the islands from Cuba. The name "Cayman" is derived from a Carib word for the various crocodilians that inhabited the islands. ===Climate=== The Cayman Islands has a tropical wet and dry climate, with a wet season from May to October, and a dry season that runs from November to April. Seasonally, there is little temperature change. A major natural hazard is the tropical cyclones that form during the Atlantic hurricane season from June to November. On 11 and 12 September 2004, Hurricane Ivan struck the Cayman Islands. The storm resulted in two deaths and caused significant damage to the infrastructure on the islands. The total economic impact of the storms was estimated to be $3.4 billion. == Demographics == ===Demographics and immigration=== While there are a large number of generational Caymanians, many Caymanians today have roots in almost every part of the world. Similarly to countries like the United States, the Cayman Islands is a melting pot with citizens of every background. 52.5% of the population is Non-Caymanian, while 47.5% is Caymanian. Jamaicans, who make up 24% of the population, form the largest immigrant community in the country, attributable to not only the close proximity of the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, but also the close cultural, economic and social ties that go back centuries between the two nations, with the Cayman Islands once being a dependency of Jamaica from 1863 until Jamaica’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1962, resulting in the Cayman Islands choosing to separate from Jamaica and remain under British rule to this day. According to the Economics and Statistics Office of the Government of the Cayman Islands, the Cayman Islands had a population of 71,432 at the Census of 10 October 2021, but was estimated by them to have risen to 81,546 as of December 2022, making it the most populous British Overseas Territory. It was revealed in the 2021 census that 56% of the workforce is Non-Caymanian; this is the first time in the territory's history that the number of working immigrants has overtaken the number of working Caymanians. Most Caymanians are of mixed African and European ancestry. Slavery occurred but was not as common compared to other Caribbean islands, and once it was abolished, black and white communities seemed to integrate more compliantly than other Caribbean nations and territories resulting in a more mixed-race population. The country's demographics are changing rapidly. Immigration plays a large role, and the changing demographics in age have sounded alarm bells in the most recent census. In comparison to the 2010 census, the 2021 census has shown that 36% of Cayman's population growth has been in persons over age 65, while 8% growth was recorded in groups under age 15. This is due to extremely low birth rates among Caymanians, which almost forces the government to seek workers from overseas to sustain the country's economy. This has raised concerns among many young Caymanians, who worry about the workforce becoming increasingly competitive with the influx of workers, as well as rent and property prices going up. Because the population has skyrocketed over the last decade, former government officials have stressed that the islands need more careful and managed growth. Many have worried that the country's infrastructure and services cannot cope with the surging population. It is believed that given current trends, the population will reach 100,000 before 2030. ===District populations=== According to the Economics and Statistics Office, the final result of the 20 October 2021 Census was 71,432; however, according to a late 2022 population report by the same body, the estimated population at the end of 2022 was 81,546, broken down as follows: ===Religion=== The predominant religion on the Cayman Islands is Christianity (67% in 2021, down from over 80% in 2010). Popular denominations include the United Church of Christ, the Church of God, the Anglican Church, the Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the Pentecostal Church. The Roman Catholic churches in the islands are St. Ignatius Church in George Town, and Christ the Redeemer Church, West Bay and Stella Maris Churches in Cayman Brac. The majority of citizens are religious, however, atheism has been on the rise throughout the islands since 2000, with 16.7% now identifying as non-believers, according to the 2021 census. on the island as well as places of worship in George Town for Jehovah's Witnesses and followers of the Baháʼí faith. ===Languages=== The official language of the Cayman Islands is English (90%). The economy of the Cayman Islands is dominated by financial services and tourism, together accounting for 50–60% of Gross Domestic Product. The nation's zero tax rate on income and storage of funds has led to it being used as a tax haven for corporations; there are 100,000 companies registered in the Cayman Islands, more than the population itself. The Cayman Islands have come under criticism for allegations of money laundering and other financial crimes, including a 2016 statement by then US president Barack Obama that described a particular building which was the registered address of over 12,000 corporations as a "tax scam". The Cayman Islands holds a relatively low unemployment rate of about 4.24% as of 2015, lower than the value of 4.7% that was recorded in 2014. With an average income of US$109,684 Caymanians have the highest standard of living in the Caribbean. According to the CIA World Factbook, the Cayman Islands' real GDP per capita is the tenth highest in the world, but the CIA's data for Cayman dates to 2018 and is likely to be lower than present-day values. The territory prints its own currency, the Cayman Islands dollar (KYD), which is pegged to the US dollar US$1.227 to 1 KYD. However, in many retail stores throughout the islands, the KYD is typically traded at US$1.25. Cayman Islands have a high cost of living, even when compared to UK and US. For example, a loaf of multigrain bread is $5.49 (KYD), while a similar loaf sells for $2.47 (KYD) in the US and $1.36 (KYD) in the UK. The minimum wage (as of February 2021) is $6 KYD for standard positions, and $4.50 for workers in the service industry, where tips supplement income. This contributes to wealth disparity. A small segment of the population lives in condemned properties lacking power and running water. The government has established a Needs Assessment Unit to relieve poverty in the islands. Local charities, including Cayman's Acts of Random Kindness (ARK) also provide assistance. The government's primary source of income is indirect taxation: there is no income tax, capital gains tax, or corporation tax. ===Tourism=== One of Grand Cayman's main attractions is Seven Mile Beach, site of a number of the island's hotels and resorts. Named one of the Ultimate Beaches by Caribbean Travel and Life, Seven Mile Beach (due to erosion over the years, the number has decreased to 5.5 miles) is a public beach on the western shore of Grand Cayman Island. Historical sites in Grand Cayman, such as Pedro St. James Castle in Savannah, also attract visitors. All three islands offer scuba diving, and the Cayman Islands are home to several snorkelling locations where tourists can swim with stingrays. The most popular area to do this is Stingray City, Grand Cayman. Stingray City is a top attraction in Grand Cayman and originally started in the 1980s when divers started feeding squid to stingrays. The stingrays started to associate the sound of the boat motors with food, and thus visit this area year-round. There are two shipwrecks off the shores of Cayman Brac, including the MV Captain Keith Tibbetts; Grand Cayman also has several shipwrecks off its shores, including one deliberate one. On 30 September 1994, the was decommissioned and struck from the Naval Vessel Register. In November 2008 her ownership was transferred for an undisclosed amount to the government of the Cayman Islands, which had decided to sink the Kittiwake in June 2009 to form a new artificial reef off Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman. Following several delays, the ship was finally scuttled according to plan on 5 January 2011. The Kittiwake has become a dynamic environment for marine life. While visitors are not allowed to take anything, there are endless sights. Each of the five decks of the ship offers squirrelfish, rare sponges, Goliath groupers, urchins, and more. Experienced and beginner divers are invited to swim around the Kittiwake. Pirates Week is an annual 11-day November festival started in 1977 by the then-Minister of Tourism Jim Bodden to boost tourism during the country's tourism slow season. Other Grand Cayman tourist attractions include the ironshore landscape of Hell; the marine theme park "Cayman Turtle Centre: Island Wildlife Encounter", previously known as "Boatswain's Beach"; the production of gourmet sea salt; and the Mastic Trail, a hiking trail through the forests in the centre of the island. The National Trust for the Cayman Islands provides guided tours weekly on the Mastic Trail and other locations. Another attraction to visit on Grand Cayman is the Observation Tower, located in Camana Bay. The Observation Tower is 75 feet tall and provides 360-degree views across Seven Mile Beach, George Town, the North Sound, and beyond. It is free to the public and climbing the tower has become a popular thing to do in the Cayman Islands. Points of interest include the East End Light (sometimes called Gorling Bluff Light), a lighthouse at the east end of Grand Cayman island. The lighthouse is the centrepiece of East End Lighthouse Park, managed by the National Trust for the Cayman Islands; the first navigational aid on the site was the first lighthouse in the Cayman Islands. ===Shipping=== , 360 commercial vessels and 1,674 pleasure craft were registered in the Cayman Islands totalling 4.3 million GT. ===Labour=== The Cayman Islands has a population of 69,656 () and therefore a limited workforce. Work permits may, therefore, be granted to foreigners. On average, there have been more than 24,000+ foreigners holding valid work permits. ====Work permits for non-citizens==== To work in the Cayman Islands as a non-citizen, a work permit is required. This involves passing a police background check and a health check. A prospective immigrant worker will not be granted a permit unless certain medical conditions are met, including testing negative for syphilis and HIV. A permit may be granted to individuals on special work. A foreigner must first have a job to move to the Cayman Islands. The employer applies and pays for the work permit. Work permits are not granted to foreigners who are in the Cayman Islands (unless it is a renewal). The Cayman Islands Immigration Department requires foreigners to remain out of the country until their work permit has been approved. The Cayman Islands presently imposes a controversial "rollover" in relation to expatriate workers who require a work permit. Non-Caymanians are only permitted to reside and work within the territory for a maximum of nine years unless they satisfy the criteria of key employees. Non-Caymanians who are "rolled over" may return to work for additional nine-year periods, subject to a one-year gap between their periods of work. The policy has been the subject of some controversy within the press. Law firms have been particularly upset by the recruitment difficulties that it has caused. Other less well-remunerated employment sectors have been affected as well. Concerns about safety have been expressed by diving instructors, and realtors have also expressed concerns. Others support the rollover as necessary to protect Caymanian identity in the face of immigration of large numbers of expatriate workers. Concerns have been expressed that in the long term, the policy may damage the preeminence of the Cayman Islands as an offshore financial centre by making it difficult to recruit and retain experienced staff from onshore financial centres. Government employees are no longer exempt from this "rollover" policy, according to this report in a local newspaper. The governor has used his constitutional powers, which give him absolute control over the disposition of civil service employees, to determine which expatriate civil servants are dismissed after seven years service and which are not. ====CARICOM Single Market Economy==== In recognition of the CARICOM (Free Movement) Skilled Persons Act which came into effect in July 1997 in some of the CARICOM countries such as Jamaica and which has been adopted in other CARICOM countries, such as Trinidad and Tobago it is possible that CARICOM nationals who hold the "A Certificate of Recognition of Caribbean Community Skilled Person" will be allowed to work in the Cayman Islands under normal working conditions. == Government == See Also: Politics of the Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands are a British overseas territory, listed by the UN Special Committee of 24 as one of the 17 non-self-governing territories. The current Constitution, incorporating a Bill of Rights, was ordained by a statutory instrument of the United Kingdom in 2009. A 19-seat (not including two non-voting members appointed by the Governor which brings the total to 21 members) Parliament is elected by the people every four years to handle domestic affairs. Of the elected Members of the Parliament (MPs), seven are chosen to serve as government Ministers in a Cabinet headed by the Governor. The Premier is appointed by the Governor. Although geographically remote, the Islands (like other British Overseas Territories) share a direct connection with elements of supervisory governance (as did the now independent Commonwealth Nations) still exercisable by the UK’s Government in London, UK. A Governor is appointed by the King of the United Kingdom on the advice of the British Government to represent the monarch. Governors can exercise complete legislative and executive authority if they wish through blanket powers reserved to them in the constitution. Bills which have passed the Parliament require royal assent before becoming effective. The Constitution empowers the Governor to withhold royal assent in cases where the legislation appears to be repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution or affects the rights and privileges of the Parliament or the Royal Prerogative, or matters reserved to the Governor by article 55. The executive authority of the Cayman Islands is vested in the King and is exercised by the Government, consisting of the Governor and the Cabinet. There is an office of the Deputy Governor, who must be a Caymanian and have served in a senior public office. The Deputy Governor is the acting Governor when the office of Governor is vacant, or the Governor is not able to discharge their duties or is absent from the Cayman Islands. The current Governor of the Cayman Islands is Jane Owen. The Cabinet is composed of two official members and seven elected members, called Ministers; one of whom is designated Premier. The premier can serve for two consecutive terms. After two terms the premier is barred from attaining the office again. Although an MP can only be premier twice any person who meets the qualifications and requirements for a seat in the Parliament can be elected to the Parliament indefinitely. There are two official members of the Parliament, the Deputy Governor and the Attorney General. They are appointed by the Governor in accordance with His Majesty's instructions, and although they have seats in the Parliament, under the 2009 Constitution, they do not vote. They serve in a professional and advisory role to the MPs, the Deputy Governor represents the Governor who is a representative of the King and the British Government. While the Attorney General serves to advise on legal matters and has special responsibilities in Parliament, they are generally responsible for changes to the Penal code. The seven Ministers are voted into office by the 19 elected members of the Parliament of the Cayman Islands. One of the Ministers, the leader of the majority political party, is appointed Premier by the Governor. After consulting the Premier, the Governor allocates a portfolio of responsibilities to each Cabinet Minister. Under the principle of collective responsibility, all Ministers are obliged to support in the Parliament any measures approved by Cabinet. Almost 80 departments, sections and units carry out the business of government, joined by a number of statutory boards and authorities set up for specific purposes, such as the Port Authority, the Civil Aviation Authority, the Immigration Board, the Water Authority, the University College Board of Governors, the National Pensions Board and the Health Insurance Commission. Since 2000, there have been two official major political parties: The Cayman Democratic Party (CDP) and the People's Progressive Movement (PPM). While there has been a shift to political parties, many contending for office still run as independents. The two parties are notably similar, though they consider each other rivals in most cases, their differences are generally in personality and implementation rather than actual policy. The Cayman Islands generally lacks any form of organised political parties. As of the May 2017 General Election, members of the PPM and CDP have joined with three independent members to form a government coalition despite many years of enmity. Before the 2021 Caymanian general election, leader of the CDP McKeeva Bush received a two-month suspended jail sentence for assaulting a woman in February 2020 leading to a no-confidence motion against him. Premier McLaughlin asked Governor Martyn Roper to dissolve Parliament on 14 February, triggering early elections instead of having the vote on the motion. In the lead-up to the election, the Democratic Party was described as "[appearing] to be defunct" as figures previously of the party (including Bush) instead contested as independents. ===Police=== Policing in the country is provided chiefly by the RCIPS or Royal Cayman Islands Police Service and the CICBC or Cayman Islands Customs & Border Control. These two agencies co-operate in aspects of law enforcement, including their joint marine unit. ===Military and defence=== The defence of the Cayman Islands is the responsibility of the United Kingdom. The Royal Navy maintains a ship on permanent station in the Caribbean (HMS Medway (P223)) and, from time-to-time, the Royal Navy or Royal Fleet Auxiliary may deploy another ship as a part of Atlantic Patrol (NORTH) tasking. These ships' main mission in the region is to maintain British sovereignty for the overseas territories, provide humanitarian aid and disaster relief during disasters such as hurricanes, which are common in the area, and to conduct counter-narcotic operations. In July 2024, the patrol vessel HMS Trent (which had temporarily replaced her sister ship HMS Medway on her normal Caribbean tasking) deployed to the islands to provide assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. ====Cayman Islands Regiment==== On 12 October 2019, the government announced the formation of the Cayman Islands Regiment, a new British Armed Forces unit. The Cayman Islands Regiment which became fully operational in 2020, with an initial 35–50 personnel of mostly reservists. Between 2020 through 2021 the Regiment grew to over a hundred personnel and over the next several years expected to grow to over several hundred personnel. In mid-December 2019, recruitment for commanding officers and junior officers began, with the commanding officers expected to begin work in January 2020 and the junior officers expected to begin in February 2020. In January 2020, the first officers were chosen for the Cayman Islands Regiment. Since the formation of the Regiment, it has been deployed on a few operational tours providing HADR, or Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief as well as assisting with the COVID-19 Pandemic. ====Cadet Corps==== The Cayman Islands Cadet Corps was formed in March 2001 and carries out military-type training with teenage citizens of the country. ====Coast Guard==== In 2018, the PPM-led Coalition government pledged to form a coast guard to protect the interests of the Cayman Islands, especially in terms of illegal immigration and illegal drug importation as well as search and rescue. In mid-2018, the Commander and second-in-Command of the Cayman Islands Coast Guard were appointed. Commander Robert Scotland was appointed as the first commanding officer and Lieutenant Commander Leo Anglin was appointed as Second-in-Command. In mid-2019, the commander and second-in-command took part in international joint operations with the United States Coast Guard and the Jamaica Defense Force Coast Guard called Operation Riptide. This makes it the first deployment for the Cayman Islands Coast Guard and the first in ten years any Cayman Representative has been on a foreign military ship for a counternarcotic operation. In late November 2019, it was announced that the Cayman Islands Coast Guard would become operational in January 2020, with initial total of 21 Coast Guardsmen half of which would come from the joint marine unit, with further recruitment in the new year. One of the many taskings of the Coast Guard will be to push enforcement of all laws that apply to the designated Wildlife Interaction Zone. On 5 October 2021, the Cayman Islands Parliament passed the Cayman Islands Coast Guard Act thus establishing the Cayman Islands Coast Guard as a uniformed and disciplined department of Government. ===Taxation=== No direct taxation is imposed on residents and Cayman Islands companies. The government receives the majority of its income from indirect taxation. Duty is levied against most imported goods, which is typically in the range of 22% to 25%. Some items are exempted, such as baby formula, books, cameras, electric vehicles and certain items are taxed at 5%. Duty on automobiles depends on their value. The duty can amount to 29.5% up to $20,000.00 KYD CIF (cost, insurance and freight) and up to 42% over $30,000.00 KYD CIF for expensive models. The government charges flat licensing fees on financial institutions that operate in the islands and there are work permit fees on foreign labour. A 13% government tax is placed on all tourist accommodations in addition to a US$37.50 airport departure tax which is built into the cost of an airline ticket. There is a 7.5% sales tax on the proceeds of the sale of the property, payable by the purchaser. There are no taxes on corporate profits, capital gains, or personal income. There are no estate or death inheritance taxes payable on Cayman Islands real estate or other assets held in the Cayman Islands. The legend behind the lack of taxation comes from the Wreck of the Ten Sail, when multiple ships ran aground on the reef off the north coast of Grand Cayman. Local fishermen are said to have then sailed out to rescue the crew and salvage goods from the wrecks. It is said that out of gratitude, and due to their small size, King George III then issued the edict that the citizens of the country of the Cayman Islands would never pay tax. There is, however, no documented evidence for this story besides oral tradition. ===Foreign relations=== Foreign policy is controlled by the United Kingdom, as the islands remain an overseas territory of the United Kingdom. Although in its early days, the Cayman Islands' most important relationships were with Britain and Jamaica, in recent years, as a result of economic dependence, a relationship with the United States has developed. Though the Cayman Islands is involved in no major international disputes, they have come under some criticism due to the use of their territory for narcotics trafficking and money laundering. In an attempt to address this, the government entered into the Narcotics Agreement of 1984 and the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty of 1986 with the United States, to reduce the use of their facilities associated with these activities. In more recent years, they have stepped up the fight against money laundering, by limiting banking secrecy, introducing requirements for customer identification and record keeping, and requiring banks to co-operate with foreign investigators. Due to their status as an overseas territory of the UK, the Cayman Islands has no separate representation either in the United Nations or in most other international organisations. However, the Cayman Islands still participates in some international organisations, being an associate member of CARICOM and UNESCO, and a member of a sub-bureau of Interpol. == Emergency services == Access to emergency services is available using 9-1-1, the emergency telephone number, the same number as is used in Canada and the United States. The Cayman Islands Department of Public Safety's Communications Centre processes 9-1-1 and non-emergency police assistance, ambulance service, fire service and search and rescue calls for all three islands. The Communications Centre dispatches RCIP and EMS units directly; the Cayman Islands Fire Service maintains their own dispatch room at the airport fire station. The police services are handled by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service. The fire services are handled by the Cayman Islands Fire Service. There are 4 main hospitals in the Cayman Islands, private and public health in the Cayman Islands with various localised health clinics around the islands. == Infrastructure == ===Ports=== George Town is the port capital of Grand Cayman. There are no berthing facilities for cruise ships, but up to four cruise ships can anchor in designated anchorages. There are three cruise terminals in George Town, the North, South, and Royal Watler Terminals. The ride from the ship to the terminal is about 5 minutes. ===Airports and airlines=== There are three airports which serve the Cayman Islands. The islands' national flag carrier is Cayman Airways, with Owen Roberts International Airport hosting the airline as its hub. • Owen Roberts International Airport • Charles Kirkconnell International Airport • Edward Bodden Airfield ===Main highways=== There are three highways, as well as crucial feeder roads that serve the Cayman Islands capital city, George Town. Residents in the east of the city will rely on the East-West Arterial Bypass to go into George Town; as well as Shamrock Road coming from Bodden Town and the eastern districts. Other main highways and carriageways include: • Linford Pierson Highway (most popular roadway into George Town from the east) • Esterly Tibbetts Highway (serves commuters to the north of the city and West Bay) • North Sound Road (main road for Central George Town) • South Sound Road (used by commuters to the south of the city) • Crewe Road (alternative to taking Linford Pierson Highway) == Education == ===Primary and secondary schools=== The Cayman Islands Education Department operates state schools. Caymanian children are entitled to free primary and secondary education. There are two public high schools on Grand Cayman, John Gray High School and Clifton Hunter High School, and one on Cayman Brac, Layman E. Scott High School. Various churches and private foundations operate several private schools. ===Colleges and universities=== The University College of the Cayman Islands has campuses on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac and is the only government-run university on the Cayman Islands. The International College of the Cayman Islands is a private college in Grand Cayman. The college was established in 1970 and offers associate's, bachelor's and master's degree programmes. Grand Cayman is also home to St. Matthew's University, which includes a medical school and a school of veterinary medicine. Truman Bodden Law School, a branch of the University of Liverpool, is based on Grand Cayman. The Cayman Islands Civil Service College, a unit of the Cayman Islands government organised under the Portfolio of the Civil Service, is in Grand Cayman. Co-situated with University College of the Cayman Islands, it offers both degree programs and continuing education units of various sorts. The college opened in 2007 and is also used as a government research centre. There is a University of the West Indies Open campus in the territory. == Sports == Truman Bodden Sports Complex is a multi-use complex in George Town. The complex is separated into an outdoor, six-lane swimming pool, full purpose track and field and basketball/netball courts. The field surrounded by the track is used for association football matches as well as other field sports. Association football is the national and most popular sport, with the Cayman Islands national football team representing the Cayman Islands in FIFA. The Cayman Islands Basketball Federation joined the international basketball governing body FIBA in 1976. The country's national team attended the Caribbean Basketball Championship for the first time in 2011. Cayman Islands National Male National Team has won back-to-back Gold Medal victories in 2017 and 2019 Natwest Island Games. Rugby union is a developing sport, and has its own national men's team, women's team, and Sevens team. The Cayman Islands are a member of FIFA, the International Olympic Committee and the Pan American Sports Organisation, and also competes in the biennial Island Games. The Cayman Islands are a member of the International Cricket Council which they joined in 1997 as an Affiliate, before becoming an Associate member in 2002. The Cayman Islands national cricket team represents the islands in international cricket. The team has previously played the sport at first-class, List A and Twenty20 level. It competes in Division Five of the World Cricket League. Squash is popular in the Cayman Islands with a vibrant community of mostly ex-pats playing out of the 7-court South Sound Squash Club. In addition, the women's professional squash association hosts one of their major events each year in an all-glass court being set up in Camana Bay. In December 2012, the former Cayman Open will be replaced by the Women's World Championships, the largest tournament in the world. Flag football (CIFFA) has men's, women's, and mixed-gender leagues. Other organised sports leagues include softball, beach volleyball, Gaelic football and ultimate frisbee. The Cayman Islands Olympic Committee was founded in 1973 and was recognised by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) in 1976. In April 2005 Black Pearl Skate Park was opened in Grand Cayman by Tony Hawk. At the time the park was the largest in the Western Hemisphere. In February 2010, the first purpose-built track for kart racing in the Cayman Islands was opened. Corporate karting leagues at the track have involved widespread participation with 20 local companies and 227 drivers taking part in the 2010 Summer Corporate Karting League. In December 2022, swimmer Jordan Crooks became the first Caymanian athlete to become world champion in any sport, after winning the gold medal in the 50 m freestyle event at the 2022 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m). In addition, during the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m), he established a new world record in the 50 m freestyle event with a time of 19.90, becoming the first swimmer in history to break the 20-second barrier. == Arts and culture == === Music === The Cayman National Cultural Foundation manages the F.J. Harquail Cultural Centre and the US$4 million Harquail Theatre. The Cayman National Cultural Foundation, established in 1984, helps to preserve and promote Cayman folk music, including the organisation of festivals such as the Cayman Islands International Storytelling Festival, the Cayman JazzFest, Seafarers Festival and Cayfest. The jazz, calypso and reggae genres of music styles feature prominently in Cayman music as celebrated cultural influences. === Art === The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands is an art museum in George Town. Founded in 1996, NGCI is an arts organisation that seeks to fulfil its mission through exhibitions, artist residencies, education/outreach programmes and research projects in the Cayman Islands. The NGCI is a non-profit institution, part of the Ministry of Health and Culture. == Media == There are two print newspapers currently in circulation throughout the islands: the Cayman Compass and The Caymanian Times. Online news services include Cayman Compass, Cayman News Service, Cayman Marl Road, The Caymanian Times and Real Cayman News. Olive Hilda Miller was the first paid reporter to work for a Cayman Islands newspaper, beginning her career on the Tradewinds newspaper, which her work helped to establish. Local radio stations are broadcast throughout the islands. Feature films that have been filmed in the Cayman Islands include: The Firm, Haven, Cayman Went and Zombie Driftwood. Television in the Cayman Islands consist of four over-the-air broadcast stations, CompassTV (subsidiary of Compass Media, which also runs Cayman Compass) – Trinity Broadcasting Network – CIGTV (the government-owned channel) – Seventh Day Adventist Network. Cable television is available in the Cayman Islands through three providers, C3 Pure Fibre – FLOW TV – Logic TV. Satellite television is provided by Dish Direct TV. In the past, between 1992 and 2019, there was also Cayman 27. Broadband is widely available on the Cayman Islands, with Digicel, C3 Pure Fibre, FLOW and Logic all providing super fast fibre broadband to the islands. == Notable Caymanians ==	[ "Constitution of the Cayman Islands", "gross tonnage", "JDF Coast Guard", "infant formula", "FIFA", "2022 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m)", "Central Intelligence Agency", "2021 Caymanian general election", "Panorama", "storm surge", "Natwest Island Games", "Dasyprocta punctata", "Private property", "International College of the Cayman Islands", "wealth tax", "Bernard K. Passman", "Sierra Maestra", "List of radio stations in Cayman Islands", "Cayman Islands Regiment", "Cayman Ridge", "Cayman Islands women's national rugby union team", "Western Caribbean zone", "Arawak", "Cuban crocodile", "blue iguana", "birds", "Tagalog language", "slavery", "Yucatán Peninsula", "endemic", "North Side, Cayman Islands", "attorney general", "medical school", "Government of the Cayman Islands", "United Nations list of non-self-governing territories", "tropical wet and dry climate", "Kyffin Simpson", "Jeffrey Webb (football executive)", "List A cricket", "sperm whale", "French angelfish", "Crown colony", "Work permit", "Jamaica", "Colony of Jamaica (1655–1962)", "independence of Jamaica", "Cayman Islands dollar", "East End, Cayman Islands", "National Trust for the Cayman Islands", "voyages of Christopher Columbus", "Atheriniformes", "People's Progressive Movement (Cayman Islands)", "Dependent territory", "The Bluff (Cayman Islands)", "United Nations", "Clifton Hunter High School", "Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty", "Governor of the Cayman Islands", "Bats of the Caribbean", "Seventh-day Adventist Church", "civil service", "Cayman Islands Olympic Committee", "State ownership", "Irreligion", "Cubans", "Caiman", "Edward Bodden Airfield", "Filipinos", "Charles Kirkconnell International Airport", "Miami, Florida", "constitutional monarchy", "Honduras", "coral reef", "List of rodents of the Caribbean", "Frank E. Flowers", "Cayman 27", "income tax", "Mastic Reserve", "Gaelic football", "High-net-worth individual", "Cayman Islands Coast Guard", "Gladwyn Bush", "Stephen Doughty", "Anglican Church", "Cayman Trough", "Atlantic hurricane season", "St. Matthew's University", "tarpon", "shipwreck", "The Cayman Islands Civil Service College", "Cayman Islands Education Department", "Spain", "tariff", "British Armed Forces", "expatriate", "HIV", "UNESCO", "English overseas possessions", "CARICOM", "List of world records in swimming", ".ky", "Red-footed booby", "Greater Antilles", "Monarchy of the United Kingdom", "Swimming (sport)", "Jardines de la Reina", "Truman Bodden Stadium", "Statutory Instrument (UK)", "CIA World Factbook", "Alden McLaughlin", "Pedro St. James Castle", "East End Light", "Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park", "Baptist Church", "pirate", "British Overseas Territories", "Leila Ross-Shier", "Little Cayman", "Bahá'í Faith", "The World Factbook", "Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee)", "Christianity", "Premier", "Thomas Jefferson (Caymanian politician)", "brown booby", "International Cricket Council", "Sovereign state", "Hurricane Ivan", "Cuban amazon", "North American Numbering Plan", "WP:MOSNUM", "American crocodile", "Canarreos Archipelago", "Premier of the Cayman Islands", "Caribbean Basketball Championship", "Hondurans", "Cariban languages", "Index of Cayman Islands–related articles", "coral heads", "Interpol", "art museum", "Blainville's beaked whale", "Vernacular", "Truman Bodden", "HMS Trent (P224)", "search and rescue", "Cayman Islands Cadet Corps", "marine protected area", "Pentecostal Church", "Rastafari", "Canadians", "electric vehicles", "Raegan Rutty", "Pan American Sports Organisation", "Cayman Turtle Centre", "Outline of the Cayman Islands", "Wreck of the Ten Sail", "Barack Obama", "Americans", "Island Games", "Europe", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "Fabio Gall", "John Gray High School", "first-class cricket", "Hurricane Beryl", "Tony Hawk", "Minister of State for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories", "Cayman Brac", "association football", "FIBA", "international cricket", "List of cetacean species", "Mary Evelyn Wood", "Hinduism", "International Olympic Committee", "Tyto alba", "Asian Caymanians", "Christopher Columbus", "Cayman National Cultural Foundation", "The Firm (1993 film)", "Cayman Islands national basketball team", "University of Liverpool", "Truman Bodden Law School", "merchant ship", "FamilySearch", "McKeeva Bush", "Olive Hilda Miller", "Martyn Roper", "United Church of Christ", "William Warren Conolly", "Forbes", "indirect tax", "The Barefoot Man", "Shaune Fraser", "Sybil I. McLaughlin", "Isla de la Juventud", "natural hazard", "royal assent", "Jamaican Patois", "Calypso music", "National Gallery of the Cayman Islands", "Cayman Islands English", "Kareem Streete-Thompson", "Leila Yates", "Caribbean Journal of Science", "Jamaican English", "scuba diving", "David Ritch", "Layman E. Scott High School", "forest cover", "List of Spanish words of Indigenous American Indian origin", "Julianna O'Connor-Connolly", "ultimate frisbee", "Afro-Caribbean people", "Caymanian", "Kemar Hyman", "governor of Jamaica", "coast guard", "Charles III", "Cuba", "health in the Cayman Islands", "Quintana Roo", "Owen Roberts International Airport", "West Bay, Cayman Islands", "Kenneth Dart", "Beloved Isle Cayman", "Cayman Islands national football team", "Catholic Church", "United Democratic Party (Cayman Islands)", "primary forest", "Treaty of Madrid (1670)", "Gross Domestic Product", "John Reno Jackson", "Islam", "Camana Bay, Cayman Islands", "University College of the Cayman Islands", "Geographic coordinate system", "mammal", "HMS Medway (P223)", "George Town, Cayman Islands", "White Caymanians", "Yucatán", "Manuel Ribeiro Pardal", "Twenty20 cricket", "Edna Moyle", "Slavery Abolition Act 1833", "2012 ICC World Cricket League Division Five", "jazz", "Selita Ebanks", "Politics of the Cayman Islands", "Kingdom of England", "Needs Assessment Unit", "Grand Cayman", "Seven Mile Beach, Grand Cayman", "Edison Mclean", "limestone", "giant barrel sponge", "Cameron Stafford", "Flag football", "tax haven", "Postal codes in the Pitcairn Islands", "Dow Travers", "ISO 3166-2:KY", "Area code 345", "Francis Drake", "Bodden Town (village)", "Cayman Islands national cricket team", "Indian people", "prehistoric", "Reggae music", "alien (law)", "Government of the United Kingdom", "Caricom", "Kurt Tibbetts", "Royal Fleet Auxiliary", "University of the West Indies", "Parliament of the Cayman Islands", "Oliver Cromwell", "Sybil Joyce Hylton", "tropical cyclone", "Amazona", "veterinary school", "Jane Owen", "emergency telephone number", "sea salt", "stingray", "kart racing", "Parliament of the United Kingdom", "Cayman Airways", "Royal Cayman Islands Police Service", "Royal Navy", "God Save the King", "World Cricket League", "Haven (film)", "Stingray City, Grand Cayman", "Hell, Grand Cayman", "Ronald Forbes", "Ziphius cavirostris", "corporation tax", "offshore financial centre", "George III", "Sinking ships for wreck diving sites", "British people", "United States Coast Guard", "Mixed-race Caymanians", "deputy governor", "Judaism", "Grand Cayman parrot", "Caribbean Sea", "Eastern Time Zone", "Jordan Crooks", "US dollar", "undersea mountain range", "Commonwealth realm", "Rugby Union in the Cayman Islands", "2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m)", "Cydonie Mothersille", "syphilis", "Cayman Islands national rugby union team", "money laundering", "UCB Libraries", "Jamaicans", "Brett Fraser", "capital gains tax" ]
5,469	History of the Cayman Islands	The Cayman Islands are a British overseas territory located in the Caribbean that have been under various governments since their discovery by Europeans. Christopher Columbus sighted the Cayman Islands on May 10, 1503, and named them Las Tortugas after the numerous sea turtles seen swimming in the surrounding waters. Columbus had found the two smaller sister islands (Cayman Brac and Little Cayman) and it was these two islands that he named "Las Tortugas". The 1523 "Turin map" of the islands was the first to refer to them as Los Lagartos, meaning alligators or large lizards, By 1530 they were known as the Caymanes after the Carib word caimán for the marine crocodile, either the American or the Cuban crocodile, Crocodylus acutus or C. rhombifer, which also lived there. Recent sub-fossil findings suggest that C. rhombifer, a freshwater species, were prevalent until the 20th century. ==Settlement== Archaeological studies of Grand Cayman have found no evidence that humans occupied the islands prior to the sixteenth century. The first recorded English visitor was Sir Francis Drake in 1586, who reported that the caymanas were edible, but it was the turtles which attracted ships in search of fresh meat for their crews. Overfishing nearly extinguished the turtles from the local waters. Turtles were the main source for an economy on the islands. In 1787, Captain Hull of HMS Camilla estimated between 1,200 and 1,400 turtles were captured and sold at seaports in Jamaica per year. According to historian Edward Long the inhabitants on Grand Cayman had the principal occupation of turtle-fishery. Once Caymanian turtlers greatly reduced the turtle population around the islands they journeyed to the waters of other islands in order to maintain their livelihood. Caymanian folklore explains that the island's first inhabitants were men with the surnames Bodden and Watler, who first arrived in Cayman in 1658 after serving in Oliver Cromwell's army in Jamaica. The first recorded permanent inhabitant of the Cayman Islands, Isaac Bodden, was born on Grand Cayman around 1700. He was the grandson of the original settler named Bodden. Most, if not all, early settlers were people who came from outside of the Cayman Islands and were on the fringes of society. Due to this, the Cayman Islands have often been described as "a total colonial frontier society": effectively lawless during the early settlement years. The Cayman Islands remained a frontier society until well into the twentieth century. The year 1734 marked the rough beginning period of permanent settlement in Grand Cayman. Cayman Brac and Little Cayman were not permanently settled until 1833. A variety of people settled on the islands: pirates, refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, shipwrecked sailors, and slaves. The majority of Caymanians are of African, Welsh, Scottish or English descent, with considerable interracial mixing. During the early years, settlements on the north and west sides of Grand Cayman were often subject to raids by Spanish forces coming from Cuba. On 14 April 1669, the Spanish Privateer Rivero Pardal completed a successful raid on the village of Little Cayman. In the process of the raid, the forces burned twenty dwellings to the ground. ==British control== England took formal control of Cayman, along with Jamaica, under the Treaty of Madrid in 1670 after the first settlers came from Jamaica in 1661–71 to Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. These first settlements were abandoned after attacks by Spanish privateers, but English privateers often used the Cayman Islands as a base and in the 18th century they became an increasingly popular hideout for pirates, even after the end of legitimate privateering in 1713. Following several unsuccessful attempts, permanent settlement of the islands began in the 1730s. In the early morning hours of February 8, 1794, ten vessels which were part of a convoy escorted by HMS Convert, were wrecked on the reef in Gun Bay, on the East end of Grand Cayman. Despite the darkness and pounding surf on the reef, local settlers braved the conditions attempting to rescue the passengers and crew of the fledgling fleet. There are conflicting reports, but it is believed that between six, and eight people died that night, among them, the Captain of the Britannia. However, the overwhelming majority, more than 450 people, were successfully rescued. The incident is now remembered as The Wreck of the Ten Sail. Legend has it that among the fleet, there was a member of the British Royal Family on board. Most believe it to be a nephew of King George III. To reward the bravery of the island's local inhabitants, King George III reportedly issued a decreed that Caymanians should never be conscripted for war service, and shall never be subject to taxation. However, no official documentation of this decree has been found. All evidence for this being the origin of their tax-free status is purely anecdotal. Regardless, the Cayman Islands' status as a tax-free British overseas territory remains to this day. From 1670, the Cayman Islands were effective dependencies of Jamaica, although there was considerable self-government. In 1831, a legislative assembly was established by local consent at a meeting of principal inhabitants held at Pedro St. James Castle on December 5 of that year. Elections were held on December 10 and the fledgling legislature passed its first local legislation on December 31, 1831. Subsequently, the Jamaican governor ratified a legislature consisting of eight magistrates appointed by the Governor of Jamaica and 10 (later increased to 27) elected representatives. The collapse of the Federation of the West Indies created a period of decolonization in the English-speaking Caribbean. In regards to independence, of the six dependent territories, the Cayman Islands were the most opposed because it lacked the natural resources needed. This opposition came from the fear that independence might prevent any special United States visas that aided Caymanian sailors working on American ships and elsewhere in the United States. The people had concerns about their economic viability if the country was to become independent. The Cayman Islands were not the only smaller British territory that was reluctant in regards to gaining independence. The United Kingdom authorities established a new governing constitution framework for the reluctant territories. In place of the Federation of the West Indies, a constitution was created that allowed for the continuation of formal ties with London. In the Cayman Islands, the Governor's only obligation to the British Crown is that of keeping the Executive Council informed. ==Slavery== Grand Cayman was the only island of the three that had institutionalized slavery. Although slavery was instituted, Grand Cayman did not have violent slave revolts. While scholars tend to agree that to an extent a slave society existed on at least Grand Cayman, there are debates among them on how important slavery was to the society as a whole. The slave period for the Cayman Islands lasted between 1734 and 1834. In 1774, George Gauld estimated that approximately four hundred people lived on Grand Cayman; half of the inhabitants were free while the other half were constituted slaves. By 1802, of 933 inhabitants, 545 people were owned by slave owners. An April 1834 census recorded a population of 1,800 with roughly 46 percent considered free Caymanians. By the time of emancipation, enslaved people outnumbered that of slave owners or non-enslaved people on Grand Cayman. In 1835, Governor Sligo arrived in Cayman from Jamaica to declare all enslaved people free in accordance with the British Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Caymanian settlers resented their administrative association with Jamaica, which caused them to seize every opportunity to undermine the authorities. This problematic relationship reached its peak during the period leading up to emancipation in 1835. Caymanian slave owners who did not want to give up the free labour they extracted from their human chattel refused to obey changes in British legislation outlawing slavery. In response to the Slave Trade Act 1807, the Slave Trade Felony Act 1811, and the Emancipation Act 1834, slave owners organized resistance efforts against the authorities in Jamaica. Local White residents of the Cayman Islands also resisted the stationing of troops of the West India Regiment. This animosity stemmed from the fact that the West India Regiment enlisted Black men, which the White establishment opposed because they were 'insulted' at the idea of Black soldiers defending their settlements. ==Dependency of Jamaica== The Cayman Islands were officially declared and administered as a dependency of Jamaica from 1863 but were rather like a parish of Jamaica with the nominated justices of the peace and elected vestrymen in their Legislature. From 1750 to 1898 the Chief Magistrate was the administrating official for the dependency, appointed by the Jamaican governor. In 1898 the Governor of Jamaica began appointing a Commissioner for the Islands. The first Commissioner was Frederick Sanguinetti. In 1959, upon the formation of the Federation of the West Indies the dependency status with regards to Jamaica ceased officially although the Governor of Jamaica remained the Governor of the Cayman Islands and had reserve powers over the islands. Starting in 1959 the chief official overseeing the day-to-day affairs of the islands (for the Governor) was the Administrator. Upon Jamaica's independence in 1962, the Cayman Islands broke its administrative links with Jamaica and opted to become a direct dependency of the British Crown, with the chief official of the islands being the Administrator. In 1953 the first airfield in the Cayman Islands was opened as well as the George Town Public hospital. Barclays ushered in the age of formalised commerce by opening the first commercial bank. ==Governmental changes== Following a two-year campaign by women to change their circumstances, in 1959 Cayman received its first written constitution which, for the first time, allowed women to vote. Cayman ceased to be a dependency of Jamaica. During 1966, legislation was passed to enable and encourage the banking industry in Cayman. In 1971, the governmental structure of the islands was again changed, with a governor now running the Cayman Islands. Athel Long CMG, CBE was the last administrator and the first governor of the Cayman Islands. In 1991, a review of the 1972 constitution recommended several constitutional changes to be debated by the Legislative Assembly. The post of chief secretary was reinstated in 1992 after having been abolished in 1986. The establishment of the post of chief minister was also proposed. However, in November 1992 elections were held for an enlarged Legislative Assembly and the Government was soundly defeated, casting doubt on constitutional reform. The "National Team" of government critics won 12 (later reduced to 11) of the 15 seats, and independents won the other three, after a campaign opposing the appointment of chief minister and advocating spending cuts. The unofficial leader of the team, Thomas Jefferson, had been the appointed financial secretary until March 1992, when he resigned over public spending disputes to fight the election. After the elections, Mr. Jefferson was appointed minister and leader of government business; he also held the portfolios of Tourism, Aviation and Commerce in the executive council. Three teams with a total of 44 candidates contested the general election held on November 20, 1996: the governing National Team, Team Cayman and the Democratic Alliance Group. The National Team were returned to office but with a reduced majority, winning 9 seats. The Democratic Alliance won 2 seats in George Town, Team Cayman won one in Bodden Town and independents won seats in George Town, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Although all administrative links with Jamaica were broken in 1962, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica continue to share many links, including a common united church (the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands) and Anglican diocese (although there is debate about this). They also shared a common currency until 1972. In 1999, 38–40% of the expat population of the Cayman Islands was of Jamaican origin and in 2004/2005 little over 50% of the expatriates working in the Cayman Islands (i.e. 8,000) were Jamaicans (with the next largest expatriate communities coming from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada). ==Hurricane Ivan== In September 2004, The Cayman Islands were hit by Hurricane Ivan, causing mass devastation, loss of animal life (both wild and domestic/livestock) and flooding; however, there was no loss of human life. Some accounts reported that the majority of Grand Cayman had been underwater and with the lower floors of some buildings being completely flooded in excess of 8 ft. An Ivan Flood Map is available from the Lands & Survey Dept. of The Cayman Islands indicating afflicted areas and their corresponding flood levels. This natural disaster also led to the bankruptcy of a heavily invested insurance company called Doyle. The company had re-leased estimates covering 20% damage to be re-insured at minimal fees when in fact the damage was over 65% and every claim was in the millions. The company simply could not keep paying out and the adjusters could not help lower the payments due to the high building code the Islands adhere to. Much suspense was built around the devastation that Hurricane Ivan had caused as the leader of Government business Mr. Mckeeva Bush decided to close the Islands to any and all reporters, aid and denied permissions to land any aircraft except for Cayman Airways. The line of people wishing to leave, but unable to do so, extended from the airport to the post office each day, as thousands who were left stranded with no shelter, food, or fresh water hoped for a chance to evacuate. As a result, most evacuations and the mass exodus which ensued in the aftermath was done so by private charter through personal expense, with or without official permission. It was also a collective decision within the government at that time to turn away two British warships that had arrived the day after the storm with supplies. This decision was met by outrage from the Islanders who thought that it should have been their decision to make. Power and water was cut off due to damaged pipes and destroyed utility poles, with all utilities restored to various areas over the course of the next three months. Fortis Inc., a Canadian-owned utility company, sent a team down to Grand Cayman to assist the local power company, CUC, with restoration. The official report, extent of damage, duration and recovery efforts in the words of Mr. Bush himself are first recorded a month following to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence, Letter from the Cayman Islands Government Office in the United Kingdom, 8 October 2004. "Hurricane Ivan weakened to a category four hurricane as it moved over Grand Cayman. It is the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the cayman islands. The eye of the storm passed within eight to 15 miles of Grand Cayman. It struck on Sunday 12 September, bringing with it sustained winds of 155 miles per hour, gusts of up to 217 mph, and a storm surge of sea water of eight to 10 feet, which covered most of the Island. A quarter of Grand Cayman remained submerged by flood waters two days later. Both Cayman Brac and Little Cayman suffered damage, although not to the same extent as Grand Cayman. Damage on Grand Cayman has been extensive. "I include with this letter, for your reference, a detailed briefing about the damage and the recovery effort, and some photographs of the devastation. 95% of our housing stock has sustained damage, with around 25% destroyed or damaged beyond repair. We currently have 6,000 homes that are uninhabitable-these are homes that house teachers, nurses, manual and other workers. Thankfully, loss of life in Cayman has been limited, relative to the impact of the storm."- Honourable McKeeva Bush, OBE, JP. While there still remains visible signs of damage, in the vegetation and destruction to buildings particularly along the southern and eastern coastal regions, the Island took considerable time to become suitable as a bustling financial & tourism destination again. There remain housing issues for many of the residents as of late 2005, with some buildings still lying derelict due to insurance claims as of 2013, feasibility, new regulations and building codes. Many residents simply were unable to rebuild, and abandoned the damaged structures.	[ "Little Cayman", "sea turtle", "Cayman Brac", "Justice of the Peace", "reserve power", "Oliver Cromwell", "Grand Cayman", "governor of the Cayman Islands", "chief minister", "Cayman Islands", "Caribbean", "united church", "Treaty of Madrid (1670)", "Spanish Inquisition", "Wreck of the Ten Sail", "general election", "British Royal Family", "United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands", "diocese", "Royal Navy surface fleet", "British monarchy", "Public finance", "Legislative Assembly", "English People", "Christopher Columbus", "Cuban Crocodile", "The Journal of Caribbean History", "Slave Trade Act 1807", "Insurance", "building code", "Crocodylus acutus", "Federation of the West Indies", "Jamaica", "Slave Trade Felony Act 1811", "Hurricane Ivan", "Pedro St. James Castle", "Special legislation", "British overseas territory", "Public hospital", "Premier of the Cayman Islands", "Francis Drake", "Anglican Communion", "Chief secretary (British Empire)", "expatriates", "work permit", "pirate", "Jamaican dollar", "Caribbean Utilities", "financial secretary", "West India Regiment", "Slavery Abolition Act 1833", "WP:SDNONE", "Africa", "Carib language", "McKeeva Bush", "parish", "Fauna", "natural disaster", "Fortis Inc.", "Slavery", "Kingdom of England" ]
5,470	Geography of the Cayman Islands	The Cayman Islands are a British dependency and island country. It is a three-island archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, consisting of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman. Georgetown, the capital of the Cayman Islands is south of Havana, Cuba, and northwest of Kingston, Jamaica, northeast of Costa Rica, north of Panama and are between Cuba and Central America. Georgetown's geographic coordinates are 19.300° north, 81.383° west. ==Geology== The islands are located on the Cayman Rise which forms the northern margin of the Cayman Trough. The trough is the deepest point in the Caribbean Sea and forms part of the tectonic boundary between the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate. The Cayman Rise extends from southeastern Cuba along the northern margin of the Cayman Trough toward Costa Rica and resulted from Paleocene to Eocene island arc formation with associated volcanism along an extinct subduction zone. The islands are formed of marine limestone and dolomite that was uplifted during the late Miocene epoch. Due to the islands' location, the Cayman Islands do get earthquakes. == Climate == The Cayman Islands have a tropical wet and dry climate, with a wet season from May to December, and a dry season that runs from January to April. Terrain is mostly a low-lying limestone base surrounded by coral reefs. Besides earthquakes another major natural hazard is the tropical cyclones that form during the Atlantic hurricane season from June to November. == Environmental issues == An important environmental issue is the lack of fresh water resources. Drinking water supplies must be met by rainwater catchment and desalination. There is also a problem with trash washing up on the beaches or being deposited by there by residents. The Cayman Islands have no recycling or waste treatment facilities. == Natural resources == Natural resources include fish and a climate and beaches that foster tourism, which is the islands' major industry. A 2012 estimate of land use determined that the Cayman Islands' had 0.83 percent arable land and 2.08 percent permanent crops. In Cayman Islands forest cover is around 53% of the total land area, equivalent to 12,720 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 13,130 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 12,720 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 0 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 0% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity). For the year 2015, 0% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership, 12% private ownership and 88% with ownership listed as other or unknown. == Districts == The territory is subdivided into six districts that are governed by district managers and that have a role as electoral districts and as regional units for statistics. Five of the districts are located on the main island, Grand Cayman. The sixth, Sister Islands, comprises the islands of Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. The population is concentrated in the three (south-)western districts George Town (capital), West Bay, and Bodden Town. Those have a population density many times higher than all remaining districts. ==Extreme points== Northernmost point – Booby Point, Cayman Brac Easternmost point – North East Point, Cayman Brac Southernmost point – Great Pedro Point, Grand Cayman Westernmost point – North West Point, Grand Cayman Lowest point – Caribbean Sea (0m) Highest point – 1 km SW of The Bluff, Cayman Brac (50m)	[ "Little Cayman", "Territorial waters", "Cayman Brac", "Havana", "coral reef", "Exclusive economic zone", "forest cover", "Central America", "tropical cyclone", "Grand Cayman", "British overseas territories", "Costa Rica", "subduction zone", "Cayman Islands", "volcanism", "limestone", "geographic coordinate", "arable land", "primary forest", "Washington, D.C.", "natural hazard", "Population density", "desalination", "North American Plate", "Panama", "Caribbean Plate", "Natural resource", "archipelago", "island country", "fish", "Land borders", "Jamaica", "earthquakes", "North East Point", "Caribbean Sea", "State ownership", "North Side, Cayman Islands", "Eocene", "George Town, Cayman Islands", "Great Pedro Point", "Cuba", "East End, Cayman Islands", "Miocene", "rain", "coastline", "Private property", "fresh water", "Owen Roberts International Airport", "Cayman Trough", "Atlantic hurricane season", "The Bluff (Cayman Islands)", "Drinking water", "WP:SDNONE", "Paleocene", "Bodden Town (district)", "Booby Point", "island arc", "Saint Kitts and Nevis", "North America", "tourism", "West Bay, Cayman Islands", "North West Point", "Dolomite (rock)", "tropical wet and dry climate" ]
5,471	Demographics of the Cayman Islands	This is a demography of the population of the Cayman Islands including population density, ethnicity, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. ==Population== With its success in the tourism and financial service industries, the Cayman Islands have attracted many international businesses and citizens to relocate. The largest numbers of expatriates living in the Cayman Islands hail from Jamaica (11,703), the United Kingdom (1,708), the Philippines (4,119), and India (1,218). Approximately 8,139 more residents are citizens of various other countries. While the government does not restrict foreign land ownership, it does strongly enforce its immigration laws. Businesses are required to grant access to job openings to Caymanian citizens first; if none of them are suitable, the business may then seek employees from other countries. In order to work in the Cayman Islands, foreigners must have a job offer before immigrating. The Cayman Islands population is expected to reach 100,000 people before 2030, as an explosion in immigration after COVID-19 lockdowns continues to increase the population significantly. === Structure of the population === ===District populations=== The vast majority of its residents live on the island of Grand Cayman, at 67,493. According to the 2021 census, only 2,163 people lived on Cayman Brac or Little Cayman, bringing the total population to 69,656, broken down as follows: George Town: 34,399 West Bay: 14,931 Bodden Town: 14,268 North Side: 1,840 East End: 1,749 Cayman Brac and Little Cayman (Sister Islands): 2,163 ==Vital statistics== ==Ethnic groups== Although many Caribbean islands were initially populated by Amerindian groups such as the Taíno and Kalinago, no evidence of this has been found in the Cayman Islands. Therefore, native Caymanians do not have any Amerindian heritage from their own islands; however, a significant number of Jamaicans have settled in the Cayman Islands over the years, so they and their descendants may have some Amerindian blood via Jamaica. Slavery was less common on the Cayman Islands than in many other parts of the Caribbean, resulting in a more even division of African and European ancestry. Those of mixed race make up 41.3% of the population, with white Caymanians and immigrants of European ancestry making up 24.1%, and black Caymanians and immigrants of African ancestry following at 23.9%. South Asians, mainly Filipinos and Indians, as well as Caymanians of South Asian descent, make up 8.1%, and the remaining 2.6% belong to various ethnic groups. ==Language== The official language of the Cayman Islands is English. The Caymanian accent retains elements passed down from English, Scottish, and Welsh settlers (among others) in a language variety known as Cayman Creole. Young Caymanians often borrow terms from Jamaican patois due to the popularity of Jamaican pop culture and influences from Jamaican immigrants in the islands. It is also quite commonplace to hear some residents converse in Spanish as many citizens have relocated from Latin America to work and live on Grand Cayman. The Latin American nations with greatest representation are Honduras, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. Spanish speakers comprise almost 10% of the population and is predominantly of the Caribbean dialect. Tagalog is spoken by about 8% of inhabitants most of whom are Filipino residents on work permits. The remainder of the population converse in various languages, with some including Hindi, Afrikaans and Portuguese. ==Religion== The predominant religion on the Cayman Islands, as of 2021, is Christianity at 66.9%; this is down from over 80% in 2010. Denominations practiced include; Church of God, United Church, Anglican Church, Baptist Church, Roman Catholic Church, Seventh-day Adventist Church, and Pentecostal Church. Roman Catholic churches are St. Ignatius Church, George Town and Stella Maris Church, Cayman Brac. Many citizens are deeply religious, regularly going to church, however, the number of Caymanians who identify as non-religious has skyrocketed since the 2010 census, with around 25% professing no religion or a denomination not widespread. This is up from 9.3% during the last census. Hinduism is a minority religion in the Cayman Islands and is one of the smallest religions. Although it is unknown as to when Hinduism was introduced to the Cayman Islands. There is no Hindu temple located in the Cayman Islands, but there is at least one home which is set aside for the purpose of worship. There were only 98 Hindus in Cayman according to the 2000 census (about 0.25% of the population). In the 2008 census, the number of Hindus increased to 510 (1% of the total population). The 2010 Census showed the number of Hindus decreasing to 454 (0.8% of the total Cayman Islands population).	[ "Little Cayman", "Muslim", "population", "Cayman Brac", "Jamaican patois", "Multiracial", "English Language", "Grand Cayman", "Kalinago", "Church of God (Anderson, Indiana)", "Seventh-day Adventist", "Cayman Islands", "Presbyterian", "Caribbean", "Christianity", "Seventh-day Adventist Church", "Taíno", "Tagalog language", "Afrikaans", "Holiness movement", "demographics", "Hindi", "Jehovah's Witness", "Europe", "Christian", "Jewish", "Hindu", "Stella Maris Church, Cayman Brac", "Afro-Caribbean", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "United Church", "North Side, Cayman Islands", "George Town, Cayman Islands", "Pentecostal Church", "White Caymanians", "East End, Cayman Islands", "Indo-Caribbean", "Pentecostal", "Caribbean Spanish", "Spanish Language", "Baptist Church", "Portuguese language", "Amerindian", "Ethnic group", "Bodden Town (village)", "India", "Anglican Church", "Indian people", "Hinduism in the West Indies", "Baptist", "Roman Catholic", "WP:SDNONE", "United Kingdom", "population density", "Africa", "Cayman Creole", "Baháʼí Faith", "West Bay, Cayman Islands", "St. Ignatius Church, George Town", "Rastafarian", "Filipinos", "Jamaicans", "Roman Catholic Church", "Anglicanism", "Slavery", "United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands", "Expatriates" ]
5,472	Politics of the Cayman Islands	The politics of the Cayman Islands takes place within a framework of parliamentary democracy, within the confines of the Government of the Cayman Islands. ==Constitutional Modernisation== Constitutional Modernisation has come to the forefront of politics recently with the collapse of the now defunct Euro Bank Corporation in 2003. The prosecution in the trial was forced to reveal that the British Government had planted moles (and used wire taps) throughout the banking industry using MI6, with the consent of the Governor. This caused the trial's collapse, and subsequent release of those charged with wrongdoing. Along with this, the only mole that was known at the time was allowed to leave the country, never to answer for what he (or the United Kingdom) was doing. This infuriated the elected members of the Legislative Assembly as they maintained that the Governor and the United Kingdom had put into question the Cayman Islands' reputation as a tightly regulated offshore jurisdiction. Some saw this as the United Kingdom meddling in the territory's affairs to benefit itself (and the EU), at the expense of the islands' economy. Constitutional talks however went on hold following Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Subsequently, in May 2005 the ruling UDP was ousted by the PPM, which restarted the process of constitutional modernisation. The new constitution took effect on 6 November 2009.	[ "Hurricane Ivan", "Euro Bank Corporation", "Elections in the Cayman Islands", "WP:SDNONE", "Mole (espionage)", "parliamentary democracy", "Governor of the Cayman Islands", "Government of the United Kingdom", "Government of the Cayman Islands", "MI6" ]
5,473	Economy of the Cayman Islands	{{Infobox economy \| country = Cayman Islands \| image = File:George Town, Cayman Islands (3887384779).jpg \| image_size = \| caption = \| currency = Cayman Islands dollar (KYD) \| fixed exchange = 1.00 KYD = 1.20 USD \| year = 1 April – 31 March \| population = 84,738 \| gdp = $7.139 billion (2023 est., nominal)$2.507 billion (2021, PPP) \| gdp rank = 161st (nominal)191st (PPP) \| growth = 4.0% (2023) \| gini = 0.3995 (2010) \| hdi = 0.984 (2022) \| labor = 60,513 (2023) \| occupations = Agriculture: 1.9%Manual Industry: 19.1%Finance, Law and Tourism: 79% \| unemployment = 2.1% (2022) The Cayman Islands enjoys the strongest and one of the most stable economies in the Caribbean. The emergence of what is now considered the Cayman Islands' "twin pillars of economic development" (tourism and international finance) started in the 1950s with the introduction of modern transportation and telecommunications. ==History== From the earliest settlement of the Cayman Islands, economic activity was hindered by isolation and a limited natural resource base. The harvesting of sea turtles to resupply passing sailing ships was the first major economic activity on the islands, but local stocks were depleted by the 1790s. Agriculture, while sufficient to support the small early settler population, has always been limited by the scarcity of arable land. Fishing, shipbuilding, and cotton production boosted the economy during the early days of settlement. In addition, settlers scavenged shipwreck remains from the surrounding coral reefs. The boom in the Cayman Islands' international finance industry can also be at least partly attributed to the British overseas territory having no direct taxation. A popular legend attributes the tax-free status to the heroic acts of the inhabitants during a maritime tragedy in 1794, often referred to as "Wreck of the Ten Sails". The wreck involved nine British merchant vessels and their naval escort, the frigate HMS Convert, that ran aground on the reefs off Grand Cayman. Due to the rescue efforts by the Caymanians using canoes, the loss of life was limited to eight. However, records from the colonial era indicate that Cayman Islands, then a dependency of Jamaica, was not tax-exempt during the period that followed. In 1803, the inhabitants signed a petition addressed to the Jamaican governor asking him to grant them a tax exemption from the "Transient Tax on Wreck Goods". Sir Vassel Johnson, the second Caymanian to be knighted, was a pioneer of Cayman's financial services industry. Cayman Islands Past Governor Stuart Jack said. "As one of the architects of modern Cayman, especially the financial industry, Sir Vassel guided the steady growth of these Islands as the first financial secretary. His remarkable vision set the foundation for the prosperity and economic stability of these islands. Without his input, Cayman might well have remained the islands that time forgot." ==International finance== The Cayman Islands' tax-free status has attracted numerous banks and other companies to its shores. More than 92,000 companies were registered in the Cayman Islands as of 2014, including almost 600 banks and trust companies, with banking assets exceeding $500 billion. Numerous large corporations are based in the Cayman Islands, including, for example, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange was opened in 1997. ===Financial services industry=== The Cayman Islands is a major international financial centre. The largest sectors are "banking, hedge fund formation and investment, structured finance and securitisation, captive insurance, and general corporate activities". Regulation and supervision of the financial services industry is the responsibility of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA). Sir Vassel Johnson was a pioneer of Cayman's financial services industry. Sir Vassel, who became the only Caymanian ever knighted in 1994, served as the Cayman Islands financial secretary from 1965 through 1982 and then as an Executive Council member from 1984 through 1988. In his government roles, Sir Vassel was a driving force in shaping the Cayman Islands financial services industry. The Cayman Islands is the fifth-largest banking centre in the world, with $1.5 trillion in banking liabilities . Financial services generated KYD$1.2 billion of GDP in 2007 (55% of the total economy), 36% of all employment and 40% of all government revenue. In 2010, the country ranked fifth internationally in terms of value of liabilities booked and sixth in terms of assets booked. It has branches of 40 of the world's 50 largest banks. The Cayman Islands is the second largest captive domicile (Bermuda is largest) in the world with more than 700 captives, writing more than US$7.7 billion of premiums and with US$36.8 billion of assets under management. There are a number of service providers. These include global financial institutions including HSBC, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Goldman Sachs; over 80 administrators, leading accountancy practices (incl. the Big Four auditors), and offshore law practices including Maples & Calder. They also include wealth management such as Rothschilds private banking and financial advice. Since the introduction of the Mutual Funds Law in 1993, which has been copied by jurisdictions around the world, the Cayman Islands has grown to be the world's leading offshore hedge fund jurisdiction. Starting in the mid-late 1990s, offshore financial centres, such as the Cayman Islands, came under increasing pressure from the OECD for their allegedly harmful tax regimes, where the OECD wished to prevent low-tax regimes from having an advantage in the global marketplace. The OECD threatened to place the Cayman Islands and other financial centres on a "black list" and impose sanctions against them. However, the Cayman Islands successfully avoided being placed on the OECD black list in 2000 by committing to regulatory reform to improve transparency and begin information exchange with OECD member countries about their citizens. A report published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in March 2005, assessing supervision and regulation in the Cayman Islands' banking, insurance and securities industries, as well as its money laundering regime, recognised the jurisdiction's comprehensive regulatory and compliance frameworks. "An extensive program of legislative, rule and guideline development has introduced an increasingly effective system of regulation, both formalizing earlier practices and introducing enhanced procedures", noted IMF assessors. The report further stated that "the supervisory system benefits from a well-developed banking infrastructure with an internationally experienced and qualified workforce as well as experienced lawyers, accountants and auditors", adding that, "the overall compliance culture within Cayman is very strong, including the compliance culture related to AML (anti-money laundering) obligations". On 4 May 2009, the United States President, Barack Obama, declared his intentions to curb the use of financial centres by multinational corporations. In his speech, he singled out the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter. The next day, the Cayman Island Financial Services Association submitted an open letter to the president detailing the Cayman Islands' role in international finance and its value to the US financial system. The Cayman Islands was ranked as the world's second most significant tax haven on the Tax Justice Network's "Financial Secrecy Index" from 2011, scoring slightly higher than Luxembourg and falling behind only Switzerland. In 2013, the Cayman Islands was ranked by the Financial Secrecy Index as the fourth safest tax haven in the world, behind Hong Kong but ahead of Singapore. In the first conviction of a non-Swiss financial institution for US tax evasion conspiracy, two Cayman Islands financial institutions pleaded guilty in Manhattan Federal Court in 2016 to conspiring to hide more than $130 million in Cayman Islands bank accounts. The companies admitted to helping US clients hide assets in offshore accounts, and agreed to produce account files of non-compliant US taxpayers. ====Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act==== On 30 June 2014, the tax jurisdiction of the Cayman Islands was deemed to have an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) with the United States of America with respect to the "Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act" of the United States of America. The Tax Information Exchange Agreement (TIEA) between the United States of America and The Cayman Islands which was signed in London, United Kingdom on 29 November 2013. Page 1 – Clause 2 of the FATCA Agreement. The Government of the Cayman Islands plans to challenge this law, arguing that it violates the Constitutional sovereignty granted to the islands. ==Tourism== Tourism is also a mainstay, accounting for about 70% of GDP and 75% of foreign currency earnings. The tourist industry is aimed at the luxury market and caters mainly to visitors from North America. Unspoiled beaches, duty-free shopping, scuba diving, and deep-sea fishing draw almost a million visitors to the islands each year. Due to the well-developed tourist industry, many citizens work in service jobs in that sector. ==Diversification== The Cayman Islands is seeking to diversify beyond its two traditional industries, and invest in health care and technology. Health City Cayman Islands, opened in 2014, is a medical tourism hospital in East End, led by surgeon Devi Shetty. Cayman Enterprise City is a special economic zone that was opened in 2011 for technology, finance, and education investment. Cayman Sea Salt (producing gourmet sea salt) and Cayman Logwood products are now made in the Cayman Islands. ==Standard of living== Because the islands cannot produce enough goods to support the population, about 100% of their food and consumer goods must be imported. In addition, the islands have few natural fresh water resources. Desalination of sea water is used to solve this. Despite those challenges, the Caymanians enjoy one of the highest outputs per capita and one of the highest standards of living in the world. Education is compulsory to the age of 16 and is free to all Caymanian children. Most schools follow the British educational system. Ten primary, one special education and two high schools ('junior high and senior high') are operated by the government, along with eight private high schools. In addition, there is a law school, a university-college and a medical school. Poverty relief is provided by the Needs Assessment Unit, a government agency established by the Poor Persons (Relief) Law in January 1964. The Cayman Islands enjoys the lowest rates of poverty in the Caribbean, with the percentage of the population living below the poverty line being below 1%.	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5,474	Telecommunications in the Cayman Islands	Communications in the Cayman Islands == Telephone == Telephones – main lines in use: 37,400 (2009) Telephones – mobile cellular: 99,900 (2004) Telephone system: Domestic: Reasonably good overall telephone system with a high fixed-line teledensity. Liberalization of telecom market in 2003; introduction of competition in the mobile-cellular market in 2004. FLOW Cayman, Digicel International: The Cayman Islands have landing points for the MAYA-1, and the Cayman-Jamaica Fiber System submarine cables that provide links to the US and parts of Central and South America. Service on both of these cables are controlled by Liberty Latin America. Satellite earth station – 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2007) Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) == Radio == Radio broadcast stations: AM 0, FM 17, shortwave 0 (2006) List of radio stations in Cayman Islands Radios: 36,000 (1997) == Television == Television broadcast stations: == Internet == Internet Service Providers (ISPs):Four companies offer internet service in the islands with in fixed configurations or mobile or both: Liberty Latin America d/b/a FLOW Digicel Logic - Fibre based service. Founded in 2004 as WestTel when it was granted a telecommunications license. Purchased TeleCayman in 2013 C3 Country code (Top-level domain): .ky	[ "Intelsat", "FM broadcasting", "List of radio stations in Cayman Islands", ".ky", "WP:SDNONE", "Cayman Islands", "MAYA-1", "AM broadcasting", "Country codes" ]
5,475	Transport in the Cayman Islands	The transport infrastructure of the Cayman Islands consists of a public road network, two seaports, and three airports. ==Roads== As of 2000, the Cayman Islands had a total of 488 miles (785 km) of paved highway. Driving is on the left, and speed is reckoned in miles per hour, as in the UK. The legal blood alcohol content is 100mg per 100ml (0.1%), the highest in the world. ==Seaports== Two ports, Cayman Brac and George Town, serve the islands. One hundred and twenty-three ships (of 1,000 GT or more) are registered in the Cayman Islands, with a total capacity of 2,402,058 GT/. Some foreign ships (including vessels from Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Norway, the UK, and US) are registered in the Cayman Islands under a flag of convenience. (All figures are 2002 estimates.) ==Airports== There are three airports on the Islands. The main airport Owen Roberts International Airport serving Grand Cayman, Charles Kirkconnell International Airport serving Cayman Brac and Edward Bodden Airfield serving Little Cayman. ==Buses== A fleet of share taxi minibuses serves Grand Cayman. A daily service starts at 6.00 from the depot and runs as follows from George Town to: West Bay — every 15 minutes: 6.00–23.00 (24.00 on Fr, Sa). CI$1.50 each way. Bodden Town — every 30 minutes: 6.00–23.00 (24.00 on Fr, Sa). CI$1.50 each way. East End and North Side — every hour, 6.00–21.00 (24.00 on Fr). CI$2 each way. Colour-coded logos on the front and rear of the buses (white mini-vans) identify the routes:	[ "Little Cayman", "Cayman Brac", "Edward Bodden Airfield", "WP:SDNONE", "George Town, Cayman Islands", "Grand Cayman", "Cayman Islands", "share taxi", "blood alcohol content", "flag of convenience", "Charles Kirkconnell International Airport", "Owen Roberts International Airport" ]
5,477	Foreign relations of the Cayman Islands	The foreign relations of the Cayman Islands are largely managed from the United Kingdom, as the islands remains one of 14 overseas territories under British jurisdiction and sovereignty. However, the Government of the Cayman Islands have autonomy and often resolves important issues with foreign governments alone, without intervention from Britain. Although in its early days, the Cayman Islands' most important relationships were with Britain and Jamaica, in recent years, this has shifted, and they now rely more so on the United States and Canada. Though the Cayman Islands are involved in no major international disputes, they have come under some criticism due to the use of their territory for narcotics trafficking and money laundering. In an attempt to address this, the Government entered into the Narcotics Agreement of 1984 and the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty of 1986 with the United States, in order to reduce the use of their facilities associated with these activities. In more recent years, they have stepped up the fight against money laundering, by limiting banking secrecy, introducing requirements for customer identification and record keeping, and requiring banks to cooperate with foreign investigators. Due to their status as an overseas territory of the UK, the Cayman Islands have no representation either on the United Nations, or in most other international organizations. However, the Cayman Islands still participates in some international organisations, being a full member of the Central Development Bank and International Olympic Committee, an associate member of Caricom and UNESCO, and a member of a subbureau of Interpol. ==Bilateral relations== ===India=== ===United States===	[ "autonomy", "British overseas territories", "narcotics trafficking", "Cayman Islands", "Central Development Bank", "Interpol (organization)", "UNESCO", "Canada", "International Olympic Committee", "British Empire", "United States", "Jamaica", "Government of the Cayman Islands", "United Nations", "United Kingdom", "money laundering", "British Overseas Territories", "Caricom", "Foreign relations of the United Kingdom", "Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty" ]
5,478	Central African Republic	The Central African Republic (CAR) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest, and Cameroon to the west. Bangui is the country's capital and largest city, bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Central African Republic covers a land area of about . As of 2024, it has a population of 5,357,744, consisting of about 80 ethnic groups, and is in the scene of a civil war, which has been ongoing since 2012. Having been a French colony under the name Ubangi-Shari, French is the official language, with Sango, a Ngbandi-based creole language, as the national and co-official language. The Central African Republic mainly consists of Sudano-Guinean savanna, but the country also includes a Sahelo-Sudanian zone in the north and an equatorial forest zone in the south. Two-thirds of the country is within the Ubangi River basin (which flows into the Congo), while the remaining third lies in the basin of the Chari, which flows into Lake Chad. What is today the Central African Republic has been inhabited since at least 8,000 BCE. The country's borders were established by France, which began annexing portions to the French Congo in the late 19th century and in 1903 established the separate colony of Ubangi-Shari, part of French Equatorial Africa. After gaining independence from France in 1960, the Central African Republic was ruled by a series of autocratic leaders, including under Jean-Bedel Bokassa who changed the country's name to the Central African Empire and ruled as a monarch from 1976 to 1979. By the 1990s, calls for democracy led to the first multi-party democratic elections in 1993. Ange-Félix Patassé became president, but was later removed by General François Bozizé in a 2003 coup. The Central African Republic Bush War began in 2004 and, despite a peace treaty in 2007 and another in 2011, civil war resumed in 2012. The civil war perpetuated the country's poor human rights record: it was characterized by widespread and increasing abuses by various participating armed groups, such as arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and restrictions on freedom of the press and freedom of movement. Despite its significant mineral deposits and other resources, such as uranium reserves, crude oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, lumber, and hydropower, , according to the Human Development Index (HDI), the country had the third-lowest level of human development, ranking 191 out of 193 countries. The country had the second lowest inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), ranking 164th out of 165 countries. The Central African Republic is also estimated to be the unhealthiest country as well as the worst country to be in for young people. The Central African Republic is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Economic Community of Central African States, the and the Non-Aligned Movement. == Etymology == The name of the Central African Republic is derived from the country's geographical location in the central region of Africa and its republican form of government. From 1976 to 1979, the country was known as the Central African Empire. During the colonial era, the country's name was Ubangi-Shari (), a name derived from two major rivers and Central African waterways – Ubangi and Chari. Barthélemy Boganda, the country's first prime minister, favored the name "Central African Republic" over Ubangi-Shari, reportedly because he envisioned a larger union of countries in Central Africa. == History == === Early history === Approximately 10,000 years ago, desertification forced hunter-gatherer societies south into the Sahel regions of northern Central Africa, where some groups settled. Farming began as part of the Neolithic Revolution. Initial farming of white yam progressed into millet and sorghum, and before 3000BCE the domestication of African oil palm improved the groups' nutrition and allowed for expansion of the local populations. This agricultural revolution, combined with a "Fish-stew Revolution", in which fishing began to take place and the use of boats, allowed for the transportation of goods. Products were often moved in ceramic pots. The Bouar Megaliths in the western region of the country indicate an advanced level of habitation dating back to the very late Neolithic Era (). Ironwork developed in the region around 1000BCE. The Ubangian people settled along the Ubangi River in what is today the Central and East Central African Republic while some Bantu people migrated from the southwest of Cameroon. Bananas arrived in the region during the first millennium BCE and added an important source of carbohydrates to the diet; they were also used in the production of alcoholic beverages. Production of copper, salt, dried fish, and textiles dominated the economic trade in the Central African region. ===16th–19th century=== In the 16th and 17th centuries, slave traders began to raid the region as part of the expansion of the Saharan and Nile River slave routes. Their captives were enslaved and shipped to the Mediterranean coast, Europe, Arabia, the Western Hemisphere, or to the slave ports and factories along the West and North Africa or South along the Ubangui and Congo rivers. During the 18th century Bandia-Nzakara Azande peoples established the Bangassou Kingdom along the Ubangi River. In 1875, the Sudanese sultan Rabih az-Zubayr governed Upper-Oubangui, which included present-day Central African Republic. === French colonial period === The European invasion of Central African territory began in the late 19th century during the Scramble for Africa. Europeans, primarily the French, Germans, and Belgians, arrived in the area in 1885. France seized and colonized Ubangi-Shari territory in 1894. In 1911 at the Treaty of Fez, France ceded a nearly 300,000 km2 portion of the Sangha and Lobaye basins to the German Empire which ceded a smaller area (in present-day Chad) to France. After World War I France again annexed the territory. Modeled on King Leopold's Congo Free State, concessions were doled out to private companies that endeavored to strip the region's assets as quickly and cheaply as possible before depositing a percentage of their profits into the French treasury. The concessionary companies forced local people to harvest rubber, coffee, and other commodities without pay and held their families hostage until they met their quotas. In 1920, French Equatorial Africa was established and Ubangi-Shari was administered from Brazzaville. During the 1920s and 1930s the French introduced a policy of mandatory cotton cultivation, New forms of forced labour were also introduced and a large number of Ubangians were sent to work on the Congo-Ocean Railway. Through the period of construction until 1934 there was a continual heavy cost in human lives, with total deaths among all workers along the railway estimated in excess of 17,000 of the construction workers, from a combination of both industrial accidents and diseases including malaria. In 1928, a major insurrection, the Kongo-Wara rebellion or 'war of the hoe handle', broke out in Western Ubangi-Shari and continued for several years. The extent of this insurrection, which was perhaps the largest anti-colonial rebellion in Africa during the interwar years, was carefully hidden from the French public because it provided evidence of strong opposition to French colonial rule and forced labour. French colonization in Oubangui-Chari is considered to be the most brutal of the French colonial Empire. In September 1940, during the Second World War, pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari and General Leclerc established his headquarters for the Free French Forces in Bangui. In 1946 Barthélemy Boganda was elected with 9,000 votes to the French National Assembly, becoming the first representative of the Central African Republic in the French government. Boganda maintained a political stance against racism and the colonial regime but gradually became disheartened with the French political system and returned to the Central African Republic to establish the Movement for the Social Evolution of Black Africa (Mouvement pour l'évolution sociale de l'Afrique noire, MESAN) in 1950. === Since independence (1960–present) === In the Ubangi-Shari Territorial Assembly election in 1957, MESAN captured 347,000 out of the total 356,000 votes and won every legislative seat, which led to Boganda being elected president of the Grand Council of French Equatorial Africa and vice-president of the Ubangi-Shari Government Council. Within a year, he declared the establishment of the Central African Republic and served as the country's first prime minister. MESAN continued to exist, but its role was limited. The Central African Republic was granted autonomy within the French Community on 1 December 1958, a status which meant it was still counted as part of the French Empire in Africa. After Boganda's death in a plane crash on 29 March 1959, his cousin, David Dacko, took control of MESAN. Dacko became the country's first president when the Central African Republic formally received independence from France at midnight on 13 August 1960, a date celebrated by the country's Independence Day holiday. Dacko threw out his political rivals, including Abel Goumba, former Prime Minister and leader of Mouvement d'évolution démocratique de l'Afrique centrale (MEDAC), whom he forced into exile in France. With all opposition parties suppressed by November 1962, Dacko declared MESAN as the official party of the state. ====Bokassa and the Central African Empire (1965–1979)==== thumb\|[[Jean-Bédel Bokassa, self-crowned Emperor of Central Africa In September 1979, France overthrew Bokassa and restored Dacko to power (subsequently restoring the official name of the country and the original government to the Central African Republic). Dacko, in turn, was again overthrown in a coup by General André Kolingba on 1 September 1981. ==== Central African Republic under Kolingba ==== Kolingba suspended the constitution and ruled with a military junta until 1985. He introduced a new constitution in 1986 which was adopted by a nationwide referendum. Membership in his new party, the Rassemblement Démocratique Centrafricain (RDC), was voluntary. In 1987 and 1988, semi-free elections to parliament were held, but Kolingba's two major political opponents, Abel Goumba and Ange-Félix Patassé, were not allowed to participate. By 1990, inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall, a pro-democracy movement arose. Pressure from the United States, France, and from a group of locally represented countries and agencies called GIBAFOR (France, the US, Germany, Japan, the EU, the World Bank, and the United Nations) finally led Kolingba to agree, in principle, to hold free elections in October 1992 with help from the UN Office of Electoral Affairs. After using the excuse of alleged irregularities to suspend the results of the elections as a pretext for holding on to power, President Kolingba came under intense pressure from GIBAFOR to establish a "Conseil National Politique Provisoire de la République" (Provisional National Political Council, CNPPR) and to set up a "Mixed Electoral Commission", which included representatives from all political parties. On 28 May 2001, rebels stormed strategic buildings in Bangui in an unsuccessful coup attempt. The army chief of staff, Abel Abrou, and General François N'Djadder Bedaya were killed, but Patassé regained the upper hand by bringing in at least 300 troops of the Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and Libyan soldiers. In the aftermath of the failed coup, militias loyal to Patassé sought revenge against rebels in many neighborhoods of Bangui and incited unrest including the murder of many political opponents. Eventually, Patassé came to suspect that General François Bozizé was involved in another coup attempt against him, which led Bozizé to flee with loyal troops to Chad. In March 2003, Bozizé launched a surprise attack against Patassé, who was out of the country. Libyan troops and some 1,000 soldiers of Bemba's Congolese rebel organization failed to stop the rebels and Bozizé's forces succeeded in overthrowing Patassé. ==== Civil wars ==== François Bozizé suspended the constitution and named a new cabinet, which included most opposition parties. Abel Goumba was named vice-president. Bozizé established a broad-based National Transition Council to draft a new constitution, and announced that he would step down and run for office once the new constitution was approved. In 2004, the Central African Republic Bush War began as forces opposed to Bozizé took up arms against his government. In May 2005, Bozizé won the presidential election, which excluded Patassé, and in 2006 fighting continued between the government and the rebels. In November 2006, Bozizé's government requested French military support to help them repel rebels who had taken control of towns in the country's northern regions. Though the initial public details of the agreement pertained to logistics and intelligence, by December the French assistance included airstrikes by Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters against rebel positions. The Syrte Agreement in February and the Birao Peace Agreement in April 2007 called for a cessation of hostilities, the billeting of FDPC fighters and their integration with FACA, the liberation of political prisoners, the integration of FDPC into government, an amnesty for the UFDR, its recognition as a political party, and the integration of its fighters into the national army. Several groups continued to fight but other groups signed on to the agreement or similar agreements with the government (e.g., UFR on 15 December 2008). The only major group not to sign an agreement at the time was the CPJP, which continued its activities and signed a peace agreement with the government on 25 August 2012. In 2011, Bozizé was reelected in an election which was widely considered fraudulent. Michel Djotodia took over as president. Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye requested a UN peacekeeping force from the UN Security Council and on 31 May former President Bozizé was indicted for crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide. By the end of the year, there were international warnings of a "genocide" and fighting was largely reprisal attacks on civilians by Seleka's predominantly Muslim fighters and Christian militias called "anti-balaka". French President François Hollande called on the UN Security Council and the African Union to increase their efforts to stabilize the country. On 18 February 2014, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the UN Security Council to immediately deploy 3,000 troops to the country, bolstering the 6,000 African Union soldiers and 2,000 French troops already in the country, to combat civilians being murdered in large numbers. The Séléka government was said to be divided, and in September 2013, Djotodia officially disbanded Seleka, but many rebels refused to disarm, becoming known as ex-Seleka, and veered further out of government control. It is argued that the focus of the initial disarmament efforts exclusively on the Seleka inadvertently handed the anti-Balaka the upper hand, leading to the forced displacement of Muslim civilians by anti-Balaka in Bangui and western Central African Republic. Catherine Samba-Panza was elected interim president by the National Transitional Council, becoming the first ever female Central African president. On 23 July 2014, following Congolese mediation efforts, Séléka and anti-balaka representatives signed a ceasefire agreement in Brazzaville. By the end of 2014, the country was de facto partitioned with the anti-Balaka in the southwest and ex-Seleka in the northeast. On 14 December 2015, Séléka rebel leaders declared an independent Republic of Logone. ==== Touadéra government (2016–present) ==== Presidential elections were held in December 2015. As no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a second round of elections was held on 14 February 2016 with run-offs on 31 March 2016. In the second round of voting, former Prime Minister Faustin-Archange Touadéra was declared the winner with 63% of the vote, defeating Union for Central African Renewal candidate Anicet-Georges Dologuélé, another former Prime Minister. While the elections suffered from many potential voters being absent as they had taken refuge in other countries, the fears of widespread violence were ultimately unfounded, and the African Union regarded the elections as successful. Touadéra was sworn in on 30 March 2016. No representatives of the Seleka rebel group or the "anti-balaka" militias were included in the subsequently formed government. After the end of Touadéra's first term, presidential elections were held on 27 December 2020 with a possible second round planned for 14 February 2021. Former president François Bozizé announced his candidacy on 25 July 2020 but was rejected by the Constitutional Court of the country, which held that Bozizé did not satisfy the "good morality" requirement for candidates because of an international warrant and United Nations sanctions against him for alleged assassinations, torture and other crimes. As large parts of the country were at the time controlled by armed groups, the election could not be conducted in many areas of the country. Some 800 of the country's polling stations, or 14% of the total, were closed due to violence. Three Burundian peacekeepers were killed and an additional two were wounded during the run-up to the election. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra was reelected in the first round of the election in December 2020. Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group have supported President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in the fight against rebels. Russia's Wagner group has been accused of harassing and intimidating civilians. In December 2022, Roger Cohen wrote in The New York Times, "Wagner shock troops form a Praetorian Guard for Mr. Touadéra, who is also protected by Rwandan forces, in return for an untaxed license to exploit and export the Central African Republic's resources" and "one Western ambassador called the Central African Republic...a 'vassal state' of the Kremlin." == Geography == The Central African Republic is a landlocked nation within the interior of the African continent. It is bordered by Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the Congo. The country lies between latitudes 2° and 11°N, and longitudes 14° and 28°E. Much of the country consists of flat or rolling plateau savanna approximately above sea level. In addition to the Fertit Hills in the northeast of the Central African Republic, there are scattered hills in the southwest regions. In the northwest is the Yade Massif, a granite plateau with an altitude of . The Central African Republic contains six terrestrial ecoregions: Northeastern Congolian lowland forests, Northwestern Congolian lowland forests, Western Congolian swamp forests, East Sudanian savanna, Northern Congolian forest-savanna mosaic, and Sahelian Acacia savanna. At , the Central African Republic is the world's 44th-largest country. Much of the southern border is formed by tributaries of the Congo River; the Mbomou River in the east merges with the Uele River to form the Ubangi River, which also comprises portions of the southern border. The Sangha River flows through some of the western regions of the country, while the eastern border lies along the edge of the Nile River watershed. The deforestation rate is about 0.4% per annum, and lumber poaching is commonplace. The Central African Republic had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.28/10, ranking it seventh globally out of 172 countries. In 2008, Central African Republic was the world's least light pollution affected country. The Central African Republic is the focal point of the Bangui Magnetic Anomaly, one of the largest magnetic anomalies on Earth. === Climate === The climate of the Central African Republic is generally tropical, with a wet season that lasts from June to September in the northern regions of the country, and from May to October in the south. During the wet season, rainstorms are an almost daily occurrence, and early morning fog is commonplace. Maximum annual precipitation is approximately in the upper Ubangi region. The northern areas are hot and humid from February to May, but can be subject to the hot, dry, and dusty trade wind known as the Harmattan. The southern regions have a more equatorial climate, but they are subject to desertification, while the extreme northeast regions of the country are a steppe. === Biodiversity === In the southwest, the Dzanga-Sangha National Park is located in a rain forest area. The country is noted for its population of forest elephants and western lowland gorillas. In the north, the Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park is well-populated with wildlife, including leopards, lions, cheetahs and rhinos, and the Bamingui-Bangoran National Park is located in the northeast of the Central African Republic. The parks have been seriously affected by the activities of poachers, particularly those from Sudan, over the past two decades. In the Central African Republic forest cover is around 36% of the total land area, equivalent to 22,303,000 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 23,203,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 22,301,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 2,000 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 9% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity). For the year 2015, 91% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership and 9% private ownership. In 2021, the rate of deforestation in the Central African Republic increased by 71%. ==Government and politics== Politics in the Central African Republic formally take place in a framework of a presidential republic. In this system, the President is the head of state, with a Prime Minister as head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. === Executive branch === The president is elected by popular vote for a six-year term, and the prime minister is appointed by the president. The president also appoints and presides over the Council of Ministers, which initiates laws and oversees government operations. However, as of 2018 the official government is not in control of large parts of the country, which are governed by rebel groups. Acting president since April 2016 is Faustin-Archange Touadéra who followed the interim government under Catherine Samba-Panza, interim prime minister André Nzapayeké. === Legislative branch === The National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) has 140 members, elected for a five-year term using the two-round (or run-off) system. The Supreme Court, or Cour Suprême, is made up of judges appointed by the president. There is also a Constitutional Court, and its judges are also appointed by the president. The prefectures are Bamingui-Bangoran, Bangui, Basse-Kotto, Haute-Kotto, Haut-Mbomou, Kémo, Lobaye, Lim-Pendé, Mambéré, Mambéré-Kadéï, Mbomou, Nana-Mambéré, Ombella-M'Poko, Ouaka, Ouham, Ouham-Fafa, Ouham-Pendé, and Vakaga. The economic prefectures are Nana-Grébizi and Sangha-Mbaéré. ===Foreign relations=== ==== Foreign aid and UN involvement ==== The Central African Republic is heavily dependent on foreign aid, and numerous NGOs provide services that the government does not provide. In 2019, over US$100 million in foreign aid was spent in the country, mostly on humanitarian assistance. In 2006, due to ongoing violence, over 50,000 people in the country's northwest were at risk of starvation, but this was averted due to assistance from the United Nations. On 8 January 2008, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon declared that the Central African Republic was eligible to receive assistance from the Peacebuilding Fund. Three priority areas were identified: first, the reform of the security sector; second, the promotion of good governance and the rule of law; and third, the revitalization of communities affected by conflicts. On 12 June 2008, the Central African Republic requested assistance from the UN Peacebuilding Commission, which was set up in 2005 to help countries emerging from conflict avoid devolving back into war or chaos. In response to concerns of a potential genocide, a peacekeeping force – the International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) – was authorized in December 2013. This African Union force of 6,000 personnel was accompanied by the French Operation Sangaris. === Human rights === The 2009 Human Rights Report by the United States Department of State noted that human rights in the Central African Republic were poor and expressed concerns over numerous government abuses. The U.S. State Department alleged that major human rights abuses such as extrajudicial executions by security forces, torture, beatings, and rape of suspects and prisoners occurred with impunity. It also alleged harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons and detention centers, arbitrary arrest, prolonged pretrial detention and denial of a fair trial, restrictions on freedom of movement, official corruption, and restrictions on workers' rights. Freedom of movement is limited in the northern part of the country "because of actions by state security forces, armed bandits, and other non-state armed entities", and due to fighting between government and anti-government forces, many people have been internally displaced. Violence against children and women in relation to accusations of witchcraft has also been cited as a serious problem in the country. Witchcraft is a criminal offense under the penal code. and the United Nations's Human Development Index ranked the country 188th out of 188 countries surveyed. The Bureau of International Labor Affairs has also mentioned it in its last edition of the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor. == Economy == The per capita income of the Republic is often listed as being approximately $400 a year, one of the lowest in the world, but this figure is based mostly on reported sales of exports and largely ignores the unregistered sale of foods, locally produced alcoholic beverages, diamonds, ivory, bushmeat, and traditional medicine. The currency of the Central African Republic is the CFA franc, which is accepted across the former countries of French West Africa and trades at a fixed rate to the euro. Diamonds constitute the country's most important export, accounting for 40–55% of export revenues, but it is estimated that between 30% and 50% of those produced each year leave the country clandestinely. Bitcoin (BTC) was adopted as an additional legal tender. Lawmakers unanimously adopted a bill that made Bitcoin legal tender alongside the CFA franc and legalized the use of cryptocurrencies. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra signed the measure into law, said his chief of staff Obed Namsio. After an extraordinary meeting on 6 May 2022, COBAC published DECISION D-071-2022 in which it banned the use of crypto currency. It subsequently repealed its status as legal tender. Agriculture is dominated by the cultivation and sale of food crops such as cassava, peanuts, maize, sorghum, millet, sesame, and plantain. The annual growth rate of real GDP is slightly above 3%. The importance of food crops over exported cash crops is indicated by the fact that the total production of cassava, the staple food of most Central Africans, ranges between 200,000 and 300,000 tonnes a year, while the production of cotton, the principal exported cash crop, ranges from 25,000 to 45,000 tonnes a year. Food crops are not exported in large quantities, but still constitute the principal cash crops of the country because Central Africans derive far more income from the periodic sale of surplus food crops than from exported cash crops such as cotton or coffee. The Republic's primary import partner is France (17.1%). Other imports come from the United States (12.3%), India (11.5%), and China (8.2%). Its largest export partner is France (31.2%), followed by Burundi (16.2%), China (12.5%), Cameroon (9.6%), and Austria (7.8%). === Infrastructure === ==== Transportation ==== Two trans-African automobile routes pass through the Central African Republic: the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway and the Lagos-Mombasa Highway. Bangui is the transport hub of the Central African Republic. As of 1999, eight roads connected the city to other main towns in the country, Cameroon, Chad, and South Sudan; of these, only the toll roads are paved. During the rainy season from July to October, some roads are impassable. River ferries sail from the river port at Bangui to Brazzaville and Zongo. The river can be navigated most of the year between Bangui and Brazzaville. From Brazzaville, goods are transported by rail to Pointe-Noire, Congo's Atlantic port. The river port handles the overwhelming majority of the country's international trade and has a cargo handling capacity of 350,000 tons; it has length of wharfs and of warehousing space. ==== Energy ==== The Central African Republic primarily uses hydroelectricity as there are few other low cost resources for generating electricity. Access to electricity is very limited with 15.6% of the total population having electrification, 34.6% in urban areas and 1.5% in rural areas. ==== Communications ==== Presently, the Central African Republic has active television services, radio stations, internet service providers, and mobile phone carriers; Socatel is the leading provider for both internet and mobile phone access throughout the country. The primary governmental regulating bodies of telecommunications are the Ministère des Postes and Télécommunications et des Nouvelles Technologies. In addition, the Central African Republic receives international support on telecommunication related operations from ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) within the International Telecommunication Union to improve infrastructure. ==Demographics== The population of the Central African Republic has almost quadrupled since independence. In 1960, the population was 1,232,000; as of a UN estimate, it is approximately . The United Nations estimates that approximately 4% of the population aged between 15 and 49 is HIV positive. Only 3% of the country has antiretroviral therapy available, compared to 17% coverage in the neighboring countries of Chad and the Republic of the Congo. The nation comprises over 80 ethnic groups, each having its own language. The largest ethnic groups are the Baggara Arabs, Baka, Banda, Bayaka, Fula, Gbaya, Kara, Kresh, Mbaka, Mandja, Ngbandi, Sara, Vidiri, Wodaabe, Yakoma, Yulu, and Zande, with others including Europeans of mostly French descent. The most common ethnic groups are Gbaya (Baya) (28.8%) and Banda (22.9%), comprising together slightly over half of the country's population in 2003. === Languages === The Central African Republic's two official languages are French and Sango (also spelled Sangho), a creole developed as an inter-ethnic lingua franca based on the local Ngbandi language. The Central African Republic is one of the few African countries to have granted official status to an African language. === Religion === According to the 2003 national census, 80.3% of the population was Christian (51.4% Protestant and 28.9% Roman Catholic), 10% was Muslim and 4.5 percent other religious groups, with 5.5 percent having no religious beliefs. More recent work from the Pew Research Center estimated that, as of 2010, Christians constituted 89.8% of the population (60.7% Protestant and 28.5% Catholic) while Muslims made up 8.9%. The Catholic Church claims over 1.5 million adherents, approximately one-third of the population. Indigenous belief (animism) is also practiced, and many indigenous beliefs are incorporated into Christian and Islamic practice. A UN director described religious tensions between Muslims and Christians as being high. There are many missionary groups operating in the country, including Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, Grace Brethren, and Jehovah's Witnesses. While these missionaries are predominantly from the United States, France, Italy, and Spain, many are also from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and other African countries. Large numbers of missionaries left the country when fighting broke out between rebel and government forces in 2002–3, but many of them have now returned to continue their work. According to Overseas Development Institute research, during the crisis ongoing since 2012, religious leaders have mediated between communities and armed groups; they also provided refuge for people seeking shelter. === Education === Public education in the Central African Republic is free and is compulsory from ages 6 to 14. However, approximately half of the adult population of the country is illiterate. The two institutions of higher education in the Central African Republic are the University of Bangui, a public university located in Bangui, which includes a medical school; and Euclid University, an international university. === Health === The largest hospitals in the country are located in the Bangui district. As a member of the World Health Organization, the Central African Republic receives vaccination assistance, such as a 2014 intervention for the prevention of a measles epidemic. In 2007, female life expectancy at birth was 48.2 years, and male life expectancy at birth was 45.1 years. Women's health is poor in the Central African Republic. , the country had the fourth highest maternal mortality rate in the world. The total fertility rate in 2014 was estimated at 4.46 children born/woman. Many births in the country are guided by traditional birth attendants, who often have little or no formal training. Malaria is endemic in the Central African Republic and one of the leading causes of death. According to 2009 estimates, the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is about 4.7% of the adult population (ages 15–49). This is in general agreement with the 2016 United Nations estimate of approximately 4%. Government expenditure on health was US$20 (PPP) per person in 2006 In the 2024 Global Hunger Index, Central African Rep. ranks 119th out of the 127 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2024 GHI scores. With a score of 31.5 == Culture == The nation comprises over 80 ethnic groups, each having its own language. The largest ethnic groups are the Baggara Arabs, Baka, Banda, Bayaka, Fula, Gbaya, Kara, Kresh, Mbaka, Mandja, Ngbandi, Sara, Vidiri, Wodaabe, Yakoma, Yulu, and Zande, with others including Europeans of mostly French descent. === Sports === Football is the country's most popular sport. The national football team is governed by the Central African Football Federation and stages matches at the Barthélemy Boganda Stadium. Basketball also is popular and its national team won the African Championship twice and was the first Sub-Saharan African team to qualify for the Basketball World Cup, in 1974.	[ "French language", "light pollution", "Sapele", "Right to a fair trial", "Roger Cohen", "UN Security Council", "fog", "Joe Biden", "Central African Republic–Chad border", "Unfree labour", "1957 Ubangi-Shari parliamentary election", "United Nations Security Council", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Emperor of Central Africa", "Runga people", "2020–21 Central African general election", "official language", "Private property", "prefecture", "corvée", "child labor", "Central African Republic–Republic of the Congo border", "General Leclerc", "Jill Biden", "alcoholic beverage", "savanna", "Witch-hunt", "Baptists", "Human Development Index", "Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park", "Remand (detention)", "Vidiri people", "bushmeat", "David Dacko", "medical school", "Central African Republic–Sudan border", "N'djili Airport", "Extraordinary general meeting", "Uele River", "Heads of state of the Central African Republic (and Central African Empire)", "Peace Corps", "List of Central African 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"Jean-Pierre Bemba", "Irreligion", "arbitrary arrest and detention", "Congo River", "The New York Times", "Mutiny", "millet", "Fula people", "Paris-Charles de Gaulle", "List of heads of state of the Central African Republic", "Nile River", "Bangui (Prefecture)", "Belgians", "Heads of government of the Central African Republic (and Central African Empire)", "UN Peacebuilding Commission", "Bangui", "Riot", "Yakoma people", "Union of Democratic Forces for Unity", "Central African Empire", "Religious syncretism", "ferry", "André Kolingba", "François Bozizé", "Ouaka", "livestock", "Félix Moloua", "HIV", "UNESCO", "Democratic Evolution Movement of Central Africa", "Samantha Power", "Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état", "Yaoundé Nsimalen International Airport", "Lagos-Mombasa Highway", "Mbomou", "ReliefWeb", "World War I", "Wagner Group", "rape", "AfroBasket", "Abel Goumba", "Protestantism", "Islam in Central African Republic", "hydroelectricity", "inequality-adjusted Human Development Index", "Ban 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"Bangassou", "History of slavery", "Human rights in the Central African Republic", "Outline of the Central African Republic", "independence", "Sangha River", "Central African Republic Civil War", "Vakaga", "Unitary state", "Nana-Mambéré", "28th meridian east", "Simplice Sarandji", "Lim-Pendé", "Majority", "Haut-Mbomou", "+236", "List of countries and dependencies by area", "Bangui Magnetic Anomaly", "traditional medicine", "Treaty of Fez", "Kongo-Wara rebellion", "France", "United States of Latin Africa", "Anicet-Georges Dologuélé", "witchcraft", "wet season", "republic", "Operation Caban", "Mandja people", "steppe", "André Nzapayeké", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "drainage basin", "sesame", "Illegal logging", "Ange-Félix Patassé", "AllAfrica.com", "waterway", "Quatro de Fevereiro Airport", "Composite (finance)", "Barthélemy Boganda Stadium", "Mambéré", "Forest Landscape Integrity Index", "cotton", "Jean-Bedel Bokassa", "dried fish", "aid", "Thomson Reuters Foundation", "Basse-Kotto", 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"life expectancy at birth", "Northeastern Congolian lowland forests", "Second World War", "head of government", "List of Presidents of the National Assembly of the Central African Republic", "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie", "University of Bangui", "Dassault Mirage 2000", "Bamingui-Bangoran National Park", "Central African Republic–South Sudan border", "Ferrous metallurgy", "granite", "United States Department of Labor", "head of state", "List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor", "Lake Chad", "Vladimir Putin", "Sahel" ]
5,479	History of the Central African Republic	The history of the Central African Republic is roughly composed of four distinct periods. The earliest period of settlement began around 10,000 years ago when nomadic people first began to settle, farm and fish in the region. The next period began around 10,000 years prior. == Early history == Approximately 10,000 years ago, desertification forced hunter-gatherer societies south into the Sahel regions of northern Central Africa, where some groups settled and began farming as part of the Neolithic Revolution. Initial farming of white yam progressed into millet and sorghum, and then later the domestication of African oil palm improved the groups' nutrition and allowed for expansion of the local populations. Bananas arrived in the region and added an important source of carbohydrates to the diet; they were also used in the production of alcohol. This Agricultural Revolution, combined with a "Fish-stew Revolution", in which fishing began to take place, and the use of boats, allowed for the transportation of goods. Products were often moved in ceramic pots, which are the first known examples of artistic expression from the region's inhabitants. Ironworking arrived in the region by around 1000 BC, likely from early Bantu cultures in what is today southeast Nigeria and/or Cameroon. The site of Gbabiri (in the Central African Republic) has yielded evidence of iron metallurgy, from a reduction furnace and blacksmith workshop; with earliest dates of 896–173 BC and 907–196 BC respectively. Some earlier iron metallurgy dates of 2,000 BC from the site of Oboui (also in the Central Africa Republic) have also been proposed, but these are disputed by some archaeologists. During the Bantu Migrations from about 1000 BC to AD 1000, Ubangian-speaking people spread eastward from Cameroon to Sudan, Bantu-speaking people settled in the southwestern regions of the CAR, and Central Sudanic-speaking people settled along the Ubangi River in what is today Central and East CAR. Production of copper, salt, dried fish, and textiles dominated the economic trade in the Central African region. The territory of modern Central African Republic is known to have been settled from at least the 7th century on by overlapping empires, including the Kanem-Bornu, Ouaddai, Baguirmi, and Dafour groups based on the Lake Chad region and along the Upper Nile. == Early modern history == During the 16th and 17th centuries Muslim slave traders began to raid the region and their captives were shipped to the Mediterranean coast, Europe, Arabia, the Western Hemisphere, or to the slave ports and factories along the West African coast. During the 18th century Bandia-Nzakara peoples established the Bangassou Kingdom along the Ubangi river. == Colonial period == The European occupation of Central African territory began in the late 19th century during the Scramble for Africa. Count Savorgnan de Brazza established the French Congo and sent expeditions up the Ubangi River from Brazzaville in an effort to expand France's claims to territory in Central Africa. Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom also competed to establish their claims to territory in the region. In 1875, the Sudanese sultan Rabih az-Zubayr governed Upper-Oubangui, which included present-day Central African Republic. but they did not consolidate their control over Ubangi-Shari until 1903 when they established colonial administration throughout the territory. ===Growing economy and World War II=== During the 1930s, cotton, tea, and coffee emerged as important cash crops in Ubangi-Shari and the mining of diamonds and gold began in earnest. Several cotton companies were granted purchasing monopolies over large areas of cotton production and were able to fix the prices paid to cultivators, which assured profits for their shareholders. In September 1940, during the Second World War, pro-Gaullist French officers took control of Ubangi-Shari. In August 1940, the territory responded, with the rest of the AEF, to the call from General Charles de Gaulle to fight for Free France. His cousin, David Dacko, replaced him as head of Government. On 13 August 1960 the Central African Republic became an independent country and David Dacko became its first president. == Independence == David Dacko began to consolidate his power soon after taking office in 1960. He amended the Constitution to transform his regime into a one-party state with a strong presidency elected for a term of seven years. On 5 January 1964, Dacko was elected in an election in which he ran alone. During his first term as president, Dacko significantly increased diamond production in the Central African Republic by eliminating the monopoly on mining held by concessionary companies and decreeing that any Central African could dig for diamonds. He also succeeded in having a diamond-cutting factory built in Bangui. Dacko encouraged the rapid "Centralafricanization" of the country's administration, which was accompanied by growing corruption and inefficiency, and he expanded the number of civil servants, which greatly increased the portion of the national budget needed to pay salaries. On 4 December 1976, the republic became a monarchy – the Central African Empire – with the promulgation of the imperial constitution and the coronation of the president as Emperor Bokassa I. and ruled with a military junta, the Military Committee for National Recovery (CMRN) for four years. Kolingba's two major political opponents, Abel Goumba and Ange-Félix Patassé, boycotted these elections because their parties were not allowed to participate. By 1990, inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall, a pro-democracy movement became very active. In May 1990, a letter signed by 253 prominent citizens asked for the convocation of a National Conference. André Kolingba refused this request and instead detained several opponents. Pressure from a group of locally represented countries and agencies called GIBAFOR (Groupe informel des bailleurs de fonds et representants residents), the United States, France, Japan, Germany, EU, World Bank and the UN finally led André Kolingba to agree, in principle, to hold free elections in October 1992. Alleging irregularities, André Kolingba opted to suspend the results of the elections and held on to power. GIBAFOR applied intense pressure on him to establish a Provisional National Political Council (Conseil National Politique Provisoire de la République / CNPPR) and to set up a "Mixed Electoral Commission", which included representatives from all political parties. === Ange-Félix Patassé === When elections were finally held in 1993, again with the help of the international community and the UN Electoral Assistance Unit, Ange-Félix Patassé led in the first round and Kolingba came in fourth behind Abel Goumba and David Dacko. In the second round, Patassé won 53% of the vote while Goumba won 45.6%. Most of Patassé's support came from Gbaya, Kare, and Kaba voters in seven heavily populated prefectures in the northwest while Goumba's support came largely from ten less populated prefectures in the south and east. Patassé's party, the Mouvement pour la Libération du Peuple Centrafricain (MLPC) or Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People, gained a plurality but not an absolute majority of seats in parliament, which meant it required coalition partners to rule effectively. Patassé relieved former president Kolingba of his military rank of General in March 1994 and then charged several former ministers with various crimes. Ange-Félix Patassé also removed many Yakoma from important, lucrative posts in the government. Two hundred predominantly Yakoma members of the presidential guard were also dismissed or reassigned to the army. Kolingba's RDC loudly proclaimed that Patassé's government was conducting a "witch hunt" against the Yakoma. A new constitution was approved on 28 December 1994 and promulgated on 14 January 1995, but this constitution, like those before it, did not have much impact on the country's politics. In 1996 - 1997, reflecting steadily decreasing public confidence in the government's erratic behaviour, three mutinies against Patassé's administration were accompanied by widespread destruction of property and heightened ethnic tension. On 25 January 1997, the Bangui Agreements, which provided for the deployment of an inter-African military mission, the Mission Interafricaine de Surveillance des Accords de Bangui (MISAB), were signed. Mali's former president, Amadou Touré, served as chief mediator and brokered the entry of ex-mutineers into the government on 7 April 1997. The MISAB mission was later replaced by a U.N. peacekeeping force, the Mission des Nations Unies en RCA (MINURCA). In 1998, parliamentary elections resulted in Kolingba's RDC winning 20 out of 109 seats, constituting a significant political comeback. In 1999, however, Patassé won free elections to become president for a second term, despite widespread public anger in urban centres over his rule. === François Bozizé === On 28 May 2001, rebels stormed strategic buildings in Bangui in an unsuccessful coup attempt. The army chief of staff, Abel Abrou, and General François N'Djadder Bedaya were killed, but Patasse retained power with the assistance of troops from Libya and rebel FLC soldiers from the DRC led by Jean-Pierre Bemba. In the aftermath of the failed coup, militias loyal to Patassé sought revenge against rebels in many neighborhoods of the capital, Bangui. They incited unrest which resulted in the destruction of homes as well as the torture and murder of opponents. Patassé came to suspect that General François Bozizé was involved in another coup attempt against him, which led Bozizé to flee with loyal troops to Chad. In March 2003, François Bozizé launched a surprise attack against Patassé, who was out of the country. This time, Libyan troops and some 1,000 soldiers of Bemba's Congolese rebel organization failed to stop the rebels, who took control of the country and thus succeeded in overthrowing Patassé. On 15 March 2003, rebels moved into Bangui and installed their François Bozizé, as president. Patassé was found guilty of major crimes in Bangui. CAR brought a case against him and Jean-Pierre Bemba to the International Criminal Court, accusing them both of multiple crimes in suppressing one of the mutinies against Patasse. Bozizé's won the 2005 presidential election, and his coalition was the leader in the 2005 legislative election. ==== 2003 - 2007: Bush War ==== After François Bozizé seized power in 2003, the Central African Republic Bush War began with the rebellion by the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), led by Michel Djotodia. This quickly escalated into major fighting during 2004. The UFDR rebel forces consisted of three allies, the Groupe d'action patriotique pour la liberation de Centrafrique (GAPLC), the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP), the People's Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD), the Movement of Central African Liberators for Justice (MLCJ), and the Front démocratique Centrafricain (FDC). In early 2006, Bozizé's government appeared stable. On 13 April 2007, a peace agreement between the government and the UFDR was signed in Birao. The agreement provided for an amnesty for the UFDR, its recognition as a political party, and the integration of its fighters into the army. Further negotiations resulted in an agreement in 2008 for reconciliation, a unity government, and local elections in 2009 and parliamentary and presidential elections in 2010. The new unity government that resulted was formed in January 2009. === 2012 - 2014: Civil War === In late 2012, a coalition of old rebel groups under new name of Séléka renewed fighting. Two other, previously unknown groups, the Alliance for Revival and Rebuilding (A2R) and the Patriotic Convention for Saving the Country (CPSK) also joined the coalition, as well as the Chadian group FPR. On 27 December 2012, CAR President Francois Bozizé requested international assistance to help with the rebellion, in particular from France and the United States. French President François Hollande rejected the plea, saying that the 250 French troops stationed at Bangui M'Poko International Airport are there "in no way to intervene in the internal affairs". On 11 January 2013, a ceasefire agreement was signed Libreville, Gabon. The rebels dropped their demand for President François Bozizé to resign, but he had to appoint a new prime minister from the opposition party by 18 January 2013. On 13 January, Bozizé signed a decree that removed Prime Minister Faustin-Archange Touadéra from power, as part of the agreement with the rebel coalition. On 17 January, Nicolas Tiangaye was appointed prime minister. On 24 March 2013, rebel forces heavily attacked the capital Bangui and took control of major structures, including the presidential palace. Bozizé's family fled across the river to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then to Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon where he was granted temporary refuge. ====Djotodia==== Séléka leader Michel Djotodia declared himself president. Djotodia said that there would be a three-year transitional period and that Tiangaye would continue to serve as prime minister. Djotodia promptly suspended the constitution and dissolved the government, as well as the National Assembly. He then reappointed Tiangaye as prime minister on 27 March 2013. Top military and police officers met with Djotodia and recognized him as president on 28 March 2013. Catherine Samba-Panza assumed the office of interim president on 23 January 2014. Peacekeeping largely transitioned from the Economic Community of Central African States-led MICOPAX to the African Union-led MISCA, which was deployed in December 2013. In September 2014, MISCA transferred its authority to the UN-led MINUSCA while the French peacekeeping mission was known as Operation Sangaris. === 2015 – Present: Civil War === By 2015, there was little government control outside of the capital, Bangui. The dissolution of Séléka led to ex-Séléka fighters forming new militias that often fought each other. By 2017, more than 14 armed groups vied for territory, and about 60% of the country's territory was controlled by four notable factions led by ex-Séléka leaders, including the FRP led by Adam; the Union Pour la Paix en Centrafrique (UPC), led by Ali Darassa, the Mouvement patriotique pour la Centrafrique (MPC) led by Mahamat Al-Khatim. The factions have been described as ethnic in nature with the FPRC associated with the Gula and Runga people and the UPC associated with the Fulani. but sporadic fighting continued. In February 2016, after a peaceful election, the former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadéra was elected president. In October 2016, France announced that Operation Sangaris, its peacekeeping mission in the country, was a success and largely withdrew its troops. Tensions erupted in competition between ex-Séléka militias arising over control of a goldmine in November 2016, where a coalition formed by the MPC attacked the UPC. The fight for Bambari in early 2017 displaced 20,000. of FPRC was killed by MINUSCA after crossing one of the red lines. At the same time, MINUSCA negotiated the removal of Darassa from the city. This led to UPC to find new territory, spreading the fighting from urban to rural areas previously spared. The thinly spread MINUSCA relied on Ugandan as well as American special forces to keep the peace in the southeast as they were part of a campaign to eliminate the Lord's Resistance Army but the mission ended in April 2017. About 15,000 people fled from their homes in an attack in May and six U.N. peacekeepers were killed – the deadliest month for the mission yet. In June 2017, another ceasefire was signed in Rome by the government and 14 armed groups including FPRC but the next day fighting between an FPRC faction and Anti-balaka militias killed more than 100 people. In October 2017, another ceasefire was signed between the UPC, the FPRC, and Anti-balaka groups. The FPRC announced Ali Darassa as coalition vice-president but fighting continued afterward. Further clashes between the UPC and MINUSCA/government forces occurred early in 2019. ====Conflicts in Western and Northwestern CAR==== In Western CAR, a new rebel group called Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation (3R), with no known links to Séléka or Anti-balaka, formed in 2015. Self-proclaimed General Sidiki Abass claimed 3R would protect Muslim Fulani people from an Antibalaka militia led by Abbas Rafal. 3R are accused of displacing 17,000 people in November 2016 and at least 30,000 people in the Ouham-Pendé prefecture in December 2016. in November 2017. The conflict displaced 60,000 people since December 2017. The MNLC, founded in October 2017, was led by Ahamat Bahar, a former member and co-founder of FPRC and MRC, and is allegedly backed by Fulani fighters from Chad. The Christian militant group RJ was formed in 2013, mostly by members of the presidential guard of former president Ange Felix Patassé, and were composed mainly of ethnic Sara-Kaba. ==== 2020s ==== In December 2020, President Faustin Archange Touadéra was reelected in the first round of the presidential election. The opposition did not accept the result because of allegations of fraud and irregularities. Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group have supported President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in the fight against rebels. Russia's Wagner group has been accused of harassing and intimidating civilians.	[ "Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza", "Kaba languages", "Kongo-Wara rebellion", "January 2019 Bambari clashes", "France", "Movement of Central African Liberators for Justice", "MISCA", "tax", "President for life", "Bangui", "Journal of African Archaeology", "Yakoma people", "Sudan", "Charles de Gaulle", "tea", "Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation", "salt", "Free France", "Central African Republic Bush War", "Nile", "Union of Democratic Forces for Unity", "BBC News", "Cameroon", "Central African Empire", "Ange-Félix Patassé", "textile", "AllAfrica.com", "Fulani", "André Kolingba", "François Bozizé", "Kare language (Adamawa)", "Ndélé", "Ouaka", "ceramic", "interim president", "Bambari", "Republic of Logone", "Zande people", "Paoua", "Concessionary company", "cotton", "Taipei Times", "Prime Minister of the Central African Republic", "dried fish", "Germany", "Séléka", "The New Humanitarian", "Belgium", "Bantu expansion", "Ubangian", "human rights violations", "Noureddine Adam", "Union Pour la Paix en Centrafrique", "UNESCO", "Voyage au Congo", "Kaba language", "Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état", "U.S. Department of State", "United Nations Security Council Resolution 1159", "ReliefWeb", "Catherine Samba-Panza", "Federation of French Equatorial Africa", "Democratic Republic of the Congo", "Economic Community of Central African States", "United States", "Kanem Empire", "Bangui Agreements", "Elaeis guineensis", "André Gide", "Ouaddai Kingdom", "National Assembly of the Central African Republic", "Wagner Group", "David Dacko", "Morocco", "Migration (human)", "European Union", "Abel Goumba", "Banda (CAR)", "Operation Sangaris", "Lord's Resistance Army", "Fusion of powers", "Central African Republic conflict (2012–present)", "Congo-Nile divide", "Séléka CPSK-CPJP-UFDR", "United Kingdom", "1958 French constitutional referendum", "Mouvement patriotique pour la Centrafrique", "2001 Central African Republic coup d'état attempt", "French Chad", "Michel Djotodia", "People's Republic of China", "Fulani people", "Ubangi River", "Firearm", "German Cameroon", "Leopold II of Belgium", "Joseph Zoundeiko", "François Hollande", "Bouar", "German Empire", "Faustin-Archange Touadéra", "Republic of the Congo", "Popular Front for the Rebirth of Central African Republic", "Scramble for Africa", "Amadou Toumani Touré", "MINUSCA", "French Constitution of 1946", "Protestant", "Constitution of the Central African Republic", "African trypanosomiasis", "Monopoly", "1979 Central African Republic coup d'état", "African Union", "Yaounde", "Popular Front for Recovery", "Gbaya people", "World Bank", "Oubangui River", "National Assembly (Central African Republic)", "Nigeria", "diamond", "Mission (Christianity)", "2020 Central African general election", "sorghum", "Bantu languages", "Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace", "Nicolas Tiangaye", "United Nations", "Coup d'état", "People's Army for the Restoration of Democracy (CAR)", "Neolithic Revolution", "copper", "International Criminal Court", "artistic expression", "Barthélemy Boganda", "plantation", "Associated Press", "2015–16 Central African general election", "Ouham-Pendé", "Ubangi-Shari", "Dafour", "Aiki language", "gold", "Brazzaville", "Bangui M'Poko International Airport", "cash crop", "Baguirmi Kingdom", "coffee", "Upper Nile, Sudan", "Emperor Bokassa I", "Birao", "authoritarian regime", "Rabih az-Zubayr", "Coronation of Bokassa I", "French Congo", "Central Africa", "Neolithic", "Second World War", "Dioscorea rotundata", "Battle of Kousséri", "Kara people", "Sidiki Abass", "Central Sudanic", "Libreville", "Agence France-Presse", "UN", "President of France", "Jean-Pierre Bemba", "Revolution and Justice", "Sangha River", "Anti-balaka", "Gabon", "Reuters", "Brazzaville Conference", "facts on the ground", "List of heads of government of the Central African Republic and Central African Empire", "Ferrous metallurgy", "Congo-Ocean Railway", "USA Today", "French Equatorial Africa", "WP:SDNONE", "millet", "Google News", "Japan", "Newsweek", "Jean-Bédel Bokassa", "Lake Chad", "Congo Free State", "desertification", "Central African Republic", "Ali Darassa" ]
5,480	Geography of the Central African Republic	The Central African Republic is a landlocked nation within the interior of the African continent. It is bordered by Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo. Much of the country consists of flat, or rolling plateau savanna, about above sea level. In the northeast are the Fertit Hills, and there are scattered hills in the southwestern part of the country. To the northwest is the Karre Mountains (also known as Yade Massif), a granite plateau with an altitude of . At , the Central African Republic is the world's 45th-largest country (after Somalia). It is comparable in size to Ukraine. Much of the southern border is formed by tributaries of the Congo River, with the Mbomou River in the east merging with the Uele River to form the Ubangi River. In the west, the Sangha River flows through part of the country. The eastern border lies along the edge of the Congo-Nile watershed. In the Central African Republic forest cover is around 36% of the total land area, equivalent to 22,303,000 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 23,203,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 22,301,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 2,000 hectares (ha). Of the naturally regenerating forest 9% was reported to be primary forest (consisting of native tree species with no clearly visible indications of human activity). For the year 2015, 91% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership and 9% private ownership. In 2021, the rate of deforestation in the Central African Republic increased by 71%. The forest is highly diverse and includes commercially important species of Ayous, Sapele and Sipo. == Climate == The climate of the Central African Republic is generally a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw), although there are areas with a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am) and in the north there is also a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen BSh). There is a wet season and a dry season, and the temperature is hot throughout the year. The northern areas are subject to harmattan winds, which are hot, dry, and carry dust. The tip of the northern regions have been subject to desertification. The remainder of the country is prone to flooding from nearby rivers. About one third of the Central African Republic's population do not have access to clean water.	[ "forest cover", "desertification", "Spain", "gold", "Law of the Sea", "Republic of the Congo", "deforestation", "Deutscher Wetterdienst", "primary forest", "Koundé, Central African Republic", "tripoint", "Vakaga", "New South Wales", "Aoukal river", "uranium", "Sapele", "Lokoti", "Ukraine", "Köppen climate classification", "Somalia", "Biodiversity", "Sudan", "Ozone Layer Protection", "Ayous", "Republic of Congo", "Democratic Republic of the Congo", "landlocked", "Endangered Species", "Sangha-Mbaéré", "semi-arid climate", "tropical monsoon climate", "Ezo, Sudan", "Mont Ngaoui", "List of countries and outlying territories by total area", "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change", "harmattan", "Texas", "State ownership", "petroleum", "Lumber", "Cameroon", "Sangha River", "European Union", "Danish Meteorological Institute", "Oubangui River", "Nuclear Test Ban", "Tropical Timber 94", "Congo River", "Entandrophragma utile", "Manitoba", "Haut-Mbomou", "Private property", "diamond", "Uele River", "pt:República Centro-Africana", "Nana-Mambéré", "Congo-Nile watershed", "Desertification", "WP:SDNONE", "Africa", "Garoua Boulai", "hydropower", "Chad", "tropical savanna climate", "South Sudan", "Central African Republic", "Ubangi River", "Karre Mountains", "Mbomou River" ]
5,481	Demographics of the Central African Republic	Demographic features of the population of the Central African Republic include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. There are more than 80 ethnic groups in the Central African Republic (CAR), each with its own language. The largest ethnic groups are Gbaya (Baya) 28.8%, Banda 22.9%, Mandjia 9.9%, Sara 7.9%, M'Baka-Bantu 7.9%, Arab-Fulani (Peuhl) 6%, Mbum 6%, Ngbanki 5.5%, Zande-Nzakara 3%, other Central African Republic ethnic groups 2%, non-Central African Republic ethnic groups .1%, as of 2003. Sangho, the language of a small group along the Oubangui River, is the national language spoken by the majority of Central Africans. Only a small part of the population has more than an elemental knowledge of French, the official language. More than 55% of the population of the CAR lives in rural areas. The chief agricultural areas are around the Bossangoa and Bambari. Bangui, Berberati, Bangassou, and Bossangoa are the most densely populated urban centers. == Population == According to the total population was in , compared to only 1 327 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 40.4%, 55.6% were between 15 and 65 years of age, while 4% were 65 years or older. == Vital statistics == Registration of vital events is not complete in the Central African Republic. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates. }} \|} Source: UN DESA, World Population Prospects, 2022 ===Demographic and Health Surveys=== Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR): === Life expectancy === == Ethnic groups == An approximate distribution of the ethnic groups is shown in the chart below: == Languages == Sango (lingua franca and official language), French (official), tribal languages note: animistic beliefs and practices strongly influence the Christian majority	[ "Azande people", "population", "Religion in the Central African Republic", "Sara people", "Demography", "Aka people", "Banda people", "French language", "Bangui", "Yakoma people", "Indigenous religions", "Vidiri people", "Demographics of Africa", "Protestant", "fertility rate", "Population pyramid", "Sangho", "Bangassou", "Mandja people", "Kara people", "Mbum", "Gbaya people", "Bossangoa", "List of ethnic groups of Africa", "Ethnic group", "Baka people (Cameroon and Gabon)", "Wodaabe", "Yulu people", "WP:SDNONE", "Catholic Church in the Central African Republic", "population density", "Berberati", "Sango language", "Fula people", "UN DESA", "Bambari", "net reproduction rate", "Baggara", "Islam in the Central African Republic", "Zande people", "Ngbandi people", "Mbaka people", "Central African Republic", "Ubangi River", "Kresh people" ]
5,482	Politics of the Central African Republic	The politics of the Central African Republic formally take place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic. In this system, the President is the head of state, with a Prime Minister as head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. Changes in government have occurred in recent years by three methods: violence, negotiations, and elections. Both François Bozizé and Michel Djotodia assumed the Presidency through takeover by violent means; however, elections were held in March 2005 and promised in 2013. A ceasefire agreement in January 2013 called for a multipartisan unity government. The government was deposed on 13 March 2003 by forces under the rebel leader Bozizé, who promised elections in 18 to 30 months. A new cabinet was set up on 1 April 2003. Elections were held on 13 March 2005. On 11 January 2013, a ceasefire was signed by the Séléka rebel coalition, which had aimed to bring down the government of President Bozizé. According to this agreement, a new unity government would be formed. The President would appoint a new prime minister from the opposition parties, and the National Assembly of the Central African Republic would be dissolved and new legislative elections would be held within twelve months. However, two months later, the Séléka rebels felt their terms were not being met, and at the culmination of the Central African Civil War, they attacked and took the capital, Bangui. The president, Bozizé, fled to neighboring Cameroon via the Democratic Republic of Congo on 24 March 2013. On 14 December 2015, a new constitution by referendum and ratified on 27 March 2016. Since 30 March 2016, Faustin-Archange Touadéra is the president of the Central African Republic. ==Executive branch== \|President \|Faustin-Archange Touadéra \|Independent \|30 March 2016 \|- \|Prime Minister \|Félix Moloua \|Independent \|7 February 2022 \|- \|} The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term, the prime minister is appointed by the president. The president also appoints and presides over the Council of Ministers, which initiates laws and oversees government operations. ==Legislative branch== Since 27 March 2016, the Parliament of the Central African Republic is composed of two bodies: the National Assembly and the Senate. The National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) has 105 members, elected for a five-year term using the two-round (or Run-off) system. The Senate (Sénat) will have members, elected for a five-year term using an indirect vote. ==Political parties and elections== ==Judicial branch== The Supreme Court, or Cour Supreme, is made up of judges appointed by the president. There is also a Constitutional Court, and its judges are also appointed by the president. ==Administrative divisions== The Central African Republic is divided in 14 prefectures (prefectures), 2 economic prefectures* (prefectures economiques), and 1 commune; Bamingui-Bangoran, Bangui, Basse-Kotto, Gribingui, Haute-Kotto, Haute-Sangha, Haut-Mbomou, Kemo-Gribingui, Lobaye, Mbomou, Nana-Mambere, Ombella-Mpoko, Ouaka, Ouham, Ouham-Pende, Sangha, Vakaga. ==International organization participation== ACCT, ACP, AfDB, BDEAC, CCC, CEEAC, ECA, FAO, FZ, G-77, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, ITU, NAM, OAU, OIC (observer), OPCW, UDEAC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WCL, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO	[ "semi-presidential system", "Séléka", "International Monetary Fund", "International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement", "International Finance Corporation", "International Confederation of Free Trade Unions", "IOC", "Heads of government of the Central African Republic (and Central African Empire)", "Faustin-Archange Touadéra", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "Parliament of the Central African Republic", "Executive power", "Interpol (organization)", "UNESCO", "United Nations Industrial Development Organization", "ITU", "Bangui", "Senate of the Central African Republic", "Development Bank of the Central African States", "Customs Cooperation Council", "Intelsat", "republic", "head of government", "Independent politician", "International Civil Aviation Organization", "International Development Association", "Constitution of the Central African Republic", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "Central African Civil War", "National Assembly of the Central African Republic", "Two-round system", "Kemo-Gribingui", "Organisation of African Unity", "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development", "Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique", "World Health Organization", "African Development Bank", "Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons", "International Labour Organization", "Non-Aligned Movement", "Cameroon", "Customs and Economic Union of Central Africa", "CEEAC", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "Central African Republic Council of Ministers", "International Fund for Agricultural Development", "Franc zone", "pt:República Centro-Africana", "Heads of state of the Central African Republic (and Central African Empire)", "François Bozizé", "OIC", "Group of 77", "United Nations", "World Confederation of Labour", "WP:SDNONE", "Democratic Republic of Congo", "International Criminal Court", "Universal Postal Union", "World Tourism Organization", "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa", "World Trade Organization", "head of state", "African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States", "World Meteorological Organization", "Michel Djotodia", "Legislative power", "Central African Republic", "Félix Moloua" ]
5,483	Economy of the Central African Republic	{{Infobox economy \|country = the Central African Republic \|image = OBangui Hotel.jpg \|image_size = 310px \|caption = OBangui Hotel in Bangui \|currency = \|fixed exchange = \|year = Calendar year \|organs = AU, AfCFTA (signed), WTO, ECCAS \|group = \|gdp = \|gini = 56.2 (2008) \|hdi = \|edbr = 184th (below average, 2020) \|labor = 1,919,063 (2019) \|occupations = \|unemployment = 6.5% (2019) \|industries = gold and diamond mining, logging, brewing, textiles, footwear, assembly of bicycles and motorcycles \|exports = $113.7 million (2017 est.) \|revenue = 282.9 million (2017 est.) with an estimated annual per capita income of just $529 as measured nominally in 2024. Sparsely populated and landlocked, the Central African Republic is overwhelmingly agrarian. Principal food crops include cassava, peanuts, sorghum, millet, maize, sesame, and plantains. Principal cash crops for export include cotton, coffee, and tobacco. Timber has accounted for about 16% of export earnings and the diamond industry for nearly 54%. == Forestry == In 2014, the country exported 59.3 million US dollars of forest products such as timber. This accounts for 40% of total export earnings in the C.A.R. Foreign companies are involved in illegal logging activities in the country. For example, in 2013, the French Industrie forestière de Batalimo (IFB), Lebanese Société d’exploitation forestière centrafricaine (SEFCA) and Chinese Vicwood Group reportedly made illegal tax payments totalling €3,7 million to the Ministry of Finance under the presidency of Michel Djotodia, as well as monthly payments to Séléka fighters to safeguard their installations. SEFCA also paid an additional "advance" of €380,876 directly to Djotodia's government. In 2014, the same companies paid approximately €127,864 to Anti-balaka militias at road checkpoints. The ongoing timber trade has been linked since 2021 to a "tripartite agreement" between government officials, Wagner Group mercenaries, and a Russian company from Saint Petersburg named Bois Rouge, with Wagner having branched out into the timber industry and logging a forest in Lobaye. The Wagner mercenaries reportedly invaded and "emptied" entire villages to log timber at virtually no cost, creating a potential revenue of up to $890 million on international markets. == Natural resources == The country has rich natural resources in the form of diamonds, gold, uranium, and other minerals. Central African Republic produced in 2019: 730 thousand tons of cassava; 511 thousand tons of yam (7th largest producer in the world); 143 thousand tons of peanut; 140 thousand tons of taro; 138 thousand tons of banana; 120 thousand tons of sugar cane; 90 thousand tons of maize; 87 thousand tons of plantain; 75 thousand tons of vegetable; 36 thousand tons of orange; 30 thousand tons of sorghum; 21 thousand tons of cotton; 19 thousand tons of pumpkin; 17 thousand tons of pineapple; 12 thousand tons of mango; 10 thousand tons of millet; 10 thousand tons of coffee; 8.5 thousand tons of avocado; 6.7 thousand tons of sesame seed; In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products. == Finance and banking == The financial sector of the CAR, the smallest in the CEMAC, plays a limited role in supporting economic growth. Suffering from weak market infrastructure and legal and judicial frameworks, the financial system remains small, undeveloped, and dominated by commercial banks. Because of economic and security concerns, financial institutions, and particularly microfinance institutions (MFIs), have consolidated their business in the capital, Bangui, over the past few years. With less than 1% of the total population holding a bank account, access to financial services is extremely limited in the CAR. Microfinance accounts only for 1% of the total credit facilities, serving 0.5 percent of the population. Low levels of mobile penetration – which stand at 30%, a significantly lower percentage than in the rest of the continent – dampen the potential expansion of access to financial services through mobile technology. == Economic aid and development == The CAR is heavily dependent upon multilateral foreign aid and the presence of numerous NGO's which provide numerous services which the government fails to provide. As one UNDP official put it, the CAR is a country "sous serum," or a country hooked up to an IV (Mehler 2005:150). The presence of numerous foreign personnel and organizations in the country, including peacekeepers and refugee camps, provides an important source of revenue for many Central Africans. In the 40 years since independence, the CAR has made slow progress toward economic development. == Exchange rates ==	[ "traditional medicine", "devaluation", "France", "tax base", "Least developed countries", "Bangui", "List of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI", "sesame seed", "pumpkin", "Economy of Africa", "Landlocked country", "United Nations Security Council", "per capita income", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Lebanon", "sesame", "Kinshasa", "footwear", "Lumber", "Cameroon", "maize", "textile", "pineapple", "Intravenous therapy", "gross domestic product", "World Trade Organization", "brewing", "cotton", "logging", "NGO", "Séléka", "CEMAC", "Purchasing power parity", "gross national product", "bitcoin", "subsistence agriculture", "chemicals", "U.S. Department of State", "Saint Petersburg", "cassava", "motorcycle", "bushmeat", "Economic Community of Central African States", "UNDP", "Minister of Finance and Budget (Central African Republic)", "Wagner Group", "budget", "Human Development Report", "Boali", "sorghum beer", "International Labour Organization", "Bitcoin", "List of countries by Human Development Index", "Mercenary", "yam (vegetable)", "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa", "Central African CFA franc", "List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita", "Michel Djotodia", "African Continental Free Trade Agreement", "United Nations Development Programme", "mango", "The World Factbook", "Barbados", "Yam (vegetable)", "informal economy", "Plantain (cooking)", "macroeconomics", "China", "African Union", "Secondary sector of the economy", "Gross domestic product", "trade", "World Bank", "Tertiary sector of the economy", "List of countries by GDP (nominal)", "banana", "pharmaceuticals", "diamond", "sorghum", "United Nations", "Lobaye", "Alcoholic beverage", "bicycle", "Ease of doing business index", "International Monetary Fund", "gold", "petroleum products", "taro", "cash crop", "sugar cane", "coffee", "hydroelectric plant", "infrastructure", "List of countries by GDP (PPP)", "Primary sector of the economy", "ivory", "buttonquail", "Global Witness", "peanut", "List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita", "food", "Anti-balaka", "Orange (fruit)", "machinery", "revenue", "vegetable", "avocado", "Mining industry of the Central African Republic", "Cooking banana", "millet", "Least Developed Countries", "mining", "Central African Republic" ]
5,484	Telecommunications in the Central African Republic	Telecommunications in the Central African Republic includes radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet as well as the postal system. Persistent conflict has hampered telecommunication and media development in the Central African Republic. There are active television services, radio stations, internet service providers, and mobile phone carriers. Radio is the most-popular communications medium. Socatel is the leading provider for both Internet and mobile phone access throughout the country. The primary governmental regulating bodies of telecommunications are the Ministère des Postes (Ministry of Posts), and Télécommunications et des Nouvelles Technologies (Telecommunications and New Technologies). Support is received from the ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) within the International Telecommunication Union to improve telecommunications infrastructure. ==Radio and television== Radio stations: the State-owned radio network, Radio Centrafrique, is supplemented by a small number of privately owned broadcast stations as well as a few community radio stations; transmissions of at least 2 international broadcasters are available (2007). The BBC World Service (90.2 FM), Radio France Internationale, and the Voice of America are available via local relays in the capital, Bangui. ==Telephones== Calling code: +236 Main lines: 5,600 lines in use, 209th in the world (2012). ==Internet== Top-level domain: .cf 22,600 users, 192nd in the world (2009). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): Moov, Orange, Socatel, and Telecel. ===Internet censorship and surveillance=== There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or credible reports that the government monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms without judicial oversight. More than five million websites (except for Spotify was not available in that country) are available/accessible in the Central African Republic. Although the constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and press, authorities occasionally arrest journalists critical of the government and in some cases the government impedes individuals’ right to free speech. Imprisonment for defamation and censorship were abolished in 2005; however, journalists found guilty of libel or slander face fines of 100,000 to eight million CFA francs ($200 to US$16,000). The law provides for imprisonment and fines of as much as one million CFA francs (US$2,000) for journalists who use the media to incite disobedience among security forces or incite persons to violence, hatred, or discrimination. Similar fines and imprisonment of six months to two years may be imposed for the publication or broadcast of false or fabricated information that "would disturb the peace."	[ "internet service providers", "Mobile network operator", "Top-level domain", "Television sets", "List of international call prefixes", "radiotelephone", "Radio broadcasting", "Communications satellite", "The World Factbook", "slander", "List of countries by IPv4 address allocation", "Bangui", "Intelsat", "Socatel", "libel", "e-mail", "United States", "freedom of speech", "NationLink Telecom", "defamation", "censorship", "Media of the Central African Republic", "List of countries by number of Internet users", ".cf", "List of countries by number of Internet hosts", "Radio France Internationale", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Orange S.A.", "microwave radio relay", "hate speech", "Radio Centrafrique", "Calling code", "freedom of the press", "Télévision Centrafricaine", "GSM", "BBC World Service", "Economy of the Central African Republic", "François Bozizé", "reuters.com", "Voice of America", "WP:SDNONE", "ITU-D", "Atlantic Ocean", "Spotify", "International Telecommunication Union", "Internet Service Providers", "chat rooms", "Receiver (radio)", "Central African Republic", "Television broadcasting" ]
5,485	Transport in the Central African Republic	Modes of transport in the Central African Republic include road, water, and air. Most of the country is connected to the road network, but not all of it. Some roads in the country do not connect to the rest of the national road network and may become impassable, especially during heavy monsoon rain. Many remote areas that not connected to the country's road network, especially in the eastern part of the country outside of the major cities and towns, can only be reached by light aircraft, boat (via river) or on foot. Most roads are unpaved, and which centres on the routes nationales identified as RN1 to RN11. Bangui serves as a seaport, and 900 km of inland waterways are navigable, the main route being the Oubangui river. There is one international airport at Bangui-Mpoko, two other paved airports, and over 40 with unpaved runways. == Railways == There are presently no railways in the Central African Republic. A line from Cameroon port of Kribi to Bangui was proposed in 2002. == Highways == Two trans-African automobile routes pass through the Central African Republic: the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway and the Lagos-Mombasa Highway. Total: 23,810 km Paved: 643 km Unpaved: 23,167 km (1999 est.) Major roads include: RN1 (Route Nationale 1) north from Bangui. 482 km via Bossangoa to Moundou, Chad. RN2 east from Bangui. 1202 km via Bambari and Bangassou to the South Sudanese border at Bambouti. RN3 west from RN1 at Bossembélé. 453 km via Bouar and Baboua to Boulai on the Cameroon border as part of the east-west Trans-African Highway 8 Lagos-Mombasa. RN4 from RN2 at Damara, 76 km north of Bangui, north 554 km via Bouca and Batangafo to Sarh, Chad. RN6 south and west from Bangui, 605 km via Mbaïki, Carnot and Berbérati to Gamboula on the border with Cameroon. RN8 north-east from RN2 at Sibut, 023 km via Kaga Bandoro, Ndéle, and Birao to the Sudanese border. RN10 south from RN6 at Berbérati, 136 km via Bania to Nola. RN11 from Baoro on RN3 south, 104 km to Carnot on RN6. The roads east to Sudan and north to Chad are poorly maintained. == Waterways == 900 km; traditional trade carried on by means of shallow-draft dugouts; Oubangui is the most important river, navigable all year to craft drawing 0.6 m or less; 282 km navigable to craft drawing as much as 1.8 m. == Ports and harbors == There is only one river port. It is at the city of Bangui. == Airports == === Airports with paved runways === Total: 3 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 2 (2002) The most important airport in the Central African Republic is Bangui M'Poko International Airport (ICAO: FEFF) === Airports with unpaved runways === Total: 47 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 10 914 to 1,523 m: 23 Under 914 m: 13 (2002)	[ "Bouar", "Bangui M'Poko International Airport", "airport", "Obo", "Bangui", "Lagos-Mombasa Highway", "transport", "Tripoli-Cape Town Highway", "air transport", "road transport", "Baboua, Central African Republic", "seaport", "Cameroon", "Djemah", "Damara, Central African Republic", "water transport", "WP:SDNONE", "Kribi", "Navigability", "Janes World Railways", "Central African Republic", "Ubangi River" ]
5,486	Central African Armed Forces	The Central African Armed Forces (; FACA) are the armed forces of the Central African Republic and have been barely functional since the outbreak of the civil war in 2012. Today they are among the world's weakest armed forces, dependent on international support to provide security in the country. In recent years the government has struggled to form a unified national army. It consists of the Ground Force (which includes the air service), the gendarmerie, and the National Police. Its disloyalty to the president came to the fore during the mutinies in 1996–1997, and since then has faced internal problems. It has been strongly criticised by human rights organisations due to terrorism, including killings, torture and sexual violence. In 2013 when militants of the Séléka rebel coalition seized power and overthrew President Bozizé they executed many FACA troops. ==History== ===Role of military in domestic politics=== The military has played an important role in the history of Central African Republic. The immediate former president, General François Bozizé was a former army chief-of-staff and his government included several high-level military officers. Among the country's five presidents since independence in 1960, three have been former army chiefs-of-staff, who have taken power through coups d'état. No president with a military background has, however, ever been succeeded by a new military president. The country's first president, David Dacko was overthrown by his army chief-of-staff, Jean-Bédel Bokassa in 1966. Following the ousting of Bokassa in 1979, David Dacko was restored to power, only to be overthrown once again in 1981 by his new army chief of staff, General André Kolingba. In 1993, Ange-Félix Patassé became the Central African Republic's first elected president. He soon became unpopular within the army, resulting in violent mutinies in 1996–1997. In May 2001, there was an unsuccessful coup attempt by Kolingba and once again Patassé had to turn to friends abroad for support, this time Libya and DR Congo. Some months later, at the end of October, Patassé sacked his army chief-of-staff, François Bozizé, and attempted to arrest him. Bozizé then fled to Chad and gathered a group of rebels. In 2002, he seized Bangui for a short period, and in March 2003 took power in a coup d'état. ===Importance of ethnicity=== When General Kolingba became president in 1981, he implemented an ethnicity-based recruitment policy for the administration. Kolingba was a member of the Yakoma people from the south of the country, which made up approximately 5% of the total population. During his rule, members of Yakoma were granted all key positions in the administration and made up a majority of the military. This later had disastrous consequences when Kolingba was replaced by a member of a northerner tribe, Ange-Félix Patassé. ===Army mutinies of 1996–1997=== Soon after the election 1993, Patassé became unpopular within the army, not least because of his inability to pay their wages (partly due to economic mismanagement and partly because France suddenly ended its economic support for the soldiers' wages). Another reason for the irritation was that most of FACA consisted of soldiers from Kolingba's ethnic group, the Yakoma. During Patassé's rule they had become increasingly marginalised, while he created militias favouring his own Gbaya tribe, as well as neighbouring Sara and Kaba. This resulted in army mutinies in 1996–1997, where fractions of the military clashed with the presidential guard, the Unité de sécurité présidentielle (USP) and militias loyal to Patassé. On April 18, 1996, between 200 and 300 soldiers mutinied, claiming that they had not received their wages since 1992–1993. The confrontations between the soldiers and the presidential guard resulted in 9 dead and 40 wounded. French forces provided support (Operation Almandin I) and acted as negotiators. The unrest ended when the soldiers were finally paid their wages by France and the President agreed not to start legal proceedings against them. On May 18, 1996, a second mutiny was led by 500 soldiers who refused to be disarmed, denouncing the agreement reached in April. French forces were once again called to Bangui (Operation Almadin II), supported by the militaries of Chad and Gabon. 3,500 foreigners were evacuated during the unrest, which left 43 persons dead and 238 wounded. On May 26, a peace agreement was signed between France and the mutineers. The latter were promised amnesty, and were allowed to retain their weapons. Their security was ensured by the French military. On November 15, 1996, a third mutiny took place, and 1,500 French soldiers were flown in to ensure the safety of foreigners. The mutineers demanded the discharge of the president. On 6 December, a negotiation process started, facilitated by Gabon, Burkina-Faso, Chad and Mali. The military — supported by the opposition parties — insisted that Patassé had to resign. In January, 1997, however, the Bangui Agreements were signed and the French EFAO troop were replaced by the 1,350 soldiers of the Mission interafricaine de surveillance des Accords de Bangui (MISAB). In March, all mutineers were granted amnesty. The fighting between MISAB and the mutineers continued with a large offensive in June, resulting in up to 200 casualties. After this final clash, the mutineers calmed. Crimes conducted by Patassé's militias and Congolese soldiers during this period are now being investigated by the International Criminal Court, who wrote that "sexual violence appears to have been a central feature of the conflict", having identified more than 600 rape victims. ==Present situation== The FACA has been dominated by soldiers from the Yakoma ethnic group since the time of Kolingba. It has hence been considered disloyal by the two northerner presidents Patassé and Bozizé, both of whom have equipped and run their own militias outside FACA. The military also proved its disloyalty during the mutinies in 1996–1997. Although Francois Bozizé had a background in FACA himself (being its chief-of-staff from 1997 to 2001), he was cautious by retaining the defence portfolio, as well as by appointing his son Jean-Francis Bozizé cabinet director in charge of running the Ministry of Defence. He kept his old friend General Antoine Gambi as Chief of Staff. Due to failure to curb deepening unrest in the northern part of the country, Gambi was in July 2006 replaced with Bozizé's old friend from the military academy, Jules Bernard Ouandé. ===Military's relations with the society=== The forces assisting Bozizé in seizing the power in 2003 were not paid what they were promised and started looting, terrorising and killing ordinary citizens. Summary executions took place with the implicit approval of the government. The situation has deteriorated since early 2006, and the regular army and the presidential guard regularly execute extortion, torture, killings and other human rights violations. There is no possibility for the national judicial system to investigate these cases. At the end of 2006, there were an estimated 150,000 internally displaced people in CAR. During a UN mission in the northern part of the country in November 2006, the mission had a meeting with a prefect who said that he could not maintain law and order over the military and the presidential guards. The FACA currently conducts summary executions and burns houses. On the route between Kaga-Bandoro and Ouandago some 2,000 houses have been burnt, leaving an estimated 10,000 persons homeless. ===Reform of the army=== Both the Multinational Force in the Central African Republic (FOMUC) and France are assisting in the current reform of the army. One of the key priorities of the reform of the military is make it more ethnically diversified. It should also integrate Bozizé's own rebel group (mainly consisting of members of his own Gbaya tribe). Many of the Yakoma soldiers who left the country after the mutinies in 1996–1997 have now returned and must also be reintegrated into the army. At the same time, BONUCA holds seminars in topics such as the relationship between military and civil parts of society. 2018 saw Russia send mercenaries to help train and equip the CAR military and by 2020 Russia has increased its influence in the region. ==Army equipment== Most of the army's heavy weapons and equipment were destroyed or captured by Séléka militants during the 2012–2014 civil war. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the army was only in possession of 70 rifles. Prior to 2014, the army's stocks of arms and ammunition were primarily of French, Soviet, and Chinese origin. === Small arms === === Mortars === ===Vehicles=== ====Scout cars==== ===Chad=== In addition to the multilateral forces, CAR has received bilateral support from other African countries, such as the Libyan and Congolese assistance to Patassé mentioned above. Bozizé is in many ways dependent on Chad's support. Chad has an interest in CAR, since it needs to ensure calmness close to its oil fields and the pipeline leading to the Cameroonian coast, close to CAR's troubled northwest. Before seizing power, Bozizé built up his rebel force in Chad, trained and augmented by the Chadian military. Chadian President Déby assisted him actively in taking the power in March 2003 (his rebel forces included 100 Chadian soldiers). After the coup, Chad provided another 400 soldiers. Current direct support includes 150 non-FOMUC Chadian troops that patrol the border area near Goré, a contingent of soldiers in Bangui, and troops within the presidential lifeguard. In Central African Republic, the Bouar base and the Béal Camp (at that time home to 1,400 French soldiers) in Bangui were shut down, as the French concentrated its African presence to Abidjan, Dakar, Djibouti, Libreville and N'Djamena and the deployment of a Force d'action rapide, based in France. However, due to the situation in the country, France has retained a military presence. During the mutinies, 2,400 French soldiers patrolled the streets of Bangui. Their official task was to evacuate foreign citizens, but this did not prevent direct confrontations with the mutineers (resulting in French and mutineer casualties). The level of French involvement resulted in protests among the Central African population, since many sided with the mutineers and accused France of defending a dictator against the people's will. Criticism was also heard in France, where some blamed their country for its protection of a discredited ruler, totally incapable of exerting power and managing the country. After the mutinies in 1997, the MISAB became a multilateral force, but it was armed, equipped, trained and managed by France. The Chadian, Gabonese and Congolese troops of the current Force multinationale en Centrafrique (FOMUC) mission in the country also enjoy logistical support from French soldiers. A study carried out by the US Congressional Research Service revealed that France has again increased its arms sales to Africa, and that during the 1998–2005 period it was the leading supplier of arms to the continent. ==Components and units== ===Air Force=== The Air Force is almost inoperable. Lack of funding has almost grounded the air force apart from an AS 350 Ecureuil delivered in 1987. Mirage F1 planes from the French Air Force regularly patrolled troubled regions of the country and also participated in direct confrontations until they were withdrawn and retired in 2014. According to some sources, Bozizé used the money he got from the mining concession in Bakouma to buy two old MI 8 helicopters from Ukraine and one Lockheed C-130 Hercules, built in the 1950s, from the US. In late 2019 Serbia offered two new Soko J-22 orao attack aircraft to the CAR Air Force but was it is unknown whether the orders were approved by the Air Force. The air force otherwise operates 7 light aircraft, including a single helicopter: ===Garde républicaine (GR)=== The Presidential Guard (garde présidentielle) or Republican Guard is officially part of FACA but it is often regarded as a separate entity under the direct command of the President. Since 2010 the Guard has received training from South Africa and Sudan, with Belgium and Germany providing support. GR consists of so-called patriots that fought for Bozizé when he seized power in 2003 (mainly from the Gbaya tribe), together with soldiers from Chad. They are guilty of numerous assaults on the civil population, such as terror, aggression, sexual violence. Only a couple of months after Bozizé's seizure of power, in May 2003, taxi and truck drivers conducted a strike against these outrages. The riverine patrol force has approximately one hundred personnel and operates seven patrol boats. ===Veteran soldiers=== A program for disarmament and reintegration of veteran soldiers is currently taking place. A national commission for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration was put in place in September 2004. The commission is in charge of implementing a program wherein approximately 7,500 veteran soldiers will be reintegrated in civil life and obtain education. FORSIDIR: The presidential lifeguard, Unité de sécurité présidentielle (USP), was in March 1998 transformed into the Force spéciale de défense des institutions républicaines (FORSDIR). In contrary to the army – which consisted mainly of southerner Yakoma members and which thereby was unreliable for the northerner president – this unit consisted of northerners loyal to the president. Before eventually being dissolved in January 2000, this highly controversial group became feared for their terror and troubled Patassé's relations with important international partners, such as France. Of its 1,400 staff, 800 were subsequently reintegrated into FACA, under the command of the chief-of-staff. The remaining 400 recreated the USP (once again under the command of the chief-of-staff). Unité de sécurité présidentielle (USP): USP was Patassé's presidential guard before and after FORSIDIR. When he was overthrown by Bozizé in 2003, the USP was dissolved and while some of the soldiers have been absorbed by FACA, others are believed to have joined the pro-Patassé Democratic Front of the Central African People rebel group that is fighting FACA in the north of the country. The Patriots or Liberators: Accompanied Bozizé when he seized power in March 2003. They are now a part of Bozizé's lifeguard, the Garde républicaine, together with soldiers from Chad. Office central de répression du banditisme (OCRB): OCRB was a special unit within the police created to fight the looting after the army mutinies in 1996 and 1997. OCRB has committed numerous summary executions and arbitrary detentions, for which it has never been put on trial. MLPC Militia: Le Mouvement de libération du peuple centrafricain (MLPC) was the armed component of former president Patassé's political party. The MPLC's militia was already active during the 1993 election, but was strengthened during the mutinies 1996 and 1997, particularly through its Karako contingent. Its core consisted of Sara people from Chad and Central African Republic, but during the mutinies it recruited many young people in Bangui. DRC Militia: Rassemblement démocratique centrafricain (RDC) is the militia of the party of General Kolingba, who led the country during the 1980s. The RDC's militia is said to have camps in Mobaye and to have bonds with former officials of Kolingba's "cousin" Mobutu Sese Seko in DR Congo.	[ "Radio France International", "Lee Enfield", "7.62×51mm", "Mail & Guardian", "France", "Zastava M70", "Semi-automatic rifle", "MAC Mle 1950", "Bangui", "Yakoma people", "Operation Caban", "Rocket-propelled grenade", ".357 Magnum", "Manurhin MR 73", "Dongfeng Mengshi", "Conflict Armament Research", "N'Djamena", "Carl Gustaf m/45", "Mobutu Sese Seko", "PK machine gun", "Sniper rifle", "Central African Republic Bush War", "Lockheed C-130 Hercules", "9×19mm", "Scout car", "peacekeeping", "Mil Mi-8", "Ange-Félix Patassé", "Dassault Mirage F1", "Central African Republic Air Force", "André Kolingba", "François Bozizé", "Djibouti", "armed forces", "Browning M2", "Aviation Week & Space Technology", "FN FAL", "Amphibious warfare", "AA-52 machine gun", "MAT-49", "Squad automatic weapon", "Walther PP", "AKM", "Sexual assault", "Aermacchi AL-60", "RPK", "7.62×39mm", "Jane's Defence Weekly", "Séléka", "Armored personnel carrier", "SIG SG 540", "FAMAS", "Republican Guard (Central African Republic)", "7.65×20mm", "Summary execution", "120-PM-43 mortar", "1981 Central African Republic coup d'état", "Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état", "Infantry fighting vehicle", "Recoilless rifle", "Democratic Republic of the Congo", "Jeune Afrique", ".50 BMG", "Bangui Agreements", "David Dacko", "Oxford University Press", "Small Arms Survey", "Utility vehicle", "Assault rifle", "Uzi", "FN MAG", "torture", "7.5×54mm", "Togo", "Abidjan", "Toyota Hilux", "Zaire", "RPD machine gun", "Bullpup", "Mortar (weapon)", "Lionel Jospin", "2001 Central African Republic coup d'état attempt", "5.56×45mm", "Chad", "IMI Galil", "7.62×54mmR", "Revolver", "Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project", "Ubangi River", "M40 recoilless rifle", "SVD (rifle)", "MAS-36 rifle", "Bolt-action rifle", "Véhicule de l'Avant Blindé", "Ratel IFV", "History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi", "Bouar", "Movement for the Liberation of the Congo", "coups d'état", "Ouandago", "Faustin-Archange Touadéra", "Dakar", "Republic of the Congo", "BRDM-2", "12.7×108mm", "M14 rifle", "Vektor R4", "Kaga-Bandoro", "Ferret armoured car", "DShK", "Pistol Mitralieră model 1963/1965", "Type 56 assault rifle", "Gbaya people", "Forces Armées Centrafricaine", "Burkina-Faso", "Browning M1919", "Jamestown Foundation", "Rameaux-Claude Bireau", "RPG-7", "United Nations", "SG-43 Goryunov", "Community of Sahel-Saharan States", "Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa", "Bakouma", "International Criminal Court", "Sten", "terrorism", "Heavy machine gun", "Type 67 mortar", ".303 British", "Eurocopter AS350", "Heckler & Koch G3", "Sara people", "2003 Central African Republic coup d'état", "Lord's Resistance Army insurgency", "General-purpose machine gun", "Idriss Déby", "Birao", "ru:РП-46", "Battle rifle", ".25 ACP", "Democratic Front of the Central African People", "FM 24/29 light machine gun", "M16 rifle", "Designated marksman rifle", "Libreville", "Semi-automatic pistol", "Jean-Pierre Bemba", "Mali", "Central African Republic Civil War", "Amphibious vehicle", "Gabon", "Light machine gun", "Anti-balaka", "Sweden", "Military ranks of Central African Republic", "Medium machine gun", "Zéphirin Mamadou", "MAS-38", "Armored car (military)", "DCAF", "SKS", "Type 67 machine gun", "International Institute for Strategic Studies", "Submachine gun", "Peace enforcement", "Jean-Bédel Bokassa", "Central African Republic", "List of heads of state of the Central African Republic" ]
5,487	Foreign relations of the Central African Republic	The Central African Republic (CAR) has diplomatic relations with 114 out of the 193 United Nations member states as well as the State of Palestine. The country's attempts at an open policy towards neighbouring countries have been strained due to the long-standing civil war as well as broader regional conflicts such as reoccurring tensions between Chad and Sudan. In the 2010s, France maintained a military presence in the country. This was largely halted in 2016. The last French troops left in 2022 after relations with France soured due to the country's increasing ties to Russia under Faustin-Archange Touadéra. Since 2018, the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company, has carried out operations in the CAR. == Participation in international organisations == The Central African Republic is an active member in several Central African organizations, including the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). It is also a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Standardization of tax, customs, and security arrangements between the Central African states is a major foreign policy objective of the CAR government. The CAR is a participant in the Community of Sahel–Saharan States (CEN-SAD), and the African Union (AU). Additionally, it is a member of the Francophonie and an observer state of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Other multilateral organizations—including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United Nations agencies, European Union, and the African Development Bank—and bilateral donors—including the Republic of Korea, Germany, Japan, the European Union, and the United States—are significant development partners for the CAR. == Diplomatic relations == List of countries which the Central African Republic maintains diplomatic relations with: == Bilateral relations == Sixteen countries have resident diplomatic representatives in Bangui, and the CAR maintains approximately nineteen missions abroad. The countries the CAR maintains bilateral relations with include the following:	[ "Nawaz Sharif", "United States Department of State", "Africanews", "France", "The Observatory of Economic Complexity", "Washington, DC", "Bangui", "Istanbul", "Diplomacy", "France 24", "border", "Yakoma people", "List of diplomatic missions of the Central African Republic", "Operation Caban", "Refugee", "N'Djamena", "Kosovo", "Libération", "Tiringoulou", "Interventionism (politics)", "Ivica Dačić", "Cold War", "Central African Armed Forces", "Union of Democratic Forces for Unity", "petroleum", "United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo", "Rough diamond", "Kinshasa", "Lumber", "Ange-Félix Patassé", "democratization", "List of diplomatic missions in the Central African Republic", "Power outage", "André Kolingba", "François Bozizé", "New York City", "Sosso-Nakombo", "Agenzia Fides", "World Trade Organization", "Soviet Union", "private military company", "Observer status", "Logistics Cluster", "Douala", "Beijing", "Russian Armed Forces", "Columbia University Press", "Taiwan", "Chad National Army", "Germany", "Séléka", "CEMAC", "Central African Republic–Russia relations", "United Front for Democratic Change", "Emirates News Agency", "airport", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Serbia)", "Sylvie Baïpo-Temon", "1981 Central African Republic coup d'état", "Sudanese Armed Forces", "Saint-Sylvestre coup d'état", "Axios (website)", "ReliefWeb", "United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-10/22", "Government of Serbia", "Yaoundé", "Economic Community of Central African States", "Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo", "United States", "Chad-Sudan relations", "Bangui Agreements", "Coronation of Bokassa I and Catherine", "Jeune Afrique", "Democratic Republic of the Congo", "Repatriation", "Cornell University Press", "Khartoum", "Wagner Group", "David Dacko", "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (United Arab Emirates)", "Amnesty International", "United States Agency for International Development", "African Development Bank", "Mbaïki", "Blood diamond", "Central African Republic–Sudan border", "Pyongyang", "Abu Dhabi", "European Union", "Politique africaine", "Republic of Korea", "Operation Sangaris", "War in Darfur", "Éditions du Seuil", "Opex360", "Peace Corps", "Community of Sahel–Saharan States", "Voice of America", "rapprochement", "refugee camp", "Central African Republic–France relations", "The London Gazette", "coup", "Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project", "Rowman & Littlefield", "United Nations General Assembly", "diamonds", "Kimberley Process Certification Scheme", "Bouar", "Gaza war", "Faustin-Archange Touadéra", "Survie", "Russian News Agency TASS", "Sudanese refugees", "uranium", "MINUSCA", "Omar al-Bashir", "World Integrated Trade Solution", "racism", "Belgrade", "Bank of Central African States", "Bangladesh", "Bilateralism", "African Union", "Foreign Policy", "Sudan People's Liberation Army", "Radio France Internationale", "Italy", "World Bank", "solar power", "2020 Hong Kong national security law", "Joseph Kabila", "United Nations General Assembly Resolution ES-10/23", "London", "Zionism", "Second Sudanese Civil War", "proconsul", "United Nations", "Seoul", "International Criminal Court", "Battle of Bangui (2013)", "Ministry of External Affairs (India)", "United Arab Emirates", "Ubangi-Shari", "Russia", "Antonov", "Gordil", "Power Construction Corporation of China", "Ubangi river", "International Monetary Fund", "2003 Central African Republic coup d'état", "gold", "Chimbolo massacre", "Gaga, Central African Republic", "Asian Survey", "Idriss Déby", "Member states of the United Nations", "McGill-Queen's University Press", "Movement for the Liberation of Congo", "highway", "International recognition of Kosovo", "L'Harmattan", "Raid (military)", "United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees", "Dissolution of the Soviet Union", "Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum", "Diamond", "Democratic Front of the Central African People", "M. E. Sharpe", "Armed Conflict Location and Event Data", "Rwanda", "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie", "Dubai", "Global Witness", "Wagner Group activities in the Central African Republic", "Mboki", "Jean-Pierre Bemba", "Central African Republic Civil War", "Anti-balaka", "Palestine", "French colonial empire", "French Foreign Legion", "Antwerp", "The New York Times", "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation", "Paris", "Ithaca, New York", "Japan", "gold mining", "Sheikh", "The Atlantic", "Jean-Bédel Bokassa", "United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379", "Central African Republic", "Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations" ]
5,488	Chad	Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon to the southwest, Nigeria to the southwest (at Lake Chad), and Niger to the west. Chad has a population of 16 million, of which 1.6 million live in the capital and largest city of N'Djamena. With a total area of around , Chad is the fifth-largest country in Africa and the twentieth largest nation by area. Chad has several regions: the Sahara desert in the north, an arid zone in the centre known as the Sahel, and a more fertile Sudanian Savanna zone in the south. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the second-largest wetland in Africa. Chad's official languages are Arabic and French. It is home to over 200 ethnic and linguistic groups. Islam (55.1%) and Christianity (41.1%) are the main religions practiced in Chad. Beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. By the end of the 1st millennium AD, a series of states and empires had risen and fallen in Chad's Sahelian strip, each focused on controlling the trans-Saharan trade routes that passed through the region. France conquered the territory by 1920 and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa. In 1960, Chad obtained independence under the leadership of François Tombalbaye. Resentment towards his policies in the Muslim north culminated in the eruption of a long-lasting civil war in 1965. In 1979 the rebels conquered the capital and put an end to the South's hegemony. The rebel commanders then fought amongst themselves until Hissène Habré defeated his rivals. The Chadian–Libyan conflict erupted in 1978 by the Libyan invasion which stopped in 1987 with a French military intervention (Operation Épervier). Hissène Habré was overthrown in turn in 1990 by his general Idriss Déby. With French support, a modernisation of the Chad National Army was initiated in 1991. From 2003, the Darfur crisis in Sudan spilt over the border and destabilised the nation. Already poor, the nation struggled to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad. While many political parties participated in Chad's legislature, the National Assembly, power laid firmly in the hands of the Patriotic Salvation Movement during the presidency of Idriss Déby, whose rule was described as authoritarian. After President Déby was killed by FACT rebels in April 2021, the Transitional Military Council led by his son Mahamat Déby assumed control of the government and dissolved the Assembly. For more than 2,000 years, the Chadian Basin has been inhabited by agricultural and sedentary people. The region became a crossroads of civilisations. The earliest of these was the legendary Sao, known from artifacts and oral histories. The Sao fell to the Kanem Empire, the first and longest-lasting of the empires that developed in Chad's Sahelian strip by the end of the 1st millennium AD. Two other states in the region, Sultanate of Bagirmi and Wadai Empire, emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries. The power of Kanem and its successors was based on control of the trans-Saharan trade routes that passed through the region. In Kanem, about a third of the population were slaves. === French colonial period (1900–1960) === French colonial expansion led to the creation of the in 1900. By 1920, France had secured full control of the colony and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa. French rule in Chad was characterised by an absence of policies to unify the territory and sluggish modernisation compared to other French colonies. The French primarily viewed the colony as an unimportant source of untrained labour and raw cotton; France introduced large-scale cotton production in 1929. The colonial administration in Chad was critically understaffed and had to rely on the dregs of the French civil service. Only the Sara of the south was governed effectively; French presence in the Islamic north and east was nominal. The educational system was affected by this neglect. Tensions between farmers and elites culminated in the 1952 Bébalem massacre by colonial authorities. After World War II, France granted Chad the status of overseas territory and its inhabitants the right to elect representatives to the National Assembly and a Chadian assembly. The largest political party was the Chadian Progressive Party (, PPT), based in the southern half of the colony. Chad was granted independence on 11 August 1960 with the PPT's leader, François Tombalbaye, an ethnic Sara, as its first president. === Tombalbaye rule (1960–1979) === Two years later, Tombalbaye banned opposition parties and established a one-party system. Tombalbaye's autocratic rule and insensitive mismanagement exacerbated inter-ethnic tensions. In 1965, Muslims in the north, led by the National Liberation Front of Chad (, FRONILAT), began a civil war. Tombalbaye was overthrown and killed in 1975, but the insurgency continued. In 1979 the rebel factions led by Hissène Habré took the capital, and all central authority in the country collapsed. Armed factions, many from the north's rebellion, contended for power. === Chad's first civil war (1979–1987) === The disintegration of Chad caused the collapse of France's position in the country. Libya moved to fill the power vacuum and became involved in Chad's civil war. Libya's adventure ended in disaster in 1987; the French-supported president, Hissène Habré, evoked a united response from Chadians of a kind never seen before and forced the Libyan army off Chadian soil. === Dictatorship of Habré (1987–1990) === Habré consolidated his dictatorship through a power system that relied on corruption and violence with thousands of people estimated to have been killed under his rule. The president favoured his own Toubou ethnic group and discriminated against his former allies, the Zaghawa. His general, Idriss Déby, overthrew him in 1990. Attempts to prosecute Habré led to his placement under house arrest in Senegal in 2005; in 2013, Habré was formally charged with war crimes committed during his rule. In May 2016, he was found guilty of human-rights abuses, including rape, sexual slavery, and ordering the killing of 40,000 people, and sentenced to life in prison. === Déby lineage & democracy with second Civil War (1990–present) === Déby attempted to reconcile the rebel groups and reintroduced multiparty politics. Chadians approved a new constitution by referendum, and in 1996, Déby easily won a competitive presidential election. He won a second term five years later. Oil exploitation began in Chad in 2003, bringing with it hopes that Chad would, at last, have some chances of peace and prosperity. Instead, internal dissent worsened, and a new civil war broke out. Déby unilaterally modified the constitution to remove the two-term limit on the presidency; this caused an uproar among the civil society and opposition parties. In 2006 Déby won a third mandate in elections that the opposition boycotted. Ethnic violence in eastern Chad has increased; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that a genocide like that in Darfur may yet occur in Chad. In 2006 and in 2008 rebel forces attempted to take the capital by force, but failed on both occasions. An agreement for the restoration of harmony between Chad and Sudan, signed 15 January 2010, marked the end of a five-year war. The fix in relations led to the Chadian rebels from Sudan returning home, the opening of the border between the two countries after seven years of closure, and the deployment of a joint force to secure the border. In May 2013, security forces in Chad foiled a coup against President Idriss Déby that had been in preparation for several months. Chad is one of the leading partners in a West African coalition in the fight against Boko Haram and other Islamist militants. Déby's son, General Mahamat Idriss Déby, has been named interim president by a Transitional Council of military officers. That transitional council has replaced the Constitution with a new charter, granting Mahamat Déby the powers of the presidency and naming him head of the armed forces. On 23 May 2024, Mahamat Idriss Déby was sworn in as President of Chad after the disputed 6 May election. == Geography == Chad is a large landlocked country spanning north-central Africa. It covers an area of , and is the twentieth-largest country in the world. Chad is, by size, slightly smaller than Peru and slightly larger than South Africa. Chad is bounded to the north by Libya, to the east by Sudan, to the west by Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, and to the south by the Central African Republic. The country's capital is from the nearest seaport, Douala, Cameroon. Because of this distance from the sea and the country's largely desert climate, Chad is sometimes referred to as the "Dead Heart of Africa". The dominant physical structure is a wide basin bounded to the north and east by the Ennedi Plateau and Tibesti Mountains, which include Emi Koussi, a dormant volcano that reaches above sea level. Lake Chad, after which the country is named (and which in turn takes its name from the Kanuri word for "lake"), is the remains of an immense lake that occupied of the Chad Basin 7,000 years ago. the lake is Africa's second largest wetland. Chad is home to six terrestrial ecoregions: East Sudanian savanna, Sahelian Acacia savanna, Lake Chad flooded savanna, East Saharan montane xeric woodlands, South Saharan steppe and woodlands, and Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane xeric woodlands. The region's tall grasses and extensive marshes make it favourable for birds, reptiles, and large mammals. Chad's major rivers—the Chari, Logone and their tributaries—flow through the southern savannas from the southeast into Lake Chad. Each year a tropical weather system known as the intertropical front crosses Chad from south to north, bringing a wet season that lasts from May to October in the south, and from June to September in the Sahel. Variations in local rainfall create three major geographical zones. The Sahara lies in the country's northern third. Yearly precipitations throughout this belt are under ; only occasional spontaneous palm groves survive, all of them south of the Tropic of Cancer. Elephants, lions, buffalo, hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, giraffes, antelopes, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, and many species of snakes are found here, although most large carnivore populations have been drastically reduced since the early 20th century. Elephant poaching, particularly in the south of the country in areas such as Zakouma National Park, is a severe problem. The small group of surviving West African crocodiles in the Ennedi Plateau represents one of the last colonies known in the Sahara today. In Chad forest cover is around 3% of the total land area, equivalent to 4,313,000 hectares (ha) of forest in 2020, down from 6,730,000 hectares (ha) in 1990. In 2020, naturally regenerating forest covered 4,293,000 hectares (ha) and planted forest covered 19,800 hectares (ha). For the year 2015, 100% of the forest area was reported to be under public ownership. Chad had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.18/10, ranking it 83rd globally out of 172 countries. Extensive deforestation has resulted in loss of trees such as acacias, baobab, dates and palm trees. This has also caused loss of natural habitat for wild animals; one of the main reasons for this is also hunting and livestock farming by increasing human settlements. Populations of animals like lions, leopards and rhino have fallen significantly. Efforts have been made by the Food and Agriculture Organization to improve relations between farmers, agro-pastoralists and pastoralists in the Zakouma National Park (ZNP), Siniaka-Minia, and Aouk reserve in southeastern Chad to promote sustainable development. As part of the national conservation effort, more than 1.2 million trees have been replanted to check the advancement of the desert, which incidentally also helps the local economy by way of financial return from acacia trees, which produce gum arabic, and also from fruit trees. The problem is worsened by the fact that the parks are understaffed and that a number of wardens have been murdered by poachers. == Demographics == Chad's national statistical agency projected the country's 2015 population between 13,630,252 and 13,679,203, with 13,670,084 as its medium projection; based on the medium projection, 3,212,470 people lived in urban areas and 10,457,614 people lived in rural areas. The country's population is young: an estimated 47% is under 15. The birth rate is estimated at 42.35 births per 1,000 people, and the mortality rate at 16.69. The life expectancy is 52 years. The agency assessed the population as at mid 2017 at 15,775,400, of whom just over 1.5 million were in N'Djaména. Chad's population is unevenly distributed. Density is in the Saharan Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Region but in the Logone Occidental Region. In the capital, it is even higher. Urban life is concentrated in the capital, whose population is mostly engaged in commerce. The other major towns are Sarh, Moundou, Abéché and Doba, which are considerably smaller but growing rapidly in population and economic activity. Polygamy is common, with 39% of women living in such unions. This is sanctioned by law, which automatically permits polygamy unless spouses specify that this is unacceptable upon marriage. Although violence against women is prohibited, domestic violence is common. Female genital mutilation is also prohibited, but the practice is widespread and deeply rooted in tradition; 45% of Chadian women undergo the procedure, with the highest rates among Arabs, Hadjarai, and Ouaddaians (90% or more). Lower percentages were reported among the Sara (38%) and the Toubou (2%). Women lack equal opportunities in education and training, making it difficult for them to compete for the relatively few formal-sector jobs. Although property and inheritance laws based on the French code do not discriminate against women, local leaders adjudicate most inheritance cases in favour of men, according to traditional practice. \|\| 2009 Census === Ethnic groups=== The peoples of Chad carry significant ancestry from Eastern, Central, Western, and Northern Africa. Chad has more than 200 distinct ethnic groups, According to a 2012 Pew Research survey, 48% of Muslim Chadians professed to be Sunni, 21% Shia, 4% Ahmadi and 23% non-denominational Muslim. Islam is expressed in diverse ways; for example, 55% of Muslim Chadians belong to Sufi orders. Its most common expression is the Tijaniyah, an order followed by the 35% of Chadian Muslims which incorporates some local African religious elements. In 2020, the ARDA estimated the vast majority of Muslims Chadians to be Sunni belonging to the Sufi brotherhood Tijaniyah. A small minority of the country's Muslims (5–10%) hold more fundamentalist practices, which, in some cases, may be associated with Saudi-oriented Salafi movements. Roman Catholics represent the largest Christian denomination in the country. \|titlebar=#ddd \|left1=religion \|right1=percent \|float=right \|bars= }} Muslims are largely concentrated in northern and eastern Chad, and animists and Christians live primarily in southern Chad and Guéra. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor's Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor in Chad reported that school attendance of children aged 5 to 14 was as low as 39%. This can also be related to the issue of child labor as the report also stated that 53% of children aged 5 to 14 were working, and that 30% of children aged 7 to 14 combined work and school. A more recent DOL report listed cattle herding as a major agricultural activity that employed underage children. == Government and politics == Chad's constitution provides for a strong executive branch headed by a president who dominates the political system. The president has the power to appoint the prime minister and the cabinet, and exercises considerable influence over appointments of judges, generals, provincial officials and heads of Chad's para-statal firms. In cases of grave and immediate threat, the president, in consultation with the National Assembly, may declare a state of emergency. The president is directly elected by popular vote for a five-year term; in 2005, constitutional term limits were removed, allowing a president to remain in power beyond the previous two-term limit. Chad's legal system is based on French civil law and Chadian customary law where the latter does not interfere with public order or constitutional guarantees of equality. Despite the constitution's guarantee of judicial independence, the president names most key judicial officials. The legal system's highest jurisdictions, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Council, have become fully operational since 2000. The Supreme Court is made up of a chief justice, named by the president, and 15 councillors, appointed for life by the president and the National Assembly. The Constitutional Court is headed by nine judges elected to nine-year terms. It has the power to review legislation, treaties and international agreements prior to their adoption. In 2005, opposition parties and human rights organisations supported the boycott of the constitutional referendum that allowed Déby to stand for re-election for a third term amid reports of widespread irregularities in voter registration and government censorship of independent media outlets during the campaign. Correspondents judged the 2006 presidential elections a mere formality, as the opposition deemed the polls a farce and boycotted them. Chad is listed as a failed state by the Fund for Peace (FFP). Chad had the seventh-highest rank in the Fragile States Index in 2021. Corruption is rife at all levels; Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index for 2021 ranked Chad 164th among the 180 countries listed. Critics of former President Déby had accused him of cronyism and tribalism. In southern Chad, bitter conflicts over land are becoming more common. They frequently turn violent. Long-standing community culture is being eroded – and so are the livelihoods of many farmers. Longtime Chad President Idriss Déby's death on 20 April 2021 resulted in both the nation's National Assembly and government being dissolved and national leadership being replaced with a transitional military council consisting of military officers and led by his son Mahamat Kaka. The constitution is currently suspended, pending replacement with one drafted by a civilian National Transitional Council, yet to be appointed. The military council has stated that elections will be held at the end of an 18-month transitional period. According to 2023 V-Dem Democracy indices Chad is 16th lowest ranked electoral democracy worldwide and 4th lowest ranked electoral democracy in Africa. === Internal opposition and foreign relations === Déby faced armed opposition from groups who are deeply divided by leadership clashes but were united in their intention to overthrow him. These forces stormed the capital on 13 April 2006, but were ultimately repelled. Chad's greatest foreign influence is France, which maintains 1,000 soldiers in the country. Déby relied on the French to help repel the rebels, and France gives the Chadian army logistical and intelligence support for fear of a complete collapse of regional stability. Nevertheless, Franco-Chadian relations were soured by the granting of oil drilling rights to the American Exxon company in 1999. In 2025, the French military handed over its last base in Chad to the Chadian military, ending its presence in the country, which it had since 1960. There have been numerous rebel groups in Chad throughout the last few decades. In 2007, a peace treaty was signed that integrated United Front for Democratic Change soldiers into the Chadian Army. The Movement for Justice and Democracy in Chad also clashed with government forces in 2003 in an attempt to overthrow President Idriss Déby. In addition, there have been various conflicts with Khartoum's Janjaweed rebels in eastern Chad, who killed civilians by use of helicopter gunships. Presently, the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR) are a rebel group that continues to battle with the government of Chad. In 2010, the UFR reportedly had a force estimating 6,000 men and 300 vehicles. The UAE foreign aid was inaugurated in the Chadian city of Amdjarass on 3 August 2023. The UAE's continuous efforts to provide assistance to the Chadian people and support endeavors to provide humanitarian and relief aid through the UAE's humanitarian institutions to Sudanese refugees in Chad. === Military === As of 2024 Chad was estimated to have 33,250 active military personnel, including 27,500 in the Ground Forces, 350 in the Air Force, and 5,400 in the General Directorate of the Security Services of State Institutions (DGSSIE). There are also 4,500 in the National Gendarmerie and 7,400 in the National and Nomadic Guard. The Ground Forces are organized into seven military regions and twelve battalions, including one armored, seven infantry, one artillery, and three logistical. Chad is a member of the G5 Sahel and the Multinational Joint Task Force, which were formed to fight against Islamic insurgent groups in the region, and has contributed troops to the MINUSMA mission in Mali before it was dissolved. As of 2023, its last year in the mission, 1,449 Chadian soldiers were deployed there. France has been Chad's main security partner for years, including in training the Chadian military. The CIA World Factbook estimates the military budget of Chad to be 4.2% of GDP as of 2006. Given the then GDP ($7.095 bln) of the country, military spending was estimated to be about $300 million. This estimate however dropped after the end of the Civil war in Chad (2005–2010) to 2.0% as estimated by the World Bank for 2011. === Administrative divisions === Since 2012 Chad has been divided into 23 regions. The subdivision of Chad in regions came about in 2003 as part of the decentralisation process, when the government abolished the previous 14 prefectures. Each region is headed by a presidentially appointed governor. Prefects administer the 61 departments within the regions. The departments are divided into 200 sub-prefectures, which are in turn composed of 446 cantons. The cantons are scheduled to be replaced by communautés rurales, but the legal and regulatory framework has not yet been completed. The constitution provides for decentralised government to compel local populations to play an active role in their own development. To this end, the constitution declares that each administrative subdivision be governed by elected local assemblies, but no local elections have taken place, and communal elections scheduled for 2005 have been repeatedly postponed. Chad's currency is the CFA franc. In the 1960s, the mining industry of Chad produced sodium carbonate, or natron. There have also been reports of gold-bearing quartz in the Biltine Prefecture. However, years of civil war have scared away foreign investors; those who left Chad between 1979 and 1982 have only recently begun to regain confidence in the country's future. In 2000, major direct foreign investment in the oil sector began, boosting the country's economic prospects. and the failure to support local agricultural production has meant that the majority of Chadians live in daily uncertainty and hunger. Over 80% of Chad's population relies on subsistence farming and livestock raising for its livelihood. Cotton remains a primary export, although exact figures are not available. Rehabilitation of Cotontchad, a major cotton company weakened by a decline in world cotton prices, has been financed by France, the Netherlands, the European Union, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). The parastatal is now expected to be privatised. In February 2008 in the aftermath of the Battle of N'Djamena, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes expressed "extreme concern" that the crisis would have a negative effect on the ability of humanitarians to deliver life-saving assistance to half a million beneficiaries, most of whom – according to him – heavily rely on humanitarian aid for their survival. UN spokesperson Maurizio Giuliano stated to The Washington Post: "If we do not manage to provide aid at sufficient levels, the humanitarian crisis might become a humanitarian catastrophe". In addition, organisations such as Save the Children have suspended activities due to killings of aid workers. Chad has made some progress in reducing poverty, there was a decline in the national poverty rate from 55% to 47% between 2003 and 2011. However, the number of poor people increased from 4.7 million (2011) to 6.5 million (2019) in absolute numbers. By 2018, 4.2 out of 10 people still live below the poverty line. === Infrastructure === ==== Transport ==== Three trans-African automobile routes pass through Chad: the Tripoli-Cape Town Highway (3) the Dakar-Ndjamena Highway (5) the Ndjamena-Djibouti Highway (6) Civil war crippled the development of transport infrastructure; in 1987, Chad had only of paved roads. Successive road rehabilitation projects improved the network to by 2004. Nevertheless, the road network is limited; roads are often unusable for several months of the year. With no railways of its own, Chad depends heavily on Cameroon's rail system for the transport of Chadian exports and imports to and from the seaport of Douala. Chad had an estimated 59 airports, only 9 of which had paved runways. An international airport serves the capital and provides regular nonstop flights to Paris and several African cities. ==== Energy ==== Chad's energy sector has had years of mismanagement by the parastatal Chad Water and Electric Society (STEE), which provides power for 15% of the capital's citizens and covers only 1.5% of the national population. Most Chadians burn biomass fuels such as wood and animal manure for power. ExxonMobil leads a consortium of Chevron and Petronas that has invested $3.7 billion to develop oil reserves estimated at one billion barrels in southern Chad. Oil production began in 2003 with the completion of a pipeline (financed in part by the World Bank) that links the southern oilfields to terminals on the Atlantic coast of Cameroon. As a condition of its assistance, the World Bank insisted that 80% of oil revenues be spent on development projects. In January 2006 the World Bank suspended its loan programme when the Chadian government passed laws reducing this amount. ==== Telecommunications ==== The telecommunication system is basic and expensive, with fixed telephone services provided by the state telephone company SotelTchad. In 2000, there were only 14 fixed telephone lines per 10,000 inhabitants in the country, one of the lowest telephone densities in the world. In September 2013, Chad's Ministry for Posts and Information & Communication Technologies (PNTIC) announced that the country will be seeking a partner for fiber optic technology. Chad is ranked last in the World Economic Forum's Network Readiness Index (NRI) – an indicator for determining the development level of a country's information and communication technologies. In September 2010 the mobile phone penetration rate was estimated at 24.3% over a population estimate of 10.7 million. == Culture == Because of its great variety of peoples and languages, Chad possesses a rich cultural heritage. The Chadian government has actively promoted Chadian culture and national traditions by opening the Chad National Museum and the Chad Cultural Centre. Carcaje is a popular sweet red tea extracted from hibiscus leaves. Alcoholic beverages, though absent in the north, are popular in the south, where people drink millet beer, known as billi-billi when brewed from red millet, and as coshate when from white millet. The music group Chari Jazz formed in 1964 and initiated Chad's modern music scene. Later, more renowned groups such as African Melody and International Challal attempted to mix modernity and tradition. Popular groups such as Tibesti have clung faster to their heritage by drawing on sai, a traditional style of music from southern Chad. The people of Chad have customarily disdained modern music. However, in 1995 greater interest has developed and fostered the distribution of CDs and audio cassettes featuring Chadian artists. Piracy and a lack of legal protections for artists' rights remain problems to further development of the Chadian music industry. ===Literature=== As in other Sahelian countries, literature in Chad has seen an economic, political and spiritual drought that has affected its best known writers. Chadian authors have been forced to write from exile or expatriate status and have generated literature dominated by themes of political oppression and historical discourse. Since 1962, 20 Chadian authors have written some 60 works of fiction. Among the most internationally renowned writers are Joseph Brahim Seïd, Baba Moustapha, Antoine Bangui and Koulsy Lamko. In 2003 Chad's sole literary critic, Ahmat Taboye, published his to further knowledge of Chad's literature. === Media and cinema === Chad's television audience is limited to N'Djamena. The only television station is the state-owned Télé Tchad. Radio has a far greater reach, with 13 private radio stations. Newspapers are limited in quantity and distribution, and circulation figures are small due to transportation costs, low literacy rates, and poverty. While the constitution defends liberty of expression, the government has regularly restricted this right, and at the end of 2006 began to enact a system of prior censorship on the media. The development of a Chadian film industry, which began with the short films of Edouard Sailly in the 1960s, was hampered by the devastations of civil wars and from the lack of cinemas, of which there is currently only one in the whole country. The Chadian feature film industry began growing again in the 1990s, with the work of directors Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Issa Serge Coelo and Abakar Chene Massar. Haroun's film Abouna was critically acclaimed, and his Daratt won the Grand Special Jury Prize at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival. The 2010 feature film A Screaming Man won the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, making Haroun the first Chadian director to enter, as well as win, an award in the main Cannes competition. Issa Serge Coelo directed the films Daresalam and DP75: Tartina City. === Sports === Football is Chad's most popular sport. The country's national team is closely followed during international competitions and Chadian footballers have played for French teams. Basketball and freestyle wrestling are widely practiced, the latter in a form in which the wrestlers put on traditional animal hides and cover themselves with dust.	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5,489	Chile	Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Chile had a population of 17.5 million as of the latest census in 2017 and has a territorial area of , and experienced rapid population growth and urbanization, while relying increasingly on exports from copper mining to support its economy. During the 1960s and 1970s, the country was marked by severe left-right political polarization and turmoil, which culminated in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that overthrew Salvador Allende's democratically elected left-wing government. This was followed by a 16-year right-wing military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet, in which the 1980 Chilean Constitution was made with the consultancy of the Ortúzar Commission as well as several political and economic reforms, and resulted in more than 3,000 deaths or disappearances. Chile also performs well in the region in terms of sustainability of the state and democratic development. Chile is a founding member of the United Nations, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and the Pacific Alliance, and joined the OECD in 2010. ==Etymology== There are various theories about the origin of the word Chile. According to 17th-century Spanish chronicler Diego de Rosales, the Incas called the valley of the Aconcagua Chili by corruption of the name of a Picunche tribal chief () called Tili, who ruled the area at the time of the Incan conquest in the 15th century. Another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua with that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where there was a town and valley named Chili. from the Mapuche word , which may mean 'where the land ends'" or from the Quechua chiri, 'cold', or , meaning either 'snow' or "the deepest point of the Earth". Another origin attributed to chilli is the onomatopoeic —the Mapuche imitation of the warble of a bird locally known as trile. The Spanish conquistadors heard about this name from the Incas, and the few survivors of Diego de Almagro's first Spanish expedition south from Peru in 1535–36 called themselves the "men of Chilli". ==History== ===Early history=== Stone tool evidence indicates humans sporadically frequented the Monte Verde valley area as long as 18,500 years ago. About 10,000 years ago, migrating Indigenous peoples settled in fertile valleys and coastal areas of what is present-day Chile. Settlement sites from very early human habitation include Monte Verde, Cueva del Milodón and the Pali-Aike Crater's lava tube. The Incas briefly extended their empire into what is now northern Chile, but the Mapuche (or Araucanians as they were known by the Spaniards) successfully resisted many attempts by the Inca Empire to subjugate them, despite their lack of state organization. They fought against the Sapa Inca Tupac Yupanqui and his army. The result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river.]] In 1520, while attempting to circumnavigate the globe, Ferdinand Magellan discovered the southern passage now named after him (the Strait of Magellan) thus becoming the first European to set foot on what is now Chile. The next Europeans to reach Chile were Diego de Almagro and his band of Spanish conquistadors, who came from Peru in 1535 seeking gold. The Spanish encountered various cultures that supported themselves principally through slash-and-burn agriculture and hunting. Cut off to the north by desert, to the south by the Mapuche, to the east by the Andes Mountains, and to the west by the ocean, Chile became one of the most centralized, homogeneous territories in Spanish America. Serving as a sort of frontier garrison, the colony found itself with the mission of forestalling encroachment by both the Mapuche and Spain's European enemies, especially the English and the Dutch. Buccaneers and pirates menaced the colony in addition to the Mapuche, as was shown by Sir Francis Drake's 1578 raid on Valparaíso, the colony's principal port. Chile hosted one of the largest standing armies in the Americas, making it one of the most militarized of the Spanish possessions, as well as a drain on the treasury of the Viceroyalty of Peru. A 2021 study by Baten and Llorca-Jaña shows that regions with a relatively high share of North European migrants developed faster in terms of numeracy, even if the overall number of migrants was small. This effect might be related to externalities: the surrounding population adopted a similar behavior as the small non-European immigrant group, and new schools were created. Ironically, there might have been positive spillover effects from the educational investment made by migrants, at the same time numeracy might have been reduced by the greater inequality in these regions. However, the positive effects of immigration were apparently stronger. ===Independence and nation building=== In 1808, Napoleon's enthronement of his brother Joseph as the Spanish King precipitated the drive by Chile for independence from Spain. A national junta in the name of Ferdinand – heir to the deposed king – was formed on 18 September 1810. The Government Junta of Chile proclaimed an autonomous government for Chile within the Spanish monarchy (in memory of this day, Chile celebrates its National Day on 18 September each year). After these events, a movement for total independence, under the command of José Miguel Carrera (one of the most renowned patriots) and his two brothers Juan José and Luis Carrera, soon gained a wider following. Spanish attempts to re-impose arbitrary rule during what was called the Reconquista led to a prolonged struggle, including infighting from Bernardo O'Higgins, who challenged Carrera's leadership. Intermittent warfare continued until 1817. With Carrera in prison in Argentina, O'Higgins and anti-Carrera cohort José de San Martín, hero of the Argentine War of Independence, led an army that crossed the Andes into Chile and defeated the royalists. On 12 February 1818, Chile was proclaimed an independent republic. The political revolt brought little social change, however, and 19th-century Chilean society preserved the essence of the stratified colonial social structure, which was greatly influenced by family politics and the Roman Catholic Church. A strong presidency eventually emerged, but wealthy landowners remained powerful. Chile slowly started to expand its influence and to establish its borders. By the Tantauco Treaty, the archipelago of Chiloé was incorporated in 1826. The economy began to boom due to the discovery of silver ore in Chañarcillo, and the growing trade of the port of Valparaíso, which led to conflict over maritime supremacy in the Pacific with Peru. At the same time, attempts were made to strengthen sovereignty in southern Chile intensifying penetration into Araucanía and colonizing Llanquihue with German immigrants in 1848. Through the founding of Fort Bulnes by the Schooner Ancud under the command of John Williams Wilson, the Magallanes Region started to be controlled by country in 1843, while the Antofagasta Region, at the time in dispute with Bolivia, began to fill with people. After the Chilean Civil War of 1829–1830 in which the conservatives won, under the Joaquín Prieto Administration, the Chilean Constitution of 1833 was written and put into effect with high influence from the triple minister Diego Portales. Two other civil wars happened in Chile in the 1850s, one in 1851 and the other one in 1859. Toward the end of the 19th century, the government in Santiago consolidated its position in the south by the Occupation of Araucanía. The Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina confirmed Chilean sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan but also made the country to renounce to its claims in the rest of East Patagonia after a dispute that started in 1842. As a result of the War of the Pacific with Peru and Bolivia (1879–83), Chile expanded its territory northward by almost one-third, eliminating Bolivia's access to the Pacific, and acquired valuable nitrate deposits, the exploitation of which led to an era of national affluence. Chile had joined the stand as one of the high-income countries in South America by 1870. On 9 September 1888, Chile took possession of Easter Island by the signing of a mutual will agreement with the local king, thanks to the efforts of the Bishop of Tahiti, Monsignor José María Verdier since the island was constantly attacked by slave merchants. The naval officer Policarpo Toro represented the Chilean Government and Atamu Tekena was the head of the Council of Rapanui. The Rapa Nui elders ceded sovereignty, without renouncing their titles as chiefs, the ownership of their lands, the validity of their culture and traditions on equal terms. The Rapa Nui sold nothing, they were integrated in equal conditions to Chile. The 1891 Chilean Civil War brought about a redistribution of power between the President and Congress, and Chile established a parliamentary style democracy. However, the Civil War had also been a contest between those who favored the development of local industries and powerful Chilean banking interests, particularly the House of Edwards which had strong ties to foreign investors. Soon after, the country engaged in a vastly expensive naval arms race with Argentina that nearly led to war, as well because of the Puna de Atacama dispute. After the War of the Pacific, Chile became a Naval Power in the Americas, even sending a ship in protests in the Panama crisis of 1885 against the United States intervention in the then Colombian territory. The United States and Chile had the Baltimore crisis which almost became a war as Chile was a potential threat to the intentions of hegemony from the United States in the Western Hemisphere. ===20th century=== In 1902 Chile and Argentina received the result from the arbitral award of the Andes resolved by the British Crown. In 1903 the Puna de Atacama dispute was solved. In 1904 Chile and Bolivia signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship which clarified the border between both countries. The Chilean economy partially degenerated into a system protecting the interests of a ruling oligarchy. By the 1920s, the emerging middle and working classes were powerful enough to elect a reformist president, Arturo Alessandri, whose program was frustrated by a conservative congress. In the 1920s, Marxist groups with strong popular support arose. By relinquishing power to a democratically elected successor, Ibáñez del Campo retained the respect of a large enough segment of the population to remain a viable politician for more than thirty years, in spite of the vague and shifting nature of his ideology. When constitutional rule was restored in 1932, a strong middle-class party, the Radicals, emerged. It became the key force in coalition governments for the next 20 years. During the period of Radical Party dominance (1932–52), the state increased its role in the economy. In 1952, voters returned Ibáñez del Campo to office for another six years. Jorge Alessandri succeeded Ibáñez del Campo in 1958, bringing Chilean conservatism back into power democratically for another term. The 1964 presidential election of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva by an absolute majority initiated a period of major reform. Under the slogan "Revolution in Liberty", the Frei administration embarked on far-reaching social and economic programs, particularly in education, housing, and agrarian reform, including rural unionization of agricultural workers. By 1967, however, Frei encountered increasing opposition from leftists, who charged that his reforms were inadequate, and from conservatives, who found them excessive. At the end of his term, Frei had not fully achieved his party's ambitious goals. In the 1970 election, Senator Salvador Allende of the Socialist Party of Chile (then part of the "Popular Unity" coalition which included the Communists, Radicals, Social-Democrats, dissident Christian Democrats, the Popular Unitary Action Movement, and the Independent Popular Action), An economic depression that began in 1972 was exacerbated by capital flight, plummeting private investment, and withdrawal of bank deposits in response to Allende's socialist program. Production fell and unemployment rose. Allende adopted measures including price freezes, wage increases, and tax reforms, to increase consumer spending and redistribute income downward. Joint public-private public works projects helped reduce unemployment. Much of the banking sector was nationalized. Many enterprises within the copper, coal, iron, nitrate, and steel industries were expropriated, nationalized, or subjected to state intervention. Industrial output increased sharply and unemployment fell during the Allende administration's first year. replacing the judicial system with "socialist legality", nationalization of banks and forcing others to bankruptcy, the Richard Nixon administration organized and inserted secret operatives in Chile, in order to swiftly destabilize Allende's government. In addition, US financial pressure restricted international economic credit to Chile. The economic problems were also exacerbated by Allende's public spending, financed mostly through printing money, and by poor credit ratings given by commercial banks. Simultaneously, opposition media, politicians, business guilds and other organizations helped to accelerate a campaign of domestic political and economical destabilization, some of which was backed by the United States. By early 1973, inflation was out of control. On 26 May 1973, Chile's Supreme Court, which was opposed to Allende's government, unanimously denounced Allende's disruption of the legality of the nation. Although illegal under the Chilean constitution, the court supported and strengthened Pinochet's soon-to-be seizure of power. ====Pinochet era (1973–1990)==== A military coup overthrew Allende on 11 September 1973. As the armed forces bombarded the presidential palace, Allende apparently committed suicide. After the coup, Henry Kissinger told U.S. president Richard Nixon that the United States had "helped" the coup indirectly. According to the historian Sebastián Hurtado, there isn't documentary evidence to support that the United States Government acted actively in the coordination and execution of the September 11 coup actions by the Chilean Armed Forces, however, Richard Nixon's interest from the beginning was that the Allende government would not be consolidated and acted actively and decisively in the campaign to destabilize his government. In 1970, when Allende was first elected, Henry Kissinger had stated "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people". There is no documentary evidence to support that the United States Government acted actively in the coordination and execution of the coup actions by the Chilean Armed Forces, however, Richard Nixon's interest from the beginning was that the Allende government would not be consolidated. In October 1973, at least 72 people were murdered by the Caravan of Death. According to the Rettig Report and Valech Commission, at least 2,115 were killed, and at least 27,265 were tortured (including 88 children younger than 12 years old). At the national stadium, filled with detainees, one of those tortured and killed was internationally known poet-singer Víctor Jara (see "Music and Dance", below). A new Constitution was approved by a controversial plebiscite on 11 September 1980, and General Pinochet became president of the republic for an eight-year term. After Pinochet obtained rule of the country, several hundred committed Chilean revolutionaries joined the Sandinista army in Nicaragua, guerrilla forces in Argentina or training camps in Cuba, Eastern Europe and Northern Africa. In the late 1980s, largely as a result of events such as the 1982 economic collapse and mass civil resistance in 1983–88, the government gradually permitted greater freedom of assembly, speech, and association, to include trade union and political activity. The government launched market-oriented reforms with Hernán Büchi as Minister of Finance. Chile moved toward a free market economy that saw an increase in domestic and foreign private investment, although the copper industry and other important mineral resources were not opened to competition. In a plebiscite on 5 October 1988, Pinochet was denied a second eight-year term as president (56% against 44%). Chileans elected a new president and the majority of members of a bicameral congress on 14 December 1989. Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin, the candidate of a coalition of 17 political parties called the Concertación, received an absolute majority of votes (55%). President Aylwin served from 1990 to 1994, in what was considered a transition period. ===21st century=== In December 1993, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, the son of previous president Eduardo Frei Montalva, led the Concertación coalition to victory with an absolute majority of votes (58%). Frei Ruiz-Tagle was succeeded in 2000 by Socialist Ricardo Lagos, who won the presidency in an unprecedented runoff election against Joaquín Lavín of the rightist Alliance for Chile. In January 2006, Chileans elected their first female president, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, of the Socialist Party, defeating Sebastián Piñera, of the National Renewal party, extending the Concertación governance for another four years. In January 2010, Chileans elected Sebastián Piñera as the first rightist President in 20 years, defeating former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle of the Concertación, for a four-year term succeeding Bachelet. Due to term limits, Sebastián Piñera did not stand for re-election in 2013, and his term expired in March 2014 resulting in Michelle Bachelet returning to office. Sebastián Piñera succeeded Bachelet again in 2018 as the President of Chile after winning the December 2017 presidential election. On 27 February 2010, Chile was struck by an 8.8 earthquake, the fifth largest ever recorded at the time. More than 500 people died (most from the ensuing tsunami) and over a million people lost their homes. The earthquake was also followed by multiple aftershocks. Initial damage estimates were in the range of US$15–30 billion, around 10% to 15% of Chile's real gross domestic product. Chile achieved global recognition for the successful rescue of 33 trapped miners in 2010. On 5 August 2010, the access tunnel collapsed at the San José copper and gold mine in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó in northern Chile, trapping 33 men below ground. A rescue effort organized by the Chilean government located the miners 17 days later. All 33 men were brought to the surface two months later on 13 October 2010 over a period of almost 24 hours, an effort that was carried on live television around the world. 2019–20 Chilean protests are a series of country-wide protests in response to a rise in the Santiago Metro's subway fare, the increased cost of living, privatization and inequality prevalent in the country. On 15 November, most of the political parties represented in the National Congress signed an agreement to call a national referendum in April 2020 regarding the creation of a new Constitution, later postponed to October due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 25 October 2020, Chileans voted 78.28 per cent in favor of a new constitution, while 21.72 per cent rejected the change. Voter turnout was 51 percent. An election for the members of the Constitutional Convention was held in Chile between 15 and 16 May 2021. On 19 December 2021, a leftist candidate, the 35-year-old former student protest leader Gabriel Boric, won Chile's presidential election to become the country's youngest ever leader. On 11 March 2022, Boric was sworn in as president to succeed outgoing President Sebastian Piñera. Out of 24 members of Gabriel Boric's female-majority Cabinet, 14 are women. On 4 September 2022, voters rejected the new constitution proposal in the constitutional referendum, which was put forward by the left-leaning Constitutional Convention. On 17 December 2023, voters rejected a second new constitution proposal in a new constitutional referendum, written by the conservative-led Constitutional Council. == Geography == A long and narrow coastal Southern Cone country on the west side of the Andes Mountains, Chile stretches over north to south, but only at its widest point east to west and at its narrowest point east to west, with an average width of . This encompasses a large variety of climates and landscapes. It contains of land area. It is situated within the Pacific Ring of Fire. Excluding its Pacific islands and Antarctic claim, Chile lies between latitudes 17° and 56°S, and longitudes 66° and 75°W. Chile is among the longest north–south countries in the world. If one considers only mainland territory, Chile is unique within this group in its narrowness from east to west, with the other long north–south countries (including Brazil, Russia, Canada, and the United States, among others) all being wider from east to west by a factor of more than 10. Chile also claims of Antarctica as part of its territory (Chilean Antarctic Territory). However, this latter claim is suspended under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, of which Chile is a signatory. It is the world's southernmost country that is geographically on the mainland. Chile controls Easter Island and Sala y Gómez Island, the easternmost islands of Polynesia, which it incorporated to its territory in 1888, and the Juan Fernández Islands, more than from the mainland. Also controlled but only temporarily inhabited (by some local fishermen) are the small islands of San Ambrosio and San Felix. These islands are notable because they extend Chile's claim to territorial waters out from its coast into the Pacific Ocean. The northern Atacama Desert contains great mineral wealth, primarily copper and nitrates. The relatively small Central Valley, which includes Santiago, dominates the country in terms of population and agricultural resources. This area is also the historical center from which Chile expanded in the late 19th century when it integrated the northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests, grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands. The Andes Mountains are located on the eastern border. === Topography === Chile is located along a highly seismic and volcanic zone, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, due to the subduction of the Nazca and Antarctic plates in the South American Plate. In the late Paleozoic, 251 million years ago, Chile belonged to the continental block called Gondwana. It was just a depression that accumulated marine sediments began to rise at the end of the Mesozoic, 66 million years ago, due to the collision between the Nazca Plate and South American Plate, resulting in the Andes. The territory would be shaped over millions of years by the folding of the rocks, forming the current relief. The Chilean relief consists of the central depression, which crosses the country longitudinally, flanked by two mountain ranges that make up about 80% of the territory: the Andes mountains to the east-natural border with Bolivia and Argentina in the region of Atacama and the Coastal Range west-minor height from the Andes. Chile's highest peak is the Nevado Ojos del Salado, at 6891.3 m, which is also the highest volcano in the world. The highest point of the Coastal Range is Vicuña Mackenna, at 3114 meters, located in the Sierra Vicuña Mackenna, the south of Antofagasta. Among the coastal mountains and the Pacific is a series of coastal plains, of variable length, which allow the settlement of coastal towns and big ports. Some areas of the plains territories encompass territory east of the Andes, and the Patagonian steppes and Magellan, or are high plateaus surrounded by high mountain ranges, such as the Altiplano or Puna de Atacama. The Far North is the area between the northern boundary of the country and the parallel 26° S, covering the first three regions. It is characterized by the presence of the Atacama desert, the most arid in the world. The desert is fragmented by streams that originate in the area known as the pampas Tamarugal. The Andes, split in two and whose eastern arm runs through Bolivia, has a high altitude and volcanic activity, which has allowed the formation of the Andean altiplano and salt structures as the Salar de Atacama, due to the gradual accumulation of sediments over time. To the south is the Norte Chico, extending to the Aconcagua river. Los Andes begin to decrease its altitude to the south and closer to the coast, reaching 90 km away at the height of Illapel, the narrowest part of the Chilean territory. The two mountain ranges intersect, virtually eliminating the intermediate depression. The existence of rivers flowing through the territory allows the formation of transverse valleys, where agriculture has developed strongly in recent times, while the coastal plains begin to expand. The Central area is the most populated region of the country. The coastal plains are wide and allow the establishment of cities and ports along the Pacific. The Andes maintain altitudes above 6000m but descend slowly in height to 4000 meters on average. The intermediate depression reappears becoming a fertile valley that allows agricultural development and human settlement, due to sediment accumulation. To the south, the Cordillera de la Costa reappears in the Cordillera de Nahuelbuta while glacial sediments create a series of lakes in the area of La Frontera. Patagonia extends from within Reloncavi, at the height of parallel 41°S, to the south. During the last glaciation, this area was covered by ice that strongly eroded Chilean relief structures. As a result, the intermediate depression sinks in the sea, while the coastal mountains rise to a series of archipelagos, such as Chiloé and the Chonos, disappearing in Taitao peninsula, in the parallel 47°S. The Andes mountain range loses height and erosion caused by the action of glaciers has caused fjords. East of the Andes, on the continent, or north of it, on the island of Tierra del Fuego are located relatively flat plains, which in the Strait of Magellan cover large areas. The Andes, as he had done previously Cordillera de la Costa, begins to break in the ocean causing a myriad of islands and islets and disappear into it, sinking and reappearing in the Southern Antilles arc and then the Antarctic Peninsula, where it is called Antartandes, in the Chilean Antarctic Territory, lying between the meridians 53°W and 90°W. In the middle of the Pacific, the country has sovereignty over several islands of volcanic origin, collectively known as Insular Chile. The archipelago of Juan Fernandez and Easter Island is located in the fracture zone between the Nazca plate and the Pacific plate known as East Pacific Rise. === Climate and hydrography === The diverse climate of Chile ranges from the world's driest desert in the north—the Atacama Desert—through a Mediterranean climate in the center, tropical in Easter Island, to an oceanic climate, including alpine tundra and glaciers in the east and south. According to the Köppen system, Chile within its borders hosts at least eighteen major climatic subtypes. There are four seasons in most of the country: summer (December to February), autumn (March to May), winter (June to August), and spring (September to November). Due to the characteristics of the territory, Chile is crossed by numerous rivers generally short in length and with low flow rates. They commonly extend from the Andes to the Pacific Ocean, flowing from East to West. Because of the Atacama desert, in the Norte Grande there are only short endorheic character streams, except for the Loa River, the longest in the country 440 km. In the high valleys, wetland areas generate Chungará Lake, located at 4500 meters above sea level. It and the Lauca River are shared with Bolivia, as well as the Lluta River. In the center-north of the country, the number of rivers that form valleys of agricultural importance increases. Noteworthy are the Elqui with 75 km ===Biodiversity=== The flora and fauna of Chile are characterized by a high degree of endemism, due to its particular geography. In continental Chile, the Atacama Desert in the north and the Andes mountains to the east are barriers that have led to the isolation of flora and fauna. Add to that the enormous length of Chile (over ) and this results in a wide range of climates and environments that can be divided into three general zones: the desert provinces of the north, central Chile, and the humid regions of the south. The native flora of Chile consists of relatively fewer species compared to the flora of other South American countries. The northernmost coastal and central region is largely barren of vegetation, approaching the most absolute desert in the world. On the slopes of the Andes, in addition to the scattered tola desert brush, grasses are found. The central valley is characterized by several species of cacti, the hardy espinos, the Chilean pine, the southern beeches and the copihue, a red bell-shaped flower that is Chile's national flower. The cold temperatures and winds of the extreme south preclude heavy forestation. Grassland is found in East Magallanes Province and northern Tierra del Fuego (in Patagonia). Much of the Chilean flora is distinct from that of neighboring Argentina, indicating that the Andean barrier existed during its formation. Chile had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.37/10, ranking it 43rd globally out of 172 countries. Just over 3,000 species of fungi are recorded in Chile, but this number is far from complete. The true total number of fungal species occurring in Chile is likely to be far higher, given the generally accepted estimate that only about 7 percent of all fungi worldwide have so far been discovered. Although the amount of available information is still very small, a first effort has been made to estimate the number of fungal species endemic to Chile, and 1995 species have been tentatively identified as possible endemics of the country. Chile's geographical isolation has restricted the immigration of faunal life so that only a few of the many distinctive South American animals are found. Among the larger mammals are the puma or cougar, the llama-like guanaco and the fox-like chilla. In the forest region, several types of marsupials and a small deer known as the pudu are found. and subsequently approved via a national plebiscite—regarded as "highly irregular" by some observers Chile's judiciary is independent and includes a court of appeal, a system of military courts, a constitutional tribunal, and the Supreme Court of Chile. In June 2005, Chile completed a nationwide overhaul of its criminal justice system. The reform has replaced inquisitorial proceedings with an adversarial system with greater similarity to that of common law jurisdictions such as the United States. For parliamentary elections, between 1989 and 2013 the binominal system was used, which promoted the establishment of two majority political blocs -Concertación and Alliance- at the expense of the exclusion of non-majority political groups. The opponents of this system approved in 2015 a moderate proportional electoral system that has been in force since the 2017 parliamentary elections, allowing the entry of new parties and coalitions. The Congress of Chile has a 50-seat Senate and a 155-member Chamber of Deputies. Senators serve for eight years with staggered terms, while deputies are elected every 4 years. The last congressional elections were held on 21 November 2021, concurrently with the presidential election. The Congress is located in the port city of Valparaíso, about west of the capital, Santiago. The main existing political coalitions in Chile are: Government: Apruebo Dignidad (Approve Dignity) is a left-wing coalition that has its origin in the 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election. After the success in that election, it held presidential primaries, in which Gabriel Boric (CS, FA) was the winner. It is formed by the coalition Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and the coalition Chile Digno (Worthy Chile) formed by the Communist Party of Chile and other left-wing parties. Democratic Socialism is a center-left coalition, successor of the Constituent Unity coalition, itself a successor of the Concertation coalition which supported the "NO" option in the 1988 plebiscite and subsequently governed the country from 1990 to 2010. This pact is formed by the Socialist, for Democracy, Radical, and Liberal parties. Opposition: Chile Vamos (Let's go Chile) is a center-right coalition with roots of liberal conservatism, formed by the parties Renovación Nacional (National Renewal), Unión Demócrata Independiente (Independent Democratic Union) and Evópoli. It has its origins in the Alliance coalition, formed by the main parties that supported the "YES" option in the 1988 plebiscite, although it has used different names since then. It was the ruling coalition during the first and second government of Sebastián Piñera, (2010–2014) and (2018–2022). In the National Congress, Chile Vamos has 52 deputies and 24 senators, while the parliamentary group of Apruebo Dignidad is formed by 37 deputies and 6 senators. Democratic Socialism is the third political force with 30 deputies and 13 senators. The other groups with parliamentary representation are the Republican Party (15 deputies and 1 senator), the Christian Democratic Party (8 deputies and 5 senators), the Party of the People (8 deputies) and the independents outside of a coalition (5 deputies and 1 senator). === Foreign relations === Since the early decades after independence, Chile has always had an active involvement in foreign affairs. In 1837, the country aggressively challenged the dominance of Peru's port of Callao for preeminence in the Pacific trade routes, defeating the short-lived alliance between Peru and Bolivia, the Peru–Bolivian Confederation (1836–39) in the War of the Confederation. The war dissolved the confederation while distributing power in the Pacific. A second international war, the War of the Pacific (1879–83), further increased Chile's regional role, while adding considerably to its territory. On 26 June 1945, Chile participated as a founding member of the United Nations being among 50 countries that signed the United Nations Charter in San Francisco, California. With the military coup of 1973, Chile became isolated politically as a result of widespread human rights abuses. It was also elected to one of five non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council in 2013. Chile hosted the Defense Ministerial of the Americas in 2002 and the APEC summit and related meetings in 2004. It also hosted the Community of Democracies ministerial in April 2005 and the Ibero-American Summit in November 2007. An associate member of Mercosur and a full member of APEC, Chile has been a major player in international economic issues and hemispheric free trade. including 2,500 Marines. Of the fleet of 29 surface vessels, only eight are operational major combatants (frigates). Those ships are based in Valparaíso. The Navy operates its own aircraft for transport and patrol; there are no Navy fighter or bomber aircraft. The Navy also operates four submarines based in Talcahuano. Air Force General (four-star) Jorge Rojas Ávila heads the 12,500-strong Chilean Air Force. Air assets are distributed among five air brigades headquartered in Iquique, Antofagasta, Santiago, Puerto Montt, and Punta Arenas. The Air Force also operates an airbase on King George Island, Antarctica. The Air Force took delivery of the final two of ten F-16s, all purchased from the U.S., in March 2007 after several decades of U.S. debate and previous refusal to sell. Chile also took delivery in 2007 of a number of reconditioned Block 15 F-16s from the Netherlands, bringing to 18 the total of F-16s purchased from the Dutch. men and women who are responsible for law enforcement, traffic management, narcotics suppression, border control, and counter-terrorism throughout Chile. Chile is the 64th most peaceful country in the world, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index. ===Administrative divisions=== In 1978 Chile was administratively divided into regions, and in 1979 subdivided into provinces and these into communes. The country has 16 regions, 56 provinces and 348 communes. Each region was designated by a name and a Roman numeral assigned from north to south, except for the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which did not have a number. The creation of two new regions in 2007, Arica and Parinacota (XV) and Los Ríos (XIV), and a third region in 2018, Ñuble (XVI) made this numbering lose its original order meaning. {\|class="wikitable col1izq col2izq col3der col4der col5der col6izq floatcenter" \|- !colspan=7\|Administrative divisions of Chile \|- ! scope="col" \| Region ==Economy== The Central Bank of Chile in Santiago serves as the central bank for the country. The Chilean currency is the Chilean peso (CLP). Chile is one of South America's most stable and prosperous nations, The think tank The Heritage Foundation states that Chile has the highest degree of economic freedom in South America (ranking 22nd worldwide), owing to its independent and efficient judicial system and prudent public finance management. In May 2010 Chile became the first South American country to join the OECD. In 2006, Chile became the country with the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America. As of 2020, Chile ranks third in Latin America (behind Uruguay and Panama) in nominal GDP per capita. Copper mining makes up 20% of Chilean GDP and 60% of exports. Escondida is the largest copper mine in the world, producing over 5% of global supplies. The Chilean economy finished 2004 with growth of 6%. Real GDP growth reached 5.7% in 2005 before falling back to 4% in 2006. GDP expanded by 5% in 2007. Real GDP growth in 2012 was 5.5%. Growth slowed to 4.1% in the first quarter of 2013. The unemployment rate was 7.8% in 2022, according to The World Bank. There are reported labor shortages in agriculture, mining, and construction. Critics in Chile, however, argue that true poverty figures are considerably higher than those officially published. Using the relative yardstick favoured in many European countries, 27% of Chileans would be poor, according to Juan Carlos Feres of the ECLAC. , about 11.1 million people (64% of the population) benefit from government welfare programs, via the "Social Protection Card", which includes the population living in poverty and those at a risk of falling into poverty. The privatized national pension system (AFP) has encouraged domestic investment and contributed to an estimated total domestic savings rate of approximately 21% of GDP. Under the compulsory private pension system, most formal sector employees pay 10% of their salaries into privately managed funds. Internal Government of Chile figures show that even when factoring out inflation and the recent high price of copper, bilateral trade between the U.S. and Chile has grown over 60% since then. The Government of Chile continues to pay down its foreign debt, with public debt only 3.9% of GDP at the end of 2006. ===Mineral resources=== Chile is rich in mineral resources, especially copper and lithium. It is thought that due to the importance of lithium for batteries for electric vehicles and stabilization of electric grids with large proportions of intermittent renewables in the electricity mix, Chile could be strengthened geopolitically. However, this perspective has also been criticized for underestimating the power of economic incentives for expanded production in other parts of the world. The country was, in 2019, the world's largest producer of copper, iodine and rhenium, the second largest producer of lithium and molybdenum, the sixth largest producer of silver, the seventh largest producer of salt, the eighth largest producer of potash, the thirteenth producer of sulfur and the thirteenth producer of iron ore in the world. In 2023, it was fourth largest silver producer globally. The country also has considerable gold production: between 2006 and 2017, the country produced annual amounts ranging from 35.9 tonnes in 2017 to 51.3 tonnes in 2013, where the gold production in 2015 is 43 metric tonnes. ===Agriculture=== Agriculture in Chile encompasses a wide range of different activities due to its particular geography, climate and geology and human factors. Historically agriculture is one of the bases of Chile's economy. Now agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing account for only 4.9% of the GDP and employ 13.6% of the country's labor force. Chile is one of the 5 largest world producers of cherry and blueberry, and one of the 10 largest world producers of grape, apple, kiwi, peach, plum and hazelnut, focusing on exporting high-value fruits. Some other major agriculture products of Chile include pears, onions, wheat, maize, oats, garlic, asparagus, beans, beef, poultry, wool, fish, timber and hemp. Due to its geographical isolation and strict customs policies Chile is free from diseases and pests such as mad cow disease, fruit fly and Phylloxera. This, its location in the Southern Hemisphere, which has quite different harvesting times from the Northern Hemisphere, and its wide range of agriculture conditions are considered Chile's main comparative advantages. However, Chile's mountainous landscape limits the extent and intensity of agriculture so that arable land corresponds only to 2.62% of the total territory. Chile currently utilizes 14,015 Hectares of agricultural land. Chile is the world's second largest producer of salmon, after Norway. In 2019, it was responsible for 26% of the global supply. In wine, Chile is usually among the 10 largest producers in the world. In 2018 it was in 6th place. ===Tourism=== Tourism in Chile has experienced sustained growth over the last few decades. In 2005, tourism grew by 13.6%, generating more than 4.5 billion dollars of which 1.5 billion was attributed to foreign tourists. According to the National Service of Tourism (Sernatur), 2 million people a year visit the country. Most of these visitors come from other countries in the American continent, mainly Argentina; followed by a growing number from the United States, Europe, and Brazil with a growing number of Asians from South Korea and China. The main attractions for tourists are places of natural beauty situated in the extreme zones of the country: San Pedro de Atacama, in the north, is very popular with foreign tourists who arrive to admire the Incaic architecture, the altiplano lakes, and the Valley of the Moon. In Putre, also in the north, there is the Chungará Lake, as well as the Parinacota and the Pomerape volcanoes, with altitudes of 6,348 m and 6,282 m, respectively. Throughout the central Andes there are many ski resorts of international repute, including Portillo, Valle Nevado and Termas de Chillán. The main tourist sites in the south are national parks (the most popular is Conguillío National Park in the Araucanía) and the coastal area around Tirúa and Cañete with the Isla Mocha and the Nahuelbuta National Park, Chiloé Archipelago and Patagonia, which includes Laguna San Rafael National Park, with its many glaciers, and the Torres del Paine National Park. The central port city of Valparaíso, which is World Heritage with its unique architecture, is also popular. Finally, Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean is one of the main Chilean tourist destinations. For locals, tourism is concentrated mostly in the summer (December to March), and mainly in the coastal beach towns. Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, La Serena and Coquimbo are the main summer centers in the north, and Pucón on the shores of Lake Villarrica is the main center in the south. Because of its proximity to Santiago, the coast of the Valparaíso Region, with its many beach resorts, receives the largest number of tourists. Viña del Mar, Valparaíso's more affluent northern neighbor, is popular because of its beaches, casino, and its annual song festival, the most important musical event in Latin America. Pichilemu in the O'Higgins Region is widely known as South America's "best surfing spot" according to Fodor's. In November 2005 the government launched a campaign under the brand "Chile: All Ways Surprising" intended to promote the country internationally for both business and tourism. Museums in Chile such as the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts built in 1880, feature works by Chilean artists. Chile is home to the world-renowned Patagonian Trail that resides on the border between Argentina and Chile. Chile recently launched a massive scenic route for tourism in hopes of encouraging development based on conservation. The Route of Parks covers and was designed by Tompkin Conservation (founders Douglas Tompkins and wife Kristine). ===Transport=== Due to Chile's topography a functioning transport network is vital to its economy. In 2020, Chile had of highways, with paved. In the same year, the country had of duplicated highways, the second largest network in South America, after Brazil. Since the mid-1990s, there has been a significant improvement in the country's roads, through bidding processes that allowed the construction of an efficient road network, with emphasis on the duplication of continuous of the Panamerican Highway (Chile Route 5) between Puerto Montt and Caldera (in addition to the planned duplication in the Atacama Desert area), the excerpts in between Santiago, Valparaiso and the Central Coast, and the northern access to Concepción and the large project of the Santiago urban highways network, opened between 2004 and 2006. Buses are now the main means of long-distance transportation in Chile, following the decline of its railway network. The bus system covers the entire country, from Arica to Santiago (a 30-hour journey) and from Santiago to Punta Arenas (about 40 hours, with a change at Osorno). Chile has a total of 372 runways (62 paved and 310 unpaved). Important airports in Chile include Chacalluta International Airport (Arica), Diego Aracena International Airport (Iquique), Andrés Sabella Gálvez International Airport (Antofagasta), Carriel Sur International Airport (Concepción), El Tepual International Airport (Puerto Montt), Presidente Carlos Ibáñez del Campo International Airport (Punta Arenas), La Araucanía International Airport (Temuco), Mataveri International Airport (Easter Island), the most remote airport in the world, as defined by distance to another airport, and the Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (Santiago) with a traffic of 12,105,524 passengers in 2011. Santiago is headquarters of Latin America's largest airline holding company and Chilean flag carrier LATAM Airlines. ===Internet and telecommunications=== Chile has a telecommunication system which covers much of the country, including Chilean insular and Antarctic bases. Privatization of the telephone system began in 1988; Chile has one of the most advanced telecommunications infrastructure in South America with a modern system based on extensive microwave radio relay facilities and a domestic satellite system with 3 earth stations. The Chilean internet country code is ".cl". In 2017 the government of Chile launched its first cyber security strategy, which receives technical support from the Organization of American States (OAS) Cyber Security Program of the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE). ===Energy=== Chile's total energy supply (TES) was 23.0GJ per capita in 2020. Energy in Chile is dominated by fossil fuels, with coal, oil and gas accounting for 73.4% of the total primary energy. Biofuels and waste account for another 20.5% of primary energy supply, with the rest sourced from hydro and other renewables. As the Atacama Desert has the highest solar irradiation in the world, and Chile has always had problems obtaining oil, gas and coal (the country basically does not produce them, so it has to import them), renewable energy is seen as the solution for the country's shortcomings in the energy field. In 2023 Chile emitted 107.99 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, equivalent to around 0.2% of the global total. In recent years Chile has emerged as a global leader in clean energy, particularly solar and wind. and has committed to net zero by 2050. According to Climate Action Tracker, the nation is making "considerable progress" in climate action by expanding renewables and phasing-out coal. == Demographics == Chile's 2017 census reported a population of 17,574,003. Its rate of population growth has been decreasing since 1990, due to a declining birth rate. By 2050 the population is expected to reach approximately 20.2 million people. === Ancestry and ethnicity === Mexican professor Francisco Lizcano, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, estimated that 52.7% of Chileans were white, 39.3% were mestizo, and 8% were Amerindian. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, as of the year 2002, only 22% of Chileans were white and 72% were mestizo. In 1984, a study from the Revista de Pediatría de Chile titled Sociogenetic Reference Framework for Public Health Studies in Chile determined an ancestry of 67.9% European, and 32.1% Native American. In 1994, a biological study determined that the Chilean composition was 64% European and 35% Amerindian. The recent study in the Candela Project establishes that the genetic composition of Chile is 52% of European origin, with 44% of the genome coming from Native Americans (Amerindians), and 4% coming from Africa, making Chile a primarily mestizo country with traces of African descent present in half of the population. Another genetic study conducted by the University of Brasília in several South American countries shows a similar genetic composition for Chile, with a European contribution of 51.6%, an Amerindian contribution of 42.1%, and an African contribution of 6.3%. In 2015, another study established genetic composition in 57% European, 38% Native American, and 2.5% African. A public health booklet from the University of Chile states that 35% of the population is of Caucasian origin; "predominantly White" Mestizos are estimated to amount to a total of 65%, while Native Americans (Amerindians) comprise the remaining 5%. Despite the genetic considerations, many Chileans, if asked, would self-identify as White. The 2011 Latinobarómetro survey asked respondents in Chile what race they considered themselves to belong to. Most answered "White" (59%), while 25% said "Mestizo" and 8% self-classified as "indigenous". A 2002 national poll revealed that a majority of Chileans believed they possessed some (43.4%) or much (8.3%) "indigenous blood", while 40.3% responded that they had none. Chile is one of 22 countries to have signed and ratified the only binding international law concerning indigenous peoples, the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989. It was adopted in 1989 as the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169. Chile ratified it in 2008. A Chilean court decision in November 2009, considered to be a landmark ruling on indigenous rights, made use of the convention. The Supreme Court decision on Aymara water rights upheld rulings by both the Pozo Almonte tribunal and the Iquique Court of Appeals and marks the first judicial application of ILO Convention 169 in Chile. The earliest European immigrants were Spanish colonizers who arrived in the 16th century. The Amerindian population of central Chile was absorbed into the Spanish settler population in the beginning of the colonial period to form the large mestizo population that exists in Chile today; mestizos create modern middle and lower classes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Basques came to Chile where they integrated into the existing elites of Castilian origin. Postcolonial Chile was never a particularly attractive destination for migrants, owing to its remoteness and distance from Europe. Europeans preferred to stay in countries closer to their homelands instead of taking the long journey through the Straits of Magellan or crossing the Andes. Spaniards were the only major European migrant group to Chile, and there was never large-scale immigration such as that to Argentina or Brazil. Great Britain, Germany, and Croatia, among others. Descendants of different European ethnic groups often intermarried in Chile. This intermarriage and mixture of cultures and races have helped to shape the present society and culture of the Chilean middle and upper classes. Also, roughly 500,000 of Chile's population is of full or partial Palestinian origin, and 800,000 Arab descents. Chile currently has 1.5 million of Latin American immigrants, mainly from Venezuela, Peru, Haiti, Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina; 8% of the total population in 2019, without counting descendants. According to the 2002 national census, Chile's foreign-born population has increased by 75% since 1992. As of November 2021, numbers of people entering Chile from elsewhere in Latin America have grown swiftly in the last decade, tripling in the last three years to 1.5 million, with arrivals stemming from humanitarian crises in Haiti (ca. 180,000) and Venezuela (ca 460,000). === Urbanization === About 85% of the country's population lives in urban areas, with 40% living in Greater Santiago. The largest agglomerations according to the 2002 census are Greater Santiago with 5.6 million people, Greater Concepción with 861,000 and Greater Valparaíso with 824,000. ===Religion=== Historically, the indigenous peoples in Chile observed a variety of religions before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. During Spanish rule and the first century of Chilean independence, the Catholic Church was one of the most powerful institutions in the country. In the late 19th century, liberal policies (the so-called Leyes laicas or "lay laws") started to reduce the influence of the clergy and the promulgation of a new Constitution in 1925 established the separation of church and state. , 66.6% of Chilean population over 15 years of age claimed to adhere to the Roman Catholic church, a decrease from the 70% reported in the 2002 census. In the same census of 2012, 17% of Chileans reported adherence to an Evangelical church ("Evangelical" in the census referred to all Christian denominations other than the Roman Catholic and Orthodox—Greek, Persian, Serbian, Ukrainian, and Armenian—churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah's Witnesses: essentially, those denominations generally still termed "Protestant" in most English-speaking lands, although Adventism is often considered an Evangelical denomination as well). Approximately 90% of Evangelical Christians are Pentecostal. but Wesleyan, Lutheran, Anglican, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, other Reformed, Baptist, and Methodist churches also are present amongst Chilean Evangelical churches. Irreligious people, atheists, and agnostics account for around 12% of the population. By 2015, the major religion in Chile remained Christianity (68%), with an estimated 55% of Chileans belonging to the Roman Catholic church, 13% to various Evangelical churches, and just 7% adhering to any other religion. Agnostics and atheist were estimated at 25% of the population. Chile has a Baháʼí religious community, and is home to the Baháʼí mother temple, or continental House of Worship, for Latin America. Completed in 2016, it serves as a space for people of all religions and backgrounds to gather, meditate, reflect, and worship. It is formed from cast glass and translucent marble and has been described as innovative in its architectural style. The Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of religion, and other laws and policies contribute to generally free religious practice. The law at all levels fully protects this right against abuse by either governmental or private actors. Government officials attend Roman Catholic events as well as major Evangelical and Jewish ceremonies. The patron saints of Chile are Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint James the Greater (Santiago). In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Alberto Hurtado, who became the country's second native Roman Catholic saint after Teresa de los Andes. === Languages === The Spanish spoken in Chile is distinctively accented and quite unlike that of neighboring South American countries because final syllables are often dropped, and some consonants have a soft pronunciation. Accent varies only very slightly from north to south; more noticeable are the differences in accent based on social class or whether one lives in the city or the country. That the Chilean population was largely formed in a small section at the center of the country and then migrated in modest numbers to the north and south helps explain this relative lack of differentiation, which was maintained by the national reach of radio, and now television, which also helps to diffuse and homogenize colloquial expressions. German is still spoken to some extent in southern Chile, either in small countryside pockets or as a second language among the communities of larger cities. Through initiatives such as the English Opens Doors Program, the government made English mandatory for students in fifth grade and above in public schools. Most private schools in Chile start teaching English from kindergarten. Common English words have been absorbed and appropriated into everyday Spanish speech. === Health === The Ministry of Health (Minsal) is the cabinet-level administrative office in charge of planning, directing, coordinating, executing, controlling and informing the public health policies formulated by the President of Chile. The National Health Fund (Fonasa), created in 1979, is the financial entity entrusted to collect, manage and distribute state funds for health in Chile. It is funded by the public. All employees pay 7% of their monthly income to the fund. Fonasa is part of the NHSS and has executive power through the Ministry of Health (Chile). Its headquarters are in Santiago and decentralized public service is conducted by various Regional Offices. More than 12 million beneficiaries benefit from Fonasa. Beneficiaries can also opt for more costly private insurance through Isapre. In the 2024 Global Hunger Index, Chile is one of 22 countries with a GHI score of less than 5. === Education === In Chile, education begins with preschool until the age of 5. Primary school is provided for children between ages 6 and 13. Students then attend secondary school until graduation at age 17. Secondary education is divided into two parts: During the first two years, students receive a general education. Then, they choose a branch: scientific humanistic education, artistic education, or technical and professional education. Secondary school ends two years later on the acquirement of a certificate (licencia de enseñanza media). Chilean education is segregated by wealth in a three-tiered system – the quality of the schools reflects socioeconomic backgrounds: city schools (colegios municipales) that are mostly free and have the worst education results, mostly attended by poor students; subsidized schools that receive some money from the government which can be supplemented by fees paid by the student's family, which are attended by mid-income students and typically get mid-level results; and entirely private schools that consistently get the best results. Many private schools charge attendance fees of 0,5 to 1 median household income. Upon successful graduation of secondary school, students may continue into higher education. The higher education schools in Chile consist of Chilean Traditional Universities and are divided into public universities or private universities. There are medical schools and both the Universidad de Chile and Universidad Diego Portales offer law schools in a partnership with Yale University. ==Culture== From the period between early agricultural settlements and up to the late pre-Columbian period, northern Chile was a region of Andean culture that was influenced by altiplano traditions spreading to the coastal valleys of the north, while southern regions were areas of Mapuche cultural activities. Throughout the colonial period following the conquest, and during the early Republican period, the country's culture was dominated by the Spanish. Other European influences, primarily English, French, and German began in the 19th century and have continued to this day. German migrants influenced the Bavarian style rural architecture and cuisine in the south of Chile in cities such as Valdivia, Frutillar, Puerto Varas, Osorno, Temuco, Puerto Octay, Llanquihue, Faja Maisan, Pitrufquén, Victoria, Pucón and Puerto Montt. ===Music and dance=== Music in Chile ranges from folkloric, popular and classical music. Its large geography generates different musical styles in the north, center and south of the country, including also Easter Island and Mapuche music. The national dance is the cueca. Another form of traditional Chilean song, though not a dance, is the tonada. Arising from music imported by the Spanish colonists, it is distinguished from the cueca by an intermediate melodic section and a more prominent melody. From the 1950s to the 1970s, native folk musical forms were revitalized with the movement led by composers such as Violeta Parra, Raúl de Ramón and Pedro Messone, which was also associated with political activists and reformers such as Víctor Jara, Inti-Illimani, and Quilapayún. Also, many Chilean rock bands like Los Jaivas, Los Prisioneros, La Ley, Los Tres and Los Bunkers have reached international success, some incorporating strong folk influences, such as Los Jaivas. In February, annual music and comedy festivals are held in Viña del Mar. ===Literature=== Chile is a country of poets. Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature (1945). Chile's most famous poet is Pablo Neruda, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature (1971) and is world-renowned for his extensive library of works on romance, nature, and politics. His three highly personalized homes in Isla Negra, Santiago and Valparaíso are popular tourist destinations. Among the list of other Chilean poets are Carlos Pezoa Véliz, Vicente Huidobro, Gonzalo Rojas, Pablo de Rokha, Nicanor Parra, Ivonne Coñuecar and Raúl Zurita. Isabel Allende is the best-selling Chilean novelist, with 51 million of her novels sold worldwide. Novelist José Donoso's novel The Obscene Bird of Night is considered by critic Harold Bloom to be one of the canonical works of 20th-century Western literature. Another internationally recognized Chilean novelist and poet is Roberto Bolaño whose translations into English have had an excellent reception from the critics. ===Cuisine=== Chilean cuisine is a reflection of the country's topographical variety, featuring an assortment of seafood, beef, fruits, and vegetables. Traditional recipes include asado, cazuela, empanadas, humitas, pastel de choclo, pastel de papas, curanto, and sopaipillas. Crudos is an example of the mixture of culinary contributions from the various ethnic influences in Chile. The raw minced llama, heavy use of shellfish, and rice bread were taken from native Quechua Andean cuisine, (although beef, brought to Chile by Europeans, is also used in place of the llama meat), lemon and onions were brought by the Spanish colonists, and the use of mayonnaise and yogurt was introduced by German immigrants, as was beer. ===Folklore=== The folklore of Chile, cultural and demographic characteristics of the country, is the result of the mixture of Spanish and Amerindian elements that occurred during the colonial period. Due to cultural and historical reasons, they are classified and distinguished four major areas in the country: northern areas, central, southern and south. Most of the traditions of the culture of Chile have a festive purpose, but some, such as dances and ceremonies, have religious components. Chilean mythology is the mythology and beliefs of the Folklore of Chile. This includes Chilote mythology, Rapa Nui mythology and Mapuche mythology. ===Sports=== Chile's most popular sport is association football. Chile has appeared in nine FIFA World Cups which includes hosting the 1962 FIFA World Cup where the national football team finished third. Other results achieved by the national football team include two Copa América titles (2015 and 2016), two runners-up positions, one silver and two bronze medals at the Pan American Games, a bronze medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics and two third places finishes in the FIFA under-17 and under-20 youth tournaments. The top league in the Chilean football league system is the Chilean Primera División, which is named by the IFFHS as the ninth strongest national football league in the world. The main football clubs are Colo-Colo, Universidad de Chile and Universidad Católica. Colo-Colo is the country's most successful football club, having both the most national and international championships, including the coveted Copa Libertadores South American club tournament. Universidad de Chile was the last international champion (Copa Sudamericana 2011). Tennis is Chile's most successful sport. Its national team won the World Team Cup clay tournament twice (2003 & 2004), and played the Davis Cup final against Italy in 1976. At the 2004 Summer Olympics the country captured gold and bronze in men's singles and gold in men's doubles (Nicolás Massú obtained two gold medals). Marcelo Ríos became the first Latin American man to reach the number one spot in the ATP singles rankings in 1998. Anita Lizana won the US Open in 1937, becoming the first woman from Latin America to win a Grand Slam tournament. Luis Ayala was twice a runner-up at the French Open and both Ríos and Fernando González reached the Australian Open men's singles finals. González also won a silver medal in singles at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. At the Summer Olympic Games Chile boasts a total of two gold medals (tennis), seven silver medals (athletics, equestrian, boxing, shooting and tennis) and four bronze medals (tennis, boxing and football). In 2012, Chile won its first Paralympic Games medal (gold in Athletics). Rodeo is the country's national sport and is practiced in the more rural areas of the nation. A sport similar to hockey called chueca was played by the Mapuche people during the Spanish conquest. Skiing and snowboarding are practiced at ski centers located in the Central Andes, and in southern ski centers near to cities as Osorno, Puerto Varas, Temuco and Punta Arenas. Surfing is popular at some coastal towns. Polo is professionally practiced within Chile, with the country achieving top prize in the 2008 and 2015 World Polo Championship. Basketball is a popular sport in which Chile earned a bronze medal in the first men's FIBA World Championship held in 1950 and won a second bronze medal when Chile hosted the 1959 FIBA World Championship. Chile hosted the first FIBA World Championship for Women in 1953 finishing the tournament with the silver medal. San Pedro de Atacama is host to the annual "Atacama Crossing", a six-stage, footrace which annually attracts about 150 competitors from 35 countries. The Dakar Rally off-road automobile race has been held in both Chile and Argentina since 2009. ===Cultural heritage=== The cultural heritage of Chile consists, first, of its intangible heritage, composed of various cultural events and activities, such as visual arts, crafts, dances, holidays, cuisine, games, music and traditions. Secondly, its tangible heritage consists of those buildings, objects and sites of archaeological, architectural, traditional, artistic, ethnographic, folkloric, historical, religious or technological significance scattered through Chilean territory. Among them, some are declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage of 1972, ratified by Chile in 1980. These cultural sites are the Rapa Nui National Park (1995), the Churches of Chiloé (2000), the historical district of the port city of Valparaíso (2003), Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works (2005) and the mining city Sewell (2006). In 1999 Cultural Heritage Day was established as a way to honour and commemorate Chile's cultural heritage. It is an official national event celebrated in May every year.	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"Operation Condor", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "75th meridian west", "Chilean Navy", "Supreme Court of Chile", "Pedro Messone", "Juan Fernández Islands", "Radical Party of Chile (2018)", "Incas in Central Chile", "Chilean Army", "Social Convergence", "Our Lady of Mount Carmel", "Arauco War", "Peru–Bolivian Confederation", "Baháʼí Faith", "Constituent Unity", "Ferdinand Magellan", "Parinacota Volcano", "Forest Landscape Integrity Index", "Los Jaivas", "Qawasqar language", "List of Christian denominations", "open-pit mining", "logging", "Reformation Day", "molybdenum", "association football", "Patagonia Park", "Tarapacá Region", "Tierra del Fuego (main island)", "Nicanor Parra", "Argentina", "privatization", "Sebastián Piñera", "LATAM Airlines Group", "snowboarding", "President of Chile", "1988 Chilean national plebiscite", "Copa Sudamericana", "1964 Chilean presidential election", "Michelle Bachelet Jeria", "Human rights violations in Pinochet's Chile", "2022 Chilean constitutional referendum", "2015 World Polo Championship", "Palin (game)", "mestizo", "Arica, Chile", "Nahuelbuta National Park", "Universidad Diego Portales", "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", "Drake Passage", "Joaquín Prieto", "Economic inequality", "Vicente Huidobro", "Chile Davis Cup team", "beef", "wheat", "coal", "1959 FIBA World Championship", "climate", "Congress of Chile", "Viña del Mar International Song Festival", "International Telecommunication Union", "public works", "Anglicanism", "US Open (tennis)", "Lutheran", "tribal chief", "Grand Slam (tennis)", "British Crown", "Tierra del Fuego Province, Chile", "Nobel Prize in Literature", "Wind energy", "PLOS Genetics", "Croatia", "Antarctic Treaty", "onion", "Paleozoic", "FIBA World Championship for Women", "Puente Alto", "Military Geographic Institute (Chile)", "Temuco", "Isapre", "asparagus", "Occupation of Araucanía", "poultry", "Rettig Report", "King George Island (South Shetland Islands)", "fish", "marraqueta", "Carlos Ibáñez del Campo", "yogurt", "Fragile States Index", "Phylloxera", "potash", "greenhouse gas", "Quechua people", "Luis Ayala (tennis)", "Isabel Allende", "Bio Bío Region", "Post-creole continuum", "Community of Latin American and Caribbean States", "Diego de Almagro", "Gondwana", "Externality", "Parallel (geometry)", "List of presidents of the Supreme Court of Chile", "Easter Island", "1962 FIFA World Cup", "copper", "Club Deportivo Universidad Católica", "gold", "Hernán Büchi", "66th meridian west", "Violeta Parra", "John Williams Wilson", "Time (magazine)", "Mapudungun", "Bernardo O'Higgins National Park", "Independent Democratic Union", "Norte Grande", "Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts", "telecommunications in Chile", "Copa América", "South America", "Argentine War of Independence", "Araucaria araucana", "Spaniards", "Diego Portales", "Peru", "religious discrimination", "Puerto Octay", "Cuba", "1999–2000 Chilean presidential election", "Index of Chile-related articles", "Nationalization", "Llanquihue glaciation", "Skiing", "Rancagua", "Socialist Party of Chile", "Chacalluta International Airport", "Inti-Illimani", "United Nations Human Rights Council", "Catholicism", "Feast of Saints Peter and Paul", "José de San Martín", "Pacific Alliance", "Pomerape", "La Araucanía International Airport", "Chilean Antarctic Territory", "2008 Summer Olympics", "Tropical rainforest climate", "freedom of religion", "Binominal System", "National Library of Chile", "Catholic Church", "Dutch Republic", "United States Department of State", "Pudú", "Communes of Chile", "coastal plains", "Wesleyan Church", "fuel oil", "wool", "Putre", "Marcelo Ríos", "Zona Central, Chile", "lingua franca", "Osvaldo Silva", "Colina, Chile", "cherry", "Santiago Metro", "Mapuche language", "Northern Hemisphere", "Renewable energy", "salt", "alpine tundra", "La Serena (Chile)", "Philippines", "apple", "1859 Chilean revolution", "Lom Ediciones", "The Obscene Bird of Night", "Chile–Philippines relations", "Lumber", "BBC News", "maize", "Piracy", "Greater Concepción", "Crossing of the Andes", "Chamber of Deputies of Chile", "GDP", "Gabriel Salazar", "Chilote mythology", "Concertación", "Fiestas Patrias (Chile)", "Conquest of Chile", "Pitrufquén", "Caravan of Death", "Churches of Chiloé", "Cordillera de Nahuelbuta", "Anita Lizana", "endorheic", "Kingdom of England", "Southern Hemisphere", "peach", "José Donoso", "National language", "Centre-left politics", "Nicaragua", "current account deficit", "Constitutional Council (Chile)", "Latinobarómetro", "Anglican", "higher education", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "Junta (governing body)", "beer", "Pan American Games", "human development (humanity)", "Chonos Archipelago", "Independent politician", "Ivonne Coñuecar", "national sport", "Patagonia", "oats", "Santiago Metropolitan Region", "oceanic climate", "Maule river", "José Miguel Carrera", "Feast of the Immaculate Conception", "Pacific Ocean", "economic depression", "Endesa (Chile)", "Assumption of Mary", "Francis Drake", "Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle", "Off-road racing", "Chilean cuisine", "separation of church and state", "Iquique", "Tirúa", "Coyhaique", "Left-wing politics", "Osorno, Chile", "Los Tres", "Bicentennial of Chile", "Memoria Chilena", "Valle Nevado", "Aymara language", "Baltimore crisis", "2009–10 Chilean presidential election", "United Nations General Assembly", "Escondida", "oligarchy", "hazelnut", "South Korea", "Dual carriageway", "English Opens Doors", "Valle de la Luna (Chile)", "Guayaquil", "Acacia caven", "Talca", "Yaghan language", "Colonial Chile", "Conquistador", "Diego Aracena International Airport", "Inca Empire", "Callao", "holding company", "Liberal Party of Chile (2013)", "Spanish language", "Chilean Air Force", "2023 Chilean constitutional referendum", "urbanization", "Torres del Paine National Park", "Campanula", "President of the Senate of Chile", "Chilean Sign Language", "Víctor Jara", "Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina", "Basketball", "yellow-winged blackbird", "preschool", "Gonzalo Rojas", "copihue", "2000 Summer Olympics", "Freedom of speech", "Policarpo Toro", "Copa América Centenario", "silver", "Real Situado", "HuffPost", "Fodor's", "birth rate", "Nevado Ojos del Salado", "grape", "Treaty of Peace and Friendship (1904)", "surfing", "casino", "Baháʼí House of Worship", "central bank", "Presidente Carlos Ibáñez del Campo International Airport", "Talcahuano", "La Frontera, Chile", "Atacama desert", "Sergio Villalobos", "Chiloé Archipelago", "Teresa de los Andes", "Ortúzar Commission", "Raúl de Ramón", "treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons", "Prussia", "Transverse Valleys", "Panama crisis of 1885", "Mapuche", "Chile Vamos", "Club Universidad de Chile", "Antarctic Treaty System", "Concepción, Chile", "Pablo Neruda", "Los Bunkers", "sulfur", "1891 Chilean Civil War", "Henry Kissinger", "fuel gas", "Castile (historical region)", "guanaco", "Economy of Chile", "Salar de Atacama", "National Anthem of Chile", "Aconcagua River", "Cougar", "D'Hondt method", "Politics of Chile", "economic freedom", "Christian Democratic Party (Chile)", "Bicameralism", "Military dictatorship of Chile (1973–1990)", "maximum neighbor hypothesis", "condor", "pastel de choclo", "Kristine Tompkins", "Nueva canción", "Santa Lucía Hill", "Sanhattan", "Termas de Chillán", "Spanish monarchy", "Carlos Pezoa Véliz", "Chilean peso", "Magallanes Region", "Alliance (Chile)", "tonada", "World Heritage Sites", "spillover effects", "Copiapó", "Public holiday" ]
5,490	History of Chile	The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish invaders began to raid the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony from 1540 to 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite. Failure to address the economic and social increases and increasing political awareness of the less-affluent population, as well as indirect intervention and economic funding to the main political groups by the CIA, as part of the Cold War, led to a political polarization under Socialist president Salvador Allende. This in turn resulted in the 1973 coup d'état and the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, whose seventeen-year regime was responsible for many human rights violations and deep market-oriented economic reforms. In 1990, Chile made a peaceful transition to democracy and initiate a succession of democratic governments. ==Early history (pre-1540)== About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in the fertile valleys and coastal areas of what is present-day Chile. Pre-Hispanic Chile was home to over a dozen different Amerindian societies. The current prevalent theories are that the initial arrival of humans to the continent took place either along the Pacific coast southwards in a rather rapid expansion long preceding the Clovis culture, or even trans-Pacific migration. These theories are backed by findings in the Monte Verde archaeological site, which predates the Clovis site by thousands of years. Specific early human settlement sites from the very early human habitation in Chile include the Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Crater's lava tube. Despite such diversity, it is possible to classify the indigenous people into three major cultural groups: the northern people, who developed rich handicrafts and were influenced by pre-Incan cultures; the Araucanian culture, who inhabited the area between the river Choapa and the island of Chiloé, and lived primarily off agriculture; and the Patagonian culture composed of various nomadic tribes, who supported themselves through fishing and hunting (and who in Pacific/Pacific Coast immigration scenario would be descended partly from the most ancient settlers). No elaborate, centralized, sedentary civilization reigned supreme. The Araucanians, a fragmented society of hunters, gatherers, and farmers, constituted the largest Native American group in Chile. Mobile people who engaged in trade and warfare with other indigenous groups lived in scattered family clusters and small villages. Although the Araucanians had no written language, they did use a common tongue. Those in what became central Chile were more settled and more likely to use irrigation. Those in the south combined slash-and-burn agriculture with hunting. Of the three Araucanian groups, the one that mounted the fiercest resistance to the attempts at seizure of their territory were the Mapuche, meaning "people of the land." As the Spaniards would after them, the Incas encountered fierce resistance and so were unable to exert control in the south. During their attempts at conquest in 1460 and again in 1491, the Incas established forts in the Central Valley of Chile, but they could not colonize the region. The Mapuche fought against the Sapa Tupac Inca Yupanqui (c. 1471–1493) and his army. The result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river, which subsequently became the boundary between the Incan empire and the Mapuche lands until the arrival of the Spaniards. Scholars speculate that the total Araucanian population may have numbered 1.5 million at most when the Spaniards arrived in the 1530s; a century of European conquest and disease reduced that number by at least half. During the conquest, the Araucanians quickly added horses and European weaponry to their arsenal of clubs and bows and arrows. They became adept at raiding Spanish settlements and, albeit in declining numbers, managed to hold off the Spaniards and their descendants until the late 19th century. The Araucanians' valor inspired the Chileans to mythologize them as the nation's first national heroes, a status that did nothing, however, to elevate the wretched living standard of their descendants. used by Magellan to describe the native people whom his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed the Patagons were actually Tehuelches with an average height of 1.80 m (~5′11″) compared to the 1.55 m (~5′1″) average for Spaniards of the time. The Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz, as well as the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The Argentine politico-economic Patagonic Region includes the Province of La Pampa. The Chilean part of Patagonia embraces the southern part of Valdivia, Los Lagos in Lake Llanquihue, Chiloé, Puerto Montt and the Archaeological site of Monte Verde, also the fiords and islands south to the regions of Aisén and Magallanes, including the west side of Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn. ==European conquest and colonization (1540–1810)== The first European to sight Chilean territory was Ferdinand Magellan, who crossed the Strait of Magellan on November 1, 1520. However, the title of discoverer of Chile is usually assigned to Diego de Almagro. Almagro was Francisco Pizarro's partner, and he received the Southern area (Nueva Toledo). He organized an expedition that brought him to central Chile in 1537, but he found little of value to compare with the gold and silver of the Incas in Peru. Left with the impression that the inhabitants of the area were poor, he returned to Peru, later to be garotted following defeat by Hernando Pizarro in a Civil War. After this initial excursion there was little interest from colonial authorities in further exploring modern-day Chile. However, Pedro de Valdivia, captain of the army, realizing the potential for expanding the Spanish empire southward, asked Pizarro's permission to invade and conquer the southern lands. With a couple of hundred men, he subdued the local inhabitants and founded the city of Santiago de Nueva Extremadura, now Santiago de Chile, on February 12, 1541. Although Valdivia found little gold in Chile he could see the agricultural richness of the land. He continued his explorations of the region west of the Andes and founded over a dozen towns and established the first encomiendas. The greatest resistance to Spanish rule came from the Mapuche people, who opposed European conquest and colonization until the 1880s; this resistance is known as the Arauco War. Valdivia died at the Battle of Tucapel, defeated by Lautaro, a young Mapuche toqui (war chief), but the European conquest was well underway. The Spaniards never subjugated the Mapuche territories; various attempts at conquest, both by military and peaceful means, failed. The Great Uprising of 1598 swept all Spanish presence south of the Bío-Bío River except Chiloé (and Valdivia which was decades later reestablished as a fort), and the great river became the frontier line between Mapuche lands and the Spanish realm. North of that line cities grew up slowly, and Chilean lands eventually became an important source of food for the Viceroyalty of Peru. Valdivia became the first governor of the Captaincy General of Chile. In that post, he obeyed the viceroy of Peru and, through him, the King of Spain and his bureaucracy. Responsible to the governor, town councils known as Cabildo administered local municipalities, the most important of which was Santiago, which was the seat of a Royal Appeals Court (Real Audiencia) from 1609 until the end of colonial rule. Chile was the least wealthy realm of the Spanish Crown for most of its colonial history. Only in the 18th century did a steady economic and demographic growth begin, an effect of the reforms by Spain's Bourbon dynasty and a more stable situation along the frontier. ==Independence (1810–1818)== The drive for independence from Spain was precipitated by the usurpation of the Spanish throne by Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte. The Chilean War of Independence was part of the larger Spanish American independence movement, and it was far from having unanimous support among Chileans, who became divided between independentists and royalists. What started as an elitist political movement against their colonial master, finally ended as a full-fledged civil war between pro-Independence Criollos who sought political and economic independence from Spain and royalist Criollos, who supported the continued allegiance to and permanence within the Spanish Empire of the Captaincy General of Chile. The struggle for independence was a war within the upper class, although the majority of troops on both sides consisted of conscripted mestizos and Native Americans. The beginning of the Independence movement is traditionally dated as of September 18, 1810, when a national junta was established to govern Chile in the name of the deposed king Ferdinand VII. Depending on what terms one uses to define the end, the movement extended until 1821 (when the Spanish were expelled from mainland Chile) or 1826 (when the last Spanish troops surrendered and Chiloé was incorporated into the Chilean republic). The independence process is normally divided into three stages: Patria Vieja, Reconquista, and Patria Nueva. Chile's first experiment with self-government, the "Patria Vieja" (old fatherland, 1810–1814), was led by José Miguel Carrera, an aristocrat then in his mid-twenties. The military-educated Carrera was a heavy-handed ruler who aroused widespread opposition. Another of the earliest advocates of full independence, Bernardo O'Higgins, captained a rival faction that plunged the Criollos into civil war. For him and certain other members of the Chilean elite, the initiative for temporary self-rule quickly escalated into a campaign for permanent independence, although other Criollos remained loyal to Spain. Among those favouring independence, conservatives fought with liberals over the degree to which French revolutionary ideas would be incorporated into the movement. After several efforts, Spanish troops from Peru took advantage of the internecine strife to reconquer Chile in 1814, when they reasserted control by the Battle of Rancagua on October 12. O'Higgins, Carrera and many of the Chilean rebels escaped to Argentina. The second period was characterized by the Spanish attempts to reimpose arbitrary rule during the period known as the Reconquista of 1814–1817 ("Reconquest": the term echoes the Reconquista in which the Christian kingdoms retook Iberia from the Muslims). During this period, the harsh rule of the Spanish loyalists, who punished suspected rebels, drove more and more Chileans into the insurrectionary camp. More members of the Chilean elite were becoming convinced of the necessity of full independence, regardless of who sat on the throne of Spain. As the leader of guerrilla raids against the Spaniards, Manuel Rodríguez became a national symbol of resistance. In exile in Argentina, O'Higgins joined forces with José de San Martín. Their combined army freed Chile with a daring assault over the Andes in 1817, defeating the Spaniards at the Battle of Chacabuco on February 12 and marking the beginning of the Patria Nueva. San Martín considered the liberation of Chile a strategic stepping-stone to the emancipation of Peru, which he saw as the key to hemispheric victory over the Spanish. Chile won its formal independence when San Martín defeated the last large Spanish force on Chilean soil at the Battle of Maipú on April 5, 1818. San Martín then led his Argentine and Chilean followers north to liberate Peru; and fighting continued in Chile's southern provinces, the bastion of the royalists, until 1826. A declaration of independence was officially issued by Chile on February 12, 1818, and formally recognized by Spain in 1840, when full diplomatic relations were established. ==Republican era (1818–1891)== ===Constitutional organization (1818–1833)=== From 1817 to 1823, Bernardo O'Higgins ruled Chile as supreme director. He won plaudits for defeating royalists and founding schools, but civil strife continued. O'Higgins alienated liberals and provincials with his authoritarianism, conservatives and the church with his anticlericalism, and landowners with his proposed reforms of the land tenure system. His attempt to devise a constitution in 1818 that would legitimize his government failed, as did his effort to generate stable funding for the new administration. O'Higgins's dictatorial behavior aroused resistance in the provinces. This growing discontent was reflected in the continuing opposition of partisans of Carrera, who was executed by the Argentine regime in Mendoza in 1821, as were his two brothers three years earlier. Although opposed by many liberals, O'Higgins angered the Roman Catholic Church with his liberal beliefs. He maintained Catholicism's status as the official state religion but tried to curb the church's political powers and to encourage religious tolerance as a means of attracting Protestant immigrants and traders. Like the church, the landed aristocracy felt threatened by O'Higgins, resenting his attempts to eliminate noble titles and, more important, to eliminate entailed estates. O'Higgins's opponents also disapproved of his diversion of Chilean resources to aid San Martín's liberation of Peru. O'Higgins insisted on supporting that campaign because he realized that Chilean independence would not be secure until the Spaniards were routed from the Andean core of the empire. However, amid mounting discontent, troops from the northern and southern provinces forced O'Higgins to resign. Embittered, O'Higgins departed for Peru, where he died in 1842. After O'Higgins went into exile in 1823, civil conflict continued, focusing mainly on the issues of anticlericalism and regionalism. Presidents and constitutions rose and fell quickly in the 1820s. The civil struggle's harmful effects on the economy, and particularly on exports, prompted conservatives to seize national control in 1830. In the minds of most members of the Chilean elite, the bloodshed and chaos of the late 1820s were attributable to the shortcomings of liberalism and federalism, which had been dominant over conservatism for most of the period. The political camp became divided by supporters of O'Higgins, Carrera, liberal Pipiolos and conservative Pelucones, the two last being the main movements that prevailed and absorbed the rest. The abolition of slavery in 1823—long before most other countries in the Americas—was considered one of the Pipiolos' few lasting achievements. One Pipiolo leader from the south, Ramón Freire, rode in and out of the presidency several times (1823–1827, 1828, 1829, 1830) but could not sustain his authority. From May 1827 to September 1831, with the exception of brief interventions by Freire, the presidency was occupied by Francisco Antonio Pinto, Freire's former vice president. In August 1828, Pinto's first year in office, Chile abandoned its short-lived federalist system for a unitary form of government, with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. By adopting a moderately liberal constitution in 1828, Pinto alienated both the federalists and the liberal factions. He also angered the old aristocracy by abolishing estates inherited by primogeniture (mayorazgo) and caused a public uproar with his anticlericalism. After the defeat of his liberal army at the Battle of Lircay on April 17, 1830, Freire, like O'Higgins, went into exile in Peru. ===Conservative Era (1830–1861)=== Although never president, Diego Portales dominated Chilean politics from the cabinet and behind the scenes from 1830 to 1837. He installed the "autocratic republic", which centralized authority in the national government. His political program enjoyed support from merchants, large landowners, foreign capitalists, the church, and the military. Political and economic stability reinforced each other, as Portales encouraged economic growth through free trade and put government finances in order. Portales was an agnostic who said that he believed in the clergy but not in God. He realized the importance of the Roman Catholic Church as a bastion of loyalty, legitimacy, social control and stability, as had been the case in the colonial period. He repealed Liberal reforms that had threatened church privileges and properties. The "Portalian State" was institutionalized by the Chilean Constitution of 1833. One of the most durable charters ever devised in Latin America, the Portalian constitution lasted until 1925. The constitution concentrated authority in the national government, more precisely, in the hands of the president, who was elected by a tiny minority. The chief executive could serve two consecutive five-year terms and then pick a successor. Although the Congress had significant budgetary powers, it was overshadowed by the president, who appointed provincial officials. The constitution also created an independent judiciary, guaranteed inheritance of estates by primogeniture, and installed Catholicism as the state religion. In short, it established an autocratic system under a republican veneer. Portales also achieved his objectives by wielding dictatorial powers, censoring the press, and manipulating elections. For the next forty years, Chile's armed forces would be distracted from meddling in politics by skirmishes and defensive operations on the southern frontier, although some units got embroiled in domestic conflicts in 1851 and 1859. The Portalian president was General Joaquín Prieto, who served two terms (1831–1836, 1836–1841). President Prieto had four main accomplishments: implementation of the 1833 constitution, stabilization of government finances, defeat of provincial challenges to central authority, and victory over the Peru-Bolivia Confederation. During the presidencies of Prieto and his two successors, Chile modernized through the construction of ports, railroads, and telegraph lines, some built by United States entrepreneur William Wheelwright. These innovations facilitated the export-import trade as well as domestic commerce. Prieto and his adviser, Portales, feared the efforts of Bolivian general Andrés de Santa Cruz to unite with Peru against Chile. These qualms exacerbated animosities toward Peru dating from the colonial period, now intensified by disputes over customs duties and loans. Chile also wanted to become the dominant South American military and commercial power along the Pacific. Santa Cruz united Peru and Bolivia in the Peru–Bolivian Confederation in 1836 with a desire to expand control over Argentina and Chile. Portales got Congress to declare war on the Confederation. Portales was killed by traitors in 1837. The general Manuel Bulnes defeated the Confederation in the Battle of Yungay in 1839. After his success Bulnes was elected president in 1841. He served two terms (1841–1846, 1846–1851). His administration concentrated on the occupation of the territory, especially the Strait of Magellan and the Araucanía. The Venezuelan Andres Bello made important intellectual advances in this period, most notably the creation of the University of Santiago. But political tensions, including a liberal rebellion, led to the Chilean Civil War of 1851. In the end the conservatives defeated the liberals. The last conservative president was Manuel Montt, who also served two terms (1851–1856, 1856–1861), but his poor administration led to the liberal rebellion in 1859. Liberals triumphed in 1861 with the election of Jose Joaquin Perez as president. ===Liberal era (1861–1891)=== The political revolt brought little social change, however, and 19th century Chilean society preserved the essence of the stratified colonial social structure, which was greatly influenced by family politics and the Roman Catholic Church. A strong presidency eventually emerged, but wealthy landowners remained powerful. Toward the end of the 19th century, the government in Santiago consolidated its position in the south by persistently suppressing the Mapuche during the Occupation of the Araucanía. In 1881, it signed the Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina confirming Chilean sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan, but conceding all of oriental Patagonia, and a considerable fraction of the territory it had during colonial times. As a result of the War of the Pacific with Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883), Chile expanded its territory northward by almost one-third and acquired valuable nitrate deposits, the exploitation of which led to an era of national affluence. In the 1870s, the church influence started to diminish slightly with the passing of several laws that took some old roles of the church into the State's hands such as the registry of births and marriages. In 1886, José Manuel Balmaceda was elected president. His economic policies visibly changed the existing liberal policies. He began to violate the constitution and slowly began to establish a dictatorship. Congress decided to depose Balmaceda, who refused to step down. Jorge Montt, among others, directed an armed conflict against Balmaceda, which soon extended into the 1891 Chilean Civil War. Defeated, Balmaceda fled to Argentina's embassy, where he committed suicide. Jorge Montt became the new president. ==Parliamentary era (1891–1925)== The so-called Parliamentary Republic was not a true parliamentary system, in which the chief executive is elected by the legislature. It was, however, an unusual regime in presidentialist Latin America, for Congress really did overshadow the rather ceremonial office of the president and exerted authority over the chief executive's cabinet appointees. In turn, Congress was dominated by the landed elites. This was the heyday of classic political and economic liberalism. For many decades thereafter, historians derided the Parliamentary Republic as a quarrel-prone system that merely distributed spoils and clung to its laissez-faire policy while national problems mounted. The characterization is epitomized by an observation made by President Ramón Barros Luco (1910–1915), reputedly made in reference to labor unrest: "There are only two kinds of problems: those that solve themselves and those that can't be solved." At the mercy of Congress, cabinets came and went frequently, although there was more stability and continuity in public administration than some historians have suggested. Chile also temporarily resolved its border disputes with Argentina with the Puna de Atacama Lawsuit of 1899, the Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina and the 1902 General Treaty of Arbitration, though not without engaging in an expensive naval arms race beforehand. Political authority ran from local electoral bosses in the provinces through the congressional and executive branches, which reciprocated with payoffs from taxes on nitrate sales. Congressmen often won election by bribing voters in this clientelistic and corrupt system. Many politicians relied on intimidated or loyal peasant voters in the countryside, even though the population was becoming increasingly urban. The lackluster presidents and ineffectual administrations of the period did little to respond to the country's dependence on volatile nitrate exports, spiraling inflation, and massive urbanization. As a dissident Liberal running for the presidency, Alessandri attracted support from the more reformist Radicals and Democrats and formed the so-called Liberal Alliance. He received strong backing from the middle and working classes as well as from the provincial elites. Students and intellectuals also rallied to his banner. At the same time, he reassured the landowners that social reforms would be limited to the cities. the Chilean Congress, keeping with tradition, conducted a runoff vote between the leading candidates, Allende and former president Jorge Alessandri. This procedure had previously been a near-formality, yet became quite fraught in 1970. After assurances of legality on Allende's part, the murder of the Army Commander-in-Chief, General René Schneider and Frei's refusal to form an alliance with Alessandri to oppose Allende – on the grounds that the Christian Democrats were a workers' party and could not make common cause with the oligarchs – Allende was chosen by a vote of 153 to 35. The Popular Unity platform included the nationalization of U.S. interests in Chile's major copper mines, the advancement of workers' rights, deepening of the Chilean land reform, reorganization of the national economy into socialized, mixed, and private sectors, a foreign policy of "international solidarity" and national independence and a new institutional order (the "people's state" or "poder popular"), including the institution of a unicameral congress. Immediately after the election, the United States expressed its disapproval and raised a number of economic sanctions against Chile. Recognizing that U.S. intelligence forces were trying to destabilize his presidency through a variety of methods, the KGB offered financial assistance to the first democratically elected Marxist president. However, the reason behind the U.S. covert actions against Allende concerned not the spread of Marxism but fear over losing control of its investments. "By 1968, 20 percent of total U.S. foreign investment was tied up in Latin America...Mining companies had invested $1 billion over the previous fifty years in Chile's copper mining industry – the largest in the world – but they had sent $7.2 billion home." Part of the CIA's program involved a propaganda campaign that portrayed Allende as a would-be Soviet dictator. In fact, however, "the U.S.'s own intelligence reports showed that Allende posed no threat to democracy." Nevertheless, the Richard Nixon administration organized and inserted secret operatives in Chile, in order to quickly destabilize Allende's government. In addition, Nixon gave instructions to make the Chilean economy scream, and international financial pressure restricted economic credit to Chile. Simultaneously, the CIA funded opposition media, politicians, and organizations, helping to accelerate a campaign of domestic destabilization. By 1972, the economic progress of Allende's first year had been reversed, and the economy was in crisis. Political polarization increased, and large mobilizations of both pro- and anti-government groups became frequent, often leading to clashes. By 1973, Chilean society had grown highly polarized, between strong opponents and equally strong supporters of Salvador Allende and his government. Military actions and movements, separate from the civilian authority, began to manifest in the countryside. The Tanquetazo was a failed military coup d'état attempted against Allende in June 1973. In its "Agreement", on August 22, 1973, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile asserted that Chilean democracy had broken down and called for "redirecting government activity", to restore constitutional rule. Less than a month later, on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military deposed Allende, who shot himself in the head to avoid capture as the Presidential Palace was surrounded and bombed. Subsequently, rather than restore governmental authority to the civilian legislature, Augusto Pinochet exploited his role as Commander of the Army to seize total power and to establish himself at the head of a junta. CIA involvement in the coup is documented. As early as the Church Committee Report (1975), publicly available documents have indicated that the CIA attempted to prevent Allende from taking office after he was elected in 1970; the CIA itself released documents in 2000 acknowledging this and that Pinochet was one of their favored alternatives to take power. According to the Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, the KGB and the Cuban Intelligence Directorate launched a campaign known as Operation TOUCAN. ==Military dictatorship (1973–1990)== By early 1973, inflation had risen 600% under Allende's presidency. The crippled economy was further battered by prolonged and sometimes simultaneous strikes by physicians, teachers, students, truck owners, copper workers, and the small business class. A military coup overthrew Allende on September 11, 1973. As the armed forces bombarded the presidential palace (Palacio de La Moneda), Allende committed suicide. A military government, led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, took over control of the country. The first years of the regime were marked by human rights violations. The junta jailed, tortured, and executed thousands of Chileans. In October 1973, at least 72 people were murdered by the Caravan of Death. At least a thousand people were executed during the first six months of Pinochet in office, and at least two thousand more were killed during the next sixteen years, as reported by the Rettig Report. At least 29,000 were imprisoned and tortured. According to the Latin American Institute on Mental Health and Human Rights (ILAS), "situations of extreme trauma" affected about 200,000 persons.; this figure includes individuals killed, tortured or exiled, and their immediate families. About 30,000 left the country. The four-man junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet abolished civil liberties, dissolved the national congress, banned union activities, prohibited strikes and collective bargaining, and erased the Allende administration's agrarian and economic reforms. The junta embarked on a radical program of liberalization, deregulation and privatization, slashing tariffs as well as government welfare programs and deficits. Economic reforms were drafted by a group of technocrats who became known as the Chicago Boys because many of them had been trained or influenced by University of Chicago professors. Under these new policies, the rate of inflation dropped: A new constitution was approved by plebiscite characterized by the absence of registration lists, on September 11, 1980, and General Pinochet became president of the republic for an 8-year term. In 1982–1983 Chile witnessed a severe economic crisis with a surge in unemployment and a meltdown of the financial sector. 16 out of 50 financial institutions faced bankruptcy. In 1982 the two biggest banks were nationalized to prevent an even worse credit crunch. In 1983 another five banks were nationalized and two banks had to be put under government supervision. After the economic crisis, Hernán Büchi became Minister of Finance from 1985 to 1989, introducing a more pragmatic economic policy. He allowed the peso to float and reinstated restrictions on the movement of capital in and out of the country. He introduced Bank regulations, simplified and reduced the corporate tax. Chile went ahead with privatizations, including public utilities plus the re-privatization of companies that had returned to the government during the 1982–1983 crisis. From 1984 to 1990, Chile's gross domestic product grew by an annual average of 5.9%, the fastest on the continent. Chile developed a good export economy, including the export of fruits and vegetables to the northern hemisphere when they were out of season, and commanded high prices. The military junta began to change during the late 1970s. Due to problems with Pinochet, Leigh was expelled from the junta in 1978 and replaced by General Fernando Matthei. In the late 1980s, the government gradually permitted greater freedom of assembly, speech, and association, to include trade union and political activity. Due to the Caso Degollados ("slit throats case"), in which three Communist party members were assassinated, César Mendoza, member of the junta since 1973 and representants of the carabineros, resigned in 1985 and was replaced by Rodolfo Stange. The next year, Carmen Gloria Quintana was burnt alive in what became known as the Caso Quemado ("Burnt Alive case"). Chile's constitution established that in 1988 there would be another plebiscite in which the voters would accept or reject a single candidate proposed by the Military Junta. Pinochet was, as expected, the candidate proposed, but was denied a second 8-year term by 54.5% of the vote. President Aylwin served from 1990 to 1994, in what was considered a transition period. In February 1991 Aylwin created the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which released in February 1991 the Rettig Report on human rights violations committed during the military rule. This report counted 2,279 cases of "disappearances" which could be proved and registered. Of course, the very nature of "disappearances" made such investigations very difficult. The same problem arose, several years later, with the Valech Report, released in 2004 and which counted almost 30,000 victims of torture, among testimonies from 35,000 persons. In December 1993, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, the son of previous president Eduardo Frei Montalva, led the Concertación coalition to victory with an absolute majority of votes (58%). Frei Ruiz-Tagle was succeeded in 2000 by Socialist Ricardo Lagos, who won the presidency in an unprecedented runoff election against Joaquín Lavín of the rightist Alliance for Chile, by a very tight score of fewer than 200,000 votes (51,32%). In 1998, Pinochet travelled to London for back surgery. But under orders of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, he was arrested there, attracting worldwide attention, not only because of the history of Chile and South America, but also because this was one of the first arrests of a former president based on the universal jurisdiction principle. Pinochet tried to defend himself by referring to the State Immunity Act of 1978, an argument rejected by the British justice. However, UK Home Secretary Jack Straw took the responsibility to release him on medical grounds, and refused to extradite him to Spain. Thereafter, Pinochet returned to Chile in March 2000. Upon descending the plane on his wheelchair, he stood up and saluted the cheering crowd of supporters, including an army band playing his favorite military march tunes, which was awaiting him at the airport in Santiago. President Ricardo Lagos later commented that the retired general's televised arrival had damaged the image of Chile, while thousands demonstrated against him. === Bachelet and Piñera === The Concertación coalition has continued to dominate Chilean politics for last two decades. In January 2006 Chileans elected their first female president, Michelle Bachelet, of the Socialist Party. She was sworn in on March 11, 2006, extending the Concertación coalition governance for another four years. In 2002 Chile signed an association agreement with the European Union (comprising a free trade agreement and political and cultural agreements), in 2003, an extensive free trade agreement with the United States, and in 2004 with South Korea, expecting a boom in import and export of local produce and becoming a regional trade-hub. Continuing the coalition's free trade strategy, in August 2006 President Bachelet promulgated a free trade agreement with China (signed under the previous administration of Ricardo Lagos), the first Chinese free trade agreement with a Latin American nation; similar deals with Japan and India were promulgated in August 2007. In October 2006, Bachelet promulgated a multilateral trade deal with New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P4), also signed under Lagos' presidency. Regionally, she has signed bilateral free trade agreements with Panama, Peru and Colombia. After 20 years, Chile went in a new direction with the win of center-right Sebastián Piñera, in the Chilean presidential election of 2009–2010, defeating former President Eduardo Frei in the runoff. On 27 February 2010, Chile was struck by an 8.8 MW earthquake, the fifth largest ever recorded at the time. More than 500 people died (most from the ensuing tsunami) and over a million people lost their homes. The earthquake was also followed by multiple aftershocks. Initial damage estimates were in the range of US$15–30 billion, around 10 to 15 percent of Chile's real gross domestic product. Chile achieved global recognition for the successful rescue of 33 trapped miners in 2010. On 5 August 2010, the access tunnel collapsed at the San José copper and gold mine in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó in northern Chile, trapping 33 men below ground. A rescue effort organized by the Chilean government located the miners 17 days later. All 33 men were brought to the surface two months later on 13 October 2010 over a period of almost 24 hours, an effort that was carried on live television around the world. Despite good macroeconomic indicators, there was increased social dissatisfaction, focused on demands for better and fairer education, culminating in massive protests demanding more democratic and equitable institutions. Approval of Piñera's administration fell irrevocably. In 2013, Bachelet, a Social Democrat, was elected again as president, seeking to make the structural changes claimed in recent years by the society relative to education reform, tributary reform, same sex civil union, and definitely end the Binomial System, looking to further equality and the end of what remains of the dictatorship. In 2015 a series of corruption scandals (most notably Penta case and Caval case) became public, threatening the credibility of the political and business class. On 17 December 2017, Sebastián Piñera === Estallido Social and Constitutional Referendum === In October 2019 there were violent protests about costs of living and inequality, resulting in Piñera declaring a state of emergency. On 15 November, most of the political parties represented in the National Congress signed an agreement to call a national referendum in April 2020 regarding the creation of a new Constitution. But the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the date of the elections, while Chile was one of the hardest hit nations in the Americas as of May 2020. On October 25, 2020, Chileans voted 78.28 per cent in favor of a new constitution, while 21.72 per cent rejected the change. Voter turnout was 51 per cent. A second vote was held on April 11, 2021, to select 155 Chileans who form the convention which will draft the new constitution. On 19 December 2021, leftist candidate, the 35-year-old former student protest leader, Gabriel Boric, won Chile's presidential election to become the country's youngest ever leader, after the most polarizing election since democracy was restored, defeating right wing pinochetist and leader of the Chilean Republican Party José Antonio Kast. The center-left and center-right political conglomerates alternating power during the last 32 years (ex-Concertación and Chile Vamos) ended up in fourth and fifth place of the presidential election. === Gabriel Boric presidency (2022- ) === On 11 March 2022, Gabriel Boric was sworn in as president to succeed outgoing President Sebastian Pinera. Out of 24 members of Gabriel Boric's female-majority Cabinet, 14 are women. On 4 September 2022, voters rejected overwhelmingly the new constitution in the constitutional referendum, which was put forward by the constitutional convention and strongly backed by President Boric. Prior to the dismissal of the proposed constitution the issue of constitutional plurinationalism was noted in polls as particularly divisive in Chile. In May 2023, the far-right Republican Party became first in Chilean Constitutional Council election.The Republican party won 22 out of the 51 seats, with right-wing parties winning another 11 seats, in the assembly tasked with drawing up Chile's new constitution. In December 2023, Chilean voters rejected in a referendum a proposed new constitution drafted by a conservative-led committee.	[ "Arturo Alessandri Palma", "Spanish Empire", "2011–13 Chilean student protests", "Tehuelche people", "Revolution of 1851", "Baltasar Garzón", "Singapore", "Chilean coup of 1973", "Alejandro Guillier", "Augusto Pinochet Ugarte", "Manuel Bulnes", "Ferdinand VII of Spain", "Khmer Rouge", "Chilean Communist Party", "Lautaro (toqui)", "Pipiolos", "Chiloé Island", "Jorge Alessandri", "Burnt Alive case", "2021 Chilean general election", "unitary state", "Human rights abuses in Chile under Augusto Pinochet", "Chicago Boys", "Monte Verde", "Battle of the Maule", "Christopher Andrew (historian)", "Chilean Constitution of 1925", "2023 Chilean Constitutional Council election", "credit crunch", "Santiago de Chile", "Viceroyalty of Peru", "patagon", "Battle of Maipú", "Reconquista (Chile)", "Communist Party of Chile", "Economic history of Chile", "Chilean Central Bank", "Luis Altamirano", "Alliance for Chile", "Caval case", "Bolivia", "Santa Cruz Province, Argentina", "La Pampa Province", "History of the Americas", "Carabineros de Chile", "Augusto Pinochet", "Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina", "El Universal (Mexico City)", "black market", "Battle of Yungay", "Argentine–Chilean naval arms race", "China", "Carmen Gloria Quintana", "capital flight", "Patria Nueva (Chile)", "Valdivia", "Indigenous peoples of the Americas", "Choapa River", "Radomiro Tomic", "History of Latin America", "Atacameño", "Chilean colonization of the Strait of Magellan", "2010 Chile earthquake", "Atacama Desert", "state of emergency", "List of presidents of Chile", "Jack Straw", "Spanish colonization of the Americas", "Aisén Region", "Bank regulation", "Strait of Magellan", "anticlericalism", "Seguro Obrero Massacre", "Military dictatorship of Chile", "The Washington Post", "Chilean War of Independence", "Michelle Bachelet", "Puerto Montt", "UK Home Secretary", "Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina", "Marmaduke Grove", "Chilean Constitution of 1980", "Marxism", "Colombia", "tsunami", "unemployment", "deregulation", "Rodolfo Stange", "plebiscite", "U.S. intervention in Chile", "Roman Catholic Church", "Manuel Rodríguez Erdoíza", "Cultural periods of Peru", "Popular Front (Chile)", "Neuquen Province", "Tanquetazo", "COVID-19 pandemic", "Constitutional history of Chile", "Battle of Rancagua", "Joaquín Lavín", "José Antonio Kast", "National Congress of Chile", "2020 Chilean national referendum", "iron", "El País", "Valech Report", "University of Chicago", "Jorge Montt", "COVID-19 pandemic in Chile", "Andrés de Santa Cruz", "José Joaquín Perez", "Joseph Bonaparte", "University of Santiago, Chile", "Fernando Matthei", "liberalization", "toqui", "lava tube", "tariff", "Church Committee", "1973 Chilean coup d'état", "Spanish American wars of independence", "Radical Party (Chile)", "Chubut Province", "Gabriel Boric", "Republican Party (Chile, 2019)", "CNN", "Coalition of Parties for Democracy", "Ricardo Lagos", "Chile", "Reconquista (Spanish America)", "Andrés Bello", "Cueva del Milodon", "Salvador Allende", "Brunei", "Eduardo Frei Montalva", "Pedro de Valdivia", "Chilean Constitution of 1833", "Napoleon I of France", "United States intervention in Chile", "Intelligence Directorate", "Battle of Chacabuco", "Chiloé", "Socialist Party (Chile)", "runoff election", "2010 Copiapó mining accident", "Panama", "strike action", "Gross domestic product", "encomienda", "César Mendoza", "History of Easter Island", "Francisco Pizarro", "2019 Chilean protests", "2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election", "War of the Pacific", "NBC News", "La Coruña massacre", "Constitutional Convention (Chile)", "Chilean Declaration of Independence", "Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership", "Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs", "Bernardo O'Higgins", "War of the Confederation", "1902 Arbitral award of the Andes between Argentina and Chile", "inflation", "Patricio Aylwin", "Clovis culture", "September Junta", "Gustavo Ross Santa María", "Popular Unitary Action Movement", "Los Lagos Region", "Reconquista", "José Manuel Balmaceda", "Tehuelches", "classical liberalism", "Majority", "Popular Unity (Chile)", "Cabildo (council)", "Tupac Inca Yupanqui", "Robert N. Burr", "Richard Nixon", "royalist (Spanish American Revolution)", "The Times", "History of Peru", "Francisco Antonio Pinto", "State Immunity Act of 1978", "Pali Aike Crater", "Cold War", "Manuel Montt", "sodium nitrate", "Arauco War", "Peru–Bolivian Confederation", "Ferdinand Magellan", "1925 Chilean coup d'état", "Miracle of Chile", "Cape Horn", "privatization", "Sebastián Piñera", "constitution", "President of Chile", "2022 Chilean constitutional referendum", "Joaquín Prieto", "Criollo people", "Ramón Freire", "coal", "Enlightenment in Spain", "Timeline of Chilean history", "public works", "René Schneider", "civil liberties", "Pelucones", "Rettig Report", "Slash-and-burn", "steel", "Carlos Ibáñez del Campo", "Diego de Almagro", "universal jurisdiction", "Battle of Tucapel", "National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation", "copper", "Government budget deficit", "revenue tax", "free trade agreement", "Hernán Büchi", "malón", "plurinationalism", "Chiloe Island", "laissez-faire", "Antonio Pigafetta", "es:Cronología de Chile", "Binomial System", "Diego Portales", "Peru", "CIA", "Nationalization", "History of South America", "Socialist Party of Chile", "Caso Degollados", "Chilean presidential election, 1970", "José de San Martín", "Death of Salvador Allende", "United States Department of State", "nitrate", "Bío-Bío River", "1851 Chilean Revolution", "Vuskovic plan", "Crisis of 1982", "2022 proposed Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile", "David Rock (historian)", "BBC News", "KGB", "wikisource:it:Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo", "Pedro Subercaseaux", "Chamber of Deputies of Chile", "Augusto Pinochet's arrest and trial", "Concertación", "Caravan of Death", "Vasili Mitrokhin", "Chincha Islands War", "Project FUBELT", "Patagonia", "Captaincy General of Chile", "Maule river", "José Miguel Carrera", "Chilean presidential election, 1964", "Penta case", "Pedro Vuskovic", "Chilean transition to democracy", "Araucanía (historic region)", "economic depression", "European Union", "torture", "Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle", "Bicentennial of Chile", "coup d'état", "Marusia massacre", "2009–10 Chilean presidential election", "South Korea", "Puna de Atacama Lawsuit", "Plurality (voting)", "Tierra del Fuego", "human rights violation", "Inca Empire", "Pedro Aguirre Cerda", "2023 Chilean constitutional referendum", "Education in Chile", "Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina", "Calle-Calle River", "National Socialist Movement of Chile", "Luis Emilio Recabarren", "Recognition of same-sex unions in Chile", "Ramón Barros Luco", "Freedom of speech", "January Junta", "Palacio de La Moneda", "Saber noise", "La Frontera, Chile", "forced disappearance", "Occupation of the Araucanía", "Mapuche", "Chile Vamos", "electoral fraud", "1891 Chilean Civil War", "Military dictatorship", "Chilean land reform", "Economy of Chile", "Politics of Chile", "Patria Vieja", "Christian Democratic Party (Chile)", "Reuters", "Rio Negro Province", "WP:SDNONE", "Magallanes Region", "Operation TOUCAN (KGB)", "Salvador Allende Gossens", "Copiapó" ]
5,493	Politics of Chile	Chile's government is a representative democratic republic, in which the President of Chile serves as both head of state and head of government, within a formal multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and their cabinet. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Congress. The judiciary operates independently of both the executive and legislative branches. The Constitution of Chile was approved in a national plebiscite in September 1980, during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and came into effect in March 1981. After Pinochet was voted out of office in 1988, the Constitution was amended the following year to simplify the process for future amendments. In September 2006, President Ricardo Lagos signed into law several constitutional amendments passed by Congress. These reforms included eliminating the positions of appointed senators and senators for life, granting the President the authority to remove the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces, and reducing the presidential term from six to four years, while also prohibiting immediate re-election. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices, Chile was the third most electorally democratic country in Latin America in 2023. Statistical analysis suggests that Chilean politicians in Congress are not randomly drawn from the population but over-represent high-income communities. As a result, Chileans of Castilian-Basque, Palestinian, and Jewish ancestry are disproportionately represented. ==History== The autocratic and conservative republic (1831–1861) was replaced by the liberal republic (1861–1891), during which some political conquests were made, such as proportional representation (1871) and the abolition of the condition of ownership to have the right to vote (1885). ===Parliamentary Republic=== When the era of the parliamentary republic began in 1891, the struggle between liberals (pipiolos) and conservatives (pelucones) had already evolved due to the emergence of a multi-party system. In the 1880s, the Liberals split into two factions: the moderates, who did not want to impose secularism too quickly and were willing to compromise with the Conservatives, and the radical Liberals, who joined the Radical Party founded in 1863 or the new Democratic Party with more progressive, if not socialist, ideas. European and particularly British companies having appropriated a large part of the country's economy (saltpeter, bank, railroad, trade), President José Balmaceda (1886–1891), leader of moderate liberals, decided to react by directing his policy in two directions: the nationalization of saltpeter mines and the intervention of the State in economic matters. Already facing the conservative aristocracy, he alienated the bankers. He was dismissed by a vote of Parliament and pressure from part of the army. He committed suicide by firearm at the end of the civil war that his supporters lost. ===Workers' struggles and social reforms=== A new parliamentary regime emerged from the civil war; it was the government of Fronda aristocrática. From 1906 onwards, the Radical Party demanded social reforms and the establishment of a democratic regime. That same year, the leader of the Federation of Workers, Luis Emilio Recabarren, was elected to the House but his election was canceled by the House. In 1912 he founded the Socialist Workers Party. Despite the country's good economic performance, life remains particularly hard for a large part of the population (12 or 14-hour working days for workers, very low wages, illiteracy of more than 50% in the years 1900–1910, etc.). Trade unionism was organized and fought; strikes and workers' demonstrations multiplied, sometimes very harshly repressed: general strike in Santiago (1905), railroads and mines in Antofagasta (1906), a demonstration in Iquique (1907). From 1911 to 1920, there were 293 strikes. Some repressions kill hundreds of people. The workers' movement was organized in the 1910s with the creation of the Chilean Regional Workers' Federation in 1913 and the Chilean branch of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1919. In 1920, the economic crisis worsened the standard of living of the middle classes, which were politically closer to the working classes. This new situation led to the election of Arturo Alessandri Palma. During his first term in office, he pursued a progressive policy: labor law, the establishment of the tax on property income, the establishment of the Central Bank, creation of social security funds, etc. However, it must constantly deal with the Senate, always under Conservative control, which systematically tries to block its reforms. Shortly before his withdrawal from power, he drew up a new Constitution that was considered to be the advent of true democracy in Chile. This Constitution enshrines the separation of Church and State and religious freedom, declares compulsory primary education, restores presidentialism by electing the president by universal suffrage, and above all proclaims that property must be regulated in such a way as to ensure its social function. ==Legislative branch== The bicameral National Congress (Congreso Nacional) consists of the Senate (Senado) and the Chamber of Deputies (). The Senate is made up of 50 members elected from regions or subregions. Senators serve approximately eight-year terms. The Chamber of Deputies has 155 members, who are elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms. The last congressional elections were held on November 21, 2021. For parliamentary elections, between 1989 and 2013 the binominal system was used, which promoted the establishment of two majority political blocs -Concertación and Alliance- at the expense of the exclusion of non-majority political groups. The opponents of this system approved in 2015 a moderate proportional electoral system that has been in force since the 2017 parliamentary elections, allowing the entry of new parties and coalitions. Elections are very labor-intensive but efficient, and vote counting normally takes place the evening of the election day. One voting table, with a ballot-box each, is set up for at-most 200 names in the voting registry. Each table is staffed by five people (vocales de mesa) from the same registry. Vocales have the duty to work as such during a cycle of elections, and can be penalized legally if they do not show up. A registered citizen can only vote after his identity has been verified at the table corresponding to his registry. Ballots are manually counted by the five vocales, after the table has closed, at least eight hours after opening, and the counting witnessed by representatives of all the parties who choose to have observers. The main existing political coalitions in Chile are: Government: (Approve Dignity) is a left-wing coalition that has its origin in the 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election. After the success in that election, it held presidential primaries, in which Gabriel Boric (CS, FA) was the winner. It is formed by the coalition Frente Amplio (Broad Font) and the coalition Chile Digno (Worthy Chile) formed by the Communist Party of Chile and others left-wing parties. Democratic Socialism is a center-left coalition, successor of the Constituent Unity, and this of the Concertation -which supported the "NO" option in the 1988 plebiscite and subsequently governed the country from 1990 to 2010-. This pact is formed by the parties Socialist, for Democracy, Radical, and Liberal. Opposition: Chile Vamos (Let's go Chile) is a center-right coalition with roots of liberal conservatism, formed by the parties Renovación Nacional (National Renewal), Unión Demócrata Independiente (Independent Democratic Union) and Evópoli. It has its origins in the Alliance coalition, formed by the main parties that supported the "YES" option in the 1988 plebiscite, although it has used different names since then. It was the ruling coalition during the first and second government of Sebastián Piñera, (2010–2014) and (2018–2022). In the National Congress, Chile Vamos has 52 deputies and 24 senators, while the parliamentary group of Apruebo Dignidad is formed by 37 deputies and 6 senators. Democratic Socialism is the third political force with 30 deputies and 13 senators. The other groups with parliamentary representation are the Republican Party (15 deputies and 1 senator), the Christian Democratic Party (8 deputies and 5 senators), the Party of the People (8 deputies), and the independents outside of a coalition (5 deputies and 1 senator). Since 1987, the Congress operates in the port city of Valparaíso, about northwest of the capital, Santiago. However some commissions are allowed to meet in other places, especially Santiago. Congressional members have repeatedly tried to relocate the Congress back to Santiago, where it operated until the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, but have not been successful. The last attempt was in 2000, when the project was rejected by the Constitutional Court, because it allocated funds from the national budget, which, under the Chilean Constitution, is a privilege of the President. ==Legal system== Chile's legal system is civil law based. It is primarily based on the Civil code of 1855, derived from Spanish law and subsequent codes influenced by European law of the last half of the 19th Century. It does not accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction. From the year 2000 onwards, Chile completely overhauled its criminal justice system; a new, US-style adversarial system has been gradually implemented throughout the country with the final stage of implementation in the Santiago metropolitan region completed on June 9, 2001. ==Political parties and elections== ==Pressure groups== Pressure groups according to the CIA World Factbook: Student federations at all major universities Roman Catholic Church Workers' United Center of Chile trade unionists from Chile's five largest labor confederations. === Advocacy for public policy change === Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play an important role in advocating for public policy change in Chile. Certain NGOs, such as those working with migrants, have increased in Chile in the past decades. For example, one prominent NGO, Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes (SJM), conducts research in order to influence public policy. SJM has published dozens of papers with findings that ultimately influence public policy in Chile -- ranging from educational access for immigrants to labor laws for immigrants. In December 2024, SJM and UNICEF hosted a joint seminar on the legal regularization of migrant children in Chile. Student groups also have a strong history of impacting public policy, with perhaps the most prominent example being the 2011 student protests against neoliberal educational policies called the "Chilean Winter." The United Chilean Student Confederation (CONFECH), an organization composed of various student unions, including the Student Federation of the University of Chile (FECH) and the Student Federation of Catholic University (FEUC), led this movement. Student groups, NGOs, and other advocacy organizations all face challenges to change-making within the Chilean political system. For example, many NGOs who help migrants receive limited funding and work amongst insufficient legislation, leading them to focus primarily on the individual, care-related needs of migrants rather than focusing on fulfilling the role of advocating for the advancement of migrant rights. Student groups have faced similar obstacles, such as legal barriers, in the fight for public policy change in Chile. These barriers do not completely overshadow political advocates' strengths, and it is not to dismantle the successful work they have done. == Central-local government relations == Chile has an enduring unitary and centralised state power structure. The national government has substantial political, administrative and particularly fiscal control (see Table 1 below). For example, despite the establishment of regional governors in 2017 (covered further below), the executive positions of Presidential Delegates remain at regional and provincial levels (see Figure 1 below), with their appointment and dismissal at the President’s discretion. The regional governor and regional presidential delegate constitutionally share functions, compromising good practice regional governance and the intended levels of political decentralisation. Chile’s unitary structure has persisted due to: Colonial rule centralising decision-making with national government, which persisted after independence. Chile’s long, narrow geography and enduring population concentration in the Central Valley (including the nation’s capital, Santiago), meaning that unitary governance is perceived as more practical. Lack of empowered demand for an alternative (e.g. federal) structure due to a historical lack of strong and autonomous subnational movements. A desire to build a unified nation and avoid the regional conflicts or independence movements in other Latin American nations attempting federalism (e.g. Argentina). A desire to preserve the performance of Chile’s economy through unified national control, and avoid the negative economic impacts of how decentralisation efforts were designed and implemented in other Latin American countries (e.g. Argentina). The Pinochet regime (1973-1990), which enacted martial law, overthrew and banned democratic institutions and established the 1980s constitution. This constitution cemented military power, neoliberalism and established a deconcentration approach, where underfunded municipalities controlled by appointed officials were required to implement national policies. Municipalities are the only self-government entities in Chile, with constitutionally-guaranteed autonomy, including for their: institution; interests and competences; election of their governing bodies; powers to set local regulations withstanding national equivalents. Despite their partial political and administrative autonomy, municipalities have very low fiscal autonomy, with proportionally small and mostly pre-allocated funding (see Table 1 below). Chile is the only OECD country not to allow municipalities to borrow. Table 1: Local and total government expenditure in Chile vs OECD average Chile has very large disparities between municipalities, including in the concentration of population (almost twice the OECD average) and GDP (second highest in the OECD). One cause of these disparities is the dominance of very substantial copper and other mining activities in specific areas, without similar economic drivers in other areas. Chile’s centralised structure, and strong comparative disadvantage of many municipalities, creates incentives for municipal leadership to directly lobby national, rather than regional, government for local policy decisions or funded interventions which need significant executive power. For example, facing resource constraints and a fragmented Congress, municipalities approached the national government for support responding to escalating crime rates (particularly violent crime). The President and Ministers may also engage directly with municipalities affected by their policies or interventions. These informal bilateral exchanges (see Figure 2 below) bypass the intended governance structure, undermine provincial and regional authorities, and create inefficiencies and inequity in forming and implementing policies and interventions. Where regions and municipalities coordinate or collaborate, this often depends on the autonomous power of the presidential delegate or head of the public service, or on the relationships or other capacities of the mayor or municipality to influence national institutions’ decisions. The 2017 Constitutional Reforms established the role of publicly-elected regional governors. These governors, first-elected in 2021 to represent regional constituents, share responsibility with presidentially-appointed regional delegates/intendants, who represent national ministries. Their election was a turning point in decentralization efforts, introducing a new dynamic in national-regional relations and providing regions with a stronger voice in governance. However, Navarrete Yáñez argues that introducing this system, typical of federal structures, tends to fragment authority and create overlapping jurisdictions to promote coordination relations, which in practice is generating conflict. The current President of Chile, Gabriel Boric (2022–2026), stated that before his term ends, the presidential delegate position will disappear. The decentralisation agenda in Chile recently received impetus, with: a presidential advisory commission for decentralisation defining a decentralisation agenda 2018 laws introducing direct election of regional governors, rather than the previous presidential appointment only. These laws also defined the powers and responsibilities of regional authorities and encouraged citizen participation. The first election of regional governors occurred in 2021. A 2020 referendum, in which 78% of voters supported the creation of a new constitution and the establishment of a Constitutional Convention. Two subsequent referendums (September 2022 and December 2023) proposed replacements of the existing Pinochet-era constitution, including: reducing the dominance of central government and strengthening regional governance establishing ‘regional states’ comprising autonomous regions, communes, indigenous territorial autonomies and special territories. Despite the strong impetus for a new constitution, both new constitutional proposals were rejected by voters. Particularly given the substantial social upheaval in 2019 related to inequality, and majority support for a constitutional re-write, these rejections are significant. By comparison, from 1789 to 2016, 94% of 179 referendums for new constitutions were ratified, making Chile’s twin rejections rare exceptions. Unclear sector responsibilities, siloed work There are many unclear sector responsibilities at national level. Significant work occurs in silos, with poor integration across both policy and investment areas. For example, responsibilities for the intercity network, for the urban transport utilising that network and for investment in urban roads lie with three different national ministries. Inadequate inter-sector coordination and consultation about local conditions leads to poor quality decisions – for example, decisions on types of transport infrastructure, routes and frequencies which don’t suit local needs or represent good value for taxpayers. Chilean citizens feel affected by the lack of national sector coordination. Poor central-regional-local coordination and subnational consultation Local policies, planning instruments and priorities are centrally defined by national ministries but with weak subnational consultation and coordination. For example, the Government response to COVID reinforced a need to formalise how coordination between national, regional and local government occurs, particularly during emergency situations involving constitutional exceptions. There are positive developments in subnational consultation. In January 2023, an agreement was signed with the Association of Regional Governors of Chile (AGORECHI) to advance political decentralisation, particularly intra-government coordination and local participation, administrative decentralization, fiscal decentralization and the development of a National Decentralization Policy. Social inequity and intra-government structure and relations One study shows that 91%-95% of Chileans perceive that access to income is inequitable (Figure 3); that access to healthcare, justice and education is inequitable (Figure 4); and that Chile is governed in the interests of a powerful few (Figure 5). Chile’s centralized governance system contributes to limiting equitable resource distribution and effective local solutions. == International organization participation == Chile or Chilean organizations participate in the following international organizations:	[ "Arturo Alessandri Palma", "Binominal System", "International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement", "International Finance Corporation", "International Hydrographic Organization", "Castilians", "International Organization for Migration", "Industrial Workers of the World (Chile)", "Civil code", "republic", "International Civil Aviation Organization", "International Development Association", "Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean", "United Nations Truce Supervision Organization", "Radical Party of Chile", "National Congress of Chile", "List of Chilean Jews", "Party of the People (Chile)", "Agency for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean", "Permanent Court of Arbitration", "Radical Party of Chile (2018)", "Union of South American Nations", "Social Convergence", "Chamber of Deputies of Chile", "suicide", "Concertación", "World Trade Organization", "Constituent Unity", "Centre-right politics", "Latin American Economic System", "Centre-left politics", "1988 Chilean presidential referendum", "Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation", "Latin American Integration Association", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "Democratic Socialism (Chile)", "Sebastián Piñera", "Executive power", "1973 Chilean coup d'état", "UNESCO", "Workers' United Center of Chile", "President of Chile", "1988 Chilean national plebiscite", "re-election", "International Olympic Committee", "Organization of American States", "Independent politician", "Mercosur", "International Chamber of Commerce", "List of political parties in Chile", "Representative democracy", "Gabriel Boric", "Republican Party (Chile, 2019)", "CIA World Factbook", "Valparaíso", "Ricardo Lagos", "Santiago de Chile", "International Labour Organization", "Chile", "International Atomic Energy Agency", "Inter-American Development Bank", "Broad Front (Chilean political coalition)", "Human rights in Chile", "International Maritime Organization", "United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan", "Liberal Republic", "Left-wing politics", "United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights", "Communist Party of Chile", "World Meteorological Organization", "Conservative Republic", "International Telecommunication Union", "Legislative power", "Niter", "World Customs Organization", "Judiciary of Chile", "Augusto Pinochet", "United Nations Industrial Development Organization", "Liberal Party of Chile (2013)", "Civil law (legal system)", "Senate of Chile", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "José Balmaceda", "Law of Chile", "World Health Organization", "World Federation of Trade Unions", "Autocracy", "Luis Emilio Recabarren", "World Bank", "Forms of government", "V-Dem Democracy indices", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "International Fund for Agricultural Development", "2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election", "International Organization for Standardization", "senators for life", "Socialist Workers' Party (Chile)", "United Nations", "Group of 77", "International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies", "International Trade Union Confederation", "International Criminal Court", "United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo", "World Tourism Organization", "National Renewal (Chile)", "Party for Democracy (Chile)", "1989 Chilean constitutional referendum", "Foreign relations of Chile", "Apruebo Dignidad", "Basque Chileans", "Hate speech laws by country", "List of presidents of Chile", "International Monetary Fund", "military dictatorship", "Chilean people", "adversarial system", "Interpol (organization)", "Chile Vamos", "Independent Democratic Union", "head of government", "Rio Group", "multi-party system", "Palestinian community in Chile", "proportional representation", "Chilean Constitution of 1980", "Evópoli", "D'Hondt method", "Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons", "PLOS One", "Bank for International Settlements", "Non-Aligned Movement", "Christian Democratic Party (Chile)", "Socialist Party of Chile", "Chilean political scandals", "1980 Chilean constitutional referendum", "WP:SDNONE", "Universal Postal Union", "head of state", "Alliance (Chile)", "Roman Catholic Church", "judiciary", "Chile Digno" ]
5,494	Economy of Chile	{{Infobox economy \| country = Chile \| image = J28 293 »Sanhattan«.jpg \| image_size = 310px \| caption = The Santiago neighborhood nicknamed "Sanhattan" \| currency = Chilean peso (CLP) \| fixed exchange = \| year = calendar year \| organs = WTO, CPTPP, APEC, OECD, Mercosur (associate), CAN (associate) \| group = \| population = 19,629,590 (2022) \| gdp = \| components = \| inflation = 3.045% (2020) \| poverty = 6.2% (2022) \| gini = 44.4 (2017, World Bank) \| hdi = \| occupations = \| average gross salary = CLP 957,741 / $1,082 monthly (2022) \| average net salary = CLP 890,699 / $1,006 monthly (2022) \| industries = copper, lithium, other minerals, foodstuffs, fish processing, iron and steel, wood and wood products, transport equipment, cement, textiles \| edbr = 59th (easy, 2020) \| exports = $104.5 billion (2023) \| export-goods = \| export-partners = {{plainlist\| (+) 39.0% (+) 14.5% (+) 8.0% (+) 6.2% (+) 5.0% (2022) \| import-goods = {{plainlist\| machinery: 21.9% petroleum: 17.5% transport equipment and parts: 16.3% chemicals: 7.7% steel and other metals: 5.2% plastic and rubber: 5.1% textiles: 5.0% foodstuffs: 3.1% natural gas: 2.7% (2014) \| FDI = The economy of Chile operates as a market economy and is classified as a high-income economy by the World Bank. It is recognized as one of the most prosperous countries in South America, leading the region in areas such as competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, economic freedom, and low levels of perceived corruption. Despite its prosperity, Chile experiences significant economic inequality, as reflected by its Gini index, though this is close to the regional average. Among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Chile has a robust social security system, with social welfare expenditures amounting to approximately 19.6% of GDP. In 2006, Chile achieved the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America. In May 2010, it became the first South American nation to join the OECD. However, tax revenues, which were 20.2% of GDP in 2013, remained the second lowest among the 34 OECD countries, having been the lowest in 2010. Chile's inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (HDI) was 0.704, compared to 0.747 for Argentina, 0.720 for Uruguay, and 0.577 for Brazil. According to statistics of the Chilean government, 20.9% of the population continues to be affected by multidimensional poverty. Chile’s privatized national pension system, known as the Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFP), contributed to a domestic savings rate of about 21% of GDP. In 2023, in response to an economic slowdown, Chile introduced a temporary basic income program aimed at supporting families through transfer payments as part of an expansionary fiscal policy. ==History== After Spanish arrival in the 15th century Chilean economy came to revolve around autarchy estates called fundos and around the army that was engaged in the Arauco War. During early colonial times there were gold exports to Peru from placer deposits which soon depleted. Trade restrictions and monopolies established by the Spanish crown are credited for having held back economic development for much of the colonial times. As effect of these restrictions the country incorporated very few new crops and animal breeds after initial conquest. Other sectors that were held back by restrictions were the wine and mining industries. The Bourbon reforms in the 18th century eased many monopolies and trade restrictions. In the 1830s Chile consolidated under the ideas of Diego Portales as a stable state open to foreign trade. Foreign investment in Chile grew over the 19th century. After the War of the Pacific the Chilean treasury grew by 900%. The League of Nations labeled Chile the country hardest hit by the Great Depression because 80% of government revenue came from exports of copper and nitrates, which were in low demand. After the Great Depression Chilean economic policies changed toward import substitution industrialization and the Production Development Corporation was established. Under the influence of the Chicago Boys the Pinochet regime made of Chile a leading country in establishing neoliberal policies. These policies allowed large corporations to consolidate their power over the Chilean economy, leading to long-term economic growth. The crisis of 1982 caused the appointment of Hernán Büchi as minister of finance and a sharp revision of economic policy. Despite a general selling of state property and contrary to neoliberal prescriptions, the regime retained the lucrative state owned mining company Codelco which stands for about 30% of government income. According to the CIA World Factbook, during the early 1990s, Chile's reputation as a role model for economic reform was strengthened when the democratic government of Patricio Aylwin, who took over from the military in 1990, deepened the economic reform initiated by the military government. The Aylwin government departed significantly from the neoliberal doctrine of the Chicago boys, as evidenced by higher government expenditure on social programs to tackle poverty and poor quality housing. Growth in real GDP averaged 8% from 1991 to 1997, but fell to half that level in 1998 because of tight monetary policies (implemented to keep the current account deficit in check) and lower exports due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Chile's economy has since recovered and has seen growth rates of 5–7% over the past several years. After a decade of impressive growth rates, Chile began to experience a moderate economic downturn in 1999, brought on by unfavorable global economic conditions related to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The economy remained sluggish until 2003, when it began to show clear signs of recovery, achieving 4.0% real GDP growth. The Chilean economy finished 2004 with growth of 6.0%. Real GDP growth reached 5.7% in 2005 before falling back to 4.0% in 2006. GDP expanded by 5.1% in 2007. ==Sectors== During 2012, the largest sectors by GDP were mining (mainly copper), business services, personal services, manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade. Mining also represented 59.5% of exports in the period, while the manufacturing sector accounted for 34% of exports, concentrated mainly in food products, chemicals and pulp, paper and others. ===Agriculture=== Chile is one of the 5 largest world producers of cherry and cranberry, and one of the 10 largest world producers of grape, apple, kiwi, peach, plum and hazelnut, focusing on exporting high-value fruits. In 2018, Chile was the 9th largest producer of grapes in the world, with 2 million tons produced; the 10th largest producer of apples in the world, with 1.7 million tons produced; and the 6th largest producer of kiwi in the world, with 230 thousand tons produced, in addition to producing 1.4 million tons of wheat, 1.1 million tons of maize, 1.1 million tons of potatoes, 951 thousand tons of tomatoes, 571 thousand tons of oats, 368 thousand tons of onions, 319 thousand tons of peaches, 280 thousand tons of pears, 192 thousand tons of rice, 170 thousand tons of barley, 155 thousand tons of cherries, 151 thousand tons of lemons, 118 thousand tons of tangerines, 113 thousand tons of oranges, 110 thousand tons of olives, 106 thousand tons of cranberries, in addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounts only for 4.9% of the GDP as of 2007 and employed 13.6% of the country's labor force. Some major agriculture products of Chile includes grapes, apples, pears, onions, wheat, corn, oats, peaches, garlic, asparagus, beans, beef, poultry, wool, fish and timber. Chile's position in the Southern Hemisphere leads to an agricultural season cycle opposite to those of the principal consumer markets, primarily located in the Northern Hemisphere. ====Forestry==== The Chilean forestry industry grew to comprise 13% of the country's total exports in 2005, making it one of the largest export sectors for Chile. ====Wine==== Chile's unique geography and climate make it ideal for winegrowing and the country has made the top ten list of wine producers many times in the last few decades. The popularity of Chilean wine has been attributed not just to the quantity produced but also to increasing levels of quality. The combination of quantity and quality allows Chile to export excellent wines at reasonable prices to the international market. ===Mining=== The mining sector in Chile is one of the pillars of Chilean economy. The Chilean government strongly supports foreign investment in the sector and has modified its mining industry laws and regulations to create a favorable investing environment for foreigners. Thanks to a large amount of copper resources, complaisant legislation and an unregulated investment environment, Chile has become one of the main copper producers, with almost 30% of the global annual copper output. In addition to copper, Chile was, in 2019, the world's largest producer of iodine and rhenium, the second largest producer of lithium and molybdenum, the sixth largest producer of silver, the seventh largest producer of salt, the eighth largest producer of potash, the thirteenth producer of sulfur and the thirteenth producer of iron ore in the world. The country also has considerable gold production: between 2006 and 2017, the country produced annual amounts ranging from 35.9 tonnes in 2017 to 51.3 tonnes in 2013. ===Services=== The service sector in Chile has grown fast and consistently in recent decades, reinforced by the rapid development of communication and information technology, access to education and an increase in specialist skills and knowledge among the workforce. Chilean foreign policy has recognized the importance of the tertiary sector or service sector to the economy, boosting its international liberalization and leading to the signing of several free trade area agreements. Chilean service exportation consists mainly of maritime and aeronautical services, tourism, retail (department stores, supermarkets, and shopping centers), engineering and construction services, informatics, health and education. Chile ranked first among Latin American countries (and No. 32 worldwide) in Adecco's 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI). ====Finance==== Chile's financial sector has grown quickly in recent years, with a banking reform law approved in 1997 that broadened the scope of permissible foreign activity for Chilean banks. The Chilean Government implemented a further liberalization of capital markets in 2001, and there is further pending legislation proposing further liberalization. Over the last ten years, people who live in Chile have enjoyed the introduction of new financial tools such as home equity loans, currency futures and options, factoring, leasing, and debit cards. The introduction of these new products has also been accompanied by an increased use of traditional instruments such as loans and credit cards. Chile's private pension system, with assets worth roughly $70 billion at the end of 2006, has been an important source of investment capital for the capital market. However, by 2009, it was reported that $21 billion had been lost from the pension system to the 2008 financial crisis. ====Tourism==== Tourism in Chile has experienced sustained growth over the last decades. Chile received about 2.25 million foreign visitors in 2006, up to 2.50 million in 2007 The percentages of foreign tourists arrivals by land, air and sea were, respectively, 55.3%, 40.5% and 4.2% for that year. and continued privatization, though at a slower pace. The government's role in the economy is mostly limited to regulation, although the state continues to operate copper giant Codelco and a few other enterprises such as BancoEstado. Under the compulsory private pension system, most formal sector employees pay 10% of their salaries into privately managed funds. According to the CIA World FactBook, the GDP contracted an estimated −1.7% in 2009. The Chilean Government has formed a Council on Innovation and Competition, which is tasked with identifying new sectors and industries to promote. It is hoped that this, combined with some tax reforms to encourage domestic and foreign investment in research and development, will bring in additional FDI to new parts of the economy. There are three main ways for Chilean firms to raise funds abroad: bank loans, issuance of bonds, and the selling of stocks on U.S. markets through American Depository Receipts (ADRs). Nearly all of the funds raised through these means go to finance domestic Chilean investment. In 2006, the Government of Chile ran a surplus of $11.3 billion, equal to almost 8% of GDP. The Government of Chile continues to pay down its foreign debt, with public debt only 3.9% of GDP at the end of 2006. The target was of 1% of GDP between 2001 and 2007, it was reduced to 0.5% in 2008 and then to 0% in 2009 in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In 2005, key elements of this voluntary policy were incorporated into legislation through the Fiscal Responsibility Law (Law 20,128). By the end of 2012, they had respective market values of US$5.883 million and US$14.998 million. The main taxes in Chile in terms of revenue collection are the value added tax (45.8% of total revenues in 2012) and the income tax (41.8% of total revenues in 2012). The value added tax is levied on sales of goods and services (including imports) at a rate of 19%, with a few exemptions. The income tax revenue comprises different taxes. While there is a corporate income tax of 20% over profits from companies (called First Category Tax), the system is ultimately designed to tax individuals. Therefore, corporate income taxes paid constitute a credit towards two personal income taxes: the Global Complementary Tax (in the case of residents) or the Additional Tax (in the case of non-residents). The Global Complementary Tax is payable by those that have different sources of income, while those receiving income solely from dependent work are subject to the Second Category Tax. Both taxes are equally progressive in statutory terms, with a top marginal rate of 40%. Income arising from corporate activity under the Global Complementary Tax only becomes payable when effectively distributed to the individual. There are also special sales taxes on alcohol and luxury goods, as well as specific taxes on tobacco and fuel. Other taxes include the inheritance tax and custom duties. In 2012, general government expenditure reached 21.5% of GDP, while revenues were equivalent to 22% of GDP. Gross financial debt amounted to 12.2% of GDP, while in net terms it was −6.9% of GDP, both well below OECD averages. Inflation has followed a relatively stable trajectory since the year 2000, remaining under 10%, despite the temporary surge of some inflationary pressures in the year 2008. The Chilean peso's rapid appreciation against the U.S. dollar in recent years has helped dampen inflation. Most wage settlements and loans are indexed, reducing inflation's volatility. The CBoC is granted autonomous status by Chile's National Constitution, providing credibility and stability beyond the political cycle. According to the Basic Constitutional Act of the Central Bank of Chile (Law 18,840), its main objectives are to safeguard "the stability of the currency and the normal functioning of internal and external payments". To meet these objectives, the CBoC is enabled to use monetary and foreign exchange policy instruments, along with some discretion on financial regulation. In practice, the CBoC monetary policy is guided by an inflation targeting regime, while the foreign exchange policy is led by a floating exchange rate and, although unusual, the bank reserves the right to intervene in the foreign exchange markets. Chile unilaterally lowered its across-the-board import tariff for all countries with which it does not have a trade agreement to 6% in 2003. Higher effective tariffs are charged only on imports of wheat, wheat flour, and sugar as a result of a system of import price bands. The price bands were ruled inconsistent with Chile's World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations in 2002, and the government has introduced legislation to modify them. Under the terms of the U.S.–Chile FTA, the price bands will be completely phased out for U.S. imports of wheat, wheat flour, and sugar within 12 years. More recently, Chile has also been an active participant of deeper plurilateral trade agreement negotiations. Notably, Chile is currently in talks with eleven other economies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed agreement that would stem from the existing P-4 Agreement between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. Chile has signed some form of bilateral or plurilateral agreement with each of the parties at TPP, although with different degrees of integration. Chile is also a party in conversations to establish the Pacific Alliance along with Peru, Mexico and Colombia. ====Foreign trade==== 2006 was a record year for Chilean trade. Total trade registered a 31% increase over 2005. During 2006, exports of goods and services totaled US$58 billion, an increase of 41%. This figure was somewhat distorted by the skyrocketing price of copper. In 2006, copper exports reached a historical high of US$33.3 billion. Imports totaled US$35 billion, an increase of 17% compared to the previous year. Chile thus recorded a positive trade balance of US$2.3 billion in 2006. ==Issues== Unemployment hovered at 8–10% after the start of the economic slowdown in 1999, above the 7% average for the 1990s. Unemployment finally dipped to 7.8% in 2006, and continued to fall in 2007, averaging 6.8% monthly (up to August). Wages have risen faster than inflation as a result of higher productivity, boosting national living standards. The percentage of Chileans with household incomes below the poverty line – defined as twice the cost of satisfying a person's minimal nutritional needs – fell from 45.1% in 1987 to 11.7% in 2015, according to government polls. Critics in Chile, however, argue that poverty figures are considerably higher than those officially published; until 2016, the government defined the poverty line based on an outdated 1987 household consumption poll, instead of more recent polls from 1997 or 2007. According to critics who use data from the 1997 poll, the poverty rate goes up to 29%; a study published in 2017 claims that it reaches 26%. Using the relative yardstick favoured in many European countries, 27% of Chileans would be poor, according to Juan Carlos Feres of the ECLAC. Starting in 2016, a new Multidimensional Poverty Index is also used, which reached 20.9% using 2015 data. Chile's Gini Coefficient in 2003 (53.8) has slightly changed in comparison with the value in 1995 (56.4). In 2005 the 10% poorest among the Chileans received 1.2% of GNP (2000 = 1.4%), while the 10% richest received 47% of GNP (2000 = 46%). Regarding the census, assessments have exhibited mixed results. An initial evaluation by a domestic independent experts panel released in August 2013 placed the omission rate in 9.3%, three times as much as other census in the region, and recommended annulling the census to hold a new version in 2015. The government sought an assessment by international experts before making a final decision. == Social inequalities == By 2021, the combined wealth of Chile's billionaires represented 16.1% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Historians generally explain the origin of the social gap by tracing it back to colonial times, when most land was divided between Spaniards and their descendants. This gave rise to the hacienda, in which society was divided between owners, employees, tenants and workers. Since this agrarian inequality, the concentration of wealth has spread to other economic sectors that exploit natural resources, such as mining. In more recent history, social inequality deepened in the 1970s and 1980s under Augusto Pinochet's regime, with the privatization of public enterprises in favor of large family fortunes, the repression of trade unions and the rejection of the welfare state. As social mobility is very low in Chile, social status is often passed down from generation to generation. ===GDP composition=== Main macroeconomic aggregates of GDP. Note: Data are preliminary. Source: Cuentas Nacionales de Chile – Evolución de la actividad económica en el año 2015 (p. 29), Central Bank of Chile, accessed on 23 March 2016. ===GDP by sector=== Gross domestic product by sector of the economy. Note: 2011 data are preliminary. Source: Cuentas Nacionales – Evolución de la actividad económica en el año 2011 (p. 34). Central Bank of Chile. accessed on 22 March 2012. === Imports and exports === ===Top exports=== Chile's top exports in 2013. Source: Central Bank of Chile's statistics database.	[ "2008 financial crisis", "foreign exchange market", "Great Depression", "List of Latin American and Caribbean countries by GDP (nominal)", "Apple", "Bío-Bío River", "Commercial fishing", "List of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI", "Methanol", "Trans-Pacific Partnership", "Pensions in Chile", "Fruit", "Cherry", "cherry", "Cardboard (paper product)", "Forestry", "Lithium carbonate", "salt", "Fertilizer", "Welfare state", "List of countries by inequality-adjusted Human Development Index", "CORFO", "apple", "labor force", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Household final consumption expenditure", "aquaculture", "tertiary sector of the economy", "Lumber", "Paso Libertadores", "maize", "Adecco", "sovereign wealth funds", "Pear", "Andean Community", "cranberry", "Free Trade Area of the Americas", "Molybdenum oxide", "GNP", "Arauco War", "Woodchips", "List of Latin American and Caribbean countries by GDP (PPP)", "World Trade Organization", "G20 developing nations", "Doha Development Round", "Cairns Group", "Global Competitiveness Report", "cherries", "Santiago Times", "Ore concentrate", "Fishing in Chile", "Southern Hemisphere", "League of Nations", "Corn kernel", "peach", "hacienda", "molybdenum", "onions", "forestry", "Purchasing power parity", "Wine bottle", "Fruit juice", "Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation", "privatization", "barley", "Plywood", "Andes", "Metal fabrication", "chemicals", "Copper wire", "plum", "vehicle", "Central Bank of Chile", "import substitution industrialization", "Avocado", "Chicago Boys", "salmon", "Patagonia", "Mercosur", "pears", "oats", "silviculture", "CIA World Factbook", "growing region", "The Heritage Foundation", "Tool", "OECD", "cranberries", "Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport", "Protected areas of Chile", "FOB (shipping)", "List of countries by Human Development Index", "Import duties", "Juan Fernández Archipelago", "Ferromolybdenum", "Mollusk", "Poultry meat", "Hake", "wheat", "Fiberboard", "Pinochet regime", "Chemical", "List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita", "Geography of Chile", "income per capita", "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", "olives", "Oil refinery", "Non-alcoholic beverage", "hazelnut", "Banco del Estado de Chile", "neoliberal", "lithium", "tangerines", "rhenium", "United Nations Development Programme", "iodine", "Codelco", "Fish oil", "Value added tax", "Chilean Central Valley", "Molybdenum", "table salt", "The World Factbook", "Augusto Pinochet", "Cellulose", "Financial services", "lumber", "Frozen fruit", "Pamela Constable", "iron ore", "Index of Economic Freedom", "Robinson Crusoe Island", "Competition", "Bulk wine", "crisis of 1982", "lemons", "Salmon", "Secondary sector of the economy", "Government final consumption expenditure", "Autocracy", "Net exports", "Sea salt", "potash", "Chilean wine", "World Bank", "Tertiary sector of the economy", "Developing country", "Gross fixed capital formation", "List of countries by GDP (nominal)", "crustacean", "market economy", "silver", "Easter Island", "War of the Pacific", "Santiago", "ECLAC", "grape", "copper", "World Bank high-income economy", "Chilean Coast Range", "free trade area", "pulp (paper)", "Canned fruit", "Atacama Desert", "Eucalyptus", "free trade agreement", "Agriculture in Chile", "Tire", "Grape", "irrigation", "Plum", "Ease of doing business index", "International Monetary Fund", "Bourbon reforms", "Hernán Büchi", "gold", "Legend Holdings", "globalization", "Kiwifruit", "Vaccinium", "Mining in Chile", "Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership", "Canned fish", "Wine", "List of countries by GDP (PPP)", "Multidimensional Poverty Index", "Chemical industry", "Public administration", "Cathode", "Patricio Aylwin", "Primary sector of the economy", "Foodstuff", "Arturo Valenzuela", "sulfur", "Gini Coefficient", "South America", "Drink", "potatoes", "economic inequality", "standard of living", "foodstuff", "placer deposit", "Radiata Pine", "Aconcagua River", "Diego Portales", "corruption", "List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita", "Iodine", "Trout", "Potassium nitrate", "List of Latin American and Caribbean countries by GDP growth", "economic freedom", "Dried fruit", "Orange (fruit)", "Gini index", "machinery", "Pulp (paper)", "tomatoes", "Sanhattan", "Fish meal", "Chilean peso", "1997 Asian financial crisis", "peaches", "research and development", "Pacific Alliance", "rice" ]
5,495	Telecommunications in Chile	The technical regulator of communications in Chile is the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications, through the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications (Subtel). ==Telephone== === History === Telephone and telegraph services started in Chile in 1879, three years after Alexander Graham Bell, presented his patent for a telephonic system. José Dottin Husbands, an associate of Thomas Edison, arrived into the port of Valparaíso carrying the first set of switching equipment and telephones. By 1880 the first telephone company of the country is born (Compañía Chilena de Teléfonos de Edison), while in 1893, after a rapid expansion in the northern regions of Chile, telephone services started operating in the south, thanks to the founding of Telefónica del Sur (current day Grupo GTD), a company created by a group of German immigrants that had previously settled in the area of Valdivia, Región de los Ríos. Main lines in use: 2,567,938 (2020 est.) Mobile cellular: 25,068,249 (2020 est.) System: privatization began in 1988; advanced telecommunications infrastructure; modern system based on extensive microwave radio relay facilities; fixed-line connections have dropped in recent years as mobile-cellular usage continues to increase, reaching a level of 85 telephones per 100 persons ==Television== Broadcast stations: 63 (plus 121 repeaters) (1997) Pay television: 4,158,874 (2012) ==Internet== Internet hosts: 847,215 (2008)	[ "Alexander Graham Bell", "1879", "FM broadcasting", "Los Ríos Region", "AM radio", "Alternating current", "Valparaíso", "Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications (Chile)", "Chile", "Undersecretariat of Telecommunications (Chile)", "Thomas Edison", "Valdivia", ".cl", "Broadcast television system", "WP:SDNONE", "NTSC", "Internet country code", "Hertz", "Telefónica del Sur", "German colonization of Valdivia, Osorno and Llanquihue", "Grupo GTD" ]
5,496	Transport in Chile	Transport in Chile is mostly by road. The far south of the country is not directly connected to central Chile by road without travelling through Argentina, and water transport also plays a part there. The railways were historically important in Chile, but now play a relatively small part in the country's transport system. Because of the country's geography and long distances between major cities, aviation is also important. == Road transport == === Highways === Total: 85,983 km Paved: 21,289 km Unpaved: 64,695 km (2020 est.) Chile Highway 5 Chile Highway 7 Chile Highway 9 Chile Highway 68 Chile Highway 181 === Freeways === 3,347 km (2020 est.)< The bus system covers the whole country, from Arica to Santiago (a 30-hour journey) and from Santiago to Punta Arenas (about 40 hours, with a change at Osorno). There are also international services to most other countries in South America. Longer-distance services are mostly on semi-cama (reclining seat) or cama (sleeper) buses, often double deck. Santiago began its public bus system Transantiago in 2007. Concepción's "Bio Bus" integrates with the electric train, Biotren, and is based on a dedicated right of way for buses. == Railways == Total: 6,782 km Broad gauge: 3,743 km gauge (1,653 km electrified) Narrow gauge: 116 km gauge; 2,923 km (40 km electrified) (1995) 40 km (from Arica to Tacna, Peru) Not all lines connect. Chile's railways (except for a few dedicated industrial lines ) are operated by the state owned company Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado (EFE), which completed a major investment programme in 2005. The rail system once served the entire country, running rail lines from Arica in the north to Puerto Montt in the south. Due partly to the nature of the terrain and evolution in transportation systems, rail travel has suffered greatly at the hands of bus and air competition. The train usually takes longer to reach a destination than a bus, and the comfort is comparable. Prices also tend to be uncompetitive. Rail freight transport has also suffered at the hands of the trucking industry and will continue to do so due to the immense leverage the truck driver's union can bring to bear if they were to feel threatened. The Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia is a metre gauge railway in the north of the country. It was originally constructed in gauge. The northern rail line out of Santiago is now disused past the intersection with the Valparaíso line. Until there, it is used nearly exclusively for freight. Although the rest of the northern line is still in place, it is in a state of serious disrepair. The southern line runs as far as Puerto Montt and is electrified as far as the city of Temuco, from where diesel locomotives are used. Due to lack of budget and care, the 389 km Temuco to Puerto Montt section was abandoned in 1992 but after a $44m upgrade it has been back in use since 6 December 2005 with daily service between Victoria (north of Temuco) and Puerto Montt; today, however, only the service between Victoria and Temuco still operates. Work to build/restore(?) the South Trans-Andean Railway link between Zapala, Argentina and Lonquimay, Chile was underway in 2005. Possible break-of-gauge. Possible rack railway. Construction was undertaken by Patagonia Ferrocanal SA, formed and funded by the province. The first 7 km was completed by January 2006. Commuter rail lines in Santiago are planned to connect to Melipilla and Batuco. There have been repeated case studies regarding the installation of a high-speed line between the cities of Valparaíso and Santiago, some even considering maglev trains, but no serious action has ever been taken on the matter. === Rail links with adjacent countries === Bolivia – yes – same gauge – from Arica to La Paz, Bolivia Argentina – Central Trans-Andean Railway – abandoned 1984 – 100 km of mountain railway of gauge with rack railway sections – break of gauge / at either end. Concession planned to re-open line. Peru – yes – a single gauge connection between the northern Chilean city of Arica and Tacna in Southern Peru. === Cities with Metros === Santiago (Metro de Santiago) website Valparaíso (Valparaíso Metro) website == Ports and merchant marine == === Ports === === Merchant marine === total: 45 ships ( or over) totaling / ships by type: (1999 est.) == Aviation == === Airports – with paved runways === total: 62 over 3,047 m: 6 2,438 to 3,047 m: 6 1,524 to 2,437 m: 20 914 to 1,523 m: 20 under 914 m: 10 (1999 est.) Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport, located in Santiago, is Chile's largest aviation facility. === Airports – with unpaved runways === total: 310 over 3,047 m: 1 2,438 to 3,047 m: 4 1,524 to 2,437 m: 12 914 to 1,523 m: 68 under 914 m: 223 (1999 est.) === National airlines === LATAM Chile Sky Airline JetSmart Latin American Wings (defunct) ==Bridges== ===Chacao Channel=== Chacao Channel bridge is a planned suspension bridge that was to link the island of Chiloé with mainland Chile crossing the Chacao Channel. It was one of the several projects that were planned to commemorate the Chile's bicentennial in 2010. If completed, it would have been the largest suspension bridge in South America. Construction started in 2017 with completion expected in 2028. == Pipelines == crude oil 755 km petroleum products 780 km natural gas 320 km ==Mountain passes== Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass, Los Lagos Region, Route 215-CH Carirriñe Pass, Los Ríos Region Chungara–Tambo Quemado, Arica and Parinacota Region Paso de Jama, Antofagasta Region Huahum Pass, Los Ríos Region Icalma International Pass, Araucanía Region Paso Internacional Los Libertadores, Valparaíso Region Lilpela Pass, Los Ríos Region Paso de Los Patos, Valparaíso Region Mamuil Malal Pass, Araucanía Region Pino Hachado Pass, Araucanía Region San Francisco Pass, Atacama Region Uspallata Pass, Valparaíso Region	[ "Puerto Montt, Chile", "Carirriñe Pass", "Rail transport in Bolivia", "petroleum tanker", "Paso de Jama", "Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado", "Los Ríos Region", "break of gauge", "rack railway", "Latin American Wings", "Icalma International Pass", "Zapala", "La Paz", "Chile Highway 7", "Mamuil Malal Pass", "LNG carrier", "Lonquimay", "Metro de Santiago de Chile", "Antofagasta Region", "Paso Internacional Los Libertadores", "bulk carrier", "Ferry", "ship", "Bio Bus", "Uspallata Pass", "Chiloé Island", "Argentina", "JetSmart", "Tacna", "cargo ship", "LATAM Chile", "Autopista del Itata", "Biotren", "Arica, Chile", "Valparaíso Metro", "Commuter rail", "Narrow-gauge railway", "Valparaíso", "Route 181-CH", "Santiago de Chile", "Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport", "Chile", "Corral, Chile", "Chile Freeway 8", "Pino Hachado Pass", "Osorno, Chile", "Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia", "chemical tanker", "Bolivia", "container ship", "Route 215-CH", "Talcahuano, Chile", "San Vicente, Chile", "Track gauge", "Temuco", "San Francisco Pass", "Arica and Parinacota Region", "Rail transport by country", "Chacao Channel", "crude oil", "Punta Arenas, Chile", "Lilpela Pass", "break-of-gauge", "Chacao Channel bridge", "Trans-Andean Railways", "Iquique, Chile", "Sky Airline", "Santiago", "Rail transport in Argentina", "Punta Arenas", "Chile Highway 68", "Broad-gauge railway", "List of largest suspension bridges", "Paso de Los Patos", "Atacama Region", "Autopista del Sol (Chile)", "Chile Freeway 6", "Araucanía Region", "petroleum products", "Railway Gazette International", "Route 9-CH", "Santiago – Batuco commuter rail", "suspension bridge", "International Railway Journal", "natural gas", "Coquimbo", "Concepción, Chile", "Chungara–Tambo Quemado", "South America", "Antofagasta", "Puerto Montt", "Chile Highway 5", "Huahum Pass", "Peru", "mountain railway", "roll-on/roll-off", "Transantiago", "Tocopilla, Chile", "Cardenal Antonio Samoré Pass", "Los Lagos Region", "Passenger ship", "Rail transport in Peru", "Chañaral, Chile", "Melitrén", "Valparaíso Region", "San Antonio, Chile" ]
5,497	Chilean Armed Forces	The Chilean Armed Forces () is the unified military organization comprising the Chilean Army, Air Force, and Navy. The President of Chile is the commander-in-chief of the military, and formulates policy through the Minister of Defence. In recent years and after several major reequipment programs, the Chilean Armed Forces have become one of the most technologically advanced and professional armed forces in Latin America. The Chilean Army is mostly supplied with equipment from Germany, the United States, Brazil, Israel, France, and Spain. ==Structure== ===Army=== The current commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army is General de Ejército Sr. Javier Iturriaga del Campo. The 46,350-person army is organized under six military administrative regions and six divisional headquarters. The forces include one special forces brigade, four armoured brigades, one armoured detachment, three motorized brigades, two motorized detachments, four mountain detachments and one aviation brigade. The army operates German Leopard 1 and 2 tanks as its main battle tanks, including 170+ Leopard 2A4 and 115 Leopard 1. The army has approximately 40,000 reservists. ===Navy=== Admiral Juan Andrés De La Maza Larraín directs the 19,800-person Chilean Navy, including 3,600 Marines. Of the fleet of 66 surface vessels, eight are major combatant ships and they are based in Valparaíso. The navy operates its own aircraft for transport and patrol; there are no fighters or bomber aircraft but they have attack helicopters. The Navy also operates four submarines based in Talcahuano. ===Air Force=== General Hugo Rodríguez González heads 11,050-strong Chilean Air Force. Air assets are distributed among five air brigades headquartered in Iquique, Antofagasta, Santiago, Puerto Montt, and Punta Arenas. The Air Force also operates an airbase on King George Island, Antarctica.	[ "Germany", "Spain", "Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Defence (Chile)", "France", "Javier Iturriaga del Campo", "President of Chile", "Chilean Air Force", "Military ranks and insignia of Chile", "Ministry of National Defense (Chile)", "Maya Fernández Allende", "ENAER", "United States", "Antofagasta", "Stockholm International Peace Research Institute", "Gabriel Boric", "Puerto Montt", "Valparaíso", "Chilean Navy", "FAMAE", "José Nogueira León", "Latin America", "Chilean Army order of battle", "Iquique", "Chilean Army", "Israel", "King George Island (Antarctica)", "Brazil", "Santiago", "Punta Arenas", "commander-in-chief", "Talcahuano" ]
5,498	Foreign relations of Chile	Since its return to democracy in 1990, Chile has been an active participant in the regional and international arena. Chile assumed a two-year non-permanent position on the UN Security Council in January 2003 and was re-elected to the council in October 2013. It is also an active member of the UN family of agencies, serving as a member of the Commission on Human Rights and participating in UN peacekeeping activities. Chile hosted the second Summit of the Americas in 1998, was the chair of the Rio Group in 2001, hosted the Defense Ministerial of the Americas in 2002, and the APEC summit and related meetings in 2004. In 2005 it hosted the Community of Democracies ministerial conference. It is an associate member of Mercosur and a full member of APEC. The OECD agreed to invite Chile to be among four countries to open discussions in becoming an official member. == Diplomatic relations == List of countries which Chile maintains diplomatic relations with: === Asia ===	[ "Chile–Israel relations", "Athens", "Pope John Paul II", "Kuala Lumpur", "Montreal", "Maximum neighbor hypothesis", "Falklands War", "Chile–Ecuador relations", "Beagle Channel Arbitration", "Elektrooniline Riigi Teataja", "Chile–Ireland relations", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Uzbekistan)", "Hong Kong", "Chile–Portugal relations", "Washington, D.C.", "Beagle Channel cartography since 1881", "Chile–Japan relations", "Beagle conflict", "Munich", "Brazil–Chile relations", "Chile–Lebanon relations", "Warsaw", "Madrid", "Chile–Sweden relations", "Cerro Pachón", "UN Security Council", "San Francisco", "Andorra la Vella", "war", "Chile–China relations", "Croats", "Calama, Chile", "Bolivia–Chile relations", "2004 Haitian coup d'état", "Bogotá", "Hanoi", "Toronto", "Chile–United Kingdom relations", "Laguna del Desierto", "Chile–Philippines relations", "Chile–Turkey relations", "Moscow", "La Paz", "Montevideo", "Working Holiday Visa", "Austria–Chile relations", "Union of South American Nations", "José Miguel Insulza", "List of diplomatic missions in Chile", "Chile–United States relations", "Binondo, Manila", "Free Trade Area of the Americas", "Hilarión Daza", "New York City", "Chile–Romania relations", "Shanghai", "Chile–Spain relations", "Ciudad Guayana", "São Paulo", "Indira Gandhi", "Cairns Group", "Chile–Croatia relations", "Beijing", "Vancouver", "HINA", "Chile–Estonia relations", "José Donoso", "Canberra", "Chile–Haiti relations", "Havana", "Evo Morales", "United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti", "Tarapacá Region", "Los Angeles", "Jakarta", "Liechtensteiner Volksblatt", "Chile–Denmark relations", "Argentina", "Andorra–Chile relations", "Chile–Cuba relations", "Rio de Janeiro", "Víctor Paz Estenssoro", "Gemini Observatory", "Guangzhou", "Tacna", "Chile–Venezuela relations", "Carlos Menem", "Tel Aviv", "Sydney", "Organization of American States", "Ecuadorian–Peruvian War", "Patagonia", "Caracas", "Mercosur", "United States", "The Hague", "Chile–Germany relations", "Vienna", "Chile–Dominican Republic relations", "Chile–Malaysia relations", "Chile–New Zealand relations", "ABC Powers", "Brasília", "Lima", "Valparaíso", "Chile-Pakistan relations", "2013 United Nations Security Council election", "Bucharest", "Beagle Channel", "OECD", "foreign trade", "Ricardo Lagos", "Amsterdam", "United Nations Commission on Human Rights", "Latin America", "Quito", "Chile–France relations", "Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle", "Government of Estonia", "Antonio Samorè", "Iquique", "Santo Domingo", "Armenian genocide", "Zagreb", "Australia-Chile Free Trade Agreement", "Bridgetown", "Copenhagen", "Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina", "wheat", "Chile–Palestine relations", "Ankara", "Georgetown, Guyana", "Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs", "Bolivia", "Trinidad and Tobago", "Foreign relations of the United Kingdom", "Chile–Kenya relations", "Stockholm", "public auction", "Miami", "Chile–Greece relations", "Arica", "Milan", "Operation Soberanía", "Guayaquil", "Santa Cruz de la Sierra", "Australia–Chile relations", "Houston", "Asunción", "Helsinki", "Mumbai", "Mount Fitz Roy", "Dublin", "Augusto Pinochet", "David Thompson (Barbadian politician)", "Chile–Mexico Free Trade Agreement", "President of Croatia", "Porto Alegre", "Chile–Norway relations", "Rio Protocol", "Senate of Chile", "Õhtuleht", "Euro", "China", "Atacama border dispute", "Chile–Vietnam relations", "Summit of the Americas", "Government of the Republic of China", "Chile–Paraguay relations", "Chile–Italy relations", "Isabel Allende", "Francisco Morales Bermúdez", "Veracruz Incident", "Jorge Videla", "Tampico Affair", "Chile–Peru relations", "Ottawa", "Community of Latin American and Caribbean States", "Chicago", "Hamburg", "Chile–Poland relations", "London", "Stjepan Mesić", "Frankfurt", "Canada–Chile relations", "War of the Pacific", "Berlin", "Santiago", "List of diplomatic missions of Chile", "United Nations", "grape", "Hugo Banzer", "Gothenburg", "Yerevan", "free trade agreement", "Chengdu", "Chile-Indonesia relations", "Chile-India relations", "Buenos Aires", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Barbados)", "Diego Barros Arana", "Chile–Taiwan relations", "Bernardo O'Higgins", "Wellington", "Tehran", "Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement", "WTO", "Community of Democracies", "Chile–Finland relations", "Chile-Colombia relations", "Pablo Neruda", "Torpedo boats in the War of the Pacific", "Oslo", "Lisbon", "Rio Group", "Chile–Libya relations", "Ramallah", "South America", "Antofagasta", "Mount Daudet", "Armenian genocide recognition", "Brazilian Army", "Nairobi", "Taipei", "UN", "Visa requirements for Chilean citizens", "2005 Organization of American States Secretary General election", "APEC", "Armenia–Chile relations", "Peru", "Potassium nitrate", "Pretoria", "Barcelona", "Beirut", "Melbourne", "Chile–Mexico relations", "Niagara Falls, Ontario", "Venezuela", "Port of Spain", "Paris", "WP:SDNONE", "Aníbal Pinto", "Chile–Uruguay relations", "Port-au-Prince", "Mexico City", "Shankar Dayal Sharma", "José de San Martín", "Pacific Alliance", "Tokyo", "Chile–Trinidad and Tobago relations", "Chile–Russia relations", "Manila", "Rome", "New Delhi", "Edward VII", "Argentina–Chile relations", "Southern Patagonian Ice Field" ]
5,499	National Anthem of Chile	The National Anthem of Chile, also referred to as the "National Song" or by its incipit as "" ("How Pure, Chile, Is Your Blue Sky"), was adopted in 1828. It has a history of two lyrics and two melodies that made up three different versions. The current version was composed by Ramón Carnicer, with words by Eusebio Lillo, and has six parts plus the chorus. ==History== ===First national anthem=== The first Chilean national anthem dates back to 1819, when the government called for, on 13 January, the creation of music and lyrics for this purpose. The composer Manuel Robles and the poet Bernardo de Vera y Pintado fulfilled this mandate and their "National Song" debuted on 20 August 1820 in the Domingo Arteaga theater, although other historians claim that it was played and sung during the festivities of September 1819. In the beginning, everyone would stand for the song. The custom of always singing it at the theater slowly disappeared, until it was requested that it only be sung at the anniversary of the country. The doctor Bernardo Vera, known in the history of the independence, was the author of the verses that were sung to Robles' music. This first hymn was sung until 1828, when it was replaced with what is currently being sung. ===Second national anthem=== The second and current Chilean national anthem was composed by the Spanish composer Ramón Carnicer, when he was exiled in England because of his liberal ideas. Mariano Egaña, Chilean Minister in London, acting on the criticism that Robles' song was receiving, asked Carnicer to compose a new hymn with Bernardo de Vera's original text. The Spanish musician probably wrote the work by 1827, the date he returned to Barcelona, and his hymn debuted in Santiago, in the Arteaga theater on 23 December 1828. Years later, probably in 1847, the Chilean government entrusted the young poet Eusebio Lillo with a new text that would replace the anti-Spain poem of Vera y Pintado, and after being analyzed by Andrés Bello, retained the original chorus ("Dulce patria, recibe los votos..."). The lyrics were slightly revised in 1909. During the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, the Verse III was officially incorporated because of his praise of the armed forces and the national police (Carabineros). After the end of Pinochet's regime in 1990, it was only sung at military events. Supporters from the former military junta also sing the anthem with the Verse III in private ceremonies and rallies, with continuous controversies over the following years because of the crescent general consensus of the crimes against humanity committed by the regime. In the celebrations marking the return of democracy in 1990 at Santiago's Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos, the anthem was played in its present melody, raised to F Major, which is the original melody of the second anthem by Carnicer, but using the 1847 lyrics as text, save for the original chorus of the 1819 anthem. This was the version that from 1991 to 2000 was played before broadcasts of Chilean presidential addresses. In 2000, it was replaced by a more stylized version, which was used until 2010. After that, the anthem was scrapped off the addresses. Since the end of the dictatorship, television stations rarely ever used the anthem during their sign-on and sign-off, and the practice fell off definitely during the 1990s. Radio stations in Chile still have a tradition to play the anthem on New Year's Eve, to start the celebrations. There is also a translation in Mapudungun, the largest and most-commonly spoken indigenous language in Chile, spoken by the Mapuche people. == Lyrics == === Official lyrics === Below are the lyrics of the most played version; it corresponds to verse V of the full version and the chorus.	[ "Chilean Spanish", "Carabineros de Chile", "sign-off", "Mapuche", "Mapudungun", "Human rights abuses in Chile under Augusto Pinochet", "Canción Nacional Chilena", "Military dictatorship of Chile", "Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos", "Ramón Carnicer", "YouTube", "Chilean transition to democracy", "incipit", "Spanish phonology", "Andrés Bello", "International Phonetic Alphabet", "Mariano Egaña", "Santiago", "Eusebio Lillo", "sign-on" ]
5,500	Christmas Island	Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean comprising the island of the same name. It is located approximately south of Java and Sumatra and about north-west of the closest point on the Australian mainland. With an area of , Christmas Island's geographic isolation and history of minimal human disturbance has led to a high level of endemism among its flora and fauna, which is of interest to scientists and naturalists. The territory derives its name from its discovery on Christmas Day 1643 by Captain William Mynors. The first European to sight Christmas Island was Richard Rowe of the Thomas in 1615. Captain William Mynors named it on Christmas Day, 25 December 1643. It was first settled in the late 19th century, after abundant phosphate deposits were found, originally deposited as guano, leading Britain to annex the island in 1888, and begin commercial mining in 1899. Christmas Island was invaded by the Japanese in 1942 to secure its phosphate deposits, and transferred from Singapore to Australia, where it remains, in 1958. Christmas Island had a population of 1,692 residents , Today, around two-thirds of the island's population is estimated to have Straits Chinese origin (though just 22.2% of the population declared a Chinese ancestry in 2021), The majority (63%) of the island is made up of Christmas Island National Park, which features several areas of primary monsoonal forest. ==History== ===First visits by Europeans, 1643=== The first European to sight the island was Richard Rowe of the Thomas in 1615. Captain William Mynors of the East India Company vessel Royal Mary named the island when he sailed past it on Christmas Day in 1643. The island was included on English and Dutch navigation charts early in the 17th century, but it was not until 1666 that a map published by Dutch cartographer Pieter Goos included the island. Goos labelled the island "Mony" or "Moni", the meaning of which is unclear. English navigator William Dampier, aboard the privateer Charles Swan's ship Cygnet, made the earliest recorded visit to the sea around the island in March 1688. Dampier was trying to reach Cocos from New Holland. His ship was blown off course in an easterly direction, arriving at Christmas Island 28 days later. Dampier landed on the west coast, at "the Dales". Two of his crewmen became the first Europeans to set foot on Christmas Island. Captain Daniel Beeckman of the Eagle passed the island on 5 April 1714, chronicled in his 1718 book, A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo, in the East-Indies. ===Exploration and annexation=== The first attempt at exploring the island was made in 1857 by Captain Sidney Grenfell of the frigate . An expedition crew were sent ashore with instructions to reach the summit of the plateau, but they failed to find a route up the inland cliff and were forced to turn back. In 1886, Captain John Maclear of , having discovered an anchorage in a bay that he named "Flying Fish Cove", landed a party and made a small collection of the flora and fauna. Phosphate mining began in 1899 using indentured workers from Singapore, British Malaya, and China. John Davis Murray, a mechanical engineer and recent graduate of Purdue University, was sent to supervise the operation on behalf of the Phosphate Mining and Shipping Company. Murray was known as the "King of Christmas Island" until 1910, when he married and settled in London. The island was administered jointly by the British Phosphate commissioners and district officers from the United Kingdom Colonial Office through the Straits Settlements, and later the Crown Colony of Singapore. Hunt (2011) provides a detailed history of Chinese indentured labour on the island during those years. In 1922, scientists unsuccessfully attempted to view a solar eclipse in late September from the island to test Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. ===Japanese invasion=== From the outbreak of the South-East Asian theatre of World War II in December 1941, Christmas Island was a target for Japanese occupation because of its rich phosphate deposits. The first attack was carried out on 20 January 1942 by the , which torpedoed the Norwegian freighter Eidsvold. The vessel drifted and eventually sank off West White Beach. Most of the European and Asian staff and their families were evacuated to Perth. In late February and early March 1942, there were two aerial bombing raids. Shelling from a Japanese naval group on 7 March led the district officer to hoist the white flag. meant that only small amounts of phosphate were exported to Japan during the occupation. In November 1943, over 60% of the island's population were evacuated to Surabaya prison camps, leaving a population of just under 500 Chinese and Malays and 15 Japanese to survive as best they could. In October 1945, re-occupied Christmas Island. After the war, seven mutineers were traced and prosecuted by the Military Court in Singapore. In 1947, five of them were sentenced to death. However, following representations made by the newly independent government of India, their sentences were reduced to penal servitude for life. The United Kingdom's Christmas Island Act was given royal assent on 14 May 1958 by Queen Elizabeth II, enabling Britain to transfer authority over Christmas Island from Singapore to Australia by an order-in-council. Australia's Christmas Island Act was passed in September 1958, and the island was officially placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 October 1958. This transfer did not see any process involving the local population, who could remain Singaporean citizens or obtain Australian citizenship. Links between Singapore and Christmas Island have occasionally reemerged in Singaporean politics and in Australia–Singapore relations. Under Commonwealth Cabinet Decision 1573 of 9 September 1958, D.E. Nickels was appointed the first official representative of the new territory. In a media statement on 5 August 1960, the minister for territories, Paul Hasluck, said, among other things, that, "His extensive knowledge of the Malay language and the customs of the Asian people ... has proved invaluable in the inauguration of Australian administration ... During his two years on the island he had faced unavoidable difficulties ... and constantly sought to advance the island's interests." John William Stokes succeeded Nickels and served from 1 October 1960, to 12 June 1966. On his departure, he was lauded by all sectors of the island community. In 1968, the official secretary was retitled an administrator and, since 1997, Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands together are called the Australian Indian Ocean Territories and share a single administrator resident on Christmas Island. The village of Silver City was built in the 1970s, with aluminium-clad houses that were supposed to be cyclone-proof. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, centred off the western shore of Sumatra in Indonesia, resulted in no reported casualties, but some swimmers were swept some out to sea for a time before being swept back in. ===Refugee and immigration detention=== From the late 1980s and early 1990s, boats carrying asylum seekers, mainly departing from Indonesia, began landing on the island. In 2001, Christmas Island was the site of the Tampa controversy, in which the Australian government stopped a Norwegian ship, MV Tampa, from disembarking 438 rescued asylum-seekers. The ensuing standoff and the associated political reactions in Australia were a major issue in the 2001 Australian federal election. The Howard government operated the "Pacific Solution" from 2001 to 2007, excising Christmas Island from Australia's migration zone so that asylum seekers on the island could not apply for refugee status. Asylum seekers were relocated from Christmas Island to Manus Island and Nauru. In 2006, an immigration detention centre, containing approximately 800 beds, was constructed on the island for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. Originally estimated to cost million, the final cost was over $400 million. In 2007, the Rudd government decommissioned Manus Regional Processing Centre and Nauru detention centre; processing would then occur on Christmas Island itself. In December 2010, 48 asylum-seekers died just off the coast of the island in what became known as the Christmas Island boat disaster when their boat hit the rocks near Flying Fish Cove, and then smashed against nearby cliffs. In the case Plaintiff M61/2010E v Commonwealth of Australia, the High Court of Australia ruled, in a 7–0 joint judgment, that asylum seekers detained on Christmas Island were entitled to the protections of the Migration Act. Accordingly, the Commonwealth was obliged to afford asylum seekers a minimum of procedural fairness when assessing their claims. , after the interception of four boats in six days, carrying 350 people, the Immigration Department stated that there were 2,960 "irregular maritime arrivals" being held in the island's five detention facilities, which exceeded not only the "regular operating capacity" of 1,094 people, but also the "contingency capacity" of 2,724. The Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre closed in September 2018. The Morrison government announced it would re-open the centre in February the following year, after Australia's parliament passed legislation giving sick asylum seekers easier access to mainland hospitals. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government opened parts of the Immigration Reception and Processing Centre to be used as a quarantine facility to accommodate Australian citizens who had been in Wuhan, the point of origin of the pandemic. The evacuees arrived on 3 February. They left 14 days later to their homes on the mainland. ==Geography== The island is about in greatest length and in breadth. The total land area is , with of coastline. Steep cliffs along much of the coast rise abruptly to a central plateau. Elevation ranges from sea level to at Murray Hill. The island is mainly tropical rainforest, 63% of which is national parkland. The narrow fringing reef surrounding the island poses a maritime hazard. Christmas Island lies northwest of Perth, Western Australia, south of Indonesia, east-northeast of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and west of Darwin, Northern Territory. Its closest point to the Australian mainland is from the town of Exmouth, Western Australia. Only small parts of the shoreline are easily accessible. The island's perimeter is dominated by sharp cliff faces, making many of the island's beaches difficult to get to. Some of the easily accessible beaches include Flying Fish Cove (main beach), Lily Beach, Ethel Beach, and Isabel Beach, while the more difficult beaches to access include Greta Beach, Dolly Beach, Winifred Beach, Merrial Beach, and West White Beach, which all require a vehicle with four wheel drive and a difficult walk through dense rainforest. ===Geology=== The volcanic island is the flat summit of an underwater mountain more than high, which rises from about below the sea and only about above it. The mountain was originally a volcano, and some basalt is exposed in places such as The Dales and Dolly Beach, but most of the surface rock is limestone accumulated from coral growth. The karst terrain supports numerous anchialine caves. The summit of this mountain peak is formed by a succession of Tertiary limestones ranging in age from the Eocene or Oligocene up to recent reef deposits, with intercalations of volcanic rock in the older beds. In the 2021 budget the Australian Government committed A$39.1 million to create two new marine parks off Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. The parks will cover up to of Australian waters. After months of consultation with local people, both parks were approved in March 2022, with a total coverage of . The park will help to protect spawning of bluefin tuna from illegal international fishers, but local people will be allowed to practise fishing sustainably inshore in order to source food. }} ==Demographics== {{Pie chart \|thumb = right \|caption = Ancestry of Christmas Island (2021) 22.2% of the population had Chinese ancestry (up from 18.3% in 2001), 17.0% had generic Australian ancestry (11.7% in 2001), 16.1% had Malay ancestry (9.3% in 2001), 12.5% had English ancestry (8.9% in 2001), and 3.8% of the population was of Indonesian origin. As of 2021, most are people born in Christmas Island and many are of Chinese and Malay origin. The 2016 Australian census recorded that the population of Christmas Island was 40.5% female and 59.5% male, while in 2011 the figures had been 29.3% female and 70.7% male. Since 1998 there has been no provision for childbirth on the island; expectant mothers travel to mainland Australia approximately one month before their expected due date to give birth. ===Ethnicity=== Historically, the majority of Christmas Islanders were those of Chinese, Malay and Indian origins, the initial permanent settlers. ===Religion=== Religious practices differ by geography across the island and effectively correspond to the island's three primary settlements: the capital (known simply as The Settlement), the Cantonese village Poon Saan, and the Malay water village which is referred to often as the Kampong. Major religious affiliation in Christmas Island (2021) 374 people or 22.1% are Muslim, up from 19.3% in 2016. 333 people or 19.7% are Irreligion, up from 15.3% in 2016 258 people or 15.2% are Buddhists, down from 18.2% in 2016 123 people or 7.3% are Catholic, down from 8.8% in 2016 35 people or 2.1% are Anglican, down from 3.6% in 2016 ====The Capital==== Due to the large numbers of English and Australians who make up the bulk of the island's capital, there is a strong Anglo-Celtic influence in The Settlement which has contributed to the strong presence of Catholicism. This has been further reinforced by recent Filipino arrivals. ====Kampong==== Malays who have settled on the island's edge in their shoreline kampong tend to follow Sunni Islam. ====Other groups==== Other smaller and less geographically concentrated groups include Anglicans who make up 3.6%, Uniting Church adherents who make up 1.2%, other Protestants who make up 1.7%, and other Christian groups with 3.3%. Other religious communities collectively constitute 0.6% of the island's population. ==Holidays and festivals== As an external territory of Australia, the two religious festivals which are official holidays are Christmas and Easter. Other non-official festivals include Spring Festival, Chap goh meh, Qingming Festival, Zhong Yuan Festival, and Hari Raya. ==Government== Christmas Island is a non-self-governing external territory of Australia , part of the Australian Indian Ocean Territories administered by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications (from 29 November 2007 until 14 September 2010, administration was carried out by the Attorney-General's Department, and prior to this by the Department of Transport and Regional Services). The legal system is under the authority of the Governor-General of Australia and Australian law. An administrator appointed by the governor-general represents the monarch and Australia and lives on the island. The territory falls under no formal state jurisdiction, but the Western Australian government provides many services as established by the Christmas Island Act. The Australian government provides services through the Christmas Island Administration and the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development. Under the federal government's Christmas Island Act 1958, Western Australian laws are applied to Christmas Island; non-application or partial application of such laws is at the discretion of the federal government. The act also gives Western Australian courts judicial power over Christmas Island. Christmas Island remains constitutionally distinct from Western Australia, however; the power of the state to legislate for the territory is delegated by the federal government. The kind of services typically provided by a state government elsewhere in Australia are provided by departments of the Western Australian government, and by contractors, with the costs met by the federal government. A unicameral Shire of Christmas Island with nine seats provides local government services and is elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms. Elections are held every two years, with four or five of the members standing for election. women held one of the nine seats in the Christmas Island Shire Council. Its second president was Lillian Oh, from 1993 to 1995. The most recent local election took place on 21 October 2023 alongside elections in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Christmas Island residents who are Australian citizens vote in Australian federal elections. Christmas Island residents are represented in the House of Representatives by the Division of Lingiari in the Northern Territory and in the Senate by Northern Territory senators. At the 2019 federal election, the Labor Party received majorities from Christmas Island electors in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. ===Defence and police=== While there is no permanent Australian military presence on Christmas Island, the Royal Australian Navy and Australian Border Force deploy and patrol boats to conduct surveillance and counter-migrant smuggling patrols in adjacent waters. As of 2023, the Navy's Armidale-class boats are in the process of being replaced by larger s. The airfield on Christmas Island has a 2100m long runway while that on Cocos (West Island, to the west) is in length. Both airfields have scheduled jet services, however, the airfield on Cocos is being upgraded by the Australian Defence Force for the purpose of acting as a forward operating base for Australian surveillance and electronic warfare aircraft in the region. The Australian Federal Police provides community policing services to Christmas Island and also carries out duties related to immigration enforcement, the processing of visiting aircraft and ships, and in coordinating emergency operations. ===Residents' views=== Residents find the system of administration frustrating, with the island run by bureaucrats in the federal government, but subject to the laws of Western Australia and enforced by federal police. There is a feeling of resignation that any progress on local issues is hampered by the confusing governance system. A number of islanders support self-governance, including shire President Gordon Thompson, who also believes that a lack of news media to cover local affairs had contributed to political apathy among residents. ===Flag=== In early 1986, the Christmas Island Assembly held a design competition for an island flag; the winning design was adopted as the informal flag of the territory for over a decade, and in 2002 it was made the official flag of Christmas Island. At the centre of the flag is a yellow roundel showing an image of the island in green. ==Economy== Phosphate mining had been the only significant economic activity, but in December 1987 the Australian government closed the mine. In 1991, the mine was reopened by Phosphate Resources Limited, a consortium that included many of the former mine workers as shareholders and is the largest contributor to the Christmas Island economy. With the support of the government, the $34 million Christmas Island Casino and Resort opened in 1993 but was closed in 1998. , the resort has re-opened without the casino. The Australian government in 2001 agreed to support the creation of a commercial spaceport on the island; however, this has not yet been constructed and appears that it will not proceed. The Howard government built a temporary immigration detention centre on the island in 2001 and planned to replace it with a larger, modern facility at North West Point until Howard's defeat in the 2007 elections. ==Culture== Christmas Island cuisine can best be described as an eclectic combination of traditional Australian cuisine and Asian cuisine. The main local organisation that promotes and supports the status and interests of female Christmas Islanders is the Christmas Island Women's Association which was established in 1989 and is a member organisation of the Associated Country Women of the World. Christmas Island is well known for its biological diversity. There are many rare species of animals and plants on the island, making nature-walking a popular activity. Along with the diversity of species, many different types of caves exist, such as plateau caves, coastal caves, raised coastal caves and alcoves, sea caves, fissure caves, collapse caves, and basalt caves; most of these are near the sea and have been formed by the action of water. Altogether, there are approximately 30 caves on the island, with Lost Lake Cave, Daniel Roux Cave, and Full Frontal Cave being the most well-known. The many freshwater springs include Hosnies Spring Ramsar, which also has a mangrove stand. The Dales is a rainforest in the western part of the island and consists of seven deep valleys, all of which were formed by spring streams. Hugh's Dale waterfall is part of this area and is a popular attraction. The annual breeding migration of the Christmas Island red crabs is a popular event. Fishing is another common activity. There are many distinct species of fish in the oceans surrounding Christmas Island. Snorkelling and swimming in the ocean are two other activities that are extremely popular. Walking trails are also very popular, for there are many beautiful trails surrounded by extravagant flora and fauna. 63% of the island is covered by the Christmas Island National Park. === Sport === Cricket and rugby league are the two main organised sports on the island. The Christmas Island Cricket Club was founded in 1959, and is now known as the Christmas Island Cricket and Sporting Club. Aussie Rules was popular from 1995 to 2014 and games were played between the visiting Australian Navy and the locals. With one international game representing Australia, which was played in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2006 against the Jakarta Bintangs. Auskick was also presented for the kids and they participated in 2 years as represented in AFL games of half time entertainment between 2006 and 2010. In 2019 the club celebrated its 60-year anniversary. The club entered its first representative team into the WACA Country Week in 2020, where they were runners up in the F-division. Rugby league is growing in the island: the first game was played in 2016, and a local committee, with the support of NRL Western Australia, is willing to organise matches with nearby Cocos Islands and to create a rugby league competition in the Indian Ocean region. Unlike Norfolk Island, another external territory of Australia, Christmas Island does not participate in the Commonwealth Games or the Pacific Games, though Pacific Games participation has been discussed. ==Flora and fauna== Christmas Island was uninhabited until the late 19th century, allowing many species to evolve without human interference. Two-thirds of the island has been declared a National Park, which is managed by the Australian Department of Environment and Heritage through Parks Australia. Christmas Island contains unique species, both of flora and fauna, some of which are threatened or have become extinct. ===Flora=== The dense rainforest has grown in the deep soils of the plateau and on the terraces. The forests are dominated by 25 tree species. Ferns, orchids and vines grow on the branches in the humid atmosphere beneath the canopy. The 135 plant species include at least 18 endemic species. The rainforest is in great condition despite the mining activities over the last 100 years. Areas that have been damaged by mining are now a part of an ongoing rehabilitation project. Christmas Island's endemic plants include the trees Arenga listeri, Pandanus elatus and Dendrocnide peltata var. murrayana; the shrubs Abutilon listeri, Colubrina pedunculata, Grewia insularis and Pandanus christmatensis; the vines Hoya aldrichii and Zehneria alba; the herbs Asystasia alba, Dicliptera maclearii and Peperomia rossii; the grass Ischaemum nativitatis; the fern Asplenium listeri; and the orchids Brachypeza archytas, Flickingeria nativitatis, Phreatia listeri and Zeuxine exilis. ===Fauna=== Two species of native rats, the Maclear's and bulldog rats, have become extinct since the island was settled, while the Javan rusa deer has been introduced. The endemic Christmas Island shrew has not been seen since the mid-1980s and may be extinct, while the Christmas Island pipistrelle (a small bat) is presumed to be extinct. The fruit bat (flying fox) species Pteropus natalis is only found on Christmas Island; its epithet natalis is a reference to that name. The species is probably the last native mammal, and an important pollinator and rainforest seed-disperser; the population is also in decline and under increasing pressure from land clearing and introduced pest species. The flying fox's low rate of reproduction (one pup each year) and high infant mortality rate makes it especially vulnerable, and its conservation status is critically endangered. Flying foxes are an 'umbrella' species helping forests regenerate and other species survive in stressed environments. The land crabs and seabirds are the most noticeable fauna on the island. Christmas Island has been identified by BirdLife International as both an Endemic Bird Area and an Important Bird Area because it supports five endemic species and five subspecies as well as over 1% the world populations of five other seabirds. Twenty terrestrial and intertidal species of crab have been described here, of which thirteen are regarded as true land crabs, being dependent on the ocean only for larval development. Robber crabs, known elsewhere as coconut crabs, also exist in large numbers on the island. The annual red crab mass migration to the sea to spawn has been called one of the wonders of the natural world. This takes place each year around November – after the start of the wet season and in synchronisation with the cycle of the moon. Once at the ocean, the mothers release the embryos where they can survive and grow until they are able to live on land. The island is a focal point for seabirds of various species. Eight species or subspecies of seabirds nest on it. The most numerous is the red-footed booby, which nests in colonies, using trees on many parts of the shore terrace. The widespread brown booby nests on the ground near the edge of the seacliff and inland cliffs. Abbott's booby (listed as endangered) nests on tall emergent trees of the western, northern and southern plateau rainforest, the only remaining nesting habitat for this bird in the world. Of the ten native land birds and shorebirds, seven are endemic species or subspecies. This includes the Christmas thrush and the Christmas imperial pigeon. Some 86 migrant bird species have been recorded as visitors to the island. The Christmas frigatebird has nesting areas on the northeastern shore terraces. The more widespread great frigatebirds nest in semi-deciduous trees on the shore terrace, with the greatest concentrations being in the North West and South Point areas. The common noddy and two species of bosun or tropicbirds also nest on the island, including the golden bosun (P. l. fulvus), a subspecies of the white-tailed tropicbird that is endemic to the island. Six species of butterfly are known to occur on Christmas Island. These are the Christmas swallowtail (Papilio memnon), striped albatross (Appias olferna), Christmas emperor (Polyura andrewsi), king cerulean (Jamides bochus), lesser grass-blue (Zizina otis), and Papuan grass-yellow (Eurema blanda). Insect species include the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes), introduced to the island and since subjected to attempts to destroy the supercolonies that emerged with aerial spraying of the insecticide Fipronil. ==Media== Radio broadcasts to Christmas Island from Australia include ABC Radio National, ABC Kimberley, Triple J and Hit WA (Formerly Red FM). All services are provided by satellite links from the mainland. Broadband internet became available to subscribers in urban areas in mid-2005 through the local internet service provider, CIIA (formerly dotCX). Because of its proximity to South East Asia, Christmas Island falls within many of the satellite footprints throughout the region. This results in ideal conditions for receiving various Asian broadcasts, which locals sometimes prefer to those emanating from Western Australia. Additionally, ionospheric conditions are conducive to terrestrial radio transmissions, from HF through VHF and sometimes into UHF. The island plays home to a small array of radio equipment that spans a good chunk of the usable spectrum. A variety of government-owned and operated antenna systems are employed on the island to take advantage of this. ===Television=== Free-to-air digital television stations from Australia are broadcast in the same time zone as Perth and are broadcast from three separate locations: Cable television from Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States commenced in January 2013. ===Telecommunications=== Telephone services are provided by Telstra and are a part of the Australian network with the same prefix as Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory (08). In 2022, 4,600 kilometre long 60 terabits per second high-capacity backhaul sole submarine cable connection between Australia and Christmas Island was implemented to replace the existing satellite based 2G mobile network with the 4GX technology with enhanced mobile and data services on Christmas Island. ===Newspapers=== The Shire of Christmas Island publishes a fortnightly newsletter, The Islander. There are no independent newspapers. After the Japanese occupation (1942–1945), postage stamps of the British Military Administration in Malaya were in use, then stamps of Singapore. In 1958, the island received its own postage stamps after being put under Australian custody. It had a large philatelic and postal independence, managed first by the Phosphate Commission (1958–1969) and then by the island's administration (1969–1993). The now-defunct standard gauge Christmas Island Phosphate Co.'s Railway from Flying Fish Cove to the phosphate mine was constructed in 1914. It was closed in December 1987, when the Australian government closed the mine, and since has been recovered as scrap, leaving only earthworks in places. Virgin Australia provides two weekly flights to Christmas Island from Perth in Western Australia, with the service connecting to Cocos Keeling Islands in both directions. A fortnightly freight flight provides fresh supplies to the island. Rental cars are available from the airport; however, no franchised companies are represented. Road conditions across the island can vary, though inclement weather can cause the roads to become slippery or damaged. Many of the tracks on the island are restricted to four-wheel-drive vehicles. ==Education== The island-operated crèche is in the Recreation Centre. Christmas Island District High School, catering to students in grades P-12, is run by the Western Australian Education Department. There are no universities on Christmas Island. The island has one public library.	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(Australia)", "Peranakans", "tropical monsoon climate", "kampong", "European Australians", "Abbott's booby", "child care", "Australian Senate", "Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications", "monsoon", "Colubrina pedunculata", "First Rudd Government", "Asian cuisine", "Christmas Day" ]
5,510	Clipperton Island	Clipperton Island ( ; ), also known as Clipperton Atoll and previously as Clipperton's Rock, is an uninhabited French coral atoll in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The only French territory in the North Pacific, Clipperton is from Paris, France; from Papeete, French Polynesia; and from Acapulco, Mexico. Clipperton was documented by French merchant-explorers in 1711 and formally claimed as part of the French protectorate of Tahiti in 1858. Despite this, American guano miners began working the island in the early 1890s. As interest in the island grew, Mexico asserted a claim to the island based upon Spanish records from the 1520s that may have identified the island. Mexico established a small military colony on the island in 1905, but during the Mexican Revolution contact with the mainland became infrequent, most of the colonists died, and lighthouse keeper Victoriano Álvarez instituted a short, brutal reign as "king" of the island. Eleven survivors were rescued in 1917 and Clipperton was abandoned. The dispute between Mexico and France over Clipperton was taken to binding international arbitration in 1909. Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, was chosen as arbitrator and decided in 1931 that the island was French territory. Despite the ruling, Clipperton remained largely uninhabited until 1944 when the U.S. Navy established a weather station on the island to support its war efforts in the Pacific. France protested and, as concerns about Japanese activity in the eastern Pacific waned, the U.S. abandoned the site in late 1945. Since the end of World War II, Clipperton has primarily been the site for scientific expeditions to study the island's wildlife and marine life, including its significant masked and brown booby colonies. It has also hosted climate scientists and amateur radio DX-peditions. Plans to develop the island for trade and tourism have been considered, but none have been enacted and the island remains mostly uninhabited with periodic visits from the French navy. ==Geography== The coral island is located at in the East Pacific, southwest of Mexico, west of Nicaragua, west of Costa Rica and northwest of the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador. The nearest land is Socorro Island, about to the northwest in the Revillagigedo Archipelago. The nearest French-owned island is Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. Despite its proximity to North America, Clipperton is often considered one of the eastern-most points of Oceania due to being part the French Indo-Pacific, and to commonalities between its marine fauna and the marine fauna of Hawaii and Kiribati's Line Islands, with the island sitting along the migration path for animals in the Eastern Tropical Pacific region. The island is the only emerged part of the East Pacific Rise, as well as the only feature in the Clipperton fracture zone that breaks the ocean's surface, and it is one of the few islands in the Pacific that lacks an underwater archipelagic apron. The atoll is low-lying and largely barren, with some scattered grasses, and a few clumps of coconut palms (Cocos nucifera). The land ring surrounding the lagoon measures in area with an average elevation of , although a small volcanic outcropping, referred to as Clipperton Rock (), rises to on its southeast side. The surrounding reef hosts an abundance of corals and is partly exposed at low tide. In 2001 a geodetic marker was placed to evaluate if the land is rising or sinking. Clipperton Rock is the remains of the island's now extinct volcano's rim; because it includes this rocky outcropping, Clipperton is not a true atoll and is sometimes referred to as a 'near-atoll'. The surrounding reef in combination with the weather makes landing on the island difficult and anchoring offshore hazardous for larger ships; in the 1940s American ships reported active problems in this regard. ==Environment== The environment of Clipperton Island has been studied extensively with the first recordings and sample collection being done in the 1800s. The SURPACLIP oceanographic expedition, a joint undertaking by the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of New Caledonia Nouméa, made extensive studies of the island in 1997. In 2001, French National Centre for Scientific Research geographer Christian Jost extended the 1997 studies through the French Passion 2001 expedition, which focused on the evolution of Clipperton's ecosystem. In 2003, cinematographer Lance Milbrand stayed on the island for 41 days, recording the adventure for the National Geographic Explorer and plotting a GPS map of Clipperton for the National Geographic Society. In 2005, a four-month scientific mission organised by Jean-Louis Étienne made a complete inventory of Clipperton's mineral, plant, and animal species; studied algae as deep as below sea level; and examined the effects of pollution. A 2008 expedition from the University of Washington's School of Oceanography collected sediment cores from the lagoon to study climate change over the past millennium. ===Lagoon=== Clipperton is a ring-shaped atoll that completely encloses a stagnant fresh water lagoon and measures in circumference and in area. The island is the only coral island in the eastern Pacific. The lagoon is devoid of fish, and is shallow over large parts except for some deep basins with depths of , The bottom of the shallow parts of the lake contain eroded coral heads from when the lagoon was last connected with the ocean. As a result of this the water columns are stratified and do not mix leaving the lagoon with an oxic and brackish upper water layer and a deep sulfuric anoxic saline layer. At a depth of approximately the water shifts with salinity rising and both pH and oxygen quickly decreasing. Studies of the water have found that microbial communities on the water's surface are similar to other water samples from around the world with deeper water samples showing a great diversity of both bacteria and archaea. The lagoon also harbours millions of isopods, which are reported to deliver a painful sting. While some sources have rated the lagoon water as non-potable, testimony from the crew of the tuna clipper M/V Monarch, stranded for 23 days in 1962 after their boat sank, indicates otherwise. Their report reveals that the lagoon water, while "muddy and dirty", was drinkable, despite not tasting very good. Several of the castaways drank it, with no apparent ill effects. Survivors of a Mexican military colony in 1917 (see below) indicated that they were dependent upon rain for their water supply, catching it in old boats. Annual rainfall is , and the humidity level is generally between 85 per cent and 95 per cent with December to March being the drier months. The prevailing winds are the southeast trade winds. In addition, Clipperton has been subjected to multiple tropical storms and depressions, including Tropical Storm Andres in 2003. Surrounding ocean waters are warm, pushed by equatorial and counter-equatorial currents and have seen temperature increases due to global warming. ===Flora and fauna=== When Snodgrass and Heller visited in 1898, they reported that "no land plant is native to the island". Historical accounts from 1711, 1825, and 1839 show a low grassy or suffrutescent (partially woody) flora. During Marie-Hélène Sachet visit in 1958, the vegetation was found to consist of a sparse cover of spiny grass and low thickets, a creeping plant (Ipomoea spp.), and stands of coconut palm. This low-lying herbaceous flora seems to be a pioneer in nature, and most of it is believed to be composed of recently introduced species. Sachet suspected that Heliotropium curassavicum, and possibly Portulaca oleracea, were native. Coconut palms and pigs introduced in the 1890s by guano miners were still present in the 1940s. The largest coconut grove is Bougainville Wood () on the southwestern end of the island. On the northwest side of the atoll, the most abundant plant species are Cenchrus echinatus, Sida rhombifolia, and Corchorus aestuans. These plants compose a shrub cover up to in height, and are intermixed with Eclipta, Phyllanthus, and Solanum, as well as the taller Brassica juncea. The islets in the lagoon are primarily vegetated with Cyperaceae, Scrophulariaceae, and Ipomoea pes-caprae. A unique feature of Clipperton is that the vegetation is arranged in parallel rows of species, with dense rows of taller species alternating with lower, more open vegetation. This was assumed to be a result of the trench-digging method of phosphate mining used by guano hunters. bright-orange land crabs known as Clipperton crabs (Johngarthia oceanica, prior to 2019 classified as Johngartia planata), birds, and ship rats. The rats probably arrived when large fishing boats wrecked on the island in 1999 and 2000. The elimination of these pigs in 1958, the result of a personal project by Kenneth E. Stager, caused most of this vegetation to disappear as the population of land crabs recovered. As a result, Clipperton is mostly a sandy desert with only 674 palms counted by Christian Jost during the Passion 2001 French mission and five islets in the lagoon with grass that the terrestrial crabs cannot reach. A 2005 report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Southwest Fisheries Science Center indicated that after the introduction of rats and their increased presence has led to a decline in both crab and bird populations, causing a corresponding increase in both vegetation and coconut palms. This report urgently recommended eradication of rats, which have been destroying bird nesting sites and the crab population, Morrell also reported fur and elephant seals on the island in 1825, but they too have not been recorded by later expeditions. The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because of the large breeding colony of masked boobies, with 110,000 individual birds recorded. Observed bird species include white terns, masked boobies, sooty terns, brown boobies, brown noddies, black noddies, great frigatebirds, coots, martins (swallows), cuckoos, and yellow warblers. Ducks and moorhens have been reported in the lagoon. Among the Porites spp. stony corals, some bleaching was observed, along with other indications of disease or stress, including parasitic worms and microalgae. The reefs that surround Clipperton have some of the highest concentration of endemic species found anywhere with more than 115 species identified. Many species are recorded in the area, including five or six endemics, such as Clipperton angelfish (Holacanthus limbaughi), Clipperton grouper (Epinephelus clippertonensis), Clipperton damselfish (Stegastes baldwini) and Robertson's wrasse (Thalassoma robertsoni). Widespread species around the reefs include Pacific creolefish, blue-and-gold snapper, and various species of goatfish. In the water column, trevallies are predominant, including black jacks, bigeye trevally, and bluefin trevally. Also common around Clipperton are black triggerfish;, several species of groupers, including leather bass and starry groupers; Mexican hogfish; whitecheek, convict, and striped-fin surgeonfish; yellow longnose and blacknosed butterflyfish; coral hawkfish; golden pufferfish; Moorish idols; parrotfish; and moray eels, especially speckled moray eels. The waters around the island are an important nursery for sharks, particularly the white tip shark. Galapagos sharks, reef sharks, whale sharks, and hammerhead sharks are also present around Clipperton. Three expeditions to Clipperton have collected sponge specimens, including U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's visit in 1938. Of the 190 specimens collected, 20 species were noted, including nine found only at Clipperton. One of the endemic sponges, collected during the 1938 visit, was named Callyspongia roosevelti in honor of Roosevelt. In April 2009, Steven Robinson, a tropical fish dealer from Hayward, California, traveled to Clipperton to collect Clipperton angelfish. Upon his return to the United States, he described the 52 illegally collected fish to federal wildlife authorities as king angelfish, not the rarer Clipperton angelfish, which he intended to sell for $10,000. On 15 December 2011, Robinson was sentenced to 45 days of incarceration, one year of probation, and a $2,000 fine. === Environmental threats === During the night of 10 February 2010, the Sichem Osprey, a Maltese chemical tanker, ran aground en route from the Panama Canal to South Korea. The ship contained of xylene, of soybean oil, and of tallow. All 19 crew members were reported safe, and the vessel reported no leaks. The vessel was re-floated on 6 March and returned to service. In mid-March 2012, the crew from the Clipperton Project noted the widespread presence of refuse, particularly on the northeast shore, and around the Clipperton Rock. Debris, including plastic bottles and containers, create a potentially harmful environment for the island's flora and fauna. During a 2015 scientific and amateur radio expedition to Clipperton, the operating team discovered a package that contained of cocaine. It is suspected that the package washed up after being discarded at sea. In April 2023, the Passion 23 mission by France's and the surveillance frigate Germinal collected more than of plastic waste from the island's beaches along with a bale of cocaine. The Sea Around Us Project estimates the Clipperton EEZ produces a harvest of of fish per year; however, because French naval patrols in the area are infrequent, this includes a significant amount of illegal fishing, along with lobster harvesting and shark finning, resulting in estimated losses for France of €0.42 per kilogram of fish caught. As deep-sea mining of polymetallic nodules increases in the adjacent Clarion–Clipperton zone, similar mining activity within France's exclusive economic zone surrounding the atoll may have an impact on marine life around Clipperton. Polymetallic nodules were discovered in the Clipperton EEZ during the Passion 2015 expedition. == Politics and government == The island is an overseas state private property of France under direct authority of the Minister of the Overseas. Although the island is French territory, it has no status within the European Union. Ownership of Clipperton Island was disputed in the 19th and early 20th centuries between France and Mexico, but was finally settled through arbitration in 1931; the Clipperton Island Case remains widely studied in international law textbooks. In the late 1930s, as flying boats opened the Pacific to air travel, Clipperton Island was noted as a possible waypoint for a trans-Pacific route from the Americas to Asia via the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, bypassing Hawaii. However, France indicated no interest in developing commercial air traffic in the corridor. After France ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1996, they reaffirmed the exclusive economic zone off Clipperton island which had been established in 1976. After changes were made to the area nations were allowed to claim under the third convention of UNCLOS France in 2018 expanded the outer limits of the territorial sea to and the exclusive economic zone off Clipperton Island to , encompassing of ocean. On 21 February 2007, administration of Clipperton was transferred from the High Commissioner of the Republic in French Polynesia to the Minister of Overseas France. In 2015, French MP Philippe Folliot set foot on Clipperton becoming the first elected official from France to do so. Folliot noted that visiting Clipperton was something he had wanted to do since he was nine years old. Following the visit, Folliot reported to the National Assembly on the pressing need to reaffirm French sovereignty over the atoll and its surrounding maritime claims. He also proposed establishing an international scientific research station on Clipperton and administrative reforms surrounding the oversight of the atoll. In 2022, France passed legislation officially referring to the island as "La Passion–Clipperton". ==History== ===Discovery and early claims=== There are several claims to the first discovery of the island. The earliest recorded possible sighting is 24 January 1521 when Portuguese-born Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan discovered an island he named San Pablo after turning westward away from the American mainland during his circumnavigation of the globe. On 15 November 1528, Spaniard Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón discovered an island he called Isla Médanos in the region while on an expedition commissioned by his cousin, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, to find a route to the Philippines. Although both San Pablo and Isla Médanos are considered to be possible sightings of Clipperton, the island was first charted by French merchant Michel Dubocage, commanding La Découverte, who arrived at the island on Good Friday, 3 April 1711; he was joined the following day by fellow ship captain and La Princesse. The island was given the name ('Passion Island') as the date of rediscovery fell within Passiontide. They drew up the first map of the island and claimed it for France. In August 1825, American sea captain Benjamin Morrell made the first recorded landing on Clipperton, exploring the island and making a detailed report of its vegetation. The common name for the island comes from John Clipperton, an English pirate and privateer who fought the Spanish during the early 18th century, and who is said to have passed by the island. Some sources claim that he used it as a base for his raids on shipping. ===19th century=== ====Mexican claim 1821–1858==== After its declaration of independence in 1821, Mexico took possession of the lands that had once belonged to Spain. As Spanish records noted the existence of the island as early as 1528, the territory was incorporated into Mexico. The Mexican constitution of 1917 explicitly includes the island, using the Spanish name , as Mexican territory. This would be amended on January 18, 1934, after the sovereignty dispute over the island was settled in favor of France. ====French claim (1858)==== In April 1858, French minister Eugène Rouher reached an agreement with a Mr. Lockhard of Le Havre to claim oceanic islands in the Pacific for the exploitation of guano deposits. Sailing aboard Lockhart's ship Amiral, Ship-of-the-line Lieutenant Victor Le Coat de Kervéguen published a notice of this annexation in Hawaiian newspapers to further cement France's claim to the island. ====Guano mining claims (1892–1905)==== In 1892, a claim on the island was filed with the U.S. State Department under the U.S. Guano Islands Act by Frederick W. Permien of San Francisco on behalf of the Stonington Phosphate Company. In 1893, Permien transferred those rights to a new company, the Oceanic Phosphate Company. In response to the application, the State Department rejected the claim, noting France's prior claim on the island and that the claim was not bonded as was required by law. Additionally during this time there were concerns in Mexico that the British or Americans would lay claim to the island. Despite the lack of U.S. approval of its claim, the Oceanic Phosphate Company began mining guano on the island in 1895. Although the company had plans for as many as 200 workers on the island, at its peak only 25 men were stationed there. In 1897, the Oceanic Phosphate Company began negotiations with the British Pacific Islands Company to transfer its interest in Clipperton; this drew the attention of both French and Mexican officials. On 24 November 1897, French naval authorities arrived on the Duguay Trouin and found three Americans working on the island. The French ordered the American flag to be lowered. A few weeks later, on 13 December 1897, Mexico sent the gunboat La Demócrata and a group of marines to assert its claim on the island, evicting the Americans, raising the Mexican flag, and drawing a protest from France. From 1898 to 1905, the Pacific Islands Company worked the Clipperton guano deposits under a concession agreement with Mexico. In 1898, Mexico made a US$1.5 million claim against the Oceanic Phosphate Company for the guano shipped from the island from 1895 to 1897. He arrived on Clipperton as governor later that year. By 1914 around 100 men, women, and children lived on the island, resupplied every two months by a ship from Acapulco. With the escalation of fighting in the Mexican Revolution, regular resupply visits ceased, and the inhabitants were left to their own devices. On 28 February 1914, the schooner Nokomis wrecked on Clipperton; with a still seaworthy lifeboat, four members of the crew volunteered to row to Acapulco for help. The arrived months later to rescue the crew. While there, the captain offered to transport the survivors of the colony back to Acapulco; Arnaud refused as he believed a supply ship would soon arrive. By 1917, all but one of the male inhabitants had died. Many had perished from scurvy, while others, including Arnaud, died during an attempt to sail after a passing ship to fetch help. Lighthouse keeper Victoriano Álvarez was the last man on the island, together with 15 women and children. Álvarez proclaimed himself 'king', and began a campaign of rape and murder, before being killed by Tirza Rendón, who was his favourite victim. Almost immediately after Álvarez's death, four women and seven children, the last survivors, were picked up by the U.S. Navy gunship on 18 July 1917. ====Final arbitration of ownership (1931)==== Throughout Mexico's occupation of Clipperton, France insisted on its ownership of the island, and lengthy diplomatic correspondence between the two countries led to a treaty on 2 March 1909, agreeing to seek binding international arbitration by Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, with each nation promising to abide by his determination. In 1931, Victor Emmanuel III issued his arbitral decision in the Clipperton Island Case, declaring Clipperton a French possession. Mexican President Pascual Ortiz Rubio, in response to public opinion that considered the Italian king biased towards France, consulted international experts on the validity of the decision, but ultimately Mexico accepted Victor Emmanuel's findings. The Mexican press at the time raised the issue of the Monroe Doctrine with the United States, stating that the French claim had preceded its issuance. France formally took possession of Clipperton on January 26, 1935. ====U.S. presidential visit==== President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a stop over at Clipperton in July 1938 aboard the as part of a fishing expedition to the Galápagos Islands and other points along the Central and South American coasts. At the island, Roosevelt and his party spent time fishing for sharks, and afterwards Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt of the Smithsonian Institution went ashore with some crew to gather scientific samples and make observations of the island. Roosevelt had previously tried to visit Clipperton in July 1934 after transiting through the Panama Canal en route to Hawaii on the Houston; he had heard the area was good for fishing, but heavy seas prevented them from lowering a boat when they reached the island. On 19 July 1934, soon after the stop at Clipperton, the rigid airship rendezvoused with the Houston, and one of the Macon Curtiss F9C biplanes delivered mail to the president. ====American occupation (1944–1945)==== In April 1944, the took observations of Clipperton while en route to Hawaii. After an overflight of the island by planes from the and to ensure Clipperton was uninhabited, the departed San Francisco on 4 December 1944 with aerological specialists and personnel and was followed several days later by with provisions, heavy equipment, and equipment for construction of a U.S. Navy weather station on the island. The sailors at the weather station were armed in case of a possible Japanese attack in the region. Landing on the island proved challenging. LST-563 grounded on the reef and the salvage ship was brought in to help refloat the ship but it too was grounded. Finally, in January 1945, the and were able to free the Seize and to offload equipment from LST-563 before it was abandoned. In April 1943, during a meeting between presidents Roosevelt of the U.S. and Avila Camacho of Mexico, the topic of Mexican ownership of Clipperton was raised. The American government seemed interested in Clipperton being handed over to Mexico due to the importance the island might play in both commercial and military air travel, as well as its proximity to the Panama Canal. Although these talks were informal, the U.S. backed away from any Mexican claim on Clipperton as Mexico had previously accepted the 1931 arbitration decision. The U.S. government also felt it would be easier to obtain a military base on the island from France. However, after the French government was notified about the weather station, relations on this matter deteriorated rapidly with the French government sending a formal note of protest in defense of French sovereignty. In response, the U.S. extended an offer for the French military to operate the station or to have the Americans agree to leave the weather station under the same framework previously agreed to with other weather stations in France and North Africa. There were additional concern within the newly formed Provisional Government of the French Republic that notification of the installation was made to military and not civilian leadership. French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault said of the incident: "This is very humiliating to us we are anxious to cooperate with you, but sometimes you do not make it easy". where he visited the installation and that afternoon returned to the United States. As the war in the Pacific progressed, concerns about Japanese incursions into the Eastern Pacific were reduced and in September 1945 the U.S. Navy began removing from Clipperton. During the evacuation, munitions were destroyed, but significant matériel was left on the island. By 21 October 1945, the last U.S. Navy staff at the weather station left Clipperton. The island was visited by ornithologist Ken Stager of the Los Angeles County Museum in 1958. By 2003, the booby colonies had grown to 25,000 brown boobies and 112,000 masked boobies, making Clipperton home to the world's second-largest brown booby colony, and its largest masked booby colony. When the independence of Algeria in 1962 threatened French nuclear testing sites in North Africa, the French Ministry of Defence considered Clipperton as a possible replacement site. This was eventually ruled out due to the island's hostile climate and remote location, but the island was used to house a small scientific mission to collect data on nuclear fallout from other nuclear tests. An automatic weather installation was completed on 7 April 1980, with data collected by the station transmitted via the Argos satellite system to the Lannion Space Meteorology Center in Brittany France. In 1981, the Académie des sciences d'outre-mer recommended the island have its own economic infrastructure, with an airstrip and a fishing port in the lagoon. This would mean opening the lagoon to the ocean by creating a passage in the atoll rim. To oversee this, the French government reassigned Clipperton from the High Commissioner for French Polynesia to the direct authority of the French government, classifying the island as an overseas state private property administered by France's Overseas Minister. In 1986, the Company for the Study, Development and Exploitation of Clipperton Island (French acronym, SEDEIC) and French officials began outlining a plan for the development of Clipperton as a fishing port, but due to economic constraints, the distance from markets, and the small size of the atoll, nothing beyond preliminary studies was undertaken and plans for the development were abandoned. In the mid-1980s, the French government began efforts to enlist citizens of French Polynesia to settle on Clipperton; these plans were ultimately abandoned as well. In November 1994, the French Space Agency requested the help of NASA to track the first stage breakup of the newly designed Ariane 5 rocket. After spending a month on Clipperton setting up and calibrating radar equipment to monitor Ariane flight V88, the mission ended in disappointment when the rocket disintegrated 37 seconds after launch due to a software bug. Despite Mexico accepting the 1931 arbitration decision that Clipperton was French territory, the right of Mexican fishing vessels to work Clipperton's territorial waters have remained a point of contention. A 2007 treaty, reaffirmed in 2017, grants Mexican access to Clipperton's fisheries so long as authorization is sought from the French government, conservation measures are followed, and catches are reported; however, the lack of regular monitoring of the fisheries by France makes verifying compliance difficult. ===Castaways=== In May 1893, Charles Jensen and "Brick" Thurman of the Oceanic Phosphate Company were left on the island by the company's ship Compeer with 90 days worth of supplies in order to prevent other attempts to claim the island and its guano. Before sailing for Clipperton, Jensen wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Coast Seamen's Union, Andrew Furuseth, instructing him that if the Oceanic Phosphate Company had not sent a vessel to Clipperton six weeks after the return of the Compeer to make it known that they had been stranded there. The Oceanic Phosphate Company denied it had left the men without adequate supplies and contracted the schooner Viking to retrieve them in late August. The Viking rescued the men, who had used seabirds' eggs to supplement their supplies, and returned them to San Francisco on 31 October. In May 1897, the British cargo vessel Kinkora wrecked on Clipperton; the crew was able to salvage food and water from the ship, allowing them to survive on the island in relative comfort. During the crew's time on the island, a passing vessel offered to take the men to the mainland for $1,500, which the crew refused. Instead eight of the men loaded up a lifeboat and rowed to Acapulco for help. After the first mate of the Kinkora, Mr. McMarty, arrived in Acapulco, HMS Comus set sail from British Columbia to rescue the sailors. In early 1962, the island provided a home to nine crewmen of the sunken tuna clipper MV Monarch, stranded for 23 days from 6 February to 1 March. They reported that the lagoon water was drinkable, although they preferred to drink water from the coconuts they found. Unable to use any of the dilapidated buildings, they constructed a crude shelter from cement bags and tin salvaged from Quonset huts built by the American military 20 years earlier. Wood from the huts was used for firewood, and fish caught off the fringing reef combined with potatoes and onions they had saved from their sinking vessel augmented the island's meager supply of coconuts. The crewmen reported they tried eating bird's eggs, but found them to be rancid, and they decided after trying to cook a 'little black bird' that it did not have enough meat to make the effort worthwhile. Pigs had been eradicated, but the crewmen reported seeing their skeletons around the atoll. ===Amateur radio DX-peditions=== Clipperton has long been an attractive destination for amateur radio groups due to its remoteness, permit requirements, history, and interesting environment. While some radio operation has been part of other visits to the island, major DX-peditions have included FO0XB (1978), FO0XX (1985), FO0CI (1992), FO0AAA (2000), TX5C (2008), In March 2014, the Cordell Expedition, organised and led by Robert Schmieder, combined a radio DX-pedition using callsign TX5K with environmental and scientific investigations. The team of 24 radio operators made more than 114,000 contacts, breaking the previous record of 75,000. The activity included extensive operation in the 6-meter band, including Earth–Moon–Earth communication (EME) or 'moonbounce' contacts. A notable accomplishment was the use of DXA, a real-time satellite-based online graphic radio log web page, allowing anyone with a browser to see the radio activity. Scientific work conducted during the expedition included the first collection and identification of foraminifera and extensive aerial imaging of the island using kite-borne cameras. The team included two scientists from the University of Tahiti and a French TV documentary crew from Thalassa. In April 2015, Alain Duchauchoy, F6BFH, operated from Clipperton using callsign TX5P as part of the Passion 2015 scientific expedition to Clipperton Island. Duchauchoy also researched Mexican use of the island during the early 1900s as part of the expedition.	[ "Copeia", "coral bleaching", "National Museum of the Pacific War", "coral island", "Long Marine Laboratory", "Journal of Geophysical Research", "France", "Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology", "phosphate", "Geographical Review", "grouper", "Kenneth E. Stager", "white tern", "Scrophulariaceae", "Epinephelus labriformis", "University of Tahiti", "Important Bird Area", "Guano Islands Act", "callsign", "oxic", "exclusive economic zone", "Michel Dubocage", "Overseas France", "East Pacific Rise", "grassland", "National Assembly (France)", "Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London", "List of Presidents of Mexico", "San Francisco", "United States Navy", "Ariane 5", "Eclipta (plant)", "CNES", "airstrip", "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", "Philippe Folliot", "Philippines", "Waldo L. Schmitt", "Galápagos Islands", "Hernán Cortés", "Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk", "National Geographic Society", "Cyperaceae", "Coconut", "hammerhead shark", "Smithsonian Institution", "FEMS Microbiology Ecology", "guano", "Thalassoma robertsoni", "University of Washington", "Lloyds List", "National Autonomous University of Mexico", "pH", "Sea Around Us (organization)", "The American Weekly", "fresh water", "Durinskia", "Franklin D. Roosevelt", "black triggerfish", "University of California Press", "sooty tern", "Mexico", "Clipperton Island Case", "Ferdinand Magellan", "Coral Reefs", "Lyal A. Davidson", "Caranx", "Hawaii", "French frigate Germinal", "Jacques-Yves Cousteau", "AAPG Bulletin", "amateur radio", "Whitecheek surgeonfish", "National Academy of Sciences", "Nicaragua", "Christian Jost (geographer)", "Ipomoea pes-caprae", "masked booby", "Marine Biology (journal)", "Masked booby", "High commissioner", "The American Journal of International Law", "salinity", "Lists of islands", "arbitration", "Kiribati", "RNZ", "Oceania", "Eutrophication", "Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón", "xylene", "MarineTraffic", "Arothron meleagris", "Nature (journal)", "Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal", "Johnrandallia", "Brown booby", "Porites", "Société des Océanistes", "Mulloidichthys", "Andrew Furuseth", "Paranthias colonus", "Panama Canal", "Emoia cyanura", "John Clipperton", "polymetallic nodule", "Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science", "geodetic marker", "Geophysical Research Letters", "bluefin trevally", "Exclusive economic zone of France", "Oxford University Press", "Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences", "Hiva Oa", "Pacific Ocean", "American flag", "Bordeaux Montaigne University", "Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology", "University of New Caledonia", "INSEE code", "bigeye trevally", "Manuel Ávila Camacho", "speckled moray eel", "pirate", "Radiocarbon (journal)", "Marine Ornithology", "Caranx lugubris", "Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association", "privateer", "coral hawkfish", "National Geographic Explorer", "Endemism", "chemical tanker", "Clipperton Island case", "Epinephelus", "Hayward, California", "Moorish idol", "American Journal of International Law", "Constitution of Mexico", "Napoleon III", "Georges Bidault", "Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County", "Eugène Rouher", "John T. Arundel", "Thalassa (TV series)", "Provisional Government of the French Republic", "Millepora platyphylla", "drinking water", "The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science", "yellow longnose butterflyfish", "South Korea", "Sida rhombifolia", "scurvy", "isopod", "Exclusive economic zone", "Papeete", "Portulaca oleracea", "PeerJ", "Good Friday", "Pascual Ortiz Rubio", "Earth–Moon–Earth communication", "Passiontide", "National Nordic Museum", "Hurricane Felicia (1997)", "Jean-Louis Étienne", "Mexican Revolution", "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea", "Swallow", "Robert Schmieder", "brown booby", "Pacific Science", "California Academy of Sciences", "Tropical Storm Andres (2003)", "BirdLife International", "Volcano", "Revillagigedo Islands", "archipelagic apron", "Hurricane Sandra (2015)", "Atmospheric science", "Triaenodon obesus", "Ipomoea", "Water stagnation", "atoll", "Johngarthia oceanica", "Marquesas Islands", "Gehyra insulensis", "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration", "sponge", "Declaration of Independence (Mexico)", "Greater frigatebird", "Blue and gold snapper", "archaea", "Ministry of Defence (France)", "Académie des sciences d'outre-mer", "trade winds", "DX-pedition", "United Nations", "king angelfish", "Benjamin Morrell", "Stegastes", "French National Centre for Scientific Research", "Solanum", "World War II", "Victor Emmanuel III of Italy", "Cenchrus echinatus", "independence of Algeria", "coral heads", "Abingdon-on-Thames", "Ramón Arnaud", "Multistage rocket", "Emperor of the French", "French Polynesia", "University of California, Santa Cruz", "Porfirio Díaz", "6-meter band", "Argos (satellite system)", "Acanthurus triostegus", "dinoflagellate", "Time in France", "Dermatolepis dermatolepis", "Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute", "Marie-Hélène Sachet", "Costa Rica", "ecosystem", "Monroe Doctrine", "Scientific Reports", "Island Conservation", "Brown noddy", "Raymond Fenard", "Mexican hogfish", "Minister of the Overseas (France)", "cuckoo", "HMS Comus (1878)", "Quonset hut", "GPS", "acid", "islets", "Line Islands", "French cruiser Duguay-Trouin (1877)", "Brittany", "FO0XB Clipperton Island DXpedition", "Pacific Theater (World War II)", "Uninhabited island", "Oceanic whitetip shark", "yellow warbler", "Ariane flight V88", "Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law", "coot", "Eastern Tropical Pacific", "Ctenochaetus marginatus", "foraminifera", "American Radio Relay League", "NASA", "Acapulco", "The Condor (journal)", "whale shark", "shark finning", "parrotfish", "Clarion–Clipperton zone", "Spaniards", "lighthouse", "SEDEIC", "Ecuador", "Kingdom of Tahiti", "Clipperton angelfish", "French nuclear testing", "Clipperton Rock", "Postal codes in France", "flying boat", "pig", "Montgomery, Alabama", "meromictic lake", "Paris", "Phyllanthus", "Clipperton fracture zone", "Heliotropium curassavicum", "Galapagos shark", "international arbitration", "Corchorus", "international law", "Brassica juncea", "post office", "Black noddy", "black rats", "Socorro Island" ]
5,520	Cocos (Keeling) Islands	The Cocos (Keeling) Islands (), officially the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands (; ), are an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago approximately midway between Australia and Sri Lanka and relatively close to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The territory's dual name (official since the islands' incorporation into Australia in 1955) reflects that the islands have historically been known as either the Cocos Islands or the Keeling Islands. The territory consists of two atolls made up of 27 coral islands, of which only two – West Island and Home Island – are inhabited. The population of around 600 people consists mainly of Cocos Malays, who mostly practise Sunni Islam and speak a dialect of Malay as their first language. The territory is administered by the Australian federal government's Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts as an Australian external territory and together with Christmas Island (which is about to the east) forms the Australian Indian Ocean Territories administrative grouping. However, the islanders do have a degree of self-government through the local shire council. Many public services – including health, education, and policing – are provided by the state of Western Australia, and Western Australian law applies except where the federal government has determined otherwise. The territory also uses Western Australian postcodes. The islands were discovered in 1609 by the British sea captain William Keeling, but no settlement occurred until the early 19th century. One of the first settlers was John Clunies-Ross, a Scottish merchant; much of the island's current population is descended from the Malay workers he brought in to work his copra plantation. The Clunies-Ross family ruled the islands as a private fiefdom for almost 150 years, with the head of the family usually recognised as resident magistrate. The British annexed the islands in 1857, and for the next century they were administered from either Ceylon or Singapore. The territory was transferred to Australia in 1955, although until 1979 virtually all of the territory's real estate still belonged to the Clunies-Ross family. == Name == The islands have been called the Cocos Islands (from 1622), the Keeling Islands (from 1703), the Cocos–Keeling Islands (since James Horsburgh in 1805) and the Keeling–Cocos Islands (19th century). Cocos refers to the abundant coconut trees, while Keeling refers to William Keeling, who discovered the islands in 1609. who sailed there in the Borneo in 1825, called the group the Borneo Coral Isles, restricting Keeling to North Keeling, and calling South Keeling "the Cocos properly so called". The form Cocos (Keeling) Islands, attested from 1916, was made official by the (3 & 4 Eliz. 2. c. 5). == Geography == The Cocos (Keeling) Islands consist of two flat, low-lying coral atolls with an area of , of coastline, a highest elevation of and thickly covered with coconut palms and other vegetation. The climate is pleasant, moderated by the southeast trade winds for about nine months of the year and with moderate rainfall. Tropical cyclones may occur in the early months of the year. North Keeling Island is an atoll consisting of just one C-shaped island, a nearly closed atoll ring with a small opening into the lagoon, about wide, on the east side. The island measures in land area and is uninhabited. The lagoon is about . North Keeling Island and the surrounding sea to from shore form the Pulu Keeling National Park, established on 12 December 1995. It is home to the only surviving population of the endemic, and endangered, Cocos Buff-banded Rail. South Keeling Islands is an atoll consisting of 24 individual islets forming an incomplete atoll ring, with a total land area of . Only Home Island and West Island are populated. The Cocos Malays maintain weekend shacks, referred to as pondoks, on most of the larger islands. There are no rivers or lakes on either atoll. Fresh water resources are limited to water lenses on the larger islands, underground accumulations of rainwater lying above the seawater. These lenses are accessed through shallow bores or wells. ===Flora and fauna=== ==Climate== Cocos (Keeling) Islands experience a tropical rainforest climate (Af) according to the Köppen climate classification; the archipelago lies approximately midway between the equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. The archipelago has two distinct seasons, the wet season and the dry season. The wettest month is April with precipitation totaling , and the driest month is October with precipitation totaling . Due to the strong maritime control, temperatures vary little although its location is some distance from the Equator. The hottest month is March with an average high temperature of , while the coolest month is September with an average low temperature of . ==Demographics== According to the 2021 Australian Census, the population of the Cocos Islands is 593 people. The gender distribution stands at an approximate 51% male and 49% female. As of 2021, there are no people living on the Cocos Islands who identify as Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander). == History == ===Discovery and early history=== The archipelago was discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling of the East India Company, on a return voyage from the East Indies. North Keeling was sketched by Ekeberg, a Swedish captain, in 1749, showing the presence of coconut palms. It also appears on a 1789 chart produced by British hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple. In 1825, Scottish merchant seaman Captain John Clunies-Ross stopped briefly at the islands on a trip to India, nailing up a Union Jack and planning to return and settle on the islands with his family in the future. Wealthy Englishman Alexander Hare had similar plans, and hired a captain coincidentally, Clunies-Ross's brotherto bring him and a volunteer harem of 40 Malay women to the islands, where he hoped to establish his private residence. Hare had previously served as resident of Banjarmasin, a town in Borneo, and found that "he could not confine himself to the tame life that civilisation affords". Disheartened, Hare left the island. He died in Bencoolen in 1834. Encouraged by members of the former harem, Clunies-Ross then recruited Malays to come to the island for work and wives. Clunies-Ross's workers were paid in a currency called the Cocos rupee, a currency John Clunies-Ross minted himself that could only be redeemed at the company store. On 1 April 1836, under Captain Robert FitzRoy arrived to take soundings to establish the profile of the atoll as part of the survey expedition of the Beagle. To the naturalist Charles Darwin, aboard the ship, the results supported a theory he had developed of how atolls formed, which he later published as The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. He studied the natural history of the islands and collected specimens. Darwin's assistant Syms Covington noted that "an Englishman [he was in fact Scottish] and HIS family, with about sixty or seventy mulattos from the Cape of Good Hope, live on one of the islands. Captain Ross, the governor, is now absent at the Cape." ===Annexation by the British Empire=== The islands were annexed by the British Empire in 1857. This annexation was carried out by Captain Stephen Grenville Fremantle in command of . Fremantle claimed the islands for the British Empire and appointed Ross II as Superintendent. In 1878, by Letters Patent, the Governor of Ceylon was made Governor of the islands, and, by further Letters Patent in 1886, responsibility for the islands was transferred to the Governor of the Straits Settlement to exercise his functions as "Governor of Cocos Islands". Meanwhile, in 1886 Queen Victoria had, by indenture, granted the islands in perpetuity to John Clunies-Ross. The head of the family enjoyed semi-official status as Resident Magistrate and Government representative. ===World War I=== On the morning of 9 November 1914, the islands became the site of the Battle of Cocos, one of the first naval battles of World War I. A landing party from the German cruiser captured and disabled the wireless and cable communications station on Direction Island, but not before the station was able to transmit a distress call. An Allied troop convoy was passing nearby, and the Australian cruiser was detached from the convoy escort to investigate. Sydney spotted the island and Emden at 09:15, with both ships preparing for combat. At 11:20, the heavily damaged Emden beached herself on North Keeling Island. The Australian warship broke to pursue Emdens supporting collier, which scuttled herself, then returned to North Keeling Island at 16:00. At this point, Emdens battle ensign was still flying: usually a sign that a ship intends to continue fighting. After no response to instructions to lower the ensign, two salvoes were shot into the beached cruiser, after which the Germans lowered the flag and raised a white sheet. Sydney had orders to ascertain the status of the transmission station, but returned the next day to provide medical assistance to the Germans. Casualties totaled 134 personnel aboard Emden killed, and 69 wounded, compared to four killed and 16 wounded aboard Sydney. The German survivors were taken aboard the Australian cruiser, which caught up to the troop convoy in Colombo on 15 November, then transported to Malta and handed over the prisoners to the British Army. An additional 50 German personnel from the shore party, unable to be recovered before Sydney arrived, commandeered a schooner and escaped from Direction Island, eventually arriving in Constantinople. Emden was the last active Central Powers warship in the Indian or Pacific Ocean, which meant troopships from Australia and New Zealand could sail without naval escort, and Allied ships could be deployed elsewhere. ===World War II=== During World War II, the cable station was once again a vital link. The Cocos were valuable for direction finding by the Y service, the worldwide intelligence system used during the war. Allied planners noted that the islands might be seized as an airfield for German planes and as a base for commerce raiders operating in the Indian Ocean. Following Japan's entry into the war, Japanese forces occupied neighbouring islands. To avoid drawing their attention to the Cocos cable station and its islands' garrison, the seaplane anchorage between Direction and Horsburgh islands was not used. Radio transmitters were also kept silent, except in emergencies. After the Fall of Singapore in 1942, the islands were administered from Ceylon and West and Direction Islands were placed under Allied military administration. The islands' garrison initially consisted of a platoon from the British Army's King's African Rifles, located on Horsburgh Island, with two guns to cover the anchorage. The local inhabitants all lived on Home Island. Despite the importance of the islands as a communication centre, the Japanese made no attempt either to raid or to occupy them and contented themselves with sending over a reconnaissance aircraft about once a month. On the night of 8–9 May 1942, 15 members of the garrison, from the Ceylon Defence Force, mutinied under the leadership of Gratien Fernando. The mutineers were said to have been provoked by the attitude of their British officers and were also supposedly inspired by Japanese anti-British propaganda. They attempted to take control of the gun battery on the islands. The Cocos Islands Mutiny was crushed, but the mutineers murdered one non-mutinous soldier and wounded one officer. Seven of the mutineers were sentenced to death at a trial that was later alleged to have been improperly conducted, though the guilt of the accused was admitted. Four of the sentences were commuted, but three men were executed, including Fernando. These were to be the only British Commonwealth soldiers executed for mutiny during the Second World War. On 25 December 1942, the Japanese submarine I-166 bombarded the islands but caused no damage. Later in the war, two airstrips were built, and three bomber squadrons were moved to the islands to conduct raids against Japanese targets in South East Asia and to provide support during the planned reinvasion of Malaya and reconquest of Singapore. The first aircraft to arrive were Supermarine Spitfire Mk VIIIs of No. 136 Squadron RAF. They included some Liberator bombers from No. 321 (Netherlands) Squadron RAF (members of exiled Dutch forces serving with the Royal Air Force), which were also stationed on the islands. When in July 1945 No. 99 and No. 356 RAF squadrons arrived on West Island, they brought with them a daily newspaper called Atoll which contained news of what was happening in the outside world. Run by airmen in their off-duty hours, it achieved fame when dropped by Liberator bombers on POW camps over the heads of the Japanese guards. In 1946, the administration of the islands reverted to Singapore and it became part of the Colony of Singapore. ===Transfer to Australia=== On 23 November 1955, the islands were transferred from the United Kingdom to the Commonwealth of Australia. Immediately before the transfer the islands were part of the United Kingdom's Colony of Singapore, in accordance with the Straits Settlements (Repeal) Act, 1946 of the United Kingdom and the British Settlements Acts, 1887 and 1945, as applied by the Act of 1946. The Commonwealth Parliament and the Government requested and consented to the enactment of a United Kingdom Act for the purpose. The Cocos Islands Act, 1955, authorised Her Majesty, by Order in Council, to direct that the islands should cease to form part of the Colony of Singapore and be placed under the authority of the Commonwealth. By the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act, 1955, the Parliament of the Commonwealth provided for the acceptance of the islands as a territory under the authority of the Commonwealth and for its government. The Cocos Islands Order in Council, 1955, made under the United Kingdom Act of 1955, provided that upon the appointed day (23 November 1955) the islands should cease to form part of the Colony of Singapore and be placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia. The reason for this comparatively complex machinery was due to the terms of the Straits Settlement (Repeal) Act, 1946. According to Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray "any other procedure would have been of doubtful validity". The separation involved three steps: separation from the Colony of Singapore; transfer by United Kingdom and acceptance by Australia. H. J. Hull was appointed the first official representative (now administrator) of the new territory. He had been a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Australian Navy and was released for the purpose. Under Commonwealth Cabinet Decision 1573 of 9 September 1958, Hull's appointment was terminated and John William Stokes was appointed on secondment from the Northern Territory police. A media release at the end of October 1958 by the Minister for Territories, Hasluck, commended Hull's three years of service on Cocos. Stokes served in the position from 31 October 1958 to 30 September 1960. His son's boyhood memories and photos of the Islands have been published. C. I. Buffett MBE from Norfolk Island succeeded him and served from 28 July 1960 to 30 June 1966, and later acted as Administrator back on Cocos and on Norfolk Island. In 1974, Ken Mullen wrote a small book about his time with wife and son from 1964 to 1966 working at the Cable Station on Direction Island. In the 1970s, the Australian government's dissatisfaction with the Clunies-Ross feudal style of rule of the island increased. In 1978, Australia forced the family to sell the islands for the sum of , using the threat of compulsory acquisition. By agreement, the family retained ownership of Oceania House, their home on the island. In 1983, the Australian government reneged on this agreement and told John Clunies-Ross that he should leave the Cocos. The following year the High Court of Australia ruled that resumption of Oceania House was unlawful, but the Australian government ordered that no government business was to be granted to Clunies-Ross's shipping company, an action that contributed to his bankruptcy. John Clunies-Ross later moved to Perth, Western Australia. However, some members of the Clunies-Ross family still live on the Cocos. Extensive preparations were undertaken by the government of Australia to prepare the Cocos Malays to vote in their referendum of self-determination. Discussions began in 1982, with an aim of holding the referendum, under United Nations supervision, in mid-1983. Under guidelines developed by the UN Decolonization Committee, residents were to be offered three choices: full independence, free association, or integration with Australia. The last option was preferred by both the islanders and the Australian government. A change in government in Canberra following the March 1983 Australian elections delayed the vote by one year. While the Home Island Council stated a preference for a traditional communal consensus "vote", the UN insisted on a secret ballot. The referendum was held on 6 April 1984, with all 261 eligible islanders participating, including the Clunies-Ross family: 229 voted for integration, 21 for Free Association, nine for independence, and two failed to indicate a preference. In the first decade of the 21st century, a series of disputes have occurred between the Muslim and the non-Muslim population of the islands. The airstrip on West Island has an airstrip that is more than two kilometres long and is designed to accommodate Boeing 737 passenger flights and smaller military planes. In 2023, the Australian parliament approved plans to extend the airstrip by 150 metres so that it could take Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft capable of low-level anti-submarine warfare operations and high-tech military surveillance. Construction was scheduled to start in 2024 and be completed by 2026. ===Indigenous status=== Descendants of the Cocos Malays brought to the islands from the Malay Peninsula, the Indonesian archipelago, Southern Africa and New Guinea by Hare and by Clunies-Ross as indentured workers, slaves or convicts are seeking recognition from the Australian government to be acknowledged as Indigenous Australians. == Government == The capital of the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands is West Island while the largest settlement is the village of Bantam, on Home Island. Governance of the islands is based on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act 1955 and depends heavily on the laws of Australia. The islands are administered from Canberra by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts through a non-resident Administrator appointed by the Governor-General. They were previously the responsibility of the Department of Transport and Regional Services (before 2007), the Attorney-General's Department (2007–2013), Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development (2013–2017) and Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities (2017–2020). As of November 2023, the Administrator is Farzian Zainal, she is also the Administrator of Christmas Island. These two territories comprise the Australian Indian Ocean Territories. The Australian Government provides Commonwealth-level government services through the Christmas Island Administration and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts. As per the Federal Government's Territories Law Reform Act 1992, which came into force on 1 July 1992, Western Australian laws are applied to the Cocos Islands, "so far as they are capable of applying in the Territory"; non-application or partial application of such laws is at the discretion of the federal government. The Act also gives Western Australian courts judicial power over the islands. The Cocos Islands remain constitutionally distinct from Western Australia, however; the power of the state to legislate for the territory is power-delegated by the federal government. The kind of services typically provided by a state government elsewhere in Australia are provided by departments of the Western Australian Government, and by contractors, with the costs met by the federal government. There also exists a unicameral Cocos (Keeling) Islands Shire Council with seven seats. A full term lasts four years, though elections are held every two years; approximately half the members retire each two years. the president of the shire is Aindil Minkom. The most recent local election took place on 21 October 2023 alongside elections on Christmas Island. ===Federal politics=== {{bar box \| title=House of Representatives, 2022 At the 2022 Australian federal election the Labor Party received absolute majorities from Cocos electors in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. ===Defence and law enforcement=== Defence is the responsibility of the Australian Defence Force. Until 2023, there were no active military installations or defence personnel on the island; the administrator could request the assistance of the Australian Defence Force if required. In 2016, the Australian Department of Defence announced that the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Airport (West Island) would be upgraded to support the Royal Australian Air Force's P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. Work was scheduled to begin in early 2023 and be completed by 2026. The airfield will act as a forward operating base for Australian surveillance and electronic warfare aircraft in the region. The Royal Australian Navy and Australian Border Force also deploy and patrol boats to conduct surveillance and counter-migrant smuggling patrols in adjacent waters. As of 2023, the Navy's Armidale-class boats are in the process of being replaced by larger s. Civilian law enforcement and community policing is provided by the Australian Federal Police. The normal deployment to the island is one sergeant and one constable. These are augmented by two locally engaged Special Members who have police powers. ===Courts=== Since 1992, court services have been provided by the Western Australian Department of the Attorney-General under a service delivery arrangement with the Australian Government. Western Australian Court Services provide Magistrates Court, District Court, Supreme Court, Family Court, Children's Court, Coroner's Court and Registry for births, deaths and marriages and change of name services. Magistrates and judges from Western Australia convene a circuit court as required. ===Health care=== Home Island and West Island have medical clinics providing basic health services, but serious medical conditions and injuries cannot be treated on the island and patients are sent to Perth for treatment, a distance of . == Economy == The population of the islands is approximately 600. There is a small and growing tourist industry focused on water-based or nature activities. In 2016, a beach on Direction Island was named the best beach in Australia by Brad Farmer, an Aquatic and Coastal Ambassador for Tourism Australia and co-author of 101 Best Beaches 2017. Small local gardens and fishing contribute to the food supply, but most food and most other necessities must be imported from Australia or elsewhere. The Cocos Islands Cooperative Society Ltd. employs construction workers, stevedores, and lighterage worker operations. Tourism employs others. The unemployment rate was 6.7% in 2011. President Donald Trump announced a 10% tariff on the Cocos Islands on 2 April 2025. ==Plastic pollution== A 2019 study led by Jennifer Lavers from the University of Tasmania's Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies published in the journal Scientific Reports estimated the volume of plastic rubbish on the Islands as around 414 million pieces, weighing 238 tonnes, 93% of which lies buried under the sand. It said that previous surveys which only assessed surface garbage probably "drastically underestimated the scale of debris accumulation". The plastic waste found in the study consisted mostly of single-use items such as bottles, plastic cutlery, bags and drinking straws. == Strategic importance == The Cocos (Keeling) Islands hold significant strategic value due to their location near vital shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and their proximity to the Malacca, Sunda, and Lombok Straits. Euronews described the plan as Australian support for an increased American presence in Southeast Asia, but expressed concern that it was likely to upset Chinese officials. After plans to construct airbases were reported on by The Washington Post, Australian defence minister Stephen Smith stated that the Australian government views the "Cocos as being potentially a long-term strategic location, but that is down the track." In 2023, Indian aircraft from their Navy and Air Force paid a visit to the islands. Australia hopes to further advance relationships with India in order to grow their monitoring strength in the Indian Ocean. ==== Airfield Upgrades ==== Australia has initiated a project to upgrade the airfield on West Island to accommodate larger military aircraft, including the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. This enhancement aims to bolster maritime surveillance capabilities in the region. ==== US Strategic Interests ==== The U.S. military is considering the Cocos Islands for infrastructure development under the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, reflecting their significance in countering regional threats and ensuring free navigation. ==== India-Australia Cooperation ==== In 2023, Indian Navy and Air Force aircraft visited the Cocos Islands, marking a step forward in defense collaboration between India and Australia. This visit underscored the islands' role in enhancing joint maritime security efforts in the Indian Ocean. === Geographic Significance === The islands' location offers several strategic advantages. Their proximity to critical maritime chokepoints makes them ideal for deploying surveillance assets to monitor naval activities and secure sea lines of communication. The islands can serve as a base for refueling and resupplying naval vessels and aircraft, extending operational reach in the region. ==== Subsea Cable Projects ==== In late 2024, Google, in collaboration with partners, announced plans to build a subsea cable connecting Darwin, Australia, to Christmas Island. This project aimed to enhance digital resilience and connectivity, aligning with broader strategic objectives in the region. == Communications and transport == ===Transport=== The islands feature approximately 15 kilometers of roads. The primary airport, Cocos (Keeling) Islands Airport, is located on West Island and has a single 2,441-meter paved runway. Virgin Australia operates scheduled flights from Perth Airport twice a week, with some services also stopping at Christmas Island. Historically, from 1952 until 1967, the airport served as a refueling stop for flights between Australia and South Africa. Local transportation includes a tourist bus on Home Island and a bus service on West Island operated by the Cocos Islands Cooperative Society, which also manages the inter-island ferry, Cahaya Baru, connecting West, Home, and Direction Islands. There is a lagoon anchorage between Horsburgh and Direction islands for larger vessels, while yachts have a dedicated anchorage area in the southern lee of Direction Island. There are no major seaports on the islands. ===Communications=== Telecommunication services are integrated into Australia's system, utilizing the area code +61 8 9162 xxxx. Public telephones are available on both West and Home Islands. Mobile services are provided by Indian Ocean Territories Telecom (IOTT), offering 4G connectivity and various NBN plans, including Sky Muster Plus. SIM and recharge cards can be purchased locally. Internet services are delivered via satellite, with providers like MultiWave Networks offering NBN Sky Muster Plus premium services. The territory's country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is .cc, administered by VeriSign through its subsidiary eNIC. The National Broadband Network announced in early 2012 that it would extend service to Cocos in 2015 via high-speed satellite link. The Oman Australia Cable, completed in 2022, links Australia and Oman with a spur to the Cocos Islands. == Media == The Cocos (Keeling) Islands have access to a range of modern communication services. Digital television stations are broadcast from Western Australia via satellite. A local radio station, 6CKI – Voice of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, is staffed by community volunteers and provides some local content. ===Newspapers=== The Cocos Islands Community Resource Centre publishes a fortnightly newsletter called The Atoll. It is available in paper and electronic formats. ===Radio=== ===Television=== Australian The Cocos (Keeling) Islands receives a range of digital channels from Western Australia via satellite and is broadcast from the Airport Building on the West Island on the following VHF frequencies: ABC6, SBS7, WAW8, WOW10 and WDW11 Malaysian From 2013 onwards, Cocos Island received four Malaysian channels via satellite: TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9. == Education == There is a school in the archipelago, Cocos Islands District High School, with campuses located on West Island (Kindergarten to Year 10), and the other on Home Island (Kindergarten to Year 6). CIDHS is part of the Western Australia Department of Education. School instruction is in English on both campuses, with Cocos Malay teacher aides assisting the younger children in Kindergarten, Pre-Preparatory and early Primary with the English curriculum on the Home Island Campus. The Home Language of Cocos Malay is valued whilst students engage in learning English. ==Culture== Although it is an Australian territory, the culture of the islands has extensive influences from Malaysia and Indonesia due to its predominantly ethnic Malay population. == Heritage listings == The West Island Mosque on Alexander Street is listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List. == Museum == The Pulu Cocos Museum on Home Island was established in 1987, in recognition of the fact that the distinct culture of Home Island needed formal preservation. The site includes the displays on local culture and traditions, as well as the early history of the islands and their ownership by the Clunies-Ross family. The museum also includes displays on military and naval history, as well as local botanical and zoological items. == Marine park == Reefs near the islands have healthy coral and are home to several rare species of marine life. The region, along with the Christmas Island reefs, have been described as "Australia's Galapagos Islands". After months of consultation with local people, both parks were approved in March 2022, with a total coverage of . The park will help to protect spawning of bluefin tuna from illegal international fishers, but local people will be allowed to practise fishing sustainably inshore in order to source food. == Sport == Rugby league is a popular sport on the islands. The Cocos Islands Golf Club, located on West Island and established in 1962, is the only golf course in the world that plays across an international airport runway. Unlike Norfolk Island, another external territory of Australia, the Cocos Islands do not participate in the Commonwealth Games or the Pacific Games. == Image gallery == Cocos (Keeling) Islands Airport - RWY33.jpg\|Aerial view of Cocos (Keeling) Islands Airport (ICAO code: YPCC). Cocos(Keeling)Islands HomeIsland02.jpg\|Home Island HMAS Sydney 1912 compass-stand Port Macquarie.JPG\|Compass stand from the bridge of HMAS Sydney, which destroyed the SMS Emden, installed at Port Macquarie, New South Wales, in 1929. SMS Emden 1914.jpg\|A broadside view of the wrecked Emden after her encounter with HMAS Sydney. Crew huddle on the wreck, awaiting rescue by Sydney. BRIG DURRANT WRITING CANCELLED.jpg\|The last bombing raid of World War II by 99, 356 and 321 Squadrons is cancelled, 15 August 1945. H.M. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip at the Cocos Islands, April 1954.jpg\|Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip arrive at the Cocos Islands, April 1954. Prince Philip-Queen Elizabeth-John Clunies Ross@Coco Islands 1954.jpg\|Prince Philip waves goodbye as he and Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by John Clunies-Ross, return to their ship from Home Island (1954). Elizabeth garden part 1954-04.jpg\|Queen Elizabeth at a garden party held in her honour at Home Island (1954).	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Regional Development, Communications and the Arts", "telegraph", "square kilometre", "Telephone numbers in Australia", "atoll", "Malta", "Boeing P-8 Poseidon", "sergeant", "Allies of World War II", "Bencoolen (city)", "Sunni Islam", "circuit court", "women's rights", "SMS Emden", "Sumatra", "Union Jack", "Paya Lebar Air Base", "airport runway", "List of senators from the Northern Territory (Australia)", "trade winds", "New Guinea", "Indentured servitude", "Indigenous Australians", "ntv7", "Special Broadcasting Service", "No. 99 Squadron RAF", "World War II", "Elizabeth II", "Pearl Islands", "tropical rainforest climate", "resident magistrate", "Queen Victoria", "Liberal Democratic Party (Australia)", "English language", "Y service", "lagoon", "Australian Border Force", "GWN7", "Australian Greens", "de jure", "Scientific Reports", "South Africa", "Order of the British Empire", "Lombok Strait", "Norfolk Island", "bluefin tuna", "West Island", "Cape of Good Hope", "Darwin, Northern Territory", "Australia", "copra", "Java", "Pulu Cocos Museum", "Bureau of Meteorology", "coral", "Bibliography of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "Western Australia", "King of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "East India Company", "Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1976", "Battle of Cocos", "Outline of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "University of Tasmania", "The Washington Post", "Indian Navy", "Perth, Western Australia", "Malaysia", "square mile", "Country Liberal Party", "Rodrigues", "Joshua Slocum", "Gratien Fernando", "stevedore", "Ceylon", "Charles III", "equator", "dependent territory", "Horsburgh Island", "Australian Senate", "Straits Settlement", "Borneo", "Tariffs in the second Trump administration", "West Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "Galapagos Islands", "Empire of Japan", "dual naming", "Tropical cyclone", "plastic pollution", "flag of surrender", "harem", "Mutiny", "Colombo", "Boeing 737", "Flag of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "TV3 (Malaysia)", "Parliament of Australia", "Royal 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5,523	Demographics of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Demographic features of the population of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. == CIA World Factbook demographic statistics == The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated. ===Population=== 596 ===Nationality=== noun: Cocos Islander(s) adjective: Cocos Islander ===Ethnic groups=== Europeans Cocos Malays ===Religions=== Sunni Islam 80% Other 20% ===Languages=== Malay (Cocos dialect) English	[ "Malay language", "population", "WP:SDNONE", "Demography", "population density", "Cocos Malays", "Cocos (Keeling) Islands", "Sunni Islam", "Europeans", "Ethnic group", "CIA World Factbook" ]
5,524	Government of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Redirect Cocos (Keeling) Islands	[ "Cocos (Keeling) Islands" ]
5,526	Communications in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Redirect Cocos (Keeling) Islands	[ "Cocos (Keeling) Islands" ]
5,528	Military of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Redirect Cocos (Keeling) Islands	[ "Cocos (Keeling) Islands" ]
5,530	Conspiracy theory	A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy (generally by powerful sinister groups, often political in motivation), when other explanations are more probable. The term generally has a negative connotation, implying that the appeal of a conspiracy theory is based in prejudice, emotional conviction, or insufficient evidence. A conspiracy theory is distinct from a conspiracy; it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy with specific characteristics, including but not limited to opposition to the mainstream consensus among those who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy, such as scientists or historians. they are generally designed to resist falsification either by evidence against them or a lack of evidence for them. They are reinforced by circular reasoning: both evidence against the conspiracy and absence of evidence for it are misinterpreted as evidence of its truth. Stephan Lewandowsky observes "This interpretation relies on the notion that, the stronger the evidence against a conspiracy, the more the conspirators must want people to believe their version of events." As a consequence, the conspiracy becomes a matter of faith rather than something that can be proven or disproven. Studies have linked belief in conspiracy theories to distrust of authority and political cynicism. Some researchers suggest that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological. Such belief is correlated with psychological projection, paranoia, and Machiavellianism. Psychologists usually attribute belief in conspiracy theories to a number of psychopathological conditions such as paranoia, schizotypy, narcissism, and insecure attachment, It has also been linked with the so-called Dark triad personality types, whose common feature is lack of empathy. However, a 2020 review article found that most cognitive scientists view conspiracy theorizing as typically nonpathological, given that unfounded belief in conspiracy is common across both historical and contemporary cultures, and may arise from innate human tendencies towards gossip, group cohesion, and religion. Historically, conspiracy theories have been closely linked to prejudice, propaganda, witch hunts, wars, and genocides. They are often strongly believed by the perpetrators of terrorist attacks, and were used as justification by Timothy McVeigh and Anders Breivik, as well as by governments such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, AIDS denialism by the government of South Africa, motivated by conspiracy theories, caused an estimated 330,000 deaths from AIDS. and belief in conspiracy theories about genetically modified foods led the government of Zambia to reject food aid during a famine, although it also appeared in print for several decades before. The earliest known usage was by the American author Charles Astor Bristed, in a letter to the editor published in The New York Times on 11 January 1863. He used it to refer to claims that British aristocrats were intentionally weakening the United States during the American Civil War in order to advance their financial interests. {{blockquote \|text=England has had quite enough to do in Europe and Asia, without going out of her way to meddle with America. It was a physical and moral impossibility that she could be carrying on a gigantic conspiracy against us. But our masses, having only a rough general knowledge of foreign affairs, and not unnaturally somewhat exaggerating the space which we occupy in the world's eye, do not appreciate the complications which rendered such a conspiracy impossible. They only look at the sudden right-about-face movement of the English Press and public, which is most readily accounted for on the conspiracy theory. Robert Blaskiewicz comments that examples of the term were used as early as the nineteenth century and states that its usage has always been derogatory. According to a study by Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, in contrast, in the nineteenth century the term conspiracy theory simply "suggests a plausible postulate of a conspiracy" and "did not, at this stage, carry any connotations, either negative or positive", though sometimes a postulate so-labeled was criticized. The author and activist George Monbiot argued that the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist" are misleading, as conspiracies truly exist and theories are "rational explanations subject to disproof". Instead, he proposed the terms "conspiracy fiction" and "conspiracy fantasist". === Alleged CIA origins === The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which posits that the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them a target of ridicule. In his 2013 book Conspiracy Theory in America, the political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith wrote that the term entered everyday language in the United States after 1964, the year in which the Warren Commission published its findings on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, with The New York Times running five stories that year using the term. Whether the CIA was responsible for popularising the term "conspiracy theory" was analyzed by Michael Butter, a Professor of American Literary and Cultural History at the University of Tübingen. Butter wrote in 2020 that the CIA document Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report, which proponents of the theory use as evidence of CIA motive and intention, does not contain the phrase "conspiracy theory" in the singular, and only uses the term "conspiracy theories" once, in the sentence: "Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organisation , for example, by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us." ==Difference from conspiracy== A conspiracy theory is not simply a conspiracy, which refers to any covert plan involving two or more people. Conspiracy theorists see themselves as having privileged access to socially persecuted knowledge or a stigmatized mode of thought that separates them from the masses who believe the official account. Michael Barkun describes a conspiracy theory as a "template imposed upon the world to give the appearance of order to events". In conspiracy theories, the conspirators are usually claimed to be acting with extreme malice. ==Popularity== Conspiracy beliefs are widespread around the world. Conspiracy theories once limited to fringe audiences have become commonplace in mass media, contributing to conspiracism emerging as a cultural phenomenon in the United States of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The general predisposition to believe conspiracy theories cuts across partisan and ideological lines. Conspiratorial thinking is correlated with antigovernmental orientations and a low sense of political efficacy, with conspiracy believers perceiving a governmental threat to individual rights and displaying a deep skepticism that who one votes for really matters. Conspiracy theories are often commonly believed, some even being held by the majority of the population. A broad cross-section of Americans today gives credence to at least some conspiracy theories. For instance, a study conducted in 2016 found that 10% of Americans think the chemtrail conspiracy theory is "completely true" and 20–30% think it is "somewhat true". Belief in conspiracy theories has therefore become a topic of interest for sociologists, psychologists and experts in folklore. Conspiracy theories are widely present on the Web in the form of blogs and YouTube videos, as well as on social media. Whether the Web has increased the prevalence of conspiracy theories or not is an open research question. The presence and representation of conspiracy theories in search engine results has been monitored and studied, showing significant variation across different topics, and a general absence of reputable, high-quality links in the results. One conspiracy theory that propagated through former US President Barack Obama's time in office claimed that he was born in Kenya, instead of Hawaii where he was actually born. Former governor of Arkansas and political opponent of Obama Mike Huckabee made headlines in 2011 when he, among other members of Republican leadership, continued to question Obama's citizenship status. ==Types== A conspiracy theory can be local or international, focused on single events or covering multiple incidents and entire countries, regions and periods of history. ===Walker's five kinds=== Jesse Walker (2013) has identified five kinds of conspiracy theories: The "Enemy Outside" refers to theories based on figures alleged to be scheming against a community from without. The "Enemy Within" finds the conspirators lurking inside the nation, indistinguishable from ordinary citizens. The "Enemy Above" involves powerful people manipulating events for their own gain. The "Enemy Below" features the lower classes working to overturn the social order. The "Benevolent Conspiracies" are angelic forces that work behind the scenes to improve the world and help people. ===Barkun's three types=== Michael Barkun has identified three classifications of conspiracy theory: Event conspiracy theories. This refers to limited and well-defined events. Examples may include such conspiracies theories as those concerning the Kennedy assassination, 9/11, and the spread of AIDS. Systemic conspiracy theories. The conspiracy is believed to have broad goals, usually conceived as securing control of a country, a region, or even the entire world. The goals are sweeping, whilst the conspiratorial machinery is generally simple: a single, evil organization implements a plan to infiltrate and subvert existing institutions. This is a common scenario in conspiracy theories that focus on the alleged machinations of Jews, Freemasons, Communism, or the Catholic Church. Superconspiracy theories. For Barkun, such theories link multiple alleged conspiracies together hierarchically. At the summit is a distant but all-powerful evil force. His cited examples are the ideas of David Icke and Milton William Cooper. ===Rothbard: shallow vs. deep=== Murray Rothbard argues in favor of a model that contrasts "deep" conspiracy theories to "shallow" ones. According to Rothbard, a "shallow" theorist observes an event and asks Cui bono? ("Who benefits?"), jumping to the conclusion that a posited beneficiary is responsible for covertly influencing events. On the other hand, the "deep" conspiracy theorist begins with a hunch and then seeks out evidence. Rothbard describes this latter activity as a matter of confirming with certain facts one's initial paranoia. ==Lack of evidence== Belief in conspiracy theories is generally based not on evidence but on the faith of the believer. Noam Chomsky contrasts conspiracy theory to institutional analysis, which focuses mainly on the public, long-term behavior of publicly known institutions, as recorded in, for example, scholarly documents or mainstream media reports. Conspiracy theory conversely posits the existence of secretive coalitions of individuals and speculates on their alleged activities. Belief in conspiracy theories is associated with biases in reasoning, such as the conjunction fallacy. Clare Birchall at King's College London describes conspiracy theory as a "form of popular knowledge or interpretation". The use of the word 'knowledge' here suggests ways in which conspiracy theory may be considered in relation to legitimate modes of knowing.{{efn\|Birchall 2006: "What we quickly discover ... is that it becomes impossible to map conspiracy theory and academic discourse onto a clear illegitimate/legitimate divide." Theories involving multiple conspirators that are proven to be correct, such as the Watergate scandal, are usually referred to as investigative journalism or historical analysis rather than conspiracy theory. Bjerg (2016) writes: "the way we normally use the term conspiracy theory excludes instances where the theory has been generally accepted as true. The Watergate scandal serves as the standard reference." By contrast, the term "Watergate conspiracy theory" is used to refer to a variety of hypotheses in which those convicted in the conspiracy were in fact the victims of a deeper conspiracy. There are also attempts to analyze the theory of conspiracy theories (conspiracy theory theory) to ensure that the term "conspiracy theory" is used to refer to narratives that have been debunked by experts, rather than as a generalized dismissal. ==Rhetoric== Conspiracy theory rhetoric exploits several important cognitive biases, including proportionality bias, attribution bias, and confirmation bias. Their arguments often take the form of asking reasonable questions, but without providing an answer based on strong evidence. Conspiracy theories are most successful when proponents can gather followers from the general public, such as in politics, religion and journalism. These proponents may not necessarily believe the conspiracy theory; instead, they may just use it in an attempt to gain public approval. Conspiratorial claims can act as a successful rhetorical strategy to convince a portion of the public via appeal to emotion.]] Conspiracy theorists often take advantage of false balance in the media. They may claim to be presenting a legitimate alternative viewpoint that deserves equal time to argue its case; for example, this strategy has been used by the Teach the Controversy campaign to promote intelligent design, which often claims that there is a conspiracy of scientists suppressing their views. If they successfully find a platform to present their views in a debate format, they focus on using rhetorical ad hominems and attacking perceived flaws in the mainstream account, while avoiding any discussion of the shortcomings in their own position. while belief in conspiracy theories about genetically modified foods led the government of Zambia to reject food aid during a famine, Conspiracy theories are a significant obstacle to improvements in public health. Health-related conspiracy theories often inspire resistance to water fluoridation, and contributed to the impact of the Lancet MMR autism fraud. Conspiracy theorizing in the workplace can also have economic consequences. For example, it leads to lower job satisfaction and lower commitment, resulting in workers being more likely to leave their jobs. Conspiracy theories can divert attention from important social, political, and scientific issues. ==Interventions== ===Target audience=== Strategies to address conspiracy theories have been divided into two categories based on whether the target audience is the conspiracy theorists or the general public. ====General public==== People who feel empowered are more resistant to conspiracy theories. Methods to promote empowerment include encouraging people to use analytical thinking, priming people to think of situations where they are in control, and ensuring that decisions by society and government are seen to follow procedural fairness (the use of fair decision-making procedures). Methods of refutation which have shown effectiveness in various circumstances include: providing facts that demonstrate the conspiracy theory is false, attempting to discredit the source, explaining how the logic is invalid or misleading, and providing links to fact-checking websites. ====Conspiracy theorists==== It is much more difficult to convince people who already believe in conspiracy theories. In these cases, the solution would be to break the group's informational isolation. {\| class="wikitable" \|+ Interventions to counter the spread of conspiracy theories on social media Regarding the challenges of this approach, Pierre has said, "The challenge with acknowledging areas of uncertainty within a public sphere is that doing so can be weaponized to reinforce a post-truth view of the world in which everything is debatable, and any counter-position is just as valid. Although I like to think of myself as a middle of the road kind of individual, it is important to keep in mind that the truth does not always lie in the middle of a debate, whether we are talking about climate change, vaccines, or antipsychotic medications." Researchers have recommended that public policies should take into account the possibility of conspiracy theories relating to any policy or policy area, and prepare to combat them in advance. In addition, when the government communicates with citizens to combat conspiracy theories, online methods are more efficient compared to other methods such as print publications. This also promotes transparency, can improve a message's perceived trustworthiness, and is more effective at reaching underrepresented demographics. However, , many governmental websites do not take full advantage of the available information-sharing opportunities. Similarly, social media accounts need to be used effectively in order to achieve meaningful communication with the public, such as by responding to requests that citizens send to those accounts. Other steps include adapting messages to the communication styles used on the social media platform in question, and promoting a culture of openness. Since mixed messaging can support conspiracy theories, it is also important to avoid conflicting accounts, such as by ensuring the accuracy of messages on the social media accounts of individual members of the organization. Counter-narratives can be more engaging and memorable than simple corrections, and can be adapted to the specific values held by individuals and cultures. These narratives may depict personal experiences, or alternatively they can be cultural narratives. In the context of vaccination, examples of cultural narratives include stories about scientific breakthroughs, about the world before vaccinations, or about heroic and altruistic researchers. The themes to be addressed would be those that could be exploited by conspiracy theories to increase vaccine hesitancy, such as perceptions of vaccine risk, lack of patient empowerment, and lack of trust in medical authorities. There are psychological mechanisms by which backfire effects could potentially occur, but the evidence on this topic is mixed, and backfire effects are very rare in practice. Due to the lack of reproducibility, most researchers believe that backfire effects are either unlikely to occur on the broader population level, or they only occur in very specific circumstances, or they do not exist. In general, people do reject conspiracy theories when they learn about their contradictions and lack of evidence. == Psychology == The widespread belief in conspiracy theories has become a topic of interest for sociologists, psychologists, and experts in folklore since at least the 1960s, when a number of conspiracy theories arose regarding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Sociologist Türkay Salim Nefes underlines the political nature of conspiracy theories. He suggests that one of the most important characteristics of these accounts is their attempt to unveil the "real but hidden" power relations in social groups. {{blockquote\|Conspiracism serves the needs of diverse political and social groups in America and elsewhere. It identifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes, and assumes that things will be better once popular action can remove them from positions of power. As such, conspiracy theories do not typify a particular epoch or ideology. The propensity to believe in conspiracy theories is strongly associated with the mental health disorder of schizotypy. Conspiracy theories once limited to fringe audiences have become commonplace in mass media, emerging as a cultural phenomenon of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Conspiracy theories often use complicated and detailed arguments, including ones that appear analytical or scientific. However, belief in conspiracy theories is primarily driven by emotion. This even applies when the conspiracy theories directly contradict each other—e.g., believing that Osama bin Laden was already dead before his compound in Pakistan was attacked makes the same person more likely to believe that he is still alive. One conclusion from this finding is that the content of a conspiracist belief is less important than the idea of a coverup by the authorities. Analytical thinking aids in reducing belief in conspiracy theories, in part because it emphasizes rational and critical cognition. Some psychological scientists assert that explanations related to conspiracy theories can be, and often are, "internally consistent" with strong beliefs previously held prior to the event that sparked the belief in a conspiracy. ===Attractions=== Psychological motives for believing in conspiracy theories can be categorized as epistemic, existential, or social. These motives are particularly acute in vulnerable and disadvantaged populations. However, it does not appear that the beliefs help to address these motives; in fact, they may be self-defeating, acting to make the situation worse instead. The political scientist Michael Barkun, discussing the usage of "conspiracy theory" in contemporary American culture, holds that this term is used for a belief that explains an event as the result of a secret plot by exceptionally powerful and cunning conspirators to achieve a malevolent end. Humanistic psychologists argue that even if a posited cabal behind an alleged conspiracy is almost always perceived as hostile, there often remains an element of reassurance for theorists. This is because it is a consolation to imagine that humans create difficulties in human affairs and remain within human control. If a cabal can be implicated, there may be a hope of breaking its power or of joining it. Belief in the power of a cabal is an implicit assertion of human dignity—an unconscious affirmation that man is responsible for his own destiny. People formulate conspiracy theories to explain, for example, power relations in social groups and the perceived existence of evil forces. Proposed psychological origins of conspiracy theorising include projection; the personal need to explain "a significant event [with] a significant cause;" and the product of various kinds and stages of thought disorder, such as paranoid disposition, ranging in severity to diagnosable mental illnesses. Some people prefer socio-political explanations over the insecurity of encountering random, unpredictable, or otherwise inexplicable events. According to Berlet and Lyons, "Conspiracism is a particular narrative form of scapegoating that frames demonized enemies as part of a vast insidious plot against the common good, while it valorizes the scapegoater as a hero for sounding the alarm". ===Causes=== Some psychologists believe that a search for meaning is common in conspiracism. Once cognized, confirmation bias and avoidance of cognitive dissonance may reinforce the belief. When a conspiracy theory has become embedded within a social group, communal reinforcement may also play a part. Inquiry into possible motives behind the accepting of irrational conspiracy theories has linked these beliefs to distress resulting from an event that occurred, such as the events of 9/11. Additional research suggests that "delusional ideation" is the trait most likely to indicate a stronger belief in conspiracy theories. Research also shows an increased attachment to these irrational beliefs leads to a decreased desire for civic engagement. Professor Quassim Cassam argues that conspiracy theorists hold their beliefs due to flaws in their thinking and, more precisely, their intellectual character. He cites philosopher Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski and her book Virtues of the Mind in outlining intellectual virtues (such as humility, caution, and carefulness) and intellectual vices (such as gullibility, carelessness, and closed-mindedness). Whereas intellectual virtues help reach sound examination, intellectual vices "impede effective and responsible inquiry", meaning that those prone to believing in conspiracy theories possess certain vices while lacking necessary virtues. Some researchers have suggested that conspiracy theories could be partially caused by the human brain's mechanisms for detecting dangerous coalitions. Such a mechanism could have been helpful in the small-scale environment humanity evolved in but is mismatched in a modern, complex society and thus "misfire", perceiving conspiracies where none exist. ====Projection==== Some historians have argued that psychological projection is prevalent amongst conspiracy theorists. According to the argument, this projection is manifested in the form of attributing undesirable characteristics of the self to the conspirators. Historian Richard Hofstadter stated that: {{blockquote\|This enemy seems on many counts a projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. A fundamental paradox of the paranoid style is the imitation of the enemy. The enemy, for example, may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. ... The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through "front" groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy. Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist "crusades" openly express their admiration for the dedication, discipline, and strategic ingenuity the Communist cause calls forth. ====Physiology==== Marcel Danesi suggests that people who believe conspiracy theories have difficulty rethinking situations. Exposure to those theories has caused neural pathways to be more rigid and less subject to change. Initial susceptibility to believing these theories' lies, dehumanizing language, and metaphors leads to the acceptance of larger and more extensive theories because the hardened neural pathways are already present. Repetition of the "facts" of conspiracy theories and their connected lies simply reinforces the rigidity of those pathways. Thus, conspiracy theories and dehumanizing lies are not mere hyperbole; they can actually change the way people think: ==Sociology== In addition to psychological factors such as conspiracist ideation, sociological factors also help account for who believes in which conspiracy theories. Such theories tend to get more traction among election losers in society, for example, and the emphasis on conspiracy theories by elites and leaders tends to increase belief among followers with higher levels of conspiracy thinking. Christopher Hitchens described conspiracy theories as the "exhaust fumes of democracy": Likewise, Roger Cohen writing for The New York Times has said that, "captive minds; ... resort to conspiracy theory because it is the ultimate refuge of the powerless. If you cannot change your own life, it must be that some greater force controls the world." Justin Fox of Time magazine argues that Wall Street traders are among the most conspiracy-minded group of people, and ascribes this to the reality of some financial market conspiracies, and to the ability of conspiracy theories to provide necessary orientation in the market's day-to-day movements. ===Fusion paranoia=== Michael Kelly, a Washington Post journalist and critic of anti-war movements on both the left and right, coined the term "fusion paranoia" to refer to a political convergence of left-wing and right-wing activists around anti-war issues and civil liberties, which he said were motivated by a shared belief in conspiracism or shared anti-government views. Barkun has adopted this term to refer to how the synthesis of paranoid conspiracy theories, which were once limited to American fringe audiences, has given them mass appeal and enabled them to become commonplace in mass media, thereby inaugurating an unrivaled period of people actively preparing for apocalyptic or millenarian scenarios in the United States of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Barkun notes the occurrence of lone-wolf conflicts with law enforcement acting as a proxy for threatening the established political powers. ==Viability == As evidence that undermines an alleged conspiracy grows, the number of alleged conspirators also grows in the minds of conspiracy theorists. This is because of an assumption that the alleged conspirators often have competing interests. For example, if Republican President George W. Bush is allegedly responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the Democratic party did not pursue exposing this alleged plot, that must mean that both the Democratic and Republican parties are conspirators in the alleged plot. It also assumes that the alleged conspirators are so competent that they can fool the entire world, but so incompetent that even the unskilled conspiracy theorists can find mistakes they make that prove the fraud. At some point, the number of alleged conspirators, combined with the contradictions within the alleged conspirators' interests and competence, becomes so great that maintaining the theory becomes an obvious exercise in absurdity. The physicist David Robert Grimes estimated the time it would take for a conspiracy to be exposed based on the number of people involved. His calculations used data from the PRISM surveillance program, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and the FBI forensic scandal. Grimes estimated that: A Moon landing hoax would require the involvement of 411,000 people and would be exposed within 3.68 years; Climate-change fraud would require a minimum of 29,083 people (published climate scientists only) and would be exposed within 26.77 years, or up to 405,000 people, in which case it would be exposed within 3.70 years; A vaccination conspiracy would require a minimum of 22,000 people (without drug companies) and would be exposed within at least 3.15 years and at most 34.78 years depending on the number involved; A conspiracy to suppress a cure for cancer would require 714,000 people and would be exposed within 3.17 years. Grimes's study did not consider exposure by sources outside of the alleged conspiracy. It only considered exposure from within the alleged conspiracy through whistleblowers or through incompetence. Subsequent comments on the PubPeer website point out that these calculations must exclude successful conspiracies since, by definition, we don't know about them, and are wrong by an order of magnitude about Bletchley Park, which remained a secret far longer than Grimes' calculations predicted. ==Terminology== The term "truth seeker" is adopted by some conspiracy theorists when describing themselves on social media. Conspiracy theorists are often referred to derogatorily as "cookers" in Australia. The term "cooker" is also loosely associated with the far right. ==Politics== The philosopher Karl Popper described the central problem of conspiracy theories as a form of fundamental attribution error, where every event is generally perceived as being intentional and planned, greatly underestimating the effects of randomness and unintended consequences. Popper argued that totalitarianism was founded on conspiracy theories which drew on imaginary plots which were driven by paranoid scenarios predicated on tribalism, chauvinism, or racism. He also noted that conspirators very rarely achieved their goal. Historically, real conspiracies have usually had little effect on history and have had unforeseen consequences for the conspirators, in contrast to conspiracy theories, which often posit grand, sinister organizations or world-changing events, the evidence for which has been erased or obscured. As described by Bruce Cumings, history is instead "moved by the broad forces and large structures of human collectivities". ===Arab world=== Conspiracy theories are a prevalent feature of Arab culture and politics. Variants include conspiracies involving colonialism, Zionism, superpowers, oil, and the war on terrorism, which is often referred to in Arab media as a "war against Islam". Roger Cohen has suggested that the popularity of conspiracy theories in the Arab world is "the ultimate refuge of the powerless". Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri used conspiracy theories about the United States to gain support for al-Qaeda in the Arab world, and as rhetoric to distinguish themselves from similar groups, although they may not have believed the conspiratorial claims themselves. ===Turkey=== Conspiracy theories are a prevalent feature of culture and politics in Turkey. Conspiracism is an important phenomenon in understanding Turkish politics. This is explained by a desire to "make up for our lost Ottoman grandeur", and a "low level of media literacy among the Turkish population." There are a wide variety of conspiracy theories including the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory, the international Jewish conspiracy theory, and the war against Islam conspiracy theory. For example, Islamists, dissatisfied with the modernist and secularist reforms that took place throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, have put forward many conspiracy theories to defame the Treaty of Lausanne, an important peace treaty for the country, and the republic's founder Kemal Atatürk. Another example is the Sèvres syndrome, a reference to the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920, a popular belief in Turkey that dangerous internal and external enemies, especially the West, are "conspiring to weaken and carve up the Turkish Republic". ===United States=== The historian Richard Hofstadter addressed the role of paranoia and conspiracism throughout U.S. history in his 1964 essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics". Bernard Bailyn's classic The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) notes that a similar phenomenon could be found in North America during the time preceding the American Revolution. Conspiracism labels people's attitudes and the type of conspiracy theories that are more global and historical in proportion. Harry G. West and others have noted that while conspiracy theorists may often be dismissed as a fringe minority, certain evidence suggests that a wide range of the U.S. believes in conspiracy theories. West also compares those theories to hypernationalism and religious fundamentalism. Theologian Robert Jewett and philosopher John Shelton Lawrence attribute the enduring popularity of conspiracy theories in the U.S. to the Cold War, McCarthyism, and counterculture rejection of authority. They state that among both the left-wing and right-wing, there remains a willingness to use real events, such as Soviet plots, inconsistencies in the Warren Report, and the 9/11 attacks, to support the existence of unverified and ongoing large-scale conspiracies. In his studies of "American political demonology", historian Michael Paul Rogin too analyzed this paranoid style of politics that has occurred throughout American history. Conspiracy theories frequently identify an imaginary subversive group that is supposedly attacking the nation and requires the government and allied forces to engage in harsh extra-legal repression of those threatening subversives. Rogin cites examples from the Red Scares of 1919 to McCarthy's anti-communist campaign in the 1950s and, more recently, fears of immigrant hordes invading the US. Unlike Hofstadter, Rogin saw these "countersubversive" fears as frequently coming from those in power and dominant groups instead of from the dispossessed. Unlike Robert Jewett, Rogin blamed not the counterculture but America's dominant culture of liberal individualism and the fears it stimulated to explain the periodic eruption of irrational conspiracy theories. The Watergate scandal has also been used to bestow legitimacy to other conspiracy theories, with Richard Nixon himself commenting that it served as a "Rorschach ink blot" which invited others to fill in the underlying pattern. Alex Jones referenced numerous conspiracy theories for convincing his supporters to endorse Ron Paul over Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries and Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 United States presidential election. Into the 2020s, the QAnon conspiracy theory alleges that Trump is fighting against a deep-state cabal of child sex-abusing and Satan-worshipping Democrats.	[ "prejudice", "Quassim Cassam", "First Monday (journal)", "Leiden", "anxiety disorder", "Washington, D.C.", "Project MKUltra", "Roger Cohen", "University of Kent", "Ottoman Empire", "Internet", "University of Washington", "social psychology", "Mitt Romney", "historians", "open society", "Christopher Hitchens", "paranoia", "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy", "critical theory", "September 11 attacks", "anomie", "anti-vaccination", "Moon landing conspiracy theories", "Journal of Libertarian Studies", "Antisemitism", "deradicalization", "Frontiers in Psychology", "paranormal", "Democratic Party (United States)", "Praeger Publishers", "medical advice", "historical analysis", "Supply and demand", "schizotypy", "famine", "confirmation bias", "journalist", "Replication crisis", "cabal", "Terrorism", "George Monbiot", "conspiracy", "Western esotericism", "PubPeer", "connotation", "modernity", "alternative medicine", "public health", "apocalypticism", "investigative journalism", "Extremism", "institutional analysis", "The Canberra Times", "The Washington Post", "Historical Social Research", "vaccine-preventable disease", "misinformation", "false flag", "Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski", "far right", "social capital", "QAnon", "NPR", "John F. Kennedy", "The New York Times", "Skeptical Inquirer", "Milton William Cooper", "2016 United States presidential election", "1997 Asian financial crisis", "whistleblower", "11 September attacks", "Richard Hofstadter", "Princeton University Press", "Murray Rothbard", "Rorschach test", "vaccine hesitancy", "Bletchley Park", "QAnon conspiracy theory", "Journal of Biological Sciences", "propaganda", "Political Psychology", "Warren Commission", "negative emotion", "Longman, Green, Longman, & Roberts", "circular reasoning", "Conspiracy Encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Conspiracy Theories", "social alienation", "New York City", "Soviet Union", "Watergate scandal", "Hillary Clinton", "narcissism", "Frontiers in Sociology", "falsifiability", "Kennedy assassination conspiracies", "World War I", "intelligent design", "Bruce Cumings", "Falsifiability", "unforeseen consequence", "scientist", "New World Order conspiracy theory", "Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy", "informed consent", "Treaty of Lausanne", "Humanistic psychologists", "Palgrave Macmillan", "hunger", "Scare tactics", "totalitarianism", "al-Qaeda", "The Open Society and Its Enemies", "Alex Jones", "Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories", "European Journal of Cultural Studies", "Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz", "Noam Chomsky", "conjunction fallacy", "psychological projection", "appeal to emotion", "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", "Affordable Care Act", "PRISM (surveillance program)", "Foreign Policy", "Mustafa Kemal Atatürk", "YouTube", "Treaty of Sèvres", "fundamental attribution error", "Analytical thinking", "Priming (psychology)", "Zionism", "Bloomberg News", "Politico", "chauvinism", "ad hominem", "hypernationalism", "Rothschild family", "false balance", "Arab", "illusory pattern perception", "Epistemology", "2012 Republican Party presidential primaries", "PLOS One", "Jesse Walker", "vaccination", "fallacious arguments", "Global warming conspiracy theory", "Dark triad", "John Wiley & Sons", "The Atlantic", "9/11 conspiracy theories", "folklore", "Richard Nixon", "Zambia", "Barack Obama", "Ron Paul", "Der Spiegel", "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory", "birtherism", "in-group", "Harvard University Press", "Sedition Act of 1918", "Election denial movement in the United States", "Cold War", "Argument from ignorance", "Republican Party (United States)", "Osama bin Laden", "anti-war", "University of Tübingen", "John Birch Society", "Religion (journal)", "mainstream media", "Nazi Germany", "Empowerment", "Brill Publishers", "scientific evidence", "economy", "Donald Trump", "Karl Popper", "Western world", "genocide", "Founding Fathers of the United States", "crisis actor", "Ayman al-Zawahiri", "COINTELPRO", "American Revolution", "climate change", "war on terrorism", "Manichaeism", "Counterculture of the 1960s", "Lee Harvey Oswald", "Oxford University Press", "Big Five personality traits", "war against Islam", "Center for Inquiry", "Michael Paul Rogin", "Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations", "The American Historical Review", "Ashgate Publishing", "proportionality bias", "Michael Kelly (editor)", "King's College London", "Timothy McVeigh", "Vatican conspiracy theories", "Social alienation", "2020 United States presidential election", "tribalism", "cognitive bias", "empathy", "terrorist", "The Monthly", "filter bubble", "civil liberties", "far left", "McCarthyism", "rise of Hitler", "International Jewish conspiracy", "British Journal of Social Psychology", "The Wall Street Journal", "GMO conspiracy theories", "Machiavellianism (psychology)", "Bustle (magazine)", "religious fundamentalism", "Journal of Consumer Research", "Perspectives on Psychological Science", "University of Maryland, College Park", "John Shelton Lawrence", "attribution bias", "Time (magazine)", "John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories", "empowerment", "CIA", "cognitive dissonance", "Annual Review of Psychology", "scientific theory", "IPCC Second Assessment Report", "sheeple", "John F. Kennedy assassination", "Mike Huckabee", "AIDS denialism", "Bernard Bailyn", "J. & A. Churchill", "civil rights", "David Icke", "theories", "blog", "Bruno Latour", "Conspiracy theories in Turkey", "war", "Dissenting opinion", "George W. Bush", "9/11 Truth movement", "Sèvres syndrome", "January 6 United States Capitol attack", "Red Scare", "Marcel Danesi", "water fluoridation", "far-right politics in Australia", "Watergate", "disempowerment", "Deep state in the United States", "cultural phenomenon", "Anti-statism", "assassination attempts on Fidel Castro", "search engine", "randomness", "Nature (journal)", "Monetary policy of China", "Michael Barkun", "millenarianism", "David Robert Grimes", "government transparency", "Islamism", "History of Religions (journal)", "Anders Breivik", "Turkey", "Cui bono", "communal reinforcement", "Michael Shermer", "Routledge", "Justin Fox", "Russell Muirhead", "Diogenes (journal)", "Teach the Controversy", "war against Islam conspiracy theory", "insecure attachment", "Program on International Policy Attitudes", "cooker (slang)", "reproducibility", "cognitive science", "Charles Astor Bristed", "United Kingdom and the American Civil War", "racism", "eyewitness testimony", "circular logic", "authoritarian", "focus group", "Sociologist", "History of the United States", "Oxford English Dictionary", "climate change denial", "Nancy Rosenblum", "FBI Laboratory", "Masonic conspiracy theories", "World Wide Web", "9/11", "witch hunt", "South Africa", "Bureaucracy", "Cynicism (contemporary)", "Brenton Tarrant", "discredited AIDS origins theories", "chemtrail conspiracy theory", "Journal for the Study of the New Testament", "Tuskegee syphilis experiment", "assassination of John F. Kennedy", "mass media", "social media", "secularism", "pseudoscience", "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution", "analytical thinking", "The Paranoid Style in American Politics", "Stephan Lewandowsky", "Lancet MMR autism fraud", "hoax", "Big Pharma conspiracy theory" ]
5,541	Coral Sea Islands	The Coral Sea Islands Territory is an external territory of Australia which comprises a group of small and mostly uninhabited tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, north-east of Queensland, Australia. The only inhabited island is Willis Island. The territory covers , most of which is ocean, extending east and south from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef and includes Heralds Beacon Island, Osprey Reef, the Willis Group and fifteen other reef/island groups. Cato Island is the highest point in the Territory. == History and status == The Coral Sea Islands were first charted in 1803. In the 1870s and 1880s the islands were mined for guano but the absence of a reliable supply of fresh water prevented long-term habitation. and the Department of Transport and Regional Services. It is the only external territory not created by transfer from the United Kingdom or by the mandate of the United Nations. Defence is the responsibility of Australia, and the territory is visited regularly by the Royal Australian Navy. Australia maintains automatic weather stations on many of the isles and reefs, and claims a exclusive fishing zone. There is no economic activity (except for a significant but as yet unquantified charter fishing and diving industry), and only a staff of three or four people to run the meteorological station on Willis Island (South Islet), established in 1921. In November 2011, the Australian government announced that a protected area was planned in the Coral Sea. The Supreme Court of Norfolk Island has jurisdiction over the islands; however, the laws of the Australian Capital Territory apply. The territory's FIPS 10-4 code is CR, whereas ISO 3166 includes it in Australia (AU). In June 2004, a symbolic political protest run by gay rights activists based in Australia, declared the Coral Sea Islands to be a sovereign micronation. On 17 November 2017 the same group declared the kingdom to be 'dissolved', following the results of the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. == Geography == There are about 30 separate reefs and atolls, twelve being wholly submerged or drying only during low tide, and 18 others with a total of about 51 islets and cays (18 alone on the atoll Lihou Reef), some of which are vegetated. The atolls exhibit a wide range of size, from a few kilometres in diameter to perhaps the second largest atoll in the world by total area (including lagoon): Lihou Reef, with a lagoon size of and an area of , which compares to a combined land area of the 18 individual islets of only . The islands are all very low. The Willis Islets are important nesting areas for birds and turtles but contain negligible natural resources. They comprise less than of land. There is no port or harbour, only offshore anchorage. Most of the atolls fall into two groups, while Mellish Reef to the east, and Middleton Reef and Elizabeth Reef to the south are grouped separately: ===Northwestern Group=== Osprey Reef (submerged atoll roughly oval in shape, measuring , covering around , with lagoon up to deep) Shark Reef (small elongated submerged reef south of Osprey Reef, with a minimum depth of ) Bougainville Reef (small submerged atoll, , area with lagoon, dries at half tide) East Holmes Reef (submerged atoll, about , area with lagoon) West Holmes Reef (submerged atoll east of East Holmes Reef, about , area with lagoon that is open on the West side, two small cays) Flora Reef (small submerged atoll, 5 by 4 km, about ) Diane Bank (sunken atoll, depths of less than 10 m over an area of 65 by 25 km, or , along the northern edge 3 m deep, with Sand Cay in the Northwest, 3 m high) North Moore Reef (small submerged atoll, 4 by 3 km, area including lagoon that is open on the Northwest side) South Moore Reef (small submerged reef 5 km South of North Moore Reef) Willis Islets (sunken atoll, bank 45 by 19 km, bank area more than , 3 islets on the Northwestern side: North Cay, Mid Islet almost 8 m high, South Islet or Willis Island 10 m high) Magdelaine Cays & Coringa Islets (one large, partially sunken atoll structure, almost 90 by 30 km, bank area about ), 2 islets of the Magdelaine Cays in the North: North West Islet (area approximately ) and South East Cay (area ); 2 islets of the Coringa Islets 50 to 60 km further Southwest: Southwest Islet or Coringa Islet (area 0.173 km2), and Chilcott Islet (area 0.163 km2) Herald Cays, Northeast Cay (encircled by a reef of 3 by 3 km, total area 6 km2, land area 0.34 km2) Herald Cays, Southwest Cay (4 km Southwest of Northeast Cay, encircled by a reef of 2 by 2 km, total area 3 km2, land area 0.188 km2) Lihou Reef and Cays (largest atoll in the coral sea, with a size of 2500 km2, land area 0.91 km2) Diamond Islets & Tregosse Reefs (large, partially sunken atoll, 100 by 52 km, area of the bank over 3000 km2, with 4 islets and 2 small submerged reefs in the Northeast and Southeast: West Diamond Islet, Central Diamond Islet, East Diamond Islet on the Northeastern rim of the former atoll, and South Diamond Islet, East Tregosse Reef and West Tregosse Reef on the Southern rim) North Flinders Reef (large atoll, 34 by 23 km, area 600 km2, with 2 islets, Flinders Cay being the larger one with a length of 200 m and a height of 3 m) South Flinders Reef (atoll, 15 by 5 km, 60 km2) Herald's Surprise (small submerged reef North of Flinders Reefs, 3 by 2 km) Dart Reef (small submerged reef Northwest of Flinders Reefs, 3 by 3 km, area 6 km2 including small lagoon that is open to the North) Malay Reef (small submerged reef, not clearly defined, no breakers, difficult to see) Abington Reef (submerged reef, nearly awash, 4 by 2.5 km, area 7 km2) Marion Reef (Large circular atoll formation that is composed of three main units located on the Eastern side: Marion, Long and Wansfell; and a number of smaller reefs on the west. The formation sits atop a submarine feature known as the Marion Plateau which is separated from the larger Coral Sea Plateau to the north by the Townsville Trough. Three small sand cays are located on the eastern side of Marion Reef: Paget Cay, on Long Reef, Carola Cay, south of Long Reef, and Brodie Cay, on Wansfell Reef.) The atolls of the Northwestern Group, except Osprey Reef and Shark Reef in the north, and Marion Reef in the south, are located on the Coral Sea Plateau (Queensland Plateau), a contiguous area of depths less than 1000 m. Flinders Reefs (North and South), Herald's Surprise and Dart Reef form a cluster of reefs of 66 by 26 km. Magdelaine Cays, Coringa Islets and Herald Cays are part of the 8856 km2 Coringa-Herald National Nature Reserve, created on 16 August 1982 and located around 400 km east of Cairns and 220 to 320 km from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef. The 6 islets of the nature reserve have areas from 0.16 to 0.37 km2, for a total of 1.24 km2. Lihou Reef was declared a Nature Reserve on 16 August 1982, with an area of 8440 km2. The Nature Reserves were created to protect wildlife in the respective areas of the territory; together they form the Coral Sea Reserves Ramsar Site. ===Mellish Reef=== Mellish Reef, being about 300 km to the east of the Northwestern Group, thus the most distant from the Australian continent of all the reefs and atolls of the Coral Sea Islands Territory, is not considered to be part of any group. It has the outline of a boomerang-shaped platform around 10 km in length and 3 km across, area 25 km2. The surrounding reefs, which enclose a narrow lagoon, are completely submerged at high tide. Near the centre of the lagoon is the only permanent land of the reef - Heralds-Beacon Islet. The island is a small cay measuring 600 m by 120 m, area 57,000 m2, only rising a few ms above the high-water mark. The reef was discovered and named by Captain Alexander Bristow in the whaling ship on 5 April 1812. The wrecked on the reef on 16 August 1856. erected the first beacon on the cay, using wreckage from Duroc. ===Southeasterly Group=== Frederick Reefs: The reefs form a semi-enclosed lagoon, known as Anchorage Sound, with an opening on the North side. The complex measures about 10 by 4 km, with an area of 30 km2. On the southern side of the reef lies Observatory Cay, the only permanently dry land, although there are a few of others cays that can be awash at high tide. Kenn Reefs, submerged atoll of about 15 by 8 km, area 40 km2, islet Observatory Cay in the Southeast, 2 m high Saumarez Reefs, southernmost reefs to be located on the Coral Sea Shelf; three main reefs and numerous smaller reefs that form a large crescent-shaped formation open to the northwest, about 27 by 14 km, area less than 300 km2. There are two sand cays: North East Cay and South West Cay. Wreck Reefs: atoll 25 by 5 km, area 75 km2, open on the North. Islets found on the reefs include Bird Islet, West Islet and Porpoise Cay. Cato Reef: Cato bank 21 by 13 km, area 200 km2 of depths less than 17 m; Cato Reef encircles an area of 3.3 by 1.8 km, area 5 km2 including lagoon; Cato Island, in the West of the lagoon, 650 by 300 m, area 0.15 km2, 6 m high. Close to the Southeast corner of Cato bank is Hutchison Rock, with 1 m depth over. Cato Island is the highest point in the Territory. ===Extreme South=== Elizabeth and Middleton reefs, together with reefs around Lord Howe Island (New South Wales) 150 km to the south, are regarded as the southernmost coral reefs in the world. Their location, where tropical and temperate ocean currents meet, contributes to an unusually diverse assemblage of marine species. These mostly submerged atolls which dry only during low tide were added to the territory only in 1989. They are located on the Lord Howe Rise. Already on 23 December 1987, they were protected as the Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs Marine National Park Reserve, which has an area of 1,880 km2. Elizabeth Reef, atoll about 8.2 km by 5.5 km, area 51 km2 including lagoon, one islet: Elizabeth Island (Elizabeth Cay), no vegetation, 600 m by 400 m (area 0.2 km2), highest point 0.8 m. At low tides, much of the reef flat is exposed. Middleton Reef, atoll about 8.9 km by 6.3 km, area 37 km2 including lagoon, one islet: The Sound, 100 m by 70 m (area 5,000 m2), highest point 1.5 m (close to the northern end). At low tides, much of the reef flat is exposed. ===Overview of islets and cays=== ==Man-made structures== Automatic, unmanned weather stations are located on the following reefs or atolls: Bougainville Reef Cato Island Flinders Reef (Flinders Coral Cay) Frederick Reef Holmes Reef Lihou Reef (Turtle Islet) Marion Reef Moore Reef Lighthouses are located on following reefs or islands: Bougainville Reef East Diamond Islet Frederick Reefs Lihou Reef Saumarez Reef Willis Island, the only inhabited island, has a number of structures.	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5,551	Costa Rica	{{Infobox country \| conventional_long_name = Republic of Costa Rica \| common_name = Costa Rica \| native_name = \| image_flag = Flag of Costa Rica.svg \| image_coat = Coat of arms of Costa Rica.svg \| national_motto = \| national_anthem = "National Anthem of Costa Rica" \| image_map = CRI orthographic.svg \| image_map2 = \| capital = San José \| coordinates = \| largest_city = capital \| official_languages = Spanish \| languages2 = \| languages2_type = Other spoken languages \| ethnic_groups = Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in the Central American region of North America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as maritime border with Ecuador to the south of Cocos Island. It has a population of around five million in a land area of nearly . An estimated 352381 people live in the capital and largest city, San José, with around two million people in the surrounding metropolitan area. The sovereign state is a presidential republic. It has a long-standing and stable constitutional democracy and a highly educated workforce. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Costa Rica was inhabited by indigenous peoples before coming under Spanish rule in the 16th century. It remained a peripheral colony of the empire until independence as part of the First Mexican Empire, followed by membership in the Federal Republic of Central America, from which it formally declared independence in 1847. Following the brief Costa Rican Civil War in 1948, it permanently abolished its army in 1949, becoming one of only a few sovereign nations without a standing army. The country has consistently performed favorably in the Human Development Index (HDI), placing 58th in the world , and fifth in Latin America. It has also been cited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as having attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, with a better record on human development and inequality than the median of the region. It performs well in comparisons of democratic governance, press freedom, subjective happiness and sustainable wellbeing. It has the 26th freest press according to the 2024 Press Freedom Index, it is the 35th most democratic country according to the 2021 Freedom in the World index, and it is the 23rd happiest country in the 2023 World Happiness Report. It is also a major tourist destination in the continent. == History == === Pre-Columbian period === Historians have classified the Indigenous people of Costa Rica as belonging to the Intermediate Area, where the peripheries of the Mesoamerican and Andean native cultures overlapped. More recently, pre-Columbian Costa Rica has also been described as part of the Isthmo-Colombian Area. Stone tools, the oldest evidence of human occupation in Costa Rica, are associated with the arrival of various groups of hunter-gatherers about 10,000 to 7,000 years BCE in the Turrialba Valley. The presence of Clovis culture type spearheads and arrows from South America opens the possibility that, in this area, two different cultures coexisted. Agriculture became evident in the populations that lived in Costa Rica about 5,000 years ago. They mainly grew tubers and roots. For the first and second millennia BCE there were already settled farming communities. These were small and scattered, although the timing of the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture as the main livelihood in the territory is still unknown. The earliest use of pottery appears around 2,000 to 3,000 BCE. Shards of pots, cylindrical vases, platters, gourds, and other vases decorated with grooves, prints, and some modeled after animals have been found. The influence of Indigenous peoples on modern Costa Rican culture has been relatively small compared to other nations since the country lacked a strong native civilization to begin with. Most of the native population was absorbed into the Spanish-speaking colonial society through inter-marriage, except for some small remnants, the most significant of which are the Bribri and Boruca tribes who still inhabit the mountains of the Cordillera de Talamanca, in the southeastern part of Costa Rica, near the frontier with Panama. === Spanish colonization === The name , meaning "rich coast" in the Spanish language, was in some accounts first applied by Christopher Columbus, who sailed to the eastern shores of Costa Rica during his final voyage in 1502, and reported vast quantities of gold jewelry worn by natives. The name may also have come from conquistador Gil González Dávila, who landed on the west coast in 1522, encountered natives, and obtained some of their gold, sometimes by violent theft and sometimes as gifts from local leaders. During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The captaincy general was a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica's distance from the capital of the captaincy in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under mercantilist Spanish law from trade with its southern neighbor Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (i.e. Colombia), and lack of resources such as gold and silver, made Costa Rica into a poor, isolated, and sparsely-inhabited region within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica was described as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America" by a Spanish governor in 1719. Another important factor behind Costa Rica's poverty was the lack of a significant Indigenous population available for (forced labor), which meant most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work on their land, preventing the establishment of large (plantations). For all these reasons, Costa Rica was, by and large, unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. The circumstances during this period are believed to have led to many of the idiosyncrasies for which Costa Rica has become known, while concomitantly setting the stage for Costa Rica's development as a more egalitarian society than the rest of its neighbors. Costa Rica became a "rural democracy" with no oppressed mestizo or indigenous class. It was not long before Spanish settlers turned to the hills, where they found rich volcanic soil and a milder climate than that of the lowlands. === Independence === Like the rest of Central America, Costa Rica never fought for independence from Spain. On 15 September 1821, after the final Spanish defeat in the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821), the authorities in Guatemala declared the independence of all of Central America. That date is still celebrated as Independence Day in Costa Rica even though, technically, under the Spanish Constitution of 1812 that had been readopted in 1820, Nicaragua and Costa Rica had become an autonomous province with its capital in León. On March 3, 1824, the government of the State of Costa Rica officially proposed to the municipality of Nicoya its voluntary incorporation into the country, through a document in which it invited it "if it was convenient to join its Province without going against its will." On July 4, an open town hall was convened in Nicoya to discuss the matter, but attendees declined the invitation under the argument "that this Party... cannot be dissident." On July 25, 1824, a second plebiscite was called in the city of Nicoya. After deliberation, the incorporation into Costa Rica was decided in an open town hall meeting, preparing a record in which the main reasons for it were noted, pointing out the advantages in terms of trade, the desire to participate in the advances that are palpable in Costa Rica, the economic, administrative and public service benefits, the creation of schools, security and quiet, referring to the state of war that Nicaragua was experiencing at that time and the fear that it would spread to the Partido populations, in addition to point out the poverty in which its towns find themselves and the geography of the territory as justifications for the union. Three days later, another similar plebiscite was held in Santa Cruz, with the same result. The election was by majority vote, with 77% of the Party's population in favor of incorporation, and 23% against it. The town of Guanacaste was the only one that declined annexation, due to the ties its residents had with the city of Rivas, Nicaragua. Upon independence, Costa Rican authorities faced the issue of officially deciding the future of the country. Two bands formed: the Imperialists, defended by Cartago and Heredia cities, which were in favor of joining the Mexican Empire, and the Republicans, represented by the cities of San José and Alajuela who defended full independence. Because of the lack of agreement on these two possible outcomes, the first civil war in Costa Rica occurred. The Battle of Ochomogo took place on the Hill of Ochomogo, located in the Central Valley in 1823. The conflict was won by the Republicans and, as a consequence, the city of Cartago lost its status as the capital, which moved to San José. In 1838, long after the Federal Republic of Central America ceased to function in practice, Costa Rica formally withdrew and proclaimed itself sovereign. The considerable distance and poor communication routes between Guatemala City and the Central Plateau, where most of the Costa Rican population lived then and still lives now, meant the local population had little allegiance to the federal government in Guatemala. Since colonial times, Costa Rica has been reluctant to become economically tied with the rest of Central America. Even today, despite most of its neighbors' efforts to increase regional integration, Costa Rica has remained more independent. Until 1849, when it became part of Panama, Chiriquí was part of Costa Rica. Costa Rican pride was assuaged for the loss of this eastern (or southern) territory with the acquisition of Guanacaste, in the north. === Economic growth in the 19th century === Coffee was first planted in Costa Rica in 1808, and by the 1820s, it surpassed tobacco, sugar, and cacao as a primary export. Coffee production remained Costa Rica's principal source of wealth well into the 20th century, creating a wealthy class of growers, the so-called Coffee Barons. The revenue helped to modernize the country. Most of the coffee exported was grown around the main centers of population in the Central Plateau and then transported by oxcart to the Pacific port of Puntarenas after the main road was built in 1846. It soon became a high priority to develop an effective transportation route from the Central Plateau to the Atlantic Ocean. For this purpose, in the 1870s, the Costa Rican government contracted with U.S. businessman Minor C. Keith to build a railroad from San José to the Caribbean port of Limón. Despite enormous difficulties with construction, disease, and financing, the railroad was completed in 1890. Most Afro-Costa Ricans descend from Jamaican immigrants who worked in the construction of that railway and now make up about 3% of Costa Rica's population. U.S. convicts, Italians, and Chinese immigrants also participated in the construction project. In exchange for completing the railroad, the Costa Rican government granted Keith large tracts of land and a lease on the train route, which he used to produce bananas and export them to the United States. As a result, bananas came to rival coffee as the principal Costa Rican export, while foreign-owned corporations (including the United Fruit Company later) began to hold a major role in the national economy and eventually became a symbol of the exploitative export economy. The major labor dispute between the peasants and the United Fruit Company (The Great Banana Strike) was a major event in the country's history and was an important step that would eventually lead to the formation of effective trade unions in Costa Rica, as the company was required to sign a collective agreement with its workers in 1938. ==== 20th century ==== Historically, Costa Rica has generally enjoyed greater peace and more consistent political stability than many of its fellow Latin American nations. Since the late 19th century, however, Costa Rica has experienced two significant periods of violence. In 1917–1919, General Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a military dictator until he was overthrown and forced into exile. The unpopularity of Tinoco's regime led, after he was overthrown, to a considerable decline in the size, wealth, and political influence of the Costa Rican military. In 1948, José Figueres Ferrer led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election between Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia (who had been president between 1940 and 1944) and Otilio Ulate Blanco. With more than 2,000 dead, the resulting 44-day Costa Rican Civil War was the bloodiest event in Costa Rica during the 20th century. The victorious rebels formed a government junta that abolished the military all together and oversaw the drafting of a new constitution by a democratically elected assembly. The country is facing increasing temperatures (especially at higher elevations), rising sea levels on both coasts, and changing rainfall patterns resulting in increased risk of drought along the Pacific slope and flooding in all regions of the country. Increasing temperatures and extreme heat will have major consequences for human health, agriculture (particularly coffee and banana cultivation), water security, tourism, and the country's distinctive biodiversity and ecosystems. === Flora and fauna === Despite its size, Costa Rica is one of the countries with the greatest biodiversity in all of Latin America. One national park, the Corcovado National Park, is internationally renowned among ecologists for its biodiversity (including big cats and tapirs) and is where visitors can expect to see an abundance of wildlife. Corcovado is the one park in Costa Rica where all four Costa Rican monkey species can be found. These include the white-headed capuchin, the mantled howler, the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey, and the Central American squirrel monkey, found only on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and a small part of Panama and considered endangered until 2008 when its status was upgraded to vulnerable. Deforestation, illegal pet trading, and hunting are the main reasons for its threatened status. La Amistad and Chirripó present the climate of the páramo, at a height of more than 3000 meters above sea level, providing other types of flora and fauna, such as the white-nosed coati, the sooty thrush and Rogiera amoena. Costa Rica is the first tropical country to have stopped and reversed deforestation; it has successfully restored its forestry and developed an ecosystem service to teach biologists and ecologists about its environmental protection measures. The country had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.65/10, ranking it 118th globally out of 172 countries. == Economy == The country has been considered economically stable with moderate inflation, estimated at 2.6% in 2017, and moderately high GDP growth, which increased from US$41.3 billion in 2011 to US$52.6 billion in 2015. The estimated GDP for 2018 is US$59.0 billion and the estimated GDP per capita (purchasing power parity) is Intl$17,559.1. A 2017 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that reducing the foreign debt must be a very high priority for the government. Other fiscal reforms were also recommended to moderate the budget deficit. Many foreign companies (manufacturing and services) operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives. According to the government, the zones supported over 82,000 direct jobs and 43,000 indirect jobs in 2015. Companies with facilities in the America Free Zone in Heredia, for example, include Intel, Dell, HP, Bayer, Bosch, DHL, IBM and Okay Industries. Of the 2016 GDP, 5.5% was generated by agriculture, 18.6% by industry, and 75.9% by services. For the region, its unemployment level is moderately high (8.2% in 2016, according to the IMF). Costa Rica has one of the highest standards of living in Central America. High-quality health care is provided by the government at a low cost to the users. Housing is also very affordable. Costa Rica is recognized in Latin America for the quality of its educational system, a result of which is that the country has one of the highest literacy rates in Latin America, 97%. General Basic Education is mandatory and provided without cost to the user. A US government report confirms that the country has "historically placed a high priority on education and the creation of a skilled workforce" but notes that the high school drop-out rate is increasing. As well, Costa Rica would benefit from more courses in languages such as English, Portuguese, Mandarin, and French and also in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Costa Rica would be, according to its leaders, the first country in the world to have launched in 2019 a comprehensive decarbonization plan (net zero carbon emissions by 2050). === Trade and foreign investment === Costa Rica has free trade agreements with many countries, including the US. There are no significant trade barriers that would affect imports and the country has been lowering its tariffs to other Central American countries. The country's Free Trade Zones provide incentives for manufacturing and service industries to operate in Costa Rica. In 2015, the zones supported over 82 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs 2015, and average wages in the FTZ were 1.8 times greater than the average for private enterprise work in the rest of the country. Total imports in that year were US$15 billion. The most significant products imported in 2015 (in order of dollar value) were refined petroleum, automobiles, packaged medications, broadcasting equipment, and computers. The total exports were US$12.6 billion for a trade deficit of US$2.39 billion in 2015. but also other crops, including coffee. Coffee production played a key role in Costa Rica's history and in 2006, was the third cash crop export. Costa Rica has developed a system of payments for environmental services. Similarly, Costa Rica has a tax on water pollution to penalize businesses and homeowners that dump sewage, agricultural chemicals, and other pollutants into waterways. In May 2007, the Costa Rican government announced its intentions to become 100% carbon neutral by 2021. By 2015, 93 percent of the country's electricity came from renewable sources. In 2019, the country produced 99.62% of its electricity from renewable sources and ran completely on renewable sources for 300 continuous days. In 1996, the Forest Law was enacted to provide direct financial incentives to landowners for the provision of environmental services. Attempts by China to invest in upgrading such aspects were "stalled by bureaucratic and legal concerns". The bureaucracy is "often slow and cumbersome". === Tourism === Costa Rica had 2.9 million foreign visitors in 2016, up 10% from 2015. In 2015, the tourism sector was responsible for 5.8% of the country's GDP, or $3.4 billion. In 2016, the highest number of tourists came from the United States, with 1,000,000 visitors, followed by Europe with 434,884 arrivals. According to Costa Rica Vacations, once tourists arrive in the country, 22% go to Tamarindo, 18% go to Arenal, 17% pass through Liberia (where the Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport is located), 16% go to San José, the country's capital (passing through Juan Santamaría International Airport), while 18% choose Manuel Antonio and 7% Monteverde. By 2004, tourism was generating more revenue and foreign exchange than bananas and coffee combined. In 2016, the World Travel & Tourism Council's estimates indicated a direct contribution to the GDP of 5.1% and 110,000 direct jobs in Costa Rica; the total number of jobs indirectly supported by tourism was 271,000. A pioneer of ecotourism, Costa Rica draws many tourists to its extensive series of national parks and other protected areas. The trail Camino de Costa Rica supports this by allowing travelers to walk across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast. In the 2011 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, Costa Rica ranked 44th in the world and second among Latin American countries after Mexico in 2011. By the time of the 2017 report, the country had reached 38th place, slightly behind Panama. The Ethical Traveler group's ten countries on their 2017 list of The World's Ten Best Ethical Destinations includes Costa Rica. The country scored highest in environmental protection among the winners. Costa Rica began reversing deforestation in the 1990s, and they are moving towards using only renewable energy, with 93% of all its energy being renewable. == Government and politics == === Administrative divisions === Costa Rica is composed of seven provinces, which in turn are divided into 82 cantons (, plural ), each of which is directed by a mayor. Mayors are chosen democratically every four years by each canton. There are no provincial legislatures. The cantons are further divided into 488 districts (). === Foreign relations === Costa Rica is an active member of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations University of Peace are based in Costa Rica. It is also a member of many other international organizations related to human rights and democracy, such as the Community of Democracies. The main foreign policy objective of Costa Rica is to foster human rights and sustainable development as a way to secure stability and growth. Costa Rica is a member of the International Criminal Court, without a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the United States military (as covered under Article 98). Costa Rica is an observer of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. On 10 September 1961, some months after Fidel Castro declared Cuba a socialist state, Costa Rican President Mario Echandi ended diplomatic relations with Cuba through Executive Decree Number 2. This freeze lasted 47 years until President Óscar Arias Sánchez re-established normal relations on 18 March 2009, saying, "If we have been able to turn the page with regimes as profoundly different to our reality as occurred with the USSR or, more recently, with the Republic of China, how would we not do it with a country that is geographically and culturally much nearer to Costa Rica?" Arias announced that both countries would exchange ambassadors. Costa Rica has a long-term disagreement with Nicaragua over the San Juan River, which defines the border between the two countries, and Costa Rica's rights of navigation on the river. On 14 July 2009, the International Court of Justice in the Hague upheld Costa Rica's navigation rights for commercial purposes to subsistence fishing on their side of the river. An 1858 treaty extended navigation rights to Costa Rica, but Nicaragua denied passenger travel and fishing were part of the deal; the court ruled Costa Ricans on the river were not required to have Nicaraguan tourist cards or visas as Nicaragua argued, but, in a nod to the Nicaraguans, ruled that Costa Rican boats and passengers must stop at the first and last Nicaraguan port along their route. They must also have an identity document or passport. Nicaragua can also impose timetables on Costa Rican traffic. Nicaragua may require Costa Rican boats to display the flag of Nicaragua but may not charge them for departure clearance from its ports. These were all specific items of contention brought to the court in the 2005 filing. In 2010, there was also a dispute around Isla Calero, and the effects of Nicaraguan dredging of the river in that area. On 1 June 2007, Costa Rica broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan, switching recognition to the People's Republic of China. Costa Rica was the first of the Central American nations to do so. President Óscar Arias Sánchez admitted the action was a response to economic exigency. In response, the PRC built a new, $100 million, state-of-the-art football stadium in Parque la Sabana, in the province of San José. Approximately 600 Chinese engineers and laborers took part in this project, and it was inaugurated in March 2011, with a match between the national teams of Costa Rica and China. Costa Rica finished a term on the United Nations Security Council, having been elected for a nonrenewable, two-year term in the 2007 election. Its term expired on 31 December 2009; this was Costa Rica's third time on the Security Council. Elayne Whyte Gómez is the Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN Office at Geneva (2017) and President of the United Nations Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons. Costa Rica is the 58th most peaceful country in the world, according to the 2024 Global Peace Index. === Pacifism === On 1 December 1948, Costa Rica abolished its military force. In 1949, the abolition of the military was introduced in Article 12 of the Costa Rican Constitution. The budget previously dedicated to the military is now dedicated to providing health care services and education. According to Deutsche Welle, "Costa Rica is known for its stable democracy, progressive social policies, such as free, compulsory public education, high social well-being, and emphasis on environmental protection." For law enforcement, Costa Rica has the Public Force of Costa Rica police agency. In 2017, Costa Rica signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. === Leadership in World governance initiatives === Costa Rica has been one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, in 1968, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the Constitution for the Federation of Earth. Francisco Orlich Bolmarcich, then president of Costa Rica signed the agreement to convene a World Constituent Assembly along with former presidents José Figueres Ferrer and Otilio Ulate Blanco. The BOGA campaign was presented in the COP26 Climate Summit, where Sweden joined as a core member, while New Zealand and Portugal joined as associate members. == Demographics == The 2022 census counted a total population of 5,044,197 people. In 2011 data for the following groups were: 83.6% whites or mestizos, 6.7% mulattoes, 2.4% Native American, 1.1% black or Afro-Caribbean; the census showed 1.1% as Other, 2.9% (141,304 people) as None, and 2.2% (107,196 people) as unspecified. In 2011, there were over 104,000 Native American or indigenous inhabitants, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (in the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (northern Alajuela), Bribri (southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Ngäbe (southern Costa Rica, along the Panamá border), Boruca (southern Costa Rica) and (southern Costa Rica). The population includes European Costa Ricans (of European ancestry), primarily of Spanish descent, The 2011 census classified 83.6% of the population as white or Mestizo; the latter are persons of combined European and Amerindian descent. The Mulatto segment (mix of white and black) represented 6.7% and Indigenous people made up 2.4% of the population. Some Nicaraguans migrate for seasonal work opportunities and then return to their country. Costa Rica took in many refugees from a range of other Latin American countries fleeing civil wars and dictatorships during the 1970s and 1980s, notably from Chile and Argentina, as well as people from El Salvador who fled from guerrillas and government death squads. According to the World Bank, in 2010 about 489,200 immigrants lived in the country, many from Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, while 125,306 Costa Ricans live abroad in the United States, Panama, Nicaragua, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. The number of migrants declined in later years but in 2015, there were some 420,000 immigrants in Costa Rica and the number of asylum seekers (mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua) rose to more than 110,000, a fivefold increase from 2012. In 2016, the country was called a "magnet" for migrants from South and Central America and other countries who were hoping to reach the U.S. === Largest cantons === === Religion === {{Pie chart \|thumb = right \|caption = Religion in Costa Rica (CIEP 2018) The Latinobarómetro survey of 2017 found that 57% of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholics, 25% are Evangelical Protestants, 15% report that they do not have a religion, and 2% declare that they belong to another religion. This survey indicated a decline in the share of Catholics and rise in the share of Protestants and irreligious. Most Buddhists are members of the Han Chinese community of about 40,000 with some new local converts. There is also a small Muslim community of about 500 families or 0.001% of the population. The Sinagoga Shaarei Zion synagogue is near La Sabana Metropolitan Park in San José. Several homes in the neighborhood east of the park display the Star of David and other Jewish symbols. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints claims more than 35,000 members, and has a temple in San José that served as a regional worship center for Costa Rica. However, they represent less than 1% of the population. === Languages === The primary language spoken in Costa Rica is Spanish, which features characteristics distinct to the country, a form of Central American Spanish. Costa Rica is a linguistically diverse country and home to at least five living local indigenous languages spoken by the descendants of pre-Columbian peoples: Maléku, Cabécar, Bribri, Guaymí, and Buglere. Of native languages still spoken, primarily in indigenous reservations, the most numerically important are the Bribri, Maléku, Cabécar and Ngäbere languages; some of these have several thousand speakers in Costa Rica while others have a few hundred. Some languages, such as Teribe and Boruca, have fewer than a thousand speakers. The Buglere language and the closely related Guaymí are spoken by some in southeast Puntarenas. A Creole-English language, Jamaican patois (also known as Mekatelyu), is an English-based Creole language spoken by the Afro-Carib immigrants who have settled primarily in Limón Province along the Caribbean coast. == Culture == Costa Rica was the point where the Mesoamerican and South American native cultures met. The northwest of the country, the Nicoya peninsula, was the southernmost point of Nahuatl cultural influence when the Spanish conquerors (conquistadores) came in the 16th century. The central and southern portions of the country had Chibcha influences. The Atlantic coast, meanwhile, was populated with African workers during the 17th and 18th centuries. As a result of the immigration of Spaniards, their 16th-century Spanish culture and its evolution marked everyday life and culture until today, with the Spanish language and the Catholic religion as primary influences. The Department of Culture, Youth, and Sports is in charge of the promotion and coordination of cultural life. The work of the department is divided into the Direction of Culture, Visual Arts, Scenic Arts, Music, Patrimony, and the System of Libraries. Permanent programs, such as the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica and the Youth Symphony Orchestra, are conjunctions of two areas of work: Culture and Youth. Dance-oriented genres, such as soca, salsa, bachata, merengue, cumbia and Costa Rican swing, are enjoyed increasingly by older rather than younger people. The guitar is popular, especially as an accompaniment to folk dances; however, the marimba was made the national instrument. In November 2017, National Geographic magazine named Costa Rica as the happiest country in the world, and the country routinely ranks high in various happiness metrics. The article included this summary: "Costa Ricans enjoy the pleasure of living daily life to the fullest in a place that mitigates stress and maximizes joy". It is not surprising then that one of the most recognizable phrases among "Ticos" is "Pura Vida", pure life in a literal translation. It reflects the inhabitant's philosophy of life, denoting a simple life, free of stress, a positive, relaxed feeling. The expression is used in various contexts in conversation. Often, people walking down the streets, or buying food at shops say hello by saying Pura Vida. It can be phrased as a question or as an acknowledgment of one's presence. A recommended response to "How are you?" would be "Pura Vida." In that usage, it might be translated as "awesome", indicating that all is very well. however, the country is said to be the happiest in Latin America. Reasons include the high level of social services, the caring nature of its inhabitants, long life expectancy and relatively low corruption. === Cuisine === Costa Rican cuisine is a blend of Native American, Spanish, African, and many other cuisines origins. Dishes such as the very traditional tamale and many others made of corn are the most representative of its indigenous inhabitants, and similar to other neighboring Mesoamerican countries. Spaniards brought many new ingredients to the country from other lands, especially spices and domestic animals. Later in the 19th century, the African flavor lent its presence with influence from other Caribbean mixed flavors. This is how Costa Rican cuisine today is very varied, with every new ethnic group who had recently become part of the country's population influencing the country's cuisine. === Sports === Costa Rica entered the Summer Olympics for the first time in 1936. The sisters Silvia and Claudia Poll have won all four of the country's Olympic Medals for swimming; one Gold, one Silver, and two Bronze. Football is the most popular sport in Costa Rica. The national team has played in five FIFA World Cup tournaments and reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 2014. Its best performance in the regional CONCACAF Gold Cup was runner-up in 2002. Paulo Wanchope, a forward who played for three clubs in England's Premier League in the late 1990s and early 2000s, is credited with enhancing foreign recognition of Costa Rican football. Costa Rica, along with Panama, was granted the hosting rights of 2020 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, which was postponed until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 17 November 2020, FIFA announced that the event would be held in Costa Rica in 2022. As of late 2021, Costa Rica's women's national volleyball team has been the top team in Central America's AFECAVOL (Asociación de Federaciones CentroAmericanas de Voleibol) zone. Costa Rica featured a women's national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 NORCECA Beach Volleyball Continental Cup. == Education == The literacy rate in Costa Rica is approximately 97 percent and English is widely spoken primarily due to Costa Rica's tourism industry. Universal public education is guaranteed in the constitution; primary education is obligatory, and both preschool and secondary school are free. Students who finish 11th grade receive a Costa Rican Bachillerato Diploma accredited by the Costa Rican Ministry of Education. There are both state and private universities. The state-funded University of Costa Rica has been awarded the title "Meritorious Institution of Costa Rican Education and Culture" and hosts around 25,000 students who study at numerous campuses established around the country. A 2016 report by the U.S. government report identifies the current challenges facing the education system, including the high dropout rate among secondary school students. The country needs even more workers who are fluent in English and languages such as Portuguese, Mandarin, and French. It would also benefit from more graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, according to the report. == Health == According to the UNDP, in 2010, the life expectancy at birth for Costa Ricans was 79.3 years. The Nicoya Peninsula is considered one of the Blue Zones in the world, where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years. The New Economics Foundation (NEF) ranked Costa Rica first in its 2009 Happy Planet Index, and once again in 2012. The index measures the health and happiness they produce per unit of environmental input. According to NEF, Costa Rica's lead is due to its very high life expectancy which is second highest in the Americas, and higher than the United States. The country also experienced well-being higher than many richer nations and a per capita ecological footprint one-third the size of the United States'. In 2002, there were 0.58 new general practitioner (medical) consultations 0.33 new specialist consultations per capita, and a hospital admission rate of 8.1%. Preventive health care is also successful. In 2002, 96% of Costa Rican women used some form of contraception, and antenatal care services were provided to 87% of all pregnant women. All children under one have access to well-baby clinics, and the immunization coverage rate in 2020 was above 95% for all antigens. Costa Rica has a very low malaria incidence of 48 per 100,000 in 2000 and no reported cases of measles in 2002. The perinatal mortality rate dropped from 12.0 per 1000 in 1972 to 5.4 per 1000 in 2001. Costa Rica has been cited as Central America's great health success story. Its healthcare system is ranked higher than that of the United States, despite Costa Rica's much lower GDP. Before 1940, government hospitals and charities provided most health care. But since the 1941 creation of the Social Insurance Administration (Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social – CCSS), Costa Rica has provided universal health care to its wage-earning residents, with coverage extended to dependants over time. In 1973, the CCSS took over administration of all 29 of the country's public hospitals and all health care, also launching a Rural Health Program (Programa de Salud Rural) for primary care in rural areas, later extended to primary care services nationwide. In 1993, laws were passed to enable elected health boards that represented health consumers, social insurance representatives, employers, and social organizations. By 2000, social health insurance coverage was available to 82% of the Costa Rican population. Each health committee manages an area equivalent to one of the 83 administrative cantons of Costa Rica. There is limited use of private, for-profit services (around 14.4% of the national total health expenditure). About 7% of GDP is allocated to the health sector, and over 70% is government-funded. Primary health care facilities in Costa Rica include health clinics, with a general practitioner, nurse, clerk, pharmacist, and a primary health technician. In 2008, there were five specialty national hospitals, three general national hospitals, seven regional hospitals, 13 peripheral hospitals, and 10 major clinics serving as referral centers for primary care clinics, which also deliver biopsychosocial services, family and community medical services, and promotion and prevention programs. Patients can choose private health care to avoid waiting lists. Costa Rica is among the Latin American countries that have become popular destinations for medical tourism. In 2006, Costa Rica received 150,000 foreigners that came for medical treatment. Costa Rica is particularly attractive to Americans due to geographic proximity, high quality of medical services, and lower medical costs.	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5,552	History of Costa Rica	The first indigenous peoples of Costa Rica were hunters and gatherers, and when the Spanish conquerors arrived, Costa Rica was divided in two distinct cultural areas due to its geographical location in the Intermediate Area, between Mesoamerican and the Andean cultures, with influences of both cultures. During this period, Costa Rica remained sparsely developed and impoverished. Following the Mexican War of Independence (1810–1821), Costa Rica became part of the First Mexican Empire in 1821. In 1823, Costa Rica joined the Federal Republic of Central America, but degrading relations with the other states caused it to secede in 1838. But following its independence, its economy struggled due to a lack of connections with European suppliers. In 1856, Costa Rica, along with several other Central American countries, joined the Filibuster War to prevent William Walker from mounting a take-over of the Nicaraguan government. After 1869, Costa Rica established a democratic government. The central and southern portions of the country belonged to the Isthmo-Colombian cultural area with strong Muisca influences, as these were part of territories occupied predominantly by speakers of the Chibchan languages. The Diquis culture flourished from 700 CE to 1530 CE and were well known for their crafts in metal and stonework. The indigenous people have influenced modern Costa Rican culture to a relatively small degree. In the years soon after European encounter, many of the people died due to infectious diseases, such as measles and smallpox, which were endemic among the Europeans but to which they had no immunity. ==Spanish colonization== The colonial period began when Christopher Columbus reached the eastern coast of Costa Rica on his fourth voyage on September 18, 1502. Numerous subsequent Spanish expeditions followed, eventually leading to the first Spanish colony in Costa Rica, , founded in 1524. During most of the colonial period, Costa Rica was the southernmost province of the Captaincy General of Guatemala, which was nominally part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (i.e., Mexico). In practice it operated as a largely autonomous entity within the Spanish Empire. Costa Rica's distance from the capital in Guatemala, its legal prohibition under Spanish law against trading with its southern neighbors in Panama, then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada (i.e., Colombia), and the lack of resources such as gold and silver, resulted in Costa Rica attracting few inhabitants. It was a poor, isolated, and sparsely inhabited region within the Spanish Empire. A Spanish governor in 1719 described Costa Rica as "the poorest and most miserable Spanish colony in all America." Many historians say that the area suffered a lack of indigenous population available for forced labor, which meant that most of the Costa Rican settlers had to work their own land. This prevented the establishment of large haciendas. For all these reasons Costa Rica was by and large unappreciated and overlooked by the Spanish Crown and left to develop on its own. The small landowners' relative poverty, the lack of a large indigenous labor force, the population's ethnic and linguistic homogeneity, and Costa Rica's isolation from the Spanish colonial centers in Mexico and the Andes, all contributed to the development of an autonomous and individualistic agrarian society. Even the Governor had to farm his own crops and tend to his own garden due to his poverty. The failure to build a colonial society based on indigenous and slave labor led to a peasant economy in the 1700s. During the time of conquest, as many as twenty distinct indigenous societies, numbering in the hundreds of thousands and speaking many different languages, inhabited the area. After the declaration of independence, the New Spain parliament intended to establish a commonwealth whereby the King of Spain, Ferdinand VII, would also be Emperor of New Spain, but in which both countries were to be governed by separate laws and with their own legislative offices. Should the king refuse the position, the law provided for a member of the House of Bourbon to accede to the New Spain throne. Ferdinand VII did not recognize the colony's independence and said that Spain would not allow any other European prince to take the throne of New Spain. By request of Parliament, the president of the regency, Agustín de Iturbide, was proclaimed emperor of New Spain, which was renamed Mexico. The Mexican Empire was the official name given to this monarchical regime from 1821 to 1823. The territory of the Mexican Empire included the continental intendancies and provinces of New Spain proper (including those of the former Captaincy General of Guatemala) (See: Central America under Mexican rule). On 5 April 1823 the Battle of Ochomogo was fought between imperialist forces from Cartago led by Joaquín de Oreamuno who wanted to join the Mexican Empire and republican forces led by Gregorio José Ramírez who preferred to remain independent. The Republicans won and the capital was moved from Cartago to San José. As early as then, Costa Ricans already had overseas impact since Costa Ricans were one of the Latin American nationalities that had soldiers and officers in the Philippines who supported their Emperor, Andrés Novales in his failed revolt against Spain. ==Central America== In 1823, a revolution in Mexico ousted Emperor Agustín de Iturbide. A new Mexican congress voted to allow the Central American Intendancies to decide their own fate. That year, the United Provinces of Central America was formed of the five Central American Intendancies under General Manuel José Arce. The Intendancies took the new name of States. The United Provinces federation, not strongly united to begin with, rapidly disintegrated under the pressures of intra-provincial rivalries. Following its secession from the Federal Republic of Central America in 1838, Costa Rica had no regular trade routes established to export their coffee to European markets. Lack of infrastructure caused problems in transportation: the coffee-growing areas were mainly in the Central Valley and had access only to the port of Puntarenas on the Pacific coast. Before the Panama Canal opened, ships from Europe had to sail around Cape Horn in order to get to the Pacific Coast. In 1843, the country established a trade route to Europe with the help of William Le Lacheur, a Guernsey merchant and shipowner. In 1856, William Walker, an American filibuster, began incursions into Central America. After landing in Nicaragua, he proclaimed himself as president of Nicaragua and re-instated slavery, which had been abolished. He intended to expand into Costa Rica and after he entered that territory, the country declared war against his forces. Led by Commander in Chief of the Army of Costa Rica, President Juan Rafael Mora Porras, the filibusters were defeated and forced out of the country. Costa Rican forces followed the filibusters into Rivas, Nicaragua, where in a final battle, William Walker and his forces were finally pushed back. In this final battle, Juan Santamaría, a drummer boy from Alajuela, lost his life torching the filibusters' stronghold. He is today remembered as a national hero. ==Republic== An era of peaceful democracy in Costa Rica began in 1869 with elections. Costa Rica has avoided much of the violence that has plagued Central America. Since the late nineteenth century, only two brief periods of violence have marred its republican development. In 1917–19, Federico Tinoco Granados ruled as a dictator. In 1948, José Figueres Ferrer led an armed uprising in the wake of a disputed presidential election. "With more than 2,000 dead, the 44-day Costa Rican Civil War resulting from this uprising was the bloodiest event in twentieth-century Costa Rican history." The victorious junta drafted a constitution guaranteeing free elections with universal suffrage and the abolition of the military. Figueres became a national hero, winning the first election under the new constitution in 1953. Since then Costa Rica has been one of the few democracies to operate without a standing army. The nation has held 17 successive presidential elections, all peaceful, the latest being in 2022. In May 2022, Costa Rica's new president Rodrigo Chaves, right-wing former finance minister, was sworn in for a four-year presidential term. He had won the election runoff against former president Jose María Figueres. Costa Rica's economy went under a transformation in 1978. The country went from being "an economic development success story" to entering a severe socio-economic crisis. Costa Rica relied on the exportation of bananas and coffee. In 1978, coffee prices dropped, and its revenues declined. In 1979, the price of oil, a main imported item, increased sharply and rapidly, plunging the country into crisis. In order to help improve the economy, President Rodrigo Carazo continued to borrow money internationally. This led the country into further debt. Once a largely agricultural country, Costa Rica has transformed to relying on technology industry and services, and eco-tourism. Costa Rica's major source of export income is technology-based. Microsoft, Motorola, Intel and other technology-related firms have established operations in Costa Rica. Local companies create and export software as well as other computer-related products. Tourism is growing at an accelerated pace, and many believe that income from this tourism may soon become the major contributor to the nation's GDP. Traditional agriculture, particularly coffee and bananas, continues to be an important part of Costa Rica's exports.	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5,553	Geography of Costa Rica	Costa Rica is located on the Central American Isthmus, surrounding the point 10° north of the equator and 84° west of the prime meridian. It has 212 km of Caribbean Sea coastline and 1,016 on the North Pacific Ocean. The area is 51,100 km2 of which 40 km2 is water. It is slightly smaller than Bosnia and Herzegovina. == Geology == Costa Rica is located on the Caribbean Plate. It borders the Cocos Plate in the Pacific Ocean which is being subducted beneath it. This forms the volcanoes in Costa Rica, also known as the Central America Volcanic Arc. The Caribbean Plate began its eastward migration during the Late Cretaceous. During the Late Paleocene, a local sea-level low-stand assisted by the continental uplift of the western margin of South America, resulted in a land bridge over which several groups of mammals apparently took part in an interchange. Many earthquakes in Costa Rica have occurred. ==Political and human geography== Costa Rica shares a border with Nicaragua to the north, and a 348-km border with Panama to the south. Costa Rica claims an exclusive economic zone of with and a territorial sea of . Land use: Arable land: 4.8%. Permanent crops: 6.66%. Other: 88.54%. Administrative divisions of Costa Rica include 7 provinces, 82 cantons, and 478 districts. There are also 24 indigenous territories. ==Physical geography== === Islands === There are about 79 islands of Costa Rica, the most remote being Cocos Island and the largest being Isla Calero. ===Mountain ranges=== The nation's coastal plain is separated by the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera de Talamanca, which form the spine of the country and separate the Pacific and Caribbean drainage divides. The Cordillera de Guanacaste is in the north near the border with Nicaragua and forms part of the Continental Divide of the Americas. Much of the Cordillera de Talamanca is included in the La Amistad International Park, which is shared between Costa Rica and Panama. It contains the country's highest peaks: the Cerro Chirripó and the Cerro Kamuk. Much of the region is covered by the Talamancan montane forests. It also includes the Cerros de Escazú which borders the Costa Rican Central Valley to the south. === Hydrology === Interrogate land covers 1,031 km2. Rivers of Costa Rica all drain into the Caribbean or the Pacific. === Extreme points === Cocos Island is the southwestern extreme of the country. Otherwise to the north it's Peñas Blancas, to the south and east one of manyPanama border, and to the west the Santa Elena Peninsula. The lowest point is sea level, and the tallest is Colero Chillido: at 3810 m which is the biggest. == Climate == The climate is tropical. Hot season (December to April); rainy season (May to November); cooler in highlands. Because Costa Rica is located between 8 and 12 degrees north of the Equator, the climate is tropical year round. However, the country has many microclimates depending on elevation, rainfall, topography, and by the geography of each particular region. Costa Rica's seasons are defined by how much rain falls during a particular period. The year can be split into two periods, the dry season known to the residents as summer (), and the rainy season, known locally as winter (). The "summer" or dry season goes from December to April, and "winter" or rainy season goes from May to November, which almost coincides with the Atlantic hurricane season, and during this time, it rains constantly in some regions. The location receiving the most rain is the Caribbean slopes of the Cordillera Central mountains, with an annual rainfall of over . Humidity is also higher on the Caribbean side than on the Pacific side. The mean annual temperature on the coastal lowlands is around , in the main populated areas of the Cordillera Central, and below on the summits of the highest mountains. === Climate change === Costa Rica is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, which can be exacerbated by climate change. The majority of Costa Rica’s population (78%) and economic activity (80% of GDP) are concentrated in regions highly vulnerable to various natural hazards, such as floods, landslides, cyclones, storm surges, and rising sea levels. Sea levels are rising along both of Costa Rica's coasts, increasing the vulnerability of low-lying areas to storm surges and erosion with consequences for fisheries, port infrastructure and tourism. The country is facing increasing temperatures (especially at higher elevations), and changing rainfall patterns resulting in increased risk of drought along the Pacific slope and flooding in all regions of the country. Costa Rica has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 9.11 MtCO2e by 2030 and net zero by 2050, announced in its National Decarbonisation Plan (NDP). According to Climate Action Tracker, Costa Rica has made good progress toward its climate goals. == Flora and fauna == Costa Rica is a biodiversity hotspot. While the country has only about 0.03% of the world's landmass, it contains 5% of the world's biodiversity. It is home to about 12,119 species of plants, of which 950 are endemic. There are 117 native trees and more than 1,400 types of orchids; a third of them can be found in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Almost a half of the country's land is covered by forests, though only 3.5% is covered by primary forests. The diversity of wildlife in Costa Rica is very high; there are 441 species of amphibians and reptiles, 838 species of birds, 232 species of mammals and 181 species of fresh water fish. Costa Rica has high levels of endemism; 81 species of amphibians and reptiles, 17 species of birds and 7 species of mammals are endemic to the country. However, many species are endangered. According to the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, 209 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and plants are endangered. Some of the country's most endangered species are the harpy eagle, the giant anteater, the golden toad and the jaguar. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reports the golden toad as extinct. Over 25% of Costa Rica's national territory is protected by the National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), which oversees all of the country's protected areas. There 29 national parks of Costa Rica many conservation areas of Costa Rica. Together protected areas comprise over one-fourth of Costa Rican territory. 9.3% of the country is protected under IUCN categories I-V. Around 25% of the country's land area is in protected national parks and protected areas, the largest percentage of protected areas in the world (developing world average 13%, developed world average 8%). Tortuguero National Park is home to monkeys, sloths, birds, and a variety of reptiles. The Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve is home to about 2,000 plant species, including numerous orchids. Over 400 types of birds and more than 100 species of mammals can be found there. The Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad is allowed to collect royalties on any biological discoveries of medical importance. Costa Rica is a center of biological diversity for reptiles and amphibians, including the world's fastest running lizard, the spiny-tailed iguana (Ctenosaura similis). ==Natural resources== Hydropower is produced from Lake Arenal, the largest lake in Costa Rica. Total renewable water resources is 112.4 km3. Freshwater withdrawal is 5.77 km3/year (15%/9%/77%), or per capita: 1,582 m3/year. Agriculture is the largest water user demanding around 53% of total supplies while the sector contributes 6.5% to the Costa Rica GDP. Both total and per capita water usage is very high in comparison to other Central American countries but when measured against available freshwater sources, Costa Rica uses only 5% of its available supply. Increasing urbanization will put pressure on water resources management in Costa Rica. == Gallery == File:Costa Rica map shaded relief.png\|Shaded relief map of Costa Rica File:Costa Rica map detail.PNG\|Map of Costa Rica File:Costa Rica Topography.png\|Topography of Costa Rica	[ "Térraba River", "Central America", "Equator", "plant", "Bosnia and Herzegovina", "exclusive economic zone", "Overseas Development Institute", "Ramsar Convention", "Convention on Biological Diversity", "harpy eagle", "mammal", "Colero Chillido", "Cordillera Central (Costa Rica)", "List of national parks of Costa Rica", "Atlantic hurricane season", "Kyoto Protocol", "Montreal Protocol", "Tropical climate", "Americas", "amphibians", "orchid", "Late Paleocene", "resplendent quetzal", "List of volcanoes in Costa Rica", "Limón International Airport", "endemism", "keel-billed toucan", "Nicaragua", "Cocos Plate", "biodiversity", "Costa Rican Central Valley", "Deutscher Wetterdienst", "Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna", "climate change", "Cerro Chirripó", "Isla Calero", "Cerro Kamuk", "Pacific Ocean", "Juan Santamaría International Airport", "water resources management in Costa Rica", "International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling", "Deforestation in Costa Rica", "biodiversity hotspot", "jaguar", "Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping Wastes and Other Matter", "Mount Chirripó", "Talamancan montane forests", "Lake Arenal", "Wildlife of Costa Rica", "Convention on Fishing and Conservation of Living Resources of the High Seas", "Central America Volcanic Arc", "Territorial waters", "List of islands of Costa Rica", "Instituto Meteorologico Nacional", "Subduction", "golden toad", "drainage divide", "giant anteater", "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea", "List of earthquakes in Costa Rica", "Panama", "Caribbean Plate", "Gross domestic product", "World Conservation Monitoring Centre", "Tortuguero National Park", "greenhouse gas", "three-wattled bellbird", "National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration", "Administrative divisions of Costa Rica", "prime meridian", "amphibian", "Indigenous territories of Costa Rica", "Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve", "Basel Convention", "Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad", "List of Faults in Costa Rica", "Cordillera de Guanacaste", "Cocos Island", "reptile", "List of districts of Costa Rica", "provinces of Costa Rica", "National System of Conservation Areas", "microclimate", "Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty", "cantons of Costa Rica", "United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification", "Net-zero emissions", "Costa Rica", "Continental Divide of the Americas", "La Amistad International Park", "List of Conservation Areas of Costa Rica", "List of rivers of Costa Rica", "Late Cretaceous", "Ctenosaura similis", "scarlet macaw", "Cerros de Escazú", "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change", "Caribbean Sea", "equator", "Central American Isthmus", "International Union for Conservation of Nature", "Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques", "Cordillera de Talamanca", "WP:SDNONE", "Hydropower", "endangered", "bare-necked umbrellabird", "bird" ]
5,554	Demographics of Costa Rica	This is a demographic article about Costa Rica's population, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population. According to the United Nations, Costa Rica had an estimated population of people as of 2021. White and Mestizos make up 83.4% of the population, 7% are black people (including mixed race), 2.4% Amerindians, 0.2% Chinese and 7% other/none. In 2010, just under 3% of the population was of African descent. These are called Afro-Costa Ricans or West Indians and are English-speaking descendants of 19th-century black Jamaican immigrant workers. Another 1% is composed of those of Chinese origin, and less than 1% are West Asian, mainly of Lebanese descent but also Palestinians. The 2011 Census provided the following data: whites and mestizos make up 83.4% of the population, 7% are black people (including mixed race), 2.4% Amerindians, 0.2% Chinese, and 7% other/none. Immigration to Costa Rica made up 9% of the population in 2012. This included permanent settlers as well as migrants who were hoping to reach the U.S. In 2015, there were some 420,000 immigrants in Costa Rica and the number of asylum seekers (mainly from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua) rose to more than 110,000. An estimated 10% of the Costa Rican population in 2014 was made up of Nicaraguans. The indigenous population today numbers about 60,000 (just over 1% of the population), with some Miskito and Garifuna (a population of mixed African and Carib Amerindian descent) living in the coastal regions. Costa Rica's emigration is the smallest in the Caribbean Basin and is among the smallest in the Americas. By 2015 about just 133,185 (2.77%) of the country's people live in another country as immigrants. The main destination countries are the United States (85,924), Nicaragua (10,772), Panama (7,760), Canada (5,039), Spain (3,339), Mexico (2,464), Germany (1,891), Italy (1,508), Guatemala (1,162) and Venezuela (1,127). ==Population size and structure== In , Costa Rica had a population of . The population is increasing at a rate of 1.5% per year. According to current trends, the population will increase to 9,158,000 in about 46 years. The population density is 94 people per square km, the third highest in Central America. Approximately 20% lived in rural areas and 80% in urban areas. The rate of urbanization estimated for the period 2005–2015 is 2.74% per annum, one of the highest among developing countries. About 75% of the population live in the upper lands (above 500 meters), where the temperature is cooler and milder. The 2011 census counted a population of 4.3 million people distributed among the following groups: 83.6% whites or Mestizos, 6.7% black mixed race, 2.4% Native American, 1.1% Black or Afro-Caribbean; the census showed 1.1% as Other, 2.9% (141,304 people) as None, and 2.2% (107,196 people) as unspecified. In 2011, there were over 104,000 Native American or indigenous inhabitants, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them lived in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (in the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (northern Alajuela), Bribri (southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Guaymí (southern Costa Rica, along the Panamá border), Boruca (southern Costa Rica) and Térraba (southern Costa Rica). Costa Ricans of European origin are primarily of Spanish descent, with significant numbers of Italian, German, English, Dutch, French, Irish, Portuguese, and Polish families, as well as a sizable Jewish community. The majority of the Afro-Costa Ricans are Creole English-speaking descendants of 19th century black Jamaican immigrant workers. The 2011 census classified 83.6% of the population as white or Mestizo; the latter have combined European and Native American descent. The Mulatto segment (mix of white and black) represented 6.7%, and Indigenous people made up 2.4% of the population. \|titlestyle = background:#EEBC35; }} ==Vital statistics== (c) = Census results. ===Current vital statistics === ===Life expectancy at birth=== Source: UN World Population Prospects ==Ethnic groups== According to census data the vast majority of the population identifies itself as white or mestizo. The indigenous Amerindian population only constitutes 2.4% of the population in 2011, but has gone up from only 0.3% in 1950. About 7% has African roots. ===European Costa Ricans=== European Costa Ricans are people from Costa Rica whose ancestry lies within the continent of Europe, most notably Spain. According to DNA studies, around 75% of the population have some level of European ancestry. According to CIA Factbook, Costa Rica has a white or mestizo population of 83.6%. Costa Rica was part of the Spanish Empire and colonized by Spaniards mostly Castilians, Basque and Sephardic Jews. After independence, large migrations of wealthy Americans, Germans, French and British businessmen Later, smaller migrations of Italians, Spaniards (mostly Catalans) and Arabs (mostly Lebanese and Syrians) took place. These migrants arrived fleeing economic crisis in their home countries, setting in large, more closed colonies. \|label1 = Catholicism \|value1 = 70.5 \|color1 = DodgerBlue \|label2 = Protestantism \|value2 = 13.8 \|color2 = DarkOrchid \|label3 = Irreligion \|value3 = 11.3 \|color3 = Gray \|label4 = Buddhism \|value4 = 2.1 \|color4 = Gold \|label5 = Other religions \|value5 = 2.2 \|color5 = Red }} According to the World Factbook, the main faiths are Roman Catholic (76.3%), Evangelical (13.7%), Jehovah's Witnesses (1.3%), other Protestant (0.7%), other (4.8%), and none (3.2%). The most recent nationwide survey of religion in Costa Rica, conducted in 2007 by the University of Costa Rica, found that 70.5 percent of the population identify themselves as Roman Catholics (with 44.9 percent practicing, 25.6 percent nonpracticing), 13.8 percent are Evangelical Protestants, 11.3 percent report that they do not have a religion, and 4.3 percent declare that they belong to another religion. Apart from the dominant Catholic religion, several other religious groups exist in the country. Although they represent less than 1 percent of the population, Jehovah's Witnesses have a strong presence on the Caribbean coast. That same article provides for freedom of religion. The government respects this right. The vast majority were born in Nicaragua (287,766). Other countries of origin were Colombia (20,514), United States (16,898), Spain (16,482) and Panama (11,250). Outward remittances were $246,000,000 in 2006. ===Migrants=== According to the World Bank, about 489,200 migrants lived in the country in 2010; mainly from Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, while 125,306 Costa Ricans live abroad in the United States, Panama, Nicaragua, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador. The number of migrants declined in later years but in 2015, there were some 420,000 immigrants in Costa Rica	[ "Spanish Empire", "Catholic Church", "United States Department of State", "Castilians", "Spanish people", "Italian Costa Ricans", "Nazism", "Gypsy", "Islam", "Multiracial people", "Creole English", "Guanacaste Province", "Europe", "Paganism", "Jehovah's Witnesses", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Mulatto", "Lebanon", "Unification Church", "Cartago Province", "Asian Latin American", "Ethnic group", "Evangelicalism", "Mestizo", "Puntarenas", "Cabécar people", "White Caribbeans", "Mexican people", "religion", "Uvita Island", "Catalans", "Roman Catholic", "Independence of Central America", "Nonreligious", "Mexico", "Baháʼí Faith", "Indigenous languages of the Americas", "Indigenous peoples of Costa Rica", "Alajuela", "Americas", "Asturians", "Germany", "Immigration to Costa Rica", "Spain", "Tenrikyo", "Costa Rica 2011 Census", "Nicaragua", "Polish diaspora", "Garifuna people", "List of countries by population density", "Liberia, Costa Rica", "Germans", "Limonese Creole", "Canada", "Scientology", "United States", "Ethnic groups in Central America", "World Factbook", "Chinese people in Costa Rica", "Caribbean Basin", "developing country", "International Society for Krishna Consciousness", "black people", "White Latin Americans", "Boruca people", "European Union", "Latin America", "Protestantism", "Heredia Province", "Afro-Costa Rican", "Mulatto people", "Naso people", "Ashkenazi Jews", "Cartago, Costa Rica", "Italians", "Puntarenas Province", "Afro–Latin Americans", "Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor", "Anglicanism", "West Indian", "Lutheran", "animism", "Bribri people", "Maleku people", "CIA Factbook", "population pyramid", "The World Factbook", "Roman Catholics", "Huetar people", "Afro-Costa Ricans", "Citizenship of the United States", "Spanish language", "Jamaican Patois", "Taoism", "Limón Province", "Church News", "Arab peoples", "Panama", "Guaymi people", "Bribri language", "Jamaica", "Italy", "Basque people", "Spanish Civil War", "World Bank", "Indigenous peoples of the Americas", "French people", "Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos de Costa Rica", "Methodist", "Island Caribs", "Syrians", "Limón", "United Nations", "Baptist", "English language", "Puerto Limon", "Guaymí", "Alajuela Province", "Costa Ricans", "Dominican Republic", "British people", "Chilean people", "Costa Rica", "San José, Costa Rica", "Lebanese people", "University of Costa Rica", "Costa Rican Spanish", "Cristopher Columbus", "Ascensión Esquivel Ibarra", "Galicians", "Remittance", "Spanish Costa Rican", "Turkish people", "Wicca", "San José Province", "Judaism", "Heredia, Costa Rica", "Colombian People", "Colombia", "Evangelical", "Arab", "Amerindians", "Miskito people", "Ecuador", "Irreligion", "Sephardic Jews", "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", "Buddhism", "PLoS", "Chorotega people", "San José Costa Rica Temple", "Spanish Republican", "Guatemala", "Chinese people", "anti-Semitism", "Venezuela", "High Class", "population density", "middle class", "Boruca", "Jamaicans", "Limón province", "freedom of religion" ]
5,555	Politics of Costa Rica	The politics of Costa Rica take place in a framework of a presidential, representative democratic republic, with a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and their cabinet, and the President of Costa Rica is both the head of state and head of government. Legislative power is vested in the Legislative Assembly. The president and 57 Legislative Assembly deputies are elected for four-year terms. The judiciary operates independently from the executive and the legislature, but is involved in the political process. Costa Rica has a strong system of constitutional checks and balances. Voting is compulsory de jure, but this is not enforced. The position of governor in the seven provinces was abolished in 1998. There are no provincial legislatures. In 2009, the state monopolies on insurance and telecommunications were opened to private-sector competition. Certain other state agencies enjoy considerable operational independence and autonomy; they include the electrical power company (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad), the nationalized commercial banks (which are open to competition from private banks), and the social security agency (Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social). Costa Rica has no military but maintains a domestic police force and a Special Forces Unit as part of the Ministry of the President. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Costa Rica was in 2023 the most electoral democratic country in Latin America. == Recent history == The 1986 presidential election was won by Óscar Arias of the PLN. During his tenure he experienced some criticism from within his own party for abandoning its traditional social democratic teachings and promoting a neoliberal economic model. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his efforts to end civil wars then raging in several Central American countries. In the February 1998 national election, PUSC candidate Miguel Ángel Rodríguez won the presidency over PLN nominee José Miguel Corrales Bolaños. President Rodriguez assumed office May 8, 1998. The PUSC also obtained 27 seats in the 57-member Legislative Assembly, for a plurality, while the PLN got 23 and five minor parties won seven. Social Christian in philosophy, the PUSC generally favors neoliberalism, conservative fiscal policies, and government reform. President Rodriguez pledged to reduce the country's large internal debt, privatize state-owned utilities, attract additional foreign investment, eliminate social welfare programs, and promote the creation of jobs with decent salaries. The reforms he tried to promote found opposition from several parties, including his own, and he asserted several times the country was "ungovernable". In particular, an attempt by the Legislative Assembly to approve a law that opened up the electricity and telecommunication markets (controlled by a monopoly of the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity - ICE) to market competition, known as the "Combo" law, was met with strong social opposition. The Combo law was supported by both major parties at the time (PLN and PUSC) as well as by President Rodriguez, but the first of three required legislative votes to approve it provoked the largest protest demonstrations the country had seen since 1970. The government quickly resolved to shelve the initiative. President Rodríguez's approval would reach an all-time low, and he was indicted by the Attorney General after leaving office on corruption charges. In September 2000 the Constitutional Court rejected an argument by former president Arias that a 1969 constitutional amendment banning presidential reelection be rescinded. Arias thus remained barred from a second term as president; however, in April 2003–by which time two of the four judges who had voted against the change in 2000 had been replaced–the Court reconsidered the issue and, with the only dissenters being the two anti-reelection judges remaining from 2000, declared the 1969 amendment null and thus opened the way to reelection for former presidents–which in practice meant Arias. In the 2002 national election, a new party founded by former PLN Congressman and government Minister Ottón Solís captured 26% of the vote, forcing a runoff election for the first time in the country's history. Abel Pacheco was elected president, under a national unity platform, but continuing most of the neoliberal and conservative policies of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez. This election was also important because new parties won several seats in Congress, more than ever. The PUSC obtained 19 seats, PLN 17 seats, PAC 14 seats, PML 6 seats and PRC one seat. During 2004, several high-profile corruption scandals shattered the foundations of PUSC. Two former presidents from the party, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez and Rafael Ángel Calderón, were arrested on corruption charges and are currently waiting for the investigation to end and trial to begin. Also involved in scandals has been José María Figueres, former president from PLN and former head of the World Economic Forum. The 2006 national election was expected to be a landslide for former president (1986–1990) and PLN's candidate Óscar Arias, but it turned out to be the closest in modern history. Although polls just a week before the election gave Arias a comfortable lead of at least 12% (and up to 20%), preliminary election results gave him only a 0.4% lead over rival Ottón Solís and prompted a manual recount of all ballots. After a month-long recount and several appeals from different parties, Arias was declared the official winner with 40.9% of the votes against 39.8% for Solís. When Óscar Arias returned to office, the political debate shifted to the ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Main supporters of the approval included the President's PLN, which established a coalition with PUSC and ML in Congress to approve the implementation laws in Congress, as well as different business chambers. The main opposition to CAFTA came from PAC, labor unions, environmental organizations and public universities. In April 2007, former PLN Presidential candidate and CAFTA opponent José Miguel Corrales Bolaños won a legal battle at the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which authorized him to gather over 100,000 signatures to send CAFTA to a referendum and let the people decide the fate of the controversial agreement. As the February 28, 2008 deadline to approve or reject CAFTA loomed, Arias decided to call for the referendum himself, and it took take place on October 7, 2007. CAFTA was approved with 51.5% of voters supporting it, although the election faced criticism due to international, including US, involvement. The Costa Rican general election, 2010 was won by Laura Chinchilla of centrist National Liberation Party, who had been vice-president in the previous Arias administration. In May 2010, she was sworn in as the first female President of Costa Rica. In 2014, Luis Guillermo Solís, PAC's presidential candidate campaigning on a platform of economic reform and anti-corruption, surprised political observers by winning 30.95% of votes in the first round, while PLN candidate Johnny Araya gained the second most votes with 29.95%. Broad Front's José María Villalta Florez-Estrada won 17% of the votes. On March 6, 2014, Araya announced that he would abandon his presidential campaign after polls showed him far behind Luis Guillermo Solís. Elections were held on April 6, 2014, as required by election law, and Solís won with 77.81% of the votes. According to the BBC, the success of Solís and Villalta is another example of anti-neoliberal politics in Latin America. In May 2022, Costa Rica's new president Rodrigo Chaves, right-wing former finance minister, was sworn in for a four-year presidential term. He had won the election runoff against former president Jose María Figueres. == Branches of government == === Executive branch === Executive responsibilities are vested in a president, who is elected to a term of four years directly by the voters, not by the National Assembly as it would be in a parliamentary system. There also are two vice presidents and the president's cabinet composed of his ministers. A constitutional amendment approved in 1969 limits presidents and deputies to one term, although a deputy may run again for an Assembly seat after sitting out a term. The prohibition was officially recognized as unconstitutional in April 2004, allowing Óscar Arias to run for president a second time in the 2006 Costa Rican presidential elections, which he won with approximately a 1% margin. The President of Costa Rica has limited powers, particularly in comparison to other Latin American Presidents. For example, he cannot veto the legislative budget, and thus Congress is sovereign over the year's single most important piece of legislation. On the other hand, he can appoint anyone to his cabinet without approval from Congress. This provides the single most important power versus Congress that any Costa Rican President has. \|President \|Rodrigo Chaves Robles \|Social Democratic Progress Party \|8 May 2022 \|- \| 1st Vice President \| Stephan Brunner \| Social Democratic Progress Party \| 8 May 2022 \|- \| 2nd Vice Presidents \| Mary Munive \| Social Democratic Progress Party \| 8 May 2022 \|} ==== Ministries ==== Ministry of the Presidency Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship Ministry of Finance Ministry of Public Security Ministry of Justice and Peace Ministry of Public Education Ministry of Public Works and Transports Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Ministry of Health Ministry of Labour and Social Security Ministry of Culture and Youth Ministry of National Planning and Economical Policy Ministry of Environment and Energy Ministry of Housing and Human Settlements Ministry of Foreign Trade Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications Ministry of Communication === Legislative branch === Legislative powers are held by the Legislative Assembly. Legislators, called deputies, are elected to non-consecutive four-year terms by popular, direct vote, using proportional representation in each of the country's seven provinces. As a result, there are nine separate political parties serving in the Legislative Assembly, with National Liberation Party holding 18 seats, the Citizens' Action Party holding 13, and Broad Front and the Social Christian Unity Party each holding 8. Other parties hold the remaining seats. \|Legislative Assembly President \|Rodrigo Arias Sánchez \|National Liberation Party \|8 May 2022 \|} === Judicial branch === The main arm of the judiciary is the Supreme Court of Justice. Twenty-two magistrates are selected for the CSJ for 8-year terms by the Legislative Assembly, and lower courts. Sala IV, also known as the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, reviews legislation, executive actions, and certain writs for constitutionality. Courts below the Sala IV deal with issues involving legal and criminal disputes. Additionally, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE for its Spanish initials) is an independent branch of the CSJ, responsible for democratic elections. While the judiciary is independent of the politically elected executive and legislative branches, it is often responsible for resolving political and legal conflicts. In many areas, voting takes on a festive atmosphere with supporters of each party wearing traditional colors and decorating their cars, houses, and livestock with colored ribbons. == Political parties == Currently, there are nine active political parties with representation in the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica. An additional twelve parties ran, but did not receive enough votes to earn a seat in the assembly, making the total number of active parties in Costa Rica twenty-one. Starting in the 2000s, disagreement about many of the neo-liberal policies promoted by the dominant PLN caused the traditional party system of alliances among a few parties to fracture. Although still a stable country, the shift toward many political parties and away from PUSC and PLN is a recent development. Various elected positions within the country, such as mayors and city council members, are held by many different national and local political parties. == Strength of institutions == Institutional strength is a critical factor in politics since it defines the ability of political institutions to enforce rules, settle conflicts, and sustain stability in society. Weak institutions can lead to instability, violence, and authoritarianism, while solid institutions are associated with more durable and sufficient democracies. This is especially applicable in countries with fragile institutional frameworks, where strengthening institutions is essential for advancing democracy and stability. However, there are also concerns about the efficiency of the justice system and the slow pace of legal proceedings, which can sometimes hinder the effective enforcement of the law. === Democratic institutions === Costa Rica is famous for its stable and well-functioning democracy, with periodic, accessible, and honest elections, a competitive party system, and a robust civil society. The country has a presidential system of government, with a unicameral legislature and a multi-party system. Nevertheless, there are also some obstacles to the country's democratic institutions, such as a lack of transparency and accountability in government and a high concentration of power among a small class of political elites. === Public services === Costa Rica's government provides many public services, including health care, education, and social welfare programs. The "Caja de Seguro Social" in Costa Rica maneuvered through the COVID-19 Pandemic with extreme precaution, providing one of the best responses by public healthcare systems. Their public health care system attests to strong political institutions and its 70% of its citizens entirely depend on the services. These services are generally well-funded and accessible to the general public. However, there are also concerns about the quality and productivity of these services and the sustainability of the country's public spending.	[ "World Economic Forum", "Costa Rican general election, 2010", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship (Costa Rica)", "Broad Front (Costa Rica)", "National Union Party (Costa Rica)", "republic", "Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad", "Johnny Araya", "Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica", "Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean", "Ministry of the Presidency (Costa Rica)", "Libertarian Movement (Costa Rica)", "Cartago Province", "Social Christian Unity Party", "National Integration Party (Costa Rica)", "Ministry of Finance (Costa Rica)", "Christian Democratic Alliance (Costa Rica)", "Carlos Alvarado Quesada", "Homeland First Party", "Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social", "Costa Rica presidential elections, 2006", "Óscar Arias", "Executive power", "Vice President of Costa Rica", "Comptroller", "José María Villalta Florez-Estrada", "Ombudsman", "List of Presidents of Costa Rica", "Representative democracy", "Corruption in Costa Rica", "internal debt", "monopoly", "Procurator General (disambiguation)", "President of Costa Rica", "presidential system", "Trade unions in Costa Rica", "Legislative power", "neoliberal", "Nobel Peace Prize", "Ministry of Foreign Trade (Costa Rica)", "José María Figueres", "Central American Free Trade Agreement", "Citizens' Action Party (Costa Rica)", "2022 Costa Rican general election", "province", "legislature", "National Rescue Party", "direct vote", "V-Dem Democracy indices", "National Restoration Party (Costa Rica)", "Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier", "Laura Chinchilla", "Military of Costa Rica", "José Miguel Corrales Bolaños", "Accessibility without Exclusion", "Mary Munive", "Abel Pacheco", "Rodrigo Chaves Robles", "de jure", "Costa Rican Renewal Party", "Costa Rica", "Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica", "Social Democratic Progress Party", "vice-presidents", "Constitution of Costa Rica", "National Liberation Party (Costa Rica)", "Ministry of Environment and Energy (Costa Rica)", "Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications", "head of government", "multi-party system", "proportional representation", "Luis Guillermo Solís", "Rodrigo Arias Sánchez", "Foreign relations of Costa Rica", "Miguel Ángel Rodríguez", "writ", "head of state", "Union for Change Party", "Ottón Solís", "judiciary", "Stephan Brunner" ]
5,556	Economy of Costa Rica	{{Infobox economy \| country = Costa Rica \| image = San Jose 2020 by @caya here.jpg \| image_size = 310px \| caption = San José \| currency = Costa Rican colón (CRC, ₡) \| year = calendar year \| organs = WTO, OECD, CAFTA-DR \| group = \| population = 5,213,362 (2022 estimate) \| gdp = \| inflation = -0.33% (May 2024) \| poverty = \| gini = 47.2 (2022) \| hdi = \| unemployment = 10.5% (2019) (2022) \| average net salary = \| industries = medical equipment, food processing, textiles and clothing, construction materials, fertilizer, plastic products \| edbr = 74th (easy, 2020) \| exports = $33.68 billion (2023 est.) \| import-goods = raw materials, consumer goods, capital equipment, petroleum, construction materials \| import-partners = The economy of Costa Rica has been very stable for some years now, with continuing growth in the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and moderate inflation, though with a high unemployment rate: 11.49% in 2019. Costa Rica's economy emerged from recession in 1997 and has shown strong aggregate growth since then. The estimated GDP for 2023 is US$90 billion, up significantly from the US$52.6 billion in 2015 In 2017, Costa Rica had the highest standards of living in Central America in spite of the high poverty level. The poverty level dropped by 1.2% in 2017 to 20.5%, thanks to reducing inflation and benefits offered by the government. Corporate services for foreign companies employ some 3% of the workforce. Of the GDP, 5.5% is generated by agriculture, 18.6% by industry and 75.9% by services (2016). Many foreign companies operate in the various Free-trade zones. In 2015, exports totalled US$12.6 billion while imports totalled US$15 billion for a trade deficit of US$2.39 billion. The growing debt and budget deficit are the country's primary concerns. By August 2017, Costa Rica was having difficulty paying its obligations and the President promised dramatic changes to handle the "liquidity crisis". Other challenges face Costa Rica in its attempts to increase the economy by foreign investment. They include a poor infrastructure and a need to improve public sector efficiency. ==Public debt and deficit== One of the country's major concerns is the level of the public debt, especially as a percentage of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), increasing from 29.8% in 2011 to 40.8% in 2015 and to 45% in 2016. Costa Rica had a formal line of credit with the World Bank valued at US$947 million in April 2014, of which US$645 million had been accessed and US$600 million remained outstanding. In a June 2017 report, the International Monetary Fund stated that annual growth was just over 4% with moderate inflation. The report added that "financial system appears sound, and credit growth continues to be consistent with healthy financial deepening and macroeconomic trends. The agency noted that the fiscal deficit remains high and public debt continues to rise rapidly despite the authorities’ deepened consolidation efforts in 2016. Recent advances in fiscal consolidation have been partly reversed and political consensus on a comprehensive fiscal package remains elusive". The IMF also expressed concern about increasing deficits, public debt and the heavy dollarization of bank assets and liabilities, warning that in tighter-than-expected global financial conditions these aspects would "seriously undermine investor confidence". The group also recommended taking steps to reduce pension benefits and increase the amount of contribution by the public and increasing the cost effectiveness of the education system. In late July 2017, the Central Bank estimated the budget deficit at 6.1 percent of the country's GDP. A 2017 study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that reducing the foreign debt must be a very high priority for the government. Other fiscal reforms were also recommended to moderate the budget deficit. In late July 2017, the Central Bank estimated the budget deficit at 6.1 percent of the country's GDP. ===Liquidity crisis=== In early August 2017, President Luis Guillermo Solís admitted that the country was facing a "liquidity crisis", an inability to pay all of its obligations and to guarantee the essential services. To address this issue, he promised that a higher VAT and higher income tax rates were being considered by his government. Such steps are essential, Solís told the nation. The ports, roads, water systems would benefit from major upgrading. Attempts by China to invest in upgrading such aspects were "stalled by bureaucratic and legal concerns". The bureaucracy is "often slow and cumbersome". The country needs even more workers who are fluent in English and languages such as Portuguese, Mandarin and French. It would also benefit from more graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) programs. Some sectors are controlled by a state monopoly which excludes competition but in other respects, "Costa Rican laws, regulations and practices are generally transparent and foster competition". The country has been slow in completing environmental impact assessments which have caused delays in projects being completed. Product registration is a slow process, although this may improve with digitization. In spite of government attempts at improving the enforcement of intellectual property laws, this aspect remains a concern. ==Natural resources== Costa Rica's rainfall, and its location in the Central American isthmus, which provides easy access to North and South American markets and direct ocean access to the European and Asian Continents. Costa Rica has two seasons, both of which have their own agricultural resources: the tropical wet and dry seasons. One-fourth of Costa Rica's land is dedicated to national forests, often adjoining beaches, which has made the country a popular destination for affluent retirees and ecotourists. A full 10.27% of the country is protected as national parks while an additional 17% is set aside for reserves, wildlife refuges and protected zones. Costa Rica has over 50 wildlife refuges, 32 major national parks, more than 12 forest reserves and a few biological reserves. Because of ocean access, 23.7% of Costa Rica's people fish and trade their catches to fish companies; this is viewed as "small scale artisanal coastal" fishing and is most common in the Gulf of Nicoya. Costa Rica also charges licensing fees for commercial fishing fleets that are taking tuna, sardines, banga mary, mahi-mahi, red tilapia, shrimp, red snapper, other snappers, shark, marlin and sailfish. In mid 2017, the country was planning to ban large-scale commercial fishing off the southern Pacific Coast in an area nearly a million acres in size. The bill in congress was intended to "protect the extraordinary marine and coastal resources" from "indiscriminate and unsustainable commercial fishing." Sport fishing in Costa Rica is an important part of the tourism industry; species include marlin, sailfish, dorado, tarpon, snook, rooster fish, wahoo, tuna, mackerel, snapper and rainbow bass. In terms of the 2012 Environmental Performance Index ranking, Costa Rica is 5th in the world, and first among the Americas. The World Economic Forum's 2017 Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report ranked Costa Rica as third of 136 countries based on natural resources, the number of World Heritage natural sites, protected areas and species as well as eco tourism. ==Tourism== With a $1.92-billion-a-year tourism industry, Costa Rica was the most visited nation in the Central American region, with 2.42 million foreign visitors in 2013. By 2016, 2.6 million tourists visited Costa Rica. The Tourism Board estimates that this sector's spending in the country represented over US$3.4 billion, or about 5.8% of the GDP. The World Travel & Tourism Council's estimates indicate a direct contribution to the 2016 GDP of 5.1% and 110,000 direct jobs in Costa Rica; the total number of jobs indirectly supported by tourism was 271,000. Ecotourism is extremely popular with the many tourists visiting the extensive national parks and protected areas around the country. Costa Rica was a pioneer in this type of tourism and the country is recognized as one of the few with real ecotourism. Other important market segments are adventure, sun and beaches. Most of the tourists come from the U.S. and Canada (46%), and the EU (16%), the prime market travelers in the world, which translates into a relatively high expenditure per tourist of $1000 per trip. In the 2008 Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI), Costa Rica reached the 44th place in the world ranking, being the first among Latin American countries, and second if the Caribbean is included. Just considering the subindex measuring human, cultural, and natural resources, Costa Rica ranks in the 24th place at a worldwide level, and 7th when considering just the natural resources criteria. The TTCI report also notes Costa Rica's main weaknesses, ground transport infrastructure (ranked 113th), and safety and security (ranked 128th). The online travel magazine Travelzoo rated Costa Rica as one of five “Wow Deal Destinations for 2012”. The magazine Travel Weekly named Costa Rica the best destination in Central and South America in 2011. In 2017, the country was nominated in the following categories in the World Travel Awards: Mexico & Central America's Leading Beach Destination, Mexico & Central America's Leading Destination and Mexico & Central America's Leading Tourist Board. ==Agriculture== Costa Rica's economy was historically based on agriculture, and this has had a large cultural impact through the years. Costa Rica's main cash crop, historically and up to modern times, was Bananas. The coffee crop had been a major export, but decreased in value to the point where it added only 2.5% to the 2013 exports of the country. Agriculture also plays an important part in the country's gross domestic product (GDP). It makes up about 6.5% of Costa Rica’s GDP, and employs 12.9% of the labor force (2016). By comparison, industry employs 18.57% of the labor force, and the service sector 69.02%. other tropical fruits, coffee (much of it grown in the Valle Central or Meseta Central), sugar, rice, palm oil, vegetables, tropical fruits, ornamental plants, maize, and potatoes. Livestock activity consists of cattle, pigs and horses, as well as poultry. Meat and dairy produce are leading exports according to one source, but both were not in the top 10 categories of 2013. Well over half of that type of investment has come from the U.S. According to the government, the zones supported over 82 thousand direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs in 2015; direct employment grew 5% over 2014. The average wages in the FTZ increased by 7% and were 1.8 times greater than the average for private enterprise work in the rest of the country. In 2006 Intel's microprocessor facility alone was responsible for 20% of Costa Rican exports and 4.9% of the country's GDP. In 2014, Intel announced it would end manufacturing in Costa Rica and lay off 1,500 staff but agreed to maintain at least 1,200 employees. The facility continued as a test and design center with approximately 1,600 remaining staff. In 2017, Intel had 2000 employees in the country, and was operating a facility which assembles, tests and distributes processors and a Global Innovation Center, both in Heredia. The fastest growing aspect of the economy is the provision of corporate services for foreign companies which in 2016 employed approximately 54,000 people in a country with a workforce under 342,000; that was up from 52,400 the previous year. For example, Amazon.com employs some 5,000 people. Many work in the free-trade areas such as Zona Franca America and earn roughly double the national average for service work. This sector generated US$4.6 billion in 2016, nearly as much as tourism. Tourism is an important part of the economy, with the number of visitors increasing from 780,000 in 1996, to 1 million in 1999, and to 2.089 million foreign visitors in 2008, allowing the country to earn $2.144-billion in that year. By 2016, 2.6 million tourists visited Costa Rica, spending roughly US$3.4 billion. Mild climate and trade winds make neither heating nor cooling necessary, particularly in the highland cities and towns where some 90% of the population lives. Renewable energy in Costa Rica is the norm. In 2016, 98.1 per cent of the country's electricity came from green sources: hydro generating stations, geothermal plants, wind turbines, solar panels and biomass plants. ==Infrastructure== Costa Rica's infrastructure has suffered from a lack of maintenance and new investment. The country has an extensive road system of more than 30,000 kilometers, although much of it is in disrepair; this also applies to ports, railways and water delivery systems. Most parts of the country are accessible by road. The main highland cities in the country's Central Valley are connected by paved all-weather roads with the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by the Pan American Highway with Nicaragua and Panama, the neighboring countries to the North and the South. Costa Rica's ports are struggling to keep pace with growing trade. They have insufficient capacity, and their equipment is in poor condition. The railroad didn't function for several years, until recent government effort to reactivate it for city transportation. An August 2016 OECD report provided this summary: "The road network is extensive but of poor quality, railways are in disrepair and only slowly being reactivated after having been shut down in the 1990s, seaports quality and capacity are deficient. Internal transportation overly relies on private road vehicles as the public transport system, especially railways, is inadequate." In a June 2017 interview, President Luis Guillermo Solís said that private sector investment would be required to solve the problems. "Of course Costa Rica’s infrastructure deficit is a challenge that outlasts any one government and I hope that we have created the foundations for future administrations to continue building. I have just enacted a law to facilitate Public Private Partnerships, which are the ideal way to develop projects that are too large for the government to undertake. For example the new airport that we are building to serve the capital city will cost $2 billion, so it will need private-sector involvement. There is also the potential for a ‘dry canal’ linking sea ports on our Atlantic and Caribbean Coasts that could need up to $16 billion of investment." The government hopes to bring foreign investment, technology, and management into the telecommunications and electrical power sectors, which are monopolies of the state. ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) has the monopoly on telecommunications, internet and electricity services. Some limited competition is allowed. In 2011, two new private companies began offering cellular phone service and others offer voice communication over internet connections (VOIP) for overseas calls. According to transparency.org, Costa Rica had a reputation as one of the most stable, prosperous, and among the least corrupt in Latin America in 2007. However, in fall 2004, three former Costa Rican presidents, José María Figueres, Miguel Angel Rodríguez, and Rafael Angel Calderon, were investigated on corruption charges related to the issuance of government contracts. After extensive legal proceedings Calderon and Rodriguez were sentenced; however, the inquiry on Figueres was dismissed and he was not charged. More recently, Costa Rica reached 40th place in 2015, with a score of 55 on the Perception of Corruption scale; this is better than the global average. Countries with the lowest perceived corruption rated 90 on the scale. In late May 2017, the country Costa Rica applied to become a member of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, to be effective in July 2017. == Foreign trade == Costa Rica has sought to widen its economic and trade ties, both within and outside the region. Costa Rica signed a bilateral trade agreement with Mexico in 1994, which was later amended to cover a wider range of products. Costa Rica joined other Central American countries, plus the Dominican Republic, in establishing a Trade and Investment Council with the United States in March 1998, which later became the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement. Costa Rica has bilateral free trade agreements with the following countries and blocs which took effect on (see date): Canada (November 1, 2002) Caribbean Community (CARICOM)¨ (November 15, 2002) Chile (February 15, 2002) China (August 1, 2011). Colombia (September 2016) Dominican Republic (March 7, 2002) El Salvador Customs union, (1963, re-launched on October 29, 1993) European Free Trade Association (2013) European Union (October 1, 2013) Guatemala Customs union, (1963, re-launched on October 29, 1993) Honduras Customs union, (1963, re-launched on October 29, 1993) Mexico (January 1, 1995) Nicaragua Customs union, (1963, re-launched on October 29, 1993) Panama (July 31, 1973, renegotiated and expanded for January 1, 2009) Peru (June 1, 2013) United States (January 1, 2009, CAFTA-DR) There are no significant trade barriers that would affect imports and the country has been lowering its tariffs in accordance with other Central American countries. Costa Rica also is a member of the Cairns Group, an organization of agricultural exporting countries that are seeking access to more markets to increase the exports of agricultural products. Opponents of free agricultural trade have sometimes attempted to block imports of products already grown in Costa Rica, including rice, potatoes, and onions. By 2015, Costa Rica's agricultural exports totalled US$2.7 billion. In 2015, the top export destinations for all types of products were the United States (US$4.29 billion), Guatemala ($587 million), the Netherlands ($537 million), Panama ($535 million) and Nicaragua ($496 million). The top import origins were the United States ($6.06 billion), China ($1.92 billion), Mexico ($1.14 billion), Japan ($410 million) and Guatemala ($409 million). The most significant products imported were Refined Petroleum (8.41% of the total imports) and Automobiles (4.68%). Total imports in 2015 were US$15 billion, somewhat higher than the total exports of a US$12.6 billion, for a negative trade balance of US$2.39 billion. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is a form of investment that promotes development in key industries such as manufacturing, medicine, and tourism. FDI’s influence provides a very lucrative opportunity for foreign investors which is what continues to attract such large investments year over year. Over time FDI inflows in Costa Rica have increased, Net FDI inflow averaged forty four million dollars per year from 1970-1979 and just ten years later this value rose to four hundred and sixteen million dollars. Facilitation of FDI growth is seen as an essential role of the Costa Rican government. Throughout 2019 and 2022, the government of Costa Rica was able to court investment for a total of 16 new FDI projects with one of the more notable projects being a luxury hotel named One and Only Papagayo. == Statistics == The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2019 (with IMF staff stimtates in 2020–2025). Inflation below 5% is in green. GDP: US$61.5 billion (2017 estimate) GDP real growth rate: 4.3% (2017 estimate) GDP per capita: purchasing power parity: $12,382 (2017 estimate) Labor force by occupation: agriculture 12.9%, industry 18.57%, services 69.02% (2016) Fiscal year: January 1 – December 31	[ "Honduras", "Central American isthmus", "Political corruption", "Amazon.com", "Standard & Poor's", "List of countries by inequality-adjusted HDI", "Singapore", "education", "Tourism", "labor force", "Environmental Performance Index", "Abbott Laboratories", "National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica", "pineapple", "maize", "gross domestic product", "GDP", "Ecotourism", "Mexico", "World Trade Organization", "Procter & Gamble", "Cairns Group", "Indirect jobs", "Purchasing power parity", "Nicaragua", "Miguel Angel Rodríguez", "ecotourism", "investing", "United States", "OECD", "Chile", "European Union", "List of countries by Human Development Index", "transparency.org", "coal", "El Salvador", "Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report", "List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita", "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", "Banana", "South Korea", "million", "United Nations Development Programme", "billion", "José María Figueres", "potato", "economic stability", "lumber", "sugar", "Travelzoo", "Anglophone Caribbean", "Intel", "Panama", "wood", "Moody's Investors Service", "agriculture", "China", "World Bank", "Developing country", "tropical fruit", "List of countries by GDP (nominal)", "banana", "pharmaceuticals", "Renewable energy in Costa Rica", "Pan American Highway", "Rafael Ángel Calderón Fournier", "electronics", "Dominican Republic", "Ease of doing business index", "International Monetary Fund", "ornamental plant", "cash crop", "Costa Rica", "San José, Costa Rica", "coffee", "List of countries by GDP (PPP)", "Caribbean Community", "hydroelectric power", "Costa Rican colón", "Canada–Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement", "Free-trade zone", "Luis Guillermo Solís", "Colombia", "European Free Trade Association", "corruption", "List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita", "Peru", "Guatemala", "national parks", "Latin American", "vegetable", "Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement", "protected area", "tourism", "port", "fishing", "rice" ]
5,558	Transport in Costa Rica	There are many modes of transport in Costa Rica but the country's infrastructure has suffered from a lack of maintenance and new investment. There is an extensive road system of more than 30,000 kilometers, although much of it is in disrepair; this also applies to ports, railways and water delivery systems. According to a 2016 U.S. government report, investment from China that attempted to improve the infrastructure found the "projects stalled by bureaucratic and legal concerns". Most parts of the country are accessible by road. The main highland cities in the country's Central Valley are connected by paved all-weather roads with the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and by the Pan American Highway with Nicaragua and Panama, the neighboring countries to the north and to the south Costa Rica's ports are struggling to keep pace with growing trade. They have insufficient capacity, and their equipment is in poor condition. The railroad didn't function for several years, until recent government effort to reactivate it for city transportation. An August 2016 OECD report provided this summary: "The road network is extensive but of poor quality, railways are in disrepair and only slowly being reactivated after having been shut down in the 1990s. Seaports’ quality and capacity are deficient. Internal transportation overly relies on private road vehicles as the public transport system, especially railways, is inadequate." ==Railways== total: narrow gauge: of gauge ( electrified) ==Road transportation== The road system in Costa Rica is not as developed as it might be expected for such a country. However, there are some two-lane trunk roads with restricted access under development. Total: Paved: Unpaved: ===National road network=== The Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MOPT), along with the National Road Council (Conavi), are the government organizations in charge of national road nomenclature and maintenance. There are three levels in the national road network: Primary roads: These are trunk roads devised to connect important cities, most of the national roads are connected to the capital city, San José. There are 19 national primary roads, numbered between 1 and 39. Secondary roads: These are roads that connect different cities, or primary routes, directly. There are 129 national secondary roads, numbered between 100 and 257. Tertiary roads: These roads connect main cities to villages or residential areas, there are 175 national tertiary roads, numbered between 301 and 935. ==Waterways== , seasonally navigable by small craft ==Pipelines== refined products ==Ports and harbors== In 2016, the government pledged ₡93 million ($166,000) for a new cruise ship terminal for Puerto Limón. ===Atlantic Ocean=== Port of Moín, operated by JAPDEVA. Port of Limón, operated by JAPDEVA. Moín Container Terminal, operated by APM Terminals. ===Pacific Ocean=== Golfito Puerto Quepos Puntarenas (cruise ships only) Caldera Port ==Merchant marine== total: 2 ships ( or over) / ships by type: passenger/cargo ships 2 ==Airports== Total: 161 === Airports - with paved runways === total: 47 : 2 : 2 : 27 under : 16 === Airports - with unpaved runways === total: 114 18 under : 96	[ "Golfito", "Nicaragua", "Costa Rica", "San José, Costa Rica", "Caldera Port", "Port of Limón", "Puerto Quepos", "Port of Moín", "Panama", "season", "Moín Container Terminal", "navigable", "APM Terminals", "narrow gauge", "Pan American Highway", "Puntarenas", "Passenger ship", "WP:SDNONE", "Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Costa Rica)", "port", "River boat", "Petroleum products", "ship" ]
5,559	Public Force of Costa Rica	The Public Force of Costa Rica () is the national law enforcement agency of Costa Rica, whose duties include internal security and border control. ==History== On 1 December 1948, the President of Costa Rica, José Figueres Ferrer, abolished the Costa Rican military after his victory in the Costa Rican Civil War. In a ceremony at the national capital of San José, Figueres symbolically broke a wall with a mallet, symbolizing an end to the military's existence. In 1949, the abolition of the Costa Rican military was introduced in Article 12 of the Constitution of Costa Rica. The budget previously dedicated to the military is now dedicated to security, education and culture. Costa Rica maintains Police Guard forces. The museum was placed in the as a symbol of commitment to culture. In 1986, President Oscar Arias Sánchez declared December 1 as the (Military abolition day) with Law #8115. Unlike its neighbors, Costa Rica has not endured a civil war since 1948. Costa Rica maintains small forces capable of law enforcement, but has no permanent standing army. ===Public Force of the Ministry of Public Security (1996)=== In 1996, the Ministry of Public Security established the or Public Force, a gendarmerie which reorganised and eliminated the Civil Guard, Rural Assistance Guard, and Frontier Guards as separate entities. They are now under the Ministry and operate on a geographic command basis performing ground security, law enforcement, counter-narcotics, border patrol, and tourism security functions. The Costa Rica Coast Guard also operates directly under the Ministry but is not a part of the Public Force proper. Outside the Fuerza Pública, there is a small Special Forces Unit, the Unidad Especial de Intervencion (UEI) or Special Intervention Unit, an elite commando force which trains with special forces from around the world, but is not part of the main police forces. Instead, it is part of the Intelligence and Security Directorate (DIS) which reports directly to the Minister of the Presidency. About 70-member strong, it is organized along military lines, although officially it is a civilian police unit. The motto of the Public Force is "God, Fatherland, and Honour." Commissioner of Police Juan José Andrade Morales serves as its current Commissioner General. ==Ranks== Comisario de Policía/ Director general de la Fuerza Pública Comisionado de Policía Comandante de Policía Capitán de Policía Intendente Sub Intendente Sargento de Policía Inspector Agente 2 Agente 1 ==Equipment== === Small arms ===	[ "Heckler & Koch MP5", "Beretta M9", "Unit1", "internal security", "7.62×51mm", "Steyr AUG", "Federation of American Scientists", ".38 Special", "SIG Sauer P226", "counter-narcotics", "Sniper rifle", "UnitNNN", "9×19mm", "world", "FN FAL", ".45 ACP", "Beretta Model 38", "security", "Air Vigilance Service", ".308 Winchester", "Beretta M12", "civil war", "SIG SG 550", "Office1", "M24 SWS", "standing army", "Carbine", "Costa Rican Civil War", "Beretta 92", "M4 Carbine", "Assault rifle", "Uzi", "border control", "Remington M700", "President of Costa Rica", "Costa Rican Civil Guard", "IWI Tavor", "Bullpup", "Jane's Information Group", "5.56×45mm", "IMI Galil", "7.62×54mmR", "Revolver", "SVD (rifle)", "List of countries without armed forces", "40mm grenade", "border patrol", "Grenade launcher", "Smith & Wesson Model 10", "M1911", "M14 rifle", "M60 machine gun", "commando", "law enforcement", "Browning M1919", "law enforcement agency", "Browning M1918", "gendarmerie", ".303 British", "Oscar Arias Sánchez", "General-purpose machine gun", "Costa Rica", "San José, Costa Rica", "Special Intervention Unit (Costa Rica)", "IWI Jericho 941", "Battle rifle", "T65 assault rifle", "Article 12 of the Constitution of Costa Rica", "Museo Nacional de Costa Rica", "Commissioner General", "Special Forces", "mallet", "OfficeNNN", "M16 rifle", "Designated marksman rifle", "Semi-automatic pistol", "José Figueres Ferrer", "Light machine gun", "Medium machine gun", "IWI Negev", "Submachine gun", "M79 grenade launcher" ]
5,560	Foreign relations of Costa Rica	Costa Rica is an active member of the international community and, in 1983, claimed it was for neutrality. Due to certain powerful constituencies favoring its methods, it has a weight in world affairs far beyond its size. The country lobbied aggressively for the establishment of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and became the first nation to recognize the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Human Rights Court, based in San José. The foreign affairs of the Republic of Costa Rica are a function of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship. == History == Costa Rica gained election as president of the Group of 77 in the United Nations in 1995. That term ended in 1997 with the South-South Conference held in San Jose. Costa Rica occupied a nonpermanent seat in the Security Council from 1997 to 1999 and exercised a leadership role in confronting crises in the Middle East and Africa, as well as in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is currently a member of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. On 1 January 2008 Costa Rica started its third year term on the Security Council. Costa Rica strongly backed efforts by the United States to implement UN Security Council Resolution 940, which led to the restoration of the democratically elected Government of Haiti in October 1994. Costa Rica was among the first to call for a postponement of the 22 May elections in Peru when international observer missions found electoral machinery not prepared for the vote count. Costa Rica is also a member of the International Criminal Court, without a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the US-military (as covered under Article 98). ==Relations to Central America== In 1987, then President Óscar Arias authored a regional plan that served as the basis for the Esquipulas Peace Agreement and Arias was awarded the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize for his work. Arias also promoted change in the USSR-backed Nicaraguan government of the era. Costa Rica also hosted several rounds of negotiations between the Salvadoran Government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, aiding El Salvador's efforts to emerge from civil war and culminating in that country's 1994 free and fair elections. Costa Rica has been a strong proponent of regional arms-limitation agreements. Former President Miguel Ángel Rodríguez recently proposed the abolition of all Central American militaries and the creation of a regional counternarcotics police force in their stead. With the establishment of democratically elected governments in all Central American nations by the 1990s, Costa Rica turned its focus from regional conflicts to the pursuit of neoliberal policies on the isthmus. The influence of these policies, along with the US invasion of Panama, was instrumental in drawing Panama into the Central American model of neoliberalism. Costa Rica also participated in the multinational Partnership for Democracy and Development in Central America. Regional political integration has not proven attractive to Costa Rica. The country debated its role in the Central American integration process under former President Calderon. Costa Rica has sought concrete economic ties with its Central American neighbors rather than the establishment of regional political institutions, and it chose not to join the Central American Parliament. ==Costa Rica in the UN== Costa Rica has been an active member of the United Nations since its inception at the San Francisco Conference in 1945. Its first ambassador to the United Nations was Fernando Soto Harrison, the secretary of governance under President Picado. Costa Rican Christiana Figueres was nominated for the post of UN secretary-general in July 2016. == Diplomatic relations == List of countries with which Costa Rica maintains diplomatic relations: ==Bilateral relations==	[ "Central America", "UN Security Council Resolution 940", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship (Costa Rica)", "Washington, D.C.", "Costa rican passport", "Belmopan", "Mario Echandi", "Madrid", "Costa Rica–India relations", "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court", "Jerusalem", "Visa (document)", "United Nations Security Council", "Moscow", "San Juan, Puerto Rico", "Montevideo", "Costa Rica–Turkey relations", "Middle East", "honorary consulate", "bank statement", "New York City", "Africa", "Baltimore, Maryland", "Costa Rica–Uruguay relations", "Beijing", "Whippany, New Jersey", "Taiwan", "Los Angeles", "UN secretary-general", "Havana", "Óscar Arias", "List of diplomatic missions in Costa Rica", "Costa Rica–Russia relations", "Tel Aviv", "Organization of American States", "Bilateral Immunity Agreement", "Passport", "Visa requirements for Costa Rican citizens", "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", "United Nations Commission on Human Rights", "Costa Rica–Mexico relations", "neutrality (international relations)", "Communist regime", "Costa Rica–Israel relations", "neoliberalism", "List of diplomatic missions of Costa Rica", "Ankara", "Republic of China", "El Salvador", "Miami", "Nobel Peace Prize", "Costa Rica–Spain relations", "Houston", "Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights", "Christiana Figueres", "Costa Rica–United States relations", "Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front", "Panama", "Central American Parliament", "Costa Rica–Italy relations", "Costa Rican President", "Chicago", "Inter-American Human Rights Court", "United Nations", "Group of 77", "Seoul", "International Criminal Court", "Facebook", "Environmental protection", "invitation letter", "Costa Rica", "San José, Costa Rica", "Esquipulas Peace Agreement", "Haiti", "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania", "Peru", "Fidel Castro", "Russian passport", "Miguel Ángel Rodríguez", "National Archives of Costa Rica", "Mexico City", "China–Costa Rica relations", "Rome", "New Delhi", "Atlanta" ]
5,561	Computational linguistics	Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics draws upon linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics, logic, philosophy, cognitive science, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, anthropology and neuroscience, among others. ==Origins== The field overlapped with artificial intelligence since the efforts in the United States in the 1950s to use computers to automatically translate texts from foreign languages, particularly Russian scientific journals, into English. Since rule-based approaches were able to make arithmetic (systematic) calculations much faster and more accurately than humans, it was expected that lexicon, morphology, syntax and semantics can be learned using explicit rules, as well. After the failure of rule-based approaches, David Hays coined the term in order to distinguish the field from AI and co-founded both the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) and the International Committee on Computational Linguistics (ICCL) in the 1970s and 1980s. What started as an effort to translate between languages evolved into a much wider field of natural language processing. ==Annotated corpora== In order to be able to meticulously study the English language, an annotated text corpus was much needed. The Penn Treebank was one of the most used corpora. It consisted of IBM computer manuals, transcribed telephone conversations, and other texts, together containing over 4.5 million words of American English, annotated using both part-of-speech tagging and syntactic bracketing. Japanese sentence corpora were analyzed and a pattern of log-normality was found in relation to sentence length. ==Modeling language acquisition== The fact that during language acquisition, children are largely only exposed to positive evidence, meaning that the only evidence for what is a correct form is provided, and no evidence for what is not correct, was a limitation for the models at the time because the now available deep learning models were not available in late 1980s. It has been shown that languages can be learned with a combination of simple input presented incrementally as the child develops better memory and longer attention span, which explained the long period of language acquisition in human infants and children. Enabled to learn as children might, models were created based on an affordance model in which mappings between actions, perceptions, and effects were created and linked to spoken words. Crucially, these robots were able to acquire functioning word-to-meaning mappings without needing grammatical structure. Using the Price equation and Pólya urn dynamics, researchers have created a system which not only predicts future linguistic evolution but also gives insight into the evolutionary history of modern-day languages. ==Chomsky's theories== Noam Chomsky's theories have influenced computational linguistics, particularly in understanding how infants learn complex grammatical structures, such as those described in Chomsky normal form. Attempts have been made to determine how an infant learns a "non-normal grammar" as theorized by Chomsky normal form.	[ "computational modelling", "arithmetic", "Noam Chomsky", "natural language processing", "psycholinguistics", "neuroscience", "Dialog systems", "Human speechome project", "morphology (linguistics)", "cognitive science", "philosophy", "language acquisition", "Treebank", "Corpus linguistics", "syntax", "semantics", "logic", "Pólya urn", "Association for Computational Linguistics", "log-normality", "part-of-speech", "Collostructional analysis", "cognitive psychology", "Translation memory", "computer science", "Computational Linguistics (journal)", "Computational semiotics", "Natural language processing", "Computer-assisted reviewing", "Semantic relatedness", "Chomsky normal form", "artificial intelligence", "anthropology", "Lexicostatistics", "Systemic functional linguistics", "AI winter", "linguistics", "Artificial intelligence in fiction", "Price equation", "Semantometrics", "Computational semantics", "Universal Networking Language", "Glottochronology", "lexicon", "Interdisciplinarity", "David G. Hays", "affordance", "Computational lexicology", "Computational models of language acquisition", "Internet linguistics", "Mathematical linguistics", "Quantitative linguistics", "English language", "Natural language user interface", "Grammar induction", "deep learning", "International Committee on Computational Linguistics", "natural language", "mathematics" ]
5,565	Geography of Ivory Coast	Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) is a sub-Saharan nation in southern West Africa located at 8° N, 5° W. The country is approximately square in shape. ==Area and borders== Area Total: Country rank in the world: 68th Land: Water: Area comparatives Australia comparative: approximately larger than Victoria Canada comparative: approximately half the size of Manitoba United Kingdom comparative: approximately larger than the United Kingdom United States comparative: slightly larger than New Mexico EU comparative: slightly larger than Poland Land borders Bordering countries: Liberia to the southwest for Guinea to the northwest for Mali to the north-northwest for Burkina Faso to the north-northeast for Ghana to the east for Total: Coastline on Gulf of Guinea == Maritime claims == Ivory Coast makes maritime claims of as an exclusive economic zone, of territorial sea, and a continental shelf. ==Terrain and topography== Ivory Coast's terrain can generally be described as a large plateau rising gradually from sea level in the south to almost elevation in the north. The nation's natural resources have made it a comparatively prosperous nation in the African economy. The southeastern region of Ivory Coast is marked by coastal inland lagoons that start at the Ghanaian border and stretch along the eastern half of the coast. The southern region, especially the southwest, is covered with dense tropical moist forest. The Eastern Guinean forests extend from the Sassandra River across the south-central and southeast portion of Ivory Coast and east into Ghana, while the Western Guinean lowland forests extend west from the Sassandra River into Liberia and southeastern Guinea. The mountains of Dix-Huit Montagnes region, in the west of the country near the border with Guinea and Liberia, are home to the Guinean montane forests. The Guinean forest-savanna mosaic belt extends across the middle of the country from east to west, and is the transition zone between the coastal forests and the interior savannas. The forest-savanna mosaic interlaces forest, savanna and grassland habitats. Northern Ivory Coast is part of the West Sudanian Savanna ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. It is a zone of lateritic or sandy soils, with vegetation decreasing from south to north. The terrain is mostly flat to undulating plain, with mountains in the northwest. The lowest elevation is at sea level on the coast. The highest elevation is Mount Nimba, at in the far west of the country along the border with Guinea and Liberia. ==Rivers== The Cavalla River drains the western border area of the Ivory Coast and eastern Liberia. It forms the southern two-thirds of the border between Liberia and Ivory Coast. The Sassandra River forms in the Guinea highlands and drains much of the western part of the Ivory Coast east of the Cavalla River. The Bandama River is the longest river in the Ivory Coast, with a length of some , draining the east central part of the country. In 1973 the Kossou Dam was constructed at Kossou on the Bandama, creating Lake Kossou. The capital, Yamoussoukro, is located near the river south of the lake. The Komoé River originates on the Sikasso Plateau of Burkina Faso, and briefly forms the border between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast before entering Ivory Coast. It drains the northeastern and easternmost portions of the country before emptying into the eastern end of the Ébrié Lagoon and ultimately the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Its waters contribute to the Comoé National Park. ==Climate== The climate of Ivory Coast is generally hot and humid. Most of the country has a tropical savanna climate (Köppen Aw), although the Upper Guinean forest region bordering Liberia has a tropical monsoon climate (Am). In the north, there are three seasons: warm and dry (November to March), hot and dry (March to May), and hot and wet (June to October), whilst in the south there are two rainy seasons between April and July, and between October and November, a longer dry season from December to February, and a shorter dry season in August. Temperatures average between and range from . ==Crops and natural resources== Ivory Coast has a large timber industry due to its large forest coverage. The nation's hardwood exports match those of Brazil. In recent years there has been much concern about the rapid rate of deforestation. Rainforests are being destroyed at a rate sometimes cited as the highest in the world. The only forest left completely untouched in Ivory Coast is Taï National Park (Parc National de Taï), a area in the country's far southwest that is home to over 150 endemic species and many other endangered species such as the Pygmy hippopotamus and 11 species of monkeys. Nine percent of the country is arable land. Ivory Coast is the world's largest producer of cocoa, a major national cash crop. Other chief crops include coffee, bananas, and oil palms, which produce palm oil and kernels. Mineral resources include petroleum, natural gas, diamonds, manganese, iron, cobalt, bauxite, copper, gold, nickel, tantalum, silica sand, clay, palm oil. Hydropower is also generated. ==Natural hazards== Natural hazards include the heavy surf and the lack of natural harbors on the coast; during the rainy season torrential flooding is a danger. == Extreme points == Extreme points are the geographic points that are farther north, south, east or west than any other location in the country. Northernmost point — the point at which the border with Mali enters the Bagoé River, Savanes District Southernmost point — Boubré, Bas-Sassandra District Easternmost point — unnamed location on the border with Ghana south-west of the town of Tambi, Zanzan District Westernmost point — unnamed location on the border with Liberia in the Nuon River west of Klobli, Montagnes District	[ "Endemic (ecology)", "Savanes District", "biome", "clay", "Sassandra River", "Bas-Sassandra District", "Köppen climate classification", "exclusive economic zone", "Economy of Africa", "Ivory Coast", "Poland", "Land borders", "Bandama River", "Central Intelligence Agency", "Burkina Faso", "West Africa", "petroleum", "Guinea", "iron", "Lumber", "Sub-Saharan Africa", "Comoé National Park", "World Almanac", "Brazil", "Africa", "nickel", "Mineral resources", "manganese", "Deutscher Wetterdienst", "savanna", "arable land", "bauxite", "Bagoé River", "tantalum", "monkey", "palm oil", "Elaeis guineensis", "Eastern Guinean forests", "Guinean montane forests", "European Union", "Boubré", "Ghana", "Manitoba", "Gulf of Guinea", "Klobli", "Mont Nimba", "Liberia", "New Mexico", "climate", "Taï National Park", "deforestation", "Subdivisions of Ivory Coast", "Rainforest", "banana", "diamond", "Mount Nimba", "sea level", "Guinean forest-savanna mosaic", "copper", "Tambi", "Victoria (state)", "Montagnes District", "tropical savanna climate", "silica", "Cestos River", "Kossou Dam", "Lake Kossou", "gold", "cash crop", "coffee", "hardwood", "natural gas", "natural harbor", "West Sudanian Savanna", "laterite", "cobalt", "continental shelf", "tropical monsoon climate", "Ébrié Lagoon", "Sikasso", "endangered species", "Zanzan District", "Western Guinean lowland forests", "Mali", "Danish Meteorological Institute", "tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands", "Sub-Sahara", "Kossou", "Pygmy hippopotamus", "Dix-Huit Montagnes", "Hydropower", "Natural hazard", "Komoé River", "Yamoussoukro" ]
5,566	Demographics of Ivory Coast	Demographic features of the population of Ivory Coast include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population. ==Population== Cote d Ivoire demography.png\|Demographics of Ivory Coast, Data of Our World in Data, year 2022; Number of inhabitants in thousands. Côte d'Ivoire Population 1950-2021 Forecast 2022-2032 UN World Population Prospects 2022.svg\|Population, fertility rate and net reproduction rate, United Nations estimates According to the total population was in , compared to only 2 630 000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 40.9%, 55.3% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 3.8% was 65 years or older . ==Vital statistics== Registration of vital events in the Ivory Coast is not complete. The website Our World in Data prepared the following estimates based on statistics from the Population Department of the United Nations. ===Age distribution=== {{Hidden begin \|title= Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 08.XI.2021): Fertility data as of 2011-2012 (DHS Program): ==Ethnic groups== Ivory Coast has more than 60 ethnic groups, usually classified into five principal divisions: Akan (east and center, including Lagoon peoples of the southeast), Krou (southwest), Southern Mandé (west), Northern Mandé (northwest), Sénoufo/Lobi (north center and northeast). The Baoulés, in the Akan division, probably comprise the largest single subgroup with 15%-20% of the population. They are based in the central region around Bouaké and Yamoussoukro. The Bétés in the Krou division, the Sénoufos in the north, and the Malinkés in the northwest and the cities are the next largest groups, with 10%-15% of the national population. Most of the principal divisions have a significant presence in neighboring countries. ==Migration== ===Immigration=== Of the more than 5 million non-Ivorian Africans living in Ivory Coast, one-third to one-half are from Burkina Faso; the rest are from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Liberia, and Mauritania. Non-Africans in the country include French people, Lebanese people, Vietnamese people, Spaniards, Americans and Canadians. ===Emigration=== The table below shows the number of people born in Ivory Coast who have migrated to OECD countries only (the table only includes communities consisting of at least 1,000 members). ==Languages== French is the official language, while there are 60 living indigenous languages spoken in Ivory Coast. The Dioula dialect of Bambara is the most widely spoken one. Other language groups include the Gur languages, the Kru languages (including the Bété languages, Dida, Nyabwa, Wè, and Western Krahn), the Kwa languages (including Akan, Anyin, and Baoulé), and the Senufo languages. ==Religion== {{bar box \|title=Religions of IVORY COAST (2014 est.) In earlier decades, this shift was mainly due to large-scale immigration from neighboring countries of the interior, that has been going on since colonial times and continued to be promoted during the Houphouet-Boigny era. Since the 1990s, the widening conversion gap between different religious groups has started to tilt the demographic balance in favor of Christians.According to the last census of 2021 Muslims make up 42.5% of population (42.9% in 2014) and Christians 39.8% (33.9% in 2014).	[ "population", "Population", "Demography", "Gur people", "Lobi people", "Akan people", "Lebanese people", "Mandé people", "French language", "Western Krahn", "Animist", "Bambara language", "Anyin language", "Ivorians in the United Kingdom", "Lebanese people in Ivory Coast", "Bouaké", "Dioula language", "Ivory Coast", "Gur languages", "Nyabwa language", "Benin", "Islam in Ivory Coast", "Krou", "fertility rate", "Our World in Data", "Americans", "Dida language", "Senegal", "French people in Ivory Coast", "Baoulé language", "Akan language", "Spaniards", "Evangelical", "Ivorians in France", "Burkina Faso", "Houphouet-Boigny", "Guinea", "Mali", "Pentecostal", "Vietnamese people", "French people", "Ghana", "Abidjan", "Canadians", "Nigeria", "Ethnic group", "Infant mortality", "Wè language", "Akan (ethnic group)", "Kwa languages", "United Nations", "Ivorian Americans", "Roman Catholic", "population density", "Liberia", "Kru languages", "net reproduction rate", "Senufo languages", "Total fertility rate", "Mauritania", "Life expectancy", "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", "Bété languages", "Yamoussoukro", "Economy of Ivory Coast", "Pakistan" ]
5,567	Politics of Ivory Coast	The politics of Ivory Coast takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Ivory Coast is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the President and the Government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. The capital since 1983 is Yamoussoukro; however, Abidjan remains the commercial center. Most countries maintain their embassies in Abidjan. A civil war was fought in Ivory Coast between 2002–2004 and a second civil war broke out in March 2011 following contested elections that saw president-elect Alassane Ouattara come into power in 2011 and reelected in 2015. It is located in Africa. ==Civil war== Troops, mostly hailing from the north of the country, mutinied in the early hours of 19 September 2002. They soon after launched attacks in many cities, including Abidjan. By lunchtime, they had control of the north of the country. Their principal claim relates to the definition of who is a citizen of Ivory Coast (and so who can stand for election as president), voting rights and their representation in government in Abidjan. The events in Abidjan shows that it is not a tribal issue, but a crisis of transition from a dictatorship to a democracy, with the clashes inherent in the definition of citizenship. Forces involved in the conflict include: Government forces, the National Army (FANCI), also called loyalists, formed and equipped essentially since 2003 The Young Patriots: nationalist groups aligned with President Laurent Gbagbo Mercenaries recruited by President Gbagbo: allegedly, Belarusians some former combatants of Liberia, including under-17 youths, forming the so-called "Lima militia" New Forces (Forces Nouvelles, FN), ex-northern rebels, who hold 60% of the country; their political expression is the Mouvement patriotique de Côte d'Ivoire, or MPCI French forces: troops sent within the framework of Opération Licorne and under UN mandate (United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire), 3000 men in February 2003 and 4600 in November 2004; Soldiers of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), White helmets, also under the UN. ==Executive branch== \|President \|Alassane Ouattara \|Rally of the Republicans \|4 December 2011 \|- \|Vice-President \|Tiémoko Meyliet Koné \|Independent \|19 April 2022 \|- \|Prime Minister \|position vacant \|} Ivory Coast's 1959 constitution provides for strong presidency within the framework of a separation of powers. The executive is personified in the president, elected for a five-year term. The president is commander in chief of the armed forces, may negotiate and ratify certain treaties, and may submit a bill to a national referendum or to the National Assembly. According to the constitution, the President of the National Assembly assumes the presidency in the event of a vacancy, and he completes the remainder of the deceased president's term. The cabinet is selected by and is responsible to the president. Changes are being proposed to some of these provisions, to extend term of office to 7 years, establish a senate, and make president of the senate interim successor to the president. Laurent Gbagbo took power following a popular overthrow of the interim leader Gen. Robert Guéï who had claimed a dubious victory in presidential elections; Gen. Guéï himself had assumed power on 25 December 1999, following a military coup against the government of former President Henri Konan Bédié. Gbagbo was elected president in 2000 in an election boycotted by many oppositional forces. The president is elected by popular vote for a five-year term. The prime minister is appointed by the president. Alassane Ouattara is currently the president of Ivory Coast. He was reelected in the 2015 Ivorian presidential election. After a new constitution was approved by referendum, it is expected President Alassane Ouattara would appoint a Vice-President before 2020. The President and Vice-President will run on a joint ticket from 2020. They will be both elected for a five-year term, with only one possible reelection. The Vice-President will replace the President in case of death, resignation and any other vacancy. In November 2020, Alassane Ouattara won third term in office in elections boycotted by the opposition. His opponents argued it was illegal for president Ouattara to run for a third term. ==Legislative branch== Parliament of Ivory Coast is a bicameral body composed by the National Assembly and the Senate of Ivory Coast. Prior to November 2016 and the future creation of the Senate, the Parliament of Ivory Coast was only composed of the National Assembly. The National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) has 255 members, elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies. It passes on legislation typically introduced by the president although it also can introduce legislation. The Senate of Ivory Coast (Sénat) will have two-thirds of the senators indirectly elected and one-third appointed by the president-elect, elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies. Ivory Coast is a one party dominant state with the Rally of the Republicans in power. ==Judicial branch== The judicial system culminates in the Supreme Court of Ivory Coast. The High Court of Justice is competent to try government officials for major offenses. The Supreme Court or Court Supreme consists of four chambers: Judicial Chamber for criminal cases, Audit Chamber for financial cases, Constitutional Chamber for judicial review cases, and Administrative Chamber for civil cases; there is no legal limit to the number of members. ==Political parties and elections== ===Presidential elections=== ===Parliamentary elections=== ==Administrative divisions== For administrative purposes, Ivory Coast is divided into 58 departments, each headed by a prefect appointed by the central government. There are 196 communes, each headed by an elected mayor, plus the city of Abidjan with ten mayors. The 58 departments (départements, singular - département) are listed in the article Departments of Ivory Coast. ==International organization participation== ACP, AfDB, AU, ECA, ECOWAS, Entente, FAO, FZ, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICCt (signatory), ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, IMO, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, ITUC, MONUC, NAM, OIC, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNHCR, UNIDO, UPU, WADB (regional), WAEMU, WCO, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO	[ "International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement", "International Finance Corporation", "National Assembly of Ivory Coast", "trade union", "International Organization for Migration", "referendum", "republic", "Ivory Coast", "International Civil Aviation Organization", "International Development Association", "United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire", "commune (subnational entity)", "Laurent Gbagbo", "Robert Guéï", "Economic Community of West African States", "Congrès Panafricain des Jeunes et des Patriotes", "World Trade Organization", "one party dominant state", "Soviet Union", "Presidential system", "military coup", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "Executive power", "UNESCO", "Conseil de l'Entente", "Independent politician", "treaty", "Representative democracy", "President of Ivory Coast", "List of heads of government of Ivory Coast", "Henri Konan Bédié", "CIA World Factbook", "sine qua non", "Ivorian presidential election, 2015", "African Development Bank", "MONUC", "Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire", "International Labour Organization", "International Atomic Energy Agency", "Abidjan", "prefect", "Rally of the Republicans", "Department (subnational entity)", "International Maritime Organization", "Senate (Ivory Coast)", "Liberia", "constituency", "United Nations Economic Commission for Africa", "Félix Houphouët-Boigny", "World Meteorological Organization", "democracy", "International Telecommunication Union", "Legislative power", "Baoule", "separation of powers", "2020 Ivorian presidential election", "IOC", "tribe", "United Nations Industrial Development Organization", "Ambassador (diplomacy)", "United Nations Conference on Trade and Development", "Opération Licorne", "Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire – African Democratic Rally", "senate", "African Union", "Alassane Ouattara", "World Health Organization", "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development", "World Federation of Trade Unions", "cocoa", "Constitution of Ivory Coast", "Food and Agriculture Organization", "International Fund for Agricultural Development", "Departments of Ivory Coast", "International Organization for Standardization", "United Nations", "Group of 77", "International Trade Union Confederation", "International Criminal Court", "World Tourism Organization", "Belarus", "Parliament of Ivory Coast", "Group of 24", "ACP (Lomé Convention)", "West African Development Bank", "International Monetary Fund", "Interpol (organization)", "Vice-President of Ivory Coast", "West African Economic and Monetary Union", "head of government", "Ivorian presidential election, 2020", "United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees", "Tiémoko Meyliet Koné", "multi-party system", "Islamic Development Bank", "UN Mandate", "Marxism", "Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons", "Non-Aligned Movement", "population growth rate", "Supreme Court of Ivory Coast", "Franc zone", "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation", "WP:SDNONE", "Universal Postal Union", "Mercenaries", "Civil war in Côte d'Ivoire", "head of state", "Ivorian Popular Front", "Ivorian constitutional referendum, 2016", "Yamoussoukro", "World Customs Organization" ]
5,570	Transport in Ivory Coast	Ivory Coast invested remarkably in its transport system. Transport Infrastructures are much more developed than they are other West African countries despite a crisis that restrained their maintenance and development. Since its independence in 1960, Ivory Coast put an emphasis on increasing and modernizing the transport network for human as well as for goods. Major infrastructures of diverse nature were built including railways, roads, waterways, and airports. In spite of the crisis, neighbor countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Guinea) still strongly depend on the Ivorian transport network for importing, exporting, and transiting their immigrants to Ivory Coast. == Rail transport == The nation's railway system is part of a 1 260 km long route that links the country to Burkina Faso and Niger. 1 156 km of railroad links Abidjan to Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. Built during colonial era by the firm Abidjan-Niger (RAN), this railroad freed several landlocked countries among which were ex-Upper-Volta (Burkina Faso), Niger, and Mali. This railroad, operated by Sitarail, plays a key role as regards to the carriage of the goods (livestock) and the transport of people between Ivory Coast and border countries: 1 million tons of goods have transited in 2006. In 2005, despite the negative impact the crisis had on the sector, benefits engendered by transporting the goods and people via RAN, are estimated respectively at 16 309 et3 837billionCFA. As of 2004, the railway network consisted of a state-controlled 660 km section of a 1,146 km narrow gauge railroad that ran north from Abidjan through Bouaké and Ferkéssédougou to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. == Road transport == Ivory Coast road network spreads over 85 000 km consisting of 75 000 unpaved, 65 000 km, and 224 km highways. It provides national and international traffic with neighbor countries. The Trans–West African Coastal Highway provides a paved link to Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, with paved highways to landlocked Mali and Burkina Faso feeding into the coastal highway. When construction of roads and bridges in Liberia and Sierra Leone is complete, the highway will link to another seven Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) nations to the west and north-west. At the national level, vehicles are estimated at 600 000, which includes 75% of used cars (second hand) due to the low purchasing power since the beginning of the economic crisis. 20 000 new cars are registered every year. Although maintenance and renovations works are being carried out since middle-2011, over 80% of the Ivorian network is older than 20 years and therefore damaged. In addition, a significant traffic exists throughout Abidjan. This traffic is mainly composed of taxi, buses and mini-buses locally referred to as Gbaka. The country counts with two 4-laned motorways, the first one running from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro for a length of 224 km., and the second joining Abidjan to Grand-Bassam, with a length of 30 km. Both are built with modern technologies and under international standards of security. == Maritime transport == Landscape view of the Autonomous Port of Abidjan Ivory Coast greatly contributed to developing maritime transport by building two ports on its seaside namely, autonomous port of Abidjan, sometimes referred to as "lung of Ivorian economy", and the San-Pedro port. The total traffic in 2005, by adding importation to exportation, was 18 661 784 tons for autonomous port of Abidjan and 1 001 991 tons for San-Pedro. The autonomous port of Abidjan cover a 770 hectares area and shelters 60% of the country industries. It is the first tuna fishing port in Africa. It contains 36 conventional berths spread over six kilometers of quays providing a capacity of sixty commercial ships with multiple special docks, a container terminal as well as several specialized and industrial berths. The other major port, the San-Pedro port, operates since 1971 and has two quays covering 18,727 m2 area. Apart from those two major ports, there are also small ports at Sassandra, Aboisso, and Dabou. == Air transport == Ivory Coast has three international airports located in Abidjan, Yamoussoukro, and Bouaké. Fourteen smaller cities also possess regional airports, the most important of which are Daloa, Korhogo, Man, Odiénné and San-pédro. Twenty-seven aerodromes exists and are operated by a public establishment, the Anam (National agency for civil aviation and meteorology), except the activities carried out by the Asecna (Agency for security of air freight in Africa and Madagascar). Since the outbreak of the crisis, only five of these airports are available. These are Abidjan, San-Pédro, Yamoussoukro, Daloa, and Touba. Regarding the International Airport of Abidjan, official statistics from 2005, showed 14 257 commercial movements (departures and arrivals); 745 180 commercial passengers (arrivals, departures, and transit) and 12 552 tons of commercial fret. The Airport of Abidjan covers 90% of the air traffic of Côte d'Ivoire and generate 95% of the overall profits of the sector. The airport of Abidjan is operated by a private company, Aeria, created in association with the Commerce Chamber of Marseilles. Its traffic mainly encompasses European aeronautical companies (Air France, Brussels Airlines) and some African firms (South African Airways, Kenya Airways, Air Sénégal International).	[ "Sassandra", "Kenya Airways", "Transport in Mali", "Bouaké", "Transport in Ghana", "Benin", "break of gauge", "Transport in Guinea", "Ferkéssédougou", "Autonomous Port of Abidjan", "Burkina Faso", "Mali", "Ouagadougou", "Trans–West African Coastal Highway", "Ghana", "Abidjan", "Transport in Burkina Faso", "Togo", "Sierra Leone", "Nigeria", "Aboisso", "South African Airways", "Grand-Bassam", "Economic Community of West African States", "Liberia", "Transport in Liberia", "Air Sénégal International", "Yamoussoukro", "Dabou" ]
5,571	Armed Forces of the Republic of Ivory Coast	The Armed Forces of Côte d'Ivoire (; "FACI") are the armed forces of Ivory Coast, first formed after the country's independence in 1960. ==History== The Ivorian military has its roots in the colonial armed forces of French West Africa, which were headquartered in Dakar, Senegal but possessed bases in several distinct military regions. Most Ivorian recruits who joined the colonial army were assigned to Senegalese units during this period, such as the Senegalese Tirailleurs. They served with distinction during both world wars, with 20,000 Ivorian soldiers fighting for the French during World War I and another 30,000 during World War II. By the end of 1962, the fledgling Ivorian armed forces had expanded rapidly into 5,000 soldiers attached to four battalions. Most of the initial recruits were drawn from the defunct colonial military establishment and had served in various French units, particularly the marine regiments. Conscription was instituted, although the large number of volunteers and low manpower requirements ensured it was only applied selectively. Two years later, an army mutiny led by disgruntled recruits and junior officers escalated into a major coup d'état which ousted Bédié and installed Guéï in his place. This triggered a civil revolt in Abidjan and two days of street battles between Gbagbo supporters and soldiers loyal to Guéï. The mutineers later took control of most of the northern administrative regions, carrying out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing and plunging the country into civil war. For a number of years, troops dispatched by France, ECOWAS, and a United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI) effort enforced a buffer zone between the south and the rebel-held north. France maintained it would not take sides in the civil war, but allowed Ivorian military aircraft to cross the buffer zone and attack rebel positions. The Ivorian army was quickly overwhelmed, and Gbagbo deposed by the rebels. In 2014, some army units launched an abortive mutiny over wage disputes. The crisis ended when the Ivorian political leadership agreed to a new financial settlement with the FRCI. The effective strength of the army was about 3,000 troops for the first ten years of Ivorian independence, increasing to over 8,000 in the mid-1980s before declining steadily to about 5,500. In 1987, the army was responsible for the country's five military regions, each of which was supervised by a colonel. As of October 2011, previously active units around Abidjan reportedly included the: 1st Infantry Battalion – (1er Bataillon d'infanterie des forces armées terrestres ivoiriennes), at Akouédo (new camp) Armoured Battalion – (Battaillon Blinde), at Akouédo (new camp). The new camp at Akouedo had reportedly been almost completely destroyed. appears to be at 5' 21 7 N, 3' 26 30 W. 1st Parachute Commando Battalion – 1er Bataillon des Commandos Parachutistes (1er BCP), old camp at Akouedo, on the route to the village Ébrié. The 2nd Infantry Battalion appears to have been based at Daloa for some time. A 2003 change of command ushered in the 16th commander of the unit, and there are also reports from 2009 and 2011. Reported special forces units include: Group des Forces Speciales (GFS) Fusiliers Commandos d Air (FUSCOA) Détachement d' Intervention Rapide Fusiliers Marins Commandos (FUMACO/ naval commandos) ===Current army equipment=== The Ivorian army has traditionally been equipped with French weapons, most of which were delivered in the 1980s under military grants from French government. French training and operating techniques have been used since the establishment of the air force. The first aircraft were supplied in 1961 and included three Douglas C-47s and seven MH.1521 Broussard STOL utility aircraft. The first jet aircraft entered service in October 1980 which were six Alpha Jet CI light attack and advanced training aircraft; six more were ordered, but this was subsequently cancelled. However, another was purchased in 1983. The 1979 air force had only transport and liaison aircraft. In 1987, the Library of Congress Country Study said that the Air Force's official name, Ivoirian Air Transport and Liaison Group (Groupement Aérien de Transport et de Liaison—GATL), "reflects an original mission focused more on logistics and transport rather than a combat force." In 2004, following an air strikes on French peacekeepers by Ivorian forces, the French military destroyed all aircraft of the Air Force of Ivory Coast. President Gbagbo had previously ordered air strikes on Ivorian rebels as part of the civil war. On 6 November 2004, at least one Ivorian Sukhoi Su-25 bomber attacked a French peacekeeping position in the rebel town of Bouaké at 1 pm, killing nine French soldiers and wounding 31. An American development worker, reported to have been a missionary, was also killed. The Ivorian government claimed the attack on the French was unintentional, but the French insisted that the attack had been deliberate. Several hours after the attack, French President Jacques Chirac ordered the destruction of the Ivorian air force and the seizure of Yamoussoukro airport. The French military performed an overland attack on the airport, destroying two Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack aircraft and three Mi-24 helicopter gunships. Two more military helicopters were destroyed during combat in the skies over Abidjan. France then flew in 300 troops and three Dassault Mirage F1 jet fighters based in nearby Gabon on standby. It is unknown whether any of these aircraft were truly operational. In addition, Deagel.com reported two Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 attack aircraft. ===Aircraft=== ==Navy== Ivory Coast has a brown-water navy whose mission is coastal surveillance and security for the nation's 340-mile coastline. ===Retired=== Early vessels were a second hand submarine chaser (SC 1337) from the United States, and three former French Navy boats (one patrol craft, with two fast attack boats). ==International forces== A mutual defence accord signed with France in April 1961 provided for the stationing of French Armed Forces troops in Ivory Coast. The 43rd Marine Infantry Battalion of the French Army's Troupes de Marine () was based in Port Bouet adjacent to the Abidjan Airport from 1979 and had more than 500 troops assigned until 2011, when it appears to have been disbanded. The French military also maintained a force as part of Opération Licorne. From summer 2011, Operation Licorne, the French force, previously over 5,000 strong, was roughly 700, and consists of Licorne headquarters, Battalion Licorne (BATLIC), seemingly made up of elements of the 2nd Marine Infantry Regiment and the Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine, and a helicopter detachment. The French military left the country at the Ivorian's request in 2025. The United Nations has maintained the peacekeeping mission ONUCI in the country since 2004. On 28 February 2011 ONUCI consisted of 7,568 troops, 177 military observers, and numerous international civilians and Police; the mission had received helicopter and infantry reinforcement from UNMIL during the stand-off since the late 2010 elections which had been won by Alassane Ouattara. ==National Gendarmerie== Since independence, the Ivory Coast has maintained a paramilitary gendarmerie force with a mandate to assist the police with law enforcement duties in the country's rural districts.	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5,573	Croatia	Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Italy to the west. Its capital and largest city, Zagreb, forms one of the country's primary subdivisions, with twenty counties. Other major urban centers include Split, Rijeka and Osijek. The country spans , and has a population of nearly 3.9 million. The Croats arrived in modern-day Croatia, then part of Roman Illyria, in the late 6th century. By the 7th century, they had organized the territory into two duchies. Croatia was first internationally recognized as independent on 7 June 879 during the reign of Duke Branimir. Tomislav became the first king by 925, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. During the succession crisis after the Trpimirović dynasty ended, Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest, the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of Austria to the Croatian throne. In October 1918, the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, independent from the Habsburg Empire, was proclaimed in Zagreb, and in December 1918, it merged into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, most of Croatia was incorporated into a Nazi-installed puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia. A resistance movement led to the creation of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, which after the war became a founding member and constituent of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. On 25 June 1991, Croatia declared independence, and the War of Independence was successfully fought over the next four years. Croatia is a republic and has a parliamentary system. It is a member of the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen Area, NATO, the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the World Trade Organization, a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean, and is currently in the process of joining the OECD. An active participant in United Nations peacekeeping, Croatia contributed troops to the International Security Assistance Force and was elected to fill a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in the 2008–2009 term for the first time. Croatia is a developed country with an advanced high-income economy. Service, industrial sectors, and agriculture dominate the economy. Tourism is a significant source of revenue for the country, with nearly 20 million tourist arrivals as of 2019. Since the 2000s, the Croatian government has heavily invested in infrastructure, especially transport routes and facilities along the Pan-European corridors. Croatia has also positioned itself as a regional energy leader in the early 2020s and is contributing to the diversification of Europe's energy supply via its floating liquefied natural gas import terminal off Krk island, LNG Hrvatska. Croatia provides social security, universal health care, and tuition-free primary and secondary education while supporting culture through public institutions and corporate investments in media and publishing. == Etymology == Croatia's non-native name derives from Medieval Latin , itself a derivation of North-West Slavic , by liquid metathesis from Common Slavic period Xorvat, from proposed Proto-Slavic Xъrvátъ which possibly comes from the 3rd-century Scytho-Sarmatian form attested in the Tanais Tablets as (', alternate forms comprise and '). The origin of the ethnonym is uncertain, but most probably is from Proto-Ossetian / Alanian xurvæt- or xurvāt-, in the meaning of "one who guards" ("guardian, protector"). The oldest preserved record of the Croatian ethnonym's native variation *xъrvatъ is of the variable stem, attested in the Baška tablet in style zvъnъmirъ kralъ xrъvatъskъ ("Zvonimir, Croatian king"), while the Latin variation Croatorum is archaeologically confirmed on a church inscription found in Bijaći near Trogir dated to the end of the 8th or early 9th century. The presumably oldest stone inscription with fully preserved ethnonym is the 9th-century Branimir inscription found near Benkovac, where Duke Branimir is styled Dux Cruatorvm, likely dated between 879 and 892, during his rule. The Latin term is attributed to a charter of Duke Trpimir I of Croatia, dated to 852 in a 1568 copy of a lost original, but it is not certain if the original was indeed older than the Branimir inscription. == History == === Prehistory and antiquity === The area known as Croatia today was inhabited throughout the prehistoric period. Neanderthal fossils dating to the middle Palaeolithic period were unearthed in northern Croatia, best presented at the Krapina site. Remnants of Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures were found in all regions. The largest proportion of sites is in the valleys of northern Croatia. The most significant are Baden, Starčevo, and Vučedol cultures. Iron Age hosted the early Illyrian Hallstatt culture and the Celtic La Tène culture. The region of modern-day Croatia was settled by Illyrians and Liburnians, while the first Greek colonies were established on the islands of Hvar, Korčula, and Vis. In 9 AD, the territory of today's Croatia became part of the Roman Empire. Emperor Diocletian was native to the region. He had a large palace built in Split, to which he retired after abdicating in AD 305. During the 5th century, the last de jure Western Roman Emperor Julius Nepos ruled a small realm from the palace after fleeing Italy in 475. === Middle Ages === The Roman period ends with Avar and Croat invasions in the late 6th and first half of the 7th century and the destruction of almost all Roman towns. Roman survivors retreated to more favourable sites on the coast, islands, and mountains. The city of Dubrovnik was founded by such survivors from Epidaurum. There's some uncertainty about the ethnogenesis of Croats. The most accepted theory, the Slavic theory, proposes migration of White Croats from White Croatia during the Migration Period. Conversely, the Iranian theory proposes Sarmatian-Alanic origin of Proto-Croats, based on Tanais Tablets containing Ancient Greek inscriptions of given names Χορούαθος, Χοροάθος, and Χορόαθος (Khoroúathos, Khoroáthos, and Khoróathos) and their interpretation as anthroponyms related to the Croatian ethnonym. According to the work De Administrando Imperio written by 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, Croats settled in the Roman province of Dalmatia in the first half of the 7th century after they defeated the Avars. Although there exist some scholarly disputes about the account's reliability and interpretation, recent archaeological data has established that the migration and settlement of the Slavs/Croats was in the late 6th and early 7th century. Eventually, a dukedom was formed, Duchy of Croatia, ruled by Borna, as attested by chronicles of Einhard starting in 818. The record represents the first document of Croatian realms, vassal states of Francia at the time. Its neighbor to the North was Principality of Lower Pannonia, at the time ruled by duke Ljudevit who ruled the territories between the Drava and Sava rivers, centred from his fort at Sisak. This population and territory throughout history was tightly related and connected to Croats and Croatia. Christianisation of Croats began in the 7th century at the time of archon Porga of Croatia, initially probably encompassed only the elite and related people, but mostly finished by the 9th century. The Frankish overlordship ended during the reign of Mislav, or his successor Trpimir I. The native Croatian royal dynasty was founded by duke Trpimir I in the mid 9th century, who defeated the Byzantine and Bulgarian forces. The first native Croatian ruler recognised by the Pope was duke Branimir, who received papal recognition from Pope John VIII on 7 June 879. Tomislav was the first king of Croatia, noted as such in a letter of Pope John X in 925. Tomislav defeated Hungarian and Bulgarian invasions. The medieval Croatian kingdom reached its peak in the 11th century during the reigns of Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074) and Dmitar Zvonimir (1075–1089). When Stjepan II died in 1091, ending the Trpimirović dynasty, Dmitar Zvonimir's brother-in-law Ladislaus I of Hungary claimed the Croatian crown. This led to a war and personal union with Hungary in 1102 under Coloman. === Union with Hungary and Austria === For the next four centuries, the Kingdom of Croatia was ruled by the Sabor (parliament) and a Ban (viceroy) appointed by the king. This period saw the rise of influential nobility such as the Frankopan and Šubić families to prominence, and ultimately numerous Bans from the two families. An increasing threat of Ottoman conquest and a struggle against the Republic of Venice for control of coastal areas ensued. The Venetians controlled most of Dalmatia by 1428, except the city-state of Dubrovnik, which became independent. Ottoman conquests led to the 1493 Battle of Krbava field and the 1526 Battle of Mohács, both ending in decisive Ottoman victories. King Louis II died at Mohács, and in 1527, the Croatian Parliament met in Cetin and chose Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg as the new ruler of Croatia, under the condition that he protects Croatia against the Ottoman Empire while respecting its political rights. To replace the fleeing population, the Habsburgs encouraged Bosnians to provide military service in the Military Frontier. The Croatian Parliament supported King Charles III's Pragmatic Sanction and signed their own Pragmatic Sanction in 1712. Subsequently, the emperor pledged to respect all privileges and political rights of the Kingdom of Croatia, and Queen Maria Theresa made significant contributions to Croatian affairs, such as introducing compulsory education. Between 1797 and 1809, the First French Empire increasingly occupied the eastern Adriatic coastline and its hinterland, ending the Venetian and the Ragusan republics, establishing the Illyrian Provinces. In response, the Royal Navy blockaded the Adriatic Sea, leading to the Battle of Vis in 1811. The Illyrian provinces were captured by the Austrians in 1813 and absorbed by the Austrian Empire following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. This led to the formation of the Kingdom of Dalmatia and the restoration of the Croatian Littoral to the Kingdom of Croatia under one crown. The 1830s and 1840s featured romantic nationalism that inspired the Croatian National Revival, a political and cultural campaign advocating the unity of South Slavs within the empire. Its primary focus was establishing a standard language as a counterweight to Hungarian while promoting Croatian literature and culture. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Croatia sided with Austria. Ban Josip Jelačić helped defeat the Hungarians in 1849 and ushered in a Germanisation policy. By the 1860s, the failure of the policy became apparent, leading to the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867. The creation of a personal union between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary followed. The treaty left Croatia's status to Hungary, which was resolved by the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868 when the kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia were united. The Kingdom of Dalmatia remained under de facto Austrian control, while Rijeka retained the status of corpus separatum previously introduced in 1779. Renewed efforts to reform Austria-Hungary, entailing federalisation with Croatia as a federal unit, were stopped by World War I. === The World Wars and Yugoslavia === On 29 October 1918, the Croatian Parliament (Sabor) declared independence and decided to join the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, The Croatian Parliament never ratified the union with Serbia and Montenegro. The political situation deteriorated further as Radić was assassinated in the National Assembly by NRS member, Serbian nationalist politician Puniša Račić in 1928, culminating in King Alexander I's establishment of the 6 January Dictatorship in 1929. The dictatorship formally ended in 1931 when the king imposed a more unitary constitution. The HSS, now led by Vladko Maček, continued to advocate federalisation, resulting in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement of August 1939 and the autonomous Banovina of Croatia. The Yugoslav government retained control of defence, internal security, foreign affairs, trade, and transport while other matters were left to the Croatian Sabor and a crown-appointed Ban. In April 1941, Yugoslavia was occupied by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Following the invasion, a German-Italian installed puppet state named the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) was established. Most of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the region of Syrmia were incorporated into this state. Parts of Dalmatia were annexed by Italy, Hungary annexed the northern Croatian regions of Baranja and Međimurje. The NDH regime was led by Ante Pavelić and ultranationalist Ustaše, a fringe movement in pre-war Croatia. With German and Italian military and political support, the regime introduced racial laws and launched a genocide campaign against Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Many were imprisoned in concentration camps; the largest was the Jasenovac complex. Anti-fascist Croats were targeted by the regime as well. Several concentration camps (most notably the Rab, Gonars and Molat camps) were established in Italian-occupied territories, mostly for Slovenes and Croats. aided by Italy. Nazi German forces committed crimes and reprisals against civilians in retaliation for Partisan actions, such as in the villages of Kamešnica and Lipa in 1944. A resistance movement emerged. On 22 June 1941, the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment was formed near Sisak, the first military unit formed by a resistance movement in occupied Europe. That sparked the beginning of the Yugoslav Partisan movement, a communist, multi-ethnic anti-fascist resistance group led by Josip Broz Tito. In ethnic terms, Croats were the second-largest contributors to the Partisan movement after Serbs. By May 1944 (according to Tito), Croats made up 30% of the Partisan's ethnic composition, despite making up 22% of the population. The movement grew fast, and at the Tehran Conference in December 1943, the Partisans gained recognition from the Allies. With Allied support in logistics, equipment, training and airpower, and with the assistance of Soviet troops taking part in the 1944 Belgrade Offensive, the Partisans gained control of Yugoslavia and the border regions of Italy and Austria by May 1945. Members of the NDH armed forces and other Axis troops, as well as civilians, were in retreat towards Austria. Following their surrender, many were killed in the Yugoslav death march of Nazi collaborators. In the following years, ethnic Germans faced persecution in Yugoslavia, and many were interned. The political aspirations of the Partisan movement were reflected in the State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia, which developed in 1943 as the bearer of Croatian statehood and later transformed into the Parliament in 1945, and AVNOJ—its counterpart at the Yugoslav level. Based on the studies on wartime and post-war casualties by demographer Vladimir Žerjavić and statistician Bogoljub Kočović, a total of 295,000 people from the territory (not including territories ceded from Italy after the war) died, which amounted to 7.3% of the population, among whom were 125–137,000 Serbs, 118–124,000 Croats, 16–17,000 Jews, and 15,000 Roma. In addition, from areas joined to Croatia after the war, a total of 32,000 people died, among whom 16,000 were Italians and 15,000 were Croats. Approximately 200,000 Croats from the entirety of Yugoslavia (including Croatia) and abroad were killed in total throughout the war and its immediate aftermath, approximately 5.4% of the population. After World War II, Croatia became a single-party socialist federal unit of the SFR Yugoslavia, ruled by the Communists, but having a degree of autonomy within the federation. In 1967, Croatian authors and linguists published a Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Standard Language demanding equal treatment for their language. The declaration contributed to a national movement seeking greater civil rights and redistribution of the Yugoslav economy, culminating in the Croatian Spring of 1971, which was suppressed by Yugoslav leadership. Still, the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution gave increased autonomy to federal units, basically fulfilling a goal of the Croatian Spring and providing a legal basis for independence of the federative constituents. Following Tito's death in 1980, the political situation in Yugoslavia deteriorated. National tension was fanned by the 1986 SANU Memorandum and the 1989 coups in Vojvodina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. In January 1990, the Communist Party fragmented along national lines, with the Croatian faction demanding a looser federation. In the same year, the first multi-party elections were held in Croatia, while Franjo Tuđman's win exacerbated nationalist tensions. Some of the Serbs in Croatia left Sabor and declared autonomy of the unrecognised Republic of Serbian Krajina, intent on achieving independence from Croatia. === Independence === As tensions rose, Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991. However, the full implementation of the declaration only came into effect after a three-month moratorium on the decision on 8 October 1991. In the meantime, tensions escalated into overt war when the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and various Serb paramilitary groups attacked Croatia. By the end of 1991, a high-intensity conflict fought along a wide front reduced Croatia's control to about two-thirds of its territory. Serb paramilitary groups then began a campaign of killing, terror, and expulsion of the Croats in the occupied territories, killing thousands of Croat civilians and expelling or displacing as many as 400,000-500,000 Croats and other non-Serbs from their homes. Serbs living in Croatian towns, especially those near the front lines, were subjected to various forms of discrimination. Croatian Serbs in Eastern and Western Slavonia and parts of the Krajina were forced to flee or were expelled by Croatian forces, though on a restricted scale and in lesser numbers. The Croatian Government publicly deplored these practices and sought to stop them, indicating that they were not a part of the Government's policy. On 15 January 1992, Croatia gained diplomatic recognition by the European Economic Community, followed by the United Nations. The war effectively ended in August 1995 with a decisive victory by Croatia; the event is commemorated each year on 5 August as Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and the Day of Croatian Defenders. Following the Croatian victory, about 200,000 Serbs from the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina fled the region The remaining occupied areas were restored to Croatia following the Erdut Agreement of November 1995, concluding with the UNTAES mission in January 1998. Most sources number the war deaths at around 20,000. After the end of the war, Croatia faced the challenges of post-war reconstruction, the return of refugees, establishing democracy, protecting human rights, and general social and economic development. The 2000s were characterized by democratization, economic growth, structural and social reforms, and problems such as unemployment, corruption, and the inefficiency of public administration. In November 2000 and March 2001, the Parliament amended the Constitution, first adopted on 22 December 1990, changing its bicameral structure back into its historic unicameral form and reducing presidential powers. Croatia joined the Partnership for Peace on 25 May 2000 and became a member of the World Trade Organization on 30 November 2000. On 29 October 2001, Croatia signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union, submitted a formal application for the EU membership in 2003, was given the status of a candidate country in 2004, and began accession negotiations in 2005. Although the Croatian economy had enjoyed a significant boom in the early 2000s, the financial crisis in 2008 forced the government to cut spending, thus provoking a public outcry. Croatia served on the United Nations Security Council in the 2008–2009 term for the first time, assuming the non-permanent seat in December 2008. On 1 April 2009, Croatia joined NATO. A wave of anti-government protests in 2011 reflected a general dissatisfaction with the current political and economic situation. The protests brought together diverse political persuasions in response to recent government corruption scandals and called for early elections. On 28 October 2011 MPs voted to dissolve Parliament and the protests gradually subsided. President Ivo Josipović agreed to a dissolution of Sabor on Monday, 31 October and scheduled new elections for Sunday 4 December 2011. On 30 June 2011, Croatia successfully completed EU accession negotiations. The country signed the Accession Treaty on 9 December 2011 and held a referendum on 22 January 2012, where Croatian citizens voted in favor of an EU membership. Croatia joined the European Union on 1 July 2013. Croatia was affected by the 2015 European migrant crisis when Hungary's closure of borders with Serbia pushed over 700,000 refugees and migrants to pass through Croatia on their way to other EU countries. On 19 October 2016, Andrej Plenković began serving as the current Croatian Prime Minister. The most recent presidential elections, held on 5 January 2020, elected Zoran Milanović as president. On 25 January 2022, the OECD Council decided to open accession negotiations with Croatia. Throughout the accession process, Croatia was to implement numerous reforms that will advance all spheres of activity – from public services and the justice system to education, transport, finance, health, and trade. In line with the OECD Accession Roadmap from June 2022, Croatia will undergo technical reviews by 25 OECD committees and is so far progressing at a faster pace than expected. Full membership is expected in 2025 and is the last big foreign policy goal Croatia still has to achieve. On 1 January 2023, Croatia adopted the euro as its official currency, replacing the kuna, and became the 20th Eurozone member. On the same day, Croatia became the 27th member of the border-free Schengen Area, thus marking its full EU integration. == Geography == Croatia is situated in Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Hungary is to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro to the southeast and Slovenia to the northwest. It lies mostly between latitudes 42° and 47° N and longitudes 13° and 20° E. Part of the territory in the extreme south surrounding Dubrovnik is a practical exclave connected to the rest of the mainland by territorial waters, but separated on land by a short coastline strip belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina around Neum. The Pelješac Bridge connects the exclave with mainland Croatia. The territory covers , consisting of of land and of water. It is the world's 127th largest country. Elevation ranges from the mountains of the Dinaric Alps with the highest point of the Dinara peak at near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina in the south Croatia hosts deep caves, 49 of which are deeper than , 14 deeper than and three deeper than . Croatia's most famous lakes are the Plitvice lakes, a system of 16 lakes with waterfalls connecting them over dolomite and limestone cascades. The lakes are renowned for their distinctive colours, ranging from turquoise to mint green, grey or blue. === Climate === Most of Croatia has a moderately warm and rainy continental climate as defined by the Köppen climate classification. Mean monthly temperature ranges between in January and in July. The coldest parts of the country are Lika and Gorski Kotar featuring a snowy, forested climate at elevations above . The warmest areas are at the Adriatic coast and especially in its immediate hinterland characterised by Mediterranean climate, as the sea moderates temperature highs. Consequently, temperature peaks are more pronounced in continental areas. The lowest temperature of was recorded on 3 February 1919 in Čakovec, and the highest temperature of was recorded on 4 August 1981 in Ploče. Mean annual precipitation ranges between and depending on geographic region and climate type. The least precipitation is recorded in the outer islands (Biševo, Lastovo, Svetac, Vis) and the eastern parts of Slavonia. However, in the latter case, rain occurs mostly during the growing season. The maximum precipitation levels are observed in the Dinaric Alps, in the Gorski Kotar peaks of Risnjak and Snježnik. Prevailing winds in the interior are light to moderate northeast or southwest, and in the coastal area, prevailing winds are determined by local features. Higher wind velocities are more often recorded in cooler months along the coast, generally as the cool northeasterly bura or less frequently as the warm southerly jugo. The sunniest parts are the outer islands, Hvar and Korčula, where more than 2700 hours of sunshine are recorded per year, followed by the middle and southern Adriatic Sea area in general, and northern Adriatic coast, all with more than 2000 hours of sunshine per year. === Biodiversity === Croatia can be subdivided into ecoregions based on climate and geomorphology. The country is one of the richest in Europe in terms of biodiversity. Croatia has four types of biogeographical regions—the Mediterranean along the coast and in its immediate hinterland, Alpine in most of Lika and Gorski Kotar, Pannonian along Drava and Danube, and Continental in the remaining areas. The most significant are karst habitats which include submerged karst, such as Zrmanja and Krka canyons and tufa barriers, as well as underground habitats. The country contains three ecoregions: Dinaric Mountains mixed forests, Pannonian mixed forests, and Illyrian deciduous forests. The karst geology harbours approximately 7,000 caves and pits, some of which are the habitat of the only known aquatic cave vertebrate—the olm. Forests are abundant, covering or 44% of Croatian land area. Other habitat types include wetlands, grasslands, bogs, fens, scrub habitats, coastal and marine habitats. In terms of phytogeography, Croatia is a part of the Boreal Kingdom and is a part of Illyrian and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region and the Adriatic province of the Mediterranean Region. The World Wide Fund for Nature divides Croatia between three ecoregions—Pannonian mixed forests, Dinaric Mountains mixed forests and Illyrian deciduous forests. Croatia hosts 37,000 known plant and animal species, but their actual number is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000. The president of the republic () is the head of state, directly elected to a five-year term and is limited by the Constitution to two terms. In addition to serving as commander in chief of the armed forces, the president has the procedural duty of appointing the prime minister with the parliament and has some influence on foreign policy. As the executive branch, it is responsible for proposing legislation and a budget, enforcing the laws, and guiding foreign and internal policies. The Government is seated at Banski dvori in Zagreb. The two largest political parties in Croatia are the Croatian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Croatia. Croatia has a civil law legal system in which law arises primarily from written statutes, with judges serving as implementers and not creators of law. Its development was largely influenced by German and Austrian legal systems. Croatian law is divided into two principal areas—private and public law. Before EU accession negotiations were completed, Croatian legislation had been fully harmonised with the Community acquis. The main national courts are the Constitutional Court, which oversees violations of the Constitution, and the Supreme Court, which is the highest court of appeal. Administrative, Commercial, County, Misdemeanor, and Municipal courts handle cases in their respective domains. Cases falling within judicial jurisdiction are in the first instance decided by a single professional judge, while appeals are deliberated in mixed tribunals of professional judges. Lay magistrates also participate in trials. The State's Attorney Office is the judicial body constituted of public prosecutors empowered to instigate prosecution of perpetrators of offences. Law enforcement agencies are organised under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior which consist primarily of the national police force. Croatia's security service is the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA). === Foreign relations === Croatia has established diplomatic relations with 194 countries. supporting 57 embassies, 30 consulates and eight permanent diplomatic missions. 56 foreign embassies and 67 consulates operate in the country in addition to offices of international organisations such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), World Bank, World Health Organization (WHO), International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and UNICEF. As of 2019, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration employed 1,381 personnel and expended 765.295 million kunas (€101.17 million). Stated aims of Croatian foreign policy include enhancing relations with neighbouring countries, developing international co-operation and promotion of the Croatian economy and Croatia itself. Croatia is a member of the European Union. As of 2021, Croatia had unsolved border issues with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Croatia is a member of NATO. On 1 January 2023, Croatia simultaneously joined both the Schengen Area and the Eurozone, having previously joined the ERM II on 10 July 2020. ===Croatian diaspora=== The Croatian diaspora consists of communities of ethnic Croats and Croatian citizens living outside Croatia. Croatia maintains intensive contacts with Croatian communities abroad (e.g., administrative and financial support of cultural, sports activities, and economic initiatives). Croatia actively maintain foreign relations to strengthen and guarantee the rights of the Croatian minority in various host countries. === Military === The Croatian Armed Forces (CAF) consist of the Air Force, Army, and Navy branches in addition to the Education and Training Command and Support Command. The CAF is headed by the General Staff, which reports to the defence minister, who in turn reports to the president. According to the constitution, the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In case of immediate threat during wartime, he issues orders directly to the General Staff. Following the 1991–95 war, defence spending and CAF size began a constant decline. , military spending was an estimated 1.68% of the country's GDP, 67th globally. In 2005 the budget fell below the NATO-required 2% of GDP, down from the record high of 11.1% in 1994. Traditionally relying on conscripts, the CAF went through a period of reforms focused on downsizing, restructuring and professionalisation in the years before accession to NATO in April 2009. According to a presidential decree issued in 2006, the CAF employed around 18,100 active duty military personnel, 3,000 civilians and 2,000 voluntary conscripts between 18 and 30 years old in peacetime. Compulsory conscription was abolished in January 2008, , the Croatian military had 72 members stationed in foreign countries as part of United Nations-led international peacekeeping forces. , 323 troops served the NATO-led ISAF force in Afghanistan. Another 156 served with KFOR in Kosovo. Croatia has a military-industrial sector that exported around 493 million kunas (€65,176 million) worth of military equipment in 2020. Croatian-made weapons and vehicles used by CAF include the standard sidearm HS2000 manufactured by HS Produkt and the M-84D battle tank designed by the Đuro Đaković factory. Uniforms and helmets worn by CAF soldiers are locally produced and marketed to other countries. According to the 2024 Global Peace Index, Croatia is the 15th most peaceful country in the world. === Administrative divisions === Croatia was first divided into counties in the Middle Ages. The divisions changed over time to reflect losses of territory to Ottoman conquest and subsequent liberation of the same territory, changes of the political status of Dalmatia, Dubrovnik, and Istria. The traditional division of the country into counties was abolished in the 1920s when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the subsequent Kingdom of Yugoslavia introduced oblasts and banovinas respectively. Communist-ruled Croatia, as a constituent part of post-World War II Yugoslavia, abolished earlier divisions and introduced municipalities, subdividing Croatia into approximately one hundred municipalities. Counties were reintroduced in 1992 legislation, significantly altered in terms of territory relative to the pre-1920s subdivisions. In 1918, the Transleithanian part was divided into eight counties with their seats in Bjelovar, Gospić, Ogulin, Osijek, Požega, Varaždin, Vukovar, and Zagreb. As of 1992, Croatia is divided into 20 counties and the capital city of Zagreb, the latter having the dual authority and legal status of a county and a city. County borders changed in some instances, last revised in 2006. The counties subdivide into 127 cities and 429 municipalities. Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) division is performed in several tiers. NUTS 1 level considers the entire country in a single unit; three NUTS 2 regions come below that. Those are Northwest Croatia, Central and Eastern (Pannonian) Croatia, and Adriatic Croatia. The latter encompasses the counties along the Adriatic coast. Northwest Croatia includes Koprivnica-Križevci, Krapina-Zagorje, Međimurje, Varaždin, the city of Zagreb, and Zagreb counties and the Central and Eastern (Pannonian) Croatia includes the remaining areas—Bjelovar-Bilogora, Brod-Posavina, Karlovac, Osijek-Baranja, Požega-Slavonia, Sisak-Moslavina, Virovitica-Podravina, and Vukovar-Syrmia counties. Individual counties and the city of Zagreb also represent NUTS 3 level subdivision units in Croatia. The NUTS local administrative unit (LAU) divisions are two-tiered. LAU 1 divisions match the counties and the city of Zagreb in effect making those the same as NUTS 3 units, while LAU 2 subdivisions correspond to cities and municipalities. == Economy == Croatia's economy qualifies as high-income and developed. International Monetary Fund data projects that Croatian nominal GDP will reach $88.08 Billion in 2024, or $22,966 per capita. According to Eurostat, Croatian GDP per capita in PPS stood at 76% of the EU average in 2023, with real GDP growth for the year being 2.8%. The average net salary of a Croatian worker in April 2024 was €1,326 per month, the average gross salary roughly €1,834 per month. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.6% in that month, down from 7.2% in July 2019 and 9.6% in December 2018. In 2017, economic output was dominated by the service sector — accounting for 70.1% of GDP — followed by the industrial sector with 26.2% and agriculture accounting for 3.7%. According to 2017 data, 1.9% of the workforce were employed in agriculture, 27.3% by industry and 70.8% in services. According to Eurostat, Croatia has the highest quantity of water resources per capita in the EU (30,000 m3). As a result of the war, economic infrastructure sustained massive damage, particularly the tourism industry. From 1989 to 1993, the GDP fell 40.5%. The Croatian state still controls significant economic sectors, with government expenditures accounting for 40% of GDP. A particular concern is a backlogged judiciary system, with inefficient public administration and corruption, upending land ownership. In the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, published by Transparency International, the country ranked 57th. At the end of June 2020, the national debt stood at 85.3% of GDP. === Tourism === Tourism dominates the Croatian service sector and accounts for up to 20% of GDP. Tourism income for 2019 was estimated to be €10.5 billion. Its positive effects are felt throughout the economy, increasing retail business, and increasing seasonal employment. The industry is counted as an export business because foreign visitor spending significantly reduces the country's trade imbalance. The tourist industry has rapidly grown, recording a sharp rise in tourist numbers since independence, attracting more than 17 million visitors each year (). Germany, Slovenia, Austria, Italy, United Kingdom, Czechia, Poland, Hungary, France, Netherlands, Slovakia and Croatia itself provide the most visitors. Tourist stays averaged 4.7 days in 2019. Much of the tourist industry is concentrated along the coast. Opatija was the first holiday resort. It first became popular in the middle of the 19th century. By the 1890s, it had become one of the largest European health resorts. Resorts sprang up along the coast and islands, offering services catering to mass tourism and various niche markets. The most significant are nautical tourism, supported by marinas with more than 16 thousand berths, cultural tourism relying on the appeal of medieval coastal cities and cultural events taking place during the summer. Inland areas offer agrotourism, mountain resorts, and spas. Zagreb is a significant destination, rivalling major coastal cities and resorts. Croatia has unpolluted marine areas with nature reserves and 116 Blue Flag beaches. Croatia was ranked first in Europe for swimming water quality in 2022 by European Environmental Agency. Croatia ranked as the 23rd-most popular tourist destination in the world according to the World Tourism Organization in 2019. About 15% of these visitors, or over one million per year, participate in naturism, for which Croatia is famous. It was the first European country to develop commercial naturist resorts. In 2023, luggage storage company Bounce gave Croatia the highest solo travel index in the world (7.58), while a joint Pinterest and Zola wedding trends report from 2023 put Croatia among the most popular honeymoon destinations. === Infrastructure === ==== Motorways ==== The motorway network was largely built in the late 1990s and the 2000s. As of December 2020, Croatia had completed of motorways, connecting Zagreb to other regions and following various European routes and four Pan-European corridors. The busiest motorways are the A1, connecting Zagreb to Split and the A3, passing east to west through northwest Croatia and Slavonia. A widespread network of state roads in Croatia acts as motorway feeder roads while connecting major settlements. The high quality and safety levels of the Croatian motorway network were tested and confirmed by EuroTAP and EuroTest programmes. ==== Railways ==== Croatia has an extensive rail network spanning , including of electrified railways and of double track railways. The most significant railways in Croatia are within the Pan-European transport corridors Vb and X connecting Rijeka to Budapest and Ljubljana to Belgrade, both via Zagreb. In 2024, the European Investment Bank committed €400 million to support the revitalization of the railway system, focusing on green and digital transformations. In July 2024, a significant agreement was signed for the acquisition of six electro-diesel multiple units (EDMUs) to improve connectivity between Split and Zagreb. Valued at €57.3 million and financed through an EIB loan, this project is part of the broader initiative to modernize Croatia's railway infrastructure. ==== Aviation ==== There are international airports in Dubrovnik, Osijek, Pula, Rijeka, Split, Zadar, and Zagreb. The largest and busiest is Franjo Tuđman Airport in Zagreb. In July 2024, the airline took delivery of its first Airbus A220-300 aircraft, marking the beginning of a transition to a more modern and efficient fleet. This initiative includes the acquisition of 13 A220-300 and two A220-100 aircraft, aiming to enhance operational efficiency with 25% lower fuel consumption and reduced emissions. Additionally, the airline launched services connecting Hamburg to Zagreb starting 1 July 2024. ==== Ports ==== The busiest cargo seaport is the Port of Rijeka. The busiest passenger ports are Split and Zadar. Many minor ports serve ferries connecting numerous islands and coastal cities with ferry lines to several cities in Italy. The largest river port is Vukovar, located on the Danube, representing the nation's outlet to the Pan-European transport corridor VII. ==== Energy ==== of crude oil pipelines serve Croatia, connecting the Rijeka oil terminal with refineries in Rijeka and Sisak, and several transhipment terminals. The system has a capacity of 20 million tonnes per year. The natural gas transportation system comprises of trunk and regional pipelines, and more than 300 associated structures, connecting production rigs, the Okoli natural gas storage facility, 27 end-users and 37 distribution systems. Croatia also plays an important role in regional energy security. The floating liquefied natural gas import terminal off Krk island LNG Hrvatska commenced operations on January 1, 2021, positioning Croatia as a regional energy leader and contributing to diversification of Europe's energy supply. == Demographics == Ethnic map of Croatia by municipalities (2021) {{bar box \|width = \|float = right \|title = Ethnic composition (2021) \|titlebar = #ddd \|bars = \|caption = 2021 Croatian Census Croatia ranks 127th by population in the world. Its 2018 population density was 72.9 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Croatia one of the more sparsely populated European countries. The overall life expectancy in Croatia at birth was 76.3 years in 2018. Croatia's death rate has continuously exceeded its birth rate since 1998. Croatia subsequently has one of the world's oldest populations, with an average age of 43.3 years. The population rose steadily from 2.1 million in 1857 until 1991, when it peaked at 4.7 million, with the exceptions of censuses taken in 1921 and 1948, i.e., following the world wars. The natural growth rate is negative In recent years, the Croatian government has been pressured to increase permit quotas for foreign workers, reaching an all-time high of 68.100 in 2019. In accordance with its immigration policy, Croatia is trying to entice emigrants to return. From 2008 to 2018, Croatia's population dropped by 10%. The population decrease was greater a result of war for independence. The war displaced large numbers of the population and emigration increased. In 1991, in predominantly occupied areas, more than 400,000 Croats were either removed from their homes by Serb forces or fled the violence. During the war's final days, about 150–200,000 Serbs fled before the arrival of Croatian forces during Operation Storm. After the war, the number of displaced persons fell to about 250,000. The Croatian government cared for displaced persons via the social security system and the Office of Displaced Persons and Refugees. Most of the territories abandoned during the war were settled by Croat refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, mostly from north-western Bosnia, while some displaced people returned to their homes. According to the 2013 United Nations report, 17.6% of Croatia's population were immigrants. According to the 2021 census, the majority of inhabitants are Croats (91.6%), followed by Serbs (3.2%), Bosniaks (0.62%), Roma (0.46%), Albanians (0.36%), Italians (0.36%), Hungarians (0.27%), Czechs (0.20%), Slovenes (0.20%), Slovaks (0.10%), Macedonians (0.09%), Germans (0.09%), Montenegrins (0.08%), and others (1.56%). === Religion === Croatia has no official religion. Freedom of religion is a Constitutional right that protects all religious communities as equal before the law and considers them separated from the state. According to the 2011 census, 91.36% of Croatians identify as Christian; of these, Catholics make up the largest group, accounting for 86.28% of the population, after which follows Eastern Orthodoxy (4.44%), Protestantism (0.34%), and other Christians (0.30%). The largest religion after Christianity is Islam (1.47%). 4.57% of the population describe itself as non-religious. In the Eurostat Eurobarometer Poll of 2010, 69% of the population responded that "they believe there is a God". In a 2009 Gallup poll, 70% answered yes to the question "Is religion an important part of your daily life?" Yet, only 24% of the population attends religious services regularly. === Languages === Croatian is the official language of the Republic of Croatia. Minority languages are in official use in local government units where more than a third of the population consists of national minorities or where local enabling legislation applies. Those languages are Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Serbian, and Slovak. According to the 2011 Census, 95.6% of citizens declared Croatian as their native language, 1.2% declared Serbian as their native language, while no other language reaches more than 0.5%. Croatian is a member of the South Slavic languages and is written using the Latin alphabet. There are three major dialects spoken on the territory of Croatia, with standard Croatian based on the Shtokavian dialect. The Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects are distinguished from Shtokavian by their lexicon, phonology and syntax. A 2011 survey revealed that 78% of Croats claim knowledge of at least one foreign language. According to a 2005 EC survey, 49% of Croats speak English as the second language, 34% speak German, 14% speak Italian, 10% speak French, 4% speak Russian and 2% speak Spanish. However several large municipalities support minority languages. A majority of Slovenes (59%) have some knowledge of Croatian. The country is a part of various language-based international associations, most notably the European Union Language Association. === Education === As of 2021, the literacy rate in Croatia was 99.45%. Primary education in Croatia starts at the age of six or seven and consists of eight grades. In 2007 a law was passed to increase free, noncompulsory education until 18 years of age. Compulsory education consists of eight grades of elementary school. Secondary education is provided by gymnasiums and vocational schools. As of the 2022/2023 school year, there were 2,073 elementary schools and 738 upper secondary schools in Croatia. Primary and secondary education are also available in languages of recognised minorities in Croatia, where classes are held in Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Serbian, German and Slovak languages. There are 133 elementary and secondary level music and art schools, as well as 83 elementary and 44 secondary schools for disabled children and youth and 11 elementary and 52 secondary schools for adults. Nationwide leaving exams () were introduced for secondary education students in the school year 2009–2010. It comprises three compulsory subjects (Croatian language, mathematics, and a foreign language) and optional subjects and is a prerequisite for university education. Croatia has eight public universities and two private universities. The University of Zadar, the first university in Croatia, was founded in 1396 and remained active until 1807, when other institutions of higher education took over until the foundation of the renewed University of Zadar in 2002. The University of Zagreb, founded in 1669, is the oldest continuously operating university in Southeast Europe. There are also 15 polytechnics, of which two are private, and 30 higher education institutions, of which 27 are private. The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb is a learned society promoting language, culture, arts and science from its inception in 1866. Croatia was ranked 43rd in the Global Innovation Index in 2024. The European Investment Bank provided digital infrastructure and equipment to around 150 primary and secondary schools in Croatia. Twenty of these schools got specialised assistance in the form of gear, software, and services to help them integrate the teaching and administrative operations. In 2024, the EIB extended a €207 million loan to the City of Zagreb for infrastructure upgrades, including investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency projects, social and affordable housing, schools, and kindergartens. Additionally, the EIB signed a €49 million loan with the City of Split to co-finance its 2023–2027 multi-sector investment programme, which includes refurbishing public buildings, increasing energy efficiency, and improving technical equipment for public information and communication. The population is covered by a basic health insurance plan provided by statute and optional insurance. In 2017, annual healthcare related expenditures reached 22.2 billion kuna (around €3.0 billion). Healthcare expenditures comprise only 0.6% of private health insurance and public spending. In 2017, Croatia spent around 6.6% of its GDP on healthcare. In 2020, Croatia ranked 41st in the world in life expectancy with 76.0 years for men and 82.0 years for women, and it had a low infant mortality rate of 3.4 per 1,000 live births. There are hundreds of healthcare institutions in Croatia, including 75 hospitals, and 13 clinics with 23,049 beds. The hospitals and clinics care for more than 700 thousand patients per year and employ 6,642 medical doctors, including 4,773 specialists. There is a total of 69,841 health workers. There are 119 emergency units in health centres, responding to more than a million calls. The principal cause of death in 2016 was cardiovascular disease at 39.7% for men and 50.1% for women, followed by tumours, at 32.5% for men and 23.4% for women. In 2016 it was estimated that 37.0% of Croatians are smokers. According to 2016 data, 24.40% of the Croatian adult population is obese. == Language == Standard Croatian is the official language of the Republic of Croatia, and has been an official language of the European Union since Croatia's accession in 2013. Croatian replaced Latin as the official language of the Croatian government in the 19th century. Following the Vienna Literary Agreement in 1850, the language and its Latin alphabet underwent reforms to create an unified "Croatian or Serbian" or "Serbo-Croatian" standard, which under various names became the official language of Yugoslavia. In SFR Yugoslavia, from 1972 to 1989, the language was constitutionally designated as the "Croatian literary language" and the "Croatian or Serbian language". It was the result of a resistance to and secession from "Serbo-Croatian" in the form of the Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language as part of the Croatian Spring. Since gaining independence in the early 1990s, the Republic of Croatia constitutionally designates the language as "Croatian language" and regulates it through linguistic prescription. The long-standing aspiration for development of its own expressions and thus enrichment of the language, as opposed to the adoption of foreign solutions in the form of loanwords, has been described by linguists as Croatian linguistic purism. == Culture == Because of its geographical position, Croatia represents a blend of four different cultural spheres. It has been a crossroads of influences from western culture and the east since the schism between the Western Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire, and also from Central Europe and Mediterranean culture. The Illyrian movement was the most significant period of national cultural history, as the 19th century proved crucial to the emancipation of Croatians and saw unprecedented developments in all fields of art and culture, giving rise to many historical figures. The UNESCO's World Heritage List includes ten sites in Croatia and a list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Croatia. The country is also rich with intangible culture and holds 15 of UNESCO's World's intangible culture masterpieces, ranking fourth in the world. A global cultural contribution from Croatia is the necktie, derived from the cravat originally worn by the 17th-century Croatian mercenaries in France. In 2019, Croatia had 95 professional theatres, 30 professional children's theatres, and 51 amateur theatres visited by more than 2.27 million viewers per year. Professional theatres employ 1,195 artists. There are 42 professional orchestras, ensembles, and choirs, attracting an annual attendance of 297 thousand. There are 75 cinemas with 166 screens and attendance of 5.026 million. Croatia has 222 museums, visited by more than 2.71 million people in 2016. Furthermore, there are 1,768 libraries, containing 26.8 million volumes, and 19 state archives. The book publishing market is dominated by several major publishers and the industry's centrepiece event—Interliber exhibition held annually at Zagreb Fair. === Arts, literature, and music=== Architecture in Croatia reflects influences of bordering nations. Austrian and Hungarian influence is visible in public spaces and buildings in the north and the central regions, architecture found along coasts of Dalmatia and Istria exhibits Venetian influence. Squares named after culture heroes, parks, and pedestrian-only zones, are features of Croatian towns and cities, especially where large scale Baroque urban planning took place, for instance in Osijek (Tvrđa), Varaždin, and Karlovac. The subsequent influence of the Art Nouveau was reflected in contemporary architecture. The architecture is the Mediterranean with a Venetian and Renaissance influence in major coastal urban areas exemplified in works of Giorgio da Sebenico and Nicolas of Florence such as the Cathedral of St. James in Šibenik. The oldest preserved examples of Croatian architecture are the 9th-century churches, with the largest and the most representative among them being Church of St. Donatus in Zadar. Besides the architecture encompassing the oldest artworks, there is a history of artists in Croatia reaching the Middle Ages. In that period the stone portal of the Trogir Cathedral was made by Radovan, representing the most important monument of Romanesque sculpture from Medieval Croatia. The Renaissance had the greatest impact on the Adriatic Sea coast since the remainder was embroiled in the Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War. With the waning of the Ottoman Empire, art flourished during the Baroque and Rococo. The 19th and 20th centuries brought affirmation of numerous Croatian artisans, helped by several patrons of the arts such as bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer. Croatian artists of the period achieving renown were Vlaho Bukovac, Ivan Meštrović, and Ivan Generalić. The Baška tablet, a stone inscribed with the glagolitic alphabet found on the Krk island and dated to , is considered to be the oldest surviving prose in Croatian. The beginning of more vigorous development of Croatian literature is marked by the Renaissance and Marko Marulić. Besides Marulić, Renaissance playwright Marin Držić, Baroque poet Ivan Gundulić, Croatian national revival poet Ivan Mažuranić, novelist, playwright, and poet August Šenoa, children's writer Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, writer and journalist Marija Jurić Zagorka, poet and writer Antun Gustav Matoš, poet Antun Branko Šimić, expressionist and realist writer Miroslav Krleža, poet Tin Ujević and novelist, and short story writer Ivo Andrić are often cited as the greatest figures in Croatian literature. Croatian music varies from classical operas to modern-day rock. Vatroslav Lisinski created the country's first opera, Love and Malice, in 1846. Ivan Zajc composed more than a thousand pieces of music, including masses and oratorios. Pianist Ivo Pogorelić has performed across the world. Croatia ranked 64th in the 2019 Press Freedom Index report compiled by Reporters Without Borders which noted that journalists who investigate corruption, organised crime or war crimes face challenges and that the Government was trying to influence the public broadcaster HRT's editorial policies. In its 2019 Freedom in the World report, the Freedom House classified freedoms of press and speech in Croatia as generally free from political interference and manipulation, noting that journalists still face threats and occasional attacks. The state-owned news agency HINA runs a wire service in Croatian and English on politics, economics, society, and culture. , there are thirteen nationwide free-to-air DVB-T television channels, with Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) operating four, RTL Televizija three, and Nova TV operating two channels, and the Croatian Olympic Committee, Kapital Net d.o.o., and Author d.o.o. companies operate the remaining three. Also, there are 21 regional or local DVB-T television channels. The HRT is also broadcasting a satellite TV channel. In 2020, there were 147 radio stations and 27 TV stations in Croatia. Cable television and IPTV networks are gaining ground. Cable television already serves 450 thousand people, around 10% of the total population of the country. In 2010, 267 newspapers and 2,676 magazines were published in Croatia. The print media market is dominated by the Croatian-owned Hanza Media and Austrian-owned Styria Media Group who publish their flagship dailies , and . Other influential newspapers are Novi list and Slobodna Dalmacija. In 2020, 24sata was the most widely circulated daily newspaper, followed by Večernji list and Jutarnji list. Croatia competed in the Eurovision Song Contest as part of Yugoslavia since 1961. The first and only victory Yugoslavia achieved in the competition was accomplished by the Croatian pop band Riva in 1989. Since its debut at the 1993 contest, Croatia won two fourth places at the 1996 and 1999 contests, and one second place at the 2024 contest, marking the country's best result to date as an independent nation. === Film Industry=== Croatia's film industry is small and heavily subsidised by the government, mainly through grants approved by the Ministry of Culture with films often being co-produced by HRT. Croatian cinema produces between five and ten feature films per year. Pula Film Festival, the national film awards event held annually in Pula, is the most prestigious film event featuring national and international productions. Animafest Zagreb, founded in 1972, is the prestigious annual film festival dedicated to the animated film. The first greatest accomplishment by Croatian filmmakers was achieved by Dušan Vukotić when he won the 1961 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for Ersatz (). Croatian film producer Branko Lustig won the Academy Awards for Best Picture for Schindler's List and Gladiator. In addition to that, Croatian filmmaker Nebojša Slijepčević got nominated for 97th Academy Awards in category for Best Live Action Short Film for his 2024 movie The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (Croatian: ), making it first Croatian nomination in that category, and first since its independence. Before and since its independence, Croatia has become a popular filming destination amongs international filming productions, and a lot of blockbuster films and TV series have been filmed in Croatia including: Game of Thrones, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Robin Hood in Dubrovnik, Speak No Evil and Season of the Witch in Istria, Infinity Pool in Šibenik, Canary Black, Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, Sophie's Choice, Armour of God and Fiddler on the roof in Zagreb, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again on island of Vis, Succession on the island of Korčula, Hercules, The Weekend Away, Bliss in Split, The Peacemaker and many others. Croatia became international filming location due to its biodiversity, landscape that can accommodate every visual requirements and cheaper filming costs. In last 11 years there has been 122 projects for international films in Croatia, and €263 million spent as part of the Filming in Croatia which increased in last years due to high demand for its location. === Cuisine === Croatian traditional cuisine varies from one region to another. Dalmatia and Istria have culinary influences of Italian and other Mediterranean cuisines which prominently feature various seafood, cooked vegetables and pasta, and condiments such as olive oil and garlic. Austrian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Balkan culinary styles influenced continental cuisine. In that area, meats, freshwater fish, and vegetable dishes are predominant. There are two distinct wine-producing regions in Croatia. The continental in the northeast of the country, especially Slavonia, produces premium wines, particularly whites. Along the north coast, Istrian and Krk wines are similar to those in neighbouring Italy, while further south in Dalmatia, Mediterranean-style red wines are the norm. There are 11 restaurants in Croatia with a Michelin star and 89 restaurants bearing some of the Michelin's marks. === Sports === Croatia has a long tradition of sports dating back to Roman times, followed by popular medieval knights' tournaments. Modern organized sports began in the late 19th century with the founding of sports associations like Hrvatski Sokol in 1874. Croatian sports' development has been closely related to the Olympic movement, with Franjo Bučar playing a key role in promoting sports for Croatian independence. To support sports development, Croatia enacted the National Sport Programme in 2019. Funding for sports comes from the state budget, sponsorship, and membership fees. The Croatian Olympic Committee, established in 1991, oversees over 80 national sports associations. The most popular sports in Croatia are football, basketball, handball, and water polo. The national tennis team has won two Davis Cup titles and won a gold medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics in men's doubles. The national handball and water polo teams are also been successful, each achieving multiple championships and medals. Rowing has seen success as well, winning multiple Olympic and World Championship medals. In gymnastics, athletes have also made their mark, winning medals in European and World Championships. Croatia hosted several major sports competitions, including the 2009 World Men's Handball Championship, the 2007 World Table Tennis Championships, the 2000 World Rowing Championships, the 1987 Summer Universiade, the 1979 Mediterranean Games, and several European Championships, including the 2000, 2018 and 2025 World Men's Handball Championship, 2024 Men's European Water Polo Championship. == Technology == In November 1992, the first international connection linking Zagreb and Vienna became operational, making it the first internet in Croatia. 70% of the Croatia's population regularly uses the internet and 55% have been reported to have basic technological skills.	[ "Republic of Serbian Krajina", "Dinaric Alps", "spa", "International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia", "Croatian Bureau of Statistics", "Proto-Slavic language", "Josip Broz Tito", "Washington, D.C.", "Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe", "Polish language", "Bulgarian language", "Slovene language", "Ottoman Empire", "Đuro Đaković factory", "Tin Ujević", "Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia", "AVNOJ", "Endonym and exonym", "Chakavian", "Cvetković–Maček Agreement", "Croatian Rowing Federation", "Military Frontier", "Operation Storm", "Old Church Slavonic Institute", "United Nations Security Council", "Vladimir Žerjavić", "tourism in Croatia", "Borna (duke)", "Vladko Maček", "Blockbuster (entertainment)", "Antun Gustav Matoš", "World Heritage List", "Dalmatia", "Croatian Radiotelevision", "Transleithania", "Međimurje (region)", "federalisation", "Kupa", "Pelješac Bridge", "Ante Pavelić", "1st Sisak Partisan Detachment", "Style (form of address)", "1987 Summer Universiade", "2024 Men's European Water Polo Championship", "Odašiljači i veze", "professionalisation", "Serbs of Croatia", "World War II in Yugoslavia casualties", "Julius Nepos", "Giorgio da Sebenico", "Hrvatska elektroprivreda", "Lika", "Republic of Venice", "Stjepan Radić", "Croatia at the Olympics", "Miroslav Krleža", "Cambridge", "Diocletian's Palace", "capital city of Zagreb", "Partnership for Peace", "unicameral", "Krapina Neanderthal site", "unitary state", "Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service", "Nazi racial theories", "Cretan War (1645–1669)", "Macmillan Publishers", "Banski dvori", "Sophie's Choice (film)", "Natura 2000", "Croatian Encyclopedia", "Rusyn language", "Culture of Croatia", "National Liberation Movement in Croatia", "vertebrate", "Government of Croatia", "Ban of Croatia", "Croatia in the Eurovision Song Contest", "Pan-European corridors", "state roads in Croatia", "University of Osijek", "Tanais Tablets", "Tomislav of Croatia", "Serbs in Croatia", "Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić", "List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density", "national poet", "Večernji list", "Kosovo Force", "Neanderthal", "Austrian Empire", "Port of Rijeka", "Andrej Plenković", "Creation of Yugoslavia", "Illyria", "Czechs of Croatia", "Shtokavian", "Korčula", "Svetac", "public administration", "Baška tablet", "Journal of Genocide Research", "Caulerpa taxifolia", "St. Joseph", "Montenegrins of Croatia", "King Tomislav", "Nebojša Slijepčević", "List of railways in Croatia", "Coloman, King of Hungary", "glagolitic alphabet", "Live birth (human)", "Kajkavian", "13th meridian east", "Latin alphabet", "jugo", "Zrmanja", "international airport", "Macedonians of Croatia", "Varaždin", "Bjelovar", "List of sovereign states and dependent territories by fertility rate", "Czech language", "naturism", "agriculture", "Croatian national revival", "medical doctors", "Croatia proper", "Eastern Orthodoxy in Croatia", "UNICEF", "expressionist", "Montenegro", "personal union", "Una (Sava)", "Economy of Croatia", "World Bank", "DVB-T", "Croatian War of Independence", "nominal GDP", "2007 World Table Tennis Championships", "White Croats", "Succession (TV series)", "Franjo Bučar", "Gymnasium (school)", "Battle of Mohács", "Slovenian language", "United Nations", "Jasenovac concentration camp", "learned society", "World Bank high-income economy", "World Tourism Organization", "Vijenac", "Speak No Evil (2024 film)", "Croatian Littoral", "Zadar County", "World Cup 2018", "Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure (Croatia)", "Chetnik war crimes in World War II", "Zagreb Fair", "Euphrasian Basilica", "Ivan Gundulić", "International Monetary Fund", "Principality of Lower Pannonia", "1921 constitution", "Trogir", "Hebrew language", "Vukovar massacre", "Chalcolithic", "Grove Press", "Ossetian language", "Vučedol culture", "C. Hurst & Co.", "A3 (Croatia)", "Tournament (medieval)", "Illyrians", "Yugoslavia in the Eurovision Song Contest", "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", "Croat", "Francia", "Russian language", "Germans of Croatia", "Gapminder Foundation", "minority languages of Croatia", "Slavonian Military Frontier", "personal union of Croatia and Hungary", "nautical tourism", "State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs", "wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/xъrvatъ", "Šibenik Cathedral", "Ivan Meštrović", "Fascist Italy (1922–1943)", "liquefied natural gas", "blockade of the Adriatic Sea", "parliamentary system", "The New York Times", "Adriatic Sea", "Josip Jelačić", "Official languages of the European Union", "anthroponym", "karst", "commander-in-chief", "Congress of Vienna", "Press Freedom Index", "Davis Cup", "Dolomite (mineral)", "Constitutional Court of Croatia", "oblast", "Random House", "Trpimirović dynasty", "Croatian Apoxyomenos", "County Court", "legislative power", "prehistoric period", "Ladislaus I of Hungary", "Executive (government)", "Drava", "M-84D", "Central Europe", "Einhard", "political parties in Croatia", "2000 European Men's Handball Championship", "Motorways in Croatia", "State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs", "Lastovo", "LNG Hrvatska", "World Wide Fund for Nature", "Dubrovnik Airport", "Queen Maria Theresa", "Rab concentration camp", "General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia", "Kingdom of Serbia", "Split Airport", "Croatian language", "Adriatic", "Western Roman Empire", "Red Army", "Seventh Ottoman–Venetian Wars", "Croats", "Marko Marulić", "Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia", "Kingdom of Hungary", "Pannonian Biogeographic Region", "Index of Croatia-related articles", "Ancient Greece", "Irreligion in Croatia", "Surogat", "Carinthia (state)", "Bliss (2021 film)", "Trpimir I of Croatia", "inland port", "Italian cuisine", "Modern Library", "Pannonian Avars", "Hrvatsko Zagorje", "Alpine Biogeographic Region", "Los Angeles Times", "Euronews", "cardiovascular disease", "lexicon", "cultural tourism", "Palaeolithic", "Mediterranean cuisine", "Iron Age", "public broadcasting", "Split, Croatia", "Macedonian language", "Croatia in personal union with Hungary", "Gonars concentration camp", "Croatian diaspora", "Tourism in Croatia", "List of caves in Croatia", "Serbo-Croatian", "Germanisation", "HINA", "Vladimir Bakarić", "Croatia Davis Cup team", "Sabor", "infant mortality rate", "death rate", "2nd Mechanized Battalion (Croatia)", "Pannonian mixed forests", "UNESCO", "24sata (Croatia)", "Hanza Media", "Narodne novine", "demographic transition", "Antun Branko Šimić", "Duchy of Croatia", "World War I", "Vatroslav Lisinski", "Invasion of Yugoslavia", "2018 World Cup", "Kingdom of Dalmatia", "Cornell University Press", "Eurostat", "Benkovac", "Corpus separatum (Fiume)", "Tehran Conference", "Biševo", "Hungary", "Hungarian cuisine", "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", "Battle of Krbava field", "Banovina of Croatia", "Ancient Greek", "OECD", "Stephen II of Croatia", "Krk", "Croatia Airlines", "Croatian linguistic purism", "Security and Intelligence Agency (Croatia)", "Council of Europe", "Ivan Mažuranić", "Croatia men's national water polo team", "Protestantism", "Palgrave Macmillan", "Gorski Kotar", "nature park", "University of Zadar", "Eurovision Song Contest 1993", "1979 Mediterranean Games", "Victory Day (Croatia)", "Starčevo culture", "Zoran Milanović", "Foundation for Environmental Education", "Pope John VIII", "Croatian Supreme Court", "Demographics of Croatia", "Risnjak", "Hrvatska revija", "Marin Držić", "Euro sign", "Gale (publisher)", "Languages of the European Union", "2025 World Men's Handball Championship", "Rowman & Littlefield", "international trade", "Southeast Europe", "Mass media in Croatia", "Turkish cuisine", "United Nations Development Programme", "Croatian Peasant Party", "Byzantine Empire", "Rococo", "Ivan Zajc", "The World Factbook", "President of Croatia", "Christianity", "Names of the Croats and Croatia", "art schools", "Season of the Witch (2011 film)", "2012 Croatian European Union membership referendum", "Dušan Vukotić", "Mediterranean Region", "Healthcare in Croatia", "Ogulin", "Memorial Centre Lipa Remembers", "Gospić", "a thousand islands and islets", "Supreme Court of Croatia", "Croatian Navy", "Belgrade Offensive", "Eurozone", "Croatian Parliament", "Mediterranean climate", "religious denomination", "Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg)", "wire service", "Krško Nuclear Power Plant", "International Futures", "Administrative division", "Plitvice Lakes National Park", "Freedom House", "Freedom of religion", "The Weekend Away", "International Security Assistance Force", "Regions of Croatia", "Franjo Tuđman", "Pula Film Festival", "Radovan (master)", "League of Communists of Croatia", "Rijeka Airport", "Language secessionism", "Ustaše", "World Heritage Sites by country", "Independence of Croatia", "Croatian Government", "2018 European Men's Handball Championship", "Croatia men's national handball team", "Stabilisation and Association Agreement", "German language", "division of Croatia", "Hvar", "Emperor Charles VI", "Diocletian", "Avars (Carpathians)", "Education in Croatia", "1989", "Jadranski naftovod", "2000", "Michelin star", "Consul (representative)", "Italian language in Croatia", "Slavonia", "World Heritage Site", "Global Innovation Index", "Pula", "last de jure Western Roman Emperor", "Eurovision Song Contest 1999", "Hallstatt culture", "Interliber", "protected areas of Croatia", "Plitvice lakes", "Croatian Democratic Union", "Guards Armoured Mechanized Brigade (Croatia)", "Školska knjiga", "Municipalities of Croatia", "Austria", "phytogeography", "List of cities in Croatia", "Slavic liquid metathesis and pleophony", "Romani language", "loanwords", "Epigraphy", "public law", "Vis (island)", "institute of technology", "Osijek", "Jutarnji list", "Scythian languages", "Speaker of the Croatian Parliament", "Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia (1995–1998)", "Sisak", "Gordan Jandroković", "Migration Period", "Telephone numbers in Croatia", "Middle Ages", "The German Marshall Fund of the United States", "phonology", "Croatian Armed Forces (Independent State of Croatia)", "Hungarians of Croatia", "Pragmatic Sanction of 1713", "Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50)", "Gladiator (2000 film)", "European Championship", "Frankopan", "1878 Treaty of Berlin", "Chetniks", "Pannonian Basin", "Illyrian Provinces", "Richard Nixon", "International Organization for Migration", "Croatian kuna", "benthic habitat", "The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent", "Köppen climate classification", "Požega, Croatia", "Bosnia and Herzegovina", "republic", "Vučedol dove", "Ploče", "Art Nouveau", "music school", "vassal states", "Global Peace Index", "Habsburg monarchy", "Electro-diesel multiple unit", "China Road and Bridge Corporation", "Josip Juraj Strossmayer", "linguistic prescription", "Battle of Lissa (1811)", "SANU Memorandum", "king of Croatia", "Republic of Ragusa", "White Croatia", "Battle of Sisak", "Institute of Croatian Language and Linguistics", "mass tourism", "romantic nationalism", "University of Rijeka", "Ethnic groups in Croatia", "A1 (Croatia)", "IPTV", "dukedom (administrative division)", "Brač", "Liburnians", "Nazi Germany", "Balkan cuisine", "olm", "Snježnik", "industrial sector", "invasion of Yugoslavia", "Tvrđa", "Neum", "universal health care", ".hr", "Croatian–Ottoman wars", "Transparency International", "Purchasing power parity", "Eastern Orthodoxy", "Sava", "Union for the Mediterranean", "Administrative divisions of Croatia", "2015 European migrant crisis", "Šubić", "Political faction", "Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Standard Language", "leaving exams", "Treaties of Rome (1941)", "Church of St. Donatus", "Croatian Spring", "Croatian Sports Association", "Socialist Republic of Croatia", "Accession of Croatia to NATO", "Dmitar Zvonimir", "Serbia", "Turkish language", "European Commission", "Illyrian deciduous forests", "HS Produkt", "Lexicographic Institute Miroslav Krleža", "Branko Lustig", "2000 World Rowing Championships", "Massacre of villages under Kamešnica", "November 18", "Italian concentration camps", "Roman Empire", "Zagreb International Airport", "diplomatic recognition", "Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration (Croatia)", "Dinara", "Ukrainian language", "Service (economics)", "Porga of Croatia", "psychology", "Zagreb", "1989 coups in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro", "Ljudevit (Lower Pannonia)", "Hercules (2014 film)", "Albanians of Croatia", "Romanesque art", "Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts", "2007 United Nations Security Council election", "Fiddler on the Roof (film)", "commander in chief", "Vienna Literary Agreement", "Vojvodina", "Ruđer Bošković Institute", "Slobodna Dalmacija", "Religion in Croatia", "Zola (company)", "Croatian Partisans", "Istria", "Croatian independence", "Puniša Račić", "42nd parallel north", "Yugoslav death march of Nazi collaborators", "Great Turkish War", "Independent State of Croatia", "Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography", "20° E", "Croatian National Tourist Board", "Bosnia (region)", "Riva (band)", "Declaration on the Status and Name of the Croatian Literary Language", "World Heritage Sites in Croatia", "Christian", "Roman province of Dalmatia", "Private law", "Reporters Without Borders", "Europapress Holding", "Bosnian language", "International Workers' Day", "mountain resort", "Plinacro", "Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947", "Croatia in the union with Hungary", "United Nations peacekeeping", "Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics", "Star Wars: The Last Jedi", "Hamburg", "Mediterranean Biogeographic Region", "List of countries by life expectancy", "Eurovision Song Contest 2024", "RTL (Croatian TV channel)", "Central European Time", "1995", ".eu", "The Peacemaker (1997 film)", "Cambridge University Press", "Croatian Army", "Baranya (region)", "Croatian–Hungarian Settlement", "HS2000", "Yugoslavia", "Constantine VII", "Ministry of the Interior (Croatia)", "continental climate", "Minority languages of Croatia", "Lijepa naša domovino", "History of Croatia", "Ivo Pogorelić", "Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102)", "territorial waters", "Branimir of Croatia", "practical exclave", "Croatian literature", "Erdut Agreement", "1998 World Cup", "Bogoljub Kočović", "Istria County", "Feeder line (network)", "Bosniaks of Croatia", "Albanian language", "Dubrovnik", "1974 Yugoslav Constitution", "Mediterranean culture", "Neolithic", "Armour of God (film)", "Airbus A220", "Yugoslav People's Army", "Ivan Generalić", "maritime border", "Alexander I of Yugoslavia", "Writing system", "total fertility rate", "Alans", "Accession of Croatia to the European Union", "Baroque", "Novi list", "Circumboreal Region", "honeymoon", "Slovaks of Croatia", "Rijeka", "service sector", "intangible culture", "Tirana", "Yugoslav Parliament", "De Administrando Imperio", "HŽ series 6112", "Port of Split", "University of Zagreb", "Zagreb Airport", "2013 enlargement of the European Union", "Pinterest", "Baden culture", "Realism (arts)", "Croatian National Revival", "Corruption Perceptions Index", "population density", "Italians of Croatia", "Outline of Croatia", "research and development", "Football in Croatia", "Croatian Olympic Committee", "Catholic Church in Croatia", "Infinity Pool (film)", "History of the Jews in Croatia", "Man and the Biosphere Programme", "Petar Krešimir IV", "Osijek Airport", "Trieste", "United States Department of State", "Southeast European Times", "List of World Heritage Sites in Croatia", "Blue Flag beach", "Demetrius Zvonimir of Croatia", "Vlaho Bukovac", "Christianisation", "Eurovision Song Contest", "Cres", "Concentration camps in the Independent State of Croatia", "syntax", "Islam", "Transport in Croatia", "Schengen Area", "Slovo (Zagreb)", "agrotourism", "Pelješac", "Tennis at the 2020 Summer Olympics", "Varaždin county", "First French Empire", "BBC News", "Serbian language in Croatia", "national park", "Russian invasion of Ukraine", "Budapest", "Renaissance in Croatia", "Academy Award for Best Picture", "Schindler's List", "The Independent", "Pragmatic Sanction in 1712", "Sarmatian", "List of countries by population", "World Trade Organization", "Poreč", "Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War", "Molat concentration camp", "Bora (wind)", "Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867", "Republic of Croatia", "Karst topography", "Čakovec", "2009 World Men's Handball Championship", "List of national parks of Croatia", "People's Radical Party", "Styria Media Group", "Matica hrvatska", "University of Toronto Press", "Epidaurum", "World Intellectual Property Organization", "limestone", "NATO", "Ministry of Defence (Croatia)", "Battle of Gvozd Mountain", "Burgenland Croats", "Montenegrin language", "6 January Dictatorship", "Cravat (early)", "Gallup (company)", "List of rulers of Croatia", "Medieval Latin", "Mislav of Croatia", "Telegraph Media Group", "1991", "Pula Airport", "Syrmia", "Bosniaks", "State Anti-fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia", "Slovenia", "single-party", "Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor", "Croatian Railways", "Eurovision Song Contest 1996", "European Union", "growing season", "Istro-Romanian language", "Hungarian Revolution of 1848", "White House", "separation of church and state", "Knin fortress", "97th Academy Awards", "Serbs", "Serbian nationalism", "Nova TV (Croatia)", "Marija Jurić Zagorka", "Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film", "Continental Biogeographic Region", "House of Habsburg", "Routledge", "List of people from Croatia", "Penguin Books", "Zadar", "West Slavic languages", "Stockholm", "Kolo (magazine)", "Slovenes of Croatia", "Robin Hood (2018 film)", "German-occupied Europe", "ABC-CLIO", "city-state of Dubrovnik", "euro", "developed country", "Treaty of Accession 2011", "Croatia joined the European Union", "Natural and Cultural Heritage of Croatia", "Illyrian movement", "European Investment Bank", "Croatian Parliament met in Cetin", "Euro", "State's Attorney Office of the Republic of Croatia", "Dinaric Mountains mixed forests", "Canary Black", "Unitary parliamentary republic", "Community acquis", "Secondary sector of the economy", "World Health Organization", "Brioni Agreement", "Royal Navy", "Trogir Cathedral", "Italy", "1990 Croatian parliamentary election", "2022 World Cup", "Byzantine architecture", "Branimir inscription", "Allies of World War II", "South Slavic languages", "Social Democratic Party of Croatia", "Slovak language", "reform Austria-Hungary", "Austria-Hungary", "ecoregion", "Romani people in Croatia", "Remembrance Day (Croatia)", "military industry", "Berlin", "Vukovar", "birth rate", "Ministry of Science, Education and Sports (Croatia)", "Nicolas of Florence", "Wiley-Blackwell", "Developed country", "Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film", "World War II", "United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium", "La Tène culture", "National and University Library in Zagreb", "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", "European Bank for Reconstruction and Development", "Opatija", "high-income", "South Slavs", "Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard", "Welfare spending", "Zadar Airport", "Baroque architecture", "Romanian language", "Origin hypotheses of the Croats", "Latin", "Counties of Croatia", "Krka (Croatia)", "47° N", "UNESCO's World's intangible culture masterpieces", "Austrian cuisine", "Croatian Military Frontier", "Boreal Kingdom", "Prime Minister of Croatia", "Pope John X", "Croatian Air Force and Air Defence", "Bijaći", "Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina", "United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees", "Game of Thrones", "Hungarian language", "Our World in Data", "European Economic Community", "List of MPs elected in the Croatian parliamentary election, 2007", "Stockholm International Peace Research Institute", "August Šenoa", "Ivo Andrić", "civil law (legal system)", "Central European Summer Time", "List of inhabited islands of Croatia", "ten sites in Croatia", "Ministry of Culture (Croatia)", "Reuters", "Animafest Zagreb", "Yugoslav Partisan", "Danube", "Scholastic Corporation", "International E-road network", "Krbava", "European Environmental Agency", "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes", "Končar Group", "head of state", "Louis II of Hungary", "Index.hr", "Hrvatske ceste", "Slovenes", "Croatian Air Force", "Vienna", "Dassault Rafale" ]
5,574	History of Croatia	At the time of the Roman Empire, the area of modern Croatia comprised two Roman provinces, Pannonia and Dalmatia. After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the area was subjugated by the Ostrogoths for 50 years, before being incorporated into the Byzantine Empire. Croatia, as a polity, first appeared as a duchy in the 7th century, the Duchy of Croatia. With the nearby Principality of Lower Pannonia, it was united and elevated into the Kingdom of Croatia which lasted from 925 until 1102. From the 12th century, the Kingdom of Croatia entered a personal union with the Kingdom of Hungary. It remained a distinct state with its ruler (Ban) and Sabor, but it elected royal dynasties from neighboring powers, primarily Hungary, Naples, and the Habsburg monarchy. from the 15th to the 17th centuries was marked by intense struggles between the Ottoman Empire to the south and the Habsburg Empire to the north. Following the First World War and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary in 1918, Croatian lands were incorporated into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Following the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the puppet state Independent State of Croatia the Axis powers satellite state, was established. It was defeated in May 1945, after the Bleiburg repatriations. The Socialist Republic of Croatia was formed as a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1991, Croatia's leadership severed ties with Yugoslavia and proclaimed independence amidst the dissolution of Yugoslavia. == Prehistoric period == The area known today as Croatia was inhabited by hominids throughout the prehistoric period. Fossils of Neanderthals dating to the middle Palaeolithic period have been unearthed in northern Croatia, with the most famous and best-presented site in Krapina. Remnants of several Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures have been found throughout the country. Most of the sites are in the northern Croatian river valleys, and the most significant cultures whose presence was discovered include the Starčevo, Vučedol and Baden cultures. The Iron Age left traces of the early Illyrian Hallstatt culture and the Celtic La Tène culture. === Protohistoric period === Greek author Hecataeus of Miletus mentions that around 500 BC, the Eastern Adriatic region was inhabited by local tribes such as Histrians, Liburnians, and Illyrians. Greek colonization saw settlers establish communities on of Issa (Vis), Korkyra Melaina (Korčula) and Pharos (Starigrad on Hvar) islands as well as trading outposts of Tragurion (Trogir) and Epetion (Stobreč). Somewhere in 3rd century by, Greek colony of Issa formed an alliance with then emerging Roman Republic. As Isseian maritime trade became affected by Illyrian pirating activities, they asked for Roman intervention against the Illyrian kingdom, leading to the First Illyrian War in 229. BC and beginning of Roman expansion on the Eastern Adriatic. of the Illyrian kingdom from the 4th century BC to the Illyrian Wars in the 220s BC. In 168 BC, the Roman Republic established its protectorate south of the Neretva river. The area north of the Neretva was slowly incorporated into Roman possession until the province of Illyricum was formally established 32–27 BC. These lands then became part of the Roman province of Illyricum. Between 6 and 9 AD, tribes including the Dalmatae, who gave name to these lands, rose up against the Romans in the Great Illyrian revolt, but the uprising was crushed, and in 10 AD Illyricum was split into two provinces—Pannonia and Dalmatia. The province of Dalmatia spread inland to cover all of the Dinaric Alps and most of the eastern Adriatic coast. Dalmatia was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who, when he retired as Emperor in 305 AD, built a large palace near Salona, from which the city of Split later developed. Historians such as Theodore Mommsen and Bernard Bavant argue that all of Dalmatia was fully Romanized and Latin-speaking by the 4th century. Others, such as Aleksandar Stipčević, argue that the process of Romanization was selective and involved mostly the urban centers but not the countryside, where previous Illyrian socio-political structures were adapted to Roman administration and political structure only where necessary. has argued that the Vlachs, or Morlachs, were Latin-speaking, pastoral peoples who lived in the Balkan mountains since pre-Roman times. They are mentioned in the oldest Croatian chronicles. After the Western Roman Empire collapsed in 476, with the beginning of the Migration Period, Julius Nepos briefly ruled his diminished domain from Diocletian's Palace after his 476 flight from Italy. The region was then ruled by the Ostrogoths until 535 when Justinian I added the territory to the Byzantine Empire. Later, the Byzantines formed the Theme of Dalmatia in the same territory. === Migration period === The Roman period ended with the Avar and Croat invasions in the 6th and 7th centuries and the destruction of almost all Roman towns. Roman survivors retreated to more favorable sites on the coast, islands, and mountains. The city of Ragusa was founded by survivors from Epidaurum. According to the work De Administrando Imperio, written by the 10th-century Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII, the Croats arrived in what is today Croatia from southern Poland and Western Ukraine in the early 7th century. However, that claim is disputed and competing hypotheses date the event between late the 6th-early 7th (mainstream) or the late 8th-early 9th (fringe) centuries. Recent archaeological data established that the migration and settlement of the Slavs/Croats occurred in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. == Duchy of Croatia (800–925) == From the middle of the seventh century until the unification in 925, there were two duchies on the territory of today's Croatia, Duchy of Croatia and Principality of Lower Pannonia. Eventually, a dukedom was formed, the Duchy of Croatia, ruled by Borna, as attested by chronicles of Einhard starting in the year 818. The record represents the first documented Croatian realms, vassal states of Francia at the time. The most important ruler of Lower Pannonia was Ljudevit Posavski, who fought against the Franks between 819 and 823. He ruled Pannonian Croatia from 810 to 823. The Frankish overlordship ended during the reign of Mislav two decades later. Duke Mislav was succeeded by Duke Trpimir, the founder of the Trpimirović dynasty. Trpimir successfully fought against Byzantium, Venice and Bulgaria. Duke Trpimir was succeeded by Duke Domagoj, who repeatedly led wars against the Venetians and the Byzantines, and the Venetians called this Croatian ruler "the worst Croatian prince" (dux pessimus Croatorum) According to Constantine VII, the Christianization of Croats began in the 7th century, but the claim is disputed and generally, Christianization is associated with the 9th century. In 879, under Branimir, the duke of Croatia, Dalmatian Croatia received papal recognition as a state from Pope John VIII. ==Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102)== The first king of Croatia is generally considered to have been Tomislav in the first half of the 10th century, who is mentioned as such in notes from Church Councils of Split and the letter of Pope John X. Other important Croatian rulers from that period are: Mihajlo Krešimir II, 949–969, who conquered Bosnia and restored the power of the Croatian kingdom. Two Croatian queens are also known from 10th century. The first one is Domaslava and the second one is Helen of Zadar, whose epitaph was found in the Solin area at the end of the 19th century during archeological excavations conducted by Frane Bulić. The latter was also a mother of King Stjepan Držislav, 969–997. He sided with Byzantium in a war against Bulgarian emperor Samuil, so Bulgarians, in response, raided Croatia and ravaged it as far as Zadar before retreating back to Ohrid. Stjepan, 1030–1058, restored the Croatian kingdom and founded the diocese in Knin. The medieval Croatian kingdom reached its peak in the 11th century during the reigns of Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074) and Demetrius Zvonimir (1075–1089). From the time of Petar Krešimir IV kingdom was officially called "Kingdom of Croatia and Dalmatia". He used The Great Schism of 1054 which weakened the Byzantine rule over Dalmatian cities to assert his own control over them. He left the cities a certain amount of self-rule, but also collected a certain amount of tribute and demanded their ships in the case of war.Krešimir IV was succeeded by Demetrius Zvonimir who married Hungarian princess Helen and ruled from Knin as his capital. Zvonimir's rule was marked by stability. He was a papal vassal and enjoyed a papal protection as seen when his kingdom was threatened by an invasion of knight Wezelin, who was deterred after pope threatened to excommunicate him. He had a son named Radovan who died at young age, so Zvonimir left no male heir when he died in 1089. Meanwhile, in 1096, a group of crusaders led by Raymond of Toulouse going on first crusade passed through mountainous parts of Croatia. The crusaders were met with hostile locals who attacked crusader columns, while Raymond of Toulouse brutally retailated by mutilating those attackers whom they managed to capture. Historian Krešimir Kužić explains these hostilities by the "state of anarchy" which was then in Croatia. === Interregnum === King Zvonimir was succeeded by Stjepan II who died in 1091, ending the Trpimirović dynasty. As Kingdom of Croatia descended in another feudal power struggle, Zvonimir's widow Jelena (Helen), who was the daughter of Hungarian king Béla I, invited her brother Ladislaus I of Hungary to come to Croatia and claim Croatian royal crown. Meanwhile, in Croatia, Petar Snačić, another pretender to the royal throne arose, but his army was defeated by Hungarians in Battle of Gvozd Mountain where Snačić was killed. Hungarian king Coloman continued to lay claims on throne of Croatia and eventually a personal union between Croatia and Hungary was created in 1102 with Hungarian king as its ruler. This meant that Croatia and Hungary still remained separate kingdoms which are connected only by a common king, therefore from the reign of Coloman onwards, Hungarian kings bore official title of "king of Hungary, Dalmatia and Croatia". Another example was a coronation process as new kings of Hungary continued to be separately crowned kings of Croatia from the times of Coloman, until Andrew II. There was also an institution of ban (viceroy) of Croatia representing a royal deputy, separate tax system, money and army. ==Personal union with Hungary (1102–1527) and the Republic of Venice== === Croatia under the Árpád dynasty === One consequence of entering a personal union with Hungary under the Hungarian king was the introduction of a feudal system. Later kings sought to restore some of their influence by giving certain privileges to the towns. Somewhere between Second and Third Crusade, Knights Templars and Hospitallers appeared in Croatian lands for the first time. After proclamation of Fourth crusade in 1202, the crusader army could not afford to pay the agreed amount of money to the Venetians who were supposed to provide the maritime transport to the Holy Land. Venetians in turn requested that crusaders compensate this difference by capturing town of Zadar (Zara) which was then supposed to be handed over to Venice. The pope issued sharp warnings against this kind of attack and some crusaders refused to participate. When Venetian-crusader army arrived before Zadar, its citizens posted signs of cross on their town walls to demonstrate their catholic faith. Despite everything, in November 1202 crusader-Venetian army launched an attack on Zadar, captured it and then looted it. In response, pope excommunicated entire crusader army. As Andrew lacked needed naval fleet to take his army to the Holy Land, he decided to arrange transport with Venetians. In return, Andrew II decided to completely give up the Hungarian kings' rights on Zadar, whom Venetians had captured during the Fourth crusade. After staying in Split for three weeks for logistical reasons and realising that Croatians will not be joining his crusade, king and his army sailed off to the Holy Land. Historian Krešimir Kužić attributes this low desire of Croatians to join king Andrew's crusade to earlier bad memories related to destruction and looting of Zadar in 1202. When king Andrew II returned from the crusade, he brought back a number of relics, some of which remain stored in the treasury of Zagreb Cathedral. Andrew's son King Béla IV was forced to deal with troubles brought by the first Mongol invasion of Hungary. Following the Hungarian defeat in the Battle of the Sajó River in 1241, the king withdrew to Dalmatia, hoping to take refuge there, with the Mongols in pursuit. The Mongol army followed the king to Split hinterland, which they ravaged. The king took refuge in nearby town of Trogir, hoping to make use of its island-like fort which offered some protection from Mongol onslaught. This period, therefore, saw the rise of the Frankopans and the Šubićs, native nobility, to prominence. Numerous future Bans of Croatia originated from these two noble families. The princes of Bribir from the Šubić family became particularly influential, as they asserted their control over large parts of Dalmatia, Slavonia, and even Bosnia. === Croatia under the Anjou dynasty === By the early 14th century lord Paul Šubić accumulated so much power, that he ruled as a de facto independent ruler. He coined his own money and held the hereditary title of Ban of Croatia. Following the death of king Ladislaus IV of Hungary, who had no male heir, a succession crisis emerged, and in 1300, Paul invited Charles Robert of Anjou to come to the Kingdom of Hungary and take over its royal seat. A civil war ensued, in which Charles' party prevailed after winning a decisive victory in the Battle of Rozgony in 1312. Coronations of the kings of Croatia gradually fell into abeyance as a custom. Charles Robert was the last to be separately crowned as King of Croatia in 1301, after which Croatia had a separate constitution. Lord Paul Šubić died in 1312, and his son Mladen inherited the title of Ban of Croatia. Mladen's power was diminished due to the new king's policy of centralization, after he and his forces were defeated by the royal army and its allies in the Battle of Bliska in 1322. The power vacuum caused by the downfall of Mladen Šubić was used by Venice to reassert control over Dalmatian cities. Following downfall of Croatian magnates and restoration of royal authority over Croatia, around 1350, first instance of Croatian-Dalmatian Assembly (hrvatski Sabor), attested by historical sources, took place near Benkovac. The assembly was summoned by ban of Croatia in August and it gathered members of twelve Croatian noble families. In subsequent period, the Croatian-Dalmatian assembly most often took place in Knin. The ensuing reign of King Louis the Great (1342–1382) is considered the golden age of medieval Croatian history. Louis launched a campaign against Venice, with aim of retaking Dalmatian cities, and eventually succeeded, forcing Venice to sign the Treaty of Zadar in 1358. The same peace treaty caused the Republic of Ragusa to gain independence from Venice. === Anti-Court struggles period === After king Louis The Great died in 1382, the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia descended into a period of destructive dynastic struggles called The Anti-Court movement. The struggle was waged between two factions, one of which was centered around late king's daughter Mary, her mother queen Elizabeth, and her fiancé Sigismund of Luxemburg. The faction which opposed them was a coalition of Croatian nobility which supported Charles of Durazzo to become a new king of Hungary and Croatia. This faction consisted of powerful John of Palisna, and Horvat brothers, who opposed the idea of being ruled by a female and, secondly, of being ruled by Sigismund of Luxemburg whom they considered alien. As alternative, they arranged for Charles of Durazzo to come to Croatia and crowned him as new king of Hungary-Croatia in Szekezfehervar in December 1385. Charles' opponents - queen Elizabeth and princess Mary, responded by organizing Charles' assassination in Buda in February 1386. Enraged anti-court supporters then retaliated by making an ambush for two queens near Gorjani in July 1386, where their escort was eliminated and both queens were taken to captivity in Novigrad Castle near Zadar. Once in Novigrad, queen Elizabeth was strangled to death, but her daughter Mary was eventually rescued by her fiancé Sigismund. In 1387, Sigismund of Luxemburg crowned himself a new king of Hungary-Croatia. In following period he too became engaged in power struggle against opposing Croatian and Bosnian nobility in order to assert his rule over the realm. In 1396, Sigismund organized a crusade against the expanding Ottomans which culminated in Battle of Nicopolis. When the battle ended, it was unclear whether Sigismund got out alive or not, so Stephen II Lackfi proclaimed Ladislaus of Naples a new king of Hungary-Croatia. When Sigismund, nonetheless did returned to Croatia, he summoned diet in Križevci in 1397, where he confronted his adversaries and eliminated them. Sigismund was again forced fight for the control, but by 1403 entire southern Croatia and Dalmatian cities defected to Ladislaus of Naples. The Venetians asserted their control over most of Dalmatia by 1428. The rule of Venice over most of Dalmatia continued on for nearly four centuries ( 1420–1797) until the end of The Republic by Treaty of Campo Formio. Another long term consequence of Anti-Court struggles was arrival of Ottomans to neighbouring Kingdom of Bosnia at the invite of powerful Bosnian duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić to help him fight against forces of king Sigismund. The Ottomans gradually strengthened their influence in Bosnia until finally completely conquering the kingdom in 1463. === Ottoman invasions === Serious Ottoman attacks on Croatian lands began after the fall of Bosnia to the Ottomans in 1463. At this point main Ottoman attacks were not yet directed towards Central Europe, with Vienna as its main objective, but towards renaissance Italy with Croatia standing on their way between. As the Ottomans launched expansion further into Europe, Croatian lands became a place of permanent warfare. This period of history is considered to be one of the direst for the people living in Croatia. Baroque poet Pavao Ritter Vitezović subsequently described this period of Croatian history as "two centuries of weeping Croatia". Armies of Croatian nobility fought numerous battles to counter the Ottoman akinji and martolos raids. The Ottoman forces frequently raided the Croatian countryside, plundering towns and villages and captured the local inhabitants as slaves. These "scorched earth" tactics, also called "The Small War", were usually conducted once a year with intention to soften up the region's defenses, but didn't result in actual conquest of territory. Frequent Ottoman raids eventually led to the 1493 Battle of Krbava field which ended in Croatian defeat. Meanwhile, after king Mathias Corvinus died in 1490, a succession war ensued, where supporters of Vladislaus Jagiellon prevailed over those of Maximilian Habsburg, another contester to the throne of Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia. Maximilian gained many supporters among Croatian nobility and a favourable peace treaty he concluded with Vladislaus enabled Croatians to increasingly turn towards Habsburgs when seeking protections from the Ottoman attacks, as their lawful king Vladislaus turned out unable to protect his subjects in Croatia. On same year, the estates of Croatia also declined to recognize Vladislaus II as a ruler until he had taken an oath to respect their liberties and insisted that he strike from the constitution certain phrases which seemed to reduce Croatia to the rank of a mere province. The dispute was resolved in 1492 when according to Lujo Margetić, king Vladislaus recognised the authonomy of both Croatia and Slavonia, whose nobility gave a separate confirmation to the succession agreement between Vladislaus and the house of Habsburg, enabling Croatians and Slavonians to have their say in future interregnum periods. ==Croatia in the Habsburg monarchy (1527–1918)== A decisive battle between Hungarian army and the Ottomans occurred on Mohács in 1526, where Hungarian king Louis II was killed and his army was destroyed. As a consequence, in November of the same year, the Hungarian parliament elected János Szapolyai as the new king of Hungary. In December 1526, another Hungarian parliament elected Ferdinand Habsburg as King of Hungary. === 1527 Cetingrad Assembly === According to historian , the crucial decision determining next four centuries of Croatian history happened when Croatian nobles assembled in Cetingrad in 1527 and chose Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg as the new ruler of Croatia. Albeit Habsburg delegation composed of Pavao Oberstein, Nikola Jurišić and Ivan Puchler arrived in Cetingrad, Croatia, as early s Christmas Eve 1526, they had to wait, as Croat high dignitaries spent Christmas holidays at home. After finally assemblying on New Year's Eve 1526, Croats publicly proclaimed their decision on a mass held next day in Francisian Monastery in Cetin. In turn, the present Habsburg delegation confirmed that new Habsburg rulers will contribute to the defense of Croatia against the Ottomans, and respect its political rights. As Assembly of neighbouring Slavonia, on the other hand, elected Szapolyai - a civil war between the two rival kings ensued, but later both crowns united as the Habsburgs prevailed over Szapolyai. The Ottoman Empire used these instabilities to expand in the 16th century to include most of Slavonia, western Bosnia (then called Turkish Croatia), and Lika. Those territories initially made up part of Rumelia Eyalet, and subsequently parts of Budin Eyalet, Bosnia Eyalet, and Kanije Eyalet. === Remnants of the remnants === Croats and Slavonians fought an increasing number of battles, but lost increasing swathes of territory to the Ottoman Empire, until being reduced to what is commonly called in Croatian historiography the "Remains of the Remains of Once Glorious Croatian Kingdom" (Reliquiae reliquiarum olim inclyti regni Croatiae), or simply the "Remains of the Remains". ==== Amalgamation of medieval Croatia and medieval Slavonia ==== The area spanning between rivers Sava and Drava on north-south axis and river Sutla and Požega valley on west-east axis, during medieval period came to be known as Slavonia. Albeit Slavonia shared certain ties with medieval Croatia, it was more tightly connected to Hungary than Croatia Proper was. In 15th century, during the rule of Vladislaus Jagiellon, Slavonia was granted the status of Kingdom. On assembly session held on 7 March 1577, Zagreb was for the first time called the capital city of Croatia-Slavonia. ==== Formation of Military Frontier ==== Later in 16th century, Croatia was so weak that its parliament authorized Ferdinand Habsburg to carve out large areas of Croatia and Slavonia adjacent to the Ottoman Empire for the creation of the Military Frontier (Vojna Krajina, German: Militaergrenze) - a buffer zone for the Ottoman Empire managed directly by the Imperial War Council in Austria. This buffer area became devastated and depopulated due to constant warfare and was subsequently settled by Serbs, Vlachs, Croats, and Germans. As a result of their compulsory military service to the Habsburg Empire during the conflict with the Ottoman Empire, the population in the Military Frontier was free of serfdom and enjoyed much political autonomy, unlike the population living in the parts managed by the Croatian Ban and Sabor. They were considered free peasant-soldiers who were granted land without the usual feudal obligations, except for the military service. This was officially confirmed by an Imperial decree of 1630 called Statuta Valachorum (Vlach Statutes). The territory of Military Frontier was initially subdivided into Slavonian Frontier (subsequently known as Varaždin Generalate), Croatian Frontier (subsequently known as Karlovac Generalate) and Žumberak District. The area between villages of Bović and Brkiševina was called Banska Krajina (or subsequently Banovina, Banija). The difference between latter and remaining Military Frontier was that Banska krajina (Ban's Frontier) was under command and financing of ban of Croatia so its defense was basically the responsibility of Croatia. Unlike remaining Military Frontier which was under direct command of Imperial Military Authorities, Banska Krajina was not taken away from Croatia. ==== The Long War: Hasan Pasha's Great Offensive ==== As Ottomans concluded their War against Safavid Persia in 1590, the belligerent Teli Hasan Pasha was appointed new governor of Ottoman Bosnian Eyalet. He launched his great offensive on Croatia, aimed at completely conquering Croatian "Remnants of the Remnants". In order to do that, he mobilized all available troops from his Bosnian Eyalet. Although his offensive did achieve substantial success against Croatians and their allies, such as victories in Siege of Bihać (which Croatians never managed to retake again) or in Battle of Brest, his campaign was ultimately stopped in June 1593 Battle of Sisak. Not only the Ottomans lost this battle, but Hasan Pasha got killed in the fray. News of Bosnian Pasha's defeat near Sisak caused outrage in Constantinople. Now, the Ottomans officially decided to declare war to Habsburg Monarchy, triggering the start of Long Turkish War. In strategic sense, the Ottoman defeat near Sisak led to stabilization of border between Croatia and the Ottoman Empire. Historian claims that this stability of Croatian-Ottoman border was a general characteristic of the 17th century, as Ottoman Empire's might started declining. and a center of Ozalj literary-linguistic circle which produced Croatian baroque literature such as: Putni tovaruš, Gazophylacium or Gartlic za čas kratiti.]] During the 17th century, distinguished Croatian noble Nikola Zrinski became one of the most prominent Croatian generals in the fight against the Ottomans. In 1663/1664 he led a successful incursion into Ottoman-controlled territory. The campaign ended in the destruction of the vital Osijek bridge, which served as a connection between the Pannonian plain and the Balkan territories. As a reward for his victory against the Ottomans, Zrinski was commended by French king Louis XIV, thereby establishing contact with the French court. Croatian nobility also constructed Novi Zrin castle which sought to protect Croatia and Hungary from further Ottoman advances. At the same time, emperor Leopold of Habsburg sought to impose absolute rule on the entire Habsburg territory, which meant a loss of authority for the Croatian parliament and Ban and caused dissatisfaction with Habsburg rule among Croats. In July 1664, a large Ottoman army besieged and destroyed Novi Zrin. As this army marched on Austrian lands, its campaign ended at the Battle of St. Gotthard, where it was destroyed by the Habsburg imperial army. Given this victory, Croatians expected a decisive Habsburg counter-offensive to push the Ottomans back and relieve pressure on Croatian lands, but Leopold decided to conclude the unfavorable Vasvar peace treaty with the Ottomans because it solved problems he had on the Rhine with the French at the time. In Croatia, his decision caused outrage among leading nobles and sparked a conspiracy to replace the Habsburgs with different rulers. After Nikola Zrinski died under unusual circumstances while hunting, his relatives Fran Krsto Frankopan and Petar Zrinski supported the conspiracy. An attempt to retake Bihać was also made in 1697 but was eventually called off due to lack a of cannons. In the same year, general Eugene of Savoy led a 6500-strong army from Osijek into Bosnia, where he raided the seat of Bosnia Eyalet, Sarajevo, burning it to the ground. After this raid, large groups of Christian refugees from Bosnia settled in what was then an almost empty Slavonia. After the decisive Ottoman defeat in the Battle of Zenta in 1697 by the forces of Eugene of Savoy, the Peace of Karlowitz was signed in 1699, confirming the liberation of all of Slavonia from the Ottomans. For Croatia, nonetheless, large chunks of its late medieval territories between the rivers Una and Vrbas were lost, as they remained part of the Ottoman Bosnia Eyalet. In the following years, the use of the German language spread in the new military borderland and proliferated over the next two centuries as German-speaking colonists settled in the borderlands. ===Enlightened despotism=== By the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire had been driven out of Hungary, and Austria brought the empire under central control. Since the emperor Charles VI had no male heirs, he wanted to leave the imperial throne to his daughter Maria Theresa of Austria, which eventually led to the War of Austrian Succession of 1741–1748. The Croatian Parliament decided to accept Maria Theresa as a legitimate ruler by drafting the Pragmatic Sanction of 1712, asking in return that whoever inherited the throne recognize and respect Croatian autonomy from Hungary. The king unwillingly granted this. The rule of Maria Theresa brought limited modernization in education and health care. Croatian Royal Council (Consilium Regni Croatiae), which served as the de facto Croatian government, was founded in Varaždin in 1767, but it was abolished in 1779 and its authority was passed to Hungary. The foundation of the Croatian Royal Council in Varaždin made this town the administrative capital of Croatia, however, a large fire in 1776 caused significant damage to the city, so these major Croatian administrative institutions moved to Zagreb. Maria Theresa's heir, Joseph II of Austria, also ruled in an enlightened absolutist manner, but his reforms were marked by attempts at centralization and Germanization. In this period, roads were built connecting Karlovac with Rijeka, and Jozefina connecting Karlovac with Senj. With the Treaty of Sistova, which ended the Austro-Turkish War (1788–1791), the Ottoman-held areas of Donji Lapac and Cetingrad, along with the villages of Drežnik Grad and Jasenovac, were ceded to the Habsburg monarchy and incorporated into the Croatian Military Frontier. === 19th century in Croatia === ==== Napoleonic Wars ==== As Napoleon's armies started to dominate Europe, Croatian lands came into contact with the French as well. When Napoleon abolished the Republic of Venice in 1797, former Venetian possessions in Dalmatia came under Habsburg rule. In 1809, as Napoleon defeated the Austrians in the Battle of Wagram, French-controlled territory eventually expanded to the Sava river. The French founded the "Illyrian Provinces" centered in Ljubljana and appointed Marshal Auguste de Marmont as their governor-general. The French presence brought the liberal ideas of the French Revolution to the Croats. The French founded Masonic lodges, built infrastructure, and printed the first newspapers in the local language in Dalmatia. Called Kraglski Datmatin/Il Regio Dalmata, it was printed in both Italian and Croatian. Croatian soldiers accompanied Napoleon in his conquests as far as Russia. In 1808, Napoleon abolished the Republic of Ragusa. Ottomans from Bosnia raided French Croatia and occupied the area of Cetingrad in 1809. Auguste de Marmont reacted by occupying Bihać on 5 May 1810. After the Ottomans promised to stop raiding French territories and withdraw from the Cetingrad, he withdrew from Bihać. With the fall of Napoleon, the French-controlled Croatian lands came back under Austrian rule. ==== Croatian national revival and the Illyrian Movement ==== Under the influence of German romanticism, French political thought, and pan-Slavism, Croatian romantic nationalism emerged in the mid-19th century to counteract the Germanization and Magyarization of Croatia. Ljudevit Gaj emerged as a leader of the Croatian national movement. One of the important issues to be resolved was the question of language, where regional Croatian dialects had to be standardized. Since the Shtokavian dialect, widespread among Croats, was also common with Serbs, this movement likewise had a South-Slavic characteristic. At the time, "Croatian" only referred to the population in southwestern parts of what is today Croatia, while "Illyrian" was used throughout the south-Slavic world; wider masses of people were attempted to attract by using the Illyrian name. According to Croatian historian Nenad Moačanin, appearance of Romanticism also affected portion of Vlachs settled in Croatian depopulated areas who declared themselves as Serbs. ==== Croats in revolutions of 1848 ==== In the Revolutions of 1848, the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, driven by fear of Magyar nationalism, supported the Habsburg court against Hungarian revolutionary forces. During a session of the Croatian Sabor held on 25 March 1848, colonel Josip Jelačić was elected as Ban of Croatia, and a petition called "Demands of The People" (Zahtjevanja naroda) was drafted to be handed over to the Austrian Emperor. These liberal demands asked for independence, unification of Croatian lands, a Croatian government responsible to the Croatian parliament and independent from Hungary, financial independence from Hungary, the introduction of the Croatian language in offices and schools, freedom of the press, religious freedom, abolishment of serfdom, abolishment of nobility privileges, the foundation of a people's army, and equality before the law. As the Hungarian government denied the existence of the Croatian name and nationhood and treated Croatian institutions like provincial authorities, Jelačić severed ties between Croatia and Hungary. In May 1848, Ban's Council was formed which had all the executive powers of the Croatian government. The Croatian parliament abolished feudalism, Jelačić was also appointed the governor of Rijeka and Dalmatia as well as the "Imperial Commander of Military Frontier", thus having most of the Croatian lands under his rule. The breakdown of negotiations between Croats and the Hungarians eventually led to war. Jelačić declared war on Hungary on 7 September 1848. On 11 September 1848, the Croatian army crossed the Drava river and annexed Međimurje. Upon crossing Drava, Jelačić ordered his army to switch Croatian national flags with Habsburg Imperial flags. Despite the contributions of its Ban Josip Jelačić in quenching the Hungarian war of independence, in the aftermath, Croatia was not treated any more favorably by Vienna than the Hungarians and therefore lost its domestic autonomy. ==== Croatia in Dual Monarchy ==== The dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary was created in 1867 through the Austro-Hungarian Compromise. Croatian autonomy was restored in 1868 with the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement, which was comparatively favorable for the Croatians, but still problematic because of issues such as the unresolved status of Rijeka. In 1873, the territory of Military Frontier was demilitarized and in July 1871 a decision was made to incorporate it into Croatia with Croatian ban Ladislav Pejačević taking over the authority. Pejačević's successor Károly Khuen-Héderváry caused further problems by violating the Croatian-Hungarian Settlement through his hardline Magyarization policies in period from 1883 to 1903. Héderváry's Magyarization of Croatia led to massive riots in 1903, when Croatian protesters burnt Hungarian flags and clashed with the gendarmes and the military, resulting in the death of several protesters. As a consequence of these riots, Héderváry left his position as Ban of Croatia, but was appointed prime minister of Hungary. A year earlier, in 1902, Srbobran, the newspaper of Zagreb Serbs, published an article titled "Do istrage naše ili vaše" (Until us, or you get exterminated). The article was filled with Greater Serbian ideology; its text denied the existence of the Croatian nation and the Croatian language and announced Serbian victory over "servile Croats", who would, the article proclaimed, be exterminated. The article sparked major anti-Serb riots in Zagreb, in which barricades were raised and Serb-owned properties were attacked. Serbs of Zagreb eventually distanced themselves from the opinions published in the article. and election-rigging to keep the opposition, mainly the Croatian Peasant Party and its allies, in the minority in the Yugoslav parliament. Pašić believed that Yugoslavia should be as centralized as possible, creating a Greater Serbian national concept of concentrated power in the hands of Belgrade in place of distinct regional governments and identities. === Murders of 1928 and royal dictatorship === During a Parliament session in 1928, Puniša Račić, a deputy of the Serbian Radical People's Party, shot at Croatian deputies, resulting in the killing of Pavle Radić and Đuro Basariček and the wounding of Ivan Pernar and Ivan Granđa. Stjepan Radić, a Croatian political champion at the time, was wounded and later succumbed to his wounds. These multiple murders caused the outrage of the Croatian population and ignited violent demonstrations, strikes, and armed conflicts throughout Croatian parts of the country. The Greater Serbian-influenced Royal Yugoslav Court even considered "amputation" of Croatian parts of the country, while leaving Yugoslavia only inside Greater Serbian borders, however, Croatian Peasant Party leadership rejected this idea. While Račić was subsequently tried for multiple murders, he served his sentence in a luxurious villa in Požarevac, where he had several servants at his disposal and was allowed to leave and return at any time. In response to the shooting at the National Assembly, King Alexander abolished the parliamentary system and proclaimed a royal dictatorship. He imposed a new constitution aimed at removing all existing national identities and imposing "integral Yugoslavism". He also renamed the country from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The territory of Croatia was largely divided among the Sava Banovina and the Littoral Banovina. Political parties were banned and the royal dictatorship took on an increasingly harsh character. Vladko Maček, who had succeeded Radić as leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, the largest political party in Croatia, was imprisoned. Ante Pavelić was exiled from Yugoslavia and created the ultranationalist Ustaše Movement, with the ultimate goal of destroying Yugoslavia and making Croatia an independent country. According to the British historian Misha Glenny, the murder in March 1929 of Toni Schlegel, editor of the pro-Yugoslavian newspaper Novosti, brought a "furious response" from the regime. In Lika and west Herzegovina in particular, described as "hotbeds of Croatian separatism", Glenny wrote that the majority-Serb police acted "with no restraining authority whatsoever". In the words of a prominent Croatian writer, Schlegel's death became the pretext for terror in all forms. Politics was soon "indistinguishable from gangsterism". In 1931, the royal regime organized the assassination of Croatian scientist and intellectual Milan Šufflay on the streets of Zagreb. The assassination was condemned by globally renowned intellectuals such as Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann. In 1932, the Ustaše Movement unsuccessfully planned the Velebit uprising in Lika. Despite the oppressive climate, few rallied to the Ustaša cause and the movement was never able to gain serious support among the Croatian population. === Banovina of Croatia === In 1934, King Aleksandar was assassinated during a state visit to Marseille by a coalition of the Ustaše and the Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), thus ending the Royal dictatorship. The government of Serbian Radical Milan Stojadinović, which took power in 1935, distanced Yugoslavia from its former allies of France and the United Kingdom and moved the country closer to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In 1937 Yugoslav gendarmes led by Radical Party member Jovo Koprivica killed dozens of youth members of the Croatian Peasant Party in Senj because they sang Croatian patriotic songs. With the rise of Nazis in Germany and the looming possibility of another European war, Serbian political elites decided that it was time to fix relations with the Croats, the second largest ethnic group in the country, so that in the event of a new war the country would be united and without ethnic divisions. Negotiations started, resulting in the Cvetković–Maček Agreement and the creation of Banovina of Croatia, an autonomous Croatian province inside Yugoslavia. Banovina of Croatia was created in 1939 out of the two Banates, as well as parts of the Zeta, Vrbas, Drina, and Danube Banates. It had a reconstructed Croatian Parliament which would choose a Croatian Ban and Viceban. This Croatia included a part of Bosnia, most of Herzegovina, and Dubrovnik and its surroundings. ==World War II and the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945)== The Axis occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941 allowed the Croatian radical right Ustaše to come into power, forming the "Independent State of Croatia" (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH), led by Ante Pavelić, who assumed the role of Poglavnik. Following the pattern of other fascist regimes in Europe, the Ustaše enacted racial laws and formed eight concentration camps targeting minority Serbs, Romas, and Jewish populations, as well as Croatian and Bosnian Muslim opponents of the regime. The biggest concentration camp was Jasenovac in Croatia. The NDH had a program, formulated by Mile Budak, to purge Croatia of Serbs, by "killing one third, expelling the other third and assimilating the remaining third". The main targets for persecution were the Serbs, of whom approximately 330,000 were killed. Various Serbian nationalist Chetnik groups also committed atrocities against Croats across many areas of Lika and parts of northern Dalmatia. During World War II in Yugoslavia, the Chetniks killed an estimated 18,000-32,000 Croats. The anti-fascist communist-led Partisan movement, based on a pan-Yugoslav ideology, emerged in early 1941 under the command of Croatian-born Josip Broz Tito, and spread quickly into many parts of Yugoslavia. The 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, often hailed as the first armed anti-fascist resistance unit in occupied Europe, was formed in Croatia, in the Brezovica Forest near the town of Sisak. As the movement began to gain popularity, the Partisans gained strength from Croats, Bosniaks, Serbs, Slovenes, and Macedonians who believed in a unified, but federal, Yugoslav state. By 1943, the Partisan resistance movement had gained the upper hand and in 1945, with help from the Soviet Red Army (passing only through small parts such as Vojvodina), expelled the Axis forces and local supporters. The State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia (ZAVNOH) functioned since 1942 and formed an interim civil government by 1943. NDH's ministers of War and Internal Security Mladen Lorković and Ante Vokić tried to switch to the Allied side. Pavelić was, in the beginning, supporting them but when he found that he would need to leave his position he imprisoned them in Lepoglava prison where they were executed. Following the defeat of the Independent State of Croatia at the end of the war, a large number of Ustaše, civilians supporting them (ranging from sympathizers, young conscripts or anti-communists), Chetniks and anti-Communists attempted to flee in the direction of Austria, hoping to surrender to British forces and to be given refuge. Following the Bleiburg repatriations, they were instead interned by British forces, and returned to the Partisans where they were subject to mass executions. == Socialist Yugoslavia (1945–1991) == ===Tito's leadership of the LCY (1945–1980)=== Croatia was one of six constituent socialist republics of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia. Under the new communist system, privately owned factories and estates were nationalized, and the economy was based on a type of planned market socialism. The country underwent a rebuilding process, recovered from World War II, went through industrialization, and started developing tourism. The country's socialist system also provided free apartments from large companies, which with the workers' self-management investments paid for the living spaces. From 1963, the citizens of Yugoslavia were allowed to travel to almost any country because of the neutral politics. No visas were required to travel to eastern or western countries or capitalist or communist nations. Such free travel was unheard of at the time in the Eastern Bloc countries, and in some western countries as well (e.g., Spain or Portugal, both dictatorships at the time). This proved to be helpful for Croatia's inhabitants who found working in foreign countries more financially rewarding. Upon retirement, a popular plan was to return to live in Croatia (then Yugoslavia) to buy more expensive property. In Yugoslavia, the people of Croatia were guaranteed free healthcare, free dental care, and secure pensions. The older generation found this very comforting as pensions would sometimes exceed their former paychecks. Free trade and travel within the country also helped Croatian industries that imported and exported throughout all the former republics. Students and military personnel were encouraged to visit other republics to learn more about the country, and all levels of education, including secondary education and higher education, were free. In reality, the housing was inferior with poor heat and plumbing, the medical care often lacking even in the availability of antibiotics, schools were propaganda machines and travel was a necessity to provide the country with hard currency. The propagandists, who want people to believe "neutral policies" equalized Serbs and Croats, severely restricted free speech and did not protect citizens from ethnic attacks. Membership in the League of Communists of Yugoslavia was as much a prerequisite for admission to colleges and government jobs as in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin or Nikita Khrushchev. Private sector businesses did not grow as the taxes on private enterprise were often prohibitive. Inexperienced management sometimes ruled policy and controlled decisions by brute force. Strikes were forbidden, and owners/managers were not permitted to make changes or decisions which would impact their productivity or profit. The economy developed into a type of socialism called samoupravljanje (self-management), in which workers controlled socially-owned enterprises. This kind of market socialism created significantly better economic conditions than in the Eastern Bloc countries. Croatia went through intensive industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s with industrial output increasing several-fold and with Zagreb surpassing Belgrade in industry. Factories and other organizations were often named after Partisans who were declared national heroes. This practice also spread to street names, as well as the names of parks and buildings. Before World War II, Croatia's industry was not developed, with the vast majority of the people employed in agriculture. By 1991, the country was completely transformed into a modern industrialized state. At the same time, the Croatian Adriatic coast had become a popular tourist destination, and the coastal republics (but mostly SR Croatia) profited greatly from this, as tourist numbers reached levels still unsurpassed in modern Croatia. The government brought unprecedented economic and industrial growth, high levels of social security, and a very low crime rate. The country completely recovered from WWII and achieved a very high GDP and economic growth rate, significantly higher than those of the present-day republic. The constitution of 1963 balanced power in the country between the Croats and the Serbs and alleviated the imbalance coming from the fact that the Croats were again in a minority position. Trends after 1965 (like the fall of OZNA and UDBA chief Aleksandar Ranković from power in 1966), however, led to the Croatian Spring of 1970–71, when students in Zagreb organized demonstrations to achieve greater civil liberties and greater Croatian autonomy. The regime stifled public protest and incarcerated the leaders, but this led to the ratification of a new constitution in 1974, giving more rights to the individual republics. Radical Ustaše cells of Croatian émigrés based in Australia and Western Europe planned and attempted to carry out acts of sabotage within Yugoslavia, including an incursion from Austria of 19 armed men in June 1971, who unsuccessfully aimed to incite a popular Croatian uprising against what they called the "Serbo-communist" regime in Belgrade. ===Until the breakup of Yugoslavia (1980–1991)=== In 1980, after Tito's death, economic, political, and religious difficulties started to mount and the federal government began to crumble. The crisis in Kosovo and, in 1986, the emergence of Slobodan Milošević in Serbia provoked a very negative reaction in Croatia and Slovenia; politicians from both republics feared that his motives would threaten their republics' autonomy. With the climate of change throughout Eastern Europe during the 1980s, the communist hegemony was challenged (at the same time, the Milošević government began to gradually concentrate Yugoslav power in Serbia, and calls for free multi-party elections were becoming louder). In June 1989, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) was founded by Croatian nationalist dissidents led by Franjo Tuđman, a former fighter in Tito's Partisan movement and a JNA General. At this time, Yugoslavia was still a one-party state and open manifestations of Croatian nationalism were considered dangerous, so a new party was founded in an almost conspiratorial manner. It was only on 13 December 1989 that the governing League of Communists of Croatia agreed to legalize opposition political parties and hold free elections in the spring of 1990. ==Republic of Croatia (1991–present)== ===Introduction of multi-party political system=== On 22 April and 7 May 1990, the first free multi-party elections were held in Croatia. Franjo Tuđman's Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won by a 42% margin against Ivica Račan's reformed communist Party of Democratic Change (SDP) who won 26%. Croatia's first-past-the-post election system enabled Tuđman to form the government relatively independently, as the win translated into 205 mandates (out of 351 total). The HDZ intended to secure independence for Croatia, contrary to the wishes of some ethnic Serbs in the republic and federal politicians in Belgrade. The excessively polarized climate soon escalated into complete estrangement between the two nations and spiraled into sectarian violence. On 25 July 1990, a Serbian Assembly was established in Srb, north of Knin, as the political representation of the Serbian people in Croatia. The Serbian Assembly declared "sovereignty and autonomy of the Serb people in Croatia". Their position was that if Croatia could secede from Yugoslavia, then the Serbs could secede from Croatia. Milan Babić, a dentist from the southern town of Knin, was elected president. The rebel Croatian Serbs established some paramilitary militias under the leadership of Milan Martić, the police chief in Knin. On 17 August 1990, the Serbs of Croatia began what became known as the Log Revolution, where barricades of logs were placed across roads throughout the South as an expression of their secession from Croatia. This effectively cut Croatia in two, separating the coastal region of Dalmatia from the rest of the country. The Croatian government responded to the road blockades by sending special police teams in helicopters to the scene, but they were intercepted by SFR Yugoslav Air Force fighter jets and forced to turn back to Zagreb. The Croatian constitution was passed in December 1990, categorizing Serbs as a minority group along with other ethnic groups. On 21 December 1990, Babić's administration announced the creation of a Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Krajina (or SAO Krajina). Other Serb-dominated communities in eastern Croatia announced that they would also join SAO Krajina and ceased paying taxes to the Zagreb government. On Easter Sunday, 31 March 1991, the first fatal clashes occurred when police from the Croatian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) entered the Plitvice Lakes National Park to expel rebel Serb forces. Serb paramilitaries ambushed a bus carrying Croatian police into the national park on the road north of Korenica, sparking a day-long gun battle between the two sides. During the fighting, one Croat and one Serb policeman were killed. Twenty other people were injured and twenty-nine Krajina Serb paramilitaries and policemen were taken prisoner by Croatian forces. Among the prisoners was Goran Hadžić, who would later become the President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. On 2 May 1991, the Croatian parliament voted to hold an independence referendum. On 19 May 1991, with a turnout of almost 80%, 93.24% voted for independence. Krajina boycotted the referendum. They had held their referendum a week earlier on 12 May 1991 in the territories they controlled and voted to remain in Yugoslavia. The Croatian government did not recognize their referendum as valid. On 25 June 1991, the Croatian Parliament declared independence from Yugoslavia. Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia on the same day. ===War of Independence (1991–1995)=== During the Croatian War of Independence, the civilian population fled the areas of armed conflict en masse, with hundreds of thousands of Croats moving away from the Bosnian and Serbian border areas. In many places, masses of civilians were forced out by the Yugoslav National Army (JNA), which consisted mostly of conscripts from Serbia and Montenegro, and irregulars from Serbia, participating in what became known as ethnic cleansing. The border city of Vukovar underwent a three-month siege during the Battle of Vukovar. It left most of the city destroyed and a majority of the population was forced to flee. The city was taken over by the Serbian forces on 18 November 1991 and the Vukovar massacre occurred. Subsequent United Nations-sponsored cease fires followed, and the warring parties were mostly entrenched. The Yugoslav People's Army retreated from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina where a new cycle of tensions was escalating—the Bosnian War was about to start. During 1992 and 1993, Croatia also handled an estimated 700,000 refugees from Bosnia, mainly Bosnian Muslims. Armed conflict in Croatia remained intermittent and mostly small-scale until 1995. In early August, Croatia embarked on Operation Storm, an attack that quickly reconquered most of the territories from the Republic of Serbian Krajina authorities, leading to a mass exodus of the Serbian population. Estimates of the number of Serbs who fled before, during and after the operation range from 90,000 to 200,000. As a result of this operation, a few months later the Bosnian War ended with the negotiation of the Dayton Agreement. A peaceful integration of the remaining Serbian-controlled territories in eastern Slavonia was completed in 1998 under UN supervision. The majority of the Serbs who fled from former Krajina did not return due to fears of ethnic violence, discrimination, and property repossession problems; and the Croatian government has yet to achieve the conditions for full reintegration. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, around 125,000 ethnic Serbs who fled the 1991–1995 conflict are registered as having returned to Croatia, of whom around 55,000 remain permanently. ===Transition period=== Croatia became a member of the Council of Europe in 1996. Between 1995 and 1997 Franjo Tuđman became increasingly more authoritiarian and refused to formally acknowledge local election results in City of Zagreb, leading to the Zagreb crisis. In 1996 his government attempted to shut down Radio 101, a popular radio station which was critical towards HDZ and often made fun of HDZ and Tuđman himself. When Radio 101's broadcasting rights were revoked in 1996, some 120,000 Croatian citizens protested in Ban Jelačić Square against the decision. Tuđman gave the order to suppress the protest with a riot police, but then-minister of the internal affairs Ivan Jarnjak disobeyed his order for which he was subsequently dismissed from his position. Sanader tried to come back into HDZ in 2010 but was then ejected, and USKOK soon had him arrested on several corruption charges. In November 2012, a court in Croatia sentenced former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, in office from 2003 to 2009, to 10 years in prison for taking bribes. Sanader tried to argue that the case against him was politically motivated. In 2011, the accession agreement was concluded, giving Croatia the all-clear to join. The 2011 Croatian parliamentary election was held on 4 December 2011, and the Kukuriku coalition won. After the election, the center-left government was formed led by new prime minister Zoran Milanović. === the European Union membership (2013–present) === Following the ratification of the Treaty of Accession 2011 and the successful 2012 Croatian European Union membership referendum, Croatia joined the EU on 1 July 2013. In the 2014–15 Croatian presidential election, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović became the first Croatian female President. The 2015 Croatian parliamentary election resulted in the victory of the Patriotic Coalition which formed a new government with the Bridge of Independent Lists. However, a vote of no confidence brought down the Cabinet of Tihomir Orešković. After the 2016 Croatian parliamentary election, the Cabinet of Andrej Plenković was formed. In January 2020, the former prime minister Zoran Milanović of the Social Democrats (SDP) won the presidential election. He defeated center-right incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). In March 2020, the Croatian capital Zagreb experienced a 5.3 magnitude earthquake which caused significant damage to the city. In July 2020, the ruling center-right party HDZ won the parliamentary election. On 12 October 2020 right-wing extremist Danijel Bezuk attempted an attack on the building of the Croatian government, wounded a police officer in the process, and then killed himself. In December 2020. Banovina, one of the less developed regions of Croatia was shaken by a 6.4 M earthquake which killed several people and destroyed the town of Petrinja. Throughout two and half years of the global COVID-19 pandemic, 16,103 Croatian citizens died from the disease. In March 2022, a Soviet-made Tu-141 drone crashed in Zagreb, most likely due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. On 26 July 2022, Croatian authorities opened Pelješac Bridge, thus connecting the southernmost part of Croatia with the rest of the country. On 1 January 2023 Croatia became a member of both the Eurozone and Schengen Area.	[ "Charles III of Naples", "Republic of Serbian Krajina", "Dinaric Alps", "USKOK", "Moslavačka gora", "International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia", "Duke Trpimir", "Military history of Croatia", "Kingdom of Naples", "Domagoj of Croatia", "Chetnik", "Germanization", "Josip Broz Tito", "2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine", "Ottoman Empire", "Karlovac", "Fortress of Klis", "Hrvatska Kostajnica", "Partisans (Yugoslavia)", "Celts", "List of noble families of Croatia", "Cvetković–Maček Agreement", "Military Frontier", "Operation Storm", "Dalmatian Croatia", "Pope Innocent III", "Vladko Maček", "SAO Krajina", "Dalmatia", "Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–1590)", "Kingdom of France", "Pelješac Bridge", "Kupa", "Ante Pavelić", "1st Sisak Partisan Detachment", "Croatians", "Julius Nepos", "Lika", "Republic of Venice", "Stjepan Radić", "riot police", "Albert Einstein", "Bosnian War", "UDBA", "Diocletian's Palace", "Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor", "Siege of Virovitica (1684)", "Sutla", 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Yugoslavia", "Palgrave Macmillan", "2000 Croatian parliamentary election", "Solin", "Starčevo culture", "Slobodan Milošević", "Zoran Milanović", "Pope John VIII", "Bosnian Muslims", "Glagolitic script", "Bridge of Independent Lists", "Siege of Dubrovnik", "feudalism", "Drežnik Grad", "Pannonia", "Byzantine Empire", "Dalmatae", "Croatian Peasant Party", "SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia", "romanticism", "Ante Gotovina", "Paleolithic", "westwork", "Krajina", "Albania", "Belgrade", "2012 Croatian European Union membership referendum", "Maria Theresa of Austria", "Occupation of the eastern Adriatic", "Bosnian Muslim", "Louis the Great", "Eurozone", "Croatian Parliament", "Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts", "Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)", "Kingdom of Croatia (Habsburg)", "Herzegovina", "Plitvice Lakes National Park", "Matthias Corvinus", "Károly Khuen-Héderváry", "Stjepan Mesić", "Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)", "Franjo Tuđman", "Stobreč", "Korenica", "first 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Yugoslavia", "Treaty of Rapallo (1920)", "Prince Eugene of Savoy", "People's Hero of Yugoslavia", "Gartlic za čas kratiti", "Sava", "Hungarian nationalism", "Križevci", "Banate of Bosnia", "Šubić", "Treaty of Sistova", "Neanderthals", "Croatian Spring", "Ivo Josipović", "Socialist Republic of Croatia", "Mary, Queen of Hungary", "Vlachs", "Roman Empire", "Telli Hasan Pasha", "Topusko", "Ivan Belostenec", "Krapina", "Bihać", "Požega Valley", "Zagreb", "Turkish Croatia", "Varaždin Generalate", "Ljudevit (Lower Pannonia)", "Dayton Agreement", "Louis XIV", "presidential system", "Napoleon", "UN Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium", "Yugoslav dinar", "Charles I of Hungary", "martolos", "Vojvodina", "Drniš", "Second Crusade", "Roman Republic", "Istria", "Jadranka Kosor", "Triune Kingdom", "Croatia", "Battle of Zenta", "Puniša Račić", "Putni tovaruš", "relic", "Great Turkish War", "Independent State of Croatia", "Radio 101 (Croatia)", "Croatia during World War I", "Breakup of Yugoslavia", "Velebit uprising", "Neretva", "Bulgarians", "Bosnia (region)", "Goran Hadžić", "Aleksandar Stipčević", "War of succession", "Peter Krešimir IV of Croatia", "Battle of Brest (1592)", "Knights Templar", "Kingdom of Bosnia", "Cabinet of Tihomir Orešković", "Croatian Army", "Bleiburg repatriations", "Councils of Split", "Croatian–Hungarian Settlement", "Yugoslavia", "2015 Croatian parliamentary election", "Constantine VII", "Mladen Lorković", "Ministry of the Interior (Croatia)", "Siege of Bihać (1697)", "Poglavnik", "Kingdom of Croatia (925–1102)", "Flag of Croatia", "2014–15 Croatian presidential election", "Romani people", "Branimir of Croatia", "Erdut Agreement", "Dubrovnik", "1974 Yugoslav Constitution", "Dalmatian city-states", "diocese", "Theodore Mommsen", "Time (magazine)", "Neolithic", "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", "Banovina (region)", "History of Istria", "Helen of Zadar", "Battle of Bliska", "Alexander I of Yugoslavia", "Međimurje County", "2020 Zagreb earthquake", "War of Austrian Succession", "Accession of Croatia to the European Union", "Twelve noble tribes of Croatia", "Stephen Držislav of Croatia", "Long Turkish War", "Rijeka", "Miklós Zrínyi", "duchy", "Axis forces", "De Administrando Imperio", "University of Zagreb", "Srb", "Baden culture", "Borut Pahor", "Histri", "Franks", "Battle of Krbava Field", "Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor", "2020 Zagreb shooting", "Patriotic Coalition (Croatia)", "Petar Krešimir IV", "Jasenovac, Sisak-Moslavina County", "austerity", "Joseph Stalin", "Battle of Vukovar", "Cabinet of Andrej Plenković", "Demetrius Zvonimir of Croatia", "Croatian National Theatre, Zagreb", "Battle of Nicopolis", "Ivan Karlović", "Schengen Area", "Bulgaria", "Senj", "Death and state funeral of Josip Broz Tito", "2007 Croatian parliamentary election", "Pavle Radić", "Salona", "BBC News", "Đuro Basariček", "Piracy", "Rumelia Eyalet", "Fran Krsto Frankopan", "World Trade Organization", "province of Dalmatia", "Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War", "Relief of Cetingrad", "Illyrian Wars", "Battle of Wagram", "2019–20 Croatian presidential election", "Excommunication", "Slovene Lands", "Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867", "2020 Croatian parliamentary election", "Republic of Croatia", "Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić", "People's Radical Party", "University of Toronto Press", "Christmas Eve", "Epidaurum", "Fifth Crusade", "Battle of Gvozd Mountain", "Frankopan family", "Croatian privatization controversy", "Požarevac", "Milan Martić", "6 January Dictatorship", "Portugal", "List of rulers of Croatia", "Mislav of Croatia", "East–West Schism", "Vukovar water tower", "Janko Drašković", "Constitution of Croatia", "Cultural assimilation", "Syrmia", "Slovenia", "Fall of the Western Roman Empire", "Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor", "European Union", "Masonic lodge", "Littoral Banovina", "Hungarian Revolution of 1848", "Knights Hospitaller", "House of Trpimirović", "Serbs", "War of the Hungarian Succession", "Franciscans", "Kukuriku coalition", "Martinac (priest)", "House of Habsburg", "Penguin Books", "Zadar", "Basil II", "market socialism", "Novi Zrin", "Magyarization", "COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia", "Treaty of Karlowitz", "Ducat", "Pitomača", "ABC-CLIO", "2016 Croatian parliamentary election", "Treaty of Accession 2011", "Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski", "Justinian I", "Ban Jelačić Square", "Kanije Eyalet", "Hofkriegsrat", "Log Revolution", "Béla IV of Hungary", "Styria (Slovenia)", "Western Ukraine", "Holy League (1684)", "Ostrogoths", "Amicus of Giovinazzo", "1990 Croatian parliamentary election", "Croatian parliament", "Ultranationalism", "Ante Vokić", "Social Democratic Party of Croatia", "Nikola Jurišić", "Austria-Hungary", "Vukovar", "Wiley-Blackwell", "akinji", "Holy Land", "Novigrad Castle", "La Tène culture", "Kingdom of Yugoslavia", "Borna of Croatia", "Misha Glenny", "Donji Lapac", "sign of the cross", "Adriatic question", "Nikola Pašić", "Latin", "T-55", "Croatian Military Frontier", "Pope John X", "State Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Croatia", "Woodrow Wilson", "1408 Battle of Dobor", "Timeline of Croatian history", "Austro-Hungarian krone", "Auguste de Marmont", "Kingdom of Romania", "scorched earth", "WP:SDNONE", "Frane Bulić", "Louis II of Hungary", "2022 Zagreb Tu-141 crash", "Székesfehérvár", "Peace of Vasvár", "2003 Croatian parliamentary election", "Vienna" ]
5,575	Geography of Croatia	The geography of Croatia is defined by its location—it is described as located at the crossroads of Central Europe and Southeast Europe, or within the wider region of Southern Europe. Croatia's territory covers , making it the 127th largest country in the world. Bordered by Slovenia in the northwest, Hungary in the northeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia in the east, Montenegro in the southeast and the Adriatic Sea in the south, it lies mostly between latitudes 42° and 47° N and longitudes 13° and 20° E. Croatia's territorial waters encompass in a wide zone, and its internal waters located within the baseline cover an additional . The Pannonian Plain and the Dinaric Alps, along with the Adriatic Basin, represent major geomorphological parts of Croatia. Lowlands make up the bulk of Croatia, with elevations of less than above sea level recorded in 53.42% of the country. Most of the lowlands are found in the northern regions, especially in Slavonia, itself a part of the Pannonian Basin plain. The plains are interspersed with horst and graben structures, believed to have broken the Pliocene Pannonian Sea's surface as islands. The greatest concentration of ground at relatively high elevations is found in the Lika and Gorski Kotar areas in the Dinaric Alps, but high areas are found in all regions of Croatia to some extent. The Dinaric Alps contain the highest mountain in Croatia— Dinara—as well as all other mountains in Croatia higher than . Croatia's Adriatic Sea mainland coast is long, while its 1,246 islands and islets encompass a further of coastline—the most indented coastline in the Mediterranean. Karst topography makes up about half of Croatia and is especially prominent in the Dinaric Alps, as well as throughout the coastal areas and the islands. 62% of Croatia's territory is encompassed by the Adriatic Sea. The area includes the largest rivers flowing in the country: the Danube, Sava, Drava, Mur and Kupa. The remainder belongs to the Adriatic Sea drainage basin, where the largest river by far is the Neretva. Most of Croatia has a moderately warm and rainy continental climate as defined by the Köppen climate classification. The mean monthly temperature ranges between and . Croatia has a number of ecoregions because of its climate and geomorphology, and the country is consequently among the most biodiverse in Europe. There are four types of biogeographical regions in Croatia: Mediterranean along the coast and in its immediate hinterland; Alpine in the elevated Lika and Gorski Kotar; Pannonian along the Drava and Danube; and Continental in the remaining areas. There are 444 protected natural areas in Croatia, encompassing 8.5% of the country; there are about 37,000 known species in Croatia, and the total number of species is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000. The permanent population of Croatia by the 2011 census reached 4.29 million. The population density was 75.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, and the overall life expectancy in Croatia at birth was 75.7 years. The country is inhabited mostly by Croats (89.6%), while minorities include Serbs (4.5%), and 21 other ethnicities (less than 1% each) recognised by the constitution. Since the counties were re-established in 1992, Croatia is divided into 20 counties and the capital city of Zagreb. The counties subdivide into 127 cities and 429 municipalities. The average urbanisation rate in Croatia stands at 56%, with a growing urban population and shrinking rural population. The largest city and the nation's capital is Zagreb, with an urban population of 797,952 in the city itself and a metropolitan area population of 978,161. The populations of Split and Rijeka exceed 100,000, and five more cities in Croatia have populations over 50,000. ==Area and borders== Croatia's territory covers , making it the 127th largest country in the world. The physical geography of Croatia is defined by its location—it is described as a part of Southeast Europe. Croatia borders Bosnia–Herzegovina (for 1,009.1 km), Slovenia for 667.8 km in the northwest, in the east, Hungary for 355.5 km in the north, Serbia (for 317.6 km) in the east, Montenegro (for 22.6 km) in the southeast and the Adriatic Sea in the west, south and southwest. It lies mostly between latitudes 42° and 47° N and longitudes 13° and 20° E. Part of the extreme south of Croatia is separated from the rest of the mainland by a short coastline strip around Neum belonging to Bosnia–Herzegovina. The country's shape is described as a 'horseshoe' (), and it arose as a result of medieval geopolitics. Croatia's border with Hungary was inherited from Yugoslavia. Much of the border with Hungary follows the Drava River or its former river bed; that part of the border dates from the Middle Ages. The border in Međimurje and Baranya was defined as a border between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, pursuant to the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. The present outline of the border with Bosnia–Herzegovina and border with Montenegro is largely the result of the Ottoman conquest and subsequent recapture of territories in the Great Turkish War of 1667–1698 formally ending with the Treaty of Karlowitz, as well as the Fifth and Seventh Ottoman–Venetian Wars. This border had minor modifications in 1947 when all borders of the former Yugoslav constituent republics were defined by demarcation commissions implementing the AVNOJ decisions of 1943 and 1945 regarding the federal organisation of Yugoslavia. The commissions also defined Baranya and Međimurje as Croatian territories, and moreover set up the present-day border between Serbia and Croatia in Syrmia and along the Danube River between Ilok and the Drava river's mouth and further north to the Hungarian border; the Ilok/Drava section matched the border between the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia and Bács-Bodrog County that existed until 1918 (the end of World War I). Most of the border with Slovenia was also defined by the commissions, matching the northwestern border of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, and establishing a new section of Croatian border north of the Istrian peninsula according to the ethnic composition of the territory previously belonging to the Kingdom of Italy. Pursuant to the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy the islands of Cres, Lastovo and Palagruža and the cities of Zadar and Rijeka and most of Istria went to communist Yugoslavia and Croatia, while carving out the Free Territory of Trieste (FTT) as a city-state. The FTT was partitioned in 1954 as Trieste itself and the area to the north of it were placed under Italian control, and the rest under Yugoslav control. The arrangement was made permanent by the Treaty of Osimo in 1975. The former FTT's Yugoslav part was partitioned between Croatia and Slovenia, largely conforming to the area population's ethnic composition. In the late 19th century, Austria-Hungary established a geodetic network, for which the elevation benchmark was determined by the Adriatic Sea's average level at the Sartorio pier in Trieste. This benchmark was subsequently retained by Austria, adopted by Yugoslavia, and kept by the states that emerged after its dissolution, including Croatia. ==== Climate change ==== ===Biodiversity=== Croatia can be subdivided between a number of ecoregions because of its climate and geomorphology, and the country is consequently one of the richest in Europe in terms of biodiversity. There are four types of biogeographical regions in Croatia: Mediterranean along the coast and in its immediate hinterland, Alpine in most of Lika and Gorski Kotar, Pannonian along the Drava and Danube, and continental in the remaining areas. Among the most significant are karst habitats; these include submerged karst, such as Zrmanja and Krka canyons and tufa barriers, as well as underground habitats. The karst geology has produced approximately 7,000 caves and pits, many of which are inhabited by troglobitic (exclusively cave-dwelling) animals such as the olm, a cave salamander and the only European troglobitic vertebrate. Forests are also significant in the country, as they cover representing 46.8% of Croatia's land surface. In terms of phytogeography, Croatia is part of the Boreal Kingdom; specifically, it is part of the Illyrian and Central European provinces of the Circumboreal Region and the Adriatic province of the Mediterranean Region. The World Wide Fund for Nature divides land in Croatia into three ecoregions—Pannonian mixed forests, Dinaric Mountains mixed forests and Illyrian deciduous forests. Biomes in Croatia include temperate broadleaf/mixed forest and Mediterranean forests, woodlands and scrub; all are in the Palearctic realm. Croatia has 38,226 known taxa, 2.8% of which are endemic; the actual number (including undiscovered species) is estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000. ===Ecology=== The ecological footprint of Croatia's population and industry varies significantly between the country's regions since 50% of the population resides in 26.8% of the nation's territory, with a particularly high impact made by the city of Zagreb and Zagreb County areas—their combined area comprises 6.6% of Croatia's territory while encompassing 25% of the population. The ecological footprint is most notably from the increased development of settlements and the sea coast leading to habitat fragmentation. Between 1998 and 2008, the greatest changes of land use pertained to artificially developed areas, but the scale of development is negligible compared to EU member states. The Croatian Environment Agency (CEA), a public institution established by the Government of Croatia to collect and analyse information on the environment, has identified further ecological problems as well as various degrees of progress in terms of curbing their environmental impact. These problems include inadequate legal landfills as well as the presence of illegal landfills; between 2005 and 2008, 62 authorised and 423 illegal landfills were rehabilitated. In the same period, the number of issued waste management licences doubled, while the annual municipal solid waste volume increased by 23%, reaching per capita. The processes of soil acidification and organic matter degradation are present throughout Croatia, with increasing soil salinity levels in the Neretva river plain and spreading areas of alkali soil in Slavonia. of land remain suspected of containing land mines in 2025. ===Regions=== Croatia is traditionally divided into numerous, often overlapping geographic regions, whose borders are not always clearly defined. The largest and most readily recognisable ones throughout the country are Central Croatia (also described as the Zagreb macro-region), Eastern Croatia (largely corresponding with Slavonia), and Mountainous Croatia (Lika and Gorski Kotar; to the west of Central Croatia). These three comprise the inland or continental part of Croatia. Coastal Croatia consists of a further two regions: Dalmatia or the southern littoral, between the general area of the city of Zadar and the southernmost tip of the country; and the northern littoral located north of Dalmatia, encompassing the Croatian Littoral and Istria. The geographical regions generally do not conform to county boundaries or other administrative divisions, and all of them encompass further, more specific, geographic regions. ==Human geography== ===Demographics=== The demographic features of the Croatian population are known through censuses, normally conducted in ten-year intervals and analysed by various statistical bureaus since the 1850s. The Croatian Bureau of Statistics has performed this task since the 1990s. The latest census in Croatia was performed in April 2011. The permanent population of Croatia at the 2011 census had reached 4.29 million. The population density was 75.8 inhabitants per square kilometre, and the overall life expectancy in Croatia at birth is 75.7 years. The population rose steadily (with the exception of censuses taken following the two world wars) from 2.1 million in 1857 until 1991, when it peaked at 4.7 million. Since 1991, Croatia's death rate has continuously exceeded its birth rate; the natural growth rate of the population is thus currently negative. Croatia is currently in the demographic transition's fourth or fifth stage. In terms of age structure, the population is dominated by the 15‑ to 64‑year‑old segment. The median age of the population is 41.4, and the gender ratio of the total population is 0.93 males per 1 female. Croatia is inhabited mostly by Croats (89.6%), while minorities include Serbs (4.5%) and 21 other ethnicities (less than 1% each) recognised by the Constitution of Croatia. The demographic history of Croatia is marked by significant migrations, including: the Croats' arrival in the area; the growth of the Hungarian and German speaking population after the personal union of Croatia and Hungary; joining of the Habsburg Empire; migrations set off by the Ottoman conquests; and the growth of the Italian-speaking population in Istria and Dalmatia during the Venetian rule there. while the German-speaking population was forced out or fled during the last part of and after World War II, and a similar fate was suffered by the Italian population. The late 19th century and the 20th century were marked by large scale economic migrations abroad. The 1940s and the 1950s in Yugoslavia were marked by internal migrations in Yugoslavia, as well as by urbanisation. The most recent significant migrations came as a result of the Croatian War of Independence when hundreds of thousands were displaced. The Croatian language is Croatia's official language, but the languages of constitutionally-recognised minorities are officially used in some local government units. Croatian is the native language identified by 96% of the population. A 2009 survey revealed that 78% of Croatians claim knowledge of at least one foreign language—most often English. The largest religions of Croatia are Roman Catholicism (86.3%), Orthodox Christianity (4.4%) and Islam (1.5%). Literacy in Croatia stands at 98.1%. An estimated 4.5% of GDP is spent for education. The net monthly income in September 2011 averaged 5,397 kuna ( ). The most significant sources of employment in 2008 were wholesale and retail trade, the manufacturing industry and construction. In October 2011, the unemployment rate was 17.4%. Croatia's median equivalent household income tops the average Purchasing Power Standard of the ten countries which joined the EU in 2004, while trailing the EU average. The 2011 census recorded a total of 1.5 million private households; most owned their own housing. The divisions changed over time to reflect losses of territory to Ottoman conquest and subsequent liberation of the same territory, in addition to changes in the political status of Dalmatia, Dubrovnik and Istria. The traditional division of the country into counties was abolished in the 1920s, when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the subsequent Kingdom of Yugoslavia introduced oblasts and banovinas respectively. Communist-ruled Croatia, as a constituent part of post-WWII Yugoslavia, abolished earlier divisions and introduced (mostly rural) municipalities, subdividing Croatia into approximately one hundred municipalities. Counties were reintroduced in 1992 by legislation, significantly altered in terms of territory relative to the pre-1920s subdivisions—for instance, in 1918 the Transleithanian part of Croatia was divided into eight counties with their seats in Bjelovar, Gospić, Ogulin, Požega, Vukovar, Varaždin, Osijek and Zagreb, while the 1992 legislation established 14 counties in the same territory. Međimurje County was established in the eponymous region acquired through the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. (The 1990 Croatian Constitution provided for a Chamber of the Counties as part of the government, and for counties themselves without specifying their names or number. However, the counties were not actually re-established until 1992, and the first Chamber of the Counties was elected in 1993.) Since the counties were re-established in 1992, Croatia has been divided into 20 counties and the capital city of Zagreb, the latter having the authority and legal status of a county and a city at the same time (Zagreb County outside the city is administratively separate as of 1997). The county borders have changed in some instances since (for reasons such as historical ties and requests by cities), with the latest revision taking place in 2006. The counties subdivide into 127 cities and 429 municipalities. The EU Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) division of Croatia is performed in several tiers. NUTS 1 level places the entire country in a single unit, while there are three NUTS 2 regions; these are Central and Eastern (Pannonian) Croatia, Northwest Croatia and Adriatic Croatia. The last encompasses all counties along the Adriatic coast. Northwest Croatia includes the city of Zagreb and Krapina-Zagorje, Varaždin, Koprivnica-Križevci, Međimurje and Zagreb counties, and the Central and Eastern (Pannonian) Croatia includes the remaining areas—Bjelovar-Bilogora, Virovitica-Podravina, Požega-Slavonia, Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Baranja, Vukovar-Syrmia, Karlovac and Sisak-Moslavina counties. Individual counties and the city of Zagreb represent NUTS 3 level subdivision units in Croatia. The NUTS Local administrative unit divisions are two-tiered. The LAU 1 divisions match the counties and the city of Zagreb—in effect making these the same as NUTS 3 units—while the LAU 2 subdivisions correspond to the cities and municipalities of Croatia. ===Urbanisation=== The average urbanisation rate in Croatia stands at 56%, with a growing urban population and shrinking rural population. The largest city and the nation's capital is Zagreb, with an urban population of 686,568 in the city itself. Zagreb's metropolitan area encompasses 341 additional settlements and, by the year 2001, the population of the area had reached 978,161; approximately 60% of Zagreb County's residents live in Zagreb's metropolitan area, as does about 41% of Croatia's urban population. The cities of Split and Rijeka are the largest settlements on the Croatian Adriatic coast, with each city's population being over 100,000. There are four other Croatian cities exceeding 50,000 people: Osijek, Zadar, Pula and Slavonski Brod; the Zagreb district of Sesvete, which has the status of a standalone settlement but not a city, also has such a large population. A further eleven cities are populated by more than 20,000.	[ "Peruća Lake", "Dinaric Alps", "Biokovo", "Moslavačka gora", "sewerage", "Croatian Bureau of Statistics", "Demographics of SFR Yugoslavia", "Eastern Orthodox Church", "Horst (geology)", "Voćin", "Above mean sea level", "Last Glacial Maximum", "Ivanšćica", "Geomorphology", "AVNOJ", "Karlovac", "Hrvatska Kostajnica", "ridge", "Prevlaka", "Lika-Senj County", "aquifer", "Ćićarija", "Dalmatia", "troglobite", "Transleithania", "Kupa", "The Columbia Encyclopedia", "Lika", "igneous rocks", "Stratovolcano", "air pollution", "bauxite", "Virovitica", "20th meridian east", "Cretan War (1645–1669)", "Natura 2000", "academic degree", "fold and thrust belt", "Mediterranean Sea", "vertebrate", "Pannonian Sea", "Government of Croatia", "Lake Varaždin", "water pollution", "Metres above the Adriatic", "Biome", "Korčula", "Svetac", "Caulerpa taxifolia", "Kopački Rit", "Alps", "urbanisation", "13th meridian east", "Zrmanja", "internal waters", "Varaždin", "fluvial", "Bjelovar", "groundwater", "Free 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Kingdom of Yugoslavia", "Lonja", "Iron Gate (Danube)", "hamlet (place)", "habitat fragmentation", "marine pollution", "Hrvatsko Zagorje", "Plant", "Dubrovnik-Neretva County", "Split, Croatia", "Croatia in personal union with Hungary", "Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia", "Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub", "eponymous", "septic system", "Transdanubian Mountains", "Variscan orogeny", "death rate", "Epoch (geology)", "Plješivica", "UNESCO", "Pannonian mixed forests", "demographic transition", "alkali soil", "World War I", "geodetic network", "Koprivnica-Križevci County", "Biševo", "Hungary", "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia", "Lake Dubrava", "Humid subtropical climate", "Krk", "diabase", "Cetina", "Gorski Kotar", "List of notable karst areas", "nature park", "habitat", "Šibenik-Knin County", "Oligocene", "Risnjak", "Demographics of Croatia", "naselje", "Southeast Europe", "Pazin", "altitudinal zonation", "Klek (peninsula)", "monoculture", "Jurassic", "alluvial", "President of Croatia", "Velika Kapela", "Mediterranean Region", "Gospić", "Mediterranean climate", "Plitvice Lakes National Park", "Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)", "spilite", "Ozone depletion", "landform", "cultivar", "Bjelovar-Bilogora County", "Lake Prokljan", "Krapina-Zagorje County", "water supply network", "City of Zagreb", "Učka", "Treaty of Osimo", "List of mountains in Croatia", "Kvarner Gulf", "Slavonia", "World Heritage Site", "Pula", "continental shelf", "temperate broadleaf and mixed forest", "Cretaceous", "Karlovac County", "protected areas of Croatia", "Municipalities of Croatia", "biogeographical", "List of cities in Croatia", "Austria", "phytogeography", "landfill", "soil organic matter", "Vis (island)", "Osijek", "Svilaja", "Sisak", "Demining", "Middle Ages", "city of Zagreb", "Pannonian Basin", "Croatian kuna", "Köppen climate classification", "Požega, Croatia", "Bosnia and Herzegovina", "Ploče", "Knin", "Koprivnica", "Mya (unit)", "Habsburg monarchy", "water quality", "Europe", "SFR Yugoslavia", "Slavonski Brod", "SR Croatia", "Ecological and Fisheries Protection Zone", "47th parallel north", "drainage basin", "biochemical oxygen demand", "United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka", "Kaštela", "Brač", "olm", "Snježnik", "Military of Serbia and Montenegro", "Neum", "volcanic arc", "universal health care", "Medvednica", "river delta", "Fungi", "endemism", "Sava", "Rađevac", "Skradin", "Kingdom of Croatia (medieval)", "Serbia", "Geography of Europe", "Illyrian deciduous forests", "Habitat destruction", "horseshoe shape", "flood basalt", "Dinara", "Hotiza", "Krapina", "Zagreb", "low tide", "Palearctic realm", "eutrophication", "List of islands of Croatia", "Istrian exodus", "Dinarides", "gabbro", "Carpathian Mountains", "Oceanic climate", "Istria", "Croatia–Slovenia border disputes", "Crna Mlaka", "Freshwater fish", "Croatia", "graben", "42nd parallel north", "Vukovar-Syrmia County", "Messinian salinity crisis", "Great Turkish War", "Paleozoic", "Požega-Slavonia County", "Pleistocene", "cadastral", "Neretva", "Growth of the Ottoman Empire", "bacteriological water analysis", "Ottoman–Venetian War (1714–1718)", "Treaty of Peace with Italy, 1947", "Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics", "Miocene", "List of countries by life expectancy", "Neretva Delta", "Sedimentation", "Parliament of Croatia", "Baranya (region)", "Yugoslavia", "greenhouse gas emissions", "Šibenik", "continental climate", "capital city", "Mesozoic", "territorial waters", "Zagreb County", "Marine fish", "Istria County", "Member state of the European Union", "Dubrovnik", "Gulf of Piran", "Central Croatia", "Banovina (region)", "Split-Dalmatia County", "Yugoslav People's Army", "Međimurje County", "water resources", "Accession of Croatia to the European Union", "Alpine orogeny", "cave salamander", "reservoir", "SR Serbia", "Circumboreal Region", "Rijeka", "Taxon", "ethnic minorities in Croatia", "Umag", "Venetian Republic", "Air quality", "Brod-Posavina County", "population density", "international arbitration", "Caulerpa racemosa", "Osijek-Baranja County", "karst topography", "Purchasing Power Standard", "Man and the Biosphere Programme", "Sesvete", "ship pollution", "Jabuka (island)", "Trieste", "Amphibian", "Bird", "Cres", "Islam", "permanent crop", "Komiža", "national park", "Galijula", "sirocco", "Croatia-Serbia border dispute", "sewage treatment", "Exclusive Economic Zone", "Kyoto Protocol", "NUTS of Croatia", "Hundred Years' Croatian–Ottoman War", "Bora (wind)", "soil acidification", "Karst topography", "Čakovec", "List of national parks of Croatia", "Bay of Bakar", "2004 enlargement of the European Union", "Bjelolasica", "Hydrodesulfurization", "limestone", "sulphur dioxide", "Pliocene", "hinterland", "Adriatic Carbonate Platform", "Lake Vrana (Dalmatia)", "Constitution of Croatia", "Syrmia", "Slovenia", "waste management", "growing season", "Reptile", "Pannonian island mountains", "minefields in Croatia", "Serbs", "World Meteorological Organization", "invertebrate", "Zadar", "Varaždin County", "Nature reserve", "Treaty of Karlowitz", "species", "Island of Vukovar", "Vukovar-Srijem County", "Primorje-Gorski Kotar County", "oligotroph", "lead", "Virovitica-Podravina County", "Pannonian Plain", "Palagruža", "Permian", "Krndija", "Dinaric Mountains mixed forests", "Sveta Gera", "Crossbill Guides Foundation", "meander", "Kita Gaćešina", "Local administrative unit", "Southern Europe", "ecological footprint", "Austria-Hungary", "ecoregion", "Mountainous Croatia", "Vukovar", "birth rate", "List of karst areas", "English language", "Brusnik (island)", "Papuk", "water supply", "list of caves in Croatia", "amphibolite", "Counties of Croatia", "Krka (Croatia)", "Land rehabilitation", "municipal solid waste", "unleaded petrol", "Boreal Kingdom", "Black Sea", "Jastrebarsko", "land use change", "List of inhabited islands of Croatia", "Ministry of Culture (Croatia)", "Bács-Bodrog County", "Lichen", "organic waste", "Danube", "gypsum", "soil salinity", "Bay of Kotor", "WP:SDNONE", "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes", "biogeography" ]